Custom and Myth

oftentimes breaks loose_.' {5}  We may be pretty sure that the adventures
of Jason, Perseus, OEdipous, were originally told only of 'Somebody.'  The
names are later additions, and vary in various lands.  A glance at the
essay on 'Cupid and Psyche' will show that a history like theirs is
known, where neither they nor their counterparts in the Veda, Urvasi and
Pururavas, were ever heard of; while the incidents of the Jason legend
are familiar where no Greek word was ever spoken.  Finally, the names in
common use among savages are usually derived from natural phenomena,
often from clouds, sky, sun, dawn.  If, then, a name in a myth can be
proved to mean cloud, sky, sun, or what not (and usually one set of
scholars find clouds, where others see the dawn), we must not instantly
infer that the myth is a nature-myth.  Though, doubtless, the heroes in
it were never real people, the names are as much common names of real
people in the savage state, as Smith and Brown are names of civilised
men.

For all these reasons, but chiefly because of the fact that stories are
usually anonymous at first, that names are added later, and that stories
naturally crystallise round any famous name, heroic, divine, or human,
the process of analysis of names is most precarious and untrustworthy.  A
story is told of Zeus: Zeus means sky, and the story is interpreted by
scholars as a sky myth.  The modern interpreter forgets, first, that to
the myth-maker sky did not at all mean the same thing as it means to him.
Sky meant, not an airy, infinite, radiant vault, but a person, and, most
likely, a savage person.  Secondly, the interpreter forgets that the tale
(say the tale of Zeus, Demeter, and the mutilated Ram) may have been
originally anonymous, and only later attributed to Zeus, as unclaimed
jests are attributed to Sheridan or Talleyrand.  Consequently no heavenly
phenomena will be the basis and explanation of the story.  If one thing
in mythology be certain, it is that myths are always changing masters,
that the old tales are always being told with new names.  Where, for
example, is the value of a philological analysis of the name of Jason?  As
will be seen in the essay 'A Far-travelled Tale,' the analysis of the
name of Jason is fanciful, precarious, disputed, while the essence of his
myth is current in Samoa, Finland, North America, Madagascar, and other
lands, where the name was never heard, and where the characters in the
story have other names or are anonymous.

For these reasons, and others too many to be adduced here, I have
ventured to differ from the current opinion that myths must be
interpreted chiefly by philological analysis of names.  The system
adopted here is explained in the first essay, called 'The Method of
Folklore.'  The name, Folklore, is not a good one, but 'comparative
mythology' is usually claimed exclusively by the philological
interpreters.

The second essay, 'The Bull-Roarer,' is intended to show that certain
peculiarities in the Greek mysteries occur also in the mysteries of
savages, and that on Greek soil they are survivals of savagery.

'The Myth of Cronus' tries to prove that the first part of the legend is
a savage nature-myth, surviving in Greek religion, while the sequel is a
set of ideas common to savages.

'Cupid and Psyche' traces another Aryan myth among savage races, and
attempts to show that the myth may have had its origin in a rule of
barbarous etiquette.

'A Far-travelled Tale' examines a part of the Jason myth.  This myth
appears neither to be an explanation of natural phenomena (like part of
the Myth of Cronus), nor based on a widespread custom (like Cupid and
Psyche.)  The question is asked whether the story may have been diffused
by slow filtration from race to race all over the globe, as there seems
no reason why it should have been invented separately (as a myth
explanatory of natural phenomena or of customs might be) in many
different places.

'Apollo and the Mouse' suggests hypothetically, as a possible explanation
of the tie between the God and the Beast, that Apollo-worship superseded,
but did not eradicate, Totemism.  The suggestion is little more than a
conjecture.

'Star Myths' points out that Greek myths of stars are a survival from the
savage stage of fancy in which such stories are natural.

'Moly and Mandragora' is a study of the Greek, the modern, and the
Hottentot folklore of magical herbs, with a criticism of a scholarly and
philological hypothesis, according to which Moly is the dog-star, and
Circe the moon.

'The Kalevala' is an account of the Finnish national poem; of all poems
that in which the popular, as opposed to the artistic, spirit is
strongest.  The Kalevala is thus a link between Marchen and Volkslieder
on one side, and epic poetry on the other.

'The Divining Rod' is a study of a European and civilised superstition,
which is singular in its comparative lack of copious savage analogues.

'Hottentot Mythology' is a criticism of the philological method, applied
to savage myth.

'Fetichism and the Infinite,' is a review of Mr. Max Muller's theory that
a sense of the Infinite is the germ of religion, and that Fetichism is
secondary, and a corruption.  This essay also contains a defence of the
_evidence_ on which the anthropological method relies.

The remaining essays are studies of the 'History of the Family,' and of
'Savage Art.'

The essay on 'Savage Art' is reprinted, by the kind permission of Messrs.