Page:Curious myths of the Middle Ages (1876).djvu/303



Syrian myth. Baal.
 * Identical with the Phœnician.

Egyptian myth. Osiris.
 * A glorious god and great hero, killed by the evil god. Passes half his time in heaven, and half in the nether world. Subject of wailing, seeking, and finding.

Arabian myth. El Khouder, original name Ta’uz.
 * A prophet, killed by a wicked king several times and revived each time.

Oriental Christian myth. S. George.
 * A soldier, killed by a wicked king, undergoes numerous torments, but revives after each. On earth lives with a widow. Takes to the other world with him the queen. Wailing and seeking fall away, and the festival alone remains.

From this tabular view of the legends it is, I think, impossible not to see that S. George, in his mythical character, is a Semitic god Christianized. In order to undergo the process of conversion, a few little arrangements were rendered necessary, to divest the story of its sensuous character, and purify it. Astarte or Aphrodite had to be got out of the way somehow. She was made into a pious widow, in whose house the youthful saint lodged.

Then Persephone, the queen of Hades, had to be