The Portland daily press., 1879-03-29

would find the weapon with which the He
brew judge put the Philistines to flight.
An ingenious theorist not long since iden
tilted Josephs coat of many colors with thu
rainbow and on this assumption constructet
pretty myth. But Hebrew scholars nov
tell us that the accepted translation is wrong
and the proper rendering Joseph's Gong tu
mic with sleeves.'' Thus another nature
myth is destroyed. The extreme length tc
which the theory Of the solar myth NAV be
carried had conspicuous illustration in lee.
ture delivered some time since by learned
man in New York. He ingeniously traced
many of our children's games to the religions
observances of the "early settlers.'' Base.
ball, he said, is the derVish dance of mytbo.
logical antiquity. "Knuckle Down" is older
than the notices inscribed in granite on the
doorways OF ancient Thebes. The top is the
symbol of the Egyptian Theb, and is, he said
with fine ALTERATION, common TO every side
walk from Cuzco 10 Cairo, from Stockholm
to Sidney. The kite is survival of the GUS
tom OF votive offerings to the god of air,
"h6s AAoiOiOo SOiuO lIOm Guc
defences drawn about the anc lent temples OF
the sun. Cricket is symbolical representa-
tion OF the war between good and evil, the
Gins" being the priesthood whose business il
is to protect the sacred Intel or wicket from
attacks from without. He forgot to mention
the striking resemblance between cricket and
politics. "Hocky'' he adds, commentaries
the name of an old god-now out of fashion,
So the boy who shouts ''By Hocky" burdens
his soul with heather oath.
This shows to what extremes the doctrine
of the sun-myth may be carried, even by
scholars. Few of us care to deny that it is
well-founded, and none of us are able to dis
pute the origin assigned to many modern
customs and superstitions. The philologists
have settled that beyond question. But it
is quite as we'll to hold to the old beliefs un-
til they are proved to be false or to be dis
torted rites of sun-worship. There is GER
tainly no necessity of teaching our children
that the four-and-twenty birds set before the
king are the four-and-twenty hours until we
are sure of that. We may not be able to
believe that the rhyme is historical chron-
icle, but we have as little right to believe
that it's remnant of a religious chant.
Until we know that it is anything more than
a nonsense-song we shall do we'll to refrain
from explanations. Above all we should not
trouble the little people with interpretations
that may be as far from the exact truth as
any fairy story that was ever told.
The sun-myth theory is well-grounded,
and many facts have been brought forward
in its support. 1t has, at least, the merit of
grandeur. 1t is not difficult for us to sympa-
thize with the ancient terror of the earth
quake and the tempest and the darkness
OF night, or with the alteration with
which our ancestors looked up to the sun
as the eight of the world" We can
easily believe that our fathers deified the
powers of nature they could not understand.
and feared them, and besought their clemen-
cy. But there is another method of inter-
probation with which Yorlck, for one, has no
patience. For want of better term it may
be called the "rationalstic", so called after
the paradoxical manner of modern terminol-
ogy, because there is no reason in it. A no.
table instance of this method is 10 be found
in gloss on the story of Cinderella-the
Greek Rhodope-credited by our newspapers
that copy it as widely as they do the ac-
count of murder or a divorce case-to an
English magazine. The magazine urges
that so uncomfortable and absurd thing as
glass slipper could never have been worn,
and that consequently Cinde7ella's slipper
must have been fashioned of some other
stuff. 1tgoes on to say that in the old times
fur was so rare that the wearing of it was
restricted to kings and princes, and that the
old French heraldic name for fur was vair.
Having said so much the commentator as
sumes that the slipper which fitted the little
maiden's foot was a pantogfle de oair, and
that as the heraldic terms passed out of use
the meaning ofvair was forgotten and word
OF similar sound, verre- glass-substitute
for it. This very ingenious explanation,
and judging from the frequency with
which it is copied, meets great popular
want. But putting aside the question wheth-
er glass slipper is more uncomfortable than
many forms of the shoe with which fashion
has tormented the feet of men, we NAV be
rardoned for doubling ii the explanation ex-
plains. 1t does very well for the French YER
sion OF the story. But we should remember
that the tale is not of French origin. 1t is
told among all the Aryan peoples. Many of
us are familiar with it as retold in Mr.
Morris's Rhodope. We have learned to iden-
tify Cinderella with the Hindu Ushas and
the Greek Aurora. Furthermore the fairies
are pictured as wearing glass shoes in the
folklore of countries where the tongue of
France was never spoken. The Swedish
tale of the herdsboy, tells of the little shoes
"of the very whitest glass" dropped by
red-capped gray-beard and found by the for
tunate youth. "Vair'' will not account for
that yarn. Yet again: in order to make the
explanation explanatory we must accept
Cinderella and the fairy god-mother, and the
pumpkin-shell, and the wonderful transform.
ation-scene, and assume that the only doubt
tul point in the tale is the foot-gear of the
heroine. Wouldn't we do well to ask our
selves whether the glass slipper is any more
improbable than the rest of the story?
Would the fancy that invented chariot
bursting forth from pumpkin-shell hesitate
to shoe the little maiden with glass?
This explication of thing which least needs
explanation has been eagerly received as dis
covery made by some new and uncommonly
clever student of folklore. On the contrary
it is years old, and may be found along with
much other matter of the same kind, in
Brewers Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
The English clergyman has in this work
given to the world reference-book of con-
siderable value, but disigured by gross faults.
In his treatment of myths and old tales he is
peculiarly unfortunate. In a line with the
explanation of the glass slipper are these he
furnishes: Under the head of "Dragon of
Vanity" the monster slain by More of Morel
Hall, he says, "This dragon was an over
grown, rascally attorney, who cheated some
children of their estate, but was made to dis
gorge by gentleman named More, who went
against him armed with the spikes of the