MYTHOLOGY

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LEWIS SPENCE

FELLOW OF THE ROYAL ANTHROPOLOGICAL INSTITUTE OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND

GEORGE G. HARRAP & COMPANY LTD. 2 & 3 PORTSMOUTH STREET KINGSWAY W.C.

ΤΟ

ERNEST A. BAKER, D.LIT.

WITH MUCH ESTEEM

352809

YRARELİ GROMATO

First published May 1921

THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED, EDINBURGH

GREAT BRITAIN

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PREFACE

HIS volume is an outline of the principles of mythology, chiefly with reference to its more modern

developments. Hand in hand with the sister sciences of folklore and comparative religion, it has advanced so rapidly within the last twenty years and altered so greatly from its ancient aspect that it seems an entirely new science. Thirty years ago, if a student of myth had been asked who Janus was, he would probably have replied: “A Roman god of origins." To-day he might see in him a development of the 'kirn-baby.' So does the study of collected facts and analogies enable us to make broad generalizations. Quite recently, for example, Dr Rendel Harris advanced the theory that Aphrodite was originally a mandrake, while Professor Elliot Smith contends. that her 'larval form' was that of the cowrie-shell. Apollo, according to some writers, was originally an apple, Bacchus a sprig of ivy, and Zeus himself a flint-stone fetish.

With such metamorphoses of the elder gods a rather longsuffering public has become somewhat ruefully acquainted. But with the value of the new scientific machinery which has discovered these analogies, which has laid bare the true nature of myth, they are not so intimate. The purpose of this book is to provide them with a review of mythic science from its beginnings down to the latest guesses of contemporary authorities. This plan may appear too ambitious, in the present chaotic condition of the science, but a real necessity exists for some such elementary study in order to cast light into the popular darkness on the subject.

The two great drawbacks of mythology are lack of accepted