Page:Myths and Legends of British North America.djvu/113

 HOW THE SUMMER CAME

Ojibwa

ISHER used to live somewhere in this world, but nobody knows where. This was in the days when there was no summer at all. It was always snow and cold and ice all the time. People knew that there was a Summer Land where the Summer Birds lived, but they were not sure where it was.

Now it was always winter because in the days of the grandfathers a man had captured all the Summer Birds and had taken them away with him. Thus it was always cold. The people talked about it in their tepees when North Wind rattled the flaps and shouted to them.

At last Fisher said he would find those Summer Birds so that summer would come again. Fisher did not know where the Summer Land was, but he traveled for a long, long while until he came to it in the Sky Land. Then he reached the tepee where the man lived. All the Summer Birds were there, all tied together.

Now Fresh-water Herring lived there also with this man. Fisher at once put some pitch in Herring's mouth, so that he could not cry out. Then he took the