362 



NA TURE 



August 16, 



autumn. But no argument can be drawn from the fact in 

 favour of the theory which places the primaeval seat of the 

 Aryan race within the Arctic Circle, since the civil year of 

 the Jews also began with the ingathering of the harvest 

 at the time of the autumnal equinox, and no one would 

 propose to transfer their forefathers to the distant north. 



The points of likeness between the mythologies and 

 religious conceptions of the Kelts and Scandinavians, to 

 which Prof. Rhys has drawn attention, are numerous and 

 striking. How many of them go back to an age when 

 the ancestors of the Scandinavians and of the Aryan 

 Kelts still lived together it is impossible to tell, but several 

 of them can most easily be explained as due to borrowing. 

 It is now well established that Norse mythology and 

 religion were influenced not only by Christianity but also 

 by the mythology and religion of the Kelts, with whom 

 the Norsemen came into contact in the Hebrides, in 

 Ireland, and in the Channel Islands, and in a comparison 

 "between Keltic and Scandinavian legends this influence 

 must always be allowed for. 



I must not part from Prof. Rhys's learned and im- 

 portant lectures without exercising the privilege of a 

 reviewer by objecting to certain of his conclusions. 

 These relate to the Keltic allusions to a Deluge, and 

 to the stories of a contest between the gods and the 

 monsters of the lower world. Whatever may be the 

 origin of the Keltic myths which are supposed to refer to 

 such events, they cannot be compared with the Indian 

 legend of the deluge of Manu or with the story of the 

 conflict between \ht gods of Olympos and the Titans. It 

 has long since been pointed out by Lenormant that the 

 Indian legend was borrowed from Babylonia ; and it's hero, 

 Manu, has nothing to do with the Kretan Minos. Apart 

 from the unlikeness of the vowel in the first syllable of 

 the two names, Minos seems to be a word of Phoenician 

 origin. The conflict between the gods and the Titans, 

 again, has now been traced to Babylonia. Like the twelve 

 labours of Herakles, the Babylonian epics have been 

 recovered in which the story appears in its earliest form, 

 before it was passed on to the Greeks through the hands 

 of the Phoenicians. The Titans and Herakles were 

 alike figures of Semitic, and not of Aryan, mythology. 



I have left myself space to do no more than draw atten- 

 tion to two very interesting questions suggested by Prof. 

 Rhys's lectures. It is in Scandinavian rather than in 

 Latin mythology that he finds parallels to the myths and 

 legends of the Kelts. Nevertheless, linguistic science 

 teaches us that the Keltic dialects had most affinity to 

 Latin and not to the Scando-Teutonic languages. Was 

 Latin mythology, then, so profoundly modified by some 

 foreign system of faith, such as the Etruscan, as to have 

 lost a considerable part of its original character even 

 before it passed under the influence of the Greeks ? 

 Was it, in fact, Etruscanized before it was Hellenized ? 

 The other question relates to the causes which have 

 reduced the gods of a former age to the human kings and 

 princes of later Keltic legend. The same transformation 

 characterizes the traditions of ancient Persia, as it also 

 characterizes Semitic tradition. In the case of Persia, 

 such unconscious euhemerism seems to have been brought 

 about by a change of creed. Was this also the reason 

 why in Keltic story the ancient Sky-god became Nuada 

 ef the Silver Hand ? If so, the old theology would have 



remained practically unchanged until the conversion of 

 its adherents to Christianity, and the growth of most of 

 the mythology beneath which Prof. Rhys has discovered 

 the forms of dishonoured deities would have taken place 

 in the centuries which immediately followed the fall of 

 the Roman Empire. They are the same centuries, be it 

 remembered, which divide the history of Britain into two 

 portions, separated from one another by a veil of myth. 



A. H. Sayce. 



HAND-BOOK OF THE AMARYLLIDE&. 

 Hand-book of the Amaryllidece. By J. G. Baker, F.R.S. 

 203 pp. (London: George Bell, 1888.) 



SINCE Herbert's " Amaryllidaceae," published in 1837, 

 there has not been any work brought out containing 

 descriptions of all or approximately all the species of 

 Amaryllidaceous plants until the appearance of this little 

 work. Herbert's volume has long been both rare- and 

 out of date, and some such book as the present was a 

 desideratum. Neither could anyone be found who has a 

 better or more extensive knowledge of the bulbous plants 

 than Mr. Baker, whose monographs of the Liliaceae and 

 Iridaceas are well known to all lovers of these groups. 

 The work before us is the result of twenty-three years' 

 study, and embodies descriptions drawn up not only 

 from herbarium material, but especially from living 

 plants — some grown at Kew Gardens, others from the 

 conservatories and gardens of professional and amateur 

 cultivators. It is intended as a working hand-book for 

 gardeners and botanists, and as such seems suited for its 

 purpose. 



The group of Amaryllideae is one which has suffered in 

 popularity from the modern rage for Orchids. A glance at 

 the volume will show that many species were introduced 

 into cultivation from fifty to a hundred years ago, and are 

 now quite lost from our gardens. In those days Cape bulbs 

 were very popular ; and Masson at the close of the last 

 century, and Cooper and others in later years, introduced 

 many beautiful and curious plants now known to us only 

 by their dried specimens and drawings. Of these the 

 curious South African genus Gethyllis is a striking 

 example, six out of the nine species here described being 

 only known from Masson's sketches and specimens, 

 and this in spite of the numerous careful and energetic 

 collectors we have now at the Cape of Good Hope. 



One reason for this disappearance of species is the very 

 narrow limits of their distribution in many cases, although 

 it appears that the individuals are often abundant when 

 the right locality is reached. Witness, for example, the 

 little Tapeinanthus of Spain and Morocco, discovered by 

 Cavanilles in 1794, and lost again till two years ago, 

 when it was re-discovered in profusion by Mr. Maw, who 

 has stocked our gardens with it ; and very similar are the 

 cases of the strange green-flowered Narcissus of Gibraltar 

 and the Lapiedra, known to Clusius as early as 1574, and 

 still a great rarity even in herbaria at the present day. 

 When it is remembered that these three plants grow in 

 localities close to our own shores, it is not surprising that 

 many of the more distant South African species figured by 

 Jacquin in his sumptuous works, as well as many Andean 

 and Peruvian species, are still absent from our gardens 

 and houses. 



