A GUIDE TO MYTHOLOGY
[Illustration: Automedon and the Horses of Achilles. _H. Regnault._]
A
GUIDE TO MYTHOLOGY
BY
HELEN A. CLARKE
_Author of “Ancient Myth in Modern Poets,” “Longfellow’s
Country,” “Hawthorne’s Country,”
“The Poets’ New England,” Etc._
[Illustration]
GARDEN CITY NEW YORK
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
1918
COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY
DOUBLEDAY, PAGE & COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, INCLUDING THAT OF
TRANSLATION INTO FOREIGN LANGUAGES,
INCLUDING THE SCANDINAVIAN
To
MY LITTLE FRIEND
KATHARINE CORFIELD NEWBOLD
PREFATORY NOTE
It is a pleasure to express my thanks to publishers and authors for
courteous permission given me to include in this book stories from their
collections. To Houghton, Mifflin & Co., the publishers of “Algonquin
Legends,” by J. G. Leland, and of Bryant’s translation of the “Odyssey”;
to J. B. Lippincott Co., the publishers of “Gods and Heroes of Old
Japan,” by Violet M. Pasteur, and of “Old Deccan Days,” by Mary Frere;
to A. Wessels Co., the publishers and to Mr. W. W. Canfield, the author
of “Legends of the Iroquois”; to Ginn & Co., the publishers of “Classic
Myths in English Literature,” based on Bulfinch’s “Age of Fable,” by
Charles Mills Gayley; to Macmillan & Co., publishers of “Theocritus,
Bion, and Moschus, Done into English Prose,” by A. Lang; to Scott,
Foresman & Co., publishers of “Norse Mythology,” by Melville B. Anderson.
Other collections, out of print, as far as I know—the original publishers
no longer being in existence, from which I have taken stories, are:
“Indian Fairy Tales Based on Schoolcraft,” by Cornelius Mathews, and
“Indian Myths,” by Ellen R. Emerson; also from the following English
publications: “Polynesian Myths,” by Sir George Grey; “Russian Stories,”
by Ralston.
I am also deeply indebted, as every one who studies mythology must be, to
the following works, among others in various branches of the subject: Max
Müller’s “Chips from a German Workshop,” Cox’s “Mythology of the Aryan
Races,” John Fiske’s “Myths and Mythmakers,” Frazer’s “Golden Bough,”
Hartland’s “Myth of Perseus,” Clodd’s “Childhood of Religions,” Andrew
Lang’s “Custom and Myth,” Tyler’s “Primitive Culture,” Mills’s “Tree of
Mythology,” Chamberlain’s “The Child and Childhood in Folk Thought,” De
Gubernatis’s “Zoological Mythology,” Dr. Brinton’s “American Hero Myths,”
“Myths of the New World,” as well as to many collections of folk-tales.
* * * * *
My aim in this book on Mythology for young readers has been to give them
solid knowledge on the subject, as far as it is advisable to go with
immature minds, based upon the most recent investigations of scholars,
and to select the myths used in illustration of the plan, with a view to
giving them interesting stories to read, which will, almost unconsciously
to themselves, lay a firm foundation for the fascinating study of
Comparative Mythology, should they wish to go more deeply into it in the
future.
There is much talk nowadays as to the authenticity of the records of
savage myths. Much of this talk seems to me futile, for a myth is not
a fixed entity. Each successive narrator is almost sure to vary and
embellish somewhat the material that comes to him, according to his
own inventive fancy. If, therefore, a savage myth recorded by a white
man retains the chief characteristics of the savage myth, in spite of
some fanciful turns given it by him, to the degree, say, that a story of
Ovid’s retains those of a Greek myth, it is to all intents and purposes
a savage myth, and the embellishments may be disregarded, as Ovid’s are
when we are considering Greek Mythology. I have, therefore, included in
this volume those versions of the myths that seemed most readable and
attractive, provided the primitive attitude of mind and customs were
fully emphasized.
CONTENTS
PAGE
I.—WHAT IS A MYTH? 19
II.—ANIMALS IN PRIMITIVE MYTHS 40
_STORIES_: How the muskrat made the world (_Indians of
British Columbia_).—How a kite helped to make the world
(_Philippine Island_).—How Maui fished up the earth
(_Polynesian_).—The origin of the robin (_Odjibwa_,
Cornelius Mathews, based on Schoolcraft).—The origin of the
hare (_Aino_, B. F. Chamberlain).—How the mole became blind
(_North American Indian_, Mill’s “Tree of Mythology”).—The
boy and the wolves (_North American Indian_, Ellen R.
