at the point of resemblance between a cow and a comet,
that both have tails, was quite enough for the primitive word-maker: it
was certainly enough for the primitive myth-teller. [46] Sometimes the
pinnate shape of a leaf, the forking of a branch, the tri-cleft corolla,
or even the red colour of a flower, seems to have been sufficient to
determine the association of ideas. The Hindu commentators of the Veda
certainly lay great stress on the fact that the palasa, one of their
lightning-trees, is trident-leaved. The mistletoe branch is forked, like
a wish-bone, [47] and so is the stem which bears the forget-me-not or
wild scorpion grass. So too the leaves of the Hindu ficus religiosa
resemble long spear-heads. [48] But in many cases it is impossible
for us to determine with confidence the reasons which may have guided
primitive men in their choice of talismanic plants. In the case of some
of these stories, it would no doubt be wasting ingenuity to attempt to
assign a mythical origin for each point of detail. The ointment of the
dervise, for instance, in the Arabian tale, has probably no special
mythical significance, but was rather suggested by the exigencies of the
story, in an age when the old mythologies were so far disintegrated and
mingled together that any one talisman would serve as well as another
the purposes of the narrator. But the lightning-plants of Indo-European
folk-lore cannot be thus summarily disposed of; for however difficult it
may be for us to perceive any connection between them and the celestial
phenomena which they represent, the myths concerning them are so
numerous and explicit as to render it certain that some such connection
was imagined by the myth-makers. The superstition concerning the hand
of glory is not so hard to interpret. In the mythology of the Finns, the
storm-cloud is a black man with a bright copper hand; and in Hindustan,
Indra Savitar, the deity who slays the demon of the cloud, is
golden-handed. The selection of the hand of a man who has been hanged
is probably due to the superstition which regarded the storm-god Odin
as peculiarly the lord of the gallows. The man who is raised upon the
gallows is placed directly in the track of the wild huntsman, who comes
with his hounds to carry off the victim; and hence the notion, which,
according to Mr. Kelly, is "very common in Germany and not extinct in
England," that every suicide by hanging is followed by a storm.

The paths of comparat