The Indian Fairy Book – From the Original Legends

THE
INDIAN FAIRY BOOK.
FROM THE ORIGINAL LEGENDS.
BY
CORNELIUS MATHEWS.
With Illustrations by John McLenan.
ENGRAVED BY A. V. S. ANTHONY.

NEW-YORK:
PUBLISHED BY ALLEN BROTHERS.
1869.

Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year 1868,
BY CORNELIUS MATHEWS,
In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court for the Southern District of New-York.

PREFACE.

The following stories have been, time out of mind, in their original form, recited around the lodge-fires and under the trees, by the Indian story-tellers, for the entertainment of the red children of the West. They were originally interpreted from the old tales and legends by the late Henry R. Schoolcraft, and are now re-interpreted and developed by the Editor, so as to enable them, as far as worthy, to take a place with the popular versions of the Arabian Nights’ Entertainments, Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood, and other world-renowned tales of Europe and the East, to which, in their original conception, they bear a resemblance in romantic interest and quaint extravagance of fancy. The Editor hopes that these beautiful and sprightly legends of the West, if not marred in the handling, will repay, in part at least, the glorious debt which we have incurred to the Eastern World for her magical gifts of the same kind.

October, 1868.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I.—The Celestial Sisters
II.—The Boy who Set a Snare for the Sun
III.—Strong Desire and the Red Sorcerer
IV.—The Wonderful Exploits of Grasshopper
V.—The Two Jeebi
VI.—Osseo, the Son of the Evening Star
VII.—Gray Eagle and his Five Brothers
VIII.—The Toad-Woman
IX.—The Origin of the Robin
X.—White Feather and the Six Giants
XI.—Sheem, the Forsaken Boy
XII.—The Magic Bundle
XIII.—The Red Swan
XIV.—The Man with his Leg Tied Up
XV.—The Little Spirit or Boy-Man
XVI.—The Enchanted Moccasins
XVII.—He of the Little Shell
XVIII.—Manabozho, the Mischief-Maker
XIX.—Leelinau, the Lost Daughter
XX.—The Winter Spirit and his Visitor
XXI.—the Fire-Plume
XXII.—Weendigoes and the Bone-Dwarf
XXIII.—The Bird Lover
XXIV.—Bokwewa the Humpback
XXV.—The Crane that Crossed the River
XXVI.—Wunzh, the Father of Indian Corn

ILLUSTRATIONS.
Frontispiece.—The Celestial Sisters
The Bear Servants
The Man with his Leg Tied Up
The Morning Star and Her Brother