The Greeks have a curious way of looking at sleep: they seem absorbed in the thought of what dreams may come--if indeed the word dream rightly describes their conception of that which happens to the soul while the body takes its rest--if they do not rather cling to some vague notion of a real severance between matter and spirit during sleep. The mothers of La Bresse (near Lyons) invoke sleep under the name of "le souin-souin." I wish I could give here the sweet, inedited melody which accompanies these lines: Le poupon voudrait bien domir; Le souin-souin ne veut pas venir. Souin-souin, vene, vene, vene; Souin-souin, vene, vene, donc! The Chippewaya Indians were in the habit of personifying sleep as an immense insect called Weeng, which someone once saw at the top of a tree engaged in making a buzzing noise with its wings. Weeng produced sleep by sending fairies, who beat the foreheads of tired mortals with very small clubs. Sleep acts the part of questioner in the lullaby of the Finland peasant woman, who sings to her child in its bark cradle: "Sleep, little field bird; sleep sweetly, pretty redbreast. God will wake thee when it is time. Sleep is at the door, and says to me, 'Is not there a sweet child here who fain would sleep? a young child wrapped in swaddling clothes, a fair child resting beneath his woollen coverlet?'" A questioning sleep makes his appearance likewise in a Sicilian _ninna_:-- My little son, I wish you well, your mother's comfort when in grief. My pretty boy, what can I do? Will you not give one hour's relief? Sleep has just past, and me he asked if this my son in slumber lay. Close, close your little eyes, my child; send your sweet breath far leagues away. You are the fount of rose water; you are with every beauty fraught. Sleep, darling son, my pretty one, my golden button richly wrought.