Emerson, “Indian Legends”).—How Wasbashas, the snail,
became a man (_North American Indian_, Emerson).—The
amazing adventures of Master Rabbit (_Algonquin_, Leland’s
“Algonquin Legends”).—The story of Manabozho (_Iroquois_,
Mathews-Schoolcraft).—How Glooskap made his uncle, the
turtle, into a great man (_Mic-Mac_ and _Passamaquoddy_,
Leland).—Punchkin (_Hindoo_, M. Frere’s “Old Deccan Days”).
III.—ANIMALS IN CULTURE MYTHS 131
_STORIES_: Hymn to Indra (_Hindoo_, “Rig Veda”).—The
Four apes (_Egyptian_, Book of the Dead).—Story of the
Midgard serpent and Fenris, the wolf (_Norse_, Melville B.
Anderson’s, “Norse Mythology,” based on the Eddas).—The
story of Apollo and Phaëton (_Greek_, Gayley, based on
Bulfinch).—The story of Odysseus and the oxen of the sun
(_Greek_, paraphrase from Bryant’s “Odyssey”).—The story of
Athēne and Arachne (_Greek_, Gayley-Bulfinch).
IV.—TREE AND PLANT MYTHS 165
_STORIES_: Ygdrasil, the Norse world tree.—Story of the
Aino who fell asleep at the foot of a pine tree.—Wunzh,
the father of Indian corn (_North American Indian_,
Mathews-Schoolcraft).—Leelinau, the Lost Daughter (_North
American Indian_, Mathews-Schoolcraft).—Birth of the
arbutus (_Iroquois_, W. B. Canfield’s “Legends of the
Iroquois”).—Song at the beginning (_Ancient Mexican_,
Brinton’s “Myths of the New World”).—Flower song (_Ancient
Mexican_, Brinton’s “Myths of the New World”).—The story of
Erisichthon (_Greek_, Bulfinch’s “Age of Fable”).—Story of
Pan and Syrinx (_Greek_, Gayley-Bulfinch).—Story of Pomona
and Vertumnus (_Roman_, Gayley-Bulfinch).—Myth of Osiris
and Isis (Bulfinch).—Story of Adonis (_Greek_, extracts
from Lang’s “Lament for Adonis,” by Bion).
V.—MYTHS OF THE SUN, MOON, AND STARS 207
_STORIES_: Story of the making of the sun, moon, and stars
(_Navajo_, Emerson).—Story of the conquering of the sun
(_North American Indian_, Emerson).—Hymn to the sun (_North
American Indian_, Emerson).—Hymn to Sûrya (_Hindoo_, “Rig
Veda”).—The worship of the sun and the dream of Onawutaquto
(_North American Indian_, Emerson).—The witch and the sun’s
sister (_Russian_, Ralston’s “Russian Folk-Tales”).—The
making of the mirror (_Japanese_, Violet M. Pasteur,
“Gods and Heroes of Old Japan”).—The death of Balder the
Good (_Norse_, Anderson-Eddas).—Battle of Ra and Anapef
(_Egyptian_, Book of the Dead).—Story of Phœbus Apollo
(_Greek_, Gayley-Bulfinch).—Story of Artemis and Orion
(_Greek_, Gayley-Bulfinch).—Story of the child and the star
(_Iowa Indian_, Emerson).—Osseo, the son of the evening
star (_North American Indian_, Mathews-Schoolcraft).—The
wandering star (_Chippewa_, Emerson).—The daughters of the
stars (_North American Indian_, Mathews-Schoolcraft).
