to water or wood sprites, like the Latin Fauni, who controlled the rustic oracles.1

Homer evidently recognises something uncanny about the Sirens, because, contrary to his usual practice, he says nothing about their parentage or origin. Hence there is much to be said for Miss Harrison's theory that they were originally a form of the Keres or death sprites, and that Homer "by the magic of his song lifted them once for all out of the region of mere bogeydom." "2 Accordingly, in later Greek art they are represented as winged sprites on tombs, probably originally placed there as a sort of charm to guard the dead from evil spirits, and afterwards regarded as tender mourners lamenting the untimely fate of youth or maiden snatched away in their bloom. Their successors are the angels on our sepulchral monuments, who waft the weary spirit to its rest.

In the story of Polyphemus, the Cyclops, we reach the cycle of the Baffled Giant. This famous myth would need a paper to itself; but as it has been considered by Lauer, Grimm, and Mr. McCulloch, I shall note only a few points in the story. In the first place, it looks as if the Cyclops was really a disestablished or semi-forgotten deity. Pausanias, speaking of Corinth, says: "There is also an ancient sanctuary called the altar of the Cyclopes; and they sacrifice to the Cyclopes on it." He tells us nothing more, and even the learning of Dr. Frazer has been unable to unearth any further account of this cult. The name of the Cyclops, Polyphemus, "the much sayer," has been compared with that of the Celtic Gwyd Gwydion, "son of saying," in allusion to his powers of soothsaying or vaticination. He alone of the Cyclopes is called one

1Rhys, Hibbert Lectures, 198.

2 Prolegomena, 197 ff.; Myths and Monuments, 582 ff.

See Merry-Riddell, Odyssey, i. 546 ff.; McCulloch, Childhood of Fiction, 279 ff.; Frazer, Pausanias, v. 343 ff.

eyed, a characteristic he shares with the smith-god of Japan,1 and a host of other monsters-the Irish giant Balor, who had one eye in his forehead and another at the back of his skull, the former being never opened except on the field of battle, when it always took four men with hooks to raise the lid, and then his glance enfeebled a whole army of his enemies; the same tale is told of the monsters Kabandha and Vaisravana in the Ramayana.2 In a tale from Syra the monster is half man, with only one eye, one hand, and one foot; Celtic legend tells of the Angling Giant, who had only one eye, and the ocean rose no higher than his knee; in the Irish tale of Diarmaid and Grainne, as in the Arthurian story of Peridun, the giant, like the Basque Tartaro, has only one eye in the centre of his forehead.3

The blinding of the monster with a red-hot poker need not detain us. It is thus that Popelusa, the Hungarian Cinderella, dealt with the one-eyed giant; the Basque hero with the Tartaro; and Bissat blinds the Tartar monster Depeghoz. It is perhaps a reminiscence of the Homeric story that Sindibad in his Third Voyage, Oscar in the Highland, and Lug in the Celtic story in the same way deal with their monsters.5

As to the escape under the belly of the ram-in one of the Russian tales, the blacksmith who is enslaved by the witch puts on his pelisse inside-out, feigns himself to be a sheep, and passes out with the rest of the flock, as in one of the Highland variants the hero escapes by flaying

1 Aston, Nihongi, i. 81 n.

2 O'Donovan, Four Masters, i. 18; Joyce, Social History, i. 309; Hartland, Legend of Perseus, i. 15; Griffith, Ramayan, 311.

3 MacInnes-Nutt, Waifs and Strays, 263; Folk-lore, vii. 223; Rhys, Studies in the Arthurian Legend, 92; id. Hibbert Lectures, 314; Borlase, Dolmens of Ireland, iii. 888; Webster, Basque Legends, 5.

4 Miss Cox, Cinderella, 208, 489; Grimm, Teutonic Mythology, ii. 554; Webster, Basque Legends, 5.

5 Burton, Nights, iv. 367; Campbell, Popular Tales, iii. 314; Rhys,

the Giant's dog and puts on its skin; the escape under the sheep's belly in the Basque version seems to be obviously a reminiscence of Homer's story.1 In the Celtic Voyage of Maildune we have another account of a similar escape. The adventurers approach an island inhabited by gigantic blacksmiths, and one burly fellow rushes out with a piece of glowing iron in the tongs, and flings it after the curragh, which, however, it fortunately misses.2 A similar tale is also told of St. Brendan. In some cases, as in the remarkable parallel from Yorkshire, in which Jack blinds the Giant, skins his dog, and throwing the hide over his shoulder runs out on all fours barking between the legs of the monster, it has been suggested that the tradition is independent of the Odyssey. Others see in this and the very similar tale of Conall Cra Buidhe from Islay distinct evidence of borrowing from the Homeric original. It is more probable that the Cyclops Saga is made of very ancient folk-tradition, and that later versions were shaped by the splendid imaginativeness of Homer's story.

