Chapter 3

Man came last. Epimetheus had nothing to give him. Claws, wings, shelly covering, fur, everything had been bestowed on the creatures which he had made first. Epimetheus saw how weak man was with all the fierce animals around him. He went to Prometheus for help, and said:

"I have clothed this last creature which I have made with robes from the garments the immortals have cast aside. The thorns cannot tear him, but the wild beast can take his life in a moment. Help me to make him conqueror of everything in earth and sea and sky."

Prometheus sought Minerva for wisdom. She gave him a golden torch, whose wood was cut from the pines that grew nearest heaven on the earth's highest peak, and said:

"Follow what this branch of pine is seeking. It will take and hold the gift reserved for man."

When Prometheus grasped the torch, it leaped upward through the sky past the pale, cold moon; past flashing stars; upward, till the torch and its bearer stood in the high heavens by the burning chariot of the sun.

The pine kissed the leaping flames and a fire was kindled in its own heart. Prometheus sprang backward from the sun chariot, and, bearing the flaming torch in his hands, brought down to man, from the sun, the gift of fire.

No creature but man can possess or use this gift. Man would not part with it for all the treasures below the earth's surface, nor for all the gifts that birds, beasts, and fishes can boast.

With fire, weapons are made that can subdue the strongest beast that ever fought for its life. Tools with which man tills the earth and blasts the rock are made with the aid of fire. With fire man warms his dwelling. While the wild creatures shiver in the ice and snow man makes summer within the four walls of his home.

Man walks the earth a conqueror, but should the gift of fire be taken from him, how would he then teach the lower animals that he is their master? Having this gift he excels all other creatures. Without it he would be poor indeed.

Go where you will, the gift Prometheus brought is known to the race to whom it was given. There is no savage so ignorant but that he has the art of making fire.

Fire gleams from the eyeballs of the beasts when they are in anger, but this fire is cold compared with the burning blaze of wood and coal.

No beast will attack mankind when protected by a blazing torch. The gift of Prometheus shows the wisdom of Minerva.

BEYOND THE FIRE ISLAND

_Russian_

Once there was a man who decided to take a journey to the uttermost end of the world where it touches the sky. He thought he could reach that point only by sea, but being tired of the water decided to travel on the wings of an eagle. A raven told him better, however, for the nights are months long in the far Northland and the eagle loves the sunlight.

Then this man, who was a king, gave orders to fell the greatest oak tree in his three kingdoms. Olaf the Brave undertook this task. The oak tree was very large and neither sun, moon, nor stars could shine between its leaves, they were so close together. The king commanded that deep-sea sailing ships should be made from its trunk, warships from its crown, merchant ships from its branches, children's boats from the splinters, and maidens' rowing boats from the chips.

But the wise men of Norway and Finland assembled and gave the king advice. They told him that it was no use building a wooden ship, for the spirits of the Northern Lights would set it on fire. Then the king made a ship of silver. The whole of the ship--planking, deck, masts, and chains--was of silver, and he named his vessel "The Flyer."

Then--for this was ages ago--he provided golden armor for himself, silver armor for his nobles, iron for the crew, copper for the old men, and steel for the wise men.

When everything was ready, he and his sailors set out for Finland. But they soon turned and headed "The Flyer" to the far north. The Great Bear in the sky guided them.

At the helm of the ship was a wise pilot who knew all languages and the speech of birds and beasts. The winds of Finland were angry because he slighted their country, and a great storm arose and blew the ship out of her course. The birds sang to the helmsman and told him by their song that his ship was being driven on the bleak and desolate coast of Lapland.

The king and his bold comrades succeeded in landing in Lapland, but could find no people. At last a sailor discovered a house. In it dwelt a wise man and his daughter. The king asked the wise man the way to the end of the world. The wise man answered that he had asked a vain question.

"The sea has no end, and those who go westward have found their death in the Fire Island. Turn homeward and live," said the wise man.

