CHAPTER II

ANIMALS IN PRIMITIVE MYTHS

The stories now to be told belong to that very early time in human life, when, as we learned in the last chapter, men regarded every thing in nature as if it were gifted with life like themselves. The strange ideas to which this belief gave rise are, of course, reflected in their myths. Many of the stories have in them animals and plants which talk, while the transformation of men into animals or animals into men or even gods into animals, when animals are not actually worshipped is frequent.

The most curious of all these beliefs is that mankind is descended from animals, all the more curious because some modern scientific men have, as every one knows, tried to prove very much the same thing. The modern scientist, however, does not have any especial reverence for the antediluvian ape from which he supposes he may have evolved, while the primitive savage regarded with awe and reverence the animals from which he thought himself descended. Groups of savages called clans—all tracing their descent from the same animal, considered that animal to be especially their friend. They would not kill it or eat it, except in a few instances when it was killed for the purposes of sacrifice. Many different animals were regarded as ancestral animals, and became the sign or totem, as it was called, of the tribe. Among totem animals may be mentioned the following in Australia: Opossum, Swan, Duck, Fish. Most of the Australian tribes declare that the family started by a transformation of these animals into mankind. The North American Indians have a great variety of totem animals: Wolf, Bear, Beaver, Turtle, Deer, Snipe, Heron, Hawk, Crane, Duck, Loon, Turkey, Muskrat, Pike, Catfish, Carp, and so on.

It was an easy step for the savage from the belief in his own descent from some animal to a belief in the sacredness and mystery of animals, naturally leading to the worship of them. The Indians of Peru, for example, regarded the dog as their most exalted deity. They set up the image of a dog in their temples. They were also in the habit of choosing a live dog as a representation of their deity. They worshipped this and offered sacrifices to it, and when it was well fattened up they ate it with solemn religious ceremonies. This is one of the cases where the sacred animal was eaten. Serpent worship is one of the most wide-spread forms of animal worship, an example of which is found among the Zulus to whom certain species are sacred because they are supposed to be the incarnations of ancestral spirits.

Another form which the sacred animal took was that of a supernatural being not only concerned in the origin of men but who had a part to play in the origin of the whole world.

In a large number of these myths, the water already existed and, also of course, the remarkable animal who brought to pass such wonders. The animal was sometimes very humble as in the story told by the Indians of British Columbia of the creation of the world.

HOW A MUSKRAT MADE THE WORLD

In the beginning nothing existed but water and a muskrat. As the little animal kept diving down to the bottom of the water in search of food, his mouth became frequently filled with mud. This he spat out and so gradually formed by alluvial deposit, an island, which grew and grew until it finally became large enough to be the earth.

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The natives of the Philippine Islands tell this story of the creation of the world.

HOW THE KITE HELPED TO MAKE THE WORLD

The world at first consisted only of sky and water and between these two there flew a kite. The kite became weary of flying about, and finding no place to rest; so he set the water at variance with the sky. Then, in order to keep the water within bounds and so that it should not get uppermost, the sky loaded the water with a number of islands in which the kite might settle and leave them at peace. Now, it happened that floating about in the water was a large cane with two joints which was at length thrown up by the waves at the feet of the kite as it stood on the shore of one of the islands. The kite split open the cane with its bill, and behold, a man came out of one joint and a woman out of the other. They were soon after married by the consent of their god, Bathala Meycapal, and from them are descended the different nations of the world.

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In some stories, a fish instead of a bird or an animal is the maker of the earth, while there is an interesting Polynesian myth in which the earth itself was a fish and was fished up out of the waters with a fish hook. The person who accomplished this remarkable feat was the youngest of the Maui brothers, and the flower of the family, by all accounts. We shall hear of him again in the chapter on child myths.

HOW MAUI FISHED UP THE EARTH

The youngest Maui was always very badly treated by his elder brothers. They were in the habit of going off and leaving him alone at home with nothing to do and nobody to play with. Their treatment of him at meals was even more shocking. They would devour the best of every thing themselves, and toss him a bone or offal to eat.

Finally, little Maui plucks up courage to assert himself, and the next time his brothers go a-fishing, he takes his place in the boat and insists on going, too. “Where is your hook,” ask the two brothers. “Oh this will do,” says little Maui, taking out his ancestor’s jawbone. This he throws overboard for his fish-hook, but on trying to pull it in again he finds it very heavy. By hauling away at it, however, he at last lifts it, and finds it has brought up the land from the bottom of the deep. This land proved to be an extraordinary combination of an enormous fish and an island with houses and men and animals on it.

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The world supporting tortoise is a familiar mythological friend, believed in by Asia, and holding an important place in the mythology of the North American Indian, where a turtle, the lonely inhabitant of the waste of waters, dived to the depths for the earth.

Even so humble an insect as the grasshopper figures in the Bushman’s story of the creation of the world. Insignificant as the grasshopper appears to us, to the Bushman he appeared a great creature, called Cagn, with truly omnipotent powers, for he undertook the work of creation without even the usual raw material of water. He simply gave orders and caused all things to appear and to be made,—sun, moon, stars, wind, mountains, animals.

In many of the primitive stories, magic is the means by which the most wonderful effects are produced. It was believed that a magician could bring about any effect he desired by the mere use of his will, and often without any visible symbol of magic power. Sometimes, however, magic wands were used, and sometimes ceremonies were performed for the purpose of producing magical results. On the other hand magical prodigies such as the changing of shape from man to animal often occur without the intervention of any magician.

Whatever may have been the origin of this belief, it is certain that it was just as sincerely believed in as a theory of the universe by early mankind as the doctrine of an endless, persistent energy, always working from cause to effect has been believed in by the nineteenth century scientist.

Very fanciful stories have clustered about the idea that the spirit might be detached from the body, and placed somewhere far away, as you will see when you read the story of “Punchkin.”

So firmly was this idea fixed in the savage mind that, it seems probable, his worship of animals, even in the earliest stages of life was really a worship of the spirit within the animal, rather than of the animal itself, and from this phase he passed on to the worship of a great spirit that might manifest itself in many forms. This was the belief of many of the North American Indian tribes. The Great Spirit, above all the lesser gods, is frequently referred to in their stories.

Of the following stories the first three, are examples of a very large class of early myths, which attempt to account for the origin or peculiarities of animals. Curiosity having been awakened, the savage tries to explain what he sees and often invents pretty and even elaborate myths in his effort to find a truth beyond his knowledge.

In the “Origin of the Robin,” a custom observed among Indians is referred to in the young man’s fast. Instead of college commencements, with Baccalaureate sermons, and valedictories, the young Indian boy or maiden was made to observe a solitary fast afar from the parental wigwam, and while suffering the pangs of hunger and loneliness, it was believed that the Great Spirit or a guardian spirit would reveal to him his future.

THE ORIGIN OF THE ROBIN

(_From the Odjibwa_)

An old man had an only son, named Opeechee, who had come to that age which is thought to be most proper to make the long and final fast which is to secure through life a guardian genius or spirit. The father was ambitious that his son should surpass all others in whatever was deemed wisest and greatest among his people. To accomplish his wish, he thought it necessary that the young Opeechee should fast a much longer time than any of those renowned for their power of wisdom, whose fame he coveted.

He therefore directed his son to prepare with great ceremony for the event. After Opeechee had been several times in the sweating-lodge and bath, which were to prepare and purify him for communion with his good spirit, his father ordered him to lie down upon a clean mat in a little lodge expressly provided for him. He enjoined upon him at the same time to endure his fast like a man, and promised that at the expiration of twelve days he should receive food and the blessing of his father.

The lad carefully observed the command, and lay with his face covered, calmly awaiting the approach of the spirit which was to decide his good or evil fortune for all the days of his life.

Every morning his father came to the door of the little lodge and encouraged him to persevere, dwelling at length on the vast honor and renown that must ever attend him, should he accomplish the full term of trial allotted to him.

To these glowing words of promise and glory the boy never replied, but he lay without the least sign of discontent or murmuring until the ninth day, when he addressed his father as follows:

“My father, my dreams forebode evil. May I break my fast now, and at a more favorable time make a new fast?”

The father answered:

“My son, you know not what you ask. If you get up now all your glory will depart. Wait patiently a little longer. You have but three days more, and your term will be completed. You know it is for your own good, and I encourage you to persevere. Shall not your aged father live to see you a star among the chieftains and the beloved of battle?”

The son assented; and covering himself more closely, that he might shut out the light which prompted him to complain, he lay till the eleventh day, when he repeated his request.

The father addressed Opeechee as he had the other day, and promised that he would himself prepare his first meal, and bring it to him by the dawn of the morning.

The son moaned, and the father added:

“Will you bring shame upon your father when his sun is falling in the West?”

“I will not shame you, my father,” replied Opeechee; and he lay so still and motionless that you could only know that he was living by the gentle heaving of his breast.

At the spring of the day, the next morning, the father, delighted at having gained his end, prepared a repast for his son, and hastened to set it before him. On coming to the door of the little lodge, he was surprised to hear his son talking to himself.

He held his ear down to listen, and, looking through a small opening, he was yet more astonished when he beheld his son painted with vermilion over all his breast, and in the act of finishing his work by laying on the paint as far back on his shoulders as he could reach with his hands, saying at the same time, to himself: “My father has destroyed my fortune as a man. He would not listen to my requests. He has urged me beyond my tender strength. He will be the loser. I shall be forever happy in my new state, for I have been obedient to my parent. He alone will be the sufferer, for my guardian spirit is a just one. Though not propitious to me in the manner I desired, he has shown me pity in another way—he has given me another shape; and now I must go.”

At this moment the old man broke in exclaiming:

“My son! I pray you leave me not!”

But the young man with the quickness of a bird flew to the top of the lodge and perched himself on the highest pole, having been changed into a beautiful robin red-breast. He looked down upon his father with pity, and addressed him as follows:

“Regret not, my father, the change you behold. I shall be happier in my present state than I could have been as a man. I shall always be the friend of men, and keep near their dwellings. I shall ever be contented; and although I could not gratify your wishes as a warrior, it will be my daily aim to make you amends for it as a harbinger of peace and joy. I shall cheer you by my songs, and strive to inspire in others the joy and lightsomeness of heart I feel in my present state. This will be some compensation to you for the loss of glory you expected. I am now free from the cares and pains of human life. My food is furnished by the mountains and fields, and my pathway of life is in the bright air.”

Then, stretching himself on his toes, as if delighted with the gift of wings, Opeechee caroled one of his sweetest songs, and flew away into a neighboring wood.

THE ORIGIN OF THE HARE

(_From the Aino_)

Suddenly, there was a large house on the top of a mountain, wherein were six people beautifully arrayed, but constantly quarreling. Whence they came was unknown. Thereupon Okikurumi came and said: “Oh! you bad hares! you wicked hares! Who does not know your origin? The children in the sky were pelting each other with snow balls, and the snow balls fell into the world of men. As it would be a pity to waste anything that falls from the sky, the snow balls were turned into hares, and those hares are you. You who dwell in this world which belongs to me, should not quarrel. What is that you are making such a noise about?”

With these words, Okikurumi seized a fire-brand, and beat each of the six with it in turn. Thereupon all the hares ran away. This is the origin of the hare and for this reason the body of the hare is white because made of snow, while its ears, which are the place where it was charred by the fire-brand,—are black.

HOW THE MOLE BECAME BLIND

(_North American Indian_)

Once a squirrel was being chased by an Indian, and in order to escape, the squirrel ran all the way up a tree into the sky. The Indian set a snare for the squirrel at the top of the tree and then came down, but he found the next day that the sun was caught in the snare, and this brought on night. He saw at once how much harm he had caused, and being an Indian of very good intentions he was anxious to do what he could to remedy the mischief. So he sent up great numbers of animals in the hope that they might cut the noose and release the sun, but the intense heat burned them all to ashes. At length the slow mole succeeded; he burrowed under the road in the sky till he reached the place of the sun, gnawed in twain the cords, and released the captive. But the sun’s flash put his eyes out and this is the reason why the mole is blind. The effect of the burning is still to be seen on the nose and the teeth of the mole, for they are brown as if burnt. From that time on, however, the gait of the sun has been more deliberate and slow.

THE BOY AND THE WOLVES; OR, THE BROKEN PROMISE

(_North American Indian_)

In the depths of a solitary forest a hunter had built his lodge, for he was weary of the companionship of the people of his tribe; their habits of deceit and cruelty had turned his heart from them. With his family, his wife and three children, he had selected a home in the solitude of the forest. Years passed by while he peacefully enjoyed the quiet of his home, or the more attractive pleasures of the chase, in which he was joined by his eldest son. At length his peaceful enjoyments were interrupted: sickness entered the solitary lodge, and the hunter was prostrated upon his couch never more to rise.

