Tree

In their extreme old age, they changed into an oak and lime tree.

The giant Bergelmir escaped, with his wife and children, on a boat made from a hollowed tree trunk.

This made the flea weep, which made the door creak, which made the broom sweep, which made the cart run, which made the ash-heap burn, which made the tree shake itself, which made the girl break her water-pitcher, which made the spring begin to flow.

The earth brought forth fine fruits, flesh grew on trees, and milk and wine flowed in many rivers.

The old man told the host to take a wife, gather his kinfolk, and build a boat on which to save them, animals, and seeds of trees and herbs.

Pygmy:Chameleon heard a strange noise, like water running, in a tree, but at that time there was no water in the world.

Mba was washed away and landed in the top of a tree.

A few people saved themselves on rafts made from bound-together tree trunks.

The fish led him to a northern mountain and told Manu to tie the ship's rope to a tree to prevent it from drifting.

Assam (northeastern India):A flood once covered the whole world and drowned everyone except for one couple, who climbed up a tree on the highest peak of the Leng hill.

Du-mu was saved in a log hollowed out of a Pieris tree, together with his four sons and otters, wild ducks, and lampreys.

The parents of Mahei and Maniu, twin brother and sister, felled a big tree, hollowed it out, and covered both ends with cowhide.

Mahei suggested she consult the magic tree.

Maniu went there, but Mahei took a shortcut and hid behind the tree.

A mango tree grew from the celestial vault, and the younger brother climbed up to eat its fruit.

Gong Gong extended the flood for 22 years, and people had to live in high mountain caves and in trees, fighting with wild animals for scarce resources.

Two trees grew from their bellies as they slept and entangled together.

Korea:A son was borne to a fairy and a laurel tree; the fairy returned to heaven when the boy was seven years old.

The boy did so, floating on the tree for many days.

After asking the tree for permission, the boy gave them refuge on the branches of the laurel.

Again, the boy asked the tree for permission, was granted it, and gave the mosquitoes rest.

This time the tree refused permission when its son asked.

The son asked twice more, and after the third time the tree said, "Do what you like," and the son rescued the other boy.

At last the tree came to rest on the summit of a mountain.

A mosquito came and told the Son of the Tree which room the old woman's daughter was in, so those two were married, and the second boy married the foster-daughter.

The next day, the woman challenged them to a contest of gathering pine trees while her sons stacked them.

When it became clear that the four brothers ripped up the trees faster than the tigers could stack them, the woman set fire to the logs.

He sent a stream of fire-water (Sengle-Daa) from heaven, and all people died save a brother and sister who had hidden beneath a tiril tree (hence tiril wood is black and charred today).

They sat down in a row on a tree trunk, it broke, and they all cried out, and with that they were able to speak.

The log had settled on an oleaster tree, which is why the tree is crooked even to this day.

Bubo climbed the sun-moon tree on Mount Bachi to heaven to fight Thunder God.

A third vine twined around bushes and trees.

Getting angry, they felled trees, killed snakes and held sham funerals, caught owls and salamanders to play games with, and offered small jars of wine to Heaven's shrine.

All drowned except one woman, who survived through the fortunate chance that her hair got caught in a thorny tree as she drifted along on the tide.

When the flood sank, she came down from the tree and found herself alone.

Dusun (British North Borneo):Some men of Kampong Tudu, looking for wood for a fence, came upon what seemed to be a great tree trunk lying on the ground.

The woman noticed that the dog had found shelter from the rain under a creeper warmed by the rubbing between the creeper and a tree in the wind.

After the waters had descended, the woman saw a sheaf of rice hanging from an uprooted tree which drifted ashore where she was standing.

Alfoor (Celam, between Celebes and New Guinea):As a great worldwide flood receded, the mountain Noesake emerged with its sides clothed with trees whose leaves were shaped like female genitalia.

Crow cut down a big paperbark tree, which fell across a creek.

Crow sat on the tree crying out, "Waag.

The splash from the tree caused the water to rise, and the people, who were all on the bank of the creek, all drowned.

He went on and cut and ate a palm tree.

He ran back to others and told them that he had unknowingly done wrong to a djang palm tree.

They tried to burn the tree, but water came up from it.

One girl ran up a hill calling out; the others climbed a manbaderi tree.

The tree fell, and those in it drowned.

He died and turned into a certain milkwood tree.

When everyone else had fallen asleep, Crow climbed a tree and chopped off a branch, which fell and killed the two men.

