Legends of Vancouver by E. Pauline Johnson
page 95 of 107 (88%)
page 95 of 107 (88%)
![]() | ![]() |
|
as Prospect Point they heard from the heights above them a laugh,
and, looking up, they beheld the witch-woman jeering defiantly at them. They landed, and, scaling the rocks, pursued her as she danced away, eluding them like a will-o'-the-wisp as she called out to them sneeringly: "Care for yourselves, oh! men of the Sagalie Tyee, or I shall blight you with my evil eye. Care for yourselves and do not follow me." On and on she danced through the thickest of the wilderness, on and on they followed until they reached the very heart of the sea-girt neck of land we know as Stanley Park. Then the tallest, the mightiest of the Four Men, lifted his hand and cried out: "Oh! woman of the stony heart, be stone for evermore, and bear forever a black stain for each one of your evil deeds." And as he spoke the witch-woman was transformed into this stone that tradition says is in the centre of the park. Such is the "Legend of the Lure." Whether or not this stone is really in existence who knows? One thing is positive, however: no Indian will ever help to discover it. Three different Indians have told me that fifteen or eighteen years ago, two tourists--a man and a woman--were lost in Stanley Park. When found a week later the man was dead, the woman mad, and each of my informants firmly believed they had, in their wanderings, encountered "the stone" and were compelled to circle around it, because of its powerful lure. But this wild tale, fortunately, had a most beautiful conclusion. The Four Men, fearing that the evil heart imprisoned in the stone |
|