Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 4, 1893.djvu/56

48 Sharp Frost. Sharp Frost himself is a Kuljus, the rest of his kinsmen are Kuljuses.

The Creator took him to heaven, but Kuljus thought : It is troublesome being in a hot place, a great distress living in the heat. The Creator flung him into a spring, so Kuljus dwelt in the spring, sprawled on his back the whole summer. From the sky the Creator uttered : "Arise now, youth, and get thee hence to flatten a grassy plain." Kuljus issued from the spring, began to dwell near fences, to whirl himself about on gates. He bit trees till they became leafless, grass till they lost their husky scales, human beings till they became bloodless.

L. —

(a.)

A stone is the son of Kimmo Kammo, is an egg of the earth, a clod of a ploughed field, is the offspring of Kimmahatar [v. Huorahatar], the production of Vuolahatar, the heart's core of Syöjätär, a slice of Mammotar's liver, a growth of Äijötär, the small spleen of Joukahainen.

(b.) Who knew a stone to be a stone when it was like a barleycorn, when it rose as a strawberry from the earth, as a bilberry from the side [v. root] of a tree, or when it dangled in a fleecy cloud, hid itself within the clouds, came to the earth from the sky, fell as a scarlet ball of thread, came wobbling like an oaten ball, came rolling like a wheaten lump through banks of cloud, through red (rain)bows? A fool terms it a stone, names it an earth-egg.

LI. — (a.) The origin of water is known as well as the genesis of