Of True Bugs in General. 77 



recalled that though American negroes speak English, 

 yet they are not quite what you might call Anglo-Saxons 

 by race. The Jews speak European languages, but they 

 are Semites, not Aryans. Language is no criterion of 

 race. Well, it's a long story, but the amount of it is that 

 it is now tolerably well settled that while Europeans are 

 a mixture of several peoples, their language probably had 

 its origin in the plains of Russia. The ancient Scythians 

 probably spoke very nearly that tongue from which 

 branched off, like branches of a tree, Greek, Latin, 

 Persian, Sanscrit, German, French, Icelandic, Gaelic- 

 all the languages of Europe except Basque and Hun- 

 garian. Herodotus has preserved almost the only Scyth- 

 ian word we know, and that is the name for their 

 God, " bagaios," of which we may take the " os " to be a 

 Greek addition. In the Russian Church liturgy to-day 

 the word for Almighty God is " Bogu." In this instance 

 Christianity took over the name to its own use, but in 

 others new words of Latin origin were substituted and 

 the old gods were denounced as devils, and their custom- 

 ary offerings were forbidden, so that they shrank in size 

 from starvation and became " little people." These god- 

 lings were " fairies ' if they were light-colored, and 

 " brownies ' if they were dark. Housewives (who have 



f 



never really been converted to the new religion, I don't 

 care what you say) still made little offerings to these 

 household deities to keep them in good humor. As 

 " pucks," they played tricks on slovenly and stingy house- 

 keepers. Also they scared folk as ' spooks ' and 

 " pookas." They were " bogies ' and " boogers ' and 

 ' bug-bears ' and " bugaboos." It was they that made 

 niehtmares and wakened one trembling \vith nameless 

 fright. Our Authorized Version says, Thou shalt not 

 be afraid for the terror by night," but the Bible of 1551 



