PART I. Deep in the forest shades there dwelt A Muni and his wife, Blind, gray-haired, weak, they hourly felt Their slender hold on life. No friends had they, no help or stay, Exce...
Pearly and lustrous white, like a cloud in the far-off blue sky, seemed the floating figure of the moon-maiden, as she flew to earth. She was one of the fifteen glistening virgins...
A troll had once taken up his abode near the village of Kund, in the high bank on which the church now stands, but when the people about there had become pious, and went constantly...
This bird is considered sacred, because it frequents church steeples and builds its nest there, and it is said to be an innocent bird, though given to carrying off things and hidin...
Hans had served his master seven years, and at last said to him-- "Master, my time is up; I should like to go home and see my mother, so give me my wages." And the master said-- "Y...
To accomplish his nefarious designs the Evil Spirit assumed forms calculated to attain his object. The following lines from Allan Cunningham's Traditional Tales, p. 9, aptly descri...
Wild was the life led by Mattathias and his followers in the mountains--a life of danger and hardship; danger met manfully, hardship endured cheerfully. Amongst wild rocks, heaped...
A ship from Iceland chanced to winter in a haven near Helgafels. Among the passengers was a woman named Thorgunna, a native of the Hebrides, who was reported by the sailors to poss...
Mother Crewe was of evil repute in Plymouth in the last century. It was said that she had taken pay for luring a girl into her old farm-house, where a man lay dead of small-pox, wi...
Weedah was playing a great trick on the black fellows who lived near him. He had built himself a number of grass nyunnoos, more than twenty. He made fires before each, to make it l...
Apply to the throat hair cut at midnight from the black shoulder stripe of the colt of an ass.
Pima (Arizona) Once upon a time, long ago, Coyote was sleeping so soundly that a covey of quails came along and cut pieces of fat meat out of his flesh without arousing him. Then t...
Baas [Boss] Volckert Jan Pietersen Van Amsterdam kept a bake-shop in Albany, and lives in history as the man who invented New Year cakes and made gingerbread babies in the likeness...
Mr. Jones said that when he was a lad, he and his mother went to Caerwys fair from the Vale of Clwyd, intending to sell a cow at the fair. They had not gone far on their way before...
Pedws Ffoulk, a supposed witch, was going through a field where people were employed at work, and just as she came opposite the horse it fell down, as if it were dead. The workmen...
Hapless daughter of a renegade is Ruth Bonython. Her father is as unfair to his friends as to his enemies, but to neither of them so merciless as to Ruth. Although he knows that sh...
Once in the long ago there lived a great warrior named Milkanops. He lived in a land of high, rocky mountains, and to the far north there lived a tribe of fierce, warlike Indians w...
Sir,--I heard very much, but believed very little of the second sight; yet its being assumed by several of great veracity, I was induced to make inquiry after it in the year 1652,...
“Sacred Goddess, Mother Earth, Thou from whose immortal bosom, Gods, and men, and beasts have birth, Leaf and blade, and bud and blossom, Breathe thine influence most divine On thi...
ODJIBWA FABLE A female akukojeesh, or groundhog, with a numerous family of young ones, was burrowing in her wauzh, or hole in the ground, one long winter, in the north, when the yo...
In front of the little house was a pine-tree, and every night at the time when the children went to bed, a bright star appeared over the top of the tree and looked in at the window...
Should a goose lay a soft egg, a small egg, or two eggs in a day, it is a sign of misfortune to the owner of that goose. An old woman in Llandrinio parish, Montgomeryshire, who liv...
The next subject I shall treat of is curious, and partakes of the nature of spiritualism. I hardly know by what other word to describe it, therefore I will give particulars, so as...
A great while ago the Shawanos nation took up the war-talk against the Walkullas, who lived on their own lands on the borders of the Great Salt Lake, and near the Burning Water. Pa...
From times of old these noble hills have been the scenes of supernatural visitations and mysterious occurrences. The tallest peak of the Agiochooks--as they were, in Indian naming-...
The Ainos think it very unlucky for the woman to move ever so slightly during the act of coition. If she does so, she brings disasters upon her husband, who is sure to become a poo...
Under the name of Eliza Wharton for a brief time lived a woman whose name was said to be Elizabeth Whitman. Little is known of her, and it is thought that she had gone among strang...
Mrs. Reynolds, whom I have already mentioned in connection with a charm for toothache, gave me the following charm. It bears date April 5, 1842:-- Our Blessed Saviour Jesus Christ...
Deereeree was a widow and lived in a camp alone with her four little girls. One day Bibbee came and made a camp not far from hers. Deereeree was frightened of him, too frightened t...
Oongnairwah, the diver, and Guinarey, the eagle hawk, told all the pelicans, black swans, cranes, and many others, that they would take their net to the creek and catch fish, if so...