[This is very obscure in Cusick's
Indian-English.] On the day appointed the battle began; it lasted for
two days; they tore up the trees and mountains; at last the Good Mind
gained the victory by using the horns. The last words uttered by the
Bad Mind were that he would have equal power over the souls of mankind
after their death, and so sank down to eternal doom and became the Evil
Spirit."
Contrasted with this hardly heathen cosmogony, which shows recent Bible
influence throughout, the Algonquin narrative reads like a song from
the Edda. That the latter is the original and the older there can be no
doubt. Between the "Good Mind," making man "from the dust of the
earth," and Glooskap, rousing him by magic arrows from the ash-tree,
there is a great difference. It may be observed that the fight with
horns is explained in another legend in this book, called the Chenoo,
and that these horns are the magic horns of the Chepitch calm, or Great
Serpent, who is somewhat like the dragon.
In the Algonquin story, two Loons are Glooskap's "tale-bearers," which
occasion him great anxiety by their prolonged absences. This is
distinctly stated in the Indian legend, as it is of Odin's birds in the
Edda. Odin has, as news-bringers, two ravens.
"Hugin and Munin
Fly each day
over the spacious earth.
I fear for Hugin
that he comes not back,
yet more anxious am I
for Munin.
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