Classes of Myths.— Myths fall into several more or less well-defined classes: myths of origin, myths of the stars and the sky-land, folk tales, myths of the future world and of an cestors, and myths relating to or explaining the elements. Origin myths account for the creation of the universe, of man, the other animals and plants; for the customs and habits of animals, trees and plants and for their pe culiar markings and characteristics; for the origin of tribes and races and for their racial names, tokens and customs. Under this head come the culture gods, the inventors and be stowers upon humanity of the arts, trades and sciences, of which they naturally became the patron divinities. The myths of the sky-land and the stars, as the name indicates, deal with the solar, stellar and lunar stories and their re lationship to one another and to the other dwellers in the sky-land. They are, in many mythologies, closely related with the creation and the culture myths. The moon-mother as the fructifier and the goddess of medicine is in the category of the culture heroes, of whom she is generally the mother or grandmother or near ancestor. The sun, as the vivifier, the sender of life and death, has a close relation ship with the deities of vegetation. The myths of the future world deal with the mystery of death and connect the earth with the sky, the sun-land and the under-world. They include tales of the life beyond the grave, of visits of mortals to the land of the dead and of their adventures in the future world. Very varied are these myths among different peoples; and yet they are frequently wonderfully similar in widely separated localities. They range front simple primitive tales to long heroic, circum stantially told stories in which the hero gen erally meets with many superhuman difficulties on his visit to the land of the dead. Closely connected with these tales are the ancestor myths, which form such an important part of the mythologies of many races. Myths relating to or explaining the elements are many and varied. The deified winds become the culture gods-, the thunder, the great thunder-bird. The woods, clouds, mountains and streams.are popu lated with spirits belonging to the elements who, for the most part, are kindly disposed toward man and spend their time in helping him, when so inclined. In the Indo-European mythologies the sky was populated with a great host of supernatural and powerful beings and the mythologies of the more cultured of the American races were almost as liberal in their colonization of the serial regions.
To these classes of myths already enu merated must be added the vast body of folk tales which may be related to none of them, some of them, or all of them. Many races have numerous folk-tales, part of which may have once belonged to a now displaced and broken-down mythology. Side by side with these are often found moral tales which ap• pear never to have had mythological significa tion or connection. These tales are quite plenti.. ful among many of the American races, and those possessed by the Pueblo Indians are espe cially numerous and rich in incident. Tales of adventure linked to magic and consisting of a series of superhuman acts find a place among the Algonquin, the Ojibway, the Plains Indiana and numerous of the Pacific tribes. These tales approach more closely to the European story than probably any other class of American tales. The characters in these stories are gen. erally mythological in origin, however much they may seem to have lost their primal signifi cation. Thus in the Indian story of Chicopee the Giant Killer, the hero who lives all alone in the heart of a great forest with his grand. father, follows a white rabbit who shows him a village of cannibal giants and tells him he has been born into the world to destroy them. He gives Chicopee a magic white feather for plume, a bag, a magic cord and a magic pipe. When Chicopee smokes the pipe out of it come the souls of the dead slain by the giants, who are frightened by them. With the aid of the cord he trips up the giants one after another, kills them and wins a race he runs with' each of them except the grandfather-giant whom he is enabled, with the aid of the rabbit's charms, to defeat, after numerous adventures, all of a miraculous character. In most civilized or semi-civilized races the folk-tales are likely to be the largest body of popular stories in the language because they have been fashioned not only from long ages of folk-tales, but from the broken down myths and creeds of their an cestors and the races who preceded them. Folk tales are especially plentiful among the Mon golian and Indo-European races. To this class of story belong the imaginative Celtic fairy tales. Folk-tales of a more primitive class are very plentiful throughout Africa and Polynesia; and many of a higher and more interesting type exist among the American Indians, some of which bear a curious resemblance to the folk-tales of nothern Europe and northwestern Asia.
