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How the thunder came to be
Once upon a time, when the Earth was still barely more than a cub, there were no bears. Forests were teeming with foxes and hares, the sky was filled with the cries of birds, the sea inhabited by countless fishes and seals.
But the barren ice of the North was devoid of all life, and the Aurora shone without witness.
There were no bears, I say, but I lie to you. No bears inhabited the Earth, true, but there were two in the stars: Mother Bear and her Cub. Together they walked the wide, black immensity of the night-sky, ever-watchful of the Earth, for it was the sight they most enjoyed to see. And yet, although they always admired the craftsmanship the Earth had proven in creating all the things, trees and animals that covered her, they mourned, sometimes: all the other stars, who were their dear brothers and sisters, saw their on image in an animal that dwelt on earth or sea or sky. Vixen and Serpent, Raven and Seal, all of them had children on Earth. All of them but the Bears.
Mother Bear was patient, but she grew tired of the chiding of her siblings.
- Earth doesn't like you! Vixen mocked, ever the first to amuse herself in others' dismay. Look, she made each of us into an animal on Earth, but it looks like she forgot you!
Mother Bear did not answer, but she listened carefully, remembering every word of scorn the fox threw at her.
- Haha! Isn't it hilarious, Vixen asked Raven, that she who claims to be one of the strongest and best hunter of us all should be the one who will never have her semblance on Earth?
- Perhaps Earth thinks her too proud, perhaps she thinks she would not bear to see her image imitated!
- She would not bear! Hahaha, Raven, you are the best!
And the two of them rolled on the black ground and laughed, and laughed, and laughed some more, until Mother Bear could not listen to them any more. From the depths of her throat a growl started to sound, and it seemed to shake the whole of the sky, and even the Earth herself.
But Vixen and Raven kept laughing, harder and harder, and Mother Bear decided that she had had enough. In one swift movement, she rushed at them both, and threw them from the sky, down, down, until they fell on Earth.
- If you are so happy with your kin, why do you not stay with them, then? she roared at the two.
And stay with them they did, but through no will of their own.
For days, they attempted to climb back up to the sky, but every time they tried, Mother Bear was there to stop them. She did not hurt them. The only thing she had to do was snarl. That was enough.
Every time you hear the sound of thunder, it is Mother Bear who growls at her siblings, forbidding them passage. The clouds that then cover the horizon are the ladders and rocks that Raven and Vixen attempt to climb upon to get back home.
How the bears came to Earth
But although she had driven away the source of her annoyance, Mother Bear was still unhappy that the world did not have any bears on its back.
'If Mother Earth will not create bears,' she thought to herself, 'then I will.'
But she did not know how to create earthly creatures; it was a secret known to Earth, and Earth only. She would not allow any other being, whoever they were, to obtain this hidden knowledge.
This she could not obtain by force, nor by ruse. She would not obtain such knowledge. It might be possible, of course, to finally guess or trick Earth into revealing her secret, but Mother Bear knew that the effort would be wasted.
- You would like to know, Serpent whispered at her ear, how to make Earth-bears.
- You do not have that knowledge, she replied indifferently. You will not tempt me with something you do not have.
- Oh, no, I do not have it. I do not want it. And you will never get it.
- And what do you propose, then, dear Brother?
- Why not go there yourselves, you and your Cub, and see? Perhaps you should be Earth-bears.
Mother Bear would never have admitted to it, but she was tempted by Serpent's words. But Earth had said that she had placed Mother Bear in the sky so that she would guard it - from whom or what, she did not know, but renouncing this mission would have been betrayal of herself.
She glanced to her left, and she saw her Cub, playing with a shooting star; and she reflected that he had never been entrusted with any such mission.
She thought through long nights of trekking in the sky. And finally, she said, as she and her Cub were watching the Earth:
- Do you think the ground still empty, without the presence of bears?
- Yes, I do. Oh, how I wish that Earth would make some in our image, and place them to live in the cold lands of the North...
- I was with Earth this day, she appeared in my dreams, Mother Bear lied.
- Really? Bear-cub asked, impatient to hear what would come next.
- Yes. And to me she revealed the great secret of life.
Mother Bear was not, contrary to some of her siblings, in the habit of lying. But the stake she was fighting for seemed too important for her to let go of such an opportunity. She did not want to admit that Serpent's words had touched and twisted her. But so they had, and she could not let go of this twisted idea now that it had been sown in her mind.
- But the price to pay for it is high, she continued. And I fear that I cannot pay it myself.
- What is it? Perhaps I can help.
- One of us needs only go down to Earth, and the birth of new animals will happen.
- Is that all? In that case, I will go there, without hesitation!
Of course, Mother Bear "forgot" to tell her child that he would not return from Earth, ever.
Bear-cub asked again to go down in his mother's stead, arguing that he had always been curious about what Earth looked like from up close. He was not aware that he was being deceived; though his uncles and aunts had done everything to teach him, he barely knew what deception was.
Mother Bear sighed heavily. She did not approve of her own actions, but she knew that such must be the price. She lifted her child by the skin of his neck, and swung him back, to then throw him out of the sky and onto the Earth.
But it seemed that he changed his mind at the last moment. He had a panicked scream, and clutched his mother's paw with all his strength at the last moment.
- I have changed my mind! he cried. I do not want to stay on Earth!
- Be brave, child, Mother Bear chided.
- No!
At that moment, he was ever more the terrified, newly born cub he had always been. So terrified was he that he climbed from his mother's front paw to her shoulder, tearing at everything that lay between him and his freedom. Unfortunately for her, he also clawed a deep wound in her throat. Oh, she would not die; it took more than a scratch like such to kill a star. But still it hurt, and she shook herself, growling with rage, and two drops of her blood fell to the Earth, melting some snow.
To her and her child's surprise, two bears, the very semblance of their mother, rose from the blood-molten snow. Without knowing it, they had found Earth's great secret.
Of course, Earth soon found out. She was not angry so much as surprised, and she did not chase Mother Bear and Bear-cub from the skies, but she still forbade that any other bear ever lived in the land of stars.
And indeed, it was centuries, perhaps more, before another bear went to the sky.
How armour-iron falls from the sky
You have probably heard of Otso Bjarnisson, the great hero of the panserbjørne. If you have not, all you need to know is that he was the first bear to forge himself an armour, and a soul.
Otso always claimed that he had been taught by a great star, but never would he reveal which it was that had given him such knowledge. There was no star that knew how to accomplish such a feat. Some say that he taught himself, through trial, through error, and that finally he found how to manipulate metal perfectly. Some say that men and women, who held the secret from one of their own, taught him what they knew. Some say it is a secret he holds from Earth herself.
How he taught himself is of no matter. Through this forging of an armour, he forged himself a soul, hard as sky-iron and dark as the night it had fallen from. And for this great achievement, he found himself hauled to the stars, to take care of the celestial forge.
Sometimes, when he works at his forge in the sky, he strikes the iron so hard and so thoroughly that sparks go up in the air, and fall down on Earth. Some of them, those we call "shooting stars", are swallowed by the darkness of the sky, and the dark beasts that dwell beyond the stars' realm. Some of them fall, diminished but still there. Sometimes they are buried in ice, sometimes they fall on the snow with great crashes, and a heat that would melt the heart of the Snow Queen. You would doubtless call these "relics" of Otso himself. We bears do not ask ourselves that question.
We merely tear the metal from them, and with it forge ourselves souls, from the soul of Otso, and from the knowledge he obtained.