origin with the classic legends of gods and heroes, which
formerly were alone thought worthy of the student's serious
attention. These stories--some of them familiar to us in
infancy, others the delight of our maturer years--constitute
the debris, or alluvium, brought down by the stream of
tradition from the distant highlands of ancient mythology.

September, 1870.



II. THE DESCENT OF FIRE.

IN the course of my last summer's vacation, which was spent at
a small inland village, I came upon an unexpected illustration
of the tenacity with which conceptions descended from
prehistoric antiquity have now and then kept their hold upon
life. While sitting one evening under the trees by the
roadside, my attention was called to the unusual conduct of
half a dozen men and boys who were standing opposite. An
elderly man was moving slowly up and down the road, holding
with both hands a forked twig of hazel, shaped like the letter
Y inverted. With his palms turned upward, he held in each hand
a branch of the twig in such a way that the shank pointed
upward; but every few moments, as he halted over a certain
spot, the twig would gradually bend downwards until it had
assumed the likeness of a Y in its natural position, where it
would remain pointing to something in the ground beneath. One
by one the bystanders proceeded to try the experiment, but
with no variation in the result. Something in the ground