298 KOSHCHEI THE DEATHLESS 
These examples may suffice to illustrate what is 
meant when it is said that the thousands of stories 
which constitute the body of Aryan folk-lore are made 
up of a few mythical incidents combined in an endless 
variety of ways. The perfect freedom with which the 
common stock of mythical ideas is handled in the dif- 
ferent stories does not seem consistent with the notion 
that as a general thing one story has been copied from 
another, or handed over by any literary process from 
one people to another. On the other hand, this free- 
dom is what one would expect to find in stories passed 
from mouth to mouth, careful to preserve the scattered 
leading motives based on immemorial tradition, but 
grouping the incidents in as many fresh ways as musi- 
cians in their melodies combine the notes of the scale. 
That there has been a very large amount of copying 
and of lateral transmission I am not for a moment con- 
cerned to deny. But such lateral transmission does 
not suffice to account for the great stock of mythical 
ideas common to the civilized peoples of Europe and 
a large part of Asia. An immemorial community of 
tradition is needed for this. It has been a foible of 
many writers on mythology to apply some one favour- 
ite method of explanation to everything, to try to open 
all the doors in the enchanted castle of folk-lore with 
the same little key. Futile attempts of this sort have 
too often thrown discredit upon the study of myths 
and folk-tales. The subject is too rich in its complex- 
ity to admit of such treatment. In an essay written a 
quarter of a century ago, entitled “Werewolves and 
Swan Maidens,” I tried to show how a great number 
of utterly different circumstances might combine to 
generate a single group of superstitions and tales. 
