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STORYOLOGY:
Essays in Folk-Lore, Sea-Lore, and Plant-Lore
by
BENJAMIN TAYLOR.
London:
Elliot Stock, 62, Paternoster Row, E.C.
1900.
To
HER MEMORY
IN
WHOSE DEAR COMPANIONSHIP
THESE PAPERS
WERE WRITTEN
PREFACE.
The principal object of this Foreword is to inform the expert
Folkloreist and the case-hardened Mythologist (comparative or otherwise)
that the following pages are intended for those who, being neither
expert nor case-hardened, come under that gracious and catholic
term--general reader. The writer addresses not the scholiast, but the
ordinary person who likes to read about what he has not time to study.
Some portion of what is here printed has appeared in a once popular
magazine now defunct. The author hastens to add, for the relief of the
irreverent, that the journal long survived the ordeal of the
publication. Nevertheless this book appears on its merits, or otherwise,
and seeks no support from past attainment. Neither does it make any
pretension to originality of matter or method, though it may, perhaps,
contain one or two new ideas.
It is unnecessary to add that the publication is made only at the
tearful entreaty of multitudinous friends. That, of course, is well
understood among myth-hunters.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
PREFACE vii
I. STORYOLOGY 1
II. THE MAGIC WAND 23
III. THE MAGIC MIRROR 41
IV. THE MAGIC MOON 58
V. THE DEVIL'S CANDLE 78
VI. THE SEA AND ITS LEGENDS 91
VII. MOTHER CAREY AND HER CHICKENS 104
VIII. DAVY JONES'S LOCKER 113
IX. SOME FLOWERS OF FANCY 121
X. ROSEMARY FOR REMEMBRANCE 137
XI. HERB OF GRACE 149
XII. THE ROMANCE OF A VEGETABLE 163
XIII. THE STORY OF A TUBER 176
XIV. THE CENTRE OF THE WORLD 188
INDEX 201
STORYOLOGY.
CHAPTER I.
STORYOLOGY.
I.
What is a myth?
According to Webster, it is 'a fabulous or imaginary statement or
narrative conveying an important truth, generally of a moral or
religious nature: an allegory, religious or historical, of spontaneous
growth and popular origin, generally involving some supernatural or
superhuman claim or power; a tale of some extraordinary personage or
country that has been gradually formed by, or has grown out of, the
admiration and veneration of successive generations.' Here is a choice
of three definitions, but not one of them is by itself satisfying. Let
us rather say that a myth is a tradition in narrative form, more or less
current in more or less differing garb among different races, to which
religious or superhuman significations may be ascribable. We say 'may
be' ascribable because, although the science of comparative mythology
always seeks for such significations, it is probable that the modern
interpretations are often as different from the original meaning as
certain abstruse 'readings' of Shakespeare are from the poet's own
thoughts.
In their introduction to Tales of the Teutonic Lands, Cox and Jones
declare that the whole series of Arthurian legends are pure myths. These
tales, they say, can be 'traced back to their earliest forms in phrases
which spoke not of men and women, but of the Dawn which drives her white
herds to their pastures'--the white clouds being the guardians of the
cattle of the Sun--'of the Sun which slays the dew whom he loves, of the
fiery dragon which steals the cattle of the lord of light, or the Moon
which wanders with her myriad children through the heaven.' It is
claimed that 'a strict etymological connection has been established'
with regard to a large number of these and similar stories, 'but the
link which binds the myth of the Hellenic Hephaistos with that of the
Vedic Agni justifies the inference that both these myths reappear in
those of Regin and of Wayland, or, in other words, that the story of the
Dame of the Fine Green Kirtle is the story of Medeia, and that the tale
of Helen is the legend of the loves of Conall Gulban. Elsewhere one
reads that in the myth of Endymion, the Sun who has sunk to his
dreamless sleep, the Moon appears as Asterodia journeying with her fifty
daughters through the sky. 'In the Christian myth she becomes St. Ursula
with her eleven thousand virgins--this Ursula again appearing in the
myth of Tannhaeuser, as the occupant of the Horselberg, and as the fairy
queen in the tale of True Thomas of Ercildoune.' By the same method of
comparative mythology, the whole series of the Arthurian stories are
placed 'in that large family of heroic legends which have their origin
in mythical phrases describing the phenomena of the outward world, and
more especially those of the day and of the year.'
