teeth and claws. There, in the magic cavern, many a mile from the sun's
rays, they fought for seven days, the stubborn devil and the stubborn
man, whose savage temper gave him fresher strength with every fresh
wound; the more his blood ran from his body all the more his heart grew
harder with the love of fight, until he beat away the monster's seven
heads. And so he slew him, and the watching elf burst into laughter at
the victory.
"Now," said the Elf, "I have a gift for thee. I have three sisters: all
are beautiful, and all shall be thine own if thou wilt but unbind my
hands." The strong man set him free. And so he led the man to another
cave, and there he saw three girls so strangely fair they seemed to be
a dream. The first, indeed, was very beautiful, and yet as plump as she
was lovely; then the second maid was tall, superb, and most
magnificent, in rarest furs, with richest wampum bands, the very
picture of a perfect bride; bet fairer than them both, as much more
fair as swans outrival ducks, the youngest smiled. And the young
chieftain chose her for his own.
With the three girls he went into the day. Far on the rocks above him
he could see his two companions, and a sudden thought came to his mind,
for he was quick to think, and so he called, "I say, let down a rope; I
have three girls here, and they cannot climb." And so the two strong
men let down a cord: then the first fairy-maid went up by it, and then
the second. Now the chief cried out, "It is my turn; now you must pull
on me!" And saying this, he tied a heavy stone, just his own weight,
unto the long rope's end, then bid them haul. It rose, but as it came
just to the top the traitors let it fall, as he supposed they would, to
murder him.
And then the chieftain said unto the elf, "You know the mountain and
its winding ways: bear me upon thy back, and that in haste, to where
those fellows are!" The goblin flew, and in an instant he was by their
side.
He found the villains in a deadly fight, quarreling for the maids; but
seeing him they ceased to wrestle, upon which he said, "I risked my
life to bring away these girls; I would have given each of you a wife:
for doing this you would have murdered me. Now I could kill you, and
you both deserve death at the stake, vile serpents that you are; but
take your lives,--you are too low for me,--and with them take these
women, if they wish to wed with such incarnate brutes as you!"
They went their way; the women followed them along the forest paths,
and ever on. Into this story they return no more.
And then the strong man said to his young bride, "I must return unto my
village; then I'll come again to you; await me here." But she, as one
to elfin magic born, replied, "I warn you of a single thing. When you
again are at your wigwam door a small black dog will leap to lick your
hand. Beware, I say; if he succeed in it, you surely will forget me
utterly." As she predicted so it came to pass.
And so she waited in the lonely wood beside the mountain till a month
was gone, and then arose and went to seek her love. All in the early
dawn she reached the town, and found the wigwam of the sagamore. She
sought a neighboring hiding-place, where she might watch unseen, and
found a tree, a broad old ash, which spread its stooping boughs over
the surface of a silent pool.
An old black Indian had a hut hard by. His daughter, coming, looked
into the spring, and saw a lovely face. The simple girl thought it was
hers, her own grown beautiful by sorcery which hung about the place.
She flung away her pail, and said, "Aha! I'll work no more; some chief
shall marry me!" and so she went to smile among the men.
Then came the mother, who beheld the same sweet, smiling, also girlish
face. She said, "Now I am young and beautiful again; I'll seek another
husband, and at once." She threw her pail afar and went away, losing no
time to smile among the men.
And then in turn the old black Indian came, and looking in the spring
beheld the face. He knew right well that it was not his own, for in his
youth he never had been fair. So looking up above he saw the bride, and
bade her come to him; and then he said, "My wife has gone away; my
daughter, too. You were the cause of it; it is but right that you
should take the place my wife has left. Therefore remain with me and be
my own."
He fares but ill who weds unwilling witch. When night came on they laid
them down to sleep, and then the bride murmured a magic prayer, begging
the awful Spirit of the Wind, the giant Eagle of the wilderness, to do
his worst. A fearful tempest blew, and all night long the old black
Indian was out-of-doors, working with all his power to keep the lodge
from being blown away. As soon as he had pinned one sheet of bark into
its place another blew away, and then a tent pole rattling in the rain
bounded afar. It was a weary work, but all night long the young bride
slept in peace, until the morning came, and then he slept.
Then she arose, and, walking to the wood, sat down beside a stream and
sang a song:--
"There are many men in the world,
But only one is dear to me.
He is good and brave and strong.
