The Gift of Fire

Ugh ran into his cave, shaking water from his saber-toothed tiger skin cloak. “J’ugh, you’ll never believe what just happened! I was running through the forest to get home before the rain started when I looked up between the clouds, and there was the sun, shining down on the trees in front of me.  Then a crooked shaft of light came from the sun and hit that big pine tree next to the stream. A branch way up high caught the light in its branches, and the branch fell to the ground. Look! I brought it home. The sun is still on the branch. Just look at the light! It came into our cave with me.”

“Yes, Ugh, I see. Now wipe your feet on the mat, put down the branch and come, eat your food.”

Ugh put the branch on top of a pile of sticks his young twin sons, Lug and Tug, had gathered to use to play the you-can’t-hit-me game.

“Ugh! Your sunstick is spreading its light to the other sticks!”

Ugh carried the burning sticks to the back of the cave. “Look, J’ugh. The light came with me, all the way back here, and now there is no darkness inside our home. I think this could be good.”

“We don’t need light back there. All we do is sleep in that part of the cave. Now look, you’ve woken up the baby. Shhh, little Hug. Daddy’s going to get rid of the nasty sunstick. Go back to sleep.”

J’ugh glared at Ugh as he turned around and went back out into the rain. By the time he got to the stream, the light had gone from the sunstick. Thus the discovery of fire by early man was delayed another two hundred years.