Chapter LI: Appendix: C

All the chief stories that we know so well are to be found in all times, and in almost all countries. _Cinderella_, for one, is told in the language of every country in Europe, and the same legend is found in the fanciful tales related by the Greek poets; and still further back, it appears in very ancient Hindoo legends. So, again, does _Beauty and the Beast_; so does our familiar tale of _Jack, the Giant-Killer_; so also do a great number of other fairy stories, each being told in different countries and in different periods, with so much likeness as to show that all the versions came from the same source, and yet with enough difference to show that none of the versions are directly copied from each other. "Indeed, when we compare the myths and legends of one country with another, and of one period with another, we find out how they have come to be so much alike, and yet in some things so different. We see that there must have been _one origin_ for all these stories, that they must have been invented by _one people_, that this people must have been afterwards divided, and that each part or division of it must have brought into its new home the legends once common to them all, and must have shaped and altered these according to the kind of place in which they came to live; those of the North being sterner and more terrible, those of the South softer and fuller of light and color, and adorned with touches of more delicate fancy." And this, indeed, is really the case. All the chief stories and legends are alike, because they were first made by _one people_; and all the nations in which they are now told in one form or another tell them because they are all descended from this one common stock, the _Aryan_.

From researches made by Prof. Max Müller, the Rev. George W. Cox, and others, in England and Germany, in the science of _Comparative Mythology_, we begin to see something of these ancient forefathers of ours; to understand what kind of people they were, and to find that _our fairy stories_ are really made out of _their religion_.

The mind of the Aryan peoples in their ancient home was full of imagination. They never ceased to wonder at what they saw and heard in the sky and upon the earth. Their language was highly figurative, and so the things which struck them with wonder, and which they could not explain, were described under forms and names which were familiar to them. "Thus, the thunder was to them the bellowing of a mighty beast, or the rolling of a great chariot. In the lightning they saw a brilliant serpent, or a spear shot across the sky, or a great fish darting swiftly through the sea of cloud. The clouds were heavenly cows, who shed milk upon the earth and refreshed it; or they were webs woven by heavenly women who drew water from the fountains on high and poured it down as rain." Analogies which are but fancy to us, were realities to these men of past ages. They could see in the waterspout a huge serpent who elevated himself out of the ocean and reached his head to the skies. They could feel, in the pangs of hunger, a live creature gnawing within their bodies, and they heard the voices of the hill-dwarfs answering in the echo. The _Sun_, the first object which struck them with wonder, was, to them, the child of Night; the Dawn came before he was born, and died as he rose in the heavens. He strangled the serpents of the night; he went forth like a bridegroom out of his chamber, and like a giant, to run his course.[553:1] He had to do battle with clouds and storms.[553:2] Sometimes his light grew dim under their gloomy veil, and the children of men shuddered at the wrath of the hidden Sun.[553:3] Sometimes his ray broke forth, only, after brief splendor, to sink beneath a deeper darkness; sometimes he burst forth at the end of his course, trampling on the clouds which had dimmed his brilliancy, and bathing his pathway with blood.[553:4] Sometimes, beneath mountains of clouds and vapors, he plunged into the leaden sea.[553:5] Sometimes he looked benignly on the face of his mother or his bride who came to greet him at his journey's end.[553:6] Sometimes he was the lord of heaven and of light, irresistible in his divine strength; sometimes he toiled for others, not for himself, in a hard, unwilling servitude.[553:7] His light and heat might give light and destroy it.[553:8] His chariot might scorch the regions over which it passed, his flaming fire might burn up all who dared to look with prying eyes into his dazzling treasure-house.[553:9] He might be the child destined to slay his parents, or to be united at the last in an unspeakable peace, to the bright Dawn who for a brief space had gladdened his path in the morning.[553:10] He might be the friend of the children of men, and the remorseless foe of those powers of darkness who had stolen away his bride.[553:11] He might be a warrior whose eye strikes terror into his enemies, or a wise chieftain skilled in deep and hidden knowledge.[554:1] Sometimes he might appear as a glorious being doomed to an early death, which no power could avert or delay.[554:2] Sometimes grievous hardships and desperate conflicts might be followed by a long season of serene repose.[554:3] Wherever he went, men might welcome him in love, or shrink from him in fear and anguish.[554:4] He would have many brides in many lands, and his offspring would assume aspects beautiful, strange or horrible.[554:5] His course might be brilliant and beneficent; or gloomy, sullen, and capricious.[554:6] As compelled to toil for others, he would be said to fight in quarrels not his own; or he might for a time withhold the aid of an arm which no enemy could withstand.[554:7] He might be the destroyer of all whom he loved, he might slay the Dawn with his kindling rays, he might scorch the Fruits, who were his children; he might woo the deep blue sky, the bride of heaven itself, and an inevitable doom might bind his limbs on the blazing wheel for ever and ever.[554:8] Nor in this crowd of phrases, all of which have borne their part in the formation of mythology, is there one which could not be used naturally by ourselves to describe the phenomena of the outward world, and there is scarcely one, perhaps, which has not been used by our own poets. There is a beauty in them, which can never grow old or lose its charm. Poets of all ages recur to them instinctively in times of the deepest grief or the greatest joy; but, in the words of Professor Max Müller, "it is impossible to enter fully into the thoughts and feelings which passed through the minds of the early poets when they formed names for that far East from whence even the early Dawn, the Sun, the Day, their own life seemed to spring. A new life flashed up every morning before their eyes, and the fresh breezes of the Dawn reached them like greetings wafted across the golden threshold of the sky from the distant lands beyond the mountains, beyond the clouds, beyond the dawn, beyond the immortal sea which brought us hither! The Dawn seemed to them to open golden gates for the Sun to pass in triumph; and while those gates were open, their eyes and their minds strove, in their childish way, to pierce beyond the limits of this finite world. That silent aspect wakened in the human mind the conception of the Infinite, the Immortal, the Divine; and the names of the Dawn became naturally the names of higher powers.[554:9]

