among tribes not ethnically distinct, and possessing a fairly uniform degree of culture. Further, we find these customs varying under our very eyes-forest tribes who used to bury their dead adopting cremation when they come under Brahman influence, and Hindus converted to Islam or Christianity replacing cremation by inhumation. Rites of this kind, in short, seem to be liable to constant modification, and provide no safe criterion for deciding the relative ages of poems like the epics. The facts thus collected seem to indicate unity of age and authorship of the Iliad. The relation of the Iliad to the Odyssey is a much more difficult question. I do not pretend to offer an opinion on the arguments based on archaeology and philology; but I am inclined to think that the linguistic differences in the two poems, of which a catalogue has been prepared by that great scholar, Mr. Munro, have not been fully met by Mr. Lang. From the point of view of religion, again, Professor Lewis Campbell has given a long list of the "obvious differences" between the standpoint of the two poems;1 and the same view has been adopted by Professor Gilbert Murray, both critics being deeply impressed by the splendour of Homer's poetry. Mr. Lang's main answer to these arguments seems to be that they do not fit in with Mr. Leaf's scheme of breaking up the Iliad into cantos." 8 Another set of arguments against the unity of the two poems has been produced by Mr. Hall, who points out that whereas in the Iliad the Dorians are of no account among the Greek tribes, in the Odyssey they appear to have reached the end of their migrations; that in the Iliad the process of the withdrawal of the Phoenicians from the Aegean seems to have begun, in the Odyssey they appear to have disappeared from Greece, and 1 Religion in Greek Literature, 84 ff. 2 History of Ancient Greek Literature, 33 ff. 3 Op. cit. 231 f. are found trading more especially outside Greek waters; that the knowledge of Italy shown in the Odyssey points to a later date; and that local politics in the Egyptian delta fix the date of the raid of Odysseus1 at the end of the eighth or the beginning of the seventh century B.C. Mr. Lang is at his best in demonstrating that the schemes for the dislocation of the Iliad into lays are impracticable and self-contradictory. The Separatist theory, in short, involves at least two serious difficulties: first, that, assuming the Menis or Wrath of Achilles, the "kernel" of the poem, as Mr. Leaf calls it, to be the work of a writer whom we may call Homer, there must have been, in or about the same age, at least two or three equally great poets who were content to merge their personalities in his, or were identified with him; secondly, that if the present arrangement of the epic is the work of a later editor, it is a mystery how a writer of such genius as his must have been could have left the discrepancies and difficulties which at once attract the attention of the modern critic. The result of the whole investigation seems to be that we may provisionally accept the Iliad, with certain later additions, as the work of a single hand, while the Odyssey probably comes from a different and later writer. "The poems," says Professor Campbell, "are a treasure-house of things new and old, preserving some relics of an immemorial past like flies in amber, while bearing on their surface all the gloss of novelty."" In studying part of the large mass of literature devoted to this controversy it occurred to me that if arguments for and against the unity of the epics can be based on considerations like those of armour, the use of bronze and iron, customs of disposal of the dead, and similar considerations to which Mr. Lang's recent book is largely devoted, it might be possible to apply a similar test among tribes not ethnically distinct, and possessing a fairly uniform degree of culture. Further, we find these customs varying under our very eyes-forest tribes who used to bury their dead adopting cremation when they come under Brahman influence, and Hindus converted to Islam or Christianity replacing cremation by inhumation. Rites of this kind, in short, seem to be liable to constant modification, and provide no safe criterion for deciding the relative ages of poems like the epics. The facts thus collected seem to indicate unity of age and authorship of the Iliad. The relation of the Iliad to the Odyssey is a much more difficult question. I do not pretend to offer an opinion on the arguments based on archaeology and philology; but I am inclined to think that the linguistic differences in the two poems, of which a catalogue has been prepared by that great scholar, Mr. Munro, have not been fully met by Mr. Lang. From the point of view of religion, again, Professor Lewis Campbell has given a long