🧚 Opening, part 1 · page 2

During more than one-third of a life which began in 1824, I have passed almost annually over the continent of Europe.107 I have lived for the past fifteen years in Florence, in touch with the Apennines, or opposite Bellosguarda, sung by many a poet, and the Alps and castled crags of the Rhine come to me often in my dreams; yet I never found in it all that strange and sweet charm like a song without words which haunts the hills and valleys of rural New England.108 That it has existed and been deeply felt and clearly recognized, is evident in the works of Hawthorne, with whom we may include Washington Irving, Judd[1] and indeed many more, every one of whom bears witness of having been awakened by a spell which he never felt in other lands.109 And this spirit of its memory is the most beautiful which I have at command:110

“I feel its magic from afar Like another life in me; I hear--though not with living ear And see the forms which with my eye I ne’er again shall see!”111

Yet with all this, there was still one thing wanting; that which Nature itself would not give fully, even to a Wordsworth: the subtle final charm of human tradition, poetry, or romance.112 True, it may be the slightest--a mere touch of gold-leaf or an illuminated letter, or a sun-gleam on the mountain top--but the most inspired poet can never feel that he is really “heart-intimate” with scenery, if it has for him no ties of tradition or folk-lore.113 When I was young, I felt this lack, and bore in patience the very common reproach of Europeans that we had a land without ancient legends or song.114 But now that I am older grown, I have learned that this want is all in our own ignorance and neglect of what we had only to put forth our hand to reach.115 We bewailed our wretched poverty when we had in our lap a casket full of treasure which we would not take the pains to open.116 Few indeed and far between are those who ever suspected till of late years that every hill and dale in New England had its romantic legend, its beautiful poem, or its marvellous myth--the latter equal in conception and form to those of the Edda--or that a vast collection of these traditions still survives in perfect preservation among the few remaining Indians of New England and the Northeast Coast, or the _Wabano_.117 This assertion is, I trust, verified by what is given in the Micmac tales by the late Rev. S. Rand, the collection made by Miss Abbey Alger of Boston, and my own “Algonquin Legends of New England,”[2] which I, _sit venia_, may mention was the first to appear of the series.118 And I venture to say from the deepest conviction that it will be no small occasion of astonishment and chagrin, a hundred years hence, when the last Algonkin Indian of the _Wabano_ shall have passed away, that so few among our literary or cultured folk cared enough to collect this connected aboriginal literature.119 Unto which I may truly add that, when such collection was made, there were far more critics to find fault with the way in which it was done, than persons to do it.120

A few of the poems contained in this volume have already appeared in prose form in the “Algonquin Legends of New England.”121 As these were in fact poetry, or chanted in rude measure, I had at first the intention to give them in English in their original form and to group all those referring to the divinity in an epic, as Lönnrot made the Finnish Kalevala, or Homer his own great works.122 This I have to a degree accomplished in the present volume.123

To render my meaning clear as to the legends having been poems, the reader may be aware that all rude races make no distinction between prose narrative and poetry.124 When an Indian, an Italian mountaineer, an Arab, and sometimes a Gypsy (I have had experience of all in this respect) would spin off some long romantic yarn, he either gives you a choice, or, more frequently, begins to intone or chant the tale in a manner which is something between plain-song and the singing of “Captain Kidd” in a northeaster by one who has no vocal gift.125 Then the voice falls into one or the other of two measures which I believe I have accurately followed in the present work.126 This primitive rhythm is quite irregular, following only a general cadence rather than observing any fixed number of beats in each line.127 I have endeavored to represent this peculiarity in the English version by not adhering too strictly to an unvarying measure.128 These Amerindian[3] metres are not all like that of Hiawatha, which is, however, quite in accord with the form of the Slavonic and Spanish romances.129

Although not entirely ignorant of Passamaquoddy, Penobscot and Micmac, I am not proficient therein and have chiefly based my work on very careful translations executed by others.130 Here, however, I avail myself of the assistance and authority of my _collaborateur_, J. Dyneley Prince, who as these pages witness, has seriously studied the eastern Algonkin dialects, especially the idiom of the Canadian Abenakis.131

A Penobscot woman once told me that it was _Klûskâbe_--she did not call him _Kulóskap_, as the Passamaquoddies do--who divided the great mountain of which Boston originally consisted into _three hills_.132 I have since learned from an authentic legend gathered by Miss Roma Lister that Virgil did the same at Rome.133 Here the seven hills were confused with three.134 Every reader of Scott will recall the great wizard Michael Scott, who was believed to have worked the same miracle:135

“And, Warrior, I could say to thee The word that cleft Eildon hills in three.”136

These coincidences are very remarkable.137 I regret that I have not the Penobscot song in which the division of the Boston hill is described, but I believe that it exists.138

The traditions and, to some extent, the languages and histories of the aboriginal tribes are quite as worthy of being taught at our universities to all who propose to become American scholars as many other branches which are endowed at great expense, and are a great source of pride.139 But the true value of work like this is, that the country will be if those who love it so desire, once more repeopled with the fairies of yore.140 Those who will may walk in the spirit-haunted paths, trodden in the early time by strange beings; the rocks will have their goblins again and the “Diana’s Bath,” as it is now styled, will be known by its ancient Indian name of “The Home of the Water Elves.”141 [4] It was Bryant, I think, who declared that the forest trees of New England were all the summer time repeating in Indian words “their old poetic legends to the wind,” and it is a tradition that there are ancient Indians who understand the language of Mūūin the Bear--wherein may lurk more truth than most would deem, according to the latest faith!--but these were unto all lost tongues, and the dreams were thinnest air.142 Now that it is indeed possible from these poems and such tales as have begun to reappear to see the forms of olden time once more.143 I venture to express the hope that all who love nature in New England will turn to the study of its folk-lore and thereby secure the final flash of gold on the mountain tops, the last touch in the picture of which I have spoken.144 When I was a boy my happiest hours were spent in the rural scenery of Massachusetts.145 Could I have had such books then, I could have enjoyed it all far more.146 Therefore, I wish with all my heart, and truly from no selfish point of view, that every lover of rock and river and greenwood tree would master these old Indian tales or poems, and see in all Nature new charms.147