# Myths and Legends Beyond Our Borders/Yehl, the Light-Maker

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YEHL, THE LIGHT-MAKER
ATHLINKEET living in sight of the great Alaskan peaks had for a wife a woman so bright and fair that he was exceeding jealous, though it was all so dark on earth that he could barely see except by fire, or by the beauty of the woman herself, for the heavenly lights had not been set, and in the gray the few other beings groped sadly, trying to find sound earth to live on. This wife was so faithful that she could not so much as suppose a cause for jealousy, and she made the state of her husband worse by beaming pleasantly on all strangers and holding them in cheerful, innocent talk. He kept a flock of red birds hovering near his lodge, that they might report to him what she did and said and who conversed with her; and her willingness to be with others angered him so that he made a box, at last, and hid her in it. Because his sister's children had merely looked at her, while this rage was on him, he had slain them every one. The bereaved mother walking on the shore excited the compassion of the fish, who put their heads out of the water to ask what ailed her, and the whale, the counsellor of his tribe, bade her swallow a certain pebble on the beach and drink some sea-water, for she should then bear Yehl, a son nobler than those she had lost. She obeyed, and the prophecy came true. In a place removed from her wrathful brother she brought up ​her boy to differ as much from him as he could. He was to do good to men, and to relieve the cold and dark by setting fires in the sky. He grew up resolved in this course, and when he gained his age and strength he went to Baranoff Island, where the wicked man lived, and after biding his time until that ferocious relative was absent, he crept into his lodge, dragged out the box in which the beautiful woman was caged, and was about to open it, when the Thlinkeet returned, and, catching him at his merciful business, rushed at him with spear and club.
Yehl struck up the weapons, and after a struggle escaped, and some time went by ere he came out of his hiding in the shrubbery to attempt again the liberation of the fair victim. Possibly the Thlinkeet believed that his enemy had been mor-tally hurt in the fight, for he relaxed his guard, and Yehl surprised him in a deep sleep. First he opened the box that held the stars and moon, and they floated lightly up to their places in the sky. Then he opened the box that had been the living tomb of the innocent wife, and with a look of rapture she, too, sped into the skies. Amazement sat on every face, for she was light itself; and now, for the first time, the beauty of the world disclosed itself in her smile. Her husband, waking, saw the empty boxes, the shine in the sky, the triumphant Yehl beside him, and with a roar of anger he rushed away to the mountains. The ​people, who had been used to groping by the light of comets, were so terrified at the fire of the newly risen sun that they rushed into the sea,—some of them,—and in mercy Yehl changed them into fishes, that they need not drown; others, leaping into the air, out of their wits, he turned to brightly colored birds; while those that ran to hide in the woods became deer. The rest fell prostrate, hailing him as deliverer, light-creator, and while he stayed on earth they worshipped him.