Myths and myth-makers Part 11

[Footnote 119: Thorpe, Northern Mythology, Vol. 11. p. 258.]

[Footnote 120: Thorpe, Northern Mythology, Vol. II. p. 259. In the Norse story of "Not a Pin to choose between them," the old woman is in doubt as to her own ident.i.ty, on waking up after the butcher has dipped her in a tar-barrel and rolled her on a heap of feathers; and when Tray barks at her, her perplexity is as great as the Devil's when fooled by the Frenschutz. See Dasent, Norse Tales, p. 199.]

[Footnote 121: See Deulin, Contes d'un Buveur de Biere, pp. 3-29.]

[Footnote 122: Dasent, Popular Tales from the Norse, No. III. and No.

XLII.]

[Footnote 123: See Dasent's Introduction, p. cx.x.xix; Campbell, Tales of the West Highlands, Vol. IV. p. 344; and Williams, Indian Epic Poetry, p. 10.]

[Footnote 124: "A Leopard was returning home from hunting on one occasion, when he lighted on the kraal of a Ram. Now the Leopard had never seen a Ram before, and accordingly, approaching submissively, he said, 'Good day, friend! what may your name be?' The other, in his gruff voice, and striking his breast with his forefoot, said, 'I am a Ram; who are you?' 'A Leopard,' answered the other, more dead than alive; and then, taking leave of the Ram, he ran home as fast as he could." Bleek, Hottentot Fables, p. 24.]

[Footnote 125: I agree, most heartily, with Mr. Mahaffy's remarks, Prolegomena to Ancient History, p. 69.]

[Footnote 126: Sir George Grey once told some Australian natives about the countries within the arctic circle where during part of the year the sun never sets. "Their astonishment now knew no bounds. 'Ah! that must be another sun, not the same as the one we see here,' said an old man; and in spite of all my arguments to the contrary, the others adopted this opinion." Grey's Journals, I. 293, cited in Tylor, Early History of Mankind, p. 301.]

[Footnote 127: Max Muller, Chips, II. 96.]

[Footnote 128: Fictions of the Irish Celts, pp. 255-270.]

[Footnote 129: A corruption of Gaelic bhan a teaigh, "lady of the house."]

[Footnote 130: For the a.n.a.lysis of twelve, see my essay on "The Genesis of Language," North American Review, October 1869, p. 320.]

[Footnote 131: Chips from a German Workshop, Vol. II. p. 246.]

[Footnote 132: For various legends of a deluge, see Baring-Gould, Legends of the Patriarchs and Prophets, pp. 85-106.]

[Footnote 133: Brinton, Myths of the New World, p. 160.]

[Footnote 134: Brinton, op. cit. p. 163.]

[Footnote 135: Brinton, op. cit. p. 167.]

[Footnote 136: Corresponding, in various degrees, to the Asvins, the Dioskouroi, and the brothers True and Untrue of Norse mythology.]

[Footnote 137: See Humboldt's Kosmos, Tom. III. pp. 469-476. A fetichistic regard for the cardinal points has not always been absent from the minds of persons instructed in a higher theology as witness a well-known pa.s.sage in Irenaeus, and also the custom, well-nigh universal in Europe, of building Christian churches in a line east and west.]

[Footnote 138: Bleek, Hottentot Fables and Tales, p. 72. Compare the Fiji story of Ra Vula, the Moon, and Ra Kalavo, the Rat, in Tylor, Primitive Culture, I. 321.]

[Footnote 139: Tylor, Early History of Mankind, p. 327.]

[Footnote 140: Tylor, op. cit., p. 346.]

[Footnote 141: Baring-Gould, Curious Myths, II. 299-302.]

[Footnote 142: Speaking of beliefs in the Malay Archipelago, Mr. Wallace says: "It is universally believed in Lombock that some men have the power to turn themselves into crocodiles, which they do for the sake of devouring their enemies, and many strange tales are told of such transformations." Wallace, Malay Archipelago, Vol. I. p. 251.]

[Footnote 143: Bleek, Hottentot Fables and Tales, p. 58.]

[Footnote 144: Callaway, Zulu Nursery Tales, pp. 27-30.]

