much of our possible criticism. When all has been said, the surface of life is too proverbially still not to be gratefully affected by so breezy and stirring a

presence. He will long remain the most picturesque figure in our literature, with a gift second to none in the arts which gently stimulate, adorn, and please. Edward F. Hayward.

WHEN Mr. Longfellow declared that the Manobozho legends of the Chippeways formed an Indian Edda, he spoke as a poet, not as an ethnologist. In the same spirit they might with as much justice have been termed an Indian Iliad or Nibelungenlied. But in fact the expression was so inaccurate that even the usually far from careful Schoolcraft hastened to correct it, since in the beginning of his introduction to the Hiawatha Legends he declares, “Of all these foreign analogies of myth lore, the least tangible is that which has been suggested with the Scandinavian mythology. That mythology is of so marked and peculiar a character that it has not been distinctly traced out of the great circle of tribes of the Indo-Germanic family. Odin and his terrific pantheon of war-gods and social deities could only exist in the dreary latitudes of storms and fire which produce a Hecla and a Maelstrom. From such a source the Indian could have derived none of his vague symbols and mental idiosyncrasies, which have left him as he is found to-day, without a government and without a God."

And yet, strangely enough, there was in existence all the time in New England and at Mr. Longfellow's very door, poetically speaking- an Indian Edda, and there was carefully preserved among the Penobscots and Passamaquoddies of Maine "a myth lore," "the analogies of which with the Scandinavian mythology were very much closer than those of the Edda with the Kale

vala, to which it is so nearly and so incontestably related. In fact, after the most careful perusal and study of every line of the stupendous Finnish epic, I find that where it has one incident or point of resemblance with the Edda, or with other Norse poems, the Indian legends of New England and New Brunswick have a score. Rasmus B. Anderson, in the notes to his translation of the Younger Edda, declares that as regards the origin of the Asa system, that is of the Norse mythology, it is chiefly composed of Finnish elements. But all that there is to be found of the Finn in the Edda is feeble and faint compared to what there is of the Edda in the legends of the Wabanaki Indians.

The Algonquin subdivision of the six or seven stocks of American Indians includes, as J. H. Trumbull has shown, forty principal tribes, speaking as many different dialects of what was once a common or root language. Of these the Wabanaki, or Abenaki, deriving their name from Wa-be-yu, white or light, are to us the nearest and most interesting. The word light is applied to them as living to the east. The St. Francis Indians, who call themselves specially the Abenaki, and who all speak French, translate their generic name as point du jour. They embrace in addition to the St. Francis tribe the Micmacs of New Brunswick; the Passamaquoddies, chiefly resident at Pleasant Point, or Sebayk near Eastport, Maine; and the Penobscots of Oldtown, in the same State. The last two tribes can converse to

gether, but it is almost or quite impossible for them to understand Mic

mac.

Yet all of them have in common a mythology and legends which as a whole are in every respect far superior to those of the Chippeways, or, so far as I know them, to those of any of our Western tribes.

I have collected directly from the Indians themselves more than one hundred of these legends. The Rev. S. T. Rand, of Hantsport, New Brunswick, the original discoverer of Glooskap, "the Hiawatha of the North," but a creation inconceivably superior to Hiawatha, has very kindly lent to me eighty-five Micmac tales, forming a folio volume of one thousand pages. In addition to these I am indebted to Mrs. W. Wallace Brown for a small but extremely valuable collection of stories from the Indians living near Calais. I have also two curious Anglo-Indian manuscripts: one a collection of tales, with a treatise on Superstitions in Indian and English; the other a Story of Glooskap, a singular narrative of the adventures of the great hero of the North, composed in IndianEnglish of the obscurest kind. Mr. Jack, of Fredericton, N. B., has very kindly communicated to me legends and folk-lore, Malisete and Micmac, while I I am specially obliged to Miss Abby Alger, of Boston, for aid of every kind, including a small collection of tales of the St. Francis tribe. Some idea of the immense extent of this literature may be inferred from the fact that, while I have duplicates of almost every story, I never received one which did not in some important respect amend the others. All of these tribes in their oral or wampum records tell of Glooskap, a superior heroic demigod. I say demigod, since there is no proof of the existence among our Indians of a belief

