Custom and Myth New Edition

The name of Pururavas, again, is 'an appropriate name for a solar hero.' ... Pururavas meant the same as ~Polydeukes~, 'endowed with much light,' for though _rava_ is generally...

This is a very good example of the philological way of explaining a myth. If once we admit that _ark_, or _arch_, in the sense of 'bright' and of 'bear,' existed, not only in Sa...

Here we conclude, having traced parallels to Cupid and Psyche in many non-Aryan lands. Our theory of the myth does not rest on etymology. We have seen that the most renowned sch...

This brings us to the moral powers of the twig; and here we find some assistance in our inquiry from the practices of uncivilised races. In 1719 John Bell was travelling across...

We cannot go much lower than the Bushmen, and among Bushman divine myths is room for the 'swallowing trick' attributed to Cronus by Hesiod. The chief divine character in Bushman...

With the eleventh canto a new hero, Ahti, or Lemminkainen, and a new cycle of adventures, is abruptly introduced. Lemminkainen is a profligate wanderer, with as many loves as He...

Few people who are interested in the question can afford to visit Peru and Mycenae and study the architecture for themselves. But any one who is interested in the strange identi...

In the following essays, then, the myths and customs of various peoples will be compared, even when these peoples talk languages of alien families, and have never (so far as his...

There is a science, Archaeology, which collects and compares the material relics of old races, the axes and arrow-heads. There is a form of study, Folklore, which collects and c...

There remains a third system of mythical interpretation, though Mr. Mueller says only two methods are possible. The method, in this third case, is to see whether the irrational...

Siati wept, but the god's daughter had the house built by the evening. The other adventures were to fight a fierce dog, and to find a ring lost at sea. Just as the Scotch giant'...

Thus far, the consideration of exogamy has thrown no clear light on the main question--the question whether the customs of civilised races contain relics of female kinship. On M...

[165] There is no end to Aryan parallels of savage practices. The famous soma of the Veda is apparently now used like the Hottentot roots. By the Zoroastrians 'it is used at inc...

[199] A third reference to Pausanias I have been unable to verify. There are several references to Greek fetich-stones in Theophrastus' account of the Superstitious Man. A numbe...

The end of the polemic against the primitiveness of fetichism deals with the question, 'Whence comes the supernatural predicate of the fetich?' If a negro tells us his fetich is...

In the part of the Dionysiac mysteries at which the toys of the child Dionysus were exhibited, and during which (as it seems) the ~konos~, or bull-roarer, was whirred, the perfo...

Stories like these, stories attributing some great deliverance to the mouse, or some deliverance from mice to the god, would naturally spring up among people puzzled by their ow...

We do not know, and how can the Australians know, that the lost star was once the brightest? It appears to me that the Australians, remarking the disappearance of a star, might...

In treating of fetichism Mr. Mueller is obliged to criticise the system of De Brosses, who introduced this rather unfortunate term to science, in an admirable work, _Le Culte de...

Since the first publication of _Custom and Myth_, many other works have appeared, dealing on the same principles with matters of belief, fable and ritual. Were the book to be re...

(6) There remains the evidence of actual fact and custom among Aryan peoples. The Lycians, according to Herodotus, 'have this peculiar custom, _wherein they resemble no other me...

Maerchen-- Algonquin, 82 Bornoese, 82 Dutch, 76 features of, 157, 158, 163 of _Nicht Nought Nothing_, 89 of Swan Maidens, 82 Russian, 93, 171 Scotch, 89 South African, 171 West...