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Orphan on the Moon

Summary/Abstract: Once upon a time there was an orphan. Her life was very hard. Her mother and father had died and she lived at her stepmother's place. Her stepmother was very bad and cruel. She made her do the hardest work of all but gave only the worst food to eat and only very little of that, too. When the orphan couldn't work any more, stepmother beat her. Once in springtime when the appletrees were blooming, the orphan sat under an appletree and started to cry. Big tears were streaming down from her eyes, but from the appletree white blossoms were falling. The orpan looked at the blossoms and sang: Stepmother beats me, five times a day birches, stepmother beats me, five times a day birches, From the appletree blossoms are falling, from my eyes - tears, from the appletree blossoms are falling, from my eyes - tears. Once on a Saturday the orphan was told to heat the sauna. The orphan took water and wood to the sauna all by herself and heated the sauna. When the sauna was hot, then the orphan made steam for the others and softened sauna whisks for them. Everybody else went to the sauna. Everybody had been in the sauna but the orphan still couldnt go there. She was to go there after everybody else. Outside it was midnight and the full moon was shining in the sky when at last the orphan could go to sauna. But the orphan was too tired to go to the sauna. She stood on the sauna threshold and sang looking into the sky: Moon, dear, take me to yourself for the waterbringer, the sauna whisk softener, the sauna-heater, the steam-thrower, in the summer i will eat without sugar, in the winter i will walk without shoes, in the summer i will eat without sugar, in the winter i will walk without shoes. The moon pitied the orphan and took her with him to live. When the full moon is shining then you can see the orphan on it: in one hand there is a bucket and in the other a sauna whisk. Life is much better for the orphan on the moon than it ever was on the Earth, So the story ends. The picuters were drawn and the old-time story translated into the Võru-Seto language by Jüvä Sullov (Sulev Iva).

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