Page:Myths and Folk-Lore of Ireland (Curtin).djvu/33

 other or trouble. This was the period of primæval innocence, of which we hear so many echoes in tradition and early literature, when that infinite variety of character and quality now manifest in the universe was still dormant and hidden, practically uncreated. This was the "golden age" of so many mythologies,—the "golden age" dreamed of so often, but never seen by mortal man; a period when, in their original form and power, the panther and the deer, the wolf and the antelope, lay down together, when the rattlesnake was as harmless as the rabbit, when trees could talk and flowers sing, when both could move as nimbly as the swiftest on earth.

Such, in a sketch exceedingly meagre and imperfect, a hint rather than a sketch, is the first great cycle of American mythology,—the creation-myth of the New World. From this cycle are borrowed the characters and machinery for myths of later construction and stories of inferior importance; myths relating to the action of all observed forces and phenomena; struggles of the seasons, winds, light and darkness; and stories in great number containing adventures without end of the present animals, birds, reptiles, and insects,—people of the former world in their fallen state.