The Project Gutenberg eBook, Custom and Myth, by Andrew Lang

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Title: Custom and Myth

Author: Andrew Lang

Release Date: November 17, 2004 [eBook #14080]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CUSTOM AND MYTH***

Transcribed from the 1884 Longmans, Green and Co. edition by David Price,
email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk

CUSTOM AND MYTH

To E. B. Tylor, author of 'Primitive Culture,' these studies of the
oldest stories are dedicated.

INTRODUCTION.

Though some of the essays in this volume have appeared in various
serials, the majority of them were written expressly for their present
purpose, and they are now arranged in a designed order. During some
years of study of Greek, Indian, and savage mythologies, I have become
more and more impressed with a sense of the inadequacy of the prevalent
method of comparative mythology. That method is based on the belief that
myths are the result of a disease of language, as the pearl is the result
of a disease of the oyster. It is argued that men at some period, or
periods, spoke in a singular style of coloured and concrete language, and
that their children retained the phrases of this language after losing
hold of the original meaning. The consequence was the growth of myths
about supposed persons, whose names had originally been mere
'appellations.' In conformity with this hypothesis the method of
comparative mythology examines the proper names which occur in myths. The
notion is that these names contain a key to the meaning of the story, and
that, in fact, of the story the names are the germs and the oldest
surviving part.

The objections to this method are so numerous that it is difficult to
state them briefly. The attempt, however, must be made. To desert the
path opened by the most eminent scholars is in itself presumptuous; the
least that an innovator can do is to give his reasons for advancing in a
novel direction. If this were a question of scholarship merely, it would
be simply foolhardy to differ from men like Max Muller, Adalbert Kuhn,
Breal, and many others. But a revolutionary mythologist is encourag