Erkhii the Archer Fairy Tale

Long, long ago, when people were only just beginning to spread across the earth, there were not one but seven suns in the sky. From morning till evening, and even at night, they scorched the earth without mercy. In those days there was no night at all.

Rivers and lakes dried up, the earth cracked and the grass withered. Animals collapsed from thirst. In the daytime people hid in caves and barely escaped the heat. The children were beginning to forget what cool water was.

At that time there lived a sharp-eyed archer named Erkhii. From a hundred paces he could put an arrow through the wing of a flying fly, and his arrows never missed. His bow was made from a mighty birch, and its string was twisted from reindeer sinew.

One day the elders came to Erkhii. "Son, mighty archer, save us! If you can shoot down one sun with an arrow, you can shoot down the rest. Leave us just one sun, so that life can go on," they begged.

Erkhii climbed to the top of a mountain and looked at the seven suns. He raised his bow and swore an oath. "With seven arrows I will shoot down the seven suns. If I miss even once, I will cut off my thumbs. I will no longer be a man. I will become an animal that drinks no water, eats grass and lives in a dark burrow!"

He shot his first arrow, and one sun went out and fell from the sky. Then the second, the third, the fourth... Each arrow brought down a sun. A cool wind blew across the earth, and the people shouted for joy. Six suns had fallen, and only one was left in the sky.

But just as he let fly the seventh arrow, a swallow darted in front of the sun. The arrow split the swallow's tail, went off course and flew far away without touching the sun.

The last sun was terribly frightened and hid behind a mountain. For the first time darkness fell over the earth, and stars sparkled in the sky. People marvelled, rested and, for the first time, slept in the quiet of the night. In the morning the sun peeped out carefully from behind the mountain. Ever since, day and night have taken turns on the earth.

Erkhii the archer was angry and chased after the swallow. But the swallow was quick and got away. Ever since, the swallow's tail has been forked. And swallows build their nests close to people, under the roofs of houses, so they say, to hide from the sharp-eyed archer.

Erkhii kept his oath. He cut off his thumbs, turned into a marmot and went to live underground. That, the Mongols say, is why the marmot has only four toes on its front paws, and why it lives without water, drinking only the morning dew on the grass.

In the evenings, at sunset, the marmot comes out of its burrow, sits on a rock at the top of a hill and gazes for a long time at the setting sun. Perhaps it is remembering what a fine archer it once was, and its seventh arrow.

Mongolian hunters will not eat one part of a marmot's meat, calling it "the human part", for the marmot was once a brave archer. And when they tell children this tale, they explain that a promise must always be kept.