Chapter 6

Though breath, or spirit, or ghost are the most common names that were assigned through the metaphorical nature of language to the vital, and afterwards to the intellectual, principle in man, they were by no means the only possible names. We speak, for instance, of the _shades_ of the departed, which meant originally their shadows. Those who first introduced this expression—and we find it in the most distant parts of the world(30)—evidently took the shadow as the nearest approach to what they wished to express; something that should be incorporeal, yet closely connected with the body. The Greek εἰδῶλον, too, is not much more than the shadow, while the Latin _manes_ meant probably in the beginning no more than the Little Ones, the Small Folk.(31) But the curious part, as showing again the influence of language on thought, an influence more powerful even than the evidence of the senses, is this, that people who speak of the life or soul as the shadow of the body, have brought themselves to believe that a dead body casts no shadow, because the shadow has departed from it; that it becomes, in fact, a kind of Peter Schlemihl.(32)

Let us now return to mythology in the narrower sense of the word. One of the earliest objects that would strike and stir the mind of man, and for which a sign or a name would soon be wanted, is surely the Sun. It is very hard for us to realize the feelings with which the first dwellers on the earth looked upon the sun, or to understand fully what they meant by a morning prayer, or a morning sacrifice. Perhaps there are few people here present who have watched a sunrise more than once or twice in their lives; few people who have ever known the true meaning of a morning prayer, or a morning sacrifice. But think of man at the very dawn of time: forget for a moment, if you can, after having read the fascinating pages of Mr. Darwin, forget what man is supposed to have been before he was man; forget it, because it does not concern us here whether his bodily form and frame were developed once for all in the mind of a Creator, or gradually in the creation itself, which from the first monad or protoplasm to the last of the primates, or man, is not, I suppose, to be looked on as altogether causeless, meaningless, purposeless; think of him only as man (and man means the thinker), with his mind yet lying fallow, though full of germs—germs of which I hold as strongly as ever no trace has ever, no trace will ever, be discovered anywhere but in man; think of the Sun awakening the eyes of man from sleep, and his mind from slumber! Was not the Sunrise to him the first wonder, the first beginning of all reflection, all thought, all philosophy? was it not to him the first revelation, the first beginning of all trust, of all religion? To us that wonder of wonders has ceased to exist, and few men now would even venture to speak of the sun as Sir John Herschel has spoken, calling him “the Almoner of the Almighty, the delegated dispenser to us of light and warmth, as well as the centre of attraction, and as such, the immediate source of all our comforts, and, indeed, of the very possibility of our existence on earth.”(33)

Man is a creature of habit, and wherever we can watch him, we find that before a few generations have passed he has lost the power of admiring what is regular, and that he can see signs and wonders only in what is irregular. Few nations only have preserved in their ancient poetry some remnants of the natural awe with which the earliest dwellers on the earth saw that brilliant being slowly rising from out the darkness of the night, raising itself by its own might higher and higher, till it stood triumphant on the arch of heaven, and then descended and sank down in its fiery glory into the dark abyss of the heaving and hissing sea. In the hymns of the Veda the poet still wonders whether the sun will rise again; he asks how he can climb the vault of heaven? why he does not fall back? why there is no dust on his path? And when the rays of the morning rouse him from sleep and call him back to new life; when he sees the sun, as he says, stretching out his golden arms to bless the world and rescue it from the terrors of darkness, he exclaims, “Arise, our life, our spirit has come back! the darkness is gone, the light approaches!”

