Once it was a supernatural princess who vanished. But she had not been tricked into trouble. She had vanished because she was unhappy about living with humans. This is the way it happened.
It was the time of very long ago, when things were different in the vast green wilderness of the Northwest. It was a time when Mouse Woman was living on the Haida islands.
It was early in the spring. Geese were filling the northern flyway with their wild calls as they moved toward their summer feeding grounds in great flying wedges.
A chief’s son was out alone, watching the mighty travellers of the air with longing eyes. For not even the biggest and finest of the Haida canoes could venture as far as the great birds. He was looking up at the birds with shining eyes when he heard a chattering of geese at a nearby lake.
Eager to observe the mighty visitors at close range, he glided warily toward the sound. But there were no geese. There were only two maidens swimming near the shore. They were swimming and laughing and chattering merrily.
The young man caught his breath. For there was something geeselike about the chattering. And, shining in the sun, two large gooseskins lay at the edge of the lake. “Goose maides!” He scarcely breathed it. For these were supernatural maides, Narnauks. And they were as beautiful as a summer sky. He longed to speak to them. But he knew that they would take flight at the first sign of a human being. Unless – His eyes widened with a thought. The goose maidens could not take flight without their flying blankets. He crept warily toward the gooseskins.
A startled cry told him he was discovered. Wild to speak to the two beautiful maidens, he threw himself down on the gooseskins so they could not take them. The elder maiden came to him, hissing like an outraged gander. But the younger maiden only looked shyly at him. Caught in the spell of her eyes, the youth rose to his feet, picking up the gooseskins. The elder maiden almost snatched hers from his hand. But the younger stood looking at him with great wondering eyes. And a wild thought leaped up in the young man. Perhaps she would marry him. With the courage born of his yearning, he held her gooseskin toward her, “If you will marry me, Princess, I will give you your flying blanket.”
The elder maiden hissed in outrage at such presumption, “Marry you! YOU! A mere human!” But the younger one still looked at him. “I will marry you,” she whispered. The elder maiden hissed at both of them. Angrily she put on her gooseskin. And then she was a goose, flapping furiously out into the lake. With a great thunder of wings and a fury of wild calls, she rose. She flew up, up, up, up until she was lost in the vast blueness of the sky.
“She has gone home to Skyland”, the younger maiden whispered. And her shining eyes were shadowed with concern. “I will take you home to my village,” he assured her. “You will be warmly welcomed by my family,” But now a shadow darkened his eyes. For the beautiful princess was a narnauk. His family would look askance at her. Unless they did not know she was a narnauk. Putting her flying blanket on the ground, the youth took off his top martenskin robe and laid it gently on her shoulders. Then he folded up her gooseskin and hid it under his second robe. “May we keep this as our secret, Princess?” he begged. She nodded, though her eyes were still anxious. They started toward the village. And when they were nearing it, the youth hid the gooseskin in the heart of an old cedar tree. “Keep it safe!” the maiden murmured to the tree. The youth looked at her with a moment’s sadness. “You will be so happy with my family that you will not want it again, Princess.”
For a time, she was happy with his human family. Her husband could see the questions in his parents eyes. But they were a proud and proper people. They did not pry into their daughter-in-law’s concerns. They recognized the nobility in her bearing and in her manners. They noted the richness of her broad black neck ring. Obviously she was a princess who had been spirited away from her own people and was now keeping herself secret from some dreaded enemy. But she did walk a little oddly, they confessed to one another.
“Since my wife came in springtime, with the geese,” her husband suggested, “let us call her Goose Princess.” He caught her grateful and loving glance. Food was her first problem; for she did not like their food, until a woman chanced to steam the roots of plants she gathered near the mouth of the creek. Goose Princess ate those with relish. “Though I do wish they weren’t cooked,” she confessed to her husband. For some time, she seemed happy enough in her new home. Then her husband began to notice something. Often at night she glided silently out of the house. And when she returned she was cold. Cold as the night air. Cold as the seawater.