[Footnote 145: Callaway, op. cit. pp. 142-152; cf. a similar story in which the lion is fooled by the jackal. Bleek, op. cit. p. 7. I omit the sequel of the tale.]

[Footnote 146: Brinton, op. cit. p. 104.]

[Footnote 147: Tylor, op. cit. p. 320.]

[Footnote 148: Tylor, op. cit. pp. 338-343.]

[Footnote 149: Tylor, op. cit. p. 336. November, 1870]

[Footnote 150: Juventus Mundi. The G.o.ds and Men of the Heroic Age.

By the Rt. Hon. William Ewart Gladstone. Boston: Little, Brown, & Co.

1869.]

[Footnote 151: Hist. Greece, Vol. II. p. 208.]

[Footnote 152: Grote, Hist. Greece, Vol. II. p. 198.]

[Footnote 153: For the precise extent to which I would indorse the theory that the Iliad-myth is an account of the victory of light over darkness, let me refer to what I have said above on p. 134. I do not suppose that the struggle between light and darkness was Homer's subject in the Iliad any more than it was Shakespeare's subject in "Hamlet."

Homer's subject was the wrath of the Greek hero, as Shakespeare's subject was the vengeance of the Danish prince. Nevertheless, the story of Hamlet, when traced back to its Norse original, is unmistakably the story of the quarrel between summer and winter; and the moody prince is as much a solar hero as Odin himself. See Simrock, Die Quellen des Shakespeare, I. 127-133. Of course Shakespeare knew nothing of this, as Homer knew nothing of the origin of his Achilleus. The two stories, therefore, are not to be taken as sun-myths in their present form.

They are the offspring of other stories which were sun-myths; they are stories which conform to the sun-myth type after the manner above ill.u.s.trated in the paper on Light and Darkness. [Hence there is nothing unintelligible in the inconsistency--which seems to puzzle Max Muller (Science of Language, 6th ed. Vol. II. p. 516, note 20)--of investing Paris with many of the characteristics of the children of light.

Supposing, as we must, that the primitive sense of the Iliad-myth had as entirely disappeared in the Homeric age, as the primitive sense of the Hamlet-myth had disappeared in the times of Elizabeth, the fit ground for wonder is that such inconsistencies are not more numerous.] The physical theory of myths will be properly presented and comprehended, only when it is understood that we accept the physical derivation of such stories as the Iliad-myth in much the same way that we are bound to accept the physical etymologies of such words as soul, consider, truth, convince, deliberate, and the like. The late Dr. Gibbs of Yale College, in his "Philological Studies,"--a little book which I used to read with delight when a boy,--describes such etymologies as "faded metaphors."

In similar wise, while refraining from characterizing the Iliad or the tragedy of Hamlet--any more than I would characterize Le Juif Errant by Sue, or La Maison Forestiere by Erckmann-Chatrian--as nature-myths, I would at the same time consider these poems well described as embodying "faded nature-myths."]

[Footnote 154: I have no opinion as to the nationality of the Earth-shaker, and, regarding the etymology of his name, I believe we can hardly do better than acknowledge, with Mr. c.o.x, that it is unknown.

It may well be doubted, however, whether much good is likely to come of comparisons between Poseidon, Dagon, Oannes, and Noah, or of distinctions between the children of Shem and the children of Ham. See Brown's Poseidon; a Link between Semite, Hamite, and Aryan, London, 1872,--a book which is open to several of the criticisms here directed against Mr. Gladstone's manner of theorizing.]

[Footnote 155: "The expression that the Erinys, Saranyu, the Dawn, finds out the criminal, was originally quite free from mythology; IT MEANT NO MORE THAN THAT CRIME WOULD BE BROUGHT TO LIGHT SOME DAY OR OTHER.

It became mythological, however, as soon as the etymological meaning of Erinys was forgotten, and as soon as the Dawn, a portion of time, a.s.sumed the rank of a personal being."--Science of Language, 6th edition, II. 615. This paragraph, in which the italicizing is mine, contains Max Muller's theory in a nutsh.e.l.l. It seems to me wholly at variance with the facts of history. The facts concerning primitive culture which are to be cited in this paper will show that the case is just the other way. Instead of the expression "Erinys finds the criminal" being originally a metaphor, it was originally a literal statement of what was believed to be fact. The Dawn (not "a portion of time,"(!) but the rosy flush of the morning sky) was originally regarded as a real person. Primitive men, strictly speaking, do not talk in metaphors; they believe in the literal truth of their similes and personifications, from which, by survival in culture, our poetic metaphors are lineally descended. Homer's allusion to a rolling stone as essumenos or "yearning" (to keep on rolling), is to us a mere figurative expression; but to the savage it is the description of a fact.]

