Page:Grimm's Household Tales, vol.1.djvu/66

 ram; the beast flew eastwards; Helle fell off, and was drowned in the Hellespont; Phrixus reached Colchis, sacrificed the ram, dedicated the golden fleece in a temple, and became the eponymous, or name-giving hero of Phrygia (Apollodorus, 1. ix. 1). The Scholiast, on Iliad vii. 86, quotes the story, with some unimportant variations from Philostephanus. He says that the ram met Phrixus and revealed to him the plot against his life. The Scholiast on ''Apoll. Rhod''. 1. 256, gives Hecataeus as authority for the ram's power of conversation. Apollonius writes,

άλλά καί άυδήν άνδρoμέην πρoέηκε κακόν τέρας.

The classical writers were puzzled by the talkative ram, but to students of Household Tales the surprise would be if the ram did not speak. According to De Gubernatis, the ram is the cloud or the sun, or a mixture; "the sun in the cloud butts with its rays until it opens the stable and its horns come out." And so forth.

We may now compare Household Tales which contain unlocalised versions of the early incidents in the Jason myth. The idea of the earlier incidents is that children, oppressed or threatened at home, escape by aid of an animal, or otherwise, and begin a series of adventures. The peculiar wrong from which the children escape, in the classic and heroic myth, is human sacrifice. In the Household Tales, on the other hand, they usually run away to escape being eaten. As human sacrifice is generally a survival of cannibalism, and is often found clinging to religion after cannibalism has died out of custom, it is only natural that the religious rite should be found in the classic myth, the savage custom in savage tales, and in the household stories which we regard as survivals of savagery. In the following Household Tales, the children flee from home like Phrixus and Helle, to escape