of the god whose legend he is investigating.  He writes: 'There is no
such being as Kronos in Sanskrit.  Kronos did not exist till long after
Zeus in Greece.  Zeus was called by the Greeks the son of Time ([Greek]).
This is a very simple and very common form of mythological expression.  It
meant originally, not that time was the origin or source of Zeus, but
[Greek] or [Greek] was used in the sense of "connected with time,
representing time, existing through all time."  Derivatives in -[Greek]
and -[Greek] took, in later times, the more exclusive meaning of
patronymics. . . .  When this (the meaning of [Greek] as equivalent to
Ancient of Days) ceased to be understood, . . . people asked themselves
the question, Why is Zeus called [Greek]?  And the natural and almost
inevitable answer was, Because he is the son, the offspring of a more
ancient god, Kronos.  This may be a very old myth in Greece; but the
misunderstanding which gave rise to it could have happened in Greece
only.  We cannot expect, therefore, a god Kronos in the Veda.'  To expect
Greek in the Veda would certainly be sanguine.  'When this myth of Kronos
had once been started, it would roll on irresistibly.  If Zeus had once a
father called Kronos, Kronos must have a wife.'  It is added, as
confirmation, that 'the name of [Greek] belongs originally to Zeus only,
and not to his later' (in Hesiod elder) 'brothers, Poseidon and Hades.'
{58a}

Mr. Muller says, in his famous essay on 'Comparative Mythology' {58b}:
'How can we imagine that a few generations before that time' (the age of
Solon) 'the highest notions of the Godhead among the Greeks were
adequately expressed by the story of Uranos maimed by Kronos,--of Kronos
eating his children, swallowing a stone, and vomiting out alive his whole
progeny.  Among the lowest tribes of Africa and America, we hardly find
anything more hideous and revolting.'  We have found a good deal of the
sort in Africa and America, where it seems not out of place.

One objection to Mr. Muller's theory is, that it makes the mystery no
clearer.  When Greeks were so advanced in Hellenism that their own early
language had become obsolete and obscure, they invented the god [Greek],
to account for the patronymic (as they deemed it) [Greek], son of
[Greek].  But why did they tell such savage and revolting stories about
the god they had invented?  Mr. Muller only says the myth 'would roll on
irresistibly.'  But why did the rolling myth gather such very strange
moss?  That is the problem; and, while Mr. Muller's hypothesis accounts
for the existence of a god called [Greek], it does not even attempt to
show how full-blown Greeks came to believe such hideous stories about the
god.

* * * * *

This theory, therefore, is of no practical service.  The theory of
Adalbert Kuhn, one of the most famous of Sanskrit scholars, and author of
'Die Herabkunft des Feuers,' is directly opposed to the ideas of Mr.
Muller.  In Cronus, Mr. Muller recognises a god who could only have come
into being among Greeks, when the Greeks had begun to forget the original
meaning of 'derivatives in -[Greek] and -[Greek].'  Kuhn, on the other
hand, derives [Greek] from the same root as the Sanskrit Krana. {59}
Krana means, it appears, der fur sich schaffende, he who creates for
himself, and Cronus is compared to the Indian Pragapati, about whom even
more abominable stories are told than the myths which circulate to the
prejudice of Cronus.  According to Kuhn, the 'swallow-myth' means that
Cronus, the lord of light and dark powers, swallows the divinities of
light.  But in place of Zeus (that is, according to Kuhn, of the daylight
sky) he swallows a stone, that is, the sun.  When he disgorges the stone
(the sun), he also disgorges the gods of light whom he had swallowed.

I confess that I cannot understand these distinctions between the father
and lord of light and dark (Cronus) and the beings he swallowed.  Nor do
I find it easy to believe that myth-making man took all those
distinctions, or held those views of the Creator.  However, the chief
thing to note is that Mr. Muller's etymology and Kuhn's etymology of
Cronus can hardly both be true, which, as their systems both depend on
etymological analysis, is somewhat discomfiting.

The next etymological theory is the daring speculation of Mr. Brown.  In
'The Great Dionysiak Myth' {60a} Mr. Brown writes: 'I regard Kronos as
the equivalent of Karnos, Karnaios, Karnaivis, the Horned God; Assyrian,
KaRNu; Hebrew, KeReN, horn; Hellenic, KRoNos, or KaRNos.'  Mr. Brown
seems to think that Cronus is 'the ripening power of harvest,' and also
'a wily savage god,' in which opinion one quite agrees with him.  Why the
name of Cronus should mean 'horned,' when he is never represented with
horns, it is hard to say.  But among the various foreign gods in whom the
Greeks recognised their own Cronus, one Hea, 'regarded by Berosos as
Kronos,' seems to have been 'horn-wearing.' {60b}  Horns are lacking in
Seb and Il, if not in Baal Hamon, though Mr. Brown would like to behorn
them.

Let us now turn to Preller. {61a}  According to Preller, Kronos is
connected with [Greek], to fulfil, to bring to completion.  The harvest
month, the month of ripening and fulfilment, was called [Greek] in some
parts of Greece, and the jolly harvest-feast, with its memory of Saturn's
golden days, was named [Greek].  The sickle of Cronus, the sickle of
harvest-time, works in well with this explanation, and we have a kind of
pun in Homer which points in the direction of Preller's derivation from
[Greek]:--

   [Greek]

and in Sophocles ('Tr.' 126)--

   [Greek].

Preller illustrates the mutilation of Uranus by the Maori tale of
Tutenganahau.  The child-swallowing he connects with Punic and Phoenician
influence, and Semitic sacrifices of men and children.  Porphyry {61b}