The Hunter Maiden

by Ethel Johnston Phelps

  This was enough to convince the new chief. The tribe held a council and voted to move. They took down their lodgepoles and moved the village to the uplands.

  There the tribe lived in peace and good health. Bending Willow shared her knowledge of herbs with the women of the tribe. And before many months had passed, she happily married a young warrior of her choice.

  The poisonous serpent in this story appears in other Seneca folklore and mythos, often to signify displacement. This retelling of “Bending Willow” draws inspiration from American Indian Fairy Tales (1895), edited by MARGARET COMPTON.

  Far to the north, on the bleak coast of the Northern Seas, there once lived a lad named Eilert. His family were fisher folk, and they lived beside a rocky headland jutting out into the sea. Their nearest neighbors, who lived some distance along the shore on the other side of the cliff, were a family of Finns.

  Both Eilert’s family and the Finns used the same fishing grounds, but there was no friendliness between them. Eilert’s family were Nordlanders, and they were sure the Finns used their special magic against them.

  Eilert’s father muttered angrily, “Heathen charms and spells!” when the Finns hauled in a good catch and his own was small.

  The Nordlanders along that coast thought the Finns were strange folk with a knowledge of ancient magic. The Finns had black hair, wore odd clothes, and talked among themselves in a peculiar language. All their habits and customs were strange, and their burial ground in the village was separate and apart from the Nordlanders’ graves.

  Eilert did not share his father’s fear of the Finns’ magic. When he was a small child playing on the rocky headland, he had met Zilla, a Finn girl his own age. They had become friends, and he had often gone home with her to the Finns’ place on the other side of the headland. Zilla was thin and wiry, but she was strong. She could run like a hare and handle a boat as well as he could.

  The Finns were kind to him. He saw no evil in them. Nonetheless he thought it best not to tell his family where he had been whenever he returned from a visit to Zilla’s place.

  Nor did he tell his family of the strange tales the Finns told of Mermen and Draugs who dragged fishermen under the waves to their homes at the bottom of the sea. The Mermen had heads like seals; the Draugs were evil creatures with heads of seaweed.

  Eilert and the Nordlanders knew of course that Mermen lived under the Northern Seas, waiting for victims. But the Finns seemed to have an uncanny knowledge of this kingdom beneath the sea, and claimed that their ancestors had often visited there.

  Walking home across the headland after hearing these tales, Eilert shivered and wondered if the Finns did indeed have a strange power over the sea. But the lass Zilla was friendly and merry, and the Finns seemed to be kind, cheerful folk, so he put the thought away from him.

  Now it happened that one autumn Eilert’s family was having a very lean time of it. Day after day on the fishing grounds his father’s lines caught next to nothing, while not far off, a dark-haired Finn pulled up one fine catch after another. Eilert’s father swore the Finn was making strange signs in the air and using magic spells against him.

  “I’d use our counter-charm,” cried his father angrily, “but I don’t dare. It’s said the Merfolk take a terrible revenge on those who do!”

  Eilert became very troubled. Was the Finn using magic to lure all the fish to his lines? He felt guilty about his secret friendship with Zilla and the Finns—could this be the cause of his father’s bad luck?

  He stopped his visits to the Finns’ place, and he no longer walked with Zilla under the pines on the headland. But this did not help at all. Day after day, Eilert’s father set out his lines and drew them in almost empty of fish.

  Eilert knew the counter-charm was dangerous, for it put the user in the power of the Merfolk. But he made up his mind that he himself must use it. He must take earth from the grave of a Finn and rub it on his father’s fishing line.

  Late the next night he went off secretly to the Finn graveyard and put a handful of earth from a Finn grave into his pocket. When he returned home he rubbed the earth on all his father’s fishing lines.

  The very next day his father hauled in a fine catch, and this good luck continued day after day. The counter-charm had worked. But each day Eilert’s fear of the Draugs and Merfolk increased. To avoid their revenge, he went back to the Finn grave one night to beg forgiveness. But he also took care to carry a piece of iron in his pocket at all times, as protection against sorcery.

