204 BIRDS IN LEGEND 



bird flying southward. That it is big enough to stir the 

 atmosphere into a veritable hurricane is plain: 



From the East came flying hither, 

 From the East a monstrous eagle, 

 One wing touched the vault of heaven, 

 While the other swept the ocean; 

 With his tail upon the waters, 

 Reached his beak beyond the cloudlets. 



And such an eagle as this one, described as a reality in 

 the Kalevala, the legendary epic of the Finns, possessing 

 beak and talons of copper, once seized and bore away a 

 maiden to its eyrie, thus showing itself true to the "form" 

 of the East whence it came. 



Most of our North American Indians typified the 

 winds, especially those from the north, as birds, and many 

 tribes identified the storm-bringing ones with their 

 thunder-birds, which was very natural. The Algonkins 

 believed that certain birds produced the phenomena of 

 wind and created waterspouts, and that the clouds were 

 the spreading and agitation of their gigantic wings. The 

 Navahos thought that a great white swan sat at each of the 

 four points of the compass and conjured up the blasts 

 that came therefrom, while the Dakotas believed that in 

 the west is the residence of the Wakinyjan, "the Flyers/' 

 that is, the breezes that develop into occasional storms. 



It was in the Orient, however, where, by the way, 

 both simurgh and garuda serve as storm-bringers in 

 several myths, that the conception of gigantic bird-beings 

 was expanded and elaborated with the picturesque details 

 that have been suggested in an earlier paragraph. 



A very old Persian tale, with many fanciful embroider- 

 ings, runs as follows: There are, or were, two trees— 



