The Portland daily press., 1877-04-21
THE ARYANs.
Myths and Nursery Tnies.

MI, Fiske delivered the concluding lecture Of
his course on '"The Aryans" last evening, treat
ing OF the Aryan folklore, and demonstrating
again. this time from the universal prevalence
ofour best-known fairy tales, the community Of
culture among the various peoples of the Indo-
European world He showed that our nursery
tales are OF immense antiquity, and that they
are certainly in most instances, presumably
in all, distorted incidents of primeval nature.
myths the meaning of which long ago faded
from popular memory.
Untll the beginning of the present century,
he said, by far the greater portion of Aryan
| mythology existed only, like an unwrtten Ian.
| guage, On the lips of the common people. We
had in Vedic hymn and Homerc poem, in
Icelandic Edda and Morse Hemiskringla and
German Niblungenlied, all the most conspcu.
GUS features OF Aryan mythology; but far
| greater mass of legendary lore, if We consider
bulk only, was preserved from age to age by
word of mouth in shape of fairy tale and nurs-
| cry rhyme; and strange as it may seem, Little
Red Riding Hood and Cinderella are OF kin to
Indra and Athene. OF this important portion
| of mythology but little was reduced to writing
/! until the brothers Grimm published their
household tales gathered orally from nurses,
children, and grandams at hundred German
fresides. Following this work came the Morse
tales of Asbj ,rnsep, the legends of the Scotch
and Irish Cets, the great Russian collection of
Alfanasief, the cold Deccan Days. of Miss
Frere, dictated to her by a famy-servant in
| Southern India, and many other works. The
| most striking result of this extensive investiga.
ton is to show that the community of folklore
amoug the various Indo-European peoples is as
| unmstakable as the community of speech. The
| identity between the nursery tales of Norway
| and of India is wonderful. As illustration the
lecturer related the story of those famous tray
| cling musicians, the ass, the dog. the cat and
| the cock, story current over all the Aryan
| world. The ass is indeed the lame ass of the
| Zend Yacna who by his fearful brsying terri
| ties the night monsters and keeps them away
| from the sacred brew of the gods. In the Veda
1T is not an ass, but centaur, gandharaca,
which guards the soma; and the terrific braying
| is but later form Of the thunder with which
Indra frightened the Panis. This is but one of
many examples. When Wa find two or three
| thousand nursery tales common to Ireland and
| Russia, to Norway and Hindustan, we may
feel pretty sure that the gist of these tales was
all contained in old Aryan folk lore in the times
| when there was but one Aryan language and
culture. The primitive Aryau cottager, as he
| took his evening meal of ydUd, and slipped his
| fermented mead. listened with his children in
1
Master Thief, in the days when the squat Lapf
| lander was master of Europe and the dark
| skinned Sudra was as yet unmoested in the
| PunJaub. Only such community of origin can
| explain the community in character between
| the stories told by the Aryan's descendants
| from the lungles of Ceylon to the highlands of
| Scotland. This is not to be wondered at, for if
| the power of tradition is sufficient to make us
| say three in America to-day because our an
cestors said tri'' forty centuries ago In Central
Asia the conservation habit chnu1d
| sure asmilar duration to the nursery tale
| Great as is the number of entirely similar
| stories which can be brought together from the
| remotest corners of the Indo-European world,
| the number of similar mythical incidents is far
| greater. No matter how endlessly diversified
| the great mass of Aryan nursery tales may
appear on a superficial view, they a re neverthe-
| less all made up OF few fundamental incl
| dents which recur again and again in an amaz-
| ing variety of combinations. The conception
| of grateful beasts, the danger of looking into
certain closet, the possession of talisman like
| Aladdin's lamp, the conception of people
| turned into stone continually repeated from the
classic victims of the Gorgon to the brothers of
Parzade in the Arabian Nights, are eve1y-
| where to be found These elements are nearly
all blended in the Indian legend of the magi-
| clan Punchkin, story told with hardly a0y
variation from the Deccan TO Argyleshire.