  One day Eilert went out alone to fish for Greenland shark, for the fish brought a fine price at market. As he rowed, he did not look in the direction of the Finns’ place, nor did he notice the lass Zilla watching him from the shore. He rowed on out of sight.

  When a shark at last took his line, it was a huge one. Although the boat was small, Eilert would not give up his efforts to pull the shark alongside. At last the shark tore off with Eilert’s line taut behind him. Then, unable to lose the fishing line, the shark twisted and plunged suddenly down to the depths of the sea. The boat capsized.

  Faint and numb with cold, Eilert clung to the hull of the overturned boat as it tossed in the rough sea. Suddenly he saw, sitting on one end of the boat, a large creature with a seaweed head and a neck like a seal. The two reddish eyes glared at him. The Draug slowly forced its end of the boat down under the water.

  “You rubbed your lines with grave earth,” hissed the Draug. “Now the people of the sea seek their revenge.”

  Eilert closed his eyes in despair. He felt himself sinking down under the waves. When he opened his eyes, the frightening Draug was gone, but he saw that he was standing on the bottom of the sea near his overturned boat.

  The floor of the sea was made of white sand, and the light around him was pale gray, but strangely he did not feel cold or wet. Then he saw a Mermaid beside him.

  “I have rescued you from the Draug,” she said. “Come, now I must take you to my father, the king of the Merfolk.”

  The Mermaid’s black seaweed hair floated out from her head; her face was pale, with dark, gleaming eyes. Her form was clad in a greenish substance, and the silver brooch she wore had the same strange design the Finns used.

  Eilert walked with the Mermaid along the sandy bottom. On either side were meadows of sea grass and bushes of thick seaweed. They passed brightly colored shells and broken hulls of boats half buried in the sand.

  At last they came to a house made from the hulls of two ships. The Mermaid led Eilert through the door, which she closed behind him. Inside, seated on a rough chair, was a large Merman. His head and neck were like a seal’s, but his face resembled that of a dogfish. The fingers on both hands were webbed together, and his feet were covered in old sea boots.

  “Well, Eilert,” said the Merman, grinning, “you’ve had a very bad time of it up there today. Sit down, sit down.”

  Eilert saw nowhere to sit but on a pile of old nets. When he was seated, the old Merman shook his head sadly. “You should not have taken our grave earth to rub on your lines. But you’re here now, so you might as well make the best of it.”

  Eilert could think of nothing to say. He put his hand into his pocket to touch the piece of iron. The Merman brought out a jug of strong Northern brandy.

  “Drink up! Drink up!” he cried, pouring the brandy into cups.

  Eilert drank one cup, then another. He decided he had had enough. But the Merman drank merrily on, finishing one jug after another while the dark-haired Mermaid stood silently at the door.

  At last the Merman sighed and leaned back with glazed eyes. Without a sound, he slid slowly to the floor and slept.

  “Come,” said the Mermaid. “He will sleep like that for hours.”

  He followed her back along the sea floor until they reached his boat where it lay on the sand.

  The Mermaid turned to him. “If I am to help you escape and return to the world above, you must lie down in the boat now and sleep.”

  Eilert hesitate
d, but the Mermaid’s eyes were as kind as Zilla’s and he was very tired. He lay down in the boat and closed his eyes. He felt her black seaweed hair spread around him like a dark curtain. As he drifted off to sleep, he heard her chanting a strange song.

  When Eilert opened his eyes, he looked about in wonder. He was safe in the Finns’ house, and Zilla and her father sat close by. Zilla’s long black hair lay over her shoulders; her dark eyes stared at him from her pale face.

  “I was under the sea with the Merfolk,” he cried. “How—how—” The room was still. Zilla and her father exchanged glances. Then the old man said evasively, “Aye. Our Zilla brought you back. She knows a thing or two about the sea, does Zilla!”