The device by which Odysseus calls himself Outis or "Nobody" appears in the Highland tale of the Brollichan who is scalded by the woman. She gives her name as "Myself," and the goblin, when asked who scalded him, answers "Myself," the same idea forming the motif of the English story My own Self and the Basque Fairy in the House.5

1 Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology, i. 408 n.; Folk-lore Congress Report, 325; Webster, Basque Legends, 5.

2 Joyce, Social History, ii. 304.

3 Henderson, Folk-lore of the N. Counties, 195.

Campbell, Popular Tales, i. 105 ff.; Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, 228; id. Celtic Fairy Tales, 247.

5

Campbell, Popular Tales, i. Intro. 47; Jacobs, More English Fairy Tales, 221; Webster, Basque Legends, 55; Clouston, Book of Noodles, 194; cf. Cox, Mythology of the Aryan Nations, ii. 366; Burton, Nights, xi. 31;

2

The second cannibal-tale in the Odyssey is that of the Laestrygons. Various theories have been suggested as to the position of this people. On the one hand it has been argued that the scene of the legend lies in Sicily, and that the curious statement of the poet-" where herdsman hails herdsman as he drives in his flock, and the other who drives forth answers the call; there might a sleepless man have earned a double wage, the one as neatherd, the other shepherding white flocks; so near are the outgoings of the night and day"-refers to the danger from gadflies which prevents the cattle from pasturing except after sundown, while the sheep, protected by their fleeces, could feed during the day. The reference to the smoke rising from the land might, it has been thought, be based on an eruption of Etna. This view has been rightly rejected. Another solution has been proposed by Dr. Verrall. "It seems more probable that 'Fargate of the Laestrygons' is, or originally was, a picture coloured, if not drawn, from the report of some terrified mariners, who, trading from lands of pasture and agriculture, saw for the first time some place, on the Euxine, maybe, where metal-work was practised on a large scale; a sort of Black Country, where 'the smoke went up from the land,' where the trolly, on paths of incredible facility, rolled down from the hills the wood for the furnaces, where shifts so extended the hours of labour that night and day met in one,' and where the visitor, roughly handled by the hard workmen and appalled by the signs of their skill and power, fled away to report that their figures were gigantic, and that they lived, like the Martians of Mr. Wells' romance, on the flesh of men." He suggests that there is nothing inconsistent in this view with the possibility of a reference to the short summers of the

1 Od. x. 50 ff.

3 Merry-Riddell, Odyssey, x. 81.

2 Od. x. 99.

North, of which a rumour would first reach the Greeks on the Euxine.

All the probabilities, however, point to the North as the scene of the story. The short nights and the volcanic outbursts suit the North of Europe, of which Homer seems to have gained some knowledge, if the island of Aeolus represents an iceberg, and if the Phaeacian legend was suggested by the Northern tale of the Ferrymen of the Dead. His account of the land of the Cimmerians seems to support this inference.1 The communication between North Europe and the Mediterranean along the Amber Route must date from a very early period, and this traffic continued during the Bronze Age.2

It must be remembered that there are traditions of cannibalism in North Europe in early times, and some evidence in support of the belief that it prevailed there.3 As a proof of this the condition of the bones found in the barrows has been adduced; but, as Dr. Windle remarks, this conclusion is not quite certain. St. Jerome, whatever his evidence may be worth, testifies to cannibalism among the Celts, and the folk-lore tradition is abundant, as in the case of the Celtic fairies, the Russian Baba Yaga, the hags or ogresses of the Eskimo tribes, and even some versions of our own Blue Beard cycle, which would have been sufficient to suggest the idea to the Homeric Greeks.

Of the Lotos-eaters we are told that whoever ate the honey-sweet fruit of the lotos had no more wish to bring tidings or to come back, but rather chose to abide with the lotos-eating men, ever feeding on the lotos and for

1 Od. xi. 14 ff.

2 Ridgeway, Folk-lore, i. 82 ff.; Montelius, Journal Anthropological Institute, xxx. 89 ff.

3 Borlase, Dolmens of Ireland, ii. 469. On the cannibalism of the Celtic fairies, see Rhys, Celtic Folklore, ii. 673.

* Remains of the Prehistoric Age, 138.