ARYAN MYTHOLOGY, - TruthSeekerTimes.ca

ARYANMYTHOLOGY,

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THEMYTHOLOGYOFTHE ARYAN NATIONS.BTGEOBGE W. COX, M.A.LATE SOHOXJLB OF TMNITY COLLEGE,OXFORD.IN TWO VOLUMES.VOL. II.LONDON:LONGMANS, GBEEN, AND 00.1870.rig bitrcttrved.

VICONTENTS OFSECTION X. HELLENIC SUN-GOBS ANI> HEROES.PAOSThe Ionian Legend of the Birth of Phoibos .21. . . .The DelphianKsh-sun.........Story 22The infant Phoibos 23Phoibos DelphiniosHermes........26The 26Daphne........ Phoibos and 26Phoibos and Helios .27Phoibos and ......... 28Alpheios and Arethousa 29Endymidn 30The Story of Narkissos .32lamos and Asld&pios ......... . . . , .33Ixidn and Atlas . .30The Gardens of the Hesperidos.....,38Hyperion 38Helios and Fhaeth&n . . .39Patroklos and Telemachos 404243The Bondage of Phoibos and Herakles . . . .41Character of Herakles .......Herakles and Eurystheus .... .The Lions of Kithairdn and Nemea . . . . . .43Herakles and Xerberos ....-......4ftThe Madness of Heiakles . . . . . ..47Otthros and Hydra4350Myths interspersed among the Legends of the twelve Labours of Heraklea '. 61Hexakles and Eurytos . . .53Herakles and Augfe 53Herakles and D^ianeira ..... .5350.Egyptian Myths .... 55...!'58Birth and Youth of Theseus"31The six Exploits of his first -...!''Journey .62Theseus at Athens* . .. .0sTheseus and the Minotanros54Theseus and the Amazons "1 65Theseus in the Underworld *.66Hipponoos Bellerophontes ... /' " "The Birth of Oidipous ^The Career of Oidipous..... -.'."! 69The blinded Oidipous-'""'71Oidipous and " ".Antigon^ 72The Story of Telephos.'74Twofold Aspect of the Trojan Paris . .] !'75The Birth and Infancy of Paris[The Marathonian and Cretan Bulls . . . . . .40The Ghrdle of Hippolyt6 -..."!The Death of Herakles 54The Latin Hercules-.....]Bepeiations of the Myth of Herald**, m".57The Story of Perseus--.!.'

viiiCONTENTS OFKrishna and Radra ..-PA08131132Vishnu, and Kama ... 131The Story of Krishna .......THE MOON AND THE STAKS.SECTION XIV.Selena and Pan 138Id the Heifer 138139Argos Bmoptes16 and Prometheus ....-........140Hekatfc 141Artemis 142......'The Arkadian and Delian Artemis . .* 143Artemis OrtHa and Tauropola. . . . . 143Iphigeneia and Bntomartis 145CHAPTER HI.THE LOST TREASURE.THE GOLDEN FLEECE.SECTION IThe Myth of Stolen Treasure ........ found among all the Aryan Nations , .147Repetition of this Myth under different forms . . . .149The Golden Ileece 160154The Argonautic Voyage. . . . . .152Ias6n and Medeia ,.,..,,.SECTION II.-HELEN......The Wealth of Helen, . 155The Stealing of Helen and her Treasures 156The Story of Conall G-ulban . . . . . ..167The Voyage of the Achaians to Ilion . . . . . .159Meleagros and *. .Kleopatra...160Thetis and Achilleus . . . . . . , .162The womanly Achilleus .....133The Career of Achilleus .... *' 163TheNostoi\1?1Odysseus and Autolykfis, . . . . ,.1711Odysseus and Penelope. . . . ..173The womanly.Odysseus . . . t.174"Odysseus the Wanderer . . . . .

THE SECOND VOLUME.ixSECTION III.THE CHILDREN OP THE SUN-181PAGEThe Expulsion of the Herakleids . . . . . .180TheBeturnofiheHerakleids ......SECTION IV.THE THEBAN WAIIS.,Adrastos and Amphiaraos. . . . . ........184The Sons of . . . . .Oidipous. .185Tydeus 186TheWaroftheEpigonoi. . . . . . .187Antigone* and Haimon . . . . . . .188. . . . . .Alkmai6nandEriph$4& .189Orestes and Klytaimn6stra .... .189CHAPTER IV.THE JPXRHLSJBCTION I AGNI.Light and Heat ... ..........190Physical Attributes of Agni . 191The Infant Agni 192193Agni and Hephaistos. . . . . . .194Agni the Psychopompos. . . . . . .192The Tongues of Agni. ......PHORONEUS AND HESTIASECTION II.The Wind and the Eire ............194The Argive........Phordneus . . . . , 195Hestia 196The Sacred Eire 196SECTION III. HEPHAISTOS AND LOKIThe maimed Hephaistos ... . . 197The Forge of Hephaistos ..... 198Hephaistos and Athene" . . . 199........The Latin Vulcan 199The Fire-god Loki 199Loki the Thief 200........SECTION iv - PKOMI

XCONTENTS OF...--FAQBPrometheus and Pandora 208Prometheus and Deukalion ....* 210Prometheus and 16 ..- 211SBCOTON V.THEThe Titans 212ThKykl6pes214210Sehamir and Sassafras . . . . .218Ahmed and Tanhaiiser . . 217........The Greedy Alcalde 218Medieval SpellsCHAPTER V.THE WINDS.........SECTION I. VAYIT AND THE MARUTS.Vayu and Favomus 221Boreas and the Maruts . 221The Crushers or Grinders ... . 222Eudra 223SECTION.......II. EGEE.MES.Hindu and Greek Myths of the "Wind . . . . ,224The Infancy of Hermes 224The......Theft of the Cattle . . . . . . ,225The Covenant of Hermes and Phoibos , 225The...... Meaning of this Covenant 227The Rivalry "between Hermes and Phoibos 229Hermes the God.......of the Moving Air 230Transparent Clearness of the Myth .233. . . . .Humour of the Myth 235238The Craft of Hermes . . . , . . . .237Hermes and the Charites . . . . . .238Hermes the Herald r. ................Points of Difference between Orpheus and Hermes 239TheSeirens 242The Piper of Hameln 242The Jev amongHorns....... the Thorns 244Inchanted Harps and 345The Harp........ of Wainamdinen2*fiGaldner the Singer 246The Sibyl 247SECTION in.OBPHEUS.

THE SECOND VOLUME.XISECTION IV. PAN.PAGEThe Song of the Breeze in the Reeds . . . . .247Fan, the Purifying Breeze . . . . . . .248Pan and Syrinx ... ...Orpheus........249SECTION V. AMPHi&N AND ZETHOS.The Theban 249Zethos and Prokne" 250Linos and Zephyxos. . . . . . . .251.......SECTION VL AIOLOS AND AKES.The Guardian of the "Winds 252The Storms .... 253Arts and Ath$n& 254CHAPTER VLTHE WATERS.........SECTION I. THE DWELLERS IN THE SEA.......Proteus and Nereus 256Glaukos . 257Naiads and Nereids . 257Swan-maidens and Apsaras. . . . . .258Triton and Amphitrit& .... . 259TheSeirens ........ 260.260..... Skylla and OharybdisThe Megarian Skylla. . . . . . .261........SECTION IT. THE LORD OF THE WATERS.Zeus Poseid&n 262Poseid6n and Athen$ 263Poseid6n and the TelcMn

''CONTENTS OFPhrixosandHelleAthamas and In6SECTION I.CHAPTER VII.THE CLOUDS,THE CHILDREN OF THETAGSECTION II,THE OLOUDLAND.TEe Phaiakians . . , . 27The Palace of Alkmods . . - 27T&e Fleets of Alkinods .. * -7tThe PhaiakiiansHelios........and Odysseus. . . - - .27*Niobe and Llt6 .. 27*The Cattle of 38tTHE NYMPHS AND SWAN-MA TDENRSECTION III.The Swan-shaped Phorkides . . . . . . .281The Muses and the Valkyrien. . . . . .282The Swan-shaped Zeus .... . 283Inchanted Maidens . 284The Hyades and Pleiades . . .. .286The Graiai . 286The G-orgons ... ... . 287......... 288-Medousa and Chrysadr 288289Aktai&n . .........SECTION IV.THE HUNTERS AND DANCEKS OF THE HEAVENS.......Orion 289Seirios . 290The Telchines and Kouretes . .. . . . .291CHAPTER VIII.THE EARTHSECTION I -DIUN1 bOH.The Captivity of Dionysos ... ... 293Dionysos and Zagreos ... 293.Dionysos the Wanderer . . , 29*The .Womanly.Dionysos. 295The Mothers of Dion} sos . . . . . , .296

THE SECOND VOLUME.......SECTION H. DEMETER.PABTSThe Story of .PersephonS. . . . . . 29GIduna......298The Stupifying Narcissus . 290The Sleep of Winter .300The Story of . . . * . .Bapunzel .301The Lengthening Days .... . 302The Ill-tempered Princess .... ........ 303The Story of Suryd, Bai 303The nourishing Earth ..... .....Uoldd,The Eleusinian Myth .Drater and lasion ......Ceres and Saturn ....305..,. .. 3063063073(j$.........Erichthonios 308Erechthens 309Kekrops 309Pelops 310SECTION III.THE CHILDREN OP THE EARTH.SECTION IV.THE PEIESTS OP THE GREAT MOTHER.G-aia -and Ouranos . . . . '. . .311Rhea 312. . . . .'TheKouretesandldaioiDaktyloi .313The Kabeiroi and Korybantes. . , . . . 3HSKCTION......... V. THE PEOPLE OP THE WOODS AND WATERS.The Satyrs 315TheSeilfcnoi 316The Latin Silanus . . . . . . . .318Priapos .......318CHAPTER IX.THE UNDER WORLD.SECTION L HADES......The buried Treasure . . . . . . . .319Hades or A$d6neus . .319v *The Rivers of the Unseen Land.320SECTION n. ELYSION.322The Judges of the Dead . . . . . . .321The Asphodel Meadows .......

'CONTENTS OFCHAPTER X.THE........ SECTION L VEITRA AND AHI.The Story of Sarama and Helen 324........Indra and Achilleufl 325The Struggle between Light and Darkness . . . . .326The Great Enemy 326........ Pani and Paris .327Snakes and Worms . 327........ The Stolen Cattle 828The Blocking-Tip of Fountains 328The Stolen Nymphs 329Bayana and Sita ........329The Trojan Paris 330Helen and Penelope* 332......... Herakles and Echidna 333Orthros 335Typhon 330........SECTION II. THE LATIN MYTH.Hercules and Cacus 337Cacus another Form of Yritra 338Sancus or Becaranus........ 339......... The Monster BeJleros 341Leophontes 343SECTION in.BELLEROPHdN...........Baaaoof IV. THE THEBAN 3HYTH.The Sphinx .......844The Eiddle solved 345The Voice of the Thunder 347A......SEOTKW V. THE DEEPKTAN AOT CEETAN MYTHS.The Pythian Dragon-.,....347The Minotauros34$SBCTIOK VI.THE GLOAMING- AND THE NIGHT.The Phorkides, Graiai, and Goigons. . . , .,350The Night and the Winter . . . . .Modification of the Myth. . . . ."']361'352

THE SECOND VOLUME.XVContrast between Hindu and Iranian Mythology 353Identity of Names in Vedic and Persian Mythology ............353Azidah&ka and Zohak . . . . . . .354........Iranian Dualism 356Its Influence on the Je^s . . . . . . .356TheEpieofPirdusi 357-THE SEMITIC AND ARYAN DEVIL.SECTION VIII.................The Teutonic Devil 361362The Blinded Devil 365The Semitic Satan . . . . . . . .358Effect of Christian Teaching . . . . . . .359........ Wayland the SmithSBCHOH VII.THE PHYSICAL STRUGGLE SPIRITUALISED.PAGEAPPENDICES.I. Laios and Dasyu. . . . . . .367II. The Siege of Troy 368III. The Stauros or Cross . . . . . . .369

THE MYTHOLOGYOffTHE AETAN NATIONS.BOOK IICHAPTER ILonimucZ.TEE LIGHT.SUCTION VILAPHRODITiTHE story told in the Hesiodic Theogony is manifestly acomparatively late form of the legend of Apkroditiresolves itselfTet italmost at the first touch into the early myth- Birth ofical phrases.From the blood of the mutilated Ouranoswhich fellupon the sea sprang the beautiful goddess whomade KythSra and Kypros her home, as Phoibos dwelt inLykia and in Delos. This is but sayingin other wordsthat the morning, the child of the heaven, springs up fh$tfrom the sea, 1 as Athn also is born by the water-side. Butas Ath&abecame the special embodiment of the keen wisdomwhich Phoibos alone shared with her, so on* Aphrodit,the child of tiiefroth or foam of the sea, was lavished allthe wealth of words denoting the lovelinessof the morn-1 We have already seen, vol. i. p, 358, of the dawns. So too, as the dawn andthat Kronos is a .mere creation from the the morning are born from the heaven,older and misunderstood epithet Kro- the mutilation of Ouranos or Kronosaides or Kronen, the ancient of days, but would inevitably be suggested. Thethat when these days, or time, had come idea is seen in another form in theto be as regardeda person, the mythwould certainly follow that he devouredhis own children, as time is the devourern. Bsplitting of the head of Zeus before thebirth of Athtok

I MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.BOOB $&g ;and thus the Hesiodio poet goes on at once to say thatn -the grass sprung tipunder her feet as she moved, that ErAs,Loye, walked by her side, and Himeros, Longing, followedafter her* 1 At her birth she is not onlythe beautifulAnadyomene of ApeUes, as the sun whom Seleufi comes togreet is Endymi&n, 3 but she is also InaJia and Pontiu, thedeity of the deep sea.8 In otar Iliad and Odyssey the mythIn the former poem AphroditfiIs scarcely yet crystallised.in whom was seen theis the daughter of Zeus and Dion6,mother of Dionysos after her resurrection. In the Odysseyshe is the wife of Eephaistos, whose love for Arts forms thesubject of the lay of Demodokos. Here she is attended bythe Charites who wash her and anoint her with oil atPaphos.In the Iliad, however^ the wife of HephaistosisOharis, and thus we are brought back to the old myth inwhich both Charis and Aphroditd are mere names for theglistening dawn.In Oharis we hare simply the brillianceproduced by fat or ointment, 4 which is seen again inLiparai Athenai, the gleaming city of the morning. In theVedic hymns this epithet has already passed from the dawnor the sun to the shining steeds which draw their chariot, andthe Haris and Hants are the horses of India, the sun, andthe dawn, as the Eohits are the horses of Agni, the fire.5Thus also the single Oharis of the Iliad is converted into the, J Theog. 194-201. her designs.* The words tell each its own story,*Max Mller, Lfotortt on Language,the one denoting uprising from water, second series, 309, 875. The Latinas the other denotes the down-plunging Gratia belongs to the same root) whichinto it, the root being found also in the yields as has "been already noticed ourEnglishidtw, and the German taufw. 'greas*.' Objections founded on anyThis notion is seen in the strange supposed degrading association of ideasmyth of transformations in which to in this connection are themselves tinescapefrom Typhpn in the war between worthy and trivial. Prof&ssor MuilerZeus and the Titans, Aphrodite",like rwnarks that * as fat and greasy infantsPhoibos and Onnes, Thetis or Proteus, grow into airy ftixf Lilians, so doassumes the form of a fish. Ov. Met. words and ideas/ and that * theBsalmietv. 331 With this idea there is pro- does not shrink from even bolder owtebablymingled m this instance that phors/ asm Psalm cxxnii. That the rootnotion of thevesica piscis as the emblem which thus supplied a name for AphrO*of generation, and denoting the special ditft should also be employed ttxcMtfrfunction of Aphrodite*. The same em- -gracefulness or charm in mftrtk I&blematical form is seen in the kestos or strictly natural. Thus the IStetcestus of Aphrodite', which answers to arka is a name not only for &* sun,the necklace of Earmoma or Mphylfi. but also for a hymn of praise, while theThis cestus has the magic power of in- cognate arkshas denoted tfee shiningspiring love, and is used T?v E&&, when stars,she wishes to prevent Zeus fijom marring Max Muiler, d 370.

THE CHARITBS OR GRACES.Charites of the Odyssey, the graceful beings whose form iHellenic mythology is always human. 1 ,.._ _.With this origin of the name Charis aH the myths which Th* minihavegathered round the Charites are in the closest agreement;and they do "but resolve themselves, somewhat monotonously,into expressions denoting the birth of the morningfrom the heavens or the sky, and the sea or the waters.In the Hesiodic Theogony, the Chaaris who is the wife ofHephaistos is called Aglaia (the shining), whose name is alsothat of Aigl, Glaukos, and Ath&iS of the- bright face(Glauk6pis). In other versions their mother is herself Aigle,who here becomes a wife of Phoibos 5in others again she isEurydomene, or Eurynome, names denoting with many othersthe broad flush of the morning light ; or she is Lth, asPhoibos is also a son of L&fc&, and the bright Dioskouroispring from the colourless Leda* So too the two SpartanCharites are, like Phaethousa and Lampeti6, KltS andPhaenna (the clear and glistening). But beautiful thoughthey all might be, the&e would yet be room for rivalry orcomparison, and thus the story of the judgment of Paris isrepeated ia the sentence by which Teiresias adjudged theprize of beauty to Zal4, the fair. The seer in this casebrings on himself a punishment which answers to the ruincaused by the verdict of Paris.2As the goddessof the dawn, Aphroditfe is endowed with Thearrows irresistible as those of Phoibos or Achilleus, the rayswhich stream like spears from the flaming sun and are asfatal to the darkness as the arrows of AphroditS to the giantPolypheinos. Nay, like Ixl6n himself, she guides the fourspokedwheel, the golden orb at its first rising but she does:not share his punishment, for AphroditS is not.%seen in theblazing noontide.3 In her brilliant beauty she is Arjunt, a'*1Professor MMer,.rt. 372. remarks poets, fer in one hymn the Harits arethat in Greek the name Chans never called the Sisters, and in another aremeans a horse, and that ' it never passed represented with beautiful wings,through that phase in the mind of the s Sostratos ap. Eustath. ad Horn.Greek poets which is so familiar in the p. 1665. Smith, Diotvmaryof Greek atidpoetry of the Indian bards' But the Mow. a. Biography, v Charis.Greek notion, he observes, had at the *Pmd. Pyth iv. 380.leabt dawned on the mind of the VedicB2

MYTHOLOGY OF TUB ARYAX NATIONS.Herof Krishna, and the Hellenic Argynnis.But the conception of the morning in the form of Aphro-^6 geyer itywhich marks the diameterchiidren.name which appears again in that of Arjuna, the companion^.^ ^j^y^ none Ojfof Athn& She is the dawn in all her loveliness ami splendour,but the dawn not as unsullied by any breath of passion,but as waking all things into life, as the great mother whoand fosters all creatures in whom ispreservesthe breath oflife. She would thus be associated most closely with thoseforms under which the phenomena of reproduction wore universallyset forth. She would thus be a goddess lavish ofher smiles and of her love, most benignant to her closestimitators 5and as the vestals of Athens showed forth thepurity of the Zeus-born goddess, so the Hierodouloi ofCorinth would exhibit the opposite sentiment, and answerto the women who assembled in the temples of the SyrianMylitta. The former is really Aphroditfi Ourania; the latterthe AphroditS known by the epithet Pandfimos. Aphroditeis thus the mother of countless children, not all of thembe re-lovely and beautiful like herself, for the dawn maygarded as sprung from the darkness, and the evening (E6s) asthe mother of the darkness again. Hence like Echidna andTyphon, Phobos and Deimos (fear and dread) ore among theoffspring whom the bright Paphian goddess bore to Ares,while Priapos and Bacchos are her children by Dionysos,Nor is her love confined to undying gods. The so-calledHomeric hymn tells the story how in the guise of a simplemaiden she came to the folds where the Trojan Anchises wastending his flocks, and how Aineias was born, whom thenymphs loved by the Seilenoi and Hermes the Argos-Slayertended and dierished. 1Si^re of In the Iliad, AphroditS, as the mother of Aineias, fightsAphmdrtS Qn tte gi(je of jj.^ not go miwji kecatlge gke kas any jg^wish for the victory of the one side rather than the other, asbecause she desiresfather of many nations.to preserve her child and make him &Nowhere in fact do we more clearlysee the disintegration of the earliest myths than in the partwhich the several deities play in the long struggle before the1Hymn to Aphrodite, 258.

APHRODITfi AND AIXEIAS.of Ilion. That struggle is strictly tlxe desperate strifewhich is to avenge the wrongs and woes of Helen and to endin her return to her ancient home in the west,the returnof the beautiful dawnlight, whom the powers of darknesshad borne away from the western heavens in the evening.It is unnecessary to do more here than to refer to the evidenceby which this conclusion may be regarded as proved ;but it follows hence that not only is the faithless Helen theSaramS. whom the dark beings vainly try to seduce in thehymns of the Veda, but Paris is Pani,thief, who steals away and shuts up the lightthe cheat and thein his secretlurking-place. Thus in the early and strict form of themyth, Helen is all light and Paris is all blackness ;and hiskinsfolk are the robbers which are associated with the greatseducer. Hence we should expect that on the side of theTrojans there would be only the dark and forbidding gods,on the side of the Achaians only those who dwell in theineffable light of Olympos. The latter is indeed the case :but although H6r6, the queen of the pure ether, is the zealousguardian of the Argive hosts, and Athn gives strengthto the weaponsand wisdom to the hearts of Achilleus andOdysseus, yet Apoll6n and AphroditS are not partakers intheir counsels. Throughout, the latter is anxious only for thesafety of her child, and Apollon encourages and comforts thenoble and self-devoted Hektor. There was in truth nothingin the old mythical phrases which could render this resulteither impossibleor unlikely. The victory of the Achaiansmight be the victory of the children of the sun over the darkbeings who have deprived them of their brilliant treasure,but there was no reason why on each hero, on either side,there should not restsomethingof the lustre* which surroundsthe forms of Phoibos, Herakles, Perseus, and Belleroph&n.There might be a hundred myths inwoven into thehistory of either side, so long as this was done without violatingthe laws of mythical credibility. Grlaukos must nothimself take part in the theft of Helen : but if local traditionmade him a Lykian chief not only in a mythical but also ina geographical sense, there was no reason why he should notleave his home to repel the enemies of Priam. Phoibos must

human5 MYTHOLOGY OF THE AOTAJT NATIONS.BOOK,-not so far -turn the course of events as to secure the triumph-of Paris : but he might fairly be regarded as the supporterand guide of the generous and self-sacrificing Hektor. Hencewhen the death day of Hektor has come, Apoll&n leaves him,reluctantly it may be, but still he abandons him whileAthn6 draws near to Achilleus to nerve him for the finalconflict. 1 So again, AphroditS may wrap Aineias in mistand thus withdraw him from the fight which was goingagainst him; but she must not herself smite his enemyDiomMSs, and the Achaian must be victor even at the costof the blood which flows within her own veins. But whenthe vengeance of Achilleus is accomplished, she may againperform her own special work for the fallen Hektor. Thedawn is the great preserver, purifier, and restorer ;and hencethough the body of Hektor had been tied by the feet toAchiUeus' chariot wheels and trailed in2the defiling dust,still all that is unseemly is cleansed away and the beauty ofdeath brought back by Aphrodite, who keeps off all dogs andanoints him with the ambrosial oil which makes alldecayimpossible, while Phoibos shrouds the body in a purple mist,to temper the fierce heat of the midday sun. 3It is true thatthis kindly offi.ce, by which the bodies of Chundun Rajah andSodewa Bai are preserved in the Hindu fairy tales, isperformedfor iihebody of Patroklos by Thetis :but Thetis, likeAthn3 and Aphrodit^ is herself the child of the waters, andthe mother of a child whose bright career and early doom is,1The importance of the subject war- left for any comparison which may turnrants my repeating that too great a the balance in favour of either warrior,stress cannot be laid on this passage of In neither case are the conditions withthe Hud (am 2 13) With an unfairness which we are dealing the conditions ofwhich would be Astounding if,we failed life, nor can the heroes beto remember Colonel that^Mure had an judged by the scales in which mankindhypothesis to maintain which must be must be weighed. Nay, not only doesmaintained at all costs, the author of Phoibos leave Hektor to his own devices,the Onticcd History of Greek Literature but Athen& cheats him into resistingthought fit to glorify Achilleus and Achilleus, when perhaps his own sobervilify Hektor, on the ground that the sense would have led him to retreatlatter overcame Patroklos only because 'within the walls 11. xxii. 231.he was aided *by Phoibos, while the M xxii 396. Yet it has beenformer smote down Hektor only in fairgravely asserted that 'Homer knowscombat

lite that of M eleagros, bound up with the "brilliant but shortlivedday.But the dawn as bringing back the sun and thus recallingto life the slumbering powers of nature is .especially the loverof the bright fruits and flowers which gladden her brilliantpathway. In other words, Aphrodit& loves Adonis, andwould have him for ever with her. The word Adonis ismanifestly Semitic, and the influence of Asiatic thoughtmay be readily admitted in the later developements of thismyth but the 5 myth itself is one which must be suggestedto the inhabitants of every country where there is any visiblealternation or succession of seasons. There is nothing inthe cultus of Tammuz which may not be found in that ofD&ait&r or Baldur, if we except its uncontrolled licentiousness.It is scarcely necessary to go throughall the detailsof the later mythographers, not one of which, however,presents any real discordance with the oldest forms of thelegend. Adonis, as denoting the fruitfalness and the fruitsof the earth, must spring from its plants, and so the storyran that he was born from the cloven body of his motherwho had been changed into a tree, as Ath&i& sprang fromthe cloven head of Zeus. The beautiful babe, anointed bythe Naiads with his mother's tears (the dews of spring-time)as 'the tears of E6s fall for her dead son Memn6n, wasplaced in a chest and put into the hands of Persephon, thequeen of the underworld, who, marking his wonderful loveliness,refused to yield up her charge to Aphroditk 1 It isthe seeming refusal of the wintry powersto loosen theirclutch and let go their hold of the babe which cannot thriveuntil it is released from their grasp. But the Dawn is notthus to be foiled, and she carries her complaint to Zeus, whodecides that the child shall remain during four months ofeach year with Persephon^ and for four he should remainwith his mother, while the remainingfour were to be athis own disposal. In a climate like that of Greece themyth would as inevitably relate that these four months hespent with Aphroditl, as on the fells of Norwayit would run1In short Persephone" refuses to give jealously guards on the Glisteningup the treasure which the dragon so Heath.

8 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ABYAN NATIONS.BOOK that lie was compelled to spend them in Niflheim. Still the._^' ^ doom isupon him. He must beware of all noxious andbiting beasts. The fair summer cannot longer survive thedeadly bite of winter than Little Surya Bai the piercing ofthe Raksha's claw, or Baldur withstand the mistletoe ofLoki.Like Atys the fair a,nd brave, he is to meet his deathin a boar-hunt ;and the bite, which only leaves a lifeJongmark on the body of Odysseus, brings to an end the dream ofAphrodit^. In vain she hastens to stanch the wound. Theflowers (the last lingering flowers of autumn) spring upfrom the nectar which she pours into it,but Adonis thebeautiful must die.Once again she carries the tale of hersorrow to Zeus, who grants her some portion of her prayer.in someAdonis may not, like Memn&n or like SarpM&n (forversions he also is raised again), dwell always in the hallsof Olympos, but for six months in the year he may returnto cheer Aphrodit as, in the Eleusinian legend, Persephonof Aphroditis restored to the arms of Dmtr. Of the lovefor Boutes it is enough to say that Boutes, theshepherd, is a priest of the dawn-goddess Athn, who,as theArgonauts approach within hearing of the Seirens, throwshimself into the sea, but is saved by AphroditS and carriedaway to Lilybaion. 1The aimed, Lastly, Aphrodit may assume a form as stern and awfolThe LatinenuSiof the sky, is invincible, so Aphrodit, as the child of Ouranosand Hemera, the heaven and the day, has a power which"nothing can resist, and the Spartan worshipped her as aconquering goddess clad in armour and possessing thestrength which the Athenian poet ascribes to Er6s the invinciblein battle. 2The Latin Venus is, in strictness of speech, a mere name,to which any epithet might be attached according to theconveniences or the needs of the worshipper. The legendswhich the later poets applied to her are mere importationsfrom Greek mythology, and seem to be wholly unnoticed inearlier Eoman tradition.When the Roman began to tracehis genealogy to the grandson of Priam, the introduction of1 Apollod. i, 9, 25.*Soph. Mt. 781.

'VENUS.the story J of Auchises was followed naturally br ^,,, ,, . - , , * D,J other myths CHAP.from the same source; but they found no ILcongenial soil inthe genuine belief of the people, for whom a -prof f'epithets supplied the place of mythical history, Wfh 4.1it was enough to have a Venus Myrtea (a name of doubtfulorigin), or Cloacina the purifier, barbata, the beardedmilitaris, equestris, and a host of others, whose personalitywas too vague to call for any careful distinctionThe name todfF luii been, rb would seem with good reason, Me^connected with the Sanskrit root van, to desire 1oftliefavour. Thus, in the Big Veda, girvauas me^s Toying**"*invocations, and yajnavanas loving sacrifices while thcommon Sanskrit preserves vanita in the sense of a belo edwoman. To the same root belong the Anglo^gas:on WVJULpleasure, the German wonne, and the EnoliaTi tmVa/tw,**mi i "VT- *> -ib**'1*.winsome*The word Venus, therefore, denotes either love or favTo the former signification belongs the Latin venustas ;the latter the verb veneror, to venerate, in ^^toseek the favour of any one, venia being strictlypermission. 2 Venus was probably not the oldest, andtainly not the only name for the goddess of I ye fo Italyas the Oscan deity was named Herentas.The myth of Adonis links the legends of AphroditS with Adonisthose of Dionysos. Like the Theban wine-god, Adonis isa3ad]Dio -born only on the death of his mother :and the two vthare in one version so far the same that Dionygog lite Ad "is placed in a chest which being cast into the sea is carriedto Brasiai, where the body of his mother isburied B tlike Memn6n and the Syrian Tammuz or Adonis Sem&& "sraised from the underworld and on her assumption rece'the nameSECTION VIII.In the Hellenic mythology H*4 in spite of all the Myths remajestywith which she is sometimes invested and the power latm $ tocleaase. Most of these epithets lie bepracticeof devoti, + T n T_ ^the bride's hair ontL? toh f alo ? k of1From duererA^y, to wash or the ofHe"re\* I am indebted to* t? ^f^yond the region of mythology. Theyare mere official names, like Venus to Professor Aufr nu *u f^P** 11 .Calva, which seemingly has reference to ness of Dr. I81* 1^

10 MYTHOLOGY 6tf THE ARYAN NATIONS.which is sometimes exercised by her, is little more than abeing of the same class with Kronos. The same necessitywhich produced the one evoked the other. Zeus must have afather, and the name of this father was suggested by the epithetEronides or Kronion. In lite manner he must have awife, and her name must denote her abode in the pure andbrilliant ether. Accordingly the name Eter& pointsto theSanskrit svar, the gleaming heaven, and the Zend hvar, thesun, which in Sanskrit appears in the kindred form Surya,and in Latin as Sol. 1 She is thus strictly the consort ofZeus, with rather the semblance than the reality of any independentpowers. In the Iliad she speaks of herself as theeldest daughter of Eronos, by whom, like the rest of hisprogeny, she was swallowed, and as having been given byEheia into the charge of Okeanos and Tethys, who nursedand tended her after Kronos had been dethroned and im-2prisoned by Zeus beneath the earth and sea. This mythpassed naturally into many forms, and according t6 someshe was brought up by the daughters of the river Asterion(a phrase which points to the bright blue of heaven cominginto sight in the morning over the yet starlit waters), whileothers gave her as her nurses the beautiful Horai, 3 to whosecharge are committed the gates of heaven, the clouds whichthey scatter from the summits of Olympos and then bringto it again.* In other words, the revolving seasons allsustain the beauty and the splendour of the bright ether.When she became the bride of Zeus, she presented him withthe golden apples, the glistening clouds of the morning,5guarded first by the hundred-headed offspring of Typhon1Welcfcer, GnecMscke Gbtterlehre, i.4 In this case we hare the authority363, regards theftmme as a cognate form of the Zhad itself for an interpretationof fya, earth, and traces it through a which would otherwise be probablylarge number of words which he sup- censured as a violent straining of theposes to be akin to it. Of this and text, but the office of the gatekeeper ofother explanations, Preller, who refers Olympos is expressly stated to bethe name to the Sanskrit svar, says , , . .,^* v ava*^< wwwdir vtyosW &r*0i/ai-briefly * Die gewohnlichen Erklarungenvon&a, die Erde, oder von ity>, dieLuft, _ .. v. 751.ode/Hpa, d i Hera, die Frau, die EerrinPr ?U^. %** 374.LJechlpchthin, lassen sich weder stymolo- P ""T^i w&QQ. arose from thegisch noch dm Sinue nach rechtferti- confusion of the word /j\o/, an apple,thgen.' Gnechsche Mythology,i. 124. ^Aoy >a sli eep, is really only ano-* ther 22. xiv. 201form of the le gead vhich gave thea paus zi js 3 story of Ploaethousa and Lampetifc,

HfiBfi AND ZEUS.and Echidna, and afterwards by Aigl6, Erytheia, Eestiaand Arethousa, the glistening children of Hesperos, whetherin Libya or in the 1Hyperborean gardens of Atlas.Throughout the Iliad, which makes no mention of this Eelationsincident, the will of H6r, though compelled to submit, is byno means always in harmony with the will of Zeus. TheArgives, the children of the bright evening land, are exclusivelythe objects of her love and the;story of the judgmentof Paris was designed to furnish a reason for this exclusivefavour.So the tale went that when the gods were assembledat the marriage board of Thetis and Peleus, Eris flungon the table a golden apple to be given to the fairestof the fair. The trial which follows before the shepherd ofIda (the sun still resting on the slopes of the earth which heloves) is strictly in accordance with the mythical charactersof Er and Ath&a&, as well as of Aphrodit, to whom, asthe embodiment of the mere physical lovelinessof the dawn(apart from the ideas of wisdom or power underlying theconceptions of H6r and Ath6n6), the golden prize isawarded. Henceforth AphroditS threw in her weight outhe side of the Trojans, while Athene and Hr gave theiraid to the kinsfolk or the avengers of Helen. But theway was not so clear to Zeus as it seemed to be to H3r6.Hektor himself was the darling of Apoll&n, and here alonewas a reason why Zeus should not be eager to bring aboutthe victory of the Achaians but ; among the allies of Priamthere were others in whose veins his own blood was running,the Aithiopian Memn6n, the child of the morning, Glaukos,the brave chieftain from the land of light, and, dearest of all,Sarpd6n. Here at once there were causes of strife betweenZeus and his queen, and in these quarrels H$r wins herends partly by appealing to his policy or his fears, or byobtaining from AphroditS her girdle of irresistible power.Ohly once do we hear of any attempt at force, and thisinstance is furnished by the conspiracy in which she plotswith Poseid6n and Ath&o.& to make Zeus a prisoner, Thisscheme is defeated by Thetis and Briareos, and perhaps withthis may be connected the story that Zeus once hung upApollod. ii. 5, 11.

12 MYTHOLOGY OP THE ARYAN" NATIONS.BOOK ]j r in -the heaven with golden handcuffs on her wrists andr'two heavy anvils suspended from her feet. In the same wayshe is at enmity with Herakles, and is wounded by hisbarbed arrows. But where the will of Zeus is not directlythwarted, Eter is endowed with the attributes even ofPhoibos himself. Thus she imparts to the horse Xanthos thegifts at once of human speech and of prophecy, and sendsthe unwilling Helios to his ocean bed when Patroklos fallsbeneath the spear of Hektor.E&fc and But while Zeus asserts and enforces his own power overher, none other may venture to treat her with insult ;andthe proud Ixl6n himself is fastened to the four-spoked wheelof noon-day, for his presumption in seekingthe love of thewife of Zeus. The sun as climbing the heights of heaven aand wooing the bright ether, is an arrogant being who mustbe bound to the fiery cross, or whose flaming orb must bemade to descend to the west, like the stone of Sisyphos, justwhen it has reached the zenith, or summit of the hill.HSr&Among the manyAtoaa"names under which she was knownappears the epithet Akraia, which was supposed to describeher as the protectress of cities, but which was applied alsoto Athn6 as denoting the bright sky of morning. 1 Thusviewed she is the mother of Hb8, the embodiment of everlastingyouth, the cupbearer of Zeus himself. H&r, how^ever, like Athn&, has her dark and terrible aspects. FromOuranos, the heaven, spring the gigajitic monsters, Thunderand Lightning; ajid as the source of like convulsions, Hr6isthe mother of Ars (Mars), the crusher, and Eephaistos,the forger of the thunderbolts.E$r& the But her relations to marriageare those which were mostprominently brought out in her worship throughout Hellas.She is the wife of Zeus in a sense which could not be appliedto any other of the Olympian deities ; and, apart from theoffspring which she produces by her own unaided powers,she has no children of which Zeus is not the father. Henceshe was regarded both as instituting marriage, and punishingthose who violate its duties* It is she who sends theEileithyiai to aid women, when their hour is come \and>See Preller, Gr. i.Myth. 125.

