Week 11 Story: Raven

Raven

Jack and the Beanstalk

Back in a time there was no earth and no people, the earth today was just a vacant space in the galaxy. There was a place in the galaxy called the Heaven, a different world that was separated with everything, floating in the air. Heaven was a place of a few giant residents. No one knew their origin, they just lived there many any years even before the earth was form. It was called Heaven because it was such the most beautiful place, where the rivers were never dried and flowers were never wither. The giant people were slow aging and they all knew magic at birth. However, just only one baby was born in thousand years.

Raven was five hundred years old, but still was a baby boy. He was intelligent and a dynamic person. He got bored because there was nothing fun in here because everything were so perfect but he didn't have any friend. He just wandered around everyday to find fun things to do. One day, he wondered what would happen if he dropped a pea out of the Heaven, and he did.

Several days passed, a vine grew up from a pea. It grew so fast, in three days it reached the Heaven. He thought if the vine could not live down there, that must be a safe place. Therefore, he transformed to a Raven, with a black feathers and a sharp beak and flied down. This place was dark so he lighted the light first, the place had nothing on it except his giant vine. He had a new idea. He would tried to make a new world based on the image of the Heaven, but smaller version.

He turned back to Heaven and took some clay. He formed a man and then a woman from that clay, and he breathed the breath of life for both. The man and the woman were as small as his hand. The man and the woman were functioned after three days. So Raven put the man and the woman inside the pod of the pea. Next, he created mountain and river.

He called his new place Earth. To make the earth more cheerful, he formed fishes, reindeers, flies, mosquitoes, mouses, sheep. He also planted many trees for woods and timbers, trees for fruits and many cereals for foods. He prepared everything to welcome the new people.

And three days had passed, the first man dropped down of the pod of the pea. He was surprised at first, and Raven came to help him. Raven taught him to collect fruits to eat, found clean and clear water to drink. Later, Raven showed him how to make a house from the woods. Raven also taught him to defend with wild animal and catch the fishes for food. He also made careful recommendations to the first man to teach other people everything he taught the man today, so the later generation would survive by themselves.

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Bibliography: Alaskan Legends unit. Myths and Legends of Alaska, edited by Katharine Berry Judson (1911).

Author's Notes: The Raven Myth doesn't mention anything about the origin of Raven and where he came from. I am also curious why the Man came from the pod of the pea, so I took a position to tell the origin of Raven and the subsequents. In The Raven Myth: The Skyland and the Sea, Raven took the first man to see the skyland, where people there was just small. I then altered them to the giant one and chose that place to be the one that Raven came from. I also took the idea from Jack and the Beanstalk to transform the Earth to a miniature world for Raven.