g duly incensed at having received such treatment, raised his claws,
and scratched the Moon's face; and the dark parts which we now see on the
surface of the Moon are the scars which she received on that
occasion."(40)

The Finns, Lapps, and Esthonians do not seem a very poetical race, yet
there is poetry even in their smoky huts, poetry surrounded with all the
splendor of an arctic night, and fragrant with the perfume of moss and
wild flowers. Here is one of their legends:--

"Wanna Issi had two servants, Koit and Aemmarik, and he gave them a torch
which Koit should light every morning, and Aemmarik should extinguish in
the evening. In order to reward their faithful services, Wanna Issi told
them they might be man and wife, but they asked Wanna Issi that he would
allow them to remain forever bride and bridegroom. Wanna Issi assented,
and henceforth Koit handed the torch every evening to Aemmarik, and Aemmarik
took it and extinguished it. Only during four weeks in summer they remain
together at midnight; Koit hands the dying torch to Aemmarik, but Aemmarik
does not let it die, but lights it again with her breath. Then their hands
are stretched out, and their lips meet, and the blush of the face of
Aemmarik colors the midnight sky."

This myth requires hardly any commentary; yet as long as it is impossible
to explain the names, Wanna Issi, Koit, and Aemmarik, it might be said that
the story was but a love story, invented by an idle Lapp, or Finn, or
Esthonian. But what if Wanna Issi in Esthonian means the Old Father, and
if Koit means the Dawn? Can we then doubt any longer that Aemmarik(41) must
be the Gloaming and that their meeting in the summer reflects those summer
evenings when, particularly in the North, the torch of the sun seems never
to die, and when the Gloaming is seen kissing the Dawn?

I wish I could tell you some more of these stories which have been
gathered from all parts of the world, and which, though they may be
pronounced childish and tedious by some critics, seem to me to glitter
with the brightest dew of nature's own poetry, and to contain those very
touches that make us feel akin, not only with Homer or Shakespeare, but
even with Lapps, and Finns, and Kaffirs.

I cannot resist, however, the temptation of inserting here a poetical
rendering of the story of Koit and Aemmarik, sent to me from the New World,
remarking only that instead of Lapland, Esthonia is really the country
that may claim the o