One night he stealthily followed her. He saw her take her flying blanket from the heart of the cedar tree. He watched her fly off to graze on sea grasses. And as he went back to the house so that she would know he had watched her, his heart was heavy. Goose Princess was not satisfied to be a human. Summer passed. And winter came. A desperately cold winter. Fierce gales uprooted trees and set the sea smoking with blown spray. Canoes could not go out on the sea for food. Snow and ice locked in the island. And people in the great cedar houses grew hungry. For, in the Haida islands, no one was prepared for such a winter.
One day when they were outdoors, Goose Princess said “Sh!” to her husband. And she seemed to listen to the sky; though he could hear nothing but the wind. “My father is sending food to us,” she told him. To the amazement of the whole village, a great flying wedge of geese came out of the south. And when they had gone, there was a mound of roots and grasses behind the house where she lived. “Strange food for people!” envious neighbours muttered. There was fear and scourn – as well as envy – in their voices. For people do not like unaccountable happenings.
Again and again during the bitter winter, flying wedges of geese came out of the south, brining more roots and grasses for the family. “That family will be turning into gaggling geese,” a man muttered. His friends laughed. For there was now much gossip in the village. There were shy little goose walks and goose hisses. And there were many sidelong glances at the mysterious princess who had come from no-one-knew-where. She did walk very oddly, people whispered to one another.
Goose Princess heard the whispers. She caught the glances and the goose walks and hisses. “They are mocking me,” she told her husband. And for the very first time, she hissed at him. “They are mocking me; for humans are always suspicious of people who are different.” Then her eyes blazed with anger. “And they are mocking the geese, who are greater than they are.” She raced out of the house. But, after a while, she came back.
Then the worst of the storms was over. It was early spring. Geese filled the northern flyway with their wild calls as they moved toward their summer feeding grounds in great flying wedges. And as she watched their high passing, Goose Princess was sad and quiet. Her eyes were full of yearning. One night she slipped out of the house. Alarmed by what might happen, her husband followed her. But she seemed to fly on the wings of her longing for her own kind. And as he fell farther behind, she reached the cedar tree. With a quick, grateful word to the tree, she snatched up the gooseskin and put it on. Then, with a great thunder of wings and a trumpeting of wild calls, she flew up, up, up, up until she was lost in the vast darkness of the sky.
Her husband sank to the ground in despair. He knew he had lost his beautiful goose princess. At long last, he sadly went back to the village. Next day, the rumours flashed from house to house. Goose Princess had vanished mysteriously as she had come. “She was not a proper woman,” people whispered to one another. And now there was fear in their voices. For they had offended a narnauk. And who knew what would happen to them? They begun to turn angry glances at the young man who had brought her to the village. It was his fault that they were now in danger. The young man neither heard the whispers nor saw the glances. For he was lost in grief. When he finally stirred himself, he made his way to the remote house of a shaman, a witch doctor who had almost left the ways of man to have closer contact with the spirit world.
“My wife has vanished,” the young man told the shaman. “So I wish to find the Trail to her father’s village.” The old man’s glittering eyes seemed to pierce into the young man’s innermost being. “Your wife’s father is a Great One almost beyond the thinking of a human being,” he said in his strange, old, cracked voice. The young man nodded. He knew his father-in-law was a Supernatural Being. “Where is the Trail to his village?” he insisted. The old medicine man pierced him again with his glittering wild eyes before he said “You are a worth man. The trail runs behind my house.” Pausing only long enough to present the old shaman with a small, but beautifully carved box, the young man raced out to see the Trail, the Spirit trail that would lead him to Skyland.
