MYTH, METAPHOR, AND SIMILE

BY REIDAR TH. CHRISTIANSEN

ONE is inclined to use such terms as “myth” and “mythical” with a certain diffidence, and the reason is that these terms, in general usage, have been extended and have come to denote two different things. For example, a distinction is usually drawn between “historical” and “mythical” legends, and the latter group, by far the most popular and most richly varied, is, in a more general way, taken to include stories in which the intervention of non-human forces and powers is the main point. At the same time, however, “myth” carries another set of associations; according to the definition generally given, it embodies “legends of cosmogony and of gods and heroes,” to quote the formula given by the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Current traditional legends only very rarely relate anything about the gods and their doings, but there are any number of stories in which beings—non-human, but close neighbors of man—constantly interfere in human activities and, therefore, command respectful attention. These beings belong decidedly to this world, and none ever attained, in the stories and conceptions of those who believed in them, the status of a god. Yet they are constantly referred to as “mythical” beings, and the reason may be that, as the belief in them waned, they were excluded from everyday life and relegated to the vague and frightening zone where everything that was an object of religious belief was assumed to belong. The ghosts, on the other hand, were decidedly still of this world because they to a large extent still figure in the belief and in the experience of man.

As for mythology, the distinction made between a “lower” and a “higher” mythology seems to be of primary importance, even if the former should rather be called “folk belief” or, to be more exact, “ancient folk belief.” In this way one would stress the fundamental continuity between folk beliefs of the changing periods. The exact relationship between the two strata of mythology is difficult to define, but the “higher,” with its rich and colorful store of tales, whether of the gods of the classics or of the sterner, less gracious deities of the Norse, has a different—it might be said a more sophisticated—character, than has oral tradition and belief. We might question whether people ever did actually believe in these gods, or, if they believed in the gods themselves, whether they believed in the tales told about them. Perhaps an analogy might be the relationship between general religious belief of the present day and theology, for at least both theology and mythology have the function of giving an explanation of those fundamental problems that confront, and have ever confronted, mankind. So had also traditional legend and belief,¹ but their answer was much simpler and more evident, whether given in story or in action.

As a consequence, a connection between the “higher” mythology and later folk tradition is hard to find, and traditional legend has few, if any, additions to make to our knowledge of the ancient gods.² But the conservative tenacity of oral tradition offers a direct connection with “lower” mythology, i.e., the background to all these elaborate tales about the doings of the gods, or of the “heroes,” to return to the definition quoted above, which has evidently been altered to include the “demigods” of ancient fame.

Parallels between myths and epic oral tradition certainly exist, but can such similarities only be explained by assuming the myth to be the original source? In most cases, and probably in all, the fact seems to be that both myth and legend took such motifs and incidents from the same source—from oral tradition.

Legends and folktales are, however, only one branch of oral tradition after all, and reminiscences of myth and of the ancient gods may equally well have survived in the names of places and persons, in a saying, in a rhyme or a turn of speech, and, to come to the subject of the present paper, in a metaphor or a simile. The latter occur especially in the traditional riddles, and our intention is to examine somewhat more closely a few specimens of riddles for objects that were also acknowledged subjects for a myth. Within the narrow frame of a riddle a complete story could hardly be condensed, and even a metaphor referring to some special definite myth seems, to say the least, extremely rare. The possible connection between mythology and the metaphors of riddles has, therefore, been sought in a more general way, assuming that both represented some special “mythical way of thinking.” Such ideas were first formulated by German scholars: Christian G. Heyne, F. Strauss, later by W. Schwartz, and, to a certain degree, further developed by W. Mannhardt.³ Stressing the illogical and irrational character of many elements in folklore, such elements were called “mythical,” and were deduced from certain aspects of human psychology, from processes akin to those from which have sprung the imagery of poetry and poetic diction. However, while a poet could consciously direct his flow of associations, primitive man was assumed to ignore the distance between his direct impression of facts and the expressions he found for them. His expressions, his images, were to him actual realities, and the connection between fact and image was to him, it was maintained, so real that image or symbol was equated with the object itself. In such a state of mind were hidden the “roots of poetry” as well as the ultimate roots of metaphors and motifs embedded in traditional matter.

