To him and his school, the centaurs, for instance, those mythical
sons of the storm, strange links between the lives of men and
animals, were merely some youths from the village of Nephele in
Thessaly, distinguished for their sporting tastes; the 'living
harvest of panoplied knights,' which sprang so mystically from the
dragon's teeth, a body of mercenary troops supported by the profits
on a successful speculation in ivory; and Actaeon, an ordinary
master of hounds, who, living before the days of subscription, was
eaten out of house and home by the expenses of his kennel.
Now, that under the glamour of myth and legend some substratum of
historical fact may lie, is a proposition rendered extremely
probable by the modern investigations into the workings of the
mythopoeic spirit in post-Christian times. Charlemagne and Roland,
St. Francis and William Tell, are none the less real personages
because their histories are filled with much that is fictitious and
incredible, but in all cases what is essentially necessary is some
external corroboration, such as is afforded by the mention of
Roland and Roncesvalles in the chronicles of England, or (in the
sphere of Greek legend) by the excavations of Hissarlik.
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