Episode 150 – That’s So Raven – Myths Your Teacher Hated

Episode 150 Show Notes

Source: Haida Mythology

This week on MYTH, it’s our annual Holiday Special as a special treat for your winter blues. You’ll learn why you shouldn’t let children play with your valuables, why you should be careful what you drink, and why you should always do a barrel roll. Then, in Gods and Monsters, the animals will have to nominate someone to rescue the Sun. This is the Myths Your Teacher Hated podcast, where I tell the stories of cultures from around the world in all of their original, bloody, uncensored glory. Modern tellings of these stories have become dry and dusty, but I’ll be trying to breathe new life into them. This is Episode 150, “That’s So Raven”. As always, this episode is not safe for work.
The days are growing shorter and the nights are dark and cold. That’s right – the winter solstice, the longest night of the year, is fast approaching and with it, the annual Holiday Special. This week’s story comes from the Haida people, who are indigenous to the Haida Gwaii archipelago off what is now the coast of British Columbia, Canada and was originally collected by Robert Bringhurst.
Long, long ago, at the very beginning of things, there was no light, only darkness. There were no animals walking on the earth, no birds sitting in the trees, no fish swimming in the ocean. However, the world was not quite empty. In a little house on the riverbank lived an old man and his only daughter. There is no mother in this scenario because, based on some details later on, the two people appear to have come into existence on this barren world without ever being born. The man had never seen his daughter, nor had she ever seen her father because, you know, utter impenetrable darkness. Oddly though, this darkness was a choice.
You see, the old man did indeed own a light, but he kept it hidden away. Really, really hidden away. The light was packed away inside a box, and that box was inside a second box, inside a third box, inside a fourth, fifth, and finally a sixth box (or possibly many, many more in some versions). The last and smallest box was very tiny, but that was fine because all it needed to hold was literally all the light in the universe. Like the Genie says in Aladdin, phenomenal cosmic power, itty bitty living space.
Now I said before that there were no birds sitting in the trees. That wasn’t strictly accurate. In fact, there was at least one bird – Raven. There has never been a time when there was no Raven – tricksters are a universal constant. And, as is also pretty much a constant, Raven wasn’t happy with the way things were. Tricksters exist to upset the status quo, after all. When they’re around, the status is not quo.
Raven wasn’t happy because, well, it’s hard to do shit in utter fucking darkness. Bear in mind, I’m not talking a dark moonless night. I’m not talking the inside of a windowless room. I’m talking a pitch blackness that is so complete and unbroken that it can’t even be imagined, darker than anything that exists anywhere in the universe today. And so, as Raven tried to gather food (what he ate is anyone’s guess since he seems to be the only living thing in the world other than the old man and his daughter), but flying was an incredibly risky proposition for someone without echolocation. Even hopping around on the ground meant bumping into things, tripping over things, and other unpleasant clumsiness.
Raven hated all this bumbling and stumbling, but he didn’t have any other choice. At least, he didn’t until he wandered randomly across the little house by the river. It was the first time he realized he wasn’t alone in this big, dark world. From somewhere in the distance, Raven heard a sound. A small thing, but different than anything he’d ever heard before. He thought maybe it was singing but, as he got closer, it turned out to be the sound of the old man’s voice muttering quietly to himself.
Raven stopped to listen in on this private conversation because Ravens like to pay attention to everything, especially things that are supposed to be secret. To be fair, the old man had no reason to think anyone was around to overhear him. His daughter wasn’t nearby and as far as the old man knew, no one else existed. It’s a lonely life, so I guess it’s no surprise that the old man had a habit of talking to himself. “Is it secret? Is it safe? Yes, yes, it’s here – my box within a box within a box within a box within a box within a box. And safely inside the smallest box is all the light in the universe, but I’m gonna keep that all to myself. It’s the only way to be safe. If the light got out, we’d be able to see and we can’t have that. What if my daughter is ugly? Right now no one can see her, so it doesn’t matter but if the light got out, we’d know the truth. I don’t think either one of us can handle the truth.” So it turns out the old man is a pretty enormous asshole, and selfish to boot. This also begs the question of who is going to see her “ugly” since no one exists but him and her.
