by W. Murray Sexton © 1991 All rights reserved.

Long, long ago, the Sun and the Moon circled the heavens together, dancing and twirling in the sky. In those early years, the days were brighter and more glorious than ever they have been since, because the Sun and Moon both shone together. But the nights were dark as pitch, because the Moon never left the side of the Sun, and there were no stars in Heaven then either, only in Hell. But then too, there was no Earth, and no people on it, so no one was troubled by this.

The Sun and the Moon were in love, and they wished to be wed, but the Sun had nothing suitable to give to the Moon for an engagement present. He wished to give her truly grand present, equal to the love he felt for her. And so he set off on a long journey into the depths of Hell to collect stars and string them together into a magnificent necklace. The task he set for himself was lonely and arduous, and he longed for the touch of the moon as he canvassed the far reaches of hell, gathering stars one by one. But though he could hardly bear to be separated from the Moon, he could bear far less the thought of giving her a present unworthy of his love for her. And so he kept on, collecting thousands upon thousands, and then millions upon millions of stars, until at last he had collected all of the stars in Hell into one great necklace. In triumph he returned to Heaven and presented his necklace to the Moon as her engagement present.

She was overjoyed with his proposal, and accepted immediately, and on that very night was the Earth conceived. Early the next morning, the Moon arose from bed and ventured out into the Heavens for a walk, having grown accustomed to taking morning walks alone during the many years her new betrothed had been away. But the Sun knew nothing of this, and when he awoke later that morning, alone in bed, he grew frantic. After all, the entire time he had been away he had thought of nothing but of being together again with the Moon, together for all eternity. But this very first morning back, he awoke alone, and flew into a jealous rage. He bolted out of bed, his face flushed red with anger, and raced after his bride-to-be.

She was just then showing off her beautiful new necklace when the Sun came upon her from behind. He reached out and grasped the necklace, meaning to pull her to him, but just then the necklace snapped, and millions upon millions of stars flew off from the necklace and out into the heavens in all directions. The Moon, startled and shocked and dismayed, ran away into the night. And each time the Sun caught up to her, she would sob and run off again into the night, day after day.

On a small island off of China, the people know this story, and they say that this is how the S un and the Moon came to be separated, the Sun now keeping to the day, and the Moon keeping to the night, and the bastard Earth, their love child, torn between them, vacillating between light and darkness. They say that the necklace is what we know as the Milky Way, and they know why the heavens are full of stars. And they have a legend about the stars that keep falling from the necklace to this day.

When a star falls into the sea, the fish and urchins and prawns fight over it, because they mistake the star for the love it was meant to commemorate. The oysters are so consumed by this mistake that they build tiny safehouses in which to hoard the stars they find. The futility of their plight, while lost on them, is obvious to us: for it is the oysters -- who, of all the sea creatures, do the most to clutch their stars -- it is the oysters we kill and rob to get them for ourselves.

On this island, when a man gives a woman a necklace made of pearls, he is careful to tell her that no gift, however great, is ever worthy of true love.

TM