He then betook himself to Parnassus, where the two super-
natural builders, Trophonius and Agamedes, raised a palace for
him. It is at this point that he is confronted with the dragon
which all sun-heroes meet and overcome.
Thus we see that Apollo is born of a mother whose name is
darkness, that he casts from him the mists which enshroud him,
and soars in the height of his glory over Parnassus, latterly
overcoming the Python.^

A story with a similar groundwork is that of Beowulf

1 As I have shown elsewhere (p. 95), Professor Rendel Harris has brought a
good deal of proof in favour of a hypothesis that Apollo was the god of an apple cult ;
but it was not as such that he was known to the later Greeks, whatever he may have
been originally— an instance, if such were needed, that the solar story finds its way
into the myths of gods of all types,

12 1



INTRODUCTION TO MYTHOLOGY

in our earliest English saga. Betaking himself to the court of
King Hrothgar of Jutland, whose realm was being devastated
by the monster Grendel, he succeeded in slaying him, but later
had to dive to the bottom of the sea to encounter Grendel's
mother. Years afterward he fights with and conquers a dragon
who guards a treasure, but in the combat is poisoned by its
fangs. Beowulf came to land in the traditional sun-boat as a
child. The Saxons called their harvest month Beo or Bewody
and Grendel is, of course, the water-provider. The later dragon
typifies the continued contest between the sun-god and dark-
ness, and the treasure it guards is, of course, the gold of the
setting sun, or perhaps the elixir of life.
