The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1895-10-24
an old Morse song of Asge and Else, which
says:
whenever thou grievest
My coffin is within
As livid blood;
Whenever thou rejoicest
My coffin is within
Fiilad with frn nj

FlleO Will IThRtsBt fuscs.
There are numerous interpretations of the
rainbow and the milkyway. some of which are
very poetical and beautiful.
II is an old Christian legend that Christ as.
cended to heaven by the milkywsy. and ever
since it has shone in memory Of His ascension,
so beautiful and bright.
The winnebagos of North America believe
IL TO be the path Of the dead, along which the
souls of the departed travel to reach their para
disc in the sky. In German folklore we find
the same idea connected with the rainbow, and
among many other people IL suggested the idea
of bridge heaven ladder.
The Israelte called the rainbow the bow OF
Jehovah in the clouds; the Hindoo called it
tire bow of Rama; the Finn. the bow of Iiermes
the Thunderer, who Stays with it the sorcerers
who hunt after mems lives. Ii is also described
as head dress of feathers, gold-embroidered
scarf, st. Demands crown, or the sickle OF an
Esthonian deity.
Some savage tribes regard it as a monster
In DahOme it is called Dant, the Heavenly
Snake which makes the Popo beads and con-
fers wealth on man. The Zulu believes that
the rainbow lives with the snake, and that
when il touches earth il is drinking in pool
He is afraid to bathe in large pool from fear
of being caught by it and eaten. When 1T
comes out of the water il rests on the ground,
bringing disease and corruption. The karens
cribe to it nearly ali violent deaths. After de-
vouring persons il becomes thirsty and comes
down to drink, and then il can be seen in the
sky drinking water. New Zealand mythology
describes the battle of the tempest and the
forest and tells how the rainbow arose and
placed its mouth close to Tane-Mahuta, the
Father of Trees and continued to assault him
till his trunk was snapped in two and his
branches broken and strewed on the ground.
The korth Amarican Indians have a moro
aesthetic conception of the rainbow than this
and one more in harmony with il as il appears
to us. Longfelow has embodied it in his
" Hiawatha," where he tells how he
''Saw the rainbow in the heaven.
In the eastern sky the rainbow
Whispered: What is that, Nokomis''
IT'S the heaven of flowers you see there;
Al the wild flowers Of the forest,
All the lilies of the prairie.
When earth they fade and perish,
Blossom in that heaven above US.
A favorite idea among primitive races is that
the land of death and the departed is in the
land Of evening or night, and its entrance the
gates of sunset. The Algonkins have beauti-
full sunset myth. The hunter Ojibway had just
killed bear and began to skin him, when sud-
denly something red tipged all the air around.
Reaching the shore of lake the Indian saw it
was beautiful red swan, whose plumage gilt
tered in the sun. In vain the hunter shot his
shafts for the bird foated on unharmed and
unheeding but at last he remembered three
cured. The first and second arrow few near
and nearer; the third struck the swan. and
aapping its wings it few off slowly toward the
setting sun. dying the sky and sea crimson in
its fight. This myth, also, has been beauti-
fully told by Longfellow:
"Can It be the sun descending
Ger the level plain of water?
Or the red swan, floating, flying,
Wounded by the magic arrow.
Staining ali the waves with crimson,
With the crimson of its life blood
Filling all the air with speudor
With the splendor Of it's pluniase?"
myth relating TO the seasons was the origin
Of a custom formerly common. and still often
observed in Germany and England, that of
serving up at dinner on Christmas Day an
ornamented boar's head. Originally this SYM
bolized the gloomy monster of lunar Winter,
killed at the Winter solstice, after which the
days grow always longer and brighter. After
awhile the significance of this ceremony was
los; sight of but II continued to be time hon.
ored custom for many ages.
curious custom of the German peasantry
has a similar origin. They often go to sleep
on Christmas night in the pgsty, hoping to
dream there. This dream is a presage of good
luck, for the new is born in the sty of the
Winter hog. Even the Christian Redeemer
was born in stable But in this case, instead
of the hog. il was the ass. its mythical equiva-
lent. that occupied it, In German legendary
lore the devil often assumes the form Of "A mon
strous boar, which the hero kills. he Icing, OF
course, solar hero. the all-powerful sun OF
Spring.
Analogies which are to us mere fancies were
to the men of the past realities and every phe-
nomenon in nature was to rho primitive mind
the action of some concrete and living persvn-
atty. This il is that gives vital and ever
growing interes ito mythology and folklore
Philadelphia Times.