What, then, is a myth? The theory of Euhemeros, which was so
fashionable a century ago, in the days of the Abbe Banier, has
long since been so utterly abandoned that to refute it now is
but to slay the slain. The peculiarity of this theory was that
it cut away all the extraordinary features of a given myth,
wherein dwelt its inmost significance, and to the dull and
useless residuum accorded the dignity of primeval history. In
this way the myth was lost without compensation, and the
student, in seeking good digestible bread, found but the
hardest of pebbles. Considered merely as a pretty story, the
legend of the golden fruit watched by the dragon in the garden
of the Hesperides is not without its value. But what merit can
there be in the gratuitous statement which, degrading the
grand Doric hero to a level with any vulgar fruit-stealer,
makes Herakles break a close with force and arms, and carry
off a crop of oranges which had been guarded by mastiffs? It
is still worse when we come to the more homely folk-lore with
which the student of mythology now has to deal. The theories
of Banier, which limped and stumbled awkwardly enough when it
was only a question of Hermes and Minos and Odin, have fallen
never to rise again since the problems of Punchkin and
Cinderella and the Blue Belt have begun to demand solution.
The conclusion has been gradually forced upon the student,
that the marvellous portion of these old stories is no
illegitimate extres-cence, but was rather the pith and centre
of the whole,[8] in days when there was no supernatural,
because it had not yet been discovered that there was such a
thing as nature. The religious myths of antiquity and the
fireside legends of ancient and modern times have their common