The Princess Who Became a Bird: The Legend of the Lark (Lullula)

Long, long ago, back when fleas wore iron horseshoes weighing ninety pounds and leapt all the way to the sky to fetch us stories, somewhere in a far corner of the world there lived a princess. Lia. And our girl was so proud and so lovely that word of her spread across the whole wide world, and suitors came in long lines from over mountains, hills and valleys to ask for her hand. But they left just as they had come, because Lia wanted none of them. Not that they weren’t fine young men, but because the girl’s heart longed for someone else.

Her nights were full of sighs and sorrow, poor Lia, whose heart only came alive at the first light of dawn, when she could gaze lovingly from her window at the proud Sun. Wild and blazing, in his chariot of fire, racing his steeds of glowing embers across the sky toward the West.

And so she sat at her window, day after day, month after month, from one saint’s day to the next, until, struck by a sudden thought, she gathered a few little things into a bundle, put on her iron shoes for the long road, and off she went. Oh, and it was no use searching the kingdom for her. No use combing through the forests, the waters, the fields and the skies. Our girl was nowhere to be found. She had gone to look for the Sun.

Over nine seas and nine lands, through deserts, oceans and strange worlds traveled lovely Lia, until, her iron shoes worn thin and more dead than alive, she reached the gates of the Sun’s kingdom. What happened there, we don’t quite know. But a little bee told us that the Sun fell head over heels for the girl.

Then darkness fell over the earth…

Not because he had any quarrel with the people and creatures down here. Caught up in Lia’s golden hair and big blue eyes, he forgot all about his chariot and his fiery horses, about sunrise and sunset, not caring that at his feet the whole world was withering away.

But not everyone up there in the Sun’s kingdom was so heartless about the fate of the people below, because the Sun’s mother grew very worried indeed. And, out of love for the world and for everyone in it, she took the girl by the hand and, speaking a curse, cast her down from the heights of heaven back to earth. Lia, however, did not die or turn to dust, as we might think, because the curse turned her into a bird.

And so, from that summer day that brought the Sun back to the sky and light back to the Earth, a tiny bird appeared in the meadows, forests and wheat fields. A lark. One that has never found peace since, and that year after year flies high into the sky toward the Sun, only to tumble from the clouds back down to earth.

…and this tiny bird in love with the sun was christened, in Latin, Lullula…