Page:Myth, Ritual, and Religion (Volume 1).djvu/348

 traveller as Herodotus had encountered the Maoris, for example, he would certainly have explained by borrowing, on one side or the other, the resemblance of the story of Cronus and the story of Rangi. A similar explanation of the common points in the myths of El and Cronus is offered by the Phœnician, but whether his view be correct or not, we can only conjecture. Probably the human mind, at an early stage, might anywhere develop tales as crude and hideous as these early guesses at truth.