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Source:
From
Myths of the Cherokee, James Mooney, 1900
The Hummingbird and the Crane were both in love with a pretty woman. She
preferred the Hummingbird, who was as handsome as the Crane was awkward.
But the Crane was so persistent that in order to get rid of him she
finally told him he must challenge the other to a race and she would marry
the winner.
The Hummingbird was so swift--almost like a flash of lightning--and the
Crane so slow and heavy, that she felt sure the Hummingbird would win. She
did not know the Crane could fly all night.
They agreed to start from her house and fly
around the circle of the world to the beginning, and the one who came in
first would marry the woman.
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At
the word the Hummingbird darted off like an arrow and was out of
sight in
a moment, leaving his rival to follow heavily behind. He flew all day, and
when evening came and he stopped to roost for the night he was far ahead.
But the Crane flew steadily all night long, passing the Hummingbird soon
after midnight and going on until he came to a creek and stopped to rest
about daylight.
The Hummingbird woke up in the morning and flew on again, thinking how
easily he would win the race, until he reached the creek and there found
the Crane spearing tadpoles, with his long bill, for breakfast. He was
very much surprised and wondered how this could have happened, but he flew
swiftly by and soon left the Crane out of sight again.
The Crane finished his breakfast and started on, and when evening came he
kept on as before. This time it was hardly midnight when he passed the
Hummingbird asleep on a limb, and in the morning he had finished his
breakfast before the other came up. The next day he gained a little more,
and on the fourth day he was spearing tadpoles for dinner when the
Hummingbird passed him. On the fifth and sixth days it was late in the
afternoon before the Hummingbird came up, and on the morning of the
seventh day the Crane was ' a whole night's travel ahead.
He took his time at breakfast and then fixed himself up as nicely as he
could at the creek and came in at the starting place where the woman
lived, early in the morning. When the Hummingbird arrived in the afternoon
he found he had lost the race, but the woman declared she would never have
such an ugly fellow as the Crane for a husband, so she stayed single.
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