[Footnote 156: Primitive Culture: Researches into the Development of Mythology, Philosophy, Religion, Art, and Custom By Edward B. Tylor. 2 vols. 8vo. London. 1871.]

[Footnote 157: Tylor, op. cit. I. 107.]

[Footnote 158: Rousseau, Confessions, I. vi. For further ill.u.s.tration, see especially the note on the "doctrine of signatures," supra, p. 55.]

[Footnote 159: Spencer, Recent Discussions in Science, etc., p. 36, "The Origin of Animal Worship."]

[Footnote 160: See Nature, Vol. VI. p. 262, August 1, 1872. The circ.u.mstances narrated are such as to exclude the supposition that the sitting up is intended to attract the master's attention. The dog has frequently been seen trying to soften the heart of the ball, while observed unawares by his master.]

[Footnote 161: "We would, however, commend to Mr. Fiske's attention Mr. Mark Twain's dog, who 'couldn't be depended on for a special providence,' as being nearer to the actual dog of every-day life than is the Skye terrier mentioned by a certain correspondent of Nature, to whose letter Mr. Fiske refers. The terrier is held to have had 'a few fetichistic notions,' because he was found standing up on his hind legs in front of a mantel-piece, upon which lay an india-rubber ball with which he wished to play, but which he could not reach, and which, says the letter-writer, he was evidently beseeching to come down and play with him. We consider it more reasonable to suppose that a dog who had been drilled into a belief that standing upon his hind legs was very pleasing to his master, and who, therefore, had accustomed himself to stand on his hind legs whenever he desired anything, and whose usual way of getting what he desired was to induce somebody to get it for him, may have stood up in front of the mantel-piece rather from force of habit and eagerness of desire than because he had any fetichistic notions, or expected the india-rubber ball to listen to his supplications. We admit, however, to avoid polemical controversy, that in matter of religion the dog is capable of anything." The Nation, Vol. XV. p. 284, October 1, 1872. To be sure, I do not know for certain what was going on in the dog's mind; and so, letting both explanations stand, I will only add another fact of similar import. "The tendency in savages to imagine that natural objects and agencies are animated by spiritual or living essences is perhaps ill.u.s.trated by a little fact which I once noticed: my dog, a full-grown and very sensible animal, was lying on the lawn during a hot and still day; but at a little distance a slight breeze occasionally moved an open parasol, which would have been wholly disregarded by the dog, had any one stood near it. As it was, every time that the parasol slightly moved, the dog growled fiercely and barked.

He must, I think, have reasoned to himself, in a rapid and unconscious manner, that movement without any apparent cause indicated the presence of some strange living agent, and no stranger had a right to be on his territory." Darwin, Descent of Man, Vol. 1. p. 64. Without insisting upon all the details of this explanation, one may readily grant, I think, that in the dog, as in the savage, there is an undisturbed a.s.sociation between motion and a living motor agency; and that out of a mult.i.tude of just such a.s.sociations common to both, the savage, with his greater generalizing power, frames a truly fetichistic conception.]

[Footnote 162: Note the fetichism wrapped up in the etymologies of these Greek words. Catalepsy, katalhyis, a seizing of the body by some spirit or demon, who holds it rigid. Ecstasy, ekstasis, a displacement or removal of the soul from the body, into which the demon enters and causes strange laughing, crying, or contortions. It is not metaphor, but the literal belief ill a ghost-world, which has given rise to such words as these, and to such expressions as "a man beside himself or transported."]

[Footnote 163: Something akin to the savage's belief in the animation of pictures may be seen in young children. I have often been asked by my three-year-old boy, whether the dog in a certain picture would bite him if he were to go near it; and I can remember that, in my own childhood, when reading a book about insects, which had the formidable likeness of a spider stamped on the centre of the cover, I was always uneasy lest my finger should come in contact with the dreaded thing as I held the book.]