The Legends of Devil’s Lake (2)

Ha-gah was a fisherman, but his luck was poor. While resting in a cave he saw a giant sturgeon flopping on the rocks, fighting to live. The giant sturgeon said, “Do not kill me, put me back in the river and you will never go hungry again.” Ha-gah felt sorry for him and did so. Aside from the fact that fish very seldom talk, it is a fact that giant sturgeon once inhabited the Wisconsin River. My grandfather recalled seeing an Indian walking out of the river with a sturgeon on his shoulder and its tail dragging on the ground. Ha-gah and his wife Wee-ha-gah were rewarded with a baby boy after being childless for many years. She named him River Child. River Child became a powerful swimmer. He heard the story of Devil’s Lake and how in the center of the lake lived the green dragon that had created the Dells. (This begins to sound like a Loch Ness story!). But the Green Dragon was lonely and that made him mad. He demanded as a sacrifice every year the loveliest maiden in the Indian tribe. But the giant sturgeon revealed to River Child that the great dragon had a weakness. The seven headed dragon (a hydra ?) had a small brain behind the left eye of its middle head. Many braves had lost their lives trying to defeat the dragon devil but armed with this new knowledge from the giant sturgeon River Child set forth. At sundown the broken hearted chief set forth to sacrifice his daughter to the dragon devil. But River Child enlisted some of the bravest warriors, they showered the dragon devil with arrows while River Child swam close and drove his spear through the eye of the dragon. Of course River Child married Early Dawn, even in Indian legends the hero gets the girl. But the dragon – devils’ spirit haunted the lake. They could hear his thundering screams for revenge before a storm. The Indians left their camp one day and never returned.