Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1889-12-08
Down on q tree leafiess:
There came a hawk beakiess,
And ate the dove featherless.

Down on tree leafless:
/ There came hawk beakiess,
And ate the dove featherless.
In Servian saying, attributed to the
snow, its rapid degradation is shown II
tew, an eagle; I,fell, q Gar; / perished, q
dog;" and the bird series may conclude with
tne curious Finnish riddle:
He fred ct the duck on the hill;
Someone without mouth ate it;
Someone without hands took it
The snow is also represented as person
or as an animal. A Lapp query reads thus:
when can one see the old fellow, who has
white head only one night?"
The same figure is employed in the Fin
nish riddles that follow:
A centenarlan, old in one night.
| The centenarian's new cap,
Each year new one made.
In the last, the snow is really cap, and
In another from the same source, it is q bon
nett
"Old woman's new bonnet
Each year new one"
The snow is frequently represented as a
female. An enigma, coming from the days
of Ancient Rome, is of this class: "Tell me,
what is that which is something, the daugh-
ter of the mother, while the mother is child
of the daughter? That which may be ex-
pressed. Mater me genuits eadem mox gig
nitur ex me 2" The answer, "sDow and
water, " is given in detail. A Sicilian rid
ole is to the same effect:
Female am, female was born, X
Female was the mother who bore me;
In the midst of the winds am begotten,
Midst the winds of Ponent. Of LeVant and
Africa.
Then l am carried between the bitches,
And cool those who live happily;
And If am touched by my mother,
bear the mother who bore me.
And another Servian rhyme represents
the snow as a woman:
An, An old woman lies on Velej (mountain)
I'LL some one rouses her, there she will lie.
oDIN's QUESTION.
Odin, the Morse hero, asked the following
question of certain King Heinrich accord
ing to the Edda: "What are they Joyous
young maids who glide over the earth to the
JOY OF their father? In winter they carry
white shield, but dark one in summer?'
The answer given is snow and water, these
being the shields.
Those riddles in which the snow is an
animal come next. The OK in the following
Servian puzzle is sort of Humpty Dumpty:
None can take it thence save God himself"
The horse represents the snow in the
strange Finnish riddle:
The horse rises from the sea,
He returns murmuring under the barn"
Sheep appear in another from the same
source:
THE Esthonian ram, the German sheep,
Turns on his feet in the fields, and dances on
the prairies."
These sheep are devoured by the sun-wolf,
in the following riddle from Servia:
The fields and the villages are full of white
Sheep
A single wolf viii come and devOur them all"
The hare is the snowfall in Finnish
puzzle verses:
The hare runs on the ice,
Whines in the court,
And hides in hole in the Woodpile.
The fox is used in another:
The fox runs on the river.
he shakes his coat, he swings his tail.
One of the numerous Servian riddles in
troduces an apt figure of speech:
White bees have alighted on the ground,
One being only can take them away
The whole world else cannot
Finally. there are the riddles in which
the snow is likened to some lnanimate OBJ
ject. 1t is frequently mantle, covering
the earth, as IN the French puzzle: What
is that which covers all the city of Paris
and eannot cover the bottom of we'll?
A childish riddle from the Low German
CONVEYS the same meaning:
There came a man from AK,
With awhile spread;
He thought he could the whole world deck
But he scarce conld reach the Elbe."
The same idea is expressed in the Catalan
riddles:
whats this? A thing
Everywhere spread
But ventures not to sea-"
"a white bedspread
Having nor seam nor hem"
So unfrozen rivers defy the snow, as in
the SerVian:
"a mantle decks half the world,
But it cannot cover its brother" (The river.)
Lspp and Finnish puzzles represent the
fakes of snow as falling chips:
''Some one cuts wood,
The chips fall, yet one hears naught."
"a man chops on the sea,
The chips fly here"
Servians, whose Imagination seems to be
the liveliest, are responsible for this last rid
die, for the melting snow:
''The royal cap has disappeared
From under the linden trunk
On St Georges Day."
F. s. BAssErT.