Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 1): Zeus god of the bright sky (Cambridge, 1914)

The Labyrinth at Knossos 489

use is Babylon^. I append an example about 12 ft across observed
and drawn by E. von Baer in 1838, when he was weather-bound at
Vier, a small uninhabited island in the Gulf of Finland (fig. 353)2.
Iceland too has analogous Labyrinths made of stones or earth, the
native name for which is Vohmdarhus, ' Weland's House.'

It would seem then that in Great Britain, Scandinavia, the north-
east of Russia, and Iceland rough mazes of unknown antiquity exist,
which conform to the same general pattern as that of the Cretan
Labyrinth. The first to grasp the full significance of this curious
fact was Dr E. Krause. In a very noteworthy monograph devoted
to the subject and in a subsequent appendix to the same3 he
endeavoured to show that the maze of the countryside was no
imitation of the classical Labyrinth, but that rather the classical
Labyrinth was an imitation of it. Maze and Labyrinth alike were
survivals of a remote past and were originally used for the purposes
of a mimetic solar rite4. Pliny believed that the Cretan Labyrinth
was a copy of the Egyptian, and contrasted the intricate handiwork

1 Dr J. R. Aspelin of Helsingfors (quoted by E. Krause op. cit. p. 19) notes other
names : ' In den Kirchspielen Kemi und Jio, unweit von Torneo, werden die Stein-
setzungen Jattdintarha (Riesenhage) genannt, von Jio bis Alt-Karleby Pietar-inleikki
(St. Peterspiel). Die schwedischen Bauern zwischen Alt-Karleby und Christianstadt
nennen sie Jungfrudans (Jungferntanz). Zwischen Christianstadt und Abo werden sie
Nunnantarha (Nonnenhage) genannt, in dem schwedischen Archipel von Abo und am
Aland Trojenborg und Rundborg, in der schwedischen Gegend von Helsingfors wieder
Jungfrudans und ausserdem Zerstorung Jerusalems, Stadt Ninive, Jericho u. s. w.
Mehr ostlich bis in die Gegend von Wiborg findet man die Benennungen Jdtinkatu
(Riesenstrasse), Kivitarha (Steinhage) und Lissabon.'

2 E. Krause op. cit. p. 13 ff. fig. 2.

3 E. Krause Die Trojaburgen Nordeuropas Glogau 1893 pp. 1—300, id. Die nordische
Herkunft der Trojasage bezeugt durch den Krug von Tragliatella (Nachtrag zu den
Trojaburgen Nordeuropas) Glogau 1893 pp. 1—48.

4 Thus far at least we may frankly accept Dr Krause's results, without necessarily
endorsing his conclusions as to the precise character of the rite involved. He holds that
the original Labyrinth-dance represented the rescue of the sun-goddess from the castle of
a wintry demon. Corresponding with this northern spring-rite was a northern spring-
myth, in which the solar heroine (Freya, Brunhild, etc.) was freed from the prison of
a superhuman builder or smith. Among Indians, Persians, and Southern Slavs the
baleful power was a three-headed monster named Druho, Druja or Draogha, Trojanu.
Dr Krause argues {Die Trojaburgen Nordeuropas pp. ix f., 109 ff., 277 ff., Nachtrag
p. 41 ff.) that the whole story of the Trojan War presupposes this northern myth, with
Helene for solar heroine. He thinks (Die Trojaburgen Nordeuropas p. 10 ff.) that the
names of Troy-town, Trojaburg, etc., are not due to a diffused tradition of the Homeric
Troy, but to the existence of a Germanic word Troie, ' fortress, doublet, dance' (root-
meaning : 'Umwallung, Umhiillung, Umkreisung'). And he attempts (ib. p. 48 ff.,
Nachtrag p. 46 ff.) to connect the Labyrinth-design with the cup-marks and concentric
circles of the neolithic age.

These speculations, which are set forth with much learning and ingenuity, are for the
most part well worth weighing; but I confess that, with sundry notable exceptions, they
impress me as being more plausible than convincing.