How the Sun, the Moon, and the Wind Went Out to Dinner

Long ago, the Sun, the Moon, and the Wind were three children who lived together with their old mother, who was a faraway Star. One day the three of them were invited to a grand dinner at the house of their uncle and aunt, the Thunder and the Lightning.

Their mother the Star could not go. “Off you go and enjoy yourselves,” she told them. “But do think of me while you are there.”

So the Sun, the Moon, and the Wind set off to the feast. And oh, what a feast it was, table after table piled high with the most delicious food anyone had ever seen.

The Sun thought only of himself. He ate and ate, greedily, enjoying every mouthful, and never once gave his mother at home a single thought. The Wind was just the same, gobbling down whatever he pleased, thinking of no one but himself.

But the Moon was different. With every lovely dish set before her, the gentle Moon quietly tucked a small portion away under her long fingernails, thinking all the while, “I must save some of this to take home for Mother.”

When the three of them came home that night, their mother the Star was waiting. “Well, my children,” she said. “You have been to a great feast. And what have you brought home for me?”

The Sun shrugged. “Brought home? Nothing. I went there to enjoy myself, not to carry food about.” And the Wind said exactly the same, carelessly.

But the Moon stepped forward and opened her hands, and from beneath her fingernails she brought out a little taste of every single dish from the feast, saved carefully all the way home, and laid it before her mother.

The Star turned to her selfish son the Sun. “You thought only of your own belly, and not at all of me. So from this day you shall burn so hot and so fierce that people will hide from you and turn their faces away from your light.” And so it is that the midday sun is too hot to look upon, and we shelter from him.

To the Wind she said, “You too thought only of yourself. So from now on you shall blow harsh and parching, and people will turn away from you as well.” And so it is that a hot dry wind is an unwelcome thing.

But to her thoughtful daughter the Moon she said gently, “You remembered me, even in the middle of all that plenty. So you, my dear, shall always be cool, and clear, and lovely, and all who look up at you shall feel calmed and comforted.” And so it is, to this very night.