Maiden of the Mist Organic Loose-leaf Tea Blend Settle & Enliven Ingredients*: Rooibos, nettle, rosehip, ginger, jasmine green tea, puerh tea, fennel, mate green, cinnamon sticks, cacao nibs, pink pepper, strawberry, rose petals, cardamom. *all organic ingredients
Maiden of the Mist Story from Maori Mythology On some nights in the mountains the Maiden of the Mist, Hine-puukohu-rangi, and her younger sister, Maiden of the Light Rain, Hine-Wai, would descend from the sky down to the earth.
It happened that late one night a man by the name of Uenuku was walking through the forest when he came across a tiny lake and saw the young maidens bathing there. He watched them for a while, entranced, and eventually he emerged from the shadows and asked them who they were and where they were from. The maidens told Uenuku their names and said they were from Rangi-roa, the vast sky. Then they vanished just before the first light of day. For the whole of the day Uenuku could not stop thinking of the Maiden of the Mist, for she was the one who had captured his heart. Later that night at his home she appeared to him, for she had fallen in love with him too, and they spent the night together, but before the first light of morning she was gone. She visited him every night after that and just before dawn her sister called out a warning that it was time to leave and with that they departed back to the sky. She told Uenuku that he must not tell anyone about her until after their child is born, only then could he reveal their relationship.
But Uenuku was impatient and he could not help but mention to his friends the heavenly maiden with whom he spent each night. The gossip spread like wildfire around the village and people began to ridicule him for his fantasy. This irked Uenuku and he could not stand the teasing. So to prove them wrong he blocked up all the spaces and crevices in his walls so that no light would get in. When the Maiden of the Mist visited him that night he told her when she heard the cry of her sister that it was still the middle of the night and it wasn’t time to leave just yet, and she fell back to sleep. So her sister went back to the sky without her.
When the Maiden of the Mist finally woke up and opened the door the bright morning light came pouring through and she saw many of the people of the village standing outside and staring in wonder, with the realisation that the story Uenuku told was true. She was furious and ashamed, berating Uenuku for his betrayal. She rose up into the sky with her hair entwined around her and vanished. Uenuku never saw her again. Uenuku was heart-broken and spent the rest of his days wandering the earth searching for her until his death. But as he died the gods took pity on him and Rangi, the sky father, pulled him up and made him into a rainbow that stretched across the sky.
A version of this story can be found in the book Maori Myth and Legend, by A.W. Reed