Page:Grimm's Household Tales, vol.1.djvu/43

, but it does so in a way which is completely subversive of any hypothesis of nature-worship. Such myths may all he traced to mere forgeifulness of the original meaning of words." As proof, Sir George Cox adduces the well worn "seven shiners," and the supposed confusion between λευκός, shining, and λύκός, a wolf, "so named from the glossiness of his 'coat,'" as if wolves had coats so peculiarly glossy. By these examples alone (omitting the frog-sun) Sir George Cox contests the plain straightforward theory of Sir George Dasent, that men everywhere naturally believe in metamorphosis and lykanthropy. Sir George Cox wishes to trace lykanthropy to a confusion between λύκός, and λευκός. On this point Sir Alfred Lyall, after long observation of Indian beliefs, says, "To those who live in a country where wicked people and witches are constantly taking the form of wild beasts, the explanation of lykanthropy by a confusion between Leukos and Lukos seems wanton." (Fortnightly Review.)

Wantonly or not, Sir George Cox traces "all such myths to mere forgetfulness of the original meaning of words." For this prodigiously sweeping generalisation no evidence except evidence like that of the supposed frog-sun and "seven shiners" and Leukos and Lukos is afforded. (Ar. Myth. i. 140-141, note 1.) "Bears, wolves, foxes, ducks, swans, eagles, ants, all these are names under which the old mythical language spoke of the clouds, or the wind, or of the light which conquers the darkness." Here again we have, by way of supporting evidence, the "seven shiners," and "the wolf in the stories of Phoibos Lykeios." As the belief in metamorphosis,and in beasts which are rational and loquacious, is world wide, and is the natural result of the ideas of "primary myth-makers," or savages, Sir George Cox's theory, that such notions are all to be traced to forgetfulness of the meaning of words denoting natural phenomena,