IDEA OF NECESSITY. 13thus she has that power of hastening or retarding a "birthwhich is used to give Eurystheus priority over Herakles.In these functions she is practically identical with the The Latin1Latin Juno (a name closely akin to that of Zeus). But Jmi0'Juno not only presides over marriage. She is the specialprotectress of women from the cradle to the grave, and assuch, is Matrona and Virginalis. As Moneta, the guardianof the mint, she bears a name which connects her functionswith those of Minerva.SECTION IX.THE ERINYES.In the whole cycle of Greek mythology no idea perhapsisDoctrinemore prominent than that of the inevitable doom. of toil, slt y.sorrow, and suffering which is laid without exception onevery one of the heroes, and on all the gods, unless it beZeus himself. For none is there any permanent rest orrepose. Phoibos may not tarry in his brilliant birthplace,and his glance must be fatal to the maiden whom he loves.Nay, more, he must fight with, and destroy the ZyHdpes,the loathsome giants or storm-clouds ;but these are the childrenof Zeus, and Phoibos must therefore atone for his deedby a long servitude in the house of Adm&tos. But on thishouse there rests the same awful fate. In the midst of all herhappiness and wealth Alkstis must die if her husband is tolive, and the poet who tells the tale declares in the anguishof his heart that he has searched the heaven above and theearth beneath, and found nothing so mighty, 'so invincible, asthis iron force, which makes gods and men bow beneath hersway. The history of Phoibos is the history of all who areof kin to him. Herakles, with all his strength and spirit,must still be a slave, and the slave of one infinitely weakerand meaner than himself. Perseus must be torn away fromhis mother DanaS, to go and face strange perils and fightwith fearful monsters. He must even unwittingly do harmto others, and his mischief must end in the disorder of hisown mind, and the loss of power over his own will. He mustece8 ">Vol. i.p 354.

14 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.BOOK stow certain dispositions, and do certain acts. The sunrThe con-must rise in the heavens, must seem to woo the queen of thedeep blue ether, must rouse the anger of her lord, must behurled down from his lofty place. Hence, Ixi6n must writheon his fiery cross, and Sisyphos must roll the huge stone tothe hilltop only to see it dash down again to the plain"beneath. There would not be wanting more terrible crimesand more mysterious complications.again in the eveningThe Sun must be unitedto the mother from whom he wasparted in the morning; and hence that awful marriage ofOidipous with lokastfe, which filled his house with woe andbrought his lineage to an end in blood. Iphigeneia must diethat Helen may be brought back, as the evening twilight mustvanish away if the light of dawn is to come again. ButIphigeneia has done no wrong. She is the darling of herfather's heart, and the memories linked with her image arethose only of tenderness and love. Must there not then bevengeance taken for the outpouringAnd can Atof her innocent blood Prest till she has visited on Agamemnon himselfthe death of his guiltless child 9Without going further, we have here the germs, and more^an *^e genns, of doctrines which, from the time that these^eas were awa^ene^ k *ke human mind, have moulded thetheology of the world the doctrines of irresistible force, ofthe doom which demands blood for blood, of the destinywhich shapes a man's life even before he is born. Thesedoctrines necessarily assume at an early age a moral or aspiritual character; but the ideas which underlie them wereevoked by the physical phenomena of nature. The moralconflict and antagonism between Ormuzd and Ahrimanpoints to the earlier struggle in which Indra fights with andslays the biting snake, the thief, the seducer, who hidesaway his prey in his dismal cave and; the battle betweenspiritual good and evil takes form from the war betweenthe light of the Sun and the darkness of the night. Butwhile these ideas were passing more and more into theregion of things spiritual, and were becoming crystallized intheological systems, the growth of a physical mythology wasnot wholly arrested. The vengeance for iniquity may belong

THE FATAL SISTERS. 15to the fearful Erinyes ;but the Erinys is still a being whowanders in the air.The wrath of At6 may never slumber,so long as the murderer remains unpunished; but she is stillthe tangible being whom Zeus seizes by her long-flowinglocks, and hurls from the portals of Olyinpos. But theimpulse to a moral mythology once given could not but callinto existence other beings answering to At6 or the Erinyesin their purely spiritual aspects. From the idea of a beingwho can see all that is done by the children of men wouldcome the notion of three beings, each having as its provinceseverally the past, the present, and the future ;while thelot which is each man's portion, and the doom which hecannot avoid would be apportioned to him by beings whosenames wotild denote their functions or the gentler qualitieswhich men ascribed to them in orderwrath.Btodeprecate theirOf these beings the Erinyes are in the Hellenic mythologyamong the most fearful so fearful, indeed, that their worshippers,or those who had need to speak of them, called themrather the Eumenides, or merciful beings, to win from themthe pity which they were but littlesupposed to feeL Tetthese awful goddesses lare but representatives of the Vedicsteals acrossSaranyu, the beautiful morning whose soft lightthe heaven, and of whom it was said that she would find outthe evildeeds committed during the night, and punish thewrongdoer. Still, unconscious though the Athenian mayhave been of the nature of the beings whom he thus dreadedor venerated, they retained some of their ancient characteristics.Terrible as they might be to others, they had o,nly agenial welcome for the toilworn and suffering Oidipous, thebeing who all his life long had struggled against the doomwhich had pressed heavily on the Argive Herakles. Closeto Athens, the city of the dawn goddess,is their sacredgrove and under the shadow of ȳ its clustering trees theblinded Oidipous will tranquilly wait until it is his time todie. Where else can the weary journey come to an endthan amidst the sacred groves in which the Erinyes are seenin the evening, weaving, like PenelopS, the magic web which

16 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ABYAK NATIONS.BOOK is to be undone again during the night P The threads of this< 'r web become in their hands, and in those of the kindredMoirai, the lines of human destiny. Having said thus muchof these dreaded beings we have practically said all.Mythographerscould not fail to speak of them as children of Gaia,sprung from the blood of the mutilated Ouranos, or as thedaughters of the night, or of the earth and darkness aparentage which will apply with equal truth to Phoibos orthe Dioskouroi. When we are told that, in cases wheretheir own power seems inadequate they call in the aid ofDik6 or Justice, we are manifestly on the confines of allegory,which we are not bound to cross.poets,In the conceptions of laterthey appear, like the Gorgons, with writhing snakesin place of hair, and with blood dripping from their eyes ;and as naturally, when their number was limited to three,they received names which, like AUkt6, Megaira, and Tisiphon,imply relentless hatred, jealousy, and revenge. Theirdomain is thus far wider and more terrible than that of theMoirai, who weave, deal out, and cut short the thread ofhuman life.From this point the mythology, which has grown up, suchas it is, round the fatal sisters, may be regarded as thoroughlyartificial.The division of time into the past, the present,and the future once made, itdivisionsonly remained to assign theseseverally to one personal being, 'and to invest thisbeing with attributes suited to the office which it has toperform. Itmay be instructive to trace the process bywhich the single Moira of the Iliad and Odyssey suggests thenotion of many Moirai, and isrepresented by the Hesiodicsisters, K16th6, Lachesis, and Atropos ;but the process isaltogether different from that which, starting with phrasesdenoting simply the action of wind or air in motion, givesus first the myths of Hermes, Orpheus, Pan, and Amphion,and ends with the folk-lore of the Master Thief and theShifty Lad.In the latter case, the mythmaker knew little,probably nothing, of the source and the meaning of thestory, and worked in unconscious fidelity to traditions whichhad taken too strong a root to be lightly dislodged ormaterially changed.In the former we have the work rather

THE FATES. 17of the moralist or the theologian. The course of humanexistence and of all earthly things is regarded as a long coilof thread, and the gods are the spinners of it. Thus thiswork is specially set apart to Aisa, the spoken word of Zens,the Fatum of the Latins, or to Moira, the apportioner ;to both alike is this task of weaving or spinning assigned, 1and Aisa and Moira are alike the ministers of Zeus to do hiswill, not the despotic and irresponsible powers before whom,as before the Anank of Euripides, Zeus himself must bow.Nay, even a mortal may have a certain power over them,and Achilleus may choose either a brief career and a brilliantone, or a time of repose after his return home which shall2stand him in the stead of glory. The dualism of the ideasof birth and death would lead us to look for two Moirai insome traditions, and accordingly we find the two at Delphoi,of whom Zeus and Apoll6n are the leaders and guides.3The three Hesiodic Moirai, who are sisters of the Erinyes,are also called the Kres, or masters of the destinies ofmen,. 4 Of these three one alone is, by her name Kl&th6,charged with the task of spinning but in;some later versionsthis task is performed by all three ;nor is the same accountalways given of their functions with regard to the past, thepresent, and the future. Commonly E36th& spins the threads,while Lachesis deals them out, and Atropos severs them atthe moment of death ;forbut sometimes K16th6 rules over thepresent, Afcropos over the past, and Lachesis over the future.5If, again, they are sometimes represented in comparativeyouth, they sometimes appear with all the marks of old age ;1 ft. xx. 128 ;xxiv. 209. the hammer or the millstone.*jS. ix. 411. *,Clotho prsesentas temporis habet* Paus. x. 24, 4. curam, quia, quod toryie^ur in digitie,These are the % TctvrjXey&j momenta pwesentisindicatspatia; Atro-6wfaou> the name belongingto the pos prseteriti' fatum est, quia quod insame root which has yielded the words fuso perfectum est, prseteiiti temporisxtpios, wtpovos, and the Latin create, habet speciem, Lachesis jfuturi, quod(cf. G-r. Kpeffe), creator. The name Moira etiam illis, qua futura sunt, finem suumanswers to that of the Latin Mora, the Deus dederit Apuleius, de Mwndo, pgrinding, crushing power, the p.otpa 280 ; Grimm, Deutsche Myth,386. TheKpcLradi of the lhad. Yet the etymo- Hesiodic poet, in his usual didactic vein,logy was not wholly without reason, makes the Moirai strictly moral beingswhich connected the word with pfyos, a who punish the wrong doing, or transshareor portion,the idea of pieces or gressions, whether of gods orfragments being naturally expressed by Tkeog. 220.the root used to denote the working ofVOL. II,

18 MYTHOLOGY OF THE AJtYAN NATION'S.and thus we come to the Teutonic Norns. The HellenicMoirai, as knowing what was to befall each man, had necessarilythe power of prediction, a characteristic which is themost prominent attribute of the fatal sisters of the North.These in the German myths are Yurdh, Verdhandi, andSkuld, names purely arbitrary and artificial, denoting simplythat which has been, that which is in process of becoming oris in being, and that which shall be hereafter. 1 Of thesenames the two last have dropped out of English usages whileYurdh has supplied the name by which the sisters wereknown to Shakespeare ;and thus we have the weird sisterswhom Macbeth encounters on the desolate heath, the weirdelves of Warner's Albion, the Weird Lady of the Woods ofthe Percy Ballads, 2 the Fatal Sustrin of Chaucer.The Ten- These Noins, gifted with the wisdom of the Thriai, 3 leadNoras. us through all the bounds of space. They are the guardiansof the great ash-tree Tggdrasil, whose branches embrace thewhole world.Under each of its three roots is a marvellousfountain, the one in heaven, the abode of the Asas, beingthe fountain of Vurdh, that of Jotunheim being called by thename of the wise Mimir, while the third in Niflheim, orHades, is the Hvergelmir, or boiling cauldron.At the firstthe Asas and Noras hold their court ;at the second Mimirkeeps his ceaseless watch, a being whose ame has apparentlya meaning closely akin to that of the Latin Minerva/ and1Vurdh represents the past tense of help Shortshanks, as the three sisters inthe word werden Verdhandi is the the tale of Fanner "Weathersky, and thepresent participle, werdend, while Skuld three loathly heads in the &toryofis the older form of Sehuld, the obliga- Bushy Bridetion to atone for the shedding of blood.8 Their wisdom is inherited by theSkuld thu& represents really the past tense bards whoso name, Skalds, has beenskal, which means ' I have killed, and traced by Professor Kuhflt to the sametherefore am l^mnd to make compensa- root with the Sanskrit Xhandas, metre ;toon for it ' The difference between our and .Khandas Profos&or Max Muller ro-1shall' and 'will' is thus at once ex- gards as identical with the terra Zend.plained.Max Muller, Chips, u. 62; For the evidence of this see Chips, $e,Gnmm, D. Myth 377. i. 84, note.2Grimm, J). M. 378. Max Miiller, Grimm, who traces the word through*Lectures on Language, second series, itsmany changes, notos also the relation563. The Nonas are the Three Spin- of the Latin mentor with the Greeksters of the German story in Grimm'sjuijKeo/ the mimic being the man whocollection, who perform the tasks which remembers what is done by another;are too hard for the delicate hands of and thus 'mummery* js but anotherthe Dawn-maiden. In the Norse Tales form of 'memory. 1 D. Myth. 353.(Dasent) they reappear as the Three Mimir is thus lie Kentaur Mimas , andAunts, or the three one-eyed hags, who the wisdom of the Kentaur, it may be

TGGDRASIL AND IRMINSUL. 19who leaves to Wuotan (Odin) only one eye, having de- CHAP,manded the other as a pledge before he will grant to him a -_ -.'draught from the water which imparts wisdom.Such is thesanctity of this water, which the BTorns every morning pourover the branches of the ash-tree, that everything -touchedby itbecomes snow-white, and the dew which falls from thetree is always sweet as honey. On the crown of the treesits an eagle; under its roots lurks the serpent or dragonNidhogr and between these the;squirrel, ever running upand down, seeks to sow dissension. This mighty ash-tree inGrimm's belief is only another form of the colossal Irminsul,1 the pillar which sustains the whole Kosmos, as Atiasbears up the heaven, the three roads which branch from theone representing the three roots of the other. The tree andthe pillar are thus alike seen in the columns, whether ofHerakles or of Eoland ;while the cosmogonic character ofthe myth is manifest in the legend of the primeval man Askr,the offspring of the ash-tree, of which Virgil, from thecharacteristic which probably led to itsselection, speaks asstretching its roots as far down into earth as its branchessoar towards heaven. 2The process which multiplied the Noras and defined theirfunctions exalted also the character of At3, who, as we haveseen, appears in the Iliad simply as the spirit of mischievousfolly, hurled out of Olympos for bringing about the birth ofBurystheus before that of Eera-kles,but who in the hands ofJEschylos becomes the righteous but unrelenting avenger ofblood. The statement that the Litai are beings who followclosely when a crime is done, and seek to make amends forit, is a mere allegory on the office of prayer ;and what istold us of Nemesis, if less allegorical, is still naerely theresult of moral reflection.In the world good and evil seemNemesisnoted, became a proverb. In one story Irmin cannot be identified with theMimir ig sent by the Asas to the Vanir, Greek Hermes (Grimm, JD. Myth. 328),who cut off his head and sent it back to yet we may compare the Greek Ip/iftioythem. Wuotan utters a charm over it, with the German Irminsul, the pillar or,and the head, which never wastes away, column of Irmin, answering to the bustsbecomes his counsellor a legend which of Hermes fixed on the Hermai at Athenscan scarcely fail to remind us of the and elsewhere. Cf. the note of M.myth of Memnon's head with its pro- Breal in Professor Max Midler's ietfwm,phetic powers, localised in Egypt second series, 474.1Although the name of the German a See also Max Midler, Chips, ii. 207.02

20 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ABTAN NATIONS.to be capriciously distributed,so that on the one side wehave the squalid beggar, on the other the man whose prosperityis so unvarying that his friend, foreseeing the issue,sends to renounce all further alliance with him. This inequalityit is the business of Nemesis to remedy; and thusshe becomes practically an^ embodiment of righteous indignationat successful wrong, although she is also regarded asthe minister of the gods who are jealous when the well-beingIn either aspect sheof man passes beyond a certain limit. 1is Adrasteia, the being from whom there is no escape.In the meaning commonly attached to the word, Tych6denoted the idea of mere blind chance, scattering her giftswithout any regard to the deserts of those on whom theyBut this was not the conception which led somemight fall.to represent her with a rudder as guiding the affairsof theworld, and not only to place her among the Moirai, but toendow her with a 2power beyond that of the others. In hermore fickle aspect she carries the ball in her hand, while herwealth and the nature of her gifts are denoted by the horn ofAmaltheia at her side, and the boy Er6s who accompaniesher, or the Good Demons who sometimes surround her. AsAkraia, TychS becomes simply a name of Athn, the wealthbringer;with the epithet Agath&, good, she becomes practicallyidentical with the Agathos Daim&n, the namelessbenignant deity invoked by cities and individual men. Thenames Theos and Daim6n are often given to those unnamedforces in nature which, in Preller's words, are more felt intheir general influences than in particular acts. 3 Nor is theassertion without warrant that the genuine utterances of theheart were addressed to this incomprehensible power, of whosegoodness generally they felt assured, and not to any mythfoaldeities on whose capricious feelings no trust could be placed.When the swineherd Eumaios talks with Odysseus, we hearnotiting of Zeus or Phoibos, but we are told simply that theunnamed God gives and takes away as may seem to him best.rb 8

THE WANDERINGS OF LllT6. 21Nor can we doubt that even the mass of the people were impressedwith the belief in a deity or power different in kindfrom the mythical deities brought before them by their epicor tragic poets. This deity was simply the good God, or theunknown Being, worshipped ignorantly, whom St. Paul saidthat he came only to declare to them.Doubtless even thisconception underwent many modifications and in the end;not only each state or city, but each man and woman, from themoment of birth, had a guardian demon or angel who soughtto lead them always in the right way.1This guardian was invokedon all occasions, in such forms as our 'Luck be with you,'or the ' Quod bonum, felix, faustumque sit ? of the Latins. 2SECTION X.HELLENIC SUNGODS ASD HEROES.The Ionian legend, embpdied in the so-called Homeric The IonianHymn, tells the simple tale that LSto, the mother of theunborn Phoibos, could find no place to receive her in, herhour of travail until she came to Delos. To wealthier andmore fertile lands she made her prayer in vain; and whenshe addressed herself to the little stony island with its ruggedDelos trembled with joy not unmingled withcliffs and Trills,fear. The unborn child, she knew, would be a being ofmighty power, ruling among the undying godsand mortalmen; and she dreaded lest he should despise his sterilebirthplace and spurnit with Ms foot into the sea. It remainedonly for Lt& to make a solemn covenant with Delos,that here should be the sanctuary of her child for ever, andthat here his worshippers, coming from all lands to his highfestival, should lavish on her inexhaustible wealth of goldand treasures. So the troth was plighted; but althoughDi6n6 and AmphitritS with other goddesses were by her side,Hr remained far away in the palace of Zeus, and the childof Lt& could not be born unless she should suffer Eileithyiato hasten to her relief. Then, as she drew near, LSt& casther arms around a tall palm-tree as she reclined on the bank1iram Salpav w$pl tfvjwropiVrarcu Al. Sir. 5, p. 260. Preller, Ghr> Myth,fbffos yeffofx.4vtf fwffrarytoyos rov jSiow i. 422.Menander, quoted by Clem. 2Preller, ib. i. 423,

22 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ABYAN NATIONS.BOOK of Kynthos, and the babe leaped to life and lightas the-_ n'-earth smiled around her. The goddessesbathed him in purewater, and wrapping him in a glistening robe, fine andnewly wrought, placed a golden band round the body ofChrys&r, while Thetis touched his lips with the drink andfood of the gods. But no sooner had the child received thisnourishment, than he was endowed with an irresistiblestrength, and his swaddling bands fell off him like flax, as hedeclared his mission of teaching to men the counsels of Zeus.Then began the journey of the farshooting god, whose goldenhair no razor should ever touch. From land to land he went,delighting hiseyes with the beautiful sights of grove-cladhills and waters running to the sea.The This hymn has, indeed, a historical interest, as beingmanifestly the work of a time when the great Ionian festivalat Delos was celebrated with a magnificence which theLydian and Persian conquests grievously impaired. To thewriter Delos is the abode dear above all others to thehymnlord of light; and thither come worshippers whose beautyand vigour would seem beyond the touch of sickness, pain, ordeath. The rest of the hymn is manifestly a different poem,?composed by a Delphian when the oracle of that place hadbut the blind old bard ofreached its highest reputation;the rocky islet of Chios is well aware that, apart from anyrivalry of other temples and other festivals, it is impossiblefor Phoibos always to abide in Delos. For him there is notranquil sojourn anywhere and all that the;poet can say onbehalf of his beloved Delos is,that the God never fails toreturn to it with ever-increasing delight, as in the old Vedichymns the Dawn is said to come back with heightened beautyevery morning.In truth, almost every phrase of the hymais transparent in its meaning. The name L&fc6 is close akinto that of Leda, the dusky mother of the glorious Dioskouroi,and is in fact another form of the L&th6, in which men forgetalike their joys and sorrows, the Latmos in which Endymi&nsinks into his dreamless sleep,and the Ladon, or lurkingdragon,who guards the golden apples of the Hesperides.But formany a weary hour the night travails with the birthof the coming day, and her child cannot be born save in the

DELOS AND OBTTOIA. 28briglit laud (Delos) of the Dawn. A toilsome journey liesbefore her 5and the meaning of the old myth is singularlyseen in the unconscious impulse which led the hymn-writerto speak of her as going only to lofty crags and high mountainsummits. 1 Plains and valleys it would obviously beuseless to seek ;the light of the sun must rest on the hilltops long before it reaches the dells beneath. In anotherversion, she is said to have been brought in twelve days fromthe land of the Hyperboreans to Delos in the form of a shewolf,2 Lukos, a phrase which carries us to the story of Lyld6n,and to the interpretation given to the name of the LyfceianApollon. So again in the Phoinix or palm, round whichLet6 casts her arms, we have that purple hue of dawn whichmarks the earlyhome of the children of Agn6rand Tlephassa.3 But there were other traditions about his birth.Any word expressing the ideas of light and splendour mightbe the name of his birthplace ;and ^othe tale ran thatApoll6n and Artemis were both bora in Ortygia, the land ofthe quail, the earliest bird of spring, and thus of t}ie earlymorning. No mythical incidents were attached to his epithetLykgen6s; but this name speaks of him simply asborn in that land of light, through which flows the Xanthianor golden stream, and where dwell SarpSdfin, the creepingflush of morning, and Grlaukos the brilliant, his friend. Heis the Phanaian 4 or glistening king, who gave his name tothe Chian promontory on which his worshippers assembledto greet him.In the Delian hymns Apoll6n soon attains his full mightThe infancand majesty.Still for a time he lies still and helpless, with Pholllos -a golden band around his body which is clad in whiteswaddling clothes. These white mists which seem to clingto the rising sun are wrapped more tightly round the ThebanOidipous, and the golden band gives place to the nails whichpierce his feet when he is exposed on the heights of Kithair6n.1Hymn. ApoU. 30-45, sends her light from afar ;and the con*2 The myth was regarded as account- neetion of the purple hue with the birthing for a supposed fact connected with and early life of the sun is soen notthe breeding of wolves. Grrote, History only in the myth of the "bird known asof Greece, i 62. the Phenix, but m Phoimx, the teacher3 Eur&pe, the broad spreading dawn, and guide of Achilleus in his childhood*is necessarily the child of the being who * Virg. Gcorg*ii. 98.

24 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAff NATIONS.BOOK But in both alike the time of weakness is short. OidipousII.returns to Thebes, mighty in strength of arm and irresistiblein wisdom, to slay the terrible Sphinx. In one versionPhoibos is only four days old when, hurrying to Parnassos,he slays the dragon which had chased his mother L6t& inher wanderings to Delos. The more elaborate legend of theHymn places the slaying of the Python later in his career ;lbut like the Sphinx, Pythonis not only the darkness ofnight, but the black storm-cloud which shuts up the waters,and thus itguards or blockades the fountain which is toyield water for the Delphian temple. 2In other respects thelater of the two poems woven together in the Homeric hymnis as transparent in meaning as the earlier. In both Phoibosjourneys gradually westward in both riches and; glory arepromised to those who will receive him. But the bribe isheld out in vain to the beautiful fountain Telphoussa, nearwhose waters Phoibos had begun to lay the foundations of ashrine. By warnings of the din of horses and of cattlebrought thither to watering she drove him away, and Phoibosfollowing her counsel betook himself to Parnassos, whereTrophonios and AgamdsIt israised his world-renowned home*at this point that the author of the hymn introducesthe slaughter of the worm or dragon to account for thename Pytho, as given to the sanctuary from the rotting of3its carcase in the sun ;and thence he takes Apoll6n back1Pyth6n is here called the nurse of and bushes, and snapping them as reeds.Typha6n, the dragon-child or monster, He evacuated such floods ofwater that theto -which Hre gives birth by her own mountain torrents were full. But, afterunaided power, as Athe"n& is the a while, his power was exhausted ;hedaughter of Zeus alone. Typha6n, one lashed no more with his tail, ejected noof the many forms of Vntra, Ahi, and more water, and spat no more fire " IOacus, stands to Here, the bright goddess think it impossible not to see in thisof the upper air", in the reUtion of the description a spring-tide thunderstorm,*Mmotauros to the brilliant Pasiphae", G-ould, Werwolf }p. 1^2wife of Minos 8 The word is connected by SophokUs8 'In a Sloyakian legend the dragon not with the rotting of the snake butsleeps in a mountain cave through the with the questions put to the orade.winter months, but at the equinox The latter is the more plausible conjeoburstsforth. "In a moment the heaven ture ;but the origin of the word is tmwasdarkened, and became bUck as certain, as is also that of Apoil6n, ofpitch, only illumined by the fire which which Welcker (Gnechwhe Gotterlehre,flashed from the dragon's jaws and eyes. i.460) regards Apell6n as the genuineThe earth shuddered, the stones rattled form, connecting it in meaning with thedown the mountain sides into the glens ; epithets iXefiWo?, faorptiraios, faivios,right and left, left and right, did the and others. This, however, is probablydragon lash his tail, overthrowing pines as doubtful as the derivation -which con-

1THE FISH SUE". 25to Telphoussa, to wreak his vengeance on the beautifulfountain which had cheated him of a bright home beside herglancing waters. The stream was choked by a large crag,the crag beetling over Tantalos, which he toppled downupon it, and the glory departed from Telphoussa for ever.It now remained to find a body of priests and servants forPhoiboshis Delphian sanctuary, and these were furnished by the ^^lmcrew of a Cretan ship sailing with merchandise to Pylos.In the guise of a dolphin Phoibos urged the vessel throughthe waters, while the mariners sat still on the deck in terroras the ship moved on without either sail or oar along thewhole coast of the island of Pelops. As they entered theKrisaian gulf a strong zephyr carried them eastward, till theship was lifted on the sands of Zrisa. Then Apoll6n leapedwhile from him flew sparks offrom the vessel like a star,light till their radiance reached the heaven, and hasteningto his sanctuary he showed forth his weapons in the flameswhich he kindled. This done, he hastened with the swiftness-of thought back to the ship, now dn the form of a beautifulyouth, with his golden locks flowing over his shoulders, andasked the seamen who they were and whence they came.In their answer, which says that they had been brought toErisa against their will, they address him at once as a god,and Phoibos tells them that they can hope to see their home,their wives, and their children again no more. But a higherlot awaits them. Their name shall be known throughoutthe earth as the guardians of Apoll&n's shrine, and the interpretersof his will. So they follow him to Pytho, whilethe god leads the way filling the air with heavenly melodies.But once more they are dismayed as they look on the nakedcrags and sterile rocks around them, and ask how they areto live in a land thus dry and barren. The answer is thatthey should have all their hearts' desire, if only they wouldavoid falsehood in words and violence in deed.Such was the legend devised to account for the name and The Pish-the founding of the Delphian temple.It is obviously a mythsun.Beets Phoibos with ws, light. By Pro- belonging to the same family with thefessor Max Muller the latter name is Greek 4>rf, the Latm/ta, and theEnglishidentified with the Sanskrit Bhava, a word be. Phoibos is thus the living Gtod,

,26 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.BOOK which, cannot be taken byitself. Phoibos here traverses thesea in the form of a fish, and imparts lessons of wisdom and.. ^',goodness when, he has come forth from the greeh depths.He can assume many forms, and appear or vanish as hepleases.All these powers or qualities are shared by Proteusin Hellenic story, as well as by the fish-god, Dagon or Onnes,of Syria ;and the wisdom which these beings possess is thathidden wisdom of Zeus which, in 1ihe Homeric hymn, Phoiboscannot impart even to Hermes.So in the Vishnu Puranathe demon Sambara casts Pradyumna, the son of Vishnu,into the sea, where he is swallowed by a fish, but he dies notand is born anew from its belly.1The story must be takenalong with those of the Prog prince, of BheM, and of theFish-rajah in Hindu fairy tales. 2 Doubtless it is the samedolphin which appears in the stoty of Arion, but the fish notless than the harp has lost something of its ancient power. 8Phoibos In thismyth Phoibos acts from his own proper force.B-ereHermes. >as ^ tliekyma to Hermes, he is emphatically thewise and the deep or far-seeing god. The lowest abyss ofthe sea is not hidden from his eye, but the wind can neverstir their storinless depths.His gift of music was not, however,his own from the first. His weapons are irresistible,and nothing can withstand the splendour of his unveiledform; but he must live in a world of absolute stillness,without mist and without clouds, until the breath of thewind stirs the stagnant air. Hermes then is the maker ofthe harp and the true lord of song;and the object of thehymn is to account for the harmony existing between himselfand Phoibos, from whom he receives charge over the brightand radiant clouds which float across the blue seas of heaven.It is impossible to laytoo much stress on this difference oftranslation of H. H. Wilson, herself into a duck ; or who becomes aP * - . a i ,-, A m, llly in a hcd e > while Roljmd P lft ys onSee Tol. ipp 165, 400. The story of his flute a tune which makes the witch,fte Frog.prmce agrees closely with the like the Jew on the thorns, dance tillGaelic tale of the Sick Queen (Campbell, she drops down dead. The same tnoi-11. 131), for whom none but the Frog can formations occur in the stories of Pirsupplythe water of life.Apple and the Two Kings' Children, inV^re of Phoibos andprot^s Grimm's collection, and in the Norseis shared by Thefos, and againm Grimm's tales of Dapplegnm and Farmerstory of Roland, by the maidon, who Weathersky.changes her lover into a lake, and**"

SISYPHOS AND Il!6N. 27inherent attributes. Hermes may yield up his harp toPhoibos, as the soft breezes of summer may murmur andwhisper while leaves and waters tremble in the dazzlingsunlight; but willing though Phoibos may be to grant theprayer of Hermes to the utmost of his power, it is impossiblefor him to give to the god of the moving air a share in thesecret counsels of Zeus. 1Essentially, then,, there is no distinction between Phoibos Phoibosand Helios. Both are beings of unimaginable brightness ; Helios.both have invulnerable weapons and the power of wakeningand destroying life; both can delight and torment, bringhappiness or send scorching plagues and sicknesses; bothhave wealth and treasures which can never be exhausted;both can mar the work which they have made. That eachof these qualitiesmight and would furnish groundwork forseparate fables, the whole course of Aryan mythology fullyshows. Their wisdom would be shown by such words asSisyphos, Metis, Medeia their ; healing powers by the namesAkesios, S6tr, Akest6r ;and both these faculties might beconceived as exercised in opposition to the will of Zeus.The alternations of beneficence and malignity would markthem as capricious beings, whose wisdom might degenerateinto cunning, and whose riches might make them arrogantand overbearing. But for these things there must be punishments;and thus are furnished the materials for a host ofmyths, every one of which will be found in strict accordancewith the physical phenomena denoted by the phrases of theold mythical or myth-generating speech. The words whichspoke of the sun as scorching up the fruits and waters whichhe loves would give rise to the stories of Tantalos andLyk&6n the ; pride of the sun which soars into the highestheaven would be set forth in the legend of Ixion; thewisdom which is mere wisdom would be seen in the mythsof Sisyphos or Medeia. The phrases which described thesun as revolving daily on his four-spoked cross, or as doomedto sink in the sky when his orb had reached the zenith,1There is nothing surprising in the ing the walls of Troy, as Amphio'nfact, that later versions, as those of built those of Thebes, by playing on hisKallhnachos and Ovid, describe Apoll&n harp,as himself inventing the lyre and build-

28 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.^BOOK*would give rise to the stories of Ld6n on his flaming wheel. and of Sisyphos with, his recoiling stone. If again the sunexhibits an irresistible power, he may also be regarded as abeing compelled to do his work, though it be against hisown will. He must perform his daily journey he must;slay the darkness which is his mother he must be5 partedfrom the Dawn which cheered him at his birth ;and after afew hours he must sink into the darkness from which he hadsprung in the morning. His work again may be benignant 5the earth may laugh beneath his gaze in the wealth of fruitsBut these gifts are notand flowers which he has given her.ftfr himself 5 they are lavished on the weak and vile beingscalled men.These are really his masters, and he must servethem as a bondman until his brief career comes to an end*These ideas lieat the bottom of half the Aryan mythology.They meet us, sometimes again and again, in every legend ;and it is scarcely possible to arrange in stricb method eitherthe numberless forms in which these ideas are clothed, or thestories in which we find them. The order of the daily phenomenaof day and night may furnish the best clue forPhoibosthreading the mazes of the seemingly endless labyrinth.In the myth of DaphnS we see the sun as the lover of*ke Dawn, to whom his embrace is, as it must be, fatal.Whether as the daughter of tibie Arkadian Ladon Or of the1Thessalian Peneios, DaphnS, or the Dawn, is the child ofthe earth springing from the waters when the firstflush oflight trembles across the sky. But as the beautiful tintsfade before the deepening splendour of the sun, so Daphnfeflies from Apoll6n, as he seeks to win her. The more eagerhis chase, the more rapid is her flight, until in her despair1From the roots dk and dah (to each other, for how the people wouldburn), -which stand to each other in the say could they have the same name?'relation of as and das (to bite), as m And hence the story of the transform*-the Sanskrit asru and the Greek Sa/e/w, tion of Daphne. Max Muller, Lecturesa tear, are produced the names Almna, on Language, second scries, 502 ; Okuft,the Yedic dawn-goddess, and Athene, as $c. ii. 93. The idea of fury or madnesswell as the Sanskrit Dahana and the was closely connected with that of fire;Hellenic Daphn& These names denote hence the laurel which grew on thesimply the brightness of morning ; but tomb of Amykos had the quality ofthe laurel, as wood that bums easily, making the crew of a ship quarrel till*received the same name. Afterwards they threw it overboard. Plus. #, JV*the two, as usual, were supposed to be xvi 89.one, or to have some connection with

DAPHlflS AND BOLINA. 29she prays that the earth or the waters may deliver her fromher persecutor;and so the story went that the laurel treegrew up on the spot where she disappeared, or that DaphnSherself was changed into the laurel tree, from which Apoll&ntook his incorruptible and glorious wreath. 1The same fatal pursuit is the burden of the legend of the Alpheioshuntsman Alpheios. Like Daphn and Aphrodit Anadyomen,he is the child of the waters, whether he be describedas a son of Okeanos and Thetis, or of Helios himself.He is in short the Elf, or water-sprite, whose birthplace isthe Elbe or flowing stream.him as DaphnS flies from Phoibos ;But Arethousa must flyfromand Pausanias takes herto the Syracusan Ortygia, where she sinks into a well withwhich the waters of Alpheios become united. This is butsaying, in other words, that she fled to the Dawnland, whereEos closes as she begins the day, and where the sun againgreets the love whom he has lost,Like spirits that lieIn the azure sky,"Where they live hut love no more. 2In another version she is aided by Artemis, who, herselfalso loved by AJpheios, covers her own face and the faces ofher companions with mud, and the huntsman departs baffled ;or, to recur to old phrases, the sun cannot recognise thedawn on whom he gazes, because her beautyis faded andWith these legends are closely connected the storiesgone.of Eippodameia, Atalant, and the Italian Camilla, whobecome the prize only of those who canovertake them infair field 5 a myth which reappears in tie German story,'How Six travelled through the World.' It is repeated ofPhoibos himself in the myth of Bolina, who, to escape fromhis pursuit, threw herself into the sea near the mouth of the1The story of the Sicilian Daphnis is unfaithful to her. This blindness is thesimply a weak version of that of Daphnfe, blindness of Oidipous. The sequel iswith some features derived from other that of the legends of Prokris ormyths, Like T&lephos, Oidipous, and Koronis, and the blinded Daphnis fallsothers, Daphnis is exposed in his infancy; from a rock (the Leukadian cliff ofand, like Apoll&n, whose favourite he is, Kephalos) and is slain. If the sunhe is tended by nymphs, one of whom would but remain with the dawn, the(named in one version Lykd, the shin- blindness of night would not follow,ing) loves 2him, and tells him that Shelley, Arethwa.blindness will be his if punishment he is

and30 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.river Argyros (the silver stream). The name Bolina lootsmuch like a feminine form of Apoll&n.1Endymi6n. The reverse of these stories is obviously presented in thetransparent myth of Endymi6n and the scarcely less transparentstory of Narkissos. The former belongs, indeed, tothat class of stories which furnish us with an absolutelyWhensure starting-point for the interpretation of myths.we find a being, described as a son of Zeus aiwl Kalyk6 (theheaven and the covering night), or of Aethlios (the m&n ofmany struggles), or of Protogeneia (the early dawn), marriedto Seln (the moon), or to Asterodia (the being whose pathisamong the stars), we at once see the nature of the problemwith which we have to deal, and feel a just confidence thatother equally transparent names in other Greek myths meantoriginally that which they appear to mean. Thus, when wefind that Prokris is a daughter of HersS, we know thatwhatever Prokris may be, she ishence we have solid grounds for connectingthe child of the dew, andher name withthe Sanskrit prish,to sprinkle, althoughit cannot be explained.directly from any Greek word. Themyth of Endymi6nwas localised in Elis (where his tomb was shown inthe days of Pausanias), doubtless because it was the westernmostregion of the Peloponnesos, just as the Leukadianrocks, the inost westerly point of northern Hellas, were associatedwith the name of Kephalos when it was,;oncelocalised, fresh names and incidents, mostly of little value orsignificance, were readily imported into the tale. Thus oneversion gave him fifty daughters by Seln, to match thefifty sons and daughters of Danaos and Aigyptos others ; gavehim N&s, Iphianassa, and others as his wives, or madehim, under the unconscious influence of the old mythicalphrases, the father of Eurydit^, the broad flashing dawn,who is the bride of Orpheus. In fact, the myth of Endymi6nhas produced rather an idea than a tale.It has little incident,and scarcely anything which mightentitle it to beregarded as epical history, for the few adventures ascribed tohim by Pausanias 2 have manifestly no connection with theoriginal legend.The visit of Seln, followed by1Pausanias vii. 23, 3. a yiii. 1.an endless

, andAffD TITHOffOS. 31tfsleep, is in substance all that poets or antiquarians tell us CHAP,of; and even this is related by Pausanias with so many ^. / __-variations as to show that the myth, from its obvious solarcharacter, was too stubborn to be more than thinly disguised.Tf Endymi6n heads an army, or dethrones a king, this is themere arbitrary and pointlessfiction of a later age. The realscene of the myth is the land of Latmos, not the Earian hillor cave to which Pausanias made him migrate from Elis,but that western region of the heavens where the weariedsun finds a resting-place.1[The word itself belongsto theroot which has produced the word Lth, forgetfalness, aswell as the names of L&t6 and Leda, the mothers of Phoibosthe Dioskouroi. The simplest form of the story is perhapsthat of Apollodoros, who merely says that Se&id lovedhim and that Zeus left him free to choose anything that hemight desire.His choice was an everlasting sleep, in whichhe might remain youthful for ever. 2 His choice was wiserthan that of E6s (the morning or evening light), who obtainedfor the beautiful Tith&nos the gift of immortalitywithout asking for eternal youth; a myth as transparent asthat of Endymi&n, for E6s, like Iokast6, is not only the wifebut also the mother of Tith&nos, who in one version is a sonof Laomedon the Hian king, in another of Kephalos, whowoos and slays Prokris. The hidden chamber in which Edsplaced her decrepit husband is the Latmian hill, wherethe more fortunate Endymifin lies in his charmed sleep.Endymi6n is in short, as his name denotes, simply the sunsetting* opposite to the rising moon. Lookingat the taleby the light which philology and comparative mythologythink it incredible thathave thus thrown upon it, we mayany have held it to be an esoteric method of describing early1An address of ' Ossian ' to the Set- Timidly raising their headsting Sun, which Mr. Campbell (iv 150) To gaze on thee beauteous asleep,pronounces to be a close translation of They witless have fled from thy side,Gaelic, assumed to be older than 1730, Take thy sleep within thy cave,vividly expresses the idea of this myth : Sun, and come back from sleep re-Hast left the blue distance of heaven ?Joeing.Sorrowless son of the gold-yellow hair! Here we have not only the LatmianNight's doorways are reajdy for thee, cave,Thy pavilion of peace in the West mythsThe billows came slowly around,* i. 7, 5.To behold him of brightest hair,but the idea which grew into theof Memn6n, Adorns, and Baldur.