Such sweeping, systematic constructions have in later periods met with criticism and reservations, probably mainly because such conceptions of the active, creative fancy in the minds of man at an early stage in his development do not seem to be compatible with the evidence of the vast mass of ethnographical information made accessible within the last decades. Probably nobody will deny that such things as metaphors and similes were used, and still are used, by the “primitive” mind (the term being used in a vague general sense, and with the reservation that the nature of a really primitive mind is, and ever will be, unknown). It seemed necessary to repeat this often expressed qualification in view of the mass of evidence quoted in support of and as illustration of so many widesweeping theories. What does no longer seem to be tenable is the idea that at any time man, illogically or “prelogically,” did actually believe in the identity of an object and the metaphor he used to denote it. On the contrary, an accurate and intimate knowledge of his surroundings and the possibilities they offered was a main condition for his maintaining his precarious existence, or to quote a German writer: “Die enge, keine Illusion zulassende Vertraut- heit mit seiner Umgebung ist eines der wesentlichen Mittel des tiefstehenden No- maden den Kampf ums Dasein bestehen zu konnen.”⁴

The disinterested intellectual function of the mind of primitive man was, by such general theories, given a part far too prominent, and was even carried to the length that the myths proper, i.e., the legends about gods and heroes, originally arose from the misunderstanding of a metaphor: witness the catch-phrase that myths were nothing else than the result of “a disease of language.” Such conceptions have by now been rejected and discredited by most students, and other explanations of the origin of symbol, simile, and metaphor, which stress the practical or the emotional factors in their development, have been offered. Their function may have been to supply the means of comprehending and making familiar new phenomena that had to be mastered, and more especially, the metaphor has been connected with the worldwide practice of using substitute words—”tabu words”—to avoid the supposed danger involved in referring to certain things too directly by using their common names.⁵This curious practice is, as already stated, followed in many parts of the world, both by races that may in a certain sense be referred to as primitive and by several European races, and seems on the whole to be connected with activities that involve a certain amount of risk, as, e.g., fishing and hunting, The explanation is, therefore, probably to be sought in ethnological factors. Such words have been exhaustively studied, and they are hardly metaphors. In most cases, they are mere artificial circumscriptions not otherwise in use.

Whether, then, at some very early stage man started using metaphors and similes just to familiarize himself with new things, or just to avoid arousing imagined dangers by mentioning by name potential carriers of such, this strange, evasive playing with words had a function in his life. Accordingly, the possible connection between myth and metaphor acquires a new aspect. To such questions as that of the origin of metaphors, or the origin of speech and music, etc., only an answer of a highly speculative kind can be given, but the question itself has little importance in explaining the metaphors found in oral tradition, especially in riddles where they naturally are an important element. Even if they, at the outset, may have meant the solution of some actual problem, they soon became the recognized property of poets, and this applies not only to the more complex metaphors used by an individual poet, intent upon following associations of his own, but also to the infinitely simpler metaphors to be found in the traditional riddle. The difference between these two types can be summed up by the word, “traditional.” The original conception, by becoming the property of many, immediately became subject to the laws, perhaps better called tendencies, which determine the development of traditional matter. In their migrations, and even such minor items as riddles travel with surprising ease from country to country, they attained a less individual type and became acceptable to all. Their migrations were facilitated by their pointed brevity, and even more by rhyme, qualities that at the same time were, to a certain extent, a guarantee against too sweeping alterations. Essentially, however, the metaphors coined by an individual poet and those familiar to all in a riddle are of the same type, and neither had its origin in even the reminiscence of a myth.

Myths and mythology, even while using motifs and incidents equally ubiquitous, still have a decidedly local character, while riddles, in which as a matter of course the influence of local environment, natural and social, is also easily felt—there are, in fact, riddles where no solution is possible without an intimate familiarity with local life—may pass with ease from country to country and be accepted by a new audience, provided that both the idea and the metaphor have a common appeal concerned with things familiar to everybody. Hence the difficulty of tracing any one of these riddles back to its ultimate origin.