This seems hard, for it compels us to believe that our remote ancestors
were very much more intelligent, and imaginative, and poetical, and
religious than anything else which they have sent down to us would have
suggested. It is true that Cox and Jones do not deny that the names
which figure in many of these legends, as in those of Greece, may have
been the names of real personages, but yet the narrative, they say, must
not be taken as historical. This may be true, but in what sense can we
regard it as more probable that the story-makers invented allegories,
and clothed them with the names of contemporary or preceding heroes,
than that they invented tales of wonder to fit these heroes? Is it
easier to believe, for instance, that Arthur came after the myths, and
was tacked on to them, than that the myths, or stories, came after
Arthur, and were tacked on to him? Is there anything in the story of St.
Ursula and her virgins which could not have had natural 'spontaneous
growth' in an age of deep devotional faith in miracles, that we must be
compelled to regard it as purely a mediaevalized version of the Greek
myth of the sun and moon?
I am not writing for experts and scholars, and therefore do not use the
scientific terms and allusions familiar to students of these matters. I
am merely writing for ordinary persons, who are often puzzled and pained
by the extraordinary meanings which specialists contrive to twist out of
simple and familiar things. It is not too much to say that the
professional mythologists are among the most troublesome meddlers who
disturb the repose of '_the average reader_.' Even Mr. Ruskin suffers in
this connection. In The Queen of the Air he has given us one of his most
delightful books, but there are probably few, outside the circle of
philologists and comparative mythologists, who have not thought in
reading the lovely interpretations of the myths of Athena, that there
was more of Ruskin than of the Ancient Greek in the meaning evolved.
Somehow, it seems easier to think that these things were conceived by a
Professor of Art in the nineteenth century, than that they were the
deliberate convictions of a primitive people ever so many centuries
before Christ--a people, too, known to be steeped in sensualities, and
addicted to very barbarous practices.
Are there, then, reasons for supposing that comparative mythologists are
not always right--that, in fact, their science is but a doubtful science
after all? Mr. Andrew Lang boldly says that there are. In Custom and
Myth his object is to show the connection between savage customs--or
rather the customs of savage and uncivilized races--and ancient myths.
But before this branch of Storyology is reached, we must consider the
question of the relation between our familiar nursery-tales, the
folk-lore of our own and other countries, and the old romances, with
these same myths. There is something more than monotony in the theory
which 'resolves most of our old romances into a series of remarks about
the weather.' The author of Primitive Culture (Mr. Tylor) rebels against
this theory. There is no legend, no allegory, no nursery-rhyme, he says,
safe from it, and, as an amusing illustration, he supposes the Song of
Sixpence to be thus interpreted by the mythologists. Obviously, the
four-and-twenty blackbirds are four-and-twenty hours, and the pie to
hold them is the underlying earth covered with the over-arching sky. How
true a touch of nature is it, 'when the pie is opened,' that is, when
day breaks, 'the birds begin to sing!' The King is the Sun, and his
'counting out his money' is pouring out the sunshine, the golden shower
of Danae; the Queen is the Moon, and her transparent honey the
moonlight. The maid is the rosy-fingered Dawn, who rises before the Sun,
her master, and hangs out the clothes (the clouds) across the sky; the
particular blackbird who so tragically ends the tale, by 'nipping off
her nose,' is the hour of sunrise. The time-honoured rhyme really wants,
as Mr. Tylor remarks, only one thing to prove it a sun-myth, and that
one thing is some other proof than a mere argument from analogy.
The same proof is wanting for those who would argue that the story of
Red Riding Hood is only another dawn-myth. Mr. Hussin holds this view,
but is not the story of the Cat and the Well capable of the same kind of
reading? Pussy is the earth; Tommy, who shoves her into the well, is the
evening or twilight; the well is Night; Johnny Stout is the Dawn who
pulls the earth out of darkness again. There is no limit to this kind of
application of so elastic a theory. But the very ease with which such
explanations can be attached to any nursery-rhyme or folk-tale should
warn us against their probability. As Mr. Tylor says: 'Rash inferences
which, on the strength of mere resemblances, derive episodes of myth
from episodes of nature, must be regarded with utter distrust, for the
student who has no more stringent criterion than this for his myths of
sun, and sky, and dawn, will find them wherever it pleases him to seek
them.'
