These stories owe their
existence to the romantic turn of mind which has always
characterized the Aryan, whose civilization, even in the times
before the dispersion of his race, was sufficiently advanced
to allow of his entertaining such comparatively exalted
conceptions of the relations between men and women. The
absence of these myths from barbaric folk-lore is, therefore,
just what might be expected; but it is a fact which militates
against any possible hypothesis of the common origin of Aryan
and barbaric mythology. If there were any genetic relationship
between Sigurd and Ioskeha, between Herakles and Michabo, it
would be hard to tell why Brynhild and Iole should have
disappeared entirely from one whole group of legends, while
retained, in some form or other, throughout the whole of the
other group. On the other hand, the resemblances above noticed
between Aryan and American mythology fall very far short of
the resemblances between the stories told in different parts
of the Aryan domain. No barbaric legend, of genuine barbaric
growth, has yet been cited which resembles any Aryan legend as
the story of Punchkin resembles the story of the Heartless
Giant. The myths of Michabo and Viracocha are direct copies,
so to speak, of natural phenomena, just as imitative words are
direct copies of natural sounds.
Pages:
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231