The animals who ruled the earth were immediately put into great commotion. They had no light; and they ran to and fro, calling out to one another and inquiring what had happened. They summoned a council to debate upon the matter, and an old dormouse, suspecting where the trouble lay, proposed that some one should be appointed to go and cut the cord. This was a bold thing to undertake, as the rays of the sun could not fail to burn whoever should venture so near to them.

At last the venerable dormouse himself undertook it, for the very good reason that no one else would. But all were glad to accept his offer, so he hastened to the spot where the sun lay ensnared.

Now at this time the dormouse was the largest animal in the world. When he stood up he looked like a mountain, and when he walked the earth trembled. His courage was great in proportion, but as he came nearer and nearer to the sun his back began to smoke and burn with the heat, and soon the whole top of his huge bulk was turned to enormous heaps of ashes. He succeeded, however, in cutting the cord with his teeth, and the sun, free, as round and beautiful as ever, rolled up again into the wide blue sky. But the dormouse—or blind woman as it is called—was shrunk away to a very small size; and that is the reason why it is now one of the tiniest creatures upon the earth.

The little boy returned home when he discovered that the sun had escaped his snare, and devoted himself entirely to hunting.

"If the beautiful hair of my sister would not hold the sun fast, nothing in the world could," he said. "I was not born, a little fellow like myself, to look after the sun. It requires one greater and wiser than I to regulate that."

So he went out and shot ten more snow-birds; for in this business he was very expert; and he had a new bird-skin coat made, which was prettier than the one he had worn before.

[Original]