There came a time when the moon was set in the sky and mankind lit fires in all their homes, so that when the lady Night spread her cloak across the land, it no longer banished the light entirely. A young lady named Rebecca lived in a small forest cove, keeping a campfire lit every night so the dark things would not approach. Outside the cove grew a field of flowers with long and slender stalks. At times, Rebecca would walk amongst these flowers and run her hand along their tiny blossoms. “What do you do with the light of the sun, little flowers?” she would ask. “Is there sunlight stored up inside your stalks, or is it in your pretty colors?”

Many times she asked them, and it seemed to her that in the rustling of the stalks they whispered an answer, “The sun is inside of us, the sun is a part of us.” The flowers waved and winked their petals at Rebecca, and told her how flowers eat the light of the sun, and how to skim the sunlight from their stalks. When she had well learned what she must do, she borrowed a sickle and sharpened it until it could split a hair. She cut down a portion of the field. She plucked and scattered the flowers to the earth, and took the stalks into her cove.

In amongst the trees she dug a shallow trench, and this trench she lined with broad green leaves. When this was done, she melted the sunlight from the plants into the trench. The pool of sunlight glowed, warm and yellow. It lit her cove long into the night, as she stripped the stalks into fine strings, and when morning came she began to dip each string into the pool of sunlight, one after the other. She spun them about as she dipped them, and in this way the very first candles were made.

Thus Rebecca no longer needed to build a fire each night. She would light a candle, and it would burn through the hours of darkness, its tiny flickering flame the same light as the sun, driving away the dark things which ventured near her forest cove. It did not take long for word of Rebecca’s candles to spread, and in no short order she was making candles for all the men and women who came to her. The tiny points of glittering sunlight came to spread throughout the land, and with every passing day the lady Night watched them grow in number.

At last, to satisfy her curiosity, she sent her handmaiden Shadow to speak with Rebecca. Shadow found the candle-maker sleeping peacefully in the warm, flickering glow, and thus woke her gently. Rebecca knew Shadow by the way she swayed in the candlelight, and greeted her with all deference due to the lady Night’s handmaiden. For her part, Shadow thanked Rebecca and said, “My Lady wishes to speak with you, for each night she sees tiny glitters of sunlight growing in number. It would please her if you come with me to her presence, and I believe it would please her still more if you bring this glimmer of sunlight with her to see for herself.”

Rebecca was all too happy to agree. She gathered several candles into a scarf and took Shadow’s hand. With a flickering and dancing step, Shadow carried Rebecca far from the forest cove, to the highest mountain in the world, where the lady Night watched the world with her eye the moon. When the handmaiden Shadow and Rebecca stood at the lady Night’s feet, Night looked down and in the instant of her gaze faced eye to eye with Rebecca. “Thank you, Shadow, and my thanks to you as well lady Rebecca for traveling to speak with me.”

“You are welcome, my Lady,” said Rebecca. “I have brought what you asked: my candles which are made from of sunlight. The plants eat the sun, and they have told me how to make the sun shine from them in turn.” So saying, Rebecca lit the candles, and the tiny warm fragments of sunlight gleamed in the lady Night’s eyes, and glowed against the moon. “They are lovely, Rebecca,” said Night, “and I thank you for showing them to me, yet I cannot touch the light of the sun. Is there no way I could have a candle of my own?”

Rebecca tilted her head first one way and then the next. “My Lady, if you cannot touch the sunlight, perhaps you can touch the light when it leaves the sun behind.” And, with these words, she caught the liquid which would run down the sides of the candles, pooling and hardening, on the tips of her fingers. She handed this tiny dab of pale white light to the lady Night, and the Night was very pleased.

“They are more lovely than your candles, good lady Rebecca. Please, if I may have more of these jewels I would be grateful.” Rebecca was tired, but the lady Night was polite, and she watched over all men at night with her eye the moon. Thus Rebecca collected drop after drop of pale, white, sunless light, handing each one in turn to the lady Night. Each droplet the lady Night took in her hands became a diamond, and each of these diamonds she sewed into her cloak. As dawn drew close, and the lady Night began to gather her cloak to her, so Rebecca’s candles had burnt all the way down, and been scattered in countless diamond drops throughout Night’s cloak.

The lady Night thanked Rebecca profusely, and the candle-maker was carried back to her cove by Shadow, where she slept for a day and a night through. Now, during the night, the mountains looked up and saw the diamonds glittering in Night’s cloak. They asked her where she had found them, for their own rocks were very plain, while her diamonds were beautiful. The lady Night told them of Rebecca’s candles, and the mountains sent their prince to her cove in the forest.

Rebecca was quite startled to see the mountain prince, but she treated him courteously as was his due. He told her how plain the rocks of the mountain were, praised the beauty of the diamonds in Night’s cloak, and begged her to make still more jewels for the mountains. Rebecca was moved by the pleas of the prince and she set about gathering many plants, from violets to roses to pine trees and daffodils. From each plant in turn she melted the sun, and for days and days she made candles. Some were red, and some were blue, while some were even green or yellow. For many days yet more she burned her candles, catching the droplets on her fingers and handing them to the mountain prince. Soon she had burned all her candles, and the mountain prince had as many jewels as he could carry in more colors than he could name.

He thanked her as profusely as the lady Night, and so the mountains were festooned with jewels. To this day, if you look carefully, you can still see the light of the sun in all the jewels of the world.