As death drew near, he addressed his family in these words: “You,” said he turning to his wife, “you, who have been the companion of my life, shall join me in the Isle of the Blessed. You have not long to suffer. But oh, my children!” and he turned his eyes affectionately upon them, “you have just commenced life; and, mark me, unkindness, ingratitude, and every wickedness is before you. I left my tribe and kindred to come to this unfrequented place, because of the evils of which I have just warned you. I have contented myself with the company of your mother and yourselves, for I was solicitous that you might be kept from bad example; and I shall die contented if you, my children, promise to cherish each other, and not to forsake your youngest brother.”

Exhausted with speaking, the dying hunter closed his eyes for a few moments, and then, rousing himself with great effort, he took the hand of his two eldest children and said: “My daughter, never forsake your youngest brother. My son, never forsake your youngest brother.”

“Never! never!” responded both; and the hunter sank back upon his pallet and soon expired.

His wife, according to his predictions, followed him after the brief expiration of eight months; but in her last moments she reminded the two children of the promise made their father. During the winter following their mother’s death, the two elder children were exceedingly thoughtful in regard to their brother, who was a mere child and very delicate and sickly; but when the winter had passed away, the young man became restless, and at length determined to break his promise to his father, and seek the village of his father’s tribe.

He communicated this determination to his sister, who replied: “My brother, I cannot wonder at your desire, as we are not prohibited the society of our fellow-men; but we were told to cherish each other, and protect our little brother. If we follow our own inclinations, we may forget him.”

To this the young man made no reply, but, taking his bow and arrows, left the lodge and never returned. Several moons passed after his departure, during which the girl tenderly watched over her little brother; but at length the solitude of her life became unendurable, and she began to meditate escaping from the care of her brother, and leaving him alone in his helplessness. She gathered into the lodge a large amount of food, and then said to her brother, “My brother, do not leave the lodge; I go to seek our brother, and shall soon return.”

Then she went in search of the village of her tribe, where she hoped to find her elder brother. When she reached the village, she was so delighted with the novelty of society and the pleasure of seeing others of her own age that she entirely forgot her little brother. She found her elder brother nicely settled in life, he having married very happily; and, on receiving a proposal of marriage herself, abandoned all thought of returning to the solitary lodge in the forest, accepting a home in the village with the young man who became her husband.

As soon as the little brother had eaten all the food collected by his sister, he went into the woods and picked berries and dug up roots. That satisfied his hunger as long as the weather was mild; but, when the winter drew on, he was obliged to wander about in very great distress for want of food. He often passed his nights in the clefts and hollows of old trees, and was glad to eat the refuse-meat left by the wolves; and he became so fearless of those animals that he would sit by them while they devoured their prey, and the animals themselves were so accustomed to him that they seemed pleased with his presence, and always left some of their food for him. Thus the little boy lived on through the winter, succored from hunger by the wild beasts of the woods.

When the winter had passed away and the ice had melted from the Great Lake, he followed the wolves to its open shore. It happened one day that his elder brother was fishing in his canoe on the lake, and, hearing the cry of a child, hastened to the shore, where at a short distance from him he discovered his little brother, who was singing plaintively these lines:

Nesia, Nesia, shug wuh, gushuh! Ne mien gun-iew! Ne mien gun-iew!

My brother, my brother! I am turning into a wolf! I am turning into a wolf!

At the termination of his song, he howled like a wolf; and the elder, approaching him, was startled at seeing that the little fellow had indeed half turned into a wolf, when, running hastily forward, he shouted, “My brother, my little brother, come to me!” But the boy fled from him, while he continued to sing: “I am turning into a wolf!—Ne mien gun-iew! Ne mien gun-iew!” Filled with anguish and remorse, the elder brother continued to cry, “My brother, my little brother, come to me!” But the more eagerly he called, the more rapidly his brother fled from him, while he became more and more like a wolf, until, with a prolonged howl, his whole body was transformed, when he bounded swiftly away into the depths of the forest.

The elder brother, in the deepest sorrow, now returned to his village, where with his sister he lamented the dreadful fate of his brother until the end of his life.

HOW WASBASHAS, THE SNAIL, BECAME A MAN

(_North American Indian_)

Upon the banks of the Missouri River there once lived a snail, in great enjoyment; for he found plenty of food, and was never in want of anything that a snail could desire. At length, however, disaster reached him. The waters of the river overflowed its banks; and, although the little creature clung to a log with all his strength,—hoping thereby to remain safe upon the shore,—the rising flood carried both him and the log away, and they floated helplessly many days, until the waters subsided, when the poor snail was left upon a strange shore that was covered with the river’s slime, where, as the sun arose, the heat was so intense that he was irrecoverably fixed in the mud. Oppressed with the heat and drought, and famishing for want of nourishment, in despair he resigned himself to his fate and prepared to die. But suddenly new feelings arose, and a renewed vigor entered his frame. His shell burst open; his head gradually arose above the ground; his lower extremities assumed the character of feet and legs; arms extended from his sides, and their extremities divided into fingers; and, thus beneath the influence of the shining sun, he became a tall and noble-looking man. For a while he was stupefied with the change; he had no energy, no distinct thoughts; but by degrees his brain assumed its activity, and returning recollection induced him to travel back to his native shore. Naked and ignorant, and almost perishing with hunger, he walked along. He saw beasts and birds enticing to the appetite; but, not knowing how to kill them, his hunger was left unappeased.

At last he became so weak that he laid himself down upon the ground in despair, thinking that he must die. He had not been lying thus very long, when he heard a voice calling him by name, “Wasbashas, Wasbashas!” He looked up, and before him beheld the Great Spirit sitting upon a white animal. And the eyes of the Spirit were like stars; the hair of his head shone like the sun. Trembling from head to foot, Wasbashas bowed his head. He could not look upon him. Again the voice spoke, in a mild tone, “Wasbashas, why art thou terrified?” “I tremble,” replied Wasbashas, “because I stand before him who raised me from the ground. I am faint; I have eaten nothing since I was left a little shell upon the shore.” The Great Spirit then lifted up his hands, displaying in them a bow and arrows; and telling Wasbashas to look at him, he put an arrow to the string of the bow, and sent it into the air, striking a beautiful bird, that dropped dead upon the ground. A deer then coming in sight, he placed another arrow to the string, and pierced it through and through. “There,” said the Great Spirit, “is your food, and these are your arms,”—handing him the bow and arrows. The beneficent Being then instructed him how to remove the skin of the deer, and prepare it for a garment. “You are naked,” said he, “and must be clothed; for although it is now warm, the skies will change, and bring rains and snow and cold winds.” Having said this, he also imparted the gift of fire, and instructed him how to roast the flesh of the deer and bird. He then placed a collar of wampum around his neck. “This,” said he, “is your title of authority over all the beasts.” Having done this, the Great Spirit arose in the air and vanished from sight. Wasbashas refreshed himself with the food, and afterward pursued his way to his native land. Having walked a long distance, he seated himself on the banks of a river, and meditated on what had transpired, when a large beaver arose up from the channel and addressed him. “Who art thou?” said the beaver, “that comest here to disturb my ancient reign?”

“I am a man,” he replied. “I was once a creeping shell; but who art thou?” “I am king of the nation of beavers,” was answered; “I lead my people up and down this stream. We are a busy people, and the river is my dominion.”

“I must divide it with you,” said Wasbashas; “the Great Spirit has placed me at the head of beasts and birds, fishes and fowls, and has provided me with the power of maintaining my rights;” and then he exhibited the gifts of the Great Spirit, the bow and arrows and the wampum.

“Come, come,” said the beaver in a modified tone, “I perceive we are brothers; walk with me to my lodge, and refresh yourself after your journey.” So saying he conducted Wasbashas, who had accepted the invitation with great alacrity, to a beautiful large village, where he was entertained in the chief’s lodge, which was built in a cone shape; and, as the floor was covered with pine mats, it had a very delightful appearance to the eyes of Wasbashas.

After they had seated themselves, the chief bade his wife and daughter prepare for them the choicest food in their possession. Meanwhile he entertained his guest by informing him how they constructed their lodges, and described their manner of cutting down trees with their teeth, and felling them across streams so as to dam up the water; and also instructed him in the method of finishing the dams with leaves and clay. With this wise conversation the chief beguiled the time, and also gained the respect of Wasbashas. His wife and daughter now entered, bringing in fresh peeled poplar and willow and sassafras and elder-bark, which was the most choice food known to them. Of this Wasbashas made a semblance of tasting, while his entertainer devoured a large amount with great enjoyment. The daughter of the chief now attracted the eyes of Wasbashas. Her modest deportment and cleanly attire, her assiduous attention to the commands of her father, heightened very much her charms, which in the estimation of the guest were very great; and the longer Wasbashas gazed upon the maiden, the more deeply he was enamoured, until at length he formed the resolution to seek her in marriage; upon which, with persuasive words, he spoke to the chief, begging him to allow his suit. The chief gladly assented; and as the daughter had formed a favourable opinion of the suitor, a marriage was consummated—but not without a feast to which beavers and friendly animals were invited. From this union of the snail and beaver the Osage tribe has its origin.

THE AMAZING ADVENTURES OF MASTER RABBIT WITH THE OTTER AND THE WOODPECKER GIRLS

ALSO A FULL ACCOUNT OF THE FAMOUS CHASE, IN WHICH HE FOOLED LUSIFEE, THE WILD CAT

(_Algonquin_)

I. HOW MASTER RABBIT SOUGHT TO RIVAL KEEOONY, THE OTTER

Of old times, _Mahtigwess_, the Rabbit, who is called in the Micmac tongue _Ableegumooch_, lived with his grandmother, waiting for better times; and truly he found it a hard matter in midwinter, when ice was on the river and snow was on the plain, to provide even for his small household. And running through the forest one day he found a lonely wigwam, and he that dwelt therein was _Keeoony_, the Otter. The lodge was on the bank of a river, and a smooth road of ice slanted from the door down to the water. And the Otter made him welcome, and directed his housekeeper to get ready to cook; saying which, he took the hooks on which he was wont to string fish when he had them, and went to fetch a mess for dinner. Placing himself on the top of the slide, he coasted in and under the water, and then came out with a great bunch of eels, which were soon cooked, and on which they dined.

“By my life,” thought Master Rabbit, “but that is an easy way of getting a living! Truly these fishing-folk have fine fare, and cheap! Cannot I, who am so clever, do as well as this mere Otter? Of course I can. Why not?” Thereupon he grew so confident of himself as to invite the Otter to dine with him—_adamadusk ketkewop_—on the third day after that, and so went home.

“Come on!” he said to his grandmother the next morning; “let us remove our wigwam down to the lake.” So they removed; and he selected a site such as the Otter had chosen for his home, and the weather being cold he made a road of ice, of a coast, down from his door to the water, and all was well. Then the guest came at the time set, and Rabbit, calling his grandmother, bade her get ready to cook a dinner. “But what am I to cook, grandson?” inquired the old dame.

“Truly I will see to that,” said he, and made him a _nabogun_, or stick to string eels. Then going to the ice path, he tried to slide like one skilled in the art, but indeed with little luck, for he went first to the right side, then to the left, and so hitched and jumped till he came to the water, where he went in with a bob backwards. And this bad beginning had no better ending, since of all swimmers and divers the Rabbit is the very worst, and this one was no better than his brothers. The water was cold, he lost his breath, he struggled, and was well-nigh drowned.

“But what on earth ails the fellow?” said the Otter to the grandmother, who was looking on in amazement.

“Well, he has seen somebody do something, and is trying to do likewise,” replied the old lady.

“Ho! come out of that now,” cried the Otter, “and hand me your _nabogun_!” And the poor Rabbit, shivering with cold, and almost frozen, came from the water and limped into the lodge. And there he required much nursing from his grandmother, while the Otter, plunging into the stream, soon returned with a load of fish. But, disgusted at the Rabbit for attempting what he could not perform, he threw them down as a gift, and went home without tasting the meal.

II. HOW MAHTIGWESS, THE RABBIT, DINED WITH THE WOODPECKER GIRLS, AND WAS AGAIN HUMBLED BY TRYING TO RIVAL THEM.

Now Master Rabbit, though disappointed, was not discouraged, for this one virtue he had, that he never gave up. And wandering one day in the wilderness, he found a wigwam well filled with young women, all wearing red head-dresses; and no wonder, for they were Woodpeckers. Now, Master Rabbit was a well-bred Indian, who made himself as a melody to all voices, and so he was cheerfully bidden to bide to dinner, which he did. Then one of the red-polled pretty girls, taking a _woltes_, or wooden dish, lightly climbed a tree, so that she seemed to run; and while ascending, stopping here and there and tapping now and then, took from this place and that many of those insects called by the Indians _apchel-moal-timpkawal_, or rice, because they so much resemble it. And note that this rice is a dainty dish for those who like it. And when it was boiled, and they had dined, Master Rabbit again reflected, “La! how easily some folks live! What is to hinder me from doing the same? Ho, you girls! come over and dine with me the day after to-morrow!”

And having accepted this invitation, all the guests came on the day set, when Master Rabbit undertook to play woodpecker. So having taken the head of an eel-spear and fastened it to his nose to make a bill, he climbed as well as he could—and bad was the best—up a tree, and tried to get his harvest of rice. Truly he got none; only in this did he succeed in resembling a Woodpecker, that he had a red poll; for his pate was all torn and bleeding, bruised by the fishing-point. And the pretty birds all looked and laughed, and wondered what the Rabbit was about.

