The Coolidge Examiner

Old Myth Realistic in the Telling of Animals Stealing Fire From Pines

This myth goes back for its beginnings to a time when there were no people in the world. Animals and trees talked and walked about just as men do now. But there were galling monopolies even in those days. Pine trees had all the fire there was. The animals stood it as best they could, until one long, cold winter when they almost froze to death. Then they called a council and planned to steal fire from the pines.

Word came of a council of pine trees on the banks of the Grande Ronde river, where they had built a great fire to warm themselves. So a beaver swam over there and hid under the bank where the guards could not see him. After a long time a live coal left the fire and rolled down the bank where it was caught by the beaver, who hid it in his breast. Then there was a merry chase.

The beaver ran very fast, dodging this way and that. Pine trees nearly caught him. Finally the larger and older trees grew tired and stopped on the river bank, where they are so thick that even now it is difficult to find a way through them, but a few pine trees, more agile than the rest, kept on, and finally when the beaver was hard pressed he swam across the river and gave fire to the willows and the birches. That is why fire can be got from these woods by rubbing sticks together.—Exchange.