Central America, next undertook the task; and the result has been an exact edition of the original text, accompanied by a literal French translation.

Unfortunately, M. de Bourbourg labours under a theory that beneath religious myths are to be discovered historic traditions -a theory which has misled many students of classic mythology. This interferes considerably with the value of the introduction, and it is a theory which will not for a moment stand the test of comparative mythology.

The 'Popol Vuh' is divided into four distinct portions, whereof the first two are a transcript of the sacred book of the ancient Quiches; whilst the two last are rather a collection of historical legends.

We shall present an abstract of the two former, and mention only the most remarkable features of the latter books.

The first book opens with an enumeration of the Divine attributes:

'Behold us bringing to light the discovery and the appearance of that which was in obscurity, the work of its dawn, by the will of the Creator and the Former, of Him who engenders, Him who gives birth, whose names are the Blower on the Sarbacane (tube through which pellets are shot), the Great White Porcupine, the Dominator, the Serpent covered with plumes, the Heart of the Lake, the Heart of the Sea, the Master of the green planisphere, the Master of the azure surface.'-P. 4.

Chapters 1-3 contain an account of the creation, which is exceedingly involved and puzzling, from the confusion of deities, and the number of titles given to them.

All was calm and silent, all was motionless, all was peace, and the immensity of the heavens was void. Then came the first word and first speech. There was not then a man, nor a beast, nor birds, nor fishes, nor wood, nor stone, nor swamps, nor glen, nor herb, nor copse: only the sky was. The face of earth did not show: only the calm sea was, and the extent of sky. There was nothing which had substance, which cohered; nothing which balanced itself, and which touched; no sound in heaven.

There was but immobility and silence in the darkness, in the night. Alone were the Creator, the Former, the Lord, the Serpent covered with plumes, those who engender, those who give being; alone were they on the water as a spreading light enveloped in green and blue.'-P. 7.

The gods then consulted together, and as they spoke, light spread.

""Be it done," said they. "Fill you! Let the water retire and cease to trouble, that the earth may exist, and consolidate, and be covered with seeds; and let day lighten in heaven and earth; for we receive no glory and honour from all we make till nan is created with reason.

“Earth!" said they. And at once it was formed.'—-P. 9.

They next cover it with plants, and gather the waters together into seas and lakes and rivers. Next with a word they form the beasts and birds; and, rejoicing in their work, they bid the things created praise and glorify them. But the beasts and birds

give forth inarticulate sounds, and the gods, dissatisfied with their work, attempt to make man. They mould him out of clay; but, finding him incapable of praising his makers, they shatter their work.

Having learned that clay is an unsuitable material for the composition of men, the creators cut them out of hard wood, and then endow them with life. But this creation is also a failure, for their head is too thick to entertain ideas above their animal wants; whereupon the gods drive them into the woods from whence they were carved, and they are the protoparents of the monkey race.

Thus was the end of these men, their ruin and their destruction,-the end of these manikins made of wood, who were put to death. The waters were swelled by the will of the Heart of the Sky, and there was a mighty flood which reached above the heads of these manikins made of wood.

Thus were they destroyed: they were flooded, and a thick resin fell out of heaven. The bird Xecotcavach plucked out their eyes; the Camalotz cut off their heads; the Cotzbalam devoured their flesh; the Tecumbalam broke and brayed their bones and muscles, and scattered their dust, as a punishment, because they thought not of their father and mother, of him who is the Heart of the Sky, whose name is Hurakan; therefore the face of the earth was covered, and a black rain fell, rain by day, rain by night.'-P. 27.

The Popol Vuh at this point leaves the history of creation to relate the wars of the demigods with the giants.

Vukub-Cakix was an old Titan with two monstrous sons, Zipacna and Cabrakan. The great giant, filled with pride, exalts himself over creatures, and regards himself as the source of light. (Cf. Isaiah xiv. 11-14.)

'I shall be great above all created things. I am their sun, I am their dawn and their moon. Great is my splendour; it is I whom men see walking above. For silver is the globe of my eyes, which sparkle with precious stones, and my teeth in their enamel shine as the face of heaven. My nostrils gleam as the moon: for silver is my throne; and as I advance before my throne, earth is filled with life.-P. 33.

