Limping along as if she were the bones of an old tree, Manti led Odin and Punga away from her yew tree. The old witch told them they must travel to a river that empties into a lake. There she kept a canoe hidden. After a long day, they heard the sound of gurgling water. Finally arriving at the river, all were hungry. Manti knew this particular river was brimming with rainbow snakes, an eel-eating reptile with a body of delicious white meat. Shimmering with red and black stripes, the clever snake concealed himself in the dark mud. Equipped with a jaw of strong fangs, he would patiently lie in wait to strike an unsuspecting eel.
Well aware of the snake’s habits and secret hiding places, Manti carefully waded into the river, stooped her crooked body close to the slow-moving water, and dragged her claw-like hands deep in the mud, ready to grab the snake’s slippery body. When she felt it wiggle, she yanked it out of the water, bit its neck with her sharp teeth, and holding it at one end, cracked it like a whip to break its back. The snake was ready to cook.
Along the river’s banks, Manti and Odin collected pink water lilies. Manti knew that the lilies’ sweet tubers and seeds must be cooked; otherwise, they were poisonous. The tubers were crusty and burst with sugar after she lightly roasted them, along with the snake meat, over hot ashes. The wise witch and her knowledge of the bog’s resources would keep them fed. After their meal of snake, Manti put the remaining cooked seeds in a dry pouch so that she could later grind them into flour. Content with a full belly and still a little weak from his ordeal, Odin fell asleep. Manti and Punga, both nocturnal, spent the evening talking except for a short bit of night crawling for the little cricket.
Manti and Punga wakened Odin before dawn. In darkness, they traveled a short distance along the river’s edge to the lake. There, they soon found the weathered and leaky canoe anchored along the shore of the weed-choked lake. With the sun rising, Manti and Punga decided to get some sleep and let Odin fix the canoe.
Odin searched the shoreline for bitumen, a sticky black tar that clings to rocks like molasses. He mixed this oil tar with a resin that dripped from the trunk of a spruce. Then he smeared the gummy blend along the bottom of the canoe, sealing its worm-eaten holes.
With the canoe repaired, Odin roused Manti and Punga and asked them to inspect his work. All agreed that the canoe looked watertight, but Punga let out a startled cry when he spotted a fairly large fishing spider in the bottom of the vessel. The greenish spider attracted his prey by dipping the tip of his long leg into the water to act as a lure. Small sunfish were attracted to his extended spindly leg. When the spider felt their nibble, he attacked the fish. Punga was afraid of spiders, especially big ones, and dived into Odin’s beard to hide. Manti, with her long nails, picked up the water spider, carefully holding it out of reach from its clawed fangs, and placed it in one of the rock’s crevices. They were glad to see it crawl away.
After helping Manti into the mended canoe, Odin pushed it away from the shore and into the warm lake. As he guided the canoe into deeper water, he sank up to his knees in the thick ooze that covered the bottom of the lake. The smell of rotten eggs percolated up from the lake’s rotting plants. Bloated bodies of fish floated to the surface. The dissolved rot disturbed by Odin formed a poison, killing the fish.
With Punga hanging on tight, Odin carefully pulled himself up and into the canoe. Once seated, he began to pick slimy leeches off his chest and legs, shuddering with disgust as he removed each one. Rowing away, he was relieved to leave the foul mire of dead fish, but Punga was nervous. The little cricket had his own reasons to fear polluted waters.
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As they glided over the calm water, the sun’s warmth on Manti’s old body made her sleepy. Moments before the cloak of sleep covered her eyes, she heard singing off in the distance. She rubbed her eyes to wake herself and then squinted into her glasses. Across the lake, she saw what looked like a tribe of female oil trolls. As the canoe moved closer, a mischievous breeze skipped across the lake and tousled the hair of the trolls. Manti noticed that, as one of the trolls brushed her hair from her face, she exposed reptile eyes. Manti also saw the little finger was missing on the troll’s hand. This identified her with a particular tribe that removed one small finger on the left hand of its females. Manti warned Odin to paddle as silently as possible and pass the dangerous tribe.
The lake’s rocky outcrop was a favorite hunting place for the female oil trolls. River otters lived along the lake’s edge and often lay on the warm, flat stones sunning themselves.
Shrewd female trolls had their own hunting ritual, one they had used for thousands of years. Humming softly and singing a lilting melody, the female troll slowly approaches a sunning otter. The tranquil lisping of the water at the lake’s edge, the warmth of the sun, and the pleasant song bewitches the river otter. In time, when she feels the otter is under her spell, she drops to her knees and quietly crawls near. Singing sweetly and rocking back and forth, she mimics the otter’s body movements. Copying the submissive posturing of otters, she carefully lies down next to her prey, softly humming her hypnotic song. The unsuspecting river otter does not fear the troll and is unaware she is seducing him. When she feels the otter relax in her presence, she slowly stands upright and, with a large rock, clubs the mesmerized otter to death.
Tribes of the oil trolls use the thick, rich fur for warmth, the bones for tools and ornaments, and its flesh for food. Manti, deeply saddened by the cruelty of the female trolls, felt fortunate that she met most of her food needs with bulbs, nuts, grubs and an occasional snake.
Manti knew the tribes of female oil trolls were preoccupied with their hunting and harmless at this moment. As the canoe silently drifted farther down the lake, the trolls’ captivating and haunting song faded. In the past, Manti fought off oil trolls, protecting her little pet fisher from their hunger. His fur, rich and thick, would make a fine garment for a male oil troll.
Punga was relieved to be moving out of the region where decayed sludge lurked in the bottom of the lake. Traveling on water, especially bodies of polluted water, was dangerous for Punga. These waters nourished the dreaded larva of the hairworm, a parasite that was a frightful enemy of Jerusalem crickets. If Punga were to swallow the larva of the hairworm, it would be a horrid death for the kind little cricket. Once the larva entered Punga’s gut, this parasite would metamorphose into a dangerous worm. As this menacing entozoan developed inside his stomach, it would alter Punga’s nature; his instinct to protect himself would change. No longer in control, Punga would seek out stagnant water. The moment Punga crawled into the rancid water, it would trigger the developed worm’s innate behavior. The worm would burst through Punga’s abdomen in pursuit of a mate. Then the hair-like worm would lay eggs in the water and the cycle of the hairworm, with the Jerusalem cricket as its host, would start all over again. Punga would surely die from the wound. He was smart to fear stagnant water!
Hearing the sound of running fresh water was music to Punga’s tiny ears. He sat vigilantly on Odin’s shoulder and scanned the lake, always looking for signs of trouble but especially alert for the threatening signs of foul water. As they canoed across the lake, all three were unaware of round, expressionless eyes watching them from the bog’s dark forest.