The mention of the story of Red Riding Hood suggests a familiar
folk-tale, upon which that of Red Riding Hood may or may not have been
founded, but which certainly forms the basis of a good many similar
tales, and has been the subject of a good deal of wise exposition by the
mythologists. In the story of the Wolf and the Seven Little Kids, as
told by Grimm, there is a goat who goes out one day, leaving her seven
little ones safely locked in the house, after warning them to beware of
the wolf, whom she describes. The wolf comes begging for entrance,
pretending to be their mother, but they distrust first his voice and
then his black paws. He gets his paws whitened and comes back, showing
them against the window as proof that he is indeed their mother.
Therefore they open the door, and he swallows six of them, one after the
other, without going through the ceremony of mastication. After this he
goes back to the wood and falls asleep under a tree, where the
disconsolate mother finds him. With the assistance of the seventh and
youngest kid, who had escaped by hiding herself in the clock-case, the
wolf is cut open, and the six kids jump out all alive and kicking.
Stones are then placed in the wolf's stomach, and it is sewed up. When
the wolf wakens he cannot account for the jumbling and tumbling in his
stomach, so he goes to the well to get a drink. But the weight of the
stones makes him top-heavy; he falls in and is drowned.
Now, there is nothing more remarkable in this story than there is in
scores of our nursery or household tales, in which not only animals but
also inanimate objects are gifted with speech, and in which the love of
the marvellous rises superior to natural laws.
According to Cox, we must understand the myth of the Wolf and Kids thus:
'The wolf is here the night, or the darkness, which tries to swallow up
the seven days of the week, and actually swallows six. The seventh--the
youngest--escapes by hiding herself in the clock-case; in other words,
the week is not quite run out, and before it comes to an end, the mother
of the goats unrips the wolf's stomach and places stones in it in place
of the little goats, who come trooping out, as the days of the week
begin again to run their course.'
Very plausible this, from a comparative mythologist's point of view,
and not easy to dispute--until we find that a similar tale is current
all over the world where clock-cases are even yet unknown. We are told
that the negroes of Georgia have such a legend; that the natives of
Australia have one; that the Zulus have it; that the Indians of North
America and of British Guiana, and the Malays, all have versions of it.
In Brittany it is traceable in the legend of Gargantua; in Germany there
are several variations; and in Greece it finds its counterpart in the
legend of Saturn or Cronus. The Kaffirs tell the same story of a
cannibal, but the way the negroes have it is like this: 'Old Mrs. Sow
had five little pigs, whom she warned against the machinations of Brer
Wolf. Old Mrs. Sow died, and each little pig built a house for himself.
The youngest pig built the strongest house. Brer Wolf, by a series of
stratagems, entrapped and devoured the four elder pigs. The youngest pig
was the wisest, and would not let Brer Wolf come in by the door. He had
to enter by way of the chimney, fell into a great fire the youngest pig
had lighted, and was burned to death.' Here we have no clock-case, and
no resurrection of the victims, but otherwise the _motif_ of the story
is the same. Certainly the negroes did not receive this tale from the
white races, and it seems equally certain that they had no notion of
typifying the dawn or the night, or anything else, but only the popular
notion among nearly all primitive peoples that the youngest is usually
the most specially gifted and blessed.
This is Mr. Lang's view: 'In the tale of the Wolf and the Seven Kids,
the essence is found in the tricks whereby the wolf deceives his
victims; in the victory of the goat; in the disgorging of the kids
alive; and the punishment of the wolf (as of Cronus in Hesiod) by the
stone which he is obliged to admit into his system. In these events
there is nothing allegorical or mystical, no reference to sunrise or
storms. The crude ideas and incidents are of world-wide range, and suit
the fancy of the most backward nation.' The only thing in Grimm's tale
which differs materially from those of 'world-wide range' is the
clock-case--clearly a modern addition, but an item which forms an
essential factor in Cox's definition of the 'myth.'
