Tell Me A Story

Adapted by Amy Friedman and illustrated by Jillian Gilliland

For most of us, the memory of a story told before bedtime is like a warm glass of milk — soothing, comforting, savored. Each week, Amy Friedman and Jillian Gilliland give us an original story or a children's classic accompanied by a captivating illustration that will launch the imagination.

Samples

THE COCONUT NIGHT (a Brazilian folktale)

adapted by Amy Friedman and illustrated by Jillian Gilliland

Long ago when the world was new, the sun never set. Day after day light streamed from the sky, warming the earth, the people, the rivers, the flowers and trees. Everything was always blooming, and for a long time the people were glad.

There was but one problem: Sleep was difficult beneath the glare of all that sunshine, and people began to wish that darkness would come to the world. They longed to rest.

There was one creature who owned the night. This was a witch who lived near the river. Long ago she had discovered the night hidden beneath the river. When she found it, she decided she would keep it for herself.

The witch transformed herself into an intricately patterned snake, and she carried the night down to the bottom of the river. There she hid it inside a coconut shell.

When the people learned that the witch of the river owned the darkness, they decided to speak with her, now in her guise as a snake. "Give us darkness," they implored. "We need to sleep."

The snake witch only laughed.

The people circled her and began to pray. "Please release the night," they begged. She again laughed scornfully.

The people sang songs to the snake witch and danced around her, but still she refused to share the darkness. Finally they gave up and sadly went back to their homes.

The snake witch had a daughter who grew to be a beautiful young woman. The daughter fell in love with a young man who lived in a faraway village. They married, and as time passed, the snake witch's daughter began to understand how exhausted her poor husband was. She, too, was a witch, and did not need the darkness to sleep, but her heart ached for her husband and all the people of his tribe.

One day the snake witch's daughter said to her husband, "I will ask my mother to give us night. She cannot refuse her own daughter." That very day she sent word to her mother, asking her to release the coconut shell.

The snake witch lived far from the village, and so her daughter sent three servants to collect the night. Before they departed, she gave them strict instructions. "My mother will give you a coconut shell. You must return it to me. Make sure you do not open it, or everything will be lost."

The servants agreed to this plan, and they set off in their boat to travel on the river to the faraway place where the snake witch lived.

As the servants traveled, they called out to all they passed, "We are going to collect the night," and everyone called in return, "Hurry back! Please hurry!"

Even the trees sighed with relief when they heard the news, and the leaves quivered with joy.

Finally the servants arrived at the snake witch's home.

She hissed as they approached, but she knew she must give them the coconut. She would keep nothing from her daughter. And so she handed it to them with these words: "Be sure you do not open this. This is a gift for my daughter, and only my daughter. If you set night free, you and your people will live in darkness forever."

The servants agreed to do as she bade them, and so they carried the coconut into their boat and set off for home.

As they paddled, they listened closely. From within the coconut shell came sounds they had never heard, hoots and screams, whirring wings and chirping crickets -- all the sounds of the night.

"I wish I could see darkness for one moment," one of the servants said, and the others nodded.

"Just listen to that," another said as a howl emerged from the shell. "What can night look like?"

"I wonder too," said the third, and they could not stop themselves. They opened the coconut, and in an instant, the world was cloaked in the darkness. The men could see nothing, and everywhere around them they heard howling and hooting, and felt wings brushing against their skin.

Back in the village, the snake witch's daughter saw the world turn dark, and she realized what had happened. She held her husband's hands in hers. "Your servants have betrayed us," she said softly, and when she touched her husband's face, she felt his tears falling.

The snake witch's daughter knew she must save the world from complete darkness. She cut a long strand of hair from her head, and this she cast into the sky. The hair cut a slit in the cloak of darkness, and through this filtered a slender ray of sunlight. Thus she created the dawn.

"We shall have day and night," she told her husband, and so she set in motion the pattern of dawn leading to daylight, followed by dusk and then darkness.

As for the three servants, she sent them away to live in the forest, and they became the monkeys who inhabit the trees. Forever after they have lived in fear of the creatures of the night they let loose.

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"Tell Me a Story 2: Animal Magic," the second CD in the audiobook series, is now available. For more information, please visit www.mythsandtales.com.

COPYRIGHT 2008 UNIVERSAL PRESS SYNDICATE

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