14.The Woman Who Became a Snake from Eating Fish25
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
In the old times a young man and his wife lived together very happily in a village. The young man had a hunting ground one day’s journey from the village. There in the forest he had a lodge. [112]He usually asked his wife to go with him. She replied always that she would be very glad to go and to have a good time there; thereupon he said, “Let us make ready and go.” They would set out on their journey and would reach the place in the evening. After making a fire and cooking their supper they would spend the evening pleasantly.
The day after one such night the man went out and found plenty of game. He had like success on the second and third days. Everything seemed to be auspicious.
On the fourth day, while the man was gone, the woman saw many fish in the neighboring stream when she went for water and decided that she could catch some. So she caught several in the water basket. “What good luck I have had,” said she; “my husband will be surprised to have fish for supper.” She cooked and ate half of the fish and put the rest away for her husband. After a while she began to be thirsty. Going to the water basket she found it empty, so getting down on her hands and knees she began to drink from the stream. After a while she thought that she would stop drinking, but being still very thirsty, she drank more; then she drank still more, and, on raising herself, she saw that she was turning into a snake.
Meanwhile her husband came home. He did not find his wife in the lodge and seeing no water basket, he thought she had gone for water. Hurrying to the stream, he arrived there just in time to see her lower parts become those of a snake. She told him what had happened with regard to the fish—that she had had such a hunger for them that she had eaten a good many; and that she was sorry, very sorry, to leave him, but that she must go to the lake into which the stream flowed. She said, further, that in the lake was a serpent with which she had to fight a great battle, and that he might go to look on, and that he should burn tobacco for her success in the fight.
The woman floated down the stream, and her husband followed her. He saw the great battle in the lake. During this struggle the serpents would raise their heads from the water higher than a great lodge, and they fought and fought fiercely. She conquered the other serpent, but her husband did not wait to see the end. He went home.
After a while the husband was told in a dream that he must make a basswood woman and dress her up. He did this, using his wife’s clothes. The figure became just like his former wife. In another dream he was told that he must not touch the basswood woman for ten days. He refrained from touching her for nine days. But on the tenth day—she was so like his former wife—he touched her, whereupon she disappeared forever, there being nothing left in her place but a basswood stick. [113]