I.

No legend dealing with the deep passions of human nature, and reflecting the tragic struggle between the human and the divine, which has been playing on the stage of the human heart since the race began, is restricted by the circumstances of time, place, or people. If it is really beautiful and moving it is a bit of universal property, and in one form or another phases of it will be found in the mythology or folk-lore of all civilized peoples. Not only the foundation principles of such a legend, but even its theatre and apparatus may be discovered. Parallels in religious mythologies will readily occur, but perhaps not so readily parallels in those heroic tales which reflect the national characteristics of peoples. Yet they are not the less numerous. The grotto of Venus, in which Tannhäuser steeps himself with sensuality, is but a German form of the Garden of Delight, in which the heroes of classic antiquity met their fair enslavers. It is Ogygia, the Delightful Island, where Ulysses met Calypso. It is that Avalon in which King Arthur was healed of his wounds by his fairy sister Morgain. The staff which bursts into green in the hands of Pope Urban in token of Tannhäuser's forgiveness has prototypes in the lances which, when planted in the ground by Charlemagne's warriors, were transformed over night into a leafy forest; in the staff which put on leaves in the hands of Joseph wherefore the Virgin Mary gave herself to him in marriage; in the rod of Aaron, which, when laid up among others in the tabernacle, "brought forth buds and bloomed blossoms and yielded almonds." The Tarnhelm which the cunning Mime fashions at the command of Alberich, what else is it but the Mask of Arthur, which had the power of rendering its wearer invisible, or the Helmet of Pluto worn by Perseus in his battle with the Gorgon? The Holy Grail, which Wagner has surrounded with such a refulgent halo, is not merely a relic of Christ's suffering and death. Its power of supplying food and sustaining life identifies it with an article common to the mystical apparatus of many peoples. As Achilles was dipped into Styx and rendered invulnerable, so Jason was smeared with Medea's ointment, and Siegfried became covered with a horny armor when he bathed in the dragon's blood; and as the magic wash was kept from Achilles's heel by the hand of Thetis, so the falling of a leaf from a lime-tree on the back of Siegfried caused the one unprotected spot through which a weapon might reach his life. The sword of Wotan, thrust into the tree so firmly and miraculously that none but a hero worthy to wield it and inspired by the desperation of supremest need might draw it from its mighty sheath, what else is it than the "fair sword" which stuck in the marble stone in the church-yard against the high altar, which all the barons assayed in vain to draw forth, but which young Arthur "lightly and fiercely" pulled out of the stone, by which token he was recognized as rightwise king of England? Or, going back further into story-land, who does not see in it that bow of Ulysses which the wicked suitors of Penelope vainly strove to bend, but which yielded to the hero disguised as a beggar with such ease "as a harper in tuning of his harp draws out a string?"

Horus, Apollo, and Baldur in Egypt, Greece, and the savage Northland have represented the highest union of physical and moral excellencies to millions of human beings; and when the Norse myth-maker, exercising his imagination under the influence of that need and longing and hope on which Plato based his argument in proof of the immortality of the soul, drew his picture of Ragnarök, the Twilight of the Gods, the end of the old regime of brute force, of gods and giants, and the return of Baldur and his reign of peace, gentleness, and loveliness, he felt the emotions with which the Christian of to-day looks forward to the second coming of Christ the Redeemer.

So striking are the parallels between the heroic tales of the class to which the story of Siegfried belongs, that it has been possible for Dr. J. G. von Hahn, in his Sagwissenschaftliche Studien, to draw up a formula according to which the families belonging to the Aryan race have constructed their most admired tales. This formula, he says, exists more or less perfect in the heroic literature of every known Aryan people. Hellenic mythology produced no less than seven of these stories, of which the most striking are those of Perseus, Theseus, Œdipus, and Herakles; Roman mythological history, one—Romulus and Remus; Teutonic sagas, two—Wittich-Siegfried and Wolfdietrich; Iranian mythic history, two, and Hindu mythology, two, the most striking parallelisms occurring in the story of Krishna. Of this story Mr. Alfred Nutt has found eight variants in old Keltic literature, among them the story of Perceval. According to this formula

I. The hero is born

(a) Out of wedlock.

(b) Posthumously.

(c) Supernaturally

(d) One of twins.

II. The mother is a princess residing in her own country.

III. The father is

(a) A god, or

(b) A hero		from afar.

IV. There are tokens and warnings of the hero's future greatness;

V. In consequence of which he is driven from home.

VI. Is suckled by wild beasts.

VII. Is brought up by a childless couple, or shepherd, or widow.

VIII. Is of passionate and violent disposition.

IX. Seeks service in foreign lands.

(a) Attacks and slays monsters.

(b) Acquires supernatural knowledge through eating a fish or other magic animal (the dragon's heart in the case of Sigurd, his blood in the case of Siegfried).

X. Returns to his own country, retreats, and again returns.

XI. Overcomes his enemies, frees his mother, seats himself on a throne.