1 The Rev. S. T. Rand, of Hantsport, New Brunswick, is a Baptist missionary to the Micmac Indians. This gentleman can write twelve languages. Great credit is due to him for his incredible industry as a scholar in collecting Indian lore,

in a Great Spirit or in an infinite God before the coming of the whites. Glooskap was, however, more than a Hercules or a Manco Capac, for he created man and animals before teaching agriculture, hunting, and language. He was a truly grand hero; his life was never soiled with the disgraceful, puerile, and devilish caprices of the Manobozho, whose more creditable deeds were picked out and attributed by Mr. Longfellow to the Iroquois Hiawatha. A singular admixture of grandeur, benevolence, and quiet, pleasant humor characterize Glooskap, who of all beings of all mythologies most resembles Odin and Thor in the battlefield, and Pantagruel at home.

Glooskap was born of the Turtle gens, "since it is on the Turtle that all rests." He had a twin brother, Malsum the Wolf. Before birth the pair conferred as to how they would enter the world. Glooskap preferred to be born. as others, but the Wolf in his wicked pride tore through his mother's armpit and killed her. In the Iroquois version of this tale, the two are called the Good Being and the Evil One. The Wolf is therefore the type of evil, or the destroyer.

Malsum asked Glooskap (who subsequently appears distinctly as the sun god) what would kill him. He replied that of all created things the bulrush alone could take his life. So Malsum tried to kill him with it; but the bulrush would take his life only for an instant. So, recovering, he slew the Wolf. The resemblance between the bulrush, cattail, or, as one version says, 66 a ball of soft down," and the mistletoe, the softest of all plants, which kills Balder in the Edda, is here apparent enough. The same tale is told, but in a broken and abbreviated form, among the Hiawatha Legends.

and in recording the Micmac and Malisete languages, as well as for his earnest work as a clergyHe has now in MS. grammars and dictionaries of these tongues.

man.

Glooskap proceeded to create the dwarfs or fairies, and then man. He made him from an ash-tree. Man was in the ash-tree as a principle or as a being, but lifeless. First the dwarfs were created from the bark, and then mankind from the wood. Glooskap shot his magical life-giving arrows into the tree, and men came forth. In the Edda man existed as the ash; the elm was added as woman; but as in the Indian tale man was without consciousness till the three gods

"Found on Earth

Ask and Embla,
nearly powerless,
void of destiny.

Spirit they possessed not,
Sense they had not,
blood nor motive powers,
nor goodly color.

Spirit gave Odin,

Sense gave Hænir,
Blood gave Lodur,

and goodly color."

(Völuspa, 17, 18.) In the Edda, the first created on earth are two giants, born from their mother's armpit. Their father, who is an evil Jötun, has feet male and female. The next beings created are the dwarfs, and then man from the ash-tree. Every one of these details corresponds step by step with the Wabanaki mythology, except that in the latter it is Lox, the evil principle of fire, who has feet male and female. This Lox, the Indian devil, is no specific man or animal, but he is like Loki in every respect.

That the ash alone was the primitive tree of life or of man appears from the account of Yggdrasil in the next verse (Völuspa, 19). To hunt and draw his sled Glooskap took the Loons. But they were too often absent. So he had, like Odin, two attendant wolves, one black and one white. There can be no doubt of the accuracy of this statement, for the Indian is still living who actually met Glooskap a few years ago, "very far north," and ferried him over a bay. His black and white wolf dogs were at the landing before them, when all mysteri

ously vanished. In the Edda two wolves also follow, one the sun, another (Manogarm) the moon.

