Reading Notes: Week 14, Part B (The Fairy Bride)

There was a girl names Neen-i-zu who was the only daughter of an Indian chief. Her name means "my dear life," making it plain and clear that her parents loved her, did everything in their power to make her happy and to shield her from any possible harm. There was just one thing about Neen-i-zu that made them uneasy – while she had a lot of friends in the town that were girls, Neen-i-zu preferred to play by herself and wonder off into the deep parts of the woods. Her mother wished that she would be more like the other girls of the town and wanted her to settle down and get married. The mischievous fairies known as Puk-Wudjies were believed to inhabit the sand dunes near where Neen-i-zu went off to walk. Here, they were seldom visited by the Indians. No one had ever come close to them, but fishermen, paddling their canoes on the lake, had caught glimpses of them from afar and had heard the tiny voices of these merry little men, as they laughed and called to one another. When the fishermen tried to follow, the Puk-Wudjies would vanish in the woods, but their footprints, no larger than a child's, could be seen on the damp sand of a little lake in the hills. The Puk-Wudjies never really harmed anyone, but they were up to many kinds of mischief. As the story goes on, Neen-i-zu visits the fairies and her mother demands that she is tomarry a hunter. On the day of her wedding, Neen-i-zu goes to visit the fairies one more time, just for them to take her – she vanished. Wedding guests began to get worried and look for her, but she was never found. But, when they were looking for her, she appeared in fairy form, followed by a man wearing only leaves. Neen-i-zu did become a bride, but not like ever imagined.

Picture of a tree in California

(Taken by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash)

"The Fairy Bride," American Indian Fairy Tales by W.T. Larned