Note 6 — IV—STORIES AND STORY TELLERS
Reading edition
In many cases it is not necessary to assume borrowing from either side, the myths being such as would naturally spring up in any part of the world among primitive people accustomed to observe the characteristics of animals, which their religious system regarded as differing in no essential from human kind, save only in outward form. Thus in Europe and America the terrapin has been accepted as the type of plodding slowness, while the rabbit, with his sudden dash, or the deer with his bounding stride, is the type of speed. What more natural than that the story-teller should set one to race against the other, with the victory in favor of the patient striver against the self-confident boaster? The idea of a hungry wolf or other beast of prey luring his victims by the promise of a new song or dance, during which they must close their eyes, is also one that would easily occur among any primitive people whose chief pastime is dancing.6