The Children's Longfellow

oil I have made from the body of Nahma, so that you may pass swiftly through the black pitch-water and avenge my father's murder." Thus spoke old Nokomis, and Hiawatha did as she bade him, smeared the sides of his boat with oil and passed swiftly through the black water, which was guarded by fiery serpents. All these Hiawatha slew, and then journeyed on unmolested till he reached the desolate realm he sought. Here he shot an arrow at Pearl-Feather's lodge as a challenge, and the magician, tall of stature, dark and terrible to behold, came forth to meet him. All day long raged the greatest fight that ever the sun had looked on, but no weapon could penetrate Pearl-Feather's magic shirt of wampum, and at sunset, wounded and weary, with three useless arrows in his hand, Hiawatha paused a while to rest beneath the shade of a pine tree.

As he stood there, despairing of victory, a wood-pecker sang from the branches above him: "Aim your arrows at the roots of his long hair; there alone he can be wounded." Wel