But how did the idea of hero arise? Was it a free and completely new creation of this age, based merely on actual observations of individuals who were paragons of human ability? Or did it have precursors in the totemic era? As a matter of fact, this second question must be answered unqualifiedly in the affirmative. The hero was not unknown in the preceding age. At that time, however, he was not a hero in the specific sense which the word first acquired in the heroic age; on the contrary, he was a _märchen_-hero, if we may use the word 'hero' in connection with the concepts of this earlier period. On the threshold of the heroic age, the märchen-hero changes into the hero proper. The former represents the central theme of the earlier form of myth narrative, the märchen-myth, as does the hero that of the more developed form, the saga. The marks that distinguish the märchen-hero, as he still survives in children's tales, from the hero of saga, are important ones and are fraught with significance for the development of myth as a whole. The märchen-hero is usually a _child_. In the form in which he gradually approximates to the hero proper, he is more especially, as a rule, a boy who goes forth into the world and meets with adventures. In these adventures, he is aided by various powers of magic, which he either himself possesses or which are imparted to him by friendly magical beings. Opposed to him are hostile, demoniacal beings, who seek his destruction. It is in their overthrow that the action usually consists. Thus, fortune comes to this hero, in great part, from without, and magic plays the decisive rôle in his destiny; his own cunning and skill may be co-operating factors, but they rarely determine the outcome. Not so the hero of the saga. This hero is not a boy, but a _man_. The favourite theme of the saga is particularly the young man in the bloom of life. In his acts, moreover, this hero is dependent, for the most part, upon himself. True, he, as well as the märchen-hero, is familiar with magic and miracle, but it is primarily by his own power that he overcomes the hostile forces that oppose him. A suggestive illustration of this is Hercules, that figure of Greek saga who is pre-eminently the typical hero among the most diverse peoples and in widely different ages. Hercules is an entirely self-dependent hero. He indeed performs marvellous deeds, but these are never more than extreme instances of what an ordinary man might do were his strength multiplied a hundred or a thousand fold. Hercules is not a magician, but a being of transcendent power and strength. As such, he is able even to carry the weight of the sky on his shoulders; as such, he can overcome monsters, such as the Nemean lion and the Lernæan hydra, or bring Cerberus, the most terrible of these monsters, from the nether world. These are deeds which surpass every measure of human power, but which nevertheless still lie in the general plane of human actions.