amiliar tale of _Jack, the Giant-Killer_; so also
do a great number of other fairy stories, each being told in different
countries and in different periods, with so much likeness as to show
that all the versions came from the same source, and yet with enough
difference to show that none of the versions are directly copied from
each other. "Indeed, when we compare the myths and legends of one
country with another, and of one period with another, we find out how
they have come to be so much alike, and yet in some things so different.
We see that there must have been _one origin_ for all these stories,
that they must have been invented by _one people_, that this people must
have been afterwards divided, and that each part or division of it must
have brought into its new home the legends once common to them all, and
must have shaped and altered these according to the kind of place in
which they came to live; those of the North being sterner and more
terrible, those of the South softer and fuller of light and color, and
adorned with touches of more delicate fancy." And this, indeed, is
really the case. All the chief stories and legends are alike, because
they were first made by _one people_; and all the nations in which they
are now told in one form or another tell them because they are all
descended from this one common stock, the _Aryan_.

From researches made by Prof. Max Mueller, the Rev. George W. Cox, and
others, in England and Germany, in the science of _Comparative
Mythology_, we begin to see something of these ancient forefathers of
ours; to understand what kind of people they were, and to find that _our
fairy stories_ are really made out of _their religion_.

The mind of the Aryan peoples in their ancient home was full of
imagination. They never ceased to wonder at what they saw and heard in
the sky and upon the earth. Their language was highly figurative, and so
the things which struck them with wonder, and which they could not
explain, were described under forms and names which were familiar to
them. "Thus, the thunder was to them the bellowing of a mighty beast, or
the rolling of a great chariot. In the lightning they saw a brilliant
serpent, or a spear shot across the sky, or a great fish darting swiftly
through the sea of cloud. The clouds were heavenly cows, who shed milk
upon the earth and refreshed it; or they were webs woven by heavenly
women who drew water from the fountains on high and poured it down as