Chapter 17

FOOTNOTES:[1]Bæda, ii. 13.[2]See Appendix.[3]Mr. Evans in hisStone Implements of Great Britaindivides those of the River Drift into Flakes, Pointed Implements, and Sharp-rimmed Implements.[4]Most of these carved implements were discovered by Mr. Christy and M. Lartet, and left by the former to the French Museum of Prehistoric Antiquities at St. Germains. Exact copies of these in plaster, as well as several carved bones, may however be seen at the British Museum; and during the last year the national collection has been greatly enriched by the acquisition of several beautiful specimens of cave carvings from the collection of M. Pecadeau de l’Isle.[5]See Appendix.[6]It is curious that there are no remains in Scandinavia which can with certainty be called palæolithic. It would seem as though during this era the countries remained too cold for habitation.[7]Both in Switzerland and in the neighbourhood of the Pyrenees.[8]In height, that is. The distance of coast-line which disappears owing to the mere volcanic depression, or the distance of coast-line which appears on the other shore from volcanic upheaval (independently of river deposits, etc.), depends of course upon the level of the coast. It would not, however, be generally more than a yard or two.[9]Probably as altars or perhaps as gods themselves. I desire to speak with great caution of the rude stone monuments of Europe; for of all branches of prehistoric study this has been the least developed by modern research.[10]It seems highly probable that the invention of some sort of malt liquor followed upon the growth of corn. Tacitus mentions such a liquor as having been drunk by the Germans of his day. He is doubtless describing a sort of beer.[11]But not sheep apparently; at least not in Western Europe. In these islands the sheep did not appear before the time of Julius Cæsar.[12]Hamlet, act v., sc. 1.[13]M. Troyon has started the idea that the crouched attitude of the dead—repliée, as he describes it: he declares that it does not in the least resemble the crouched attitude which men of some races assume when sleeping—was imposed upon the dead with a symbolical meaning, viz. that it was meant to imitate the position of the child in the womb of its parent, and as such to enfold the hope of resurrection in the act of entombment. The idea is a poetical one, but I much doubt whether it has pre-existed in other minds before finding a place in that of M. Troyon. The author, however, should be heard in defence of his own theory, and may be so in theRevue Arch., ix. 289.[14]Some of the varieties of grain found in these lake-dwellings are not otherwise known to botanists.[15]The Phœnicians are said by tradition to have invented the manufacture of glass. But there is no proof of this.[16]Of course the making of very rude huts of branches and leaves may have been practised by these—such huts as formed the only shelter of the Tasmanians down to our day. For an imaginative description of the most primitive house, see Violet de Duc,The Houses of Men in all Ages, ch. i.[17]The simile is Mr. Max Müller’s.[18]In English we havegrind,grate, (s)cra(pe),grave(Germangraben, ‘to dig;’ Eng. ‘grub.’) All words for writing mean cutting, because all writing was originally graving on a stone: thus the Latinscribo(corrupted in the French toécris), in the Greek isgrapho, in the Germanschreibe. These words, as well as the Englishwrite, are known to be all from the same root; it is not pretended that they areproofsof a natural selection of sound; but they may be instances of it.[19]The reader, however, may be referred to Tylor’sEarly History of Mankind, ch. iv., for much interesting information on the subject.[20]Yesis probably not the same word as the Germanja(whose significant form is lost), though ouryeais.[21]See below, pp. 70-80.[22]These two words have, it is true, quite changed their meanings; but ourknightrose to its honourable sense from having come to be used only for the servants or attendants of the king (in battle), while the German word retained its older sense of servant, groom, only.[23]See above, p. 66.[24]The reader who does not know Latin may easily recognize the kindred forms in French, Italian, Spanish, etc.[25]Mr. Max Müller calls it theterminationalstage.[26]Agoneis possibly from a stronger formâgan, ‘to pass away.’[27]To get the full sound of theth, this should be said not as we pronounce our articlethe(which really has the sounddhe), but like the first part of Thebes, theme, etc.[28]Cf. the Greekklutos.[29]Stephen,Lectures on the History of France.[30]This is the theory of Aryan origins still most generally accepted. It has, however, been maintained by several philologists that there is no evidence of an Asiatic origin of the European nations.[31]See Chapter I.[32]Among the Iberians, however, the Celtic blood was much diluted with an infusion of that of an earlier Turanian race allied to the modern Basques.[33]Or say, rather, the people of Italy. Only the Etruscans must probably be excepted from the category, and the Gauls, who subsequently settled themselves in Cisalpine Gaul.[34]The principal among these laws were elaborated by Jacob Grimm, and hence called ‘Grimm’s Laws.’ They may be seen in hisTeutonic Grammar, and also in hisHistory of the German Tongue.[35]Because they would be hardly likely to give a fresh name to such an intimate relationship as the daughter. On the other hand, it seems necessary that the Aryan race must have been in the hunter state at some period, and equally necessary that they mustthenhave had a word for daughter. Milking, it may be urged, might be practised before the domestication of animals. See also Chapter VI.[36]Supreme, because his title became a supreme title among thesedifferentAryan stocks.[37]And this without any reproach to the industry of those at work. The volumes of Kühn’sZeitschr. für vergleichende Sprachforschung, Lazarus and Steinthal’sZeitsch. f. Völkerpsychologie, M. Pictet’s fascinatingOrigines indo-européennes, etc., are storehouses which display the treasures already obtained.