Lastly,
to conclude that Helios is an Eastern deity, because he reigns
in the East over Thrinakia, is wholly unwarranted. Is not
Helios pure Greek for the sun? and where should his sacred
island be placed, if not in the East? As for his oxen, which
wrought such dire destruction to the comrades of Odysseus, and
which seem to Mr. Gladstone so anomalous, they are those very
same unhappy cattle, the clouds, which were stolen by the
storm-demon Cacus and the wind-deity Hermes, and which
furnished endless material for legends to the poets of the
Veda.
[154] I have no opinion as to the nationality of the
Earth-shaker, and, regarding the etymology of his name, I
believe we can hardly do better than acknowledge, with Mr.
Cox, that it is unknown. It may well be doubted, however,
whether much good is likely to come of comparisons between
Poseidon, Dagon, Oannes, and Noah, or of distinctions between
the children of Shem and the children of Ham. See Brown's
Poseidon; a Link between Semite, Hamite, and Aryan, London,
1872,--a book which is open to several of the criticisms here
directed against Mr. Gladstone's manner of theorizing.
But the whole subject of comparative mythology seems to be
terra incognita to Mr. Gladstone. He pursues the even tenour
of his way in utter disregard of Grimm, and Kuhn, and Breal,
and Dasent, and Burnouf.
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