32 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.,,BOOK astronomical researches. It is scarcely less difficult to see'in it,as some have discerned, simply a personification ofsleep. 1In his father Aethlios, we see one who, like Odysseus,has suffered much, the struggling and 2toiling sun, and hisown name expresses simply the downward plunge of the suninto the western waters. 8 The whole idea of Endymi6n, whois inseparable from the material sun, is altogether distinctfrom that of theseparate divinity of Phoibos Apoll6n, towhom he stands in the relation of Gaia to D&ntr,Nereus to Poseid&n.The story Of the story of Narkissos Pausanias 4 givesor oftwo versions.kissos."^e former which describes him as wasting away and dyingthrough love of his own face and form reflected in a fountainhe rejects on account of the utter absurdity of supposingthat NarMssos could not distinguish between a man and hisshadow. Hence he prefers the other, but less known, legend,that Narkissos loved his own twin sister, and that on herdeath he found a melancholy comfort in noting the likenessof his own form and countenance to that of histlost love.But the more common tale that Narkissos was deaf to theentreaties of the nymph Echo is nearer to the spirit of theold phrase, which spoke of the sleep of the tired sun. 5His1Dr. Schmitz (Dwtwnary of Greek2 There is no difference of meaningand Roman Biography and Mythology, between Aethlios and iro\tfr\o?, theand all his')attributes confirm this* It can be thatopinion. Endymion signifies a beinghardly questioned&M/ia fatov was once the equivalent of'that gently comes over one ;he is called falov Suffftal, and that originally thea king because he has power over all sun iv&v v6vrw twhere in the Iliad andliving creatures ;a shepherd, becausehe slumbers in the cool caves of MountOdyssey we have only the simple verb,Had Endymi6n remained a recognisedLatmos, that is, tlie mount of oblivion.' name for the sunset, the myth of Endy-If it be meant that the sleep here mi6n, as Professor Max Muller remarkspersonified is the sleep of man, the (Chips, $c.n. 80), could not have arisen;assertion rests on a very questionable, out as itsmeaning was forgotten, theif not a very forced, etymology; and name Bndymi6n was formed in athe title of king or shepherd no more manner analogous to Hyperi6n, a namebelongs to the mythical conception, of the high-soaring sun.4than does his tomb in Elis. But Endv- is. 31, 6. He rejects also themi&n is not spoken of as a being who notion that the flower was so namedcomes over any one else, or as having after Narkissos, the former havingpower over all living creatures, but as certainly existed before his time, inasonewho cannot shake off his own sleep, much as Persephone, who belongs to ana sleep so profound that they who are earlier period, was caught while pluckvexedm heart may well envy it,ing a narcissus from its stem.*T*er dr * tV fcpoiw r fcr ,*& f J* J^Theokr. EidyU.iii. 49.duces that of Salmakis, vol. i p.

andTHE HEALERS. 33very name denotes the deadly lethargy (vdprcrf)which makesthe pleadings of Seln3 fall unheeded on the ear of Endymi6n;and hence it is that when PersephonS is to betaken at the close of summer to the land of darkness,the narcissus is made the instrument of her capture. It isthe narcotic which plunges Brynhild into her profoundslumber on the Glistening Heath, and drowns Briar Eoseand her fellows in a sleep as still as death.From the lot of Endymi&n, Narkissos, and Tith&nos, Tamos andApoll6n is freed only because he is regarded not as the Ask % osvisiblesun who dies when his day's journey isdone, but asthe living power who kindles his light afresh every morning.The one conception is as nattral as the other, and we stillspeak of the tired or the unwearied sun, of his brief careerand his everlasting without light,any consciousness of inconsistency.Phoibos is then the ever-bright sun, who cannever be touched by age. He is emphatically the -Akersekomfe,the glory of whose golden locks no razor is ever tomar. He is at once the comforter and healer, the saviourand destroyer, who can slay and make alive at will, and fromwhose piercing glance no secret can be kept hid. Butalthough these powers are inseparable from the notion ofPhoibos Apoll6n, they are also attributed separately tobeings whose united qualities make up his full divinity.Thus his knowledge of things to come is given to lamos ;his healing and life-giving powers to Askl^pios. The storyof the latter bringsbefore us another of the countless instancesin which the sun isfaithless to his love or his loveis faithless to him. In every case there must be the separation;and the doom of Kor6nis only reflects the fate whichcuts short the life of Daphn and Arethousa, Prokris andlokastS. 1 The myth is transparent throughout. The1The story of the birth of Asklepios Eilhart, the Eussian hero Dobrunaagrees substantially with that of Diony- Nihtisch, of the Scottish Maeduff, ofsos the,- legends of other Aryan Vblsung who yet kissed his mothertnbes tell the same tale of some of their before she died, of Sigurd, and of Sceafmythical heroes. Of children so bom, the son of Scild, the child broughttomm insays generally, 'TJngeborne, the mysterious skiff, which needs neitherd. h ans dem Mutterleib geschnittne sail, rudder, nor oarsmen. WhenceKinder pflegen Helden zu werden, 7 and came the popular belief attested by suchadds that this incident marks the stones a phrase as that which Grimm quotesof the Persian Rustem, the Tristram of from the Chronicle of Peterhoute, 'deVOL. II.D

S4MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN" NATIONS.BOOKn'mother of Askl^pios is a daughter of Phlegyas (the flaming),1_. and Apoll&n woos her on shores of ttie lake Boib&s ;we take another version given by Apollodoros, she is Arsino,a daughter of Leukipposor, if(a name in which we see theflashing steeds which draw the car of Indra or Achilleus),and a sister of Hilaeira and PhoibS, the radiant maidenswhom the Dioskouroi bore away.2When the myth goes onto say that when Apoll6n had lefther Kor&nis yielded herselfto the Arkadian Ischys, we have a story which simplyrepeats that of Prokris, for as Eephalos returns disguisedand wins the lore of the child of Hers (the dew), so isIschys simply the strength or power of the lord of light(Arkas). In each case, the penalty of faithlessness is death ;and the mode in which it isof Zor&nisexacted in the mythprecisely corresponds with the legend of Sernel. LikeDionysos, AsklSpios is born amidst and rescued from theflames ;in other words, the light and heat of the sun whichripen the fruits of the earth, scorch and consume the cloudsand the dew, or banish away the lovely tints of early morning.3we have to deal with differentThroughout the mythversions which, however they maydiffer from each other,still point to the same fountain-head of mythical speech.In one form the story ran that Kor6nis herself exposed herchild on the slopes of mount Myrtion, as Oidipous wasleft to die on Kithairon. There he is nourished by a goatand a dog, incidents which are reproduced in the myths oftalibus excisis literae testantur quod, si which Orpheus vainly yearns to give tovita comes fuerit, felices in mundo Eurydike: as she vanishes from his sight,habeantur?' Deutsche MytMogie, 362. ^PiniPydi in 14The Teutonic myths must clearly be a Apollod. in. 10, 3.compared with that of Hlodr (Lodur),s The Dawn cannot long survive thewho is born with helmet and sword, and birth of the sun. Hence the mother ofthis again with the story of Ath&ne', Volsung dies as soon as her child haswho springs fully armed from the fore- kissed her So m Grimm's story of thehead of Zeus, a story as transparent Almond Tree, the mother of the sunasthat of Fhoibos Chrysa6r. These, child, who is as white as snow and as redtherefore, are all dawn-children or sous as blood, is so delighted at seeing herof the bright heaven. In the latter babe that she dies. The same lot is thecase the forehead of Zeus, the sky, is portion of the mother in the story ofcloven; iu the former, the body of the Little Snow- white, the !Dawn-maiden adawn. In other words, the dawn dies story which suggests a comparison withalmost before the sun has had time the myths of the glass of Agrippa andto bid her farewell. It is impossible of the well of Apollfin Thyrris ainot to see in the kiss which Volsung related by Pau&anias.gives to hid dying mother the embrace

1ASKLSPIOS. 35Cyrus and Bomulus. When at length, the shepherd Aristhanastraced the dog and goat to the spot where the infantlay, he was terrified by the splendour which surrounded thechild, lite the flame round the head of the infant Servius in theEoman tale. The wonder, Pausanias adds, was soon noisedabroad, and throughout land and sea the tidings were carriedthat Askl6pios healed the sick and raised the dead. 1Thewisdom by which he obtained this power he received fromthe teaching of the wise centaur Cheiron ; but we have tomark that Cheiron is the teacher not only of Asklpios butof Ias6n and Achilleus, who also represent the wisdom andbrightness or power of Phoibos, and the descent of Cheironhimself connects him with the phenomena of daylight.When Ixi6n in his boundless pride sought to seize Hr6 thebright queen of the air herself, Zeus placed in hisway themist-maiden Nephel from whom was born the Kentaur, 2 asthe sun in the heights of heaven caJls forth the bright cloudswhich move like horses across the sky. It is difficult not tosee in these forms of Hellenic mythology a reflection of theVedic Gandharvas, who are manifestly the bright sunlitclouds. 3 Not only has Indra the Hants (the Greek Charites)as his steeds, but the morning herself as the bride of the sunisspoken of as a horse, 4 and a hymn addressed to the sunhorseTama says, brought the horse, Trita harnessed*him,CHAP.II.1ii. 26, 4. To this marvel of tlie question de ces divinit^s, M. Kuhu aflame was referred his title Aiglaer, thegleaming, which simply reproduces thed&nontr6 que Gandharva est le nom dusoleil, considere au moment ou il reposeLykian epithet of his father Phoibos, parmi les nues et semble cele'brer sonThe healing powers of AskUpios are union avec elles,seen m que les Gandharvasthe German stories of GrandfatherDeath and Brother Lustig.dans le ciel Ixioa chez les Grecs est2 Pind Pyth. u. 80.le Centaure par excellence, puisqu'il est* M. Breal, an his masterly analysis le pere de cette famille de monstres:of the myth of Oidipous, has no doubt il correspond au G-andharra vMique.''of their identity M. Adalbert Kuhn/Professor Max Huller cites the explanation'he says, dans un do ses plus ingtaieuxof Yaska: 'Saranyu, the1travdux, amontre 1'ldcutile des Centaures daughter of Tvashtar, had twins fromet des Gandharvas, ces etres fantastiques, Vivasvat, the sun. She placed anotherqui jouent dans la mythologie indienne like her in her place, changed her formle m&me r61e que les Oentaures chez les into that of a horse, and ran off.Grecs Us portent le m&me nom : c'est ce Vivasvat the sun. likewise assumed theque prouve Tanalyse grammaticale des form of a horse, followed her, anddeux mots. Comme les Centaures, les embraced her. Hence the two AsvinsGandharvas ne foment qu'une seulefamille. Ilssontle fruit de 1'umozz duGandharva avec les Nu&s. En exami-were born, and the substitute (Savarna)bore Manu.' Lectures on Language,second Penes, 482. Those Asvins artthe Dioskouroi. See vol i. p. 390, &e.

36 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ABYABT NATIONS.The storiesIndra first sat on him, the Gandharva took hold of hisrein.' 1It was inevitable that, when the word ceased to beunderstood in its original sense, the brightness of the cloudswhich seem to stretch in endless rants to the furthermostabyss of heaven should suggest the notion of a wisdomwhich Phoibos receives from Zeus but cannot impart inits fulness to Hermes. What part of the heaven is thereto which the cloud may not wander ? what secret is there innature which Cheiron cannot lay bare P There were, however,other traditions, one of which asserted that Askl&pioswrought his wonderful cures through the blood of Gorgo,while another related of him the story which is assignedelsewhere to 2Polyidos the son of Koiranos. But like almostall the other beingp to whose kindred he belonged, Asklpiosmust soon die* The doom of Patroklos and Achilleus,SarpSd&n and Memn6n, was upon him also. Either Zeusfeared that men, once possessed of the secret of Askl^pios,might conquer death altogether, or Plouton complained thathis kingdom would be left desolate; and the thunderboltwhich crushed Phaeth6n smote down the benignant son ofPhoibos, and the sun-god in his vengeance slew the Kyklfipes,the fashioners of the fiery lightnings for the lord of heaven. 3But throughout Hellas Asklpiosremained the healer andthe restorer of life, and accordingly the serpent is everywherehis special emblem, as the mythology of the Linga4would lead us to expect.The myth of M&n exhibits the sun as bound to the four-in theand AtL. spoked wheel which is whirled round everlastinglysky. 5 In that of Sisyphos we see the same being condemned1 Max *Miiller, Lectures, second series, rerpdwapov $

THE WISDOM OF ATLAS. 37to the daily toil of heavinga stone to the summit of a hill CHAP,from which it immediately rolls down. This idea of tasks . ^ .unwillingly done, or of natural operations as accomplishedby means of punishment, is found also in the myth of Atlas,a name which like that of Tantalos denotes endurance andsuffering, and so passes into the notion of arrogance orpresumption. But the idea of a being who supported theheaven above the earth, as of a being who guides the horsesof the sun, was awakened inthe task was regarded as a penalty.be said that this idea isthe human mind long beforeIndeed, it can scarcelyclearly expressed in the Odyssey,which says of Atlas that he knows all the depths of the seaand that he holds or guards the lofty pillars which keep theheaven from fallingto crush the earth. 1 It is scarcely prominenteven when the Hesiodic poet speaks of him as doinghis work under a strong necessity, for this is no more thanthe force which compels Phoibos to leave Delos for Pyth6,and carries Kephalos, Belleroph&n, and Odysseus to theirdoom in the far west. Nor in either of the&e poemsis thereanything to warrant the inference that the poet regardedAtlas as a mountain. This idea comes up in the myth ofPerseus, who seesthe old man bowing beneath his fearfulload, and holding the Gorgon's face before his eyes, turns himinto stone ;and the stone which is to bear up the brazen heavenmust needs be a great mountain, whether in Libya or inother regions,for the African Atlas was not the only mountainwhich bore the name. But the phrase in the Odysseywhich speaks of him as knowing all the depths of the seapoints to a still earlier stage of the myth, in which Atlaswas possessed of the wisdom of Phoibos and was probablyPhoibos himself. Eegarded thus, the myths which makethe Okeanid P16ion his wife and the Pleiades his children,or which give him Aithra for his bride and make her theIt can scarcely be doubted that the surrounding either a square or a circular1words fyj>k fyovffiv, Od. i. 54, do not earth. It is at the least certain thatmean that these columns surround the this is not the meaning of the Hesiodicearth, for in this case they must be not poet, who gives to Atlas a local habitaonlymany in number, but it would be tion at the utmost bounds of the earthobvious to the men of a mythmaHng near the abode of the Hesperides, andand mythspeafong age, that a being makes him bear the heavens on hisstationed m one spot could not keep up, heads and hands. The Hellenic Atlas isor hold, or guard, a number of pillars simply the Vedic Skambha, vol. i. p. 388,

38 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.mother of the Hyades and the Hesperides, are at once explained.He is thus naturally the father of Hesperos, themost beautiful star of the heavens, who appears as the heraldof E6s in the morning and is again seen by her side in theevening. The Hellenic He6sphoros, the Latin Lucifer, theLightbringer, who is Ph6sphoros,is also called a son ofAstraios and E6s, the starlit skies of dawn. 1Helpe-nde&.The gar- Far away in the west by the stream of the placid Ocean ise*^e dwelling of the Hesperides, the children or sisters ofHesperos, the evening star, or, as they might also be termed,of Atlas or of Phorkys. This beautiful island which no barkever approaches, and where the ambrosial streams flow perpetuallyby the couch of Zeus, is nevertheless hard by theland of the Gorgons and near the bounds of that everlastingdarkness which is the abode of Ahi and Pani, of Geryon,Cacus, and Echidna. Hence the dragon Ladon guards withthem the golden apples which Gaia gave to Hr& when shebecame the bride of Zeus, these apples being the goldentinted clouds or herds of Helios, the same word being usedto denote both. 2It remained only to give them names easilysupplied by the countless epithets of the morning or eveningtwilight, and ty> assign to them a local habitation, which wasfound close to the pillars or the mountain of Atlas whichbears up the brazen heaven above the earth.Atlas and Atlas is thus brought into close connection with Helios,Hyperion.Odyssey he is himself Hyperi&n, the climber : in the HesiodicTheogony, Hyperi6n becomes his father by the same processwhich made Zeus the son of Kronos, his mother beingTheia, the brilliant, or Euryphaessa, the shedder of thebroad light. In the former poems he rises every morningfrom a beautiful lake by the deep-flowing stream of Ocean,and having accomplished his journey across the heavenplunges again into the western waters. Elsewhere thislake becomes a magnificent palace, on which poets lavishedall their wealth of fancy ;but this splendidabode is none1So transparent are all these names, "been altogether unaware of the sourcesand so many the combinations in which of the materials with which they haa tothey are presented to us, that even the deal.later mythographers can scarcely have i See note 5, p.10.

HYPERION. 39other than the house of Tantalos, the treasury of Ixifin, thepalace of Allah-ud-deen in the Arabian tale.Through theheaven his chariot was borne by gleaming steeds, the Eohitsand Hants of the Veda ;but his nightly journey from thewest to the east is accomplished in a golden cup wrought byHephaistos, or, as others had it, on a golden bed. But greaterthan his wealth is his wisdom. He sees and knows all things ;'and thus when Hekat6 cannot answer her question, Heliostells D&nfit&r to what place Kor has been taken, and againinforms Hephaistos of the faithlessness of Aphrodit.It istherefore an inconsistency when the poet of the Odysseyrepresents him as not aware of the slaughter of his oxen byEurylochos, until the daughters of Neaira bring him thetidings but the 5 poet returns at once to the true myth, whenhe makes Helios utter the threat that unless he is avenged,he will straightway go and shine among the dead. Thesecattle, which in the Yedic hymns and in most other Greekmyths are the beautiful clouds of the Phaiakian land, arehere (like the gods of the Arabian Kaaba), the days of thelunar year, seven herds of fifty each, the number of whichis never increased or lessened; and their death is thewaiting of time or the killing of the days by the comrades ofOdysseus.The same process which made Helios a son of Hyperl6n EeHosandmade him also the father of Phaeth6n. In the Iliad he is Phaetll6n 'Helios Phaeth&n not less than Helios Hyperi6n ;but whenthe name had come to denote a distinct personality, it serveda convenient purpose in accounting for some of the phenomenaof the year. The hypothesis of madness was called into explain the slaughter of the boy Eunomos by Herakles ;but it was at the least as reasonable to say that if the sundestroyed the fruits and flowers which his genial warmthhad called into life, it must be because some one who hadnot the skill and the strengthof Helios was holding thereins of his chariot. 1 Hence in tames of excessive heat ordrought the phrase ran that Phaeth&n, the mortal son of anundying father, was unable to guide the horses of Helios,1This is the Irish story of Cucliullia and Eerdiah. Fergusson, Irish beforethe Congest.

40 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.Patrofcloswhile the thunderstorm, which ended the drought and discomfitedVritra, and the Sphinx, dealt also the deathblow toPhaeth6n and plunged him into the sea. The tears of theHeliades, his sisters, like the drops which fell from the eyesof Zeus on the death of his son Sarpd6n, answer to thedown-pouring rain which follows the discharge of thelightning.Phaeth6n, then, is strictly a reflection of his father with^1 his beauty and all his splendour, but without his discretionor his strength ;and the charge given to him that heis not to whip the fiery steeds is of the very essence of thestory.If he would but abstain from this, they would bringhim safely to his journey's end ;but he fails to obey, and issmitten. The parallel between this legend and that ofPatroklos is singularly exact. Mr. Grote has remarked theneutral characters and vaguely defined personality both ofPatroklos and of Telemachos, and we are justifiedin layingspecial stress on the fact that just as Phaeth6n is allowed todrive the horses of Helios under a strict charge that he shallnot touch them with his whip, so Achilleus suffers Patroklosto put on his armour and ascend his chariot under the injunctionthat so soon as he has driven the Trojans from theships he is not to attempt to pursue them to the city.Patroklosdisobeys the command and is slain by Hektor ;butthe sorrow of the Heliades is altogether surpassed by thefiery agony of Achilleus. It is in truth impossible not to seethe same weakened reflection of a stronger personality in theLatin Eemus the brother of Romulus, in Arjuna the companionof Krishna, in Peirithoos the associate of Theseus,and in all the other mythical instances cited by Cicero asexamples of genuine friendship. In the folk-lore of the Eastthese secondaries, represented by faithful John in the Teutonicstory, reappear as Luxman in the legend of Eamah, andas Butti in the tale of Vicram Maharajah. Nor can we fail todiscern the same idea in the strange story of Absyrtos, theyounger and weaker brother of the wise and unscrupulousMedeia, who scatters his limbs in the sea to stay the pursuitof Aits, -a vivid image of the young sun as torn into piecesamong the vapours that surround him, while the light falling

ALKfiSTIS. 41in isolated patcheson the sea seems to set bounds to theencroaching darkness which gives way before the conquerorof the clouds.The slaughterof the Kykl6pes brought on Phoibos the Thebondsentenceof a year'sservitude ;and thus we have in the myth JS^of Apoll6n himself the germs of the hard bondagewhich and Heraweighsdown Herakles through his whole career, and is onlyless prominent in the mythical histories of Perseus, Theseus,and other heroes, who, like Achilleus, fight in a quarrel whichis not of their own choosing or making.1Phoibos serves isThe master whomone between whom and himself there isno such contrariety of will as marks the relations of Herakleswith Eurystheus. He is no hard exacter of tasks set in merecaprice to tax his servant's strength to the utmost but he;iswell content to have under his roof one who, like the Brownieof modern superstition, has brought with him health andwealth and all good things. One thing alone is wanting,and this even Phoibos cannot grant him* It is the life ofAlkstis, the pure, the devoted, the self-sacrificing, for it hadbeen told to Admtos that he might escape death, if only hisparents or his wife would die in his stead, and Alkstis hastaken the doom upon herself. 2Thus in the very prime of herbeauty she is summoned by Thanatos, death, to leave herhome and children, and to cross with him the gloomy streamwhich separates the land of the living from the regions of thedead; and although Phoibos intercedes fop a short respite,the gloomy being whose debtor she is lays his icy handsupon her and will not let her go until the mighty Heraklesgrapples with him, and having by main force rescued herfrom his grasp, brings her back to Admtos. Such is thestory told by Euripides, a story in which the character ofHerakles is exhibited in a light of broad burlesque alto*to Hermes. We see in itgether beyond that of the Hymnat once the main features of the cognate legends. It isThe thoxight of the sun as a loud- Inea, like a tied beast who goes ever1 'man led the Peruvian Inca to deny hisround and round m the same track.'pretension to be the doer of all things; Max Muller, Chips, $c11. 113.for, if he were free, he would go and * Hence the connection of the namevisit other parts of the heavens where with that of Alkm&n& or of (Athe"n)he had never been. He is, said the Alalkomenfc.

42 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.BOOKessentially the myth of Orpheuswho lite Adm&os must ber l < parted from his lovely bride, and who differs from AdmStosonly in this, that he must go and seek for her himself. Inthe one story the serpent stings and causes the death ofEurydik in the : other, when AdmStos enters his bridalchamber on the day of his marriage, he sees on the bed aknot of twisted snakes, the omen of the griefthat is coming.But although Alkstis may die, death cannot retain dominionover her ;and thus we have again the story of the simplephrases that the beautiful dawn or twilight,who is the brideof the sun, must die after sunset, if the sun himself is to liveon and gladden the world with his light,must die, if sheherself is to live again and stand before her husband in allher ancient beauty. At this point the myth of AdmStos stopsshort, just as the Odyssey leaves the chief, after his toil isit hints at aended, with the faithful Penelop, althoughcoming separation which is to end in death. The legend ofAdm&fcos carries on the tale a step further, and the vanishingCharacterMes*"of EurydiM just as she reaches the earth is the vanishingof Daphn from Apoll&n, of Arethousa from Alpheios, or itis the death of Prokris slain by the unwitting Zephalos.But this idea of servitude which is thus kept in the back-g011^ in the myths of Apoll6n serves as the links which1"connect together all the phases and scenes of the life ofHerakles. He is throughout the toiling, suffering hero, whois never to reap any fruit of his labour, and who can becheered even by the presence and the love of Iol, only whenthe fiery garment is eating deep into his flesh. When thisidea once became prominent, a seriesof tasks and of successfulachievements of these tasks was the inevitable sequel.What is there which the sun-god in his majesty and powercannot accomplish? What part of the wide universe isthere which his light cannot penetrate?whither or against what foesIt mattered notEurystheus might send him jhe must assuredly return triumphant over every adversary.On this fruitful stem would grow up a wealth of stories whichmythographers might arrange according to any system suggestedby their fancy, or which might be modified to suitany passing whim or local tradition and association and so;

THE BIKTH OF HERAKLE?. 43long as we remember that such systematic arrangements areCHAP,results of recent ages,we may adopt any such plan as the ^ ^' _.most convenient way of dealingwith the endless series oflegends, all of them more or less transparent, and all pointingout with unmistakeable clearness the character of the herowho is the greatest representation of Indra on Hellenicsoil. Prom first to last, his action is as beneficent to thechildren of men as it is fatal to the enemies of light, and thechild who strangles in his cradle the deadly snakes of darknessgrows up into the irresistible hero whom no danger candaunt and no difficulties can baffle.The immense number of exploitsattributed to him, thearrangement of which seems to have "afforded a specialdelight to more recent mythographers, would lead us to expecta large variety of traditions modified by local associations.To go through them all would be an endless and an unpro-the notices of thefitable task ;and we may safely acceptHomeric and lyric poets as the more genuine forms of themyth. Like Phoibos, Hermes, Dionysos, and others, he isa son of Zeus, born, as some said, in brilliant Argos, or asothers related, in the Boiotian Thebes. With him is bornhis twin brother IphiklSs, the son so the tale went ofAmphitryon and thus the child of the mortal father5standsto the sdn of the undying king of Olympos in the relationof Phaeth&i to Helios, of Patroklos to Achilleus, or of Telemachosto the chieftain of Ithaka. The subjection of thehero to his kinsman was brought about by the folly of Zeus,who, on the day of his birth, boasted himself as the father ofone who was to rule over all the house of Perseus. H&rSthereupon, urged on by At&, the spirit of mischief, made himswear that the child that day to be born of his lineage shouldbe this ruler, and summoning the Bileithyiai bade them seethat Eurystheus came into the world before Herakles. Sowroth was Zeus when H6r told him that the.goodman Eurystheusmust, according to his oath, be king of Argos, that heseized Ate by the hair of her head, and swearing that sheshould never again darken the courts of heaven, hurled herfrom Olympos. Thus the weaker came to be tyrant over thestronger but when the;mythographers had systematized his

44 MYTHOLOGY OP THE ARYAN NATIONS.labours, they related that Zeus made a compact by whichHerakles should become immortal when he had brought histwelve tasks to a successful issue. The story of his birthtells us not only of the child in his cradle strangling thehorrid snakes of darkness which seek to destroy their enemy,but of an infancy as troubled as that of Telephos or Oidipous.Like them, Alkm&i6, favouring the jealousy of H&rS, exposedthe babe on the plain which thence receivedthe name ofHerakles 5and it is picked up, of course, by the dawn-goddessAth&nfi, who beseeches Hr, the queen of the blue heaven, tonourish it. The child bites hard, and H&r flings it back toAthen, who carries it to her mother. 1 The boy grows upthe model of human strength and power ;and his teacherspoint to the cloudland to which he himself belongs.Autolykosand Eurytos, by whom he is taught to wrestle and toshoot with the bow, denote the light and splendour ofmorning; Kastor, who shows him how to fight in heavyarmour, is the twin brother of Polydeukes, these twins answeringto the Vedic Asvins or horsemen and; Linos, whoteaches him music, is akin to Hermes, Pan, Orpheus, andAmphion. The harper is slain by his pupil, and Amphitryon,fearing that his son might use his strength in a like wayagain, sends him to tend cattle, and in this tftsk, whichin other myths is performed by SaramS, or the daughters ofNeiara, he lives until he has reached the full strength ofyouth. Thus far we have a time answering to the brightperiod in which Phoibos is tended by the nymphs in hisinfancy, when his face is unsoiled, and his raiment all white,and his terrible sword is not yet belted to his side. It is thepicture of the unclouded sun rising in pure splendour, seeingthe heavens which he must climb, and ready for the conflictswhich may await him gloomy mists and angry stormclouds.The moral aspect which this myth may be made to assumemust be that of self-denial. The smooth road of indulgenceis the easiest on which to travel; he who takes the ruggedpath of duty must do so from deliberate choice and thusjthe brave Herakles, going forth to his long series of labours,suggests to the sophist Prodikos the beautiful apologue in1Diod. IT. 9.

which AretTHE TOILS OF HERAKLES. 45and Kakia, virtue and rice, each claim his obedience,as AphroditS and Athn6 each, claim the goldenprize which Paris must adjudge. The one promises endlesspleasures here and hereafter ;the other holds out the prospectof hard days followed by healthful slumbers, and warnshim that nothing good was ever won without labour, nothinggreat ever done without toil. The mind of Herakles is madeup at once and thejgreatest of all mythical heroes is thusmade to inforce the highest lessons of human duty, and topresent the highest standard of human action. The apologueis full of beauty and truth, and there is manifestly no harmin such applications of myths when the myths themselvesare not strained or distorted in the process. The images ofself-restraint, of power used for the good of others, are prominentin the lives of all or almost all the Zeus-born heroes ;but these are not their only aspects, and it is as necessary toremember that other myths told of Herakles can no more bereconciled with this standard of generous self-devotion thanthe conduct of Odysseus as he approaches the Seirens' islandwith the Christian duty of resisting temptation.With this high heroic temper Heraldes sets forth for hisfirst great fight with the lion of Kithairon, and whether fromTie lionsfj^dits carcase or from that of the Hernean beast, he obtains the Nemea.lion's skin with which he is seen so commonly represented,and which reappears in the jackal's skin in the story of the1enchanted Hindoo rajah. The myth of the fifty daughtersof Thestios or Thespios, which in some versions is connectedwith his first great exploit, is akin to that of the fiffcydaughters of Danaos and the fifty children whom Asterodiabare to Endymi6n. 2 It is but one instance out of many in1 "With this lion's skin must be com- Fmths and Legends, M. Maury enterspared the fish-skin with which the sun- at length into the physiological questionsgod is represented in the characters of -which on the Euemenstie hypothesisProteus and Onnes or Dagon, and must be connected with the myth of thewhich might be worn by Phoibos Del- Nemean Lion. However conclusive hisphimos. With the later, it is simply a arguments may be, the inquiry is almostp.sign of the sun as rising like Aphrodite* superfluous It cannot be necessaryfrom the sea ,the lion's skin may denote to disprove the existence of lions inperhaps the raiment of tawny cloud the Peloponnese, unless we must alsowhich the sun seems to trail behind him disprove that of the Sphinx or theas he fightshis way through the vapours Chimairawhom he is said to overcome. See vol i.2 See 30.p 135. In his chapters on Ancient

'46 MYTHOLOGY OF THE AEYAW NATIONS.BOOK which we have the sun under an aspect altogether ineon-.. rc*.,,, sistent with the ideal of Prodikos. Herakles is no longerthe hero who imposes on himself a hard discipline, but thevoluptuous wanderer who has many loves in many lands. Inhis attack on the envoys of Erginos he is armed with a coatof mail brought to him by the dawn-goddess Ath6n6, asAchilleus and Sigurd wear the armour brought to them by1Thetis and Hjordis. The same thought suggested the giftof the bow and arrows from Phoibos, the lord of the spearlikesunbeams, of the sword from Hermes, whose stroke cansplit the forest trees, of the peplos from Athftn^ the clearfacedmorning. The arrows bestowed on him by Apolldn itmust specially be noted are poisoned ;and these poisonedbarbs are used by PhiloktSt^s, who receives them fromNeoptolemos, the child of Achilleus, the brilliant but shortlivedsun, and by Odysseus, whom Athn restores to youth-as his lifers labour draws towards its end. But weful beautyhave no historical evidence that poisoned arrows were usedby any Hellenic tribes, or that they would not have regardedthe employment of such weapons with the utmost horror.How then comes it to pass that the poets of the Iliad andOdyssey can attribute to the Achaian heroes practices fromwhich their kinsmen would have shrunk with disgust P Themystery is easily solved. The equivocation which turnedthe violet-tinted rays of morning into spears was inevitable ;the change of the spears or arrows into poisoned barbs was,at the least, as natural and necessary.2HeraklesAs the conquest of the lion of Kithairon is the first greatexploit, so according to the systematising mythographersthe bringing up of the dog Kerberos 3 from Hades is thelast. This story is mentioned by the poet of the Odyssey,Erginos is the father of Troph6nios thus far the equivocation differs from1and Agame'de's, the builders of the that which turned Lyka&n into a wolf,Delphian shrine the myth of the and Arkas into a bear, these nameschildren of darkness raising the sanctu- being in fact of the same signification,ary of thfi lord of light answering to the although the men who uttered them hadlegend which makes Apoll&n himself ceased to be conscious of it.the child of (Lt&) the sombre night.aThe name Kerberos is the Sanskrit2The word Us, fa, which furnished Sarvara, or Sambara, one of the enemiesa name for the violet hue, for a spear, slain by Indra. Max Miiller, Chips, u.and for poison, is really a homonym 1S2, 188.traceable to two or three roots; and

HEEAKLES AND LAOMED6N. 47who makes Herakles tell Odysseus that his sufferingsaxe CHAP,"but a reflection of the toils which he had himself undergone ^by the tyranny of the mean Eurystheus, and that this taskof bringing up the hound had been achieved by the aid ofAth&a6 and Hermes, the dawn and the breeze of morning. 1On this framework was built an elaborate superstructure,which we need not examine closely, but of which some atleast of the details are significant. The slaughter of theKentaurs by Herakles, for which he needed purificationbefore descending to Hades, is the conquest and dispersionof the vapours by the sun as he rises in the heaven ;and thecrime of Herakles is only another form of that of tsi&n. Ashe returns to the upper world he rescues Theseus, himselfone of the great solar heroes, and the child of Aithra, the^ ^pure air but Peirithoos must remain;behind, as Patroklosmust die even though he be the friend of Achilleus. Thedog of Tama thus brought back is, of course, carried downagain by Herakles to the nether world.But the sun as he rises in the heaven acquires a fiercer The madpower;and thus Apoll&n becomes Ghrys&r, and Heraklesbecomes mad. It is the raging of the heat which burns upthe fruits of the earth which it has fostered, and so Heraklesslays his own children by Megara, and two also of the sonsof IphiklSs. At this point he is represented by some asasking the Pythian priestesswhere he should make hisheavenly. 2abode, and as receiving from her, instead of his former title,Alkaios or AMdes, the sturdy, the name of Herakles, theAs such, he is the avenger of tiie fraud of Laomed&n,who had refused to pay the promised recompense toPoseid&n and Phoibos for building his walls and tending hisflocks. As in the case of Kepheus or of Oineus, the offendeddeities send a monster to ravage the fields of Hion, and Laomed6npromises to bestow his immortal horses on any onewho will slay it. But again he breaks his oath, by givingmortal steeds to Herakles when the beast has been killed.1Od. xi 626 ;M. Tin. 369. The here speaks of Zeus as mad, hard oflatter passage is especially noteworthy heart, a blunderer, and an obstacle inas indicating that clashing of wills her path.fcbetween Athe'ne' and Zeus which Mr, The name Herakles is the same asGladstone is anxious to keep as much Here*, with the termination denotingas possible in the background. Athn$ glory or renown.

