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The Little Creatures of Caprice Ensnare the Sun

This version of the legend comes from William Jones' 1907 collection of Mesquakie stories, Fox Texts.

The Little Creatures of Caprice were once travelling over the country when they came upon a hole that gleamed with a sheen of light inside. "Wonder whose hole this might be?" they said. "Come, let us set a trap for the creature!" they said. Thereupon one of the Little Creatures of Caprice untied the cord from his bow, and making a noose he set it hanging over the place of the hole.

All of a sudden something alive was approaching on the way out. It was so big on its way out as to light up the path so bright that the Little Creatures of Caprice were blinded in the eyes. Then one of them fetched the bowstring back with a jerk, and he had something alive tangled in the snare. At last upon the ground he flung it.

Whereupon they were addressed by the being: "If you choke me to death forever will there be night!"

Why, lo and behold, it was the Sun! When they found out that he was the Sun, they then set him free from the snare. They let him continue forth on the way he had set out.

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The Little Creatures of Caprice Ensnare the Sun

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