Then two demigods, Hunahpu and Xbalanque, go against him. They hide in a tree till the giant approaches, when Hunahpu shoots a pellet from his cane at Vukub-Cakix, and breaks his jawbone. The giant seeing the arm of Hunahpu protruding from the foliage, tears it off, and runs home howling with pain. The two gods then betake themselves to the ancestors of sun and moon, the Great White Bear and the Great White Porcupine, and ask their advice. These bid them follow them in disguise to the house of the giant. The old couple give themselves out to the suffering monster as dentists, and they draw his teeth, and in place of them insert grains of rice. Then the youths fall on him and slay him, and Hunaphu recovers his arm. Zipacna, son of Vukub-Cakix, next exalts himself. Then four hundred heavenly youths march against him, but he kills

them. Curiously enough, their attempt to destroy him resembles that of our Jack the Giant-killer.' They dig a pit-fall, and allure him into it; but he rises through the ground, and destroys the four hundred.

Then the heavenly twins, Hunahpu and Xblanque, attempt to overcome him. As force is unavailing, they attempt craft. They fashion a wooden crab, and hide it under a mountain. The giant is fond of shell-fish, and when they tell him of the crab, he crawls after it; whereupon the youths pull the mountain down on him, and bury him beneath its ruins.

The next to exalt himself is Cabrakan, and him the two destroy by poison.

The second book opens with a different myth, and brings fresh demigods on the stage. These are Hunhun-ahpu and Vukub-Hunahpu, sons of the great ancestors of the dawn and sun, Xpiyacoc and Xmucane. Hunhun-ahpu and Vukub-Hunahpu were one day playing at ball in their mother's house, when the King of Xibalba, the Quiche Hell, heard the sound of their laughter, and sent a message summoning them below. They hung the ball in the rafters of their mother's house, and descended to the land of the Shadow of Death. After having traversed a river of gurgling blood, they came to four cross-roads, whereof one was black. They followed that road, and it led them to the monarch's hall. There, on a throne, were seated two wooden men. The brothers, supposing them to be the kings of Xibalba, worshipped them; whereon a shout of derision arose from the inhabitants of the dark land. Then they were shown to two seats, and, sitting incautiously upon them, found them to be of glowing iron. They were next given cigars and torches, and showed into the mansion of perpetual darkness, and bidden. bring cigars and torches unconsumed to the king next morning. Failing to accomplish this, they were executed, and the head of Hunhun-ahpu was suspended in a tree, which at once produced an abundance of calabashes.

In the land of Xibalba lived a virgin named Xquiq, daughter of one of the chief princes. The maiden, impelled by curiosity, walked alone to the calabash-tree, and stood admiring the fruit. Suddenly the eyes and mouth of the dead head of Hunhun-ahpu opened, and the lips spat at her. She retired to her house, and soon became aware that she was pregnant. Her father, discovering her case, sent soldiers with her to a distant forest, with orders to slay her, and bring him a vessel full of her blood. Her entreaties to be spared moved the hearts of the servants, and, instead of killing her, they brought the father the blood of the dragon-tree, which satisfied him. The maiden fled to earth, and sought refuge with the mother of Hunhun-ahpu, who, however, refused to believe her story. Xmucane, before driving her away, set her a task to perform: this was to go to a field of maize, and

fill her apron. In this field there was, however, but a single plant. The girl accomplished the task, and was sulkily permitted by the aged mother of Hunhun-ahpu to lodge in her house. In course of time she gave birth to the illustrious twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque, of whom we have already heard as conquerors of Vukub-Cakix and his sons.

In the house of Xmucane were two brothers, Hunbatz and Hunchouen, cousins of the new arrivals, and they looked with no favour on the twins. As soon as the children of Xquiq had reached years of discretion, they persuaded their cousins to ascend a tree, and then they transformed them into apes.