As an illustration of the relationship between myth and metaphor it seemed natural .to select for some brief notes those riddles that referred to objects which were likewise fit subjects for a myth, i.e., natural phenomena, such as sun, moon, rain, etc. In the tradition of Scandinavian countries the riddle for the rainbow offers a good instance, as it has, according to the explanation given in ancient literature, distinct mythological associations. According to Snorre, the historian, the gods built a bridge to join heaven to earth. He refers to the bridge in his compendium, compiled to teach the poets the difficult art of introducing more or less intricate allusions to the gods. One part of his book, a prose account of the gods, is the main source for our knowledge of Norse mythology. It is written in the form of a dialogue between someone called “the Wanderer” and the “Three High Ones,” probably on the pattern of Christian conceptions. He writes: “Then said the Wanderer: 'Where is the road from earth to heaven?' The High-one answered, slightly smiling: 'That is no wise question. Have you never been told that the gods built a bridge to heaven from earth, and its name is Bifrost, and you are sure to have seen it, but maybe you will call it the rainbow. It has three colours, is built with cunning craft and is exceedingly strong, and yet it will be broken at the end of the world.' “ ⁶

Whatever foundation Snorre had in ancient belief, his explanation of the rainbow as a bridge corresponds to a metaphor used in a group of rainbow riddles. It is to be expected that a phenomenon as spectacular and as evanescent as the rainbow should be a fit subject for a riddle, and in the tradition of the Scandinavian countries several types of these are found. The one most popular does not, however, use a metaphor at all. It consists of three or four descriptive lines, rounded off with a mock promise to the one who has the solution. The following, for example, was recorded somewhere in Western Norway about the year 1850: Høgt, høgt krokutt bøygt/og underleg skapt./Kan du taka gåta mi fatt/ ska du få sove hjå meg i natt ‘High, high / Crooked and bent / And curiously shaped / If you catch the meaning of my riddle / You may sleep with me tonight.' The riddle was recorded from many Norwegian districts, and the variants differ only on some minor points. Thus the first line, obviously too short in the version quoted, is as a rule rounded off in some way or other, and another line pointing out the many colors may be added. Most of the epithets used are modifications, real or artificial, of the words “high and bent.”

The riddle, in practically the same words, is also very popular in Denmark and Sweden, and as it is also widely known in Northern Germany, there is some reason to conclude that at some time and in some way, it was carried from the Continent towards the North.⁷

Other types of rainbow riddles use a metaphor. Among these are some that call it a bridge, just as it was, according to Snorre, said to the wanderer. A version from Central Norway (Telemark) may be quoted as a specimen: Der gjeng ei bru ivi ei å / enkje ce. ho roti/ a enkje ce ho ra / enkje œ ho hogganes, ganganes på 'There is a bridge across a river/ Neither is it rotten nor is it raw/ No one can walk across it/ And nobody cut bits from it.' To judge from the number recorded this type of riddle is decidedly less popular than the first one, but still variants exist from most parts of the country, and recur further South, in Denmark as in Sweden. Variations are also few and unimportant in this case. However, once a tree was substituted for the bridge; perhaps this was borrowed from other riddles, or suggested by the statement that no one might cut a chip from the bridge.⁸

These two types seem to be those most widely known, but several others have been recorded. Most of them seem to have parallels elsewhere. It seems natural that the colors of the rainbow should be stressed by the riddle, but few Norwegian variants mention them. One is: “What is that? A towel sewn with silk. No one ever took it into his hands.” And, with a reference to the shape: “A golden belt is hanging in the wood. All may look at it; no one touch it.”⁹ This type is known elsewhere and, choosing a couple of variants at random, the similarity is striking. One is: “In the field a piece of silk in five colors. Neither you nor I can grasp it.” Another: “On the sky there hangs a kerchief in red colors, so it is said.” Such close parallels might seem to involve a definite connection between the variants, but in this particular case any connection seems to be impossible; one of these riddles comes from the Yakut, the other from the Mongols—both very far from Norway. They are quoted from Taylor's extremely interesting collection of Mongol riddles.¹⁰ Such a case serves as an excellent illustration of how comparatively simple similes have occurred to people even in widely different environments. In this case the same metaphor was used independently in places far apart; in other cases there may be a certain pattern that is popular and may emerge anywhere. Thus in Northern Norway the following rainbow riddle was recorded: “There was a man, but there was no man. He walked on a road, but there was no road. Can you guess what man that was?”¹¹ As shown by Taylor, the pattern of assertions and denial has a long pedigree; it can be applied to almost any subject and offers a correspondingly wide choice of solutions.