“Ah!” said his grandmother, “I suppose he is trying again to do something which he has seen some one do. ’Tis just like him.”

“Oh, come down there!” cried Miss Woodpecker, as well as she could for laughing. “Give me your dish!” And having got it she scampered up the trunk, and soon brought down a dinner. But it was long ere Master Rabbit heard the last of it from these gay tree-tappers.

III. RELATING HOW THE RABBIT BECAME WISE BY BEING ORIGINAL, AND OF THE TERRIBLE TRICKS WHICH HE BY MAGIC PLAYED LOUP-CERVIER.

There are men who are bad at copying, yet are good originals, and of this kind was Master Rabbit, who, when he gave up trying to do as others did, succeeded very well. And, having found out his foible, he applied himself to become able in good earnest, and studied _m’téoulin_, or magic, so severely that in time he grew to be an awful conjurer, so that he could raise ghosts, crops, storms, or devils whenever he wanted them. For he had perseverance, and out of this may come anything, if it be only brought into the right road.

Now it came to pass that Master Rabbit got into great trouble. The records of the Micmacs say that it was from his stealing a string of fish from the Otter, who pursued him; but the Passamaquoddies declare that he was innocent of this evil deed, probably because they make great account of him as their ancestor and as the father of the Wabanaki. Howbeit, this is the way in which they tell the tale.

Now the Rabbit is the natural prey of the Loup-Cervier, or Lusifee, who is a kind of wild-cat, none being more obstinate. And this Wild-Cat once went hunting with a gang of wolves, and they got nothing. Then Wild-Cat, who had made them great promises and acted as chief, became angry, and, thinking of the Rabbit, promised them that this time they should indeed get their dinner. So he took them to Rabbit’s wigwam; but he was out, and the Wolves, being vexed and starved, reviled Wild-Cat, and then rushed off howling through the woods.

Now I think that the Rabbit is _m’téoulin_. Yes, he must be, for when Wild-Cat started to hunt him alone, he determined with all his soul not to be caught, and made himself as magical as he could. So he picked up a handful of chips, and threw one as far as possible, then jumped to it—for he had a charm for a long jump; and then threw another, and so on, for a great distance. This was to make no tracks, and when he thought he had got out of scent and sight and sound he scampered away like the wind.

Now, as I said, when the wolves got to Master Rabbit’s house and found nothing, they smelt about and left Wild-Cat, who swore by his tail that he would catch Rabbit, if he had to hunt forever and run himself to death. So, taking the house for a center, he kept going round and round it, all the time a little further, and so more around and still further. Then at last having found the track, he went in hot haste after Mr. Rabbit. And both ran hard, till, night coming on, Rabbit, to protect himself, had only just time _to trample down the snow a little, and stick up a spruce twig on end and sit on it_. But when Wild-Cat came up he found there a fine wigwam, and put his head in. All that he saw was an old man of very grave and dignified appearance, whose hair was gray, and whose majestic (_sogmoye_) appearance was heightened by a pair of long and venerable ears. And of him Wild-Cat asked in a gasping hurry if he had seen a Rabbit running that way.

“Rabbits!” replied the old man. “Why, of course, I have seen many. They abound in the woods about here. I see dozens of them every day.” With this he said kindly to Wild-Cat that he had better tarry with him for a time. “I am an old man,” he remarked with solemnity—“an old man, living alone, and a respectable guest, like you, sir, comes to me like a blessing.” And the Cat, greatly impressed, remained. After a good supper he lay down by the fire, and, having run all day, was at once asleep, and made but one nap of it till morning. But how astonished, and oh, how miserable he was, when he awoke, to find himself on the open heath in the snow and almost starved! The wind blew as if it had a keen will to kill him; it seemed to go all through his body. Then he saw that he had been a fool and cheated by magic, and in a rage swore again by his teeth, as well as his tail, that the Rabbit should die. There was no hut now, only the trampled snow and a spruce twig, and yet out of this little, Rabbit had conjured up so great a delusion.

Then he ran again all day. And when night came, Master Rabbit, having a little more time than before, again trampled down the snow, but for a greater space, and strewed many branches all about, for now a huge effort was to be made. And when Wild-Cat got there he found a great Indian village, with crowds of people going to and fro. The first building he saw was a church, in which service was being held. And he, entering, said hastily to the first person he saw, “Ha! ho! have you seen a Rabbit running by here?”

“Hush—sh, sh!” replied the man. “You must wait till meeting is over before asking such questions.” Then a young man beckoned to him to come in, and he listened till the end to a long sermon on the wickedness of being vindictive and rapacious; and the preacher was a gray ancient, and his ears stood up over his little cap like the two handles of a pitcher, yet for all that the Wild-Cat’s heart was not moved one whit. And when it was all at an end he said to the obliging young man, “But _have_ you seen a Rabbit running by?”

“Rabbits! Rab-bits!” replied the young man. “Why, there are hundreds racing about in the cedar swamps near this place, and you can have as many as you want.” “Ah!” replied Wild-Cat, “but they are not what I seek. Mine is an entirely different kind.” The other said that he knew of no sort save the wild wood-rabbits, but that perhaps their Governor, or Chief, who was very wise, could tell him all about them. Then the Governor, or Sagamore, came up. Like the preacher, he was very remarkable and gray, with the long locks standing up one on either side of his head. And he invited the stranger to his house, where his two very beautiful daughters cooked him a fine supper. And when he wished to retire they brought out blankets and a beautiful _white bear’s skin_, and made up a bed for him by the fire. Truly, his eyes were closed as soon as he lay down, but when he awoke there had been a great change. For now he was in a wet cedar swamp, the wind blowing ten times worse than ever, and his supper and sleep had done him little good, for they were all a delusion. All around him were rabbits’ tracks and broken twigs, but nothing more.

Yet he sprang up, more enraged than ever, and swearing more terribly by his tail, teeth, and claws that he would be revenged. So he ran on all day, and at night, when he came to another large village, he was so weary that he could just gasp, “Have—you—seen a Rab—bit run this way?” With much concern and kindness they all asked him what was the matter. So he told them all this story, and they pitied him very much; yea, one gray old man—and this was the Chief—with two beautiful daughters, shed tears and comforted him, and advised him to stay with them. So they took him to a large hall, where there was a great fire burning in the middle thereof. And over it hung two pots with soup and meat, and two Indians stood by and gave food to all the people. And he had his share with the rest, and all feasted gayly.

Now, when they had done eating, the old Governor, who was very gray, and from either side of whose head rose two very venerable, long white feathers, rose to welcome the stranger, and in a long speech said it was, indeed, the custom of their village to entertain guests, but that they expected from them a song. Then Wild-Cat, who was vain of his voice, uplifted it in vengeance against the Rabbits:

Oh, how I hate them! How I despise them! How I laugh at them! May I scalp them all!

Then he said that he thought the Governor should sing. And to this the Chief consented, but declared that all who were present should bow their heads while seated, and shut their eyes, which they did. Then Chief Rabbit, at one bound, cleared the heads of his guests, and drawing his _timheyen_, or tomahawk, as he jumped, gave Wild-Cat a wound which cut deeply into his head and only fell short of killing him by entirely stunning him. When he recovered, he was again in snow, slush and filth, more starved than ever, his head bleeding from a dreadful blow, and he himself almost dead. Yet, with all that, the Indian devil was stronger in him than ever, for every new disgrace did but bring more resolve to be revenged, and he swore it by his tail, claws, teeth, and eyes.

So he tottered along, though he could hardly walk; nor could he, indeed, go very far that day. And when almost broken down with pain and weariness, he came about noon to two good wigwams. Looking into one, he saw a gray-haired old man, and in the other a young girl, apparently his daughter. And they received him kindly, and listened to his story, saying it was very sad, the old man declaring that he must really remain there, and that he would get him a doctor, since, unless he were well cared for at once, he would die. Then he went forth as if in great concern, leaving his daughter to nurse the weary, wounded stranger.

Now, when the doctor came, he, too, was an old gray man, with a scalp-lock strangely divided like two horns. But the Wild-Cat had become a little suspicious, having been so often deceived, for much abuse will cease to amuse even the most innocent; and truly he was none of these. And, looking grimly at the Doctor, he said: “I was asking if any Rabbits are here, and truly you look very much like one yourself. How did you get that split nose?” “Oh, that is very simple,” replied the old man. “Once I was hammering wampum beads, and the stone on which I beat them broke in halves, and one piece flew up, and, as you see, split my nose.” “But,” persisted the Wild-Cat, “why are the soles of your feet so yellow, even like a Rabbit’s?” “Ah, that is because I have been preparing some tobacco, and I had to hold it down with my feet, for, truly, I needed both my hands to work with. So the tobacco stained them yellow.” Then the Wild-Cat suspected no more, and the Doctor put salve on his wound, so that he felt much better.

But oh, the wretchedness of the awaking in the morning! For then Wild-Cat found himself indeed in the extreme of misery. His head was swollen and aching to an incredible degree, and the horrible wound, which was gaping wide, had been stuffed with hemlock needles and pine splinters, and this was the cool salve which the Doctor had applied. And then he swore by all his body and soul that he would slay the next being he met, Rabbit or Indian. Verily this time he would be utterly revenged.

Now Mahtigwess, the Rabbit, had almost come to an end of his _m’téoulin_, or wizard power, for that time, yet he had still enough left for one more great effort. And, coming to a lake, he picked up a very large chip, and, having seamed it with sorcery and magnified it by magic, threw it into the water, where it at once seemed to be a great ship, such as white men build. And when the Wild-Cat came up he saw it, with sails spread and flags flying, and the captain stood so stately on the deck, with folded arms, and he was a fine, gray-haired, dignified man, with a cocked hat, the two points of which were like grand and stately horns. But the Wild-Cat had sworn, and he was mindful of his great oath; so he cried, “You cannot escape me this time, Rabbit! I have you now!” Saying this he plunged in, and tried to swim to the ship. And the captain, seeing a Wild-Cat in the water, being engaged in musket drill, ordered his men to fire at it, which they did with a bang! Now this was caused by a party of night-hawks overhead, who swooped down with a sudden cry like a shot; at least it seemed so to Wild-Cat, who, deceived and appalled by this volley, deeming that he had verily made a mistake this time, turned tail and swam ashore into the dark old forest, where, if he is not dead, he is running still.

* * * * *

In the following two stories, the two most celebrated heroes of American Indian Mythology figure. The first is known as Manabozho among the Algonquin Indians and as Hiawatha among the Iroquois. Although he appears most often in the form of a man in Indian legends, he seems at times to be endowed with divine attributes. According to the ordinary account of him[1] he is regarded as the messenger of the Great Spirit, sent down to mankind, in the character of a wise man or prophet. But he has all the attributes of humanity as well as the power of performing miraculous deeds. He adapts himself perfectly to their manners and customs and ideas. He marries, builds a lodge, hunts and fishes, goes to war, has his triumphs and his failures like other Indians. Whatever man could do in strength or wisdom he could do, but when he encounters situations requiring more than human strength, his miraculous powers come into play. He is provided with a magic canoe which goes where it is bid. He could leap over extensive regions of country like an _ignis fatuus_. He appears suddenly like a god, or wanders over weary wastes of country a poor and starving hunter. His voice is at one moment deep and sonorous as a thunder-clap, and at another clothed with the softness of feminine supplication. He could transform himself into any animal he pleased. He often conversed with animals, fowls, reptiles, and fishes. He deemed himself related to them, and always in speaking to them called them “my brother,” and one of his greatest resources when finding himself hard pressed was to change himself into their shapes.

He could conquer Manitoes, no matter what their evil power might be. Manitoes in Indian stories are not unlike fairies in their characteristics. They were of all imaginary kinds, grades, powers, sometimes benign, sometimes malicious, but Manabozho was a personage strong enough in his necromantic powers to baffle the most malicious, beat the stoutest, and overreach the most cunning. He was not, however, the wholly benevolent being we might expect he would be with all these great gifts; he was unfortunately ambitious, vainglorious, and deceitful, and at times not much better himself than a wicked Manito. But what could be expected of a son of the West Wind, for his father was Ningabiun, the West Wind, and you will find that mythical beings which personify the wind are always of a tricksy disposition just as the wind itself is. As a god he was often spoken of as the great white Hare.

The Algonquin hero, Glooskap,[2] is equally interesting, and of a more truly heroic disposition than Manabozho. The name of this divinity, Glooskap, means a liar, because it is said that when he left the earth for the land of spirits he promised to return and he has never done so. Many and wonderful are the tales told of Glooskap, but he is never silly, or cruel, or fantastic like Manabozho. Any one who goes to Nova Scotia, to-day, may see the grand Cape Blomidon, where Glooskap lived. It juts out between the Bay of Fundy and the Basin of Minas. Its foundations are of red sandstone and far up toward the sky it is crowned with granite battlements. Sometimes the waters of the Basin of Minas gently wash against the base of this gigantic cape and sometimes one could walk a mile or two from the cape to reach the water. Twice a day this happens as the tide comes up and recedes. Truly, it is a magical land, and Blomidon is a noble home, well befitting the great Indian divinity whose head rises to the stars, and who could slay a giant enemy with a mere tap of his bow. We shall meet with both of these heroes again later.