"This imagery of the Aryans was applied by them to all they saw in the sky. Sometimes, as we have said, the clouds were cows; they were also dragons, which sought to slay the Sun; or great ships floating across the sky, and casting anchor upon earth; or rocks, or mountains, or deep caverns, in which evil deities hid the golden light. Then, also, they were shaped by fancy into animals of various kinds--the bear, the wolf, the dog, the ox; and into giant birds, and into monsters which were both bird and beast.

"The winds, again, in their fancy, were the companions or ministers of India, the sky-god. The spirits of the winds gathered into their host the souls of the dead--thus giving birth to the Scandinavian and Teutonic legend of the Wild Horseman, who rides at midnight through the stormy sky, with his long train of dead behind him, and his weird hounds before.[555:1] The Ribhus, or Arbhus, again, were the sunbeams or the lightning, who forged the armor of the gods, and made their thunderbolts, and turned old people young, and restored out of the hides alone the slaughtered cow on which the gods had feasted."[555:2]

Aryan myths, then, were no more than poetic fancies about light and darkness, cloud and rain, night and day, storm and wind; and when they moved westward and southward, _the Aryan race brought these legends with it_; and out of these were shaped by degrees innumerable gods and demons of the Hindoos, the devs and jinns of the Persians; the great gods, the minor deities, and nymphs, and fauns, and satyrs of Greek mythology and poetry; the stormy divinities, the giants, and trolls of the cold and rugged North; the dwarfs of the German forests; the elves who dance merrily in the moonlight of an English summer; and the "good people" who play mischievous tricks upon stray peasants among the Irish hills. _Almost all, indeed, that we have of a legendary kind comes to us from our Aryan forefathers_--sometimes scarcely changed, sometimes so altered that we have to puzzle out the links between the old and the new; but all these myths and traditions, and old-world stories, when we come to know the meaning of them, take us back to the time when the Aryan race dwelt together in the high lands of central Asia, and they all mean the same things--that is, the relation between the Sun and the earth, the succession of night and day, of winter and summer, of storm and calm, of cloud and tempest, and golden sunshine, and bright blue sky. And this is the source from which we get our fairy stories, and tales of gods and heroes; for underneath all of them there are the same fanciful meanings, only changed and altered in the way of putting them by the lapse of ages of time, by the circumstances of different countries, and by the fancy of those who kept the wonderful tales alive without knowing what they meant.

