When The Badger Named The Sun

When The Badger Named The Sun

A long time ago, nobody knew the name of the sun. All the people were awestruck at this familiar phenomenon that arose in the sky every day to give them light and warmth, but they didn’t know its name. So they decided to hold a council on the banks of the Surem River.

Their biggest problem was that they couldn’t decide if the sun was a man or a woman. So they did not know whether to give a male name or a female name to it. Everyone felt that once this problem was solved, the sun could be easily named. Everyone had their own idea about it, but nobody could say for sure.

‘Let’s ask the animals. They might provide us with a solution to this problem,’ said the people eventually. So they sent a message to all the animals of the world to come for the meeting.

At the appointed time, birds and beasts gathered by the tumbling blue waters of the river before daybreak. They came flying and galloping, crawling and slithering, swimming and sneaking. There had never been such a huge group of men and animals!

When the sun appeared in all its brightness and glory, everyone fell silent in wonder. Then a badger came out of the hole in the ground where he lived.

He shuffled over to the meeting and said in a loud voice, ‘The sun rises from the earth like I come out of my hole, so he must be male like me.’

‘Oh, badger!’ they cried. ‘You have done it!’ Everyone was so impressed that they started cheering and clapping. They decided to throw a huge festive party in the badger’s honor. They wanted to appreciate such intelligence as that the badger had displayed.

But the badger took fright at the noise. He did not understand what was going on. He ran back into his hole and refused to come out. He thought they wanted to punish him.

To this day, a badger spends most of his time in his hole, scared that everyone is angry with him.