THE STORY OF MANABOZHO

(_Iroquois_)

To begin at the beginning, Manabozho, while yet a youngster, was living with his grandmother, near the edge of a wide prairie. It was on this prairie that he first saw animals and birds of every kind; he also there made first acquaintance with thunder and lightning; he would sit by the hour watching the clouds as they rolled, and musing on the shades of light and darkness as the day rose and fell.

For a stripling, Manabozho was uncommonly wide-awake. Every new sight he beheld in the heavens was a subject of remark; every new animal or bird, an object of deep interest; and every sound that came from the bosom of nature, was like a new lesson which he was expected to learn. He often trembled at what he heard and saw.

To the scene of the wide open prairie his grandmother sent him at an early age to watch. The first sound he heard was that of the owl, at which he was greatly terrified, and, quickly descending the tree he had climbed, he ran with alarm to the lodge. “Noko! noko! grandmother!” he cried. “I have heard a monedo.”

She laughed at his fears, and asked him what kind of noise his reverence made. He answered, “It makes a noise like this: ko-ko-ko-ho.”

His grandmother told him he was young and foolish; that what he heard was only a bird which derived its name from the peculiar noise it made.

He returned to the prairie and continued his watch. As he stood there looking at the clouds, he thought to himself, “It is singular that I am so simple and my grandmother so wise; and that I have neither father nor mother. I have never heard a word about them. I must ask and find out.”

He went home and sat down, silent and dejected. Finding that this did not attract the notice of his grandmother, he began a loud lamentation, which he kept increasing, louder and louder, till it shook the lodge, and nearly deafened the old grandmother. She at length said, “Manabozho, what is the matter with you? You are making a great deal of noise.”

Manabozho started off again with his doleful hubbub; but succeeded in jerking out between his big sobs, “I haven’t got any father nor mother; I haven’t;” and he set out again lamenting more boisterously than ever.

Knowing that he was of a wicked and revengeful temper, his grandmother dreaded to tell him the story of his parentage; as she knew he would make trouble of it.

Manabozho renewed his cries, and managed to throw out, for a third or fourth time, his sorrowful lament that he was a poor unfortunate, who had no parents and no relations.

She at last said to him, “Yes, you have a father and three brothers living. Your mother is dead. She was taken for a wife by your father, the West, without the consent of her parents. Your brothers are the North, East, and South; and being older than yourself, your father has given them great power with the winds, according to their names. You are the youngest of his children. I have nursed you from your infancy; for your mother, owing to the ill-treatment of your father, died when you were an infant. I have no relations beside you this side of the planet in which I was born, and from which I was precipitated by female jealousy. Your mother was my only child, and you are my only hope.”

“I am glad my father is living,” said Manabozho. “I shall set out in the morning to visit him.”

His grandmother would have discouraged him; saying it was a long distance to the place where his father, Ningabiun, or the West, lived.

This information seemed rather to please than to disconcert Manabozho; for by this time he had grown to such a size and strength that he had been compelled to leave the narrow shelter of his grandmother’s lodge and to live out of doors. He was so tall that, if he had been so disposed, he could have snapped off the heads of the birds roosting in the topmost branches of the highest trees, as he stood up, without being at the trouble to climb. And if he had at any time taken a fancy to one of the same trees for a walking stick, he would have had no more to do than to pluck it up with his thumb and finger, and strip down the leaves and twigs with the palm of his hand.

Bidding good-by to his venerable old grandmother, who pulled a very long face over his departure, Manabozho set out at great headway, for he was able to stride from one side of a prairie to the other at a single step.

He found his father on a high mountain-ground, far in the west. His father espied his approach at a great distance, and bounded down the mountain-side several miles to give him welcome, and, side-by-side, apparently delighted with each other, they reached in two or three of their giant paces the lodge of the West, which stood high up near the clouds.

They spent some days in talking with each other—for these two great persons did nothing on a small scale, and a whole day to deliver a single sentence, such was the immensity of their discourse, was quite an ordinary affair.

One evening Manabozho asked his father what he was most afraid of on earth.

He replied—“Nothing.”

“But is there nothing you dread, here—nothing that would hurt you if you took too much of it? Come, tell me.”

Manabozho was very urgent; at last his father said:

“Yes, there is a black stone to be found a couple of hundred miles from here, over that way,” pointing as he spoke. “It is the only thing earthly that I am afraid of, for if it should happen to hit me on any part of my body it would hurt me very much.”

The West made this important circumstance known to Manabozho in the strictest confidence.

“Now, you will not tell any one, Manabozho, that the black stone is bad medicine for your father, will you?” he added. “You are a good son, and I know will keep it to yourself. Now tell me, my darling boy, is there not something that you don’t like?”

Manabozho answered promptly—“Nothing.”

His father, who was of a very steady and persevering temper, put the same question to him seventeen times, and each time Manabozho made the same answer—“Nothing.”

But the West insisted—“There must be something you are afraid of.”

“Well, I will tell you,” says Manabozho, “what it is.”

He made an effort to speak, but it seemed to be too much for him.

“Out with it,” said Ningabiun, or the West, fetching Manabozho such a blow on the back as shook the mountain with its echo.

“Je-ee, je-ee—it is,” said Manabozho, apparently in great pain. “Yeo, yeo! I cannot name it, I tremble so.”

The West told him to banish his fears, and to speak up; no one would hurt him.

Manabozho began again, and he would have gone over the same make-believe of anguish, had not his father, whose strength he knew was more than a match for his own, threatened to pitch him into a river about five miles off. At last he cried out:

“Father, since you will know, it is the root of the bulrush.”

He who could with perfect ease spin a sentence a whole day long, seemed to be exhausted by the effort of pronouncing that one word, “bulrush.”

Some time after, Manabozho observed:

“I will get some of the black rock, merely to see how it looks.”

“Well,” said the father, “I will also get a little of the bulrush-root, to learn how it tastes.”

They were both double-dealing with each other, and in their hearts getting ready for some desperate work.

They had no sooner separated for the evening than Manabozho was striding off the couple of hundred miles necessary to bring him to the place where black rock was to be procured, while down the other side of the mountain hurried Ningabiun.

At the break of day they each appeared at the great level on the mountain-top, Manabozho with twenty loads, at least, of the black stone, on one side, and on the other the West, with a whole meadow of bulrush in his arms.

Manabozho was the first to strike—hurling a great piece of the black rock, which struck the West directly between the eyes, who returned the favor with a blow of bulrush, that rung over the shoulders of Manabozho, far and wide, like the whip-thong of the lightning among the clouds.

And now either rallied, and Manabozho poured in a tempest of black rock, while Ningabiun discharged a shower of bulrush. Blow upon blow, thwack upon thwack—they fought hand to hand until black rock and bulrush were all gone. Then they betook themselves to hurling crags at each other, cudgeling with huge oak-trees, and defying each other from one mountain-top to another; while at times they shot enormous boulders of granite across at each other’s heads, as though they had been mere jack-stones. The battle, which had commenced on the mountains, had extended far west. The West was forced to give ground. Manabozho pressing on, drove him across rivers and mountains, ridges and lakes, till at last he got him to the very brink of the world.

“Hold!” cried the West. “My son, you know my power, and although I allow that I am now fairly out of breath, it is impossible to kill me. Stop where you are, and I will also portion you out with as much power as your brothers. The four quarters of the globe are already occupied, but you can go and do a great deal of good to the people of the earth, which is beset with serpents, beasts, and monsters, who make great havoc of human life. Go and do good, and if you put forth half the strength you have to-day you will acquire a name that will last forever. When you have finished your work I will have a place provided for you. You will then go and sit with your brother, Kabinocca, in the North.”

Manabozho gave his father his hand upon this agreement. And parting from him, he returned to his own grounds, where he lay for some time sore of his wounds.

These being, however, greatly allayed, and soon after cured by his grandmother’s skill in medicines, Manabozho, as big and sturdy as ever, was ripe for new adventures. He set his thoughts immediately upon a war excursion against the Pearl Feather, a wicked old Manito, living on the other side of the great lake, who had killed his grandfather. He began his preparations by making huge bows and arrows without number; but he had no heads for his shafts. At last Noko told him that an old man, who lived at some distance, could furnish him with such as he needed. He sent her to get some. She soon returned with her wrapper full. Manabozho told her that he had not enough, and sent her again. She came back with as many more. He thought to himself, “I must find out the way of making these heads.”

Instead of directly asking how it was done, he preferred—just like Manabozho—to deceive his grandmother to come at the knowledge he desired, by a trick. “Noko,” said he, “while I take my drum and rattle, and sing my war-songs, do you go and try to get me some larger heads, for these you have brought me are all of the same size. Go and see whether the old man is not willing to make some a little larger.”

He followed her at a distance as she went, having left his drum at the lodge, with a great bird tied at the top, whose fluttering should keep up the drumbeat, the same as if he were tarrying at home. He saw the old workman busy, and learned how he prepared the heads; he also beheld the old man’s daughter, who was very beautiful; and Manabozho now discovered for the first time that he had a heart of his own, and the sigh he heaved passed through the arrow-maker’s lodge like a gale of wind.

“How it blows!” said the old man.

“It must be from the south,” said the daughter; “for it is very fragrant.”

Manabozho slipped away, and in two strides he was at home, shouting forth his songs as though he had never left the lodge. He had just time to free the bird which had been beating the drum, when his grandmother came in and delivered to him the big arrow-heads.

In the evening the grandmother said, “My son, you ought to fast before you go to war, as your brothers do, to find out whether you will be successful or not.”

He said he had no objection; and having privately stored away, in a shady place in the forest, two or three dozen juicy bears, a moose, and twenty strings of the tenderest birds, he would retire from the lodge so far as to be entirely out of view of his grandmother, fall to and enjoy himself heartily, and at nightfall, having just despatched a dozen birds and half a bear or so, he would return, tottering and woe-begone, as if quite famished, so as to move deeply the sympathies of his wise old granddame.

The place of his fast had been chosen by Noko, and she had told him it must be so far as to be beyond the sound of her voice or it would be unlucky.

After a time Manabozho, who was always spying out mischief, said to himself, “I must find out why my grandmother is so anxious to have me fast at this spot.”

The next day he went but a short distance. She cried out, “A little further off;” but he came nearer to the lodge, the rogue that he was, and cried out in a low, counterfeited voice, to make it appear that he was going away instead of approaching. He had now got so near that he could see all that passed in the lodge.

He had not been long in ambush when an old magician crept into the lodge. This old magician had very long hair, which hung across his shoulders and down his back, like a bush or foot-mat. They commenced talking about him, and in doing so, they put their two old heads so very close together that Manabozho was satisfied they were kissing each other. He was indignant that any one should take such a liberty with his venerable grandmother, and to mark his sense of the outrage, he touched the bushy hair of the old magician with a live coal which he had blown upon. The old magician had not time to kiss the old grandmother more than once again before he felt the flame; and jumping out into the air, it burned only the fiercer, and he ran, blazing like a fire-ball, across the prairie.

Manabozho who had, meanwhile, stolen off to his fasting place, cried out, in a heart-broken tone, and as if on the very point of starvation, “Noko! Noko! is it time for me to come home?”

“Yes,” she cried. And when he came in she asked him, “Did you see anything?”

“Nothing,” he answered, with an air of childish candor; looking as much like a big simpleton as he could. The grandmother looked at him very closely and said no more.

Manabozho finished his term of fasting; in the course of which he slyly despatched twenty fat bears, six dozen birds, and two fine moose; sung his war-song, and embarked in his canoe, fully prepared for war. Beside weapons of battle, he had stowed in a large supply of oil.

He travelled rapidly night and day, for he had only to will or speak, and the canoe went. At length he arrived in sight of the fiery serpents. He paused to view them; he observed that they were some distance apart, and that the flames which they constantly belched forth reached across the pass. He gave them a good morning, and began talking with them in a very friendly way; but they answered, “We know you, Manabozho; you cannot pass.”

He was not, however, to be put off so easily. Turning his canoe as if about to go back, he suddenly cried out with a loud and terrified voice:

“What is that behind you?”

The serpents, thrown off their guard, instantly turned their heads, and he in a moment glided past them.

“Well,” said he, quietly, after he had got by, “how do you like my movement?”

He then took up his bow and arrows, and with deliberate aim shot every one of them, easily, for the serpents were fixed to one spot, and could not even turn round. They were of an enormous length, and of a bright color.

Having thus escaped the sentinel serpents, Manabozho pushed on in his canoe until he came to a part of the lake called Pitch-water, as whatever touched it was sure to stick fast. But Manabozho was prepared with his oil, and rubbing his canoe freely from end to end, he slipped through with ease, and he was the first person who had ever succeeded in passing through the Pitch-water.

