Rabbit and the Moon

If you go out into the fields, in the still, grey hour before the dawn, you will find that the grass is wet.

One day, at the beginning of time, in that still, grey hour, Rabbit stepped out into the field, and he, too, found the grass was wet. As he stood there, wondering where the water had come from, he heard someone crying - and he looked up and found it was the Moon, his tears running down his round, yellow face and falling to the earth and making the grass wet.

"Moon, Moon, why are you crying?"

"I am crying because I want to be like man."

"But why should you want that?"

"I want to be like man because man never dies."

"But man dies, come, I'll show you. Come with me."

And the Moon stepped down, out of the sky, and Rabbit took the Moon to a hut. There, through the window, Rabbit showed the Moon an old man lying on his bed, the last breath rattling in his throat.

"See, man dies."

"Oh, no. Look there."

And the Moon pointed through another window, he showed Rabbit another bed; and on that bed lay a woman, her newborn baby in her arms, by her side a man.

"See, they are together, so there will always be birth. But I am alone, when I die there will be no more moon. That is why I cry."

And the Moon climbed back into the sky. And there he is crying still; as you can see in that still, grey hour before the dawn, when the grass is still wet with his tears ...