D
Here comes my story of that Gluskabe. Then wandering about the ocean he started in a canoe and when he had worn this out, his canoe, he thought “I shall stop until I build another canoe.” And accordingly he looked for a birch tree, a straight one. Then he cut it down, and when it fell down, that tree, apparently it nearly fell upon him. He had difficulty in being able to run away from under it. So he thought, “Never again will you fall on and kill anybody.” That big branch he took hold of it and switched this birch tree right away along its whole length. He kept on switching it and now it will forever be marked while there are people living in the world. This is the end of my story.[61]
[61] The “eyes” in the bark of the white birch are the blisters caused by Gluskabe’s switching. Such an explanation is very common in northern and northeastern Algonkian mythology. (Cf. S. T. Rand, Legends of the Micmacs, p. 67, and F. G. Speck, Myths and Folk-Lore of the Temiskaming Algonquin and Timagami Ojibwa, Memoir Anth., Series No. 8, Geological Survey of Canada, p. 83.)