Page:Origin and Growth of Religion (Rhys).djvu/640

624 story of Apollodorus, in which Heracles abides most strictly within the limits of his solar character, achieving his victory by means of his arrows, which may be taken to represent the rays of the sun. It follows, moreover, that we are confirmed in the opinion that the contests between the gods of Olympus and the Titans, between them and the giants and Typho, are all to be regarded as climatic ones, fought with the evil powers of nature as the respective seasons of the year come round. But to regard the Solar Hero or Sun-god as the offspring of the Culture Hero belongs to such a primitive way of looking at things, that it would seem to have been always liable to be effaced. In Irish literature, for instance, the two characters are most frequently treated very unequally, and with the effect in the person of Diarmait, for example, that it is impossible at times to say whether he should be regarded as the Solar or as the Culture Hero—he is so like both rolled into one. It is found to be much the same with Owein ab Urien in Welsh; but Cúchulainn, though his father is reduced nearly to a cipher, remains decidedly the Solar Hero, as might be said also of Heracles; and the similarity between the two does not end here, as will be seen presently. The father of Cúchulainn is of no importance, and no Culture Hero is placed in close relationship to Heracles in Greek, excepting Prometheus released by him from bonds, and Hermes associated with Heracles as his protector.

The converse case seems possible, where the Solar Hero is kept more or less out of sight for the greater glorification of the Culture Hero; but the Welsh instance which first suggests itself as in point proves on examination to be but doubtfully so: it is that of Pwyỻ in