Čingerel odoy čaves,
Del dáyákri andre pádá
Yek čavoro ádá ávla.”
“Our father went into a wood,
There he cut a boy,
Laid it in mother’s bed,
So a boy comes.”
The Greeks believed that man was made from an ash-tree, and the Norsemen probably derived it from the same source with them. In 1862 I published in The Continental Magazine (New York) a paper on the lore connected with the ash, in which effort was made to show that in early times in India the Banyan was specially worshipped, and that the descendants of men familiar with this cult had, after migrating to the Far West, transferred the worship and traditions of the banyan to the ash. It has been observed that the ash-tree sometimes—like the banyan—sends its shoots down to the ground, where they take root. The Algonkin Indians seem to have taken this belief of man’s origin from the ash from the Norsemen, as a very large proportion of their myths correspond closely to those of the Edda. But, in brief, if the Greeks and Norsemen were of Aryan origin, and had ever had a language in common, they probably had common myths.
The following is the remedy for the so-called Würmer, or worms, i.e., external sores. Before sunrise wolf’s milk (Wolfsmilch, rukeskro tçud) is collected, mixed with salt, garlic, and water, put into a pot, and boiled down to a brew. With a part of this the afflicted spot is rubbed, the rest is thrown into a brook, with the words:—
“Kirmora jánen ándre tçud