Of these riddles only the one in which the rainbow was called a bridge could with some reason have a connection with the bridge of the gods, the Bifrost. According to Moltke Moe there was no “conscious, spontaneous selection of the metaphor” either with Snorre or with the makers of the riddle, and the proof for this assertion he found in the “obviously irrational character of the equation, rainbow—bridge.”¹² However, such reasoning does not sound convincing. Any number of equally “irrational” comparisons and metaphors could be pointed out, both from individual poetry and from tradition. Often the very startling and unexpected quality of a metaphor used was a means to stress a certain point and to let loose the flow of associations one meant to raise. In this case the constellation, bridge—rainbow, did not seem irrational or far-fetched at all; it is, in fact, so common that an attempt to trace it to some original source seems an incongruous task.

It may be well worth noticing that according to Snorre the rainbow—bridge joined heaven and earth, while in the riddle the bridge spanned a river, and probably all would admit that in this function the simile is more natural. This may be the reason why elsewhere in Norwegian tradition, as, e.g., in the ancient visionary poem, the Draum\vcede, and in the small lyrical quatrains, the stev, the bridge to heaven is not the Bifrost rainbow, but is associated with the Gjallarbru, which, according to Snorre and other sources, spanned the river between the world of man and that of the dead.¹³ This bridge the visionary passed “with grave-mould in his mouth” just as did the deceased, and the bridge itself “spanned the high heavens and was swept by the winds.” This bridge seems to have some connection with ancient mythical ideas, at least with regard to its name.

The rainbow—bridge is a concept widely known on the Continent, and is not of Norwegian origin at all. As a single instance of the idea, a traditional German poem may be quoted: Wenn der jüngste Tag wird werden, / Fallen die Sternlein auf die Erden, / Beugen sich die Bdumelein, / singen die lieben Engelein. / Kommt der liebe Gott gezogen / Auf einem schdnen Regenbogen,¹⁴ Further instances may be found in many quarters, e.g., refer to the Iris of the classics.¹⁵

This is the rainbow—bridge in a special function, offering an open road to heaven; but apart from that, the equation, rainbow to bridge, has occurred to people in various parts of the world. As for riddles for the rainbow, they, according to Taylor, “vary greatly among themselves, and few, if any resemble the English texts.”¹⁶ The riddles quoted by Taylor refer to the colors of the rainbow (Nos. 654 and 655), adding that it is high up in the air (No. 1284). Of chronological interest is a riddle (No. 1570), which contains a reference to Cromwell. Strangely enough this riddle was recorded in exactly the same words from Illinois.¹⁷

To individual poets the bridge also suggested itself naturally. Schiller wrote a poem about the rainbow, the first verse of which is as follows: Von Perlen baut sich eine Brucüe / Hoch uber einen grauen See. / Sie baut, sich auf im Augenblicke, / Und schwindelnd steigt sie in die Höh.¹⁸ There are two more verses describing other strange aspects of this bridge: ships pass easily under it, it cannot carry any load, and it dissolves as one gets near it. Schiller called his poem a riddle; he may have developed some traditional idea, but such an explanation hardly seems necessary. The idea seems so natural that it would as easily suggest itself to poets as to the makers of riddles anywhere. The ultimate origin of a metaphor like this is of course impossible to ascertain; it seems natural to look for it neither in myth nor in folk belief, but in the creative, active imagination of man, naturally associating the one with the other. One may also add that such an idea would hardly occur to anybody if the bridge did not have an arch, this point being the essence of the comparison—a fact that further seems to hint that the metaphor was not created before such bridges became known, and hardly in a primitive community.