Of course, the old man wasn’t as alone as he thought. Raven overheard all of this, and he hopped quietly aside to ponder this new secret. He didn’t have to wonder for very long – obviously, Raven had to steal this old man’s light. I mean, come on. A, it’s way too tempting a target not to burgle and B, it would solve all of Raven’s problems. Two birds with one stone (although I imagine that the corvid didn’t much care for that phrase). The question wasn’t if he was going to steal the box of light, it was how to do it. This would need to be a top notch heist. And, as with any good heist, the first step was to case the joint.
Moving as carefully and quietly as he could, Raven crept around the perimeter of the house. He ran his wing over every surface, feeling high and low over every inch of the wall in search of any kind of opening into the house. It was something of a shock to find that there was absolutely nothing – no door, no window, not even a crack in the walls. Everything was made from perfectly smooth planks that had been expertly fit together. This of course begs the question of how in the hell the old man and the young woman had gotten into this house in the first place as well as what the hell they ate. I suppose they could have built the house around themselves, as unlikely as that is, but they can’t have an endless supply of food in there and, as we see later, they definitely leave.
For once, the story actually does address the obvious question. See, Raven sometimes heard the old man or his daughter leave the house on some errand or other but he could never quite figure out how they did it. The two people were always somewhere on the other side of the house whenever Raven heard them leave. It was frustrating. By the time he hurried over to where they’d made their escape, the walls were once again smooth and unbroken. No matter how careful he was, Raven could never manage to catch them in the act. They kept slipping in and out of the house without leaving any opening at all.
Raven realized he was getting nowhere. It was time to rethink his strategy, so he made his way upriver to plot his next move. He sat under a tree on the riverbank and thought about what he knew so far. The more he pondered, the more his thoughts kept drifting back to the daughter. At first it was a professional curiosity, but the more he thought about her, the dirtier his thoughts became. In fact, he began to positively fantasize about her, but Raven realized that – obviously – he didn’t have any idea what she looked like. “Huh. It’s entirely possible that she’s as ugly as a pig’s ass, but on the other hand, she could be exquisite. She may be as beautiful as flowering hemlock fronds glistening with dew against the brilliant colors of a spring sunrise. You know, if there was such a thing as light to create a sunrise. Huh. It’s kind of weird that I’m comparing this girl to a thing that has never existed and I should have no concept of. Anyway.”
Raven let that diversion go and got back to the serious business of fantasizing about a girl he knew literally nothing about. As he contemplated this conundrum, an idea occurred to him. The young girl was the key. He knew from his surveillance of the property that she often went down to the river to collect water. She always came to the same spot (it’s easier to navigate familiar paths when you move in perfect darkness), so that was where Raven waited for her.
He listened carefully for the sound of her footsteps, which he could now easily distinguish from the old man’s. When she got close, Raven changed himself into a single hemlock needle and tossed himself onto the surface of the stream. He floated down the stream and his timing was perfect – hemlock-Raven was scooped up along with the young woman’s usual basket of water. Oh yeah, Raven is a shapeshifter. Trickster figure and all that. And, being a trickster, he is, as I mentioned, a transgressive figure and one with powerful magic. And yeah, it’s about to get kind of gross.
Raven used his prodigious power to make the unsuspecting young woman suddenly unbearably thirsty. Having a big basket of water handy, she naturally enough took a big ol’ swig. And, also naturally enough, hemlock needle Raven was swept down her throat along with the water. It tickled her throat on the way down but Raven wriggled and slithered all the way down into her belly. It was a nice, warm, comfortable spot and so Raven decided to take a nap, but not as a hemlock needle. No, he transformed himself into a human baby first. Of course, the other (and probably intended) interpretation of what happened is that Raven just got this girl pregnant with a magic Raven baby using his fertility magic. Either way, it’s just an eensy bit totally invasive.
As he slept, baby Raven began to grow the way babies do. This seems like it’s going way beyond your usual shapeshifting limits, which is why I mentioned the second interpretation of what’s going on. The young woman had no idea she was pregnant of course, because how the fuck could she? She’d done literally nothing to end up with a magic bird baby growing inside her and also no one has ever given birth to a baby before. Her father also had no idea that she was beginning to grow visibly pregnant since, you know, total and utter darkness. I guess they must not hug very often.
