Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/87

Rh method which has disclosed so many secrets. For most other tales the work is done. There is absolutely nothing left for further analysis in the stories of Orpheus and Eurydikê, of Kephalos and Prokris, of Sêlenê and Endymion, Niobê and Lêtô, Dêmêtêr and Persephonê, Daphnê and Apollôn. Not an incident remains unexplained in the legends of Heraklês, of Althaia and the burning brand, of Phaethôn, Memnôn, and Bellerophôn. If there are bypaths in the stories of Ariadnê, Eurôpê, Medeia, Semelê, Prometheus, or of the cows of the Sun in the Odyssey, they have been followed up to the point from which they all diverge.

If then in the vast mass of stories which make up the mythology of the Aryan nations there seems to be evidence showing that in some cases the legend has been brought by direct importation from the East to the West or from West to East, the presumption of conscious borrowing cannot with any fairness be extended to tales for which such evidence is not forthcoming. The great epic poems of the Aryan race sprung into existence in the ages which followed the dispersion of the tribes, and during which all intercourse between them was an impossibility; yet these epic poems exhibit an identical framework, with resemblances in detail which even defy the influences of climate and scenery. But many of the actors in these great dramas reappear in the popular stories of the Aryan tribes, with subtle points of likeness and difference, which can be accounted for by conscious borrowing only on the supposition that the traditions of one country were as intimately known to the people of another country as the traditions of many, if not most, of the Aryan nations are now known to us through the long toil and vast researches of comparative mythologists, aided by the mighty machinery of the printing press. In truth, the more that we examine this hypothesis of importation as affecting the general stock of mythical tradition in any country, the more scanty and less conclusive will the evidence appear; and in the issue we shall find ourselves driven practically to reject it altogether, or to suppose that the impulse of borrowing amounted to a universal and irresistible mania. The dynastic legends of Thebes do but reproduce those of Argos; the legends of both alike do but repeat the career of Achilleus or of Sigurd; and the great heroes of those tales reappear as the Boots and the disguised beggar of Teutonic and Hindu folklore. The supposition of any deliberate borrowing attributes to Greeks, Teutons, Scandinavians, and Hindus, a poverty of invention not less amazing than their skill in destroying the evidence of the theft, and in wearing borrowed plumage as with an inborn grace. Unless we are