VI.—MYTHS OF THE SKY AND AIR 269
_STORIES_: How a hunter visited the thunder spirits
who dwell in Mount Katahdin (_Passamaquoddy_,
Leland).—The thunder and lightning men (_Passamaquoddy_,
Leland).—How Glooskap bound Wuchowsen, the great
wind bird (_Passamaquoddy_, Leland).—The wonderful
exploits of Paup-puk-keewiss (_North American Indian_,
Mathews-Schoolcraft).—The story of Odin’s sword and
Sigmund (_Norse_, Anderson-Eddas).—How Thor conquered the
stone giant (_Norse_, Anderson-Eddas).—How Zeus came to
be king of gods (_Greek_).—Hymn to the dawn (_Hindoo_,
“Rig Veda”).—The lover’s vision of the happy land
(_North American Indian_, Emerson).—The message-bearers
(_Iroquois_, Canfield).—The way of the gods (_Japanese_,
Violet M. Pasteur).
VII.—MOTHER-MYTHS AND CHILD-MYTHS 336
_STORIES_: Malayan story of the sun and moon.—Hymn to
the mother of the gods (_Mexican Indian_, Brinton’s “Rig
Veda Americanus”).—Hymn to Cihuacoatl (_Mexican Indian_,
Brinton).—The children of heaven and earth (Sir George
Grey, “Polynesian Mythology”).—Story of Demeter (_Greek_,
from Hymn to Demeter, Callimachus).—The story of Demeter
and Persephone (_Greek_, Gayley-Bulfinch, drawn from Ovid
and Apollodorus).—Legend of Tu-tok-a-nu-la (_Indian_,
Emerson).—Nezhik-e-wa-wa-sun, or the lone lightning
(_Odjibwa_, Emerson).—Wasis, the baby (_Penobscot_,
Leland).—Ojeeg Annung, or the summer-maker (_Indian_,
Emerson).—The legend of Maui (_Polynesian_, Grey).—The
infant Heracles (_Greek_, paraphrased from Lang’s
translation of the Idyls of Theocritus).—The infant Hermes
(_Greek_, paraphrased from Shelley’s translation of the
Homeric Hymn to Mercury).
ILLUSTRATIONS
FACING PAGE
Automedon and the Horses of Achilles _Regnault_ _Frontispiece_
A Reading from Homer _Alma-Tadema_ 38
Zeus _From Pompeii_ 140
Athēne _Glyptothek, Munich_ 162
Apollo with the Lyre _Glyptothek, Munich_ 232
Diana or Artemis the Huntress _Versailles_ 240
Diana or Artemis _Correggio_ 248
Aurora _Guido Reni_ 270
The Flying Mercury or Hermes _Giovanni di Bologna_ 316
Athēne: Brandisher of the Spear _Capitol, Rome_ 320
Demeter or Ceres _The Vatican_ 340
The Infant Hercules _Louvre_ 384
A GUIDE TO MYTHOLOGY
CHAPTER I
WHAT IS A MYTH?
What is a myth? This looks like a simple question, and one that ought
to be easy to answer. Yet it is one which has puzzled for centuries the
heads of many learned men, who in their attempts to give a satisfactory
answer to the question, have written whole libraries of profound books
on the subject. It would seem almost hopeless for us to try and find an
answer, if it were not that we live in the Twentieth Century, which is
like a great hilltop towering above all the past centuries; and from this
height we are able to look down and see right into the minds of all these
learned and distinguished men, and understand why they found the answer
to this question so difficult.
Let us try to imagine all the myths which have come into existence since
the beginning of the world shut up in a huge round castle in the midst
of a wide plain, and all these learned men like knights of the Middle
Ages besieging the castle to find out the secrets that are locked up
within it. They come, galloping up on horseback from every quarter of
the plain—North, East, South, West—carrying long spears with which they
batter away at the castle until they succeed in making a hole through the
wall. Then each of these knights of learning becomes so intent upon what
he sees in the castle through the hole that he, himself, has made that he
is entirely unaware of what the other knights see through the holes they
have made. Then they all go off and write their learned books, telling
what they have seen, and when they come to read each other’s books, of
course, they have terrible battles—all of words fortunately—in their
attempts to settle who is right, and each one contends that he has seen
all there is to be seen through his own particular little spear hole.
But we, upon the hilltop can perceive that every one of the knights saw
something about myths which was true, and the way to find the answer we
want is to piece together all the fractions of truth which each man saw
into a whole truth, or something near a whole truth, for, you know, the
whole truth about anything is so immense that it is almost if not quite
impossible to find it all out.
For example, it would not be possible for me to tell you in this one
short chapter all the secrets which all the knights of learning saw as
they looked into the castle; but I shall tell you a few of them, for it
will help you to understand more intelligently what a myth really is.
