Page:Popular tales from the Norse (1912).djvu/82

 lxxvi those words which are found in all languages derived from the imitation of natural sounds, or, we may add, from the first lisping accents of infancy. But the case is very different when this or that object which strikes the senses is accounted for in a way so extraordinary and peculiar, as to stamp the tradition with a character of its own. Then arises a like impression on the mind, if we find the same tradition in two tribes at the opposite ends of the earth, as is produced by meeting twin brothers, one in Africa and the other in Asia; we say at once, "I know you are so-and-so's brother, you are so like him." Take an instance: In these Norse Tales, p. 172, we are told how it was the bear came to have a stumpy tail, and in an African tale we find how it was the hyæna became tailless and earless. Now, the tailless condition both of the bear and the hyæna could scarcely fail to attract attention in a race of hunters, and we might expect that popular tradition would attempt to account for both; but how are we to explain the fact, that both Norseman and African account for it in the same way—that both owe their loss to the superior cunning of another animal? In Europe the fox bears away the palm for wit from all other animals, so he it is that persuades the bear in the Norse Tales to sit with his tail in a hole in the ice till it is fast frozen in, and snaps short off when he tries to tug it out. In Bornou, in the heart of Africa,