This story had a pretty bittersweet ending and reminded me of the phrase, "anything for love." The maiden could not bear to live without the star youth and decided to go to an old witch woman. All she wanted was to die in a way that she could join the youth in the star, but the witch woman could not do such a thing. Instead, the old witch woman had a way to allow the maiden to live in the desert under the smiles of the star youth. I was not surprised the maiden quickly agreed because she was willing to die so that she could be with her love. After agreeing, the maiden transformed into a shrub in the desert. Becoming a shrub would be a pretty terrible transformation, but at least she became a type of shrub that was never seen before. The star youth realized what had happened and broke through the edge of the star and fell down on the shrub in the form of starry bits of dust. This caused the shrub to blossom into the purple sage. The maiden and star youth were finally together, but now they were plants and could not move. I can't help but wonder why the star youth didn't try leaving his home before.
I enjoyed this story, but I think the punishment was unfair. Trying to gather all of the wisdom from an old medicine man, the Great Spirit sent down a messenger. You would think that the Great Spirit would send a messenger in the form of a person or at least something immortal, but no. The Great Spirit sends a messenger in the form of a snake, but fails to say who or what the messenger is. Two young boys were sent to meet the messenger in the forest because the medicine man was too weak. I believe that the boys assumed the messenger would be a person, so when they saw a large snake looking at them they became scared and killed it. Fearing the repercussions of killing the Great Spirit's messenger, the boys passed the snake throughout. The snake's mate was angry and laid eggs outside of each wigwam that had the dead snake. These eggs hatched different sicknesses, and that was how sickness entered the world. I can't blame the boys for killing the snake or the people from moving the snake once it was dead. I would be pretty terrified if I saw a giant snake looking at me too.
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