Chapter 5

present stands; Harrison and Verrall, _Mythology and Monuments of Anc. Athens_, 192; Lang, _Myth, Ritual, and Religion_, i. 295-323.

[189] Mr. Crawley discovered this story in Mr. Bain's _A Digit of the Moon_, 13-15, and printed it in his _Mystic Rose_, 33-34.

[190] "The Interpreters of Genesis and the Interpreters of Nature," and "Mr. Gladstone and Genesis," in _Science and Hebrew Tradition_, cap. iv. and v.

[191] _Adonis, Attis and Osiris_, 4, 25. Mr. Jevons, too, lays stress upon "the source of errors in religion" as human reason gone astray, _Introd. to Hist. of Religion_, 463.

[192] Mr. Jevons practically arrives at this conclusion from a different standpoint. "Beliefs," he says, "are about facts, are statements about facts, statements that certain facts will be found to occur in a certain way or be of a certain kind" (_Introd. to Hist. of Religion_, 402). Mr. Curtin, _Creation Myths of Primitive America_ (p. xx), confirms the view I take.

[193] Orpen, _Cape Monthly Magazine_. Quoted in Lang's _Myth, Ritual, and Religion_, i. 71.

[194] This myth is, I think, worth giving, because of its obvious object to account for the difference between white and black races. It is as follows: "In the beginning of the world God created three white men and three white women, and three black men and three black women. In order that these twelve human souls might not thenceforth complain of Divine partiality and of their separate conditions, God elected that they should determine their own fates by their own choice of good and evil. A large calabash or gourd was placed by God upon the ground, and close to the side of the calabash was also placed a small folded piece of paper. God ruled that the black man should have the first choice. He chose the calabash, because he expected that the calabash, being so large, could not but contain everything needful for himself. He opened the calabash, and found a scrap of gold, a scrap of iron, and several other metals of which he did not understand the use. The white man had no option. He took, of course, the small folded piece of paper, and discovered that, on being unfolded, it revealed a boundless stock of knowledge. God then left the black men and women in the bush, and led the white men and women to the seashore. He did not forsake the white men and women, but communicated with them every night, and taught them how to construct a ship, and how to sail from Africa to another country. After a while they returned to Africa with various kinds of merchandise, which they bartered to the black men and women, who had the opportunity of being greater and wiser than the white men and women, but who, out of sheer avidity, had thrown away their chance."

[195] _Native Tribes of South-east Australia_, cap. viii.

[196] _Northern Tribes of Central Australia_, cap. xxii.; _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, cap. xviii.

[197] Spencer and Gillen, _Northern Tribes_, 624; _cf. Native Tribes of Central Australia_, 564.

[198] Spencer and Gillen, _Native Tribes of Central Australia_, 229.

[199] Grey, _Polynesian Mythology_, p. xi. _Cf._ Taylor, _Te Ika a Maui_, where myths told by the priests are given in cap. vi. and vii., and _Trans. Ethnological Soc._, new series, i. 45.

[200] White's _Anc. Hist. of the Maori_, i. 8-13.

[201] Curtin, _Creation Myths of Primitive America_, p. xxi.

[202] Im Thurn, _Indians of Guiana_, 335; Landtman, _Origin of Priesthood_, 117.

[203] _Primitive Manners and Customs_, cap. i. "Some Savage Myths and Beliefs," and cap. viii., "Fairy Lore of Savages."

[204] _Introd. to Hist. of Religion_, 263. Of course I do not accept Mr. J. A. Stewart's "general remarks on the [Greek: mythologia] or story-telling myth" in his _Myths of Plato_, 4-17. All Mr. Stewart's research is literary in object and result, though he uses the materials of anthropology.

[205] H. H. Wilson, _Rig Veda Sanhita_, i. p. xvii.

[206] H. H. Wilson, _Vishnu Purana_, i. p. iv; _Rig Veda Sanhita_, i. p. xlv.

[207] _Religion of the Semites_, 19.

[208] Mr. Hartland passes rapidly in his opening chapter from the myth as primitive science to the myth as fairy tale, from the savage to the Celt (_Science of Fairy Tales_, pp. 1-5), and I do not think it is possible to make this leap without using the bridge which is to be constructed out of the differing positions occupied by the myth and the fairy tale.