For so prominent an object in the primeval picture-gallery of the human mind, a sign or a name must have been wanted at a very early period. But how was this to be achieved? As a mere sign, a circle would have been sufficient, such as we find in the hieroglyphics of Egypt, in the graphic system of China, or even in our own astronomical tables. If such a sign was fixed upon, we have a beginning of language in the widest sense of the word, for we have brought the Sun under the general concept of roundness, and we have found a sign for this concept which is made up of a large number of single sensuous impressions. With such definite signs mythology has little chance; yet the mere fact that the sun was represented as a circle would favor the idea that the sun was round; or, as ancient people, who had no adjective as yet for round or _rotundus_,(34) would say, that the sun was a wheel, a _rota_. If, on the contrary, the round sign reminded the people of an eye, then the sign of the sun would soon become the eye of heaven, and germs of mythology would spring up even from the barren soil of such hieroglyphic language.

But now, suppose that a real name was wanted for the sun, how could that be achieved?

We know that all words are derived from roots, that these roots express general concepts, and that, with few exceptions, every name is founded on a general concept under which the object that has to be named can be ranged. How these roots came to be, is a question into which we need not enter at present. Their origin and growth form a problem of psychology rather than of philology, and each science must keep within its proper bounds. If a name was wanted for snow, the early framers of language singled out one of the general predicates of snow, its whiteness, its coldness, or its liquidity, and called the snow the white, the cold, or the liquid, by means of roots conveying the general idea of whiteness, coldness, or liquidity. Not only Nix, nivis, but Niobe(35) too, was a name of the snow, and meant the melting; the death of her beautiful children by the arrows of Apollon and Artemis represents the destruction of winter by the rays of the sun. If the sun itself was to be named, it might be called the brilliant, the awakener, the runner, the ruler, the father, the giver of warmth, of fertility, of life, the scorcher, the destroyer, the messenger of death, and many other names; but there was no possibility of naming it, except by laying hold of one of its characteristic features, and expressing that feature by means of one of the conceptual or predicative roots.

Let us trace the history of at least one of these names. Before the Aryan nations separated, before there was a Latin, a Greek, or a Sanskrit language, there existed a root _svar_ or _sval_, which meant to beam, to glitter, to warm. It exists in Greek, σέλας, splendor; σελήνη, moon; in Anglo-Saxon, as _swélan_, to burn, to sweal; in modern German, _schwül_, oppressively hot. From it we have in Sanskrit the noun _svar_, meaning sometimes the sky, sometimes the sun; and exactly the same word has been preserved in Latin, as _sol_; in Gothic as _sauil_; in Anglo-Saxon, as _sol_. A secondary form of _svar_ is the Sanskrit _sûrya_ for _svârya_, the sun, which is the same word as the Greek ἥλιος.

All these names were originally mere predicates; they meant bright, brilliant, warm. But as soon as the name _svar_ or _sûrya_ was formed, it became, through the irresistible influence of language, the name, not only of a living, but of a male being. Every noun in Sanskrit must be either a masculine or a feminine (for the neuter gender was originally confined to the nominative case), and as _sûrya_ had been formed as a masculine, language stamped it once for all as the sign of a male being, as much as if it had been the name of a warrior or a king. In other languages where the name for sun is a feminine, and the sun is accordingly conceived as a woman, as a queen, as the bride of the moon, the whole mythology of the love-making of the heavenly bodies is changed.

You may say that all this shows, not so much the influence of language on thought, as of thought on language; and that the sexual character of all words reflects only the peculiarities of a child’s mind, which can conceive of nothing except as living, as male or female. If a child hurts itself against a chair, it beats and scolds the chair. The chair is looked upon not as _it_, but as _he_; it is the naughty chair, quite as much as a boy is a naughty boy. There is some truth in this, but it only serves to confirm the right view of the influence of language on thought; for this tendency, though in its origin intentional, and therefore the result of thought, became soon a mere rule of tradition in language, and it then reacted on the mind with irresistible power. As soon, in fact, as _sûryas_ or ἥλιος appears as a masculine, we are in the very thick of mythology. We have not yet arrived at Helios as a god—that is a much later stage of thought, which we might describe almost in the words of Plato at the beginning of the seventh book of the “Republic,” “And after this, he will reason that the sun is he who gives the seasons and the years, and is the guardian of all that is in the visible world, and in a certain way the cause of all things which he and his fellows have been accustomed to behold.” We have not yet advanced so far, but we have reached at least the first germs of a myth. In the Homeric hymn to Helios, Helios is not yet called an immortal, but only ἐπιείκελος ἀθανάτοισι, like unto immortals, yet he is called the child of Euryphaessa, the son of Hyperion, the grandson of Uranos and Gæa.(36)

All this is mythology; it is ancient language going beyond its first intention.

