In this essay on Lettish Sun-songs (1875) Mannhardt comes nearest to Mr.
Max Muller. He cites passages from him with approval (cf. pp. 314, 322).
His explanations, by aid of Sun-songs, of certain features in Greek
mythology are plausible, and may be correct. But we turn to Mannhardt's
explicit later statement of his own position in 1877, and to his
posthumous essays, published in 1884; and, on the whole, we find, in my
opinion, much more difference from than agreement with the Oxford
Professor, whose Dawn-Daphne and other equations Mannhardt dismisses, and
to whose general results (in mythology) he assigns a value so restricted.
It is a popular delusion that the anthropological mythologists deny the
existence of solar myths, or of nature-myths in general. These are
extremely common. What we demur to is the explanation of divine and
heroic myths at large as solar or elemental, when the original sense has
been lost by the ancient narrators, and when the elemental explanation
rests on conjectural and conflicting etymologies and interpretations of
old proper names--Athene, Hera, Artemis, and the rest. Nevertheless,
while Mannhardt, in his works on Tree-cult, and on Field and Wood Cult,
and on the 'Corn Demon,' has wandered far from 'his old colours'--while
in his posthumous essays he is even more of a deserter, his essay on
Lettish Sun-myths shows an undeniable tendency to return to Mr. Max
Muller's camp. This was what made his friends so anxious. It is
probably wisest to form our opinion of his final attitude on his preface
to his last book published in his life-time. In that the old colours are
not exactly his chosen banner; nor can the flag of the philological
school be inscribed tandem triumphans.
In brief, Mannhardt's return to his old colours (1875-76) seems to have
been made in a mood from which he again later passed away. But either
modern school of mythology may cite him as an ally in one or other of his
phases of opinion.