The first knight to be seen galloping out of a very far-distant past is
the Greek Theognis of Rhegium. He lived six hundred years B.C., but even
as long ago as that there had come to be such an immense number of myths
in Greece, that their existence was already a cause for much wonder. He
carried a spear, called “allegory,” and when he battered into the castle,
the only truth he could see was that all myths were allegories. According
to him the Greek mythical gods, Apollo, Helios, and Hephaestos, were fire
under different aspects: Hera was the air; Posidon, the water; Artemis,
the moon, and so on. Other learned Greeks followed in his footsteps
and saw much the same things. For example, three hundred years later,
Aristotle said that myths were the attempt of the world before his time
to express _philosophical_ speculations, and Plutarch four hundred and
sixty years later said that myths were _metaphysical_ statements in
disguise. That is, they all thought that myths had been invented to stand
as symbols of objects in nature or of ideas which men had expressed.
Now, if we look again, we shall see another Greek knight galloping out
of the past whose name was Euhemeros. He was a historian, a philosopher,
and a traveller, and he lived about three hundred years B.C. He was the
friend of the King of Macedon, who sent him off on missions to various
countries. The spear he carried was called “history,” and the way he came
to decide that myths were historical accounts of real persons is told in
the following little story. Once when he was off on his travels, after
sailing about for several days, he arrived in the Indian Ocean, where he
found a group of islands the most important of which was Panchaia. The
inhabitants of this island were distinguished for their piety and honored
the gods by the most magnificent sacrifices and offerings of gold and
silver. Among the wonderful works of art in this island was an immensely
tall column on the top of which was a temple to Jupiter Triumphant. This
was supposed to have been erected by Jupiter himself, when, an earthly
monarch, he marched through the country victorious. Inside this temple
was a column upon which were recorded the doings of Jupiter and of his
father and grandfather, Kronos and Uranos.
This story, itself, is so evidently a myth that it does not amount to
anything as a proof of the historical theory. Nevertheless there have
been many to adopt this belief.
Other knights of learning, both ancient and modern, have carried lances
with the sounding name, “natural phenomena.” When they look into
the castle they see myths as personifications of natural phenomena.
Everything that we see happening in nature comes under the head of
natural phenomena. The rising and setting of the sun, the moon and
the stars each day, the clouds that drift across the sky, storms and
whirlwinds, the lightning flash and the loud roar of the thunder, as well
as the gentle rain, the tinkling of waterfalls, and the light morning
breezes. When all these objects and events in nature are talked about
as if they had the same powers as human beings, they are said to be
personified. Here is a very pretty example of a myth in which the dawn is
personified. It is taken from one of the most ancient books in the world,
the “Rig Veda,” about which you will hear more later.
“The lovely Dawn arousing man goes before the sun preparing
practicable paths, riding in a spacious chariot, expanding
everywhere, she diffuses light at the commencement of the days.”
Among the ancient knights of learning who thought that all myths were
started in this way was the great Thucydides; and Cicero also believed
that the exalted beings in mythology who were worshipped as gods were
in reality personifications of the objects in nature which struck the
imagination of primitive mankind.
There are also many modern knights of learning who hold the same view,
among the most distinguished of whom is the English scholar, Max Müller.
About him and his followers Sir George Cox and John Fiske, the American
historian and thinker, you will one day know more if you continue your
studies in mythology. When Max Müller came to write his learned books
upon what he saw in the castle of myths, he supported his learning upon
many interesting facts which he had discovered when he was studying the
languages of different races.
In comparing the ancient Greek language with the ancient language of
India, the Sanskrit, he found out that they were often very much alike.
This drove him to the conclusion that they must both be descended from
some still older language. He noticed also remarkable resemblances
between the myths of Greece and those of India, of which there were
large numbers collected in the old books in Sanskrit and other Indian
languages. Then he made up his mind that the ancient race of people who
spoke the old language from which Greek and Sanskrit were descended must
have had a great fondness for inventing myths, and that these myths had
been handed down from generation to generation. Finally, many of the
descendants of this ancient race went to live in India, while others went
to live in Greece, and that was the reason the languages and the myths of
these two peoples were so much alike in many ways. The original home of
this ancient myth-making race has been thought to be Central Asia, and
the race is known in history as the Aryan race. But Max Müller and others
who agreed with him were so intoxicated with their new discoveries that
they were constantly in danger of making fanciful comparisons between the
words of the two languages, and building upon these fanciful comparisons
explanations of myths, even more mythical than the myths themselves.
