Bird Gods in Ancient Europe 



rles of the human soul within historic times. 

 Yetj physically, the red man is certainly far 

 removed from the European ; his legends and 

 myths are practically untouched by those of 

 any other continent. We must get out of the 

 habit of supposing that if a legend or fairy- 

 tale almost exactly like one from Greek or 

 Latin appears in northern or western Europe, 

 it was therefore brought from Greece or Italy. 

 More easily could it have gone the other way, 

 from the barbarian to the more cultivated, 

 curious, book-writing nations on the Mediter- 

 ranean. But for the most part we may be sure 

 that myths and legends did not move about 

 Europe to any great extent, but were produced 

 by similar strains of mankind independently, 

 to meet the needs of a similar state of culture. 

 And since all nature, the beasts and birds 

 about them were pretty much the same, the 

 gods who partook of similar characteristics 

 sprang naturally from similar observations and 

 were credited with similar lives. 



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