Lone Bird - Bride of the Moon
According to Chippewa legend there once was a beautiful maiden by the name of Lone Bird. She lived on the shores of the Big Water (Lake Superior) with her mother and father.
Lone Bird loved her parents very much and assumed things would never change; they would always be together. As Lone Bird grew up, her parents looked forward to the day they would see their beautiful daughter happily married. However, Lone Bird showed no interest in the young men that came courting and ignored them all. She loved her parents so much that she felt no need for another’s love.
The seasons rolled by and with each passing year the number of suitors gradually diminished, until they stopped coming altogether. As time passed, lone Bird began to notice that her parents were beginning to slow down, showing the usual signs of age. Faced with the stark realization of their mortality, the seeds of doubt began to grow within Lone Bird; a time was coming when she would be all alone with no one to love, or to love her in return.
One evening, while pondering her sad plight, Lone Bird gazed up at the moon with and an aching sense of despair. In the past, all her troubles seemed to have vanished like a mist before its luminous grace and beauty. Faced with an unbearable loneliness she reached up to the moon and crying, “If only I had you to love, then I’d no longer be lonely.” Silence was the moon’s response.
Upon hearing Lone Bird’s cries of desperation, the Great Spirit, taking pity on her, reached down and gently lifted her to the skies, placing her next to the moon. With the vows of matrimony, the Great Spirit bound Lone Bird and the moon together as one.
When Lone Bird did not return home, her father became concerned and went out looking for her. After searched all day and into the evening, and finding no trace of her, he too gazed up in anguish at the moon. To his surprise, there was Lone Bird, resting in the moon’s loving embrace… happily smiling back at him.
James A. Ford
