topmost bough sits an eagle, while a snake is gnawing at its roots. A squirrel runs up and down, trying to create enmity between the snake and the eagle, and round the tree are four stags. Most of these animals have names given them which are clearly of allegorical or mythological significance. At first sight there is remarkable similarity, at least in the accessories of the two conceptions—the tree itself, the trickling honey, the gnawed root, and the four stags.
Much resemblance, however, disappears on closer examination. The central ideas of the two legends are entirely diverse. One is cosmological, the other eschatological.[1] As Grimm observes, "the only startling thing is the agreement in certain accessories" (Teut. Myth., 799). Yet this resemblance in accessories is the more striking on that account. M. Bédier has recently suggested a formula for testing the derivation of folktales and legends from one another. He separates the central idea of a story from the accidental accessories. He expresses the former by ω, and the details by a, b, c, d, &c. His contention is, that mere
- ↑ There is, however, reference to Hell, at least in the serpent and the gnawed root of the Norse version.
