NANTICOKE LEGEND OF THE
DOGWOOD TREE
A Nanticoke legend of the
Maryland Eastern Shore Tribe accounts for the stunted growth and
crooked limbs as such:
“Long ago a chief had
four beautiful daughters whose charms he schemed to barter for rich
gifts. Suitors far and wide never satisfied the greedy chief.
Finally the Gods,
exasperated at his meanness, turned him into a small low tree, with
snarled bent branches, and then his daughters into the four white
bracts surrounding the tiny cluster of flowers as the gigts the
suitors brought.
Source: The Philadelphia
Inquirer, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Sunday, April 18, 1943 AKA&EM
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