A talk may follow the fifth paper of this meeting, taking up the subject: How best to utilize the home as a training school, and yet to keep it cheerful.
CHAPTER V
Myths and Folk-Lore
I—INTRODUCTORY
The first meeting should be given up to a broad presentation of the whole subject of folk-lore, myths, legends, fairy stories, festivals and superstitions. One paper should present the universality of myths, the curious resemblances found among them in races far apart in time and place. A second paper may give the ways in which they have been preserved to us. The Egyptians as early as 2800 b. c. used the stories on monuments and in manuscripts. Herodotus and Livy speak of folk-tales; Æsop's Fables embody many of them. In the Middle Ages story and song preserved them; and later they were collected. Walter Scott was especially appreciative of their value; he called them "antiquities," and tried to interest people in them in several of his books.
A third paper should deal with the important theories held by scholars as to the origin of myths. The Grimm brothers in Germany, and later Max Müller, held that the similarity of myths proved the common stock and language of all races; as divisions came the myths passed on from one country and race to many. Andrew Lang, however, has more recently developed a second theory, one held to-day by most scientists, that as all primitive people observe the same phenomena of nature, they invent much the same myths to explain them, as all pass through the same stages of culture.
Another paper might notice the growth in the spread of the study of myths and legends. Since Thorns in 1846 coined the phrase "folk-lore," societies have been formed in every civilized land to preserve the old stories, songs and traditions, and to study them scientifically. Immense value is placed to-day on their importance as throwing light on history, literature, religion, and language. One writer says that a full knowledge of the folk-lore of every nation would be synonymous with the history of human thought. On the general subject read G. L. Gomme's Folk-Lore as an Historical Science, Andrew Lang's Modern Mythology, and the valuable articles in the encyclopedias. For readings from the stories of all nations, see a set of small handbooks published by Lippincott, called Folk-Lore and Legend.
II—THE OLDEST MYTHS, THE HINDU
In the earliest Western race, the Aryan, we find the simplest myths of creation and changing nature. They first invented the Sun God, riding in his fiery chariot, his glowing locks spreading out through the sky. The demons of darkness revolt against him, and must be overcome. The Rain God darkens the heavens, and the Dawn Maiden brings the light. From these first simple ideas grew a large mythology, full of beauty, and of the local color which we see in all national myths; these are warm and glowing. Read the translations of some of the stories and hymns. See Mrs. Poor's Sanskrit and Kindred Literatures, or Warner's Library of Universal Literature.