The Moon and Sun

"The Sun was a young woman and lived in the East,
while her brother, the Moon,
lived in the West.
The girl had a lover
who used to come every month
in the dark of the moon to court her.
He would come at night,
and leave before daylight,
and although she talked with him
she could not see his face
in the dark, and he would not
tell her his name,
until she was wondering all the time
who it could be. At last she hit
upon a plan to find out,
so the next time he came,
as they were sitting together
in the dark of the asi (sweat house),
she slyly dipped her hand into the
cinders and ashes of the fireplace
and rubbed it over his face,
saying, "Your face is cold;
you must have suffered from the wind,"
and pretending to be very sorry for him,
but he did not know that she had ashes
on her hand. After awhile he left her
and went away again.
The next night when the Moon came up
in the sky his face was covered with spots,
and then his sister knew he was the one
who had been coming to see her.
He was so much ashamed to have her
know it that he kept as far away as he
could at the other end of the sky all the night.
Ever since he tries to keep a
long way behind the Sun,
and when he does sometimes have to
come near her in the West he makes himself
as thin as a ribbon so that he can hardly be seen."