Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 75.djvu/619

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MEDIEVAL CREATION MYTHS
613

and say: 'This much earth is enough.' He just doesn't know what to do! "Then God blessed the bee and commanded that its wax should serve to illumine weddings and funerals and its honey should heal the sick.

In the Rumanian Sage the bee goes to the wise hedgehog for advice and the hedgehog says:

" Plainly God does not know that he must create mountains and valleys to make room for the waters."

The Setts say (p. 128):

As the earth was created it did not fit under the arch of heaven. Where shall one put such a great disk? Just then the hedgehog came along and asked what the trouble was. "Verily the earth is done, but we can not get it under the arch of heaven and it would not do to break a piece off." "That's nothing," said the hedgehog, "You must squeeze the disk together a little and then it will go." Good: God quickly pressed the disk together and it was easy to stick it under the heaven.

Now there appeared here and there, by the pressure, wrinkles which are the present mountains and valleys. God gave the hedgehog, for his shrewd head, an excellent coat, all of needles, so that no enemy can get near him.