In fact they not only saw in one direction like the other knights, but
they used a huge magnifying glass that tinted every thing with unnatural
rainbow colors such as you have seen when looking through an opera glass.
I will speak of three others only of the many modern knights of
learning who have seen some of the truth:—E. B. Tylor, Andrew Lang, and
James G. Frazer. The first of these tells especially about some very
curious beliefs possessed by primitive men. These beliefs colored their
imagination no matter what kind of myths they might invent. One of them
was that a spirit, separate from their ordinary life lived inside of
their bodies; another that all things in nature had life like themselves,
and also spirits dwelling within them like the spirits within themselves.
This was thought to be true of trees and stones as well as of birds and
animals. The second, Andrew Lang, considers that myths are stories which
tell about the manners and customs of ancient or savage people, and the
third, James G. Frazer, sees in the worship of the spirits of vegetation,
the corn, the trees and so on the origin of most myths. Very long and
very profound are the arguments with which each supports his particular
point of view, and many are the illustrations drawn from the myths of all
lands with which each illuminates his argument, but, like the rest of the
knights, each sees so much in his own truth that he is more or less blind
to all that others see.
Now that I have tried to give you this glimpse at the various
explanations of myths proposed from the most ancient times to the
present, I think we shall be a little better prepared to find out an
answer for ourselves that will be satisfactory.
Suppose we take the top off the castle in which we imagined the myths
and the secrets of their origin to be locked up, and look down upon them
from our hilltop, using as an aid to our vision all the light that comes
in through the numerous breaks in the castle made by the lances of the
knights. What will the wonderful treasures revealed to us be like? They
will not be like jewels, all polished and placed in regular shining rows,
for myths were never fashioned as a jeweler would fashion his stones—all
at once—into perfectly finished and beautiful shapes. No!—the imaginary
contents of our castle which will best stand as a symbol or picture of
all the myths of the whole world in all their wonderful variety will be
an immense forest of almost countless kinds of trees. Under the trees
there are many sorts of plants and flowers; and if we look closer we
shall see that some of these trees and plants are ugly in shape, some
are even decaying, but there are many most lovely to behold, and a few
of the trees tower up above the others and are profusely decorated with
many shining ornaments, making them look like Christmas trees. You will
see at once that by using this symbol to stand for all the myths of the
whole world I want to point out and make clear to you the important fact
that myths were not made all at once as the jeweler polishes his stones,
but they grew up gradually from small beginnings, like oaks from acorns,
or pines from pine cones—and the soil in which they grew was the minds of
primitive men ages and ages ago.
Sometimes the trees of one land will look exceedingly like those in
another land—in fact, being the same sort of trees, but differing
somewhat in shape. Then the smaller plants and flowers are the symbols
for many kinds of little mythical stories about every thing that you can
think of, or rather that primitive man could think of, for he didn’t know
about trolleys and telephones and automobiles, and so there are not any
myths about such things as these. And the Christmas trees are the myths
which have been enlarged and glorified by having myths from other lands
added to them.
Now the point comes up, how did all this vast forest of myths which
covers the whole world arise, for the forest symbolizes, remember, only
the forms oral or written in which the myths of the world have come to
us. To answer this, we must now try to imagine behind all this wonderful
growth of myth, on the one hand, the mind of mankind, and on the other
hand all the objects of external nature. And besides we must think of
mankind as it was untold ages ago in the real childhood of the world.
In those far off days when the first men used to roam about the world
getting their food by hunting, with nothing but caves or tents to live
in, man’s consciousness of himself was not even as strong as that of a
small child to-day. Still, he had implanted in him the power of observing
whatever went on before him, and a constant curiosity to know the cause
or the “reason why” of every thing he saw. Above all he had a vivid
imagination. He could “make believe” about the things he saw far better
than children do in their games to-day, and that is how he came to
invent explanations of most of the things he saw about him. Here, for
example, is a little story invented by the Hottentots to explain two
things which they had observed, the spots on the moon, and the way in
which the upper lip of a hare is split.