[38]Such a book as we have imagined would form a natural sequel to the principles of comparative grammar as laid down by Bopp, etc. It would differ from a mere comparative dictionary in the arrangement, showing the nature and extent of modification which each word had undergone—where, for instance, Grimm’s laws of change hold good, where not; the cases of the survival of archaic forms (agreeable to Grimm’ssecond law); and, if they could be discovered as the result of such a classification, the determining causes of such survival among any of the different races.[39]I have been told that the late Lord Strangford, a great linguist, and a comparative philologist to boot, could always find amusement for an idle half-hour in a book which the reader would probably think of, if asked to name the most uninteresting of created things—I mean Bradshaw, English or foreign; and his interest lay in extracting the hidden meaning and history which lay concealed in these lists of geographical names.[40]It is found that the peculiarity of curling or not curling in hair depends upon the form, the form insection, of the individual hairs. The woolly hairs are oval in section, the straight ones round.[41]Lenormant,Manual of the Ancient History of the East, vol. i., p. 55.[42]Not that this particular foothold has descended to the Turks from early times. See the next paragraph.[43]Lenormant,Manual, i. 343. It should be remarked that the authority of Justin on such a point is not high.[44]Mariette’s date isB.C.5004, Lepsius’s 3892, Wilkinson’s only 2700. Wilkinson’s chronology, however, founded upon the theory ofcontemporaneous dynastiesin the lists of Manetho, has now been generally rejected.[45]Shûmîr was a portion of the country inhabited by the Accadians.[46]See Chapter XIII.[47]Gen. xi. 2.[48]Gen. xiv.[49]Kung-foo-tse was his real name.[50]‘Fool! why journeyest thou wearisomely in thy antiquarian fervour to gaze on the stone pyramids of Geeza, or the clay stones of Sacchara? These stand there, as I can tell thee, idle and inert, looking over the desert, foolishly enough, for the last three thousand years; but canst thou not open thy HebrewBible, or even Luther’s version thereof?’Sartor Resartus.[51]For example, the Hindeerupee, the Latinpecunia, and ourfee.[52]As the Sanskritgôpa, ‘a prince,’ the Slavonichospodar(fromgôspada) contains the wordgô, our ‘cow,’ and means the protector of the cattle; from the same root, Sanskritgavya, ‘pasturage,’ Saxongê, ‘county,’ Greekgaia, orgê, ‘earth.’[53]See above, page 94.[54]Cattle were probably originally communal property: and were appropriated to individuals at a later stage than other movable goods. In the Roman law we find that they could only be transferred by the same forms as were required for the conveyance of land: being classed amongst the ‘res mancipi.’[55]The same connection between ‘mother’ and ‘daughter’ villages also once existed to a large extent in Germany.[56]That is to say, the stories themselves may be old enough; the application of them to some special members of a pantheon marks the condition of the creed.[57]The etymology of Indra’s name is uncertain. It cannot therefore be said whether or no he was originally a sun-god, though he has many of the attributes of one. In the Vedas he is also a god of storms.[58]Welcker maintains (Griech. Götterlehre) that the title, Son of Time, belonged to Zeus before Kronos (Chronos) was invented as a personality to be the father of Zeus.[59]I purposely leave out Aphrodite (Venus) from this category, as she partakes so much of the nature of an Oriental goddess.[60]Not directly, however; see Grimm, D. M., vol. i., p. 252.[61]Soma was the mystic (and no doubt intoxicating) drink used in the sacrifices, and poured as libation to the gods. It was personified as a divinity.[62]Theflash, the father of the Maruts (?).[63]The dew? (=Prokris?) imaged here as a cow. She is the mother of the Maruts.[64]Though the character of this has been a good deal exaggerated in the popular notions of the religion of the ancient Persians.[65]Mitra is associated with the idea of the sun. But I incline to think that originally he was rather the wind of morning, or even the morningsky. He is almost always linked in the hymns with Varuna, who most certainly was at one time the sky (ούρανός), and once a supreme god. See what is said below of Surya.[66]The Dawn. Seep. 205.[67]The fish.[68]Literally, ‘the egg’s son.’[69]It has been already said that the Latin mythology,as we know it, is almost all borrowed directly from the Greek. It is obviously right, therefore, to call the deities by their Greek, and not, as was till recently always done, by their Latin names. The Latin gods had no doubt much of the character of their Greek brethren; but it is to the Greek poets that we are really indebted for what we know about them. In this chapter, for the sake of clearness, the Latin name is generally given in parentheses after the Greek one.[70]To appreciate this we must compare the representations of Apollo with those of Helios, who was simply and frankly a sun-god even to the later Greeks, and we see that they are essentially the same personality. Even in the very early statues of Apollo, where the artist had not the skill to make wide, flowing locks, the hair is always indicated with great care and some elaboration of detail.[71]A word allied to ourfen.[72]Homeric hymn to Dêmêtêr.[73]See Appendix.Persephone and Balder.[74]Albeit that Aphroditê like Athenê is likewise a goddess sprung from water—from the sea.[75]As she springs from the head of Zeus, the storm-cloud.[76]Our knowledge of Teutonic mythology is chiefly gathered from the Norsemen, and in fact almost exclusively from Icelandic literature. The most valuable source of all is the collection of sacred songs which generally goes by the name ofEdda den Ældra, the Elder Edda.[77]Odhinn is the Norse, Wuotan the German, Wodan or Wodin the English name.[78]Or else the god who inspires. (SeeCorp. Poet Bor., Introd., p. civ.)[79]Literally, ‘The Hall of the Slain,’i.e.the hall of heroes.[80]Æsir, pl. of As or Ans, the general Norse name for a god.