Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

Algonquin Legends of New England by Charles Godfrey Leland
page 57 of 357 (15%)
piece of wood sticking to her back, and they laughed her to scorn, and
sang at her,--

"He who made the chief
Stay on a distant island,
He is stuck by the chief
Fast with his back to a tree."

Now Pitcher the Witch, being mad with shame and spite, fled from the
face of man, and ran through the woods like a wild wolf. And so she
came to Bar Harbor (Pes'sonkqu', P.), and sat down on a log, and said,
with her heart full of bitterness and malice, "I would that I could
become something which should torment all men." And as she said this
she became a mosquito (T'sis-o, P.), and so it came to pass that
mosquitoes were made. And to this day men see that wherever the Black
Cat is, there too is the Sable not far away. [Footnote: The
Passamaquoddy version relates that Pitcher in her flight pursued a
moose to Bar Harbor, where, having killed him and drawn out the
entrails, she petrified him. A Penobscot woman told me she had often
seen the moose rock there, and the "inments." But she attributed the
deed to Glooskap, to whom it properly belongs, his petrified moose and
dogs and the print of his bow, etc., being still shown in Nova Scotia;
and it is also said that it was at Freshwater, after returning from Bar
Harbor (Maine), that Pitcher was changed into a mosquito. Another story
states that Pook-jin-skwess, having pursued young men all her life,
changed into a mosquito that she might continue to prey on them.]

Of this Pook-jin-skwess it was said that she had children of her own,
begotten by sorcerers and giants and monsters; but as they were all
ugly she stole from the Indian women their fairest babes, and brought
DigitalOcean Referral Badge