The last time I ever saw Anthony Sherman was on the Fourth of July, 1859, in Independence Square. He was then ninety-nine years old, his dimming eyes rekindled as he gazed upon Independence Hall, which he had come to visit once more. "I want to tell you an incident of Washington's life one which no one alive knows of except myself; and which, if you live, you will before long see verified." He said, "From the opening of the Revolution, we experienced all phases of fortune, good and ill. The darkest period we ever had, I think, was when Washington, after several reverses, retreated to Valley Forge, where he resolved to pass the winter of 1777. Ah! I often saw the tears coursing down our dear commander's careworn cheeks, as he conversed with a confidential officer about the condition of his soldiers. You have doubtless heard the story of Washington's going to the thicket to pray. Well, he also used to pray to God in secret for aid and comfort.

Dunderberg, “Thunder Mountain,” at the southern gate of the Hudson Highlands, is a wooded eminence, chiefly populated by a crew of imps of stout circumference, whose leader, the Heer, is a bulbous goblin clad in the dress worn by Dutch colonists two centuries ago, and carrying a speaking-trumpet, through which he bawls his orders for the blowing of winds and the touching off of lightnings. These orders are given in Low Dutch, and are put into execution by the imps aforesaid, who troop into the air and tumble about in the mist, sometimes smiting the flag or topsail of a ship to ribbons, or laying the vessel over before the wind until she is in peril of going on beam ends.

In a certain kingdom there lived a Prince Ivan. He had three sisters. The first was the Princess Marya, the second the Princess Olga, the third the Princess Anna. When their father and mother lay at the point of death, they had thus enjoined their son: ‘Give your sisters in marriage to the very first suitors who come to woo them. Don’t go keeping them by you!’  They died, and the Prince buried them, and then, to solace his grief, he went with his sisters into the garden green to stroll. Suddenly the sky was covered by a black cloud; a terrible storm arose.  ‘Let us go home, sisters!’ he cried.

Once upon a time a strong and powerful Tzar ruled in a country far away. And among his servants was a young archer, and this archer had a horse—a horse of power—such a horse as belonged to the wonderful men of long ago—a great horse with a broad chest, eyes like fire, and hoofs of iron. There are no such horses nowadays. They sleep with the strong men who rode them, the bogatirs, until the time comes when Russia has need of them. Then the great horses will thunder up from under the ground, and the valiant men leap from the graves in the armor they have worn so long. The strong men will sit those horses of power, and there will be swinging of clubs and thunder of hoofs, and the earth will be swept clean from the enemies of God and the Tzar. So my grandfather used to say, and he was as much older than I as I am older than you, little ones, and so he should know.

Somewhere or other, but I don’t know where, there lived a king who owned two remarkably fine fields of rape, but every night two of the rape heaps were burnt down in one of the fields. The king was extremely angry at this, and sent out soldiers to catch whoever had set fire to the ricks; but it was all of no use—not a soul could they see. Then he offered nine hundred crowns to anyone who caught the evil-doer, and at the same time ordered that whoever did not keep proper watch over the fields should be killed; but though there were a great many people, none seemed able to protect the fields. The king had already put ninety-nine people to death, when a little swineherd came to him who had two dogs; one was called ‘Psst,’ and the other ‘Hush’; and the boy told the king that he would watch over the ricks.

A long while ago, when the idols of Buddha and his host of disciples came to Japan, after traveling through China from India, they were very much vexed because the people still liked the little black fellow named Daikoku. Even when they became Buddhists they still burned incense to Daikoku, because he was the patron of wealth; for everybody then, as now, wanted to be rich. So the Buddhist idols determined to get rid of the little fat fellow. How to do it was the question. At last they called Yemma, the judge of the lower regions, and gave him the power to destroy Daikoku.

Genzan Yorimasa was a brave warrior and a very useful man who lived more than eight thousand moons ago. On account of his valor and skill in the use of the bow he was called to Kioto, and promoted to be chief guard of the imperial palace. At that time the emperor, Narahito, could not sleep at night, because his rest was disturbed by a frightful beast, which scared away even the sentinels in armor who stood on guard.

