Modern Mythology Part 6

Mannhardt on Demeter Erinnys

In a posthumous work, Mythologische Forschungen (1884), the work from which Mr. Max Muller cites the letter to Mullenhoff, Mannhardt discusses Demeter Erinnys. She is the Arcadian G.o.ddess, who, in the form of a mare, became mother of Despoina and the horse Arion, by Poseidon. {51a} Her anger at the unhandsome behaviour of Poseidon caused Demeter to be called Erinnys--'to be angry' being [Greek] in Arcadian--a folk-etymology, clearly. Mannhardt first dives deep into the sources for this fable. {51b} Arion, he decides, is no mythological personification, but a poetical ideal (Bezeichnung) of the war-horse. Legend is ransacked for proof of this. Poseidon is the lord of wind and wave. Now, there are waves of corn, under the wind, as well as waves of the sea. When the Suabian rustic sees the wave running over the corn, he says, Da lauft das Pferd, and Greeks before Homer would say, in face of the billowing corn, [Greek], There run horses! And Homer himself {51c} says that the horses of Erichthonius, children of Boreas, ran over cornfield and sea. We ourselves speak of sea-waves as 'white horses.' So, to be brief, Mannhardt explains the myth of Demeter Erinnys becoming, as a mare, a mother by Poseidon as a horse, thus, 'Poseidon Hippies, or Poseidon in horse's form, rushes through the growing grain and weds Demeter,' and he cites peasant proverbs, such as Das Korn heirathet; das Korn feiert Hochzeit (p. 264). 'This is the germ of the Arcadian Saga.'

'The Arcadian myth of Demeter Erinnys is undeniably a blending of the epic tradition [of the ideal war-horse] with the local cult of Demeter. . . . It is a probable hypothesis that the belief in the wedding of Demeter and Poseidon comes from the sight of the waves pa.s.sing over the cornfield. . . .' {52}

It is very neat! But a certain myth of Loki in horse-form comes into memory, and makes me wonder how Mannhardt would have dealt with that too liberal narrative.

Loki, as a mare (he being a male G.o.d), became, by the horse of a giant, the father of Sleipnir, Odin's eight-footed steed. Mr. W. A. Craigie supplies this note on Loki's a.n.a.logy with Poseidon, as a horse, in the waves of corn:--

'In North Jutland, when the vapours are seen going with a wavy motion along the earth in the heat of summer, they say, "Loki is sowing oats today," or "Loki is driving his goats."

'N.B.--Oats in Danish are havre, which suggests O.N. hafrar, goats.

Modern Icelandic has hafrar=oats, but the word is not found in the old language.'

Is Loki a corn-spirit?

Mannhardt's 'Mean Argument'

Mannhardt now examines the explanations of Demeter Erinnys, and her legend, given by Preller, E. Curtius, O. Muller, A. Kuhn, W. Sonne, Max Muller, E. Burnouf, de Gubernatis, Schwartz, and H. D. Muller. 'Here,'

he cries, 'is a variegated list of hypotheses!' Demeter is

Storm-cloud Sun G.o.ddess Earth and Moon G.o.ddess Dawn Night.

Poseidon is

Sea Storm G.o.d Cloud-hidden Sun Rain G.o.d.

Despoina is

Rain Thunder Moon.

Arion, the horse, is

Lightning Sun Thunder-horse.

Erinnys is

Storm-cloud Red Dawn.

Mannhardt decides, after this exhibition of guesses, that the Demeter legends cannot be explained as refractions of any natural phenomena in the heavens (p. 275). He concludes that the myth of Demeter Erinnys, and the parallel Vedic story of Saranyu (who also had an amour as a mare), are 'incongruous,' and that neither sheds any light on the other. He protests against the whole tendency to find prototypes of all Aryan myths in the Veda, and to think that, with a few exceptions, all mythology is a terrestrial reflection of celestial phenomena (p. 280). He then goes into the contending etymologies of Demeter, and decides ('for the man was mortal and had been a' philologer) in favour of his own guess, [Greek]+[Greek]='Corn-mother' (p. 294).