She might not know what was happening to her, but she did eventually realize that she was feeling very strange. One day, her father bumped into her in the darkness and felt her huge pregnant belly. What’s more, he realized that there was a new and unexpected presence in this house. Neither knew where it had come from, but they soon learned to accept it. That was good because, not long thereafter, Raven was born as a human boy child. Well, mostly human.
Raven was still a magical bird, even if he was part human in some mystical way now, and so his human form still had a lot of weird bird characteristics. His mouth was almost more of a beak and he definitely had some stray feathers here and there. His eyes were the bright, black, shiny orbs of the ever-curious Raven instead of a normal human. He would have drawn a lot of awkward, uncomfortable stares if anyone could have seen him, but of course they couldn’t. You would think that they would still be able to feel some of these unexpected mutations in the normal course of caring for an infant, but I guess not. Somehow.
I don’t know if you’ve spent much time around ravens or other corvids, but they’re often very talkative birds and our Raven was no different. He talked a lot and made a lot of weird sounds. Sometimes they were imitations of things he heard and sometimes they were just unpleasant, harsh, loud noises. Sometimes they were disagreement or disapproval or disgruntlement. When he wanted to, he could also speak very softly, with that melodious bell-like sound that Ravens have. It was that soft, musical voice that made his grandfather grow to love him. The old man doted on his grandson, playing games with him and making toys for him.
For a time, the three of them lived together in that house on the river in harmony. And in total darkness. As the boy grew, his tendency to make loud, obnoxious sounds whenever he was unhappy or annoyed grew with him. To be frank, he threw tantrums and his mother and grandfather caved like wet cardboard. They became accustomed to giving Raven whatever he wanted to keep him happy and quiet. This suited Raven just fine. He might be in the body of a child, but his mind was as sharp and clever as ever. The entire time he was living as a kid, he was also surreptitiously searching for the boxes of light.
It was a strange house and, perhaps like the TARDIS it was even bigger on the inside, but it wasn’t infinite. It took time, but Raven eventually managed to feel his way around until he discovered the location of the boxes. It turned out to be hiding in an incredibly obvious place – a corner of one of the rooms. Feeling it under his feathered hands, Raven was sure that this was the largest of the boxes the old man had mentioned. Having found them, Raven moved onto the next phase. “Hey Grandfather, is this box over here a new toy you made for me? Can I play with it?” The old man tried to say no, but even before the words finished passing his lips, Raven was already winding up into a tantrum. He began to squawk and croak and make a huge fuss and nobody wanted to deal with that nonsense. Sighing, he did what he always did. He caved immediately. “Okay, child – you can play with the box.”
Satisfied for the moment, Raven played with the large box for a while. It couldn’t last forever though (especially since Raven had a secret scheme). As children do, he grew bored with his new toy and decided he wanted the smaller box he could feel rattling around inside. Before his grandfather could even begin to contemplate saying no to this new, more intrusive request, Raven was already starting up with his next loud, obnoxious tantrum. To quell it, Grandfather gave in as he always did. Raven smiled broadly, promising that this new box was the only thing in the world he’d ever need to be completely happy. You and I already know that that’s a fucking lie. But you and I also know that the main job of a grandparent is to spoil their grandkids silly, and that old man was no exception.
He played with his new box for longer than the first one, but naturally it couldn’t hold his interest forever either (childish promises notwithstanding). One by one, Raven wheedled, cajoled, and begged his way through a series of progressively smaller boxes, each time promising that this was really truly the last time he’d ask for anything ever. It took many days and a lot of skillful manipulation, but eventually, he was down to the last few boxes. And with most of the shielding gone, the light of the universe began to leak through the wooden boxes and out into the house on the river.
It was a strange sort of radiance that filled the place, not really proper illumination but still infinitely more than had ever existed before. It was far too dim for the three people to see each other properly, but it was enough for them to begin to make out basic shapes and outlines. It was natural enough for the childish Raven to get interested in this incredibly strange new phenomenon (especially since this had always been Raven’s endgame). He begged the old man to let him hold the light, just for a moment. Just to see what it was like.