Thousands of years ago, the Aryan people began their march out of their old country in mid-Asia. From the remains of their language, and the likeness of their legends to those among other nations, we know that ages and ages ago their country grew too small for them, so they were obliged to move away from it. Some of them turned southward into India and Persia, and some of them went westward into Europe--the time, perhaps, when the land of Europe stretched from the borders of Asia to the islands of Great Britain, and when there was no sea between them and the main land. How they made their long and toilsome march we know not. But, as Kingsley writes of such a movement of an ancient tribe, so we may fancy these old Aryans marching westward--"the tall, bare-limbed men, with stone axes on their shoulders and horn bows at their backs, with herds of gray cattle, guarded by huge lap-eared mastiffs, with shaggy white horses, heavy-horned sheep, and silky goats, moving always westward through the boundless steppes, whither or why we know not, but that the Al-Father had sent them forth. And behind us (he makes them say) the rosy snow-peaks died into ghastly gray, lower and lower, as every evening came; and before us the plains spread infinite, with gleaming salt-lakes, and ever fresh tribes of gaudy flowers. Behind us, dark lines of living beings streamed down the mountain slopes; around us, dark lines crawled along the plains--all westward, westward ever. Who could stand against us? We met the wild asses on the steppe, and tamed them, and made them our slaves. We slew the bison herds, and swam broad rivers on their skins. The python snake lay across our path; the wolves and wild dogs snarled at us out of their coverts; we slew them and went on. Strange giant tribes met us, and eagle visaged hordes, fierce and foolish; we smote them, hip and thigh, and went on, westward ever."[556:1] And so they went on, straight toward the West, or, as they turned North and South, and thus overspread new lands, _they brought with them their old ways of thought and forms of belief_, and the stories in which these had taken form; _and on these were built up the gods and heroes_, and all wonder-working creatures and things, and the poetical fables and fancies which have come down to us, and which still linger in our customs and our fairy tales; bright and sunny and many-colored in the warm regions of the South, sterner and wilder and rougher in the North, more homelike in the middle and western countries; but always alike in their main features, and always having the same meaning when we come to dig it out, and these forms and their meaning being the same in the lands of the West Aryans as in those still peopled by the Aryans of the East.

The story of _Cinderella_ is one of the many fairy tales which help us to find out their meaning, and take us straight back to the far-off land where fairy legends began, and to the people who made them. This well-known fairy tale has been found among the myths of our Aryan ancestors, and from this we know that it is the story of the _Sun_ and the _Dawn_. Cinderella, gray and dark and dull, is all neglected when she is away from the Sun, obscured by the envious clouds, her sisters, and by her step-mother, the Night. So she is Aurora, the Dawn, and the Fairy Prince is the Morning Sun, ever pursuing her, to claim her for his bride. This is the legend as it is found in the ancient Hindoo books; and this explains at once the _source_ and the _meaning_ of the fairy tale.[557:1]

Another tale which helps us in our task is that of _Jack the Giant-Killer_, who is really one of the very oldest and most widely known characters in wonder-land. Now, who is this wonderful little fellow? He is none other than the hero who, in all countries and ages, fights with monsters and overcomes them; like Indra, the ancient Hindoo Sun-god, whose thunderbolts slew the demons of drought in the far East; or Perseus, who, in Greek story, delivers the maiden from the sea-monster; or Odysseus, who tricks the giant Polyphemus, and causes him to throw himself into the sea; or Thor, whose hammer beats down the frost giants of the North. "The gifts bestowed upon Jack are found in Tartar stories, Hindoo tales, in German legends, and in the fables of Scandinavia."

