Fairy tales -- Canada; Folklore -- Canada; Indians of North America -- Canada -- Folklore
Then the old man called to Storm Cloud, which was just then passing
over his head, and he said, "Oh, Spirit of the Storm Cloud, stay here
with me to-night and help me to kill Bear of the Stony Heart, for he
seeks to destroy my children. You can send lightning and thunder to
strike him dead." But the Storm Cloud said, "I cannot loiter on the
way. Far from here there are millions of blades of corn and grass
dying from thirst in the summer heat, for I see the heat waves rising
on the earth, and I am hurrying there with rain to save them." And
like the River-God and the Wind Spirit he hurried along on his
business. The poor old man was in great sorrow, for it seemed that no
one would help him to rid the land of Bear of the Stony Heart.
As he sat wondering what he should do, an old woman came along. She
said, "I am very hungry and tired, for I have come far. Will you give
me food and let me rest here a while?" And he said, "We have very
little food, for Bear of the Stony Heart steals it from us nightly,
but you may share with us what little we have." So he went away and
brought back to her a good fat meal. While she was eating her dinner
he told her of his troubles with Bear, and he said that no one would
help him to get rid of the pest, and that Bear could not be killed by
man. And the old woman said, "There is a little animal who can kill
Bear of the Stony Heart. He alone can save you. You have done well to
me. Here is a wand which I will give you. Go to sleep here, soon, on
the bank of the river. Wave this wand before you sleep and say what I
shall teach you, and when you awake call to you the first animal you
see when you open your eyes. He will be the animal of which I speak,
and he will rid you of the Bear." She taught him a little rhyme and
gave him a wand which she took from the basket on her arm; then she
hobbled away, and the old man knew that she was the weird woman of the
Fairy Blue Mountain, of whom he had often heard. He marvelled greatly,
but he resolved to do as she had told him.
After the old woman had gone, the man waved the little wand three
times, and cried:
"Animal, animal, come from your lair,
Help me to slaughter the old Brown Bear!
Make with my magic a little white dart,
To pierce in the centre old Bear's Stony Heart!"
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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