It was spreading inland, too, but Bird Women came from the east and restrained the waters with a barrier of roots of the ngalda kurrajong tree.

All people were destroyed except those whom Bunjil loved and fixed as stars in the sky, and a man and a woman who climbed a tall tree on a mountain, and from whom the present human race is descended.

She called her husband, but he couldn't see it until he hid behind a banana tree and peeked through its leaves.

When the good man saw that, he hastily drove a pair of all kinds of animals into trees and climbed into a coconut tree with his family.

The woman, fast asleep, drifted until her hair caught on a tree on the top of Mount Armlimui.

They resolved vengeance by flooding the village, and suggested Milathk save herself by preparing a raft tied to a tree by a rope.

The legendary hero Qat made a great canoe out of one of the largest trees in a dense forest at the center of the island of Gaua.

Even the trees and stones were carried away by the wind.

When the wind died away, stones and trees began to fall from the heavens, where the winds had carried them.

Then in three days all the trees bore fruit.

At her suggestion, they fled to the mountains and built their home in the tops of the tallest trees.

The people fled to the mountains, and the flood covered the mountains; they climbed the trees, and the flood rose above the trees and drowned them all.

They huddled together for warmth as uprooted trees drifted past.

Uprooted trees, devil-fish, and other strange creatures washed past.

When the waters ebbed, the survivors followed the tide down the mountain, but the trees were all gone, and the people, having no firewood, perished of cold.

He told other people, but they laughed at him and said they'd climb trees in the event of a flood.

Then came a great flood, with water gushing from all sides, rising higher than the trees and drowning all people but the Wise Man and his family on his raft.

He took trees to be his wives, and from them the Indians are descended.

They enclosed their children, along with supplies, in hollow trees.

The earth had no mountains or trees before the flood.

Nearly all people floated on logs and trees in different directions.

The husband escaped up a tree.) [Kelsen, pp.

Many died when their canoes were caught in trees.

When people started talking to the trees the change came in the form of a flood.

The people escaped in their canoes to the highest peak in their country, which they call "Fastener." With long ropes, they tied their canoes to the tallest tree on the peak, but the water rose over it.

When he reached the earth, he had to travel over rocks, sticks, and trees, and everything he touched has henceforth contained fire.

Olelbis directed Tsurat (woodpecker) to carry Hlihli (white oak acorn) over the earth; meal drifted out of it, and oak trees sprung up everywhere.

Trees fell down westward.

A little earth came into being, and it turned into all kinds of trees.

Blue Jay, Crested Jay, and Coyote planted trees.

Olle then took a sack from his roundhouse and beat it against an oak tree, creating fog.

He beat another sack against the tree, causing more fog, and then rain.

They succeeded, and Olle put the fire in the buckeye tree.

Naigaicho traveled over the earth making sea foods, creeks, trees, ocean waves, and generally making it comfortable for people.

The people climbed trees because there were no mountains to escape to.

He fled; a woodpecker directed him to a tall pine tree on a mountain.

Nenebojo climbed the tree and began building a raft, which he finished just as the waters reached his neck.

This attracted the attention of the serpent-king, and when Menaboshu saw it stick up its head, he immediately turned himself into a tree stump.

The serpent-king and other serpents saw nothing unusual but the new tree stump.

He climbed to the top boughs of a fir tree on the top of one tall mountain, and the waters stopped rising just as they reached his mouth.

Soon the water came to the top of the hill, and he climbed a tall pine tree there.

The water kept coming, and he told the pine tree to stretch itself to double its length.

He followed a river to a lake and found a kingfisher in a tree looking into the water, waiting for some of Wenebojo's nephew's guts to float by.

He ran to a bluff; a pine tree there told Wenebojo to climb it, and the tree stretched higher, saving Wenebojo from the flood with his nose barely above water.

After the first day of play, Manabush made himself into a pine tree near where the manidoes played.

When they returned the next morning, the manidoes were suspicious of the tree, so the sent for Grizzly Bear to claw it and Serpent to strangle and bite it.

Manabush climbed a great pine tree on the highest mountain.

When the waters still rose to threaten him, he commanded the tree to grow.

One particularly hard winter had earthquakes, volcanoes, and floods which destroyed all the trees.

Messou fired arrows into the trunks of trees, and the arrows turned into branches.

A giant eagle, Wanblee Galeshka, swept down, saved one girl from the flood, carrying her to a tree on the highest pinnacle, the only place not covered by water.

Papago (Arizona):Back when the sun was closer to the earth, Coyote foresaw the coming of a flood, gnawed down a great tree, entered it, and sealed the opening.