48 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.The result is the first Trojan war mentioned in the Iliad,which relates how Herakles, coining with six ships and fewmen, shattered its towers and left its streets desolate. 1 Inother words, Herakles is mightier than Agamemnon; heis the sun-god demanding his own recompense: the Achaiansamong whom Achilleus fights are the sun-children seekingto recover the beautiful light of evening and the treasureswhich have been stolen with her from the west.Orthros Of the other exploits of Herakles, the greater numberexplain themselves. The Nemean lion is the offspring ofTyphon, Orthros, or Echidna; in other words, it is sprungfrom Vritra, the dark thief, and Ahi, the throttling snake ofdarkness, and it is as surely slain by Herakles as the snakeswhich had assaulted him in the cradle. Another child ofthe same horrid parents is the Lernaian Hydra, its veryname denoting a monster who, like the Sphinx or the Panis,shuts up the waters and causes drought. It has many heads,one being immortal, as the storm must constantly supply newclouds while the vapours are driven off by the sun into space.Hence the story went that although Herakles could burnaway its mortal heads, as the sun burns up the clouds, stillhe can but hide away the mist or vapour itself, which at itsappointed time must again darken the sky. In this fighthe is aided by lolaos, the son of IphiHes, a name recalling,like that of Iol, the violet-tinted clouds which can be seenonly when the face of the heaven is clear of the murkyvapours. Hence it is that Eurystheusis slain when lolaosrises from the under world to punish him for demandingfrom the children of the dawn-goddess Athn the surrenderof the Herakleids, who had found among them a congenialhome. The stag of Keryneia is, according to some versions,slain, in others only seized by Herakles, who bears it withits golden antlers and brazen feet to Artemis and Phoibos.1n. v 640. This story is put into the daughter of Laomedon, as in the'the mouth of the Heraldeid Tl&polemos Libyan tale it falls on Andromeda, thewhen he is about to slay Sarpedon. daughter of Kepheus. Herakles, ofGrote, Hist. Gr. i. 388 The other course, plays the part of Perseus, and isincidents simply repeat the story of aided by Ath&ne" and the Trojans, whoKepheuB The oracle says that a build him a tower to help him in themaiden must be given up to the seafight,1monster, and the lot falls on Eesione,

THE MARATHONIAN AND CBETAJST BULLS. 49The light god is angry because he had thus laid hands onan animal sacred to his sister, and thus the stag becomes acloud crowned with golden tints, and dispersed as the sunpursues it. The story of the Erymanthian boar is in someaccounts transferred from Argos to Thessaly or Phrygia, themonster itself,which Eerakles chases through deep snow,being closely akin to the Chimaira slain by Belleroph&n.In the myth of the Augeian stables Herakles plays the partof Indra, when he lets loose the waters imprisoned by thePani. 1In this case the plague of drought is regarded notso much in its effects on the health of man as in itsinfluence on nature generally, in the disorder, decay, unseemliness,and filth which must follow from it. The clouds,here the cattle of Augeias, may move across the sky, butthey drop down no water on the earth, and do nothingtowards lessening the evil. Of these clouds Augeias promisesthat Herakles shall become in part the lord, if he canbut cleanse their stables. The task is done, but Augeias,like Laomed6n, refuses to abide by his bargain, and evendefeats Herakles and his companions in a narrow Eleiangorge. But the victory of Augeias is fatal to himself, andwith Zteatos and Eurytos he is slain by Herakles.The myth of the Cretan bull seems to involve a confusion The Marasimilarto that which has led some to identify the serpentwho is regarded as an object of love and affection in thePhallic worship, with the serpent who is always an object of2mere aversion and disgust. The bull which bears Eur6p6from the Phoinikian land is obviously the bull Indra, which,like the sun, traverses the heaven, bearing the dawn from theeast to the west. But the Cretan bull, like his fellow in theGnossian labyrinth,who devotirs the tribute children from thecity of the dawn-goddess, isa dark and malignant monster1 This exploit, in the Norse story ofG-aeli^story of the Battle of the Birds,the Mastermaid, is performed by the of which Mr. Campbell (Tales of theprmce, who finds that, unless he guided West Highlands,i. 61) says that * itthe pitchfork aright, ten pitchforksfall might have been taken from classicalof filth come in for every one that he mythology if it stood alone, but Norwetossesout, an incident which recalls the gian peasants and West Highlandersgrowth of the heads of the Lernaian could not so twist the story of HerculesHydra. This myth is repeated in the into the same shape.'tale of the Two Stepsisters, and in the* See section xii. of this chapter.VOL. II.E

50 MYTHOLOGY OF THE AKYAff NATIONS..BOOK akin to the throttling snake, who represents the powers of**'^ night and darkness. This bull Poseid6n, it is said, makesmad ;but although Herakles carries it home on his back, heTie girdleis compelled to let it go again, and it reappears as the bullwho ravages the fields of Marathon, till it is slain by thehands of Theseus, who is the slayer also of the Minotauros.The clouds and vapours pursued and conquered by the heroare seen again in the mares of DiomM^s, which consume theirmaster and are thus rendered tame, perhaps as the isolatedclouds are unable to resist the sun when the moisture whichhas produced them has been subdued. They appear also asthe Stymphalian birds, with claws, wings, and beaks resemblingthose of the Sphinx, and like her being eaters ofhuman flesh or destroyers of men and beasts. These birds,it is said, had taken refuge in the Stymphalian lake, becausethey were afraid of the wolves a phrase which exhibits thedark storm-clouds as dreading the rays (Lykoi) of the sun,which can only appear when themselves have been defeated.These clouds reappear yet again as the cattle stolen by Geryon,and recovered by Herakles a mythof which thelegend of Cacus exhibits the most striking and probablythe most genuine form. STor is the legend of the goldenapples guarded by the Hesperides anything more than arepetition of the same idea, being itself, as we have seen,a result of the same kind of equivocation which producedthe mjths of Lyk&on, Arktouros, and Kallisto.In the girdle of HippolytS we have one of those mysteriousemblems which are associated with the Linga in the worshipof Vishnu. It is the magic kestos of Aphrodit and thewreath of the Eadmeian Harmonia.Into the myth which relatedhow Herakles became its possessor, the mythographershave introduced a series of incidents, some of which do notbelong to it, while others merely repeat each other. Thus,before he reaches the land of the Amazons, Herakles aidsLykos against the Bebrykes, in other words, fights the battleof the bright being against the roaring monsters who are hisenemies ;the girdle,he visitsand thus, after he has slain HippolytS and seizedEchidna, a being akin to the beautifulbut mysterious Melusina, who throws her spell over Bay-

ABfiS AND KYKNOS. 51mond of Toulouse,, and then takes vengeance on the TrojanLaomed6n y slaying the bright Sarp&ldn, who in the Iliadfallsby the spear of his descendant Tlepolemos.The narratives of these great exploits, which are commonly Myths inknownas the twelve labours of Herakles, are interspersed ^T&owith numberless incidents of greater or less significance, legends ofsome of them plainly interpreting themselves. Thus, in his ^bou^oljourney to the land of the Hesperides he is tormented by Herakles.the heat of the sun, and shoots his arrows at Helios, who,admiring his bravery, gives him his golden cup in which tocross the sea.In Kyknos, the son of Ars the grinder orcrusher, he encounters an antagonist akin to Oacus, or evenmore formidable. With his father Kyknos invades thesacred precincts of Apoll&n, where he sits on his fierychariot while the earthtrembles beneath the hoofs of hishorses, and the altar and grov-e of Phoibos are filled withthe horrid glare. It is the thunderstorm which blackensthe heavens at midday, usurping the placeof the lord oflight, and lighting up his sanctuary, the blue heaven, withstreams of deadlyfire. "Well may the poet say that againstsuch a foe none but Herald.es and his faithful lolaos woulddare to make a stand.B^t the son of Alkrn&i6 is journeyingto Trachis, and Kyknos, whose chariot blocks up the road,must yield up the path or die. On the challenge of Heraklesa furious conflict ensues, in which we see the spears of Indrahurled against his hateful enemy. The crash of the thunderrolls through the heaven, and the big thunderdrops fall from1the sky. At last Kyknos is slain, but Herakles is now confrontedby Ares himself, whom he conquers although hecannot slay him.Ars is indeed not the passing storm, butthe power from whom these storms come :he is that head ofthe Lernaian hydra which cannot die,and thus he escapeswith a thigh wound, while the body of Kyknos, stripped ofits glittering armour, is buried by Keys.In Antaios 2 Hera-1 Asp. H&raM. 384. more dearly In the Teutonic devil.2 Antaios, the uncouth awkward giant, Whether in Greek, Hindu, or other :may be fairly taken as a type of the thology, these monsters are geiTeutonic Troll, in whom is combined outwitted, and hence nothing is Lunsightlmess of Polyphemos with 'by hypotheses which see m thesethe stupidity which, tolerably character- the aboriginal inhabitants who had notistic of the Kykldps, is brought out still wit enough to hold their ground againstE2

52 MYTHOLOGY OP THE ARYAN NATIONS.*rBOOKMes encounters the giant who, under the name of PolyphS-*mos, seeks to crush Odysseus. Like the latter, the Libyanmonster is a son of the sea-god the black storm-vapourwhich draws to itself new strength from the earth on whichit reposes. Hence Herakles cannot overcome him until heliftshim off the earth and strangles him in the expanse ofheaven, as the sun cannot burn up and disperse the vapoursuntil his heat has lifted them up above the surface of the land.Herakles The fiercer heats of summer may, as we have seen, suggest1Uy "tcL *ke i^ea no^ OJ d-7 ^a* aaotk61 hand less firm than that ofHelios is suffering his fiery horses to draw too near the earth,but that Helios himself has been smitten with madness, andcares not whether in his fury he slays those whom he hasmost loved and cherished. The latter idea runs through themyths of the raging Herakles, and thus, when he has wonIol6 the daughter of Eurytos as the prizefor success inarchery, her father refuses to fulfil the compact because abeing who has killed one bride and her offspring may repeatthe crime: and thus he is parted from Iol& at the verymoment of winning her. It is the old story of Daphni,Prokris, or Arethousa, with this difference only that thelegend of Iol belongs to the middle heats of summer. ButHerakles may not be injured with impunity. The beautifulcattle of Eurytos are feeding like -those of Helios in the pastureswhere the children of Neaira tend them, and, Heraklesis suspected of driving them away, as the tinted clouds ofmorning tide vanish before the sun. His friend Iphitospleads his cause, but when he asks the aid of Herakles inrecovering the lost cattle, the angry hero turns on his friendand slays him. The friendship of Herakles is as fatal tothe new invaders of the land, and who we need say is that they become moretherefore betook themselves to the stupid as we go further north. Themountains It is of the very essence of Kykl&ps of the Odyssey is notquitemyths of Indra, Herakles, Bellero- such a fool as the Troll who slits hisphontes, Perseus, or any other light- stomach that he may eat the more, bebornheroes, that they should be Yicto- cause Boots who ate a match with therious over the enemies opposed to them, Troll* and has made a slit in the scripand that these enemies should appear in which he carries under his chin, assureshorrible shapes which yet are not so for- him that the pain is nothing to speak of.midable as they seem ;in other words, The giant in the story of the Valiantthey cannot stand against the hero Tailor (Grimm)is cheated much in thewhose insignificant stature and mean same fashion,appearance they had despised. All that

HERAKLES THE BONDMAN" 53Iphitos as that of Achilleus to PatroHos. Incident is nowcrowded on incident, all exhibiting the working of the sameidea. It is the time of the wild simoom. Herakles approachesthe sanctuary of Phoibos, hut the Pythia will yieldno answer to his questions, and a contest follows betweenHerakles and Phoibos himself, which is ended only whenZeus sunders them by a flash of lightning. When thus forthe time discomfited, he is told that he can be loosed fromhis madness and again become sound in mind only by consentingto serve for a time as a bondman; and thus the mythwhich makes Apoll6n serve in the house of Admfetos, andwhich made HeraHes all his life long the slave of a meantyrant, is again brought into the story. He is now sold toOmphale (the correlative of Omphalos), and assumes some-But eventhing like the guise of the half-feminine Dionysos.with this story of subjection a vast number of exploits areinterwoven, among these being the slaying of a serpent onthe river Sygaris and the hunting of the Kalydonian boar.The tale of his return from the conquest of Dion presentsthe same scenes under slightly different colours. In hisfight with the Meropes he is assailed by a shower of stones,and is even wounded by Chalk6d6n, another thunderstormrecalling the fight with Ares and Kyknos:and thesame battle of the elements comes before us in the nexb taskwhich Atjhn sets him, of fighting with the giants in theburning fields of Phlegrai. These giants, it had been foretold,were to be conquered by a mortal man, a notion whichtakes another form in the surprise of Polyph&nos when hefinds himself outwitted by so small and insignificant a beingas Odysseus. At this point, after his return to Argos, somemythographers place his marriage with Aug, the motherof Telephos, whose story reproduces that of Oidipous orHis union with D&ianeira, the daughter of the Kalydonian Herakleschief, brings us to the closingtumultuous career.scenes of his troubled andThe name points,as we have seen, tothe darkness which was to be his portion at the ending ofhis journey, and here also his evil fate pursues Mm. Hisspear is fatal to the boy Eunomos, as it had been to the

54 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.The deathchildren of Megara; but although in this instance the crimehad heen done unwittingly, HeraJdes would not accept thepardon tendered to him, and he departed into exile withDSianeira. At the ford of a river Herakles entrusts her tothe charge of the Eentaur Nessos, who acted as ferryman, andwho attempting to lay hands on D&aneira is fatally woundedby the hero. In his last moments Nessos bids her preserve hisblood, as the sure means of recovering her husband's love ifit should be transferred to another. The catastrophe broughtabout by these words of Nessos is related by Sophokles but;before thisfriends andend came, Herakles had aided manyvanquished many foes. Among these was Augeias, whomhe attacked at the head of an Arkadian host, the men of thebright land.other alliesof the Eleian king, Eurytos and Kteatos, the sons of theAgainst him were arrayed, amonggrinders or crushers MolionS and Aktor. But here thestrength of Herakles for a time fails him, and the enemyhesitates not to attack him during his sickness; but thehero lies in ambush, like the sun lurkingbehind the cloudswhile his rays are ready to burst forth like spears, and havingslain some of bis enemies, advances and takes the city ofmaking Phyleus king in place of Augeias, whom heElis,slays together with his children.When at length the evening of his life was come, D&aneirareceive

'HERAKLES AOT BELLEROPHflN, 55and rack every limb with, agony unspeakable, as the garment CHAP,given by Helios to Medeia consumed the flash of -GlaukS ^ -and of Kre&n. Once more the suffering hero is lashed intomadness, and seizing the luckless Lichas lie hurls him intothe sea. Thus, borne at last to the heights of Oita, he gatherswood, and charges those who are around him to set thepile on fire,when he shall have laid himself down uponit.Only the shepherd Poias ventures to do the hero's will but:when the flame is kindled, the thunder crashes through theheaven, and a cloud comes down which bears him away toOlympos, there to dwell in everlasting youth with the radiantHb6 as his bride. 1 It is a myth in which ' looms a magnificentsunset/ 2 the forked flames as they leap from thesmoke of the kindled wood being the blood-red vapours whichstream from the body of the dying sun.the picture which leaves Odysseus with PenelopIt is the reverse ofin all thebrightness of early youth, knowing indeed that the nightmust come, yet blessed in the profound calm which has followedthe storms and troubles of the past.It is the pictureof a sunset in wild confusion, the multitude of clouds hurryinghither and thither, now hiding, now revealing the mangledbody of the sun, of a sunset more awful yet not moresad than that which is seen in the last hours of Belleroph6n,as he wanders through the Aleian plain in utter solitude,the loneliness of the sun who has scattered the hostile vapoursand then sinks slowly down the vast expanse of palelight with the ghastly hues of death upon his face, whilenone is nigh to cheer him, like lolfi by the funeral pile of1There was no reason why the myth never wearied and never dying, but asshould stop short here; and the cycle journeying by the Ocean stream afteralready so many times repeated is sun-down to the spot whence he comescarried on by making Herdldes and again into sight in the morning HenceHebe the parents ot Alexwres and in the Orphic hjmns he is self-born,Amketos, names which again denote the the wanderer along the path of lightirresistible strt-ngth and the benignant (Lykabas) in which he performs hisnature of the parent whose blood flows mighty exploits between theorising andin their veins. The name lexiar&s the setting of the sun He is of manybelongs to the same dabs with Alexi- shapes, he devours all things and prokakos, an epithet which Heckles shares duces all things, he slays and he, heals,with Zeus and Apoll6n, along with Bound his head he hears the MonnngDaphnep'ioros, Olympios, Pangenet&r, and the Night (xri.),and as livingand others Max Muller, Chips, il. 89. through the hours of darkness he wears*Max Muller, tb n S3. a robe of stars (dff

56 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.BOOK Of the Latin EerciJ.es we need say but little here. Thel < tmost prominent myth connected with the name in comparativelyrecent times is that of the punishment of Cacus forstealing the oxen of the hero ;and this story must be takenalong with the other legends which reproduce the great con-The Latintest between the powers of light and darkness set forth inthe primitive myth of Indra and Ahi.The god or hero ofwhom the Latins told this story is certainly the same incharacter with the Hellenic son of JJkm6n ; but, as Niebuhrinsisted, it is not less certain that the story must have beentold from the first not of the genuine Latin Hercules orHerculus, a deity who was the guardian of boundaries, likethe Zeus Herkeios of the Greeks, but of some god in whoseplace Hercules has been intruded, from the phonetic resemblancebetween his name and that of Herakles. Apart fromthis story the Latin Hercules, or rather Eecaranus, has nogenuine mythology, the story of the Potitii and Pinarii being,like a thousand others, a mere institutional legend, to accountfor ceremonies in the later ritual.Egyptian Still less is it necessary to give at length the points ofmy s ' likeness or difference between the Hellenic Herakles andthe deities of whom Herodotos or other writers speak as theHerakles of Egypt or other countries. By their own admissiontheir names at least had nothing in common ; and theaffinity between the Greek hero and the Egyptian Som, Chon,or Makeris, must be one of attributes only. It is, indeed,obvious that go where we will, we must find the outlines, atleast, of the picture into which the Greek mind crowded suchan astonishing variety of life and action. The sun, as toilingfor others, not for himself, as serving beings who are as nothingin comparison with his own strength and splendour, ascherishing or destroying the fruits of the earth which is hisbride, as faithful or fickle in his loves, as gentle or furious inhis course, could not fail to be the subject of phrases which, astheir original meaning grew fainter, must suggest the imageswrought up with lavish but somewhat undiscerning zeal intothe stories of the Hellenic Herakles. Wot less certainlywould these stories exhibit him under forms varying indefinitelyfrom the most exalted majesty to the coarsest bur-

THE BANISHMENT OF THE HEBAKLEIDS. 57lesque. He might be the devoted youth, going forth likeSintram to fight againstall mean pleasures, or the kindlygiant who almost plays the part of a buffoon in the house ofthe sorrowing Admtos. Between the HeraHes of Prodikosand that of Euripides there was room for a vast variety ofcolouring, and thus it was easy to number the heroes bearingthis name by tens or by hundreds. The obvious resemblancesbetween these deities would lead the Greeks to identify theirown god with the Egyptian deity, and suggest to the Egyptiansthe thought of upholding their own mythology as thesole source or fountain of that of Hellas.But the mythical history of HeraJdes is bound up withthat of his progenitors and his descendants, and furnishesmany a link in the twisted chain presented to us in the pre-historic annals of Greece. The myth might have stoppedshort with the death of the hero; but a new cycle is, as wehave seen, begun when H6b6 becomes the mother of his childrenin Olympos, and Herakles, it is said, had in his lastmoments charged his son Hyllus on earth to many thebeautiful Iol&. The ever-moving wheels, in short, may notThe children of the sun tajrry.may return as conquerors inwith them the radiant woman whothe morning, bringingwith her treasures had been stolen away in the evening.After long toils and weary conflicts they may succeed in bearingher back to her ancient home, as Perseus bears Dana6to Argos ;but not less certainly must the triumph of thepowers of darkness come round again, and the sun-childrenbe driven from their rightful heritage. Thus was framedthat woful tale of expulsion and dreary banishment, of effortsto return many times defeated but at last successful, whichmake up the mythical history of the descendants of HeraJdes.But the phenomena which rendered their expulsion necessarydetermined also the direction in which they must move, andthe land in which they should find a refuge. The childrenof the sun can rest only in the land of the morning, and accordinglyit is at Athens alone and from the children of thedawn-goddess that the Herakleids can be sheltered fromtheir enemies, who press them on every side. Thus we findourselves in a cycle of myths which might be repeated at will,m y^ ofHflTsilfts

58 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.BOOK which in fad; were repeated many times in the so-called pre-._ ^ * historic annals of Greece, and which doubtless would havebeen repeated again and again, had not the magic seriesbeen cut short by the dawn of the historical sense and therise of a real historical literature.The story In the Argive tradition the myth of Perseus is made toof Perseus.eafjynM^W^Q]Q legend of Herakles, the mightiest and themost widely known of all the mythical heroes of the Greeks.It is as belonging to the race of Perseus, and as being by thearts of H6r6 brought into the world before his cousin, thatEurystheus becomes the tyrant of Herakles. Yet the storyof Perseus is essentially the same as the story of his moreillustrious descendant; and the profound unconsciousness ofthe Argives that the two narratives are in their groundworkidentical is a singular illustration of the extent to whichmen can have all their critical faculties lulled to sleep bymere difference of names or of local colouring in legendswhich are only modifications of a single myth. In either casewe have a hero whose life, beginning in disasters, is a longseries of labours undertaken at the behest of one who is inevery way histhese fearful ordeals, because he is armed with the invincibleweapons of the dawn, the sun, and the winds. Nor is thereinferior, and who comes triumphantly out ofperhaps a single feature or incident in the whole myth towhich a parallel isor evennot furnished by other Hellenic,other Argive, legends. Before his birth, Akrisios, his mother'sfather, learns at Delphoi, like the Theban Laios, that if hisdaughter has a child, that child will be his destroyer.once then he orders that DanaS shall be shut up in a brazentower, an imprisonment answering to that of PersephonS inthe land of Hades, or of Brynhild in Niflheim. But here, aswith them, a deliverer is wanted and;this deliverer is Zeus,the lord of the life-giving ether, who had wooed Leda inthe form of the white swan, the spotless cloud, and who nowenters the dungeon of Dana6 in a golden shower, the glitteringrays which herald the approach of spring with its newlife for the trees and flowers. Thus in his mother's drearyprison-house the golden child x is born ;and Akrisios in hisAtj, the G-old Child, in Gximm's collection of Teutonic stories.

DAffAfi AND DIKTYS. 59wrath, decrees that his daughterthe doom of Oidipous and Dionysos.and her babe shall shareLike Semel, she isplaced with the infant in a chest or ark, which is thrust outinto the sea, and carried by the waves and tide to the islandof Seriphos, where the vessel is seen by Diktys, who ofcourse is fishing, and by him Danae and her child are takento the house of his brother Polydektes, the chief of theisland, a myth which we have to compare with those ofArtemis Diktynna and Persephon. Throughout the story,Diktys is the kindly being whose heart is filled with pity forthe sorrowing mother, while Polydektes, a name identicalwith that of Hades Polydegmon,is her unrelenting persecutor.He is thus a champion of the lord of light, which isreflected in his name as in that of Diktynna and the Diktaiancave in Crete ;and the equivocation in the one case is preciselythe same as in the other. Polydektesnow tries all hisarts to win Dana, and his efforts at once recall the temptationof Saramfi, by Pani ;but Dana is true to her child andto his father, and Polvdektes resolves to be rid of the youthwhd stands thus in his way. So, like Eurystheus, he sendshim away with a strict charge that he is not to return unlesshe brings with him the Gorgon's head, the sight of whichcan freeze every living being into stone. Thus the dawn,is parted from her son, for Phoibos himself must leave his1mother L&to and begin his westward journey. He startsalone, and as he thinks unbefriended, but with the high andgenerous spirit which marks the youthful Herakles in theapologue of Prodikos, and heavenly beings come to his aidthe son of Alkmn& Fromas Aret promises to strengthen the dawn-goddess, Athn&, he receives the mirror into whichhe is to gaze when he draws hissword to smite the mortalGorgon, the fiend of darkness from Hermes he;obtains thesword which never falls in vain ;and the Nymphsbrin** himthe bag in which he is to carry away the head of Medousa,the tam-kappe or invisible helmet of Hades, and the goldensandals which will bear him along as swiftly as a dream, -inother words, the golden chariot of Helios, or the armour of1 If Niebuhr is right in connecting name DanaS is only another form oftogether the names Daunos, Uanaos, Ahana and Athene^ of Dahani AidLavinns, Lakinus, Latmus, &c., the Dapime See vol. i. p. 242.

60 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ABYAN NATIONS.BOOK Achilleus, winch bears him up as a bird upon the wing. He- ?'* is now the Chrys&dr, armed for the battle and ready for hisjourney ;and lite the sun, he mayveil himself in cloudswhen he wishes not to be seen. But he cannot reach theGorgon's den until he has first passedthe home of theGraiai, the land of the gloaming, whose solitary eye andtooth he refuses to restore until they have pointed out theroad which shall bring him to his journey's end. In otherwords, the sun must go through the twilight-landbefore hecan pierce the regions of utter darkness and reappear in thebeautiful gardens of the Hyperboreans,the asphodel meadowsof the tinted heavens of morning. When at lengthhis task is done, and he tarns to go to the upper world, theGorgon sisters (the clouds of darkness) start up in fury, andtheir brazen talons almost seize him as he reaches the clearblue heaven, which is called the land of the brilliant Ethiopians.Here, again, the same war is going on in which hehas already been the conqueror. The stormcloud is seekingto devour the dawn and to blot out its tender light jin otherwords, the Libyan dragon seeks to make Andromeda hisprey, as the maiden stands motionless on the rock to whichshe has been fastened. The monster is soon destroyed, as theSphinx is soon discomfited by Oidipous;and the awfulpower of the Gorgon's glance is seen in the death of Phineus,and in the merciful ending of the long labours of Atlas.But the great work remains yet to be done, the avenging ofthe wrongs of Dana, as the Achaians fought to avenge thegriefs and woes of Helen. The vengeance of Perseus mustbe as terrible as that of Achilleus or the stern chieftain ofIthaka. But when Polydektes and his abettors have beenturned into stone and Dikfcys made king of the land, Perseusyields up his magic weapons to the gods who gave them, anddeparts with his mother to the old home in Argos. Oncemore Danae treads her native soil, as Helen graces the hallsof Menelaos when Paris the thief has been slain. But thedoom pronounced by the Delphian priestess was still unfulfilled;and Akrisios no sooner hears that Perseus iscoming than he flies to Larissa. Thither Perseus followshim, not as a foe, but as a friend, and takes part in the

,whichiDANAfi AND AITHRA. 61gameswhich Teutamidas the chief holds in his honour. CHAPPresently a quoit hurled by Perseus lights on the feet of - ^-Akrisios, and the prophecy is accomplishedwhich makesOidipous, Komulus, and Cyrus slay their parents or theirgrandsires.The sequel is given in two versions, correspondingto the choice given to AchUleus. 1In the one Perseusreturns to Argos, and there dies in peace in;the other griefand shame for the death of Akrisios drive him to abandonhis Argive sovereignty for that of Tiryns, where his kinsmanMegapenthes is king. In the latter, he may be comparedwith BeUeroph6n wandering in gloom and loneliness throughthe Aleian plain ;in the former we have the tranquil timefollows the great vengeance of Achilleus and Odysseus.Thus as the unwilling destroyer even of those whom he loves,as the conqueror of monstrous beasts and serpents, as toilingfor a mean and cruel master, yet as coming forth in the endvictorious over all his enemies, Perseus is at once the forefatherand the counterpart of Herakles. He is himself bornin Argos the bright land, as Phoibos springs to life in Delosor Artemis in Ortygia ;but his mother Dana is almost asneutral and colourless as Leto or lokaste or Hekate orSemelS. The Argive tradition runs in a circle, and theAthenian myth, jealously prized as a wholly independenthistory, is made up of the same materials. The practicalidentity of the Athenian legend of Theseus and the Argivelegend of the son of Alkmn6 suggested the proverb c Another'Herakles ; nor, if attention had been specially fixed on thetask of tracing out such resemblances, would very keen powersof criticism have been needed to show that the same processmight be applied to the legends of aH the Hellenic tribes.The myth of Theseus is indeed more transparent than that Birth andof his two great kinsmen. As Perseus is the son of the yougolden shower, so is Theseus the child of Aithra, the pure air 5and if in one version he is said to be a son of Aigeus, kingofAthens, in another he is called a son of Poseid6n, as AthSn6is Tritogeneia, and Aphroditfe comes up from the sea; butAigeus himself is only Poseid&n under a name denoting thedash of the waves on the shore, and when Apollodoros speaks1& ix, 411 i xvi, 685.

62 MYTHOLOGY OP THE ARYAN NATIONS.BOOK of Aigeus as a son not of Pandion but of Skyrios, we are still^ .-?" * in the same magic circle, for the island of Skyros seems tohavebeen noted especially for the 1worship of the Ionian Poseidfin,In some of its earlier incidents the myth carries us to the storyhis mother tells himof Sigurd and Brynhild. As he grows upthat a great work lay before him so soon as he could lift thegreat stone beneath which lay his father's sword and sandals,the sword and sandals which Perseus had worn when hewent to the Gorgons 5 land. Thus gaining these prizesasSigmund obtained the good sword Gram, Theseus started onthat career of adventure and conquest which, with differencesof local colouring and detail, is the career of Oidipous, Meleagros,BeUeroph6n, Odysseus, Sigurd, Grettir, and other mythicalheroes, as well as of Herakles and Perseus. Likethese, he fights with and overcomes robbers, murderers,dragons, and other monsters. Like some of them, also, heis capricious and faithless. Like them, he is the terror notonly of evil men but of the gods of the underworld.The six At his birth Poseiddn gave to his son the three wishesfwkich a PP ear again and again in Teutonic folk-lore, andhis firstjourney, sometimes in a ludicrous form. 2 The favour of the seadeitiesis also shown in the anecdote told by Pausanias 8 thatwhen Minos cast, doubts on his being a son of Poseid6n, andbade him, if he were such, to bring up a ring thrown into thesea, Theseus dived and reappeared not only with the ringbut with a golden crown, which Aphrodit6 herself had placedupon his head. His journey from Troizen to Athens is sigrnalised by exploits which later niythographers regarded assix in number, as twelve were assigned to Herakles. Theyare all, as we might expect, merely different forms of thegreat fight waged by Indra and Oidipous against Vritra,Ahi, or the Sphinx. Thus the robber Periphtsis the clubbearingson of Hephaistos, who, being weak: in the feet, useshis weapon to smite down the passers by an image of thestormcloud which in a mountain pass seems to rest on thehill-side, and to discharge its fiery bolts on defenceless1 Preller, Or. Myth. ii. 287. The Eur!.2%>. 46. Preller, Gr. Myth.name Pandion is manifestly a mascu- ii, 28S.line form of 8Pandia, an epithet of Sel6n&, i. 16, 3 ; Preller, &,the moon, -when at its full.

