the same myth, with slight alterations, in various parts of
the world, but with totally different names?

In opposition to the method of reading myths by the philological
analysis of names, there is the method of reading them by folk-lore,
_i.e._, by a comparison of the folk-tales and customs of primitive
peoples. The student of folk-lore has to collect and compare the similar
relics of old races, the surviving superstitions and traditions, and the
ideas which still live. He is thus led to compare the usages, myths, and
ideas of savages with those which remain among the European
peasantry--classes which have least altered by education, and have shown
the smallest change in progress. It is thus that we find even in our own
country and in our own day such things as the beliefs in fairies and
divination by smoke, which are as old as time. Similarly, the
harvest-custom which is still practised by the children in parts of
rural England and Scotland--the dressing up of the last gleaning in
human shape, and conducting it home in musical procession--is parallel
with a custom in ancient Peru, and with the Feast of Demeter of the
Sicilians. But that does not necessarily prove any original connection
between Peruvians, Scotch and Sicilians, any more than the fact that the
negroes of Barbadoes make clay figures of their enemies and mutilate
them, as the Greeks and Accadians of old used to do, proves any
connection between the negroes and the Greeks and Accadians. If we find
the Australians spreading dust round the body of a dead man in order to
receive the impression of the footprints of any ghostly visitor, the
same custom has been observed among the Jews, among the Aztecs, among
the French, and even among the Scotch. Where we find, therefore, an
apparently irrational and anomalous custom in any country, we must look
for a country where a similar custom prevails, and where it is no longer
irrational and anomalous, but in harmony with the manners and ideas of
the people among whom it prevails. When we read of Greeks dancing about
in their 'mysteries' with live serpents, it seems unintelligible, but
when we read of Red Indians doing the same thing with live rattlesnakes,
we can understand the meaning because we can see implied a test of
physical courage. May not a similar motive have originated the Greek
practices?

The method of folk-lore, then, is 'to compare the seemingly meaningless
customs or manners of civilized races with t