But this is not the primitive form of the myth, which recurs
in the folk-lore of every people of Aryan descent. Who,
indeed, can read it without being at once reminded of Thomas
of Erceldoune (or Horsel-hill), entranced by the sorceress of
the Eilden; of the nightly visits of Numa to the grove of the
nymph Egeria; of Odysseus held captive by the Lady Kalypso;
and, last but not least, of the delightful Arabian tale of
Prince Ahmed and the Peri Banou? On his westward journey,
Odysseus is ensnared and kept in temporary bondage by the
amorous nymph of darkness, Kalypso (kalnptw, to veil or
cover). So the zone of the moon-goddess Aphrodite inveigles
all-seeing Zeus to treacherous slumber on Mount Ida; and by a
similar sorcery Tasso's great hero is lulled in unseemly
idleness in Armida's golden paradise, at the western verge of
the world. The disappearance of Tannhauser behind the moonlit
cliff, lured by Venus Ursula, the pale goddess of night, is a
precisely parallel circumstance.

But solar and lunar phenomena are by no means the only sources
of popular mythology. Opposite my writing-table hangs a quaint
German picture, illustrating Goethe's ballad of the Erlking,
in which the whole wild pathos of the story is compressed into
one supreme moment; we see the fearful, half-gliding rush of
the Erlking, his long, spectral arms outstretched to grasp the
child, the frantic gallop of the horse, the alarmed father
clasping his darling to his bosom in convulsive embrace, the
siren-like elves hovering overhead, to lure the little soul
with their weird harps. There can be no better illustration
than is furnished by this terrible scene of the magic power of