The Story Of The First Butterflies

: The Book Of Nature Myths

The Great Spirit thought, "By and by I will make men, but first I will

make a home for them. It shall be very bright and beautiful. There shall

be mountains and prairies and forests, and about it all shall be the

blue waters of the sea."



As the Great Spirit had thought, so he did. He gave the earth a soft

cloak of green. He made the prairies beautiful with flowers. The forests

were bright with birds of ma
y colors, and the sea was the home of

wonderful sea-creatures. "My children will love the prairies, the

forests, and the seas," he thought, "but the mountains look dark and

cold. They are very dear to me, but how shall I make my children go to

them and so learn to love them?"



Long the Great Spirit thought about the mountains. At last, he made many

little shining stones. Some were red, some blue, some green, some

yellow, and some were shining with all the lovely colors of the

beautiful rainbow. "All my children will love what is beautiful," he

thought, "and if I hide the bright stones in the seams of the rocks of

the mountains, men will come to find them, and they will learn to love

my mountains."



When the stones were made and the Great Spirit looked upon their beauty,

he said, "I will not hide you all away in the seams of the rocks. Some

of you shall be out in the sunshine, so that the little children who

cannot go to the mountains shall see your colors." Then the southwind

came by, and as he went, he sang softly of forests flecked with light

and shadow, of birds and their nests in the leafy trees. He sang of long

summer days and the music of waters beating upon the shore. He sang of

the moonlight and the starlight. All the wonders of the night, all the

beauty of the morning, were in his song.



"Dear southwind," said the Great Spirit "here are some beautiful things

for you to bear away with, you to your summer home. You will love them,

and all the little children will love them." At these words of the Great

Spirit, all the stones before him stirred with life and lifted

themselves on many-colored wings. They fluttered away in the sunshine,

and the southwind sang to them as they went.



So it was that the first butterflies came from a beautiful thought of

the Great Spirit, and in their wings were all the colors of the shining

stones that he did not wish to hide away.



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