Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/338

330 draught animal a donkey, which kept going out of its way in search of thistles. The Mongols assert that the Taizan lake and another great inland sea occupy the cavities made by a great grey ox, which tore up the earth with its horns to procure water — there was none on the earth at the time — which issued forth in a foaming fountain and formed the above sheets of water. According to the Apaches, the earth, when first formed, was a perfectly flat plain, but the Black Wind came along with his horns, and, bending his head, ript open the earth, and made ravines and cañons. The aborigines of Victoria, in Australia, say that Bunjil always carries a knife, and when he had made the earth, that he cut it in many places, thus forming rivers, creeks, mountains, and valleys. They also relate that the first man was built up out of clay by Bunjil, who added hair made of stringy bark, and then breathed life into the figure he had moulded.'

20. S. comes from O. The narrative describes natural facts, or what may be taken as such, after making allowance for poetic treatment.

Water came in drops from the clouds, and accumulated in a rock crevice. Water-mantle, Vaitta's son, struck the rock with a staff, water gushed forth, and eventually became a great river (51a). As Water-mantle, son of a mountain, is invoked in a charm against the ravages of fire (Loitsurunoja, p. 249), and as another word for cloak or mantle is thrice used in riddles (Arvoituksia, p. 141) as a metaphor for clouds, it seems likely that here we have a poetical image of a personified rain-cloud striking another cloud so that water pours forth. Though it is also possible that 'striking the rock with a staff' is a reminiscence of what Moses did in the desert. In one of the origins of salves (48a), an oak, in answer to a question put to it by a