Modern Mythology
Transcribed from the 1897 Longmans, Green, and Co. edition by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
Dedicated to the memory of John Fergus McLennan.
It may well be doubted whether works of controversy serve any useful purpose. ‘On an opponent,’ as Mr. Matthew Arnold said, ‘one never does make any impression,’ though one may hope that controversy sometimes illuminates a topic in the eyes of impartial readers. The pages which follow cannot but seem wandering and desultory, for they are a reply to a book, Mr. Max Müller’s Contributions to the Science of Mythology , in which the attack is of a skirmishing character. Throughout more than eight hundred pages the learned author keeps up an irregular fire at the ideas and methods of the anthropological school of mythologists. The reply must follow the lines of attack.
Criticism cannot dictate to an author how he shall write his own book. Yet anthropologists and folk-lorists, ‘agriologists’ and ‘Hottentotic’ students, must regret that Mr. Max Müller did not state their general theory, as he understands it, fully and once for all. Adversaries rarely succeed in quite understanding each other; but had Mr. Max Müller made such a statement, we could have cleared up anything in our position which might seem to him obscure.
Our system is but one aspect of the theory of evolution, or is but the application of that theory to the topic of mythology. The archæologist studies human life in its material remains; he tracks progress (and occasional degeneration) from the rudely chipped flints in the ancient gravel beds, to the polished stone weapon, and thence to the ages of bronze and iron. He is guided by material ‘survivals’—ancient arms, implements, and ornaments. The student of Institutions has a similar method. He finds his relics of the uncivilised past in agricultural usages, in archaic methods of allotment of land, in odd marriage customs, things rudimentary—fossil relics, as it were, of an early social and political condition. The archæologist and the student of Institutions compare these relics, material or customary, with the weapons, pottery, implements, or again with the habitual law and usage of existing savage or barbaric races, and demonstrate that our weapons and tools, and our laws and manners, have been slowly evolved out of lower conditions, even out of savage conditions.
Andrew Lang
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MODERN MYTHOLOGY
DEDICATION
INTRODUCTION
REGENT MYTHOLOGY
Mythology in 1860-1880
Autobiographical
The Ugly Scars
My Criticism of Mr. Max Müller
Success of Anthropological Method
Mr. Max Müller’s Reply
THE STORY OF DAPHNE
Mr. Max Müller’s Method in Controversy
Tuna and Daphne
Criticism of Tuna and Daphne
The Explanation
Disease of Language and Folk-etymology
Mannhardt on Daphne
THE QUESTION OF ALLIES
Athanasius
Italian Critics
A Dutch Defender
Reply
‘Braves Gens’
Professor Tiele on Our Merits
Destruction and Construction
Allies or Not?
Our Errors
Uses of Philology
Personal Controversy
The Story of Cronos
Professor Tiele on Sunset Myths
Our Lack of Scientific Exactness
My Lack of Explanation of Cronos
My Crime
My Reply to Professor Tiele
Conclusion as to Professor Tiele
MANNHARDT
Mannhardt’s Attitude
Moral Character Impeached
Mannhardt
Mannhardt’s Letters
How Mannhardt differs from Mr. Max Müller
Mannhardt’s Method
Another Claim on Mannhardt
What Mannhardt said
My Relations to Mannhardt
Mannhardt’s Return to his old Colours
Mannhardt’s Attitude to Philology
Irritating Conduct of Mannhardt
Mannhardt on Demeter Erinnys
Mannhardt’s ‘Mean Argument’
Why Mannhardt is Thought to have been Converted
Mannhardt’s Final Confession
Mannhardt on Solar Myths
Mannhardt on Märchen.
‘The Two Brothers’
The Golden Fleece
Mannhardt’s Approach to Mr. Max Müller
PHILOLOGY AND DEMETER ERINNYS
Mr. Max Müller on Demeter Erinnys.
My Theory of the Horse Demeter
TOTEMISM
Totemism
Totemism Defined
What a Totem is
The Evidence for Sign-boards
More about Totems
Heraldry and Totems
Gods and Totems
An Objection
A Weak Brother
Mr. Frazer and Myself
Greek Totemism
The Greek Mouse-totem?
Philological Theory
Mr. Frazer on Animals in Greek Religion
Aryan Totems (?)
Mr. Frazer and I
Mr. Frazer on Origin of Totemism
Mr. Frazer’s Theory
THE VALIDITY OF ANTHROPOLOGICAL EVIDENCE
Anthropological Evidence
‘Positions one never held’
Positions which I never held
Anthropological Evidence
Mr. Max Müller’s Method of Controversy
Mr. Max Müller on our Evidence
The Test of Recurrences
Bias of Theory
Concerning Missionaries
THE PHILOLOGICAL METHOD IN ANTHROPOLOGY
Mr. Max Müller as Ethnologist
Names of Savage Gods
A Hottentot God
Cause of our Scepticism
Phonetic Bickerings
Phonetic Rules
Basis of a Science
Philology in Action—Indra
Obscuring the Veda
CRITICISM OF FETISHISM
Mischief of Comparisons in Comparative Mythology
Dr. Oldenberg
Comparisons, when odious
A Question of Logic
‘Scholars’
Anthropology and the Mysteries
Abstract Ideas of Savages
Perception of the Infinite
Fetishism and Anthropological Method
Origin of Fetishes
‘Telekinetic’ Origin of Fetishism
Civilised ‘Fetishism’
More Mischiefs of Comparison
Still more Nemesis
For Us or Against Us?
The Fallacy of ‘Admits’
Conclusion as to our Method
THE RIDDLE THEORY
What the Philological Theory Needs
The Riddle Theory
Mordvinian Mythology
Lettish Mythology
The Chances of Fancy
ARTEMIS
Artemis
Otfried Müller
Beast Dances
The View of Classical Scholars
Mr. Max Müller’s Explanation
Wider Application of the Theory
The Bear Dance
THE FIRE-WALK
The Method of Psychical Research
Mount Soracte
Hirpi Sorani
Mannhardt’s Deficiency
The Fire-walk
Fijian Fire-walk
Kling Fire-walk
Tupua’s Incantation used in Walking Over the Uum-Ti.—Translation
Corroborative Evidence
The Fire-walk in Trinidad.
Bulgarian Fire-walk
Indian Fire-walk
Psychical Parallels
Conclusion as to Fire-walk
Psychical Research
THE ORIGIN OF DEATH
Yama
The Origin of Death
Death, regarded as Unnatural
Why Men are Mortal
Savage Death-Myths
The Greek Myth
The Serpent
Dualistic Myths
Economic Myth
Maui and Yama
Maui Myths
Yama
Inferences
The Stealing of Fire
‘Fire Totems’
Prometheus
Savage Myths of Fire-stealing
Origin of the Myth of Fire-stealing
CONCLUSION
APPENDIX A: The Fire-walk in Spain
APPENDIX B: Mr. Macdonell on Vedic Mythology
FOOTNOTES