In the folk-lore of the Finns the spirits of the woods bear a more benign character. The chief of them, "Tapio," is termed "the gracious god of the woodlands," and is represented as very tall and slender, with a long brown beard, a coat of tree moss, and a high-crowned hat of fir leaves. His consort is Mielikki, "the honey rich mother of the woodland," "the hostess of glen and forest." The neighbouring Esthonians have their "grass-mother" who, besides presiding over the home-field, is also queen of the woods.
It is not perhaps singular to find that the traditions with regard to wood-spirits current amongst contiguous peoples should exhibit such a strong resemblance to each other, but when almost exactly the same conceptions are met with in such distant parts as Japan and South America, we can only conclude that the human mind, wherever it exists, is similarly constituted, and, granted the same phenomena, falls back upon the same ideas to explain them.
The Tengus of Japanese legend have many of the characteristic marks of the wood-spirit. They dwell in the topmost branches of lofty trees, are skilled in the language and lore of animals and plants, and are a terror to untruthful children. They have the body of a man, the head of a hawk, with a long proboscis, and powerful claws on their hands; on their feet, also provided with claws, are stilt-like clogs a foot high. They are hatched from eggs, and in their youth have feathers and wings.[150]
A traveller in Peru only sixty years ago found the tradition of a living wood-ghost, who dwelt in the darkest part of the forest, the haunt of night-birds, and issued forth to decoy the Indians to their destruction.[151] The idea of a wild man of the woods also exists in Brazil. The Indians call him Curupira, and attribute to his agency all such forest sounds as they cannot understand.[152]
Some of the foregoing traditions present a glimpse of the transition towards a later and more highly developed conception, in which the many spirits once believed in become generalised into a single "spirit of vegetation." It is not indeed contended that this belief is necessarily destructive of the earlier. Indeed it is possible that in the loosely working mind of the peasant the two conceptions may exist side by side. The many interesting ceremonies and observances which arose out of this generalised conception will be dealt with in a later chapter.