He swore to love none but me;
He has forgotten me.
It was a bad spirit that changed him,
But I will love none but him."
And as she sat and sang, the sagamore her husband, paddling by in his
canoe, heard the sweet song intoned in magic style, [Footnote: Not only
the words, but the peculiar intonations of them, were essential to produce
the proper effect of a magic song. An intelligent white man has left it
on record that it required two years to learn one of these incantations
of only a few lines.] and all at once recalled what had been lost,--the
two strong giants, the cavern and the elf, the seven-headed monster and
the fight, the sisters and the evil-minded men, and the black dog who
leaped to lick his hand: it flashed upon him like some early dream brought
out by sorcery. He saw her sit beside the stream, and still he heard her
song, soft as a magic flute. He went to her, and in a minute he was won
again.
And then she said, "This world is ever false. I know another, let us go
to it." So then again she sang a magic spell, and as she sang they saw
the great Culloo, the giant bird, broad as a thunder cloud, winging his
way towards them. Then he came; they stepped upon him, and he soared
away. But to this earth they never came again.
This very singular legend was obtained for me by Mrs. W. Wallace Brown.
It is from the Micmac, and is in the original from beginning to end a
song, or poem. For this reason I have given it a plain metrical form,
neither prose nor poetry, such being quite the character of the
original. But I, have not introduced anything not in the original.
This story consists of a very old Indian legend mingled with a European
fairy tale drawn through a French-Canadian source. The incident of the
Elf who eats the food of three men is to be found in another tale. In
one version, the bride, finding that her husband, though utterly
deprived by magic of his memory, has married again, sails away on the
great bird, leaving him forever. I have naturally rejected this
senseless termination in favor of one found in another form.
The calling on the Lightning to build a wigwam is probably a mistake.
It is more likely that it was summoned to destroy the chiefs wigwam,
but the narrator, confused with the subject of the hero's strength,
changed the original. The invocations of Lightning, and subsequently of
the Storm Bird are probably entirely Indian, though there are Norse
invocations to Hroesvelgar, or the Eagle of the Northwest, as we read
in Scott's Pirate.
The black whelp or small black dog is in this tale ominous of evil. It
causes oblivion. In the Edda to dream of the same thing is the most
evil of all Atli's bad dreams (vide the second lay of Gudrun, 41):--
"Seemed to me from my hand
Whelps I let slip.
Lacking cause of joy;"
and in the very same song (24) be takes a potion which causes oblivion.
But there is even a third point in the Atlamal in Groenlenzku, which
resembles one in the Indian tale. It is where the half enchantress
Kostbera warns Hogni against leaving her:
"From home thou art going:
Give ear to counsel;
Few are fully prudent;
Go another time."
In the Norse lay we are told that to dream of a white bear indicates a
storm, but here it means a strange and terrible event. Long before I
met with this, I observed that the introduction, or mention, of a white
bear-skin in these Indian stories invariably intimates some strange
magical change.
But it is most remarkable of all, that, while the poems of the Edda
have nothing but a very few incidents in common with the traditions of
the western tribes, they are inspired throughout with a strange and
mysterious sentiment or _manner_ wonderfully like that of the
Wabanaki. As regards literal resemblance the following coincidences may
here be noted.
In a widely spread Norse tale a very small goblin sustains a long and
obstinate contest with an immense white bear.
The Norsemen invoked the Eagle Giant of the Winds, as Scott has shown
in his song of the Reimkennar. The same being is invoked in this
legend.
The whelp, as an omen of evil, is mentioned in the Edda. In this tale
he causes forgetfulness. A potion of oblivion is also mentioned in the
Norse poem in close connection with the omen of the dog.
If we accept the termination of this tale as given in the Micmac poem
it amounts to this: A certain woman causes the whelp to lick the hero's
hand. This causes forgetfulness. The hero marries her, and thereby
loses his first wife. In the Edda, Brynhild, who has morally the first
claim to Sigurd, says of Crymhild, "She presented to Sigurd the
pernicious drink, so that he no more remembers me." In the saga of
Thorstein, Viking's son the hero, is made by the witch Dis to utterly
forget his bride Hunoor.
The Kalmuk tale of How the Schimm-Khan was Slain contains striking
analogies to this of the Three Strong Men. [Footnote: _Sagas from He
Far East_, London, 1873.] In it the hero associates with three men,
who take turns to cook. Their food is devoured, as in this tale, every
day by a little old witch who is very strong. He overcomes her by
craft. His companions, instead of drawing him up by the rope, as agreed
on, leave him to perish, in order to possess themselves of a treasure.
