Apollo and the Mouse

By Andrew Lang

Andrew Lang (1844-1912) was a Scottish poet, novelist, literary critic, and contributor to the field of anthropology. He is best known as a collector of folk and fairy tales. The Andrew Lang lectures at the University of St. Andrews are named after him.
From Lang’s fundamental essay Custom and Myth, published in 1884, we have drawn the study Apollo and te Mouse, which today we propose to modern readers.
Why is Apollo, especially the Apollo of the Troad, he who showered the darts of pestilence among the Greeks, so constantly associated with a mouse? The very name, Smintheus, by which his favourite priest calls on him in the Iliad, might be rendered 'Mouse Apollo', or 'Apollo, Lord of Mice'. Mice lived beneath the altar, and were fed in the holy of holies of the God, and an image of a mouse was placed beside or upon his sacred tripod. The ancients were puzzled by these things, and accounted for them by 'mouse-stories', Σμινθιακοι λοyοι, so styled by Eustathius, the mediæval interpreter of Homer. Following his usual comparative method, Andrew Lang asks whether similar phenomena occur elsewhere, in countries where they are intelligible. Did insignificant animals elsewhere receive worship: were their effigies elsewhere placed in the temples of a purer creed?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Edizioni Aurora Boreale
• Release date: Nov 22, 2023
• ISBN: 9791255044567

Andrew Lang

Andrew Lang (1844-1912) was a Scottish editor, poet, author, literary critic, and historian. He is best known for his work regarding folklore, mythology, and religion, for which he had an extreme interest in. Lang was a skilled and respected historian, writing in great detail and exploring obscure topics. Lang often combined his studies of history and anthropology with literature, creating works rich with diverse culture. He married Leonora Blanche Alleyne in 1875. With her help, Lang published a prolific amount of work, including his popular series, Rainbow Fairy Books.

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SYMBOLS & MYTHS

ANDREW LANG

APOLLO AND THE MOUSE

LOGO EDIZIONI AURORA BOREALE

Edizioni Aurora Boreale

Title: Apollo and the Mouse

Author: Andrew Lang

Publishing series: Symbols & Myths

Editing by Nicola Bizzi

ISBN: 979-12-5504-456-7

LOGO EDIZIONI AURORA BOREALE

Edizioni Aurora Boreale

© 2023 Edizioni Aurora Boreale

Via del Fiordaliso 14 - 59100 Prato - Italia

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INTRODUCTION BY THE PUBLISHER

Andrew Lang (1844-1912) was a Scottish poet, novelist, literary critic, and contributor to the field of anthropology. He is best known as a collector of folk and fairy tales. The Andrew Lang lectures at the University of St Andrews are named after him.

Lang was born in 1844 in Selkirk, Scottish Borders. He was the eldest of the eight children born to John Lang, the town clerk of Selkirk, and his wife Jane Plenderleath Sellar, who was the daughter of Patrick Sellar, factor to the first Duke of Sutherland. On 17 April 1875, he married Leonora Blanche Alleyne, youngest daughter of C.T. Alleyne of Clifton and Barbados. She was variously credited as author, collaborator, or translator of Lang's Color/Rainbow Fairy Books which he edited.

He was educated at Selkirk Grammar School, Loretto School, and the Edinburgh Academy, as well as the University of St Andrews and Balliol College, Oxford, where he took a first class in the final classical schools in 1868, becoming a fellow and subsequently honorary fellow of Merton College. He soon made a reputation as one of the most able and versatile writers of the day as a journalist, poet, critic, and historian. He was a member of the Order of the White Rose, a Neo-Jacobite