515 His Royal Highness the Reigning Grand-Duke of Oldenburg. M. Oppert. Reinhold Pauli, D.C.L., LL.D., Ph.D., Professor of History in the University at Göttingen. A. R. Rangabé, Professor of Archæology in the University of Athens. Leopold Ranke, LL.D. Dr. H. Schliemann, Phil.D., F.S.A., etc. Count Serge Stroganoff, President of the Imperial Commission of M. Tributien, Keeper of the Library, Caen, Normandy. FORM OF A BEQUEST OF MONEY, STOCK, OR OTHER PERSONAL ESTATE. I give and bequeath to "The Royal Society of Literature of the United Kingdom" the sum of £ [If of Stock or other Personal Estate, to be described.] THE MYTHOLOGY OF THE EDDAS: HOW FAR OF TRUE TEUTONIC ORIGIN. BY C. F. KEARY, M.A., F.S.A. (Read March 23, and June 22, 1880.) Mr. MATTHEW ARNOLD, in a happy phrase, has described a certain method of biblical interpretation as one by which anything may be made of anything.' I am well aware that the ways of mythologists in comparing different systems of belief, and in tracing veins of similarity running through these systems, are not altogether sheltered from a like reproach. No one, I think, who has made a study of comparative mythology, but must often have felt himself being carried away by its more dangerous seductions, by a constant tendency to allow his ingenuity in scenting out and hunting down likenesses to override his better judgment. The points of contact between creed and creed are so many and yet so subtle, the difference between the genuine and the spurious analogy is often so hard to determine or describe, that we find ourselves continually urged forward in the chase; our appetite gets whetted by a partial capture, and yet there is always something more ahead which we have not reached. The result is but too likely to be that the plain common sense of the matter is entirely overlooked. I hope I may avoid this error in the following study; but as I know I am likely to fall into it, I take the opportunity to say these cautionary words VOL. XII. 2 M at the outset, and I do not wish any theory which I advance to be accepted, if it be opposed to reason and mature thought. This, indeed, is the advantage which one gains by the opportunity of laying his views before a learned and critical society, which is not likely to allow any loose reasoning or analogy, nor any unsubstantial statement to pass unchallenged. But I need not spend time in reminding you that in mythology, as in all that class of studies which set before themselves the interpretation of human nature, as distinguished from the rest of nature, all those studies which may be classed as historical, as distinguished from the natural-historical, in these the methods whereby we arrive at truth are not susceptible of the same kind of rigid demonstration which is possible in physical science. In interpreting the documents of ordinary history, for example, it is impossible to prove beyond dispute the reliableness of our sources, or to measure by any exact scale of proportion the relative truthfulness of our witnesses. The best means which we possess of separating the true from the false can never save us from error; a rigid scepticism can itself do no more than keep us in pure ignorance; and we are driven in the end, to put our trust largely in a sort of tact, or shall I call it historic imagination, which the study of history tends to foster. The better and the worse historian are distinguished mainly by the possession of more or less of this interpreting faculty; and we ourselves, if we are to weigh justly their conclusions, require some experience of the difficulties of an historian. In the studies of the comparative mythologist the same kind of historic faculty is called into requisition. The best thing which such an one can do, therefore (so at least it seems to me), is to use his experience as conscientiously as he can, and not to expect to place himself beyond the possibility of error, or out of the reach of criticism. This plan I have set before myself in the following pages. It is not unknown to you that a learned Norwegian, Professor Sophus Bugge of Christiania (he chiefly, and others as well), has propounded a theory of the origin of the Eddaic tales which leaves them little or no genuineness as (what thy profess to be) exponents of the ancestral legends and beliefs of the Norse folk. According to this view only a small fraction of the Eddaic tales are true Teutonic; the rest are stories picked up during the viking-age (ie., during the ninth century) in the British isles, especially from monks and the pupils of monks, and indebted ultimately to distorted classical myths or to Jewish-Christian Legends.1 The brains of the Teutonic race has had scarcely more to do with these stories than to remember (or to forget) them, and to repeat them in distorted forms. Professor Bugge now holds a foremost place among the Eddaic scholars of Europe; and no one can fail to be impressed by the learning and ingenuity with which he has supported his thesis. Nevertheless, we may expect that his theories will be subjected to sharp criticism, and there are many different points (as it seems to me) in which they are open to criticism. Before we can 1 Studien über die Entstehung der nordischen Götter-u. Heldensagen, von Sophus Bugge, pp. 9, 10. |