It has been observed that historical traditions are ever liable to be affected by myths, often owing to a love of the marvellous. Among barbaric and scriptless peoples such records may be honey-combed with wonder tales, and a people may attain to a fairly high stage of culture and yet retain such abnormal features in their literature, as witness the marvellous miracles we read of in the west, and the mixed fable and history of some oriental folk.

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It is but a few days since that I read a cablegram from Italy describing a volcanic outburst and the destruction caused by flowing lava. In order to save a doomed village an image of a revered atua was brought from a church and placed in front of the lava flow, where it was besought to stay that flow. Alas for human hopes, for the lava flowed on and that image had to be hurriedly placed in a cart and trundled away. This is 1928 and we still marvel at the blind faith of the barbaric Maori who carried the amorangi of his atua at the head of a raiding party in order to confound his enemies. Some cast doubt on all traditional lore of scriptless folk, but this extreme course is too severe in the case of a people noted for the careful preservation of tribal lore; myths creep into historical events even among modern civilised nations, but they cannot persist to the extent that they formerly did. We cannot affirm that the Great War never occurred because of the existence of a childish myth concerning the Angels of Mons. Even in our own time wondrous tales are related regarding individuals among highly civilised folk. As Tylor put it—"Nothing is more certain than that real personages often have mythic incidents tacked onto their history, and that they even figure in tales of which the very substance is mythic." In Maori lore we find that Rongakako, evidently a genuine ancestor, is credited with having traversed the east coast of the North Island by taking prodigious strides many miles in length, and, as proof of this we are referred to his footprints, deep holes in far-sundered rocks. A great number of such illustrations might here be given.

We will now scan some old time legends pertaining to what were apparently genuine historical characters, and note how they have become encrusted with myth, commencing with a survey of the story of Kupe the seafarer, who reached these isles from eastern Polynesia apparently about one thousand years ago.