1 come down to earth and again return. It is a fall from such ideas of the Galaxy to the Siamese Road of the White Elephant,' the Spaniards' 'Road of Santiago,' or the Turkish 'Pilgrims' Road,' and a still lower fall to the Straw Road' of the Syrian, the Persian, and the Turk, who thus compare it with their lanes littered with the morsels of straw that fall from the nets they carry it in.' But of all the fancies which have attached themselves to the celestial road, we at home have the quaintest. Passing along the short and crooked way from St. Paul's to Cannon Street, one thinks to how small a remnant has shrunk the name of the great street of the Wætlingas, which in old days ran from Dover through London into Wales. But there is a Watling Street in heaven as well as on earth, once familiar to Englishmen, though now almost forgotten even in local dialect. Chaucer thus speaks of it in his 'House of Fame : 'Lo there (quod he) cast up thine eye Se yondir, lo, the Galaxie, The whiche men clepe The Milky Way, Turning from the mythology of the heavenly bodies, a glance over other districts of nature-myth will afford fresh evidence that such legend has its early home within the precincts of savage culture. It is thus with the myths of the Winds. The New Zealanders tell how Maui can ride upon the other Winds or imprison them in their caves, but he cannot catch the West wind nor find its cave to roll a 1 Beausobre, 'Hist. de Manichée,' vol. ii. p. 513. 2 Bastian, 'Oestl. Asien,' vol. iii. p. 341; Chronique de Tabari,' tr. Dubeux, p. 24; Grimm, 'D.M.' p. 330, &c. 3 Chaucer, 'House of Fame,' ii. 427. With reference to questions of Aryan mythology illustrated by the savage galaxy-myths, see Pictet, 'Origines,' part ii. p. 582, &c. Mr. J. Jeremiah informs me that 'Watling Street' is still (1871) a name for the Milky Way in Scotland; see also his paper on 'Welsh names of the Milky Way,' Philological Soc., Nov. 17, 1871. The corresponding name 'London Road' is used in Suffolk. 105 1′′ stone against the mouth, and therefore it prevails, yet from time to time he all but overtakes it, and hiding in its cave for shelter it dies away. Such is the fancy in classic poetry of Aeolus holding the prisoned winds in his dungeon cave : 'Hic vasto rex Aeolus antro Luctantes ventos, tempestatesque sonoras Imperio premit, ac vinclis et carcere fraenat." 2 The myth of the Four Winds is developed among the native races of America with a range and vigour and beauty scarcely rivalled elsewhere in the mythology of the world. Episodes belonging to this branch of Red Indian folklore. are collected in Schoolcraft's Algic Researches,' and thence rendered with admirable taste and sympathy, though unfortunately not with proper truth to the originals, in Longfellow's masterpiece, the 'Song of Hiawatha.' The West Wind Mudjekeewis is Kabeyun, Father of the Winds, Wabun is the East Wind, Shawondasee the South Wind, Kabibonokka the North Wind. But there is another mighty wind not belonging to the mystic quaternion, Manabozho the North-West Wind, therefore described with mythic appropriateness as the unlawful child of Kabeyun. The fierce North Wind, Kabibnokka, in vain strives to force Shingebis, the lingering diver-bird, from his warm and happy winter-lodge; and the lazy South Wind, Shawondasee, sighs for the maiden of the prairie with her sunny hair, till it turns to silvery white, and as he breathes upon her, the prairie dandelion has vanished. Man naturally divides his horizon into four quarters, before and behind, right and left, and thus comes to fancy the world a square, and to refer the winds to its four corners. Dr. Brinton, in his Myths of the New World,' has well traced from these ideas the growth of legend after legend among the native 1 Yate, New Zealand,' p. 144, see Ellis, 'Polyn. Res.' vol. ii. p. 417. * Schoolcraft, 'Algic Res.' vol. i. p. 200; vol. ii. pp. 122, 214; 'Indian races of America, where four brother heroes, or mythic ancestors or divine patrons of mankind, prove, on closer view, to be in personal shape the Four Winds.1 The Vedic hymns to the Maruts, the Storm Winds, who tear asunder the forest kings and make the rocks shiver, and assume again, after their wont, the form of new-born babes, the mythic feats of the child Hermes in the Homeric hymn, the legendary birth of Boreas from Astraios and Eôs, Starry Heaven and Dawn, work out, on Aryan ground, mythic conceptions that Red Indian tale-tellers could understand and rival. The peasant who keeps up in fireside talk the memory of the Wild Huntsman, Wodejäger, the Grand Veneur of Fontainebleau, Herne the Hunter of Windsor Forest, has almost lost the significance of this grand old storm-myth. By mere force of tradition, the name of the Wish' or 'Wush' hounds of the Wild Huntsman has been preserved through the west of England; the words must for ages past have lost their meaning among the country folk, though we may plainly recognize in them Woden's ancient well-known name, old German Wunsch.' As of old, the Heaven-God drives the clouds before him in raging tempest across the sky, while, safe within the cottage walls, the tale-teller unwittingly describes in personal legendary shape this same Wild Hunt of the Storm." It has many a time occurred to the savage poet or philosopher to realize the thunder, or its cause, in myths of a Thunder-bird. Of this wondrous creature North American legend has much to tell. He is the bird of the great Manitu, as the eagle is of Zeus, or he is even the great Manitu himself incarnate. The Assiniboins not only know 2 Rig-Veda,' tr. by Max Müller, vol. i. (Hymns to Maruts); Welcker, 'Griech. Götterl.' vol. iii. p. 67; Cox, Mythology of Aryan Nations,' vol. ii. ch. v. 3 Grimm, D. M.' pp. 126, 599, 894; Hunt, Pop. Rom.' 1st ser. p. xix. ; Baring-Gould, Book of Werewolves,' p. 101; see 'Myths of the Middle Ages,' p. 25; Wuttke, 'Deutsche Volksaberglaube,' pp. 13, 236; Monnier, 'Traditions,' pp. 75, &c., 741, 747. of his existence, but have even seen him, and in the far north the story is told how he created the world. The Ahts of Vancouver's Island talk of Tootooch, the mighty bird dwelling aloft and far away, the flap of whose wings makes the thunder (Toɔtah), and his tongue is the forked lightning. There were once four of these birds in the land, and they fed on whales; but the great deity Quawteaht, entering into a whale, enticed one thunder-bird after another to swoop down and seize him with his talons, when plunging to the bottom of the sea he drowned it. Thus three of them perished, but the last one spread his wings and flew to the distant height where he has since remained. The meaning of the story may probably be that thunderstorms come especially from one of the four quarters of heaven. Of such myths, perhaps that told among the Dacotas is the quaintest: Thunder is a large bird, they say hence its velocity. The old bird begins the thunder; its rumbling noise is caused by an immense quantity of young birds, or thunders, who continue it, hence the long duration of the peals. The Indian says it is the young birds, or thunders, that do the mischief; they are like the young mischievous men who will not listen to good counsel. The old thunder or bird is wise and good, and does not kill anybody, nor do any kind of mischief. Descending southward to Central America, there is found mention of the bird Voc, the messenger of Hurakan, the Tempestgod (whose name has been adopted in European languages as huracano, ouragan, hurricane) of the Lightning and of the Thunder. So among Caribs, Brazilians, Hervey Islanders and Karens, Bechuanas and Basutos, we find legends of a flapping or flashing Thunder-bird, which seem simply to translate into myth the thought of thunder and lightning descending from the upper regions of the air, the home of the eagle and the vulture.1 6 1 Pr. Max v. Wied, Reise in N. A.' vol. i. pp. 446, 455; vol. ii. pp. 152, 223; Sir Alex. Mackenzie, 'Voyages,' p. cxvii.; Sproat, Scenes of Savage Life' (Vancouver's I.), pp. 177, 213; Irving, Astoria,' vol. ii. ch. xxii.; Le The Heaven-god dwells in the regions of the sky, and thus what form could be fitter for him and for his messengers than the likeness of a bird? But to cause the ground to quake beneath our feet, a being of quite different nature is needed, and accordingly the office of supporting the solid earth is given in various countries to various monstrous creatures, human or animal in character, who make their office manifest from time to time by a shake given in negligence or sport or anger to their burden. Wherever earthquakes are felt, we are likely to find a version of the great myth of the Earth-bearer. Thus in Polynesia the Tongans say that Maui upholds the earth on his prostrate body, and when he tries to turn over into an easier posture there is an earthquake, and the people shout and beat the ground with sticks to make him lie still. Another version forms part of the interesting myth lately mentioned, which connects the under-world whither the sun descends at night, with the region of subterranean volcanic fire and of earthquake. The old Maui lay by his fire in the dead-land of Bulotu, when his grandson Maui came down by the cavern entrance; the young Maui carried off the fire, they wrestled, the old Maui was overcome, and has lain there bruised and drowsy ever since, underneath the earth, which quakes when he turns over in his sleep.1 In Celebes we hear of the world-supporting Hog, who rubs himself against a tree, and then there is an earthquake. Among the Indians of North America, it is said that earthquakes come of the movement of the great world-bearing Tortoise. Now this Tortoise seems but a mythic picture of the Earth itself, Jeune, op. cit. 1634, p. 26; Schoolcraft, Indian Tribes,' part iii. p. 233, Algic Res.' vol. ii. pp. 114-6, 199; Catlin, vol. ii. p. 164; Brasseur, Popol Vuh,' p. 71 and Index, Hurakan;' J. G. Müller, Amer. Urrel.' pp. 222, 271; Ellis, ‘Polyn. Res.' vol. ii. p. 417; Jno. Williams, * Missionary Enterprise,' p. 93; Mason, l.c. p. 217; Moffat, South Africa,' p. 338; Casalis, Basutos, p. 266; Callaway, Religion of Amazulu,' p. 119. 1 Mariner, Tonga Is.' vol. ii. p. 120; S. S. Farmer, Tonga,' p. 135; Schirren, pp. 35-7. 2 Journ. Ind. Archip.' vol. ii. p. 837. |