There can be no doubt as to the Hindoo origin of this and many more
plots found among the red Indians. But a careful study of the Norse
story convinces me that the tale did not come to the Wabanaki through
any other than a Norse source.
Since writing out the foregoing poem, with the comment, I have received
from Louis Mitchell the Penobscot version of it. It is about twice as
long as the Micmac story, and differs from it very materially. In it
the hero conquers the goblin by getting possession of his red cap. In
the Norse tales the same incident occurs in different forms. He then
fights with a copper demon; also with one of silver and another of
gold. Each devil, while he is sharpening his sword, exclaims, "Hurry!
hurry! I am hungry!" The last of the three, the _Kche mitche-hant_,
or great devil, has three heads, which replace themselves when cut off;
but the hero summons a lion (_pee'tahlo_) and an eagle, who devour
each a head, when the demon, to save the last, surrenders. There are old
"aboriginal" incidents in this Passamaquoddy tale, but the European
elements predominate to such an extent as to call for the following
remark from the Indian writer:--
"This story is ended. When Indians in it, as they do in many others,
speak of kings and queens or ships and ivory, I think they got it all
from Europe. But perhaps when the Indians came here from Asia they
brought these stories with them. Thus they very often mention ivory,
calling it white bone. They also mention cities. But these things are
not new, for they were handed down from one generation to another."
I have to add that, while the story agrees with an universally spread
Aryan fairy tale, it is very remarkable that it should add to these,
several strictly Eddaic details, such as the white bear.
THE WEEWILLMEKQ'.
_I. How a Woman Lost a Gun for Fear of the Weewillmekq'_.
There was a man and his wife who had got together all they had for the
fall hunt. They went up the St. John's River; they left the village of
Foxerbica; they went twenty-five miles beyond it. They passed the falls
on the upper side to get some game. They cooked and ate. They got ready
to start again; they launched the canoe. [Footnote: This story and the
preceding are taken _word for word_ from the Indian narration. The
singular precision of minute details is very characteristic of many of
these legends.] They shoved the canoe twenty-five feet from the shore.
The woman turned, and upset it. It went like lightning down the rapids.
They had hard work to get ashore, and lost their gun, traps, kettle,
and everything. They escaped with great trouble; they had trouble to
save their canoe.
The man was in great grief at the loss of his gun. He sat down and
sang:--
"Nici sigi psach ke-yin,
Dich m'djel mieol wagh nuch'."
I am sorry,
I am in great trouble.
There came two Indians down to the portage where the man and his wife
sat. They asked him why he was so sad. He told them all. One of them
was a _m'teoulin_. He asked of them, "Could you tell your gun if
you saw it?" The woman cried quickly, "I could!" He was not pleased at
her forwardness, but put the question again; when she as pertly
answered, "Yes," for her husband. He looked sternly at her, and said,
"Are you sure?" To which she cried, "Yes, yes!" Then he said, "If you
are very bold, and not afraid of anything, you may get it again." And
this, too, she took on herself, saying, "Oh, yes, _I'm_ not
afraid; _I'll_ get it," making no account of her husband.
Then, by the order of the man, she went to a ledge just below the
falls, where they are seventy-five feet high. There was a little
projecting rock on which she could just sit,--a horrible place. Below
it was a dreadful eddy, in which nothing could live. He helped her down
to it, and she was in mortal terror, as such glib-tongued women
generally are when there is the least danger. Then the man went away.
And as she sat there, trembling and half dead with fright, she saw
Something come up out of the eddy,--even out of the worst of it. It
rose; it was an awful sight,--a kind of monstrous head, with great
forked horns and terrible eyes. She was stiff as a stone with fear. The
lost gun lay crosswise on the prongs of the horns. It moved slowly on
through the eddy, glaring at her. It came nearer and nearer; the gun
was within her reach, but she was too frightened to touch it. Then the
monster passed by and sank into the water, and was seen no more, nor
was the gun.
They got her back with trouble from the place where she sat. The
_m'teoulin_ was furious with rage at her, that he had taken such
pains for nothing. He said, "This serves you right for your impudence
and forwardness. Learn your proper place, and never undertake to do
what is none of your business." He then condoled with the husband, but
said, "If you could give me all you could think of, I could never get
your gun again."