The king only answered by asking the wise Lapp if he would be their guide to the Fire Island. He consented and went aboard the ship. His name was Varrak.

He steered the boat due north for thirty days and thirty nights. The first danger they met was a great whirlpool, whose center was a vast hole into which had been drawn many a brave ship. Varrak threw overboard a small barrel wrapped in red cloth and trimmed with many red streamers, but with a rope attached to it. A whale swallowed this bait and then tried to escape as he felt the rope pulling him. In his flight he towed the ship to a safe place in the open sea.

This brought them far westward and at last they came within sight of the Island of Fire. Iceland, men call it now, but surely it has as much fire as ice. From the middle of this Iceland they could see great pillars of flame and vast clouds of smoke ascending into the air.

Varrak warned the king of his danger, but was commanded to run the boat ashore. Those who explored the land found a vast mountain casting up flames and another mountain pouring out smoke. Soon the party came across great spouting fountains of boiling water, and they found the ground beneath their feet to be burning lava.

The son of Sulev, who was leading this exploring party, wandered through snow-fields covered with ashes. A shower of red-hot stones warned him that he was near the volcano. Going too close to this burning mountain, his hair and eyebrows were singed and his clothing took fire. He rolled in the snow and saved himself.

Then the son of Sulev thought it best to go back to the ship. Calling his party together, he found that the youngest, the yellow-haired boy who was cupbearer to the king, was gone. The birds told the helmsman, the wise Lapp, that the lad had made friends with the water-sprites beyond the snow mountains and would never return.

The winds drove the ship about for many days till she grounded again on a strange shore.

Another party of nobles and sailors went to search this country. Being tired, they lay down under an ash tree and fell asleep. The people in this land were giants, and a giant's daughter found them. They were so very small to the giant child that she picked them up and put them in her apron, and carried them home to her father.

"Look at these strange creatures, father," she said. "I found them asleep under a head of cabbage in our garden. What are they?"

The giant knew them to be men from the east. Now the east has always been noted for its wisdom, so he questioned these men with riddles.

"What walks along the grass, steps on the edge of the fence, and walks along the sides of the reeds?" he asked.

"The bee," answered the wise man of the party.

"What drinks from the brooks and wells, and from the stones on the bank?"

"The rainbow," replied the wise man.

Then the giant told his little daughter to put the strangers back exactly where she had found them. But the wise man asked her to carry them to the ship just for fun. She leaned over the vessel like a vast cloud and shook them out of her white apron upon the deck. Then with one long breath she blew the ship four miles out to sea. The king shouted back his thanks.

But that wind blew northwest instead of north. The cold was intense and they watched from midnight to midnight the combats in the air between the spirits of the Northern Lights. The sailors were frightened, but the king was pleased. He was farther north than ever before.

The helmsman warned them that they were approaching another shore. No birds welcomed them or sang them the name of the country. Men dressed in the skins of dogs and bears met them as they landed, and took them to their homes on sledges of ice drawn by dogs. Their houses were of blocks of ice and snow, and their talk sounded like dogs barking.

The king did not like these people, for their land was cold. The wise man told him again that his search was an idle one. The end of the world was not for mortal eyes to see. At last the king believed him and sailed homeward. No man to this day has been able to find the far north, the end of the world.

A LEGEND OF THE NORTH WIND

_Norse_

North Wind likes a bit of fun as dearly as a boy does, and it is with boys he likes best to romp and play.

One day North Wind saw a brave little fellow eating his lunch under a tree. Just as he went to bite his bread, North Wind blew it out of his hand and swept away everything else that he had brought for his lunch.

"You hateful North Wind!" cried the little fellow. "Give me back my supper. I'm so hungry."

Now North Wind, like all brave beings, is noble, and so he tried to make up for the mischief he had done.

"Here, take this tablecloth," said North Wind, "and, in whatever house you stay, spread it on the table; then wish, and you shall have everything you wish for to eat."

"All right!" said the boy, and he took the tablecloth and ran as fast as he could to the first house, which proved to be an inn.

