Page:Fairy Tales Their Origin and Meaning.djvu/89

II.] twenty miles of black-thorn wood grew out of it, so thick that a weasel could not get through. But the Giant cut through it with his big axe and his wood-knife, and went after them again. At the heat of day the Giant's daughter said again, "My father's breath is burning my back;" and then her husband put his finger in the filly's ear, and took out a piece of grey stone, and threw it behind him, and there grew up directly a great rock twenty miles broad and twenty miles high. Then the Giant got his mattock and his lever, and made a way through the rocks, and came after them again. Now it was near sunset, and once more the Giant's daughter felt her father's breath burning her back. So, for the third time, her husband put his hand into the filly's ear, and took out a bladder of water, and he threw it behind him, and there was a fresh-water loch, twenty miles long and twenty miles broad; and the Giant came on so fast that he ran into the middle of the loch and was drowned.

Here is clearly a Sun-myth, which is like those of ancient Hindu and Greek legend: the blue-grey Filly is the Dawn, on which the new day, the maiden and her lover, speed away. The