They stand thus in the original: _Loki of hiarta lyrdi
brendu, fann hann halfsvidthin hugstein konu_, for which Grimm
(Myth. Vorrede 37) would read _Loki at hiarta lundi brenda_, etc.,
_Lokius comedit cor in nemore assum, invenit semiustum mentis lapidem
mulieris_." Whatever obscurity exists here, it is evident that it
means that Loki, having become bad, grew worse after having got the
half-burnt stone of a woman's soul. That is, his own heart, half
ruined, became utterly so after he had added to it the demoralized
_hugstein_, soul-stone, thought-stone, or _heart_ of a woman.
If we assume that stone and heart are the same, the difficulty
vanishes. And they are one in the Chenoo, who, like Loki, illustrates
or symbolizes the passage from good to evil, which a German writer
declares is quicker than thought, or that very same _Ilugi_ which
the Norse myth puts forwards as swiftest of all runners. Loki, not as
yet lost, gets the stone heart of a giantess, and becomes an utter
devil at once. The Chenoo becomes an utter devil when he has swallowed
the _thought-stone_ of a giantess, and so does Loki.
_The Girl-Chenoo._
(Micmac.)
Of the old time. Far up the Saguenay River a branch turns off to the
north, running back into the land of ice and snow. Ten families went up
this stream one autumn in their canoes, to be gone all winter on a
hunt.
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