the mythology of what
the Germans call a _cultur-volk_ like the Greeks or Romans. It could
also be proved that much of the narrative element in the classic epics
is to be found in a popular or childish form in primitive fairy tales.
The question would then come to be, Have the higher mythologies been
developed, by artistic poets, out of the materials of a race which
remained comparatively untouched by culture; or are the lower spirits,
and the more simple and puerile forms of myth, degradations of the
inventions of a cultivated class? In the majority of cases, the former
theory is correct.

FOOTNOTES:

[172] Talvj, _Charakteristik der Volkslieder_, p. 3.

[173] Fauriel, _Chants de la Grece moderne_.

[174] Thus Scotland scarcely produced any ballads, properly speaking,
after the Reformation. The Kirk suppressed the dances to whose motion
the ballad was sung in Scotland, as in Greece, Provence, and France.

[175] L. Preller's _Ausgewaehlte Aufsaetze_. Greek ideas on the origin
of Man. It is curious that the myth of a gold, a silver, and a copper
race occurs in South America. See Brasseur de Bourbourg's _Notes on
the Popol Vuh_.

[176] See essay on _Early History of the Family_.

[177] This constant struggle may be, and of course by one school of
comparative mythologists will be, represented as the strife between
light and darkness, the sun's rays, and the clouds of night, and so
on. M. Castren has well pointed out that the struggle has really an
historical meaning. Even if the myth be an elementary one, its
constructors must have been in the exogamous stage of society.

[178] Sampo _may_ be derived from a Thibetan word, meaning 'fountain
of good,' or it may possibly be connected with the Swedish _stamp_, a
hand-mill. The talisman is made of all the quaint odds and ends that
the Fetichist treasures, swan's feathers, flocks of wool, and so on.

[179] _Fortnightly Review_, 1869: 'The Worship of Plants and Animals.'

[180] Mr. M'Lennan in the _Fortnightly Review_, February, 1870.

[181] M. Schmidt, _Volksleben der Neugriechen_, finds comparatively
few traces of the worship of Zeus, and these mainly in proverbial
expressions.

_THE DIVINING ROD._

There is something remarkable, and not flattering to human sagacity,
in the periodical resurrection of superstitions. Houses, for example,
go on being 'haunted' in country districts, and no educated man
notices the circumstance. Then comes a case like that of