PREFACE.
 
      IN publishing this somewhat rambling and unsystematic series of
   papers, in which I have endeavoured to touch briefly upon a great many
   of the most important points in the study of mythology, I think it
   right to observe that, in order to avoid confusing the reader with
   intricate discussions, I have sometimes cut the matter short,
   expressing myself with dogmatic definiteness where a sceptical
   vagueness might perhaps have seemed more becoming. In treating of
   popular legends and superstitions, the paths of inquiry are circuitous
   enough, and seldom can we reach a satisfactory conclusion until we
   have travelled all the way around Robin Hood's barn and back again. I
   am sure that the reader would not have thanked me for obstructing
   these crooked lanes with the thorns and brambles of philological and
   antiquarian discussion, to such an extent as perhaps to make him
   despair of ever reaching the high road. I have not attempted to
   review, otherwise than incidentally, the works of Grimm, Müller, Kuhn,
   Bréal, Dasent, and Tylor; nor can I pretend to have added anything of
   consequence, save now and then some bit of explanatory comment, to the
   results obtained by the labour of these scholars; but it has rather
   been my
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   aim to present these results in such a way as to awaken general
   interest in them. And accordingly, in dealing with a subject which
   depends upon philology almost as much as astronomy depends upon
   mathematics, I have omitted philological considerations wherever it
   has been possible to do so. Nevertheless, I believe that nothing has
   been advanced as established which is not now generally admitted by
   scholars, and that nothing has been advanced as probable for which due
   evidence cannot be produced. Yet among many points which are proved,
   and many others which are probable, there must always remain many
   other facts of which we cannot feel sure that our own explanation is
   the true one; and the student who endeavours to fathom the primitive
   thoughts of mankind, as enshrined in mythology, will do well to bear
   in mind the modest words of Jacob Grimm, -- himself the greatest
   scholar and thinker who has ever dealt with this class of subjects, --
   "I shall indeed interpret all that I can, but I cannot interpret all
   that I should like."
   PETERSHAM, September 6, 1872.
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                                 CONTENTS.
 
     I. THE ORIGINS OF FOLK-LORE . . . . . . . . 1
   
     II. THE DESCENT OF FIRE. . . . . . . . . . 37
   
     III. WEREWOLVES AND SWAN-MAIDENS . . . . . 69
   
     IV. LIGHT AND DARKNESS . . . . . . . . . .104
   
     V. MYTHS OF THE BARBARIC WORLD . . . . . .141
   
     VI. JUVENTUS MUNDI . . . . . . . . . . . .174
   
     VII. THE PRIMEVAL GHOST-WORLD. . . . . . .209
   
     NOTE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .241
   
     INDEX. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .243