Page 3 - THE FROG MAUNTAIN SHAMAN GIRL

In old days near an Ine village there lived a beautiful
shaman girl. The gods and the village people loved her. She
was of help to everybody there, doctoring people and
animals, and singing beautiful songs to the gods. The gods
listened to her songs, rested in the heavens and filled the
village with fish and animals. Once a beast came to the
forest. It devoured sixty bears and sixty mama bears; small
animals and birds melted away. The beast's breath blackened
the forest, making it lapse into deep slumber. There is the
beast sitting, head to the clouds. Anger gripped it, not a
crumb left. Its stomach is growling. It rolls its huge eyes,
looking for something to eat. Suddenly the beautiful shaman
girl catches its eye. Sitting inside her house, she is throwing
the dice, mixing sorrows and joys in the bowls and winding
the balls of life. «Hey there, this night I'm gonna steal your
soul and have fun», the beast thinks.
The shaman girl saw what had happened to the forest,
but she wasn't scared. She opened a box and took out three
balls of string. She tied round the old river stone and there
sprang up an invisible wall. The girl then tied round the tree
near the house and there, among the trees, appeared the like
invisible walls. She tied round a bird's wing and an invisible
barrier blocked the sky.
The beast wants to go further into the forest but it fails.
It tries the river way and fails again. To go up to the sky is
not available either. It yells, furious, «I know who is in my
way. You wouldn't get away with it!» But the shaman girl
won't listen to it. She hears the earth and herbs, and storms,
and wild birds speaking. When night falls down, she climbs
up the Frog mountain, makes a fire and begins to pray to the
gods, pleading them to help overpower the beast.

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