Page:Popular tales from the Norse (1912).djvu/83

 Rh it is the weasel who is the wisest of beasts, and who, having got some meat in common with the hyæna, put it into a hole, and said,—

Here we have a fact in natural history accounted for, but accounted for in such a peculiar way as shews that the races among which they are current must have derived them from some common tradition. The mode by which the tail is lost is different indeed; but the manner in which the common ground-work is suited in one case to the cold of the North, and the way in which fish are commonly caught at holes in the ice as they rise to breathe; and in the other to Africa and her pit-falls for wild beasts, is only another proof of the oldness of the tradition, and that it is not merely a copy.