able to
understand. The idea or custom for which an explanation is being
sought must, however, have been present for long in the common life
and thought of the people. Without realising this, all these old
stories become unintelligible. I believe they have been greatly
misinterpreted in the thought of writers bound by patriarchal ideas.

[242] This is done by Bachofen, and also, to some extent, by
McLennan.

The limitation of my space does not allow me to enter into the great
amount of evidence provided by these mythical stories of the
privileged position of women. One instance, however, may be referred
to as an illustration. We find a wide range of stories connected with
the mythical Amazons. Now, if I am right, the frequency of these
legends among so many races points to the acceptance of the Amazon
heroines as an historical fact. Fancy, without doubt, wove the details
of their stories, occurrences would be chosen or imagined to give
colour to the narratives, but such poetic inventions, with all their
repetitions, all their reproductions of what is practically one
situation, would take only definite form from conditions so impressed
on the popular mind by facts that must have had a real existence.
Bearing this in mind, special significance attaches to a discovery
recently made by Prof. d'Allosso. In the ancient necropolis of
Belmonte, dating from the iron age, are two very rich tombs of women
warriors with war chariots over their remains. Prof. d'Allosso states
that several details given by Virgil of the Amazon Camilla, who fought
and died on the field of battle, coincide with the details on these
tombs. The importance of this discovery is thus very great, as it
certainly seems to indicate what I am claiming--that the existence of
the Amazon heroines, leaders of armies and sung by the ancient poets,
is not a poetic fancy, but an historic reality.[243]

[243] See _The Truth about Woman_, p. 228.

I must turn now to the last group of evidence that I am able to bring
forward; to find this we must enter that realm of fancy--the world of
fairyland. We shall see that this land has its own customs, and its
own laws, entirely at variance with all those to which we are
accustomed. How is this to be explained? These stories are founded
really on the life of the common people, and they have come down from
generation to generation, handed on by the storytellers, from a time
long before the day when they were eve