“There is nothing like a little oil to help one through pitch-water,” said Manabozho to himself.

Now in view of land, he could see the lodge of the Shining Manito, high upon a distant hill.

Putting his clubs and arrows in order, just at the dawn of day Manabozho began his attack, yelling and shouting, and beating his drum, and calling out in triple voices:

“Surround him! surround him! run up! run up!” making it appear that he had many followers.

“It was you that killed my grandfather,” and shot off a whole forest of arrows.

The Pearl Feather appeared on the height, blazing like the sun, and paid back the discharges of Manabozho with a tempest of bolts, which rattled like the hail.

All day long the fight was kept up, and Manabozho had fired all of his arrows but three, without effect; for the Shining Manito was clothed in pure wampum. It was only by immense leaps to right and left that Manabozho could save his head from the sturdy blows which fell about him on every side, like pine-trees, from the hands of the Manito. He was badly bruised, and at his very wit’s end, when a large woodpecker flew past and lit on a tree. It was a bird he had known on the prairie, near his grandmother’s lodge.

“Manabozho,” called out the woodpecker, “your enemy has a weak point; shoot at the lock of hair on the crown of his head.”

He shot his first arrow and only drew blood in a few drops. The Manito made one or two unsteady steps, but recovered himself. He began to parley, but Manabozho, now that he had discovered a way to reach him, was in no humor to trifle, and he let slip another arrow, which brought the Shining Manito to his knees. And now, having the crown of his head within good range, Manabozho sent in his third arrow, which laid the Manito out upon the ground, stark dead.

Manabozho lifted up a huge war-cry, beat his drum, took the scalp of the Manito as his trophy, and calling the woodpecker to come and receive a reward for the timely hint he had given him, he rubbed the blood of the Shining Manito on the woodpecker’s head, the feathers of which are red to this day. Full of his victory, Manabozho returned home, beating his war-drum furiously, and shouting aloud his songs of triumph. His grandmother was on the shore ready to welcome him with the war-dance, which she performed with wonderful skill for one so far advanced in years.

The heart of Manabozho swelled within him. He was fairly on fire, and an unconquerable desire for further adventures seized upon him. He had destroyed the powerful Pearl Feather, killed his serpents, and escaped all his wiles and charms. He had prevailed in a great land fight, his next trophy should be from the water.

He tried his prowess as a fisherman, and with such success that he captured a fish so monstrous in size and so rich in fat that with the oil Manabozho was able to form a small lake. To this, being generously disposed, and having a cunning purpose of his own to answer, he invited all the birds and beasts of his acquaintance; and he made the order in which they partook of the banquet the measure of their fatness for all time to come. As fast as they arrived he told them to plunge in and help themselves.

The first to make his appearance was the bear, who took a long and steady draught; then came the deer, the opossum, and such others of the family as are noted for their comfortable case. The moose and bison were slack in their cups, and the partridge, always lean in flesh, looked on till the supply was nearly gone. There was not a drop left by the time the hare and the martin appeared on the shore of the lake, and they are, in consequence, the slenderest of all creatures.

When this ceremony was over, Manabozho suggested to his friends, the assembled birds and animals, that the occasion was proper for a little merry-making; and taking up his drum, he cried out:

“New songs from the South; come, brothers, dance!”

He directed them, to make the sport more mirthful, that they should shut their eyes and pass round him in a circle. Again he beat his drum and cried out:

“New songs from the South; come, brothers, dance!”

They all fell in and commenced their rounds. Whenever Manabozho, as he stood in the circle, saw a fat fowl which he fancied, pass by him, he adroitly wrung its neck and slipped it in his girdle, at the same time beating his drum and singing at the top of his lungs, to drown the noise of the fluttering, and crying out in a tone of admiration:

“That’s the way, my brothers; that’s the way!”

At last a small duck, of the diver family, thinking there was something wrong, opened one eye and saw what Manabozho was doing. Giving a spring, and crying:

“Ha-ha-a! Manabozho is killing us!” he made for the water.

Manabozho, quite vexed that the creature should have played the spy upon his house-keeping, followed him, and just as the diver duck was plunging into the water, gave him a kick, which is the reason that the diver’s tail-feathers are few, his back flattened, and his legs straightened out, so that when he comes on land he makes a poor figure in walking.

Meantime, the other birds, having no ambition to be thrust into Manabozho’s girdle, flew off, and the animals scampered into the woods.

Manabozho stretching himself at ease in the shade along the side of the prairie, thought what he should do next. He concluded that he would travel and see new countries; and having once made up his mind, in less than three days, such was his length of limb and the immensity of his stride, he had walked over the entire continent, looked into every lodge by the way, and with such nicety of observation, that he was able to inform his good old grandmother what each family had for a dinner at a given hour.

By way of relief to these grand doings, Manabozho was disposed to vary his experiences by bestowing a little time upon the sports of the woods. He had heard reported great feats in hunting, and he had a desire to try his power in that way. Besides that, it was a slight consideration that he had devoured all the game within reach of the lodge; and so, one evening, as he was walking along the shore of the great lake, weary and hungry, he encountered a great magician in the form of an old wolf, with six young ones, coming toward him.

The wolf no sooner caught sight of him than he told his whelps, who were close about his side, to keep out of the way of Manabozho; “For I know,” he said, “that it is that mischievous fellow whom we see yonder.”

The young wolves were in the act of running on, when Manabozho cried out, “My grandchildren, where are you going? Stop and I will go with you. I wish to have a little chat with your excellent father.”

Saying which he advanced and greeted the old wolf, expressing himself as delighted at seeing him looking so well. “Whither do you journey?” he asked.

“We are looking for a good hunting ground to pass the winter,” the old wolf answered. “What brings you here?”

“I was looking for you,” said Manabozho. “For I have a passion for the chase, brother. I always admired your family; are you willing to change me into a wolf?”

The wolf gave him a favorable answer, and he was forthwith changed into a wolf.

“Well, that will do,” said Manabozho; then looking at his tail, he added, “Oh! could you oblige me by making my tail a little longer and more bushy?”

“Certainly,” said the wolf; and he gave Manabozho such a length and spread of tail, that it was constantly getting between his legs, and it was so heavy that it was as much as he could do to find strength to carry it. But having asked for it, he was ashamed to say a word; and they all started off in company, dashing up a ravine.

After getting into the woods for some distance, they fell in with the tracks of moose. The young ones scampered off in pursuit, the old wolf and Manabozho following at their leisure.

“Well,” said the old wolf, by way of opening discourse, “who do you think is the fastest of the boys? Can you tell by the jumps they take?”

“Why,” he replied, “the one that takes such long jumps, he is the fastest to be sure.”

“Ha! ha! you are mistaken,” said the old wolf. “He makes a good start, but he will be the first to tire out; this one, who appears to be behind, will be the one to kill the game.”

By this time they had come to the spot where the boys had started in chase. One had dropped what seemed to be a small medicine-sack, which he carried for the use of the hunting party.

“Take that, Manabozho,” said the old wolf.

“Esa,” he replied, “what will I do with a dirty dog-skin?”

The old wolf took it up; it was a beautiful robe.

“Oh, I will carry it now,” cried Manabozho.

“Oh, no,” said the old wolf, who had exerted his magical powers, “it is a robe of pearls. Come along!” And away sped the old wolf at a great rate of speed.

“Not so fast,” called Manabozho after him; and then he added to himself as he panted after, “Oh, this tail!”

Coming to a place where the moose had lain down, they saw that the young wolves had made a fresh start after their prey.

“Why,” said the old wolf, “this moose is poor. I know by the tracks; for I can always tell whether they are fat or not.”

A little further on, one of the young wolves, in dashing at the moose, had broken a tooth on a tree.

“Manabozho,” said the old wolf, “one of your grandchildren has shot at the game. Take his arrow; there it is.”

“No,” replied Manabozho; “what will I do with a dirty dog’s tooth?”

The old wolf took it up, and behold it was a beautiful silver arrow.

When they at last overtook them, they found that the youngsters had killed a very fat moose. Manabozho was very hungry; but the old wolf just then again exerted his magical powers, and Manabozho saw nothing but the bones picked quite clean. He thought to himself, “Just as I expected; dirty, greedy fellows. If it had not been for this log at my back, I should have been in time to have got a mouthful:” and he cursed the bushy tail which he carried, to the bottom of his heart. He, however, sat down without saying a word.

At length the old wolf spoke to one of the young ones, saying:

“Give some meat to your grandfather.”

One of them obeyed, and coming near to Manabozho, he presented him the other end of his own bushy tail, which was nicely seasoned with burs, gathered in the course of the hunt.

Manabozho jumped up and called out:

“You dog, now that your stomach is full, do you think I am going to eat you to get at my dinner? Get you gone into some other place.”

Saying which Manabozho, in his anger, walked off by himself.

“Come back, brother,” cried the wolf. “You are losing your eyes.”

Manabozho turned back.

“You do the child injustice. Look there!” and behold, a heap of fresh, ruddy meat, was lying on the spot, already prepared.

Manabozho, at the view of so much good provision, put on a smiling face.

“In amazement,” he said; “how fine the meat is!”

“Yes,” replied the old wolf, “it is always so with us; we know our work, and always get the best. It is not a long tail that makes the hunter.”

Manabozho bit his lip.

They now fixed their winter quarters. The youngsters went out in search of game, and they soon brought in a large supply. One day, during the absence of the young hunters, the old wolf amused himself in cracking the large bones of a moose.

“Manabozho,” said he, “cover your head with the robe, and do not look at me while I am busy with these bones, for a piece may fly in your eye.”

He did as he was bid; but looking through a rent that was in the robe, he saw what the other was about. Just at that moment a piece flew off and hit him on the eye. He cried out:

“Tyau, why do you strike me, you old dog?”

The wolf answered, “You must have been looking at me.”

“No, no,” retorted Manabozho, “why should I want to look at you?”

“Manabozho,” said the old wolf, “you must have been looking or you would not have got hurt.”

“No, no,” he replied again, “I was not. I will repay the saucy wolf this mischief,” he thought to himself.

So the next day, taking up a bone to obtain the marrow, he said to the wolf:

“Brother, cover your head and do not look at me, for I very much fear a piece may fly in your eye.”

The wolf did so; and Manabozho, taking the large leg-bone of the moose, first looking to see if the wolf was well covered, hit him a blow with all his might. The wolf jumped up, cried out, and fell prostrate from the effects of the blow.

“Why,” said he, when he came to a little and was able to sit up, “why do you strike me so?”

“Strike you?” said Manabozho, with well-feigned surprise; “no; you must have been looking at me.”

“No,” answered the wolf, “I say I have not.”

But Manabozho insisted, and as the old wolf was no great master of tricky argument, he was obliged to give it up.

Shortly after this the old wolf suggested to Manabozho that he should go out and try his luck in hunting by himself.

When he chose to put his mind upon it he was quite expert, and this time he succeeded in killing a fine fat moose, which he thought he would take aside slyly, and devour alone, having prepared to tell the old wolf a pretty story on his return, to account for his failure to bring anything with him.

He was very hungry, and he sat down to eat; but as he never could go to work in a straightforward way, he immediately fell into great doubts as to the proper point at which to begin.

“Well,” said he, “I do not know where to commence. At the head? No. People will laugh, and say, ‘He ate him backward.’”

He went to the side. “No,” said he, “they will say I ate him sideways.”

He then went to the hind-quarter. “No, that will not do either; they will say I ate him forward. I will begin here, say what they will.”

He took a delicate piece from the small of the back, and was just on the point of putting it to his mouth, when a tree close by made a creaking noise. He seemed vexed at the sound. He raised the morsel to his mouth the second time, when the tree creaked again.

“Why”, he exclaimed, “I cannot eat when I hear such a noise. Stop, stop!” he said to the tree. He put it down, exclaiming, “I cannot eat with such a noise;” and starting away he climbed the tree, and was pulling at the limb which had offended him, when his fore paw was caught between the branches so that he could not free himself.

While thus held fast, he saw a pack of wolves advancing through the wood in the direction of his meat. He suspected them to be the old wolf and his cubs, but night was coming on and he could not make them out.

“Go the other way, go the other way!” he cried out; “what would you come to get here?”

The wolves stopped for a while and talked among themselves, and said:

“Manabozho must have something there, or he would not tell us to go another way.”

“I begin to know him,” said an old wolf, “and all his tricks. Let us go forward and see.”

They came on, and finding the moose, they soon made away with it. Manabozho looked wistfully on to see them eat till they were fully satisfied, when they scampered off in high spirits.

A heavy blast of wind opened the branches and released Manabozho, who found that the wolves had left nothing but the bare bones. He made for home, where, when he related his mishap, the old wolf, taking him by the fore paw, condoled with him deeply on his ill-luck. A tear even started to his eye as he added:

“My brother, this should teach us not to meddle with points of ceremony when we have good meat to eat.”

