348 MYTH8 OF THK CHKROKEK [ktii.asn.19 



Yt'iir.s ngo, lout;' before the Revolution, Yiihuhi was a pro.sperous 

 stoek trader among the Cherokee, and the tinkling of the bells hung 

 around the neeks of his ponies could ))e heaixl on every mountain trail. 

 Once there was a great hunt and all the warriors were out, but when 

 it was over and they were ready to return to the settlement Yahula 

 was not with them. They waited and searched, but he could not be 

 found, and at last thej- went back without him, and his friends grieved 

 for him as for one dead. Some time after his people were surprised 

 and delighted to have him walk in among them and sit down as they 

 were at supper in the evening. To their ciuestions he told them that he 

 had been lost in the mountains, and that the Nunne'hi, the Immoi'tals, 

 had found him and brought him to their town, where he had been kept 

 ever since, with the kindest care and treatment, until the longing to see 

 his old friends had brought him back. To the invitation of his friends 

 to join them at supper he said tiiat it was now too late — he had tasted 

 the fairy food and could never again eat with human kind, and for the 

 same reason he could not sta_y with his family, but must go back to the 

 Nunne'hi. His wife and children and brother begged him to stay, but 

 he said that he could not; it was either life with the Immortals or death 

 with his own people — and iyfter some further talk he ixjse to go. Thev 

 saw him as he .sat talking to them and as he stood up, l)ut the moment 

 he stepped out the doorway ht' vanished as if he had never been. 



After that he came back often to visit his people. They would see 

 him first as he entered the house, and while he sat and talked he was 

 his old self in ever}- way, but the instant he stepped across the thresh- 

 old he was gone, though a hundred eyes might be watching. He came 

 often, but at last their entreaties grew so urgent that the Nunne'hi 

 must have been offended, and he came no more. On the mountain at 

 the head of the creek, about 10 miles above the present Dahlonega, is 

 a small square inclosure of uncut stone, without roof or entrance. 

 Here it was said that he lived, so the Cherokee called it Yahula'i and 

 called the stream by the same name. Often at night a belated traveler 

 coming along the trail by the creek would hear the voice of Yahula 

 singing certain favorite old songs that he used to like to sing as he 

 drove his pack of hor.scs ai'ross the mountain, tlie sound of a voice urg- 

 ing them on, and the crack of a whip and the tinkling of bells went 

 with the song, but neither driver nor horses could be seen, although the 

 sounds passed close by. The songs and the bells were heard only at 

 night. 



There was one man who had been his friend, who sang the same songs 

 for a time after Yahula liad disappeared, but he died suddenly, and 

 then the Cherokee were afraid to sing these songs any more until it 

 was so long since anyone had heard the sounds on the mountain that 

 they thought Yahula must be gone away, perhaps to the West, where 

 others of the tribe had aln^adv gone. It is so long ago now that even 