The pre-scientific world firmly believed in transformations. This was the natural outcome of the personification of all nature. The wind was a person, vet he became
invisible; the sun, also a person, hid himself, as did the moon and the morning star, behind a mask. The spirits of the forest whispered or roared or chatted, but they could not be seen by human eyes, either because they were hidden within the trees or because they had actually changed themselves into trees. The rivers, the mountains, the clouds were persons; but be cause of this power of self-transformation they could not be seen by earth-beings. If spirits could hide in trees and other moving things they could just as easily hide in sticks and stones. So inanimate objects, the residence of such spirits, became fetiches and wonder-work ing charms. Thus all nature, animate and in animate, to the ancient myth was the abode of life, active, free and powerful as human life itself. All these different possessors of life might, on occasions, have the power of self transformation. The simple fact of their ap pearing in some other than the natural human form was sufficient proof of their power of self-transformation. There were also, accord ing to the belief of the mythological ages, other powerful beings who, in addition to possessing the ability to transform themselves, could be stow upon another the power of transforming himself. This was generally accomplished through the presentation of some wonder working fetich which enabled the owners to effect self-transformation. Thus the hunter, in the Algonquin tale of the 'Wolf-Man,' takes from the breast of the wolf-man himself a pow erful amulet, which enables him to transform himself into any form he desires. Though the wolf-man pursues him and overtakes him at sun-down each day for six days in succession, he outwits him each time by his transforma tions and succeeds finally in drowning him by the same means on the seventh. In the tales of 'The Witch and the Wind-Man' the Mole man shoots his magic arrow into the cloud on which his brother, the wind-man, is riding and drives it backward with terrific force. This he does several times until finally he wins the race against him. In the same tale the Old Witch changes herself into a monster white rabbit and thus lures the nine brothers to her den; but the wind-man rides the wind into the cave of the supernatural people and rescues the brothers before the witch has had time to get them fattened enough to eat. Many similar Indian tales are built about the supernatural power of self-transformation. Nanabozho, the great culture hero of the Algonquian races, under his many tribal names, is an adept at trans formation; and in nearly all his adventures in which he takes the leading part he makes use of it. The heroes of the Plains Indians are constantly subjecting themselves to self-trans formation. Everywhere throughout Indian America the belief in transformation is strongly exemplified in the mythology and folk tales. Witches, wizards and other evil-disposed beings had the power of self-transformation, and unnumbered are the myths, legends and folk-tales in which they figure. In the rivers and the lakes and pools were other evil-dis posed spirits who delighted in luring people to death. These characters are well known in Latin and Greek mythology; but just as pic turesque tales are told of them in the stories of other races. Under the name of the Malinche, the water siren shows herself as a beautiful woman on the tops of certain moun tains in Latin America and lures men to her only to tear them in pieces. As the Llorona or "Crying one she inhabits pools, lakes and rivers where she cries like a lost child in the night and draws her victim on to his death; for when he falls into the water she drags him down; so that there is no chance of escape for him. Or she may change herself into a "fool's light" and lead some unfortunate into a bottom less swamp where death is equally certain. In all these stories self-transformation is the chief motive.
Ritual, supplying as it does the means whereby the correct relation to the various superhuman powers may be properly main tained, forms a very considerable part of mythology. Since the beings to be worshiped or propitiated are varied in attributes and pow ers the ritual and ceremonies dedicated to them must be varied also. In an age when the virtues of magic, charm, song, incantation, ceremonial dancing and instrumental music were firmly believed to be effective means of protection against adverse powers or of attracting the favorable attention of divine beings, extraordi nary importance was placed upon the literal rendering of ritual and all other ceremonial forms. This belief helped to preserve ritual myths in a substantially unchanged form for generations; and many partially broken down myths repeated by primitive and other races are the survivals of the stories that once formed part of or went with rituals to explain them or to account for them.
See GREEK MYTHOLOGY ; ROMAN RELIGION ; AMERICAN MYTHOLOGY; MEXICO — MYTHOLOGY ; PERSIAN MYTHOLOGY; MYTHS AND FOLK-TALES; NURSERY LORE; EGYPTIAN RELIGION AND SO CIOLOGY; FOLK-TALES AND MYTHS OF THE AMERICAN INDIANS; NATURE WORSHIP.