Artemesia Family/Zephyros

The Windcaller

There was once a bird who was born to prideful mother and father eagles who soared majestically through the sky. The bird was last of its family to leave the nest, its brothers and sisters had long since left to also rule the skies. But to its dismay, when it left its nest, it could not fly, and it fell, broken, upon the ground.

The earthbound creatures looked in surprise at the bird fallen upon the ground. "Surely," they said, "this cannot be the child of the great eagles?" Then they leaped about the bird's fallen body, laughing and jeering at its misfortune.

The bird tried to get up. It tried to flap its wings to take flight, but nothing it could do would lift it into the air to join its family. Saddened, the bird crawled away along the earth.

This was not unnoticed by the Keeper of Winds. Taking pity on the flightless bird, she left him soft messages in its dreams, guiding it to the tallest mountain, higher than any eagle had flown. At the base of the mountain, the flightless bird begged the Keeper of Winds to give it flight so that it could once more see its family and fly among its kind. The Keeper of Winds told the bird that she would teach it how to fly without wings, but that the bird would never again see its family or be welcome among its kind.

Horrified, the bird thought for three days at the base of the mountain, then once more sought out the Keeper of Winds. It agreed to choose flight, and in that instant the fleeting image of the wispy Keeper of Winds, as she enveloped the flightless bird within her being.

When the bird awoke it was at the peak of the mountain. In its mind it could hear the faraway voice of the Keeper of Winds, "Go," she said, "Fly forth on your wings of faith. The winds are at your call now."

Thus the flightless bird who could not use its wings to fly learned to call the winds to lift it into the sky.