(i) That myth is for the most part sacred in character,
(ii) That it is prior in origin to ritual and is not derived from it, except in a secondary sense,
(iii) That mythic conditions are capable of a more or less exact classification.
Having indicated our own attitude toward myth, we will now proceed to examine the manner in which the idea of the gods was evolved.
[1] It follows that neither is this a sketch of the history of the science of folklore. The Greeks of Pausanias' day may have possessed the elements of a folklore. He flourished before the State recognition of Christianity, but Greek myth in his day was breaking down. In any case, such questions are foreign to our inquiry, which deals with myth as defined by us and with that alone. The great students of folklore are alluded to in this sketch for what they have written on myth, and for nothing else. The present condition of the science demands explicit statement in this respect, and this must be our excuse in making it.
[2] Iris, daughter of Thaumas and the ocean nymph Electra, was the personification of the rainbow and messenger of the Greek gods, especially of Zeus and Hera.
[3] Müller, A Scientific System of Mythology, 1838.
[4] Cow. A 'shelly-coat cow' was, in Scots parlance, a bogy. It is thought that the shells on such an animal are a reminiscence of the scale armour of the vikings, whose memory was a terror to the Scottish peasantry. To 'cow' is, of course, much the same as to 'bully.'
[5] Grimace.
[6] That is, "These shall surround the bier."
[7] Thus, according to Müller, the name Athene, unintelligible in its Greek form, at once becomes explicable when compared with the Sanskrit Ahana, 'the dawn.'