[Envinyatar]

‘He speaks of the one the Lady sent,’ Stamo whispered to his companion. ‘I wonder if any of the others have been seen by them? It would be good to know how they fare . . .’ He fell quiet as Mori cleared his throat, cutting off that line of thought.

‘Come,’ Mori said, inviting Stamo to sit down beside him. ‘Let’s hunker down closer to the embers with these new friends of ours.’ Two large rounds from the old oak that had been cut for firewood were pushed over by the bear. ‘Your chairs,’ he growled. He gave the two men a toothy smile and sat down quite near them. He loved stories, of any kind, and would often let an unfortunate animal or bird escape his sharp-nailed paws if they offered up a story he hadn’t heard before.

Now Stamo loved to gather stories, too. And Mori, when the animals were sitting quietly, nodded at him to begin.

‘We’ve come from lands far east of here,’ Stamo began. ‘And there the men still tell stories of the animals and their ways. And many of the tales, they assure me, are true ones from the long-ago time . . . when men and animals still spoke freely with each other.’ He settled in comfortably and leaned forward, his gaze sweeping the audience. ‘Now here is one about a foolish hunter and the mouse who undid his foolish deed.’

There were squeaks and chatterings from the four mice who had brought straw for the wren’s little nest. They pushed to the front of the group and sat huddled together; their bright black eyes fixed on the storyteller.

There was once a large village full of very clever people. One day, one of the men, a clever hunter, told his family that he was going out to set some snares. And so he did – working late into the evening to set them all. It was dark, dark night when he returned to his tent. He filled his belly with hot gruel and buttered tea and went off to his bed. Pulling the thick furs over him for warmth he dropped deep into dreaming, smiling in his sleep at all the animals he would find in his traps. ‘Food and furs,’ he could be heard to murmur from his greedy dreams.

The next day, it was time for daylight but no daylight came. The village people knew something was wrong. The sun did not come up. It stayed dark. The clever hunter who had set snares the day before shrugged his shoulders at the dark and said, "I will go and look for my snares anyway. Maybe I got something in my snares." So, he set out in the dark.

When he came to one of his snares, he said to himself, "Yes, I did get something in my snare!" He saw that he had caught the sun in his snare! Now, how could he free the sun? It was too hot to go cut the snare where the sun was caught, so the hunter went back to the village people.

"What happened," he said to them," is that I caught the sun in my snare. That is why the sun cannot come up."

The villagers called a meeting, and everyone was asked to come. Even the animals and birds were called to the meeting. Everyone was told that someone had to go and free the sun.

Well, there was one particular mouse who was there. And this mouse was a very big mouse. He was the biggest animal of all those gathered . . .

‘Yes, even bigger than you,’ Mori answered, as the bear looked up with a frown on his face.

. . . And, anyway, this mouse was asked if he was willing to free the sun. He also had very, very sharp teeth, you see, and he would have to chew the snare wire to free the sun.

"Okay," said the big mouse, "I will go and free the sun." So, he went. He came to the snare where the sun was caught. He started to chew the snare wire. Even though he was burning, he did not give up. He just kept on chewing at the tough tether until the sun was free. He worked so hard and so quickly, he was able to cut through the snare wire before he was all burned up.

Finally, the sun was free. It rose up into the sky and it was daylight again.

The tiny mouse we see today . . .

Stamo picked up one of the little creatures and held him up in the palm of his hand.

. . . it is the mouse that freed the sun from the snare. He was a big, big mouse then. That is how much he burned from before he was able to free the sun. Now he is the smallest animal there is. And the rainbow that we see, so they tell me . . . that was the snare that caught the sun.