The Child's Story: The Hunter's Star

Look at the sky on one of summer's beautiful days, and you will see millions of stars twinkling in space... And if you gaze at them well, you will see that some of them shine more brightly than others. So ask your mother to show you "the Hunter's Star," so that you may be able to understand this legend.

This star shines more brightly than the others, and it stays in the sky until morning, guiding the hunters. Have you ever asked yourself, "Why does this star twinkle more than the others?" I shall tell you the answer, so listen well.

Every year, when Nature celebrates the feast of spring, when the sky is clear and blue, God commands certain stars to go down to earth to take part in the feast. Among the stars there was a little star who had long wished to celebrate the feast of spring with the flowers and the plants, but her turn had never come. So she said to herself: I shall ask my neighbor, "the Beautiful Star," to take me with her without God knowing of me.

When the day of spring came, on March 21, the little star took white wings that she had borrowed from some of the angels; she put them on and went down with her friends to earth.

The star was merry, caring nothing for what God would say when He learned that she had gone down to earth. She looked about her, astonished at the beauty of Nature, and saw the flowers dancing to the strains of the music that came from a little brook running through the garden. So she began to dance with "the Violet," and the Violet set about explaining to her the delights of life on earth and its pleasures, while our little star listened to her joyfully, saying: "If only I could stay all my life in this garden and never go back to the sky!" The Daisy heard her and said: Come with me. Near this garden there is a great cave; if you enter it when the clock strikes one after midnight, you will see a giant come out of the earth, and with him the brides of the jinn. He sits in the middle of the cave with the jinn-maidens around him, and then every flower or animal that wants something comes forward and lays its request before him; and if he finds it good, he says to the asker: "Go — I have granted you what you wish." At the end of the day the stars returned to the sky, not knowing that the little star had stayed on earth with the Daisy and the Violet.

At one o'clock after midnight the star entered the cave and lit it up with her gleaming light, and the giant came out with the jinn-maidens dancing around him, dressed in black garments embroidered with red and golden threads that glittered in the light of the star. Their appearance was enchanting. The giant looked at the star wearing an angel's wings and laughed, and the cave trembled, and the little star was afraid.

After the giant sat down, the Daisy drew near him, saying: "This star wishes to stay on earth." The giant answered, looking at the star: "From now on you shall be a butterfly, and you shall live among the flowers, and remain merry and glad as you please." No sooner had he finished speaking than the star turned into a beautiful butterfly, flying from place to place. And so the star stayed with the flowers. But what did the stars do when they reached the sky and found the place of "the little star" empty? Hear the rest of the story.

The stars grew very troubled: God would learn that the little star had gone down to earth without leave, and He would punish all the stars. So "the Beautiful Star" went to a place she knew well, where there was a beautiful fairy of her acquaintance, and told her what had befallen them. The fairy laughed — and if you could have seen her, you would have wished to stay all your life at her side. Her face was lovely; her hair was fair, gleaming in the sun like gold; and she wore a long gown of velvet, brocaded with glittering stars.

She plucked from her gown one of those stars and gave it to "the Beautiful One" to set in the sky in the place of "the little star." And "the Beautiful Star" returned to the sky and did as the fairy had told her, and so there came to be a new star there, brighter than the little star; and they named it "the Hunter's Star," because the fairy was the queen of the...