[81]One of the last appearances of such a phantom army is graphically described by Mr. Motley in hisHistory of the Dutch Republic. The occasion was a short time before the battle of Mookerhyde, in which the army of Prince Louis of Nassau was defeated, and himself slain:—‘Early in February five soldiers of the burgher guard at Utrecht, being on their midnight watch, beheld in the sky above them the representation of a furious battle. The sky was extremely dark except directly over their heads, where for a space equal in extent to the length of the city, and in breadth to that of an ordinary chamber, two armies in battle array were seen advancing upon each other. The one moved rapidly up from the north-west, with banners waving, spears flashing, trumpets sounding, accompanied by heavy artillery and by squadrons of cavalry. The other came slowly forward from the south-east, as if from an entrenched camp, to encounter their assailants. There was a fierce action for a few moments, the shouts of the combatants, the heavy discharge of cannon, the rattle of musketry, the tramp of heavy-armed foot-soldiers, and the rush of cavalry being distinctly heard. The firmament trembled with the shock of the contending hosts, and was lurid with the rapid discharges of their artillery.... The struggle seemed but short. The lances of the south-eastern army seemed to snap ‘like hempstalks,’ while their firm columns all went down together in mass beneath the onset of their enemies. The overthrow was complete—victors and vanquished had faded; the clear blue space, surrounded by black clouds, was empty, when suddenly its whole extent where the conflict had so lately raged was streaked with blood, flowing athwart the sky in broad crimson streaks; nor was it till the five witnesses had fully watched and pondered over these portents that the vision entirely vanished.’ (Vol. ii., p. 526.)[82]The story of Van der Decken, the Flying Dutchman, is surely (more especially since its dramatization by Wagner) too well known to need relation. Van der Decken, or Dekken, seems to mean ‘the man with the cloak;’ he too is probably a changed form of Odin.[83]It may be as well to say here that every detail of the legend is found upon a critical inquiry to be significant. His name Hackelbärend (cloak-bearer) connects him with Odin, the wind-god. His two dogs connect him with two dogs of Sanskrit mythology, also signifying the wind.[84]See Uhland,Der Mythus von Thor.[85]Baldur; a Song of Divine Death, by Robert Buchanan.[86]This scarcely holds as a simile, for in fact the lightisthe aurora. It need hardly be said, therefore, that the comparison is not found in the original story.[87]I.e.Garðr a general name for earth, expanded from the confined meaning of inclosure,yard(allied to οἶκος,hortus); just as γαῖα is connected with a cow-inclosure.[88]The meaning of Zoroaster, or rather Zarathustra, his true name. The reader may usefully consult M. James Darmesteter’sZend Avesta(Sacred Books of the East, vol. iv.), in which he will see how much of this religion is (in the opinion of M. Darmesteter) simply an early nature-religion parallel to that of the Vedas.[89]Hence the name Mazdean applied to this creed.[90]See Chapter IV., p. 100.[91]Or the graves of those whom he desired specially to honour. We can guess at the process of his thought pretty well. First, the body is buried deep, or earth is thrown over it in a heap, to keep it from being torn up by wild beasts. Then as the covering of the body gets to be thought a special insurance of vitality to the soul, the practice is exaggerated more and more until we get the great grave-mounds and the pyramids.[92]Wooden statues were very common in the earliest Egyptian dynasties. But they belong to these only.[93]Blue or green is the colour of Osiris, who represents the soul. (See Chapter VII.)[94]The Egyptian tombs having generally an upper chamber for the sacrifices or funeral feasts, and a chamber in the earth beneath for the mummy.[95]Sheolis the Hebrew word generally translated ‘grave’ in our version. Very different from the teaching of modern religion is the following passage:—‘Sheolshall not praise the Jehovah,The dead shall not celebrate Thee:They that go down into the pit shall not hope for Thy truth.The living, the living, shall praise Thee as I do this day.’(Isa. xxxviii. 18, 19.)[96]Still, this effect of their art on us may arise from the disappearance of some monuments which had a very different character,e.g.thecampo santopictures, as we may call them, of Polygnotus at Delphi. (See Pausanias, x. 28.)[97]The reason why the ‘blameless Ethiopians’ were honoured by name and by the company of the gods, is most likely to be found in the fact of their living, as Homer thought, so near the western border of the world.[98]Weber, in Chamb. 1020.[99]Vrhadâranyaka,Ed. Pol., iii. 4-7.[100]According to the proper laws of change from Sanskrit to Greek, Sârameyas = Έρμείας, Έρμής[101]Wilson,As. Res., iii. 409.[102]vii. 6, 15.[103]Father of the ‘family’ in its larger sense. (See the chapter on Early Social Life.)[104]ψυχή,spiritus, Geist, ghost, all from the notion of breathing.[105]ψυχή δἐ κατἀ χθονὀς, ἠΰτε καπνός, ᾤχετο(Il.xxiii, 100.)‘And to its home beneath the earth likesmokeHis soul went down.’[106]The suggestion of Grimm (Ueber das Verb. der Leichen), that burying may have been used by an agricultural people, by those who were wont to watch the sown seed spring into new life, whereas burning is the custom of shepherd races, is not supported by a wide survey of the facts. The Aryans were not essentially pastoral, on the whole less so than the Turanian people who buried (see Herod., I. 4, for the Scythians), and less so again than the Semites, who did the same.[107]The Vendidâd relates how after that Auramazda had created sixteen perfect localities upon earth, Ahrimanes came after (like the sower of tares), and did what in him lay to spoil the paradises, by introducing all sorts of noxious animals and other abominations, such as the practice of burning the dead body or giving it to the water. The Iranians, as is well known, suspended their dead upon a sort of grating, and left them to be devoured of wild birds.[108]Beowulf, the oldest poem in our language (in Early English), is considered to have been written somewhere aboutA.D.700. It relates the adventures of a prince of Jutland or of Southern Sweden. Though made and sung in a Christian country, it breathes the spirit of an earlier (heathen) time, as the instance of the burning of Beowulf alone would testify.