Note 14 — Chapter IV · NORTH TIROL—UNTERINNTHAL (RIGHT INN-BANK). (ZILLERTHAL CUSTOMS.—THE WILDSCHÖNAU.)

If you address your question to Grimm, or Wolf, Simrock, Kuhn, Schwartz, or Mannhardt, or any who have made comparative mythology their study, he will tell you that the stories about her (and probably all the other marvellous tales of the people also) are to be traced back to the earliest mythological traditions of a primeval glimmering of religion spread abroad over the whole world; and to the poetical forms of expression of a primitive population describing the wonderful but constantly repeated operations of nature.14 That the wilder Jäger was originally the god Wodin, the hunter of unerring aim, that his impetuous course typifies the journey of the sun-god through the heavens,15 his mighty arm represents his powerful rays; and in even so late a tale as ‘that of William Tell, he will see the last reflections of the sun-god, whether we call him Indra, or Apollo, or Ulysses.’16 He will tell you that all ‘the countless legends of princesses kept in dark prisons and invariably delivered by a young bright knight can all be traced back to mythological traditions about the spring being released from the bonds of winter; the sun being rescued from the darkness of night; the dawn being brought back from the far west; the waters being set free from the prison of clouds.’17 And of the Berchtl herself, he will tell you that she is Perahta (the bright), daughter of Dagha (the day), whose name has successively been transformed into Perchtl and Bertha; brightness or whiteness has made her to be considered the goddess of winter; who particularly visited the earth for twelve winter nights, and spoilt all the flax of those idle maidens who left any unspun on the last day of the year;18 who carries in her hand a broken plough in token that the ground is hardened against tillage; whose brightness has also made her to be reckoned the all-producing earth-mother, with golden hair like the waving corn; the Hertha of the Swabian; the Jörtha of Scandinavian;19 the Berecynthia of the Phrygian;20 and to other nations known as Cybele, Rhea, Isis, Diana.21