So much by way of illustration; but dozens of tales might be produced,
all pointing the same way. This is to the belief that, although stories
have unquestionably been transmitted from race to race throughout the
ages, and so have become widely distributed over the world, all the
current nursery, or household, or folk, stories have not necessarily
been so transmitted from some one creative race of myth-makers. We have
just seen how an evidently modern interpolation (a clock-case) has come
to be regarded as an essential part of a myth, and it is surely easier
to believe that the other features are relics of some ancient customs of
which we have no record, than that they bear the ingenious references to
natural phenomena which the mythologists suppose.
Max Mueller holds that all the stories of princesses, imprisoned or
enchanted, and delivered by young lovers, 'can be traced back to
mythological tradition about the Spring being released from the bonds
of Winter.' But he requires, first, to have the names of the personages
of the story, because he traces the connection more by their etymology
than by the incidents of the narrative--of which more anon. With regard
to purely nursery or household tales, the question seems to resolve
itself pretty much into this: Are they the remains of an older and
higher mythology, or are they the foundations upon which the priests and
medicine-men and minstrels of later ages built their myths? Are they, in
short, surviving relics, or were they germs? The favourite scientific
theory adopts the former view; I incline to the latter. There are many
of the familiar folk-tales which it is impossible to explain, and there
are many, doubtless, which are in some sort fragments of the old
mythologies filtered to us through Greece. But, on the whole, it is more
reasonable to conclude that the simple stories of the marvellous or
irrational have their origin in 'the qualities of the uncivilized
imagination.'
Thus, with regard to the current superstitions of our peasantry and of
the Highlanders, it is much more rational to consider them, as Dr.
Robert Chambers did, as 'springing from a disposition of the human mind
to account for actual appearances by some imagined history which the
appearances suggest,' than as relics of the old-world mythologies. The
untutored mind disregards the natural, even in these days of applied
science. There is an old weir across the Tweed which the common people,
forgetting the mill, that had disappeared, pointed out as the work of
one of the imps of Michael Scott, the wizard. Wherever there are
three-topped hills there is sure to be a legend of the work of this same
Michael, or some other wizard. In the same way, deep, clear lakes exist
in various parts of the country, concerning which traditions survive of
cities lying at the bottom, submerged for their wickedness, or by the
machinations of some evil spirit. Old buildings exist in many parts in
such unfavourable situations that popular tradition can only account for
the singularity by the operation of some unfriendly spirit transporting
them from their original locality. Large solitary rocks off the coast,
or on hilltops, have been deposited where they are by witches. Water
springing from a rock by the roadside has always been the result of the
stroke of some magician or saint. Large depressions on hillsides are
generally the footprints of giants, like the mark left by Buddha's foot
as he ascended to heaven, still to be seen on a hill in Ceylon. The
circular green marks in the fields are the rings drawn by the fairies
for their midnight dances, and a scaur or cliff bearing the marks of
volcanic action or of lightning is invariably associated with some tale
of diabolic fury. Almost every reader can add instances of natural
appearances or effects idealized by the workings of the imagination of
uncivilized or uncultivated minds.
II.
One of the most common forms of these idealized phenomena is that known
as the 'Fairy-ring,' about which Nether Lochaber has said, in the
Highlands of Scotland, 'We can perfectly understand how in the good old
times, ere yet the schoolmaster was abroad, or science had become a
popular plaything, people--and doubtless very honest, decent people,
too--attributed those inexplicable emerald circles to supernatural
agency; if, indeed, anything connected with the "good folks" or "men of
peace" could properly be called supernatural in times when a belief in
fairies and every sort of fairy freak and frolic was deemed the most
correct and natural thing in the world. Did not these circles, it was
argued, appear in the course of a single night? In the sequestered
woodland glade, nor herd nor milkmaid could see anything odd or unusual
as the sun went down, and lo! next morning, as they drove their flocks
afield, there was the mysterious circle, round as the halo about the
wintry moon.... And if we know better nowadays than to believe these
green circles to be fairy-rings, we also know better than to give the
slightest credence to certain authors of our own day who have gravely
asserted that they are caused by electricity.... Fairy-rings ... are in
truth caused by a mushroom (_Agaricus pratensis_), the sporule dust or
seed of which, having fallen on a spot suitable for its growth,
instantly germinates, and, constantly propagating itself by sending out
a network of innumerable filaments and threads, forms the rich green
rings so common everywhere.'
