"Sun and Jealous Moon", or "The Sun and the Mane", or other similar variants, is a popular story particularly among the NHX, but is well-known around the world as one of the best ÀRKXKK ("Old Stories", mythology) to be heard from passing ÀRÜE. The only areas of the world that cannot be reliably called upon to recount the tale are the ZˑYÎ:- and CCXHZˑYÎ:-dominated areas of North and South America, although it is interesting to note that certain western areas that are familiar with the desert tell a very similar tale.
The story itself is a creation myth, though how seriously it is taken is another matter; religion is a transient thing at best in these societies. Perhaps more importantly, it paints a tangible picture of the verbal NHX culture (from whence it probably originated) that, despite the veiled ethnocentrism, is relevant and enjoyed across generations and geographical regions. Indeed, even as far from the Sahara as KÈC in the Andes can be found individuals who claim the tale is evidence for the species originating in southern Africa. The story also reflects culture on a larger scale, and the astute reader may find implications surrounding social norms, gender roles, and other aspects of society that permeate not only NHX culture but every existing cat culture across each continent. For this reason, the story of the Sun, the Moon, and the primal cats is of great interest to those interested in a brief but descriptive look into generalizable felidology.
Long ago, the world was covered only by salty sea, and the sky covered only by clouds, which then were not at all different from the sea either. In a shining place there lived Hý: (Sun), Hý:âˑ (Moon), and their children, who are the stars. Sun is the most gorgeous of toms, big and golden. He has a mane that radiates out from his face, and makes him seem very regal indeed. Moon is the loveliest of queens, bright and heavy-lidded, and ever-watchful. The stars were beautiful children, pure white with shining eyes, and they were smart, never wandering far, and they were strong, sure to live through even the harshest winter; and Moon was very proud of them. Each month, she would go into heat; Sun would love her, and she would bear more sparkling children. Here is she becoming full and new once more.
One morning, though, Moon saw how many children she had. "Sun," she said, "in loving you, my children have become far too plentiful. I cannot feed them all; they cannot stay here any longer. Is there nowhere in the world that they can go?"
Sun, awakening, blinked at his mate. "There is a wide world. Our children can live there."
That day Moon begged the eldest ones of the stars to leave their home by the sea. They protested long, and cried as even children then would. "Look! The clouds!" said their father. "There will be a place there for you to live and hunt. Go there!" So the stars left their home range and went into the clouds.
The next month, Moon became pregnant again, and just as she was at her fullest, her largest and eldest male children, called Hý:î: ("Young Sun" - Venus), returned once more to her shining home with the Sun by the sea. "Why have you returned?" asked Moon. "I am nearly to give birth again; you cannot stay here!"
"Noble dam," replied Young Sun, bowing, "I have returned from nowhere at all. There is no home to be had in the clouds. I cannot see through them, and so I have nowhere that I can live. Nor have my brothers and sisters. Nor have your younger litters. We are wandering alone and afraid for ourselves."
This upset Moon greatly. She called over her tom, and before a fight could break out, she told him what Young Sun had told her. The Sun sat and regarded his son, and then said, "I will clear the skies for your brothers and sisters, and then for the younger of your kin. But first will I clear the skies for you, for you are the bravest and strongest of my young since you have returned to me rightfully. Let no offspring of a tom be at war with his father."
And so the Sun, great cat as he is, with striking claws and warm breath, cleared the skies of clouds, all but a few, for his children. They rose in turn to the open skies, but none before Young Sun, who to this day retains his royal position.
One month passed, and then a half-month, and Sun and Moon had not smelled, heard, nor seen any of their children from their home by the sea. Sun, remembering what he said to Young Sun, decided to leave and seek him out, in case his favoured children was unwell but too frightened to confront his father. He found Young Sun in the range he had chosen for himself, but he was just lying down and watching the swirling sea below. He looked up as Sun approached. "Young Sun, my visit is friendly," said Sun. "Neither Moon nor myself have caught your scent for one and a half months. Are you well?"