Even primitive people could not have failed to notice and speculate upon the rainbow,¹⁹ and among such races stories are occasionally told about it that, with some justification, might be called myths. Spencer and Gillen relate that the Kaitish tribes of Central Australia believe that the rainbow is the son of the rain and with filial care is always anxious to prevent his father from falling down. When it appears at a time when rain is wanted, they sing or enchant it away. “This story seems to contain the essentials of a myth, a rite, and a story told to explain it. Of another tribe it is said that they tremble at the sight of the rainbow, because they think it is a net spread, by some powerful spirit, to catch their shadows.”²⁰

Riddles of the rainbow seem to be far less numerous than riddles for other celestial phenomena, such as thunder, sun, moon, and stars. They have, however, a special interest to the problem of the relationship between myth and metaphor, because both by riddle and myth the rainbow was said to be a bridge, if Snorre really had any ancient authority for his statement. A detailed study of all similar metaphors would far exceed the limit of a paper. However, some notes on riddles of the sun are added because, in this particular case, the distance from the grandiose imagery used by the myths to the homely similes of the riddles is striking. Sun, moon, and stars are often given as the solution of a riddle, and similar metaphors may naturally be used for them all. According to the Greek, Helios drove the golden chariot of the sun across the firmament, and the splendor of the conception in comparison with scientific fact provoked Schiller to lament: Da wo jetzt, wie unsere Weisen sagen / Seelenlos ein Feuerball sich dreht. / Len\te damals seinen Feuerwagen / Helios in stiller Majestat. In Norse mythology the course of the sun was, according to Snorre, explained in a similar way. He first gave an elaborate pedigree for the woman, Nott (Night), and her son, Dag (Day). Night was of giant descent, dark and dreary, while Dag had a god as father, and was fair and bright. The Father-of-All took Night and Day up to his heaven and gave them each a horse and a chariot, in order that they should make the journey around the world in a day and night. Night goes first with a horse called Hrimfaxe, and the dew in the fields in the morning is flakes shaken from the bridle. The horse of Day is called Skinfaxe, and both earth and sky are lit by the splendor of its mane.²¹

Compared to this interpretation the metaphors found in riddles are homely and simple. Taylor, in a very interesting paper on poetry and riddles, stressed the homely character of the riddles, closely bound to man's immediate surroundings, and to familiar objects in the choice of similes.²² There is no trace of the golden chariot, and in the traditional riddles of the Northern countries often no metaphor is used at all; instead they consist of a few descriptive lines referring to the most obvious aspects to the course of the sun or its light and heat, effects felt by everybody yet intangible to all. Accordingly, in many cases, not the sun itself, but sunshine, the sun rays, etc., would be the most correct solution, and it is often the one given. Some Norwegian specimens may be quoted, e.g., some referring to its daily course. A very common one is this: “What is it that walks over hills and valleys, over water and sea, through hay and straw, never making the slightest noise?” And stressing another characteristic: “It walks round the house, and cannot even be heard,” or “It passes through the windows, even when they are shut.” Such types are extremely simple, and may have other solutions as well, while others, referring to sunshine or the heat of the sun, usually also include some metaphor such as “gold lies over all the fields, yet no one can touch it”. Similar but more picturesque is a riddle from the Faroe Isles: “It lies in the bog and never rots, it slides down the mountains and never breaks.” Numerous parallels to such riddles are to be recorded from the other Northern countries, as well as from Irish and Gaelic-Scotch tradition.²³

Such metaphors for sun rays and sunshine seem quite natural and obvious, white others may seem strange and the associations from which they came less obvious. This is the case when the sun itself is said to be a tree, a simile that on first sight seems rather incongruous. More easily comprehensible is a comparison of the rays of the sun to the branches of a tree, or to a golden stick, and when the solution offered is the sunset, especially into the sea, the simile of a vast golden tree is suggested; then the image is striking and the association intelligible. As an example one may quote a riddle from Sweden: “Who is standing in the sea churning with a stick of gold?'* The riddle has also been recorded in Denmark, and, as a counterpart, there is a version from Norway, in which the solution is said to be the sun setting: “A tree is growing on the steep hillside, drooping over the sea, wholly covered with a coat of gold.” In this case the simile seems quite natural, and the idea that the sun itself is called a tree may have come from some such association.²⁴