In the land where neither the monkeys or the cats have tails, and the persimmons grow to be as large as apples and with seeds bigger than a melon's, there once lived a land crab in the side of a sand hill. One day an ape came along having a persimmon seed, which he offered to swap with the crab for a rice-cake. The crab agreed, and planting the seed in his garden went out every day to watch it grow. By-and-by the ape came to visit the crab, and seeing the fine tree laden with the yellow-brown fruit, begged a few. The crab, asking pardon of the ape, said he could not climb the tree to offer him any, but agreed to give the ape half, if he would mount the tree and pluck them.

There was once a cook named Grethel, who wore shoes with red rosettes, and when she walked out with them on, she turned herself this way and that, and thought, “You certainly are a pretty girl!” And when she came home she drank, in her gladness of heart, a draught of wine, and as wine excites a desire to eat, she tasted the best of whatever she was cooking until she was satisfied, and said, “The cook must know what the food is like.”

There was once a poor peasant who had no land, but only a small house, and one daughter. Then said the daughter, “We ought to ask our lord the King for a bit of newly-cleared land.” When the King heard of their poverty, he presented them with a bit of land, which she and her father dug up, and intended to sow with a little corn and grain of that kind. When they had dug nearly the whole of the field, they found in the earth a mortar made of pure gold. “Listen,” said the father to the girl, “as our lord the King has been so gracious and presented us with the field, we ought to give him this mortar in return for it.” The daughter, however, would not consent to this, and said, “Father, if we have the mortar without having the pestle as well, we shall have to get the pestle, so you had much better say nothing about it.” He would, how- ever, not obey her, but took the mortar and carried it to the King, said that he had found it in the cleared land, and asked if he would accept it as a present.

East India was besieged by an enemy who would not retire until he had received six hundred dollars. Then the townsfolk caused it to be proclaimed by beat of drum that whosoever was able to procure the money should be burgomaster. Now there was a poor fisherman who fished on the lake with his son, and the enemy came and took the son prisoner, and gave the father six hundred dollars for him. So the father went and gave them to the great men of the town, and the enemy departed, and the fisherman became burgomaster. Then it was proclaimed that whosoever did not say, “Mr. Burgomaster,” should be put to death on the gallows.

There was once upon a time a King who had two sons, and these sons went a-hunting in the forest and there lost themselves. They wandered on and on for twelve weeks, and at the end of the twelve weeks they came to a place where three roads met, and the elder brother said to the younger, “My brother, here our roads part. Take thou the road on that side, and I’ll take the road on this.” Then the elder brother took a knife and stuck it into the trunk of a maple-tree by the roadside, and said, “Look now, brother, should any blood drip from the blade of this knife it will be a sign that I am perishing, and thou must go and seek me; but if any blood flow from the handle, it will be a sign that thou art perishing, and I will then go and seek thee.” Then the brothers embraced each other and parted, and one went in one direction and the other went in the other.

A sparrow once flew down upon a bush and said, “Little bush, give good little sparrow a swing.”––“I won’t!” said the little bush. Then the sparrow was angry, and went to the goat and said, “Goat, goat, nibble bush, bush won’t give good little sparrow a swing.”––“I won’t!” said the goat.––Then the sparrow went to the wolf and said, “Wolf, wolf, eat goat, goat won’t nibble bush, bush won’t give good little sparrow a swing.”––“I won’t!” said the wolf. ––Then the sparrow went to the people and said, “Good people, kill wolf, wolf won’t eat goat, goat won’t nibble bush, bush won’t give good little sparrow a swing.”––“We won’t!” said the people.––Then the sparrow went to the Tartars and said, “Tartars, Tartars, slay people, people won’t kill wolf, wolf won’t eat goat, goat won’t nibble bush, bush won’t give good little sparrow a swing.”––

In a certain forest there once lived a fox, and near to the fox lived a man who had a cat that had been a good mouser in its youth, but was now old and half blind. The man didn’t want puss any longer, but not liking to kill it, took it out into the forest and lost it there. Then the fox came up and said, “Why, Mr Shaggy Matthew! How d’ye do! What brings you here?”––“Alas!” said Pussy, “my master loved me as long as I could bite, but now that I can bite no longer and have left off catching mice––and I used to catch them finely once––he doesn’t like to kill me, but he has left me in the wood where I must perish miserably.

