A “contribution to comparative mythology” by R. F. Littledale satirically “proves” that Max Müller is a god of this domain using his move from Germany to Britain and the etymology of “Maximus.” For 10 points each:
[10e] Müller claimed that most myths were allegories of what domain? Earlier, Charles-François Dupuis speculated that Christ was a myth inspired by a Roman god of this domain with the epithet “invictus.”
ANSWER: the Sun [accept solar myth theory or Sol Invictus]
[10m] This opponent of solar myth theory used its methods to prove that Bismarck, Gladstone, and Müller were sun-gods. With his wife Leonora Alleyne, this Scottish folklorist compiled a series of Fairy Books named for colors.
ANSWER: Andrew Lang [accept Lang’s Fairy Books]
[10h] In his Lang lecture “On Fairy-Stories,” Tolkien inverted Müller’s use of this three-word phrase as a definition of mythology. This phrase refers to the reification of words as deities during the “mythopoeic” age.
ANSWER: disease of language (Tolkien wrote that “It would be more near the truth to say that languages… are a disease of mythology.”)
<JB, Mythology>