This essay on Demeter was written by Mannhardt in the summer of 1877, a year after the letter which is given as evidence that he had 'returned to his old colours.' The essay shows him using the philological string of 'variegated hypotheses' as anything but an argument in favour of the philological method. On the other hand, he warns us against the habit, so common in the philological school, of looking for prototypes of all Aryan myths in the Veda, and of finding in most myths a reflection on earth of phenomena in the heavens, Erinnys being either Storm-cloud or Dawn, according to the taste and fancy of the inquirer. We also find Mannhardt, in 1877, starting from the known--legend and rural survival in phrase and custom--and so advancing to the unknown--the name Demeter. The philologists commence with the unknown, the old name, Demeter Erinnys, explain it to taste, and bring the legend into harmony with their explanation. I cannot say, then, that I share Mr. Max Muller's impression. I do not feel sure that Mannhardt did return to his old colours.

Why Mannhardt is Thought to have been Converted

Mannhardt's friend, Mullenhoff, had an aversion to solar myths. He said: {54} 'I deeply mistrust all these combinations of the new so-called comparative mythology.' Mannhardt was preparing to study Lithuanian solar myths, based on Lithuanian and Lettish marriage songs. Mullenhoff and Scherer seem to have thought this work too solar for their taste.

Mannhardt therefore replied to their objections in the letter quoted in part by Mr. Max Muller. Mannhardt was not the man to neglect or suppress solar myths when he found them, merely because he did not believe that a great many other myths which had been claimed as celestial were solar.

Like every sensible person, he knew that there are numerous real, obvious, confessed solar myths _not_ derived from a disease of language.

These arise from (1) the impulse to account for the doings of the Sun by telling a story about him as if he were a person; (2) from the natural poetry of the human mind. {55} What we think they are _not_ shown to arise from is forgetfulness of meanings of old words, which, ex hypothesi, have become proper names.

That is the theory of the philological school, and to that theory, to these colours, I see no proof (in the evidence given) that Mannhardt had returned. But 'the scalded child dreads cold water,' and Mullenhoff apparently dreaded even real solar myths. Mr. Max Muller, on the other hand (if I do not misinterpret him), supposes that Mannhardt had returned to the philological method, partly because he was interested in _real_ solar myths and in the natural poetry of illiterate races.

Mannhardt's Final Confession

Mannhardt's last work published in his life days was Antike Wald- und Feldkulte (1877). In the preface, dated November 1, 1876 (_after_ the famous letter of May 1876), he explains the growth of his views and criticises his predecessors. After doing justice to Kuhn and his comparisons of European with Indian myths, he says that, in his opinion, comparative Indo-Germanic mythology has not yet borne the expected fruits. 'The _a.s.sured_ gains shrink into very few divine names, such as Dyaus--Zeus--Tius, Parjany--Perkunas, Bhaga--Bug, Varuna--Ura.n.u.s, &c.' I wish he had completed the list included in &c. Other equations, as Sarameya=Hermeias, Saranyu=Demeter Erinnys, he fears will not stand close criticism. He dreads that jeux d'esprit (geistvolle Spiele des Witzes) may once more encroach on science. Then, after a lucid statement of Mr.

Max Muller's position, he says, 'Ich vermag dem von M. Muller aufgestellten Principe, wenn uberhaupt eine, so doch nur eine sehr beschrankte Geltung zuzugestehen.'

'To the principle of Max Muller I can only a.s.sign a very limited value, if any value at all.' {56}

'Taken all in all, I consider the greater part of the results. .h.i.therto obtained in the field of Indo-Germanic comparative mythology to be, as yet, a failure, premature or incomplete, my own efforts in German Myths (1858) included. That I do not, however, "throw out the babe with the bath," as the proverb goes, my essay on Lettish sun myths in Bastian-Hartmann's Ethnological Journal will bear witness.'

