Modern Mythology Part 20

CONCLUSION

Here ends this 'Gentle and Joyous Pa.s.sage of Arms.' I showed, first, why anthropological students of mythology, finding the philological school occupying the ground, were obliged in England to challenge Mr. Max Muller. I then discoursed of some inconveniences attending his method in controversy. Next, I gave a practical example, the affair of Tuna and Daphne. This led to a comparison of the philological and the anthropological ways of treating the Daphne myth. The question of our allies then coming up, I stated my reasons for regarding Prof. Tiele 'rather as an ally than an adversary,' the reason being his own statement. Presently, I replied to Prof. Tiele's criticism of my treatment of the myth of Cronos. After a skirmish on Italian fields, I gave my reasons for disagreeing with Mr. Max Muller's view of Mannhardt's position. His theory of Demeter Erinnys was contrasted with that of Mr.

Max Muller. Totemism occupied us next, and the views of Mr. Max Muller and Mr. J. G. Frazer were criticised. Then I defended anthropological and criticised philological evidence. Our method of universal comparison was next justified in the matter of Fetishism. The Riddle Theory of Mr.

Max Muller was presently discussed. Then followed a review of our contending methods in the explanation of Artemis, of the Fire-walk, of Death Myths, and of the Fire-stealer. Thus a number of points in mythological interpretation have been tested on typical examples.

Much more might be said on a book of nearly 900 pages. Many points might be taken, much praise (were mine worth anything) might be given; but I have had but one object, to defend the method of anthropology from a running or dropping fire of criticism which breaks out in many points all along the line, through Contributions to the Science of Mythology. If my answer be desultory and wandering, remember the sporadic sharpshooting of the adversary! For adversary we must consider Mr. Max Muller, so long as we use different theories to different results. If I am right, if he is wrong, in our attempts to untie this old Gordian knot, he loses little indeed. That fame of his, the most steady and brilliant light of all which crown the brows of contemporary scholars, is the well-earned reward, not of mythological lore nor of cunning fence in controversy, but of wide learning and exquisitely luminous style.

I trust that I have imputed no unfairness, made no charge of conscious misrepresentation (to accidents of exposition we are all liable), have struck no foul blow, hazarded no discourteous phrase. If I have done so, I am thereby, even more than in my smattering of unscholarly learning, an opponent more absolutely unworthy of the Right Hon. Professor than I would fain believe myself.

APPENDIX A: The Fire-walk in Spain

One study occasionally ill.u.s.trates another. In examining the history of the Earl Marischal, who was exiled after the rising of 1715, I found, in a letter of a correspondent of d'Alembert, that the Earl met a form of the fire-walk in Spain. There then existed in the Peninsula a hereditary cla.s.s of men who, by dint of 'charms' permitted by the Inquisition, could enter fire unharmed. The Earl Marischal said that he would believe in their powers if he were allowed first to light the fire, and then to look on. But the fire-walkers would not gratify him, as not knowing what kind of fire a heretic might kindle.

APPENDIX B: Mr. Macdonell on Vedic Mythology

Too late for use here came Vedic Mythology, from Grundriss der indo-arischen Philologie, {201} by Mr. A. Macdonell, the representative of the historic house of Lochgarry. This even a non-scholar can perceive to be a most careful and learned work. As to philological 'equations'

between names of Greek and Vedic G.o.ds, Mr. Macdonell writes: 'Dyaus=[Greek] is the only one which can be said to be beyond the range of doubt.' As to the connection of Prometheus with Sanskrit Pramantha, he says: '[Greek] has every appearance of being a purely Greek formation, while the Indian verb math, to twirl, is found compounded only with nis, never with pra, to express the art of producing fire by friction.' (See above, p. 194.) If Mr. Macdonell is right here, the Greek myth of the fire-stealer cannot have arisen from 'a disease of language.' But scholars must be left to reconcile this last typical example of their ceaseless differences in the matter of etymology of names.

FOOTNOTES

{0a} Chips, iv. 62.

{0b} Chips, iv. p. x.x.xv.

{0c} Chips, iv. pp. vi. vii.

{0d} Ibid. iv. p. xv.

{0e} Cults of the Greek States, ii. 435-440.

{0f} Chips, iv. p. xiv.

{0g} Chips, iv. p. xiii.

{5} Suidas, s.v. [Greek]; he cites Dionysius of Chalcis, B.C. 200.

{6a} See Goguet, and Millar of Glasgow, and Voltaire.

{6b} Translated by M. Parmentier.

{7} See 'Totemism,' infra.

{8} Longmans.

{10a} M. R. R. i. 155-160.

{10b} Tylor's Prim. Cult. i. 145.

{10c} Turner's Samoa, p. 219.

{10d} Gill's Myths and Songs, p. 79.

{11} M. R. R. ii. 160.

{14} Metam. i. 567.

{15a} Grimm, cited by Liebrecht in Zur Volkskunde, p. 17.

{15b} Primitive Culture, i. 285.

{15c} Op. cit. i. 46-81.

{16} M. R. R. i. 160.

{17} Erratum: This is erroneous. See Contributions, &c., vol. i. p. 6, where Mr. Max Muller writes, 'Tuna means eel.' This shows why Tuna, i.e.

Eel, is the hero. His connection, as an admirer, with the Moon, perhaps remains obscure.

{18} Phonetically there may be 'no possible objection to the derivation of [Greek] from a Sanskrit form, *Apa-var-yan, or *Apa-val-yan' (ii.

692); but, historically, Greek is not derived from Sanskrit surely!

{20a} Mythologische Forschungen, p. 275.

{20b} Baumkultus, p. 297. Berlin: 1875.

{21a} Antike Wald- und Feldkulte, p. 257. Referring to Baumkultus, p.

297.

{21b} Oriental and Linguistic Studies, second series, p. 160. La Religion Vedique, iii. 293.

{22} 1, viii. cf. i. 27.

{23} Riv. Crit. Mensile. Geneva, iii. xiv. p. 2.

{25a} Custom and Myth, p. 3, citing Revue de l'Hist. des Religions, ii.

136.