8oo THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



In this same philosophy we learn that in that ancient time a coun- 

 cil of the gods was held to consider the propriety of making a moon, 

 and at last the task was given to Whippoorwill, a god of the night, 

 and a frog yielded himself a willing sacrifice for this purpose, and the 

 Whippoorwill, by incantations, and other magical means, transformed 

 the frog into the new moon. The truth of this origin of the moon is 

 made evident to our very senses ; for do we not see the frog riding the 

 moon at night, and the moon is cold, because the frog from which it 

 was made was cold ? 



The philosopher of Oraibi tells us that when the people ascended 

 by means of the magical tree which constituted the ladder from the 

 lower world to this, they found the firmament, the ceiling of this 

 world, low down upon the earth the floor of this world. Machito, 

 one of their gods, raised the firmament on his shoulders to where it is 

 now seen. Still the world was dark, as there was no sun, no moon, and 

 no stars. So the people murmured because of the darkness and the cold. 

 Machito said, " Bring me seven maidens," and they brought him seven 

 maidens ; and he said, " Bring me seven baskets of cotton-bolls," and 

 they brought him seven baskets of cotton-bolls ; and he taught the 

 seven maidens to weave a magical fabric from the cotton, and when 

 they had finished it he held it aloft, and the breeze carried it away 

 toward the firmament, and in the twinkling of an eye it was trans- 

 formed into a beautiful full-orbed moon, and the same breeze caught 

 the remnants of flocculent cotton which the maidens had scattered 

 during their work, and carried them aloft, and they were transformed 

 into bright stars. But still it was cold, and the people murmured 

 again, and Machito said, " Bring me seven buffalo-robes," and they 

 brought him seven buffalo-robes, and from the densely matted hair of 

 the robes he wove another wonderful fabric, which the storm carried 

 away into the sky, and it was transformed into the full-orbed sun. 

 Then Machito appointed times and seasons, and ways for the heavenly 

 bodies, and the gods of the firmament have obeyed the injunctions of 

 Machito from the day of their creation to the present. 



The Norse philosopher tells us that Night and Day, each, has a horse 

 and a car, and they drive successively one after the other around the 

 world in twenty-four hours. Night rides first with her steed named 

 Dew-hair, and every morning as he ends his course he bedews the earth 

 with f oamfrom his bit. The steed driven by Day is Shining-hair. All 

 the sky and earth glisten with the light of his mane. Jarnved, the 

 great iron-wood forest lying to the east of Midgard, is the abode of a 

 race of witches. One monster witch is the mother of many sons in 

 the form of wolves, two of which are Skol and Hate. Skol is the 

 wolf that would devour the maiden Sun, and she daily flies from the 

 maw of the terrible beast, and the moon-man flies from the wolf Hate. 



The philosopher of Samos tells us that the earth is surrounded by 

 hollow crystalline spheres set one within another, and all revolving at 



