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Know an Iroquois(?) myth about a maiden who marries one of the snake brothers?

Asked by Jeruba (55837points) April 2nd, 2010

Joseph Campbell tells this story in the miniseries of interviews with Bill Moyers. But he doesn’t tell how it ends.

A young woman who lives at the end of the village is too proud to accept any of the young warriors who court her, much to her mother’s vexation. Then a godlike being comes a-wooing and she marries him and goes to his tipi and (I think) meets his six brothers. Each morning he goes out hunting, and when he leaves she hears a strange sound, and she hears it again when he returns at night. She follows him one day and finds seven snakes basking in the sun. She realizes that she has wed the chief of the snake clan. She tries to run away but nearly drowns and is helped out of the river by an old man (perhaps a shaman).

Then what?

I’d like to find the whole story and see how it ends, but I don’t know any keywords beyond those in my subject line, and they are not getting me there.

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