  So it was Zilla who had saved him! Eilert wondered what powers she had used. He thought it best not to question; it was enough to know she had rowed out to sea to bring him home.

  Now when a lass, Finn or Nordlander, sets about rescuing the lad of her choice—whether by magic or otherwise—there can be only one outcome. The following spring, Zilla and Eilert were married.

  It was the first time a Nordlander had married a Finn, and everyone in the village was surprised. But Eilert’s parents, on thinking the matter over, had concluded that if the Finns did indeed possess magic spells over fish and other creatures of the sea, it was much better to have them in the family than not.

  “Finn Magic” has been adapted from a Norwegian legend told in Weird Tales from Northern Seas (1893) by JONAS LIE. Norwegian, Japanese, and Irish folktales all share recurring stories of underwater fairylands inhabited by ethereal beings, merfolk, and the spirits of those who have drowned.

  Long ago in Japan, there was a cheerful old woman who lived alone in a small house halfway up a steep hill. She had a few chickens and a pig, but very little else. Quite often she had only one meal a day.

  One evening she had just finished making a small bowl of round rice cakes for her dinner, when the bowl slipped and the rice cakes fell to the floor. To her dismay, they rolled right out the doorway. The old woman ran after them.

  Once outside, the rice cakes rolled down the steep hill, bouncing over rocks, going faster and faster. The woman scurried down the hill behind them, but she could not catch up with them until they came to rest at the very bottom, near a large slab of rock.

  Just as the woman bent over to pick up her rice cakes, a long, blue, scaly arm with a three-fingered, clawlike hand reached out from behind the rock and snatched them from her.

  “That’s my dinner!” she cried. She peered behind the rock slab, and seeing a small opening, in she went, right after her rice cakes.

  She found herself in a narrow tunnel. Ahead of her was a large, shambling creature hurrying away.

  “Sir!” she called loudly, trotting after him. “My dinner! You’ve taken my dinner!” But the creature went right on, with the woman close behind him, until they reached a large cave.

  The old woman stopped short in surprise. In the cave were several more large creatures. They had horns on their heads, wide mouths that stretched from ear to ear, and three red, staring eyes. She realized she was in a den of Oni, ogres who lived under the ground and came forth only at night. The Japanese Oni, like trolls and demons in other parts of the world, are always bent on evil mischief.

  She was, however, more angry than frightened, for the Oni had greedily shared her rice cakes among themselves and gulped them down.

  “You’re no better than thieves!” she cried. “You’ve eaten my rice cakes and now I have no dinner!”

  But they only sat licking their large, clawlike hands, staring at her so hungrily that she wondered if they were going to eat her next.

  Then one of them said, “Did you make the rice cakes?”

  “Yes, I did,” retorted the old woman. “I make very tasty rice cakes, if I do say so myself.”

  “Come along, then, and make more!” said he, and he clumped away through a maze of tunnels and caves. The old woman followed him, for she was by now quite hungry, and she thought it only fair that the ogres should give her dinner.

  But by the time they arrived at the cave full of huge round cooking pots, she realized she was hopelessly lost. She doubted she could ever find the small hole in the rock where she came in.

  The Oni dropped a few grains of rice into a large pot of water.

  “That will never make enough rice cakes!” she said crossly.

  “Of course it will, stupid creature,” he scowled. He picked up a flat wooden stirrer. “Put this into the pot and start stirring.”

  The woman did as she was told. At once the few grains of rice increased until almost the whole pot was filled. So the old woman made the ogres a huge pile of rice cakes—taking care to eat some herself first, before handing them over.

  “I’ll be going home now,” she announced firmly, “if you’ll show me the way back to the entrance.”

  “Oh, no,” growled the Oni. “You will stay here and cook for us.”

  This did not suit the little old woman at all, but as she looked at the large monsters crowded about, licking their claws, she thought she had better not say so.

