In the passages here produced as proof of Mannhardt's conversion, he is
not investigating a myth at all, or a name which occurs in mythology. He
is trying to discover the meaning of the practices of the Lupercalia at
Rome. In February, says Dionysius of Halicarnassus, the Romans held a
popular festival, and lads ran round naked, save for skins of victims,
whipping the spectators. Mannhardt, in his usual way, collects all the
facts first, and then analyses the name Luperci. This does not make him
a philological mythologist. To take a case in point, at Selkirk and
Queensferry the bounds are ridden, or walked, by 'Burleymen' or
'Burrymen.' {48} After examining the facts we examine the words, and
ask, 'Why Burley or Burry men?' At Queensferry, by a folk etymology, one
of the lads wears a coat stuck over with burrs. But 'Borough-men' seems
the probable etymology. As we examine the names Burley, or Burry men, so
Mannhardt examines the name Luperci; and if a true etymology can be
discovered, it will illustrate the original intention of the Lupercalia
(p. 86).
He would like to explain the Lupercalia as a popular play, representing
the spirits of vegetation opposing the spirits of infertility. 'But we
do not forget that our whole theory of the development of the rite rests
on a hypothesis which the lack of materials prevents us from
demonstrating.' He would explain Luperci as Lupiherci--'wolf-goats.'
Over this we need not linger; but how does all this prove Mannhardt to
have returned to the method of comparing Greek with Vedic divine names,
and arriving thence at some celestial phenomenon as the basis of a
terrestrial myth? Yet he sometimes does this.