the most conservative of
all institutions, especially among barbarians, the Ainos have suffered
Japanese influence to intrude itself. It is Japanese rice-beer, under
its Japanese name of _sake_, which they offer in libations to their
gods. Their very word for "prayer" seems to be archaic Japanese. A
mediaeval Japanese hero, Yoshitsune, is generally allowed to be held in
religious reverence by them. The idea of earthquakes being caused by the
wriggling of a gigantic fish under the earth is shared by the Ainos with
the Japanese and with several other races.

At the same time, the general tenour and tendency of the tales and
traditions of the Ainos wear a widely different aspect from that which
characterises the folk-lore of Japan. The Ainos, in their humble way,
are addicted to moralising and to speculating on the origin of things. A
perusal of the following tales will show that a surprisingly large
number of them are attempts to explain some natural phenomenon, or to
exemplify some simple precept. In fact they are science,--physical
science and moral science,--at a very early stage. The explanations
given in these tales completely satisfy the adult Aino mind of the
present day. The Aino fairy-tales are not, as ours are, survivals from
an earlier stage of thought. They spring out of the present state of
thought. Even if not invented of recent years they fit in with the
present Aino view of things,--so much so, that an Aino who recounts one
of his stories does so under the impression that he is narrating an
actual event. He does not "make believe" like the European nurse, even
like the European child, who has always, in some nook or corner of his
mind, a presentiment of the scepticism of his later years.

So far as I can judge, that "disease of language" which we call
metaphor, and which is held by some great authorities to have been the
chief factor in the fabrication of Aryan myth, has no place in Aino
fairy-land; neither have the phenomena of the weather attracted more
attention than other things. But I speak subject to correction. Perhaps
it is not wise to invite controversy on such a point unless one is well
armed for the fight.

Failing an elaborate analysis of the Aino fairy-tales, and a discussion
of their origin and affinities, what I venture to offer for your
Society's acceptance is the simple text of the tales themselves,
rendered into English. Nine of them have already been printed in the
Aino "Memoir" alre