The winter having by this time drawn fairly to a close, on a bright morning in the early spring the old wolf addressed Manabozho: “My brother, I am obliged to leave you; and although I have sometimes been merry at your expense, I will show that I care for your comfort. I shall leave one of the boys behind me to be your hunter, and to keep you company through the long summer afternoons.”

The old wolf galloped off with his five young ones; and as they disappeared from view, Manabozho was disenchanted in a moment, and returned to his mortal shape.

Although he had been sometimes vexed and imposed upon, he had, altogether, passed a pleasant winter with the cunning old wolf, and now that he was gone, Manabozho was downcast and low in spirit. But as the days grew brighter he recovered by degrees his air of cheerful confidence, and was ready to try his hand upon any new adventure that might occur to him. The old spirit of mischief was still alive within him.

The young wolf who had been left with him was a good hunter, and never failed to keep the lodge well supplied with meat. One day Manabozho addressed him as follows:

“My grandson, I had a dream last night, and it does not portend good. It is of the large lake which lies in that direction. You must be careful always to go across it, whether the ice seem strong or not. Never go around it, for there are enemies on the further shore who lie in wait for you. The ice is always safe.”

Now Manabozho knew well that the ice was thinning every day under the warm sun, but he could not stay himself from playing a trick upon the young wolf.

In the evening when he came to the lake, after a long day’s travel in quest of game, the young wolf, confiding in his grandfather, said, “Hwooh! the ice does look thin, but Nesho says it is sound;” and he trotted upon the glassy plain.

He had not got half way across when the ice snapped, and with a mournful cry the young wolf fell in and he was immediately seized by the water-serpents who knew that it was Manabozho’s grandson, and were thirsting for revenge upon him for the death of their relations in the war upon Pearl Feather.

Manabozho heard the young wolf’s cry as he sat in his lodge; he knew what had happened; and, from that moment, he was deprived of the greater part of his magical power.

He returned, scarcely more than an ordinary mortal, to his former place of dwelling, whence his grandmother had departed no one knew whither. He married the arrow-maker’s daughter, and became the father of several children, and very poor. He was scarcely able to procure the means of living. His lodge was pitched in a remote part of the country, where he could get no game. It was winter, and he had not the common comforts of life. He said to his wife one day, “I will go out walking and see if I cannot find some lodges.”

After walking some time he saw a lodge at a distance. The children were playing at the door. When they saw him approaching they ran in and told their parents that Manabozho was coming.

It was the residence of the large red-headed woodpecker. He came to the door and asked Manabozho to enter. This invitation was promptly accepted.

After some time, the woodpecker, who was a magician, said to his wife:

“Have you nothing to give Manabozho? He must be hungry.”

She answered, “No.”

“He ought not to go without his supper,” said the woodpecker. “I will see what I can do.”

In the center of the lodge stood a large tamarack-tree. Upon this the woodpecker flew, and commenced going up, turning his head on each side of the tree, and every now and then driving in his bill. At last he pulled something out of the tree and threw it down; when, behold, a fine fat raccoon lay on the ground. He drew out six or seven more. He then descended, and told his wife to prepare them.

“Manabozho,” he said, “this is the only thing we eat; what else can we give you?”

“It is very good,” replied Manabozho.

They smoked their pipes and conversed with each other.

After eating, Manabozho got ready to go home; when the woodpecker said to his wife, “Give him the other raccoons to take home for his children.”

In the act of leaving the lodge, Manabozho, on purpose, dropped one of his mittens, which was soon after observed on the ground.

“Run,” said the woodpecker to his eldest son, “and give it to him; but mind that you do not give it into his hand; throw it at him, for there is no knowing him, he acts so curiously.”

The boy did as he was directed.

“Grandfather,” said he to Manabozho, as he came up to him, “you have left one of your mittens; here it is.”

“Yes,” he said, affecting to be ignorant of the circumstance, “it is so; but don’t throw it, you will soil it on the snow.”

The lad, however, threw it, and was about to return, when Manabozho cried out, “Bakah! Bakah! stop—stop; is that all you eat? Do you eat nothing else with your raccoon? Tell me!”

“Yes, that is all,” answered the young woodpecker; “we have nothing else.”

“Tell your father,” continued Manabozho, “to come and visit me, and let him bring a sack. I will give him what he shall eat with his raccoon-meat.”

When the young one returned and reported this message to his father, the old woodpecker turned up his nose at the invitation. “I wonder,” he said, “what he thinks he has got, poor fellow!”

He was bound, however, to answer the proffer of hospitality, and he went accordingly, taking along a cedar-sack, to pay a visit to Manabozho.

Manabozho received the old red-headed woodpecker with great ceremony. He had stood at the door awaiting his arrival, and as soon as he came in sight Manabozho commenced, while he was yet far off, bowing and opening wide his arms, in token of welcome; all of which the woodpecker returned in due form, by ducking his bill, and hopping to right and left, upon the ground, extending his wings to their full length and fluttering them back to his breast.

When the woodpecker at last reached the lodge, Manabozho made various remarks upon the weather, the appearance of the country, and especially on the scarcity of game.

“But we,” he added, “we always have enough. Come in, and you shall not go away hungry, my noble bird!”

Manabozho had always prided himself on being able to give as good as he had received; and to be up with the woodpecker, he had shifted his lodge so as to enclose a large dry tamarack-tree.

“What can I give you,” said he to the woodpecker; “but as we eat so shall you eat.”

With this he hopped forward, and, jumping on the tamarack-tree, he attempted to climb it just as he had seen the woodpecker do in his own lodge. He turned his head first on one side, then on the other, in the manner of the bird, meanwhile striving to go up, and as often slipping down. Ever and anon he would strike the tree with his nose, as if it had been a bill, and draw back, but he pulled out no raccoons; and he dashed his nose so often against the trunk that at last the blood began to flow, and he tumbled down senseless upon the ground.

The woodpecker started up with his drum and rattle to restore him, and by beating them violently he succeeded in bringing him to.

As soon as he came to his senses, Manabozho began to lay the blame of his failure upon his wife, saying to his guest:

“Nemesho, it is this woman-relation of yours—she is the cause of my not succeeding. She has made me a worthless fellow. Before I took her I also could get raccoons.”

The woodpecker said nothing, but flying on the tree he drew out several fine raccoons.

“Here,” said he, “this is the way we do!” and left him in disdain, carrying his bill high in the air, and stepping over the door-sill as if it were not worthy to be touched by his toes.

After this visit, Manabozho was sitting in the lodge one day with his head down. He heard the wind whistling round it, and thought that by attentively listening he could hear the voice of some one speaking to him. It seemed to say to him:

“Great chief, why are you sorrowful? Am not I your friend—your guardian spirit?”

Manabozho immediately took up his rattle, and without rising from the ground where he was sitting, began to sing the chant which has at every close the refrain of, “Wha lay le aw.”

When he had dwelt for a long time on this peculiar chant, which he had been used to sing in all his times of trouble, he laid his rattle aside and determined to fast. For this purpose he went to a cave which faced the setting sun, and built a very small fire, near which he lay down, first telling his wife that neither she nor the children must come near him till he had finished his fast.

At the end of seven days he came back to the lodge, pale and thin, looking like a spirit himself, and as if he had seen spirits. His wife had in the meantime dug through the snow and got a few of the plants called truffles. These she boiled and set before him, and this was all the food they had or seemed likely to obtain.

When he had finished his light repast, Manabozho took up his station in the door to see what would happen. As he stood thus, holding in his hand his large bow, with a quiver well filled with arrows, a deer glided past along the far edge of the prairie but it was miles away, and no shaft that Manabozho could shoot would be able to touch it.

Presently a cry came down the air, and looking up he beheld a great flight of birds, but they were so far up in the sky that he would have lost his arrows in a vain attempt among the clouds.

Still he stood watchful, and confident that some turn of luck was about to occur, when there came near to the lodge two hunters, who bore between them, on poles upon their shoulders, a bear, and it was so fine and fat a bear that it was as much as the two hunters could do with all their strength to carry it.

As they came to the lodge-door, one of the hunters asked if Manabozho lived thereabout.

“He is here,” answered Manabozho.

“I have often heard of you,” said the first hunter, “and I was curious to see you. But you have lost your magical power. Do you know whether any of it is left?”

Manabozho answered that he was himself in the dark on the subject.

“Suppose you make a trial,” said the hunter.

“What shall I do?” asked Manabozho.

“There is my friend,” said the hunter, pointing to his companion, “who with me owns this bear which we are carrying home. Suppose you see if you can change him into a piece of rock.”

“Very well,” said Manabozho; and he had scarcely spoken before the other hunter became a rock.

“Now change him back again,” said the first hunter.

“That I can’t do,” Manabozho answered; “there my power ends.”

The hunter looked at the rock with a bewildered face.

“What shall I do?” he asked. “This bear I can never carry alone, and it was agreed between my friend there and myself that we should not divide it till we reached home. Can’t you change my friend back, Manabozho?”

“I would like to oblige you,” answered Manabozho, “but it is utterly out of my power.”

With this, looking again at the rock with a sad and bewildered face, and then casting a sorrowful glance at the bear, which lay by the door of the lodge, the hunter took his leave, bewailing bitterly at heart the loss of his friend and his bear.

He was scarcely out of sight when Manabozho sent the children to get red willow sticks. Of these he cut off as many pieces of equal length as would serve to invite his friends among the beasts and birds to a feast. A red stick was sent to each one, not forgetting the woodpecker and his family.

When they arrived they were astonished to see such an abundance of meat prepared for them at such a time of scarcity. Manabozho understood their glance, and was proud of a chance to make such a display.

“Akewazi,” he said to the oldest of the party, “the weather is very cold, and the snow lasts a long time; we can kill nothing now but small squirrels, and they are all black; and I have sent for you to help me eat some of them.”

The woodpecker was the first to try a mouthful of the bear’s meat, but he had no sooner begun to taste it than it changed into a dry powder, and set him coughing. It appeared as bitter as ashes.

The moose was affected in the same way, and it brought on such a dry cough as to shake every bone in his body.

One by one, each in turn joined the company of coughers, except Manabozho and his family, to whom the bear’s meat proved very savory.

But the visitors had too high a sense of what was due to decorum and good manners to say anything. The meat looked very fine, and being keenly set and strongly tempted by its promising look, they thought they would try more of it. The more they ate the faster they coughed, and the louder became the uproar, until Manabozho, exerting the magical gift which he found he retained, changed them all into squirrels; and to this day the squirrel suffers from the same dry cough which was brought on by attempting to sup off of Manabozho’s ashen bear’s meat.

And ever after this transformation, when Manabozho lacked provisions for his family, he would hunt the squirrel, a supply of which never failed him, so that he was always sure to have a number of his friends present in this shape at the banquet.

The rock into which he changed the hunter, and so became possessed of the bear, and thus laid the foundations of his good fortune, ever after remained by his lodge-door, and it was called the Game-Bag of Manabozho, the Mischief-Maker.

HOW GLOOSKAP MADE HIS UNCLE MIKCHICH THE TURTLE INTO A GREAT MAN, AND GOT HIM A WIFE. OF TURTLES’ EGGS, AND HOW GLOOSKAP VANQUISHED A SORCERER BY SMOKING TOBACCO.

(_Micmac and Passamaquoddy_)

Now when Glooskap left Uktukamkw, or Newfoundland, it was in a canoe, and he came to Piktook (M. for Pictou), which means the bubbling up of air, because there is much bubbling in the water near that place. And here there was an Indian village, and in that place the Master met with a man whom he loved all his life.

And this was not because this man, whose name in Micmac is Mikchich and in Passamaquoddy Chick-we-notchk, meaning the Turtle, was great, or well favored, or rich. For truly he was none of these, being very poor and lazy, no longer young, and not very clever or wise in any way. It is said that he was indeed Glooskap’s uncle, but others think that this was by adoption. However, this old fellow bore all his wants with such good nature that the Master, taking him in great affection, resolved to make of him a mighty man. Which came to pass, and that in a strange manner, as we shall see.

For coming to Piktook, where there were above a hundred wigwams, Glooskap, being a very handsome, stately man, with the manner of a great chief, was much admired, and that not a little by all the women, so that every one wished to have him in the house. Yet he gave them all the go-by, and dwelt with his old uncle, in whose quaint ways and old time stories he took great delight. And there was to be a great feast with games, but Glooskap did not care to go, either as a guest or a performer in the play.

Still he inquired of Mikchich if he would not take part in it, telling him that all the maidens would be there, and asking him why he had never married, and saying that he should not live alone. Then the uncle said, “Poor and old and plain am I; I have not even garments fit for a feast; better were it for me to smoke my pipe at home.” “Truly, if that be all, uncle,” replied Glooskap, “I trow I can turn tailor and fit you to a turn; and have no care as to your outside or your face, for to him who knows how, ’tis as easy to make a man over as a suit of clothes.” “Yes; but, nephew,” said Mikchich, “how say you as to making over the inside of a mortal?” “By the great Beaver!” answered the Master, “that is something harder to do, else I were not so long at work in this world. But before I leave this town I shall do that also for you; and as for this present sport, do but put on my belt.” And when he had done that, Mikchich became so young and handsome that no man or woman ever saw the like. And then Glooskap dressed him in his own best clothes, and promised him that to the end of his days, whenever he should be a man, he would be the comeliest of men; and because he was patient and tough, he should, as an animal, become the hardest to kill of all creatures on the face of the earth, as it came to pass.

