160 



• KNOW^LEDGE • 



[March 16, 1883. 



and for changes incident to the lapse of time, they are the 

 variants of stories related to children in the Aryan father- 

 land at a period historically remote, and moreover are 

 told in words which are phonetically akin. Their corre- 

 spondences, of ten extendingtominor detail, are not explained 

 liy any theory of borrowing, for no trace of intercourse 

 between Aryans of the East and West occurs until long 

 after the domiciling of the stories where we IJnd them. Nor 

 did they, with such close resemblances as appear between 

 the German Faithful John, and the Hindu Rama, and 

 Luxman, and between our own Cinderella, the German 

 Aschenputtal, and the Hindu Sodrwa Bai, spring native 

 from their respective soils. And there is just that un- 

 likeness in certain detail which might be expected from 

 the different positions and products of the several Aryan 

 lands. They explain, for example, the absence from Scan- 

 dinavian folk-love of creatures like the elephant, the giant 

 ape and turtle, which figure in Brahmanic beast epic. 

 Now, what is true of the folk-tales applies with added force 

 to the mythologies. In the great epics of the Greeks, the 

 niad and Odyssey ; of the Norsemen, the Volsungs ; of the 

 Germans, the Nibeluugs ; of the English, King Arthur and 

 his Round Table Knights ; of the Hindus, the Ramayana 

 and Mahabharata ; of the Persians, the Shah Nameh ; we 

 find similarities of incident and episode which are inex- 

 plicable, except upon the theory of a common origin. So 

 far as the names and characteristics of the heroes and 

 heroines are concerned, their phonetic identity reveals that 

 common origin, whilst their analysis explains their common 

 meaning. 



The key to this is the Sanskrit language. In the history 

 of the Indo-European family of speech, it served as the 

 starting-point, because, although not the ancestor, it is the 

 eldest member, and has more than the others preserved its 

 roots and suffixes in a more perfect form. And in the 

 history of Indo-European mythology, it is in the ancient 

 Vedic texts, chiefly the Rig-Veda, that we find the materials 

 for comparative study, since in these venerable hymns of a 

 Bible older than our own are preserved the earliest extant 

 forms of Aryan myth. 



The method adopted was to compare a number of the 

 Greek names of gods and heroes of somewhat obscure 

 meaning with names of Vedic deities whose meaning is 

 clear. The phonetic relationship between the two sets of 

 names, hidden as it is by the interchange of sounds, is 

 proved by the law which governs such interchange or 

 '' permutation of consonants," known, after its discoverer, 

 as " Grimm's law." The causes of this are not easy to 

 ascertain, but they are referable to physical influences, as 

 climate and conditions of life, which in the course of time 

 bring about changes in the organs of speech — such, for 

 example, as make th so difficult of pronunciation to a 

 German, in whose language d takes its place, as drci for 

 iJiree, dtirstig for fliirstij, deia for t/iine, &c. We may 

 note tendencies to variation in children of the same house- 

 hold, their prattle often affording striking illustration of 

 Grimm's law, and it is easy to see that among semi-civilised 

 and isolated tribes, where no check upon the variations is 

 imposed, they would tend to become fixed and give rise 

 to new dialects. The method has been justified by its 

 works. The familiar myth of the birth of Athene gives 

 a good illustration of this. She is said to have been the 

 daughter of Zeus, and to have sprung from his forehead. 

 Now the Greek /f.u, the Latin Dais (whence the French 

 Dicic and our deilt/), the Lithuanian dieivas, and the Sans- 

 krit Di/arts, all come from an old Aryan root dir, or di/ii, 

 meaning " to shine." The Sanskrit di/ii, as a noun, means 

 " sky " or " day," and in the Veda, Di/aus is the bright sky 

 or heaven. Athene is the Sanskrit Atana, one of the many 



Vedic names for the dawn. Thus the primitive meaning 

 of the myth comes out ; the dawn springs from the fore- 

 head of the sky ; the daybreak appears rising from the 

 East. But the Greek, in whose Pantheon Zeus had been 

 exalted as god of gods, did not dream that to his remote 

 ancestor that god was but the sky personified and deified ; 

 even his philosophers had traced it to the root ze»., "to 

 live," and for ever lost the track. 



Ouranos, or Uranus, is the Vedic Varuna, the all-sur- 

 rounding heaven, from a root rar, to veil or cover ; Helen, 

 stolen Vjy Paris (in Suns, rani, " the deceiver ") from 

 Sparta, is the Vedic Sarama, the dawn, from the root, ■■^ar, 

 to creep ; the Charites, or Graces, are the Harits, or bright 

 coursers of the sun, from yhar, to shine, whence the idea 

 of splendour in its transfer to the fair women who attended 

 Aphrodite ; the Erinyes, or Furies, are the Saranyu, or 

 dawn, which brings evil deeds to light Hence, they who 

 did this became regarded as avengers, whose fury pursued 

 the wrong-doer. 



These comparisons might be followed throughout the 

 whole range of classic as well as of Teutonic and other 

 epic with the like result. They apply equally to 

 the mythical phrases in which the adventures and 

 general career of the gods and heroes are narrated, 

 for the details of which my readers are referred 

 to such works as Sir G. W. Cox's " Mythology of 

 the Aryan Nations " and " Tales of Ancient Greece." 

 That these majestic epics have one and all their germs 

 in the phenomena of the natural world and the course 

 of the day and year, seems to me demonstrated. But 

 when the solar mythologists contend that " there is 

 absolutely nothing left for further analysis in the stories," 

 that every incident has its birth in the journey of the sun, 

 the death of the dawn, the theft of the twilight by the 

 powers of darkness, we rebel against so sweeping an appli- 

 cation of the theory. They are nature-myths, but they are 

 much more than that ; the impetus that has shaped them as 

 we now know them came from other forces than clouds and 

 storms, and it is with these that our next paper must be 

 concerned. 



Erratum in last paper, p. 130, 1. II. For " sensations of 

 a myth," read " sensations of a moth." — [ ! R. P.] 



THE GREAT COMET OF 1882.— III. 



By Professor C. A. Youxc. 



(Continunl from page 149.) 



THE spectroscopic observations have been very interest- 

 ing. On Sept. 18 the French physicist, Thollon, was 

 an independent discoverer of the comet, coming upon it 

 accidentally in sweeping around the sun. His spectro- 

 scopic apparatus consists of a so-called siderostat, the mirror 

 of which throws the rays from the object to be examined 

 upon the lens of a horizontal telescope 9^ in. in diameter, 

 and about 20 ft. long. At the focus of this telescope in a 

 darkened room is placed a spectroscope, and of course 

 this may be of any form and power Ijest suited to the 

 occasion. In the present case he used an instrument with 

 a single prism of high dispersive power. The most marked 

 feature of the spectrum was the presence of the lines of 

 sodium in the spectrum of the nucleus. They were very 

 bright, and were displaced toward the red by an amount 

 equal to about one-fourth of the interval between them, 

 thus indicating that the comet was rapidly receding from 

 the earth. A very narrow, bright, continuous spectrum 