Nor is there much difficulty in interpreting this myth. Helios, the sun, is called the son of Hyperīon, sometimes Hyperīon himself. This name Hyperīon is derived from the preposition ὑπέρ, the Latin _super_, which means above. It is derived by means of the suffix -ιων, which originally was not a patronymic, but simply expressed belonging to. So if Helios was called Hyperion, this simply meant he who dwells on high, and corresponds to Latin _Summanus_ or _Superior_, or _Excelsior_. If, on the contrary, Helios is called Hyperionides, this, too, which meant originally no more than he who comes from, or belongs to those who dwell on high,(37) led to the myth that he was the descendant of Hyperion; so that in this case, as in the case of Zeus Kronīon, the son really led to the conception of his father. Zeus Kronīon meant originally no more than Zeus the eternal, the god of ages, the ancient of days; but -ιων becoming usual as a patronymic suffix, Kronion was supposed to mean the son of Kronos. Kronos, the father, was created in order to account for the existence of the name Kronion. If Hyperīon is called the son of Euryphaessa, the wide-shining, this requires no commentary; for even at present a poet might say that the sun is born of the wide-shining dawn. You see the spontaneous generation of mythology with every new name that is formed. As not only the sun, but also the moon and the dawn could be called dwellers on high, they, too, took the name of Hyperionis or Hyperionides; and hence Homer called Selene, the Moon, and Eos, the Dawn, sisters of Helios, and daughters of Hyperion and Euryphaessa, the Dawn doing service twice, both as mother, Euryphaessa, and as daughter, Eos. Nay, according to Homer, Euryphaessa, the Dawn, is not only the wife, but also the sister of Helios. All this is perfectly intelligible, if we watch the growth of language and mythology; but it leads, of course, to the most tragic catastrophes as soon as it is all taken in a literal sense.

Helios is called ἀκάμας, the never-tiring; πανδερκής, the all-seeing; φαέθων, the shining; and also φοῖβος, the brilliant. This last epithet φοῖβος has grown into an independent deity Phœbus, and it is particularly known as a name of Apollon, Phoibos Apollon; thus showing what is also known from other sources, that in Apollo, too, we have one of the many mythic disguises of the sun.

So far all is clear, because all the names which we have to deal with are intelligible, or, at all events, yield to the softest etymological pressure. But now if we hear the story of Phoibos Apollon falling in love with Daphne, and Daphne praying to her mother, the Earth, to save her from Phoibos; and if we read how either the earth received her in her lap, and then a laurel tree sprang up where she had disappeared, or how she herself was changed into a laurel tree, what shall we think of this? It is a mere story, it might be said, and why should there be any meaning in it? My answer is, because people do not tell such stories of their gods and heroes, unless there is some sense in them. Besides, if Phoibos means the sun, why should not Daphne have a meaning too? Before, therefore, we can decide whether the story of Phoibos and Daphne is a mere invention, we must try to find out what can have been the meaning of the word Daphne.

