god or hero, while men[1] are said to have sprung from plants. We may therefore perhaps look on it as a proved point that the general savage habit of "levelling up" prevails even in their view of the vegetable world, and has left traces (as we have seen) in their myths.
Turning now to the mythology of Greece, we see that the same rule holds good. Metamorphosis into plants and flowers is extremely common; the instances of Daphne, Myrrha, Hyacinth, Narcissus, and the sisters of Phæthon at once occur to the memory. The case of Daphne demands particular attention, because the fate of this unfortunate nymph, pursued by Apollo and metamorphosed into a laurel, has been interpreted as a myth of dawn, and a myth produced by a disease of language. All the authorities for the story of Daphne are late, among them are Ovid and Hyginus. In Ovid[2] the change of shape is effected by the might of Peneus, the river-god, father of the maiden. In Hyginus the earth opens, swallows Daphne, and a laurel tree shoots up in her place. Apollo breaks a bough of the laurel and makes it one of his sacred trees. In both tales we see the conception that a superior and even divine power is needed to produce a transformation which (to the savage mind) is quite among ordinary events, or at least within the professional sphere of every medicine—man.
Mr. Max Müller interprets (we have seen) this metamorphosis, one out of a thousand, as a story of the dawn pursued by the ardent sun. Daphne (dahanâ,