Hardly more excusable than the electricity theorists, thinks this
writer, are those learned authors who tell us that the West received the
first hint of the existence of fairies from the East at the time of the
Crusades, and that almost all our fairy lore is traceable to the same
source, 'the fact being that Celt and Saxon, Scandinavian and Goth, Lapp
and Finn, had their "duergar," their "elfen" without number, such as
dun-elfen, berg-elfen, munt-elfen, feld-elfen, sae-elfen and
waeter-elfen--elves or spirits of downs, hills and mountains, of the
fields, of the woods, of the sea, and of the rivers, streams and
solitary pools--fairies, in short, and a complete fairy mythology, long
centuries before Peter the Hermit was born, or Frank and Moslem dreamt
of making the Holy Sepulchre a _casus belli_.'
There is something very suggestive in these remarks, and one thought
suggested is particularly in the direction of our inquiry, and that is,
may not the theory of the Aryan mythological origin of our folk-tales be
as imaginary and as groundless as the theory of the Oriental origin of
fairies? At the same time, let us admit that the superstitious belief in
capnomancy--_i.e._, divination by smoke--still said to be prevalent in
some parts of the Highlands, is probably the relic of the old sacrifices
by fire to the gods. In so far the superstition has a mythological
significance, but then, are we not driven back to the consideration
whether these gods were not actual personages in the minds of the old
Celtic worshippers, and not symbols of natural phenomena?
So much, however, for popular superstitions; and, as regards folk-tales,
we must, in speculating as to their origin,[1] 'look not into the
clouds, but upon the earth; not in the various aspects of nature, but in
the daily occurrences and surroundings.' The process of diffusion must
always remain uncertain. 'Much may be due to the identity everywhere of
early fancy, something to transmission,' but 'household tales occupy a
middle place between the stories of savages and the myths of early
civilization.'[2] And as nursery-rhymes are but the simplified form of
household or folk-tales, let us consider with Mr. Lang the relation
between savage customs and ancient myths.
The foundation of the method of comparative mythology is the belief that
'myths are the result of a disease of language, as the pearl is the
result of a disease of the oyster.' The method of inquiry is to examine
the names which occur in the stories, and having found or invented a
meaning for these names, to argue back from them to a meaning in the
myths. But then almost each scholar has his peculiar fancy in etymology,
and while one finds a Sanskrit root, another finds a Greek, a third a
Semitic, and so on. Even when they agree upon the derivation of the
proper names, the scholars seldom agree upon the interpretation of them,
and thus the whole system is full of perplexity and confusion to all who
approach its study with unbiassed minds. There is a further division
among the mythologists, for there are some who have a partiality for
sun-myths, others for cloud-myths, sky-myths and fire-myths, and each
seeks to work out an interpretation of an old-world story to suit his
own taste in myths. How can they be all right? And in whom can we have
confidence when we find so much disagreement, first, on the derivation
of names, and second, on their meaning after the derivation is
discovered? And then, how do we know that words had the same meaning to
the ancients as they have to us? Was the sky, for instance, to the
original story-makers 'an airy, infinite, radiant vault,' as it is to
us, or was it a material roof, or even a person? And, further, how is it
that we find the same myth, with slight alterations, in various parts of
the world, but with totally different names?