In Greek it means a laurel,(38) and this would explain the purely Greek legend that Daphne was changed into a laurel tree. But who was Daphne? In order to answer this question, we must have recourse to etymology, or, in other words, we must examine the history of the word. Etymology, as you know, is no longer what it used to be; and though there may still be a classical scholar here and there who crosses himself at the idea of a Greek word being explained by a reference to Sanskrit, we naturally look to Sanskrit as the master-key to many a lock which no Greek key will open. Now Daphne, as I have shown, can be traced back to Sanskrit Ahanâ, and Ahanâ in Sanskrit means the dawn. As soon as we know this, everything becomes clear. The story of Phoibos and Daphne is no more than a description of what every one may see every day; first, the appearance of the Dawn in the eastern sky, then the rising of the Sun as if hurrying after his bride, then the gradual fading away of the bright Dawn at the touch of the fiery rays of the sun, and at last her death or disappearance in the lap of her mother, the Earth. All this seems to me as clear as daylight, and the only objection that could be raised against this reading of the ancient myth would be, if it could be proved, that Ahanâ does not mean Dawn, and that Daphne cannot be traced back to Ahanâ, or that _Helios_ does not mean the Sun.

I know there is another objection, but it seems to me so groundless as hardly to deserve an answer. Why, it is asked, should the ancient nations have told these endless stories about the Sun and the Dawn, and why should they have preserved them in their mythology? We might as well ask why the ancient nations should have invented so many irregular verbs, and why they should have preserved them in their grammar. A fact does not cease to be a fact, because we cannot at once explain it. As far as our knowledge goes at present, we are justified in stating that the Aryan nations preserved not only their grammatical structure, and a large portion of their dictionary, from the time which preceded their separation, but that they likewise retained the names of some of their deities, some legends about their gods, some popular sayings and proverbs, and in these, it may be, the seeds of parables, as part of their common Aryan heirloom. Their mythological lore fills, in fact, a period in the history of Aryan thought, half-way between the period of language and the period of literature, and it is this discovery which gives to mythology its importance in the eyes of the student of the most ancient history and psychology of mankind.

And do not suppose that the Greeks, or the Hindus, or the Aryan nations in general, were the only people who possessed such tales. Wherever we look, in every part of the world, among uncivilized as well as a civilized people, we find the same kind of stories, the same traditions, the same myths.

I shall give one story from the extreme North, another from the extreme South.

Among the Esquimaux of Repulse Bay, on the west side of Hudson’s Bay, on the Arctic Circle, Mr. John Rae picked up the following story:—

“Many years ago, a great Esquimaux Conqueror gained so much power that he was able to rise unto the heavens, taking with him on one occasion a sister, a very beautiful girl, and some fire. He added much fuel to the fire, and thus formed the Sun. For some time he and his sister lived in great harmony, but after a time he became very cruel, and ill-treated his sister in many ways. She bore it at first with great patience, until at last he threw fire at her, and scorched one side of her face. This spoiling of her beauty was beyond endurance; she therefore ran away from him, and formed the Moon. Her brother then began, and still continues to chase her; but although he sometimes got near, he has not yet overtaken her, nor ever will.

“When it is New Moon, the burnt side of the face is towards us; at Full Moon it is the reverse.”

There are dialectic varieties in the Mythology of the Esquimaux as of the Greeks and Hindus, and, with a change of gender between Sun and Moon, the same story occurs among other tribes in the following form:—

“There was a girl at a party, and some one told his love for her by shaking her shoulders, after the manner of the country. She could not see who it was in the dark hut, so she smeared her hands with soot, and when he came back she blackened his cheek with her hand. When a light was brought she saw that it was her brother and fled. He ran after her, followed her, and as she came to the end of the earth, he sprang out into the sky. Then she became the sun, and he the moon, and this is why the moon is always chasing the sun through the heavens, and why the moon is sometimes dark as he turns his blackened cheek towards the earth.”(39)

We now turn to the South, and here, among the lowest of the low, among the Hottentots, who are despised even by their black neighbors, the Zulus, we find the following gem of a fable, beaming with mingled rays of religion and philosophy:—

“The Moon, it is said, sent once 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 the message, but whilst on his way was overtaken by the hare, who asked: ‘On what errand art thou bound?’ The insect answered, ‘I am sent by the Moon to men, to tell them that as she dies and dying lives, they also shall die and dying live.’ The hare said, ‘As thou art an awkward runner, let me go’ (to take the message). 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 ye also shall 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 piece of wood, and struck him on the nose. Since that day the hare’s nose is slit.”

