There was a man named Kuril (which means rib). He didn’t seem to know much; but he could walk right through rocks, in at one side and out at the other. He walked across gullies, through thickets, and over precipices, as easily as on a smooth road. One evening people saw him coming from the west toward the village. When he had come near, the sun went down, and Kuril disappeared right before their eyes. They saw this several times afterwards. He came always just before sunset, never came quite to the village. The children used to play in the evening; and he would stop and look at them, and at sunset he would be gone, turned into something.
One evening a very poor man saw Kuril pass his thumbnail along the top of his head, and split himself, the left half of him became a woman, and the right half remained a man. That night the new pair appeared to the poor man who had seen the splitting, they said that each of them was to be called Kukupiwit now (crooked breast), and talked with him. After that the poor man had great luck, killed many deer; what he wanted, he had. The male Kukupiwit came home late every evening. His other half watched the village children playing; if one stepped aside, or left the others, she thrust it into a basket, and ran home. People looked for their children, but never found them. She would listen, climb a house where she heard a child cry, and look down the smoke-hole. One evening a little boy was crying; his mother could not stop him. At last she said, “Cry away; I’ll go to sleep.” The woman fell asleep; the boy sat crying by the hearth. Soon he saw a piece of roast venison hanging by a string over the fire. He took a piece, ate it, stopped crying, took another; the string was drawn up a little. He reached after it; the string was drawn farther. He reached higher; Kukupiwit the woman caught his hand, pulled him up, put him in her basket, and ran home.
The mother woke now; the boy was gone. She roused her husband; they looked everywhere, found no trace of their son. Next night all in the village were watching. In one house a baby cried, and soon the men who were there heard creeping on the house. One man took the baby, held it high over the fire, and said, “Take this baby!” Kukupiwit reached down; the man lowered the child a little. She reached farther; that moment five or six men caught her arm, and tried to pull her down; but all who were in the house could not do that. One man chopped her arm right off with a flint knife, and threw it out; she fell to the ground where her arm was, she picked it up, and ran home.
The Hard Gilla.
This tale has a special interest, in that it gives the cause of the Battle of Ventry, described in [the next tale]. The cause, like that of the Trojan war, was a woman. The daughter of the High King of the World goes to Fin at first, and is then stolen away by him afterwards.
THE END.