In opposition to the method of reading myths by the philological
analysis of names, there is the method of reading them by folk-lore,
_i.e._, by a comparison of the folk-tales and customs of primitive
peoples. The student of folk-lore has to collect and compare the similar
relics of old races, the surviving superstitions and traditions, and the
ideas which still live. He is thus led to compare the usages, myths, and
ideas of savages with those which remain among the European
peasantry--classes which have least altered by education, and have shown
the smallest change in progress. It is thus that we find even in our own
country and in our own day such things as the beliefs in fairies and
divination by smoke, which are as old as time. Similarly, the
harvest-custom which is still practised by the children in parts of
rural England and Scotland--the dressing up of the last gleaning in
human shape, and conducting it home in musical procession--is parallel
with a custom in ancient Peru, and with the Feast of Demeter of the
Sicilians. But that does not necessarily prove any original connection
between Peruvians, Scotch and Sicilians, any more than the fact that the
negroes of Barbadoes make clay figures of their enemies and mutilate
them, as the Greeks and Accadians of old used to do, proves any
connection between the negroes and the Greeks and Accadians. If we find
the Australians spreading dust round the body of a dead man in order to
receive the impression of the footprints of any ghostly visitor, the
same custom has been observed among the Jews, among the Aztecs, among
the French, and even among the Scotch. Where we find, therefore, an
apparently irrational and anomalous custom in any country, we must look
for a country where a similar custom prevails, and where it is no longer
irrational and anomalous, but in harmony with the manners and ideas of
the people among whom it prevails. When we read of Greeks dancing about
in their 'mysteries' with live serpents, it seems unintelligible, but
when we read of Red Indians doing the same thing with live rattlesnakes,
we can understand the meaning because we can see implied a test of
physical courage. May not a similar motive have originated the Greek
practices?
The method of folk-lore, then, is 'to compare the seemingly meaningless
customs or manners of civilized races with the similar customs and
manners which exist among the uncivilized, and still retain their
meaning. It is not necessary for comparison of this sort that the
uncivilized and the civilized race should be of the same stock, nor need
we prove that they were ever in contact.'[3] Similar conditions of mind
produce similar practices, apart from identity of race, or borrowing of
ideas and manners. In pursuing this method we have to compare the
customs and tales of the most widely separated races, whereas the
comparative mythologists, who hold it correct to compare Greek, Slavonic,
Celtic and Indian stories because they occur in languages of the same
family, and Chaldean and Greek stories because the Chaldeans and the
Greeks are known to have been in contact, will not compare Greek,
Chaldean, Celtic, or Indian stories with those of the Maoris, the
Eskimos, or the Hottentots, because these last belong to a different
language-family, and are not known to have ever been in contact with
Aryan races.
The 'bull-roarer,' a toy familiar to most children, is one example
selected by Mr. Lang. It is a long, thin, narrow piece of wood,
sharpened at both ends; attached to a piece of string, and whirled
rapidly and steadily in the air, it emits a sound which gradually
increases to an unearthly kind of roar. The ancient Greeks employed at
some of their sacred rites a precisely similar toy, described by
historians as 'a little piece of wood, to which a string was fastened,
and in the mysteries it is whirled round to make a roaring noise.' The
performers in the 'mysteries' at which this implement was used daubed
themselves all over with clay. Demosthenes describes the mother of
Aeschines as a dabbler in mysteries, and tells how Aeschines used to
assist her by helping to bedaub the initiate with clay and bran. Various
explanations have been offered of these practices, but let us see how
they tally with any prevailing customs. First, the bull-roarer is to be
found in almost every country in the world, and among the most primitive
peoples. It is so simple an instrument that it is within the scope of
the mechanical genius of the most degraded savages, and therefore it is
quite unnecessary to suppose that the idea of it was ever transmitted
from race to race. And as an instrument employed in religious rites or
mysteries, it is found in New Mexico, in Australia, in New Zealand and
in Africa, to this day. Its use in Australia is to warn the women to
keep out of the way when the men are about to celebrate their tribal
mysteries. It is death for women to witness these rites, and it is also
forbidden for them to look upon the sacred turndun, or bull-roarer. In
the same way, among the Greeks, it was forbidden for men to witness the
rites of the women, and for women to witness those of the men. Among the
Indians of Zuni, Mr. Cushing found the same implement used by the
priests to summon the tribe to the sacrificial feasts. In South Africa,
Mr. Tylor has proved that the bull-roarer is employed to call the men
only to the celebration of sacred functions, and the instrument itself
is described in Theal's Kaffir Folklore.
