Myths and myth-makersHoughton, Mifflin, 1902 |
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Achilleus ancestors ancient appears Arabian arrow Aryan Aryan Nations Athene barbaric Baring-Gould beast belief bird body Boots Brahman Cacus called cannibal carried century character clouds conception cows dark Dawn dead deity demon Devil divining rod Dyaus earth evidence explained fetichistic fiend fire folk-lore ghosts giant Gladstone Greek hand heaven Herakles Hermes Hindu Homeric poems human Iliad Indo-European Indra Ioskeha killed king language legend light Luxman Mara Max Müller mediæval Michabo mind modern moon myth mythical mythology nature never night Norse notion Odin Odysseus Oidipous once origin Panis phenomena philology primeval Primitive Culture Punchkin race regard resemblance Rig-Veda Sanskrit Sarama savage schamir Sculloge Sigurd similar slays solar hero soul story strange superstition supposed swan-maidens tale Tannhäuser Tell theory Thor thought tion told Troll Tylor Uthlakanyana Veda Vedic Vritra werewolf wife wolf words Zeus Zulu
Popular passages
Page 37 - JACK and Jill went up the hill, To fetch a pail of water; Jack fell down and broke his crown And Jill came tumbling after.
Page 285 - Sixpence,' his claim would be easily established, — obviously the. four-and-twenty blackbirds are the four-and-twenty hours, and the pie that holds them is the underlying earth covered with the overarching sky, — how true a touch of nature it is that when the pie is opened, that is, when day breaks, the birds begin to sing ; the King is the Sun, and his counting out his money is pouring out the sunshine, the golden shower of Danae' ; the Queen is the Moon, and her transparent honey the moonlight;...
Page 68 - Sultan's army from the solar rays. besides ships and cows. In a future paper it will be shown that they were sometimes regarded as angels or houris ; at present it more nearly concerns us to know that they appear, throughout all Aryan mythology, under the form of birds. It used to be a matter of hopeless wonder to me that Aladdin's innocent request for a roc's egg to hang in the dome of his palace should have been regarded as a crime worthy of punishment by the loss of the wonderful lamp ; the obscurest...
Page 13 - Far, far away in a lake lies an island ; on that island stands a church ; in that church is a well; in that well swims a duck; in that duck there is an egg, and in that egg there lies my heart — you darling ! " In the morning early, while it was still grey dawn, the Giant strode off to the wood.
Page 311 - If an animal or a plant die, its soul immediately goes to Bolotoo; if a stone or any other substance is broken, immortality is equally its reward; nay, artificial bodies have equal good luck with men, and hogs, and yams. If an axe or a chisel is worn out or broken up, away flies its soul for the service of the gods.
Page 36 - • knows that the moon is inhabited by a man with a bundle of sticks on his back, who has been exiled thither for many centuries, and who is so far off that he is beyond the reach of death. He has once visited this earth, if the nursery rhyme is to be credited when it asserts that 'The Man in the Moon Came down too soon And asked his way to Norwich ' ; but whether he ever reached that city the same authority does not state.
Page 42 - There can be no better illustration than is furnished by this terrible scene of the magic power of mythology to invest the simplest physical, phenomena with the most intense human interest; for the true significance of the whole picture is contained in the father's address to his child, "Sei ruhig, bleibe ruhig, mein Kind ; In diirren Blattern sauselt der Wind.
Page 147 - The poets of the Veda indulged freely in theogonic speculations, without being frightened by any contradictions. They knew of Indra as the greatest of gods, they knew of Agni as the god of gods, they knew of Varuna as the ruler of all, but they were by no means startled at the idea that their Indra had a mother, or that their Agni was born like a babe from the friction of two fire-sticks, or that Varu;;a and his brother Mitra were nursed in the lap of Aditi.
Page 107 - ... about his hut in the darkness of night, as belonging to whatever order of beasts his totem associations may suggest. Thus we not only see a ray of light thrown on the subject of metempsychosis, but we get a glimpse of the curious process by which the intensely realistic mind of antiquity arrived at the notion that men could be transformed into beasts. For the belief that the soul can temporarily quit the body during lifetime has been universally entertained ; and from the conception of wolflike...
Page 308 - Congo negroes abstained for a whole year after a death from sweeping the house, lest the dust should injure the delicate substance of the ghost " ; and even now, " it remains a German peasant saying that it is wrong to slam a door, lest one should pinch a soul in it.