486 SENECA FICTION, LEGENDS, AND MYTHS Ieth. ann. 32 



Time went on, and one brother after another had disappeared, 

 until only two were left — the second and the youngest, and there were 

 10 em]5ty places. Then the elder said to his younger brother: " You 

 must not go out of doors. You must stay close at home, where no 

 harm can come to you, for you are all I have to depend on when I 

 grow old." " But," said the younger, " it maybe that our brothers are 

 still alive and are being kept captive and tormented by the spell of 

 some magic power. I wish to go in search of them." " No ; you can 

 not," replied the elder; "you are still young. But we have a great 

 uncle, who knows everything. He is a terrible man ; no one can go 

 near him. He could bring our brothers back, if we could get to him, 

 but the trouble is he would not know that we are his nephews, so we 

 would be destroyed. He is Dagwanoenyent. He lives on a rock. 

 His long hair sweeps the ground, so that all around the rock it is 

 as smooth as ice ; and he has enormous eyes." ^^^ " I must go to see 

 this uncle," said the younger, " and find out where our brothers are." 

 " You will travel the wide world over and never find them unless he 

 tells you," came the reply. 



" What does he live on ? " asked the younger. " He gnaws the bark 

 of hickory trees," answered the elder. " That is an easy living. I will 

 get plenty of it," said the younger, and having cut down the largest 

 hickory trees he could find, he took oif great blocks of bark for his 

 uncle to eat. Then he made himself six arrows, each arrow being a 

 great tree. He would lift the tree out of the ground by the roots. 

 " I want you to be small," and made an arrow of it; the blunt end of 

 the arrow was the butt near the roots. The elder brother did not 

 know that these arrows were large trees. He was afraid to have his 

 brother go and put but little faith in his success. Wliile the younger 

 brother was making his arrows he practiced running. One day while 

 so engaged he thought he heard a groan under his feet, as it were, 

 and going back and forth he found the exact place whence it seemed 

 to come. It was as though he ran over a man and each time hurt him 

 fearfully; so digging down into the ground, he found a living man, 

 whose features were perfect but whose face was covered with. thick 

 mold. He took him home to his elder brother, saying, " We have 

 plenty of bear's oil. and you can anoint him until he regains his nat- 

 ural skin." The newly found man could neither see nor hear. 



The elder brother told the younger to run toward the north. The 

 next morning the latter started, having cautioned the elder to stay 

 in the lodge while he was gone, as he would bring his uncle home 

 with him. He ran for several days until he came near the place 

 which his brother had described. Possessing magical power over a 

 mole, he said to it, " You must carry me under the ground so that 

 the leaves shall not rustle. When we are very near my uncle, 

 Dagwanoenyent,^"' let me out." Thereupon he entered the mole, 



