Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 33.djvu/113

Rh the light-pictures formed by the aurora borealis of the polar countries; and it is not surprising that the Greenlanders see in them a dance of spirits. Even in countries farther south, where the intensity of the phenomenon is greatly reduced, the aurora borealis has given rise to the most fantastic legends. An English writer of the sixteenth century represented the phenomenon as an "aggregation of brilliant arches whence issue fortified cities, swords, and warriors in order of battle; then jets of radiations in every direction, clouds and combats, in which the victors pursue the vanquished, while others fly around in a surprising fashion."

Echo passes nearly everywhere as the voice of a superhuman power. Lander relates that on the Niger his boatmen offered libations to an echo. When the traveler asked them the reason for it, they answered: "Do you not hear the fetich?" It is also conceivable that the existence of a voice should cause a belief in some one who speaks. The fact that this mysterious voice limits itself to repeating the words that are sent to it, has induced the fancy that the spirit has particular reasons for acting in this way, and it is in support of such reasons that myths, like that of Echo and others, have been given form.

The rainbow is one of the atmospheric phenomena that have been most generally personified. Peoples of almost every part of the world have made of it a living and terrible monster whose most venial offense is that of drinking up the waters of springs and ponds. This belief is found among the Burmese, Zulus, Indians of Washington Territory, ancient Mexicans, and Finns, and exists among the popular fancies of the Slavs and Germans, and some of the French populations. The Zulus and the Karens of Burmah imagine that the rainbow spreads sickness and death. The Karens, when they see one, say to their children: "The rainbow has come down to drink; do not play, for fear that harm may come to you!" Very singularly, too, the street boys in Volhynia run away, crying, "Run, it will drink you up!" In Dahomey, the rainbow is regarded as a heavenly serpent, Danh, which insures happiness. The modern Greeks hold it to be a beneficent but just and severe hero; they say that any one who jumps over a rainbow will change sex at once; but this saying, which is also current in Alsace, is only a picturesque way of indicating the impossibility of transforming a man into a woman, or a woman into a man. The Delians offered cakes to the rainbow, and the Peruvians put its image on the walls of their temples. The Caribs considered its appearance on the sea a favorable presage; but on the earth its influence was pernicious, and they hid from its view. It was personified by a viper.

A considerable number of peoples give the personified a