The other saw that Mrs. Bear had recovered her sight. She was frightened, for Dame Bear was by far the better man of the two. So she cried out, "Bless me! what a mistake I've made! Why, I gave you the wrong dish. You know, my dear sister, that I always give you the best because you are blind."
My grandfather said that after this Mrs. Bear kept her eyes open on people in two ways. And it always made us laugh, that did.
The Spirit of Mischief in these stories is sometimes Lox, the Wolverine; at others the Raccoon, or the Badger. Their adventures are interchangeable. But the character is always the same, and it is much like that of Loki. Now Loki is Fire; and it may be observed in this legend that the wolverine or raccoon comes to life when thrown into scalding water, and that in another narrative Lox dies for want of fire; in another he is pricked by thorns and stung by ants. "We must," says C. F. Keary, in his Mythology of the Eddas, "admit that the constant appearance of thorn-hedges, pricking with a sleep-thorn (Lox's thorns are his bed), in German and Norse legends, is a mythical way of expressing the idea of the funeral fire."
The first thing that the Lox-Raccoon does in this tale, on coming to life, is to upset a pot into the ashes for mischief's sake. And the very first exploit of the magic deer, made by the evil spirits and sorcerers in the Kalevala (Runes XIII.), is thus set forth:—
"Then the Husi stag went bounding,
Bounding to the land of Pohja,
Till he reached the fields of Lapland.
Passing there before a cabin (goatte),
With a single kick while running
He upset the boiling kettle,
So that all the meat went rolling,
Rolling ruined in the ashes,
And the soup upon the hearth-stone."
This is, in both cases, the very first act of an animal, created and living only for mischief, on coming to a magic or artificial life.
The legends of Finland and Lapland are as important as the Norse to explain the origin of our Indian mythology.
How Lox came to Grief by trying to catch a Salmon.
(Passamaquoddy.)