the story of the firefox and the northern lights
this specific story is very important for me for a lot of reasons, mainly for the reason it's one of the stories from my childhood that really stuck with me. my memory of it is really hazy though considering it had been told to me well over a decade ago, so i went on the lookout for the story online, only to find almost nothing!?! this made me sad and i realized the story had survived via word of mouth, but that's exactly how stories die... so i decided to start this library to combat that, starting with the most important story of mine. here's my english translation and retelling of the story i remember~~
once upon a time,
there was a fox! it was a cold yet bright night somewhere far, far away in the northern mountains. the fox had been invited to the most important event of the year, a banquet held with all the other forest animals, and had groomed itself and slicked its tail to make sure it looked its best! the fox was in a terrible rush, though, since it was almost late for the banquet.
the fox decided it was far too late to travel through its usual route and decided to take a different mountain route through the forest, even if running through the snow would tire it out. "what you lack in power you make up for in time", thought the fox.
so the fox took to running through the mountains, snow whirling through the air. its speed was incredible: as the fox ran through the forest from rock to rock and snow pile to snow pile, it appeared almost as if its fiery red coat was sparkling like a flame amidst the pitch black night and shimmering against the snow and ice.
as the fox reached the highest tops of the mountain, it was exhausted. far too tired to keep its gorgeous and neatly groomed tail in position, it struck against the ground and the rocky terrain of the mountain, sending sparks flying into the night! the fox kept running and running at suck a speed that the sparks would fly and create a spectacular ribbon of light that floated up into the night sky.
eventually, the fox would reach its destination, but had no idea about the show of light it had left in its wake: sparks dancing in the sky, changing their color and sparkling as a gorgeous show of light, bringing joy and astonishment to all the animals of the forest. if you're lucky, you might still see them- the northern lights, that is!
and that's how the northern lights were created!! a fox in an awful rush to make it to the banquet, sending sparks into the sky as its tail stuck against the terrain. how cool is that!?
an alternative telling of how the fox ended up in a rush that i've heard is that the fox was running away from a hunter, since the pelts of firefoxes were very sought after and expensive. i think i prefer the story of the banquet though lolol
i'd also like to note that the finnish word for the northern lights is "revontulet", which comes from the archaic word for fox, repolainen or repo, and the word for fire, which is "tuli". revontulet quite literally translates to "the fox's fires", hence the firefox!! i think that's like, insanely cool..
thank you for reading!! that's it for the firefox~~