Raven went back to the pea-vine and there he found that three other men had just fallen from the pod out of which the first one had dropped. These men, like the first, were looking about in wonder not knowing what to make of themselves and the world about them. “Come with me,” said Raven; and he led them away in an opposite direction from the one in which he had led the first Man, and brought them to solid land close to the sea. “Stop here, and I will teach you what to do and how to live,” said he.

When Occuna, a young Seneca, fell in love with a girl whose cabin was near the present town of Cohoes, he behaved very much as Americans of a later date have done. He picked wild flowers for her; he played on the bone pipe and sang sentimental songs in the twilight; he roamed the hills with her, gathering the loose quartz crystals that the Indians believed to be the tears of stricken deer, save on Diamond Rock, in Lansingburgh, where they are the tears of Moneta, a bereaved mother and wife; and in fine weather they went boating on the Mohawk above the rapids. They liked to drift idly on the current, because it gave them time to gaze into each other’s eyes, and to build air castles that they would live in in the future.

Many are the tales of prophecy that have been preserved to us from war times. In the beginning of King Philip’s war in Connecticut, in 1675, it was reported that the firing of the first gun was heard all over the State, while the drumbeats calling settlers to defense were audible eight miles away. Braddock’s defeat and the salvation of Washington were foretold by a Miami chief at a council held in Fort Ponchartrain, on Detroit River, the ambush and the slaughter having been revealed to him in a dream.

“You will be very lonely by yourself,” said Raven to Man one day. “I will make you a companion.” He went to a spot some distance from where he had made the animals, and, looking now and then at Man as an artist looks at his model, he made an image very much like Man. He took from the creek some fine water grass and fastened it on the back of the head for hair. After the image had dried in his hands, he waved his wings over it as he had done with all the live things, and it came to life and stood beside Man, a beautiful young woman. “There is a companion for you!” cried Raven. “Now come with me to this knoll over here.”

In the time before there were any people on earth, a large pea-vine was growing on the beach, and in the pod of this pea the first man lay coiled up for four days. On the fifth day he stretched out his feet and that bursted the pod. He fell to the ground, where he stood up, a full-grown man. He had never seen anything that looked like him, and he did not know what to make of himself. He looked around, and then at himself; then he moved his arms and hands and was surprised that he could do it. He moved his neck and his legs, and examined himself curiously.

In Western Florida they will show roses to you that drop red dew, like blood, and have been doing so these many years, for they sprang out of the graves of women and children who had been cruelly killed by Indians. But there is something queerer still about the Micah Rood—or “Mike”—apples of Franklin, Connecticut, which are sweet, red of skin, snowy of pulp, and have a red spot, like a blood-drop, near the core; hence they are sometimes known as bloody-hearts. 

There was once a man who had a daughter who was called Clever Elsie. And when she had grown up her father said, “We will get her married.” “Yes,” said the mother, “if only any one would come who would have her.” At length a man came from a distance and wooed her, who was called Hans; but he stipulated that Clever Elsie should be really wise. “Oh,” said the father, “she’s sharp enough;” and the mother said, “Oh, she can see the wind coming up the street, and hear the flies coughing.” “Well,” said Hans, “if she is not really wise, I won’t have her.” When they were sitting at dinner and had eaten, the mother said, “Elsie, go into the cellar and fetch some beer.” Then Clever Elsie took the pitcher from the wall, went into the cellar, and tapped the lid briskly as she went that the time might not appear long.

In a large town there was an old woman who sat in the evening alone in her room thinking how she had lost first her husband, then both her children, then one by one all her relations, and at length, that very day, her last friend, and now she was quite alone and desolate. She was very sad at heart, and heaviest of all her losses to her was that of her sons; and in her pain she blamed God for it. She was still sitting lost in thought, when all at once she heard the bells ringing for early prayer. She was surprised that she had thus in her sorrow watched through the whole night, and lighted her lantern and went to church.

