The Archer and the Lady on the Moon & 'The Wind and the Sun
Super Great Kids' Stories
Celebrating its sixth anniversary, Super Great Kids' Stories presents two special tales to its listeners. The episode features a Chinese fol
Key takeaways
- The podcast is celebrating six years of broadcasting traditional tales to children.
- Bloomsbury Publishers has released a beautiful children's book featuring stories from the podcast.
Main topics
- Podcast 6th Anniversary
- Mid-Autumn Festival
Notable quotes
I prefer the moon because it's gentle and you can enjoy looking at it.
Conclusion
A heartwarming episode that uses folklore to teach cultural history an
Transcript preview
Speaker 3 (0:13) Hello and welcome to Super Great Kids Stories. Wise tales from storytellers around the world which will make you laugh and sometimes cry. Recommended from ages 5 to 105. I'm Kim and I love stories. Hello, super great kids. Guess what? It's our birthday. We are six podcast years old. And thanks to you and your love of stories, what started as a very small project has grown bigger and bigger and bigger. So now, thanks to everyone who subscribed and helped to keep us going, lots of children and families around the world listen regularly to traditional tales. Hurrah! And thanks to Bloomsbury Publishers, there is even a beautiful children's book of our stories, Yippity-doo-dah-day. So, to celebrate, we have two little stories as a birthday bonus for you. The one about the sun is a little fable from Greece, and the one about the moon is a story from ancient China. which explains why Chinese people have a festival on the night of the full harvest moon, which happens to be this weekend. So, under the same moon, the people in China will be celebrating and we will be having our birthday party, dancing in the moonlight. Hurrah! Just before we start the second of this week's stories, here's a little question for you. You'll have noticed that there are quite a few traditional tales about the moon and the sun. Last week we had the Tower to the Moon and there are lots of stories about the sun like how Maui slowed the sun and Grandma Spider brings the sun. So, while we have a quick word with the grown-ups. Can you have a think about which you prefer, the sun or the moon and why? Ready? Off you go. Hello, super great kids. I'm back. Well, what did you decide? Are you a sun person or a moon person? I think I prefer the moon because it's gentle and you can enjoy looking at it, which is not easy to do with the sun because it's too bright. I also think the moon is magical and mysterious. Speaker 3 (2:58) But let's get on with the storytelling. Here are two little stories. This first one comes from China. It's got the sun and the moon in it. It's told by Alton Takayama-chon. So, are you sitting comfortably? Am I sitting comfortably? Then let the story come shimmering out. Speaker 1 (3:19) Greetings, gang. My name is Alton Takeyama Chung, and I'm coming to you today from the Pacific Northwestern part of the United States. One of the big celebrations in China and in many other parts of Asia is the Mid-Autumn Festival. It celebrates the brightest, fullest moon of the year, the harvest moon. The story I have for you today is about the origin of this festival. Now, sit back and enjoy this Chinese folktale of Hou Yi, the great archer, and his wife, Chang'er. Long, long ago, Chang'er and her husband Hou Yi, the great archer, were immortals living in heaven. Now, Chang'er and Hou Yi were madly in love. One day, the ten sons of the Jade Emperor transformed themselves into ten sons, and the earth became very hot. The water in the lakes and the rice paddies dried up. The people and the animals were dying. The Jade Emperor ordered his sons to stop scorching the earth, but his sons