[109]Hel, fromhelja, ‘to conceal,’ answered identically to Hades.[110]This heavenward journey may be described as at first a haven-ward one (i.e.across the sea); later as a really heavenward one through the air, with the wind-god.[111]This is the Younger, or Prose Edda, of Snorro (Dæmisaga 49), not that called the Edda of Sæmund—theElderEdda. Undoubtedly the myth of Balder is largely infused with Christian elements.[112]Hel, in Norse mythology, is a person, the regent of Helheim. Just in the same way Hades is in Homer always a god, never a place. The idea concerning Helheim seems to have been that all who were not slain in battle went to its dark shore.[113]i.e.Dokkr,dark. She sits in a cave, because both day and night are imagined as coming from a cave. So Shelley sings—‘Swiftly walk over the western cave,Spirit of Night,Out of thy misty eastern cave.’[114]Or, strictly speaking, the Brahmana of the Yagur Veda. The Brahmana is the scholiast (as it were) ortargumof the original text. Urvasi is Ushas, the Dawn.[115]Morris,Earthly Paradise: Cupid and Psyche.[116]I have no doubt there is another element in all these stories, not inconsistent with but complementary to the first—namely, what I will call amysteryelement connected with a descent to the world of shades, such as formed the staple of the Eleusinian mysteries. Thus I think Pururavas is the hidden sun (the dark Osiris as it were). He might call himself Pururavasunder the earthas Prince Hatt is Prince Hattunder the earth. This would explain how the story got to be connected with Psyche (the Soul). It may be said, too, that there is often amysteryelement connected with such notions as the concealment of names, etc.[117]Connected with Lêthê,concealmentorforgetfulness, as with Lêto, the mother of Apollo. All signify the darkness.[118]See last chapter, p. 252. Endymion is found by Artemis sleeping in a cave of Latmos.[119]See Baring-Gould,Curious Myths, etc.[120]He is actually a reduplication of Thor; for his name meansthunder, as does Thor’s. Thor is of course much more than a god of thunder only; but his hammer is undoubtedly the thunder-bolt. Thrym represents the same power associated with beings of frost and snow, the winter thunder, in fact. This stealing Thor’s hammer is merely a repetition of the idea implied by his name and character.[121]Which Freyja wore.[122]Giant does not really translate Thurs. Most of the Thursar were giants as opposed to the Dvargar, the dwarfs. But this Alvîs (all-wise) is spoken of as a dwarf.[123]There is a clear recollection of this in the end of Rumpelstiltskin.[124]This story, be it said, comes only from the younger Edda. No hint of it in the older.[125]‘Beowulf,’ we have said, is thought to have been first composed in English at the end of the seventh century. There was probably an earlier and more simple version of the poem which has come down to us. I do not mean to say that either Beowulf or Sigurd are simply personifications of the sun; only that some of their belongings and adventures have descended to them from sun-heroes.[126]Valkyria, sing.; Valkyriur, pl.[127]Kinder-u. Hausmärchen.[128]I.e.the sky. See Grimm,Deutsche Myth., s.v. (Hackelberg); and also two very interesting articles by A. Kühn,Zeitsch. für deutsch. Alterth., v. 379, vi. 117, showing relationship of Hackelbärend and the Sârameyas.[129]These twelve nights occupy in the middle-age legends the place of a sort of battle-ground between the powers of light and darkness. One obvious reason of this is that they lie in midwinter, when the infernal powers are the strongest. Another reason, perhaps, is that they lie between the great Christian feast and the great heathen one, the feast of Yule. Each party might be expected to put forth its full power.[130]Perhaps for a reason like that which made the beetle a symbol of the soul or immortality among the Egyptians, namely, because the mouse hibernates like the sleeping earth. It is worth noticing that Anubis, the Egyptian psychopomp, is also a wind-god.—A. K.[131]The appearance ofchildrenin the story need not, however, necessarily mean that the mortality had specially affected the children. It may only have been an expression like the Latinmanes—the little ones—used for the souls of the departed. We know how constantly in mediæval art the soul is represented as drawn out of the body in the form of a child.[132]There are at least six different versions of the same legend given in Grimm’sDeutsche Sagen.[133]This myth is related by Procopius (B. G., iv.). There is little doubt that this island, whichhecalls Brittia (and of course distinguishes from Britannia), is really identical with it. Thewallwhich he speaks of as dividing it is proof sufficient.[134]To the house of Yama.[135]See above, p. 251.[136]See above, p. 231.[137]The fortune which accompanies a myth is very curious. That of Freyr and Gerda is by no means conspicuous in the Edda, and I should not have been justified in comparing it in importance with the Persephone myth,butthat precisely the same story forms a leading feature inthegreat Norse and Teuton epic, the Volsung and Nibelung songs.[138]It is interesting to note thatoneof the proofs that the Greekalphabetis derived from the Phœnician is precisely similar to the proof that the SanskritDyâusorduhitarare earlier forms than Zeus ordaughter. Because in Greekalphabetmeans onlyalpha(α)beta(β), but in Phœnicianalphaoralephandbetaorbethhave distinct meanings—‘ox’ and ‘house’—the objects supposed to be symbolized by the first two Phœnician letters. See above.[139]Or Khita.[140]The word would be more correctly speltYawân. It is known that Iôn has been changed from Ivôn, or rather Iwôn, by the elision of the digamma.[141]i.e.the Gauls.[142]For the story of Bran’s head, which spoke after it was cut off, and which is in its natural interpretation probably the sun, see Mr. M. Arnold’sCeltic Literature.[143]Or if the Teutones were really Germans. Some have denied this (see Latham’sGermania, Appendix). But, I think, without sufficient reason.[144]Latham’sGermania.[145]And therefore possibly Slaves, Wend being a name applied by Teutons to Slaves.[146]e.g.Old German,aran, to plough =arare, etc.

