Long ago, the Sky was quite low. If you stood on a stool and stretched your hands up, you could touch it.
Far on the horizon, where the Sky was lowest, there was a village. In a little mud hut thatched with straw lived a bent Old Woman. She was the oldest in the village, perhaps the world, and lived alone with no one left. All day, she would potter around her hut, cleaning, dusting, scrubbing, and sweeping. She thought of nothing else.
One hot summer, the land was parched. Dust was everywhere—on trees, roofs, in throats and eyes, even in the air. People coughed and choked. The Sky, being so low, also suffered. The slightest wind made it cough from the dust rising from the dry earth.
The Old Woman's hut was covered in dust. She swept inside, outside, the front step, and the yard. But the more she swept, the more dust rose in great brown clouds.
The poor Sky began to choke on the dust she raised. It tickled its nose, making it sneeze—a great, thunderous sneeze that shook the world. People ran indoors in fright, but the Old Woman barely noticed and kept sweeping.
The Sky sneezed again; the dust was unbearable. It got into its eyes, making them water, so heavy drops of rain began to fall. The Old Woman barely noticed until a big, splodgy raindrop fell right on her freshly swept patch.
She glared at the Sky and scrubbed the raindrop away. But more fell, until her clean front step was blotchy with raindrops.
This was too much. She stood as straight as her bent back allowed, shook her fist at the Sky, and yelled for it to stop raining on her clean step. She cursed and threatened, but the Sky couldn't stop—its eyes were still full of dust from her sweeping.
Finally, enraged, the Old Woman picked up her broom and thwacked the Sky with it.
The Sky gave another great sneeze and jumped back. But she kept thwacking it, again and again.
At last, the Sky could take no more—the dust, the cursing, and the relentless thwacking of the broom. Sneezing, coughing, thundering, and raining, it flew up and away, out of reach of the broom, and swore never to come down again.
And that is why the Sky is so high. Even on the horizon, where it seems to touch the earth, it really doesn't anymore.