It was much the same with ‘Fata’. For the Romans themselves the old goddesses called the Fata, or _Fates_, turned quickly into an abstracted notion of destiny. But contact with the dreamy Celts breathed new life into their nostrils, and ‘Fata’ in Late Latin became spiritual once more. The sharp sounds were softened and abraded until they slipped imperceptibly into Old French ‘fée’ (Modern English _fay_), and so _fa-ery_ and _fairy_. _Demon_ is the result of a similar metamorphosis. Now in dealing with mythology nothing is more misleading than to compare the gods of different nations, assuming that those who have etymologically similar names meant the same thing to their worshippers. For instance, it has been pointed out that the name Tiu descends from a word which also developed elsewhere into Dyaus and Zeus, but to suggest that Tiu was the “same god” as Zeus would be quite meaningless. And it is the same with the other persons of northern mythology, such as Thor, the thunder-god, from whom we have _Thursday_, or Wotan (Odin) who taught men language and gave up his eye in order to possess his beloved Fricka (_Wednesday_ and _Friday_). There are many external resemblances, etymological and otherwise, between this Teutonic mythology and the mythology of Greece, but for the historical study of human consciousness it is the differences between them which are really significant. Here there is no room to consider either the resemblances or the differences, except in so far as they are preserved for us in the words we use. And we notice at once how small is the number of our words which refer to the Teutonic myths. Where relics still remain they seem to be either—like _elf_, _goblin_, _pixy_, _puck_, _troll_—the names of the creatures themselves, still used but no longer felt to exist, or else—like _cobalt_ and _nickel_, the names given by German miners to demoniac spirits—they have lost all memory of their original meaning.