Page:Grimm's Household Tales, vol.1.djvu/37

 light." Early men, we are to suppose, said that the cloud produced cold, and also bore the warm evening air. Why do the warm air and the cold air go off together eastward on a golden flying ram? This we do not see that Sir George explains, but the fleece of the ram (after that animal has been slain) becomes the treasure of the light, which is sought in the east by Jason. But who is Jason? His name "must be classed with the many others, Jasion, Janus, Iolaos, Iaso, belonging to the same root" (Myth. Ar. i. 150, note 1), And what is the root? Well (ii. 81) Iamus, from the same root, means "the violet child;" he was found among violets. Now ίον (violet) applies to the violet coloured sunset clouds, and ἰός also means a spear, and "represents the far-darting rays of the sun." "The word as applied to colour is traced by Prof. Max Müller to the root i, as denoting a crying hue, that is, a loud colour." Thus, whether we take ἰός to mean a spear, or violet, or what you please, Jason's name connects him with the sun. The brain reels in the attempt to make sense of the cold air and the hot air, children of the cloud, going eastward, on a ram covered with the treasures of the light, and when we come to the warm air dying, and the light being stripped (in the east) from the ram, and being sought for by a man whose name more or less means violet, and who comes from the west, and when all this is only the beginning of the tale, we are absolutely perplexed. Who ever told such tales? Yes, we say, if ever men were deep in the perplexing processes of polyonymy, synonymy and oblivion, if ever the grandfather used countless allegorical phrases, which the grandchild piously retained, while he quite forgot their sense, then, indeed, this kind of muddled and senseless nature-myth may have been evolved. But we have vainly asked for evidence of the