POLLIPELL'S ISLAND. 161 



then over the rocky ramparts of the Highlands, they tore off 

 the mountain peaks, and succeded so well in their first efforts 

 to block up " the crevasse in their dam" that the refluent wave 

 swept back those monstrous carcasses to the ancient banks, 

 where their bones are found to this day. 



It was in this fearful conflict, it is said, that the huge rock, 

 known ever since as Pollipell's Island, was wrested from its 

 position, where cresting one of the mountains near, and pina- 

 cled with pines that seemed to pierce the skies, it offered itself 

 to the furious grasp of one of the most powerful of the Ot-ne- 

 yar-heh ; who, hurling it into the roaring gulph below, bade his 

 unearthly comrades anchor the rock where it fell, to prevent its 

 sweeping through the jaws of the pass, which it proved not 

 large enough to choke up entirely. It may be proper to say 

 here, however, that this version of the legend is disputed by 

 some, who insist that as another mountain (Break-neck) inter- 

 venes between the island and Hungry Hollow, where its descent 

 can be so plainly traced, Pollipell's could clearly not have been 

 thus summarily transplanted by the single act of an individual. 

 The almost resistless strength of the giant Pollipell, the 

 leader of the Ot-ne-yar-heh, (whom some would absurdly identify 

 with the classic Poliphemus,) might indeed, say they, have borne 

 it from its original seat and given an impetus which would have 

 sent it, like the celebrated slide of the White Mountains in our 

 day, cleaving its terrible path into the valley ; but there his confed- 

 erates must have taken it in charge, and towed it a mile or more 

 up the river before they could anchor it in its present position. 

 If this supposition be the true one we must be permitted to 