FOOTNOTES:

[1]Bæda, ii. 13.

[2]See Appendix.

[3]Mr. Evans in hisStone Implements of Great Britaindivides those of the River Drift into Flakes, Pointed Implements, and Sharp-rimmed Implements.

[4]Most of these carved implements were discovered by Mr. Christy and M. Lartet, and left by the former to the French Museum of Prehistoric Antiquities at St. Germains. Exact copies of these in plaster, as well as several carved bones, may however be seen at the British Museum; and during the last year the national collection has been greatly enriched by the acquisition of several beautiful specimens of cave carvings from the collection of M. Pecadeau de l’Isle.

[5]See Appendix.

[6]It is curious that there are no remains in Scandinavia which can with certainty be called palæolithic. It would seem as though during this era the countries remained too cold for habitation.

[7]Both in Switzerland and in the neighbourhood of the Pyrenees.

[8]In height, that is. The distance of coast-line which disappears owing to the mere volcanic depression, or the distance of coast-line which appears on the other shore from volcanic upheaval (independently of river deposits, etc.), depends of course upon the level of the coast. It would not, however, be generally more than a yard or two.

[9]Probably as altars or perhaps as gods themselves. I desire to speak with great caution of the rude stone monuments of Europe; for of all branches of prehistoric study this has been the least developed by modern research.

[10]It seems highly probable that the invention of some sort of malt liquor followed upon the growth of corn. Tacitus mentions such a liquor as having been drunk by the Germans of his day. He is doubtless describing a sort of beer.

[11]But not sheep apparently; at least not in Western Europe. In these islands the sheep did not appear before the time of Julius Cæsar.

[12]Hamlet, act v., sc. 1.

[13]M. Troyon has started the idea that the crouched attitude of the dead—repliée, as he describes it: he declares that it does not in the least resemble the crouched attitude which men of some races assume when sleeping—was imposed upon the dead with a symbolical meaning, viz. that it was meant to imitate the position of the child in the womb of its parent, and as such to enfold the hope of resurrection in the act of entombment. The idea is a poetical one, but I much doubt whether it has pre-existed in other minds before finding a place in that of M. Troyon. The author, however, should be heard in defence of his own theory, and may be so in theRevue Arch., ix. 289.

[14]Some of the varieties of grain found in these lake-dwellings are not otherwise known to botanists.

[15]The Phœnicians are said by tradition to have invented the manufacture of glass. But there is no proof of this.

[16]Of course the making of very rude huts of branches and leaves may have been practised by these—such huts as formed the only shelter of the Tasmanians down to our day. For an imaginative description of the most primitive house, see Violet de Duc,The Houses of Men in all Ages, ch. i.

[17]The simile is Mr. Max Müller’s.

[18]In English we havegrind,grate, (s)cra(pe),grave(Germangraben, ‘to dig;’ Eng. ‘grub.’) All words for writing mean cutting, because all writing was originally graving on a stone: thus the Latinscribo(corrupted in the French toécris), in the Greek isgrapho, in the Germanschreibe. These words, as well as the Englishwrite, are known to be all from the same root; it is not pretended that they areproofsof a natural selection of sound; but they may be instances of it.

[19]The reader, however, may be referred to Tylor’sEarly History of Mankind, ch. iv., for much interesting information on the subject.

[20]Yesis probably not the same word as the Germanja(whose significant form is lost), though ouryeais.

[21]See below, pp. 70-80.

[22]These two words have, it is true, quite changed their meanings; but ourknightrose to its honourable sense from having come to be used only for the servants or attendants of the king (in battle), while the German word retained its older sense of servant, groom, only.

[23]See above, p. 66.

[24]The reader who does not know Latin may easily recognize the kindred forms in French, Italian, Spanish, etc.

[25]Mr. Max Müller calls it theterminationalstage.

[26]Agoneis possibly from a stronger formâgan, ‘to pass away.’

[27]To get the full sound of theth, this should be said not as we pronounce our articlethe(which really has the sounddhe), but like the first part of Thebes, theme, etc.

[28]Cf. the Greekklutos.

[29]Stephen,Lectures on the History of France.

[30]This is the theory of Aryan origins still most generally accepted. It has, however, been maintained by several philologists that there is no evidence of an Asiatic origin of the European nations.

[31]See Chapter I.

[32]Among the Iberians, however, the Celtic blood was much diluted with an infusion of that of an earlier Turanian race allied to the modern Basques.

[33]Or say, rather, the people of Italy. Only the Etruscans must probably be excepted from the category, and the Gauls, who subsequently settled themselves in Cisalpine Gaul.

[34]The principal among these laws were elaborated by Jacob Grimm, and hence called ‘Grimm’s Laws.’ They may be seen in hisTeutonic Grammar, and also in hisHistory of the German Tongue.

[35]Because they would be hardly likely to give a fresh name to such an intimate relationship as the daughter. On the other hand, it seems necessary that the Aryan race must have been in the hunter state at some period, and equally necessary that they mustthenhave had a word for daughter. Milking, it may be urged, might be practised before the domestication of animals. See also Chapter VI.

[36]Supreme, because his title became a supreme title among thesedifferentAryan stocks.

[37]And this without any reproach to the industry of those at work. The volumes of Kühn’sZeitschr. für vergleichende Sprachforschung, Lazarus and Steinthal’sZeitsch. f. Völkerpsychologie, M. Pictet’s fascinatingOrigines indo-européennes, etc., are storehouses which display the treasures already obtained.

[38]Such a book as we have imagined would form a natural sequel to the principles of comparative grammar as laid down by Bopp, etc. It would differ from a mere comparative dictionary in the arrangement, showing the nature and extent of modification which each word had undergone—where, for instance, Grimm’s laws of change hold good, where not; the cases of the survival of archaic forms (agreeable to Grimm’ssecond law); and, if they could be discovered as the result of such a classification, the determining causes of such survival among any of the different races.

[39]I have been told that the late Lord Strangford, a great linguist, and a comparative philologist to boot, could always find amusement for an idle half-hour in a book which the reader would probably think of, if asked to name the most uninteresting of created things—I mean Bradshaw, English or foreign; and his interest lay in extracting the hidden meaning and history which lay concealed in these lists of geographical names.

[40]It is found that the peculiarity of curling or not curling in hair depends upon the form, the form insection, of the individual hairs. The woolly hairs are oval in section, the straight ones round.

[41]Lenormant,Manual of the Ancient History of the East, vol. i., p. 55.