So Mikchich went to the feast. Now the chief of Piktook had three beautiful daughters, and the youngest was the loveliest in the land. And on her he cast his eyes, and returning said, “I have seen one whom I want.” Now all the young men in Piktook desired this girl, and would kill any one who would win her.

So the next day Glooskap, taking a bunch of _wawbap_ (P., wampum), went to the chief and proposed for Mikchich, and the mother at once said “Yes.” So the girl made up a bed of fresh twigs and covered it with a great white bear-skin, and went to Mikchich, and they returned and had dried meat for supper. So they were married.

Now Turtle seemed to be very lazy, and when others hunted he lounged at home. One day his young wife said to him that if this went on thus they must soon starve. So he put on his snow-shoes and went forth, and she followed him to see what he would do. And he had not gone far ere he tripped and fell down, and the girl, returning, told her mother that he was worthless. But the mother said, “He will do something yet. Be patient.”

One day it came to pass that Glooskap said to Mikchich, “To-morrow there will be a great game at ball, and you must play. But because you have made yourself enemies of all the young men here, they will seek to slay you, by crowding altogether and trampling upon you. And when they do this it will be by your father-in-law’s lodge, and to escape them I give you the power to jump high over it. This you may do twice, but the third time will be terrible for you, and yet it must be.”

All this happened as he foretold; for the young men indeed tried to take his life, and to escape them Mikchich jumped over the lodge, so that he seemed like a bird flying. But the third time he did this he was caught on the top of the tent-poles, and hung there dangling in the smoke which rose from below.

Then Glooskap, who was seated in the tent, said, “Uncle, I will now make you the _sogmo_, or great chief of the Tortoises, and you shall bear up a great nation.” Then he smoked Mikchich so long that his skin became a hard shell, and the marks of the smoke may be seen thereon to this day. And removing his entrails he destroyed them, so that but one short one was left. And he cried aloud, “_Milooks!_ (M.) My nephew, you will kill me!” But the nephew replied, “Not so. I am giving you great life. From this time you may roll through a flame and never feel it, and live on land or in the water. And though your head be cut off, it will live for nine days, and your heart, even, shall beat as long when taken from your body.” So Mikchich rejoiced greatly.

And this came betimes, for he soon had need of it all. For the next day all the men went on a hunt, and the Master warned him that they would seek to slay him. Now the young men went on before, and Turtle lingered behind; but all at once he made a magic flight far over their heads, unseen, and deep in the forest he slew a moose. Then he drew this to the snow-shoe track or road, and when his foes came up there he sat upon the moose, smoking, and waiting for them. Now Glooskap had told them that they would see some one come out ahead of them all that day, and when this came to pass they were more angered in their hearts than ever.

So they plotted to kill Turtle, and his nephew, who was about to leave, told him how it would be. “First of all, they will build a mighty fire and throw you in it. But do thou, O uncle, go cheerfully, for by my power thou wilt in no wise suffer. Then they will speak of drowning, but thou must beg and pray that this may not be; and then they will the more seek to do so, and thou shalt fight them to the bitter end, and yet it shall be.”

And as he said, so it came to pass; and Mikchich, being of good cheer, bade farewell to his nephew. And they seized him and threw him into a great fire, but he turned over and went to sleep in it, being very lazy; and when the fire had burnt out he awoke, and called for more wood, because it was a cold night.

Then they seized him yet again, and spoke of drowning. But, hearing this, he, as if he were in mortal dread, begged them not to do this thing. And he said they might cut him to pieces, or burn him, as they would, but not to throw him into the water. Therefore they resolved to do so, and dragged him on. Then he screamed horribly and fought lustily, and tore up trees and roots and rocks like a madman; but they took him into a canoe and paddled out into the middle of the lake (or to the sea), and, throwing him in, watched him sink as he vanished far down below. So they thought him dead, and returned rejoicing.

Now the next day at noon there was a hot sunshine, and something was seen basking on a great rock, about a mile out in the lake. So two young men took a canoe and went forth to see what this might be. And when they came to the edge of the rock, which was about a foot high, there lay Mikchich sunning himself; but seeing them coming to take him, he only said, “Good-by,” and rolled over plump into the water, where he is living to this day. In memory whereof all turtles, when they see any one coming, tip tilt themselves over into the water at once.

* * * * *

In the following Hindoo story of “Punchkin” you will see the expression of the primitive notion that the life of a person may be bound up in some external object. Invention runs riot in the attempts to make this object as inaccessible as possible. There is the Norse story of the “Giant who had no Heart in his Body,” who finally tells the lovely princess he keeps in bondage that “Far, far away in a lake lies an island; on that island stands a church; in that church is a well; in that well swims a duck; in that duck there is an egg; and in that egg there lies my heart, you darling.” The hero, of course, goes and finds the giant’s heart, and so kills him, and rescues the princess. There is also the story of the little Hindoo princess, called Sodawa Bai, whose soul was in the beautiful golden necklace she was born with around her neck, and who died when another princess who hated her finally took it off.

PUNCHKIN

(_A Hindoo Story_)

Once upon a time there was a Rajah who had seven beautiful daughters. They were all good girls; but the youngest, named Balna, was more clever than the rest. The Rajah’s wife died when they were quite little children, so these seven poor princesses were left with no mother to take care of them.

The Rajah’s daughters took it by turns to cook their father’s dinner every day, whilst he was absent deliberating with his ministers on the affairs of the nation.

About this time the Purdan died, leaving a widow and one daughter; and every day, when the seven princesses were preparing their father’s dinner, the Purdan’s widow and daughter would come and beg for a little fire from the hearth. Then Balna used to say to her sisters, “Send that woman away; send her away. Let her get the fire at her own house. What does she want with ours? If we allow her to come here we shall suffer for it some day.” But the other sisters would answer, “Be quiet, Balna; why must you always be quarrelling with this poor woman? Let her take some fire if she likes.” Then the Purdan’s widow used to go to the hearth and take a few sticks from it; and, whilst no one was looking, she would quickly throw some mud into the midst of the dishes which were being prepared for the Rajah’s dinner.

Now the Rajah was very fond of his daughters. Ever since their mother’s death they had cooked his dinner with their own hands, in order to avoid the danger of his being poisoned by his enemies. So, when he found the mud mixed up with his dinner, he thought it must arise from their carelessness, as it appeared improbable that any one should have put mud there on purpose; but being very kind, he did not like to reprove them for it, although this spoiling of the curry was repeated many successive days.

At last, one day, he determined to hide and watch his daughters cooking and see how it all happened; so he went into the next room, and watched them through a hole in the wall.

There he saw his seven daughters carefully washing the rice and preparing the curry, and as each dish was completed they put it by the fire ready to be cooked. Next he noticed the Purdan’s widow come to the door, and beg for a few sticks from the fire to cook her dinner with. Balna turned to her, angrily, and said, “Why don’t you keep fuel in your own house and not come here every day and take ours? Sisters, don’t give this woman any more; let her buy it for herself.”

Then the eldest sister answered, “Balna, let the poor woman take the wood and the fire; she does us no harm.” But Balna replied, “If you let her come here so often, maybe she will do us some harm, and make us sorry for it, some day.”

The Rajah then saw the Purdan’s widow go to the place where all his dinner was nicely prepared, and, as she took the wood, she threw a little mud into each of the dishes.

At this he was very angry, and sent to have the woman seized and brought before him. But when the widow came, she told him that she had played this trick because she wanted to gain an audience with him; and she spoke so cleverly, and pleased him so well with her cunning words, that instead of punishing her the Rajah married her, and made her his Ranee, and she and her daughter came to live in the palace.

The new Ranee hated the seven poor princesses, and wanted to get them, if possible, out of the way, in order that her daughter might have all their riches and live in the palace as princess in their place; and instead of being grateful to them for their kindness to her, she did all she could to make them miserable. She gave them nothing but bread to eat, and very little of that, and very little water to drink; so these seven poor little princesses, who had been accustomed to have everything comfortable about them, and good food and good clothes all their lives long, were very miserable and unhappy; and they used to go out every day and sit by their dead mother’s tomb and cry; and used to say, “Oh mother, mother, cannot you see your poor children, how unhappy we are, and how we are starved by our cruel step-mother?”

One day, whilst they were sobbing and crying, lo and behold! a beautiful pomelo tree grew up out of the grave, covered with fresh ripe pomeloes, and the children satisfied their hunger by eating some of the fruit; and every day after this, instead of trying to eat the nasty dinner their step-mother provided for them, they used to go out to their mother’s grave and eat the pomeloes which grew there on the beautiful tree.

Then the Ranee said to her daughter, “I cannot tell how it is; every day those seven girls say they don’t want any dinner, and won’t eat any, and yet they never grow thin nor look ill; they look better than you do. I cannot tell how it is;” and she bade her watch the seven princesses and see if any one gave them anything to eat.

So next day, when the princesses went to their mother’s grave, and were eating the beautiful pomeloes, the Purdan’s daughter followed them and saw them gathering the fruit.

Then Balna said to her sisters, “Do you see that girl watching us? Let us drive her away or hide the pomeloes, else she will go and tell her mother all about it, and that will be very bad for us.”

But the other sisters said, “Oh, no, do not be unkind, Balna. The girl would never be so cruel as to tell her mother. Let us rather invite her to come and have some of the fruit;” and calling her to them, they gave her one of the pomeloes.

No sooner had she eaten it, however, than the Purdan’s daughter went home and said to her mother, “I do not wonder the seven princesses will not eat the nasty dinner you prepare for them, for by their mother’s grave there grows a beautiful pomelo tree, and they go there every day and eat the pomeloes. I ate one, and it was the nicest I have ever tasted.”

The cruel Ranee was much vexed at hearing this, and all next day she stayed in her room, and told the Rajah that she had a very bad headache. The Rajah at hearing this was deeply grieved, and said to his wife, “What can I do for you?” She answered, “There is only one thing that will make my headache well. By your dead wife’s tomb there grows a fine pomelo tree; you must bring that here, and boil it, root and branch, and put a little of the water in which it has been boiled on my forehead, and that will cure my headache.” So the Rajah sent his servants, and had the beautiful pomelo tree pulled up by the roots, and did as the Ranee desired; and when some of the water in which it had been boiled was put on her forehead she said her headache was gone and she felt quite well.

Next day, when the seven princesses went as usual to the grave of their mother, the pomelo tree had disappeared. Then they all began to cry very bitterly.

Now there was by the Ranee’s tomb a small tank, and as they were crying they saw that the tank was filled with a rich, cream-like substance, which quickly hardened into a thick white cake. At seeing this all the princesses were very glad, and they ate some of the cake, and liked it; and next day the same thing happened, and so it went on for many days. Every morning the princesses went to their mother’s grave, and found the little tank filled with nourishing, cream-like cake. Then the cruel step-mother said to her daughter, “I cannot tell how it is; I have had the pomelo tree which used to grow by the Ranee’s grave destroyed, and yet the princesses grow no thinner, nor look more sad, though they never eat the dinner I give them. I cannot tell how it is!”

And her daughter said, “I will watch.”

Next day, while the princesses were eating the cream cake, who should come by but their step-mother’s daughter. Balna saw her first, and said, “See, sisters, there comes that girl again. Let us sit round the edge of the tank, and not allow her to see it; for if we give her some of our cake she will go and tell her mother, and that will be very unfortunate for us.”

The other sisters, however, thought Balna unnecessarily suspicious, and instead of following her advice they gave the Purdan’s daughter some of the cake, and she went home and told her mother all about it.

The Ranee, on hearing how well the princesses fared, was exceedingly angry, and sent her servants to pull down the dead Ranee’s tomb and fill the little tank with the ruins. And not content with this, she next day pretended to be very, very ill—in fact, at the point of death; and when the Rajah was much grieved, and asked her whether it was in his power to procure her any remedy, she said to him, “Only one thing can save my life, but I know you will not do it.” He replied, “Yes, whatever it is, I will do it.” She then said, “To save my life, you must kill the seven daughters of your first wife, and put some of their blood on my forehead and on the palms of my hands, and their death will be my life.” At these words the Rajah was very sorrowful; but because he feared to break his word, he went out with a heavy heart to find his daughters.

He found them crying by the ruins of their mother’s grave.

Then, feeling he could not kill them, the Rajah spoke kindly to them, and told them to come out into the jungle with him; and there he made a fire and cooked some rice, and gave it to them. But in the afternoon, it being very hot, the seven princesses all fell asleep, and when he saw they were fast asleep the Rajah, their father, stole away and left them (for he feared his wife), saying to himself, “It is better my poor daughters should die here than be killed by their step-mother.”

