Post by blackcrowheart on Sept 20, 2007 14:13:32 GMT -5
Empounded Water - Malecite
(MALECITE: Speck, Journal of American Folk-Lore, xxx, 480, No. 2)
Aglabem kept back all the water in the world, so that rivers stopped
flowing, and lakes dried up, and the people everywhere began dying of
thirst. As a last resort, hey sent a messenger to him to ask him to give the
people water, but he refused, and gave the messenger only a drink from the
water in which he washed. But this was not enough to satisfy even the thirst
of one. Then the people began complaining, some saying, "I'm as dry as a
fish," "I'm as dry as a frog," "I'm as dry as a turtle," "I'm as dry as a
beaver," and the like, as they were on the verge of dying of thirst.
At last a great man was sent to Aglabem to beg him to release the water for
the people. Aglabem refused, saying that he needed it himself to lie in.
Then the messenger felled a tree, so that if fell on top of the monster and
killed him. The body of this tree became the main river [St. John's River],
and the branches became the tributary branches of the river, while the
leaves became the ponds and the heads of these streams. As the waters flowed
down to the villages of the people again, they plunged in to drink, and
became transformed into the animals which they likened themselves when
formerly complaining of their thirst.
Tales Of The North American Indians, Selected And Annotated By Stith
Thompson, Indiana University Press ,Bloomington, [1929]
(MALECITE: Speck, Journal of American Folk-Lore, xxx, 480, No. 2)
Aglabem kept back all the water in the world, so that rivers stopped
flowing, and lakes dried up, and the people everywhere began dying of
thirst. As a last resort, hey sent a messenger to him to ask him to give the
people water, but he refused, and gave the messenger only a drink from the
water in which he washed. But this was not enough to satisfy even the thirst
of one. Then the people began complaining, some saying, "I'm as dry as a
fish," "I'm as dry as a frog," "I'm as dry as a turtle," "I'm as dry as a
beaver," and the like, as they were on the verge of dying of thirst.
At last a great man was sent to Aglabem to beg him to release the water for
the people. Aglabem refused, saying that he needed it himself to lie in.
Then the messenger felled a tree, so that if fell on top of the monster and
killed him. The body of this tree became the main river [St. John's River],
and the branches became the tributary branches of the river, while the
leaves became the ponds and the heads of these streams. As the waters flowed
down to the villages of the people again, they plunged in to drink, and
became transformed into the animals which they likened themselves when
formerly complaining of their thirst.
Tales Of The North American Indians, Selected And Annotated By Stith
Thompson, Indiana University Press ,Bloomington, [1929]