The crane has very beautiful long legs,
The crane has very beautiful long legs.
“Hearing this the good crane wanted more; so when they asked him to give them a lift across he answered, slowly, that to do so he must be well paid, but that good praise would answer as well. Now they who had abundance of this and to spare for everybody were these very girls. ‘Have I not a beautiful form?’ he inquired; and they both cried aloud: ‘Oh, uncle, it is indeed beautiful!’ ‘And my feathers?’ ‘Ah, pegeakopchu.’ ‘Beautiful and straight feathers, indeed!’ ‘And have I not a charming long, straight, neck?’ ‘Truly our uncle has it straight and long.’ ‘And will ye not acknowledge, oh maidens, that my legs are fine?’ ‘Fine! oh, uncle, they are perfection. Never in this life did we see such legs!’ So, being well pleased, the crane put them across, and then the two little weasels scampered like mice into the bush.”
Though but one woman figure is drawn, the two boughs borne by her suggest the two weasel girls, who had come down the hemlock tree and had also been water fairies until their garments were stolen by the marten, and thereupon they had lost their fairy powers and become women in a manner at once reminding of the Old World swan-maiden myth.
Fig. 657.—The Giant Bird Kaloo.
Fig. 657 is a sketch of the Giant Bird Kaloo, or, in the literation of Mr. Leland, Culloo. He was the most terrible of all creatures. He it was who caught up the mischievous Lox in his claws and, mounting to the top of the sky among the stars, let him drop, and he fell from dawn to sunset. Lox was often a badger in the Micmac stories, and was more Puck-like than the devilish character he showed among the Passamaquoddy, being then generally in the form of a wolverine, though sometimes in that of a lynx. In the illustration Kaloo is soaring among the stars, and appears to possess an extra pair of legs armed with claws. Perhaps one of the objects beneath his beak represents Lox or some other victim falling through the air. There is another story of Lox’s two feet talking and acting independently of the rest of his body, and the two feet and legs without any body may be a symbol of the tricksy demigod.
Fig. 658.—Kiwach, the Strong Blower.
Fig. 658 represents Kiwach, the Strong Blower, a giant who kills people with his violent breath. Tales of him seem to be more current or better preserved among the Amalecites than among the other Abnaki.
