Page:Popular tales from the Norse (1912).djvu/153

 Rh sense went for so much and reflection for so little, that beasts should talk; and how truly and faithfully it has listened and looked for the accents and character of each. The Bear is still the King of Beasts, in which character he appears in "True and Untrue," p. 1, but here, as in Germany, he is no match for the Fox in wit. Thus Reynard plays him a trick which condemns him for ever to a stumpy tail in No. XXIII. (p. 172). He cheats him out of his share of a firkin of butter in No. LVIL (p. 409). He is preferred as Herdsman, in No. X. (p. 69), before either Bear or Wolf, by the old wife who wants some one to tend her flock. Yet all the while he professes immense respect for the Bear, and calls him "Lord," even when in the very act of outwitting him. In the tale called "Well Done and Ill Paid," p. 266, the crafty fox puts a finish to his misbehaviour to his "Lord Bruin," by handing him over, bound hand and foot, to the peasant, and by causing his death outright. Here, too, we have an example, which we shall see repeated in the case of the giants, that strength and stature are not always wise, and that wit and wisdom never fail to carry the day against mere brute force. Another tale, however, restores the bear to his true place as the king of beasts, endowed not only with strength, but with something divine and terrible about him which the Trolls cannot withstand. This is "The Cat on the Dovrefell," p. 90, in connection with which it should be remembered that the same tradition existed in the thirteenth century in Germany, that the bear is called familiarly grandfather in the North, and that the Lapps reckon him