An Introduction to the Science of Comparative Mythology and Folklore

1883. The author's purpose for this volume is to give a general view of the vast mass of popular traditions belonging to the Aryan nations of Asia and Europe, and of other tribes so far as the conditions of the subject may render necessary. Its starting point is the principle that the popular traditions of no one Aryan people can be really understood except in their relation to those of other tribes and nations of the same family, and that the epochal and dramatic literature of those races has been constructed from materials common to all branches of the Aryan stock and furnished by popular sayings, stories, and tales many of which have never had the good fortune to be more than the talk of nurses and children. Contents: The Materials of Popular Tradition; The Heavens and the Light; The Fire; The Winds; The Waters; The Clouds; The Earth; The Underworld and the Darkness; and The Epochal Traditions and Poems of the Aryan World. See other books by this author available from Kessinger Publishing.