Note 14 — Chapter VII · Dragon Folk-stories
Reading edition
The “fire nail” figures prominently in Polynesian mythology. In the legend of Maui, that hero-god goes to the old woman (the goddess), his grandmother, to obtain fire for mankind. “Then the aged woman pulled out her nail; and as she pulled it out fire flowed from it, and she gave it to him. And when Maui saw she had drawn out her nail to produce fire for him, he thought it a most wonderful thing.”14