)
The Norsemen may have drawn this from a Christian source; but the
Indian, to judge by form, spirit, and expression, would seem to have
taken it from the Norse.
_How Glooskap found the Summer._
In the long ago time when people lived always in the early red morning,
before sunrise, before the _Squid to neck_ was peopled as to-day,
Glooskap went very far north, where all was ice.
He came to a wigwam. Therein he found a giant, a great giant, for he
was Winter. Glooskap entered; he sat down. Then Winter gave him a pipe;
he smoked, and the giant told tales of the old times.
The charm was on him; it was the Frost. The giant talked on and froze,
and Glooskap fell asleep. He slept for six months, like a toad. Then
the charm fled, and he awoke. He went his way home; he went to the
south, and at every step it grew warmer, and the flowers began to come
up and talk to him.
He came to where there were many little ones dancing in the forest;
their queen was Summer. I am singing the truth: it was Summer, the
inmost beautiful one ever born. He caught her up; he kept her by a
crafty trick. The Master cut a moose-hide into a long cord; as he ran
away with Summer he let the end trail behind him.
They, the fairies of Light, pulled at the cord, but as Glooskap ran,
the cord ran out, and though they pulled he left them far away.
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