“The moon sent an insect to men saying, ‘Go thou to men and
tell them, as I die and dying live, so ye shall also die and
dying live.’ The insect started with his message, but while
on the way was overtaken by the hare who asked him upon what
errand he was bound. The insect answered that he had been sent
by the moon to tell men that as she dies and dying lives so
also shall they die and dying live! The hare said, ‘As thou
art an awkward runner, let me go.’ With these words he ran off
and when he reached men he said, ‘I am sent by the moon to
tell you, as I die and dying perish, in the same manner shall
ye also die and come wholly to an end.’ Then the hare returned
to the moon and told her what he had said to men. The moon
reproached him angrily, saying, ‘Darest thou tell the people a
thing which I have not said?’ With these words she took up a
hatchet to split his head, missing that the hatchet fell upon
the upper lip and made a deep gash. Maddened by such treatment,
the hare flew at the moon and scratched her face which are the
dark spots which we now see on the moon.”
You see these primitive Hottentots treat every thing in nature as if
it were alive just as we learned from Tylor. They really did not know
what a great difference there is between a human being and an animal or
between animals and plants or even plants and stones. All of the objects
in nature being endowed with life, they might speak and act just like
human beings. But it was only the very wisest of human beings who could
understand this language that the animals and plants and other objects in
nature might speak.
On this account all nature seemed very mysterious to primitive man, and
he therefore was ready to worship almost any object that caught his
attention.
Then the strange feeling he had that another spirit quite detached from
his ordinary life lived inside his body, made him imagine queer things
about this spirit; for one thing, that it might leave his body and go off
on independent journeys in the form of a bird or an animal, or even that
it might be stowed away for safe keeping in some animal or other object,
like the famous story of the Norse giant whose heart, which is equivalent
to his true life, is far away in an egg that is in a church that is on an
island that lies in a lake. In many stories belonging to this primitive
time, a man’s luck often stands for his life and is bound up in some
object outside of himself as in this story of the Algonquin Indians,
which reflects all the strange notions I have spoken of as well as giving
an explanation of the appearance of the sheldrake duck. It is the story
of how one of the Partridge’s wives became a sheldrake duck, and why her
feet and feathers are red.
“There was once a hunter who lived in the woods. He had a
brother or spirit who was so small that he kept him in a box,
and when he went forth he closed this very carefully, for fear
lest an evil spirit should get him.
“One day this hunter, returning, saw a very beautiful girl
sitting on a rock by a river, making a moccasin. And being in
a canoe he paddled up softly and silently to capture her; but
she, seeing him coming, jumped into the water and disappeared.
On returning to her mother, who lived at the bottom of the
river, she was told to go back to the hunter and be his wife;
‘for now,’ said the mother, ‘you belong to that man.’
“The hunter’s name was Mitchihess, the Partridge. When she came
to his lodge he was absent. So she arranged every thing for his
return, making a bed of boughs. At night he came back with one
beaver. This he divided; cooked one half for supper and laid by
the other half. In the morning when she awoke he was gone, and
the other half of the beaver had also disappeared. That night
he returned with another beaver, and the same thing took place
again. Then she resolved to spy and find out what all this
meant.
“So she lay down and went to sleep with one eye open. Then he
quietly rose and cooked the half of the beaver, and taking a
key unlocked a box, and took out a little red dwarf and fed
him. Replacing the elf, he locked him up again, and lay down to
sleep. And the small creature had eaten the whole half beaver.
But ere he put him in his box he washed him and combed his
hair, which seemed to delight him.
“The next morning, when her husband had gone for the day, the
wife sought for the key, and having found it opened the box
and called to the little fellow to come out. This he refused
to do for a long time, though she promised to wash and comb
him. Being at length persuaded, he peeped out, when she pulled
him forth. But whenever she touched him her hands became red,
though of this she took no heed, thinking she could wash it off
at will. But lo! while combing him, there entered a hideous
being, an awful devil, who caught the small elf from her and
ran away.
“Then she was terribly frightened. And trying to wash her
hands, the red stain remained. When her husband returned that
night he had no game; when he saw the red stain he knew all
that had happened; when he knew what had happened he seized
his bow to beat her; when she saw him seize his bow to beat
her she ran down to the river and jumped in to escape death at
his hands, though it should be by drowning. But as she fell
into the water she became a sheldrake duck. And to this day the
marks of the red stain are to be seen on her feet and feathers.”