Still another is that of _Little Red Riding-Hood_. The story of Little Red Riding Hood, as we call her, or Little Red-Cap, as she is called in the German tales, also comes from the same source, and (as we have seen in Chapter IX.), refers to the _Sun_ and _Night_.

"One of the fancies in the most ancient Aryan or Hindoo stories was that there was a great dragon that was trying to devour the Sun, to prevent him from shining upon the earth, and filling it with brightness and life and beauty, and that Indra, the Sun-god, killed the dragon. Now, this is the meaning of Little Red Riding-Hood, as it is told in our nursery tales. Little Red Riding-Hood is the Evening _Sun_, which is always described as red or golden; the old grandmother is the _Earth_, to whom the rays of the Sun bring warmth and comfort. The wolf--which is a well-known figure for the _Clouds_ and blackness of _Night_ (in Teutonic mythology)[558:1]--is the dragon in another form. First, he devours the grandmother; that is, he wraps the earth in thick clouds, which the Evening Sun is not strong enough to pierce through. Then, with the darkness of Night, he swallows up the Evening Sun itself, and all is dark and desolate. Then, as in the German tale, the night-thunder and the storm winds are represented by the loud snoring of the wolf; and then the huntsman, the _Morning Sun_, comes in all his strength and majesty, and chases away the night clouds and kills the wolf, and revives old grandmother Earth and Little Red Riding Hood to life again."

Nor is it in these stories alone that we can trace the ancient Hindoo legends, and the Sun-myth. There is, as Mr. Bunce observes in his "Fairy Tales, their Origin and Meaning," scarcely a tale of Greek or Roman mythology, no legend of Teutonic or Celtic or Scandinavian growth, no great romance of what we call the middle ages, no fairy story taken down from the lips of ancient folk, and dressed for us in modern shape and tongue, that we do not find, in some form or another, in these Eastern poems, _which are composed of allegorical tales of gods and heroes_.

When, in the Vedic hymns, Kephalos, Prokris, Hermes, Daphne, Zeus, Ouranos, stand forth as simple names for the Sun, the Dew, the Wind, the Dawn, the Heaven and the Sky, each recognized as such, yet each endowed with the most perfect consciousness, we feel that the great riddle of mythology is solved, and that we no longer lack the key which shall disclose its most hidden treasures. When we hear the people saying, "Our friend the Sun is dead. Will he rise? Will the Dawn come back again?" we see the death of Hercules, and the weary waiting while Leto struggles with the birth of Phoibos. When on the return of day we hear the cry--

"Rise! our life, our spirit has come back, the darkness is
gone, the light draws near!"

--we are carried at once to the Homeric hymn, and we hear the joyous shout of all the gods when Phoibos springs to life and light on Delos.[558:2]

That the peasant folk-lore of modern Europe still displays episodes of nature-myth, may be seen in the following story of _Vassalissa, the Beautiful_.

Vassalissa's stepmother and two sisters, plotting against her life, send her to get a light at the house of _Bàba Yagà_, the witch, and her journey contains the following history of the _Day_, told, as Mr. Tylor says, in truest mythic fashion:

"Vassalissa goes and wanders, wanders in the forest. She goes,
and she shudders. Suddenly before her bounds a rider, he
himself white, and clad in white, and the trappings white.
_And Day began to dawn._ She goes farther, when a second rider
bounds forth, himself red, clad in red, and on a red horse.
_The Sun began to rise._ She goes on all day, and towards
evening arrives at the witch's house. Suddenly there comes
again a rider, himself black, clad in all black, and on a
black horse; he bounded to the gates of the _Bàba Yagà_, and
disappeared _as if he had sunk through the earth_. _Night
fell._ After this, when Vassalissa asks the witch, 'Who was
the white rider?' she answered, 'That is my clear _Day_;' 'Who
was the red rider?' 'That is my red _Sun_;' 'Who was the black
rider?' 'That is my black _Night_. They are all my trusty
friends.'"[559:1]

We have another illustration of allegorical mythology in the Grecian story of Hephæstos splitting open with his axe the head of Zeus, and Athene springing from it, full armed; for we perceive behind this savage imagery Zeus as the bright _Sky_, his forehead the _East_, Hephæstos as the young, not yet risen _Sun_, and Athene as the _Dawn_, the daughter of the Sky, stepping forth from the fountain-head of light,--with eyes like an owl, pure as a virgin; the golden; lighting up the tops of the mountains, and her own glorious Parthenon in her own favorite town of Athens; whirling the shafts of light; the genial warmth of the morning; the foremost champion in the battle between night and day; in full armor, in her panoply of light, driving away the darkness of night, and awakening men to a bright life, to bright thoughts, to bright endeavors.[559:2]

Another story of the same sort is that of Kronos. Every one is familiar with the story of Kronos, who devoured his own children. Now, Kronos is a mere creation from the older and misunderstood epithet Kronides or Kronion, the ancient of days. When these days or time had come to be regarded as a person the myth would certainly follow that he devoured his own children, as Time is the devourer of the Dawns.[559:3] Saturn, who devours his own children, is the same power whom the Greeks called Kronos (Time), which may truly be said to destroy whatever it has brought into existence.

The idea of a _Heaven_, the "Elysian fields," is also born of the sky.

The "_Elysian plain_" is far away in the _West_, where the sun goes down beyond the bonds of the earth, when Eos gladdens the close of day as she sheds her violet tints over the sky. The "Abodes of the Blessed" are golden islands sailing in a sea of blue,--_the burnished clouds floating in the pure ether_. Grief and sorrow cannot approach them; plague and sickness cannot touch them. The blissful company gathered together in that far _Western land_ inherits a tearless eternity.

Of the other details in the picture the greater number would be suggested directly by these images drawn from the phenomena of sunset and twilight. What spot or stain can be seen on the deep blue ocean in which the "Islands of the Blessed" repose forever? What unseemly forms can mar the beauty of that golden home, lighted by the radiance of a _Sun_ which can never set? Who then but the pure in heart, the truthful and the generous, can be suffered to tread the violet fields? And how shall they be tested save by judges who can weigh the thoughts and the interests of the heart? Thus every soul, as it drew near that joyous land, was brought before the august tribunal of Minos, Rhadamanthys, and Aiakos; and they whose faith was in truth a quickening power, might draw from the ordeals those golden lessons which Plato has put into the mouth of Socrates, and some unknown persons into the mouths of Buddha and Jesus. The belief of earlier ages pictured to itself the meetings in that blissful land, the forgiveness of old wrongs, and the reconciliation of deadly feuds,[560:1] just as the belief of the present day pictures these things to itself.

The story of a _War in Heaven_, which was known to all nations of antiquity, is allegorical, and refers to the battle between light and darkness, sunshine and storm cloud.[560:2]

As examples of the prevalence of the legend relating to the struggle between the co-ordinate powers of good and evil, light and darkness, the Sun and the clouds, we have that of Phoibos and Python, Indra and Vritra, Sigurd and Fafuir, Achilleus and Paris, Oidipous and the Sphinx, Ormuzd and Ahriman, and from the character of the struggle between Indra and Vritra, and again between Ormuzd and Ahriman, we infer that a myth, purely _physical_, in the land of the Five Streams, assumed a moral and spiritual meaning in Persia, and the fight between the co-ordinate powers of good and evil, _gave birth to the dualism which from that time to the present has exercised so mighty an influence through the East and West_.

