bears, knew it, and possibly danced a bear dance, as Mandans or
Nootkas dance a buffalo dance or a wolf dance. But all such dances are
not totemistic. They have often other aims. One only names such dances
totemistic when performed by people who call themselves by the name of
the animal represented, and claim descent from him. Our author says
genially, 'if anybody prefers to say that the arctos was something like a
totem of the Arcadians . . . why not?' But, if the arctos was a totem,
that fact explains the Callisto story and Attic bear dance, while the
philological theory--Mr. Max Muller's theory--does not explain it. What
is oddest of all, Mr. Max Muller, as we have seen, says that the bear-
dancing girls were 'Arkades.' Now we hear of no bear dances in Arcadia.
The dancers were Athenian girls. This, indeed, is the point. We have a
bear Callisto (Artemis) in Arcady, where a folk etymology might explain
it by stretching a point. But no etymology will explain bear dances to
Artemis in Attica. So we find bears doubly connected with Artemis. The
Athenians were not Arcadians.

As to the meaning and derivation of Artemis, or Artamis, our author knows
nothing (ii. 741). I say, 'even [Greek] ([Greek], bear) has occurred to
inventive men.' Possibly I invented it myself, though not addicted to
etymological conjecture.

THE FIRE-WALK

The Method of Psychical Research

As a rule, mythology asks for no aid from Psychical Research. But there
are problems in religious rite and custom where the services of the
Cendrillon of the sciences, the despised youngest sister, may be of use.
As an example I take the famous mysterious old Fire-rite of the Hirpi, or
wolf-kin, of Mount Soracte. I shall first, following Mannhardt, and
making use of my own trifling researches in ancient literature, describe
the rite itself.

Mount Soracte

Everyone has heard of Mount Soracte, white with shining snow, the peak
whose distant cold gave zest to the blazing logs on the hearth of Horace.
Within sight of his windows was practised, by men calling themselves
'wolves' (Hirpi), a rite of extreme antiquity and enigmatic character. On
a peak of Soracte, now Monte di Silvestre, stood the ancient temple of
Soranus, a Sabine sun-god. {148a} Virgil {148b} identifies Soranus with
Apollo. At the foot of the cliff was the precinct of Feronia, a Sabine
goddess. Mr. Max Muller says that Feronia corresponds to the Vedic
Bhuranyu