45. The Race Between the Turtle and the Bear
There was once an old man going along slowly but surely by himself. After traveling some distance he met another man, who asked him, “Where are you going?” “Oh, I am going east to see the people,” the old man replied. “You will never get there; it is so far away, and you are too fat for the road,” answered the stranger. Thereupon they parted company. [[230]]
Soon the old man met another person, a slender young man, who asked, “Where are you going?” “I am going to the east to see how people live in that region,” answered the old man. “You can not get there; you are too fat, and so you can not travel so far,” said the young man. “How do you keep so fat?” “Well, when I come to a village and find people lying around, I bore a hole in each one I like and suck the fat out; that is the way to get fat,” said the old man. “I must try this plan. I am so lean that I must try to get fat,” said the other.
Each went his own road. Soon the thin man came to an opening, or clearing, in the forest, where he found an animal lying asleep at the edge of the woods. Crawling up to it carefully he tried to make a hole in its body near the tail, in order to suck out the fat. But the animal, springing up, hit him a great blow with his heels and ran off. “I shall pay that old man the next time I meet him,” said the slim man.
Going on farther he met the fat old fellow again. “How do you get so fat?” asked the slim man. “Oh, I do it by eating fish,” said the old man; “I put my tail through a hole in the ice, and when a fish bites I pull him out and eat him. That is how I get fat.” “I will try that plan,” said the slim young man. He went on until he came to where there was a good place to fish. Making a hole in the ice, he stuck his tail through and waited until it was frozen in; then he pulled until his tail came off.
The young man went on his way and was magically changed into another kind of person through losing his tail. He traveled around until the next summer, when again he met the old man. “Where are you going?” he asked of the latter. “I am going east,” said the old man. “You will never get there; you are so fat you can not travel fast enough. You would better run a race with me.” “Very well,” said the fat man; “you may run on land but I will run on water. We will run to-morrow.”
The fat man collected a great number of his people, whom he posted in the river all along the course to the starting place, telling each one to stick up his head when the land runner had come almost up to him. As was customary in the contests of great sorcerers, the wager in this race was the head of the loser.
The racers started. The slim young man ran with all his might, but every little while the fat man, as he thought, stuck his head out of the water in advance of him. When he returned to the starting place the fat man was there before him. “You have won the race,” said the young man. “Of course I have,” said the fat man, and seizing the young fellow by the neck he led him to a stone where he cut off his head. [[231]]
Then the fat man’s friends, all coming out of the water, went to the starting place. When they looked at the dead land runner they said: “Oh, what a fool! Oh, what a fool!”
Now, the old man, the water runner, was a mud turtle. The land runner was a bear, but he had been a fox until he lost his tail in the ice. Bears are all stub-tailed since the fox lost his tail in the ice.