The tradition of sharing stories under the starlit skies continued Sunday, with the 5th annual “Storytelling Under the Stars” hosted by the UNC Morehead Planetarium and Science Center and featuring Story Squad.  The audience was treated to stories from all over the world, starting in Australia, when Aussie storyteller Mark Riddle shared an Aboriginal folktale of the origin of the Southern Cross.  First Man and First Woman were told by Baiame, the Sky God Creator, not to eat animals, but when the drought ruined all the vegetation, First Man speared a kangaroo, letting Death into the world.  We then moved to ancient Greece, for two stories, the first about Perseus killing Medusa and rescuing Andromeda from the dreaded monster Cetus; the second about how Zeus wooed Europa in the form of a bull, commemorated by the constellation Taurus and the naming of one of Jupiter’s moons, Europa.  We then traveled to Siberia for a story about the origin of the crescent moon (from the remains of a man torn in half in a tug-of-war between the Sun Maiden – who loved him – and Hosiadam, the evil sorceress, who wanted to eat him).  At the end of the night, we returned to North America for a Native American tale of how Coyote threw shining stones into the sky randomly, rather than creating his own star picture from them, and now he howls at the sky in sorrow.