uccess, wished to add insult to the injury, and,
very thoughtlessly, began to dance in an irritating manner at his foes.
But then the stolen waters gushed out of his mouth in full volume, and
the drought soon ended. One of the most curious points in this myth is
the origin of the quarrel between the woodpecker and the toad. The same
beginning--the tale of an insult put on an animal by hauling up and
letting him down with a run--occurs in an African Marchen.(1)

(1) Brough Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, i. 429, 430; Brinton, American
Hero Myths, i. 55. Cf. also Relations de la Nouvelle France, 1636, 1640,
1671; (Sagard, Hist. du Canada, 1636, p. 451;) Journal Anthrop. Inst.,
1881.

Now this strangely diffused story of the slaying of the frog which had
swallowed all the water seems to be a savage myth of which the more
heroic conflict of Indra with Vrittra (the dragon which had swallowed
all the waters) is an epic and sublimer version.(1) "The heavenly water,
which Vrittra withholds from the world, is usually the prize of the
contest."

(1) Ludwig, Der Rig-Veda, iii. p. 337. See postea, "Divine Myths of
India".

The serpent of Vedic myth is, perhaps, rather the robber-guardian than
the swallower of the waters, but Indra is still, like the Iroquois
Ioskeha, "he who wounds the full one".(1) This example of the wide
distribution of a myth shows how the question of diffusion, though
connected with, is yet distinct from that of origin. The advantage
of our method will prove to be, that it discovers an historical and
demonstrable state of mind as the origin of the wild element in
myth. Again, the wide prevalence in the earliest times of this mental
condition will, to a certain extent, explain the DISTRIBUTION of
myth. Room must be left, of course, for processes of borrowing and
transmission, but how Andamanese, Australians and Hurons could borrow
from each other is an unsolved problem.

(1) Gubernatis, Zoological Myth. ii. 395, note 2. "When Indra kills the
serpent he opens the torrent of the waters" (p. 393). See also Aitareya
Brahmana, translated by Haug, ii. 483.

Finally, our hypothesis is not involved in dubious theories of race. To
us, myths appear to be affected (in their origins) much less by the race
than by the stage of culture attained by the people who cherish them.
A fight for the waters between a monstrous dragon like Vrittra and a
heroic god like Indra is a nobler affair than a quarrel for the