Myth Folklore - Chapter 4

Well, readers, it is now at this time, that your author must break the news to you. Our storyteller passed from this life shortly after he told our last story. He did, however, prepare a brave, young girl who cared for him in his last days. As the adults prepared his funeral pyre, the young girl prepared the final story for our storyteller's eulogy. So much had happened since the last story. The people were had mobilized themselves using the many boats that had made it through the journey there and the people were able to travel from nearby camp to nearby camp to catch a bit of news. They had determined that at the rate the water was receding and evaporating, they would be living on the mountain for several generations, but little by little the two acts of nature would reveal more and more mountain and eventually earth. They also determined that other areas were evaporating faster than others. They had a lot of planning to do to ensure camp survival for that amount of time.

All of the children were heard sobbing. They had all become attached to the elderly storyteller. He had done so much for them.

"All right, all right, guys," said the young girl. "I am sad too, but he was sick before we came here and you know what he told me?"

At this, all of the children's ears pricked up.

"He told me one last story to share with you guys, so drink up your cocoa and listen." By this time the young girl had the children and the adults' attention. The adults sent afloat the funeral pyre for the elderly man and awaited the archer with the flaming arrow.

The young girl began the tale.

Yaitowi, in his time, walked with God during the time that the waters rose and rose till they covered almost the entire earth. Yaitowi was protected by God during this time, but the all other creatures on the earth, from sky, earth and beneath the waters, were devastated and finally destroyed.

See, the land was flooded already on the seventh day of February and ten days later, it rained continuously for fourteen days and nights.

At the end of that time, there were around forty survivors that were situated at the top of various mountain tops.

The archer aimed and shot his arrow, immediately catching our elderly storytellers' pyre on fire.

One of the children chose this opportunity to speak up, "so, it sounds like they didn't have as many survivors as we do."

The young girl nodded and continued.

After these survivors had prepared themselves for lives on top of these mountains, they heard the voice of God declare that since man is made in the image of God, He would not attempt to flood the earth again in an attempt to destroy man-kind.

Finally, God declared that the rainbow would be his sign for centuries to come that God would not try to destroy mankind in a flood again.

One of the adults asked, "Did these people adopt this from Noah's Ark?"

The young girl replied quietly, "I don't know, he didn't say."

One of the younger boys spoke up, "You should have heard the other stories, they all had something in common the whole time."

The elderly man had a friend that had helped him to the mountain. That friend had a few things to say about our elderly storyteller. Everyone sat and listened. It was time, however, to return to life and survival on the mountain top.

Author's Note: The telling of this story on the Author's Den site is very condensed and the Sacred Text version is a bit more elaborate. I clearly chose a condensed version of the already condensed version offered on the Author's Den site. I did this because a young girl is retelling it as opposed to the elderly man and it is a quick eulogy because the business of the camp demands a lot of time and while it is important to celebrate the life of the recently deceased, there is much work to do. The whole idea of this flood is somewhat impractical and I am not a scientist, so I looked at some figures that describe annual (typical) evaporation rates and then I tried to factor in recession of water back to its normal sources. My goal was to give the reader a sense of how long these people were going to be stuck on the mountain tops and I didn't want them stuck on the mountains for 3,000 something years. I don't know how significant it was to add that information into the introduction of the frame tale. I just wanted to end it with some sort of resolution.