A
BOOK OF MYTHS
BY JEAN LANG
(MRS. JOHN LANG)
WITH SIXTEEN ORIGINAL
DRAWINGS IN COLOUR
BY HELEN STRATTON
THOMAS NELSON & SONS
NEW YORK
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
PREFACE
Just as a little child holds out its hands to catch thesunbeams, to feel and to grasp what, so its eyes tell it,is actually there, so, down through the ages, men havestretched out their hands in eager endeavour to knowtheir God. And because only through the human wasthe divine knowable, the old peoples of the earth madegods of their heroes and not unfrequently endowedthese gods with as many of the vices as of thevirtues of their worshippers. As we read the myths ofthe East and the West we find ever the same story.That portion of the ancient Aryan race which pouredfrom the central plain of Asia, through the rocky defilesof what we now call “The Frontier,” to populate thefertile lowlands of India, had gods who must once havebeen wholly heroic, but who came in time to be moredegraded than the most vicious of lustful criminals.And the Greeks, Latins, Teutons, Celts, and Slavonians,who came of the same mighty Aryan stock, did even asthose with whom they owned a common ancestry.Originally they gave to their gods of their best. Allthat was noblest in them, all that was strongest andmost selfless, all the higher instincts of their natureswere their endowment. And although their worship[Pg viii]in time became corrupt and lost its beauty, there yetremains for us, in the old tales of the gods, a wonderfulhumanity that strikes a vibrant chord in the heartsof those who are the descendants of their worshippers.For though creeds and forms may change, human naturenever changes. We are less simple than our fathers:that is all. And, as Professor York Powell[1] most trulysays: “It is not in a man’s creed, but in his deeds;not in his k