Visit of the Wood Spirit

retold by Richard L. Dieterle


Once a man dressed in black walked into the lodge of a great hunter. When he reached forward to clasp his hand, the hunter fell over as if dead, and could be revived only after extreme measures. The man in black was actually a Wood Spirit.1


Links: Wood Spirits, Tree Spirits.


Stories: about Wood Spirits (Wakącųna): The Man Who Lost His Children to a Wood Spirit, The Girl who Refused a Blessing from the Wood Spirits, Pete Dupeé and the Ghosts, The Completion Song Origin, The Twins Disobey Their Father (v. 2); mentioning trees or Tree Spirits: The Creation of the World, The Twins Retrieve Red Star's Head, The Children of the Sun, The Man Who Lost His Children to a Wood Spirit, The Boy who would be Immortal, The Commandments of Earthmaker, The Woman who Became a Walnut Tree, The Old Woman and the Maple Tree Spirit, The Oak Tree and the Man Who was Blessed by the Heroka, The Pointing Man, The Abduction and Rescue of Trickster, The Baldness of the Buzzard, Trickster Eats the Laxative Bulb, Trickster Loses His Meal, The Journey to Spiritland (v. 2), Thunderbird Clan Origin Myth, Waruǧábᵉra, The Chief of the Heroka, The Red Man, The Shell Anklets Origin Myth, The Annihilation of the Hocągara I, Baldheaded Warclub Origin Myth, The Blessing of the Bow, Pete Dupeé and the Ghosts, The Spirit of Gambling, Peace of Mind Regained, The Stench-Earth Medicine Origin Myth, The Necessity for Death, The Story of the Medicine Rite.


Themes: someone is confronted by a man dressed completely in black: The Pointing Man, The Man Who Lost His Children to a Wood Spirit, Turtle's Warparty.


Notes

1 Fanny D. Bergen, "Some Customs and Beliefs of the Winnebago Indians," The Journal of American Folk-Lore, 9 (1896): 52-53.