Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/325

Rh Thus the snail, a term which seems to include other noisome creatures, is the offspring of the son of the Death-god and the daughter of Pain (14). And Bloody Flux, Scab, and Pestilence, all of them injuries wrought by spells, are the children of a parish harlot (43e). The following foreign example belongs apparently to this or to the next category. The Khalka Mongols of the Eastern Altai believe that the father of the Berset race was a wolf, living in a wood by a lake, with whom lived a reindeer. From them was born a son, the ancestor of the Bersets. Probably these Mongols see some resemblance of character between themselves and wolves. 2a. S. or L. S. is born of F. M. or M. The character of the parents is reflected in (L.) S. Descriptive points in the narrative hint at the nature, general character, or habitat of (L.) S. For instance, skin-eruption is born of a water Hiisi who had been rowing in a copper boat, and reached land like a strawberry (34b), which looks like a hint at the redness of the skin in some skin-diseases. Cancer is the son of a furious, iron-toothed old woman, who swaddled him in bloody garments and finally sent him to destroy and corrupt human flesh (30). Rickets, Worms, Cancerous Sore, Sharp Frost, and many other injuries from spells, are the result of a union between the daughter of Sharp Spikes and a bearded sea-monster or giant (43c). The mention of the mother going first to the Hill of Pain in hopes of being confined there, and then to Pohjola, the home of witchcraft and gloom, where she finally brings to birth, hint at the evil nature of these maladies, coming as they do from such an ill-omened birthplace. Other examples are the Wolf (10c), Rickets (32a), Scab (33), Fire (42d), Courts of Law (44), Water (51b, d). The Kirghis of Tarbagatai relate that three women in their labour clutched — the first, the earth ; the second, a tree ; the third, the mane of a horse. From the first was born the Chinaman, whose land is vast and whose people