The metaphor was obviously not immediately evident, and perhaps that is the reason why a theory was developed according to which the sun—tree had its origin in ancient mythological conceptions. In Norse legends stories were current of the great tree, Yggdrasil, a huge tree in the center of the universe, of which Snorre gave a detailed account in his compendium. A German mythologist, W. Schwartz, interpreted the tree as the sun, and explained in detail the whole series of wonders connected with it.²⁵ Some of his interpretations are extremely fantastic. Later the Norwegian scholar, S. Bugge, wrote that, although he would like to admit that there might be some possible connection between this tree of the world and the sun—tree of the riddles, there was no definite proof. Bugge quoted some Norwegian variants,²⁶and Taylor added many more,²⁷ showing that this metaphor for the sun was current in riddles in many countries. A plausible explanation is that the solution was meant to be the rays of the sun or the sunset and, as suggested by Taylor, the very common riddle for the year may have been transferred to the sun. At the same time, however, such a simple explanation may not seem quite satisfactory because there may still be some ultimate connection between the sun—tree and a widely known concept of the world—tree, the Tree of Life. This is not the one of the Old Testament story, but rather the idea of a tree being the central pillar of the universe, a concept found not only in Europe but in other parts of the world as well.

Other smaller groups of riddles for sun and moon may deserve a cursory glance, i.e., those comparing these celestial bodies to an animal or to a thing. Taylor remarks that riddles “not unfrequently compare the sun to an animal,” and quotes as an example the strange simile of the sun being a deer that no huntsman can hit (Nos. 391 and 392). In Scandinavian tradition such metaphors seem to be rare. The sun may be called a bird: “What kind of bird is that which every morning flies the same way and never returns?”²⁸ The point of association is the course of the sun. As a second line one would perhaps rather expect: “And comes back every morning anew;” this, however, might make the solution too easy. Better known are riddles in which the sun is said to be a horse or a cow. One may compare a Swedish instance: “A white mare on the shore, and its bridle gleaming.”²⁹ In Irish and Scotch Gaelic riddles this metaphor is common, e.g., in one from the Hebrides: “A white mare on the hill with its head against the village,” or one for sun and moon: “Two yellow cows on the Hill of the Winds, one during day and one during night.”³⁰ The impression likely started from seeing the rising, or perhaps rather the setting, sun over the side of a hill. That such was the origin of the simile may seem even more likely as the cows are often said to be bald—having no horns. In a Norwegian riddle something of the same kind is found: “An ox is standing on a hill and is looking out over the sea. The buttons [i.e., on its horns] are of pure gold. You will not guess it today.”³¹

With the same group one may also class a few divergent riddles, e.g., those in which the sun is represented as a living being. A Swedish specimen is rather striking, though very simple: “A large yellow head is rolling across a giant bridge. No one in our country can stop this head from rolling.” More definite, but less striking, is this: “A huge body, but does not leave a shadow. Blind itself, it destroys the eye that looks at it too hard; at the same time it gives light to everybody.”³² More conventional and more pretty is another one: “A virgin is standing on a steep hill, casting light over the sea. She has such a number of buttons that you could not count them today.” When in Norwegian folktales the trolls are tricked into looking at the sun, the traditional way of making them do so is to shout at them: “Look at the beautiful virgin coming,” and the particular riddle may have borrowed the metaphor from folktale. The same riddle is recorded in the Faroe Isles.³³

When finally the sun, in a series of Danish riddles from Jutland, is called a ship,³⁴ the rather elaborate form seems to denote that the source was a book. At all events it raises a rather difficult question. What are the criteria that distinguish a “literary riddle” from the traditional one ? One is an over-elaborate description: compare above the rainbow—bridge as given by Schiller, as an extreme instance. Less easy to decide is whether a rather pretty Swedish riddle could be called traditional. It is for the moon—sickle: “Father's scythe is hanging across mother's Sunday skirt.” A variation is: “A blue cloth like an altar cloth and a scythe across it.”³⁵ In the absence of any exact criteria, the impression remains that this riddle was designed by an individual; it seems to lack the obvious, self-evident touch that is the hall-mark of a traditional riddle.

