Page:Origin and Growth of Religion (Rhys).djvu/685

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When the Aryan languages in use or on record had been for some time subjected to a comparative study as to vocabulary and word-building, a glottologist was now and then found to try the experiment of putting a short fable or a simple story back into the Aryan parent speech inferred, and we might at this point essay something analogous on the mythology of the early Celts of pre-historic times. The object is to enable you roughly to realize what sort of a mosaic the bits I have handled in these lectures would make, when restored to their proper places with regard to one another and the whole design. It is needless to say that the difficulty is great, both on account of the later materials mixed up with the original pieces, and of the lacunæ left by the original ones which are still missing; so we have to shift as best we can by comparing and by borrowing from cognate sources. But in other respects the aid to be derived from without is not so considerable as might be expected; for, though Aryan mythology started well with the identification of the Zeus of the Greeks with his congeners in the myths of the other Aryan nations, it can hardly be said to have as yet advanced very much further; its attention has of late been a good deal given to the important matter of improving the methods adopted, and of giving the instruments used more precision. So the summary I am now going to give you is to be taken strictly for what it is, a mere guess:—

In the beginning Earth and Heaven were great world-giants, and they were the parents of a numerous offspring; but the Heaven in those days lay upon the Earth, and