In one legend Glooskap is described as directing and guiding the course of the seasons. He has always by him a being named Kool-pe-jo-tei, meaning in Micmac "rolled over by handspikes." He lies on the ground; he has not a bone in his body. He rests under the heaven all the year. He is rolled over with wooden handspikes in the spring and autumn. This was very clearly explained by the Indian narrator as referring to the course of the seasons. Glooskap's sledge is drawn by wolves. In the Elder Edda Odin is described as riding a wolf. Odin has, however, two pet wolves, Gere and Freke, whom, like Glooskap, he feeds from his own hands (Younger Edda, c. xiii.). To recapitulate, Odin and Glooskap have each two attendant wolves. They use wolves as steeds; those of Glooskap are black and white, corresponding to the day and night, or sun and moon wolves of the Edda, termed Skol and Hate.

Gylfe, the great sorcerer (Younger Edda, c. ii.), when he went to Asgard to see if the gods were really so mighty as he had heard, disguised himself as an old man. Glooskap, going with a similar intention to see the wicked giant magicians, who dwelt by North Conway, N. H., or in the Intervale, also went as an old man, but made himself so like the father of these monsters that the sons could not tell one from the other. If it should ever be definitely proved that there was a common source for the Wabanaki tales and the Norse, we shall find much that has been lost from the latter in the former. It has often seemed to me that these Indian traditions contained incidents wanting in their Norse counterparts.

Glooskap has a canoe which is, when he wishes it to be large, capable of carrying an army, but which also contracts to the smallest size. At times it is made

into an ordinary birch akevédun, but when not in use it is a rocky island, covered with trees. Odin, or Frey (Younger Edda, c. xiii.), has a ship, Skidbladnir, so large that all the Asas can find room in it, "but which, when not wanted for a voyage, may be folded by Frey like a napkin and carried in the pocket."

Glooskap has a belt which gives su pernatural strength. This belt is often mentioned. Thor possesses the meginjarder, or belt of strength (Y. Edda, c. viii.), which doubles his might when he puts it on. The little old woman who typifies old age in the Indian tales puts on a similar magic girdle when she wrestles with the Micmac Hercules. This belt has passed into all fairy lore, but in the Wabanaki legends it is still distinctly mythical or heroic.

The gods in Valhalla feed on the boar Sahrimnir, which is inexhaustible. "It is boiled every day, and is whole again in the evening." (Y. Edda, c. xii.) Glooskap sets before his guests a small dish, in which there is very little food. But however hungry they may be, the dish is always full.

As all these coincidences cannot be given within the limits of an article like this, I would say that the tale of Idun and her apples does not contain a single incident which does not occur in unmistakably ancient form in the Wabanaki legends. The only part which I have believed came in from Canadian French or modern European influence is the apples themselves. There is an Indian tale of such magic apples (Micmac); but then the fruit did not grow of old in this country, and the story cannot therefore be pre-Columbian.

There is a very ancient Wabanaki legend, originally a poem, and which, like most of these narratives, has been transmitted for generations, word by word. The Rev. S. T. Rand has recorded his astonishment at finding that the Indians would always readily resume the narraVOL. LIV. — NO. 322.

15

tive which had been discontinued, at the very word where they had left off. I made the same discovery when I observed that my friend Tomaqu'hah would often pause to recover the word which led the sentence. I mention this because in this tale there are not only incidents but verbal passages almost identical with some in the Elder Edda. In it Glooskap went with his host Kitpooseagunow (Micmac), a mighty giant, to fish for whales. The guest carried the canoe to the water, and asked, "Who shall sit in the stern and paddle, and who will take the spear?" (that is, who will fish?). Kitpooseagunow said, "That will I." So Glooskap paddled, and his host soon caught a great whale. In the Edda (Hymiskriða, 25) Thor asks,

"Wilt thou do

half the work with me:

either the whales
homewards carry,
or the boat
fast bind?'

"Thor went,

grasped the prow

quickly with its hold-water,
lifted the boat

together with its oars
and scoop,

and bore them to the dwelling.

"The mighty Hymir

he alone

two whales drew up." (21.)

