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CHAPTER XII Tana The Moon-Goddess

Tana was a very beautiful girl, but extremely poor, and as modest and pure as she was beautiful and humble. She went from one contain to another, or from farm to farm to work, and thus led an honest life. There was a young boor, a very ugly, bestial, and brutish fellow, who was after his fashion raging with love for her, but she could not so much as bear to look at him, and repelled all his advances.

But late one night, when she was returning alone from the farmhouse where she had worked to her home, this man, who had hidden himself in a thicket, leaped out on her and cried, "Thou canst not flee; mine thou shalt be!" And seeing no help near, and only the full moon looking down on her from heaven, Tana in despair cast herself on her knees and cried to it:

I have no one on earth to defend me,
Thou alone dost see me in this strait,
Therefore I pray to thee, O Moon!
As thou art beautiful so thou art bright,
Flashing thy splendor over all mankind;
Even so I pray thee light up the mind
Of this poor ruffian, who would wrong me here,
Even to the worst. Cast light into his soul,
That he may let me be in peace, and then
Return in all thy light unto my home!"

When she had said this, there appeared before her a bright but shadowy form which said:

"Rise, and go to thy home!
Thou hast well deserved this grace;
No one shall trouble thee more,
Purest of all on earth!
thou shalt a goddess be,
The Goddess of the Moon,
Of all enchantment queen!"

Thus it came to pass that Tana became the dea or spirit of the Moon.