The Apocalypse exhibits Satan with the physical attributes of Ahriman; he is called the "dragon," the "old serpent," who fights against God and his angels. The _Vedic myth_, transformed and exaggerated in the Iranian books, _finds its way through this channel_ into Christianity. The idea thus introduced was that of the struggle between Satan and Michael, which ended in the overthrow of the former, and the casting forth of all his hosts out of heaven, but it coincides too nearly with a myth spread in countries held by all the Aryan nations to avoid further modification. Local tradition substituted St. George or St. Theodore for Jupiter, Apollo, Hercules, or Perseus. It is under this disguise that the Vedic myth has come down to our own times, and has still its festivals and its monuments. Art has consecrated it in a thousand ways. St. Michael, lance in hand, treading on the dragon, is an image as familiar now as, _thirty centuries ago_, that of Indra treading under foot the demon Vritra could possibly have been to the Hindoo.[561:1]

The very ancient doctrine of a TRINITY, three gods in one, can be explained, rationally, by allegory only. We have seen that the Sun, in early times, was believed to be the _Creator_, and became the first object of adoration. After some time it would be observed that this powerful and beneficent agent, the solar fire, was the most potent _Destroyer_, and hence would arise the first idea of a Creator and Destroyer united in the same person. But much time would not elapse before it must have been observed, that the destruction caused by this powerful being was destruction only in appearance, that destruction was only reproduction in another form--_regeneration_; that if he appeared sometimes to destroy, he constantly repaired the injury which he seemed to occasion--and that, without his light and heat, everything would dwindle away into a cold, inert, unprolific mass. Thus, at once, in the same being, became concentrated, the creating, the preserving, and the destroying powers--the latter of the three being at the same time both the _Destroyer_ and _Regenerator_. Hence, by a very natural and obvious train of reasoning, arose the _Creator_, the _Preserver_, and the _Destroyer_--in India _Brahma_, _Vishnu_, and _Siva_; in Persia _Oromasdes_, _Mithra_, and _Arimanius_; in Egypt _Osiris_, _Horus_, and _Typhon_: in each case THREE PERSONS AND ONE GOD. And thus undoubtedly arose the TRIMURTI, or the celebrated Trinity.

Traces of a similar refinement may be found in the Greek mythology, in the Orphic _Phanes_, _Ericapeus_ and _Metis_, who were all identified with the _Sun_, and yet embraced in the first person, _Phanes_, or Protogones, the Creator and Generator.[562:1] The invocation to the Sun, in the Mysteries, according to Macrobius, was as follows: "O all-ruling _Sun_! _Spirit_ of the world! _Power_ of the world! _Light_ of the world!"[562:2]

We have seen in Chap. XXXV, that the _Peruvian_ Triad was represented by three statues, called, respectively, "Apuinti, Churiinti, and Intihoaoque," which is, "Lord and Father _Sun_; Son _Sun_; and Air or Spirit, Brother _Sun_."[562:3]

Mr. Faber, in his "Origin of Pagan Idolatry," says:

"The peculiar mode in which the Hindoos identify their _three
great gods_ with the _solar orb_, is a curious specimen of the
physical refinements of ancient mythology. At night, in the
west, the Sun is _Vishnu_; he is _Brahma_ in the east and in
the morning; and from noon to evening he is _Siva_."[562:4]

Mr. Moor, in his "Hindu Pantheon," says:

"Most, if not all, of the gods of the Hindoo Pantheon will, on
close investigation, resolve themselves into the _three
powers_ (Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva), and those powers into _one
Deity_, Brahm, _typified by the Sun_."[562:5]

Mr. Squire, in his "Serpent Symbol," observes:

"It is highly probable that the triple divinity of the Hindoos
was originally no more than a personification of the _Sun_,
whom they called _Three-bodied_, in the triple capacity of
_producing_ forms by his general _heat_, _preserving_ them by
his _light_, or _destroying_ them by the counteracting force
of his _igneous_ matter. _Brahmá_, the _Creator_, was
indicated by the _heat of the Sun_; _Vishnu_, the _Preserver_,
by the _light of the Sun_, and _Siva_, the _Reproducer_, by
the _orb of the Sun_. In the morning the Sun was _Brahma_, at
noon _Vishnu_, at evening _Siva_."[562:6]

"He is at once," says Mr. Cox, in speaking of the Sun, "the 'Comforter' and 'Healer,' the 'Saviour' and 'Destroyer,' who can slay and make alive at will, and from whose piercing glance no secret can be kept hid."[562:7]

Sir William Jones was also of the opinion that the whole Triad of the Hindoos were identical with the Sun, expressed under the mythical term O. M.

The idea of a _Tri-murti_, or triple personification, was developed gradually, and as it grew, received numerous accretions. It was first dimly shadowed forth and vaguely expressed in the _Rig-Veda_, where a triad of principal gods, _Agni_, _Indra_, and _Surya_ is recognized. And these three gods are _One_, the SUN.[562:8]

We see then that the religious myths of antiquity and the fireside legends of ancient and modern times, have a common root in the mental habits of primeval humanity, and that they are the earliest recorded utterances of men concerning the visible phenomena of the world into which they were born. At first, thoroughly understood, the _meaning_ in time became unknown. How stories originally told of the Sun, the Moon, the Stars, &c., became believed in as facts, is plainly illustrated in the following story told by Mrs. Jameson in her "History of Our Lord in Art:" "I once tried to explain," says she, "to a good old woman, the meaning of the word _parable_, and that the story of the _Prodigal Son_ was not a fact; she was scandalized--she was quite sure that Jesus would never have told anything to his disciples that was not true. Thus she settled the matter in her own mind, and I thought it best to leave it there undisturbed."

Prof. Max Müller, in speaking of "the comparison of the different forms of Aryan religion and mythology in India, Persia, Greece, Italy and Germany," clearly illustrates how such legends are transformed from intelligible into unintelligible myths. He says:

"In each of these nations there was a tendency to change the original conception of divine powers, to misunderstand the many names given to these powers, and to misinterpret the praises addressed to them. In this manner some of the divine names were changed into half-divine, half-human heroes, and at last the myths which were true and intelligible as told originally of the _Sun_, or the _Dawn_, or the _Storms_, were turned into legends or fables too marvelous to be believed of common mortals. This process can be watched in India, in Greece, and in Germany. The same story, or nearly the same, is told of gods, of heroes, and of men. The divine myth became an heroic legend, and the heroic legend fades away into a nursery tale. Our nursery tales have well been called the modern _patois_ of the ancient mythology of the Aryan race."[563:1]

In the words of this learned author, "we never lose, we always gain, when we discover the most ancient intention of sacred traditions, instead of being satisfied with their later aspect, and their modern misinterpretations."

FOOTNOTES:

[553:1] This picture would give us the story of Hercules, who strangled the serpent in his cradle, and who, in after years, in the form of a giant, ran his course.

[553:2] This would give us St. George killing the Dragon.

[553:3] This would give us the story of the monster who attempted to devour the Sun, and whom the "untutored savage" tried to frighten away by making loud cries.

[553:4] This would give us the story of Samson, whose strength was renewed at the end of his career, and who slew the Philistines--who had dimmed his brilliance--and bathed his path with blood.

[553:5] This would give us the story of Oannes or Dagon, who, beneath the clouds of the evening sky, plunged into the sea.

[553:6] This would give us the story of Hercules and his bride Iôle, or that of Christ Jesus and his mother Mary, who were at their side at the end of their career.

[553:7] This would give us the story of the labors of Hercules.

[553:8] This is the Sun as _Seva_.