Two kings’ sons once went out in search of adventures, and fell into a wild, disorderly way of living, so that they never came home again. The youngest, who was called Simpleton, set out to seek his brothers, but when at length he found them they mocked him for thinking that he with his simplicity could get through the world, when they two could not make their way, and yet were so much cleverer.

A pedlar journeyed with his pack upon the great high-road which leads to the city of Kioto. He found a child sitting all alone by the wayside. “Well, my little girl,” he said, “and what make you all alone by the wayside?” “What do you,” said the child, “with a staff and a pack, and sandals outworn?” “I am bound for Kioto, and the Mikado’s Palace, to sell my gauds to the ladies of the Court.” “Ah,” said the child, “take me too.” “What is your name, my little girl?” “I have no name.” “Whence come you?” “I come from nowhere.” “You seem to be about seven years old.” “I have no age.” “Why are you here?” “I have been waiting for you.” “How long have you waited?” “For more than a hundred years.” The Pedlar laughed.

The Meamei, or Pleiades, once lived on this earth. They were seven sisters remarkable for their beauty. They had long hair to their waists, and their bodies sparkled with icicles. Their father and mother lived among the rocks away on some distant mountain, staying there always, never wandering about as their daughters did. When the sisters used to go hunting, they never joined any other tribes, though many tried from time to time to make friends with them. One large family of boys in particular thought them so beautiful that they wished them to stay with them and be their wives. These boys, the Berai-Berai, used to follow the Meamei about, and watching where they camped, used to leave there offerings for them.

It was said that Maui and Hina had no fire. They where often cold and had no cooked food. Maui saw flames rising in a distant place and ran to see how they were made. When he came to that place the fire was out and some birds flew away. One of them was Ka-Alae-huapi, "the stingy Alae"--a small duck, the Hawaiian mud hen. Maui watched again and saw fire. When he went up the birds saw him coming and scattered the fire, carrying the ashes into the water; but he leaped and caught the little Alae. "Ali!" he said, "I will kill you, because you do not let me have fire."

There was once a house that was overrun with Mice. A Cat heard of this, and said to herself, “That’s the place for me,” and off she went and took up her quarters in the house, and caught the Mice one by one and ate them. At last the Mice could stand it no longer, and they determined to take to their holes and stay there.

There were once three sisters spinning flax, and they said, “Whosever spindle falls, let us kill her and eat her.” The mother’s spindle fell, and they left her alone. Again they sat down to spin, and again the mother’s spindle fell, and again and yet again. “Ah, well!” said they, “let us eat her now!” “No!” said the youngest, “do not eat her; eat me, if flesh you will have.” But they would not; and two of them killed their mother and cooked her for eating.

Long ago, the mice had a general council to consider what measures they could take to outwit their common enemy, the Cat. Some said this, and some said that; but at last a young mouse got up and said he had a proposal to make, which he thought would meet the case.

A king of former times had an only son, whom he contracted in marriage to the daughter of another king. But the damsel, who was endowed with great beauty, had a cousin who had sought her in marriage, and had been rejected; wherefore he sent great presents to the vizier of the king just mentioned, requesting him to employ some stratagem by which to destroy his master’s son, or to induce him to relinquish the damsel. The vizier consented. Then the father of the damsel sent to the king’s son, inviting him to come and introduce himself to his daughter, to take her as his wife; and the father of the young man sent him with the treacherous vizier, attended by a thousand horsemen, and provided with rich presents. When they were proceeding over the desert, the vizier remembered that there was near unto them a spring of water called Ez-zahra, and that whosoever drank of it, if he were a man, became a woman. He therefore ordered the troops to alight near it, and induced the prince to go towards it with him. When they arrived at the spring, the king’s son dismounted from his courser, and washed his hands, and drank; and lo! he became a woman; whereupon he cried out and wept until he fainted. The vizier asked him what had befallen him, so the young man informed him; and on hearing his words, the vizier affected to be grieved for him, and wept. The king’s son then sent the vizier back to his father to inform him of this event, determining not to proceed nor to return until his affliction should be removed from him, or until he should die.

