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In a bright and enchanted wood there once lived a young druid named Amergin.
He knew the language of the birds and how to listen to the trees -- and how to change shape like a flowing river.
One night as the new moon set, he saw a beautiful woman standing at the edge of the forest -- she was Luna, the daughter
of the Night Sky.
Her movement was like wind on water.
She had dark hair with strands of silver like starlight spun out into gossamer threads.
She had speckled eyes of golden brown that looked like the full moon reflected in a pool in autumn.
The looked deeply into each other's eyes and felt the forest around them disappear.
And then they smiled . . . and began to play a magical game.
He turned himself into the ocean and she became the moon, moving the tides within him.
She turned herself into an wild orchid and he became a hummingbird, drinking deep of her nectar.
Then, remembering the creature most sacred to her mother, Diana, she became a deer.
His heart pounding with the thrill of the chase, he turned himself into a wolf.
And she ran.
Taking back his human form, Amergin tried to follow her. He wandered for thirteen days and thirteen nights without stopping
for food, but found no trace of her trail.
At last, ravenous with hunger, he caught a rabbit and killed it and skinned it and carried it with him, hoping to cook
it over the night's fire.
But before he found his resting place, he came across a hunter's snare and a crow caught in it. She hadn't enough meat
on her bones to make a good meal, and so he took pity on her and freed her from the snare. He built a fire to warm her and
he fed her the meat. For three days he cared for the crow, never daring to leave her side for fear she might become easy
prey for a fox or a weasel.
By the end of the third day, she had regained her strength, and stood up and spread her wings. And when she did, she
took her orgiginal form -- a wizened crone with flowing white hair and a strange glow about her.
She said to Amergin, "My son you have shown great compassion, sharing your only food with me when you yourself were
hungry. I know a good heart when I see one -- and I know a sad heart when I see one too. Tell me of your sorrow."
And so he told the old woman the story of the Night Sky's daughter and how he had made her flee.
She listened intently and then said "Your sorrow is deep indeed, but it will not last forever. You will wander this
forest for a year and a day. On that last day, the thirteenth full moon will rise. And just before sunset, you will see
a crow. Follow that crow, and by the time the moon has reached its zenith, you will know peace."
So Amergin wandered the forest for a year and a day, singing to the trees, to the moon, to the wild creatures around him.
But though his songs were filled with joy, there was always a sadness in his heart, as he longed for his lost Luna.
On that last day, he watched the sky, and just as the old woman had promissed, he saw a crow at sunset, and he followed
her to a clearing at the top of a hill.
What he saw there broke his heart:
lying before him was the carcass of the doe he had seen dash into the woods that magical night.
He wept. But he never lost his trust in the old woman's words. He thought perhaps she knew that he needed to see this
in order to empty his heart of grief.
And so he closed his eyes and sang.
And just as the moon reached its zenith, he opened them, and found himself looking into the golden brown speckled eyes
of a jet black wolf whose fur also contained strands of silver.
He blinked, and found Luna standing before him.
Closing their eyes, they kissed.
And began again.
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