Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/342

334 a cave or from a swampy bed of reeds. Some Hereros (Western Kaffirs) maintain that man and animals issued from a tree, others that men were from a tree and animals from a rock.

24. S. or L. S. originates from B. Its viembers made of various fanciful or contemptuous things. The cat (4) originated on a stove. It has the nose of a girl, the head of a hare, a tail made of Hiisi's hair-plait, the claws of a snake. The horse (7) is from Hiisi, from a mountain. Its head is of stone, its hoofs of rock, its legs of iron, its back of steel. This origin seems to have been taken from a 'posting' formula, and applies to Hiisi's horse in particular, not to horses in general. Gripes or Colic is a boy, but nevertheless is made of swamp, of coarse needle-points, of the foam of rapids, of the inside of an ogress, etc. (31a, b). Another example is the Elk (6). The following Norse description of a shackle, which is attributed by Vigfusson and Powell to a period earlier than the Vikings, and therefore anterior to A.D. 700, is nearly on the same lines. The shackle Gleipni was fashioned from the tread of a cat, the beard of a woman, the breath of fish, the milk of a bird, the roots of hills, and the tail of a bear. The difference between this and the Finnish examples under categories 3, 12, 24, is that in the former all the formative objects are impossible, or nearly so, and the spirit which animates the composition is humorous. In the latter the spirit is more contemptuous and satirical, though a humorous element is sometimes blended with it. 25. S. or L. S. is created by God. Thus all trees (23h, i) are created by God, with a few exceptions, such as the aspen, rowan, the alder-buckthorn, and one or two more which were made by various evil beings. Fire, too, in one version (42c), is the creation of God, originated from the word of Jesus, and was rocked by the Virgin Mary.