The most useful of all, however, is the religion of the Vedas, in so far as the Vedas give us an insight into the earliest faith of the people of India. Here we may often detect the etymology of a name which would be inexplicable if we only knew it in Greek or Latin and Norse. We have seen how this is the case in respect of the word Dyâus; and how the etymology of this word clearly shows, what from themselves we should never discover, that Zeus and Jupiter and Tyr are names which had originally the same meaning as a natural phenomenon. We say originally, because the Sanskrit is found by numberless examples (whereof we gave one, duhitar) to show an origin for many words whose origin is lost in other Aryan languages, and therefore to stand nearest to the primitive tongue of the Aryans. In this lies the whole force of the argument. If the old Aryans once used the same word for ‘heaven’ and for ‘god,’ it is impossible to believe that they had the power of separating at will the two ideas which we receive from these two words: for an examination of formal logic shows us that notions do not become completely distinguishable until they receive individual names. The inference is obvious that a considerable number, at any rate, of the gods of our Aryan ancestors were nature-gods in the strictest sense.
It is equally true, however, that such divinities tend to fall into certain forms, and accommodate themselves to ideals which, or the germs of which, we may believe pre-existed in the human mind. It is thus that we have noticed the sun-gods and the heaven-gods fulfilling their separate functions, and answering to certain defined needs in the human heart.
[P. 230]. Persephonê and Balder.—The true tragedy of the death of summer is in the Norse religion portrayed in the myth of Balder, the sun-god, which in respect of its force and intention fully answers to the Persephonê myth. It has often been a subject of surprise that Balder’s-bale, Balder’s death, was not celebrated at a time of year appropriate to mourning for the loss of the sun-god, but at the summer solstice, when Balder attains his fullest might and brightest splendour. Why choose such a day as that to think of his mournful bedimming in the wintry months? It seems to show a strange, gloomy, and forecasting nature on the part of our Norse ancestors to be always reflecting that in the midst of life—in the midst of our brightest, fullest life—we are in death.
I imagine that the custom of celebrating Balder’s-bale in this way arose not entirely from the desire to preach this melancholy sermon; though in part no doubt this desire was the cause of it. It arose also from a dramatic instinct inducing men for the sake of a strong contrast to surround the sun-god with all the images of summer at the time when they were thinking of his death. It gives a dramatic intensity to the moment; and thus it corresponds exactly with the picture of Persephonê playing in the meadows in spring-time surrounded by all the attributes of spring, just as Hades rises from the earth to bear her for ever from the light of day.
[P. 241]. Thanatos.—Thanatos and Hypnos belong to the region of allegory rather than pure mythology. For in pure mythology the place of the first is taken by Hades. In Vedic mythology their part is played by the two Sâramayas; one probably chiefly a divinity of Death, the other of Sleep, and the two being brothers, as of course Death and Sleep are.
It has been suggested that among a group of figures sculptured upon the drum of a column brought from the Artemesium (Temple of Diana) at Ephesus, one is a representation of Thanatos, Death. The figure is that of a boy, as young and comely as Love, but of a somewhat passive expression, and with a sword girt upon his thigh, which Eros never wears. His right hand is raised as though he were beckoning: and with him stand Dêmêtêr and Hermes, both divinities connected with the rites of the dead. Save in this instance—if it be an instance—Thanatos is unknown to early Greek art. Hypnos when he appears wears a fair womanish face with closed eyes, scarcely distinguishable from the artistic representation of the Gorgon. As the moon, this last is in some sense a being of sleep and death.
[P. 255]. Myths and the rules of their interpretation have been made of late years the subject of controversy almost as keen as that which has raged round that primary question concerning the existence of nature-worship which we have discussed above. In this (XI.) and the previous chapters the writers have endeavoured to keep before the reader only those features in a myth which are essential towards the information we are seeking. For instance, the number of myths which can in any system be traced to the phenomena of the sun is a matter of the highest importance, as showing the influence which a certain set of phenomena had upon the national mind: but of much less significance is the question of the exact origin of the different features in these legendary tales. If any given tale be found to originate solely in a confusion of language, a mistaken, misinterpreted epithet, then it has almost no interest for us as an interpreter of the popular thought and feeling: unless indeed the shape which the story takes should reproduce (as it probably will) some one of the universal forms which seem to stand ready in the human mind for the moulding of its legends.
With regard to the particular question of sun (and other nature) myths and their occurrence, the question which stands between rival disputants is something of this sort: ‘All myths, that is, all primitive legends,’ says one party which may be regarded as the philological school, ‘are found, if we examine closely enough into the meaning of the proper names which occur in them, to represent originally some natural phenomenon, which is in nine cases out of ten (at least for southern nations) a story of some part of the sun’s daily course, some one of his innumerable aspects.’ ‘Is it conceivable,’ say their opponents (we may call these the anthropologists) ‘that man could ever have been in such a condition that all his attention was turned upon the workings of nature or upon the heavenly bodies? Far more probable is it, that these stories arose from a variety of natural causes, real traditions of some hero, reminiscences of historical events transformed in the mist of exaggeration, or the legacy of days when men had strange and almost inconceivable ideas about the world they live in, when they thought animals spoke and had histories like men, that men could and frequently did become trees, and trees men, etc., etc. Indeed, so strange and senseless are the notions of primitive men, that it is wasted labour to try and interpret them.’ This is a rough statement of the two heads of argument. The second, so far as merely negative, must fall before positive proof, as that the nature-myth hidden in an immense number of stories can be by philology satisfactorily unravelled. There is, however, also positive proof on the other side, when many stories, which as nature-myths interpreted on philological principles should only have existed among the people of a particular linguistic family, are found among other races who have no real relation whatever to the first.
Both these sets of facts can be adduced, and to reconcile them in every case would no doubt be hard. On the whole, however, it will perhaps be found that, as has just been said, certain moulds for the construction of stories seem to exist already in the human mind, obeying some natural craving, and into these, as into a Procrustean bed, the myth more or less easily must fit. These primitive forms do not, however, preclude the undoubted existence—strange as such a phenomenon may appear—of an especial mythopæic age connected with man’s observations of the phenomena of nature—an age in which natural religions gained their foundation, and when the doings of the external world had a much deeper effect upon man’s imagination than in later times they have ever had.
[P. 266]. Thor’s journey to the house of giant Utgardloki (out-world fire—fire of the under-world of Chapter X., and Chapter XI., p. 278)—is not told in the elder Edda, but appears at some length in the Edda of Snorro (Daemisögur 44-48). There can be little question of the antiquity of the tale, closely connected as it is with the labours of Hercules as well as with all the most important elements in the Norse mythology. But it may very easily be that it has undergone some modifications before appearing in its present form; and we should be naturally inclined to signalise as modern additions those parts of the story which have an allegorical rather than a truly mythical character. Allegory is a thing altogether distinct from real myth, and when it springs up shows that the mythical character of the story is falling into oblivion. The former is a growth of self-conscious fancy, while the latter is the child of genuine belief. For instance—as an illustration of the difference between allegory and mythology—I should be inclined to signalise the appearance of the beings Logi (fire) and Elli (old age) as a fanciful, an invented element in the story. Logi and Elli are not important enough to be genuine deities of Fire and Age. In fact, the former element has already received its personification in the person of Loki. Yet the incidents with which they are associated may well have formed an integral character of the older legend; and in the case of Elli I feel pretty sure they must have done so.