"I have enough to pay for lodging, so I'll stay all night," he said to himself.

"Bring me a table," he ordered the innkeeper, as he went to his room.

"Ha! ha!" laughed the innkeeper. "You mean bring me a supper."

"No, I don't. I want only a table and that right quick. I'm hungry."

The innkeeper brought the table, but, after the door was shut, he watched through the keyhole to see what would happen.

"Beans, bread, and bacon," ordered the boy, as he spread out his tablecloth. On came beans, bread, and bacon through the open window, whirled in by North Wind. Smoking hot they all were, too, for the dishes were tightly covered. After supper was over, the boy went sound asleep.

North Wind did not waken him as the innkeeper took the table and the table-cloth and carried them down-stairs. Next morning the boy was hungry again, but there was no tablecloth and so no breakfast.

"You are a cheat, North Wind; you have taken back your tablecloth."

"No," said North Wind, "that is not the way I do." But the boy did not get his tablecloth.

After a time North Wind met him again out under the trees.

"This time I will give you a sheep," he said. "Each time that you rub his wool, out will drop a gold piece. Take care of him."

The boy ran back and found the sheep at the door of the stable, behind the inn. He caught the sheep by a strap which was around its neck, and led it slowly up the stairs of the inn, to the room from which the tablecloth had disappeared the night before.

As the boy was hungry for his breakfast, he obeyed North Wind's command and patted the sheep upon its back. A gold piece fell out of its fleece upon the floor.

"Good old North Wind!" said the boy. "Here's my breakfast and some hay for my sheep. Come breakfast, come hay," and through the open window came first a bundle of hay, and then a fine breakfast for the hungry boy. After breakfast the boy paid for a week's lodging with the gold piece.

He slept soundly that night with his sheep for his pillow, and the next night also, but the third morning when the boy awoke, his head lay upon the floor and the sheep was gone.

Perhaps too many gold pieces had been seen in the boy's hand, for he had patted his sheep very often.

He accused North Wind again. "You have taken back your sheep. I don't like you. You are as cold-hearted as you can be."

But North Wind said nothing. He put a queer stick into a bag and gave it to the boy and told him to go back and lock his door as tightly as before.

"Talk to the bag," he said, "and guard it as carefully as if there was a jewel in it."

That night the boy was wakened out of his soundest sleep by screams for help in his room. There was the innkeeper running about, and that queer stick was pounding him, first on the head, then on the feet, then on his back, then in his face.

"Help! help!" he cried.

"Give me back my sheep," said the boy.

"Get it; it is hidden in the barn," said the innkeeper.

The boy went out and found his sheep in the barn and drove it away as fast as he could, but he forgot about the innkeeper, and, maybe, that stick is pounding him to this day.

ORPHEUS, THE SOUTH WIND

_Greek_

In the land of Thrace there lived, years ago, one who was called Orpheus. He was the sweetest singer ever known. His voice was low and soft.

When men heard this voice all anger ceased, and their thoughts were thoughts of peace. Even wild animals were tamed.

Orpheus went into the woods one day and took nothing but his harp with him.

No quiver of arrows was on his back, nor hunting spear at his side.

He sang and sang till the birds flew down on the ground about him, and seemed to think that a creature with such a voice must be merely another kind of bird.

A wild cat came creeping slyly between the trees, trying to catch the little feathered listeners. Orpheus took his lute and played upon it, and the wild cat became as tame as the birds. They all followed Orpheus farther into the forest.

Soon, from behind a rock, a tiger sprang to attack the wild cat. The birds and the wild cat called to Orpheus. When he saw the trouble he took his harp again, and while he sang the tiger came trembling and purring to his feet and the birds, the wild cat, and the tiger followed Orpheus still farther into the forest.

He sat down by a tree to rest and the bees came and showed him where their honey was hidden in the tree. He fed his friends, and then he and the tiger led the way to a river where there was the purest water.

Tall trees bent low before him, and young trees tore themselves from the ground and followed in his train.