[42]Not that this particular foothold has descended to the Turks from early times. See the next paragraph.

[43]Lenormant,Manual, i. 343. It should be remarked that the authority of Justin on such a point is not high.

[44]Mariette’s date isB.C.5004, Lepsius’s 3892, Wilkinson’s only 2700. Wilkinson’s chronology, however, founded upon the theory ofcontemporaneous dynastiesin the lists of Manetho, has now been generally rejected.

[45]Shûmîr was a portion of the country inhabited by the Accadians.

[46]See Chapter XIII.

[47]Gen. xi. 2.

[48]Gen. xiv.

[49]Kung-foo-tse was his real name.

[50]‘Fool! why journeyest thou wearisomely in thy antiquarian fervour to gaze on the stone pyramids of Geeza, or the clay stones of Sacchara? These stand there, as I can tell thee, idle and inert, looking over the desert, foolishly enough, for the last three thousand years; but canst thou not open thy HebrewBible, or even Luther’s version thereof?’Sartor Resartus.

[51]For example, the Hindeerupee, the Latinpecunia, and ourfee.

[52]As the Sanskritgôpa, ‘a prince,’ the Slavonichospodar(fromgôspada) contains the wordgô, our ‘cow,’ and means the protector of the cattle; from the same root, Sanskritgavya, ‘pasturage,’ Saxongê, ‘county,’ Greekgaia, orgê, ‘earth.’

[53]See above, page 94.

[54]Cattle were probably originally communal property: and were appropriated to individuals at a later stage than other movable goods. In the Roman law we find that they could only be transferred by the same forms as were required for the conveyance of land: being classed amongst the ‘res mancipi.’

[55]The same connection between ‘mother’ and ‘daughter’ villages also once existed to a large extent in Germany.

[56]That is to say, the stories themselves may be old enough; the application of them to some special members of a pantheon marks the condition of the creed.

[57]The etymology of Indra’s name is uncertain. It cannot therefore be said whether or no he was originally a sun-god, though he has many of the attributes of one. In the Vedas he is also a god of storms.

[58]Welcker maintains (Griech. Götterlehre) that the title, Son of Time, belonged to Zeus before Kronos (Chronos) was invented as a personality to be the father of Zeus.

[59]I purposely leave out Aphrodite (Venus) from this category, as she partakes so much of the nature of an Oriental goddess.

[60]Not directly, however; see Grimm, D. M., vol. i., p. 252.

[61]Soma was the mystic (and no doubt intoxicating) drink used in the sacrifices, and poured as libation to the gods. It was personified as a divinity.

[62]Theflash, the father of the Maruts (?).

[63]The dew? (=Prokris?) imaged here as a cow. She is the mother of the Maruts.

[64]Though the character of this has been a good deal exaggerated in the popular notions of the religion of the ancient Persians.

[65]Mitra is associated with the idea of the sun. But I incline to think that originally he was rather the wind of morning, or even the morningsky. He is almost always linked in the hymns with Varuna, who most certainly was at one time the sky (ούρανός), and once a supreme god. See what is said below of Surya.

[66]The Dawn. Seep. 205.

[67]The fish.

[68]Literally, ‘the egg’s son.’

[69]It has been already said that the Latin mythology,as we know it, is almost all borrowed directly from the Greek. It is obviously right, therefore, to call the deities by their Greek, and not, as was till recently always done, by their Latin names. The Latin gods had no doubt much of the character of their Greek brethren; but it is to the Greek poets that we are really indebted for what we know about them. In this chapter, for the sake of clearness, the Latin name is generally given in parentheses after the Greek one.

[70]To appreciate this we must compare the representations of Apollo with those of Helios, who was simply and frankly a sun-god even to the later Greeks, and we see that they are essentially the same personality. Even in the very early statues of Apollo, where the artist had not the skill to make wide, flowing locks, the hair is always indicated with great care and some elaboration of detail.

[71]A word allied to ourfen.

[72]Homeric hymn to Dêmêtêr.

[73]See Appendix.Persephone and Balder.

[74]Albeit that Aphroditê like Athenê is likewise a goddess sprung from water—from the sea.

[75]As she springs from the head of Zeus, the storm-cloud.

[76]Our knowledge of Teutonic mythology is chiefly gathered from the Norsemen, and in fact almost exclusively from Icelandic literature. The most valuable source of all is the collection of sacred songs which generally goes by the name ofEdda den Ældra, the Elder Edda.

[77]Odhinn is the Norse, Wuotan the German, Wodan or Wodin the English name.

[78]Or else the god who inspires. (SeeCorp. Poet Bor., Introd., p. civ.)

[79]Literally, ‘The Hall of the Slain,’i.e.the hall of heroes.

[80]Æsir, pl. of As or Ans, the general Norse name for a god.

[81]One of the last appearances of such a phantom army is graphically described by Mr. Motley in hisHistory of the Dutch Republic. The occasion was a short time before the battle of Mookerhyde, in which the army of Prince Louis of Nassau was defeated, and himself slain:—‘Early in February five soldiers of the burgher guard at Utrecht, being on their midnight watch, beheld in the sky above them the representation of a furious battle. The sky was extremely dark except directly over their heads, where for a space equal in extent to the length of the city, and in breadth to that of an ordinary chamber, two armies in battle array were seen advancing upon each other. The one moved rapidly up from the north-west, with banners waving, spears flashing, trumpets sounding, accompanied by heavy artillery and by squadrons of cavalry. The other came slowly forward from the south-east, as if from an entrenched camp, to encounter their assailants. There was a fierce action for a few moments, the shouts of the combatants, the heavy discharge of cannon, the rattle of musketry, the tramp of heavy-armed foot-soldiers, and the rush of cavalry being distinctly heard. The firmament trembled with the shock of the contending hosts, and was lurid with the rapid discharges of their artillery.... The struggle seemed but short. The lances of the south-eastern army seemed to snap ‘like hempstalks,’ while their firm columns all went down together in mass beneath the onset of their enemies. The overthrow was complete—victors and vanquished had faded; the clear blue space, surrounded by black clouds, was empty, when suddenly its whole extent where the conflict had so lately raged was streaked with blood, flowing athwart the sky in broad crimson streaks; nor was it till the five witnesses had fully watched and pondered over these portents that the vision entirely vanished.’ (Vol. ii., p. 526.)

