She thought Blue Jay would be more controllable if he picked a wife. She nagged and nagged until he acquiesced. So who did he pick but the dead daughter of a chief.

’Don’t worry’ he said as Ioi shook her head in despair, ‘I’ll take her to the Land of Ghosts for a restorative make-over.

Which he did, but when he returned the chief demanded a dowry of Blue Jay’s hair. ‘No way!’ cried Blue Jay, zooming off in a blue flash of bird mode without leaving as much as a feather.

His problems however were far from over and the wife died again. So he set off for the Land of Ghosts again — only to find the inhabitants had purchased Ioi as a wife for themselves.

They were all standing around in human form but when Blue Jay did one of his famous screeches they quivered and turned to bones in fear. Quickly Blue Jay mixed up all the bones so that when they re-formed they would have wrong arms, heads, legs etc. We can only presume he then high-tailed it out of there, taking his sister but leaving the dead wife.

There is no real ending to this tale as the fables and stories involving Blue Jay are as mixed and shuffled as the bones of the ghosts.

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Article last revised on October 23, 2018 by Rowan Allen.
Editors: Peter J. Allen, Chas Saunders

References: Coming soon.

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