rection of Preller's derivation from ~kraino~:--

~oud' ara po hoi epekraiaine Kronion~,

and in Sophocles ('Tr.' 126):--

~ho panta krainon Basileus Kronidas~.

Preller illustrates the mutilation of Uranus by the Maori tale of
Tutenganahau. The child-swallowing he connects with Punic and
Phoenician influence, and Semitic sacrifices of men and children.
Porphyry[53] speaks of human sacrifices to Cronus in Rhodes, and the
Greeks recognised Cronus in the Carthaginian god to whom children were
offered up.

Hartung[54] takes Cronus, when he mutilates Uranus, to be the fire of
the sun, scorching the sky of spring. This, again, is somewhat out of
accord with Schwartz's idea, that Cronus is the storm-god, the
cloud-swallowing deity, his sickle the rainbow, and the blood of
Uranus the lightning.[55] According to Prof. Sayce, again,[56] the
blood-drops of Uranus are rain-drops. Cronus is the sun-god, piercing
the dark cloud, which is just the reverse of Schwartz's idea. Prof.
Sayce sees points in common between the legend of Moloch, or of Baal
under the name of Moloch, and the myth of Cronus. But Moloch, he
thinks, is not a god of Phoenician origin, but a deity borrowed from
'the primitive Accadian population of Babylonia.' Mr. Isaac Taylor,
again, explains Cronus as the sky which swallows and reproduces the
stars. The story of the sickle may be derived from the crescent moon,
the 'silver sickle,' or from a crescent-shaped piece of meteoric
iron--for, in this theory, the fetich-stone of Delphi is a piece of
that substance.

* * * * *

It will be observed that any one of these theories, if accepted, is
much more 'minute in detail' than our humble suggestion. He who adopts
any one of them, knows all about it. He knows that Cronus is a purely
Greek god, or that he is connected with the Sanskrit _Krana_, which
Tiele,[57] unhappily, says is 'a very dubious word.' Or the
mythologist may be quite confident that Cronus is neither Greek nor,
in any sense, Sanskrit, but Phoenician. A not less adequate
interpretation assigns him ultimately to Accadia. While the inquirer
who can choose a system and stick to it knows the exact nationality of
Cronus, he is also well acquainted with his character as a nature-god.
He may be Time, or perhaps he is the Summer Heat, and a horned god; or
he is the harvest-god, or the god of storm and darkness, or the
midnight sky,--the choice is wide; or he is the lor