So he
came to the lodge of Winter, but now he had Summer in his bosom; and
Winter welcomed him, for he hoped to freeze him again to sleep. I am
singing the song of Summer.
But this time the Master did the talking. This time his _m'teoulin_
was the strongest. And ere long the sweat ran down Winter's face, and
then he melted more and quite away, as did the wigwam. Then every thing
awoke; the grass grew, the fairies came out, and the snow ran down the
rivers, carrying away the dead leaves. Then Glooskap left Summer with
them, and went home.
This poem--for it is such--was related to Mrs. W. Wallace Brown by an
Indian named Neptune. It appears to be the completer form of the
beautiful allegory of Winter and Spring given in the Hiawatha Legends
as Peboan and Seegwum (Odjibwa). The struggle between Spring and
Winter, Summer and Winter, or Heat and Cold, represented as incarnate
human or mythic beings, forms the subject of several Indian legends, as
it does a part of the Hymiskrida, in the Edda. The German J. B.
Friedreich (Symbolik der Natur, Wurzburg, 1859) remarks that in the
Bible, Job xxxviii. 28, and in the Song of the Three in the Fiery
Furnace, Ice and Snow are spoken of as intelligences.
Heat and cold, in classic times, were supposed to be united, yet in
conflict, in the lightning and hail (Virgil, Aen, VIII. 429), the symbol
for this being a twisted horn.
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