Now he came back. "Children, a tail!" he cried. Nobody answered. "Children, a tail!" he cried again, but no one answered. Then he rushed angrily into the house. The mice laughed at him as he found no one. He drew aside the baskets and threw everything about but hound no one. Now some brush was lying there. Seizing it he said: "Where have my children gone?" "I do not know," said the brush. "Quick! Tell me! Or I will throw you into the fire," he said. Then the brush said: "Well then, they turned over this mortar slab here and entered the ground."

Then he jumped in there too and went a long way, until he came to where they were. He struck the youngest and it turned into Woodwardia fern (used for red basket designs). He struck another child and it turned into Xerophyllum (used for white). He struck another and it turned into pine root (used for plain weft). He struck another and it tuned into Adiantum fern (used for black designs). Another turned into hazel shoots (basketry warp). Then they said: "You who killed us will also be something else. You will eat mud, but we will sit about in front of people and they will prize us." That is the end of what the "water wren" (literally, "mud-eater") did.

(Courtesy of U.C. Press, from A.L. Kroeber & E.W. Gifford, Karok Myths, Informant H - Mrs. Bennett, 1980, U.C. Press, 83-4.)