The instances quoted, chosen at random from a vast store, could easily be multiplied, and the possibility of so doing is due to the monumental work of Archer Taylor, the first truly effective guide in the maze of versions. Riddles may seem minor items, apparently insignificant, but they are in many ways extremely interesting. Current both in primitive communities and in modern folk tradition everywhere, they have, or seem to have, a different function in each sphere. An interesting problem is the mutual relationship of these functions. The present paper touches upon the question of metaphors in mythology and in riddles. As is shown, the rainbow—bridge and the sun—tree are found in both mythology and riddles, but as far as could be made out by a closer examination, riddles did not borrow from myth; it is more likely that the two sprang from the poetic activities of human creative imagination.

Norwegian Folklore Institute
Oslo, Norway

¹ See B. Malinowski, The Function of Myth in Primitive Society (The Frazer Lectures, 1922-32), ed. W. R. Dawson.

² Thus, in the vast mass of Norwegian traditional legends, the gods—even Tor, the one assumed to have been the most popular—only figure in a single story connected with a huge avalanche of stones which completely blocked the valley. The story was first recorded in 1777.

³ Christian G. Heyne, Sermonis mythici seu symbolici intrerpretatio (Gottingen, 1778). For further references see Moltke Moe, “Det mytiske taenkesaet” [“The Mythical Way of Thinking”], Maal og Minne (1909).

⁴ Heinz Werner, “Die Urspriinge der Metapher,” Arbeiten zur Entuncfylungspsychologie (Leipzig, 1919), III, 29.

⁵ Cf. L. Weiser-Aall, “Der seelische Aufban religiöser Symbole,” Zeitschrift für Volkskunde, Neue Folge, V, i5ff; and Werner, “Die Urspriinge der Metapher”, p. 74ff.

⁶ In current Norwegian the name in use is regnbue ‘rainbow’ or, in some dialects, verbogje ‘weather-bow’ The former name, regnbogi, was also used in Ancient Norse, e.g., in sermons as a reference to the Old Testament account of the Deluge; see Stjorn, The Biblical History of the World in Ancient Norse, ed. C. R. Unger (Christiania, 1862), p. 62; or a history of the world, appearing in Konrad Gislason, Prøver av oldnordisk sprog og literatur (Copenhagen, i860). The general use of the bow simile was probably due to the biblical story.

⁷ The version quoted is from W. F. K. Christie, Norske Gaator (Bergen, 1868). Further references are: from Eastern Norway—S. Bugge collection, Norsk Folkekultur, XI, Supplement (1925) (=Ms., Norsk Folkminnesamling, Delgobe I, 35); from Telemark—S. Bugge, Norsk Folkekultur, XI, and R. Berge, Norsk Visefugg (Christiania, 1904), p. 253; from Southern Norway—J. Skar, Gamalt or Scetesdal (Christiania, 1916), VIII, 93; from Western Norway— B. Alver, Fra Fjon til Fusa (1950); from Trøndelag—Publications of the Norsk Folkeminnelag (=NFL), XLII, No. 53; from Northern Norway—NFL, LIV, 169; from Sweden—H. Olsson, Folkgåtor från Bohuslän (Uppsala, 1944), No. 350; from Halland—Var Bygd (Halmstad, 1937), p. 12, and Fr. Strøm, Svenska Folkgåtor (Stockholm, 1937), p. 213; from Denmark—E. T. Kristensen, Danske Folkegaader (Struer, 1913), No. 445ff.; from Germany—e.g., R. Wossidlo, MecXlenburgische Volksüberlieferungen (Wismar, 1897), I, No. 212: “Hoch erhoben, krumm gebogen, wunderlich erschaffen. Wer dat raadt, soil aever Nacht bi mi slapen.”

⁸ Berge, Norsk Visefugg, p. 253; cf. Segner frå bygdom (Christiania, 1879), III, 126; K. D. Stafset, 280 gamle norske gaator (Volden, 1906), No. 17; NFL, XLII, 66; from Sweden—Str^m, Svenska Folkgator, p. 214; Flemish—Moe, “Det mytiske taenkesaet,” p. 9. The tree: Schneider Ms., Norsk Folkminnesamling, I, 163; Bugge, Norsk Folkekultur, XI, No. 2.

⁹ Bugge, Norsk Folkekultur, XI, No. 4.

¹⁰ A. Taylor, “Mongol Riddles,” Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society, XLIV (Philadelphia, 1954), No. 854.

