The Fabled Legend of Little Girl's Point

This rendition of the legend of Little Girl's Point hangs on the wall in the Oman house.  I always liked this version, maybe because I read it so many times.  I don't know the author's name, so I can't give the credit he/she deserves.  Many of us believe the Sacred Grove exists as the Hemlock forest behind and adjacent to the County Park.  If you have walked this forest, it is truly a magical place as it makes the legend come alive.  Hopefully this legend will be passed down for many more generations.

Here is the story of Lilianau or the Lost Daughter for whom Little Girl's Point is named, as handed down for generations.

    Lilianau was the beautiful daughter of a famous hunter who lived near the base of the lofty highlands, called Kaug Wudjoo.  Lilianau loved to climb to the upper heights of the Kaug and look far out over the waters of "Gitchee Gumme", to the Islands of the Apostles in the great inland sea.  Her view along the coastline to the west ended where a point of land projected out into the water.  No place had as great an attraction for her as the forest of pines stretching westward along the shoreline to the point called Manitowak, or Sacred Grove.  In the Sacred Grove there lived the Little Men of the Forest, Puk Wudjinees,  who came from the Evening Star.

    The Sacred Grove was seldom visited by the Chippewas, but in stormy weather, hunting parties in their birch canoes were driven ashore there, they never failed  to leave an offering of tobacco and meat for the Little Men of the Forest.

    The child of the great hunter did not share with her parents their fears of the fairies and so from the perch on the summit of Kaug Wudjoo she looked out over the Great Waters, the Sacred Grove and the shoreline where the fairies dropped to the earth from the Evening Star. 

   One day, unnoticed, she ventured into the edge of the Sacred Grove.  Her parents, when informed of her trip told her never to visit it again, but this only increased her visits, going farther each day, until she reached the point itself.  Her mother who followed her to the edge of the forest one day, especially feared that some evil spirit had enticed her daughter.

    On one of her trips through the Sacred Grove, the hunter's daughter murmured as she leaned against a tree: "Spirit of the green wood plume, shed around thy leaf perfume.  Such as spring from buds of gold, which thy tiny hands unfold.  Spirits hither, spirits repair."  And like an answering echo, the rustling of the leaves seemed to say:  "Maiden, think of me not a tree, but thine own dear love free; tall and youthful in my bloom, with the bright green nodding plume.  Thou art leaning on my breast; lean forever there and rest."

    Lilianau, now being of age to marry, her parents chose a husband for her, and fixed a date for the wedding.  The wedding day arrived but Lilianau had disappeared.  Search was made, which extended even into the Sacred Forest by torch light.  But the girl returned no more to her father's lodge at the base of Kaug Mountain.

    One evening, years later, a party of fishermen passing close to shore near the Sacred Grove saw a female standing near the shore at the point.  They paddled closer but the figure retreated.  She was clad in green, and the youth who accompanied her, wore a waving green plume in his hair.