Week 11 Story: The First Day of Summer

The people of the earth were in crisis.

It had all started during the night. Though the evening was bitterly cold because it was the dead of winter (as it always was), the men had woken up in the early hours of the morning sweating. They had to remove many layers before they could find comfort, and for the majority of them it was the first time they had slept with such little insulation.

Then in the morning, when the children got up and ran out to play in the snow, most of them came back inside crying. “Where is the snow?” they demanded. “How will we play?”

The more adventurous children were rolling in the grass and smelling the flowers that grew where before there had been only a thick layer of hard snow. They listened to the strange music in the air, which they would later identify as birds singing. They looked up at the sun, so much brighter than they had ever seen it, and marveled at the new light blue color of the sky.

(If this simply sounds like the arrival of another summer, you must realize that this is not the story of any spring, but the first summer. The earth had only known winter before this day.)

Eventually, the parents of the more hesitant children coaxed them into playing with the others, though the adults themselves were quite frightened by the warmth and the greenness of the ground that had always been white. As the children explored their transformed surroundings, they began to wonder why the earth was suddenly so different.

“I heard my father say this morning that he heard from a wise man who heard from a lynx that the sky was cracked open last night and we brought summer in from the world above us,” piped up the most daring boy.

“Summer?” asked his friend.

“It’s the warmth and the greenness and the flowers,” said the first boy, proud of himself for being so informed.

The boy was right: the night before, a hunter from a nearby village had gone with a lynx, an otter, a beaver, and a wolverine to a very tall mountain. The wolverine had jumped until he broke open the sky, and the warm weather and birds had come in from the world above the earth. The hunter and the animals knew that summer was very beautiful and comfortable, and they never could have predicted the scare that it would give the rest of earth’s inhabitants.

The heat, though it was only what we would now consider a mild spring day, was so oppressive to the people that they could hardly bear it. All their outdoor clothes were too thick, and they struggled to walk even short distances.

The ice used to store meat was melting. The birds’ songs were too loud and distracting to people who had only known the sound of winter wind. The flowers made the people’s eyes water and noses itch. And halfway through the day, children began to come home with red, burning skin from being out in the sun for too long.

Although husbands had been complaining to their wives just the previous evening of the cold making it too difficult to hunt, and although wives had been complaining to their husbands that they were tired of making socks and hats to keep the children warm, the people found summer to be an unwelcome visitor. They formed a council to gather up the warm weather and send it back to the world in the sky.

Clearly, the people of the earth never succeeded in returning summer to where it came from. To this day, we still spend our summers wishing for winter and our winters wishing for summer.

Author's Note: This story is a sequel of "How the Summer Came," which is a Native American story. In the original story, a hunter named O-Jeeg decides to retrieve summer from the world above the earth after his son begs him to. He travels with a lynx, an otter, a beaver, and a wolverine to visit a magician, who tells them that if they climb a certain tall mountain, they will be able to break the ceiling of the sky and bring summer down from the world above. The wolverine is able to jump and make a hole in the ceiling of the sky, and summer rushes down onto earth. O-Jeeg enters the sky world and takes the birds out of their cages so they, too, can come to earth. He seals the hole and is caught and killed by the sky people, who are angry that their world has been invaded, but he is happy that he has brought something wonderful to the world. For my sequel, I wanted to imagine how people would react to experiencing summer for the first time. At first, I thought it would be wonderful, but then I thought it would be funny for the people to hate summer and want winter back.

Bibliography: "How the Summer Came" from American Indian Fairy Tales by W. T. Larned. Link to the reading online.

Image Information: Spring in the meadows, Edinburgh. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Reading Notes: American Indian Fairy Tales, Part B

How the Summer Came

I love the idea of the summer world being above the winter world. It's like heaven, but more tangible and obtainable. I like imagining how the people would have reacted to seeing summer for the first time. In fact, this story would probably lend itself well to a sequel about the boy celebrating summer and mourning the loss of his father.

I was surprised at the boy's priorities. His father told him it would be very dangerous, but the boy seemed to care more about getting summer than keeping his father around. Selfless or selfish? It's hard to say, because the father changed the world forever and brought so many joy to many people, which is selfless, and the son being willing to give up his father for the greater good is selfless from that perspective. At the same time, though, who would willingly send their (good, loving) father to sacrifice himself?

I liked the details about cracking the ceiling of the sky open. I wonder what that would look and sound like. Also, isn't the sky summer world now the same as the lower world? Why would the sky people seal up their floor if both worlds now have summer? Did they not want winter to reach them? Is there a finite amount of summer, or can it be shared with another world without losing any of it?

I like that animals worked with the hunter to bring summer into the world. I also like that the animals knew about the summer world before humans did. I felt like animals were respected and even treated as equals in this story; it's a great perspective and very different from most Western cultures.

Newfoundland pine marten. The hunter in this story could change himself into a marten at will.

Source: Wikimedia Commons.

Bibliography: American Indian Fairy Tales by W. T. Larned. Link to the reading online.

Reading Notes: American Indian Fairy Tales, Part A

Venus, the evening star, over the Pacific Ocean. 

Source: Wikimedia Commons.

The Child of the Evening Star

The first thing that struck me in this story was Oweenee, beautiful and quiet, walking alone in the woods with a sweet and dreamy expression and refusing every suitor. I really like her for that - she is sweet and gentle but strong in standing up for what she wants. She pretends to reject everyone for superficial reasons, maybe because she knows her family won't understand her, but she really rejects them because she sees flaws in their hearts.

When I found out that Osseo was actually a young and handsome prince, I was a little disappointed because I felt that the moral of the story was ruined by making Oweenee's husband beautiful when she was supposed to only care about the heart and not looks. I was surprised when she turned into an old woman, and I like that plot twist because her reaction to her transformation shows that she really doesn't care about superficial things.

I was also surprised that Oweenee's sisters and their husbands were not at all upset to be turned into birds. I guess that says something about their personalities, and there is probably supposed to be a parallel between the chatter of birds and the chatter of the sisters.

An evil magician was introduced, but nothing ever came of it, which surprised me. I thought that Oweenee's son would accidentally attract or get hit by the magician.

I liked that the son had a longing for earth. I found the description of him stretching his hands toward the earth as other children stretch their hands toward the moon or stars very beautiful. I wonder if Oweenee missed her home like that, too.

I was worried that the son would be separated from his parents, so I was relieved to find that at the end they all ended up together, and Oweenee and Osseo seemed happy to be back on earth. I wish the story had included details about what they learned on the Evening Star that they wanted to share with the people of earth.

Bibliography: American Indian Fairy Tales by W. T. Larned. Link to the reading online.