Neither the Redskin nor the
Indo-European had any choice as to the main features of the
career of his solar divinity. He must be born of the
Night,--or of the Dawn,--must travel westward, must slay
harassing demons. Eliminating these points of likeness, the
resemblance between the Aryan and barbaric legends is at once
at an end. Such an identity in point of details as that
between the wooden horse which enters Ilion, and the horse
which bears Sigurd into the place where Brynhild is
imprisoned, and the Druidic steed which leaps with Sculloge
over the walls of Fiach's enchanted castle, is, I believe,
nowhere to be found after we leave Indo-European territory.
Our conclusion, therefore, must be, that while the legends of
the Aryan and the non-Aryan worlds contain common mythical
elements, the legends themselves are not of common origin. The
fact that certain mythical ideas are possessed alike by
different races, shows that in each case a similar human
intelligence has been at work explaining similar phenomena;
but in order to prove a family relationship between the
culture of these different races, we need something more than
this. We need to prove not only a community of mythical ideas,
but also a community between the stories based upon these
ideas. We must show not only that Michabo is like Herakles in
those striking features which the contemplation of solar
phenomena would necessarily suggest to the imagination of the
primitive myth-maker, but also that the two characters are
similarly conceived, and that the two careers agree in
seemingly arbitrary points of detail, as is the case in the
stories of Punchkin and the Heartless Giant.
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