In olden times, when the camel was a horse-dealer, the mouse a barber, the cuckoo a tailor, the tortoise a baker, and the ass still a servant, there was a miller who had a black cat. Besides this miller, there was a Padishah who had three daughters, aged respectively forty, thirty, and twenty years. The eldest went to the youngest and made her write a letter to her father in these terms:   “Dear father, one of my sisters is forty, the other thirty, and they have not yet married. Take notice that I will not wait so long before I get a husband.”   The Padishah on reading the letter sent for his daughters and thus addressed them: “Here are a bow and arrow for each of you; go and shoot, and wherever your arrows fall, there you will find your future husbands.”   Taking the weapons from their father, the three maidens went forth. The eldest shot first, and her arrow fell in the palace of the Vezir’s son; she was accordingly united to him. The second daughter’s arrow fell in the palace of the son of the Sheikh-ul-Islam, and him she got for a husband. When the youngest shot, however, her arrow fell into the hut of a wood-cutter. “That doesn’t count,” cried everybody; and she shot again. The second time the arrow fell in the same spot; and a third attempt met no better success.

Once upon a time a poor farmer and his wife, having finished their day’s labour and eaten their frugal supper, were sitting by the fire, when a dispute arose between them as to who should shut the door, which had been blown open by a gust of wind. “Wife, shut the door!” said the man. “Husband, shut it yourself!” said the woman. “I will not shut it, and you shall not shut it,” said the husband; “but let the one who speaks the first word shut it.” This proposal pleased the wife exceedingly, and so the old couple, well satisfied, retired in silence to bed.

It was night upon the prairie. Overhead the stars were twinkling bright their red and yellow lights. The moon was young. A silvery thread among the stars, it soon drifted low beneath the horizon. Upon the ground the land was pitchy black. There are night people on the plain who love the dark. Amid the black level land they meet to frolic under the stars. Then when their sharp ears hear any strange footfalls nigh they scamper away into the deep shadows of night. There they are safely hid from all dangers, they think. Thus it was that one very black night, afar off from the edge of the level land, out of the wooded river bottom glided forth two balls of fire. They came farther and farther into the level land. They grew larger and brighter. The dark hid the body of the creature with those fiery eyes. They came on and on, just over the tops of the prairie grass. It might have been a wildcat prowling low on soft, stealthy feet. Slowly but surely the terrible eyes drew nearer and nearer to the heart of the level land. There in a huge old buffalo skull was a gay feast and dance! Tiny little field mice were singing and dancing in a circle to the boom-boom of a wee, wee drum. They were laughing and talking among themselves while their chosen singers sang loud a merry tune.

Jack lived with his parents in a remote part of Canada. He had no brothers or sisters. His parents were very poor, and their only possession was a goat that supplied them with milk. When the boy grew up, he decided to go out into the world and earn something to make his parents more comfortable in their old age. So one day he said, “I am going far away to look for work that you may be able to buy better food.” His parents did not want him to go, for he was their one source of happiness; but he would not listen to their pleading. With no money and something of a heavy heart he went on his way. It was summer in the land, and when he came out of the forest into the open country he saw people in the meadows making hay. Soon he came to a very large farm where a number of men were busy. He asked the man in charge for work. The man said, “How long do you want to work?” Jack answered, “A week.” The man hired him, and he went to work. He was a great worker, and in a week he had done as much as one of the other men could do in a year. The man was pleased with his work. At the end of the week Jack asked for his wages. The man gave him a little money in part payment, and an old hen for the other part. Jack was very cross. He said, “I don’t want a hen; I want money. Little good an old hen can do me!” But the man would not give him more money. He said, “The hen will lay eggs for you. She will lay two dozen eggs a day—an egg every hour.” So Jack with much disgust took the old hen, for he could do no better, and went home. His parents were glad to see him again, and to get the money he had earned; but they laughed at his old hen. But at the end of a day, when she had laid two dozen eggs, they were well pleased.

