Modern Mythology | Page 7

In
comparative mythology there was, with rare exceptions, no agreement
at all about results beyond this point; Greek and Sanskrit, German and
Slavonic myths were, in the immense majority of instances, to be
regarded as mirror-pictures on earth, of celestial and meteorological
phenomena. Thus even the story of the Earth Goddess, the Harvest
Goddess, Demeter, was usually explained as a reflection in myth of one
or another celestial phenomenon--dawn, storm-cloud, or something else
according to taste.
Again, Greek or German myths were usually to be interpreted by
comparison with myths in the Rig Veda. Their origin was to be
ascertained by discovering the Aryan root and original significance of
the names of gods and heroes, such as Saranyu--Erinnys,
Daphne--Dahana, Athene--Ahana. The etymology and meaning of such
names being ascertained, the origin and sense of the myths in which the
names occur should be clear.
Clear it was not. There were, in most cases, as many opinions as to the
etymology and meaning of each name and myth, as there were
philologists engaged in the study. Mannhardt, who began, in 1858, as a
member of the philological school, in his last public utterance (1877)
described the method and results, including his own work of 1858, as
'mainly failures.'

But, long ere that, the English cultivated public had, most naturally,
accepted Mr. Max Muller as the representative of the school which then
held the field in comparative mythology. His German and other foreign
brethren, with their discrepant results, were only known to the general,
in England (I am not speaking of English scholars), by the references to
them in the Oxford professor's own works. His theories were made part
of the education of children, and found their way into a kind of popular
primers.
For these reasons, anyone in England who was daring enough to doubt,
or to deny, the validity of the philological system of mythology in
general was obliged to choose Mr. Max Muller as his adversary. He
must strike, as it were, the shield of no Hospitaler of unsteady seat, but
that of the Templar himself. And this is the cause of what seems to
puzzle Mr. Max Muller, namely the attacks on his system and his
results in particular. An English critic, writing for English readers, had
to do with the scholar who chiefly represented the philological school
of mythology in the eyes of England.

Autobiographical
Like other inquiring undergraduates in the sixties, I read such works on
mythology as Mr. Max Muller had then given to the world; I read them
with interest, but without conviction. The argument, the logic, seemed
to evade one; it was purely, with me, a question of logic, for I was of
course prepared to accept all of Mr. Max Muller's dicta on questions of
etymologies. Even now I never venture to impugn them, only, as I
observe that other scholars very frequently differ, toto caelo, from him
and from each other in essential questions, I preserve a just balance of
doubt; I wait till these gentlemen shall be at one among themselves.
After taking my degree in 1868, I had leisure to read a good deal of
mythology in the legends of all races, and found my distrust of Mr.
Max Muller's reasoning increase upon me. The main cause was that
whereas Mr. Max Muller explained Greek myths by etymologies of
words in the Aryan languages, chiefly Greek, Latin, Slavonic, and
Sanskrit, I kept finding myths very closely resembling those of Greece
among Red Indians, Kaffirs, Eskimo, Samoyeds, Kamilaroi, Maoris,
and Cahrocs. Now if Aryan myths arose from a 'disease' of Aryan
languages, it certainly did seem an odd thing that myths so similar to

these abounded where non-Aryan languages alone prevailed. Did a
kind of linguistic measles affect all tongues alike, from Sanskrit to
Choctaw, and everywhere produce the same ugly scars in religion and
myth?

The Ugly Scars
The ugly scars were the problem! A civilised fancy is not puzzled for a
moment by a beautiful beneficent Sun-god, or even by his beholding
the daughters of men that they are fair. But a civilised fancy is puzzled
when the beautiful Sun-god makes love in the shape of a dog. {5} To
me, and indeed to Mr. Max Muller, the ugly scars were the problem.
He has written--'What makes mythology mythological, in the true sense
of the word, is what is utterly unintelligible, absurd, strange, or
miraculous.' But he explained these blots on the mythology of Greece,
for example, as the result practically of old words and popular sayings
surviving in languages after the original, harmless, symbolical
meanings of the words and sayings were lost. What had been a poetical
remark about an aspect of nature became an obscene, or brutal, or
vulgar myth, a stumbling block to Greek piety