Long, long ago, in the gloom of deep and silent woods there lived a
witch or evil chehah. The Indians called her E-ish-so-oolth. So tall
was she that, stalking through the forest, her head would brush the
lower branches of the giant fir.
She dwelt in a huge lodge, the walls of which were built of cedar
logs as thick as men are high. This evil chehah was the dread of
young and old alike, for all believed that boys and girls and even
men and women, who left their homes, not to return again, were
taken to her lodge, there to be devoured at leisure. Therefore
mothers often said, when children misbehaved, "Be good or I will
call E-ish-so-oolth."
One day some Keeh-hin village children paddled from their home and
landed on a nearby shore. Then something happened causing one to
cry, and all the others scolding, threatened to call E-ish-so-oolth.
The threat had no effect and the child cried on, till one in teasing
spirit called loudly, "E-ish-so-oolth! E-ish-so-oolth! Oh come
E-ish-so-oolth!"
Then forth from the woods a figure stalked, a tall gaunt form of
terrible aspect. She leaned upon a gnarled and knotty stick and
scanning the beach with cruel eyes she cried, "Who called me by
my name E-ish-so-oolth?"
The children screamed and tried to run away; the chehah laughed one
awful fiendish laugh, then caught them one by one with her lean
hands. With the sticky gum of Douglas fir, she sealed their little
jet black eyes so that they could not see which way led left or
right, and threw them in the basket on her back, starting for home
along the lonely forest trail.
As I have said, E-ish-so-oolth was tall, and many times bent her head
to pass beneath low and spreading branches, and so it happened when
stooping under a tree which brushed the basket top, four little hands
gripped tightly hold of a kindly branch and held on fast.
When E-ish-so-oolth had gone on further not missing the two children,
they clambered down, and partly freed their eyes from the vile pitch,
running for home as fast as they could go. To their mothers they
told the story, and how their playmates of that very morning, were
now perchance within the witch's lodge, and no help to save them
from a bloody fate. Then all the mothers of the kidnapped girls
chanted the weird and doleful death lament. Four days and nights the
dismal song was heard, beyond the blue wood smoke of Indian fires.
Weeks of mourning passed, and all but one were comforted, but she
sat all alone, and every morning she squatted on the sea grass at
the shore, chanting that drear and mournful song.