24. Karagan.
People wished to kill the saint Elias; he fled to the wilderness and built himself a tent and a bed, and lived by hunting wild animals. To him came the fox and said, "Feed me with the meat thou hast captured, and I will find thee a wife." Elias fed her, and the fox really brought him a wife, and then ran away. No sooner had she hid herself than the wife changed into a trembling karagan (caragana frutescens). Elias said, "May I never see thee again, O fox!"—(Djak sui hai, a Kirghis of the Baidjêget race, of Tarbagatai.)
25. Legends of the Swan, the Widgeon, and the Crow,
explaining why it is wicked to kill them.
Khong, the swan. In ancient times there was only water, there was no land. A Lhama came from the sky and began to stir the ocean with an iron rod. The ocean, like butter, grew thick from the wind and melted from the fire. From this stirring in the centre of the ocean there thickened a ball of earth, and from the stirring of the more distant part of the ocean the earth grew hard in the form of a square. After this, from the sky to that land, came two swans; the Lhama made from the nails of the female a woman, and from the nails of the male a man. From these two the first of men sprung the human race; for this cause the Mongols do not kill the swan. The swan has yellow cheeks, a white body, and black feet; therefore the Tangūt Lhamas all wear yellow clothes. The body is bigger than the head; therefore the White Khan (Russian Emperor) rules over ten tongues. The feet are black,[1] therefore people living by the sea-shore know little of books. Thus too the Tangūts[2] know more than them all (for the tongue is nearest of all to the head).—(Chērēn Dorchkē, a Khalka man by the River Tamēr.).
