The North went traveling, and after going far and meeting many different tribes he finally fell in love with the daughter of the South and wanted to marry her. The girl was willing, but her parents objected and said, “Ever since you came the weather has been cold, and if you stay here we will all freeze to death.” The North pleaded hard, and said if they would let him have their daughter, he would take her back to his own country, so at last they consented.
They were married and he took his bride back to his own country, and when they arrived there she found the people all living in ice houses. The next day, when the sun rose, the houses began to leak, and as it climbed higher the houses began to melt, and it grew warmer and warmer, until finally the people came to the young husband and told him he must send his wife home again, or the weather would get so warm that the whole settlement would be melted. He loved his wife and so held out as long as he could, but as the sun grew hotter the people were more urgent, and at last he had to send her home to her parents, but they agreed that she might return once a year for a short season, but that she should never come to live in the North again, for as she was reared in the South, that her whole nature was warm and that she was unfit to dwell in the North.
MYTH THIRTY-THREE.
The Ice Man.
Once when the people were burning the woods in the fall, and the blaze set fire to a poplar tree, which continued to burn until the fire went down into the roots and burned a great hole in the ground. It burned, and burned, and the hole grew constantly larger, until the people became frightened and were afraid that it would burn the whole world. They tried to put out the fire, but it had gone too deep, and they did not know what to do. At last some one said there was a man living in a house of ice far in the north who could put out the fire, so messengers were sent, and after traveling a long distance they came to the ice house and found the Ice Man at home. He was a little fellow with long hair hanging down to the ground in two plaits. The messengers told him their errand and he at once said, “O yes, I can help you,” and began to unplait his hair.
When it was once all unbraided he took it up in one hand and struck it once across the other hand, and the messengers felt the wind blow against their cheeks. A second time he struck his hair across his hand, and a light rain began to fall. The third time he struck his hair across his open hand there was sleet mixed with the rain drops, and when he struck the fourth time great hailstones fell upon the ground, as if they had come out from the ends of the hair. “Go back now,” said the Ice Man, “and I shall be there tomorrow.”
So the messengers returned to their people, whom they found still gathered helplessly about the great burning pit. The next day while they were all gathered about the fire, there came a wind from the north, and they were afraid, for they knew that it came from the Ice Man. But the wind only made the fire blaze higher. The light rain began to fall, but the drops seemed only to make the fire hotter. Then the shower turned to a heavy rain, with sleet and hail that killed the blaze and made clouds of smoke and steam rise from the red coals. The people fled to their homes for shelter, and the storm rose to a whirlwind that drove the rain into every burning crevice and piled great hailstones over the embers, until the fire was dead and even the smoke ceased. When at last it was all over, and the people returned, they found a lake where the burning pit had been, and from below the water came a sound as of embers still crackling.