SINIS, THE PINE-BENDER. 63travellers below. But Sinis the robber, or plunderer, is hiskinsman, being like himself a son of Poseid6n, and from hisname Pityokamptesis the stonnwind which bends the pinetrees. Hence the myth went that he slew his victims bycompelling them to bend a fir tree which he allowed to flyback upon them, and that Theseus who caught him in hisown trap nevertheless felt that he needed to purify himselffor the death of one who was also a son of the sea. Thesame idea gave rise to the myth of Phaia, the dark or ashencolouredsow of Krommyon, who shares the fate of all suchmonsters, and again to that of Skeiron, who hurls from thecliffs the travellers whom he has constrained to kneel andwash his1feet, and who in his turn is in like manner destroyedby Theseus. In Kerkyon, whose name apparently connectshim with the Kerk6pes, we have a reflection of Laios, Afcrisios,Amulius, and other beings who seek from fear for themselvesto destroy theirchildren or their children's children.The story of his daughter Alop6 is simply the story of Aug>Semel4 DanaS, and many others but ; Kerkyon himself isthe Elensinian wrestler, who is defeated by Theseus in hisOwn^art and slain. The robber Prokroustes is a being ofthe same kind ;but the myth attached to his name does notexplain itself like the rest, and may perhaps have been suggestedby the meaning of the word which may denote eitherthe process of beating or hammering out, or simply a downrightblow.In the latter case Prokroustes would simply beSinis or Periph6ts under another name ;in the former, thestory of a bed to which he fitted the limbs of his victims bystretching them or cutting them off might not unnaturallyspring up.Theseus now enters the dawn city with a long flowing Theseus atrobe, and with his golden hair tied Athenfl -gracefully behind hishead; and his soft beauty excites the mockery of someworkmen, who pause in their work of building to jest uponthe maiden who isunseemly enough to walk about alone.It is the story of the young Dionysos or Achilleus in woman's1Preller has no doubt on this head, ischen Felsen, so hiess dieser Pass,Es schemt wohl dass dieser Skeiron . . leicht in die See himmterstiessen, wo dieein Bild fur die heftigen Sturme 1st, Klippen seine G-lieder zexschellten.'welche den Wanderer von den Skeiron- Or. Myth, ii 290.

64 MYTHOLOGY OP THE ARYAN NATIONS.garb but;Theseus is mightier than they, and, without sayinga word, he unspans the oxen of the builders' wagon, andhurls the vehicle as high above the temple pillars as these1rose above the ground. In the house of his fathers he wasstill surrounded by enemies. Aigeuswas now wedded tothe wise woman Medeia, who in her instinctive jealousy ofthe beautiful youth makes Aigeus an accomplicein herscheme for poisoning him. The deadly draught is placedon the banquet-table, but Aigeus recognises the sword whichTheseus bears, and, embracing him as his, bids Medeiadepart with her children to her own land. He encountersfoes more formidable in the fifty gigantic sons of Pallas, whohave thrust themselves into the place of Aigeus,suitors in Khaka usurp the authority of Odysseus ;as thebut bythe aid of the herald Leos, who betrays them, Theseus isagain the conqueror. 2 He is, however, scarcely more than atthe beginning of his toils. The fields of Marathon arebeing ravaged by a bull, 3 in whom we see a being akin to theterrible Cretan Minotauros, the malignant power of darknesshidden away in its labyrinth of stars. In his struggle withthis monster he is aided by the prayers and offerings of thebenign and aged Hekal&, whose eyes are not permitted tolook again on the youth whom she has so tenderly loved amyth which brings before us the gentle T&ephassa sinkingdown in utter weariness, before her heart can be gladdenedonce more by the sight of her child Eur6p. 4Theseus He has now before him a still harder task. The bull6Mmo-which now fills Athenian hearts with grief and fear has histauros,abode not at Marathon, but at Znossos. In the war wagedby Minos in revenge for the death of his son Androgeos,who had been slain on Attic soil, the Cretan king was theconqueror. 6 With the war had come famine and pestilence ;1 Pans. i. 19, 1 ; Preller, Gr. Myth. In the story of Krishna this bull isii. 291. animated by the demon Arishta. Vi&hw* These Purana, H. H. Wilson, 536.fifty sons of Pallas mustbe compared with the fifty sons and 4 The name Hekal& is the same asdaughters of JSgyptos, Danaos, Aster- Hefcatfc and Hekatos, and thus, likeodia and Sel&n&. But these are clearly T&ephassa, has simply the meaning ofimages of the starry heavens and thus; rays shot from a distant orb.the myth of the PaLlantides is simply a* The myth of Androgeds has manystory of the night vieing with, or usurp- versions. The most important exhibitsing the prerogatives of, the day. him as a youth of great beauty and

THE TRIBUTE CHILDREN.and thus the men of Athens were driven to accept termswhich bound them for nine years to send yearly a tribute ofseven youths and seven maidens,as victims to feed theMinotauros. The period named is the nine years' cycle,while the tribute children may represent the months of thelunar year. Twice had the black-sailed ship departed fromthe haven with its doomed freight when Theseus offeredhimself asmonster.one of the tribute children, to do battle with theIn this task he succeeds only through the aid ofAriadne, as lason does the bidding of Aietes only because hehas the help of Medeia. The thread which the maidenplacesin his hand leads him throughall the mazes of themurky labyrinth, 1 and when the beast is slain, she leavesher home with the man to whom she has given her love.But she herself must share the woes of allwho love thebright sun. Beautiful as she is, she must be abandoned inNaxos, while Theseus, like Sigurd, goes upon his way; andin his place must come the vine-crowned Dionysos, whoshall place on her head a glittering diadem to shine amongthe everlasting stars. Theseus himself fulfils the doom whichplaces him among the fatal children. He forgets to hoistthe white sailsin token of victory, and Aigeus, seeing theblack hue of the ship, throws himself into the sea whichbears his name.lu. another adventure he is the enemy of the Amazons, Theseusmysterious beings of whom it is enough to say that they areopposed or slaughtered not only by Theseus, but by HeraMes,Achilleus, and Belleroph&n, and that thus they must beclassed with the other beings in whom are seen reflected thefeatures of the cloud enemy of Indra. Theirbeauty, their fero-of thecity, their seclusion, all harmonise with the phenomenaclouds in their varying aspects of storm and sunshine ;aandpromise, unable to achieve the tasks of Acbilleus for the death of hiswhich may be done only by the greatest comrade.lheroes. On this account, he is torn by This is the work of Daidalos, thethe Marathonian bull whom Aigeus has cunning smith and in Icelandic Volunchargedhim to slay: in other words, durshus, the house of Wayland, means a;he is Patroklos striving to slay an labyrinth.enemy who can be conquered only by 2 If the name be Greek at all, itAchilleus; and the war which Minos seems to suggest a comparison withwages answers to the bloody vengeance Zfoetyos; and the story of the cuttingVOL. II.F

'66 MYTHOLOGY OP THE ARYAff NATIONS..BOOKILthus their fight with Theseus in the streets of Athens would. be the struggle of dark vapours to throw a veil over the cityof the dawn, and their defeat the victory of the sun whichdrives away the clouds. Theyare thus at once the naturalallies of the king of Dion, the stronghold of the robber Paris,and the friends of his enemies for ; Antiop&, who is stolenaway by HeraHes, becomes the bride of Theseus and the1mother of Hippolytos, whose story exhibits the action of amoral sentiment which has impressed itself even more deeplyon the traditions of Thebes.isHippolytosto Theseus whatPatroklos is to Achilleus, or Phaeth6n to Helios, the reflectionof the sun in all its beauty, but without its strengthand power ;and the love of Phaidra (the gleaming) for theglorious youth issimply the love of Aphrodit6 for Adonis,and, like that of Aphrodit, it is repulsed. But Phaidra isthe wife of Theseus, and thus her love for Hippolytos becomesdoubly a crime, while the recoil of her feelings tempts her tofollow the example of Anteia in the myth of Belleroph&n,Her trick is successful; and Hippolytos, going forth underhis father's curse, is slain by a bull which Poseid&n sendsup from the sea, the storm-cloud which Theseus had foughtwith on the plains of Marathon. But Hippolytos, like Adonis,is a being whom death cannot hold in his power, and AsklS-Mm pios raises to life, as in the Italian tradition Yifbius,the darling of the goddess of the groves, is brought backfrom the dead and entrusted to the care of the nymph Egeria.Theseus Theseus, indeed, like Herakles, is seen almost everywhere.in *heunder"He is one of the chiefs who sail in the divine Argo to recoverworld. the golden fleece 5he joins the princes of Aitolia in the huntoff the breasts would thus be the result the Latins, and seemingly the Teutonicof a mistaken etymology. It should Ciza, Zizi, who was worshipped underbe added that some see in the name an the same form as the Ephesian Artemis,intensive force which makes it the Some have supposed that Tacitus meantequivalent of the German ' vielbe- this deity, when he spoke of Germanbxostete,' and thus identify it with the tribes as worshipping Isis : others iden-Ephesian Artemis whose images answer tify the name with the Greek rfrfy.to this description, and who was Nork. s. v,worshipped as Amaz&. The Amazon lOthers make Hippolytos & son ofwould thus be further identified with Hippolytfc, the Amazonian queen, whoseIsis, the horned moon, and her wander- girdle Herakles brings to Eurystheus,ings would follow as a matter of course, and who is thus not the enemy of Theasin the myth of 16. "With this must seus, as in some versions, but his bride,be compared the Fortuna Hammosa of

iTHE CHILDREN OP THESEUS AND HERAKLES. 67,of the Kalydonian boar, and takes partin. the war of theEpigonoi before Thebes. But a more noteworthy mythisthat which takes him, like Orpheus, into the nether world tobring back another Eury dik in the form of the maiden Persephon&This legend exhibits another reflection of Theseusin Peirithoos, a son of Zeus or Ixi6n, the heaven or theproud sun, and Dia, the clear-shining dawn. 1 Peirithooshad already aided Theseus when he took Helen from Spartaand placed her in the hands of his mother Aithra, an actrequited in the myth which carries Aithra to Ilion andmakes her the handmaid of Helen.The attempt of Peirithoosends as disastrously as the last exploits of Patroklos,and Theseus himself is shut up in Hades until Eeraklescomes to his rescue, as he does also to that of Prometheus.The presence of the Dioskouroi, the bright Asvins or horsemen,complicates the story.These carry away Helen andAithra, and when Theseus comes back from the unseen land,he finds that his stronghold of Aphidnai has been destroyed,and that Menestheus isking in Athens. He thereforesends his sons to Euboia, and hastens to Skyros, where thechief Lykomedes hurls him from a cliff into the sea, a deathwhich Kephalos inflicted upon himself at the Leukadian orWhite Cape. But though his own life closes in gloom, hischildren return at length with Aithra from Ilion, and arerestored, like the Herakleids, to their ancient inheritance.This is the Theseus who, in the pages of Thucydides, con-The Thesolidatesthe independent Attic Demoi into one Athenian gjj^state, over which he rules as a constitutional sovereign, con- dides.fining himself strictlyto his definite functions. There isnothing more to be said against the method by which thissatisfactory result is obtained than that it may be appliedwith equal profit,if not with equal pleasure, to the stories ofBoots and Jack the Giant-Killer. ,In the Corinthian tradition, Hipponoos, the son of Glaukos EipponoSsor of Poseiddn, is known especially as the slayer of Belleros,w*hom the same tradition converted' into a near kinsman,1The carrying off of Hippodamoia, is a myth of the wind-driven and stagthebride of Peirithoos, at her wedding- Bering cloud bearing away the goldenfeast. Ivy the drunken Kentaur Euryti6n, light into the distant heavens.*2

68 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ASIAN NATIONS.but in whom we are now able to discern a being whosefeatures much resemble those of the gloomy Vritra.Perseus, Theseus, Phoibos, he isLikea son of the heaven or theseal;and his career is throughout that of the sun journeyingthrough thunderstorms and clouds. In his youth he attractsthe love of Anteia, the wife of Proitos, who on his refusaldeals with him as Phaidra deals with Hippolytos; andProitos, believing her lies, sends him as the bearer of woefulsigns which are to bid lobates, the Lykian king, to put themessenger to death. The fightwith the monster Ohimairawhich ensues must come before us among the many formsassumed by the struggle between the darkness and the light ;and in the winged steed PSgasos, on which Belleroph6n ismounted, we see the light-crowned cloud soaring withor above 'the sun into the highest heavens. But althoughhe returns thus a conqueror, lobates has other toils still instore for him. He must fight with the Amazons and theSolymoi, and last of all must be assailed by the bravest ofthe Lykians, who, by the king's orders, lurk in ambush forhim. These are all slain by his unerring spear ;and Hipponoosis welcomed once more to the house of Proitos. Butthe doom is not yet accomplished. The hatred of the godslies heavy upon him. Although we are not told the reason,we have not far to seek- it.The slaughter of the KyH&pesroused the anger of Zeus against Phoibos : the blinding ofPolyph&nos excited the rage of Poseid6n against Odysseus :and these victims of the sun-god are allmurky vapourswhich arise from the sea. The wrath of Athn and Poseid6nadded sorely to the length and weariness of the wanderingsof Odysseus ;nor could it leave Belleroph&n at rest. LikeOdysseus, he too must roam through many lands, and thuswe find him wandering sadly along the Aleian plain, avoidingthe paths of men, treading, in other words, that sea of palelight in which, after a day of storms, the sun sometimes goesdown without a cloud to break its monotonous surface*The birth When at the close of his disastrous life Oidipous draWspous.l " near to die ia tlie sacred grove of the Erinyes, it is Theseus1 * Als Sonneulield gilt Bellerophon Poseidon, mil die Sonne axis dem Meerefur einen Sohn dds Gflatikos, oder desaufeteigt.' Preller, Or. Myth>11, 78.

LAIOS AND ASTYAGES. 69who stands by Ids side to guide him, where no othermortal man might dare to tread; and thus the Thebankingis at once seen as a being of the same race with theson of Aigeus and Aithra. Nor does the connexion ceasehere. If Aigeus deserts his wife and leaves the infantTheseus to her sole care, Oidipous also suffers from thehatred of his father, who, like Akrisios and Astyages, haslearnt from the Delphic oracle that if he has a son that souwill be his destroyer. Hence no sooner is Oidipous bornthan the decree goes forth that the child must be slain ;the servant to whom he isbutintrusted contents himself withexposing the babe on the slopes of Kithairon, where ashepherd finds him, and carries him, like Cyrus or Bomulus,to his wife, who cherishes the child with a mother's care.After a while, Oidipous is taken to Corinth and brought upas the son of Polybos and Merop; and all things gosmoothly until some one at a feast throws out a hint that heis not the son of his supposed parents. To the questionswhich he is thus driven to put to MeropS the answersreturned satisfyhim for a time, but for a time only. Theanxious doubts return; and in his utter perplexity hehastens to Delphoi and there learns,as Laios had learntalready, that his doom would make him the destroyer ofhis father and the husband of his mother. Gloomy andsickat heart, he takes the way towards Thebes, being resolvednot to run the risk of killing Polybos (whom hesupposed to be his father), if he returned to Corinth, and ashe journeys, he falls in with a chariot in which rides an oldman. The servant insolently bids Oidipous to stand aside,and on his refusal the old man strikes at him with his staff.Oidipous thoroughly angered slays both, and goes on hisway, unconscious that he has fulfilled the prediction ofPhoibos, the murdered man being Lados the king of Thebes*Laios is thus a being whose nature closely resembles that The careerof L&6 or of Leda, the night which is the parent of the sun,and which may be regarded with equal justice as hating itsoffspring or loving it. Apart from his fear of the son oflokastS, his character is as neutral as that of the mother ofPhoibos ; indeed, we can scarcely be said to know anything

70 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYANBOOK of him beyond the tale that he stole away the beautiful,- "' ^ Chrysippos with his golden steeds, as the eagle of Zeuscarried Ganymedes up to Olympos, the latter being animage of the tinted clouds of morning bearing the dawn tothe high heaven, the former a pictureof the night robbingthe sky of its splendour. The story of his cruel treatmentof his son was regarded as accounting for the name Oidipous,or Swellfoot, from the tight bandages which hurt his limbsas he lay exposed on Kithairon.the same value asThe explanation has aboutthat by which the nurse Burykleia professedto account to 1Odysseus for the name which he bore*The sequel of the myth furnished another explanation, towhich probably less exception may be taken. When Oidipousdrew near to Thebes, he found the city full of misery andmourning. The Sphinx had taken up her abode on a rockwhich overhung the town, and there sat watching the peopleas they died of famine and wasting sickness. Only whenthe man came who could expound her mysterious riddlewould she free them of her hateful presence; and so inof the city had decreed that hetheir perplexity the chiefswho discomfited the monster should be made king and havelokastfe as his bride.Meanwhile the Sphinx sat motionlesson the cliff, uttering from time to time the mysterioussounds which conveyed no sense to the ears of mortal men.This dreadful being who shut up the waters is,enough toit 'may besay here, only another Vritra, and her name hasand the hero who answers her riddlemay'the exact meaning of Ahi, the choking or throttling snake;thus not unnaturallyreceive his name from his wisdom. Thus much iscertain, that the son of Laios speaks of himself as knowingnothing when he first drew near to encounter the Sphinx,while afterwards he admits that his name is a familiar word1M. Br&tl thinks that if the name be compared with those of Achillas inreally belongs to this root, it must be the Hellenic mythology, of Baldur andtaken as denoting the sun when it Signrd in the Teutonic legends, and of'touches the horizon, lorsque, parI'eflfctIsfendiyar and Bustem in the Persiande vapours qui flottent dans les couches story. It might, however, be said withinfe"neures de 1'atmosphere, il semble de not less truth that the swelling of themoment au moment augmenter le sun has reference to his rifling, and tovolume.' He thinks also that the its apparent enlargement at the basowounds thus inflicted on Oidipous must until half its disk becomes visible*

THE RIDDLE OF THE SPHINX. 71in all mouths, 1and thus Oidipous becomes the counterpartof the wise Hedeia. With the death of the Sphinx ends theterrible drought. Oidipous has understood and interpretedthe divine voices of Typhon, or the thunder, which the gods2alone can comprehend. The sun appears once more in theblue heaven, in which he sprang into life in the morning;in other words, Oidipous is wedded to his mother lokastS,and the long train of woes which had their root in this awfulunion now began to fill the land with a misery as great asthat from which Oidipous had just delivered it. As told byJDschylos and Sophokles, it is a fearful tale jand yet if thepoets had but taken any other of the many versions in whichthe myth has come down to us, it could never have comeinto existence.have madeThey might, had they pleased,Euryganeia, the broad shining dawn, the mother of Antigoneand Ismeiie, of Eteokles and Folyneikes, instead of lokaste,the violet light, which reappears in the names Iol, lamos,lolaos, lasion, and lobates. Undoubtedly the mother ofOidipous might be either Euryganeia, Iokast& or Astymedousa,who are all assigned to him as his wives ;but onlyby giving the same name to his mother and his wife couldthe moral horrors of the story be developed, and the ideaonce awakened took too strong a hold^on their imaginationto be lightly dislodged.Thus far the story resolves itself into a few simple phrases, Thewhich spoke of the thundercloud as looming over the city J? S*6*from day to day, while the waters remained imprisoned initsgloomy dungeons, like the rock which seemed ever goingto fall on Tantalos, of the sun as alone being able tounderstand her mysterious mutterings and so to defeat herscheme, and of his union with the mother from whom hehad been parted in his infancy. The sequel is not lesstransparent. lokaste, on learning the sin of which she hasunwittingly been guilty, brings her life to an end, andOidipous tears out the eyes which he declares to be unworthyto look oay longer on the things which had thus far6 tvtj&v Z8ta OB/. Sopk Old, Tyr. 397*& *wri KXetvbs Qtifaws KoXofytcm, ib. 8.

72MYTHOLOOT OF THE AJRYAffNATIONS.OidipousAnL on$filled him with delight. In other words, the sun has blindedhimself. Clouds and darkness have closed in about him,and the clear lightis blotted out of the heaven. 1 Nor isthis blinding of the sun recorded only in this Thebaii story,Belleroph6n, when thrown from his winged steed P4gasos,is said to have been both lamed and blinded, and the storymay be compared with the blinding of Samson before hebends the pillars of the temple and brings death and darknesson all who are around him. 2 The feuds and crimeswhich disgrace his family when he has yielded uphis sceptreto his sons are the results of a moral process, and not of thestrictly mythical developement which makes him the slayerof Laios, a name which, denoting simply the enmity of thedarkness to the light,is found again in Leophontes as anepithet of Eipponoos, who is also called Belleroph6n. sBut if Iokast, the tender mother who had watched overhim at his birth, is gone, the evening of his life is not withoutits consolation. His sons may fill the city with strifeand bloodshed; his daughter Ismn may waver in her filialallegiance ;but there yet remains one who will never forsakehim, and whose voice shall cheer him in his last hour*1So in the German story of Bapun-ZP!, the prince, when his bride is tornfrom him, loses his senses with grief,and .springing from tihe tower (likeKephalos from the Leukadian cliff) fallsinto thorns which put out his eyes.Thus he wanders blind in the forest (ofwinter), but the tears of Rapunzel (thetears which E6s sheds on the death of(Dasent) Oidipous appears as the blmdtdbrother in the story of True and Untrue,and as the blinded prince in that of theBlue Belt.* In the code of the Lokrian (Epizephyrian)law-giver !Zaleukos, the punishmentof adulterers is said to have beenloss of the eyes. It is unnecessary tosay that the evidence for the historicalexistence of Zaleukos is worth as muchand as little as that which is adducedMemnon) fall on the sightless eyeballs,and his sight is given to him again. Inthe story of the Two Wanderers (the for the historical character of Minos,Dioskouroi or Asvms, the Babes in the Mauu, Lykourgos and Numa. TheWood) one of the brothers, who is a story told of Zaleukos himself that hetailor, and who is thrust out to starve, agreed to have one of his own eyes putfalls into the hands of a shoemaker who out rather than allow his son, who hadgives him some bread only on condition been convicted of adultery, to lose boththat he will consent to lose his eyes his eyes, is a mingling of the myths of;his sight is, of course, restored as in the the blinded Oidipous and the one-eyedother story. In the story of the ' Prince Kyklops or Wuotan. The law Tbywho was afraid of Nothing '(the Sigurd which the punishment is inflicted simplyof Brynhild), the hero is blinded by a reflects the story of Oidipous, who fagiant, but the lion sprinkling somewater on his eyes restores the sight inpart, and bathing himself in the streamwhich he finds near him, the prince necessarilycomes out of the water able tosee as well as ever. In tihe Norse Talesstrictly punished for incest by the lossof his eyes; and the name Zaleukos,the glistening or gleaming, carries us toApoll6n Lykios, the Latin Lucius,Lucna, Luna,

!THE DEATH Otf OIDIPOUS. 73In this beautiful being, over -whom Sophokles lias thrown asingular charm, M. Br&tl sees the light which sometimesflushes the eastern sky as the sun sinks to 1sleep in the west.The word must certainly be compared with such names asAnteia, Antiope, Antikleia ;while the love of AntigonS forOidipous seems to carry us to the love of Sel&afi for Endymiftnor of Echo for the dying Narkissos. With the deathof Oidipous, her own life draws towards its close. It isbrought about indeed by the despotic cruelty of Kre&n but;the poet could scarcely withstand the force of the feeling,which in accordance with the common phenomena of theheavens bound up the existence of Oin6n, Kleopatra, Brynhild,Althaia, with the life of the being whom they hadloved and lost. Here again Antigon6, betrothed to theyouthful Haimon, dies in the dark cave, like the brightclouds which Yritra shuts up in his horrid dungeons. Butbefore this last catastrophe is brought about, there is a timeof brief respite in which Oidipous reposes after all the griefsand sorrows which have come upon him, some at the rising ofthe sun or its setting, some at noonday or when the starstwinkled out in the sky. All these had burst as in a delugeon his devoted head; 2 but now he draws nigh to the havenof rest. His feet tread the grass-grown pathway ;over hishead the branches sigh in the evening breeze ;and when anAthenian in holy horror bids him begone from the sacredgrove of the Eumenides, Oidipous replies that their sanctuarycan never be violated by him. He is not merely theirsuppliant, but their friend ;and they it is who will guidehim peacefully through the dark valley of the shadow ofdeath. One prayer only he has to make, and this is thatsome one will bring Theseus, the Athenian king, to his sidebefore he dies. The wish is realised-,and we see before usperhaps the most striking of all mythical groups, theblinded Oidipous sinking peacefully into Ms last sleep, as helistens to the voice of the man who rules in the city of thedawn-goddess AthSnS, and feels the gentle touch of hisdaughter's hand, while over him wave the branches in thegrove of the Eumenides, benignant always to him, and now, Myth tfEdips, 21. * Soph, Old. Col. 1218,

74 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ABYAN NATIONS.BOOKreflecting more than ever the loveliness of the Eastern~._ ^ Saranyu. Then comes the signalof departure, that voiceof the divine thunder which now, as before, when he encounteredthe Sphinx, Oidipous alone can understand. Withouta murmur he prepares to obey the summons, and withTheseus alone, the son of the sea and air, by his side,calmly awaits the end. With wonderful fidelity to the oldmythical phrases, the poet brings before us a sunset whichdazzles the eyes even of the Athenian king, and tells usof the hero who has passed away, by no touch of disease,for sickness could not fasten on his glorious form, by nothunderstroke or sea-roused whirlwind, but guided by someheaven-sent messenger, or descending into the kindly earthwhere pain and grief may never afflict him more. Wellmay the poet speak as though he were scarcely telling the1story of the death of mortal man.The tomb of Endymi&n was shown in Elis, and the Oretanspointed to the grave of Zeus 5but no man could say inwhat precise spot the bones of Oidipous reposed. It wasenough to know that a special blessing would rest on theland which contained his sepulchre ;and what place couldbe more meet for this his last abode than the dearest inheritanceof Athn6?The story The Theban myth of Oidipous is repeated substantially in*^e Arkadian tradition. As Oidipous is the son of Laiosand Iokast, the darkness and the violet-tinted sky, sois T61ephos (who has the same name with Tfilephassa, thefar-shining), the child of Aleos the blind, and Augfi thebrilliant: and as Oidipous is left to die on the slopes ofKithairon, so T61ephos is exposed on mount Parthenion.There the babe is suckled by a doe, which represents thewolf in the mythstory of Cyrus, and isafterwards brought up by the Arkadianking Korythos.of Romulus and the dogof the PersianLike Oidipous, he goes to Delphoi tolearn who is his mother, and is there bidden to go toTeuthras, king of Mysia. But thither Augfi had gonebefore him, and thus in one version Teuthras promised herto TSlephos as his wife, if he would help him against Ms1Soph. Old. Colon. 1665.

TfiLEPHOS AND PARIS. 75enemy Idas. This service he performs, and Aug4 differsfrom lokastfi only in the steadiness with which she refusesto wed TSlephos, although she knows not who he is.TOlephosnow determines to slay her, but Heraldes reveals themother to the child, and like Perseus, Telephos leads hismother back to her own land. In another version he becomesthe husband not of Augfi, but of a daughter of Teuthras,whose name ArgiopS shows that she is but AugS underanother form. In this tradition he is king of Mysia whenthe Achaians come to Ilion to avenge the wrongs of Helen,and he resists them with all his power. In the ensuingstrife he is smitten by Achilleus, and all efforts to heal thewound are vain. In his misery he betakes himself again tothe oracle, and learns that only the man who has inflictedthe wound can heal it*In the end, Agamemnon prevails onAchilleus to undo his own work, and to falsify in the caseof T&ephos the proverb which made use of his name todescribe an incurable wound. The means employedis therust of the spear which had pierced him,an explanationwhich tunas on the equivocal meaning of the words ios, ion,as denoting rust, poison, an arrow, and the violet colour.As we read the story of T&ephos we can scarcely fail to Twofoldthink of the story of the Trojan Paris, for like T&ephos Parisis exposed as a babe on the mountain side, and like him hereceives at the hands of Achilleus a wound which is eitherincurable or which Oin6n either will not or cannot heal. Itis true that the only portion of the myth of Paris introducedinto our Iliad is that which relates to the stealing away ofHelen, and to the time which she spent with him in Ilion :but it is really unnecessary to adduce again the evidencewhich proves that the poets of the Iliad used only thosemyths or portions of myths which served their immediatepurpose. Even in what they do tell us about him we discernthat twofold aspect which the process of mythical disintegrationwould lead us to look for. There is on the one side not theslightest doubt that he is the great malefactor who by takingHelen from Sparta brings the Achaian chiefs to the assaultof Troy ;and as Helen, is manifestly the Tedic SaramA, the"beautiful light of the morning or the evening, Paris as con-

76 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.veying lier to his stronghold is the robber who drives off theshining cattle of Indra to his dungeon. The fight at Troy isthus the straggleof the children of the Sun to recover fromthe dreary caves of night the treasure of which the darknessdeprived them in the evening ;in other words, Ilion is thefortress of Vritra or Ahi, and Paris the successful seducer ofHelen represents the unsuccessful seducer of Saraml Onthe other hand it is not less clear that the character of Parisin his caprieiousness,his moody sullenness, his self-imposedinaction, singularly resembles that of Meleagros, and so likewisethat of Achilleus. The cause also is the same. Achilleusis angry because Bris&s is taken away: Paris is indignantbecause he is desired to give up Helen: we have thereforesimply to distinguish the incidents which exhibit Paris asthe dark cheat and plunderer, from the details which ascribeto him a character more or less resembling that of the greatsolar heroes. This twofold aspect should cause us no perplexity.If the Trojans as a whole represent the enemies ofIndra, we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that many ofthose chiefs who take his part are heroes whose solar originisbeyond all question. On his side may be seen the EthiopianMemn&n, over whose body the morning weeps tears ofdew, and who, rising from the dead, is exalted for ever to thebright halls of Olympos. With them are ranged the chieftainsof the bright Lykian land ; and assuredly in Glaukosand Sarp&l&n we discern not a single point of likeness withthe dark troops of the Panis. There is nothing in the M&-tory of mythology which should make this result a matter ofsurprise. The materials for the great epic poems of theAjyan world are the aggregations of single phrases whichhave been gradually welded into a coherent narrative ;andthe sayings which spoke of the light as stolen away in theevening from the western sky and carried away to therobber's stronghold far away towards the east, of the childrenof the light as banding together togo and search out thethief, of their struggle with the seducer and his kinsfolk, ofthe return of the light from the eastern sky back again toits home in the west, were represented by the mythicalstatements that Paris stole Helen from the Western Sparta

.THE ACHAIAtf AND TROJAN CHIEFS. 77and took her away to Hion, that the kinsfolk of Helen rousedCHAP,**'the Achaian chiefs to seek out the robber and do battle -with -him and Ms people, and that after a hard fight Helenwas rescued from their grasp and brought back to the houseof Menelaos. But there was a constant and an irresistibletendency to invest every local hero with the attributes whichare reflected upon Herakles, Theseus, and Perseus fromPhoibos and Helios the lords of light; and the severalchiefs whose homes were localised in Western Asia would asnaturally be gathered to the help of Hektor as the Achaianprinces to the rescue and avenging of Helen. Over everyone of these the poet might throw the rich colours of theheroic ideal, while a free play might also be given topurely human instincts and sympathies in the portraits ofthe actors on either side. If Paris was guilty of greatcrimes, his guilt was not shared by those who would havemade him yield up his prey if they could. He might be athief, but they were fighting for their homes, their wives,and their children : and thus in Hektor we have the embodimentof the highest patriotism and the most disinterestedself-devotion, a character, in fact, infinitely higher thanthat of the sensitive, sullen, selfish and savage Achilleus,because it is drawn from human life, and not, like the other,from traditions which rendered such a portrait in his caseimpossible. Hence between Paris the Ilian hero and thesubject of local eastern myths, and Paris in his relationswith the Western Achaians, there is a sharp and clear distinction;and if in the latter aspect he is simply the Vritraof Hindu mythology, in the former he esiibits all thefeatures prominent in the legends of Herakles, Dionysos,Theseus and Achilleus. 1Wic Aphroditd und Helena, so er* trad grosa im Harem, die gerade Gegenschien1 'aueh Paris in den ver- Kypnen,sate zu den Griechischen Helden, naxnuthhchxmcb Anleitung orthcher Tra- mentlich zu Menelaos und zum Acliill.'ditionen, in einem andern Lichte und PreUer, Or. Myth.ii. 413, It rau&fcals Mittelspunkt eines groaseren Sagen- not, however, be forgottenthat one ofcomplexes, welcher gleichfalls bei den tbe characteristics (-yurai^ai^s) by -whichspateren Diehtern nnd Kunstlern einen Paris is specially distinguished, is alsolebhafteu Anklang girfunden hat Er seen in Indra and Krishna. See sectionist ganz der Orientalische Held, zu- xiii. of this chapter. Nor are Heraklesgleich mannhaft und weichlich wie or Sigurd less treacherous or inconstantDiouysos, vie Sardanapal, wie der Ly- than Pans*dische Herakles, gross in der Schlacht-

'78 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.The birthfancyo'fPans.The eastern myth, then begins with incidents preciselyparallelto those which mark the birth and childhood ofDionysos, T&lephos, Oidipous, Komulus, Perseus, and manyothers. Before he is born, there are portents of the ruinwhich, like Oidipous, he is to bring upon his house andpeople. His mother EekabS dreams that her child will be atorch to set Lion in flames ;and Priam, like Laios, decreesthat the child shall be left to die on the hill side. But thebabe lies on the slopes of Ida (the Vedic name for the earthas the bride of Dyaus the sky), and is nourished by a shebear.1The child grows up, like Cyrus, among the shepherdsand their flocks, and for his boldness and skill in defendingthem againstthe attacks of thieves and enemies he is said tohave been called Alexandros, the helper of men.In this hisearly life he has the love of Oin6n, the child of the river-godKebr&a, 2 and thus a being akin to the bright maidens who,like Athn6 and Aphrodit6, are born from the waters. Meanwhile,he had not been forgotten in Dion. His mother'sheart was still full of grief, and Priam at length ordered thata solemn sacrifice should be offered toto cross the dark stream of Hades.enable Ms dead sonThe victim chosen is afavourite bull of Paris, who follows it in indignation, as themen lead it away. La the games now held he puts fprth hisstrength, and is the victor in every contest, even over Hefctor*His brothers seek to slay the intruder, but the voice ofKasandra his sister is heard, telling them that this is thevery Paris for whose repose they were now about to slay thevictim, and the long-lost son is welcomed to his home.Thejudg At this point the legend carries us to the ThessalianParis?*m7^ Wlien Tlietis rose from tlie sea * become the brideof Peleus, Eris, who alone was not invited with the otherdeities to the marriage-feast, threw on the banquet-table agolden apple, 3 with the simple inscription that it was a giftfor the fairest. Her task of sowing the seeds of strife was1The equivocal meaning of the name the Greek AiW, a wolf, denote theArktos, the bear, has already come be- glossiness of their coats.fore us in the myths of the seven ark- 8 That this name Kebr&n is probablyshas and the seven rishis; and pro- the same as Severn, the intermediatebably all the animals selected to perform forms leave little room for doubting.this office of nourishing exposed children* See Campbell's Tales of the Westwill be found to have names which, like Highlands, \, l

THE JUDGMENT OF PARIS. 79done. The golden apple is the golden ball which the !Frogprincebrings up from the water, the golden egg which thered hen lays in the Teutonic story, the gleaming sun whichis bom of the morning ;and the prize is claimed, as it mustbe claimed, by ESr, Athn, and Aphrodit, the queens ofheaven and the goddesses of the dawn.For the time theto listen to the rivaldispute is settled by the words of Zeus, who bids them carrytheir quarrel before the Idaian Paris, who shall decide betweenthem. As the three bright beings draw near, the shepherdyouth, whose beauty is far beyond that of all the children ofmen, is abashed and scared, and it is only after long encouragementthat he summons spiritclaims. Hr6, as reigning over the blue ether, promiseshim the lordship of Asia, if he will adjudge the prize to her ;Ath&n, the morning in its character as the awakener ofmen's minds and souls, assures him of renown in war andfame in peace; but Paris is unable to resist the laughterlovinggoddess, who tells him that if his verdict is for her heshall have the fairestbride that ever the world has seen.Henceforth Paris becomes the darling of Aphrodit, but thewrath of Hr6 and Athn6 lies heavy on the doomed city ofIlion. Fresh fuel was soon to be supplied for the fire. Afamine was slaying the people of Sparta, and Menelaos theking learnt at Delphoi that the plague could not cease untilan offering should be made to appease the sons of Prometheus,who were buried in Trojan sofl. Thus Menelaos cameto Hion, whence Paris went with him first to Delphoi, then toSparta. The second stage in the work of Eris was reached.The shepherd of Ida was brought face to face with thefairest of all the daughters of men* He came armed withthe magic powers of AphroditS, whose anger had beenkindled against Tyndareos, because he had forgotten to makeher an offering \and so, when Menelaos had departed toCrete and the Dioskouroi were busied in their struggle withthe sons of Aphareus, Paris poured his honied words intothe ears of Helen, who yielded herself to him with aH hertreasures, and sailed with him to Hion in a bark whichAphrodite wafted over a peaceful sea.There is scarcely a point in this legend which fails of Paris akdHelen.

f80 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.finding a parallel in other Aryan myths. The beautifulstranger, who beguiles the young wife when lier husband isgone away, is seen again in the Arkadian Ischys who takesthe place of Phoibos in the story of Koronis, in the disguisedKephalos who returns to win the lore of Prokris. The departureof Menelaos for Crete is the voyage of the sun inhis golden cup from west to east when he has reached thelwaters of Okeanos ;and the treasures which Paris takesaway are the treasures of the Tolsung tale and the Nibelungsong in all their many versions, the treasures of light andlife which are bound up with the glory of morning andevening, the fatal temptation to the marauding chiefs, whoin the end are always overcome by the men whom they havewronged. There is absolutely no difference Between thequarrel of Paris and Menelaos, and those of Sigurd andHogni, of Hagene and Walthar of Aquitaine. In each casethe representative of the dark power comes in seemingalliancewith the husband or the lover of the woman who isto be stolen away in other ;words, the first shades of nightthrown across the heaven add only to its beauty and itscharm, like Satan clothed as an angel of light. In eachcase the wealth to be obtained is scarcely less the incitementthan the loveliness of Helen, Brynhild, or Kriemhild.Nor must we forget the stress laid in the Iliad on thesestolen treasures. AJl are taken : Paris leaves none behindhim ;2and the proposals of Antenor and Hekfcor embrace thesurrender of these riches not less than that of Helen*Thenarrative of the war which avenges this crime belongsrather to the legend of Achilleus; and the eastern storyof Paris isresumed only when, at the sack of Troy, he i&wounded by Philokfc6t6s in the Skaian or western gates, andwith his blood on fire from the poisoned wound, hastens toIda and his early love.Long ago, before AphroditS helpedhim to build the fatal ship which was to take him to Sparta,Oinon had warned him not to approach the house of Menelaos,and when he refused to listen to her counsels she hadtold him to come to her if hereafter he should be wounded.But now when he appears before her, resentment for thegreat wrong done to her byParis for the moment over-; Helios leaves E$s behind Mm. * 2Z. iii. 70, 91.