[553:9] Here again we have the Sun as Siva the _Destroyer_.

[553:10] Here we have Apollo, Achilleus, Bellerophon and Odysseus.

[553:11] This would give us the story of Samson, who was "the friend of the children of men, and the remorseless foe of those powers of darkness" (the Philistines), who had stolen away his bride. (See Judges, ch. xv.)

[554:1] This would give us the stories of _Thor_, the mighty warrior, the terror of his enemies, and those of Cadmus, Romulus or Odin, the wise chieftains, who founded nations, and taught their people knowledge.

[554:2] This would give us the story of Christ Jesus, and other Angel-Messiahs; Saviours of men.

[554:3] This would give us the stories of spellbound maidens, who sleep for years.

[554:4] This is Hercules and his counterparts.

[554:5] This again is Hercules.

[554:6] This would depend upon whether his light was obscured by clouds, or not.

[554:7] This again is Hercules.

[554:8] This is Apollo, Siva and Ixion.

[554:9] Rev. G. W. Cox.

[555:1] Who has not heard it said that the howling or whining of a dog forebodes death?

[555:2] Bunce: Fairy Tales, Origin and Meaning.

[556:1] Quoted by Bunce: Fairy Tales.

[557:1] See Bunce: Fairy Tales, p. 34.

[558:1] "The _Sun_," said _Gaugler_, "speeds at such a rate as if _she_ feared that some one was pursuing her for her destruction." "And well she may," replied _Har_, "for he that seeks her is not far behind, and she has no way to escape but to run before him." "And who is he," asked _Gaugler_, "that causes her this anxiety?" "It is the _Wolf_ Sköll," answered _Har_, "who pursues the Sun, and it is he that she fears, for he shall one day overtake and devour her." (Scandinavian _Prose Edda_. See Mallet's Northern Antiquities, p. 407). This Wolf is, as we have said, a personification of _Night_ and _Clouds_, we therefore have the almost universal practice among savage nations of making noises at the time of eclipses, to frighten away the monsters who would otherwise devour the Sun.

[558:2] Aryan Mythology, vol. i. p. 103.

[559:1] Tylor: Primitive Culture, vol. i. p. 308.

[559:2] Müller: The Science of Religion, p. 65.

[559:3] Cox: Aryan Mythology, vol. ii. p. 1.

[560:1] As the hand of Hector is clasped in the hand of the hero who slew him. There, as the story ran, the lovely Helen "pardoned and purified," became the bride of the short-lived, yet long-suffering Achilleus, even as Iole comforted the dying Hercules on earth, and Hebe became his solace in Olympus. But what is the meeting of Helen and Achilleus, of Iole and Hebe and Hercules, but the return of the violet tints to greet the Sun in the _West_, which had greeted him in the East in the morning? The idea was purely physical, yet it suggested the thoughts of trial, atonement, and purification; and it is unnecessary to say that the human mind, having advanced thus far, must make its way still farther. (Cox: Aryan Mythology, vol. ii. p. 822.)

[560:2] The black storm-cloud, with the flames of lightning issuing from it, was the original of the dragon with tongues of fire. Even as late as A. D. 1600, a German writer would illustrate a thunder-storm destroying a crop of corn by a picture of a dragon devouring the produce of the field with his flaming tongue and iron teeth. (Baring-Gould: Curious Myths, p. 342.)

[561:1] M. Bréal, and G. W. Cox.

[562:1] Squire: Serpent Symbol, p. 59.

[562:2] Ibid.

[562:3] Ibid. p. 181.

[562:4] Book iv. ch. i. in Anac., vol. i. p. 137.

[562:5] P. 6.

[562:6] Squire: Serpent Symbol, p. 33.

[562:7] Aryan Mytho., vol. ii. p. 33.

[562:8] Williams' Hinduism, p. 88.

[563:1] Müller's Chips, vol. ii. p. 260.