Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/288

 THE EUROPEAN SKY-GOD.

BY ARTHUR BERNARD COOK.

a series of six articles contributed to The Classical Review, 1903-1904, under the title of "Zeus, Jupiter, and the Oak," I attempted to determine the original character of the chief Græco-Italic deity and the nature of his cult. The materials that I accumulated for this purpose, when pieced together, formed a reconstruction so unorthodox in its outlines that I should have hesitated to publish it, had I not found that in several important points it agreed well wath the main argument of Dr. Frazer's Golden Bough. Encouraged by this support I pushed on; and further study has convinced me that my conclusions with regard to Zeus and Jupiter hold good for the corresponding gods of the Celtic, the Germanic, and the Letto-Slavonic peoples, if not for those of all branches of the Indo-European stock. I must, however, at the outset frankly confess that beyond the limits of the classical field I have no claim to speak as an expert. Scholars who have specialised in any of the mythologies of northern Europe will, I doubt not, find much to criticise in my remarks. Indeed, it is precisely in order to "draw the fire" of such criticism and thus to test the validity of my hypothesis that I have ventured to put pen to paper. I propose, first to restate with some modifications) my general conclusions with respect to the ancient Greeks and Italians, and then to deal with apparently similar phenomena among the Celts, Germans, Slavs, &c., in each case considering how far cults evidenced by the literature or the monuments or both afford a real analogy to the results obtained in the Græco-Italic area.