LEGENDS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1962, 29 October 1889, Page 3

LEGENDS.

Woman’s first appearance has been a fruitful subject for the legend mongers. The jjhoenician myth of creation is found in the story of Pygmalion and Galatea. Ihere the first woman was carved by the first man but -of ivory, and then endowed with life .by The Greek theory ojfe lj& of woman,; tea or ding to Hesiod, was that Zeus as a cruel jest ordered Vulcan to make woman out of clay, and then induced the various gods and goddesses to invest the clay doll with all their worst qualities, the result being a lovely thing, with a* witchery of mien, refined craft, 1 eager passion, love of dress, treacherous manners and shameless mind. The Scandinavians say that as Odin,.Vil, and ¥e, the three sans of Bor, were walking along the sea beach they found two sticks of wood, one of ash and one of elm. Sitting down the gods shaped a mam and a woman out of these sticks, whittling the woman from the elm and calling her Emia One ef the strangest stories touching the origin of woman is told by the Malagese. In so far as the creation of man goes, the legend is not unlike that related by -Moses, only that the 'fall came before Eve arrived. After ihe man had eaten of the forbidden fruit he became affected with a boil on the leg, out of which, when it burst, came a beautiful girl. The man’s first thought was to throw her to the pigs, but he was commanded by a messenger from Heaven to let her play among the diggings until she was of marriageable age, then to make jher his wife. He did so, called her ■Baboura, and she became the mother of all races of men. The American Indians’ myths relating to Adam and Eve are numerous and entertaining. Some traditions trace hack our first parents to whit© and red maize; another is that man, searching for a wife, was given the daughter of the muskrats, ,who on being dipped into the .waters of a neighboring lake, became a woman.