GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OP MYTHS. 



341 



When lie had. walked a long while, he lay down on a knoll, 

 where the sun had melted the snow, and fell fast asleep ; but 

 while he was sleeping the sun beat so hot upon him, that his 

 bird-skin coat was all singed and shrunk. When he awoke 

 and found his coat spoilt, he vowed, vengeance against the sun, 

 and bade his sister make him a snare. She made him one of 

 deer's sinew, and then one of her own hair, but they would not 

 do. At last she brought him one that was right ; he pulled it 

 between his lips, and, as he pulled, it became a red metal cord. 

 With this he set out a little after midnight, and fixed his snare 

 on a spot just where the sun would strike the land, as it rose 

 above the earth's disc, and sure enough he caught the sun, so 

 that it was held fast in the cord and did not rise. The animals 

 who ruled the earth were immediately put into a great commo- 

 tion. They had no light. They called a council to debate upon 

 the matter, and to appoint some one to go and cut the cord, for 

 this was a very hazardous enterprise, as the rays of the sun 

 would burn whoever came so near. At last the dormouse un- 

 dertook it, for at this time the dormouse was the largest animal 

 in the world. When it stood up it looked hke a mountain. 

 When it got to the place where the sun was snared, its back 

 began to smoke and burn with the intensity of the heat, and 

 the top of its carcass was reduced to enormous heaps of ashes. 

 It succeeded, however, in cutting the cord with its teeth, and 

 freeing the sun ; but it was reduced to a very small size, and 

 has remained so ever since.^ 



In this North American tale we have the Sun- Catcher of the 

 South Sea Islands, combined with part of our own Jack and 

 the Beanstalk. As Jack, in spite of his mother's prayers, goes 

 up the ladder that is to take him to the dwelling of the Giant 

 who killed his father, so the boy of the American tale will not 

 heed his sister's persuasion, but goes to seek the enemies who 

 had slain his kindred. In the next two versions, also from 

 North America, the incident of the going up a tree to the coun- 

 try in the sky, as Jack goes up his beanstalk, makes its appear- 

 ance. And in all three, the loosing of the imprisoned sun is 



' Schoolcraft, ' Oneota ;' New York and London, 18-15, p. 75. See ante, 

 p. 312. 



