er words, that the story of the
Dame of the Fine Green Kirtle is the story of Medeia, and that the tale
of Helen is the legend of the loves of Conall Gulban. Elsewhere one
reads that in the myth of Endymion, the Sun who has sunk to his
dreamless sleep, the Moon appears as Asterodia journeying with her fifty
daughters through the sky. 'In the Christian myth she becomes St. Ursula
with her eleven thousand virgins--this Ursula again appearing in the
myth of Tannhaeuser, as the occupant of the Horselberg, and as the fairy
queen in the tale of True Thomas of Ercildoune.' By the same method of
comparative mythology, the whole series of the Arthurian stories are
placed 'in that large family of heroic legends which have their origin
in mythical phrases describing the phenomena of the outward world, and
more especially those of the day and of the year.'

This seems hard, for it compels us to believe that our remote ancestors
were very much more intelligent, and imaginative, and poetical, and
religious than anything else which they have sent down to us would have
suggested. It is true that Cox and Jones do not deny that the names
which figure in many of these legends, as in those of Greece, may have
been the names of real personages, but yet the narrative, they say, must
not be taken as historical. This may be true, but in what sense can we
regard it as more probable that the story-makers invented allegories,
and clothed them with the names of contemporary or preceding heroes,
than that they invented tales of wonder to fit these heroes? Is it
easier to believe, for instance, that Arthur came after the myths, and
was tacked on to them, than that the myths, or stories, came after
Arthur, and were tacked on to him? Is there anything in the story of St.
Ursula and her virgins which could not have had natural 'spontaneous
growth' in an age of deep devotional faith in miracles, that we must be
compelled to regard it as purely a mediaevalized version of the Greek
myth of the sun and moon?

I am not writing for experts and scholars, and therefore do not use the
scientific terms and allusions familiar to students of these matters. I
am merely writing for ordinary persons, who are often puzzled and pained
by the extraordinary meanings which specialists contrive to twist out of
simple and familiar things. It is not too much to say that the
professional mythologists are among the most troublesome meddlers who
disturb the repose of '_the ave