How the Loon Lost Her Voice

It is my view that folktales - tales of such quality that people kept the story alive for centuries - are excellent literature for people of any age. Anne Cameron aims her retellings of Northwest Native tales at a young audience but all of us can enjoy all of them.In this tale, Spider Woman saves the earth from the birds of torment - Spider Woman uses a spider web and a tall tree to hold the earth in place - and to put most birds of torment into their proper place on the other side of the sky blanket.An aside - one bird of tormet not expelled is tooth-ache, the subject of the oldest known written tale (from Mesopatamea).