Jacob Grimm, in his Deutsche Mythologie, maintains the purely mythical character, as opposed to the historical, of Siegfried and Dieterich (Art. Helden, pp. 344-346).
So, too, in the great Persian epic of Ferdousi, the principal characters are religious and mythical. M. Mohl observes,—“Les caractères des personnages principaux de l’ancienne histoire de Perse se retrouvent dans le livre des Rois (de Ferdousi) tels que les indiquent les parties des livres de Zoroaster que nous possédons encore. Kaioumors, Djemschid, Feridoun, Gushtasp, Isfendiar, etc. jouent dans le poème épique le même rôle que dans les Livres sacrés: à cela près, que dans les derniers ils nous apparaissent à travers une atmosphere mythologique qui grandit tous leurs traits: mais cette difference est précisément celle qu’on devait s’attendre à trouver entre la tradition religieuse et la tradition épique.” (Mohl, Livre des Rois par Ferdousi, Preface, p. 1.)
The Persian historians subsequent to Ferdousi have all taken his poem as the basis of their histories, and have even copied him faithfully and literally (Mohl, p. 53). Many of his heroes became the subjects of long epical biographies, written and recited without any art or grace, often by writers whose names are unknown (ib. pp. 54-70). Mr. Morier tells us that “the Shah Nameh is still believed by the present Persians to contain their ancient history” (Adventures of Hadgi Baba, c. 32). As the Christian romancers transformed Apollo into the patron of Mussulmans, so Ferdousi makes Alexander the Great a Christian: “La critique historique (observes M. Mohl) était du temps de Ferdousi chose presqu’inconnue.” (ib. p. xlviii.) About the absence not only of all historiography, but also of all idea of it, or taste for it among the early Indians, Persians, Arabians, etc., see the learned book of Nork, Die Götter Syriens, Preface, p. viii. seqq. (Stuttgart, 1842.)
[1044] Several of the heroes of the ancient world were indeed themselves popular subjects with the romancers of the middle ages, Thêseus, Jasôn, etc.; Alexander the Great, more so than any of them.
Dr. Warton observes, respecting the Argonautic expedition, “Few stories of antiquity have more the cast of one of the old romances than this of Jasôn. An expedition of a new kind is made into a strange and distant country, attended with infinite dangers and difficulties. The king’s daughter of the new country is an enchantress; she falls in love with the young prince, who is the chief adventurer. The prize which he seeks is guarded by brazen-footed bulls, who breathe fire, and by a hideous dragon, who never sleeps. The princess lends him the assistance of her charms and incantations to conquer these obstacles; she gives him possession of the prize, leaves her father’s court, and follows him into his native country.” (Warton, Observations on Spenser, vol. i. p. 178.)
To the same purpose M. Ginguené: “Le premier modèle des Fées n’est-il pas dans Circé, dans Calypso, dans Médée? Celui des géans, dans Polyphème, dans Cacus, et dans les géans, ou les Titans, cette race ennemie de Jupiter? Les serpens et les dragons des romans ne sont-ils pas des successeurs du dragon des Hesperides et de celui de la Toison d’or? Les Magiciens! la Thessalie en étoit pleine. Les armes enchantées impénétrables! elles sont de la même trempe, et l’on peut les croire forgées au même fourneau que celles d’Achille et d’Enée.” (Ginguené, Histoire Littéraire d’Italie, vol. iv. part ii. ch. 3, p. 151.)
[1045] See Warton’s History of English Poetry, sect. iii. p. 131, note. “No man before the sixteenth century presumed to doubt that the Francs derived their origin from Francus son of Hector; that the Spaniards were descended from Japhet, the Britons from Brutus, and the Scotch from Fergus.” (Ibid. p. 140.)
According to the Prologue of the prose Edda, Odin was the supreme king of Troy in Asia, “in eâ terrâ quam nos Turciam appellamus.... Hinc omnes Borealis plagæ magnates vel primores genealogias suas referunt, atque principes illius urbis inter numina locant: sed in primis ipsum Priamum pro Odeno ponunt,” etc. They also identified Tros with Thor. (See Lexicon Mythologicum ad calcem Eddæ Sæmund, p. 552. vol. iii.)
[1046] See above, [ch. xv. p. 458]; also Æschinês, De Falsâ Legatione, c. 14, Herodot. v. 94. The Herakleids pretended a right to the territory in Sicily near Mount Eryx, in consequence of the victory gained by their progenitor Hêraklês over Eryx, the eponymous hero of the place. (Herodot. v. 43.)
[1047] The remarks in Speed’s Chronicle (book v. c. 3. sect. 11-12), and the preface to Howes’s Continuation of Stow’s Chronicle, published in 1631, are curious as illustrating this earnest feeling. The Chancellor Fortescue, in impressing upon his royal pupil, the son of Henry VI., the limited character of English monarchy, deduces it from Brute the Trojan: “Concerning the different powers which kings claim over their subjects, I am firmly of opinion that it arises solely from the different nature of their original institution. So the kingdom of England had its original from Brute and the Trojans, who attended him from Italy and Greece, and became a mixed kind of government, compounded of the regal and the political.” (Hallam, Hist. Mid. Ages, ch. viii. P. 3, page 230.)