en, and they journeyed to the place where
the Sun rises, and there spread the net. When the Sun came up, he stuck
his head and fore-paws into the net, and while the brothers tightened
the ropes so that they cut him and made him scream for mercy, Maui beat
him with the jawbone until he became so weak that ever since he has
only been able to crawl through the sky. According to another Polynesian
myth, there was once a grumbling Radical, who never could be satisfied
with the way in which things are managed on this earth. This bold
Radical set out to build a stone house which should last forever; but
the days were so short and the stones so heavy that he despaired of
ever accomplishing his project. One night, as he lay awake thinking the
matter over, it occurred to him that if he could catch the Sun in a net,
he could have as much daylight as was needful in order to finish his
house. So he borrowed a noose from the god Itu, and, it being autumn,
when the Sun gets sleepy and stupid, he easily caught the luminary. The
Sun cried till his tears made a great freshet which nearly drowned the
island; but it was of no use; there he is tethered to this day.

Similar stories are met with in North America. A Dog-Rib Indian once
chased a squirrel up a tree until he reached the sky. There he set a
snare for the squirrel and climbed down again. Next day the Sun was
caught in the snare, and night came on at once. That is to say, the sun
was eclipsed. "Something wrong up there," thought the Indian, "I must
have caught the Sun"; and so he sent up ever so many animals to release
the captive. They were all burned to ashes, but at last the mole, going
up and burrowing out through the GROUND OF THE SKY, (!) succeeded in
gnawing asunder the cords of the snare. Just as it thrust its head out
through the opening made in the sky-ground, it received a flash of light
which put its eyes out, and that is why the mole is blind. The Sun got
away, but has ever since travelled more deliberately. [148]

These sun-myths, many more of which are to be found collected in Mr.
Tylor's excellent treatise on "The Early History of Mankind," well
illustrate both the similarity and the diversity of the results obtained
by the primitive mind, in different times and countries, when engaged
upon similar problems. No one would think of referring these stories to
a common traditional origin with the myths of Herakles and Odysseus; yet
both classes of tales were devised to