404 SENECA FICTION, LEGENDS, AND MYTHS [etii. ann. 32 



(lathering all the bones carefully into a pile and placing on the 

 pile the two men who were almost dead, he went to a great hickory 

 tree which stood near and piishing against it called out, " Rise, 

 people, and run, or the tree shall fall on you." TluMviipon all the 

 bones became living men and springing up they ran away from the 

 tree. Two of the men had legs of different lengths by reason of 

 the bones having become interchanged. The lad said : " Now. follow 

 me, all of you, up this tree to the bank above. You must not look 

 back, for if youido you will fall." The last two were the men with 

 unequal legs. The rearmost, after climbing a little way, looked back 

 to see how far up they were ; immediately he turned to bones, which 

 fell rattling through the limbs of the hemlock tree to the ground. 

 As the only remaining man with unequal legs got near the brink, 

 he also looked down, whereupon he likewise fell rattling down 

 through the branches to the ground a mere heap of bones. 



^\nien all were some distance away from the brink the young man 

 said : " You stay here, and I will go and bring the woman who has 

 done all this mischief to us. She has a mother, who is also a witch. 

 We will punish both. I shall be back in a few days." Starting off, 

 he soon came to the lodge of the woman who had deceived him. 

 Sitting down by her, he said, " I have come." Soon her mother came 

 out of another part of the lodge, saying, " Oh ! my son-in-law has 

 come." Early the next night they heard the old woman groaning; ^^^ 

 finally, crawling out of bed on her hands and knees, she rolled over 

 on the floor. The lad struck her with a corn-pounder, saying, 

 " Mother-in-law, wake up and tell us your dream." Thereupon she 

 stood up and said, " I dreamed that my son-in-law must gO' and kill 

 two white otters in the lake." He replied : " Go back to sleep. Oh ! 

 mother-in-law. I will do that tomorrow." The old woman went 

 back to her couch. In the morning she .said : " You must run and 

 kill two white otters in the lake and return with them before the 

 door stops swinging after you have slammed it. If you do not do this, 

 something strange will happen; but if j'ou get back, you shall live." 

 Unknown to her, he tied one of his long hairs to the door and kept 

 pulling the hair. On reaching the bank of the lake, he called to the 

 otters, which came out and ran to him; he threw one of two round 

 stones which he had in his pouch, killing one of the otters. Then 

 great waves of water began to rush after him, and the second otter 

 came near to him on the top of the wave. Throwing the second 

 stone, he killed the second otter. At this the wave went back. He 

 had kept pulling the door-flap to and fro with his hair all the time. 

 When he reached the lodge, he called out. " Here, mother-in-law ! 

 here are your two otters." She said, "Where, where?" (The two 

 Avhite otters were her two wizard brothers.) 



