CHAPTER XIX - THE CAUSES AND ANTECEDENT CONDITIONS OF THE HEROIC AGE

Summary

In the course of the last three chapters we have observed many remarkable resemblances between the Teutonic and Greek Heroic Ages–in social organisation, in the forms of government and in religious conceptions. Further we have seen that in the former case the testimony of the poems is fully substantiated by contemporary historical authorities. In the latter case we possess no evidence which affords us ground for doubting that the poems give an equally faithful reflection of conditions and ideas which prevailed in real life. Our next and final object is to enquire into the nature of the causes to which the common characteristics of the two Heroic Ages are due.

I do not think that any one will seriously suggest the possibility of a historical connection between the two Heroic Ages, separated as they are from one another by an interval of some fourteen or fifteen centuries. It is perhaps conceivable that one or other of the common elements which we have noted may have originated in Greece and worked its way round until it appears after so long a lapse of time in the north of Europe. But for the phenomena as a whole any such explanation is incredible.

Another explanation is suggested by the fact that the Greek and Teutonic peoples are ultimately related, at least linguistically–both being members of the Indo-European family.