The Hunter Who Became A Deer

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Title:     The Hunter Who Became A Deer
Author: Elaine Goodale Eastman [More Titles by Eastman]

A hunter who had traveled all day without finding any game shot a doe near sunset, and as he was very tired, he lay down near the body and went to sleep.

In the morning, when he awoke, he perceived the doe looking at him lovingly out of large, soft eyes. As he returned her gaze, she astonished him yet more by speaking.

"Will you come home with me?" she pleaded.

The young man hesitated, but there was something strangely appealing about this beautiful woman, as she now seemed to him to become. Almost without knowing what he did, he arose and followed her.

By and by, they came to a great cave under the mountain, where it seemed that all the Deer lived with their chief, an immense buck with powerful antlers. The hunter was hospitably received; but all along the sides of the cave he noticed piles of deer hides, with hoofs and horns. This puzzled him not a little; nevertheless he ate with them, lay down among them, and presently slept.

Now while the young man slept, the Deer tried skin after skin till they found one which fitted him, and they also fitted a pair of antlers to his head and hoofs to his hands and feet. In the morning, he opened his eyes and perceived that he also was a Deer, and he remained with the herd.

In the meantime, his mother and his relatives continued to search for him throughout the forest. After some weeks, they discovered the lost one's bow and arrows, hanging on the branch of the tree under which he had slept after shooting the doe. They all gathered on the spot and began to sing songs of magic.

Soon a herd of deer appeared in the distance, coming nearer and nearer as they were drawn by the singing. At last one spoke, and immediately they knew his voice for that of the missing hunter. His mother cried bitterly, and insisted that they should take off the deer's hide from her son and restore him to his own shape again.

"We dare not," protested his brothers and his cousins. "It might endanger his life!"

"Even so," she replied, weeping, "I had rather see my son dead than wearing the form of a beast!"

When they began to tear off the deer's hide, behold! it had grown fast to his own skin, and he began to bleed.

"Go on! go on!" exclaimed the mother in agony, and they persisted until the man died. Then at last they carried home his body and gave it honorable burial.

[The end]
Elaine Goodale Eastman's short story: Hunter Who Became A Deer

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