✨Inspired by Creek tales of the Tie Snake, or Sint Holo: the horned water serpent✨
Beneath the mirror of the river, where minnows shimmer like lost prayers, he coils… ancient, sacred, adorned with antlers and a gaze that sees through bone.
We call him Sint Holo, the Horned Serpent. He is not a monster… he is a memory that never left the water.
They say the medicine women speak with him when the moon is sliced thin and the frogs hush their choir. He rises in dreams, bringing visions carved from cedar smoke and riddles that heal or haunt.
But he is not to be summoned lightly. He does not come for show. Disrespect his stream, pollute his pool, mock his magic …and sickness will come like a sudden wind.
Not as punishment. But as a reminder. Because the river listens. The spirit guards. And some truths swim too deep for the careless to grasp.
I saw him once… or something like him. Eyes like wet opals. Breath like fog. He didn’t speak, but I knew: some spirits don’t want your worship. They want your respect.
So I leave cornmeal at the spring and sing old songs when I walk near water. Not out of fear. Out of knowing.