the daughter knew that the proposed husband was but
another victim of the old man's magic arts. By the daughter's advice,
Panigwun escaped in the magic barque, consoled his brother, and returned
to the island. Next day the magician, Mishosha, set the young man to
hard tasks and perilous adventures. He was to gather gulls' eggs; but
the gulls attacked him in dense crowds. By an incantation he subdued the
birds, and made them carry him home to the island. Next day he was sent
to gather pebbles, that he might be attacked and eaten by the king of the
fishes. Once more the young man, like the Finnish Ilmarinen in Pohjola,
subdued the mighty fish, and went back triumphant. The third adventure,
as in 'Nicht Nought Nothing,' was to climb a tree of extraordinary height
in search of a bird's nest. Here, again, the youth succeeded, and
finally conspired with the daughters to slay the old magician. Lastly
the boy turned the magician into a sycamore tree, and won his daughter.
The other daughter was given to the brother who had no share in the
perils. {101} Here we miss the incident of the flight; and the
magician's daughter, though in love with the hero, does not aid him to
perform the feats. Perhaps an Algonquin brave would scorn the assistance
of a girl. In the 'Kalevala,' the old hero, Wainamoinen, and his friend
Ilmarinen, set off to the mysterious and hostile land of Pohjola to win a
bride. The maiden of Pohjola loses her heart to Ilmarinen, and, by her
aid, he bridles the wolf and bear, ploughs a field of adders with a
plough of gold, and conquers the gigantic pike that swims in the Styx of
Finnish mythology. After this point the story is interrupted by a long
sequel of popular bridal songs, and, in the wandering course of the
rather aimless epic, the flight and its incidents have been forgotten, or
are neglected. These incidents recur, however, in the thread of somewhat
different plots. We have seen that they are found in Japan, among the
Eskimo, among the Bushmen, the Samoyeds, and the Zulus, as well as in
Hungarian, Magyar, Celtic, and other European household tales.

The conclusion appears to be that the central part of the Jason myth is
incapable of being explained, either as a nature-myth, or as a myth
founded on a disease of language. So many languages could not take the
same malady in the same way; nor can we imagine any series of natural
phenomena that would inevitably suggest this tale to so many dive