One day when the birds were all together, one of them said, "I have been watching men, and I saw that they had a king. Let us too have a king." "Why?" asked the others. "Oh, I do n...
Ye see, there was a wife had a son, and they called him Jock; and she said to him, "You are a lazy fellow; ye maun gang awa' and do something for to help me." "Weel," says Jock, "I...
There was a poor peasant, named Crab, who once drove two oxen, with a load of wood, into the city, and there sold it for two dollars to a doctor. The doctor counted out the money t...
Waipio, in Hawaii, is claimed by people who live thereabout to be the loveliest valley on the island. It was a low and marshy stretch until a great fish that lived there begged the...
While a great storm was raging over Hawaii a boy was born to a woman chief in the camp of King Alapai. At once the soothsayers proclaimed him as the man of prophecy who should conq...
About three hundred years ago, Ewen Maclaine of Lochbuy, in the island of Mull, having been engaged in a quarrel with a neighbouring chief, a day was fixed for determining the affa...
The name of this town has forty-two spellings in old records, and with singular pertinacity in ill-doing, the inhabitants have fastened on it the longest and clumsiest of all. It c...
"Late one night, as my grand-uncle, Lachlan Dhu Macpherson, who was well known as the best fiddler of his day, was returning home from a ball, at which he had acted as a musician,...
It is believed that when sea gulls leave the sea for the mountains it is a sign of stormy weather. A few years ago I was walking from Corwen to Gwyddelwern, and I overtook an aged...
Sleep is personified by the Odjibwas under the name of Weeng.[88] The power of the Indian Morpheus is executed by a peculiar class of gnome-like beings, called Weengs. These subord...
"Goodman," said the goodwife, "you must go out into the forest and gather sticks for the fire. To-morrow will be Sunday, and we have no wood to burn." "Yes, goodwife," answered the...
There had been a battle between the American forces and the Tagalogs, and the natives had been driven back. The stone church of Santa Maria, around which the engagement had been ho...
When the Great Spirit saw the work of the flames, he was very angry. "The fires of this mountain must perish," he said. "No longer shall its red flames light the midnight sky." The...
"It is very strange," whispered one reed to another, "that the queen bee never guides her swarm to the aspen-tree." "Indeed, it is strange," said the other. "The oak and the willow...
The raven and the eagle were cousins, and they were almost always friendly, but whenever they talked together about men, they quarreled. "Men are lazy," declared the eagle. "There...
There was once upon a time a cat and a cock, who agreed to live together, so they built them a hut on an ash-heap, and the cock kept house while the cat went foraging for sausages....
DOWN among the grass and fragrant clover lay little Eva by the brook-side, watching the bright waves, as they went singing by under the drooping flowers that grew on its banks. As...
In one of the niches or recesses formed by a precipice in the cavern of Kickapoo Creek, which is a tributary of the Wisconsin, there is a gigantic mass of stone presenting the appe...
Place the Bible for three successive nights under the bolster of the sufferer, and it will cure him.
THE summer moon shone brightly down upon the sleeping earth, while far away from mortal eyes danced the Fairy folk. Fire-flies hung in bright clusters on the dewy leaves, that wave...
Pond Cove, Maine, is haunted by a light that on a certain evening, every summer, rises a mile out at sea, drifts to a spot on shore, then whirls with a buzz and a glare to an old h...
I will quote from Bye-Gones, vol. iii., p. 211, an account of this Spirit. There was an old Welsh tradition in vogue some fifty years ago, that one David Salisbury, son of Harri Go...
before I die to Argos from a strange land, taking me from the altar
before I die to Argos from a strange land, taking me from the altar
Once upon a time there were two brothers named Bajun and Jhore. Bajun was married and one day his wife fell ill of fever. So, as he was going ploughing, Bajun told Jhore to stay at...
This reptile is a snake, varying from twelve to eighteen inches long. Its head is small, and its movements very rapid. At the slightest noise, it darts away in a moment, and hides...
A witch called at a farm when they were feathering geese for sale, and she begged much for one. She was refused, but it would have been better, according to the tale, had her reque...
Strange things had been reported in Gloucester. On the eve of King Philip's War the march of men was heard in its streets and an Indian bow and scalp were seen on the face of the m...
Satan appears to have troubled the early settlers in America almost as grievously as he did the German students. He came in many shapes to many people, and sometimes he met his mat...
A certain boy had charge of a cow which he used to tend while grazing. One day the cow said to him, "How is it that you are becoming so emaciated?" The boy replied, "My stepmother...