In Homer, as in the earliest _Chansons de Geste_, there is the knightly poetic legend; and in the Cyclics, at least in the case of Thersites, there are the later expansions and continuations made under the influence of _la manie cyclique_. The _dénouement_ of the _Telegonia_, the last of the Cyclics, is purely absurd. Telegonus marries his aged stepmother, Penelope, and Telemachus marries his father's mistress, Circe! To explore the relations of Homer and of "saga" to _Märchen_, or popular tales, attached to real or fabulous heroes and heroines of the past, would require a volume.[37] Almost all Greek pseudo-historical tradition consists of a string of _Märchen_, known all over the world: any student of folk-lore who reads the Achaean legends in Grote can identify the masterless _Märchen_ which have been attached to the heroic figures. In exactly the same way, _Märchen_ are attached to Charlemagne in the _Chansons de Geste_; to Arthur in the romances; and we might as well look to them for political and personal history as to Homer. Naimes, Ganelon, Olivier, the expedition of Charlemagne to Constantinople, his wars with the Saracens, and other persons and events in the _Chansons de Geste_, yield no material to the historian; nor do Lancelot, Galahad, Palamedes, and Tristram, and Arthur's foreign conquests in the romances. What history there is rests obscure. On the other hand, an attempt has recently been made to extract some grains of "tribal" history, before and after the Achaean migration to Asia, from the names of the heroes in the _Iliad_, and from the places where, in post-Homeric Greece, they received worship. This effort is made by Dr. Erich Bethe, in his _Homer und die Heldensage_, and Mr. Murray follows Bethe in _The Rise of the Greek Epic_. We may take a notable example of the method in the case of Hector. "Hector seems to belong to Boeotia." It may be worth while to examine the reasoning on which this most unexpected opinion is based. The idea was first propounded by Ferdinand Dümmler in a short _Anhang_ to Studniczka's _Cyrene._ "Hector was worshipped as a hero in Boeotian Thebes," says Mr. Murray, quoting Dümmler, and Dümmler's source is apparently Pausanias.[38] If the Boeotians in the time of Pausanias regarded Hector as of Boeotian birth, the fact would be curious. But they did nothing of the kind. "The Thebans show the tomb of Hector near the Well of Oedipous. They say that Hector's remains were brought here from Ilium in accordance with the following oracle: "Ye Thebans, if you wish your country to be wealthy, bring to your city from Asia the bones of Hector the son of Priam, and respect the hero at the bidding of Zeus."[39]