f the Old World. They combine the attributes of Apollo,
Herakles, and Hermes. Like Herakles, they journey from east to west,
smiting the powers of darkness, storm, and winter with the thunderbolts
of Zeus or the unerring arrows of Phoibos, and sinking in a blaze
of glory on the western verge of the world, where the waves meet the
firmament. Or like Hermes, in a second cycle of legends, they rise with
the soft breezes of a summer morning, driving before them the bright
celestial cattle whose udders are heavy with refreshing rain, fanning
the flames which devour the forests, blustering at the doors of wigwams,
and escaping with weird laughter through vents and crevices. The white
skins and flowing beards of these American heroes may be aptly compared
to the fair faces and long golden locks of their Hellenic compeers.
Yellow hair was in all probability as rare in Greece as a full beard
in Peru or Mexico; but in each case the description suits the solar
character of the hero. One important class of incidents, however is
apparently quite absent from the American legends. We frequently see the
Dawn described as a virgin mother who dies in giving birth to the Day;
but nowhere do we remember seeing her pictured as a lovely or valiant or
crafty maiden, ardently wooed, but speedily forsaken by her solar lover.
Perhaps in no respect is the superior richness and beauty of the Aryan
myths more manifest than in this. Brynhild, Urvasi, Medeia, Ariadne,
Oinone, and countless other kindred heroines, with their brilliant
legends, could not be spared from the mythology of our ancestors
without, leaving it meagre indeed. These were the materials which
Kalidasa, the Attic dramatists, and the bards of the Nibelungen found
ready, awaiting their artistic treatment. But the mythology of the New
World, with all its pretty and agreeable naivete, affords hardly enough,
either of variety in situation or of complexity in motive, for a grand
epic or a genuine tragedy.

But little reflection is needed to assure us that the imagination of the
barbarian, who either carries away his wife by brute force or buys her
from her relatives as he would buy a cow, could never have originated
legends in which maidens are lovingly solicited, or in which their
favour is won by the performance of deeds of valour. These stories
owe their existence to the romantic turn of mind which has always
characterized the Aryan, whose civilization, even in the times before
the di