ad lasted long enough, Qat took a
piece of red obsidian, and cut the darkness, and the Dawn came
out.'[46]

Night is more or less personal in this tale, and solid enough to be
cut, so as to let the Dawn out. This savage conception of Night, as
the swallower and disgorger, might start the notion of other
swallowing and disgorging beings. Again the Bushmen, and other savage
peoples, account for certain celestial phenomena by saying that 'a big
star has swallowed his daughter, and spit her out again.' While
natural phenomena, explained on savage principles, might give the data
of the swallow-myth, we must not conclude that all beings to whom the
story is attached are, therefore, the Night. On this principle Cronus
would be the Night, and so would the wolf in Grimm. For our purposes
it is enough that the feat of Cronus is a feat congenial to the savage
fancy and repugnant to the civilised Greeks who found themselves in
possession of the myth. Beyond this, and beyond the inference that the
Cronus myth was first evolved by people to whom it seemed quite
natural, that is, by savages, we do not pretend to go in our
interpretation.

* * * * *

To end our examination of the myth of Cronus, we may compare the
solutions offered by scholars. As a rule, these solutions are based on
the philological analysis of the names in the story. It will be seen
that very various and absolutely inconsistent etymologies and meanings
of Cronus are suggested by philologists of the highest authority.
These contradictions are, unfortunately, rather the rule than the
exception in the etymological interpretation of myths.

* * * * *

The opinion of Mr. Max Mueller has always a right to the first hearing
from English inquirers. Mr. Mueller, naturally, examines first the name
of the god whose legend he is investigating. He writes: 'There is no
such being as Kronos in Sanskrit. Kronos did not exist till long after
Zeus in Greece. Zeus was called by the Greeks the son of Time
(~Kronos~). This is a very simple and very common form of mythological
expression. It meant originally, not that time was the origin or
source of Zeus, but ~Kronion~ or ~Kronides~ was used in the sense of
"connected with time, representing time, existing through all time."
Derivatives in ~-ion~ and ~-ides~ took, in later times, the more
exclusive meaning of patronymics.... When this (the meaning of
~Kronides~ as equiv