lore of Hellas were ever committed to writing. Perhaps the wonder in the present case is that two Greek authors of any kind should have been found disposed to place on record a story which represented the great ruler of Olympus in a plight than which none could have been conceived as more undignified and perilous.
The Distress of the Gods and the Sun Hero's Aid.
Enough has now perhaps been said to show that the stories once current among Celts, Teutons and Greeks, about contests between the gods and their monster antagonists under their various names, all represent in their way the same primæval Aryan myth; and we may say, taking the existence of that myth for granted, that none of the stories extant among the nations alluded to reproduce it in its entirety: one gives one part, and another another, while of some parts there are several variants; not to mention that the utmost freedom of treatment may be regarded as the rule throughout. Now the garbled and incomplete versions of one branch of the family help, however, to explain the equally garbled and incomplete versions of another branch, and the comparison enables one approximately to restore the original. Let us apply this view to the story of the contest between the Olympic gods and the giants. According to Apollodorus,[1] the chief giants were Porphyrio and Alcyoneus, who was immortal so long as he fought on the earth that gave him birth. He drove away the cattle of the sun from Erythria, and it had been foretold the gods that not one of the giants could be destroyed by them, and that they could
- ↑ Bibliotheca, i. 6, 1.