Naturally, the old man refused. He had hidden away the light for a reason and besides, who in their right mind would let a child hold literally all of the light that existed in the universe. Raven was insistent though and even more obnoxious than ever, so the old man eventually gave in just like he always did. Opening the last of the boxes, he took out the ball of luminescence in his hands and carefully tossed it to his grandson. I might have gone with handing it over rather than throwing it, but whatever.
Once Raven had the incandescent ball in his hands, it lit him up clearly for the first time in his life. Grandfather saw the strange mix of human and bird that he had lavished so much of his time and affection on, but only for the brief moment it took for the ball to float over to Raven. As soon as he had it in his hands, he ceased to have hands. The trickster shifted from human back into his true avian form, spreading against the light like an enormous shadow, wings spread. He snatched the ball of light out of his talons with his beak, beat his mighty wings, and shot up into the sky like a speeding bullet. Escaping through the smoke hole in the roof of the house, Raven carried the stolen light out into the inky void. I guess he could have gotten into the house without using magical pregnancy to do so, but maybe he didn’t know that the hole was there until the light let him see it. I have to admit that it would be pretty hard to find something like that in total darkness.
As Raven erupted into the sky, the dark world was transformed. The mountains were thrown into stark relief and the valleys silhouetted in dappled shadow. The waters of the lakes, rivers, and oceans sparkled in the sudden light. Reflections of the leaves waving in the breeze rippled on the waves as throughout the world, life began to stir.
Remember how I said that there were no birds in this world and then I amended the record to say that actually Raven was already there? Well, time to amend the record again. In addition to Raven, there was another enormous, magical bird – Eagle. He hasn’t figured into this story yet because, up until now, his incredible eyesight has been utterly useless and he was therefore grounded. Now that light had come into the world, he could, for the very first time, see where he was going. Even better, he could see movement on the horizon and he took to the air after his new target – who was, of course, Raven.
The trickster meanwhile had no idea he was being hunted. He was too busy enjoying the shit out of his shiny new toy. To be fair, it had to be incredibly distracting to watch the light playing across the world when you had only ever lived in darkness. It was also his first time ever flying without having to be constantly worried about crashing into something unseen up ahead, and that feeling had to be intoxicating as well. All that to say Raven didn’t notice Eagle catching up to him until the raptor was practically on top of the corvid.
He was only tipped off to his hunter’s presence by the larger bird’s shadow passing over him. Raven glanced up to see Eagle diving towards him, razor sharp talons outstretched. Raven did the only thing he could in that situation – in the immortal words of Peppy from Star Fox, he did a barrel roll! His evasive maneuvers succeeded in getting him out of the path of the descending Eagle, but it also caused his beak to slip on the ball of light clutched in it. He scrambled to grab it again, but he only got one talon on it and half the illumination fell away and plummeted down to the earth far, far below.
This smaller orb of light crashed into the rocky ground and shattered into a million pieces of all different sizes. They broke with such force that the fragments scattered as they bounced back up into the sky, forming the stars and the moon. They give us their gentle light to brighten up our nights to this very day. Raven croaked with dismay at the loss of his beloved ball of light, which he’d barely had any time at all to enjoy before it broke, but he didn’t have much time to mourn. Eagle had pulled out of his dive, swooped around, and was coming back for a second strafe.
Raven winged desperately away, juking and diving with all the cleverness and skill his wings could muster. It was enough to keep him out of Eagle’s grasping talons, but only barely. The two birds spiraled and swooped through the sky until they had passed far beyond the rim of the world. Eagle couldn’t quite catch up but Raven couldn’t quite get away either – it was an exhausting, neverending chase. Raven’s muscles felt like water and he had to focus everything he had on staying aloft. He was so focused, in fact, that he didn’t notice his claws slipping until it was too late. The larger orb of light fell away. Luckily, since they were beyond the rim of the world, the light simply drifted into the sky on the clouds, passing over the mountains in the east to become the sun.
