It is the custom in our country for a mother, when she gives her daughter her shadow, to say, " If you lose your shadow, you will find it on the other side of the world." I thought you might be interested in hearing how this custom came about.
Once there was a girl who was born in the moonlight. As these things work out, she was fair - I don't mean in the sense of beautiful, though she was pretty enough, or just, though she never did anyone harm, especially not on purpose, but that her skin and hair and lips were silvery and pale. Like the other children in our country, she ran around without any shadow on, and was very happy.
One day her mother saw that she had become a woman, and brought down an old wooden chest from the attic. From it she took her daughter's shadow. She said, " I made this from the night on which you were born, and I made the buttons from the moonlight which was shining on us. There was a little left over, so I made you some earrings too." The young woman put on the shadow, which covered her from her neck to her ankles, and put on the earrings, which glowed gently and lit up her hair. She kissed her mother and went off into the world.
The young woman was quite pleased with her shadow - it was soft, warm, and fit her perfectly - but the buttons, which were large and round as full moons, bothered her. They looked old-fashioned, and she felt that there was a limit to the amount of symbolism any one person could carry around. She decided to cut them off, and got a little pair of silver scissors. They proved useless, of course, since the buttons were sewn on with shadow and nothing physical can cut a shadow. It soon occured to her to try her earrings, which were shaped like crescent moons and very sharp, and, most importantly, made of light. They cut through the threads easily, and the buttons fell off and rolled away. The young woman didn't notice where they were going, however, since she was too busy trying to hold onto her shadow, which had suddenly become loose and was slipping off. To her distress, she found that it is even harder to hold a shadow than to cut it, and soon it was all gone.
She was very unhappy. All she had left was her earrings. She sat on a rock and cried. Luckily, a blackbird, which is the wisest of all winged creatures and especially knowledgeable about shadows, flew by and noticed her. It was astonished to see a woman without a shadow, but it knew what she had to do. "Go look on the other side of the world", it said, "where everything is dark. Maybe you will find your shadow there." The young woman took heart, thanked the bird, and set off for the other side of the world.
As everyone knows, you can get there if you just walk straight ahead long enough - but the way is very hard, and few people ever try.
It was especially hard for the young woman, as she had to walk alone without any shadow, and the people looked at her strangely, and the women called her evil things, and strange men followed her. But she was brave and just walked straight ahead, never looking to the side.
After a very long time, she came to the end of the world. She crossed the narrow band of twilight separating the two sides and went into the darkness. At first she couldn't see a thing, but after a while she was able to distinguish the various shades of black, and her glowing earrings helped some. I can't tell you what she saw there, since she never told anyone - but I'm sure that it was all strange and wonderful and more than a little scary, since that land holds the shadows of everything that ever was and ever will be, and maybe even the shadows of things that only exist in people's imaginations. She walked and walked, and when she had gone as far in darkness as she had in light, she met her shadow, which said to her, "There you are, I've been looking all over for you", and they hugged each other. The shadow put on the young woman (which was only natural in that country) and walked back to the twilight, moving at the speed of shadows, faster even than light, which is the swiftest thing there is.
When they reached our side of the world, she put the shadow on, and tried to go back into the light, but whenever she did, the shadow began to melt away. She gave up and sat there in the twilight, wondering what to do.
Eventually a prince came by. Like all princes, it was his job to go around having adventures and helping people, especially pretty young women in distress. He asked her what he could do to help. She said, "Maybe you could find my buttons, which were large and looked like full moons. I lost them on the other side of the world, but I can't go looking for them without losing my shadow again." The prince agreed to search for the buttons, even though it was a bit out of his line since it didn't involve giants or fire-breathing dragons.
He looked and looked, and one day came to a beautiful city, where all the people were happy. In front of the biggest building he saw a sculptor making a statue of a woman, lying in snow, curled up so that you could only see the side of her face, which was clenched into a grimace by the cold. Her eye was round and glowed - it was a large button. The prince asked the sculptor if he could have the button back. The sculptor said, "In this city, everyone is happy, but once it was not so, and this statue is to remind the people. Please, can't I keep the button?"
The prince felt too awkward to take the button, and, thinking that maybe the woman could get by with two buttons, went on searching.
After a while he came upon a town which had been taken by the plague. He asked a man lying in the street if he had seen a large button roll by recently. The man said, "Yes, the doctor has it." "What does the doctor want with a button?" asked the prince. "She's using it to make a cure for this sickness," said the man. The prince, being virtuous and all that, didn't even ask where the doctor lived and went on, figuring that one button would be enough to keep the shadow from melting away, even if it did blow open in the breeze.
After searching through all the cities and towns and villages without success, he passed by a small hut in a forest. There was a silvery light coming from a crack in the door. He knocked, and went in. Inside, there was only an old woman lying on a small bed, and a little lamp with a glowing button in it. He asked the woman for the button, but she said, "Please, I have no money to buy candles with, and without this button I will have to lie here alone in darkness." The prince would have given her gold in exchange for the button, but being a prince he never carried money with him. So he had to give up.
He went the long weary way back to the other side of the world and told the young woman that he had failed. She laughed and told him that it didn't matter. "When you left, it occured to me that the shadows of my buttons are here, so I went and got them. They work just fine, and I think they look much more appropriate. I've just been waiting here for you - shall we go?" The prince was extremely embarrassed to have been shown up in this way, but he had to agree that the new buttons were very nice and the young woman was certainly, as I mentioned before, quite fair, so he hoped that she would marry him anyway.
Whether she did or not, I can't tell you, though I rather doubt it, since she never had any children. She did warn all her friends, however, to tell their daughters where to look if they ever lost their shadows; and women have been doing so to this day.