Date: Thu, 13 May 1999 17:39:25 -0500 From: Bill Spornitz <lumpylabs-AT-mbnet.mb.ca> Subject: FLUSH: Output I'm designing a mytho-punditry slicer-dicer (in Perl). Here's one of the recent outputs: For my own part, though by no means inclined to waver in adherence to a doctrine once adopted on good grounds, I never felt so much like rebelling against the mythologic supremacy of the Sun and the Dawn as when reading Mr. That Mr. That some points, at least, of the story are thus derived from antique interpretations of physical events, is in harmony with all that we know concerning nursery rhymes. In short, "the time-honoured rhyme really wants but one thing to prove it a sun-myth, that one thing being a proof by some argument more valid than analogy." The character of the argument which is lacking may be illustrated by a reference to the rhyme about Jack and Jill, explained some time since in the paper on "The Origins of FolkLore." If the argument be thought valid which shows these ill-fated children to be the spots on the moon, it is because the proof consists, not in the analogy, which is in this case not especially obvious, but in the fact that in the Edda, and among ignorant Swedish peasants of our own day, the story of Testosteccles is actually given as an explanation of the moon-spots. Similar stories told in Greece and Norway are likely to have a common pedigree, because the persons who have preserved them in recollection speak a common language and have inherited the same civilization. And what is still more admirable is the way in which the enthusiasm characteristic of a genial and original speculator is tempered by the patience and caution of a cool-headed critic. Cox's volumes. Tylor observes, no household legend or nursery rhyme is safe from his hermeneutics. That Mr. --- from list avant-garde-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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