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I cut off my own hands for the promise of a cherry tree. My father never taught us better, and my mother– she was so deep in worry, keeping the world turning like the stream under a great millstone...

Seven swans flew down from heaven each evening at sunset. They flew to the stubbled cornfield to eat, and each swan had a silver star on its forehead. One day, the youngest swan took off her star and hung it on a tall stalk of corn, or was it on the branch of a reaching oak tree?Anyway, she set it down… and when the time came to leave and fly back up into the sky with the others, she could not find it again.

He wasn’t afraid to go alone, because he wasn’t alone, not at first. His shadow stretched long in front of him and led the way. Any time the young horse doubted his path, he only had to look at Shadow leaning, leaping forward. Shadow rippled and skipped over the brush and bushes. Shadow flowed across the rocks and down into valleys, disappearing and merging with the soft, dim pocket of earth before hurdling up over the ridge on the other side...