And with that, the very first dawn broke and Raven witnessed the very first sunrise. With his burden gone, Raven was able to pick up a little more speed and escape from Eagle. But we’re going to leave our thieving bird and follow the first rays of sunlight on their journey to the earth. Those photons left the sky and traveled down to the riverbank, down to the house that sat beside it, and down through the smoke hole in the roof. There, they splashed against the old man who was sitting inside and weeping bitterly over the loss of the light he had kept locked away for so long. He wept also for the treachery of the grandson that he had loved, the one who had been revealed to be a shapeshifting abomination.
The old man also wept in fear for the revelations to come. He knew his daughter would be revealed for whatever she truly was – and, as we previously established, he was a shallow asshole who cared very deeply about his daughter’s appearance. As the sun rose and the gloom inside the house faded, the old man became aware of his daughter sitting quietly against the other wall. She was watching him, looking for some shred of comfort after the bewildering series of events that had led to Raven’s theft of the light. She still didn’t really understand what had happened.
For the first time, the old man saw his daughter’s face. He was amazed to discover that she was as beautiful as the fronds of hemlock waving against a spring sky at sunrise. The sight reassured and comforted him. Turning his face up towards the growing light, he realized that the illumination made him feel just a little bit better about things. Around the world, everything on the planet began to realize the same thing. It was a glorious morning, dawn of the first day. And so it was that Raven stole the light from where the old man had hidden it away and, inadvertently, gifted it to all of us.
But things weren’t perfect. After the coming of the light, there also came a great storm. The lands flooded, drowning much beneath the waves. When the water finally receded, Raven found himself alone on the beach. He had lost Eagle, which was good, and he had survived the flood because of course he had. Raven has always been there. Not one to turn his beak up at good fortune, he gorged himself silly on the various delicacies that had washed up on the shore from the flood. Ravens are carrion birds who will eat just about anything they can fit in their beaks, so he was a very happy little corvid. At first, anyway.
Once he was done eating, Raven looked around at the still and empty beach and realized that he was alone. He wasn’t hungry anymore, which was an uncommon thing, and so he had nothing to distract him from his unquenchable curiosity. He had a deep-seated desire to meddle in things and stir the pot, so a tranquil beach wasn’t much fun for him. In short, Raven was bored (and that rarely ends well).
He glanced up and down the beach, and while it was stunningly beautiful, it was also desolate and dull. There was no one here to play tricks on, no one to poke and prod until they did something entertaining. He cocked his sharp ears for any unusual noise, kept his keen eyes peeled for anything that might be interesting. Everything was ablaze with the light he had unleashed on the world, but all of it was still. Exasperated by all the peace, Raven let out a croaking shriek of frustration (the very sound that had driven his “grandfather” to distraction to trick him into giving up the light in the first place). From somewhere along the beach, Raven heard a muffled squeak in response.
Suddenly excited, Raven hopped along the sand peering about for the source of the sound. He strutted back and forth along the shore, peering this way and that in search of whatever had squeaked but he saw only sand and surf. Hold on, what was that? Far down the beach, Raven saw a flash of white almost entirely buried in the sand. He hopped that way and scraped at the spot with his beak to reveal a giant clamshell. He hopped around some more, his shadow falling across the exposed shell and he heard another muffled squeak, this one clearly coming from the clam.
Leaning down and cocking his head to the side, Raven peered inside. Between the two halves of the shell, he spied a bunch of tiny creatures cowering in fear from his sharp beak and keen gaze. Well now, that was more like it. These little critters could be a lot of fun to play with, but only if he could figure out just how the hell to get them to come out of their shell, both figuratively and literally.
He tried tapping on it with his beak, but that just caused them to shriek and huddle together as far away from him as they could. He tried calling out to them with a soft, melodious voice. There was magic in his silver tongue, and it calmed the fear of the little creatures, soothing them, but it didn’t draw them out of their shell. Clearly they needed a little bribing. Food always worked to pique Raven’s interest, and so he looked around for something tasty. He spied some big, juicy berries on a nearby bush. Perfect. He hopped over and filled his beak with the succulent fruits, then deposited them on the beach just beyond the clamshell.
