Salt River herald., 1878-11-30
SALT RIVER HERALD.
saturday...-...Novembers soIis7s.
THE THUNDER SPIRIT.
4 Tradition of the Seneca I'm
 dians,

Of Niagara. For very long time he had dwelt there, astonishing the h. dians with his stunning peals, but never venturing forth to practice this strange art before their eyes. They could hear him, and knew he was there; but never as yet had he been seen; nor is it at all likely that he, or the effects ot the sun, ever would have been seen, but for little incident, the result of which brought him forth.
 A young and beautiful maiden, re- siding at the Seneca village, just above the Falls, had been contracted in mar riage by her father to an old man of disagIeeable manners and hideous person. She at once resolved to seek death rather than drag out the life of misery which such a union must bring about; and with this object in view she launched forth from the viii lage in bark canoe, and swept down the rapids of Niagara, staging her own death song, until she took the awful leap.
 But death was not yet ready for her Herno, the Thuuder-Spirit, happened to be wide awake; and, when he saw her coming down among the foaming waters, he coolly caught her in his blanket. and conveyed her to his home behind the falls.
 Of course, the maiden had romance enough about her to be grateful for all this, more especially when she found she was entirely beyond the reach of the monster her '' cruel pa ricnt7 had selected to comfort her through life. She fell upon the neck of the Thunderer, and wept sweet tears. The tears softened his stern heart, and led him to smooth back, if not to toy with her golden tresses. In short, to hurry through long story, they got to billing and cooing; they fell in love; they made the interesting affair known to each other; and the wronged, though beautiful maiden became the wife of Herno, the Thur der-Spirit. And, as matter of course, she was very happy.
 About thls tune, the Senecas of the village above the Falls were visited with a pestilence which swept them of by hundreds; and while some prayed to the Great Spirit for help others gathered around the great cat aract, and sent in their petitions tc Herno. The tale of their suffering. moved the Thunderer, and he sen the maiden forth to tell her people that a monstrous serpent was dwell ing beneath their village. just below the surface of the ground; that it wa depending upon their bodies for food and that it came forth ct the end O every moon, and poisoned the waters in order that they might die, and bt buried within its reach.
 As soon as the Indians learned this they pulled up, and moved to anothe locality; consequently when the grea serpent poisoned the water as usual the earth brought him no food. Thi was an affair so strange, that he crawl ed forth to see what it meant, when t his surprise, he discovered that tn village was deserted.
 With many curses on the head o the Thunderer, as the author of hi misfortune, the serpent took the trai
 of the retreating Indians, and starte,
 away in hot pursuit.
 The maiden still loved her people and when she saw the serpent nov on to effect their further destruction
 she appealed to her husband to arres
 him. Herno was not deaf to her er
 treaties; and so he stepped forth iron his hiding-place, and launched a his: ing-bolt after the reptile, which strucl
 him just as he was endeavoring { cross the narrows some distance abov
 the falls.
 The wound produced was a fata one; and the green monster fioate down the stream, and lodged upo
 the verge of d cataract stretching iron
 shore to shore. The swift water
 were damned up by the obstruction
 but they finally broke througl tn rocks behind, and thus the whole to
 of the falls upon which the serpen
 rested were precipitated into the abys below, excepting portion now know
 as Goat Island.
 It almost entirely ruined the hom
 of the Thunderer, for it reduced th
 great space behind the waters 10
 very narrow compass. He occupie | it as a sleeping apartment, howevel f and you may uow hear him snorin under there, if you stand on the shore
 but if he would exercise himself i
 his iavorite pastime of throwing thur , derbolts, he is forced to come fort . into space less limited.