Of this story, too, there are various versions and in one of them the end is as follows:—

“The hare, having returned to the Moon, was questioned as to the message delivered, and the Moon, having heard the true state of the case, became so enraged with him that she took up a hatchet to split his head; falling short, however, of that, the hatchet fell upon the upper lip of the hare, and cut it severely. Hence it is that we see the ‘hare-lip.’ The hare, being duly incensed at having received such treatment, raised his claws, and scratched the Moon’s face; and the dark parts which we now see on the surface of the Moon are the scars which she received on that occasion.”(40)

The Finns, Lapps, and Esthonians do not seem a very poetical race, yet there is poetry even in their smoky huts, poetry surrounded with all the splendor of an arctic night, and fragrant with the perfume of moss and wild flowers. Here is one of their legends:—

“Wanna Issi had two servants, Koit and Ämmarik, and he gave them a torch which Koit should light every morning, and Ämmarik should extinguish in the evening. In order to reward their faithful services, Wanna Issi told them they might be man and wife, but they asked Wanna Issi that he would allow them to remain forever bride and bridegroom. Wanna Issi assented, and henceforth Koit handed the torch every evening to Ämmarik, and Ämmarik took it and extinguished it. Only during four weeks in summer they remain together at midnight; Koit hands the dying torch to Ämmarik, but Ämmarik does not let it die, but lights it again with her breath. Then their hands are stretched out, and their lips meet, and the blush of the face of Ämmarik colors the midnight sky.”

This myth requires hardly any commentary; yet as long as it is impossible to explain the names, Wanna Issi, Koit, and Ämmarik, it might be said that the story was but a love story, invented by an idle Lapp, or Finn, or Esthonian. But what if Wanna Issi in Esthonian means the Old Father, and if Koit means the Dawn? Can we then doubt any longer that Ämmarik(41) must be the Gloaming and that their meeting in the summer reflects those summer evenings when, particularly in the North, the torch of the sun seems never to die, and when the Gloaming is seen kissing the Dawn?

I wish I could tell you some more of these stories which have been gathered from all parts of the world, and which, though they may be pronounced childish and tedious by some critics, seem to me to glitter with the brightest dew of nature’s own poetry, and to contain those very touches that make us feel akin, not only with Homer or Shakespeare, but even with Lapps, and Finns, and Kaffirs.

I cannot resist, however, the temptation of inserting here a poetical rendering of the story of Koit and Ämmarik, sent to me from the New World, remarking only that instead of Lapland, Esthonia is really the country that may claim the original story.

A LEGEND OF LAPLAND.

“Two servants were in Wanna Issi’s pay; A blazing torch their care; Each morning Koit must light it till its ray Flamed through the air;

“And every evening Ämmarik’s fair hand Must quench the waning light; Then over all the weary, waiting land Fell the still night.

“So passed the time; then Wanna Issi said, “For faithful service done, Lo, here reward! To-morrow shall ye wed, And so be one.”

“ ‘Not so,’ said Koit; ‘for sweeter far to me The joy that neareth still; Then grant us ever fast betrothed to be.” They had their will.

“And now the blazing lustre to transfer Himself, is all his claim; Warm from her lover’s hand it comes to her, To quench the flame.

“Only for four times seven lengthening days, At midnight, do they stand Together, while Koit gives the dying blaze To Ämmarik’s hand.

“O wonder then! She lets it not expire, But lights it with her breath— The breath of love, that, warm with quickening fire, Wakes life from death.

“Then hands stretch out, and touch, and clasp on high, Then lip to lip is pressed, And Ämmarik’s blushes tinge the midnight sky From east to west.”

ANNA C. BRACKETT.