You will observe a very strange custom alluded to in this story, and
that is the way in which the hunter is described as capturing the maiden
for his wife instead of gently trying to persuade her to be his wife.
This shows that it is a very far-back myth, for there are many other
stories to prove that savages learned to be much more gentle in their
ways toward women even before men became altogether civilized.
How primitive men came to have such peculiar beliefs we cannot say
positively. Some people have thought that perhaps their dreams made them
think that there was a spirit inside of them separate from their ordinary
life, while the sounds and movements in nature, such as the singing of a
waterfall, the rustling of leaves, or the sound which stones would give
out when knocked together, would seem to the uneducated mind of early
mankind, to be signs of life like his own.
Another very early belief is that in magic and sorcery. Primitive man
used to imagine that he could make it rain by imitating the thunder,
which he did by shaking dried seeds about in a gourd. Magic is really
the producing of any desired effect or event by means which are quite
outside of the laws of nature. As the primitive savage did not know any
thing about the laws of nature, laws which have taken ages for men to
discover and all of which are not even yet discovered, he revelled in the
invention of means by which he thought he might accomplish the things he
would like to do. Sometimes he asked spirits to help him, and if what
he wanted to do was evil, he would ask aid of evil spirits. There are
countless myths in which magic plays a part, examples of which you will
see as you read the stories given in the following chapters.
Since in the time most remote men depended upon animals almost entirely
for their food, it is probable that animals were the objects that made
the most vivid impressions on them, and, therefore, that stories of
animals belong to this most primitive stage.
At this time, too, it is likely that the worship of animals arose, for
almost every tribe of savages had a sacred animal which, except in rare
instances, it was never allowed to kill and from which it often imagined
itself descended.
After many ages, mankind began to till the ground, and to raise grain
and vegetables, then plants and trees were more especially observed by
them, and the mythical stories have, in consequence, more about plants
and trees in them; and, as they had sacred animals, they had also sacred
trees or plants, and worshipped them or imagined themselves descended
from them.
Then as men progressed in their powers of observation they saw natural
phenomena more and more. The succession of night and day impressed itself
upon them, they took note of the motions of the sun, the moon and the
stars, clouds caught their attention, storms filled them with awe and
fear as the lightning flashed and the thunder roared and rattled in its
might. The wind laughed in summer breezes or howled in wintry blasts and
they noticed it, and as soon as their attention was fully aroused to all
these wonders of nature, they began to think of them, as not only endowed
with powers like their own, but as living beings. First, they frequently
personified nature as animals, then as human beings, and as they had
worshipped sacred animals and sacred plants and sacred trees, now they
worshipped these gods of nature; and as they invented tales about the
animals and the trees, so they invented tales about these gods of nature.
As one would expect, the stories about animals and trees would often be
mingled with the new stories of the nature gods, and sometimes changed so
that one would hardly recognize them. And then, again, a story told about
a nature god in one part of the world would, on account of the early
wanderings of the human race from one land to another, be added as an
ornament to a story told in another part of the world, like the ornaments
on the Christmas trees in the castle.
Again, whole myths would be transported, and as they reached different
countries they would be changed somewhat so that they would reflect the
manners or the knowledge of that particular country. A strange thing,
however, about many myths is that those in one part of the world are so
much like those in another part of the world that it would seem as if
they must have been invented by the same people. Not only are there myths
in India and Greece which are very much alike, but there are myths in
Scandinavia and North America and South America that strongly resemble
each other and those of Greece and India.
Why this should be the case is another point about which learned men have
had many opinions. Some of them have thought that the whole human race
must once have lived in one particular spot on the globe, and that from
there large numbers wandered forth to seek new homes in all the other
countries on the globe, taking with them the myths which they had in
common when they all lived together. It has never been settled just where
that particular spot was, and probably it never will be. Perhaps it was
in Central Asia, perhaps it was in the southern part of Spain, perhaps
in Norway and Sweden, perhaps in the island of Atlantis, in the Southern
Seas, which a legend says was submerged ages and ages ago. All of these
places have been suggested as the original home of the whole human race,
and very good arguments have been brought forward to prove the truth of
every one of these suggestions.
