The Girl Who Climbed to the Sky

Then a hawk took his place.

And so Sapana zigzagged down to earth, from one bird of prey to another. Finally she alighted from the last hawk onto a treetop, where she stepped onto a firm thick branch. Dizzy from riding the backs of so many lurching, dipping birds, she petted the last of her fliers, then scampered down the tree back down to earth and her beloved home.

Her friends rushed up. "Sapana! We thought you were dead!" They embraced and Sapana rushed home to see her mother, who was overjoyed beyond words to see her lost daughter.

Sapana told the people of her village of her adventures. No longer did they think her strange to befriend the birds of prey. From then on, after a hunt they always left an extra buffalo on the field for the noble birds of the sky.