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How Rabbit Snared The Sun

This version of the legend comes from Katherine Judson's 1914 collection Myths and Legends of the Mississippi Valley and the Great Lakes.

Rabbit and his grandmother lived in a wigwam. Rabbit used to go hunting every day, very early in the morning. But no matter how early he went, a person leaving long footprints had passed along ahead of him. Each morning Rabbit thought, "I will reach there before him." Yet each morning the person leaving long footprints passed before him.

One morning Rabbit said to his grandmother, "Oh, Grandmother, although I have long wished to be the first to get there, again has he got there ahead of me. Oh, Grandmother, I will make a noose, and I will place it in the trail of that one, and thus I will catch him."

"Why should you do that?" asked Grandmother.

"I hate that person," said Rabbit. He departed. When he reached there, he found that the person had already departed. So he lay down near by and waited for night. Then he went to the trail where the person with long feet had been passing, and set a snare.

Very early the next morning he went to look at his trap. Behold! Sun had been caught. Rabbit ran home very quickly.

"Oh, Grandmother, I have caught something but it scares me. I wished to take the noose, but it scared me every time I went to get it."

Then Rabbit took a knife and again went there. The person said "You have done very wrong. Come and release me."

Rabbit did not go directly towards him. He went to one side. He bent his head low and cut the cord. At once Sun went above on his trail. But Rabbit had been so near him that Sun burned his fur on the back of his neck.

Rabbit ran home. He cried "Oh, Grandmother, I have been severely burned."

"Alas! My grandson has been severely burned," said Grandmother.

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