t the whole connected series of events--the coming of the
wooer; the love of the hostile being's daughter; the tasks imposed on
the wooer; the aid rendered by the daughter; the flight of the pair;
the defeat or destruction of the hostile being--all these, or most of
these, are extant, in due sequence, among the following races. The
Greeks have the tale, the people of Madagascar have it, the Lowland
Scotch, the Celts, the Russians, the Italians, the Algonquins, the
Finns, and the Samoans have it. Now if the story were confined to the
Aryan race, we might account for its diffusion, by supposing it to be
the common heritage of the Indo-European peoples, carried everywhere
with them in their wanderings. But when the tale is found in
Madagascar, North America, Samoa, and among the Finns, while many
scattered incidents occur in even more widely severed races, such as
Zulus, Bushmen, Japanese, Eskimo, Samoyeds, the Aryan hypothesis
becomes inadequate.

To show how closely, all things considered, the Aryan and non-Aryan
possessors of the tale agree, let us first examine the myth of Jason.

* * * * *

The earliest literary reference to the myth of Jason is in the _Iliad_
(vii. 467, xxiii. 747). Here we read of Euneos, a son whom Hypsipyle
bore to Jason in Lemnos. Already, even in the _Iliad_, the legend of
Argo's voyage has been fitted into certain well-known geographical
localities. A reference in the _Odyssey_ (xii. 72) has a more antique
ring: we are told that of all barques Argo alone escaped the jaws of
the Rocks Wandering, which clashed together and destroyed ships. Argo
escaped, it is said, 'because Jason was dear to Hera.' It is plain,
from various fragmentary notices, that Hesiod was familiar with
several of the adventures in the legend of Jason. In the _Theogony_
(993-998) Hesiod mentions the essential facts of the legend: how Jason
carried off from AEetes his daughter, 'after achieving the adventures,
many and grievous, which were laid upon him.' At what period the home
of AEetes was placed in Colchis, it is not easy to determine.
Mimnermus, a contemporary of Solon, makes the home of AEetes lie 'on
the brink of ocean,' a very vague description.[99] Pindar, on the
other hand, in the splendid Fourth Pythian Ode, already knows Colchis
as the scene of the loves and flight of Jason and Medea.

* * * * *

'Long were it for me to go by the beaten track,' says