426 SENECA FICTION, LEGENDS, AND MYTHS [eth. an.v. S2 



men told. Calling to the man lying on the nearest cliff, he asked 

 him how he happened to be there. The man in broken accents 

 I'eplied : "A woman deceived me and brought me here. Other women 

 brought those other men to the spots where you see them lying. 

 Their flesh is being eaten from their bones, yet they do not die. You 

 and I shall be eaten when they get ready to come to us." He ceased 

 speaking, and the young man then thought long on some means of 

 escape from such a lingering, horrid death at the hands of such 

 wicked women and their agents. At last he remembered that in 

 years past he had had a dream in which he had seen a Great Spider, 

 which approached him, saying : " My friend, I will keep and protect 

 you when you shall be in trouble. So call on me when yoti shall be 

 in fear of death." He therefore cried to this Great Spider for aid, 

 saying: "Oh, Great Spider! help me now. I am in great trouble." 

 Hardly had his words died away before an enormous gpider, which 

 was as large as a man, came to him and at once began weaving webs 

 and to form a rope. When it had finished the rope the Great Spider 

 susjiended it from the mountain above the man. The rope was 

 quite strong enough to support the man. and thereby he climbed up 

 to the top of the mountain above him. There he saw a large level 

 country. Then by the aid of the Great Spider, lowering the ro])e to 

 the men below on the cliffs who were still alive, he drew them u]i one 

 after another. Having thanked the Great Spider for its aid, he dis- 

 missed it. The men thus rescued went to their homes. 



Then the young man set out for the home of the woman who had 

 so cleverly deceived him. After a long journey he found her living 

 with her mother in an old lodge standing quite alone. Addressing 

 the yovmg woman, the daughter of the old sorceress, the young man 

 declared his purpose in coming by saying: "I have come here to 

 marry you. "When I first saw v'ou I was greatly pleased with 3'ou ; 

 and I now love you. Will you be my wife?" Replying, the young 

 woman said, " Oh ! I hardly know what to tell you, for I have a very 

 disagreeable mother, and I am much afraid you will not be able to 

 live in the same lodge with her. It was in obedience to her command 

 that I carried you to the narrow cliff on the mountain peak. I am 

 willing to make the trial if you wish it." The young man accepted 

 her even under these adverse circumstances, and so they became hus- 

 band and wife. 



One night some time after this the old woman, the mother-in-law 

 of the young man, who slept at the back end of the lodge, pretending 

 to be in an agony of pain, rolled around on the ground. Her 

 daughter, knowing what the trouble was. said to her husband, " Strike 

 my mother on the head with the pestle for pounding corn." In doing 

 this he said to her, " Oh ! mother-in-law, what is the matter?" Seem- 

 ing to have been awakened by the blow of the pestle the old woman 