Huichol (western Mexico):A man clearing fields found the trees regrown overnight.

Per her instructions, he built a box from the fig tree and entered it with five grains of corn and beans of each color, fire with five squash stems to feed it, and a black bitch.

He waited five more days and sent out the woodpecker, which found the trees too soft and returned saying "Chu-ee, chu-ee!" He waited five days more and sent out the sandpiper, who reported back that the ground was hard, and the man ventured out.

Tepecano (southeast of Huichols):A man cleared trees every morning and found them regrown overnight.

These children were all born dumb until a dove from a lofty tree gave them languages, but different languages so that they couldn't understand each other.

Tlapanac (south central Mexico):A buzzard told a man working in the fields not to work anymore and caused all the trees that had been cut to rise again.

Totonac (eastern Mexico):A man, warned by God, survived the flood in a tree he had hollowed out.

Chol (southern Mexico):When the deluge came, some people survived by climbing into the highest trees.

When the waters were subsiding, the younger brother fell out of the ark, landed in a tree, and turned into a monkey.

They tried to escape onto their houses, into trees, and into caves, but the houses collapsed, the trees threw them off, and the caves slammed shut.

Makunaima created a great tree from which all food plants grew.

Sigu decided it would be best to chop down the tree and plant the seeds and cuttings so that the food would be widespread.

When the tree was felled, the animals discovered the hollow stump was filled with water containing all kinds of fresh-water fish.

Sigu led the birds and climbing animals to tall cocorite trees on the highest hill.

Sigu stayed with the birds in the cocorite tree, occasionally dropping seeds.

Arekuna (Guyana):Shortly after people arrived on earth, all crops grew on a single tree.

The culture hero Makunaima and his four brothers cut down the tree, and water immediately poured from the stump, and with it came fish.

Kuamachi and his grandfather Mahanama led them to the trees.

The star people climbed the trees and started eating fruit; they weren't afraid of only two people.

Kuamachi dropped one fruit; water came out of it, spread, and caused a flood, covering everything but the trees.

The surviving wounded Star people climbed back into the trees.

When he had created plants and trees, he came down from his heavenly mansion, climbed a tree, and chipped off bark with a large stone axe.

The chips turned into animals of all kinds when they fell into the river at the base of the tree.

Chibchachun was driven under the ground and made to hold it up (replacing the lignum-vitae trees which had held it before).

Yaruro (southern Venezuela):The first people neglected Kuma the creator, so she made it rain until only one sand dune and one tree stayed above water.

People escaped into the tree, but there were only leaves and rotten fruit to eat, and when people sat with their bottoms towards the water, a big fish would come by and bite them.

Some of the first beings survived by cutting down trees and floating on them.

He tied the canoe to a tree with a long cable of bushrope to prevent drifting too far from his old home.

The water rose to cover the earth, and people took refuge in the highest trees.

The sloth, an ancestor of the Ipurina, climbed the cassia tree to fetch fruits, as there was nothing else to eat.

They built a fire to drive the snake out of the hollow in a tree, where it lived.

The snake told him to take a calabash and flee to a palm tree on the highest mountain.

He fled to the top of a palm tree on the top of a mountain and returned many days later when the waters had subsided.

The mother of crocodiles was angered and lashed the water with her tail, which flooded the area and drowned all people except one man, who climbed a palm tree.

At that time a tree called the Pullao formed an arch between the Llantapa and Vichoca mountains; in it lived monkeys, toucans, and other birds.

When he had brought them to life, he ordered them into the earth to travel underground and emerge from caves, springs, tree trunks, etc.

Chorote (Eastern Paraguay):The bottle tree (Chorisia insignis) once contained all the water and all the fish.

The tree had a locked door.

The good brother and his wife climbed a pindona tree, and the evil brother and his wife climbed a geniper tree until the waters receded.

The brothers fled to the highest mountains and climbed trees.

Tamendonare climbed a pindona tree, helping one of his wives up with him, and Ariconte climbed a geniper tree with his wife.

The great god Tupi warned a medicine man named Tamanduare of a coming great flood that would cover the earth, and he told Tamanduare to seek refuge on a lofty peak with a palm tree at its top.

The water covered even the summit of the mountain, and Tamanduare and his family climbed into the palm tree and live there, eating its fruit, until the water subsided.

The Coroados made it and stayed there, some on the ground and some in the branches of trees.

When the flood subsided, the Coroados descended, except for the ones which had climbed into trees, who became monkeys.