Storytelling Post Week 10

The Boy on the Moon

"Le Voyage dans la lune" clearly shows the man in the moon. Info.

Once upon a time, there was a little boy who was living out the dream of many young boys and girls on earth. This little boy happened to be the son of "the" man on the moon. He hopped around with low gravity, throwing rocks and bouncing balls as far and high as he could imagine, and generally just having a good time. However, though the boy enjoyed his time in his spacey, light home with his father, he longed for friendship and something new.

His father told him stories of earth and all the colors and wonderful, different animals that lived on there. The little boy longed to see the birds, which did not just jump high in the air and simply come back down but flew as high as they wanted to wherever they wanted. He was excited about the animals that were so big and strong that you could jump on their back and ride them! As the boy grew up, he made his father tell him more and more stories. Every day after the stories, the boy begged his father to let him live on earth, for the man on the moon is magical and can make such things happen.

Eventually, the boy's daily begging wore down his father, and he agreed to let him live on earth with certain conditions. Though the man on the moon was magical, his magic still had its limits, and he could only provide a one way trip to earth. In order to make the most of his time left with his son, he told him that he was not allowed to leave until he turned 15. When he did move to earth, he would not be able to hear from his father but he promised to always look over his son.

When the day came, the boy was very excited but was sad to leave his father. The man on the moon kept his promise though, and transported his son to a nice, small village with friendly people who would treat his son as one of their own. Before the mysterious young man's arrival, the moon looked like a blank gray surface in the sky, but the night that he arrived, mysterious shapes appeared on the great sphere. The villagers all said that the shapes resembled an old man's face, and the boy knew that it was just his dad, watching over his son like he had promised he would.

Author's Note: This story about the man on the moon is very very loosely based on The Child of The Evening Star. In that, the kid lives on the evening star with his parents and several birds in a silver palace. Instead of his parents sending him to earth, he scrapes a bird so that it bleeds, which breaks the magic bond on the star and everyone is sent back to earth. The boy was still very lonely though and did want to see all the animals. I just wanted to do the story of a boy coming home to earth.
Read here.

Bibliography: Larned. American Indian Fairy Tales. "The Child of the Evening Star." 1921.