Such is Mannhardt's conclusion. Taken in connection with his still later essay on Demeter, it really leaves no room for doubt. There, I think, he does 'throw out the child with the bath,' throw the knife after the handle. I do not suppose that Mr. Max Muller ever did quote Mannhardt as one of his supporters, but such a claim, if really made, would obviously give room for criticism.

Mannhardt on Solar Myths

What the att.i.tude of Mannhardt was, in 1877 and later, we have seen. He disbelieves in the philological system of explaining myths by etymological conjectures. He disbelieves in the habit of finding, in myths of terrestrial occurrences, reflections of celestial phenomena. But earlier, in his long essay Die lettischen Sonnenmythen (in Zeitschrift fur Ethnologie, 1875), he examines the Lettish popular songs about the Sun, the Sun's daughters, the G.o.d-sons, and so forth. Here, of course, he is dealing with popular songs explicitly devoted to solar phenomena, in their poetical aspect. In the Lettish Sun-songs and Sun-myths of the peasants we see, he says, a myth-world 'in process of becoming,' in an early state of development, as in the Veda (p. 325). But, we may reply, in the Veda, myths are already full-grown, or even decadent. Already there are unbelievers in the myths. Thus we would say, in the Veda we have (1) myths of nature, formed in the remote past, and (2) poetical phrases about heavenly phenomena, which resemble the nature-poetry of the Letts, but which do not become full-grown myths. The Lett songs, also, have not developed into myths, of which (as in the Apollo and Daphne story, by Mr. Max Muller's hypothesis) _the original meaning is lost_.

In the Lett songs we have a ma.s.s of nature-pictures--the boat and the apples of the Sun, the red cloak hung on the oak-tree, and so on; pictures by which it is sought to make elemental phenomena intelligible, by comparison with familiar things. Behind the phenomena are, in popular belief, personages--mythical personages--the Sun as 'a magnified non-natural man,' or woman; the Sun's mother, daughters, and other heavenly people. Their conduct is 'motived' in a human way. Stories are told about them: the Sun kills the Moon, who revives.

All this is perfectly familiar everywhere. Savages, in their fables, account for solar, lunar, and similar elemental processes, on the theory that the heavenly bodies are, and act like, human beings. The Eskimo myth of the spots on the Moon, marks of ashes thrown by the Sun in a love- quarrel, is an excellent example. But in all this there is no 'disease of language.' These are frank nature-myths, 'aetiological,' giving a fabulous reason for facts of nature.

Mannhardt on Marchen.

But Mannhardt goes farther. He not only recognises, as everyone must do, the Sun, as explicitly named, when he plays his part in myth, or popular tale (Marchen). He thinks that even when the Sun is not named, his presence, and reference to him, and derivation of the incidents in Marchen from solar myth, may sometimes be detected with great probability (pp. 326, 327). But he adds, 'not that every Marchen contains a reference to Nature; that I am far from a.s.serting' (p. 327).

Now perhaps n.o.body will deny that some incidents in Marchen may have been originally suggested by nature-myths. The all-swallowing and all-disgorging beast, wolf, or ogre, may have been derived from a view of Night as the all-swallower. But to disengage natural phenomena, mythically stated, from the human tangle of Marchen, to find natural phenomena in such a palimpsest as Perrault's courtly and artificial version of a French popular tale, is a delicate and dangerous task. In many stories a girl has three b.a.l.l.s--one of silver, one of gold, one of diamond--which she offers, in succession, as bribes. This is a perfectly natural invention. It is perilous to connect these b.a.l.l.s, gifts of ascending value, with the solar apple of iron, silver, and gold (p. 103 and note 5). It is perilous, and it is quite unnecessary. Some one--Gubernatis, I think--has explained the naked sword of Aladdin, laid between him and the Sultan's daughter in bed, as the silver sickle of the Moon. Really the sword has an obvious purpose and meaning, and is used as a symbol in proxy-marriages. The blood shed by Achilles in his latest victories is elsewhere explained as red clouds round the setting Sun, which is conspicuously childish. Mannhardt leans, at least, in this direction.

'The Two Brothers'