Nighttime Comes to the Rainforest

A South American Folktale

De: Bill Gordh

Narrado por: Bill Gordh

Award-winning storyteller Bill Gordh (Film Advisory Board Award of Excellence winner, National Association of Parenting Periodicals Gold Award winner) presents this folk tale live with no script, accompanied only by his own dynamic banjo playing.

Long ago there was only sun in the rainforest. It was beautiful but too bright. People had a hard time sleeping. A farmer was married to the River Snake King's daughter, and she told her husband about something called "Night" that was deep in the river. It would let people rest. They had too much farm work to do, so they sent three friends in a canoe down the river to ask the River Snake King for Night. They arrived, and the River Snake King dove deep into the water, returned with a tacuma nut between his jaws, and spit it into the boat. He told them Night was in the nut, and they could take it back and his daughter, who understood magic and would know what to do with the nut and Night. The three friends looked at the plug in the hole in the nut, covered with wax, and swore they would not open the nut but rather bring it to his daughter. They began paddling upstream. Noises came from the nut, and it moved in the boat. Finally they could not stand it anymore and opened the nut. Night came rushing out and with it bats and mosquitoes and stars. Night swept across the sky. The Snake King's daughter saw the sky and understood what had happened. Her husband fell asleep. The nocturnal creatures began to appear, transforming from bushes, logs, and rocks. She pulled out a strand of hair, tied it to the edge of Night, and pulled part of the nighttime into another nut. She hid the nut deep in the forest so no one would ever find it again. Now there was day and night in the rainforest.

©2013 Bill Gordh (P)2014 Audible Inc.