LEGENDS
OF THE
Pike's Peak Region
LEGENDS
OF THE
Pike's Peak Region
The Sacred Myths of the Manitou
BY
ERNEST WHITNEY, M. A.
ASSISTED BY
WILLIAM S. ALEXANDER
ILLUSTRATED BY THOMAS C. PARRISH
PUBLISHED BY
THE CHAIN & HARDY CO
DENVER, COLORADO
1892
COPYRIGHT, 1892, BY
THE CHAIN & HARDY BOOK. STATIONERY & ART CO.
ILLUSTRATIONS.
| PAGE | |
| On the Waters Toward the Gate of Heaven | 7 |
| The Healing Fountain and Pike's Peak | 17 |
| The Great Dragon | 31 |
| Temple of the Lesser Spirits | 41 |
| The Wigwam of the Manitou | 53 |
However uncouththey may be,the myths and legendsof early nations,like the poetryof later, givethe highest andtruest exponents of their characters, and preservewith a singular fidelity the very essenceof their daily lives, their fears and hopes, theirassumptions and intuitions. It is proverbial9that the songs of a people are stronger thantheir laws; and the myths and traditions embodyingthe sentiments upon which nationalcharacter, national religion, are founded, aremore powerful than the songs, which theyinspire. A ballad of the people, a bit of folklore, may teach us more than whole chaptersof history; we can hardly understand historywithout such lights.
A century ago Scotland was to Englandwhat Bœotia was to cultured Athens, proverbiallythe land of the uninteresting, thekingdom of dullness and prose; yet every lakeand stream, every glen and rock wore thehalo of poetry, the glamour of romance; andwhen the Wizard of the North drew asidethe veil of prejudice, the eyes of all Englandwere opened as to visions, and the "land ofthe mountain and the flood" became as familiarand dear as the favored haunts of home.Scott had discovered a new world, new evento the dwellers in it. Gathering the tangled,distorted fragments of tradition floatin