In both the Edda and the Indian tale stress is laid on the fact that the guest rowed. The Norse Hymir grudgingly admits that Thor does this well, but declares that he wishes to see further proof of his abilities. Then, going home, Hymir and Thor have a great mutual trial of strength and endurance; that is to see if Thor can break a cup against Hymir, the ice giant's icy head. The two Indian Titans try to see which can freeze the other to death. If we go to the direct meaning of the Norse myth, this after-contest amounts to the same thing in each case. In both the Norse and Indian myths, the heart or the head of an ice giant is represented as being

made of "ice harder than the hardest stone," to express the intense coldness of his nature. In each it is a contest with cold.

The Wabanaki as well as the Chippeways and others, call the Milky Way the spirits' road or the ghosts' highway. In the Edda, Bifrost the rainbow (Y. Edda, c. v.) is the bridge over which the gods pass; but Mr. Keary (Northern Mythology) has shown that in many old Norse and German tales the Milky Way is the spirits' path, while in the Vedas both rainbow and Via Lactea are described as roads or bridges for supernatural beings.

In Norse mythology, Jötunheim, inhabited by giants of ice and stone, lies far in the North Atlantic. Its stone giants dwell in Stony-town. They are all sorcerers. Hrungnir with the flint heart is their chief. In the Wabanaki tales the same North Atlantic has the same land of precisely the same inhabitants. Hence came "the stonish giants" of the Iroquois, which Mr. Schoolcraft avowed his inability to explain (Indian Tribes, vol. i.), but which are explained in minute and remarkable detail by the Wabanaki. Hrunguir with the flint heart is the counterpart of the cannibal giant Chenoo of the Micmacs, and Keeawahqu' of the more southern Wabanaki, who has a heart of “ice, harder than the hardest stone." It is the principal business of Glooskap to fight these beings, which are identical with Jötuns and Trolls.

Once Glooskap sent a great sorcerer (megumawěssu) to this land of the Booöin. (Micmac, powwow, a sorcerer.) They made him run a race with one of them. But it was not a man, but the Northern Lights disguised as a man. Yet the giants were deceived, for he who visited them was the Lightning, and he conquered. In the Edda, Thiasse is made to race, on a precisely similar visit to the same people, with Thought (Huge) disguised as a man. In the

Edda, Thor wrestles with a little old woman (Elle), the foster mother of the giant Ganglere. In the Micmac and the Passamaquoddy story of the Culloo, a man of miraculous strength, an Indian Hercules, wrestles with a little, feeble-looking old woman, who has previously defeated all the strong men of the world. He, it is true, overcomes her. But the point lies in this: that old age (Elle) is incarnate among the Indians as a little old woman. In the very wild Passamaquoddy tale of the Dance of Old Age, a young sorceress in an Indian waltz grows a year older at every turn, and at the hundredth falls dead as a small, shriveled, wrinkled old

squaw.

When Glooskap's envoy visited the giant sorcerers, he was required by his host to kill a dragon as a task. The American Wabanaki had the dragon long ere the whites told them of it. It was a being like a monstrous wingless serpent, with horns and scales like shining copper, or a kind of brown-golden gleaming fish. The Micmacs call it chepitch-calm, the Passamaquoddies weewil-l-mecqu'. The Indian killed it by putting a log across its hole, and when it was half out chopped it in two. In the Edda, Sigurd, visiting Regin, was instigated by his host — also as a task to kill the dragon Fafnir. He dug a pit, and when the monster crawled over it thrust his sword up and slew him. (Fafnismal, I.)

The Norse dragon left a treasure which brought ruin to all who received it. The invaluable horns of the dragon (described as such in other legends) were brought to the host by the victor, but they proved to be his bane or death, for the dragon was his téomul (Micmac; in Passamaquoddy, pou-hegan; in Norse, ham); that is, his tutelary beast or guardian angel. When this dies, the protégé also perishes. This narrative is as Norse in its general tone as in the details. Like most of the older tales, it has evidently been a poem. The