Mannhardt on Daphne

Since we shall presently find Mr. Max Muller claiming the celebrated Mannhardt as a sometime deserter of philological comparative mythology, who ‘returned to his old colours,’ I observe with pleasure that Mannhardt is on my side and against the Oxford Professor.  Mannhardt shows that the laurel (daphne) was regarded as a plant which, like our rowan tree, averts evil influences.  ’Moreover, the laurel, like the Maibaum, was looked on as a being with a spirit.  This is the safest result which myth analysis can extract from the story of Daphne, a nymph pursued by Apollo and changed into a laurel.  It is a result of the use of the laurel in his ritual.’ {20b} In 1877, a year after Mannhardt is said by Mr. Max Muller to have returned to his old colours, he repeats this explanation. {21a} In the same work (p. 20) he says that ’there is no reason for accepting Max Muller’s explanation about the Sun-god and the Dawn, wo jeder thatliche Anhalt dafur fehlt.’  For this opinion we might also cite the Sanskrit scholars Whitney and Bergaigne. {21b}

THE QUESTION OF ALLIES

Athanasius

Mr. Max Muller protests, most justly, against the statement that he, like St. Athanasius, stands alone, contra mundum.  If ever this phrase fell from my pen (in what connection I know not), it is as erroneous as the position of St. Athanasius is honourable.  Mr. Max Muller’s ideas, in various modifications, are doubtless still the most prevalent of any.  The anthropological method has hardly touched, I think, the learned contributors to Roscher’s excellent mythological Lexicon.  Dr. Brinton, whose American researches are so useful, seems decidedly to be a member of the older school.  While I do not exactly remember alluding to Athanasius, I fully and freely withdraw the phrase.  But there remain questions of allies to be discussed.

Italian Critics

Mr. Max Muller asks, {22} ’What would Mr. Andrew Lang say if he read the words of Signer Canizzaro, in his “Genesi ed Evoluzione del Mito” (1893), “Lang has laid down his arms before his adversaries"?’ Mr. Lang ’would smile.’  And what would Mr. Max Muller say if he read the words of Professor Enrico Morselli, ’Lang gives no quarter to his adversaries, who, for the rest, have long been reduced to silence’? {23} The Right Hon. Professor also smiles, no doubt.  We both smile.  Solvuntur risu tabulae.

A Dutch Defender

The question of the precise attitude of Professor Tiele, the accomplished Gifford Lecturer in the University of Edinburgh (1897), is more important and more difficult.  His remarks were made in 1885, in an essay on the Myth of Cronos, and were separately reprinted, in 1886, from the ’Revue de l’Histoire des Religions,’ which I shall cite.  Where they refer to myself they deal with Custom and Myth, not with Myth, Ritual, and Religion (1887).  It seems best to quote, ipsissimis verbis, Mr. Max Muller’s comments on Professor Tiele’s remarks.  He writes (i. viii.):