135, et seq.] It is scarcely possible to err in recognizing under this thin veil of imagery a description of the daily struggle between light and darkness, day and night.

The maiden is the dawn from whose virgin womb rises the sun in the fullness of his glory and might, but with his advent the dawn itself disappears and dies.

The battle lasts all day, beginning when the earliest rays gild the mountain tops, and continues until the West is driven to the edge of the world.

As the evening precedes the morning, so the West, by a figure of speech, may be said to fertilize the Dawn.
In another form of the story the West was typified as a flint stone, and the twin brother of Michabo.

The feud between them was bitter, and the contest long and dreadful.