Week 10 Reading Notes: American Indian Fairy Tales, Part B

The Fairy Bride - I love how this story starts immediately with a question--what is Neen-i-zu up to when she wanders off alone? It introduces us to the fairies quickly and gives us this as a clue. I do think the writing lingers too much on details (settings, history, etc.) more than I would like, so I would take that out if I re-wrote it. I love the idea of "Happy Land" that is mentioned, where nobody is sorrowful and Neen-i-zu hopes to go.

I love that Neen-i-zu stands up for herself when her mother wants her to marry a man who hunts and kills deer. She is still forced to marry, though, and on the day of her wedding she goes off to the hills that she liked to wander off to. Everyone looks for her, and I like how the writing focused on not what Neen-i-zu was doing but instead what the wedding guests, family, and her fiance were doing while waiting for her. It really builds up the anticipation for what Neen-i-zu is doing:

"Time passed; but Neen-i-zu did not return. Then so late was the hour that the wedding guests wondered and bestirred themselves. What could be keeping her so long? At last they searched the hills; she was not there. They tracked her to the meadow where the prints of her little moccasins led on and on—into the grove itself; then the tracks disappeared. Neen-i-zu had vanished."

I do think it ends rather abruptly, but I can't help but love how the last paragraph is written. It summarizes what a man who was looking for Neen-i-zu saw: She was in the woods and marrying a fairy in the forest. It ends with, "So Neen-i-zu became a bride, after all," which I love because it forces the reader to just accept that we would not hear any more about how this happened or how her family responded.

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Image info: The Fairy Bride image from mythfloklore blog

Bibliography: American Indian Fairy Tales unit. Story source: American Indian Fairy Tales by W.T. Larned, with illustrations by John Rae (1921).