Exercise 1

Raven and the Coming of Daylight

By

GAIL ROBINSON AND DOUGLAS HILL

 

 

            When the earth was very young, it was dark and old like a winter’s night through all the year’s seasons. Gull was the Custodian of Daylight, and he kept it locked tight in a cedar box beneath his wing. Being Custodian made Gull feel very important, and he was not going to lose his position by letting Daylight out of the box.

            “He is too vain!” screeched Owl, at a meeting of the People upon Meeting Hill.

            “We can never travel, in this darkness, to our half-homes in this south,” cried Robin. Her breast was bleached of colour for the lack of light.

 

Gull agreed to come to the meeting. But it was clear, when he came, that he was not going to change his mind or listen to what Raven said. He had come only because it made him feel even more important to have Raven pleading with him.

            “I was made Custodian of Daylight in the beginning of things,” said Gull. “I am to keep Daylight safe. And I will keep it safe.” And he curved his swing tighter around the cedar box.

            Raven had run out of words to make Gull see the People’s need for light. He thought angrily to himself, “I wish this Gull would step on a large thorn.”

            No sooner had he shaped this thought than Gull cried out, “Squee! My foot!”

            “A thorn, Cousin?” asked raven innocently. “Let me see-I will take it out for you.”

 

But of course it was so dark that he could not see the thorn to remove it.

            “I must have light to take out the thorn,” said Raven.

            “Light? Never!” said Gull.

            “Then the thorn will remain.”

            Gull complained and hopped on one foot and wept, and he finally opened his cedar box a crack, a crack so narrow that out glanced a shaft of light no brighter than a single star.

            Raven put his hand to Gull’s foot, then pretended not to see the thorn. Instead, he pushed it in deeper.

            “Squee!” cried Gull. “My foot!”

            “More light, more light!” shouted Raven.

 

And the lid of the box rose a further crack, so that light gleamed forth like a winter moon. Then Raven reached again for the thorn and pushed it even further into the soft flesh of Gull’s foot.

            “More light!” roared Raven.

            “Squee, squee, squee!” screamed Gull, and in his pain he flung off the lid of the cedar box.

            Like a molten fish the sun slithered from the box, and light and warmth blazed out over the world.

            Nor was it ever to be recaptured, no matter how loudly or how sadly Gull called to it to return to its safe hiding place beneath his wing.

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