[209] It will be interesting, I think, to preserve here one or two instances of the actual practice of telling traditional tales in our own country. Mr. Hartland has referred to the subject in his _Science of Fairy Tales_, but the following instances are additional to those he has noted, and they refer directly back to the living custom. They are all from Scotland, and refer to the early part of last century. "In former times, when families, owing to distance and other circumstances, held little intercourse with each other through the day, numbers were in the habit of assembling together in the evening in one house, and spending the time in relating the tales of wonder which had been handed down to them by tradition" (Kiltearn in Ross and Cromarty; Sinclair, _Statistical Account of Scotland_, xiv. 323). "In the last generation every farm and hamlet possessed its oral recorder of tale and song. The pastoral habits of the people led them to seek recreation in listening to, and in rehearsing the tales of other times; and the senachie and the bard were held in high esteem" (Inverness-shire, _ibid._, xiv. 168). "In the winter months, many of them are in the habit of visiting and spending the evenings in each other's houses in the different hamlets, repeating the songs of their native bard or listening to the legendary tales of some venerable senachie" (Durness in Sutherlandshire, _ibid._, xv. 95).

[210] W. H. R. Rivers, _The Todas_, 3-4.

[211] Pausanias, viii. cap. xv. Sec. 1.

[212] _Journ. Roy. Asiatic Soc._, ii. p. 218.

[213] _Hist. of Rome_, i. pp. 177-179. _Cf._ Gunnar Landtman, _Origin of Priesthood_, p. 77.

[214] Perhaps Mr. Lang's study of "Cinderella and the Diffusion of Tales" in _Folklore_, iv. 413 _et seq._, contains the best summary of the position.

[215] Crawley, _Tree of Life_, 5, 144.

[216] Train, _Hist. of Isle of Man_, ii. 115.

[217] The ceremony is fully described in _Relics for the Curious_, i. 31; _Gentleman's Magazine_, 1784 (see _Gent. Mag. Library_, xxiii. 209), quoting from a tract first published in 1634; and see _Proc. Soc. Antiq. Scot._, x. 669.

[218] See _Folklore_, iii. 253-264; Rhys, _Celtic Folklore_, i. 337-341.

[219] Couch, _Hist. of Polperro_, 168.

[220] I have investigated the bee cult at some length, and it will form part of my study on _Tribal Custom_ which I am now preparing for publication.

[221] Carleton, _Traits and Stories of the Irish Peasantry_.

[222] Mr. Eden Phillpotts mentions in one of his Cornish stories exactly this conception. Rags were offered. "Just a rag tored off a petticoat or some such thing. They hanged 'em up around about on the thorn bushes, to shaw as they'd 'a' done more for the good saint if they'd had the power."--_Lying Prophets_, 60.

[223] I gave an example of this false classification of folklore in accord with its apparent modern association in my preface to _Denham Tracts_, ii. p. ix. The left-leg stocking divination is not associated with dress, but with the left-hand as opposed to the right-hand augury, and I pointed out that the district of the Roman wall, the _locus_ of the Denham tracts, thus preserves the luck of the left, believed in by the Romans, in opposition to the luck of the right believed in by the Teutons. See Schrader, _Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan Peoples_, 253-7.

[224] I elaborated this plan of comparative analysis in a report to the British Association at Liverpool, in 1896 (see pp. 626-656), illustrating it from the fire customs of Britain.

[225] _Archaeological Review_, ii. 163-166; _cf._ the Rev. J. Macdonald in _Folklore_, iii. 338.

[226] _Athenaeum_, 29th December, 1883; _Archaeologia_, vol. l. p. 213.

[227] See MacCulloch's _Childhood of Fiction_, chap. xiii., where this distinction is noted, though its significance is not pointed out.

[228] Dr. Rivers has dealt with a very similar case of dual origin in connection with bride capture, see _Journ. Roy. Asiatic Soc._, 1907, p. 624.

[229] Schrader's _Prehistoric Antiquities of the Aryan Peoples_, 422.

[230] Robertson Smith's _Religion of the Semites_, 397.

[231] Monier Williams, _Indian Wisdom_, pp. 29-31. The word-equations for sacrifice are given by Schrader, _op. cit._, 130, 415.

[232] _Journ. Asiatic Soc. Bengal_, xxxiv. p. 7. On the influence of the aboriginal races _cf._ Monier Williams, _Indian Wisdom_, 312-313; Steel and Temple's _Wide Awake Stories_, 395; Campbell, _Tales of West Highlands_, l. p. xcviii.

[233] Lang, _Myth, Ritual, and Religion_, i. p. 271.

[234] H. H. Wilson, _Religion of the Hindus_, ii. 289. I compare this with the custom of the cow following the coffin mentioned by Mannhardt, _Die Gotterwelt_, 320, and the soul shot or gift of a cow at death recorded by Brand, ii. 248.

[235] _Cf._ Olaus Magnus, pp. 168, 169, for the significant Norse ceremony.

[236] Spenser, _View of the State of Ireland_, 1595 (Morley reprint), 73.