SOME FOLK-SONGS AND MYTHS FROM SAMOA. 269 
a new heaven, Gimle, in the highest empyrean—more brilliant than the 
sun—a realm of joy where the virtuous dwell for ever. So far the sub- 
stance of the myth in the Edda. 
Now, in this Norse legend we have two mythologies of which the later 
is much coloured by Christian influences ; but to the older Edda belongs 
the antagonism of the giants to the gods and the general conflict which 
ensued; to it also belongs the proto-giant Ymer, of whom the Edda thus. 
speaks :— h 
‘Tt was Time’s morning, when Ymer lived ; 
There was no sand, no sea, no cooling billows ; 
Harth there was none; no lofty heaven ; 
No spot of living green ; only a deep profound.” 
And so everywhere in Aryan mythology these giants appear, sometimes 
in one dress, sometimes in another; but everywhere also they are repre- 
sented as of huge size, and fierce countenances; they eat and drink pro- 
digiously; they are good-natured and peaceable, but, when roused, they 
use their stupendous strength; therefore in the Titanic war, they 
“Successive thrice a hundred rocks in air 
Hurled from their sinewy grasp, with missile storm 
The Titan host o’er shadowing ; them they drove, 
All haughty as they were, with hands of strength 
O’ercoming them, beneath the expanse of earth, 
And bound with galling chains.” 
Strong though they are, the giants of all countries can easily be out- 
witted by men; and so the hero of the Odyssey escapes from the Cyclops 
by a simple stratagem, and in our own nursery tales Jack-the-Giant- 
killer always outwits the giant. 
Some mythologists are incredulous as to the existence of giants, and 
will tell you that these are merely personifications of the volcanic and 
other terrestrial forces in nature; they assert that the war with the gods, 
the climbing up into heaven, and the hurling of huge rocks in battle, 
are only a poet’s way of saying that‘the mountain tops burst into flame, 
and that stones and dust and liquid fire were thrown into the sky. But 
it is evident that giants did exist in the olden times, for the tradition of 
them is found everywhere; and, in Genesis xiv. 5 and elsewhere, there 
is testimony that early Canaan had races of gigantic stature. 
Now, if we turn to our Samoan myth, the first curious question that 
I ask is this: How did these Samoan myth-makers come to know any 
thing about giants? for there are no races of giants in their islands; and 
I suppose there never were. The only satisfactory answer must be that 
the first Polynesian settlers brought these tales with them from their 
ancestral home, and the whole cast of the present myth leads me to think 
