The Legend of the Philippines

Photo Credit - manfredrichter@pixabay

Several million years ago, there was nothing but the enormous sea and the expansive sky. In the vast emptiness, a cunning bird came and saw the calmness of the sea and the beauty of the glorious sky. At first, the bird thought it was really pleasant, beautiful and extremely peaceful. The bird watched it every day, flying over the wave year in and year out. A few years passed and one day, the bird became restless because the scenery was the same all the time day in and day out and it started to get monotonous and boring. The bird thought what a waste it was. The bird also needed a place to land and rest its weary wings. The bird kept on thinking what it could do to make the place more interesting. For days, the bird could not think of anything else. It kept on thinking, thinking hard and thinking harder. The bird had to do something to break the monotony.

One day, a light flashed into its tiny head. “What a great idea,” the bird shouted aloud. “Maybe I can do something to create a confrontation between the quiet sea and the blue sky. I can make them quarrel with each other. I can drop a seed on the sea in the hope of opening up dry land. But where would I get the seed? There was nothing here. I could fly to some distant shore. That’s what I would do.” And so the bird did what he wanted to do.

The bird flew away to some faraway places looking for the right seed. It took the bird a long time but he found the precious seed at some distant shore. The bird returned and executed what it thought was a brilliant idea. The bird felt smugly at the prospect of what would happen next. Just as expected, the sea saw the seed begin to sprout and thought it was the sky that did it. The sea, angry at the sky spouted huge amount of foaming waves at the sky and the sky in turn grumbled and spat down tons and tons of rocks and dirt to stop the crashing waves of the sea. As the sky got wetter and wetter, the sky retaliated and sent violent thunder and blinding flash of lightning and more boulders and rocks at the sea. It went on for days.

Finally, bombarded by the sheer number and weight of the rocks and dirt, the sea gave up defeated and retreated. When things quieted down, the bird knew it achieved its goal and was ecstatic. The bird landed in the small island formed by the boulders and rocks and the Philippine archipelago was born.

Until next time. Stop and smell the roses.

Rosalinda Morgan