By this women may learn not to speak too quickly, or propose to do
men's duties, "_Hu 'sami n'zama wiuch wee lel n'aga samee n'gamma
wiool petin'l._" (P. "Too quick with the tongue, slow with the hands.")
[Footnote: Though the Weewillmekq' is a worm inhabiting the forest and
found in dry wood, it is certainly identified, or confused, by the
Passamaquoddy Indians with the alligator, or some kind of a horrible
water-goblin, which appears to have many points in common with the
_Chepitchcalm,_ or dragon of the Micmacs. This story was related to
me by Tomah Josephs, now Indian governor at Princeton, Maine.
Among various notes I find the following:--
"The weewillmekq' becomes human at times, even now."
"Six years ago," said T. J., "I was in the woods collecting boughs, and
I saw a _weewillmekq'_ on a tree. The thunder kept approaching the
tree on which it was, and finally struck it. It seemed to me as if the
worm had attracted the lightning." (August 26, 1883.)
"The Weewillmekq' is a small worm, sometimes two or three inches long.
It is seen sometimes in the water as large as a horse. Then it has
horns. It is a very horrible-looking little worm."]
_II. Muggahmaht'adem, the Dance of Old Age, or the Magic of the
Weewillmekq'._ [Footnote: This mysterious being is called
_Wee-wil-li-ah-mek_ in Penobscot The correct pronounciation is very
nearly _Wee-wil-'l-mekqu'_ for both Penobscot and Passamaquoddy,
but this would be a difficult utterence for any one who has never
listened to the Algonquin soft gutturals.
Mrs. W. Wallace Brown informs me that "the _Weewillmekqu'_ is a
snail." This would account for its being thought to inhabit both land
and water.]
(Passamaquoddy.)
Of old times. There lived in a village many Indians. Among them was a
handsome young man, very brave, a great hunter. And there was a
beautiful girl. What was her name? Mahli-hahn-sqwess, or Kaliwahdazi,--
I don't remember which. But she was proud and high-tempered, and, what
was worse, a great witch, but nobody knew it. She wanted the young man
to marry her, but he was very busy getting ready for the fall and
winter hunt, and had no time to attend to such a thing; and told her so
very plainly.
Yes, he must have been very plain with her, for she was very angry, and
said to him, "You may go; but you will never return as you went." She
meant that, he would be ill or changed. He gave no heed to her words;
he did not care for her nor fear her. But far away in the woods, far in
the north, in midwinter, he went raging mad. The witch had struck him,
when far away, with her magic.
He had with him an elder brother, a great brave, a very fierce man. He,
not being able to do aught else, did the most desperate thing a
Wabanaki Indian can do. He went down to the river, and sang the song
which calls the _Weewillmekq'_.
"We que moh wee will l'mick,
We que moh m'cha micso,
Som'awo wee will l'mick!
Cardup ke su m'so wo Sawo!"
I call on the Wee-will-l'mick!
I call on the Terrible One!
On the One with the Horns!
I dare him to appear!
It came to him in all its terrors. Its eyes were like fire; its horns
rose. It asked him what he wanted. He said that he wished his brother
to be in his right mind again.
"I will give you what you want," said the Weewillmekq', "if you are not
afraid."
"I am not afraid of anything," said the Indian.
"Not of me?"
"Not of you nor of Mitche-hant, the devil himself."
"If you dare take me by my horns and scrape somewhat from one of them
with your knife," said the monster, "you may have your wish."
Now this Indian was indeed as savage and brave as the devil; and he had
need to be so to do this, for the Weewillmekq' looked his very worst.
But the man drew his knife and scraped from the horn till he was told
that he had enough.
"Go to your camp," said the Worm. "Put half the scrapings into a cup of
water. Make your brother drink it."
"And the other half?" asked the Indian.
"Give it to the girl who made all this trouble. She needs medicine,
too."
He returned to camp, and gave the drink to his brother, who recovered.
When the hunt was at an end they went home.
They arrived at night. There was an immense lodge in the town, and a
dance was going on. The younger brother had prepared a cool drink,--
sweet with maple-sugar, fragrant with herbs,--and in it was the powder
of the horn of the Weewillmekq'. The witch, warm and very thirsty from
dancing, came to the door. He offered her the cup. Without heeding who
gave it, she drank it dry, and, turning to her partner, went on in the
dance.
