The mythologies of the different Aryan nations are those which concern us most nearly, entering as they do into the very composition of our language, and colouring not only our literature and poetry, but our cradle-songs and the tales told in our nurseries. We shall find it interesting to compare together the various forms of the stories told by nations of the Aryan stock, and to trace them back to their earliest shape.
But before entering on this task, it may be well to turn our attention for a little while to a still earlier mythology, where the mingling of metaphysical conceptions with the worship of natural phenomena is perhaps more clearly shown than in any other, and which may therefore serve as a guide to help us in grasping this connection in the more highly coloured, picturesque stories we shall be hereafter attempting to unravel. This earliest and least ornamented mythology is that of the ancient Egyptians, a people who were always disposed to retain primitive forms unchanged, even when, as in the case of their hieroglyphics, they had to use the primitive forms to express thoughts which these forms could not naturally convey. That they followed this course with their religious ceremonies and in their manner of representing their gods, is perhaps fortunate for us, as it enables us to trace with greater ease the particular aspect of nature, and the mental sensation or moral lesson identified with it, which each one of their gods and goddesses embodied. We have the rude primitive form embodying an aspect or force of nature, instead of a beautiful confusing story, merely for the most part titles, addresses, and prayers, whose purport more or less reveals the spiritual meaning which that aspect of nature conveyed to the worshipper.
The chief objects of nature-worship must obviously be the same, or nearly the same, in every part of the world, so that even among different races, living far apart, and having no connection with each other, a certain similarity in the stories told about gods and heroes, and in the names and titles given to them, is observable. The sun, the moon, the heavens and stars, the sea, the river, sunshine and darkness, night and day, summer and winter,--these objects and changes must always make the staple, the back-bone so to speak, round which all mythological stories founded on nature-worship are grouped. But climate and scenery, especially any striking peculiarity in the natural features of a country, have a strong influence in modifying the impressions made by these objects on the imaginations of the dwellers in the land, and so giving a special form or colour to the national creed, bringing perhaps some Divine attribute or some more haunting impression of the condition of the soul after death, into a prominence unknown elsewhere. The religion of the ancient Egyptians was distinguished from that of other nations by several such characteristics, and in endeavouring to understand them we must first recall what there is distinctive in the climate and scenery of Egypt to our minds.