The Archer and the Moon Goddess
A Chinese Creation Story
Once in ancient China, the Sun God named Dujin and his wife had ten suns. When the suns where born they took the form of flaming birds. Every day one of the suns would fly to a tree to provide just the right amount of heat and light to the world.
The suns soon grew tired of sitting alone in the tree, so one day they decided to sit in the tree together. The combined heat from the ten suns began to burn the world, even the rocks began to melt under the heat.
The people and the Sun God pleaded to the suns, but they would not listen. The Sun God agreed to let another god, Yi the greatest archer in the universe, shoot down his sons.
The Sun God said to Yi " please do not kill all of my suns, just enought to make them come to their senses." With this, Yi took aim. He shot one sun, the others did not budge. So we began to shoot more, until he had shot down nine of the ten suns.
Seeing all his brothers dead, the last sun never disobeyed his father again.
Part II:
The Sun God, heart broken and Furious, banished Yi and his wife Chang O to the mortal world for killing to many of his suns.
Chang O was very displeased with living as a mortal. In fact she constantly reminded Yi that it was his fault. Then one day she eased up on him and said, " I fear death, and living on earth is better than being around those dreadful ghosts. There is an Elixir owned by the Queen Mother of the West. This Elixir can turn us immortal again." With this Yi left to retrieve it.
After Yi had reached the empire of the Queen Mother, he begged for the potion. Understanding why the Queen Mother gave him the potion, but before leaving she told him, "only drink half the elixir, for that much will turn you mortal, but if you should drink the whole vile you shall become a god once more."
With that Yi returned home with the elixir. He told his wife, " Wait here and watch over the elixir, I am going to go hunt us a feast for our celebration!" And with that he left. Chang O stared at the elixir, for she knew the whole bottle would turn her back into a God. After thinking on it, she came to the decision that Yi loved the earth so much shes doing him a favor. Then she drank and her body began to glow and lift toward the sky.
Floating back to heaven, she began to regret her decision. She left the one she loved alone, just so she could become a god again. With this thought she stopped at the moon instead of heaven. And for the rest of eternity she lived with only a single cassia tree, a Rabbit, her loneliness and memories to comfort her.