MooNKY] NOTES AND PARALLELS -171 



accident — "a large piece of peatbog [\va.s] kiiidlcil by liiilituinjiaiiclcdiisnincil, wliirli 

 he sui)posed to l)e the work of artillery." ' 



Volcanic activitie.u, gome of very recent date, have left inany traces in the Carolina 

 inonntains. A mountain in Haywood county, near the head of Fines creek, has 

 been noted for its noises and (juakings for nearly a century, one particular explosion 

 havinj,' split solid masses of granite as though by a blast of gunpowder. These 

 shocks anil noises useil to recur at inteivals of two or three year.s, but have not now 

 been noticed for .some time. In lS2i> a violent earthquake on Valley river split open 

 a mountain, leaving a chasm extending for several hundred yartls, which is still to 

 be seen. Satoola mountain, near Highlands, in Macon county, has crevices from 

 which smoke is said to issue at intervals. In Madison county there is a mountain 

 which has been known to rumble and smoke, a phenomenon with which the Warm 

 springs in the same county may have some coimection. .Another peak, known aa 

 Shaking or Rumbling bald, in Rutherford county, attracted widespread attention in 

 1874 by a succession of shocks exten<ling over a period of six months (see Zeigler 

 and (irosscup. Heart of the AUeghanies, pp. 228-229). 



72. Thk HixTKH AND Sell- (p.82l^): The explanation of this story, told by Swim- 

 mer, lies in the myth which derives corn from the lilood of the old woman Selu 

 (see number 3, " Kana'ti and Selu "). 



In Iroquois myth the spirits of Corn, Beans, and Squash are three sisters. Corn 

 was originally much more fertile, but was blighted by the jealousy of an evil spirit. 

 "To this day, when the rustling wind waves the corn leaves with a moaning sound, 

 the pious Indian fancies that he hears the Spirit of Corn, in her compa.ssion for the 

 red man, still bemoaning with unavailing regrets her blighted fruitfulness" (Morgan, 

 League of the Iroquois, p. 1B2). See number 126, "Plant Lore," and acconijiany- 

 ing notes. 



73. The UxDERGRorxo P.\xthers (p. 324): This story was told by John .\x. For 

 an explanation of the Indian idea concerning animals see nundier 15, "The Four- 

 footed Tribes," and number 76, "The Bear Man." 



Several days — The strange lapse of time, by which a period really extending over 

 days or even years seems to the stranger under the spell to be only a matter of a few 

 hours, is one of the most common incidents of European fairy recitals, and has been 

 made equally familiar to American readers through Irving's story of Hip Van 

 Winkle. 



74. The Tsuxdige'wI (p. 325): This curious story was told by Swimmer and 

 Ta'gwSdihl' (east) and Wafford (west). Swimmer says the dwarfs lived in the west, 

 but Ta'gwadihl' and Wafford locate them south from the Cherokee country. 



A story which seems to be a variant of the same myth was told to the Spanish 

 adventurer Ayllon by the Indians on the South Carolina coast in 1520, and is thus 

 given in translation from Peter ^lartyr's Decades, in the Discovery and Con- 

 quest of Florida, ninth volume of the Hakluyt Society's publications, pages xv-xvi, 

 London, 1851. 



"Another of Ayllon's strange stories refers to a country calle<l Inzignanin, . . . 

 Thi^ inhabitauntes, by report of their ancestors, say, that a people as tall as the length 

 of a man's arme, with taylesof aspanne long, sometime arrived there, brought thither 

 by sea, which tayle was not movable or wavering, as in foure-footed beastes, but 

 solide, broad above, and sharpe beneath, as wee see in fishes and crocodiles, and 

 extended into a bony hardness. Wherefore, when they desired to sitt, they used 

 seates with holes through them, or wanting them, digged upp the earth a spanne 

 deepe or little more, they must convay their tayle into the hole when they rest them." 



' Bui'kiiiKlmin .Sniitli, Lettur <if Hi'rnando de Sotonnd Memoir ot Hernando de Escalante, translated 

 from tlic .'^pani.sh; Washington, 18.T4, p. 4G. 