Hopping back a few steps away, Raven began singing and cajoling again. The critters inside were terribly hungry and so, combined with the lure of his siren song, they were drawn out of hiding. Raven watched them with curiosity as they emerged, their skins a wide variety of hues from dark to pale and everything in between. They had clearly been through a hell of a lot, which was all the more surprising given how frail and fragile they were. These tiny, weak human beings stirred sympathy in his birdy heart and Raven decided to take them under his wing, again both literally and figuratively. From that day on, Raven has been the patron of humanity, for better and for worse.
You know how much I love a trickster story, and especially one where the trickster is both the cleverest being in the room and also the butt of the joke. Raven is very much that kind of trickster. In the darkest part of the year, especially when the world around is getting colder and crueler, it’s reassuring to imagine a clever guardian spirit watching over us and helping us drive back the shadows and fend off the monsters with bravery and cleverness. I know I need that right now, so I figured you might too. And so with light brought into the world to shine in the night, it’s time for Gods and Monsters. This is a segment where I get into a little more detail about the personalities and history of one of the gods or monsters from this week’s pantheon that was not discussed in the main story. This week’s thieving trickster is the snowshoe hare.
This story comes to us from the Yuit people of what is now Siberia, who share much of their language and their stories with the Inuit people of what is now Alaska. This particular version of the tale was collected by James Riordan in The Sun Maiden and the Crescent Moon: Siberian Folk Tales in 1991. Special thanks to the Girl in the Chair blog for pointing out the source of this tale.
Once upon a time, the Sun was stolen from the world by evil spirits. With the light vanished, the birds and beasts were forced to stumble across the tundra to search for food by touch. Obviously, this couldn’t be allowed to stand, so a grand council was called between all the creatures. Envoys were sent from every species to decide what should be done.
Old Raven, who was considered wise by all and sundry – and not nearly as mischievous as the Raven from the main tale – was the first to speak. “My friends, how much longer must we endure this darkness? Rumor says that the evil spirits who stole the light dwell in a cavern not far from here. There, they keep it in a white stone pot, hidden away from the world. To get the sun back and return light to the world, all we have to do is steal it ourselves. My advice is to send the biggest, strongest among us – the great and terrible Polar Bear – to fetch it for us.”
The other envoys cheered this suggestion, chanting “Bear! Bear! Bear!” The commotion was enough to grab the attention of Owl, who was even older than Raven and half-deaf besides. She’d been busy repairing her sled but left it to go and see what all the shouting was about. She asked the snow bunting (a small white bird) for the news and was told that the council had decided to send Polar Bear to steal back the sun. “Seriously? Have none of you thought this through?” Owl sighed. “Come on. We all know that Polar Bear thinks with his stomach. As soon as he comes upon some scrap of food, he’ll forget all about his mission to munch and we’ll never get the Sun back. Find someone else.”
The wisdom of this advice was immediately apparent. Raven cleared his throat above the muttering to get everyone’s attention. “Fair enough. How about Wolf? After Polar Bear, he’s the strongest. Even better, he’s much, much faster.” Owl cocked her head and asked the bunting to repeat what was being said and again scoffed once she understood. “Wolf? Bullshit. He’s even greedier than Polar Bear. He’ll get distracted by the first deer he scents and he’ll be off on the hunt. And again, we’ll never see the Sun.”
Raven ruffled his feathers at this second outburst, but the crowd could see the sense in Owl’s words. They muttered about how Wolf clearly couldn’t be trusted with this important task. Raven opened his beak to offer another suggestion, but realized he didn’t have one. For once, he was silent. As the muttering died away, it was clear no one knew what to do. And then a tiny voice spoke up from the back. It was Mouse. “How about Hare? He’s the fastest runner among us. He can get the sun back for us, surely.”
For a third time, Owl asked the snow bunting what was going on. Upon hearing Mouse’s suggestion for Snowshoe Hare, she didn’t immediately shoot the suggestion down. She thought about it, head tilting one way and then the other the way birds do. “Yes, Hare is a fine suggestion. He’s fast, he’s clever, and he’s not selfish. Nobody will be able to catch him and he won’t get distracted. Yes, send Hare.” Thus was it decided. Hare would steal back the Sun. To his credit, Raven wasn’t jealous enough of his wise image to overlook a good suggestion. He agreed that Hare was the best idea and proceeded to guide him on his way to the cavern of the evil spirits.
