Sun God, riding in
his fiery chariot, his glowing locks spreading out through the sky. The
demons of darkness revolt against him, and must be overcome. The Rain
God darkens the heavens, and the Dawn Maiden brings the light. From
these first simple ideas grew a large mythology, full of beauty, and of
the local color which we see in all national myths; these are warm and
glowing. Read the translations of some of the stories and hymns. See
Mrs. Poor's Sanskrit and Kindred Literatures, or Warner's Library of
Universal Literature.

III--GREEK MYTHS AND LEGENDS

The mythology of the Greeks is the most beautiful, the most artistic,
and the most perfectly developed of any that we have, and it repays
careful study. The early myths are much like the Aryan; indeed some of
the stories are practically identical. The sun and moon, darkness,
storm, spring and summer, the ocean and the sky were all personified.
Phoebus Apollo in his chariot is the sun; Eros and Psyche are the
coming and going of light and darkness; Demeter, the harvest, has a
daughter Persephone who goes down to the underworld as seed, dies, and
is revived as spring brings back life. Notice how from such first,
simple ideas a whole complicated religious system developed, and how the
original gods and goddesses became so many that earth, air, water, sky,
and all nature were filled with them. See also the gradual decadence of
the system, especially when the Romans adopted it. Compare the myths of
light and darkness with those of other lands. Read from Stories of Old
Greece, by Emma R. Frith, and H. M. Chadwick's The Heroic Age.

IV--SCANDINAVIAN FOLK-LORE

In this cold, northern land the same original myths developed as
elsewhere but were altered by the environment. Here the legends are
often terrible instead of beautiful. There are battles of hail and snow,
great ice mountains to be surmounted, gloomy castles to be won. The
spirits of storm, of thunder, of cold, all figure. Animals, too, are
conspicuous in the stories, especially bears, wolves and eagles. The
gods were stern and awful, rather than lovable. But in spite of this,
there were still some, like the goddess of spring, who had charm, and
some stories which show a sense of humor. Read In the Days of the
Giants, a Book of Norse Tales, by Abbie Farwell Brown. Here are stories
from the Sagas and the Edda, the earliest literature of the North. See
How Thor Went a-Fishing, The Lost Bell, The Three Dogs, and T