And then a strange thing happened. For at every turn of the dance she
grew a year older. She began as a young girl; when at the end of the
room she was fifty years of age; and when she got back to the door
whence she started she fell dead on the floor, at the feet of him who
gave her the drink, a little, wrinkled, wizened-up old squaw of a
hundred years.
_Aha, yes? wood enit atokhahyen, muggoh mah't adem_. This is the
story of the Dance of Old Age. But you may call it _Sektegah_, the
Dance of Death, if you like it better. [Footnote: This extraordinary
story was related to me by Noel Joseph, at Campobello, August 26, 1883.
I am indebted to Mrs. W. Wallace Brown for the incantation song. The
Weewillmekq' has, as it appears in several tales, an extraordinary
resemblance to the Norse dragon. It cures mental diseases. It seems to
be the same with the _Chepitchcalm_.]
_III. Another Version of the Dance of Old Age._
(Passamaquoddy.)
It was in the autumn, the time when Indians go up the rivers to their
hunting-grounds, that two young men left home. They ascended the
stream; they came to a branch, where they parted: one going alone,
another with his married brother. This latter, with the brother, had
left in the village a female friend, a witch, who had forbidden him to
go hunting, but he had not obeyed her.
And she had cause to keep him at home, for, when he was afar in the
woods, and alone, he met one day with a very beautiful girl, who
fascinated him, and gave herself to him. And when he said that he did
not know how to conceal her from his friends she told him that she was
a fairy, and could make herself as small as a newly born squirrel, and
that all he need do was to wrap her up in a handkerchief and carry her
in his pocket. When alone, he could take her out, enjoy her company,
and then reduce and fold her up and put her away again.
He did so, but from that hour, while he carried the fairy near his
heart, he began to be wicked and strange. This was not caused by her,
but by the girl at home. He was entirely changed; he grew devilish; he
refused to eat, and never spoke. His sister-in-law began to fear him.
When she offered him food he cried out, "Unless I can devour one of
your children I will have nothing!"
When his brother returned and heard all this, he, too, offered him
meat, but met with a refusal and the reply, "Give me one of your little
children." To which he answered, "The child is so small that it will
not satisfy you. Let me go and get a larger one." Then he ran to the
village and informed his friends of what had come over the brother. And
as they knew that he was about to become a _kewahqu'_
(_chenoo_) they resolved to kill him.
But there was a young man there, a friend of the sufferer, who said
that he could save him. So all who were assembled bade him try.
And when night came he went apart, and began to sing his
_m'teoulin_, or magic song. When it ended there was a loud sound
as of some heavy body falling and striking the earth, which fairly
shook. The next morning he called all his friends and the married
brother, and showed them a human corpse. "Now leave me," he said. "Go
to my friend and tell him that I have food for him." The Indians did
so, and in horror left the two cannibals to devour their disgusting
meal. When the insane youth was satisfied, his friend asked, "Have you
had enough?" He replied that he had. [Footnote: The human body which
supplied the meal was probably in reality a deer, or some such animal.]
Then the magician said, "You are bewitched by the girl who forbade you
to go hunting; she knew you would find a maid better than she is. Now
come with me."
They went to a small lake; they sat down by its side; the sorcerer
began his magic song. And as he sang the waters opened; from the
disturbed waves rose a huge Weewillmekq', a creature like an alligator,
with horns. And, as the terrible being came ashore, the magician said,
"Go and scrape somewhat from his horn and bring it here!" The young man
had become fearless; he went and did as he was bid: he scraped the
horn, and brought the scraping.
"Now, my friend," said the magician, "let us try this on a tree." There
was a large green beech growing by them. It was simply touched with the
fragment from the horn when another color spread all over the bark as
rapidly as the eye could follow it: in an instant it was dead, and in a
few minutes more it fell to the ground, utterly rotten, as if it were a
century old.
"Now," said the sorcerer, "we will experiment with this on the witch
who wishes to destroy you." So as it was night they went to the
village. A dance was being held, and the beautiful tall witch having
paused to rest, the two men approached her. The young man placed his
hand on her head; he held in it a scraping of the horn of the
_weewillmekq'_. As he did so she grew older in an instant,--she
became very old; a pale color rippled all over her; she fell, looking a
hundred years, dead on the floor, shriveled, dried, and dropped to
powder.