s alike in all latitudes, and that
the same phenomenon might in various places independently give rise to
similar stories. [13] The myth of Jack and the Beanstalk is found not
only among people of Aryan descent, but also among the Zulus of South
Africa, and again among the American Indians. Whenever we can trace a
story in this way from one end of the world to the other, or through a
whole family of kindred nations, we are pretty safe in assuming that we
are dealing with a true myth, and not with a mere legend.

Applying these considerations to the Tell myth, we at once obtain a
valid explanation of its origin. The conception of infallible skill
in archery, which underlies such a great variety of myths and popular
fairy-tales, is originally derived from the inevitable victory of the
sun over his enemies, the demons of night, winter, and tempest. Arrows
and spears which never miss their mark, swords from whose blow no armour
can protect, are invariably the weapons of solar divinities or heroes.
The shafts of Bellerophon never fail to slay the black demon of the
rain-cloud, and the bolt of Phoibos Chrysaor deals sure destruction
to the serpent of winter. Odysseus, warring against the impious
night-heroes, who have endeavoured throughout ten long years or hours of
darkness to seduce from her allegiance his twilight-bride, the weaver
of the never-finished web of violet clouds,--Odysseus, stripped of
his beggar's raiment and endowed with fresh youth and beauty by the
dawn-goddess, Athene, engages in no doubtful conflict as he raises the
bow which none but himself can bend. Nor is there less virtue in the
spear of Achilleus, in the swords of Perseus and Sigurd, in Roland's
stout blade Durandal, or in the brand Excalibur, with which Sir Bedivere
was so loath to part. All these are solar weapons, and so, too, are
the arrows of Tell and Palnatoki, Egil and Hemingr, and William of
Cloudeslee, whose surname proclaims him an inhabitant of the Phaiakian
land. William Tell, whether of Cloudland or of Altdorf, is the last
reflection of the beneficent divinity of daytime and summer, constrained
for a while to obey the caprice of the powers of cold and darkness, as
Apollo served Laomedon, and Herakles did the bidding of Eurystheus.
His solar character is well preserved, even in the sequel of the Swiss
legend, in which he appears no less skilful as a steersman than as an
archer, and in which, after traversing, like Dagon, the tempestuous