Jocasta, when she learned that Oedipus was really her son, was so filled with horror and distress that she took her own life. But Antigone and Ismene were sorry for their father, w...
The firefly abounds everywhere in the Islands. I The King of the Air was in terrible rage, For some one had stolen his ring; And every one wondered whoever could dare To do such a...
One day the god Thor set out with Loki in his chariot drawn by two he-goats. Night coming on they were obliged to put up at a peasant's cottage, when Thor slew his goats, and havin...
Dinewan the emu, being the largest bird, was acknowledged as king by the other birds. The Goomblegubbons, the bustards, were jealous of the Dinewans. Particularly was Goomblegubbon...
This story is known generally in the southern Islands. The Ongloc is feared by the children just as some little boys and girls fear the Bogy Man. The tale is a favorite one among t...
AN ODJIBWA ALLEGORY OF FRATERNAL AFFECTION. A solitary lodge stood on the banks of a remote lake. It was near the hour of sunset. Silence reigned within and without. Not a sound wa...
Once upon a time in a certain village there lived two neighbours; one was rich, very rich, and the other so poor that he had nothing in the world but a little hut, and that was tum...
Less than sixty years ago, the vast tracts of land which are now large cities and cultivated farms were prairie and forest. Numerous tribes of Indians camped on these prairies in s...
Pima (Arizona) After the waters of the flood had gone down, Elder Brother said to Coyote, "Do not touch that black bug; and do not eat the mesquite beans. It is dangerous to harm a...
John Roberts of Colliers' Row, Cyfartha, Merthyr, was once going to Aberdare over the mountain. On the top of the hill he was met by a handsome gentleman, who wore a three-cocked h...
This is the story of how the swallow's tail came to be forked. One day the Great Spirit asked all the animals that he had made to come to his lodge. Those that could fly came first...
But a striking instance of rapid transition from one form to another is given in the Mabinogion. The fable of Ceridwen's cauldron is as follows:-- Ceridwen was the wife of Tegid Vo...
The captive was not taken back to prison-chamber which she had occupied during the preceding night, but to an apartment in the palace--one belonging to the suite appropriated to Po...
The stripe over the shoulders of the ass is said to have been made by our Lord when He rode into Jerusalem on an ass, and ever since the mark remains. It was thought that the milk...
The Rev. E. V. Owen, Vicar of Llwydiarth, Montgomeryshire, told me that the Tit's notes are a sign of rain, at least, that it is so considered in his parish. The people call the bi...
If the possibility of Ghost Laying was believed in, so also was the possibility of raising Evil Spirits. This faith dates from olden times. Shakespeare, to this, as to most other p...
The peacock's shrill note is a sign of rain. Its call is supposed to resemble the word gwlaw, the Welsh for rain.
Sia (New Mexico) One day Coyote was passing about when he saw Hare sitting before his house. Coyote thought, "In a minute I will catch you," and he sprang and caught Hare. Hare cri...
The abhorrence to paying taxes and duties--or any other levy from which an immediate and personal good is not promised--is too deeply rooted in human nature to be affected by statu...
Mukashi, mukashi, (as most Japanese stories begin), long, long ago, when the gods came down from heaven to subdue the earth for the mikados, and civilize the country, there were a...
King Minos of Crete had promised Neptune (Poseidon), god of the sea, to offer to him whatever animal should first come up out of the water, for he declared he had no animal that wa...
There was once a Raja who had an only son and the Raja was always urging his son to learn to read and write in order that when he came to his kingdom he might manage well and be ab...
ODJIBWA. Bokwewa and his brother lived in a secluded part of the country. They were considered as Manitoes, who had assumed mortal shapes. Bokwewa was the most gifted in supernatur...
Carry a potato in your pocket, and when one is finished, supply its place with another.
The prevalence of the belief that witches could transform themselves into hares is seen from a remark made by Giraldus Cambrensis in his topography of Ireland. He writes:-- It has...
With gods, as with men, who would speed his affairs must keep them in his own hands. Pele, the volcano goddess, fell in love with Lohiau, a Kauaian prince, and in human guise remai...
Sly Bertrand and Ratto in company sat, (The one was a monkey, the other a cat,) Co-servants and lodgers: More mischievous codgers Ne'er mess'd from a platter, since platters were f...
A DACOTAH LEGEND. There was an old man living in the centre of a forest, with his grandson, whom he had taken when quite an infant. The child had no parents, brothers, or sisters;...