een procured for
me by the kindness of H. E. the Governor of Hakodate. One can have
intercourse with men who smell badly, and who suffer, as almost all
Ainos do, from lice and from a variety of disgusting skin-diseases. It
is a mere question of endurance and of disinfectants. But it is
impossible to obtain information from a drunkard. A third reason for the
comparatively small number of tales which it is possible to collect
during a limited period of intercourse is the frequency of repetitions.
No doubt such repetitions have a confirmatory value, especially when the
repetition is of the nature of a variant. Still, one would willingly
spare them for the sake of new tales.

The Aino names appended to the stories are those of the men by whom they
were told to me, viz. Penri, the aged chief of Piratori; Ishanashte of
Shumunkot; Kannariki of Poropet (Jap. Horobetsu); and Kuteashguru of
Sapporo. Tomtare of Y[=u]rap does not appear for the reason mentioned
above, which spoilt all his usefulness. The only mythological names
which appear are Okikurumi, whom the Ainos regard as having been their
civilizer in very ancient times, his sister-wife Turesh, or Tureshi[hi]
and his henchman Samayunguru. The "divine symbols," of which such
constant mention is made in the tales, are the inao or whittled sticks
frequently described in books of travels.

Basil Hall Chamberlain.
Miyanoshita, Japan,
20th July, 1887.

I.--TALES ACCOUNTING FOR THE ORIGIN OF PHENOMENA.

i.--_The Rat and the Owl._[B]

An owl had put by for next day the remains of something dainty which he
had to eat. But a rat stole it, whereupon the owl was very angry, and
went off to the rat's house, and threatened to kill him. But the rat
apologised, saying: "I will give you this gimlet and tell you how you
can obtain from it pleasure far greater than the pleasure of eating the
food which I was so rude as to eat up. Look here! you must stick the
gimlet with the sharp point upwards in the ground at the foot of this
tree; then go to the top of the tree yourself, and slide down the
trunk."

Then the rat went away, and the owl did as the rat had instructed him.
But, sliding down on to the sharp gimlet, his anus was transfixed, and
he suffered great pain, and, in his grief and rage, went off to kill the
rat. But again the rat met him with apologies, and, as a peace-offering,
gave him a cap for his head.

These e