One day the twins discovered in the rafters of the house the ball of their father, and, taking it down, they began to play with it; but no sooner had the ball began to fly, than the King of Xibalba heard it, and sent a messenger for them. Before descending to the realm of darkness, the boys planted two canes at their grandmother's door, which would flourish when they were in health, and wither in the event of their death. Then they descended to Xibalba; but when they came to the crossroad, they sent the little stinging insect, Xan, along the roads to discover which was the right one, and then to find out who were the kings they were to adore. The Xan found the wooden men enthroned, and all the princes of Xibalba seated near. The insect stung the men of wood, and they evinced no sign of feeling. Then it stung him who sat next, and he cried out. This was the true king, and his name was Hun-Came. What is the matter, Hun-Came?" asked he who was on the right. Then the insect stung him who was next to Hun-Came, and he cried out. Then he on the right asked, "What is the matter, VukubCame?" And when the Xan had stung all the princes, it had learned their names, and, hurrying back to Hunahpu and Xbalanque, related to them the order in which the princes sat. So the brothers came to the court, and passed the men of wood without a sign of respect; but they bowed to the real king, and said, "Hail, Hun-Came!" and they bowed and greeted by name the lords of Xibalba-Decay, Corruption, Disease, Curdled Blood, Stench, and their fellows.

Then they were sent with the cigars and torches to the hall of gloom; and the brothers put fireflies on their cigars and red feathers on their torches, and so these seemed to the men of Xibalba to be burning all night, yet in the morning they were unconsumed. Their next task was to collect four vessels full of flowers, without stirring out of prison; and these flowers only grew in the royal garden, which was closely watched. But the ants assisted them, and during the night collected the blossoms, and arranged them in the vases. Other tasks were surmounted by the brothers; but they failed at last, and the head of Hunahpu

was cut off. The princes of Xibalba hung it up in the hall where they played the game of ball. Xbalanque secretly carved a head resembling that of his brother, out of a tortoise, and, when the princes were not attending, substituted it for the real head of Hunahpu; who, on recovering his head, was restored to life. The brothers then came in the disguise of jugglers to the hall of the king, and burned one another to ashes, and then revived one another. This so charmed the monarch, that he requested to have the same operation performed on him. The brothers readily agreed to burn, and as readily forgot to revive him.

This fable concludes the second book. Wild and grotesque as these myths may appear, they bear a strong family likeness to myths long current in the Old World. The twins, Hunahpu and Xbalanque, who descend to the nether world, are the offspring of a mother who has become pregnant in a mysterious manner, and strongly resemble the Dioscuri, sons of Leda. In the classic fable, one of the twins is slain, but is revived by his brother. The Dioscuri are the morning and evening twilights, and are identical with the Sanskrit Acvins, and it is possible that Hunahpu and Xbalanque may be impersonifications of the same phenomena; in which case, their ball-playing is the casting of the sun across the sky from the one to the other. The canes which flourish when they live, and languish when they die, resemble the lilies of life of the twin brothers of German fable, which also give token of the well-being of the lads. In the Kalmuk collection of tales, Siddhi-kûr, which is a translation from the Sanskrit, six friends start on their journey; but, before leaving home, each plants a tree, which will flourish when all is well, and shed its leaves and die in the event of his death.

The miraculous pregnancy of Xquiq is exceedingly curious. According to Pausanias, Atys was the son of a daughter of the Sangar, who became a mother by putting the bow of an almondtree in her bosom.

In Keltic mythology, Ceridwen became a mother by eating a grain of wheat, which, ripening in the womb, became the lovely babe Taliesin.

In the Sanskrit Katha Sarit Sagara' (Book iv. c. 22), a queen dreams that she cats a fruit, and thereby became pregnant. In another story from the same collection (Bk. vii. c. 42), a queen eats two apples, and in consequence gives birth to twins. Still more remarkable is the story in the last canto of the Finn epic 'Kalewala. A maiden goes into a wood, and seeing a red berry on a tree, sings to it; whereupon the berry falls into her bosom, and she thereupon becomes pregnant. The virgin's name is Maria, and the son she bears is our Blessed Lord. At His birth the ancient Finn deity Wainamoinen, enters his boat and rows north, knowing that his reign is ended. Connected with some