[82]The story of Van der Decken, the Flying Dutchman, is surely (more especially since its dramatization by Wagner) too well known to need relation. Van der Decken, or Dekken, seems to mean ‘the man with the cloak;’ he too is probably a changed form of Odin.

[83]It may be as well to say here that every detail of the legend is found upon a critical inquiry to be significant. His name Hackelbärend (cloak-bearer) connects him with Odin, the wind-god. His two dogs connect him with two dogs of Sanskrit mythology, also signifying the wind.

[84]See Uhland,Der Mythus von Thor.

[85]Baldur; a Song of Divine Death, by Robert Buchanan.

[86]This scarcely holds as a simile, for in fact the lightisthe aurora. It need hardly be said, therefore, that the comparison is not found in the original story.

[87]I.e.Garðr a general name for earth, expanded from the confined meaning of inclosure,yard(allied to οἶκος,hortus); just as γαῖα is connected with a cow-inclosure.

[88]The meaning of Zoroaster, or rather Zarathustra, his true name. The reader may usefully consult M. James Darmesteter’sZend Avesta(Sacred Books of the East, vol. iv.), in which he will see how much of this religion is (in the opinion of M. Darmesteter) simply an early nature-religion parallel to that of the Vedas.

[89]Hence the name Mazdean applied to this creed.

[90]See Chapter IV., p. 100.

[91]Or the graves of those whom he desired specially to honour. We can guess at the process of his thought pretty well. First, the body is buried deep, or earth is thrown over it in a heap, to keep it from being torn up by wild beasts. Then as the covering of the body gets to be thought a special insurance of vitality to the soul, the practice is exaggerated more and more until we get the great grave-mounds and the pyramids.

[92]Wooden statues were very common in the earliest Egyptian dynasties. But they belong to these only.

[93]Blue or green is the colour of Osiris, who represents the soul. (See Chapter VII.)

[94]The Egyptian tombs having generally an upper chamber for the sacrifices or funeral feasts, and a chamber in the earth beneath for the mummy.

[95]Sheolis the Hebrew word generally translated ‘grave’ in our version. Very different from the teaching of modern religion is the following passage:—‘Sheolshall not praise the Jehovah,The dead shall not celebrate Thee:They that go down into the pit shall not hope for Thy truth.The living, the living, shall praise Thee as I do this day.’(Isa. xxxviii. 18, 19.)

[95]Sheolis the Hebrew word generally translated ‘grave’ in our version. Very different from the teaching of modern religion is the following passage:—

‘Sheolshall not praise the Jehovah,The dead shall not celebrate Thee:They that go down into the pit shall not hope for Thy truth.The living, the living, shall praise Thee as I do this day.’(Isa. xxxviii. 18, 19.)

[96]Still, this effect of their art on us may arise from the disappearance of some monuments which had a very different character,e.g.thecampo santopictures, as we may call them, of Polygnotus at Delphi. (See Pausanias, x. 28.)

[97]The reason why the ‘blameless Ethiopians’ were honoured by name and by the company of the gods, is most likely to be found in the fact of their living, as Homer thought, so near the western border of the world.

[98]Weber, in Chamb. 1020.

[99]Vrhadâranyaka,Ed. Pol., iii. 4-7.

[100]According to the proper laws of change from Sanskrit to Greek, Sârameyas = Έρμείας, Έρμής

[101]Wilson,As. Res., iii. 409.

[102]vii. 6, 15.

[103]Father of the ‘family’ in its larger sense. (See the chapter on Early Social Life.)

[104]ψυχή,spiritus, Geist, ghost, all from the notion of breathing.

[105]ψυχή δἐ κατἀ χθονὀς, ἠΰτε καπνός, ᾤχετο(Il.xxiii, 100.)‘And to its home beneath the earth likesmokeHis soul went down.’

[105]

ψυχή δἐ κατἀ χθονὀς, ἠΰτε καπνός, ᾤχετο(Il.xxiii, 100.)

‘And to its home beneath the earth likesmokeHis soul went down.’

[106]The suggestion of Grimm (Ueber das Verb. der Leichen), that burying may have been used by an agricultural people, by those who were wont to watch the sown seed spring into new life, whereas burning is the custom of shepherd races, is not supported by a wide survey of the facts. The Aryans were not essentially pastoral, on the whole less so than the Turanian people who buried (see Herod., I. 4, for the Scythians), and less so again than the Semites, who did the same.

[107]The Vendidâd relates how after that Auramazda had created sixteen perfect localities upon earth, Ahrimanes came after (like the sower of tares), and did what in him lay to spoil the paradises, by introducing all sorts of noxious animals and other abominations, such as the practice of burning the dead body or giving it to the water. The Iranians, as is well known, suspended their dead upon a sort of grating, and left them to be devoured of wild birds.

[108]Beowulf, the oldest poem in our language (in Early English), is considered to have been written somewhere aboutA.D.700. It relates the adventures of a prince of Jutland or of Southern Sweden. Though made and sung in a Christian country, it breathes the spirit of an earlier (heathen) time, as the instance of the burning of Beowulf alone would testify.

[109]Hel, fromhelja, ‘to conceal,’ answered identically to Hades.

[110]This heavenward journey may be described as at first a haven-ward one (i.e.across the sea); later as a really heavenward one through the air, with the wind-god.

