Cuckoo Heroes.[1]
(Vol. XX., pp. 503-4.)
Dr. Pokorny's article on Cuchulinn, Mongan, Finn, and Arthur as Cuckoo Heroes was first brought to my notice by Sir John Rhys' review in Folk-Lore, and I trust I may be allowed to bestow upon it a further notice which it deserves both on account of its many ingenious views and because Dr. Pokorny, following the example of his hero the Cuckoo, essays to lay in the mythological nest an alien egg which I, for one, mean to do my best to expel.
Dr. Pokorny notes the traits which the four heroes cited above have in common, and, in the discussion which followed the reading of his paper, the well-known Germanist, Prof. Much, adduced similar traits in the Volsung saga. Neither scholar seems to have recalled J. G. v. Hahn's study on the Aryan Expulsion and Return Formula, in which he dealt inter alias with the Volsung saga (the story of Siegfried and his kin), nor my extension of the formula to Celtic territory (Folk-Lore Record, vol. iv.). J. G. v. Hahn had omitted Celtdom from his survey; I had no difficulty in showing that the Arthur, Finn, and Cuchulinn stories also belonged to the same group as that studied by Hahn. If, therefore. Dr. Pokorny's explanation is valid for the Celtic members of the group, it must be equally so for the non-Celtic, and we must look upon Siegfried and Perseus, Theseus and Romulus, Cyrus and Dietrich, as, in Mr. Lang's phrase, "magnified non-natural cuckoos." Dr. Pokorny approves himself a bold, a very bold champion, but I fancy this prospect may act like the bucket full of fish in the tale, and send a shiver down even his back.
First, let me welcome certain suggestions by the author, and beg owners of the Voyage of Bran to note them on the margin of their copies:—
- ↑ This letter will be read with mournful interest as it was written only a few days before the death, by drowning, of Mr. Alfred Nutt in a gallant attempt to rescue his younger son from the river Seine near Melun. An obituary notice of Mr. Nutt will appear in the September number.
