[Major_media] it but himself. W

[Mullowney]

Emed plausible in a single case is hopelessly narrow when applied to a
large collection of parallel cases in languages of various families.
Finally, in dealing with star myths, we adhere to the hypothesis of Mr.
Tylor: 'From savagery up to civilisation,' Akkadian, Greek, or English,
'there may be traced in the mythology of the stars a course of thought,
changed, indeed, in application, yet never broken in its evident
connection from first to last. The savage sees individual stars as
animate beings, or combines star-groups into living celestial creatures,
or limbs of them, or objects connected with them; while at the other
extremity of the scale of civilisation the modern astronomer keeps up
just such ancient fancies, turning them to account in useful survival,
as a means of mapping out the celestial globe.' MOLY AND MANDRAGORA. 'I
have found out a new cure for rheumatism,' said the lady beside whom it
was my privilege to sit at dinner. 'You carry a potato about in your
pocket!' Some one has written an amusing account of the behaviour of a
man who is finishing a book. He takes his ideas everywhere with him and
broods over them, even at dinner, in the pauses of conversation. But
here was a lady who kindly contributed to my studies and offered me
folklore and survivals in cultivated Kensington. My mind had strayed
from the potato cure to the New Zealand habit of carrying a baked yam at
night to frighten away ghosts, and to the old English belief that a bit
of bread kept in the pocket was sovereign against evil spirits. Why
should ghosts dread the food of mortals when it is the custom of most
races of mortals to feed ancestral ghosts? The human mind works pretty
rapidly, and all this had passed through my brain while I replied, in
tones of
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