How the Night Pt. 1

Years and years ago, at the very beginning of time and when the world had just been made, there was no night. It was day all the time. No one had ever heard of sunrise or sunset, starlight or moonbeams. There were no sounds of crickets chirping or visions of fireflies flashing. There were no long shadows or soft night air.

In those days, the daughter of the Great Sea Serpent lived in the depths of the seas. She married one of the sons of Earth known as humans. She left her home among the shade of the deep seas and came to dwell with her husband in the land of daylight. After a while, her eyes grew weary of the bright sunlight. Her husband watched her with sad eyes, but he did not know how to help her

“Oh, if night would only come,” the serpent daughter moaned, as she tossed about wearily on her couch. “Here, it is always day. But in my father's kingdom there are many shadows. Oh, for a little of the darkness of night!”

Her husband listened to her moans. “What is night?” he asked her. “Tell me about it, and perhaps I can get a little of it for you.”

“Night,” said the daughter of the Great Sea Serpent, “is the name we give to the heavy shadows that darken my father's kingdom in the depths of the seas. I love the sunlight of your land, but I grow very weary of it. If we could have only a little of the darkness of my father's kingdom, we could rest our eyes part of the time.”

At once, her husband called his three most faithful servants. “I am about to send you on a journey,” he told them. “You are to go to the kingdom of the Great Sea Serpent who dwells in the depths of the seas. Ask him to give you some of the darkness of night that his daughter longs for. Otherwise, she may die here amid the sunlight of our land.”