He then shot a deer, and returning home, put some of the blood on the forehead and hands of the Ranee, and she thought then that he had really killed the princesses and said she felt quite well.

Meantime the seven princesses awoke, and when they found themselves all alone in the thick jungle they were much frightened, and began to call out as loud as they could, in hopes of making their father hear; but he was by that time far away, and would not have been able to hear them, even had their voices been as loud as thunder.

It so happened that this very day the seven young sons of a neighboring Rajah chanced to be hunting in the same jungle, and as they were returning home after the day’s sport was over, the youngest prince said to his brothers: “Stop, I think I hear some one crying and calling out. Do you not hear voices? Let us go in the direction of the sound, and try and find out what it is.”

So the seven princes rode through the wood until they came to the place where the seven princesses sat crying and wringing their hands. At the sight of them the young princes were very much astonished, and still more so on learning their story; and they settled that each should take one of these poor forlorn ladies home with him and marry her.

So the first and eldest prince took the eldest princess home with him and married her.

And the second took the second;

And the third took the third;

And the fourth took the fourth;

And the fifth took the fifth;

And the sixth took the sixth;

And the seventh, and handsomest of all, took the beautiful Balna.

And when they got to their own land there was great rejoicing throughout the kingdom at the marriage of the seven young princes to seven such beautiful princesses.

About a year after this Balna had a little son, and his uncles and aunts were so fond of the boy that it was as if he had seven fathers and seven mothers. None of the other princes or princesses had any children, so the son of the seventh prince and Balna was acknowledged their heir by all the rest.

They had thus lived very happily for some time, when one fine day the seventh prince (Balna’s husband) said he would go out hunting, and away he went; and they waited long for him, but he never came back.

Then his six brothers said they would go and see what had become of him; and they went away, but they also did not return.

And the seven princesses grieved very much, for they felt sure their kind husbands must have been killed.

One day, not long after this had happened, as Balna was rocking her baby’s cradle, and whilst her sisters were working in the room below, there came to the palace door a man in a long black dress, who said that he was a Fakir, and came to beg. The servants said to him, “You cannot go into the palace—the Rajah’s sons have all gone away; we think they must be dead, and their widows cannot be interrupted by your begging.” But he said, “I am a holy man; you must let me in.” Then the stupid servants let him walk through the palace, but they did not know that this man was no Fakir, but a wicked magician named Punchkin.

Punchkin Fakir wandered through the palace, and saw many beautiful things there, till at last he reached the room where Balna sat singing beside her little boy’s cradle. The magician thought her more beautiful than all the other beautiful things he had seen, insomuch that he asked her to go home with him and to marry him. But she said, “My husband, I fear, is dead, but my little boy is still quite young; I will stay here and teach him to grow up a clever man, and when he is grown up he shall go out into the world, and try and learn tidings of his father. Heaven forbid that I should ever leave him or marry you.” At these words the magician was very angry, and turned her into a little black dog, and led her away, saying, “Since you will not come with me of your own free will, I will make you.” So the poor princess was dragged away, without any power of effecting an escape, or of letting her sisters know what had become of her. As Punchkin passed through the palace gate the servants said to him, “Where did you get that pretty little dog?” And he answered, “One of the princesses gave it to me as a present.” At hearing which they let him go without further questioning.

Soon after this the six elder princesses heard the little baby, their nephew, begin to cry, and when they went upstairs they were much surprised to find him all alone, and Balna nowhere to be seen. Then they questioned the servants, and when they heard of the Fakir and the little black dog they guessed what had happened, and sent in every direction seeking them, but neither the Fakir nor the dog was to be found. What could six poor women do? They had to give up all hopes of ever seeing their kind husbands and their sister and her husband again, and they devoted themselves thenceforward to teaching and taking care of their little nephew.

Thus time went on, till Balna’s son was fourteen years old. Then one day his aunts told him the history of the family; and no sooner did he hear it than he was seized with a great desire to go in search of his father and mother and uncles, and bring them home again if he could find them alive. His aunts, on learning his determination, were much alarmed and tried to dissuade him, saying, “We have lost our husbands, and our sister and her husband, and you are now our sole hope; if you go away, what shall we do?” But he replied, “I pray you not to be discouraged; I shall return soon, and, if it is possible, bring my father and mother and uncles with me.” So he set out on his travels, but for some months he could learn nothing to help him in his search.

At last, after he had journeyed many hundreds of weary miles, and become almost hopeless of ever being able to hear anything further of his parents, he one day came to a country which seemed full of stones and rocks and trees, and there he saw a large palace with a high tower; hard by which was a Malee’s little house.

As he was looking about, the Malee’s wife saw him, and ran out of the house and said, “My dear boy, who are you that dare venture to this dangerous place?” And he answered, “I am a Rajah’s son, and I come in search of my father and my uncles and my mother whom a wicked enchanter bewitched.” Then the Malee’s wife said, “This country and this palace belong to a great enchanter; he is all-powerful, and if any one displeases him, he can turn them into stones and trees. All the rocks and trees you see here were living people once, and the magician turned them to what they now are. Some time ago a Rajah’s son came here, and shortly afterward came his six brothers, and they were all turned into stones and trees; and these are not the only unfortunate ones, for up in that tower lives a beautiful princess, whom the magician has kept prisoner there for twelve years, because she hates him and will not marry him.”

Then the little prince thought, “These must be my parents and my uncles. I have found what I seek at last.” So he told his story to the Malee’s wife, and begged her to help him to remain in that place a while, and inquire further concerning the unhappy people she mentioned; and she promised to befriend him, and advised his disguising himself, lest the magician should see him, and turn him likewise into stone. To this the prince agreed. So the Malee’s wife dressed him up in a saree, and pretended that he was her daughter.

One day, not long after this, as the magician was walking in his garden, he saw the little girl (as he thought) playing about, and he asked her who she was. She told him she was the Malee’s daughter, and the magician said, “You are a pretty little girl, and to-morrow you shall take a present of flowers from me to the beautiful lady who lives in the tower.”

The young prince was much delighted at hearing this, and after some consultation with the Malee’s wife, he settled that it would be more safe for him to retain his disguise, and trust to the chance of a favorable opportunity for establishing some communication with his mother, if it were indeed she.

Now it happened that at Balna’s marriage her husband had given her a small gold ring on which her name was engraved, and she put it on her little son’s finger when he was a baby, and afterward when he was older, his aunts had had it enlarged for him, so that he was still able to wear it. The Malee’s wife advised him to fasten the well-known treasure to one of the bouquets he presented to his mother, and trust to her recognizing it. This was not to be done without difficulty, as such a strict watch was kept over the poor princess (for fear of her ever establishing communication with her friends) that though the supposed Malee’s daughter was permitted to take her flowers every day, the magician or one of his slaves was always in the room at the same time. At last one day, however, opportunity favored him and when no one was looking the boy tied the ring to a nosegay and threw it at Balna’s feet. The ring fell with a clang on the floor, and Balna, looking to see what made the strange sound, found the little ring tied to the flowers. On recognizing it, she at once believed the story her son told her of his long search, and begged him to advise her as to what she had better do; at the same time entreating him on no account to endanger his life by trying to rescue her. She told him that for twelve long years the magician had kept her shut up in the tower because she refused to marry him, and she was so closely guarded that she saw no hope of release.

Now Balna’s son was a bright, clever boy; so he said, “Do not fear, dear mother; the first thing to do is to discover how far the magician’s power extends, in order that we may be able to liberate my father and uncles, whom he has imprisoned in the form of rocks and trees. You have spoken to him angrily for twelve long years; do you now rather speak kindly. Tell him you have given up all hopes of again seeing the husband you have so long mourned, and say you are willing to marry him. Then endeavor to find out what his power consists in, and whether he is immortal or can be put to death.”

Balna determined to take her son’s advice; and the next day sent for Punchkin and spoke to him as had been suggested.

The magician, greatly delighted, begged her to allow the wedding to take place as soon as possible.

But she told him that before she married him he must allow her a little more time in which she might make his acquaintance, and that, after being enemies so long, their friendship could but strengthen by degrees. “And do tell me,” she said, “are you quite immortal? Can death never touch you? And are you too great an enchanter ever to feel human suffering?”

“Why do you ask?” said he.

“Because,” she replied, “if I am to be your wife I would fain know all about you, in order, if any calamity threatens you, to overcome, or, if possible, to avert it.”

“It is true,” he said, “that I am not as others. Far, far away, hundreds of thousands of miles from this, there lies a desolate country covered with thick jungle. In the midst of the jungle grows a circle of palm trees, and in the center of the circle stand six chattees full of water, piled one above another; below the sixth chattee is a small cage which contains a little green parrot; on the life of the parrot depends my life, and if the parrot is killed I must die. It is, however,” he added, “impossible that the parrot should sustain any injury, both on account of the inaccessibility of the country and because, by my appointment, many thousand evil genii surround the palm trees, and kill all who approach the place.”

Balna told her son what Punchkin had said, but, at the same time, implored him to give up all idea of getting the parrot.

The prince, however, replied, “Mother, unless I can get hold of that parrot you and my father and uncles cannot be liberated: be not afraid, I will shortly return. Do you, meantime, keep the magician in good humor—still putting off your marriage with him on various pretexts; and before he finds out the cause of delay I will return.” So saying he went away.

Many, many weary miles did he travel, till at last he came to a thick jungle, and being very tired, sat down under a tree and fell asleep. He was awakened by a soft rustling sound, and, looking about him, saw a large serpent which was making its way to an eagle’s nest built in the tree under which he lay, and in the nest were two young eagles. The prince, seeing the danger of the young birds, drew his sword and killed the serpent; at the same moment a rushing sound was heard in the air, and the two old eagles, who had been out hunting for food for their young ones, returned. They quickly saw the dead serpent and the young prince standing over it; and the old mother eagle said to him, “Dear boy, for many years all our young have been devoured by that cruel serpent: you have now saved the lives of our children; whenever you are in need, therefore, send to us and we will help you; and as for these little eagles, take them, and let them be your servants.”

At this the prince was very glad, and the two eaglets crossed their wings, on which he mounted; and they carried him far, far away over the thick jungles until he came to the place where grew the circle of palm trees in the midst of which stood the six chattees full of water. It was the middle of the day. All around the trees were the genii fast asleep; nevertheless, there were such countless thousands of them that it would have been quite impossible for any one to walk through their ranks to the place. Down swooped the strong-winged eaglets—down jumped the prince; in an instant he had overthrown the six chattees full of water, and seized the little green parrot, which he rolled up in his cloak; while, as he mounted again into the air, all the genii below awoke, and, finding their treasure gone, set up a wild and melancholy howl.

Away, away flew the little eagles till they came to their home in the great tree; then the prince said to the old eagles, “Take back your little ones; they have done me good service; if ever again I stand in need of help I shall not fail to come to you.” He then continued his journey on foot till he arrived once more at the magician’s palace, where he sat down at the door and began playing with the parrot. The magician saw him, and came to him quickly and said, “My boy, where did you get that parrot? Give it to me, I pray you.” But the prince answered, “Oh, no, I cannot give away my parrot; it is a great pet of mine; I have had it many years.” Then the magician said, “If it is an old favorite, I can understand you not caring to give it away; but come, what will you sell it for?” “Sir,” replied the prince, “I will not sell my parrot.”

Then the magician got frightened and said, “Anything, anything; name what price you will, and it shall be yours.” “Then,” the prince answered, “I will that you liberate the Rajah’s seven sons whom you turned into rocks and trees.” “It is done as you desire,” said the magician, “only give me my parrot” (and with that, by a stroke of his wand, Balna’s husband and his brothers resumed their natural shapes). “Now give me my parrot,” repeated Punchkin. “Not so fast, my master,” rejoined the prince; “I must first beg that you restore to life all whom you have thus imprisoned.”

The magician immediately waved his wand again; and whilst he cried in an imploring voice, “Give me my parrot!” the whole garden became suddenly alive: where rocks and stones and trees had been before, stood Rajahs and Punts and Sirdars, and mighty men on prancing horses, and jewelled pages and troops of armed attendants.

“Give me my parrot!” cried Punchkin. Then the boy took hold of the parrot and tore off one of its wings; and as he did so the magician’s right arm fell off.

Punchkin then stretched out his left arm, crying “Give me my parrot!” The prince pulled off the parrot’s second wing, and the magician’s left arm tumbled off.

“Give me my parrot!” cried he, and fell on his knees. The prince pulled off the parrot’s right leg—the magician’s right leg fell off; the prince pulled off the parrot’s left leg—down fell the magician’s left.

Nothing remained of him save the limbless body and the head; but still he rolled his eyes, and cried, “Give me my parrot!” “Take your parrot, then,” cried the boy, and with that he wrung the bird’s neck and threw it at the magician; and as he did so, Punchkin’s head twisted round, and with a fearful groan he died!

Then they let Balna out of the tower; and she, her son, and the seven princes went to their own country, and lived very happily ever afterward. And as to the rest of the world, every one went to his own house.