"Noble sire," replied Young Sun, bowing his head without getting up, for, Sun noticed now, he seemed far too weak to do so. "I would have approached you, if only I knew my kin fare as poorly as I. The sea is salty, so I have little to drink. There are no deer, no humans, no birds that live in the sea, and the fish are too far down, so I cannot hunt. I fear I will not last much longer here, but see first to my kin."
The Sun left to find the other stars, with great trepidation. None of them fared better than Young Sun, for though all had chosen their ranges, none had much at all to eat or drink. He returned to his home to tell Moon what he had found, and then went to the sea. With his breath, he dried up the water, leaving bare land. With his great claws, he shaped the world, leaving grass. With his tongue, he scraped away the salt in the lakes and rivers, and forests grew. And with his deep, rumbling purr, he called all the creatures of the world: the deer, the bird, the human, the rodent, the elephant; all went their way on the newly shaped Earth and became populous. No longer after this were his children hungry or thirsty, and so we say, it is lucky that Sun is a kindly sire, for Young Sun thought too much of his kin to save himself; it is better not to think at all of one's brothers and sisters.
But while Moon was happy, and loved being with her children in the darkened sky, and hunting with them in the forests and the plains, the Sun saw that there were too many animals for only his queen and her offspring to control. This distressed him somewhat, for he knew that were he to have made fewer animals, they would not have lived at all, and his children would be dead. Though the world he made was shining and beautiful, like his own home with Moon by the sea, it was wild and unbalanced.
One day, he went to the new world, and it is said then that he made out of shimmering sand a beautiful queen of golden hue, her eyes of globules of tree sap, her tail of a young savanna bush, and he spent three days with her. When he at last returned to Moon, the queen was pregnant, and her children became the first cats of the Earth. They were slender and raw like their mother, but glowed with the flowing mane of their father, far grander even than those of the stars. Although they were not smarter or stronger than their half-kin, they far outshone them, and for this reason Sun vastly preferred their company to the children of Moon. Moon became very jealous of this, and so decided one night to visit the Earth.
She came upon one tom, who reclined, bathing in the warmth of the sands after a full meal. "My prince!" said Moon, alluringly, "I have come from high up, watching you from afar, and I am smitten by the beauty of your mane. I wish to present myself to you."
The tom did not think to smell her or ask from whence she came. If he had, he would know that she was not in heat, or he would know that she meant to trick him. But, being foolish, he mounted her without doing either of these things, and as he withdrew, Moon lashed out at him, snatching up his mane. "This is the neck fur of Sun," said victorious Moon, "and so of yourself and all your kin. So shall you never have it back, and never again be as beautiful as my own children."
Upon hearing what Moon had done, Sun became furious and left her, only to return to his home in the sea at night. It is said that he so loved his children that he spent more time in the place that he had come to make them, and even made a home for himself that remains golden and shining, just as those first cats' manes were before the intervention of deceitful Moon. This, he guards from us today, keeping out anything that flies or crawls or swims, and making it so hot that it burns the feet of any who tread upon its ground, and we call Èˑs:söhý:nhú: ("The Desert of Powerful Sun" - the Sahara), so that he can be close to the cats that most resemble him and the queen he made of sand. Moon still prefers the company of her own children, lingering in the sky at night to watch them, but even as she goes into heat once per month, she is never mated, and so there are rarely ever new stars. Only during those days that Moon, in apology, and Sun, in forgiveness, so briefly acknowledge the love they had before for each other does she abandon the skies of her children, and does he place himself behind her, high above the land for all to take notice.
In some places, it is said that Moon, in truth, still pines for Sun, for even in the daytime, she may be seen watching far off in the distance, wishing that someday she would regain his affection. So, too, does Young Sun stay with his sire for a while, remembering that he once said a father should not forsake his son. But forever will Moon and Sun be separate, for though they be great, they have faults just as we, and no cat is more stubborn. Truly, there is nothing that can ever repair this ruined love.
