And seeing their garments lying on
the shore, and beholding among the damsels one whom he desired to
obtain, [Footnote: There are many of these stories which indicate
passionate and deeply seated attachment, but I never once heard a real
Indian say that man or woman loved, though they have words which fully
express it. "He wanted her" is the nearest approach to tenderness which
I have ever heard from them. This is not the result of a want of
feeling, but of the suppression of all manifestation of it, to which
every red man is trained from earliest infancy.] Marten quietly slipped
along unseen, as all of his species can do, till he had the clothes in
his hands. For being tinctured with magic and learned in the lore of
all kind of goblins, elves, and witches, Master Marten knew that when
Naiads are naked and a man has their garments he holds them at his
mercy. For in the apparel lies their fairy power; and if you doubt it,
do but give it a trial and see for yourself!
And having done this, the merry fellow ran inland with a brave whoop,
which the fairies hearing, they in a great rage ran after the ravisher
of their robes. But she whom he desired outstripped the rest, and when
she approached him he did but tap her lightly on the head with a small
stick, according to a certain ancient prescription followed in Fairy-land,
which makes of a woman a wife; whereupon she, according to the
antique rite, being astonished to find herself so, suddenly married,
fainted dead away, and was carried off in peace.
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