Growth was so dense on the Haida islands that men seldom ventured into the depth of the forest; they clung to the seacoast. But now a trail seemed to open up before him as he moved. And it closed behind him. His heart was pounding. For who knew what would happen along such a trail? He pushed from his mind the old stories of fearsome Beings who lived there. As he moved along, he seemed to have left even time behind him. For his world was a world of summer. He had gone a long, long way when he came upon the mouse. A white mouse! It had cranberries in its mouth. And it was vainly trying to get over a huge tree that had fallen across its pathway. With instant compassion for the small creature, he picked it up and lifted it over the fallen tree. He watched it scurry off into the a stand of large ferns. Then he heard a voice, a squeaky little voice. “Come in and speak to the Chief-woman!” it commanded. Startled by the words, the young man lifted a leaning fern. And there, to his amazement, was a house. A huge, underground house. “Come in!” It was a sharp command in the same squeaky voice. He went in. And there was the tiniest of old women, cooking cranberries in a hot-stone box. She was watching him with big, busy, mouse eyes. “You are a worth man,” she said to him in the same voice. “And since you have helped me, I will help you. Though it is not a proper marriage,” she added tartly. “It is a marriage, Grandmother.” He protested. “It is a marriage,” she conceded. “And I owe you assistance.” For of course, this was Mouse Woman. And of course she knew the obligation of a gift. If help had been given, the helper must be compensated. She marched off to a corner of her house and began to open a nest of five carved chests. From the innermost chest, she took out a tiny mouseskin. “I wore this for hunting when I was young,” she told him, with just a little sigh for her long gone days of hunting. She held it out for him. “Wear it!” she commanded. “Wear...that?” The young man looked at the tiny mouseskin. He looked at his own big body. “Wear it!” she repeated. To humour her, he took it. And to his utter amazement, he could enter it the way the reflection of a giant tree can enter a tiny puddle. He could move around in it, as if he were a mouse.
“Practice wearing it!” she commanded. And she pointed toward the outdoors. The young man, now seeming to be a mouse, scampered around logs and mosses for a brief time. Then went back into the house. “Now,” the tiny old woman said, “as soon as you have eaten, be on your way! Though it is not a proper marriage.” “It is a marriage, Grandmother,” he answered. Removing the garment, he ate and went on his way.
This time he met only one creature – a strange little man with one leg, one arm and half a head. “Master Hopper!” he gasped, watching the halfman bop boisterously around the base of a red pole that seemed to reach up and up forever, beyond the highest treetops. He had heard about Master Hopper, but he had not believed in him. Then his gaze fastened to the pole. He had heard stories about that, too, and had scarcely believed them. This was the red pole that reached up to Skyland. Where Goose Princess was.
Without a moment’s hesitation, he entered his magical mouseskin and scampered up the red pole. He climbed up and up and up beyond the treetops, up and up and up beyond the eagles, up and up and up beyond the clouds, up and up and up until he reached the door into Skyland. It was an alarming door. It opened and shut again as fast as the blink of an eye. He watched it for a long time. And only when he had caught the rhythm of its opening did he ready himself to leap through. As a mouse, he leaped through. Then, as a man, he looked about him. Skyland was dazzling. Houses as blue as the sky and as white as the clouds were decorated with tiny stars. Before the biggest house he saw the Goose pole. Then he saw Goose Princess running toward him. She was embracing him. She was taking him into the house of her father who was Town Chief. “You will be happy here,” she told him. And for some time, he was happy. Then he began to long for the great sea where he had gone seahunting. He began to long for the smell of the cedars, the screams of the seagulls, the sound of the rain on the roof. He began to long for his family.
“My son-in-law is not happy here,” the Town Chief told his daughter. She nodded in sad agreement. “He is not happy here” As she had not been happy living among humans. “I will send him back to his own kind,” the Town Chief told her. And again she nodded in sad agreement. She understood his yearning for his own kind. The Town Chief summoned Eagle, and Rave and Heron and Seagull to consult about the manner of the young man’s return to earth. And it was agreed that they would carry him back while he was sleeping.
So it was that the young man woke up next morning in his own house in his own village. “Did I dream it all? He asked himself, glancing about at the familiar walls and smokehole. He then saw the mouse skin. But as he reached, it vanished. He blinked his eyes to clear them. But the mouseskin had truly vanished. And he thought he heard a small, sharp-voiced mutter, “It was not a proper marriage”.
Indeed, it was not a proper marriage. But, as long as he lived, the Goose Princess’s husband watched the high passing of the geese with a great yearning. He went often to lonely waters. But he never again found a goose maiden swimming.
No comments:
Post a Comment