¹¹ Norsk Folkekidtur, XIII, 24; A. Taylor, English Riddles from Oral Tradition (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1951), p. 302.

¹² Moe, “Det mytiske tsenkesset,” p. 12.

¹³ K. Liestøl, “The Draumkvaede, a Norwegian Visionary Poem from the Middle Ages,” Studia Norvegica (Oslo, 1946), I, 10, 64.

¹⁴ Am Urquell, I, 86.

¹⁵ Handwdrterbuch der deutschen Aberglaubens, s.v. Regenbogen.

¹⁶ Taylor, English Riddles, p. 234.

¹⁷ Taylor, English Riddles, p. 657.

¹⁸ Schiller wrote the series, Parabeln und Ratsel, between the years 1801 and 1804; cf. Gesam- melte Schriften, ed. Goedecke, II, 351. The first verse was recorded from oral tradition in Sweden (see Strøm, Svenska Folkgåtor, p. 214).

¹⁹ Cf. the detailed list of traditional notions about the rainbow given by Gaidoz in Melusine, II-V; and Handwdrterbuch der deutschen Aberglaubens, s.v. Regenbogen.

²⁰ James G. Frazer, The Golden Bough, I, 253; III, 79. The idea that the rainbow is alive is found also in present day folk-belief. It is said to be dangerous, and to suck human beings into itself, where the end touches the ground. It also draws hidden treasures out of the earth; hence, “the end of the rainbow” is a likely place to look for such things. J. S. Newberry, in The Rainbow Bridge, has grouped a vast mass of heterogeneous facts around the concept of such a bridge, but his book offers little, if any, relevant information; see a review by H. J. Rose, Folk-Lore, XLV (1934), 356.

²¹ Edda Snorra Sturlusonar (Copenhagen, 1848), I, 56.

²² A. Taylor, “Riddles and Poetry,” Southern Folklore Quarterly, XI (1947), 246: “The subjects of most riddles prevent any poetic emotions from arising. Such prosaic objects as eggs, cows, vegetables, or household objects do not easily lend themselves to a poetic use in the brief compass of a riddle.” Cf. the introduction, by J. Sahlgren, to a collection of riddles in Saga och Sad (1921-22), p. 25.

²³ For variants of such riddles see: Berge, Norsk Visefugg, p. 253; NFL, LXVIII, 106; Stafset, 280 gamle norske gaator, No. 201; from Sweden—Strøm, Svenska Folkg†tor, p. 204; from Denmark—Kristensen, Danske Folkegaader, Nos. 546^.; from Ireland—Bealoideas (1927), I, 34: “A yellow thread stretched on the side of a house, and nobody can wind it;” cf. Bealoideas (1932), III, 350; from Scotland—Transactions of the Gaelic Society (Inverness), III, 155; from Iceland— J. Arnason, lslenzkar Gatur (Copenhagen, 1887); from Faroe Isles—Antiquarisk Tidsskrift (1849-51), p. 315.

²⁴ Norway—NFL, XXXV, 48; Stafset, 280 gamle norske gaator, No. 203; Haloygminne (1924), p. 24. The solution is once said to be the heaven, the sky and the stars: “a golden stick, bending, with more buttons than you could count.” Sweden—Strtfm, Svenska Follegator, p. 207. Denmark—Kristensen, Danske Folkegaader, Nos. 545ff.

²⁵ Schwartz, “Der himmlische Lichtbaum,” Zeitschrift fur Ethnologie (1881), p. 139.

²⁶ S. Bugge, Studier over de nordiske Gude-og Heltesagns oprindelse, (Christiania, 1881), I, 518.

²⁷ Taylor, English Riddles, pp. 18, 194.

²⁸ NFL, I, 148.

²⁹ Strøm, Svenska Folkgator, p. 204.

³⁰ The Campbell collection, Edinburgh.

³¹ NFL, VII, 94.

³² Strøm, Svenska Folkgator, p. 204; cf. Taylor, English Riddles, p. 431, and Stafset, 280 gamle norske gaator, No. 203.

³³ Faroe Isles—Antiquarisk Tidsskrift (1849-51), p. 315.

³⁴ Kristensen, Danske Folkegaader, No. 544a.

³⁵ Strøm, Svenska Folkgator, p. 210.