Page:Segnius Irritant or Eight Primitive Folk-lore Stories.pdf/106

 reasoning were insufficient, the fact that the fates invariably in the later forms of the myth develope into late autumn and winter signs of the Zodiac, and that in one of them we have as well an allusion to the second spring constellation, ought to be conclusive. But in the early forms of the myth the fates occur as Norns or Parcæ. In the Vedic legends there are no traces of Norns or Parce. Therefore the early forms of the myths were not derived from Vedic mythology. Nor were the later ones, for they are evolved from the primitive ones under the influence of astrology. Moreover, all the stories bear witness to having been evolved under a rigorous winter climate. On the other hand many of the characters correspond to those of the Vedic mythology. For instance, the ants collecting the pearls are Indra, as ant biting the serpent and setting free the autumn or spring floods. The gamekeepers and woodsmen correspond to the carpenter-god Tvashtar, the autumn god, the former of all things dead and living, because autumn is the time of seeds which contain all the forms of life within themselves. A connection undoubtedly exists between some details of these primitive fairy stories and the Vedic legends, but that they were borrowed from the latter there is no proof. Seeing that it is now well ascertained that our primitive ancestry did not “swarm” out of India into Europe, but that the nomad tribes of North-West Europe and North-East Asia gradually drifted south, part diverging via Persia and the Punjaub into India, and part settling in Europe, it is more likely that the portion which drifted into India took its inheritance of legends with it into the Punjaub, and there developed its Vedas from them, while the other nomad tribes which occupied Europe carried their portion of the Arctic legends into Europe with them, and there developed them in their own way. This theory explains better than any other both the points of resemblance and the points of difference between the fairy stories and the Vedas, and their wide diffusion. That a myth of the dawn, supposing it could be invented, belonging to a low latitude should develope into an annual Arctic myth seems an impossibility, but that an Arctic myth removed from surroundings which rendered it intelligible should thaw and degrade into a dawn-myth is what we should naturally expect of it if it were to travel south-it would adapt itself to that order of facts in nature which best assured it a basis in reality. Now by a singular coincidence, the day is an epitome of the year; the day begins with cloud and mist, culminates at mid-day, and ends in cold and darkness, just as the year begins with thaw and rain, culminates in summer heat, and ends in frost and shortening daylight. And the analogy between the Arctic year and the day and night of the temperate zone is still closer and more striking. The northern myth, transplanted to a warmer climate, would thus easily adapt itself from being first an annual myth to becoming a diurnal one, while many “survivals” of the primitive myth would remain, like rudimentary organs, to puzzle the Sanscrit scholar; and this is actly the condition of the Vedic myths.