Religion being the greatest concern of man, the myths which allied themselves most closely to his religious ideas would be those which maintained the longest life and most universal acceptance. In reviewing some of the Aryan myths--in a hasty and general review as it must needs be--the preceding chapter will serve to guide us to the myths most closely connected with religious notions, which have a chief claim upon our attention. Indeed, reading in a converse manner, it was the fact that so many myths clung around certain natural phenomena which allowed us, with proper reservation, to point these out as the phenomena which held the most intimate place in men’s minds and hearts. _With proper reservations_, because the highest, most abstracted god does not lend himself as a subject for the myth-making faculty. He stands apart from the polytheistic circle: below him stand the nature-gods who are also the heroes of the mythologies. And now, with a backward glance to what has been already written, we may expect the chief myth systems to divide themselves into certain classes corresponding with the god--or natural phenomenon--that is their concern. We may expect to find myths relating especially to the labours of the sun, like those of Heracles and Thorr, or to the wind, like that of Hermes stealing the cattle of Apollo, or to the earth sleeping in the embrace of winter, or sorrowing for the loss of her greenery, or joying again in her recovered life. And again we may look to find myths more intimately concerned with death, and with the looked-for future of the soul. These will mingle like mingling streams, but we shall often be able to trace their origin. But, to begin with, do not suppose that, if I say that a natural phenomenon has given rise to a story, I mean to say that the story could not have arisen except through this natural phenomenon. Or, to put it in plainer language, do not suppose that if I say that this or that adventure is related of the sun or of the wind, I mean that the adventure was never heard of before the sun or wind was worshipped as a god or idealized as a hero. If Indra, or Apollo, is called the serpent-slayer, I do not mean that it is by the battle of the sun and the clouds that men got the idea of slaying serpents. If the wind is said to ride a-horseback over hill and dale, if the thunder-god is said to hurl his hammer at the mountain-tops, I do not mean that men never thought of horses or battle-hammers till they began to make stories about the wind and sun. What I do mean is that certain special forms of the myths related, _as we now see them_, were told of the Aryan god who was some phenomenon of nature--the sun or whatever he might be. It is necessary to give this word of caution, because the relationship of mythology to religion has sometimes, by recent writings upon the subject, been a good deal confused and obscured.