30. WHY THE MOLE LIVES UNDERGROUND

A man was in love with a woman who disliked him and would have nothing

to do with him. He tried every way to win her favor, but to no purpose,

until at last he grew discouraged and made himself sick thinking over

it. The Mole came along, and finding him in such low condition asked

what was the trouble. The man told him the whole story, and when he

had finished the Mole said: "I can help you, so that she will not

only like you, but will come to you of her own will." So that night

the Mole burrowed his way underground to where the girl was in bed

asleep and took out her heart. He came back by the same way and gave

the heart to the man, who could not see it even when it was put into

his hand. "There," said the Mole, "swallow it, and she will be drawn

to come to you and can not keep away." The man swallowed the heart,

and when the girl woke up she somehow thought at once of him, and

felt a strange desire to be with him, as though she must go to him at

once. She wondered and could not understand it, because she had always

disliked him before, but at last the feeling grew so strong that she

was compelled to go herself to the man and tell him she loved him and

wanted to be his wife. And so they were married, but all the magicians

who had known them both were surprised and wondered how it had come

about. When they found that it was the work of the Mole, whom they

had always before thought too insignificant for their notice, they

were very jealous and threatened to kill him, so that he hid himself

under the ground and has never since dared to come up to the surface.

Myths of the Cherokee Extract from the Nineteenth Annual Report of the Bureau of American Ethnology · 第 79 / 197 题