Between the island of Manhattoes and the Catskills the Hudson shores were plagued with spooks, and even as late as the nineteenth century Hans Anderson, a man who tilled a farm back of Peekskill, was worried into his grave by the leaden-face likeness of a British spy whom he had hanged on General Putnam’s orders. “Old Put” doubtless enjoyed immunity from this vexatious creature, because he was born with few nerves. A region especially afflicted was the confluence of the Croton and the Hudson, for the Kitchawan burying-ground was here, and the red people being disturbed by the tramping of white men over their graves, “the walking sachems of Teller’s Point” were nightly to be met on their errands of protest. These Indians had built a palisade on Croton Point, and here they made their last stand against their enemies from the north. Throughout the fight old chief Croton stood on the wall with arrows showering around him, and directed the resistance with the utmost calm. Not until every one of his men was dead and the fort was going up in flame about him did he confess defeat. Then standing amid the charring timbers, he used his last breath in calling down the curse of the Great Spirit against the foe. As the victorious enemy rushed into the enclosure to secure the scalps of the dead he fell lifeless into the fire, and their jubilant yell was lost upon his ears. Yet, he could not rest nor bear to leave his ancient home, even after death, and often his form, in musing attitude, was seen moving through the woods. When a manor was built on the ruins of his fort, he appeared to the master of it, to urge him into the Continental army, and having seen this behest obeyed and laid a solemn injointure to keep the freedom of the land forever, he vanished, and never appeared again.

Once upon a time there were Three Bears, who lived together in a house of their own, in a wood. One of them was a Little, Small Wee Bear; and one was a Middle-sized Bear, and the other was a Great, Huge Bear. They had each a pot for their porridge, a little pot for the Little, Small, Wee Bear; and a middle-sized pot for the Middle Bear, and a great pot for the Great, Huge Bear. And they had each a chair to sit in; a little chair for the Little, Small, Wee Bear; and a middle-sized chair for the Middle Bear; and a great chair for the Great, Huge Bear. And they had each a bed to sleep in; a little bed for the Little, Small, Wee Bear; and a middle-sized bed for the Middle Bear; and a great bed for the Great, Huge Bear. One day, after they had made the porridge for their breakfast, and poured it into their porridge-pots, they walked out into the wood while the porridge was cooling, that they might not burn their mouths, by beginning too soon to eat it. And while they were walking, a little old Woman came to the house. She could not have been a good, honest old Woman; for first she looked in at the window, and then she peeped in at the keyhole; and seeing nobody in the house, she lifted the latch.

There was living in Kintalen a woman who had a male-child with neither the growth nor the bloom of other children of his age. From morning to evening he would not cease one minute from crying, and he would eat far more food than was natural for the like of him. It was harvest, and there was not a person on the farm who could draw a sickle but was out on the reaping field, except the mother of the child. She, too, would have been out were it not for fear that the nasty screaming thing would break his heart crying, if she should leave him in charge of any other person. It happened that there was at the time a tailor in the house, making clothes. The tailor was a shrewd, observant man, and he was but a short time within until he became suspicious of the lad in the cradle. "You," said he to the woman, "may go to the reaping, and I will take care of the child."

Last Sunday morning at six o’clock in the evening as I was sailing over the tops of the mountains in my little boat, I met two men on horseback riding on one mare: So I asked them, “Could they tell me whether the little old woman was dead yet who was hanged last Saturday week for drowning herself in a shower of feathers?” They said they could not positively inform me, but if I went to Sir Gammer Vans he could tell me all about it. “But how am I to know the house?” said I. “Ho, ‘t is easy enough,” said they, “for ‘t is a brick house, built entirely of flints, standing alone by itself in the middle of sixty or seventy others just like it.” “Oh, nothing in the world is easier,” said I.

There was an enchanted mill, so that no one could stay there, because a she-wolf always haunted it. A soldier went once into the mill to sleep. He made a fire in the parlor, went up into the garret above, bored a hole with an auger in the floor, and peeped down into the parlor. A she-wolf came in and looked about the mill to see whether she could find anything to eat. She found nothing, and then went to the fire, and said: ‘Skin down! skin down! skin down!’

There were once two young people who loved each other dearly. The young man was called Jean, the girl, Annette. In her sweetness she was like unto a dove, in her strength and bravery she resembled an eagle. Her father was a rich farmer, and owned a large estate, but Jean’s father was only a poor mountain shepherd. Annette did not in the least mind her lover being poor, for he was rich in goodness: nor did she think her father would object to their marrying. One day Jean put on his best clothes, and went to ask the farmer for his daughter’s hand. The farmer listened without interrupting him, and then replied, “If you would marry Annette, go and ask of the Sun why he does not warm the night as well as the day. Then inquire of the Moon why she does not shine by day as well as by night. When you return with these answers you shall not only have my daughter but all my wealth.”