[111]This is the Younger, or Prose Edda, of Snorro (Dæmisaga 49), not that called the Edda of Sæmund—theElderEdda. Undoubtedly the myth of Balder is largely infused with Christian elements.

[112]Hel, in Norse mythology, is a person, the regent of Helheim. Just in the same way Hades is in Homer always a god, never a place. The idea concerning Helheim seems to have been that all who were not slain in battle went to its dark shore.

[113]i.e.Dokkr,dark. She sits in a cave, because both day and night are imagined as coming from a cave. So Shelley sings—‘Swiftly walk over the western cave,Spirit of Night,Out of thy misty eastern cave.’

[113]i.e.Dokkr,dark. She sits in a cave, because both day and night are imagined as coming from a cave. So Shelley sings—

‘Swiftly walk over the western cave,Spirit of Night,Out of thy misty eastern cave.’

[114]Or, strictly speaking, the Brahmana of the Yagur Veda. The Brahmana is the scholiast (as it were) ortargumof the original text. Urvasi is Ushas, the Dawn.

[115]Morris,Earthly Paradise: Cupid and Psyche.

[116]I have no doubt there is another element in all these stories, not inconsistent with but complementary to the first—namely, what I will call amysteryelement connected with a descent to the world of shades, such as formed the staple of the Eleusinian mysteries. Thus I think Pururavas is the hidden sun (the dark Osiris as it were). He might call himself Pururavasunder the earthas Prince Hatt is Prince Hattunder the earth. This would explain how the story got to be connected with Psyche (the Soul). It may be said, too, that there is often amysteryelement connected with such notions as the concealment of names, etc.

[117]Connected with Lêthê,concealmentorforgetfulness, as with Lêto, the mother of Apollo. All signify the darkness.

[118]See last chapter, p. 252. Endymion is found by Artemis sleeping in a cave of Latmos.

[119]See Baring-Gould,Curious Myths, etc.

[120]He is actually a reduplication of Thor; for his name meansthunder, as does Thor’s. Thor is of course much more than a god of thunder only; but his hammer is undoubtedly the thunder-bolt. Thrym represents the same power associated with beings of frost and snow, the winter thunder, in fact. This stealing Thor’s hammer is merely a repetition of the idea implied by his name and character.

[121]Which Freyja wore.

[122]Giant does not really translate Thurs. Most of the Thursar were giants as opposed to the Dvargar, the dwarfs. But this Alvîs (all-wise) is spoken of as a dwarf.

[123]There is a clear recollection of this in the end of Rumpelstiltskin.

[124]This story, be it said, comes only from the younger Edda. No hint of it in the older.

[125]‘Beowulf,’ we have said, is thought to have been first composed in English at the end of the seventh century. There was probably an earlier and more simple version of the poem which has come down to us. I do not mean to say that either Beowulf or Sigurd are simply personifications of the sun; only that some of their belongings and adventures have descended to them from sun-heroes.

[126]Valkyria, sing.; Valkyriur, pl.

[127]Kinder-u. Hausmärchen.

[128]I.e.the sky. See Grimm,Deutsche Myth., s.v. (Hackelberg); and also two very interesting articles by A. Kühn,Zeitsch. für deutsch. Alterth., v. 379, vi. 117, showing relationship of Hackelbärend and the Sârameyas.

[129]These twelve nights occupy in the middle-age legends the place of a sort of battle-ground between the powers of light and darkness. One obvious reason of this is that they lie in midwinter, when the infernal powers are the strongest. Another reason, perhaps, is that they lie between the great Christian feast and the great heathen one, the feast of Yule. Each party might be expected to put forth its full power.

[130]Perhaps for a reason like that which made the beetle a symbol of the soul or immortality among the Egyptians, namely, because the mouse hibernates like the sleeping earth. It is worth noticing that Anubis, the Egyptian psychopomp, is also a wind-god.—A. K.

[131]The appearance ofchildrenin the story need not, however, necessarily mean that the mortality had specially affected the children. It may only have been an expression like the Latinmanes—the little ones—used for the souls of the departed. We know how constantly in mediæval art the soul is represented as drawn out of the body in the form of a child.

[132]There are at least six different versions of the same legend given in Grimm’sDeutsche Sagen.

[133]This myth is related by Procopius (B. G., iv.). There is little doubt that this island, whichhecalls Brittia (and of course distinguishes from Britannia), is really identical with it. Thewallwhich he speaks of as dividing it is proof sufficient.

[134]To the house of Yama.

[135]See above, p. 251.

[136]See above, p. 231.

[137]The fortune which accompanies a myth is very curious. That of Freyr and Gerda is by no means conspicuous in the Edda, and I should not have been justified in comparing it in importance with the Persephone myth,butthat precisely the same story forms a leading feature inthegreat Norse and Teuton epic, the Volsung and Nibelung songs.

[138]It is interesting to note thatoneof the proofs that the Greekalphabetis derived from the Phœnician is precisely similar to the proof that the SanskritDyâusorduhitarare earlier forms than Zeus ordaughter. Because in Greekalphabetmeans onlyalpha(α)beta(β), but in Phœnicianalphaoralephandbetaorbethhave distinct meanings—‘ox’ and ‘house’—the objects supposed to be symbolized by the first two Phœnician letters. See above.

[139]Or Khita.

[140]The word would be more correctly speltYawân. It is known that Iôn has been changed from Ivôn, or rather Iwôn, by the elision of the digamma.

[141]i.e.the Gauls.

[142]For the story of Bran’s head, which spoke after it was cut off, and which is in its natural interpretation probably the sun, see Mr. M. Arnold’sCeltic Literature.

[143]Or if the Teutones were really Germans. Some have denied this (see Latham’sGermania, Appendix). But, I think, without sufficient reason.

[144]Latham’sGermania.

[145]And therefore possibly Slaves, Wend being a name applied by Teutons to Slaves.

[146]e.g.Old German,aran, to plough =arare, etc.

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