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Bomong and Bong:
Sisters Moon and Sun
Retold by Brenda Sutton
In northern India, the creation legend of the Minyong people tells of twin sisters — Bomong, the moon, and Bong, the sun — born of the lovers, earth and sky. A wise woman raised the beautiful girls, teaching them well until they grew into powerful and exemplary young women. The twins were inseparable. Together they were so strong and brilliant that, when they crossed the heavens, their combined light and heat parched the land. All of the creatures of the world suffered. Plants whithered under their perpetual radiance. Oceans evaporated leaving fish flopping about in wallows of mud. Soon everything on earth would perish.
 And so the creatures of earth plotted to murder one of the twins, but no one wanted to be the one to actually do the dirty deed. Finally, however, Frog volunteered to attempt the task. He took his bow and arrows, and hopped up to the sisters' home in the heavens. There he lay in wait under a lily pad for the first sister to stumble into his sight.
After a few hours, Frog heard footsteps coming up the path. He notched his arrow and drew his bow taut. A radiant figure came into view. "I'm sorry," croaked Frog as he loosed his arrow and let it fly — straight into the heart of Bong, the sun. She died in the arms of her sister, and her light died with her. In this lesser light, the world was no longer trapped in heat. Plants began once more to sprout leaves. Rivers once more flowed into the sea. The creatures of earth rejoiced.
But Bomong did not rejoice. She grieved for the death of her sister, and worried that the creatures of earth might try to kill her, too. So she hid herself in a very dark cave, under a very large rock.
All light was extinguished. In darkness, the plants no longer thrived, but lost their green color and faded to white. The creatures of the earth feared for their lives once again, and thought that perhaps they acted hastily by murdering Bong. They searched high and low for Bomong, calling out for her, "Come out, come out! Shine for us!"
 Cockerel flew over the dark land until he spotted a dim light peeping out from a crack in the cave wall, and discovered Bomong weeping for her sister. Try as he may to console her, Cockerel couldn't persuade her to return to the heavens. He left the cave with a message for the creatures of earth: they must find some way to resurrect Bong.
So a carpenter set about to rebuild Bong. He went first to the wise woman who had raised the girls, and he asked her to tell him stories about Bong. Watching the nurse's face, he could see Bong's light shining in the old woman's eyes. From this memory, he was able to craft a smaller, though not so brilliant, version of her, which he placed far in the heavens to the great joy of Bomong. The twins return home at each eclipse. To this day, the frogs hide away, singing their nightly apologies, and the cocks crow at the first sight of light peeping over the horizon. "Come out, come out! Shine for us!"
Brenda Sutton is the publisher of Mythic Passages, Operations Director, Corporate Secretary, and Office Administrator for Mythic Imagination Institute. She is an award-winning singer/songwriter with the internationally reknown band Three Weird Sisters. She works in a support and consultant capacity for the non-profit music organization Interfilk, and maintains their website. She is freelance writer whose work has appeared in newspapers and magazines. She is also the mother of five, grandmother of two.
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