The mythology of ancient Greece and Italy

MYTHOLOGY OF GREECE.
pestilence itself to be actual and real facts, all those who heard
of them, and who had at the same time a firm belief in the
avenging power of Apollo, whose priest Chryses was, would
pronounce, with as full conviction as if it had been something
which they had seen and experienced themselves, that it was
the god who had sent the pestilence on the prayer of his
priest a . How
far this theory is well founded, and whether it
will apply with equal force to other mythologies as to that of
Greece, is a question which we will not now discuss.
The sources, or the occasions of the production, of mythes
may, we think, be arranged under the following heads, which
fall into two classes, namely, of things and of names.
1. The sages of remote antiquity appear to have had a pe-
culiar fondness for enveloping moral and physical truths in
the garb of symbol, mythe, and allegory ; and the legends
which they thus devised form no inconsiderable portion of
the various bodies of mythology.
2. As a second source may perhaps be added the pride of
family and the flattery of poets, which would seek to cast
lustre on the origin of some noble house by placing a deity
at the head of its pedigree, or to veil the transgression of one
of its daughters by feigning that a god had penetrated the
recesses of her chamber, or met her in the wood or at the
fountain. Legends of this kind are to be placed among the
latest. Indeed we very much doubt if this be a real original
source of mythes b , and we place it here only because it has
been generally so regarded.
3. A great number of legends in all countries are indebted
for their origin to the extreme desire which men have to as-
sign a cause for the various phenomena of the natural world.
The Scandinavian mythology is full of instances, and the sub-
sequent pages will present them in abundance. We cannot
however refrain from giving in this place the following in-
stance, as it combines the ancient and modern legendary ex-
planations of the same natural appearance.
It is well known that most of the rivers of the Peloponnese
have their sources in lakes situated in the high valley-plains
a Muller, Prolog. 78. Ill, 112, and elsewhere.
19 The earliest allusion to this practice we have met with is in Eurip. Bac. 26.