Now, the same peoples who still employ the bull-roarer as a sacred
instrument also bedaub their bodies with clay, for no apparent reason
unless it may be to frighten their enemies or repel intruders. We thus
find still prevailing in our own time among savage races practices which
are perfectly analogous to practices which prevailed among the Greeks.
The reasonable inference, therefore, is not that the bull-roaring and
body-daubing were first used in the rites of a civilized race of Greeks,
and thence transmitted to Africa, Australia and America, but that the
employment of these things by the Greeks was a survival of the time when
the Greeks were in the same savage condition as are the peoples among
whom we find the same things now.
The Greek story of Saturn is familiar to every schoolboy. Saturn, it
will be remembered, wounds and drives away his father, Uranus, because
of his unkindness to himself and his brothers. Afterwards Saturn marries
his sister Rhea, and has several children--Demeter, Hera, Hades, Poseidon
and Zeus--whom he swallowed as they were born, lest they might serve him
as he served Uranus. But Rhea didn't like this, and at the time when
Zeus was born she ran away to a distant place. Saturn followed, and,
asking for the child, was given a stone, which he swallowed without
looking at it. Zeus grew up in security, and in due time gave his father
a dose which made him disgorge, first, the stone (which was placed at
Delphi, where it became an object of public worship), and then the
children, one after another, all living and hearty.
The tale is told in various ways, but these are the main incidents. It
is interpreted by the mythologists to typify, in its first part, the
birth of the world and the elements; and the second part is held by some
to typify the operations of time, by others the alternations of night
and day--the stone swallowed by Saturn being the sun, which he
afterwards disgorges at daybreak. By others Saturn is held to be the sun
and ripener of the harvests; by others, again, the storm-god, who
swallows the clouds, whose sickle is the rainbow, and whose blood is the
lightning; by others still Saturn is regarded as the sky, which swallows
and reproduces the stars, and whose sickle is the crescent moon. There
is a great deal of diversity of opinion, it will be observed, about this
myth of Saturn, or Cronus, but it is curious to note how all the leading
incidents of this myth may be traced in various parts of the world.[4]
Among the Maoris, the story of Tutenganahau is told, and this is a story
of the severing of heaven and earth, very similar to the Greek story. In
India and in China, legends tell of the former union of heaven and
earth, and of their violent separation by their own children. As regards
the swallowing performances of Saturn, they find analogues in tales
among the Australians, among the Red Indians, among the natives of
British Guiana, and among the Kaffirs.
The conclusion, then, is that the first part of the Saturn myth is
evidently the survival of an old nature-myth which is common to races
who never had any communication with the Greeks. The second part is
unintelligible, except as just such a legend as might be evolved by
persons in the same savage intellectual condition as, say, the Bushmen,
who account for celestial phenomena by saying that a big star has
swallowed his daughter and spat her out again.
Any myth which accounts for the processes of nature or the aspects of
natural phenomena may, says Mr. Lang, conceivably have been invented
separately, therefore it is not surprising to find the star-stories of
savages closely resembling those of civilized races. The story of the
lost sister of the Pleiades, according to the Greek myth, finds a
parallel in a tradition among the Australians. Of star-lore generally,
it may be said that it is much the same even among the Bushmen of
Africa, as it was among the Greeks and Egyptians, and as it is among the
Australians and Eskimos.
Another interesting inquiry is to trace the legend current among the
Greeks, and known to us as that of Jason and the Golden Fleece, in the
Storyology of the Africans, the Norse, the Malagasies, the Russians, the
Italians, the Samoans, the Finns, the Samoyedes and the Eskimo. Some of
the resemblances are so exceedingly close and curious as to severely
shake our belief in the dawn-sun-spring-lightning interpretations of the
mythologists. They drive us to the conclusion that the Jason myth is not
a story capable of explanation as a nature-myth, or as a result of 'a
disease of language'; for as is pertinently remarked, 'So many languages
could not take the same malady in the same way; nor can we imagine any
stories of natural phenomena that would inevitably suggest this tale to
so many diverse races.' The rational theory is that the Jason story,
like its analogues among strange races, had its origin in a time of
savage conditions, when animals were believed to talk, when human
sacrifices and cannibalism were practised, and when efforts to escape
being eaten were natural.