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CHAPTER XII. 



GEOaKAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF MYTHS. 



The student of tlie early History of Mankind finds in Com- 

 parative Mythology the same use and the same difficulty which 

 lie before him in so many other branches of his subject. He 

 can sometimes show, in the mythical tales current among 

 several peoples, coincidences so quaint, so minute, or so com- 

 plex, that they covild hardly have arisen independently in two 

 places, and these coincidences he claims as proofs of historical 

 connexion between the tribes or nations among whom they 

 are found. But his great difiiculty is how to be sure that he 

 is not interpreting as historical evidence analogies which may 

 be nothing more than the results of the like working of the 

 human mind under like conditions. His ever- recurring pro- 

 blem is to classify the crowd of resemblances which are con- 

 tinually thrusting themselves upon him, so as to keep those 

 things which are merely similar apart from those which, having 

 at some spot of the earth's surface their common source and 

 centre of diffusion, are really and historically united. 



No attempt is made in the present chapter to lay down de- 

 finite rules for the solution of this important problem, but a 

 few illustrations are given of the more general analogies run- 

 ning through the Folk-lore of the world, which Ethnology, for 

 the present at least, has to set aside ; and then a few facts are 

 stated, bearing on the diffusion of Myths by recognized chan- 

 nels of intercourse, with the view of introducing a group of 

 similar episodes, which it is for the reader to reject as caused 