Foul waters parted so that Orpheus and his band might pass through unharmed; they knew no longer any evil thing.

Before they reached the river of pure water, to which the tiger was leading them, a lion, fierce with anger, sprang madly at his old enemy. Orpheus took his harp and played so wonderfully that the pine trees sighed with sorrow, and the lion, loosing his hold on the tiger, followed the sweet singer of Thrace. At the river the birds, the wild cat, the tiger, and the lion drank together with Orpheus, with not one thought of hurting one another.

"We are tired," said the birds. "Let us stay here by this river," and Orpheus agreed. The birds flew to the trees, while the others tried to rest on the huge rocks by the shore, but these were jagged and rough. They would give no rest to any one.

Then Orpheus began to play, and the hardest rocks were stirred. They rolled over and over into the river, and in their places the softest beds of white sand were ready for all. Orpheus rested, with the lion and the tiger for his night-watchers, and the wild cat asleep in the tree with the birds.

In the morning the harp sounded again, and the strange company wandered away, happy to be near the music. The three wild beasts fed together on the river grasses and forgot that they had been life-long enemies.

Orpheus had said, before he came into the wood, that he was tired of men and their quarrels; that wild beasts were easier to tame than angry men; and so he found it during these two days in the forest.

He took his harp and played and sang a sweet, wild song of love and peace, and overhead the leaves and branches of the oaks danced for joy of living. Not one growl, not one quarrel was heard where even the echoes of the music went. The very rocks answered the voice of Orpheus, and everything was at peace.

Then came the sound of the hunting dogs. The lion raised his shaggy head, but put it down again. Savage light came again into the eyes of the tiger and of the wild cat. The dogs came nearer. Orpheus played on his lute and the dogs came and lay down at his feet, and the hunters went home without their prey.

That night Orpheus led the birds and beasts all back to the places where he had found them, and went home to live once more in his cave in Thrace.

For years hunters told, over their camp-fires, strange stories of a tiger and a lion who lived together in the deep forest; of a wild cat with eyes like a pet fawn; and of birds whose songs were so sweet that wild beasts grew tame as they listened.

Sometimes, even in these days, it seems as if Orpheus were singing again.

When the wind stirs, there comes sweet music. The pine trees sigh, the leaves and branches of the forest trees dance as in the days when Orpheus first went into the woods of Thrace.

When the south wind blows, earth's voices become low and sweet, and the birds sing soft melodies to greet its coming.

Old books tell us that Orpheus was really the south wind itself.

THE LITTLE WIND-GOD

_Greek_

"What is it in the thermometer that shines so, mother?"

"Oh, that is quicksilver, Ethel. See the line of silver run up the tube while I hold it in my hand."

"Quicksilver? I should think it was quick! See it run back, now the tube is cool. But father called it something else the other night. What was it?"

"Oh, yes; he called it mercury, my dear. It is named after one of the gods the Greeks used to worship, their swift wind-god, Mercury. We read of him in many old stories. He was so quick that he became a messenger boy for the other gods."

"Oh, I like those old myths. Tell me about Mercury. I am going to name my dove after him, for it takes messages for me. Tell me a long one, please."

"Well, my dear, Mercury is also the name of the planet that will soon be our evening star. And, Ethel, if I tell you this story now, you must tell it to me sometime when we watch his beautiful namesake in the sky. Will you try to remember it?"

"Oh, yes, indeed, I'll remember. I love the stories about the stars. It makes them seem so real. I know Venus and Jupiter, and Mars with his red eye, and now I am going to have another friend among them. Oh, I am glad I asked about that quicksilver," and Ethel settled down on a footstool at her mother's feet.

This is the story Mrs. Brown told Ethel:

"In the days when the earth was young, a little baby lay alone in its cradle in a beautiful cave in a mountain side. This baby was Mercury. His mother had left him because someone had called her away for a moment, but for some reason she stayed an hour.

