THE INDIAN FAIRY BOOK

By Henry R. Schoolcraft

From The Original Legends

With Eight Illustrations In Color By Florence Choate Elizabeth Curtis

Frederick A. Stokes Company Publishers

1916

Original

Original

CONTENTS

FOREWORD

THE INDIAN FAIRY BOOK

I. THE BOY WHO SET A SNARE FOR THE SUN

II. MANABOZHO, THE MISCHIEF-MAKER

III. THE RED SWAN

IV. THE CELESTIAL SISTERS

V. GRAY EAGLE AND HIS FIVE BROTHERS

VI. HE OF THE LITTLE SHELL

VII. OSSEOJ THE SON OF THE EVENING STAR

VIII. THE WONDERFUL EXPLOITS OF GRASSHOPPER

IX. THE TOAD-WOMAN

X. THE ORIGIN OF THE ROBIN

XI. WHITE FEATHER AND THE SIX GIANTS

XII. SHEEM, THE FORSAKEN BOY

XIII. STRONG DESIRE AND THE RED SORCERER

XIV. THE MAGIC PACKET

XV. THE MAN WITH HIS LEG TIED UP

XVI. LEELINAU, THE LOST DAUGHTER

XVII. THE WINTER SPIRIT AND HIS VISITOR

XVIII. THE ENCHANTED MOCCASINS

XIX. THE WEENDIGOES AND THE BONE-DWARF

XX. THE FIRE-PLUME

XXI. THE BIRD LOVER

XXII. BOKWEWA, THE HUMPBACK

XXIII. THE LITTLE BOY-MAN

XXIV. WUNZH, THE FATHER OF INDIAN CORN

FOREWORD

These Indian fairy tales are chosen from the many stories collected by Mr. Henry R. Schoolcraft, the first man to study how the Indians lived and to discover their legends. He lived among the Indians in the West and around the Great Lakes for thirty years in the first part of the Nineteenth Century and wrote many books about them.

When the story-tellers sat at the lodge fires in the long evenings to tell of the manitoes and their magic, of how the little boy snared the sun, of the old Toad Woman who stole the baby, and the other tales that had been retold to generation after generation of red children, time out of mind, Mr. Schoolcraft listened and wrote the stories down, just as he heard them.

In 1856 this collection of his stories was published by Mason Brothers in New York City. A small brown book with quaint engravings for pictures, it is now only to be found here and there in families that have always treasured its delightful contents. It is republished, with revisions and with new illustrations in color, so that these stories may be passed on as they deserve.

THE INDIAN FAIRY BOOK

I. THE BOY WHO SET A SNARE FOR THE SUN

The boy came home unsuccessful. Then his sister told him that he must not despair, but try again the next day.

She accordingly left him again at the gathering-place of the wood and returned to the lodge. Toward nightfall she heard his little footsteps crackling through the snow, and he hurried in and threw down,