Chips from a German Workshop (Volume 2); Essays on Mythology, Traditions, and Customs

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: would be more natural than that after a time their punishment should have been ascribed to their actually devouring the oxen in the island of Thri- nakia; just as St. Patrick, because he converted the Irish and drove out the venomous brood of heresy and heathenism, was soon believed to have destroyed every serpent in that island, or as St. Christopher was represented as actually having carried on his shoulders the infant Christ. All mythology of this character must yield to that treatment to which Mr. Cox has subjected the whole Greek and Roman pantheon. But there is one point that seems to us to deserve more consideration than it has hitherto received at the hands of comparative mythologists. We see that, for instance, in the very case of St. Patrick, mythological phraseology infected the perfectly historical character of an Irish missionary. The same may have taken place in fact, we need not hesitate to say the same has constantly taken place in the ancient stories of Greece and Rome, as well as in the legends of the Middle Ages. Those who analyse ancient mythes ought, therefore, to be prepared for this historical or irrational element, and ought not to suppose that everything which has a mythical appearance is thoroughly mythical or purely ideal. Mr. Cox has well delineated the general character of the most popular heroes of ancient mythology: ' In a very large number of legends [he says], the parents, warned that their own offspring will destroy them, expose their children, who are saved by some wild beast and brought up by some herdsman. The children so recovered always grow up beautiful, brave, strong, and generous; but, either unconsciously oragainst their will, they fulfil the warnings given before their birth, and become the destroyers of their parents. Perseus, (E...