“Oh, Oh! I call to Raven. You Raven travel around from very remote times. I want your assistance. What are you going to do with this bay that is frozen? Mischievous people made it freeze; you have a strong beak, what are you going to do?” Sometimes these parts of tales are in an archaic form, or in a foreign language, so that they may be quite unintelligible. Their impressiveness rests on the form and the general emotional trend of the passages in which they occur. When such passages are discourse they are probably the best material for the study of literary style. From these remarks let us turn to a few general characteristics of literary style, first of all to a consideration of rhythm and repetition. The investigation of primitive narrative as well as of poetry proves that repetition, particularly rhythmic repetition, is one of its fundamental, esthetic traits. It is not easy to form a just opinion regarding the rhythmic character of formal prose; in part because the rhythmic sense of primitive people is much more highly developed than our own. The simplification of the rhythm of modern folk song, and of poetry intended to appeal to popular taste, has dulled our feeling for rhythmic form. I have referred to this question before when discussing the complexity of rhythm in decorative art. It requires careful study to understand the structure of primitive rhythm, more so in prose than in song, because in this case the help of the melodic pattern is lacking. Rhythmic repetition of contents and form is found commonly in primitive narrative. For example, the tales of the Chinook Indians are often so constructed that five brothers, one after another, have the same adventure. The four elder ones perish while the youngest one emerges safe and successful. The tale is repeated verbatim for all the brothers, and its length, which to our ear and to our taste is intolerable, probably gives pleasure by the repeated form.[125] Conditions are quite similar in European fairy tales relating to the fates of three brothers, two of whom perish or fail in their tasks, while the youngest one succeeds. Similar repetitions are found in the German tale of Redridinghood, in the widely spread European story of the rooster who goes to bury his mate, or in the story of the three bears. In Oriental tales the incidents of the tale are sometimes repeated verbatim being retold by one of the heroes. [125] Franz Boas, Chinook Texts, Bull. Bur. of Ethnol. Washington D. C., (1894), pp. 9 et seq. A few additional examples taken from the narratives of foreign people will illustrate the general occurrence of the tendency to repetition. In the Basuto tale called Kumonngoe a man leads his daughter into the wilderness where she is to be devoured by a cannibal. On the way he meets three animals and the son of a chief. In each case the same conversation ensues. “Where are you leading your daughter?”—“Ask herself, she is grown up.” She replies: