cred history; in a sense they
are their fiction and romance. Beginning with the sun, we find, as Mr.
Tylor says, that "in early philosophy throughout the world the sun and
moon are alive, and, as it were, human in their nature".(1) The mass of
these solar myths is so enormous that only a few examples can be given,
chosen almost at random out of the heap. The sun is regarded as a
personal being, capable not only of being affected by charms and
incantations, but of being trapped and beaten, of appearing on earth, of
taking a wife of the daughters of men. Garcilasso de la Vega has a
story of an Inca prince, a speculative thinker, who was puzzled by the
sun-worship of his ancestors. If the sun be thus all-powerful, the Inca
inquired, why is he plainly subject to laws? why does he go his daily
round, instead of wandering at large up and down the fields of heaven?
The prince concluded that there was a will superior to the sun's will,
and he raised a temple to the Unknown Power. Now the phenomena which
put the Inca on the path of monotheistic religion, a path already
traditional, according to Garcilasso, have also struck the fancy of
savages. Why, they ask, does the sun run his course like a tamed beast?
A reply suited to a mind which holds that all things are personal is
given in myths. Some one caught and tamed the sun by physical force or
by art magic.

(1) Primitive Culture, i. 288.

In Australia the myth says that there was a time when the sun did not
set. "It was at all times day, and the blacks grew weary." Norralie
considered and decided that the sun should disappear at intervals. He
addressed the sun in an incantation (couched like the Finnish Kalewala
in the metre of Longfellow's Hiawatha); and the incantation is thus
interpreted: "Sun, sun, burn your wood, burn your internal substance,
and go down". The sun therefore now burns out his fuel in a day, and
goes below for fresh firewood.(1)

(1) Brough Smyth, Aborigines of Victoria, i. 430.

In New Zealand the taming of the sun is attributed to the great hero
Maui, the Prometheus of the Maoris. He set snares to catch the sun,
but in vain, for the sun's rays bit them through. According to another
account, while Norralie wished to hasten the sun's setting, Maui wanted
to delay it, for the sun used to speed through the heavens at a racing
pace. Maui therefore snared the sun, and beat him so unmercifully that
he has been lame ever since, and travels slowly, givi