house was the roast body of her youngest son, the hot steam from which made her mouth water. "Ah!" said she, "my son is a good boy; he has done what I told him, I see; and now I shall have the pleasure of eating the body of my rival's child. But I wonder where my own children are," she went on, as she looked round the house in search of her sons. "Ah! there they are in bed, I see; they are doubtless tired from their exertion in the water and have fallen asleep. I won't disturb them till I have eaten my supper." And without approaching the bed, whereon lay three small logs, placed there by the eldest of the black-bear-boys for the purpose of misleading her, she fell to, all unconscious of what she was eating, and devoured the carcase of her own child. Now it had happened that her last child was born just about the same time as the black-bear-mother gave birth to her third son, and in order to distinguish hers from the black bear's she had made three incisions on the claws of her son's fore-paws.[1] She had nearly eaten the whole body when the little talker-bird [not identified] alighted on the roof of the house and began to whistle and talk. Said he: "Oh, you shocking, unnatural mother! why are you eating the body of your own child? How can you be so wicked?" "Be off with your babble!" answered the bear, with her mouth full of meat. "What do you know about the matter? You talk too much." But the bird whistled and chattered on, and continued to upbraid her for eating her own child. "It is not my child," said the grizzly. "There are my three children in bed yonder." "Are you sure?" replied the bird; "look at the claws in your hand." The grizzly did so, and perceived in a moment the three familiar marks which she had made on her youngest son's nails. Springing up, she rushed to the bed, and, snatching off the blanket, discovered that what she had taken for the forms of her children were only three rotten logs. Raging with fury, she rushed about in search of the other children, realising that she had been outwitted by the son of the murdered black bear. Presently discovering their trail, she hastened after them, vowing vengeance as she went.
In the meantime, the three boys had been making the best of
- ↑ It is difficult to gather whether the children of the woodpecker by his bear-wives had human or animal forms at this time. Sometimes the recital seems to imply the former, at another time the latter, as here. After the flight there is no doubt that the black bear's sons had human forms.