"As soon as she had gone, this wee baby turned over, lifted his head, and, seeing the door of the cave ajar, put out his hand. Touching the sides of the cradle, he sprang out like a boy ten years old. Slipping through the doorway, Mercury ran quickly down to the river bank near his home. A river tortoise was in his way. His tiny toes tripped over it and he fell. Vexed to be stopped by such a slow, clumsy creature, Mercury dashed it on a rock and killed it. Then he threw it into the river and watched the fish feed on its flesh. It seemed but a minute before the empty shell drifted to his feet. Mercury picked it up and felt sorry for what he had done.

"'I will make this shell live forever,' he said. 'I do not mean to be cruel to earth's creatures.'

"Quick as a thought he bored nine holes in each side, and taking the lacings from his tiny sandals, he split them and strung them into the holes in the shell.

"Drawing his little hand across the strings, there came the sweetest sounds, and the first harp on earth was made. He was so pleased that he hid it under his white dress until he came to some thick reeds by the river, and there he laid it safely away.

"Running swiftly homeward, he came softly through the narrow opening, back into his own room, and, creeping into his cradle, he cuddled down and went to sleep."

"Why, mother, he was so little! Only a baby; how could he?"

"The old myth says he was only three days old when he did this, but remember, this is like a fairy story, and Mercury was the son of the great Jupiter. But let me tell the rest. When his mother came back, she was frightened to think he had been alone an hour, but he was sleeping so sweetly when she looked at him that she felt he had not been harmed. The mother never dreamed when she saw the open sandals that he had been away."

"But the harp, mother; didn't she ever find that?"

"No, you know the little rogue had hidden the harp in the reeds by the river. Another day he ran away and got into worse trouble than he expected, for he dared to steal some of Apollo's cattle. They were beautiful snow-white creatures, feeding in the violet meadows of the sky. As he saw them drifting slowly toward him, the mischief in him made him drive these gentle creatures into the sea, and, being tired and hungry, he tore the last one to pieces and fed on it.

"Though this mischief-maker walked backward to his home, trying to deceive any who would hunt for him, Apollo found him out. When the sun-god saw him lying there, a helpless baby in a cradle, Mercury almost made him think that he had not done the wrong. But at last even Mercury's mother believed him guilty, for the proofs brought were many, and Apollo came to take him away. Then the little wind-god took from under his cradle-clothes the harp which he had hidden there, and breathed upon it. Apollo was charmed by the melody and could only say:

"'Give me that, and I will not ask for my stolen cattle.'

"That was just what Mercury wished. He quickly handed him the tortoise shell. In Apollo's hands it made still sweeter music, for everything Apollo did was best.

"So nimble Mercury was free. When the child was a few months older, Apollo chose him for his messenger. He gave him a cap with wings at either side, and winged sandals. In his hands he always carried a winged wand with two serpents crossed and recrossed upon it. You have surely seen his picture, Ethel?"

"Oh, yes. Down at the art store there is a little statue of him. I can remember, this story always."

THE VOICES OF NATURE

_Finnish_

Vanemuine, the god of song, dwelt on the Hill of Taara. But he grew tired of living in Finland and of his beautiful hill, so he sent word for all things to come to him to receive the language they were to speak before he went away to his palace in the sky. As they gathered around him, he opened his lips and sang so sweetly, so softly, that the murmur of his harp strings seemed almost harsh as compared with the music of his rich voice.

The wandering winds who listened afar off caught and remembered only the loudest tones. The sacred stream that flows so softly around the Hill of Taara chose for its language the rustling of the silken garments which moved upon his shoulders as he played.

The listening trees of the forest heard the rushing of his flowing mantle as he descended from his throne on the crest of the hill; and ever since, this has been the language of the tree-tops. If one will sit on the mossy bank of a little brook near by a full-leaved forest, he may even now fancy that Vanemuine is come again to earth.

Some of the larger creatures took up the deeper tones of the heavy harp strings, and their language is now full of these sounds. Others loved the melody of the lighter strings, and this softer music is ever in their voices.