Atondido Stories
How Night Came
Years and years ago at the very beginning of time, 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 night birds, nor night beasts, nor
night flowers. There were no lengthening shadows, nor soft
night air, heavy with perfume.
In those days the daughter of the GREAT SEA SERPENT,
who dwelt in the depths of the seas, married one of the sons of
the great earth race known as MAN. She left her home among
the shades of the deep seas and came to dwell with her husband
in the land of daylight. Her eyes grew weary of the bright sun-
light and her beauty faded. Her husband watched her with sad
eyes, but he did not know what to do to help her.
"O, if night would only come," she moaned as she tossed
about wearily on her couch. "Here it is always day, but in my fa-
ther's kingdom there are many shadows. O, for a little of the
darkness of night!"
Her husband listened to her moanings. "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 which darken my fa-
ther's kingdom in the depths of the seas. I love the sunlight of
your earth land, but I grow very weary of it. If we could have
only a little of the darkness of my father's kingdom to rest our
eyes part of the time."
Her husband at once called his three most faithful slaves. "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 and ask him to give you some of the darkness
115