in a single idea or conception. The first polytheistic Olympus consisted
of natural types, and at a much later period they became moral or
abstract, in accordance with the spontaneous evolution of the
intelligence itself.

It was in fact in this way that all the specific myths of the general
phenomena of nature had their origin, and in our Aryan race we can,
starting from the Rig-Veda, follow their splendid development among
Græco-Latins, Celts, Germans, and Slavs; it may also be traced in the
memory and historic evolution of other races, and with less distinctness
among those which are barbarous and savage.[21]

To take some example which may throw light upon our theory of the
evolution of myth, let us consider that of _Holda_ in the German
Pantheon, since it is a generic type of the special primitive fetishes
of sources, already in process of formation before the dispersion of the
Aryan tribes. Mannhardt (_Deutsche Mythologie_) has shown what was the
primitive form of the conception of _Holda_ and of the _Nornas_, that
is, of the phenomenal appearances of water; Holda, the _lady of waters_,
first watched over the heavenly sources, and then, by a subsequent
interweaving of myths and duplication of images, she kept and guarded
the souls of new-born infants. This early conception by progressive
specification gave birth to those of the _Nornas_, of _Valkuria,
Undine,_ and others. The primitive fetish, or fetishes of waters out of
which the specific type, afterwards personified, was evolved and formed,
were at first so bound to the concrete form of the phenomenon, that
although animated, it could not assume a human aspect and form. But when
the specific type which ideally represented the power manifested in all
the various modes of special phenomena was evolved, then man was
released from the concrete and individual forms of the fetish, and