Folklore; Manners and customs; Mythology; Religion
The method of philological mythology is thus discredited by the
disputes of its adherents. The system may be called orthodox, but it
is an orthodoxy which alters with every new scholar who enters the
sacred enclosure. Even were there more harmony, the analysis of names
could throw little light on myths. In stories the names may well be,
and often demonstrably are, the latest, not the original, feature.
Tales, at first told of 'Somebody,' get new names attached to them,
and obtain a new local habitation, wherever they wander. 'One of the
leading personages to be met in the traditions of the world is really
no more than--Somebody. There is nothing this wondrous creature cannot
achieve; one only restriction binds him at all--that the name he
assumes shall have some sort of congruity with the office he
undertakes, _and even from this he oftentimes breaks loose_.'[5] We
may be pretty sure that the adventures of Jason, Perseus, Œdipous,
were originally told only of 'Somebody.' The names are later
additions, and vary in various lands. A glance at the essay on 'Cupid
and Psyche' will show that a history like theirs is known, where
neither they nor their counterparts in the Veda, Urvasi and Pururavas
were ever heard of; while the incidents of the Jason legend are
familiar where no Greek word was ever spoken. Finally, the names in
common use among savages are usually derived from natural phenomena,
often from clouds, sky, sun, dawn. If, then, a name in a myth can be
proved to mean cloud, sky, sun, or what not (and usually one set of
scholars find clouds where others see the dawn), we must not instantly
infer that the myth is a nature-myth. Though, doubtless, the heroes in
it were never real people, the names are as much common names of real
people in the savage state, as Smith and Brown are names of civilised
men.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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