hod of Folklore,' in the first edition of my
Custom and Myth. In that essay I take, as an example of the method, the
Scottish and Northumbrian Kernababy, the puppet made out of the last
gleanings of harvest. This I compared to the Greek Demeter of the
harvest-home, with sheaves and poppies in her hands, in the immortal
Seventh Idyll of Theocritus. Our Kernababy, I said, is a stunted
survival of our older 'Maiden,' 'a regular image of the harvest goddess,'
and I compared [Greek]. Next I gave the parallel case from ancient Peru,
and the odd accidental coincidence that _there_ the maize was styled Mama
Cora ([Greek]!).

In entire ignorance of Mannhardt's corn-spirit, or corn-mother, I was
following Mannhardt's track. Indeed, Mr. Max Muller has somewhere
remarked that I popularise Mannhardt's ideas. Naturally he could not
guess that the coincidence was accidental and also inevitable. Two men,
unknown to each other, were using the same method on the same facts.

Mannhardt's Return to his old Colours

If, then, Mannhardt was re-converted, it would be a potent argument for
my conversion. But one is reminded of the re-conversion of Prince
Charles. In 1750 he 'deserted the errors of the Church of Rome for those
of the Church of England.' Later he returned, or affected to return, to
the ancient faith.

A certain Cardinal seemed contented therewith, and, as the historian
remarks, 'was clearly a man not difficult to please.' Mr. Max Muller
reminds me of the good Cardinal. I do not feel so satisfied as he does
of Mannhardt's re-conversion.

Mannhardt's Attitude to Philology

We have heard Mannhardt, in a letter partly cited by Mr. Max Muller,
describe his own method. He begins with what is certain and
intelligible, a mass of popular customs. These he explains by analogies.
He passes from the known to the obscure. Philological mythologists begin
with the unknown, the name of a god. This they analyse, extract a
meaning, and (proceeding to the known) fit the facts of the god's legend
into the sense of his name. The methods are each other's opposites, yet
the letter in which Mannhardt illustrates this fact is cited as a proof
of his return to his old colours.

Irritating Conduct of Mannhardt

Nothing irritates philological mythologists so much, nothing has injured
them so much in the esteem of the public which 'goes into these things a
little,' as the statement that their competing etymologies