Wind and Thunder

Wind and Thunder by Jeremiah Curtin

"Wind and Thunder" is a myth collected by Jeremiah Curtin from the Klamath people of the Pacific Northwest, featuring a cast of supernatural beings whose conflicts and conquests explain the origins of natural forces and phenomena. The story centers on two brothers, Tcûskai the Weasel and Tskel the Mink, who live together on North Wind Mountain east of Klamath Marsh. After a sequence of domestic misadventures involving stolen caps and the acquisition of wives, the brothers have sons who grow up quarreling fiercely. Tcûskai fashions arrows for the boys, and eventually provides them with poisoned points, leading to the boys killing each other in combat. After burning the bodies, Tskel proposes that the brothers undertake a great quest: each will seek out and kill one of the powerful Wind spirits who make the world dangerously extreme in temperature. Tskel assigns Tcûskai to go south against Mówas Sléwis, South Wind, while he himself will go north against Tániäs Sléwis, North Wind. Tcûskai refuses the assignment and insists on going north instead. Tskel warns him that North Wind will kill him, but Tcûskai is stubborn. The warning proves accurate: when Tániäs Sléwis extends his head from his dwelling, the cold kills Tcûskai outright, though he revives when the Wind withdraws. Meanwhile, Tskel travels south, kills Mówas Sléwis with his indestructible obsidian knife, and skins the head to make a magical cap that protects the wearer from cold. He then goes north to rescue his brother, uses the cap to endure Tániäs Sléwis's lethal chill, and decapitates North Wind as well. Both Wind spirits are slain, and their deaths explain why the world is no longer as extremely hot in summer or cold in winter as it once was. Their spirits survive as the actual winds that blow from south and north. From the two severed heads Tskel fashions two caps: one made from South Wind's skin that generates warmth, and one from North Wind's skin that generates killing cold. Tcûskai covets the North Wind cap, but Tskel refuses to give it to him, fearing it would destroy him. The narrative then shifts to a new danger. Tskel reveals that five monstrous brothers called the Leméis, identified as Thunder beings, live in an impossibly deep house surrounded by great rocks. These brothers are cannibals who kill people and carry their victims in belts around their waists. Tskel's own sister lives there, having married one of the brothers, Kaiutois. Tskel resolves to visit her. He travels there accompanied by Tcûskai, Gäk the Crow, and Káwhas the Blackbird. Arriving while the five brothers are away hunting, Tskel enters the house wearing the North Wind cap. Ice immediately spreads everywhere, terrifying old Leméis and his wife into fleeing. Tskel protects his sister and her children from the cold. He encounters the old man's daughter, who wears a belt made of human bones capable of cutting any man who puts it on in two. When she offers him the belt, he deflects her trap by insisting she wear his cap first. The cap nearly freezes her to death and she flees in terror. One by one the five Leméis brothers return, each boasting invincibility, each carrying dead men in his belt. Each tries to descend the ladder into the house but is driven back by the supernatural cold. The youngest and strongest brother alone manages to enter the house briefly before retreating. When Kaiutois returns with a deer and the cap's power is transferred from Tskel to Tcûskai, now wearing the South Wind cap, the cold dissipates and all enter normally. The brothers eat their cannibalistic feast while Kaiutois shares deer meat with his brothers-in-law. The crow and blackbird eat the offered human flesh, which is given as an explanation for why those birds eat carrion. During the night Tskel ties the sleeping brothers' hair together so that when they wake they will turn on one another in confusion. He then leads his companions outside and hires Galaíwa the Mouse to seal all openings in the house with pitch. The structure is set ablaze. Waking to the fire and finding themselves tied together, the five brothers fight each other with their flint knives until all are dead. Their bodies burn, but the hearts fly out of the flames. Tskel and Tcûskai stand guard, forcing each escaping heart back into the fire until it bursts and the spirit disperses. Four brothers are fully destroyed in this way. The heart of the youngest and most powerful brother escapes their watch, rises into the sky, and becomes Thunder, which the Klamath understand as a small being with very long hair that can still be heard traveling across the heavens.

By Jeremiah Curtin · First published 1912 · Genre: Mythology, Folklore, Fantasy · 1,919 words

First lines

CHARACTERS / Galaíwa Mouse / Káwhas Blackbird / Leméis Thunder / Mówas Sléwis South Wind / Tániäs Sléwis North Wind / Tcûskai Weasel / Tskel Mink

Tcûskai and Tskel lived together on North Wind Mountain (east of Klamath marsh). Tskel thought it was time to have a wife. He knew there were women off in the north, so he said to Tcûskai: "Go to Sycan and get two women. " When Tcûskai got to the place, the women were digging roots. He snatched their caps and ran home with them. All the women followed him. In that old time this was one way of getting a wife. A man stole something a woman was wearing; then she knew he wanted her, and she followed him home.

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Wind and Thunder is listed on Textopian as a fable by Jeremiah Curtin, dated 1912 CE.

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folklore · mythology · nature · elements · weather · Irish · cultural tales · storytelling · literary translation · supernatural · legends · oral tradition

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