  Nevertheless, while the woman worked to make piles of rice cakes for the hungry Oni, she thought and thought about how to escape. She soon discovered that the source of the water for cooking the rice was a stream nearby, flowing along between the rock caverns. She thought this must be the same stream that flowed out of the bottom of the hill below her home. Farther on, it became a river, and the people of the village fished from its banks.

  But there was no boat to be seen.

  “The Oni would not have a boat,” thought the old woman. “It’s well-known the wicked creatures cannot go over water!”

  Without a boat, how could she escape? She thought of this as she cooked and stirred—until she saw that one of the large round pots might do very well. They were as big as she was.

  The Oni, being night creatures, slept during the day, sprawled in the many caves under the hill. The next day, as soon as they were all asleep, she put the magic stirring paddle in a huge pot and dragged the pot down to the stream.

  It floated very nicely, so she hopped in and started to paddle. But the grating sound of the pot being dragged to the stream had wakened a number of Oni nearby. Suddenly they appeared on the side of the stream, shouting in rage.

  The old woman paddled faster and faster. Ahead she could see a patch of sunlight where the stream made its way out into the world.

  But the stream began to shrink, growing smaller and smaller. Then she saw that the Oni were drinking up the water, swelling up like monstrous balloons as they sucked in the stream. Rocks and stones began to show in the bed of the stream. The huge pot ground to a halt. All around her, stranded fish flopped about helplessly on the stones.

  It seemed the ogres could soon walk across the gravel to seize her. Quick as a wink, the old woman picked up the fish and tossed them, one after another, to the ogres on the banks.

  “Have some fish stew!” she called.

  The Oni caught the fish in their claws—and because they were always hungry, they opened their wide mouths to gulp down the fish. As soon as they did this, the water rushed out of their mouths again, back into the stream—which, of course, was just what the old woman had hoped would happen.

  The round pot floated free, and off the old woman paddled, out of the hill and into broad daylight.

  When she had floated down the stream to a safe distance, she paddled over to the nearest bank. Hopping ashore, she pushed the big pot back into the water to drift farther downstream. This, she thought, would mislead the Oni if they should come looking for her. But she kept the magic stirrer with her and climbed safely back up the hill to her house.

  The old woman never went hungry again, for with the magic stirrer she was able to make as many rice cakes as she could eat—and she had enough left over to share with her neighbors.

  But if any rice cakes fell to the floor and rolled away down the hill, she never went af
ter them.

  “Let the Oni have them,” she’d say cheerfully. And so, with her chickens, her pig, and plenty of rice for her dinner, she lived very happily the rest of her days.

  Oni are often depicted in Japanese folktales as cruel and gruesome beasts but can also be considered ambivalent beings, containing both good and evil. The editor’s source for this retelling is Tales of Laughter (1908) by KATE D. WIGGINS; another version of this tale is also found in Japanese Fairy Tales (1918) by LAFCADIO HEARN.

  Once upon a time there was a man so cross and bad-tempered that he thought his wife never did anything right in the house.

  So one evening during the haymaking time, when he came home scolding and complaining, his wife said, “You think you could do the work of the house better than I?”

  “Yes, I do,” growled the husband. “Any man could!”

  “Well, then, tomorrow let’s switch our tasks. I’ll go with the mowers and mow the hay. You stay here and do the housework.” The husband agreed at once. He thought it a very good idea.

  Early the next morning his wife took a scythe over her shoulder and went out to the hayfield with the mowers; the man stayed in the house to do the work at home.

  He decided first to churn the butter for their dinner. After he had churned awhile, he became thirsty; he went down to the cellar to tap a pitcher of ale. He had just taken the bung out of the ale barrel and was about to put in the tap when overhead he heard the pig come into the kitchen.

  With the tap in his hand, he ran up the cellar steps as fast as he could, lest the pig upset the butter churn. When he came up to the kitchen, he saw that the pig had already knocked over the churn. The cream had run all over the floor, and the pig was happily slurping it.