HOW BIRDS AND FAIRIES CAME TO BE
(Algonquin)
Once—oh, a very long time ago—there were
no birds and no fairies upon the earth.
Now I will tell you a story of their beginning,
as the Indian grandmothers tell it to the Red
children.
Ten beautiful sisters lived in the lodge of their father, and no maidens in all the tribe were so good to look upon as they.
Young warriors came and sought them in marriage, and one by one the sisters went away to the lodges of their husbands, until only one was left in the lodge of her father.
This one was Oweenee, the youngest of all, and the most beautiful. Many warriors had sought her favor, but she was not easily won. Her sisters mocked her, but she cared not for that. "I shall know when the right suitor comes," she said to her own heart, and went about her duties in her father's lodge.
One day an old man came to the lodge door
