I can but
sincerely regret my utter inability to do justice to it. The pen of a
great master would be required to describe the fairyland freshness and
light of Glooskap's home as it is _felt_ in the original by men
far more familiar with the forest in all its loveliness at all seasons
than any white writer can be. The _naivete_ or simplicity of the
pilgrims is as striking as that of the narrator or poet, to whom fine
clothes--a Homeric trait--are as wonderful as all the deeds of magic
which he describes.
In this and other tales a man is represented as being punished by being
turned into a tree, so that he can never leave a certain spot. This is
a kind of imprisonment. In the Edda the Ash Yggdrasil is the prison of
Iduna.
"She ill brooked
her descent
under the hoar tree's
trunk confined."
(_Hrofnagaldr Odins_, 7.)
It is to keep a man or a woman in a certain place, as prisoner, that
the characters described in the Indian and Norse myths are put into
trees.
This was related to Mr. Rand by Benjamin Brooks, a Micmac.]
_Of Glooskap and the Sinful Serpent._
(Passamaquoddy.)
Of old time it befell that Glooskap had an enemy, an evil man, a sinful
beast, a great sorcerer. And this man, after trying many things, made
himself a great serpent, hoping so to slay the Master.
Of old time Glooskap met a boy whose name was _'Nmmokswess_, the
Sable.
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