This traditional story from Laos is about the eight suns that once burned the earth with their strong beams - every day! Only thanks to a clever archer and a rooster did the world manage to strike a balance. With its environmental theme, this old legend is also relevant nowadays.
A long time ago, not one, but eight suns shone upon our planet. The Earth was incredibly hot, and almost everything had burnt to a cinder. The oceans and lakes had all nearly dried up, and the parched plains were barren and almost lifeless.
Both people and animals were starving, and because of the terrible heat the whole planet was on the brink of destruction.
Since the situation was truly desperate, the people from a place that is now known as Asia decided to do something about it. Eight suns were simply too many for our little planet!
They racked their brains for a long, long time, trying to find a way to change these dire conditions. In the end, they decided that one sun might be just enough and that they needed to get the other seven suns out of the sky.
They had been discussing how to do it for quite some time when one of them came up with an idea. They could ask the most skilled archer in the village to shoot the seven suns down. The archer felt honoured to be given such an important task and prepared for it at once.
He took seven of his sharpest arrows and climbed up the highest mountain. Then he shot his first arrow at one of the suns. When the sun noticed someone was trying to hit it with an arrow, it quickly retreated to a safe distance from where it couldn’t harm the Earth anymore.
The archer then used the rest of his arrows, driving away six of the remaining suns so they posed no threat to the planet. Only one sun stayed in the sky, and the Earth turned into a much more hospitable place at once. As it turned out, one sun…
Readmio is an app full of fairytales and bedtime stories with sounds activated by your voice. Many stories are free, new stories are added every week.
