Mannhardt reasons in much the same way about the Golden Fleece. This is
a peculiarly Greek feature, interwoven with the world-wide Marchen of the
Lad, the Giant's helpful daughter, her aid in accomplishing feats
otherwise impossible, and the pursuit of the pair by the father. I have
studied the story--as it occurs in Samoa, among Red Indian tribes, and
elsewhere--in 'A Far-travelled Tale.' {61b} In our late Greek versions
the Quest of the Fleece of Gold occurs, but in no other variants known to
me. There is a lamb (a boy changed into a lamb) in Romaic. His fleece
is of no interest to anybody. Out of his body grows a tree with a golden
apple. Sun-yarns occur in popular songs. Mannhardt (pp. 282, 283)
abounds in solar explanations of the Fleece of Gold, hanging on the oak-
tree in the dark AEaean forest. Idyia, wife of the Colchian king, 'is
clearly the Dawn.' Aia is the isle of the Sun. Helle=Surya, a Sanskrit
Sun-goddess; the golden ram off whose back she falls, while her brother
keeps his seat, is the Sun. Her brother, Phrixus, may be the Daylight.
The oak-tree in Colchis is the Sun-tree of the Lettish songs. Perseus is
a hero of Light, born in the Dark Tower (Night) from the shower of gold
(Sun-rays).
'We can but say "it may be so,"' but who could explain all the complex
Perseus-saga as a statement about elemental phenomena? Or how can the
Far-travelled Tale of the Lad and the Giant's Daughter be interpreted to
the same effect, above all in the countless examples where no Fleece of
Gold occurs? The Greek tale of Jason is made up of several Marchen, as
is the Odyssey, by epic poets. These Marchen have no necessary
connection with each other; they are tagged on to each other, and
localised in Greece and on the Euxine. {62a} A poetic popular view of
the Sun may have lent the peculiar, and elsewhere absent, incident of the
quest of the Fleece of Gold on the shores of the Black Sea. The old epic
poets may have borrowed from popular songs like the Lettish chants (p.
328). A similar dubious adhesion may be given by us in the case of
Castor and Polydeuces (Morning and Evening Stars?), and Helen (Dawn),
{62b} and the Hesperides (p. 234). The germs of the myths _may_ be
popular poetical views of elemental phenomena. But to insist on
elemental allegories through all the legends of the Dioskouroi, and of
the Trojan war, would be to strain a hypothesis beyond the
breaking-point. Much, very much, is epic invention, unverkennbar das
werk der Dichter (p. 328).