Note 103 — Lohengrin

In order to avoid misunderstandings, it appears necessary to emphasize at this point the historical nucleus of certain hero-myths. Kyros, as is shown by the inscriptions which have been discovered (compare Duncker, p. 289, Bauer, p. 498), was descended from an old hereditary royal house. It could not be the object of the myth to elevate the descent of Kyros, nor must the above interpretation be regarded as an attempt to establish a lowly descent of Kyros. Similar conditions prevail in the case of Sargon, whose royal father is also known (compare Jeremias, p. 410, annotation). Nevertheless, an historian writes about Sargon as follows (Ungnad, “Die Anfänge der Staatenbildung in Babylonien” (Beginnings of State Formation in Babylonia), Deutsche Rundschau, July, 1905): “He was evidently not of noble descent, or no such saga could have been woven about his birth and his youth.” It would be a gross error to consider our interpretation as an argument in this sense. Again, the apparent contradiction which might be held up against our explanation, under another mode of interpretation, becomes the proof of its correctness, through the reflection that it is not the hero, but the average man who makes the myth, and wishes to vindicate himself in the same. The people imagine the hero in this manner, investing him with their own infantile fantasies, irrespective of their actual compatibility or incompatibility with historical facts. This also serves to explain the transference of the typical motives, be it to several generations of the same hero family, or be it to historical personalities in general (concerning Cæsar, Augustus and others, compare Usener, Rhein. Mus. LV, p. 271).