Fairy tales -- Canada; Folklore -- Canada; Indians of North America -- Canada -- Folklore
The girl was not happy in her new home, for she would not be happy in
any place. She still kept up her caterwauling and there was no peace
in the house. Owl-man was a great hunter. Every day he went out
hunting with his big basket on his arm, but he always locked his wife
in the house before he went away. He was always very successful in the
chase, and each night he came back with his basket full of toads and
frogs and field-mice and flies. But his wife would eat none of them
and she threw them in his face when he offered them to her, and said
in a bad temper, "I will not eat your filthy food. It is not fit food
for gentle-folk." And Owl-man said, "Gentle-folk indeed! You should
find a more suitable name; you are not gentle; you are a wild evil
thing, but I am going to tame you." And the girl wept again and sulked
and stamped her feet in her temper.
At last the girl became very hungry, for there was little to eat
except the food that Owl-man brought home for himself. He gathered a
few berries for her, but even these did not satisfy her hunger. So she
thought out a plan of escape. One day when Owl-man was away, she took
some oil she found in the house and rubbed it all over her face and
hair. When Owl-man came home in the evening, he said, "You are very
pretty to-night. What have you done to make yourself look so sleek and
shiny?" And she answered, "I have put on my face and hair gum which I
picked from the trees last night when I went walking with you." And he
said, "I should like to put some on too, for perhaps it would make me
beautiful." The girl told him that if he would go out and gather some
gum she would put it on his face and hair for him. So he went out and
gathered a great store of gum from the trees and brought it back to
her. She melted it on a hot stove until it was balsam again and would
pour easily out. Then she said, "Shut your eyes so that it will not
harm your sight, and I will make your face and hair beautiful and
shining like mine." Owl-man shut his eyes, and the girl soon covered
his face and head with the soft gum. She put it on very thick, and she
said, "Keep your eyes shut until it dries or it may blind you."
Owl-man did as he was told, but when the gum dried he could not open
his eyes, and while he was trying to rub it off, the girl slipped out
the door and ran back to her parents, far away by the Great Water.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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