list of the "obvious differences" between the standpoint of the two poems;1 and the same view has been adopted by Professor Gilbert Murray,2 both critics being deeply impressed by the splendour of Homer's poetry. Mr. Lang's main answer to these arguments seems to be that they do not fit in with Mr. Leaf's scheme of breaking up the Iliad into "cantos." Another set of arguments against the unity of the two poems has been produced by Mr. Hall, who points out that whereas in the Iliad the Dorians are of no account among the Greek tribes, in the Odyssey they appear to have reached the end of their migrations; that in the Iliad the process of the withdrawal of the Phoenicians from the Aegean seems to have begun, in the Odyssey they appear to have disappeared from Greece, and 1 Religion in Greek Literature, 84 ff. 3 Op. cit. 231 f. 2 History of Ancient Greek Literature, 33 ff. are found trading more especially outside Greek waters; that the knowledge of Italy shown in the Odyssey points to a later date; and that local politics in the Egyptian delta fix the date of the raid of Odysseus1 at the end of the eighth or the beginning of the seventh century B.C. Mr. Lang is at his best in demonstrating that the schemes for the dislocation of the Iliad into lays are impracticable and self-contradictory. The Separatist theory, in short, involves at least two serious difficulties: first, that, assuming the Menis or Wrath of Achilles, the "kernel" of the poem, as Mr. Leaf calls it, to be the work of a writer whom we may call Homer, there must have been, in or about the same age, at least two or three equally great poets who were content to merge their personalities in his, or were identified with him; secondly, that if the present arrangement of the epic is the work of a later editor, it is a mystery how a writer of such genius as his must have been could have left the discrepancies and difficulties which at once attract the attention of the modern critic. The result of the whole investigation seems to be that we may provisionally accept the Iliad, with certain later additions, as the work of a single hand, while the Odyssey probably comes from a different and later writer. "The poems," says Professor Campbell, "are a treasure-house of things new and old, preserving some relics of an immemorial past like flies in amber, while bearing on their surface all the gloss of novelty.” 2 In studying part of the large mass of literature devoted to this controversy it occurred to me that if arguments for and against the unity of the epics can be based on considerations like those of armour, the use of bronze and iron, customs of disposal of the dead, and similar considerations to which Mr. Lang's recent book is largely devoted, it might be possible to apply a similar test dependent on the provenience of the Sagas, Märchen, and folk-lore incidents which appear in the poems. If, for instance, the "kernel" of the Iliad was composed on Greek soil, and was subsequently extended by an Ionic poet, we would expect that some indications of this would appear in the folk-lore. So that if taking the scheme of arrangement of the "cantos" in the Iliad, as proposed by Mr. Leaf, and comparing these with the Odyssey we could show that there is anything like a stratification of belief or tradition, and that this corresponds with the suggested divisions of the poems, we should have an argument of some importance in disproof of the unity of authorship. I hope that in making this investigation I shall not lay myself open to the sarcastic comment of a recent writer, who, reviewing the work of the Separatists, remarks that "we feel as if we were assisting at the midnight adulteration of some new brand of sugar behind a grocer's counter." I trust that the reverence in which I hold the poems will save me from such a charge. In considering the folk-lore and folk tales I shall comment occasionally on any result of this scrutiny which seems of any value, leaving the references in the notes to this paper to speak for themselves. I may say at once that the investigation, for reasons which I will suggest later on, has led to no definite result.2 To return to the sources of the poems-attempts have also been made to discriminate the evidence of foreign influence, of the knowledge of savagery and of lands beyond the Hellenic area, which appears in the epics. For instance, in the Iliad alone we find a reference 1Edinburgh Review, cci. 210. The references follow Leaf's scheme as given in his Iliad, 1st ed. In the 2nd ed. he gives a similar, but less elaborate classification. i. represents the Menis or "kernel" of the poem; ii. A, ii. B, ii. C, the "Earlier Expansions"; iii. the "Later Expansions"; iv. the "Greater Interpolations; v. "Short Interpolated Passages by which the transitions from one |