42 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



Folk-Lore that have \k\'\\ published, hut there must be at least a hundred. 

 and one of the best of them is Tales of the Micmacs by that distinguished 

 Canadian scholar and missionary. Dr. Silas Tertius Eand. I have said 

 that many of the Indian stories are not beautiful ; they are weird, unchris- 

 tian, oftimes immoral, glorifications of brute force and low cunning, 

 regardless of consequences. These characteristics are not peculiarly Amer- 

 ican. Eead Lad}' Charlotte Guest's ' Welsh Mabinogion,' Campbell's 

 '•Tales of the West Highlands.'' Fergusson's '-Irish before the Conquest," 

 Moore's " Folk-Lore of the Isle of Man," or Webster's " Basque Legends," 

 Daseut's " Tales from the Norse," and Frere's " Old Deccan Days," and, 

 when you have analysed them, you will find that the native folk-lore of 

 America is as pure, as religious, as beautiful as any of them, and that the 

 same worship of brute force, and, in default of it, of sly treacherous 

 over reaching, which characterizes the tales of Glooscap, Nenaboju, and 

 other New World hei-oes. is found in most of the Old World traditions. 

 The same is true of the cultured Greek in his marvellous mythology. 

 While Theseus, Hercules, Perseus and Achilles represent the combination 

 of courage and strength, Mercury and Autolycus, Sisyphus, Da'dalus, and 

 Ulysses set forth the apotheosis of knaver}'. To outwit the devil, to sin 

 and escape the punishment of sin, was regarded by the pagan as his 

 highest feat ; and like those who would square the circle, invent the 

 universal solvent, and demonstrate jierpetual motion, nominal Christians 

 are not lacking who aim at the same impossibility. 



The following verses contain one of the better specimens of northern 

 Algonquin legend : 



The Orkun of thk Whitk Watkr Lily. 



"Tis the brijijlit spring time of the northern yeai', 



The niiiple.s hud red and gi'ecn ; 

 'Neatli the tall dark pines, all glooni}' and drear, 

 The Mayflower's blossoms begin to ai)pear, 

 And, starting to life through the fallen and sere, 



The Wake Robin's leaves may be seen, 



May be .seen while the sun sheds his radiance Vjright 



O'er forest and lake and stream ; 

 But his fires are sinking at dawn of night, 

 O'er the purple hills he is lost to sight, 

 And the last mellow flood of his golden light 



Gives place to the moon's ])ah' beam. 



Alone on a couch by nature spread, 



An Indian warrior lies. 

 White are the lichens that make his bed, 

 Yet not so white as his hoary head, 

 And the gladsome light of youth has fled 



Long since from his glazing eyes. 



Long days he has wandered through forest and swamp. 



O'er mountains rugged and high : 

 The tjright North Star is the guiding lamp 



