Custom and Myth

Custom and Myth, by Andrew
Lang

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Title: Custom and Myth
Author: Andrew Lang
Release Date: November 17, 2004 [eBook #14080]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CUSTOM
AND MYTH***

Transcribed from the 1884 Longmans, Green and Co. edition by David
Price, email [email protected]

CUSTOM AND MYTH

To E. B. Tylor, author of 'Primitive Culture,' these studies of the oldest
stories are dedicated.

INTRODUCTION.
Though some of the essays in this volume have appeared in various
serials, the majority of them were written expressly for their present
purpose, and they are now arranged in a designed order. During some
years of study of Greek, Indian, and savage mythologies, I have
become more and more impressed with a sense of the inadequacy of the
prevalent method of comparative mythology. That method is based on
the belief that myths are the result of a disease of language, as the pearl
is the result of a disease of the oyster. It is argued that men at some
period, or periods, spoke in a singular style of coloured and concrete
language, and that their children retained the phrases of this language
after losing hold of the original meaning. The consequence was the
growth of myths about supposed persons, whose names had originally
been mere 'appellations.' In conformity with this hypothesis the method
of comparative mythology examines the proper names which occur in
myths. The notion is that these names contain a key to the meaning of
the story, and that, in fact, of the story the names are the germs and the
oldest surviving part.
The objections to this method are so numerous that it is difficult to state
them briefly. The attempt, however, must be made. To desert the path
opened by the most eminent scholars is in itself presumptuous; the least
that an innovator can do is to give his reasons for advancing in a novel
direction. If this were a question of scholarship merely, it would be
simply foolhardy to differ from men like Max Muller, Adalbert Kuhn,
Breal, and many others. But a revolutionary mythologist is encouraged
by finding that these scholars usually differ from each other. Examples
will be found chiefly in the essays styled 'The Myth of Cronus,' 'A Far-
travelled Tale,' and 'Cupid and Psyche.' Why, then, do distinguished
scholars and mythologists reach such different goals? Clearly because
their method is so precarious. They all analyse the names in myths; but,
where one scholar decides that the name is originally Sanskrit, another

holds that it is purely Greek, and a third, perhaps, is all for an Accadian
etymology, or a Semitic derivation. Again, even when scholars agree as
to the original root from which a name springs, they differ as much as
ever as to the meaning of the name in its present place. The inference is,
that the analysis of names, on which the whole edifice of philological
'comparative mythology' rests, is a foundation of shifting sand. The
method is called 'orthodox,' but, among those who practise it, there is
none of the beautiful unanimity of orthodoxy.
These objections are not made by the unscholarly anthropologist alone.
Curtius has especially remarked the difficulties which beset the
'etymological operation' in the case of proper names. 'Peculiarly
dubious and perilous is mythological etymology. Are we to seek the
sources of the divine names in aspects of nature, or in moral
conceptions; in special Greek geographical conditions, or in natural
circumstances which are everywhere the same: in dawn with her rays,
or in clouds with their floods; are we to seek the origin of the names of
heroes in things historical and human, or in physical phenomena?' {3a}
Professor Tiele, of Leyden, says much the same thing: 'The
uncertainties are great, and there is a constant risk of taking mere jeux
d'esprit for scientific results.' {3b} Every name has, if we can discover
or conjecture it, a meaning. That meaning--be it 'large' or 'small,' 'loud'
or 'bright,' 'wise' or 'dark,' 'swift' or 'slow'--is always capable of being
explained as an epithet of the sun, or of the cloud, or of both. Whatever,
then, a name may signify, some scholars will find that it originally
denoted the cloud, if they belong to one school, or the sun or dawn, if
they belong to another faction. Obviously this process is a mere jeu
d'esprit. This logic would be admitted in no other science, and, by
similar arguments, any