THE TURTLE AND HIS BRIDE

Edition and rights: Original English text from Project Gutenberg ebook #31201, marked public domain in the USA. The literary text below is reproduced without AI rewriting.

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There was once a turtle who lived among a great many
people of different kinds, in a large camp near a big
river which was born right up amongst the snows, and
flowed straight away south till it reached a sea where
the water was always hot.

There were many other turtles in the camp, and this
turtle was kind and pleasant to them all, but he did not
care for any of them very much, and felt rather lonely.

At last he built himself a hut, and filled it with skins
for seats, and made it as comfortable as any hut for miles
round; and when it was quite finished he looked about
among the young women to see which of them he should
ask to be his wife.

It took him some time to make up his mind, for no
turtle likes being hurried, but at length he found one girl
who seemed prettier and more industrious than the rest,
and one day he entered her home, and said: ‘Will you
marry me?’

The young woman was so surprised at this question
that she dropped the beaded slipper she was making, and
stared at the turtle. She felt inclined to laugh—the idea
was so absurd; but she was kind-hearted and polite, so
she looked as grave as she could, and answered:

‘But how are you going to provide for a family?
Why, when the camp moves, you will not even be able to
keep up with the rest!’

‘I can keep up with the best of them,’ replied the
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turtle, tossing his head. But though he was very much
offended he did not let the girl see it, and begged and
prayed her so hard to marry him that, at last, she consented,
very unwillingly.

‘You will have to wait till the spring, though,’ she
said; ‘I must make a great many slippers and dresses for
myself, as I shall not have much time afterwards.’

This did not please the turtle; but he knew it was no
use talking, so all he answered was:

‘I shall go to war and take some captives, and I shall
be away several months. And when I return I shall
expect you to be ready to marry me.’

So he went back to his hut, and at once set about
his preparations. The first thing he did was to call all
his relations together, and ask them if they would come
with him and make war on the people of a neighbouring
village. The turtles, who were tired of doing nothing,
agreed at once, and next day the whole tribe left the
camp. The girl was standing at the door of her hut as
they passed, and laughed out loud—they moved so slowly.
Her lover, who was marching at the head, grew very
angry at this, and cried out:

‘In four days from now you will be weeping instead
of laughing, because there will be hundreds of miles
between you and me.’

‘In four days,’ replied the girl—who had only promised
to marry him in order to get rid of him—‘in four days
you will hardly be out of sight.’

‘Oh, I did not mean four days, but four years,’
answered the turtle, hastily; ‘whatever happens I shall
be back by then.’

The army marched on, till one day, when they felt
as if they must have got half round the earth, though
they were scarcely four miles from the camp, they found
a large tree lying across their path. They looked at it
with dismay, and the oldest among them put their heads
together to see what was to be done.

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‘Can’t we manage to get past by the top?’ asked
one.

‘Why, it would take us years,’ exclaimed another.
‘Just look at all those tall green branches, spreading in
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every direction. If once we got entangled in them, we
should never get out again!’

‘Well then, let us go round by the bottom,’ said a
third.

‘How are we to do that, when the roots have made a
deep hole, and above that is a high bank?’ replied a
fourth. ‘No; the only way I can think of, is to burn a
large hole in the trunk.’ And this they did, but the trunk
was very thick, and would not burn through.

‘It is no use, we must give it up,’ they agreed at last.
‘After all, nobody need ever know! We have been away
such a long while that we might easily have had all sorts
of adventures.’ And so the whole company turned homewards
again.

They took even longer to go back than they had to
come, for they were tired and footsore with their journey.
When they drew near the camp they plucked up their
courage, and began to sing a war-song. At this the
villagers came flocking to see what spoils the turtles had
won, but, as they approached, each turtle seized some one
by the wrist, exclaiming: ‘You are our spoils; you are
our prisoners!’

‘Now that I have got you I will keep you,’ said the
leader, who had happened to seize his betrothed.

Everybody was naturally very angry at this behaviour,
and the girl most of all, and in her secret heart she
determined to have her revenge. But, just at present, the
turtles were too strong, so the prisoners had to put on
their smartest slippers and their brightest clothes, and
dance a war dance while the turtles sang. They danced
so long that it seemed as if they would never stop, till
the turtle who was leading the singing suddenly broke
into a loud chant:

Whoever comes here, will die, will die!

At this all the dancers grew so frightened that they
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burst through the ring of their captors, and ran back to
the village, the turtles following—very slowly. On the
way the chief turtle met a man, who said to him:

‘That woman who was to have been your wife has
married another man!’

‘Is that true?’ said the turtle. ‘Then I must see
him.’

But as soon as the villager was out of sight the turtle
stopped, and taking a bundle containing fringes and
ornaments from his back, he hung them about him, so
that they rattled as he walked. When he was quite close
to the hut where the woman lived, he cried out:

‘Here I am to claim the woman who promised to be
my wife.’

‘Oh, here is the turtle,’ whispered the husband
hurriedly; ‘what is to be done now?’

‘Leave that to me; I will manage him,’ replied the
wife, and at that moment the turtle came in, and seized
her by the wrist. ‘Come with me,’ he said sternly.

‘You broke your promise,’ answered she. ‘You said
you would be back soon, and it is more than a year since
you went! How was I to know that you were alive?’

At her words the husband took courage, and spoke
hastily:

‘Yes, you promised you would go to war and bring
back some prisoners, and you have not done it.’

‘I did go, and made many prisoners,’ retorted the
turtle angrily, drawing out his knife. ‘Look here, if she
won’t be my wife, she sha’n’t be yours. I will cut her in
two; and you shall have one half, and I the other.’

‘But half a woman is no use to me,’ answered the
man. ‘If you want her so much you had better take
her.’ And the turtle, followed by his relations, carried
her off to his own hut.

Now the woman saw she would gain nothing by being
sulky, so she pretended to be very glad to have got rid of
her husband; but all the while she was trying to invent a

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plan to deliver herself from the turtle. At length she remembered
that one of her friends had a large iron pot,
and when the turtle had gone to his room to put away his
fringes, she ran over to her neighbour’s and brought it
back. Then she filled it with water and hung it over the
fire to boil. It was just beginning to bubble and hiss
when the turtle entered.

‘What are you doing there?’ asked he, for he was
always afraid of things that he did not understand.

‘Just warming some water,’ she answered. ‘Do you
know how to swim?’

‘Yes, of course I do. What a question! But what
does it matter to you?’ said the turtle, more suspicious
than ever.

‘Oh, I only thought that after your long journey you
might like to wash. The roads are so muddy, after the
winter’s rains. I could rub your shell for you till it was
bright and shining again.’

‘Well, I am rather muddy. If one is fighting, you
know, one cannot stop to pick one’s way. I should
certainly be more comfortable if my back was washed.’

The woman did not wait for him to change his mind.
She caught him up by his shell and popped him straight
into the pot, where he sank to the bottom, and died
instantly.

The other turtles, who were standing at the door,
saw their leader disappear, and felt it was their duty as
soldiers to follow him; and, springing into the pot, died
too. All but one young turtle, who, frightened at not
seeing any of his friends come out again, went as fast
as he could to a clump of bushes, and from there made
his way to the river. His only thought was to get away
as far as possible from that dreadful hut; so he let the
river carry him where it was going itself, and at last, one
day, he found himself in the warm sea, where, if he is
not dead, you may meet him still.

[Bureau of Ethnology.]

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