Seneca Fiction, Legends, and Myths Thirty-Second Annual...

Then the young wife said to her husband, “Now, let us go to our home.” So they started; but the husband could scarcely walk because he had been so cruelly tortured. Finally they reached the lake, whereupon the young wife said, “Hither do thou come to give us aid, thou the great leech, as thou art called.” Just then they saw it make its appearance above the water in the middle of the lake. It was not long before it came up to the place where they two were standing. Then the young woman said to it, “Do you help us two, for we are to be pitied, my husband and myself. He is named Doädanegeñ, a famous name. We two will mount on your back, so now make a straight course for the place whence we two have departed.” The great leech, obeying the young woman’s command, bore them across the lake to their own shore. Then the young woman gratefully thanked it, saying, “I am thankful, and I make my acknowledgments to you for aiding us. Now you are again free.”

So husband and wife returned to their home whence they had gone on this adventure. When they had arrived near the lodge the young man overheard his uncle weeping within it. He heard him singing his lamentation, “Oh, my nephew! my nephew, my nephew, [756]10 years will be the limit of my mourning for you. It will be 10 years before I will give you up.” In addition to this he sat near the fire and was engaged in dipping up with a paddle burning coals and hot ashes, which he poured on the top of his head. He had, indeed, already burned or scorched off all the hair. The nephew found him only half alive. When the nephew entered the lodge he said tenderly, “Oh, my uncle! I have now returned home.” But the wretched old man would not cease his weeping and self-humiliation. Then the nephew grasped the old man, saying, “Oh, my uncle! I have now returned home. It is I, Doädanegeñ, who have returned home.” The aged uncle, recognizing his nephew, whom he believed dead, exclaimed, “Wuʼʹ! Is it indeed you? I am thankful that you have returned home. Do not hereafter go to distant places. You must remain at home with us. You can hunt in places which are not far from here, because now the time is at hand when this elder one of your wives is about to become a mother, so you must be near her.”