T. R. BROWNE.
Southwick, near Oundle.
A NEW ZEALAND LEGEND.
The following legend was related to me by a gentleman when discoursing upon the customs of the New Zealanders. It is their account of the origin of their land, and illustrates the absurdities which they believe.
"Old Morm (Query, rightly spelt) was a great fisherman, and being at one time in want of fish-hooks, he quietly killed his two sons, and took their jaw bones for hooks. As a requital to them for the loss of their lives, he made the right eye of his eldest son the morning star, and the right eye of his youngest son the evening star. One day he was sitting on a rock fishing with one of the jawbones, when he hooked something extraordinarily heavy,—whales were nothing to him. However, this resisted all his endeavours, and at length he was obliged to resort to other means to land this monster. He caught a dove, and tying the line to its leg, he filled it with his spirit, and commanded it to fly upwards. It did so, and without the least difficulty raised New Zealand! Old Morm looked at this prodigy with wonder, but thinking it very pretty he stepped ashore, where he saw men and fire. The first thing he did was to burn his fingers, and then to cool them he jumped into the sea; when the sulphur which arose from him was so great, that the Sulphur Island was formed. After this things went on smoothly, till the New Zealanders began to get refractory, and so offended the sun, that his majesty refused to shine. So old Morm got up one day early and chased after the sun, but it was not till after three days' hard hunting he managed to catch him. A good deal of parleying then took place, and at last the sun consented to shine for half the day only. Old Morm, to remedy this evil, immediately made the moon, and tied it by a string to the sun, so that when one went down it pulled the other up."
I did not hear on what authority this was given, but I dare say some of your learned correspondents may have met with it, and will be kind enough to give it, and say whether this fable was believed by all the tribes of New Zealand.
UNICORN.
Minor Notes.
A Dutch Commentary on Pope.—
"As what a Dutchman plumps into the lakes,