Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/330

322 believe that all men are descended from a large spider. The Missassagua Indians of Ontario relate the following succinct legend : "Long ago a girl wandered into the woods, and became a fox-bird."

9a. S. or L. S. originated from O. ''Some external or internal likeness, often very slight, between them. A single remark or several descriptive points in the narrative hint at the character, properties, habits, or habitat of'' (L.) S. The origins under this heading amount to about fourteen per cent. of the whole. But there are some that are hardly distinguishable from those of the seventh category. All classification is necessarily artificial, and the boundary between two contiguous sections is often scarcely perceptible. Here are a couple of instances. A ruddy fir-tree grew from the tooth of a pike caught by the red-cheeked son of the Death-god (23d). Here there seems to be an allusion to the ruddy bark of some coniferæ in the red cheeks of the agent by whom the pike was captured. Again, rust in corn originated from the blood of an old woman who had fallen asleep on a cold mossy swamp, and on waking had rubbed her hands till blood fell upon the moss (46). The blood falling on moss appears to be a hint that rust attacks vegetable life, though it is very obscure so far as corn specifically is concerned. A Swabian legend, mentioned below, is much clearer upon this point. A toothworm (37b) originates from bits of besom which stuck in the teeth of a furious old woman after she had swept the sea, and had twirled the broom over her head. The bits of besom of course allude to the black spots in decayed teeth, the mention of teeth indicates the habitat of the toothworm, while the epithet 'furious' applied to the old woman points to violent attacks of toothache. In a variant (37d) the girl is a blind girl of Pohjola, where the blindness of the agent refers to the blind indiscriminating way in which the toothworm goes to work. Other