I&MOS. 81masters "her love, and she refuses to heal him. Her angerlives but for a moment; still when she comes with thehealing medicine it is too late, and with him she lies downto die. 1E&s- cannot save Memn6n from death, though sheis happier than Oindne, in that she prevails on Zeus to bringher son back from the land of the dead.So ends the legend of the Trojan Alexandros, with an The deathincident which precisely recalls the stories of Meleagros andSigurd, and the doom of Kleopatra and Brynhild ;and suchare the materials from which Thucydides has extracted amilitary history quite as plausible as that of the siege ofof Oin^-SebastopoLA happier fate than that of T&ephos or Paris attends the lamas theArkadian lamos, the child of Evadn and Phoibos. Likehis father and like Hermes, he is weak and puny at his birth,and Evadn& in her misery and shame leaves the child to die.But he is destined for great things, and the office of the dogand wolf in the legends of Cyrus and Romulus is here performedby two dragons, not the horrid snakes which seek tostrangle the infant Herakles, but the glistening creatureswho bear a name of like meaning with that of AthSnfe, andwho feed the child with honey. But Aipytos, the chieftain ofPhaisana, and the father of Evadn, had learnt at Delphoithat a child of Phoibos had been born who should becomethe greatest of all the seers and prophets of the earth, andhe asked all his people where the babe was : but none hadheard or seen him, for he lay far away amid the thick bushes,with his soft body bathed in the golden and purple rays ofthe violets. 3 So when he was found* they called him lamos,the violet child ;and as he grew in years and strength, hewent down into the Alpheian stream, and prayed to hi$father that he would glorify his son* Then the voice of Zeus1Apollod. iii.12, 6. attached to the same word. Hence the* In this myth Pindar uses the word poisoned arrows of AcMlleus and Phiiost twice, as denoting in the one case !oktt&8. The word as applied to colourhoney, in the other the violet flower, is traced by Prof. Max Muller to theBut the phrase which he uses, /B#pey- root as e, denoting a crying hue, i.e. apins birrurtv fov (01 vi. 92), leads us loud colour. The story of lamos is theto another meaning of ios, which, as a institutional legend of the lamidai, onspear, represents the far-darting rays of whom Pindar bestows the highest praisethe sun ;and a further equivocation was alike for their wisdom and their truth*the result of the other meaning of poison fulness,VOL, II.O

MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.Poseid6n was heard, bidding him come to the heightsofOlympos, where he should receive the gift of prophecy andthe power to understand the voices of the birds. The locallegend made him, of course, the soothsayer of the EleianOlynipia, where Herakles had founded the great games*Pehas and The myth of Pelias and Neleus has the same beginningNeleils 'with the stories of Oidipous, T&ephos, and Paris. Theirmother Tyro loves the Enipean stream, and thus she becouiusthe wife of Poseid6n; in other words, her twin sons Peliasand Neleus are, like Aphrodit and Ath6n&, the children ofthe waters. These Dioskouroi, or sons of Zeus Poseid&n, areleft to die, but a mare suckles the one, a dog the other; andin due course they avenge the wrongs of Tyro by putting todeath the iron-hearted Sid6r&, whom her fatherhad married.driveSalmfineusThe sequel of the tale, which makes Peliashis brother from the throne of lolkos, belongs ratherto the history of Ias6n.This myth which has now come before us so often is theBemiis groundwork of the greathave the Dioskouroi, Bomulus and Remus, the children ofEoman traditions. Here also weMars and the priestess Bhea Hia or Silvia. Like Perseusand Dionysos, the babes are exposed on the waters ; but awolf is drawn to them by their cries, and suckles them untilthey are found by Acca Larentia, and taken to the house ofher husband the shepherd of king Faustulus. There theygrow up renowned for their prowessin allmanlyexercises,and, like Cyrus, the acknowledged leaders of all their youthfulneighbours , and when at length Eemus falls into thehands of king Amulius, Eomulus hastens to his rescue, andthe tyrant undergoes the doom of Laios and Akrisios.Thesetwo brothers bear the same name, for Eemus and Bomus areonly another and an older form of Eomulus l;and thus afoundation might be furnished for the story of their rivalry,even if this feature were not prominent in the myths ofPelias and Neleus and the Dioskouroi who are the sons ofZeus and Leda, as well as in the rivalry of E6s and Prokris,of MobS and L&6, of AthSn6 and Medousa. Nor doesEomulus resemble Oidipous less in the close of his life than1B>nce tbey are mere eponymoi, like Boi6tos, Orchomenos, &c.

ROMULUS ATO CYRUS. 83at Ms birth. He is taken away in a thunderstorm, wrappedin the clouds which are to bear him in a fiery chariot to thepalace of Jupiter.The myth of Cyrus differs from the Romulean legend onlyGyms andin the fact that here it has gathered round an unquestiontyag68'ably historical person. But it cannot be too often repeatedand histhat from the myth we learn nothing of his history,history confers no sort of credibility on the myth. So far asthe latter is concerned, in other words, in all that relates tohis earlier years, he remains' wholly unknown to us,the story resolves itselfwhileinto the stock materials of all suchnarratives. As Laios in the Theban myth is the enemy,Dasyu, of the devas or bright gods, so is Astyages only aGrecised form of Asdahag, the Azidahaka or biting snake ofHindu legend and the Zohak of the epic of Firdusi. LikeLaios also he is told that if his daughter Mandan has a son,that child will live to be king in his stead. In this case theemblem seen before the birth of the infant is not a torch buta vine which overspreads the whole of Asia, and the babewho is exposed is not the child whom Harpagos delivers tothe herdsman clad in a magnificent golden robe, but thedead child which happens to be born in the herdsman'shouse just as he enters it with the doomed son of Mandanfi.Under this man's roof Cyrus grows up with the true spiritof kingship, and when he is chosen despot by the villageboys in their sport, he plays his part so well that Artembares,the father of a boy who has been scourged by his orders,complains to Astyages of the insult. The bearing of theyouth and his apparent age make Astyages think of thebabe whose death he had decreed, and an examination ofthe herdsman justifieshis worst fears. On Harpagos, towhom lie had in the first instance intrusted the child, hetakes an awful vengeance but the magi ;satisfy him that theelection of Cyrus to be king of the village boys fulfilstheterms of the prophecy, and that therefore he need have nofarther fears on his account. Thus Cyrusis suffered togrow up in the palace, and is afterwards sent to his father,the Persian Eambyses. Harpagos thinks that the time is nowcome for requiting Astyages for his detestable cruelty, ando 2

84 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.counsels Cyrus to raise the standard of revolt. The sequel isan institutional legend,of much the same value with thestory of the setting tip of the Median monarchy by Deiokes,a name in "which we also recognise the Dahak or biter ofHindu mythology.Chandra- *Ja its earlier scenes the legend of Ohandragupta presentssome points of difference with that of Cyrus. The child isexposed to great danger in his infancy; but it is at thehands, not of his kinsman, but of a tributary chief who hasdefeated and slain his suzerain, and it is his mother who,'relinquishinghim to the protection of the devas, places himin a vase, and deposits him at the door of a cattle-pen/Here a bull named Chando comes to him and guards him,and a herdsman, noting this wonder, takes the child andrears him as his own. The mode by which he is subsequentlydiscovered differs from the Persian story only by thesubstitution of the chopping off of hands and feet instead ofscourging. This is done by axes made of the horns of goatsfor blades; with sticks for handles ;and the lopped limbs arerestored whole at Chandragupta's word when the playisdone. 1 Slightly altered, this story becomes the legend ofSemiramis, whom her mother the fish-goddessDerketo exposesin her infancy ;but she was saved by doves, ajadlikeCyrus, Eomulus, and Ohandragupta, brought up by ashepherd until her beauty attracts Onnes, one of tib.eking'sgenerals, and afterwards makes her the wife of king Ninushimself, whom in some versions she presently puts to death,in order that she may reign alone, like E6s survivingKephalos. 31Max Midler, Senator. Lit. 290. those countries is silent on the* subject.Unlike Cyrus and Chandragupta, Sesostris is related to have conqueredHinufl and Semiramis are, like Romu- Assyria ,and the king of Assyria waslus, purely mythical or fabulous beings, doubtless one of those whom he har-'The name of Nmus is derived from nesscd to his chariot But the historythe city he is the eponymous king and of Assyria makes no mention of Sesosfounderof Nineveh, and stands to it in tris. Semiramis is related to have eon*the same relation as Tros to Troy, Medus quered Egypt but,the history of Elgyptto Media, Maeon to Mseonia, Eomulus to makes no mention of Semiramis.' SirBorne His conque&ts and those of Se- G- C, Lewis, Astronomy of the Ancientsmiramis are as unreal as those of 408. Romulus is one of seven kingsSesostns. It is the characteristic of whose chronology is given with greatthese fabulous conquerors, that, although precision; but thischronology isthey are reported to have overrun and throughout, in Niebuhr's subdued trenchantmany countries, the history of words, *a forgery and a fiction.'

THE CHILDREN OF TELEPHASSA. 85The story of Eur6p, like that of DaphnS or Arethousa,Psyche or Urvasi, is but one of the many forms assumed bythe myth that the sun and the dawn are soon parted. The Kadmosscene is here laid in the Phoinikian or purple land, aregion belonging to the same aerial geography with Lykia,Delos, Ortygia, the Arkadia of Kallistd or the Athens ofTheseus and Peirithoos. But when Phenicia became tothe Greeks the name of an earthly country, versions werenot long wanting, which asserted that Agenor was born inTyre or Sidon, or some other spot in the territories of Ca-Of these we need take no account, while innaanite tribes.its names and incidents generally the myth explains itself.Agenor is the husband of T&ephassa, the feminine form of thename Tlephos, a word conveying precisely the same meaningwith Hekatos, Hekate, Hekatebolos, well known epithetsof the sun and moon- His children are Kadmos, Phoinix,Kilix and Eurdp&, although in some accounts Eur6p& isherself a daughter of Phoinix. On this maiden, the broadflushinglight of dawn, Zeus, the heaven, looks down withlove 5and the white bull, the spotless cloud, comes to bearher away to a new home, in Crete, the western land. Shebecomes the mother of Minos, Rhadamanthys, and Sarpd6n.But in the house from which she is thus torn all is griefand sorrow. There can be no more rest until the lost one isfound again ;the sun must journey westwards until he seesagain the beautiful tints which greeted his eyes in the morning.Kadmos therefore is bidden to go in search of hissister, with strict charge never to return unless he finds her.With him goes his mother, and a long and weary pilgrimagebrings them at length to the plains of Thessaly, whereTSlephassa worn out with grief and anguish lies down to die.But Kadmos must journey yet further westward ;and atDelphoi he learns that he must follow a cow which he wouldbe able to distinguish by certain signs, and where she laydown from weariness, there he must build his city. Thecow, doubtless on6 of the herd to which belong the bull ofEur&pe and the cattle of Helios, lies down on the site ofRome, -vol. i.j Edinburgh Review, Jan. IM*Hdww and Art, s.v. 'Tabulation of1867, p. 130; Dictionary of Sounce, Chronology.

86 MYTHOLOGT OP THE ARYAN NATIONS.BOOK

THE MINOTAUROS. 87in the lists of Apollodoros, is in some accounts split up intotwo beings of the same name ;but the reason which wouldjustify this distinction might be urged in the case of almostall the gods and heroes of Aryan tradition. It is enoughto say that as the son of Zeus and Eur&pS he is the son ofthe heaven and the morning; -as the offspring of Lykastosand Ida, he has the same brilliant sire, but his mother is theearth. In his name he is simply man, the measurer orthinker, the Indian Manu : and if in the Hindu legend Manuenters the ark with the seven rishis at the time of the greatdeluge, so Minos is the father of Deukalion, in whose daysthe floods are let loose in the western land. Thus as therepresentativeof the great human family, he becomes notmerely like Manu the giver of earthly codes or institutes, buta judge of the dead in the nether world, with Ehadamanthysand Aiakos, who were admitted to share this office. The conceptionwhich made Manu the builder of the ark is seenapparently in the maritime power and supremacy attributedto the Cretan Minos, a supremacy which to Thucydidesseemed as much a fact of history as the Peloponnesian war.This power, according to Apollodoros, Minos the grim 1obtained by overcoming his brothers, who quarrelled afterAsteri6n the kingof Crete had married their motherBur6pe, in other words, after the evening stars began totwinkle in the light-flushed skies. But although Minos hadboasted that whatever he desired the gods would do, hewas none the more shielded against disaster. At his wishPoseidfin sent up a bull from the sea, on the pledge of Minosthat he would offer the beast in sacrifice. Minos offered oneof his own cattle in his stead ;and Poseid&n not only madethe bull mad, but tilled Pasiphae with a strange love for themonster. Prom the union of the bright heaven with thissombre progeny of the sea sprang the Minotauros, who inhis den far away within his labyrinthof stars devoured thetribute children sent from the city of Athn, and who, by thehelp of Ariadn6, Mis under the sword of Theseus as las&n bythe aid of Medeia conquers the fire-breathing bulls of Eolchis.So transparent is the legend of the * solar hero and solar kingft.au. 322.

88 MYTHOLOGY 0* THE ARYAN KATIONS.lBOOK of Crete/ who rules over the island in the nine years' cyclewhich reappears in the myth of the tribute children. LikeIndra and Krishna, like Phoibos and Alpheios and Paris,he is the lover of the maidens, the hot and fierysun greetingthe moon and the dew. 2Hence, in the words of one whoprofesses to -distrust the conclusions of Comparative Mythology,* the great king of Crete met his end in the -distantevening-land Where the sun goes down.' 3 He is slain inSicily by king Eokalos, a name which reminds us of HoratiusCodes, 4 and which seems to denote simply the eyelessUJl^d"Aiakos,gloom of night.Of Ehadamanthys, who in the ordinary version is likeMinos, a son of Zeus and Eur6p,little more is told us, apartg.om ^e seemin g]y iater gfory Of Apollodoros> than thatfor the righteousness of his life he was made the judge ofElysion, and that Minos was afterwards joined with himin this office.Pausanias, who gives this priority to Ehadamanthys,adds that some spoke of him as a son of Hephaistos,who in this myth was a son of Tal6s, a son of the eponymosThe same reputation for impartial justice added to theirnumber Aiakos, who in one version is a brother of Minosand Rhadamanthys> in another a son of Zeus and Aigina,the nymph whose names denotes the beating of the surf onthe island which was called after her. 6 In this islandAiakos, ruling over a race of Myrmidons, or ant-born men/plays the part of Oidipous at Thebes or Phoibos at Delphoi.1Preller, Gr. Myth n 118 Preller, Gr. Myth.la ifiuZ.this a&pectofhis character Minos * This word seems to ba akin to theis the lover of Diktynna and of Prokns, Latin adjective CHJCUS, and powuMy withaccording to the strange story told by Kaikias, the word which' MOB to haApollodoros, in 15, 1 Prokns avoids suggested the myth of CJacus, It isthe doom which brfalls all other victims made up of the particle denoting sopnofhis love by making Minos take the ration, ha, and the root or, which we findantidote of Kirke. Of these myths in the Latin oculns, tho German auw,Preller says, 'In noch andern Sagen the English eye. The same formationvon Kreta erschemt Minos als grosser has given us the words halt, half, &c.Jager, der in den Bergen und Waldern Bopp, Cowp. Gr. 8 308seiner Insel das Wild nnd die Nymphen Pans via 53 2jagt wie wir namentLch von seiner ' Its former name is aid to have beenLiebe aur Diktynna nnd zur Prokns Oindne or Oinopia. Aigina belongs towissen, die wieder den Mond bedeuten, the same root with Aigai, Aigaidn andwie Minos m solchen Fabeln die hexsse Aigens, the eponymos of thf Aiiaiwiund feurige Sonne zu bedeuten scheint.' (llean) sea^-fr. Myth,ri, 121VT See%oL L405 efc

THE OLD AGE OF KESTOR, 89Tor the Yritra or dragon which shuts up the waters is sentby HM, who is jealous of the love of Zeus for Aigina, todesolate the island ;and when they send to learn the will ofthe god at Pytho, the answer is that the plague can beremoved only by the prayers of the righteous Makos. Attheir entreaty he offers up a solemn sacrifice, and the rainfalls once more upon Hellas. 1With Poseid&n and Phoiboshe takes part in the work of building the Ilian walls ;andhere also the dragons are seen again.Three of them rushagainst the walls, and one makes its way through the portionbuilt by Aiakos, while the other two fall dead beneath theBtructure of the gods, a myth which was interpreted tomean the future overthrow of Ilion by the descendants ofAiakos.In the Cretan myth Sarpedun also is a brother of Minos,and therefore a sou of Zeus and Europ6. Other versions a ??; Sar"* twflow.told of a Sarpedon who was the child of Laodameia, thedaughter of Bellerophontes. As in the case of Minos, mythographersmade two beings out of one, as they mightindefinitely have extended the number. Of the one Sarp$d6nit is said that Zeus granted to him, as to Nestor, 8 a lifestretching over three generations of men; of the other thebeautiful story is told which we find in the Iliad. Thelegend is transparent throughout. If his grandsire Hippuiiousreceived the name by which he was commonly knownfrom liis alaying of a monster answering to the Pythian1Pans, it, 29, 0.vigour of Hmkles, whose friend he had* If tho of injth dhbKous, as con- brt>n, ami whose skill m the managetiaatfdwith that of Arlulli'iis points to nn i nt of chariots and horses he has inthealow sinking olf the unclouded SQU herited in doable portion. Like Phoiinafter the perfect rejwbo weary battle boa, again, ho has tho gift of honeyedand wandimngH of a stormy day, and I'lorjnence, the gift of Hermes to thethus suggeststhe idea of the tranquil sun-god ; and more particularly as heevening of life for the chief who hits grows in wisdom, he becomes moregrown old in fighting, the notion of age keen-sighted, more prudent, more sagattmsgiven IB brought out more proini- CIUUB Nebtor then and Odysbeus standnently in other legends, whether of the as an idw altogether distinct from thatGreek or the Teutonic nations The which is embodied in the conceptions ofdecrepitude the death of the Achilltms and preceding; Siegfried, and the twosun, a notion aa familiar as that of his types may be traced through the Aryanundying vigour and everlasting youth, mythology generally,in the GudmuudIB exhibited in the storyof Tithonos, who lives five hundred years, as m thewhich differs from that of Nestor only Signxd who falls in the full glory of hisin the weakness which paralyses the youth. Grimm, J). M. 365 ; Maxbeing once so powerful. With the MtiJler, Chips,&c. ii. 84.wisdom of Phoibos Nestor retains the

90 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.^BOOK^MpmTi6n_.dragon or the Theban Sphinx, Hs daughter Laodameia is asdearly the beautiful evening weaving togetherher tintedclouds, and slain by Artemis, the cold moon, before her webis finished.To her son, the chief of Lykia, the land of light,as to Aehilleus, a brief but a brilliant career is allotted.With his friend Glaukos (a name denoting the bright dayas SarpM6n is the creeping light of early morning) he leavesthe banks of the golden stream of Xanthos, and throws inhis lot with the brave and fierce-minded Eektor; but thedesigns of Hr6 require that he must die,and the tears ofZeus fall in big raindrops from the sky because it is notpossible for him to avert the doom. So Sarp6d6n fallsbeneath the spear of Patroklos; but no decay may be sufferedto mar his beauty. Phoibos himself is charged tobathe the body in Simoeis, and wrapit in ambrosial robes,while Thanatos and Hypnos, death and sleep, are bidden tobear itaway to his Lykian home, which they reach just asE6s is spreading her rosy light through the sky, an exquisitevariation on the myth of Endymi6n plunged beneaththe waters, or Narkissos in his profound lethargy, or Heliosmoving in his golden cup from the western to the easternocean.From the story of SarpSd6n the legend of Memn6n, it is* 10 " scarcely necessary to say, differs only in the greater clearnesspian.with which it represents the old phrases, SarpM&n, thougha being akin to Phoibos and Helios, is yet regarded as theruler of mortal Lykians, and his cairn is raised high to keepalive his name amongst his people. With Memn&n the mythhas not gone so far. He is so transparently the son of EAsthat he must rise again. Like Zeus, E6s weeps tears of dewat the death of her child, but her prayers avail to bring himback, likeAdonis or Tammuz, from the shadowy region, todwell always in Olympos. If again Sarp6d&n is king of theland of light (Lykia), Memn6n rules over the glisteningcountry of Aithiopia (Ethiopia),the ever youthful child ofTithdnos, the sun whose couch E6s leaves daily to bringback morning to the earth. Nay, so clear is the meaning ofthe story, that he isby some called the child of H&mera, theday; and his gleaming armour, like that of Achilleus, is

MEMN6N AND MIMIB. 91"When Memn6n failswrought by the fire-god Hephaistos,in atonement for the slaughter of Antilochos, the son ofNestor, his comrades are so plunged in grief that they arechanged into birds, which yearly visit his tomb to water theground with their tears. Not less obvious is the meaning ofanother story, which brings before us the battle of the cloudsover the body of the dead sun a fight which we see in adarker form in the desperate struggle of the Achaians andTrojans over the body of Achilleus. To comfort E6s, Zeusmakes two flocks of birds (the swan maidens or wingedmeet in the air and fight overclouds of Teutonic folk-lore)Memndn's funeral sacrifice, until some of them fall as victimson the altar. Of Memnon's head the tale was told that itretained the prophetic power of the living Helios,a storywhich is found in the myth of the Teutonic Mimir, andwhich might also have been related of Kephalos, the head ofthe sun.Like Minos and Sarpd6n, Kephalos is assigned in dif- Kephalosferent versions of the myth to different parents, whose andE6s -names denote, however, the same idea; but there is noother reason for dividing him into two persons.In the oneaccount he is a son of Hermes and Hers6, the morningbreeze and the dew, and by him E6s becomes the mother ofTithonos or, as others said, of Phaeth6n. In the other he isthe son of the Phokian Deion, and HersS appears as the wifeof Erechtheus, and the mother of his wife Prokris or Proknd,who is 1only the dew under another name. Nor is the wholestory anything more than a series of pictures which exhibitthe dew as lovingly reflecting the rays of the sun, who is alsoloved by the morning, until at last his fiery rays dry up thePreller, Gr. Myth, ii, H5, is content the moon. But the incidents in the life1to regard the name as an abbreviated of Prokris do not point to the course ofform of 4 wpoKfKpm^ allfginK th ua* the moon and its phenomena,and Proofxpfapiv for rpdKptfftv by Hesiud, a fcris is not preferred or honoured, butfact which, if proved,is but a slender throughout slighted and neglected,warrant for the other. But Horse, the Hence there isabsolutpty no reason formother of Prokris, is confessedly the refusing to take into account the appndew,and Prokn$, the other form ofobvious connection of ProkrisrentlyProkris, cannot be referred to ij wpo- and Proknfe with the Greek wpfy, a dew-Kpijj.4vT)< Proller adduces the oxpresmon drop, and the cogn.itc words which withapplied to Hekat6, iV wpl vdvrw Zcfc it are referred to the root prish. SeeKpQyi$7i$ rlfjaiffc, in illustration of his ety- vol. i p. 430.mology and of his belief that Prokris is

92 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ABYAN" STATIONS.last drops which, still lurk in the deep thicket. Hence wehave at once the groundwork of the jealousy of Eos forProkris, as of Er for 16 or Eur6p& But the dew reflectsmany images of the same sun and thus the ;phrase ran thatKephalos came back in disguise to Prokris, who, thoughfaithless to her troth, yet gave her love to her old lover, asZor6nis welcomed in Ischys the reflection of Phoibos Apollon,All that was needed now was to represent E6s as temptingKephalos to test the fidelity of Prokris, and to introduce intothe legend some portion of the machinery of every solar tale.The presents which E6s bestows on Kephalos to lure Prokristoher ruin are the riches of Ixi&n, on which his wife Diacannot look and live ;and when Prokris awakes to a senseof her shame, her flightto Crete and her refuge in the armsof Artemis denote the departure of the dew from the sunscorchedhillsto the cool regions on which the moon looksdown. But Artemis Eekate, like her brother Hekatos, is abeing whose rays have a magic power, and she bestows onProkris a hound which never fails to bring down its prey,and the spear which never misses its mark. Prokris nowappears disguised before the faithless Kephalos, who hasgiven himself to E6s, but no entreaty can prevail on her toyield up the gifts of Artemis except in return for his love.The compactis made, and Prokris stands revealed in all herancient loveliness. 16s for the time is baffled ;but Prokrisstill feels some fear of her rival's power, and as from a thicketshe watches Kephalos hunting, in other words, chasing thecloudsalong the blue fields of heaven, she is smitten by theunerring spear and dies, like the last drop of dew lingeringin the nook where it had hoped to outlive the day. Thesame mythical necessity which made Delos, Ortygia, orLykia, the birth-placeand home of Phoibos and Artemis,localised the story of Prokris in the land of the dawn-goddessAth$n, and then carried him away on his westward journey,toiling and suffering, like Herakles, or Apolldn, or Kadmos.He must aid Amphitryon in hunting the dog which, sent byPoseid&n or Dionysos, like the Marathonian bull, ravagedthe plain of Thebes ;he must go against the Teleboans, thesea-robbers of the Akarnanian coast 5and finally, wearied

1BALBUR AND HODS. 93out with his toil, lie must fall from the Leukadian or glisteningcape into the sea, as the sun, greeting the rosy cliffs,sinks beneath the waters. 1SUCTION XLTEUTONIC STOT-GODS AND HEROES.In Osedmon and the epic of Beowulf the word baldor,bealdor, is found in the sense of prince or anchief, as magftabealdor, virginum princeps.Hence the name Baldr or Baldurmight be referred to the Gothic bal3s, our bold, and stressmight be laid on the origin of the name of Baldur's wifeNanna from a verb nenna, to dare. But Grimm remarksthat the Anglo-Saxon genealogies speak of the son of Odinnot as Baldur but as Baldag, Beldeg, a form which wouldlead us to look for an Old High German Paltac. Althoughthis is not found, we have Paltar. Either then Baldagand Bealdor are only forms of the same word, as Regintaeand Reginari, Sigitac and Sighar, or they are compounds inwhich bal must be separated from dag $and thus the wordmight be connected with the Sclavonic Bjelbog, Belbog, thewhite shining god, the bringer of the day, the benignantPhoibos. Such an inference seems to be strengthened bythe fact that the Anglo-Saxon theogony gives him a sonBrond, who is also the torch or light of day. Baldur, however,was also known as Phol, a fact which Grimm establisheswith abundant evidence of local names ;and thus the identityof Baldr and Bjelbog seems forced upon us. Forseti, orFosite, isreckoned amongthe Asas as a son of Baldur andNanna, a name which Grimm compares with the Old HighGerman forasizo, prseses, princeps.2The being by whomBaldur is slain is Hodr, a blind god of enormous strength,whose name may be traced in the forms Hadupracht, Hadu-to the Chatumerus of Tacitus. He is simply thefians, &c.,power of darkness triumphing over the lord of light ;andJAnother account made the dog of to Kephalos. Prokris is also a bride ofProkris a work of Hephaistos, like the Minos, whom she delivers from thegolden statues of Alkinoos, and spoke of spells of a magician who acts by theit as a gift from Zeus to Europe* who counsels of Pasiphae, who is also calledgave it to Minos, and as bestowed by a wife of Minos.Minos on Prokris, who at last gives it* Deutsche Myth.212.

94 MYTHOLOGY OP THE ABYAff NATIONS.vBOOK hence there were, as we might expect, two forms of then'.The dre^mmyth, one of which left Baldur dead, lite Sarp6d6n, anotherwhich brought him back from the unseen world, like Memnonand Adonis.But the essence of the* myth lies in his death, the cause ofof Baldur.wkic]bL ig get fopfll j^ a poem Of t^ ei4er Edda, entitledBaldur's dream, a poemso beautiful and somyth that I may be forgiven for citingit in full.The gods have hastened all to the assembly,The gqddesses gathered all to the council ,The heavenly rulers take counsel together,Why dreams of ill omen thus terrify Baldur.Then uprose Odin the all-creatorAnd flung the saddle on Sleipnir's back,And downwards rode he to Nebelheim,Where a dog met him from the house of HeLSpotted with blood on his front and chest,Loudly he bayed at the father of song ;But on rode Odin, the earth made moaning,When he reached the lofty mansion of Eel.But Odinjrode on to its eastern portal,Where well he knew was the Tola's mound ;The seer's song of the wine-cup singing,Till he forced her to rise, a foreboder of iU.true to the old' What man among men, one whom I know not,Causes me trouble and breaks my rent?The snow hath enwrapped me, the rain heat upon me.The dews have drenched me, for I was long dead/'Wegtam my name is, Waltam's son am T ,Speak thou of the under world, I of the upper ;For whom are these seats thus decked with rings,These shining chains all covered with gold?*'The mead is prepared for Baldur here,The gleaming draught covered o'er with the shield,There is no hope for the gods above ;Compelled I have spoken, but now am I mute/1Close not thy lips yet, I must ask further,Till I know all things. And this will I know."What man among men is tho murderer of Baldur,And bringeth their end upon Odin's hwrs? ''Eodur will strike down the Mighty, the Famed one,He will become the murderer of Baldur,And bring down their end on the heirs of OdinCompelled I have spoken, but now am I mute/'Close not thy lips yet, I must ask further,Till I know all tilings. And thu will I know jWho will accomplish vengeance on Hddur,And bring to the scaffold the murderer of Baldur ? ''Bindur in the west hath won the prizeWho shall slay in one night all Odin's heirs.His hands he shall wash not: his locks he doth comb not.Till he brings to the scaffold the murderer of Baldur '

THE DYING YEAR. 95'Close not thy lips yet I will ask further,*Till I know all things And this will I know :The name of the woman who refuses to weep,And cast to the heavens the veil from her head.'Thou art not Wegtam as erst I deemed thce,But thou art Odin the all-creator.'1And thou art not Void, no wise woman thou,Nay, thou art the mother of giants in Hel.*'Bide home, Odin, and make thy boast,That never again shall a man visit me,Till Loki hath "broken his fottprs and chains,And the twilight of gods brings the end of all things.'Some features in this legend obviously reproduce incidentsin Greek mythology. The hound of hell who confronts theFather of Song is the dog of Yamen, the Kerberos who barsthe way to Orpheus until he is lulled to sleep by his h^rping;while the errand of Odin which has for its object thesaving of Baldur answers to the mission of Orpheus to recoverEurydik& Odin, again, coming as Wegtam the wandererreminds us at once of Odysseus the far-journeyingand long-enduring. The ride of Odin is as ineffectual asthe pilgrimage of Orpheus. All created things have beenmade to take an oath that they will not hurt the beautifulBaldur :but the mistletoe has been forgotten, and of thisplant Loki puts a twig into the hand of Baldur's blindbrother Hodr, who uses it as an arrow and unwittingly slaysBaldur while the gods are practising archery with his bodyas a mark. Soon, however, Ali (or Wall) is born, a brotherto Baldur, who avenges his death, but who can do so only byslaying the unlucky Eodr.The mode in which this catastrophe is brought about can- Thenot fail to suggest a comparison with the myth which offersJjfSarpd6n as a mark for the arrows of his uncles, and withthe stories of golden apples shot from the heads of bloomingyouths, whether by William Tell, or William of Cloudeslee, orany others. In short, the gods are here in conclave, aimingtheir weapons at the sun, who isdrawing near to his doom,as the summer approaches its end. They have no wish toslay him $ rather, it is the wish of all that he should notdie 5but he must be killed by his blind brother, the autumnsun, when the nights begin to be longer than the day. Theyounger brother born to avenge him is the new sun-child,The death

96 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.BOOK whose birth, marks the gradual rising again of the sun in._ **' _. the heaven. The myth now becomes transparent Baldur,who dwells in Breidablick or Ganzbliek (names answeringprecisely to Eur6p and PasiphaS, the broad-spreading lightof morning, or the dazzling heavens), is slain by the wintrystin, and avenged by Ali or Wali, the son of Odin and Kind,immediately after his birth. Ali is further called Bui, thetiller of the earth, over which the plough may again pass onthe breaking of the frost. These incidents at once showthat this myth cannot have been developed in the countriesof northern Europe. Bunsen rightly lays stress, aad toogreat stresscan scarcely be laid, on the thoroughcorrespondence between these myths and the climaticwant ofconditionsof northern stillGermany, more of those of Scandinaviaand of Iceland. It may be rash to assign them dogmaticallyto Central Asia, but indubitably they sprung up in acountry where the winter is of very short duration. Baldurthen is ( the god who is slain/ like Dionysos who is killedby his brothers and then comes to life :again but of thesemyths the Vedic hymns take no notice. 'In the regionwhere they arose there is no question of any marked declineof temperature/ and therefore these poems 'stop short atthe collision between the two hostile forces of sunshine andstorm. 3 1The storyThe myth of Tell, with which the story of Baldur andof Tell andGesler. i The tragedy of the sokr year, of Sigurd of tht Kdda with tho SiVgfrifdthe murdered and risen god, is familiar of the Nibelung ISong ha* BO imjwrtautto us from the days of ancient Egypt a bearing on the result* of

THE LEGEND OF TELL. 97SarpM&n suggests a comparison, has received its deathblow CHAP,as much, from the hands of historians as from**those of com- .parative mythologists. But there are probably few legendswhich more thoroughly show that from myths which haveworked themselves into the narrative of an historicalagethere is absolutely nothing to be learnt in the way of history.Even if the legend of Tell be given up as a myth,itmightbe contended that at the least it indicates some fact, andthis fact must be the oppression of the Swiss by Austrian.tyrants ;and yet this supposed fact, without which the storyloses all point and meaning, has been swept away as effectuallyas the incidents which have been supposed to illustrate it.The political history of the Forest Cantons begins at a timelong preceding the legendary date of Tell and Gesler; andthe election of Eudolf of Hapsburg as king of the Romansin 1273 was important to the Swiss only from their previousconnexion with his house. 1In short, we have proof of theexistence of a confederation of the Three Cantons in 1291,while the popular account dates its origin from the year 1314,and ascribes it to the events which are assigned to that time.Nay, fnore, ' there exist in contemporary records no instancesof wanton outrage and insolence on the Hapsburgside. It was the object of that power to obtain politicalascendency, not to indulge its representatives in lust orwanton insult. That it was so becomes all the more distinct,since there are plentiful records of disputes in which theinterests of "the two were mixed up with those of particularpersons.' In these quarrels, the Edinburgh Reviewer goesoncto say> the symptoms of violence, as is natural enough,appear rather on the side of the Swiss Communities than on*that of the aggrandising imperial house ;and the attack onthe abbey of Einsiedeln was treated 'not as a crime ofwhich the men of Schwitz were guilty, but as an act of warfor which the three Cantons were responsible as a separatestate/ The war of Swiss independence which followed thisevent was brought to an issue in the battle of Morgarfcen ;1The evidence of this connexion lias Confederation Suisse in the Edinburghbeen ably summarised by the writer of Review for January 1869, p. 134 et se^the article on Billict's Ongines de laVOL. II.H

