A Guide to Mythology

by Helen A. Clarke

This story, itself, is so evidently a myth that it does not amount to anything as a proof of the historical theory. Nevertheless there have been many to adopt this belief.

Other knights of learning, both ancient and modern, have carried lances with the sounding name, “natural phenomena.” When they look into the castle they see myths as personifications of natural phenomena. Everything that we see happening in nature comes under the head of natural phenomena. The rising and setting of the sun, the moon and the stars each day, the clouds that drift across the sky, storms and whirlwinds, the lightning flash and the loud roar of the thunder, as well as the gentle rain, the tinkling of waterfalls, and the light morning breezes. When all these objects and events in nature are talked about as if they had the same powers as human beings, they are said to be personified. Here is a very pretty example of a myth in which the dawn is personified. It is taken from one of the most ancient books in the world, the “Rig Veda,” about which you will hear more later.

“The lovely Dawn arousing man goes before the sun preparing practicable paths, riding in a spacious chariot, expanding everywhere, she diffuses light at the commencement of the days.”

Among the ancient knights of learning who thought that all myths were started in this way was the great Thucydides; and Cicero also believed that the exalted beings in mythology who were worshipped as gods were in reality personifications of the objects in nature which struck the imagination of primitive mankind.

There are also many modern knights of learning who hold the same view, among the most distinguished of whom is the English scholar, Max Müller. About him and his followers Sir George Cox and John Fiske, the American historian and thinker, you will one day know more if you continue your studies in mythology. When Max Müller came to write his learned books upon what he saw in the castle of myths, he supported his learning upon many interesting facts which he had discovered when he was studying the languages of different races.

In comparing the ancient Greek language with the ancient language of India, the Sanskrit, he found out that they were often very much alike. This drove him to the conclusion that they must both be descended from some still older language. He noticed also remarkable resemblances between the myths of Greece and those of India, of which there were large numbers collected in the old books in Sanskrit and other Indian languages. Then he made up his mind that the ancient race of people who spoke the old language from which Greek and Sanskrit were descended must have had a great fondness for inventing myths, and that these myths had been handed down from generation to generation. Finally, many of the descendants of this ancient race went to live in India, while others went to live in Greece, and that was the reason the languages and the myths of these two peoples were so much alike in many ways. The original home of this ancient myth-making race has been thought to be Central Asia, and the race is known in history as the Aryan race. But Max Müller and others who agreed with him were so intoxicated with their new discoveries that they were constantly in danger of making fanciful comparisons between the words of the two languages, and building upon these fanciful comparisons explanations of myths, even more mythical than the myths themselves. In fact they not only saw in one direction like the other knights, but they used a huge magnifying glass that tinted every thing with unnatural rainbow colors such as you have seen when looking through an opera glass.

I will speak of three others only of the many modern knights of learning who have seen some of the truth:—E. B. Tylor, Andrew Lang, and James G. Frazer. The first of these tells especially about some very curious beliefs possessed by primitive men. These beliefs colored their imagination no matter what kind of myths they might invent. One of them was that a spirit, separate from their ordinary life lived inside of their bodies; another that all things in nature had life like themselves, and also spirits dwelling within them like the spirits within themselves. This was thought to be true of trees and stones as well as of birds and animals. The second, Andrew Lang, considers that myths are stories which tell about the manners and customs of ancient or savage people, and the third, James G. Frazer, sees in the worship of the spirits of vegetation, the corn, the trees and so on the origin of most myths. Very long and very profound are the arguments with which each supports his particular point of view, and many are the illustrations drawn from the myths of all lands with which each illuminates his argument, but, like the rest of the knights, each sees so much in his own truth that he is more or less blind to all that others see.

Now that I have tried to give you this glimpse at the various explanations of myths proposed from the most ancient times to the present, I think we shall be a little better prepared to find out an answer for ourselves that will be satisfactory.

Suppose we take the top off the castle in which we imagined the myths and the secrets of their origin to be locked up, and look down upon them from our hilltop, using as an aid to our vision all the light that comes in through the numerous breaks in the castle made by the lances of the knights. What will the wonderful treasures revealed to us be like? They will not be like jewels, all polished and placed in regular shining rows, for myths were never fashioned as a jeweler would fashion his stones—all at once—into perfectly finished and beautiful shapes. No!—the imaginary contents of our castle which will best stand as a symbol or picture of all the myths of the whole world in all their wonderful variety will be an immense forest of almost countless kinds of trees. Under the trees there are many sorts of plants and flowers; and if we look closer we shall see that some of these trees and plants are ugly in shape, some are even decaying, but there are many most lovely to behold, and a few of the trees tower up above the others and are profusely decorated with many shining ornaments, making them look like Christmas trees. You will see at once that by using this symbol to stand for all the myths of the whole world I want to point out and make clear to you the important fact that myths were not made all at once as the jeweler polishes his stones, but they grew up gradually from small beginnings, like oaks from acorns, or pines from pine cones—and the soil in which they grew was the minds of primitive men ages and ages ago.