How Glooskap Found The Summer

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Title:     How Glooskap Found The Summer
Author: Charles G. Leland [More Titles by Leland]

In the long ago time when people lived always in the early red morning, before sunrise, before the _Squid to neck_ was peopled as to-day, Glooskap went very far north, where all was ice.

He came to a wigwam. Therein he found a giant, a great giant, for he was Winter. Glooskap entered; he sat down. Then Winter gave him a pipe; he smoked, and the giant told tales of the old times.

The charm was on him; it was the Frost. The giant talked on and froze, and Glooskap fell asleep. He slept for six months, like a toad. Then the charm fled, and he awoke. He went his way home; he went to the south, and at every step it grew warmer, and the flowers began to come up and talk to him.

He came to where there were many little ones dancing in the forest; their queen was Summer. I am singing the truth: it was Summer, the inmost beautiful one ever born. He caught her up; he kept her by a crafty trick. The Master cut a moose-hide into a long cord; as he ran away with Summer he let the end trail behind him.

They, the fairies of Light, pulled at the cord, but as Glooskap ran, the cord ran out, and though they pulled he left them far away. So he came to the lodge of Winter, but now he had Summer in his bosom; and Winter welcomed him, for he hoped to freeze him again to sleep. I am singing the song of Summer.

But this time the Master did the talking. This time his _m'teoulin_ was the strongest. And ere long the sweat ran down Winter's face, and then he melted more and quite away, as did the wigwam. Then every thing awoke; the grass grew, the fairies came out, and the snow ran down the rivers, carrying away the dead leaves. Then Glooskap left Summer with them, and went home.

This poem--for it is such--was related to Mrs. W. Wallace Brown by an Indian named Neptune. It appears to be the completer form of the beautiful allegory of Winter and Spring given in the Hiawatha Legends as Peboan and Seegwum (Odjibwa). The struggle between Spring and Winter, Summer and Winter, or Heat and Cold, represented as incarnate human or mythic beings, forms the subject of several Indian legends, as it does a part of the Hymiskrida, in the Edda. The German J. B. Friedreich (Symbolik der Natur, Wurzburg, 1859) remarks that in the Bible, Job xxxviii. 28, and in the Song of the Three in the Fiery Furnace, Ice and Snow are spoken of as intelligences.

Heat and cold, in classic times, were supposed to be united, yet in conflict, in the lightning and hail (Virgil, Aen, VIII. 429), the symbol for this being a twisted horn. In the legend of the _Culloo_ the frost giantess can only be killed by a crooked horn thrust into her ear. The horn darts out at once into incredible, irregular length, and evidently means lightning. In the Edda the he-goat is, on account of his horns, the symbol of lightning and storm. (Schwenk, Sinnbilden der alten Volker.) The Giala-horn of the Edda (Nyer up. Dict Scan. Mythol.) is the thunder which summons the Elves. "Miolner, the hammer of Thor, with which he kills frost giants, is the lightning." (Kirchner, Thor's Donnerkeil, Neu Strelitz, 1853, p. 60.) The coincidence of the symbols in the Edda with that of the lightning horn in the Indian legend is very curious, if nothing more.

The cord which Glooskap unrolls, and with which he deceives the fairies, who think they have him fast, while he is escaping, means delusive speech or plausible talk. To "talk like paying out rope" is an old simile.

"Speech runes thou must know,
If thou wilt that no one
for injury with hate requite thee.
Those thou must wind,
Those thou must wrap round (thee),
Those thou must altogether place
in the assembly,
where people have
into full court to go."
(Sigrdrifumal.)

This is a merely accidental coincidence, but it illustrates the meaning of the myth. In both cases it is "wound or wrapped around" and rapidly unrolled, and the same simile.

The following poem on Glooskap may be appropriately placed in this work. The allusion to the agates of Cape Blomidon refers to a tradition given by S. T. Rand, which states that when Glooskap would make his adopted grandmother young again he created the brilliant stones, which are still found at that place, to adorn her. [Footnote: _Youth's Companion_.]

THE LEGEND OF GLOOSKAP.

Bathed in the sunshine still as of yore
Stretches the peaceful Acadian shore;
Fertile meadows and fields of grain
Smile as they drink the summer rain.

There like a sentinel, grim and gray,
Blomidon stands at the head of the bay,
And the famous Fundy tides, at will,
Sweep into Minas Basin still.

With wondrous beauty the Gaspereanx
Winds its way to the sea below,
And the old Acadian Grand Pre
Is the home of prosperous men to-day.

The place where Basil the blacksmith wrought,
In the glow of his forge, is a classic spot,
And every summer tourists are seen
In the fairy haunts of Evangeline.

But the old Acadian woods and shores,
Rich in beautiful legend stores,
Were once the home of an older race,
Who wore their epics with untaught grace.
Long ere the dikes that guard for aye
From the merciless tides the old Grand Pre,
Built by the Frenchman's tireless hands,
Grew round the rich Acadian lands.

The Micmac sailed in his birch canoe
Over the Basin, calm and blue;
Speared the salmon, his heart's desire,
Danced and slept by his wigwam fire;

Far in the depth of the forest gray
Hunted the moose the livelong day,
While the mother sang to her Micmac child
Songs of the forest, weird and wild.

Over the tribe, with jealous eye,
Watched the Great Spirit from on high,
While on the crest of Blomidon
Glooskap, the God-man, dwelt alone.

No matter how far his feet might stray
From the favorite haunts of his tribe away,
Glooskap could hear the Indian's prayer,
And send some message of comfort there.

Glooskap it was who taught the use
Of the bow and the spear, and sent the moose
Into the Indian banter's hands;
Glooskap who strewed the shining sands

Of the tide-swept beach of the stormy bay
With amethysts purple and agates gray,
And brought to each newly wedded pair
The Great Spirit's benediction fair.

But the white man came, and with ruthless hand
Cleared the forests and sowed the land,
And drove from their haunts by the sunny shore
Micmac and moose, forevermore.

And Glooskap, saddened and sore distressed,
Took his way to the unknown West,
And the Micmac kindled his wigwam fire
Far from the grave of his child and his sire;

Where now, as he weaves his basket gay,
And paddles his birch canoe away,
He dreams of the happy time for men
When Glooskap shall come to his tribe again.

ARTHUR WENTWORTH EATON.

[The end]
Charles G. Leland's short story: How Glooskap Found The Summer

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