Bears and Wolves. yy 



Thus Manobozho the mischief-maker meets a magician and 

 his family, who are wolf-wizards, and is changed into the 

 same form. They are very good to him, and keep him alive 

 during a very severe winter. At times they play practical 

 jokes upon him, but each has its moral for his advantage, 

 and eventually Manobozho leaves them with much regret 

 In another story also the magician takes the wolf-shape in 

 order to befriend the hero. In the legend of " Sheem the 

 Forsaken " the benevolent trait is even more conspicuously 

 illustrated. The child has been deserted by his elder 

 brother and sister — the family being orphans — and is on the 

 point of starvation, but seeing some wolves at their meal 

 he goes up to them and, waiting till they have finished, 

 picks up the morsels they have left. This he continues to 

 do, until at last the animals take notice of their small 

 dependent, and hearing his story are lost in amazement at 

 the cruel heartlessness of human beings, and adopt Sheem 

 on the spot Now it happens that one day Owasso, the 

 elder brother, comes in his canoe to the place, and hearing 

 a sorrowful voice of wailing on the bank, thinks he re- 

 cognises the deserted child, and landing goes to seek him. 

 All of a sudden there leaps out from the bushes a creature 

 half-wolfi half-boy, which flies from him along the shore. 

 Owasso calls out to him, "Stay, brother!" But the wolf- 

 boy goes leaping on his way, and crying as he goes, " Neesia, 

 Neesia — a-wee ! You left me, going away in a canoe, and I 

 am half-changed into a wolf — E-wee. Half-changed into a 

 wolf — E-wee ! " and he howled between his words. And 

 Owasso, stricken with brotherly love, cried after him, "Sheem ! 

 Sheem ! Sheem ! " But the child fled on, alternately com- 

 plaining and howling, and all the whUe kept changing more 

 and more into a wolf. Then all of a sudden he reached a 

 bank, and leaping on to it turned, and, looking back at his 

 brother, cried in tones of most pathetic reproach, " I am a 

 wolf" — and vanished. On the other hand, it is beyond 