Since it does not seem possible to find out the truth about this, there
are other people who dismiss the idea altogether. They think that man and
nature being a good deal alike in whatever part of the world you find
them, it is highly probable that myths might resemble each other very
strikingly and yet be invented independently by people living in lands
far apart, while the differences would be due largely to climate.
Now if we try to think of centuries of time going by until in many
countries primitive man is no longer primitive but begins to be more
civilized, we shall find that certain groups of myths became crystallized
into complete religious systems, such as existed in Egypt, Assyria,
India, Greece, Persia, and many other countries. By this time the human
race had attained to a much greater degree of self-consciousness. Men
were beginning to understand both themselves and nature better, and they
often could see the true causes for the events of nature going on about
them. The next step was for them to begin to observe very carefully the
systems of religious myths which had been handed down to them by their
forefathers. Upon these they used their imaginative faculty, as man had
earlier used it upon nature itself, with the result that they attached
new meanings and gave fresh explanations of myths which had originally
started as simple personifications of nature. In Greece, for example,
Apollo, who was originally a personification of the sun, came to be
regarded as the God of Music and Poetry; Athēne, who was originally the
Dawn, became the Goddess of Wisdom; Hermes, originally the Wind, became
the God of Eloquence and the leader of spirits. This is the way myths
gradually grew to have philosophical or metaphysical meanings—that is,
to stand as symbols of the deepest and most far-reaching thoughts of
which the mind of man at that time was capable. Many of those thoughts
are so profound and so wonderful that one needs to have a great deal of
knowledge to understand them. All that interests you now is to know that
there are such thoughts and that some day you will want to know more
about them.
While some myths were thus raised to religious systems, there were many
which remained in the form of legends and stories. In the course of
many generations, these stories were told over again and again so that
many changes crept into them and many additions were made. Sometimes
the effect of these changes was to make a story cruder, sometimes the
complexity of a story was increased, and sometimes it became more
interesting and beautiful. Stories which have been changed or added to by
the people in this way are called _variants_ of the same story.
Owing to these facts mythology has been divided into two great sections.
That which has risen to the dignity of a religion is called culture-lore,
and that which has remained always in the form of stories and legends is
called folk-lore. The first reflects the learning, wisdom and manners
of the more intelligent portions of humanity, who developed in advance
of the others; and the second the beliefs and customs of the less
intelligent.
You are probably wondering by this time how all this vast array of myths
has come down to us from the long ago past. Much of it has been preserved
in ancient books like the “Rig Veda” in India, which is thought to be
about four thousand years old, the “Iliad” and “Odyssey” of Homer in
Greece, about three thousand years old and many others. These books
existed in manuscript for many hundreds of years. Since the invention of
printing, large numbers of them have been printed and translated into
modern languages. Knowledge of ancient myths has also been obtained from
monuments and the inscriptions upon them, from paintings on vases and
from statues.
The folk-lore has for the most part been preserved orally in the
stories of the common people, and has been handed down from generation
to generation and finally taken down in writing by some one especially
interested in collecting the stories, while the myths of the most
primitive men are preserved in the survivals of them among the races
still remaining uncivilized in various parts of the globe. These have
been for several centuries taken down from the mouths of the people, or
observed in their customs and recorded by students. Among these less
civilized races there are besides crude monuments, and even crude forms
of writing by means of which primitive men have recorded their own myths.
You will realize by this time what an extensive and wonderful forest this
forest of myths is which we imagine ourselves looking down upon from
our hilltop, and after having taken this bird’s-eye view of the whole
forest, you will be the better able to enjoy going down into the forest
and making little journeys in different directions and becoming better
acquainted with some of the most beautiful of the myths as you will in
the following chapters. And now, moreover, you will have no difficulty in
understanding me when I answer the question, “What is a myth?” by saying:
_A myth is any imaginative explanation or interpretation by man of
himself or of the objects and events in nature outside of himself,
including their appearance, their effects and the still greater mystery
of their causes. It may exist in many forms from the simple myth of
explanation to the complicated systems of religious myths in which the
objects of nature are regarded as gods in human form. The chief thing
to be remembered about myths is that they are not true, though they may
contain some elements of truth; another, that though not actually true
they seemed to be true to the people who made them._
[Illustration: A Reading from Homer. _L. Alma-Tadema._]