“Wanna Issi had two servants, Koit and Ämmarik, and he gave them a torch which Koit should light every morning, and Ämmarik should extinguish in the evening. In order to reward their faithful services, Wanna Issi told them they might be man and wife, but they asked Wanna Issi that he would allow them to remain forever bride and bridegroom. Wanna Issi assented, and henceforth Koit handed the torch every evening to Ämmarik, and Ämmarik took it and extinguished it. Only during four weeks in summer they remain together at midnight; Koit hands the dying torch to Ämmarik, but Ämmarik does not let it die, but lights it again with her breath. Then their hands are stretched out, and their lips meet, and the blush of the face of Ämmarik colors the midnight sky.” This myth requires hardly any commentary; yet as long as it is impossible to explain the names, Wanna Issi, Koit, and Ämmarik, it might be said that the story was but a love story, invented by an idle Lapp, or Finn, or Esthonian. But what if Wanna Issi in Esthonian means the Old Father, and if Koit means the Dawn? Can we then doubt any longer that Ämmarik(41) must be the Gloaming and that their meeting in the summer reflects those summer evenings when, particularly in the North, the torch of the sun seems never to die, and when the Gloaming is seen kissing the Dawn? I wish I could tell you some more of these stories which have been gathered from all parts of the world, and which, though they may be pronounced childish and tedious by some critics, seem to me to glitter with the brightest dew of nature’s own poetry, and to contain those very touches that make us feel akin, not only with Homer or Shakespeare, but even with Lapps, and Finns, and Kaffirs. I cannot resist, however, the temptation of inserting here a poetical rendering of the story of Koit and Ämmarik, sent to me from the New World, remarking only that instead of Lapland, Esthonia is really the country that may claim the original story. A LEGEND OF LAPLAND. “Two servants were in Wanna Issi’s pay; A blazing torch their care; Each morning Koit must light it till its ray Flamed through the air; “And every evening Ämmarik’s fair hand Must quench the waning light; Then over all the weary, waiting land Fell the still night. “So passed the time; then Wanna Issi said, “For faithful service done, Lo, here reward! To-morrow shall ye wed, And so be one.” “ ‘Not so,’ said Koit; ‘for sweeter far to me The joy that neareth still; Then grant us ever fast betrothed to be.” They had their will. “And now the blazing lustre to transfer Himself, is all his claim; Warm from her lover’s hand it comes to her, To quench the flame. “Only for four times seven lengthening days, At midnight, do they stand Together, while Koit gives the dying blaze To Ämmarik’s hand.