I am indebted to Freud for a further important reference to the onanistic nature of the fire theft, or rather the motive of _the treasure difficult of attainment_ (to which fire theft belongs). Mythology contains repeated formulas which read approximately as follows: The treasure must be plucked or torn off from a taboo tree (Paradise tree, Hesperides); this is a forbidden and dangerous act. The clearest example of this is the old barbaric custom in the service of Diana of Aricia: only he can become a priest of the goddess who, in her sacred grove, dares to tear off (“abzureissen”) a bough. The tearing off has been retained in vulgar speech (besides “abreiben,” rubbing) as a symbol of the act of onanism. Thus “reiben,” to rub, is like “reissen,” to break off, both of which are contained in manthami and united apparently only through the myth of the fire theft bound up in the act of onanism in a deeper stratum wherein “reiben,” properly speaking, “reissen,” is employed, but in a transferred sense. Therefore, it might perhaps be anticipated that in the deepest stratum, namely, the incestuous, which precedes the autoerotic stage,[340] the two meanings coincide, which, through lack of mythological tradition, can perhaps be traced through etymology only. CHAPTER IV THE UNCONSCIOUS ORIGIN OF THE HERO Prepared by the previous chapters, we approach the personification of the libido in the form of a conqueror, a hero or a demon. With this, symbolism leaves the impersonal and neuter realm, which characterizes the astral and meteorologic symbol, and takes human form: the figure of a being changing from sorrow to joy, from joy to sorrow, and which, like the sun, sometimes stands in its zenith, sometimes is plunged in darkest night, and arises from this very night to new splendor.[341] Just as the sun, guided by its own internal laws, ascends from morn till noon, and passing beyond the noon descends towards evening, leaving behind its splendor, and then sinks completely into the all-enveloping night, thus, too, does mankind follow his course according to immutable laws, and also sinks, after his course is completed, into night, in order to rise again in the morning to a new cycle in his children. The symbolic transition from sun to man is easy and practicable. The third and last creation of Miss Miller’s also takes this course. She calls this piece “Chiwantopel,” a “hypnagogic poem.” She gives us the following information about the circumstances surrounding the origin of this phantasy: