See Cox, Mythology of the Aryan Nations,
II. 358.
[107] In mediaeval legend this resistless Moira is transformed
into the curse which prevents the Wandering Jew from resting
until the day of judgment.
[108] Cox, Manual of Mythology, p. 134.
These examples show that a story-root may be as prolific of
heterogeneous offspring as a word-root. Just as we find the
root spak, "to look," begetting words so various as sceptic,
bishop, speculate, conspicsuous, species, and spice, we must
expect to find a simple representation of the diurnal course
of the sun, like those lyrically given in the Veda, branching
off into stories as diversified as those of Oidipous,
Herakles, Odysseus, and Siegfried. In fact, the types upon
which stories are constructed are wonderfully few. Some clever
playwright--I believe it was Scribe--has said that there are
only seven possible dramatic situations; that is, all the
plays in the world may be classed with some one of seven
archetypal dramas.[109] If this be true, the astonishing
complexity of mythology taken in the concrete, as compared
with its extreme simplicity when analyzed, need not surprise
us.
[109] In his interesting appendix to Henderson's Folk Lore of
the Northern Counties of England, Mr. Baring-Gould has made an
ingenious and praiseworthy attempt to reduce the entire
existing mass of household legends to about fifty story-roots;
and his list, though both redundant and defective, is
nevertheless, as an empirical classification, very
instructive.
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