The Sun.
London, England, 1833-08-02 00:00:00

TWO GREAT SOURCES of MYTHOLOGY

The two great sources from which all systems oc
mythology must be deduced, are the conviction
of an overruling mind, and the ignorance of
secondary causes. Those personifications that
now seem forced or novel, were originally per-
fectly natural. The rotation of the earth,
causing the apparent motion of the sun, was a
much more wild and improbable idea than that
of a coach like the Lord Mayor's, with four
white horses to it, drawn along the firmament.
The Indian philosopher who made an elephant
support the earth and a tortoise support the
elephant, was a thousand times a more intelli-
gent and rational person than Newton with his
theory of gravitation would have seemed to the
hearers. When Anaxagoras maintained that the
sun was larger than all Peloponnesus, no doubt
the Eldon of the day would have taken away his
children from him as from a lunatic, and cer-
tainly all Greece shook their heads at so absurd
a flight of fancy. To profound ignorance
nothing is so easy as imagination. Any peasant of
intellect somewhat raised above his fellows, has
the chance hollow in his favour, that if he
attempts an explanation of any natural appear-
ance, he will produce some ingenious fiction.
Had the eastern people known anything of
astronomy, they never would have imagined that
an eclipse was a dragon devouring the sun, nor
brought their gongs to frighten the monster
away. Had the rotation of the earth been, any-
thing but a most absurd-looking notion, the
simple ancients would not have been so troubled
to find stabling for Apolo, and we should per-
haps have lacked Virgil's desCription of his
horses " snorting light through their dilated
nostrils"—lucemque elatis naribus chant—as
they struggled up the steep of morning. If
the Indians of the Pampas had analyzed
an aeolithe would they upon seeing me-
teors in the air piously believe " that these
were their ancestors blind drunk, mounted
upon horses swifter than the wind, and hunting
ostriches ?" Which, at the time, was more
probable and natural to the Persians, the fiction
or fact ; the earth (according to the former)
resting on a huge sapphire, which by its re-
flexion caused the blue colour of the heavens,—
or (according to the latter) supported by no-
thing, spinning—in opposition to the evidence
of their senses—every man, woman, and child
in Persia round at the rate of 1,000 miles an
hour ? The fiction, doubtless. On the western
coast of Ireland, at certain rare conjunctions of
wind and tide, there occurs what is called a
" bow." The fishermen, being wholly ignorant
of its actual cause, for it takes place but in one

bay, and at remote intervals, call it an " aveng-
ing wave," and gave a terrible description of its
rushing along crested with lightnings. Their
account of its origin is this. A man of the
name of Shea, a fisherman, once killed a mer-
maid, though she begged hard for mercy. The
very next time that he sailed upon the bay, the
wave appeared in all its terrors. Struck by a
guilty conscience he fled towards land ; but the
incredible speed of the " avenger" could not
be baffled ; he was overtaken, and not only he
but all in his bcat perished. The punishment
did not end there. Even to this day the ap-
pearance of any of his direct descendants rouses
the same wave. Its desire of vengeance, or its
power, is now somewhat diminished ; for if they
perceive it in time, and cross the bar, they are
secure. Nevertheless there is a great reluctance
among the fishermen to sail in company with any
of that name. The writer has heard a story, in

which was most seriously detailed the narrow
escape of a boat only a few years since from the
" avenging wave." The lives of several persons
were all but sacrificed to the presence of a Shea
in the boat. Now this fiction could never have
existed or been believed, had the natural cause
of the wave been known. In fact, none but
those who have had actual experience of it can
believe what a proneness to personification, and
what a readiness in creating intelligence causes
to account for every external appearance, an un-
educated people have. Tell them the real cause,
and the incredulity of the face shows the instant
aversion of the mind ; assigns any intelligent
agent and the look of pleasure and awe which
follows as quickly, proves how perfectly this
chimes in with their feelings. In truth the one
agrees with their experience, the other does not.
In a certain country town in Ireland, about four-
teen years ago, a set of tumblers exhibited on
the tight rope ; and it was unanimously declared
by the farmers and labourers, that the tumbling
and dancing was " enchantment." The tumblers
proceeded from this to another town, and co►n-
menced their exhibition on the market-day. The
crowd looked on for sometime in extreme per-
plexity ; but soon each man seeing his owe
horror in his neighbour's face,and just when the
principal performer had made a bound which he
thought would fix him for ever in the good opi-
nion of the community, a shout of " Devil-
ment" " The Devil" arose, and with it a sub-
stantial shower of stones. It was with some
difficulty the lives of the poor performers were
saved, and several were severely wounded, all
powerful as they were with Satan.—West-
minster Review.

We hear that several persons have been ar-
rested, in consequence of facts that have been brought to
light by the examination instituted relative to the discovery
of the forged Bank of England notes, which we have
already announced.—Morning Herald.

A Brest Journal states that secret agents of
Don IlicuEL are actively, hut mysteriously, endeavouring
to enlist in hie cause pitch Chooans as have most tarn•
promised themselves by crimes.