Snowshoe Hare went along the path that Raven indicated for many days. Fortunately, his feet were strong and his legs didn’t tire. Soon enough, they carried him to the hidden cavern of the spirits where the sun was hidden away. Hare knew he was close because he could see a pale pillar of light shining up from the ground. He hopped slowly and carefully closer until he discovered that the light was spilling from a tiny crack in the earth. He crawled over and peered through the crack to see what was inside. As he’d expected, he saw a ball of fire glowing inside a white stone pot, its brilliant rays illuminating the underground cavern.
“That must be the Sun,” thought Hare. “Now how do I get it?” He looked around to scope out the place. “Okay, over there are the evil spirits, lounging on those soft-looking reindeer hides on the floor. Gotta make sure they don’t see me.” Hares have an uncanny ability to squeeze into tiny spaces and so he was able to crawl carefully through the tiny crack and into the cavern. He crept over to the stone pot, careful to keep it between himself and the evil spirits so they didn’t see him moving, his shadow hidden inside that of the pot. Taking a deep breath, Hare snatched the Sun out of the pot, kicked the empty stone basin over, and sprang up into the air and back through the crack.
The evil spirits sprang up from their hides and gave chase. They were slower to crawl through the tiny crack, but being spirits, it didn’t stop them. As soon as they were through, they gave chase to Hare. He’d had a head start and was sprinting along as fast as his bunny legs could carry him, but it wasn’t enough. The spirits were faster. Realizing that he wasn’t going to escape through pure speed, he decided to take a desperate gamble.
Hare dropped the Sun and kicked it. Hard. The ball of light shattered into two pieces, one much larger than the other. With a second powerful kick, the smaller chunk was knocked up into the sky where it hung to become the Moon. The larger piece, Hare reared back and kicked with all his might. It sailed even higher into the heavens and stuck, becoming the Sun that we know today and lighting up the world. Blinded by the bright light (which is why they had hidden the Sun away in the first place), the evil spirits were forced to give up the chase. In terrible pain from the unbearable light, they retreated to their underground hideaway. Scarred by the experience and terrified of the great lights in the sky, they never crawled back onto the earth ever again. And so it was that Snowshoe Hare was able to return safely to the other animals where he was lauded as the hero who had saved the Sun.
I love this version of the story and how it contrasts with tricksy Raven from our main tale. Both stories feature brave animals forced to go to great lengths to return the light to heavens after it was stolen away by selfish beings. One though is stolen by another creature equally as selfish and only benefits the whole world by accident; the other is an act of selfless heroism, the brave Hare putting his life on the line for the greater good. Stories of the solstice often fall broadly into these two categories, or perhaps are a mix of both. So if the darkness is weighing heavy on your soul this winter, look to the sun and the moon hanging heavy overhead and remember the trickster animals who risked so much to help us all out. Maybe they’ll lend us all some much-needed cleverness and dedication to make it through the darkness until we can return the light to the sky.
That’s it for this episode of Myths Your Teacher Hated. Keep up with new episodes on our Facebook page, on iTunes, on TuneIn, on Vurbl, and on Spotify, or you can follow us on Instagram as MythsYourTeacherHatedPod, on Tumblr as MythsYourTeacherHated, on Bluesky as MythsPodcast, and on Mastodon as MythsYourTeacherHated. You can also find news and episodes on our website at myths your teacher hated dot com. If you have any questions, any gods or monsters you’d want to learn about, or any ideas for future stories that you’d like to hear, feel free to drop me a line. I’m trying to pull as much material from as many different cultures as possible, but there are all sorts of stories I’ve never heard, so suggestions are appreciated. The theme music is by Tiny Cheese Puff.
Next time, we’re heading to the Yucatan Peninsula for a Mayan New Year’s special. You’ll discover that knives make deadly balls, that the road to the underworld is perilous, and that it’s hard to tell the difference between a god and a wooden dummy. Then, in Gods and Monsters, you’ll learn what you need to do to keep local forest spirits from ruining your bridge project. That’s all for now. Thanks for listening.