She hung up the new moons in
the skies, and cut up the old ones into stars. In times of drought, if
properly propitiated, she would spin light summer clouds out of
cobwebs and morning dew, and send them off from the crest of the
mountain, flake after flake, like flakes of carded cotton, to float in
the air; until, dissolved by the heat of the sun, they would fall in
gentle showers, causing the grass to spring, the fruits to ripen,
and the corn to grow an inch an hour. If displeased, however, she
would brew up clouds black as ink, sitting in the midst of them like a
bottle-bellied spider in the midst of its web; and when these clouds
broke, wo betide the valleys!
In old times, say the Indian traditions, there was a kind of Manitou
or Spirit, who kept about the wildest recesses of the Catskill
Mountains, and took a mischievous pleasure in wreaking all kinds of
evils and vexations upon the red men. Sometimes he would assume the
form of a bear, a panther, or a deer, lead the bewildered hunter a
weary chase through tangled forests and among ragged rocks; and then
spring off with a loud ho! ho! leaving him aghast on the brink of a
beetling precipice or raging torrent.
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