Once upon a time there lived a peasant called Ivan, and he had a wife whose name was Marie. They would have been quite happy except for one thing: they had no children to play with, and as they were now old people they did not find that watching the children of their neighbours at all made up to them for having one of their own. One winter, which nobody living will ever forget, the snow lay so deep that it came up to the knees of even the tallest man. When it had all fallen, and the sun was shining again, the children ran out into the street to play, and the old man and his wife sat at their window and gazed at them. The children first made a sort of little terrace, and stamped it hard and firm, and then they began to make a snow woman. Ivan and Marie watched them, the while thinking about many things.

Hundreds of years ago a very wicked king named Loku ruled the Philippines. He was cruel and unjust, and condemned to death all who refused to do his bidding. He had vast armies and made war on all until his name was feared everywhere. His power was very great. He conquered every nation that opposed him and killed so many people that the god, viewing the slaughter from his throne above, sent an angel to order him to cease from warfare and to rule the land in peace.

When the world first began there was no land, but only the sea and the sky, and between them was a kite. One day the bird which had nowhere to light grew tired of flying about, so she stirred up the sea until it threw its waters against the sky. The sky, in order to restrain the sea, showered upon it many islands until it could no longer rise, but ran back and forth. Then the sky ordered the kite to light on one of the islands to build her nest, and to leave the sea and the sky in peace.

In the beginning there were no people on the earth. Lumawig, the Great Spirit, came down from the sky and cut many reeds.He divided these into pairs which he placed in different parts of the world, and then he said to them, “You must speak.” Immediately the reeds became people, and in each place was a man and a woman who could talk, but the language of each couple differed from that of the others.

In the olden days when Effiong was king of Calabar, it was customary at that time for rulers to give big feasts, to which all the subjects and all the birds of the air and animals of the forest, also the fish and other things that lived in the water, were invited. All the people, birds, animals, and fish, were under the king, and had to obey him. His favourite messenger was the hawk, as he could travel so quickly. The hawk served the king faithfully for several years, and when he wanted to retire, he asked what the king proposed to do for him, as very soon he would be too old to work any more. So the king told the hawk to bring any living creature, bird or animal, to him, and he would allow the hawk for the future to live on that particular species without any trouble.

In a country which is full of wild beasts of all sorts there once lived a jackal and a hedgehog, and, unlike though they were, the two animals made great friends, and were often seen in each other’s company. One afternoon they were walking along a road together, when the jackal, who was the taller of the two, exclaimed: ‘Oh! there is a barn full of corn; let us go and eat some.’ ‘Yes, do let us!’ answered the hedgehog. So they went to the barn, and ate till they could eat no more. Then the jackal put on his shoes, which he had taken off so as to make no noise, and they returned to the high road.

In the olden days there were no hooks or casting nets, so that when the natives wanted to catch fish they made baskets and set traps at the river side. One man named Akon Obo, who was very poor, began to make baskets and traps out of bamboo palm, and then when the river went down he used to take his traps to a pool and set them baited with palm-nuts. In the night the big fish used to smell the palm-nuts and go into the trap, when at once the door would fall down, and in the morning Akon Obo would go and take the fish out. He was very successful in his fishing, and used to sell the fish in the market for plenty of money.

Once upon a time, a cock stood on a dungheap and crowed and flapped its wings. Then the fox came up to him. “Good day,” said the fox. “I did hear you crow,” he said, “but can you stand on one leg and crow and blink, like your father did?” said Mikkel. “I can, both good and well,” said the cock, and he stood on one leg, but he winked only with one eye, and when he had done it, then he preened himself and flapped his wings, as if he had done something great. “That was beautiful,” said the fox. “It was almost as beautiful as when the parson holds mass in church. But can you also stand on one leg and crow and blink with both eyes at the same time? I feel quite sure that you can,” said Mikkel. “Your father, well, he was a real man,” he said.