‘Has the myth of Cronos the same sense?’ Probably not, as the Maori story, to my mind, has not got it either.  But Professor Tiele says, ’The myth of Cronos has precisely the opposite sense.’ {32b} What is the myth of Cronos?  Ouranos (Heaven) married Gaea (Earth).  Ouranos ’hid his children from the light in the hollows of Earth’ (Hesiod).  So, too, the New Zealand gods were hidden from light while Heaven (Rangi) lay flat on Papa (Earth).  The children ’were concealed between the hollows of their parent’s breasts.’  They did not like it, for they dwelt in darkness.  So Cronos took an iron sickle and mutilated Ouranos in such a way, enfin, as to divorce him a thoro.  ‘Thus,’ I say, ’were Heaven and Earth practically divorced.’  The Greek gods now came out of the hollows where they had been, like the New Zealand gods, ‘hidden from the light.’

Professor Tiele on Sunset Myths

No, says Professor Tiele, ’the story of Cronos has precisely the opposite meaning.’  The New Zealand myth is one of dawn, the Greek myth is one of sunset.  The mutilated part of poor Ouranos is le phallus du ciel, le soleil, which falls into ‘the Cosmic ocean,’ and then, of course, all is dark.  Professor Tiele may be right here; I am indifferent.  All that I wanted to explain was the savage complexion of the myth, and Professor Tiele says that I have explained that, and (xii. 264) he rejects the etymological theory of Mr. Max Muller.

I say that, in my opinion, the second part of the Cronos myth (the child-swallowing performances of Cronos) ’was probably a world-wide Marchen, or tale, attracted into the cycle of which Cronos was the centre, without any particular reason beyond the law which makes detached myths crystallise round any celebrated name.’

Professor Tiele says he does not grasp the meaning of, or believe in, any such law.  Well, why is the world-wide tale of the Cyclops told about Odysseus?  It is absolutely out of keeping, and it puzzles commentators.  In fact, here was a hero and there was a tale, and the tale was attracted into the cycle of the hero; the very last man to have behaved as Odysseus is made to do. {34} But Cronos was an odious ruffian.  The world-wide tale of swallowing and disgorging the children was attracted to his too notorious name ‘by grace of congruity.’  Does Professor Tiele now grasp my meaning (saisir)?

Our Lack of Scientific Exactness

I do not here give at full length Professor Tiele’s explanation of the meaning of a myth which I do not profess to explain myself.  Thus, drops of the blood of Ouranos falling on Earth begat the Melies, usually rendered ‘Nymphs of the Ash-trees.’  But Professor Tiele says they were really bees (Hesychius, [Greek]=[Greek])—­’that is to say, stars.’  Everybody has observed that the stars rise up off the earth, like the bees