Page:Segnius Irritant or Eight Primitive Folk-lore Stories.pdf/58

 one end to the other, popular fancy means what it says; it doesn’t mean that there came a bright spell of keen frosty winter weather. Let us, then, for a moment assume that the myth was hatched within the Arctic circle, on a latitude where the sun disappears below the horizon for a length of time equal to that occupied by the prince from his first encounter with the ravens to his exodus from the castle of silver. Let us also assume that the ravens represent days. Turn to the plan of the story represented graphically, and it will be seen at a glance that it is a period of 42 days of darkness—that is to say, 21 days from the 1st of December to the shortest day, and 21 days from the shortest day to the departure from the castle of silver. Now, when the prince disturbs the next flock of ravens after three days’ journeying, we should expect them to be 86 in number, but the story expressly omits to give the number, and it is easy to see why it does so; but it will become more clear when we consider the interpretation of the citrons, which can be explained by comparing them with the three hairs in Father Know-All. The general reason is that, having emerged from the definite period of darkness, the period of light is, as regards the story, unlimited. We have, then, a period of three days from the castle of silver to the castle of gold, a period when the sun was just re-appearing after its long winter sleep. Now, there was a period between the departure of the prince from his father’s castle and his first encounter with the ravens. If, in George and his Goat, Manka, Doodle and Kate represent three days, as is likely enough, they would be the last three days of November, and the law of symmetry also requires this number. We should then have just 48 days from the prince’s departure from home to his arrival at the castle of gold. Now in Father Know-All the hero arrives at a precisely similar castle of gold, and the sun returns to the castle as an old man. Therefore, when the giant returns to the castle of gold he returns at sunset, and is, in fact, the sun returning to the underworld. The three golden hairs are pulled out in a single night, the old man wakes three times and then falls asleep again. Now this part of the allegory falls in, to perfection, with the Arctic hypothesis, but cannot be satisfactorily explained in any other way whatever. Obviously, at the beginning of the sun-period in high Arctic latitudes, the sun rises for a very short time at first, and then sets again, hardly, in fact, as yet really breaking the long winter night, in allegorical language, the old man (Pushan, Bhaga (Czech, Buh, god) or Aditva), just waking and then falling asleep again. Since, then, the gathering of the three citrons obviously corresponds to the drawing out of the three hairs in Father Know-All, the period of transit from the castle of gold to the hill of glass may be neglected as probably only occupying a few hours; the three cifrons will therefore represent three Arctic winter days; to the cutting of the first orange there are three days; to the cutting of the second, three days; to the arrival home, three days—in all, twelve. From the arrival home, comprising the betrothal, marriage, and death of the old king, we may well imagine a month of thirty days to elapse, and this just accounts for the 90 days of the three winter months, thus:

The hill of glass ought not to occasion any difficulty, though learned people have racked their brains over it to little purpose. The giant of the castle of gold (recollect, it is sunset) points it out to the hero with these words: “Do you see