Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 3, 1892.djvu/332

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324
An Analysis of certain Finnish Origins.

nates from L. O. instead of from O., would include some transformations of men into animals. For instance, the Zulus relate that an idle tribe of the Amafene that did not like to dig, but to eat at other people's expense, were turned into baboons. At their chief's bidding they collected food and went into the wilderness, after fastening on behind them the handles of their digging picks. These handles turned into tales, hair grew upon their bodies, and so they became baboons.[1]

9b. L. S. is O. Some external likeness. Descriptive points in the narrative hint at the nature and habitat of L. S.

This subdivision, which is closely related to 9a, the only difference being ' is' for ' generated from', contains but one example. Toothworms are grains of iron pulverised by an ogress. In her attempt to swallow them they stick in her teeth, thereby causing intense pain (37e).

According to the Khasias of the Himalaya, the spots in the moon are the ashes thrown in his face by his mother-in-law, with whom he falls in love every month.[2]

10. S. or L. S. originated from O. No external likeness. A single remark or several descriptive points in the narrative hint at the qualities, properties, or habitat of (L.) S.

Salt originated from a fiery spark, struck by the Thunder-god, which fell into the sea, and dissolved into rock-salt (47). The fiery spark seems an allusion to the pungent quality of salt, and its fall into the sea to the seawater from which salt was obtained. The habitat alone is hinted at in the origin of the wolf (10a), and of the lizard (13b), from a pendant or pearl that fell into the grass and brushwood. Though in the wolf's case it is made a little clearer by the remark that the girl from whose person the trinket fell was travelling over heaths and swamps, the usual haunt of wolves. Three qualities of iron originated from the milk of three different colours shed upon a swamp by three

  1. Callaway, Nursery Tales of the Zulus, i, p. 178.
  2. Tylor, Primitive Culture, i, p. 354.