African Moonlight Night Tales
The Sun king and the Moon are husband and wife.
The sun is a fiery, golden king. He is mighty and temperamental. His mood changes with the course of the day. Some times in the morning, he is reserved and cool. But by noon, he becomes fierce and blazing. At this time he condones nothing in the sky. He drives away every other inhabitant of the sky and occupies the sky alone. The rain, the clouds, the stars, his wife the moon, every one gives way while the sun in his heat reigns supreme. Until the evening when he becomes retiring, again the other members of the sky can show their faces.
The moon on the other hand is a quiet silvery queen. She is respectful, cool and distant. She does not disturb any one.
However, king sun is not happy. He complains that his wife is always out in the night with her children, the stars. Why can’t she stay at home with him in the night?. The moon just keeps quiet while he throws his constant tantrums. One day while the moon was sweeping the house in the evening, the sun yelled at her.
“Why are you sweeping the house now, mpgh?, I am sure you want to take off again this night. Well stop that noise, I want to rest”.
The wife ignored him, and continued with her chore. Her husband however pushed her roughly out of the way . This constant bullying did not go down well with the quiet lady who reprimanded her husband, reminding him that she is a queen, and should be treated as such.
To her shock, her irate husband instead of apologising gave her a slap across the face. The lady retaliated instantly by stabbing her husband in the face sharply and brutally with the broom she was holding. The sun in his pain dashed into the inner room and emerged with his sharp cutlass. Before the moon could run away, he swung his mighty cutlass and cut her clean in two.
The badly hurt moon took off into the night. She rushed to the great gods of the higher sky, rapidly borne by her servants the clouds. Because of the instant attention she received, she was eventually restored whole again? On the other hand, the sun, before morning, his face because of the broom stab has scattered in every direction.
This is why when one looks up at the sky some nights, one will see a half moon speeding across the sky among the clouds, and sometime you see her whole again, coming back from the gods who healed her.
This also is why the sun who before this quarrel with his wife shines as one great beam of light, now shines in every direction because of his scattered face.
This quarrel is also the reason why the beautiful silver moon now comes out only in the night with her silver children, the stars, while the sun still reigns alone in the day time.
