heaven-ladder where heroes of old climbed up and down;[1] and so to the Scandinavian it was Bifrost, the trembling bridge, timbered of three hues and stretched from sky to earth; while in German folk-lore it is the bridge where the souls of the just are led by their guardian angels across to paradise.[2] As the Israelite called it the bow of Jehovah in the clouds, it is to the Hindu the bow of Rama,[3] and to the Finn the bow of Tiermes the Thunderer, who slays with it the sorcerers that hunt after men's lives;[4] it is imagined, moreover, as a gold-embroidered scarf, a head-dress of feathers, St. Bernard's crown, or the sickle of an Esthonian deity.[5] And yet through all such endless varieties of mythic conception, there runs one main principle, the evident suggestion and analogy of nature. It has been said of the savages of North America, that 'there is always something actual and physical to ground an Indian fancy on.'[6] The saying goes too far, but within limits it is emphatically true, not of North American Indians alone, but of mankind.
Such resemblances as have just been displayed thrust themselves directly on the mind, without any necessary intervention of words. Deep as language lies in our mental life, the direct comparison of object with object, and action with action, lies yet deeper. The myth-maker's mind shows forth even among the deaf-and-dumb, who work out just such analogies of nature in their wordless thought. Again and again they have been found to suppose themselves taught by their guardians to worship and pray to sun, moon, and stars, as personal creatures. Others have described their early thoughts of the heavenly bodies as analogous to things within their reach, one fancying the moon made like a dumpling and rolled over the tree-tops like a marble across