| il, A story which the lecturer gave at length is
| the Russian legend of Marya Morevua, in which
| the fortune-seeking Jack, and Blue Boards
closet, and horse of the breed of the enchanted
steed OF the Arabian Nights, and the Es-Srat
or rainbow bridge, and the grateful beast. and
the broom OF our 'old woman who swept cob
webs out of the sky"-in fact about the whole
stock-i trade OF the nursery tale-appear.
| Brynhilda and Odysseus are fOreshadowed in
| it, and we find there the germs of the Arabian
| tales of Beder and Johara, of Kamaralzaman
and Budoor' and Of the Bohemian story of
| Yanechek and the Water-Demop.
Inc Lecturer went on tO Shnw hot
| the Deathless Koshche of the Russian
| legend and the Water-Demon of the b.
| bemian tale are identical with the robber
Pants, the enemies of the solar deity Indra.
bright hero, Odysseus, or Kamaralzamap, or
Ivan as he happens to be, who copuuers the
monster of darkness, is Indra himself. The
witch Bahia Yaga is but the ugly counterpart of
Kalypso and k,rke (Clrce) and identical with
the Queen Labe of the Arabian tale The pet
rifaction of victims by the evil power socom-
| mon in the folk-love, is easily accounted for
| when we remember that throughout the circle
nately mixed up with those of the nighttime
| as the foes of the sun-god Zeus or
| Indra. That the demon of winter should
| turn its victims into stone for a season, until
| they are released by the solar hero is in no
| wise lncomprehensible even to our mature and
prosaic style of thinking. The hero who sue
cessfully withstands the Gorgon is the indomt-
able Perseus who ushers in the spripg-time.
The immemoral conflict between light and
darkness, good and evil, seldom fails to
appear in the folklore. 1t will be noticed that
Koshchei, though invariably slain by his solar
adversary,is called the Deathless, for he perpet.
ually rises again, and the conflict is enless In
the mythology Of the American Indians
West, or the spirit of darkness, con-
| tends with the East, or the spirit
| of light The West is forced to give ground.
The East drives him across rivers and noun
| tains and lakes, until at last they come to the
brink OF the world "Hold," cries the West,
''you know my power, and that it is impossible
| to kill mer'
| AS for the conception of grateful beasts who
IN so many legends all the solar hero in time of
need, the lectarer thought it most likely de-
rived from mingling together of ancient
| myths in which the sun himself figures as q
| beast, where he appears as horse or bull, or
| even as fish-Oannes or Dagon. The beast on
the other hand who supports the powers of
| darkness, is usually wolf or serpent The wolf
| of darkness devours Little Red Riding Hood,
the dawn-nymph with her robe of crimson twi-
| light, and, according to every version but the
| English where the point of the story is lost,
yields her up whole and sound when he is cut
| open next day.
Thus, said the lecturer in conclusion, an
analysis of the Russian legend of Marya
Morevna and Koshchei the Deathess yields
| the same results which in the preced-
ing lecture were obtained from the
L "a
a similar analysis of the whole body of the Ar
| yam folklore would but strengthen the position
by accumulated evidence In these curious
stories, to which our children listen to-day with
breathless interest, We have the old mythical,
notions Of the primitive Aryan people most
| quantity distorted and llented together We
| may fairly regard then as the alluvial refuse
| which the stream OF tradition has brought
down from those distant highlands of mytbolo-
| gy where our prmeval ancestors recorded their
crude and childike Impressions of the course
| of natural events. Out of the mouths of babes
| come wisdom, and so from this quaint
medly of nursery lore we catch glimpses of the
thoughts of mankind in ages OF which the his
| teric tradition has utterly vanished.
| A BAD SNARL.-The Boston papers contain
accounts of the trouble Mr.. and Mrs. Lewis B.
Toilette, formerly of this city, have been having
in Boston. AS the story goes, they went to
Boston and hired a builder named Hopkins to
| fit up store at No 50 Temple place. 1t an