98 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.The mythbut the documents which have preservedthe terms of peacesimply define the bounds of the imperial authority, withoutquestioning that itself. authority In all this there is noreal need of the exploits of Tell or rather there is no roomfor them, even if the existence of the Confederation werenot traced back to a time which according to the legendwould probably precede his birth.This legend, which makes Tell not less skilful as a boatmanWithout than as an archer, is not noticed by chroniclers who wouldfdSr 1 ladl y kave retailed the incidents of the setting up of thetion. ducal cap byGresler in the market place, of Tail's refusal todo obeisance to it, of his capture, and of the cruelty whichcompelled him to shoot an apple placed on his son's head, ofhis release during the storm on the lake that he might steerthe skiff, and finally of the death of Gesler by Tell's unerringshaft. When examined more closely, all the antiquities ofthe myth were found to be of modern manufacture. Thetwo chapels which were supposed to have been raised byeye-witnesses of the events were c trumpery works of a muchmore recent date/ and if the tales of the showmen weretrue, the place had * remained unchanged by the growth anddecay of trees and otherwise for six centuries and a half/Further, the hat set on a pole that all who passed by mightdo obeisance is only another form of the golden image set -upthat all might worship it on the plains of Dura, and here, asin the story of the Three Children, the men who crown thework of Swiss independence are three in number.utter im- Yet so important is this story as showing how utterlytyof the*Swissdestitute of any residuum of fact is the mythology intro-troduced into the history even of a well-known age, that I* ory ' feel myself justified in quoting the passage in which M.Rilliet sums up the argument proving the absolute impossibilityof the tale from beginning to end.'The internal history of the three valleys offers to theexistence of a popular insurrection which freed them fromthe tyranny of King Albert of Austria a denial which theconsequent conduct of this prince and that of his sons fullyconfirms. A revolt which would have resulted not onlyin defying his authority, but outraging itby the expul-

WILLIAM OF CLOUDESLEE. 99sion and murder of his officers, would not have been forone instant tolerated by a monarch not less jealous of hispower than resolute to make it respected. So when we seehim in the month of April 1308, when he went to recruit inTipper Germany for his Bohemian wars, sojourning on thebanks of the Limraat and the Reuss, and approaching thetheatre assigned to the rebellion, without making the slightestpreparation or revealing any intention to chastise its authors;when we find him at the same time entirely occupied incelebrating the festival of the Carnival with a brilliant trainof nobles and prelates ;when we find him soon afterwards,on April 25, confirming to the abbey of Zurich the possessionof domains comprehending the places which were thevery centre of the revolt; when we find him, six days later,regardless of revelations about the plot which was to costhim his life, banqueting with the sons and the nephew whosehands were already raised against him, and thence proceed,full of eagerness, to meet the queen who was on her way tojoin him,it seems impossible to admit that he was swallowingin silence an affront inflicted on him by insolent peasants,and which an inexplicable impunity could only render allthe more mortifying to his self-love and compromising to hisauthority.'The mythis thus driven off the soil of the Helvetian Other verrepublic.We find itgrowing as congenially in almost SHnthevery Aryan land, and in some regions which are not of TellAryanat all.It is the story of the ballad of Clym of the Olough,in which Oloudeslee performs not only the exploits assignedto Locksley inSir Walter Scott's * Ivanhoe/ but this verydeed of TelL Here the archer is made to say :I hare a Bonne seven years old :Bee is to me full deere:I will him to a staketyeAll shall Bee him that bee hereAnd lay an apple upon his head,And goe six paces him froe,And I myself with a broad arrowsShall cleave the apple in towe.'Hanging is to be the penalty in case of failure. The resultis of course as in the myth of Tell but the; sequel whichinvolves the actual death of the Vogt in that legend is repre-H2

100 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN S1TIOKS.sented in the English ballad by the hope which the king expressesthat he may never serve as a mark for Cloudeslee'sarrows. Here also Cloudeslee is one of a trio (along withAdam Bell and Clym of the Clough), which answers to theSwiss triumvirate ;and Grimm is fully justified in remarkingthat Cloudeslee's Christian name and Bell's surname exhibitthe two names of the great Swiss hero. 1By Saxo Grammaticus,a writer of the twelfth century, the story is told of Palnatoki,who performs the same exploit at the bidding of KingHarold Gormson, and who when asked by the king why hehad taken three arrows from his quiver when he was to haveonly one shot, replies, ' That I might avenge on thee theswerving of the first by the points of the rest.' In theVilkina Saga the tale is related, and almost in the sameterms, of * Egill, the fairest of men, 5 the brother of Yolundr,while in the Malleus Maleficarum it isour Wayland Smith,told of Puncher, a magician on the Upper Rhine. 8Anotherversion is seen in the Saga of Saint Olaf, who challengesEindridi, a heathen whom he wishes to convert, to the sametask, only leading the way himself. Olafs arrow grazes thechild's head, and the pleading of Eindridi's wife then inducesthe king to put an end to the contest. With some differencesof detail the legend reappears in the story of another Harold(Sigurdarson), in the eleventh century.opponent of the king isHere the rival orHeming, whose arrows, as Haroldremarks, are all inlaid with gold, like the arrows of Phoibos.Enraged at many defeats, the king at last dares Hemingto shoot a nut on the head not of his son but of his brother.Not less significant in some of its touches is the Faroesetradition, which attributes TelTs achievement to Geyti,Aslak's son, the king beingthe same who is confrontedbyHeming. Learning that Geyti is his match in strength,Harqld rides to the house of Aslak, and asking where his1 'Ansser den angefuhrten deutschen dem Konip, seinem siebenjahngen Sohnund nordischcn Erzahlungen lasfct sich einen Apfel auss haupt sulegen und 120noch eine altenglische in dem northum- Schritte weit herab zu schiessen'brischenLiedevonden drei Wildschutzen Grimm, JD.Myth. 355.Adam Bell, Clym, und Wtflwm of *The passages from these threeUoudesle aurweisen ;der letzte, dessen works are quoted at length bv 1)tVorname vie der Zuname des ersten, Dasent, Norse Tales, introduction wn isv xxiv. -Bdl, an Tell gemahnt, erbietet sich vor xxxix

OTHER VERSIONS OF THE MYTH OP TELL. 101youngest son is, receives for answer that he is dead andburied in the churchyard of Kolrin. The king insists onseeing the body, and the father replies that where so manylie dead it would not be easy to find the corpse of his son.But as Harold rides back over the heath, he meets a huntsmanarmed with a bow, and asking who he is, learns that itis the dead Geyti, who has returned to the land of the living,like Memn6n, or Euridyke, or Adonis. The story otherwisediffers little, if at all, from that of Heming, Mr. Gould,who like Dr. Dasent has thoroughly examined this subject,cites from Castren a Finnish story, in which, as in the Tellmyth, the apple is shot off a man's head ;but the archer (andthis feature seems specially noteworthy) is a boy of twelveyears old, who appears armed with bow and arrows amongthe reeds on the banks of a lake, and threatens to* shoot somerobbers who had carried off his father as a captive fromthe village of Alaj&rvL The marauders agree to yield upthe old man if the boy will do by him as Tell and Oloudesleedo by their sons. The legend at the least suggests a comparisonwith the myth of the youthful Chrys6r, who also isseen on the shore of the Delian sea 5while the twelve yearslook much like the ten years of the Trojan contest, the hoursof the night during which the sun lies hid from the sight ofmen until he comes forth ready for the work in which histriumph is assured. The myth might be traced yet further,if it were necessary to do so. In Dr. Dasent's words, c it iscommon to the Turks and Mongolians and a; legend of thewild Samoyeds, who never heard of Tell or saw a book intheir lives, relates it, chapter and verse, of one of theirmarksmen.What shall we say, then, but that the story ofthis bold master-shot was primaeval amongst manytribes andraces, and that it only crystallised itself round the greatname of Tell by that process of attraction which invariablyleads a grateful people to throw such mythic wreaths, suchgarlands of bold deeds of precious memory, round the browof its darling champion. 9 1Further still, it seems impossiblenot to discern the same myth in the legend which tells us ofthe Lykian SarpMdn, that when Isandros and Hippolochos1Norse T&Us, inteod. aautv.

102 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.The fartmSgod?disputed with each, other for the throne, hismother Laodameiaoffered him for the venture, when it was settled thatthe kingdom should belong tothe man who could shoot ahim. Thering from the breast of a child without hurtifcgtale is here inverted, and the shot is to be aimed at the childwho lies exposed like Oidipous on Kithairon, or Romulusamong the reeds of the Tiber, but who is as sure to escapethe danger as Tell and the others are to avoid the trap inwhich their enemies think to catch them.To*say more is but to slay the slain. William Tell, theg od archer, whose mythological character Dr. Dasent hasestablished beyond contradiction, is the last reflection of thesun-god, whether we call him Indra, or Apollo, or Ulysses.5 1SECTION XU.-THE VIVIFYING SUN.Flexible In strictness of speech the Vedic Vishnu is nothing but aname. The writers of then. Aitareya-brahinana could stillsay, c Agni is all the deities, Vishnu is aU the deities.' 2 Hencehe rises sometimes to a dignity greater even than that ofDyaus and Indra, while at others he is spoken of as subordinateto them, or is regarded as simply another form of thethree deities Agni, Vayu, and Surya. In some hymns he isassociated with Indra as Varuna is linked with Mitra, andDyaus with Prithivl.*Afl divine power, like that of the sky, was completelycommunicated to thee, Lidra, by the gods (or worshippers),when thou, impetuous deity, associated with Vishnu, didstslay Vritra 3Ahi, stopping up the waters.'In truth, itmay almost without exaggeration be said thatthe whole Vedic theology may be resolved into a series ofequations, the result being one quite consistent with a realmonotheism. Thus Vishnu is himself Agni and Indra.cThou, Agni, art Indra, bountiful to the excellent; thouart Vishnu, the 4wide-stepping, the adorable.'These are again identified with other gods:1Max Midler, Chips, &c. ii 233.* R. V. vii. 20, 2 ; Mmr, SansMtipF&l R Zkfr' PMax Mdlei, &MJM Lit. 391.art iv ch * * 1-* B. T. ii. 1, 3f ; Muir, ft.

THE STEIBES OF VISHNU. 103'Thou, Agni, art Varuna, when thou art born ;tliou artMitra, when thou art kindled; son of strength, in theereside all the gods: thou art Indra to the man who sacrifices.''Thou art Aryaman, when thou, self-controlled, possessestthe secret name of the maidens.' lAgni, again, although along with Indra, Soma, and Parameshthinhe is a son of Prajdpati,* is according to the samewriters Praj&pati himself,cThe man who became Praj&pati is the same as this Agniwho is kindled on the altar.'This name brings us at once to other equations, for Prajapatiis Daksha : he is also Time and Death.6The gods were afraid of this ender, death, the year whichis Prajapati, lest he should by days and nights bring on theend of our life.' *Elsewhere Praj&pati is Brahma*cThose men who know Brahma know him who occupiesthe highest place (Parameshthin): he who knows Parameshthinand who knows Praj&pati, they who know the ancientBrahinana (deity?), they know Skainbha.' 4It is scarcely necessary, then, to say that in all the phraseswhich describe the attributes of Yishnu, the origin of eachconception is plainly discernible. He is especially the godwho traverses the heaven in three strides, these strides beingtaken by some commentators to denote his manifestations asfire on the earth, as lightning in the atmosphere, and as thesun in heaven, or in other words, hisidentity with Agni,Vayu, and Surya. By others they are regarded as settingforth the rising, culmination, and setting of the sun ;andthere can be little doubt that the latter idea was at the firstmost closely associated with the thought of Vishnu.5 Itwould seem indeed that these gods are distinguished1onlyR. V. v. 8, 1 j Muir, San&k. Texts, porter or propper, vol i. j>. 37. Thispt. hr. ch. ii. sect. 1. Junction, Dr. Muir remarks, is frequentlya Stttapatha Brahmana, ad. I, 6; ascribed to Indra, Varujja, Vibtoju, andMuir, tt.Savitri.*The idea is obviously that of the 'Viahnu, thou didst prop asunderTexts, part p,Greek Kronus, who devours all his off- these two worlds ;thou didst orivelupespring.the earth on every side with beams ofMh. V. x. 7, 7 ; Muir, Sanskrit Texts,1light.JR. V. vii. 99, 3.part iv. p. 17. Skatnbha is the sup-' Muir, Sanskrit Iv. 57,

104: MYTHOLOGY OF THE AHYAN NATIONS.BOOKs^ ,1when the worshipper wishes to add to the titles of the being-whom he invokes in his litanies.6Agni, Varuna, Mitra, ye gods, giveus strength, and yehosts of Maruts, and Vishnu. May both the Asvins, Rudra,and the wives of the deities, with Pushan, Bhaga, and Sarasvati,be pleased with us.61 invoke for our protectionIndra and Agni, Mitra andVaruna, Aditi, heaven, earth and sky, the Maruts, the mountains,the waters, Vishnu, Pushan, Brahmanaspati, Bhaga,Samsa and Savitri.' And may Vishnu and the wind, uninjuring, and Soma,the bestower of riches, give us happiness.And may theRibhus, Asvins, Tvashtri and Vibhvan be favourable to us, soas to grant us wealth.' 1Dwarf in- Much of -the later mythology respecting Vishnu turns onthe Dwarf Incarnation, which may be compared with themyth of the maimed Eephaistos. In both cases the defectis simply a veil putting out of view the irresistible power ofthe god. The fire at its birth is weak, and its flame puny;the sun sheds but little warmth as he rests on the horizon athis rising 5and itmight well be said that none could tellhow vast a power lay in these seemingly weak and helplessbeings. So Vishnu, manifesting himself as the Dwarf, obtainsfrom the Asuras as much as he can lie upon, or asmuch as he can cover in three strides. It is thus that Bali,the great enemy of the gods, is overcome. Having conqueredthe three worlds, Bali terrifies Indra, who, with otherdeities, beseeches Vishnu to take the shape of a dwarf anddeceive their conqueror. Having in this shape approachedthe son of Virochana and obtained the boon of the threepaces, 'the thrice-steppingVishnu assumed a miraculousform, and with three paces took possession of the worlds.For with one step he occupied the whole earth, with asecond the eternal atmosphere, and with a third the sky.Having then assigned to the Asura Bali an abode in Patala(the infernal region), he gave the empire of the three worldsto Indra.' 2 In the MaMbb&rata this fact is ascribed to1 JR. 7. y. 46; Muir, Souk. 71 pt. iv,p 69. aRamyana, i. 322; Muir, i& 117.

DWARF GODS,10EKrishna, who, having become the son of Aditi, was called ^CHAP.Vishnu, 1 In the Bhagavata Purana the IIstory assumes pro- ^portions almost as vast as those of the god whom it seeks toglorify.No sooner has Bali granted the seemingly moderaterequest of Hari or Vishnu, than the body of the dwarf beginsto expand and fills the whole universe, and Bali is boundwith the chains of Varuna. 2This dwarf appears elsewherein the person of the child Kumftra, the son of Aushasi, thedaughter of the dawn.3 Thus throughout we are dealingwith phrases which the Hindu commentators knew to bemere phrases ;and thus without a thought of injustice doneto the deities whom he seemed to disparage, the worshippercould say that Varuna himself and the Asvins do the biddingof Vishnu, and that Vishnu is more beneficent than his chosencompanion Indra.6King Varuna and the Asvins wait on the decree of thisruler, attended by the Maruts : Vishnu possesses excellentwisdom, which knows the proper day, and with his friendopens up the cloud.*The divine Vishnu who has chosen companionship withthe beneficent Indra, himself more beneficent, the wise godhas gratified the Arya.'4And again,6Thou, Agni, art Indra, bountiful to the good ;thou artVishnu, the wide-stepping, the adorable.' 5So when Indra is about to smite Vritra, he is at once Majesty orepresented as bidding his friend Vishnu.Vishnu to stride vastly.*Friend Vishnu, stride vastly: sky, give room for thethunderbolt to strike ;let us slay Vritra and let loose thewaters.* 6Yet although in some passages Vishnu is described ashaving established the heavens and the earth, and assus-Muir, Santkrit Tfxte, pt.iv. p. 118. contempt The idea of mere dimmu-19 Id ib. p, 125, &c. tiveness issues at length in the stones* Id. ib. p. 284. The diminutive size of Tom Thumb: hut Tom Thumb is inof many of the heroes of popular tradi- reality &s little to be despised ua any4ion must be traced to this idea. Odys- other hero of Aryan legends.fieuo is small, when he stands, as com-* ft. 7. i. 156 , Muir, Sanskrit Texts,pared with Mcnelaos ' in other words part IT. p. 66.*he is Shortshanks (Grimm). Boots is Muir, ib.despised for his insignificant stature,* R. V. viii. 89, 12 j Muir, #. p, 68,and the Master Thief incurs the same.

106 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ABYAN NATIONS.taining the world by his own inherent force, still he is saidin others to make his .three strides through the power ofIndra,6When, Indra, the gods placed thee in their front in thebattle, then thy dear steeds grew.6When, thunderer, thou didst by thy might slay Vritrawho stopped up the streams, then thy dear steeds grew.'When by thy force Vishnu strode three steps, then thydear steeds grew/ lElsewhere we are told that mortal man cannot comprehendhis majesty.cNo one who isbeing born, or has been born, has attained,divine Vislmu, to the furthest limit of thy greatness,' aThe palace The personality of the mythical Vishnu is, in short, astransparent as ttat of Helios or gei ng. He dwells in theaerial mountains, in a gleaming palace where the manyhorned and swiftly moving cows abide. cHere that supremeabode of the wide-stepping vigorous god shines intenselyforth/ These cows are in some places the clouds, in others,the rays which stream from the body of the sun. But onthe whole itmust be admitted that the place of Vishnu inthe Rig Veda, as compared with the other great deities, is inthe background; and the institutional legendsof laterBrahmanic literature throw but little light on the mythical,idea of this deity, and perhaps none on the mythology ofany other people.As the supreme spirit,whose ten Avatars or Incarnations18 ?u ' are among the later developements of Hindu theology,Vishnu is associated or identified not only with Siva orMaHdeva, but with Eama in the Eamayana, and withKrishna in the Mab&bharata. 3 But the MaMdeva, withwhom he is thus identified, is himself only Varuna or Dyaus,under another name.

VISHNU AND KRISHNA. 107CHAP.r'-the months and the half-months of the seasons, the morning1and evening twilight, and the year.' Krishna, again, is -said to be sometimes a partial, sometimes a perfect manifestationof that god ;but the phrases in which Krishna isspoken of are as indefinite and elastic as those which speakof Agni, Indra or Vishnu, In some passages Krishna issimply a son of Devaki. But as Vishnu is also Brahma,so is Krishna also the supreme deity. 2 Elsewhere it is saidthat Brahma and MahMeva themselves proceed from Krishna,who again identifies himself with Eudra, although inother passages Eudra is described as mightier; 3 and ineach case commentators, as we might expect, are readywith the reasons which reconcile the seeming inconsistency.Like Vishnu, Krishna risesto greater importance in latertimes, and in far more abundant measure. The popularaffections were more and more fixed on the bright god whowas born in a cave, at whose birth the exulting devas sangin the heavens, whose life was sought by a cruel tyrant, andwho, like Zeus or Bferakles, had many loves in many lands.In this later theology the idea which regarded the sun as Emblemsthe generator of all life left the attributes of Vishriu 1by JJ^toTcomparison in the shade ;and the emblem thus especially worship ofassociated with this deity marks a singular stage in thehistory of religion. If the subject is one which must beapproached with the utmost caution, it is also one in whichwe are especially 'bound not to evade or misrepresent thefacts. If the form of faith, or rather it should be said, ofworship, with which we have now to deal, has prevailed inall lands and still prevails amongst a large majority of mankind,it becomes our duty to trace fairly, to the best of ourpower, its origin and growth, and to measure accurately theinfluence which it has exercised on the human intellect andon human morality. If in our search we find that phrasesand emblems, to which we now attach a purely spiritualsignification, have acquired this meaning gradually as theruder ideas which marked the infancy of the human race1Hair, Sanskrit Text8> pt ir. ch. ii. hare come down to lighten its load?'sect. 5, Wshnu Purana, H. H. Wilson, 519.* Id. #.'*p. 152. Do you not know/ Muir, Sans&nt Texts, part iv. pp.says Kriihna to Balarama, * that you and 2 1 4, 21 6, 239,I are alike the origin of the world, who* *tt'

1Max Muller, Semitic Monotheism/ Ctips, &c.,i. 378. See vol. i. ch. ii,108 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.Sensuous;languagefaded from the mind, we shall not allow old associations andprejudices to stand in the placeof evidence, or suffer thediscovery to interfere with or weaken moral or religiousconvictions with which these phrasesor emblems have noinseparable connexion. The student of the history of religioncan have no fear that his faith will receive a shockfrom which it cannot recover, if his faith is placed in Himwith whom there is no variableness nor shadow of turning,and whose work human passion can neither mar nor hinder.He can walk in confidence by the side of the student oflanguage and mythology, and be content to share his labour,if he hopes that such efforts may one day 'laybare theworld-wide foundations of the eternal 1kingdom of God.'In truth, the evidence which must guide us at the outset^ tlie k

THE VITAL POWERS OP 2TATUBE. 109sensuousness, inevitable in tlie infancy of the human race,consisted in ascribing to all physical objects the same lifeof which men were conscious themselves. They had everything to learn and no experience to fall back upon, whilethe very impressions made upon them by the sights andsounds of the outward world were to be made the means ofleading them gradually to correct these impressions andto rise beyond them to facts which they seemed to contradict.Thus side by side were growing up a vast mass ofnames which attributed a conscious life to the hosts ofheaven, to the clouds, trees, streams and flowers, and amultitude of crude and undefined feelings, hopes, and longingswhich were leading them gradually to the consciousacknowledgment of One Life as the source of all the lifewhich they saw around them. 1 The earliest utterances ofhuman thought which have come down to us belong to aperiod comparatively modern ;but even some of these, farfrom exhibiting this conviction clearly, express the fears andhopes of men who have not yet grasped the notion of anynatural order whatever. The return of daylight mightdepend on the caprice of the arbitrary being whom they hadwatched through his brilliant but brief journey across theheaven.The sun whose death they had so often witnessedmight sink down into the sea to rise again from it no more.The question eagerly asked during the hours of night betraya real anguish, and the exultation which greeted the dawn,if it appear extravagant to us, comes manifestly from menfor whom nature afforded but a very slender basis for argumentsfrom analogy.2But although the feeling of confidencein a permanent order of nature was of long or slowgrowth, the phenomena of nature suggested other thoughtswhich produced their fruit more quickly. The dawns as theycame round made men old, but the Dawn herself never losther freshness, and sprang from the sea-foam as fair as whenshe first gladdened the eyes of man* Men might sicken anddeath to them could notdie, but the years which broughtdim the light of the sun 5and this very contrast supplied, in'Max Mullet, 'Semitic Monotheism/ Chips, &c., i. 355.See vol. i. p. 41.

110 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.BOOK Professor Max Miiller's words, i the first intimation of beings3*-. ?' .' which, do not wither and decay of immortals, of immortality,31 When from this thought of the immortality ofother beings they awoke at length to the consciousness thatman himself might be among the number of immortal creatures,the feelingat once linked itself with another whichhad thus far remained almost dormant. To adopt oncemore the words of Professor Max Miller, 'by the very actof the creation God had revealed himself;' 2 but althoughmany words might be used to denote c that idea which thefirst breath of life, the first sight of the world,the firstconsciousness of existence, had for ever impressed and implantedin the human mind/ 3 the idea of a real relation withthis Unchangeable Being could be awakened in men onlywhen they began to feel that their existence was not boundedto the span of a few score years.Aryan and A twofold influence, however, was at work, and it pro-Mono- duced substantially the same results with the Semitic astheism.wfth the Aryan races. Neither could be satisfied with effectswhile seeking for a Cause ;and the many thoughts as to thenature of this Creative Power would express themselves inmany names.The Vedic gods especially resolve themselvesinto a mere collection of terms, all denoting at first differentaspects of the same idea ;and the consciousness of this factis strikingly manifested by the long line of later interpreters,A monstrous overgrowth of unwieldy mythology has sprungup round these names, and done it? deadly work on theminds of the common people ;but to the more thoughtfuland the more truthful, Indra and Varuna, Dyaus and Vishnu,remained "mere terms to denote, however inadequately, somequality of the Divine Nature. But the Yedic Indra andDyaus might have a hundred epithets, and alike in the Bastand West, as the meaning of these epithets was either inpart or wholly forgotten, each name came to denote a separatebeing, and suggested for him a separate mythical history.Thus the Hindu sun-god Surya was represented among theHellenic tribes not only by Helios and Phoibos, but by1 'Max Mller, Comparative Muholopy,' Chtpa t ii, 97.2 Id. 'Semitic!Monotheism,'11C%*, 302 Id, it to. 363.

POLYTHEISM AND MONOTHEISM.Herakles and Perseus, Theseus and Belleroph&n, Keplialos,Endymifin, Narkissos, Kadmos, Oidipous, Meleagros, Achilleus,Tantalos, Ixion, Sisyphos, and many more. The YedicDahanfi. reappeared not only as Daphnd and Athfinfi, butas EurydikO, Euryphassa, Iol, lokastfi, Dana6, Bris&s, Aphrodite,Europe, Euryganeia, with other beings, for most ofBut althoughwhom life had less to offer of joy than of grief.the fortunes of these beings varied indefinitely, althoughsome were exalted to the highest heaven and others thrustdown to the nethermost hell and doomed to a fruitless toilfor ever and ever, yi>t they were all superhuman, all beingsto be ihongl&t of with fear and hatred if not with love, andsome of them were among the gods who did the bidding ofZeus himself, or were even mighty enough to thwart hiswill. Thus those names remained no longer mere appellationsdenoting different aspects of the character of thesame being 5and from tho Dyaus, Theos, and Deus, ofHindus, Greeks, and Latins, sprung the Deva, Theoi, Dii,and the plural form stereotyped the polytheism of the Aryanworld. 1 The history of the Semitic tribes was essentiallythe same. The names whieh they had used at first simplyas titles of God, underwent no process of phonetic decay likethat which converted the name of the glistening ether intothe Vedic Dyaus and the Greek Zeus. The Semitic epithetsfor the Divine Being had never been simple names for naturalphenomena they were mostly general terms, expressing the;greatness, the power, and the glory of God. But though Eland Baal, Moloch and Milcom, never lost their meaning, theidea which their teachers may have intended to convey bythese terms was none the less overlaid and put out of sight.Each, epithet now became a special name for a definite deity,and the people generally sank into a worship of many godsae effectually as any of the Aryan tribes, and clung to itmore obstinately. Of the general monotheistic conviction,which M. R4nan regards as inherent in all "the Semitictribes, there is not the faintest trace* The gods of Labanare stolen by Eachel, and Jacob bargains with God in languagewhich not only betrays *a temporary want of faith/iMax Miiller, * Semitic Monotheism/ Chips,11. 300.

112 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.BOOKbut shows ' that the conceptionof God had not yet acquired-_ ^ - that complete universality which alone deserves to be calledIdeas and5 1monotheism, or belief in the One God.The recognition of beings powerful enough to injure, and^ perhaps placable enough to benefit, the children of men,illvolved ^ ^essity of a worship or cultus. They were allof them gods of life and death, of reproduction and decay, ofthe great mystery which forced itself upon the thoughts ofmen from infancy to old age.If the languageof poets ingeneral describes the phenomena of nature under metaphorssuggested by the processes of reproduction and multiplicationin the animal and vegetable world, the form which the ideawould take among rude tribes with a merely sensuous speechis sufficiently obvious. The words in which JEschylos andShelley speak of the marriage of the heaven and the earthdo but throw a veil of poetry over an idea which might easilybecome coarse and repulsive, while they point unmistakeablyto the crude sensuousness which adored the principle of lifeunder the signs of the organs of reproduction in the worldof animals and vegetables.The male and female powers ofnature were denoted respectively by an upright and an ovalemblem, and the conjunction of the two furnished at oncethe altar and the ashera, or grove, against which the Hebrewprophets lifted up their voice in earnest protest. It isclear that such a cultus as this would carry with it a constantlyincreasing danger, until the original character of theemblem should be as thoroughly disguised as the names ofsome of the Vedic deities when transferred to Hellenic soil.But they have never been so disguised in India as amongst2the ancient Semitic tribes ;and in the kingdoms both of1 'Max jMuller, Semitic Monotheism,' vanes greatly, and the coarser dovelopciiCfaps, 363 ments of the cultus are confined to a2 'Wie wemg das Altftrthum den comparatively small number. ProfessorBegriff der Unzucht mit die&em Biltle Wilson says that 'it is unattended iuverlmnd, Leweist, dass m den Eleusi- Upper Egypt by any indecent or indelimennur die Jimgfrauen die Wpfora cate ceremonies/ On(' Hindu Sects/tragen durften (Thucyd vi 56, Suid. Asiatic Review, vol. xvh.)i and Sips v *A|)|b]opfe)und des Phallus Ver- "William Jones remarks that * it seemsehrung selbst yon den Vestalischen never to have entered into the heads ofJungfrauen (Pirn, xxviii. 4, 7) ' Nork, the Hindu legislators and people thfttRecJ-WSrterbuclt s v. Phalluscult, 52 anything natural could be offensivelyEven -when the emblems still retain obscene a singularity which pervadesmore or less manifestly their original all their writings, but is no proof of thecharacter, the moral effect on the people depravity of their morals ; hence the

THE QUICKENING SUN. 113Judah and of Israel the rites connected with, these emblemsassumed their most corrupting form. Even in the Temple1itself stood the Ashera, or the upright emblem, on thecircular altar of Baal-Peor, the Priapos of thfr Jews, thus reproducingthe Linga and Toni of the Hindu. For this symbolthe women wove hangings, as the Athenian maidens embroideredthe sacred peplos for the ship presented to Atheneat the great Dionysiac festival. Here, at the winter solstice,they wept and mourned for Tammuz, the fair Adonis, doneto death by the boar, as SftrjiiiBai is poisoned by theEakshas' claw, and Eustem slain by the thorn of winter.Here also, on the third day, they rejoiced at the resurrectionof the lord of light.3Hence, as most intimately connectedwith the reproduction of life on earth, it became the symbolunder which the sun, invoked with a thousand names, hasbeen worshipped throughout the world as the restorer of thepowers of nature after the long sleep or death of winter.As such the symbol was from the first venerated as aprotecting power, and the Palladion thus acquired itsmagic pillarsworshipof the Linga by the followers ofSiva, and of the Yom by the followersof Vishnu. 1 Works, vol. ii. p. 311. InVO&. II. 3by this name is stated by Tzetzes andLykophron, 831. "Adam

114 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ABYAflT STATIONS.virtue. 1 So guarded, Jacob is content to lie down to sleepinMs weary journey to the house of Laban; and accordingto later Jewish tradition the stone so set up was carried toJerusalem, and there reverenced. But the erection of thesestone columns or pil&rs, 2 the forms of which in most casestell their own story,\re common throughout the East, someof the most elaborate being found near Ghizni.3 Thewooden emblem carries us, however, more directly to thenatural mythology of the subject. The rod acquired an in-and put forth leaves and branches in theherent vitality,Thyrsoi of the Dionysiac worshippers and* the Seistron 4 ofEgyptian priests. It became the tree of life, and reappearedas the rod of wealth and happiness given by Apoll&n toHermes, 5 the mystic spear which Abaris received from theHyperborean Sun-god, and which came daily to Phoibos inhis exile laden with all good things. It was seen as thelituusof the augur, the crooked staff of the shepherd, thesceptre of the king, and -the divining rod which pointed out6hidden springs or treasure to modern conjurors. In a form1The word denotes simply a figureof Pallas, and Pallas is but anotherform of Phallos. To the same classbelong the names of Pates, the Latingod of flocks and shepherds, and of theSicilian Palikoi The former is connectedwith the Roman Palatium, thespot doubtless where the emblem wassupposed to have been first set up. Thelatter are Dioskouroi, twin sons of Zeusand Thaleia, although they have ratherthe character of demonsand they might be combined in mnnyways 'Das Zeichon Schibtfs ein Triangel,mit der Spitze nach oben (A),das aufwarts strobende, Feuer versinnlichend,wie umgekehrt, des feuchtenWischnu Symbol das das abwarte{v)fliessende Wasser versinnhehend. Damitdie Welt geschaffen werde, mussteWischnu einst dem Schiba die Dienstedes Weibes leisten. Der monotheistisch'eIsraelit gab beide Zeichen demJehovah, wie der Judische TalismanzThey are the columns of Herakles,Dionyeos, Osiris and Sesostris TheScutum Davidis\genannt, beweist'-Nork, s. v. Schiba. We cannotstatements of Herodotos about thepillars set up by this last-named godare singularly significant. They are hesitate to connect with these columnsdistinctly connected with virile strength, the pillared Saints whether of the Eastalthough he supposes that they were or the West. The Stylite did not chooseerectedtoreceivemscriptions. Thenames thus to exalt himself without any reason.He found 'the column or pillar,ofthose nations, who had won a*reputatipnfor bravery, were carved on them Phallos, an objectof idolatrous reverence,without further marks

THE STAUEOS AND THE RING. 115which adhered still more strictly to the first idea the emblembecame the stauros or cross of Osiris, and a new source ofmythology was thus laid open. To the Egyptian the crossthus became the symbol of immortality, and the god himselfwas crucified to the tree which dAated his fructifyingpower. 1Rising from a crescent, the modified form of theYoni, the cross set forth the marriage of Ouranos and Gaia,of Vishnu and Sacti, of heaven and earth. But this crosswas itself a new symbol of the sun, and in the so-calledAssyrian representations of the moon-goddess the sun is exhibitedin human form standing on the crescent. More commonlythe plain stauros was joined with an oval ring, wasworn as an amulet, and was reproduced by the Christiansof Egypt as a sacred mark inserted in their inscriptions.In this form, or in that of a ring inclosing a cross of fourspokes, this emblem is found everywhere. It is peculiarneither to Egyptians nor Assyrians, neither to Greeks,Latins \ Gauls, Germans, or Hindus; and no attempt to explainits original employment by any one of these nations isadmissible, unless it explains or seeks to explain them forall We recognise the male symbol in the trident of Poseid6nor Proteus, and in the fylfot or hammer of Thor, whichassumes the form of a cross pattee in the various legendswhich turn on the rings of Freya, Holda, Venus, or AphroditS.In each of these stories the ring is distinctly connectedwith the goddess who represents the female powerin nature, or tells its own tale of sensuous passion. In oneof the latest of these stories a newly married youth at Borneplaces his wedding ring on a statue of Venus, and finds tohis dismay not only that he cannot it dislodge from herstony finger, but that the goddess herself claims to stand tohim in the refation of Aphrodit& to Adonis. 2 As we might(vesica piscia) being seen pendant fromthe pastoral or shepherd's staff. Jamiemagicring to be on their guard againstthe allurements of the beings whom hoson, Sacred and Legendary 4rt, p. 417. was about to raise by hip iuc,intntions.1Appendix 0.These beings are beautiful damsels, oneThis story is given by Fordun, of whom, singling out a youth, holdsMatthew of Westminster, Roger of out to him a ring of gold, which thoWendover, and Vincent of Beawais. youth touches, thus placing himself inMr. 0ould cites from CaesariuB Heister- her power. Curious Myths, i. '225.bachensis a tale, in which a necromancer See also fcicott, Border Min&tretsy', mtrowarnssome youths placed within a duction to ballad of Tamlane.

11CMYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.expect, this myth was transferred to the Virgin Mary, andthe knight whose ring she refuses to surrender looks uponhimself as betrothed to the mother of God, and dedicateshimself to her by taking the monastic vows. In the olderSaga of the Faroese this ring appears as that of Thorgerda,who allows Earl Eaton to draw it from her statue after hehad besought her for it with many tears. This ring Hakongives to Sigmund Brestesson, bidding him never to part withit. When Sigmund afterwards refused to yield it to Olaf,the Norwegian warned him that it should be his bane, andthe prediction was fulfilledwhen, for the sake of this ring,1Sigmund was murdered in his sleep. Finally, the symbolof the Phallos in its physical characteristics suggested theTree andserpentworship.form of the serpent, which thus became the emblem of lifeand healing, and as such appears by the side of the HellenicAsklgpios, and in the brazen crucified serpent venerated bythe Jewish people until it was destroyed by Hezekiah. 2Here then we have the key to that tree and serpent worshipwhich has given rise to much ingenious and not alto-JThis ring is the ' tetcrrima causa ' ofthe war of Troy (Horace, Sat. i. 3, 107),and carries with it the same doomwhich the marriage of Brynhild broughtto Sigurd the Volsung. With theselegends may he compared the story ofthe crown of the hero Astrabakos (Herodotos,vi. 69), the counterpart of theScottish myth of Tamlane Sir W.Scott (Border Mwstodsy, li. 266) citesfrom Gervase of Tilbury an account ofthe Dracae, a sort of water spirits, whoinveigled women and children into therecesses which they inhabit, beneathlakes and rivers, by floating past themon the surface of the water, in the shapeof gold ringsor cups and,remarks that1this story in almost all its parts iscurrent in both tbe Highlands and Lowlandsof Scotland, with no other variationthan the substitution of Fairies forDracaa, and the cavern of a hill [the'Horselberg] for that of a river 2 This symbol of the serpent reappearsin the narrative of the temptationand fall of Eve, the only differencebeing that the writer, far from sharingthe feelings of the devotees of Boalpeor,regarded their notions and theirpractices with tlie utmost horror; andthus Ins narrative exhibits the animalirdulgence inseparable from those,idolatrous rites, as destructive alike tothe body and the mind of man, Theserpent is therefore doomed to perpetualcontempt, and invested with some of thecharacteristics of Vritra, the snakeenemyof Indra. But Vritra is strictlythe biting snake of darkness ;and itis scarcely necessary to say, that theEgyptian serpent is the result of the samekind of metaphor which has given to theelephant the epithet of anguimanus.The phallic tree is also introduced intothe narrative of the book of Genesis :but it is here called a tree not of lifebut of the knowledge of good and evil,that knowledge which dawns in themind with the first consciousness ofdifference between man and woman.In contrast with this tree of carnalindulgence tending to death is the treeof life, denoting the higher existencefor which man was designed, and whichwould bring with it the happiness andthe freedom of the children of God. Inthe brazen serpent of the Pentateuchthe two emblems of the cross andserpent, the quiescent and energisingPhallos, are united.

THE'SEKPENT AND THE CROSS. 117gather profitable speculation.The analysis of language andof ideas wouldall that we know of the historical growth,prepare us for the developement of such a cultus. The conditionof thought which led men to use the names appliedfirst to the visible heaven or the sun as names for theSupreme God could not possibly make choice of any otheremblems to denote the power which maintains and multiplieslife. The cruder realism which suggested the image of theserpent 1 was in some degree refined in the symbol of the(stauros) tree, and the stake or cross of Osiris graduallyassumed a form in which it became capable of denoting thenobler idea of generous self-denial.But the cultus with visible emblems would, whether with SacrificesSemitic or with Aryan tribes, be but imperfectly developed JSu?*without sacrifice; and although the blood of slain victims worship,might be poured out to appease the power which couldrestore as well as destroy life, still there remained obviouslyanother sacrifice more in accordance with the origin of thesymbols employed to denote that power. It was possible toinvest with a religious character either the sensuality towhich the Jewish or Phenician idolatry appealed, or the impulsewhich finds its complete developement in a rigorousasceticism. In the former shape the idea was realised inthe rites of the Babylonian Mylitta, and in the vocation ofthe Hierodouloi of Greek and Hindu temples.2In the latterthe sacrifice was consummated by a vow of virginity, 3 andthe Gerairai and Yestal Virgins of the Athenians and theRomans became the type of the Catholic and Orthodox nun.1 'The learned and still living Mgr. had this origin, will probably beGaume CPraiti du Saint Esprit) joins conceded byall. But the idea ofOamerarras in the belief that serpents virginityfor men which has been debitewomen rather than "men/ Burton, veloped into Buddhist or Hebrew orTales of Indian Devilry, preface, p, xix. Christian monachism must be traced toThe facts already cited account fox the another source, and in my belief carriessuperstition. us back to that conviction of the utter2 Herod, i. 199. The passage is corruption of matter which lies at thetranslated by Mr. Eawlinson, Ancient root of all the countless forms of theEastern Monarches, iu. 465. Manichean philosophy. Latin and* In this case, they were devoted to Teutonic Christendom, ch. iii. In thethe service of Sacti, the female jpower: theory of monachism for Christianin the former they were the ministers women this conviction is blended withof Aphrodite*. That the 'institution of the older sensuous ideas which arethe virgin priestesses of Vesta and of sometimes painfully prominent inthe female devotees of Mylitta or Sacti language addressed to the spouses or

118 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.BOOK But the true mythology of the subject is connected rather>-..'/-., with the Toni than with the Linga. If the latter serves asa sign of power, the former becomes the image of unboundedSymbols ofwith.wea]t]l and fer tility. If the Linga is the sun-god in hismajesty, the Yoni is the earth who yields her fruit under hisfertilising warmth; and it thus represents the sum of allpotential existence. It is the ark which contains all theliving creatures of the earth, while the sun is hidden behindthe impenetrable rain clouds ; it is the Argo, which sheltersall the Achaian chieftains through the weary darkness oftheir search for the Golden Fleece. In this form the emblemat once exhibits mysterious propertiesakin tothose of theLinga, and passes into a legion of shapes, all closely resemblingthe original form, all possessing in greater or lessdegree a talismanic power, but all manifesting the presenceof the essential idea of boundless fertilitywhich the symbolwas specially adopted to denote. The Argoitself is divine.It was the work of a being akin to, if not identical with,Argos Panoptes,the all-seeing, who guards the heifer 16. Inits prow Ath6n, the dawn-goddess, herself places a pieceof wood 1from'the speaking oaks of Dodona, and the ship isthus endowed with the power of warning and guiding thechieftains who form its crew. This mystic vessel reappearsin the shell of Aphrodit3, and in the ship borne in solemnprocession to the Parthenon on the great Panathenaicfestival, 2 as the phallos was carried before the god in thegreat feasts of Dionysos. Over this ship floated the saffroncolouredrobe woven for itby the hands of Athenian maidens,as the women in the temple at Jerusalem wove hangings forthe Ashera of Baal. This ship againis the bark or boatbridesof the Lamb. The idea of nence in the Phrygian or Eastern mymonachismor asceticism for woman'thology, Nun erzahlt Arnobius, Oyprobablynever entered the head of bele habe mit ihrem Kleide den abge-Hindu or Buddhists theologians and sehnittenen Phallus des Attes bedeckt,philosophersem Gtebrauch, welcher in den Mysterien1Seemingly the Phallos, which gave der Isisgleichfalls vorkatn, denn zaher title of Pallas. In the issue this Byblos wurde im Tempel der Baaltispiece of wood, or pole,is as fatal to lason(Gottermutter) das heilige Holz (o\xfe,as the Staurog to Osiris, or the Mistletoepalus) von der Isis mit Leinwand betoBaldui. deekt PZwtf. de Is. c. 16. Nun wirdaucb8The connexion of the robe or veil die Bibelstelle (Ezech xvi. 17) klar,'with the Phallic emblem is brought out,as we might expect, with great promi-Nork, s. v. ' Attes/

THE SHIP OF ISIS. 119.shaped vessel of which Tacitus speaks as the symbol employedby the Suevi in the worship of Isis. Whether thisgoddess is to be identified with the Teutonic Ziza worshippedin the country about Augsburgis an indifferent matter. Itis more likely that the name is given from a resemblance ofattributes, as he calls Wuotan Mercury and Thor Mars.But it is strange that Tacitus should have satisfied himselfwith the remark, that the sign pointed simply to a foreigncultus brought across the sea, when not only was the samesymbol used in the Athenian processions of his own day, butthe voyage of Isis was marked in the Roman rustic calendaron the 5th of March. 1 This ship of Isis was, however,nothing more nor less than the vehicle of the earth-goddessHerth or Aerth, whose sacred island Tacitus mentions in thesame treatise. 2 Here too, as with the Ashera at Jerusalemand the ship of Ath6n&, the vehicle was carefully coveredwith a robe which no profane hand might touch, and carriedin procession drawn by cows. 31The parallelism of these myths waspointed out with singular accuracy byMr. Richard Price in his introduction4o the metaphor of -Eschylos, Septm & Jahrgotts, der aber in der Idee nurstirbt, weil er vom Todo wieder aufersteht,'Korykian cave m whichn. 754, and of Sophokles, 0. T. 1257,and to the gardens of Adonis. Themode in which, the advent of this shipwas greeted may be seen m A passagequoted at length by Grimm (D M 237)from the chronicle of Rudolph of StTnido, given in the Spicdeg'mm ofD'Achory. The rites wore Bacchic,throughout, and at the end the writeradds 'quae tune videres agere, nostrumest taccre et deflere, quibns modoepatingit graviter luere/ Not lesssignificant s& to the meaning of theplough carried about after a like sort, isthe statement of another chronicler,'Mos erat antiquitus Lipsiseut Liberalibus(um Bacchusfest, d. i.Fassnachts)personati juvenes per vicos oppidiaratrum circumducerent, puellas obviasper lasciviam ad illius jugum aecedereetiara repugnantes cogerent, hoc velutiludicro pcenam expetentes ab iis quse innuptfl&adeumusque diem man&issent.'Grimm, 5. 243.a These ships, chests, or boats arethe icforttt fLwriKctl, of the Mysteries, andwe see them in the chest or coffin ofOsiris, 'das Grab

120 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ABYAtf NATIONS.BOOK Scarcely altered, this vessel reappearsin the Lotos of^- _, Hindu and Egyptian mythology, the symbol of the earth-The Lotos, and its fecundation. In this form it is the seat of the childColletsad horns.^Harpichruti (Hatpotrates) and of Bhay&nana or Mahakali,.the sanguinary deity of later Hindu worship and the patrongoddess of the Thugs. The eating of the lotos is thus theeating of the forbidden fruit, and the Lotophagoi of theOdyssey are an example of unrestrained sensuality, and awarning to all who care for higher things not to imitatetheir selfish pleasures, and so forget their children and theirtome. 1In the folk-lore of the Deccan the vessel is represented bycan of tte mukwoman ,the kindly Dm6tr, into which,the beautiful SuryS, Bai falls in the form of a mango whenthe fruit is ripe.As a cup, this sign reappears in a vastnumber of myths. It is the golden cup into which Heliossinks when his journey is done. It is the crater or mixingbowl in which tita Platonists spoke of the Demiourgos asmingling the materials of the future Eosmos. It is thehorn of Amaltheia, the nurse of Zeus, who gave to it thepower of supplying to its possessor all that he could desireto have. This horn reappears in the myths of Bran, andCeridwen, and Huon of Bordeaux, to whom Oberon gives ahorn which yields the costliest wine in the hands of a good2man only. The talismanic power of this horn is still farthershown in the prose romance of Tristram, when the liquoriftdashed over the lipsof any guilty person who ventures tolift it to his mouth, and in the goblet of Tegan Euroron, thewife of Oaradoc of the strong arm. 3It is seen again in theZeus is "bound till Hermes (the breath the prohibition, also attributed to P^poflife) comes to rescue him, and in the thagoras, to abstain from fish, in con-"boats in which the bodies of Elaine and nexion with the purpose especially as-Arthur are laid in the more modern cribed to him, and the ascetic disciplineromance. JNork, s. v. 'Arche.' which he is said to have established.1This prohibition to eat the lotus, It will scarcely be maintained that thesesuggestsa comparison with the so-calledprecepts, in a peculiarly esoteric system,Pythagorean precept to abstain from are to be interpreted literally. The-"beans. Whether the word ictfa/ios belong technical meanings acquired by theto the same root which has yielded rf, words wfajuoj and Kvapifa seem to pointxvfa, %a, KV/W, or not, the word in the same direction.

CUPS AND MIRRORS.inexhaustible table of the Ethiopians, in the dish of Ehydderchthe Scholar, in the basket of G-wyddno, in which fooddesigned for one becomes an ample supply for a hundred;in the table round which Arthur and his peers hold highrevelry 5in the wishing-quern of Frodi; 1 in the lamp ofAflah-ud-deen, which does tlie bidding of its owner throughthe Jin who is its servant ;in the purse of Bedreddin Hassan,which the fairy always keeps filled in spite of his wastefulness;in the wonderful well of Apoll&n Thyrxis in Lykia,2which reveals all secrets to those who look into it. Thismysterious mirror is the glass vessel of Agrippa, and of thecruel stepmother in the German tale of Little Snow-white,who, like Brynhild, lies iix a death-like sleep, guarded undera case of ice by dwarfs until the piece of poisoned applefalls from between her lips 5and we see it again in the cupsof Ehea and D&n6tr ?the milkwoman or the gardener's wifeof Hindu folk-lore, and in the modios of Serapis.It becomest]ae receptacle of occult knowledge. Before the last desperatestruggle with, the Spartans, Aristomenes buried in the mostsecret nook of m6unt Ithom.6 a treasure which, if guardedcarefully, would insure the restoration of Mess6n& Whenthe battle of Leuktra justified the hopes of Aristomenes, theArgive Epiteles saw a vision which bade him recover the oldat her last gasp beneath the sodswoman wlio was well nighHis search was rewarded by the discovery of aof IthomS.water-jar, in which was contained a plate of the finest tin.On this plate were inscribed the mystic rites for the worshipEdenhall. "When it was seized by one- perity from the wonderful quern, allowofthe family of Musgrave, the fairy ing them no sleep longer than while thetrain vanished, crying aloud, cuckoo was silent. At ainst^^ length they'If this glass do break or fall S* ound a &*** armv a ,g anda ** km slew him $,***&& off &**,Farewell the luck of Edenhall:booty, and with it the quern and theThe goblet,it is said, narrowly escaped two slaves. These were now made tobeing broken, when it fell from the grind white salt in the ships, till theyhands of the Duke of Wharton, Of sank in Pentland Firth. There is evercourse it was caught in its fall by bis since a whirlpool where the sea fallsbutler, and the old idea of its inherent into the quern's eye. As the quernfertility remained in the fancy that 'the roars, so does the sea roar, and thus itlees of wine are still apparent at the was that the sea first became salt.'bottom/ Scott, Border Mmsbrdsy, ii. Thorpe. Translation of Srniun^B Edda,277. ii. 150. See also the story 'Why the1 'When Fr&di, the Norse king, pro- Sea is Salt/ m Dasent's Norse Tales.claimed his peace, he set two women * Fans, vii. 21, 6.slaves to grind gold, peace, and pros-

122 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAJST NATION'S.1of the great gods. The same wonderful ewer or goblet ofthe sun was bestowed in the Persian legend on Jemshid, andexplained the glories of his magnificent reign. The samevessel is the divining cup of 2Joseph ;and in late traditions itreappears in the tale which relates how Eehoboam inclosedthe book containing his father's supernatural knowledge inan ivory ewer and placed it in his tomb. The fortunes ofthis vessel are related by Flegetanis, who is said to have tracedup his genealogy on the mother's side to Solomon and Mr.;Price 3 has remarked that it will be ' no matter of surprise tothose who remember the talismanic effect of a name in thegeneral history of fiction, that a descendant of this distinguishedsovereign should be found to write its history, orthat another Joseph should be made the instrument of con-,veying it to the kingdoms of Western Europe/This mysticvessel, the Sangreal of Arthurian legend, is at once a storehouseof food as inexhaustible as the table of the Ethiopians,and a talismanic test as effectual as the goblets of Oberonand Tristram. The good Joseph of Arimathsca, who hadgathered up in it the drops of blood which fell from the sideof Jesus when pierced by the centurion's spear, was nourishedby it alone through his weary imprisonment of two and fortyyears ;and when at length, having either been brought byhim to Britain, or preserved in heaven, it was carried byangels to the pure Titurel and shrined in a magnificenttemple, it supplied to its worshippers the most delicious food,1Paus ir 20, 26. With thismay heir, and even raised the dead It wasbe compared the legend of the great in fact the counterpart of the SangreaLwizard Michael Scott. In this case tho The cruder form of the myth is scon inMighty Boot is found not in an ewer, the legend of the Caldron of Ceridwen,but in the hand of the magician. Still the Keltic Demeter. This story is giventhe boat-shaped vessel is not wanting, by Mr. Gould (Curious Myths,ii. 835),The magic lamp (it is a lamp in the who adds that 'this vessel of the liquorstory of Allah-ud-deen) is at his knee ,of wisdom had a prominent place inand as the sepulchre isopened, tfte British mythology/ Sir Walter Scottlight bursting forth,remarks, that m many Scottish legendsStreamed xipwArd to the chancela roof, ^inking tora *ill prove a conro-And through the galleries far aloofc P ia of g od fortune to any one whoNo earthly flame blazed e'er soan snateh Iljbright, ?from ** frkies and bfrafrlfcIt shone like heaven's own blessed across a light. running stream As ttaemblem. fJ * -r *. this , . cup is combined with the8

THE SANGKEAL. 123and preserved them in perpetual youth.As such, it differsin no way from the horn of Amaltheia, or any other of theoval vesselsHindu Sacti.which can be traced back to the emblem of theWe should be prepared, therefore, to find inthe many forms assumed by the Arthurian myth some tracesof its connexion with the symbol of the fecundating power innature; nor is this expectation disappointed. The symbolof the sun has already appeared as a lance, spear, or tridentin the myths of Abaris and Poseid6n ;and in this form itis seen again in the story of the Holy Grail, when Sir Galahadis to depart with it from the Logrian land. As with his comradeshe sups in the palace of King Pelles, he seeslight, ina greatwhich he beheld four angels supporting an agedman clad in pontifical garb, whom they placed before a tableon which lay the Sangreal.* This aged prelate was Josephof" Arimathaea, the first bishop of Christendom." Then theother angels appeared bearing candles and a spear, fromwhich fell drops of blood, and these drops were collected byangels in a box. ^Then the angels set the candles upon thetable, and " the fourth set the holy speare even upright uponthe vessel," as represented on an ancient churchyard crucifix,in rude sculpture, at Sancreed in Cornwall. 5 1This mysteriousWhen Sirspear is constantly seen throughout the legend.Bors had seen the Sangreal in the house of Pelles, he wasled into a fair chamber, where he laid himself in full armourcon the bed.And right as he saw come in a light that hemight wel see a speare great and long which come straightupon him point-long.' 2 Indeed the whole myth exhibitsthat unconscious repetition and reproduction of the sameforms and incidents which is the special characteristic of theGreek dynastic legends. Perceval, in the episode of Pecheur,the Fisher-king, answers to Sir Galahad in the quest of theSangreal.In both cases the work can be done only by apure-minded knight, and Perceval as well as Galahad goes insearch of a goblet, which has been stolen from the king'stable. The sick king, whom he finds lying on his couch,has been wounded while tryingto mend a sword broken1Mr. Gould, from whom these words emblem. Curious Myths, n 348.ate quoted, gives a drawing of this* Morte 'Arthurs. Gould, ai. 3-tQ.

124 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.Gradual]in her former beauty until the night is spent,by his enemy Pertinax, and Perceval alone can mate itsound, as Theseus only can recover the sword and sandalsof his father Aigeus. The title of the Fisher-king suggestsa comparison with that of Bheki in the Hindu legend andthe Frog-prince of the German story.The latter denotes thesun as it rests upon the water and as BheM cannot;reappearso the Fisherkingcannot regain his health until Pertinax has been slain.He is avenged by Perceval, who bears away the holy vesseland the bleeding lance as the reward of his prowess: Anearlier heathen version of this story is found in the legendof Pheredur, in which the boat-shaped vessel appears withthe head of a man swimming in blooda form which carriesus to the repulsive Maha Kali of later Hindu mythology.In the myth of Erichthonios we have a crucial instanceof a coarse and unseemly story produced by translating intothe language of human life phrases which described mostinnocently and most vividly some phenomena of nature. Inthe myth of the Sangreal we see in. the fullest degree theworking of the opposite principle. For those who firstsought to frame for themselves some idea of the greatmystery of their existence, and who thought that they hadfound it in the visible media of reproduction, there wasdoubtless far less of a degrading influence in the cultus ofthe signs of the male and female powers and the exhibitionof their symbols than we might be disposed to imagine. Butthat the developement of the idea might lead to the mostwretched results, there could be no question. No degradationcould well be greater than that of the throngs whohurried to the temples of the Babylonian Mylitta. But wehave seen the myth, starting from its crude and undisguisedforms, assume the more harmless shape of goblets or horns;of plenty and fertility, of rings and crosses, of rods andspears, of mirrors and lamps.It has brought before us th&mysterious ships endowed with the powers of thought andspeech, beautiful cupsrest, the staff of wealth and plentyin which the wearied sun sinks ix>with which Hermesguides the cattle of Helios across the blue pastures of heaven,the cup of D&mSt&r into which the ripe fruit casts itself by

MYSTERIES. 125an irresistible impulse.We have seen the symbols assnmethe character of talismanic tests, by which the refreshingdraught is dashed from the lips of the guilty; and, finally, inthe exquisite legend of the Sangreal the symbols have becomea sacred thing, which only the pure in heart may seeand touch.To Lancelot who tempts Guenevere to be faithlessto Arthur, as Helen was unfaithful to Menelaos, iteither remains invisible, or is seen only to leave him stretchedsenseless on the earth for his presumption. The myth whichcorrupted the worshippers of Tammuz in the Jewish templehas supplied the beautiful picture of unselfish devotionwhich sheds a marvellous glory on the career of the pureSir Galahad. 1No idea is, however, more prominent in most of the shapes Aryan andwhich the myths connected with the Linga and Toni have em jti

126 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARTA3T NATIONS.the Hellenic tribes were not substantially identical withthose of other Aryan and Semitic tribes ? BishopThirlwallis contented to express a doubt whether the Greek mysterieswereever used * for the exposition of theological doctrinesdiffering from the popularcreed/ Mr. Grote's conclusionis more definite. In his judgment it is to the last degreeimprobable that e any recondite doctrine^ religious or philosophical,was attached to the mysteries, or contained in theholy stories ' of any priesthood of the ancient world. If bythis recondite teaching be meant doctrines relating to thenature of God and the Divine government of the world, theirjudgments may perhaps be in accordance with fact but it;can scarcely be denied that the thoughts aroused by theof the difference between man and woman arerecognitionamong the most mysterious stirrings of the human heart,and that a philosophy which professed to reconcile the naturalimpulses of the worshippers with the sense of right andduty would carry with it a strange and almost irresistible fascination.The Corinthian AphroditS had her Hierodouloi,the pure Gerairai ministered to the goddess of the Parthenon-^and the altar of the Latin Yesta was tended by her chosenvirgins. A system which could justify these inconsistenciesin the eyes of the initiated, and lead them to discern differentforms of the same sacrifice in the purityof the one and theabandonment of the other, might well be said to be based ona recondite, though not a wholesome, doctrine.Nor, indeed,is it supposed that the character of the Hellenic mysterieswasless dramatic than those of Egypt or Hindustan. Everyact of the great Eleusinian festival reproduced the incidentsof the myth of Dmtr, and the processions of Athn andDionysos exhibited precisely the same symbols which markedthe worship of Vishnu and Sacti, of the Egyptian Isis andthe Teutonic Hertha. The substantial identity of the ritesjustifies the inference of a substantial 1identity of doctrines.1'In den Eleusinischen Mystenen Dieslasstvoraussetzen, dass desgleicheawurde ein Phallus entblosst xind den in den Eleusmien wirkHcJi geschah, wasEingeweihten gezeigt (Tert. ad Valent. mann also r& iepk Sctovofai nanute.p 289): und Demeter wird ^dadurch, Vgl. Lobek. Aglaoph. p. 49.^Nork,dass Banbo ihre KTels entblosst, zur iv. 53. The form of dismissal at theEeiterkeit gestimmt. Clem. Al. Protr. Eleusinian mysteries, icbyg fywra& hasp. 16; AxjQob. adv. Ghent, v. p 218. been identified by some with the

THE ELEUSItflAN MYSTERIES. 127It isno accident which, has given to Iswara Arghanautha,the Hindu Dionysos, an epithet which makes him the lordof that divine ship which bore the Achaian warriors fromthe land of darkness to the land of the morning.The testimonyof Theodoret, Arnobios, and Clement of Alexandria,that an emblem similar to the Toni was worshipped in themysteries of Eleusis needs no confirmation when we rememberthat the same emblem was openly carried in processionat Athens. The vases in the Hamiltonian collectionat the British Museum leave us as littlein doubt that thepurification of women in the Hellenic mysteries agreed closelywith that of the Sacti in the mysteries of the Hindus. Thatornaments in the shape of a vesica have been popular in allcountries as preservatives against dangers, and especiallyfrom evil spirits,can as little be questioned as the fact thatthey still retain some measure of their ancient popularity inEngland,where horse-shoes are nailed to walls as a safeguardagainst unknown perils, where a shoe is thrown byway of good-luck after newly married couples, and wherethe villagers have not yet ceased to dance round the Maypoleon the green.It may be confidentlysaid that the facts now stated Realfornish a clue which will explain all the phenomena of treeJ^J'JJJJfand serpent worship. The whole question is indeed one of serpentfact, and it is useless to build on hypothesis. If there isanyone point more certain than another, it is that, wherevertree and serpent worship has been found, the cultus of thePhallos and the Ship, of the Linga and the Toni, in connectionwith the worship of the sun, has been found also.is impossible to dispute the fact; and no explanation can beaccepted for one part of the cultus which fails to explain theother. It is unnecessary, therefore, to analyse theories whichprofess to see in it the worship of the creeping brute or thewide-branched tree. A religion based on the worship of thevenomous reptilemust have been a religion of terror ;in theearliest glimpses which we have of it, the serpent is1a symbolof life and of love. Nor is the Phallic cultus in any respect aItvors lp"of'Canflha Om Pacsha/ with which the Brahmons close their religious services.Nork,i. vii.

form'128 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.BOOK cultus of the full-grown and branching tree. In its earliestv^,the symbol is everywhere a mere stauros, or pole ; andalthough this stock or rod budded in the shape of the thyrsosand the shepherd's staff, yet even in its latest developementsthe worship is confined to small bushes and shrubs anddiminutive plants of a particular kind. Nor is it possibleagain to dispute the fact, that every nation at some stage orother of its history has attached to this cultus precisely thatmeaning which the Brahman now attaches to the Linga andthe Toni. That the Jews clung to it in this special sensewith vehement tenacity isthe bitter complaint of the pro-phets; and the crucified serpent, adored for its healingpowers, stood untouched in the temple until it was removedand destroyed by Hezekiah. This worship of serpents 'voidof reason,' condemned in the Wisdom of Solomon, probablysurvived even the Babylonish captivity. Certainly it wasadopted by the Christians who were known as Ophites,Gnostics, and Kicolaitans. In Athenian mythology theserpent and the tree are singularly prominent. Kekrops,Erechtheus, and Erichthonios, are each and all serpentinein the lower portion of their bodies. The sacred snake ofAth6n had its abode in the AkropoJis, and her olive-treesecured for her the victory in her rivalry with Poseid&n.The health-giving serpent lay at the feet of AsHpios, andsnakes were fed in his temple at Epidauros and elsewhere. 1

BULL AND THE SERPENT. 129way thus completely before those of life, healing, and safety,is obvious enough ;and the latter ideas alone are associatedwith the serpent as the object of adoration. The deadlybeast always was, and has always remained, the object ofthe horror and loathing which is expressed for Ahi, thechoking and throttling snake, the Vritra whom Indra smiteswith his unerring lance, the dreadful Azidahaka of theAvesta,the Zohak or biter ofmodern Persian mythology,the serpentswhom Herakles strangles in Ms cradle, thePython, or Pafnir, or Grendel, or Sphinx, whom Phoibos, orSigurd, or Beowulf, or Oidipous, smite and slay.That theworship of the serpent has nothing to do with these evilbeasts is abundantly clear from all the Phallic monumentsIn the topes of Sanchi and Amravatiof the East or Westthe disks which represent the Toni predominate in everypart of the design the;emblem is worn with unmistakeabkdistinctness by every female figure carved within these disks,while above the multitude are seen, on many of the disks, agroup of women with their hands resting on the Linga,which they uphold. It may, indeed, be possible to trace outthe association which connects the Linga with the bull inSivaism, as denoting more particularly the male power,while the serpent in Jainaism and Vishnavism is found withthe female emblem the Toni. So again in Egypt, some maydiscern in the bull Apis or Mnevis the predominance of themale idea in that country, while in Assyria or Palestine theserpent or Agathos Daimon is connected with the altar ofBaal. These are really questions of no moment. The historicalinquiry is ended when the origin of the emblems hasbeen determined.'For the student who is willing to be taught bythe facts The eduwhichhe regards as ascertained, thischapter in the historyof human thought will involve no more perplexity than thefeet that there was a time when human speech had none butsensuous words, and mankind, apparently, none but sensuousideas.If from these sensuous words have been evolved termscapable of expressing the highest conceptions to which thehuman mind has yet risen, he may be well content to acceptthe condition of thought which fastened on the processes ofVOL. u.

130 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAff NATIONS.natural reproductionas a necessary stagein the education ofman. If our limbs are still shackled and our movementshindered by ideas which have their root in the sensuousuessof the ancient language, we shall do well to remember thata real progressfor mankind might in no other way havebeen possible.If the images of outward and earthly objectshave been made the means of fillinghuman hearts andminds with the keenest yearnings for Divine truth, beauty,and love, the work done has been the work of God.SECTION XIILTEE SUN-GODS OF LATER HINDUMYTHOLOGY.ParentageIf it be urged that the attribution to Krishna of qualitiesor powers belonging to other deities is a mere device bywhich his devotees sought to supersede the more ancientgods, the answer must be that nothing is done in his casewhich has not been done in the case of almost every othermember of the great company of the gods, and that the systematicadoption of this method is itself conclusive proof ofthe looseness and flexibility of the materials of which thecumbrous mythology of the Hindu epic poems is composed.As being Yishnu, Krishna performs all the feats of that god.cAnd thou, Krishna, of the Ydava race, having becomethe son of Aditi and being called Vishnu, the youfcgerbrother of Indra, the all-pervading, becoming a child, andvexer of thy foes, hast by thy energy traversed the sky, the51atmosphere, and the earth in three strides.He is thus also identified with Hari or the dwarf Vishnu,ofKrishna. a m^ ^^ carries ns t fl^ Of ^e ^a Hermes as wellas to the story of the limping Hephaistos.As the son ofBanda, the bull, he is Govinda, a name which gave rise intimes later than those of the MaMbh&rata to the stories ofhis life with the cowherds and his dalliance with their wives;but in the MaMbhrata he is already the protector of c&iitl$,and like Herakles slays the bull which ravaged the tL&icts.*His name Krishna, again, isConnected with another parentage,which makes him the progeny of the black hair of Hari,1 fKuir, $$w&nt Texts, part iy. p, 118. * ft. 206.

KRISHNA, RUDRA, AND VISHNU. 131the dwarf Vishnu. 1 But he is also Hari himself, and Hariis Narayana, 'the god who transcends all, the minutest ofthe minute, the vastest of the vast, the greatest of the great.1Li short, the interchange or contradiction is undisguised, for*he is the soul of all, the omniscient, the all, the all-knowing,the producer of all, the god whom the goddess Devaki"bore to Vishnti. 2 Elsewhere Krishna speaks of himself asthe maker of the Eudras and the Vasus, as both the priestand the victim, and adds,'Know that Dharma (righteousness) ismy beloved firstbornmental son, whose nature is to have compassion on all-creatures. In his character I exist among men, both presentand past, passing through manyvarieties of mundaneexistence.I am Yishnu, Brahma, Indra, and the source aswell as the destruction of things, the creator and the annihilatorof the whole aggregate of existences. While allmen live in unrighteousness, I, the unfailing, build up the3bulwark of righteousness, as the ages pass away/ As suchhe is not generated by a father. He is the unborn.The character of Eudra, thus said to be sprung from KrishnaKrishna, is not more definite. As so produced, he is Time, andElldia'and is declared by his father to be the offspring of hisunger. 4 But in the character of Mah&deva, Eudra is worshippedby Krishna, and the necessary explanation is thatin so adoring him Krishna was only worshipping himself.5Eudra, however, is also Narayana, and Siva the destroyer.There is no difference between Siva who exists in the formof Vishnu, and Vishnu who exists in the form of Siva, justas in the form of Hari and Hara Vishnu and MahMeva arecombined.* He who is Vishnu is Eudra jhe who is Eudra,is Pittoaha (Brahma, the great father) 5the substance isone, the gods are three, Eudra, Vishnu and Pit&maha. .Just as water thrown into water can be nothing else thanwater, so Vishnu entering into Eudra must possess thenature of Eudra. And just as fire entering into fire can benothing else but fire, so Eudra entering into Vishnu mustpossess the nature of Vishiiu. Eudra should be understood to1Muir, Sanskrit Texts, ptiv* p. 221.a#. 224.* jfe. 235.*A. 20$.K2* fa 225.

132 MYTHOLOGY OF THE 'ARYAN NATIONS.possess the nature of fire Yishnu :is declared to possess thenature of Soma (the Moon) ;and the world, moveable andimmoveable, possesses the nature of ]Agni and Soma/Vishnu It is the same with Bama, who is sometimes producedand Rama. &Qm ^ j^ of yj^^g ^^ power, and sometimesaddressed by Brahma as tfthe source of being and cause ofdestruction, TJpendra and Mahendra, the younger and theelder Indra.' 2 He is Skambha, the supporter, andTrivikrama,the god of three strides.3 But the story of his wife-Sita who is stolen away and recovered by Eama after theslaughter of Bavana runs parallel with that of SaramA and!Pani, of Paris and Helen.Hindu This cumbrous mysticism leads us further and furtherThe storya 'mysticism,from the simpler conceptions of the oldest mythology, inwhichBudra is scarcely more than an epithet, applied sometimesto Agni, sometimes to Mitra, Varuna, the Asvins, orthe Maruts.cThou, Agni, art Budra, the deity of the great sty. Thouart the host of the Maruts. Thou art lord of the sacrificialfood. Thou, who hast a pleasant abode, movest onwardswith the 54ruddy winds.It was in accordance with the general course of Hindu mythologythatthegreatnessof Budra, who is sometimes regardedas self-existent, should be obscured by that of his children.The two opposite conceptions, which exhibit Heraldes inone aspect as a self-sacrificing and unselfish hero, in anotheras the sensual voluptuary, are brought before us with singularprominence in the two aspects of Krishna's character.The being who in the one is filled with divine wisdom andlove, who offersup a sacrifice which he alone can make, whebids his friend Arjuna look upon him as sustaining allworlds by his inherent life, is in the other a being not muchmore lofty or pure than Aphrodit or Adonis. If, like thelegends of the Egyptian Isis and Osiris, the myth seems tolend itself with singular exactness to an astronomical interpretation,it also links itself with manystories of otherAryan gods or heroes, and thus throws on them a light all1Muir, Sanslmt Texts, pt. ir ap. 237.Ib> 146, 250.*R. 7. ii, 1, 6 ; Muir, Sanskrit Texts, pt.IT.p 257.* jf&. 151,

THE BIRTH OF KRISHNA. 13$ihe more valuable from the independent developements ofthese several myths from a common germ.Thus if Pausaniasspeaks of Dionysos Antheus, Krishna also is Vanamali,the flower-crowned. If HeraHes smites Antaios, Krishnaoverthrows the giant Madhu, and the cruel tyrant ofMadura. Lite Oidipous, Romulus, Perseus, Cyrus and others,i.e is one of the fatal children, horn to be the ruin of theirsires ;and the king of Madura, like Laios, is terrified by theprediction that his sister's son shall deprive him of histhrone and his life. It is but the myth of Kronos and Zeusin another form.The desire of Kamsa is to slay his sister,but her husband promises to deliver all her children into thehands of the tyrant. But although six infants were thusplaced in his power and slain, he shut up the beautifulDevaki and her husband in a dungeon; and when theseventh child was about to be born, Devaki prays, like Bhea,that this one at least may be spared. In answer to herentreaty, Bhavani, who shields the newly-born children,comes to comfort her, and taking the babe brings it to thehouse of Nanda, to whom a son, Balarama, had been born."When Devaki was to become for the eighth time a mother,Kamsa was again eager to destroy the child. As the hourdrew near, the mother became more beautiful, her formmore brilliant, while the dungeon was filled with a heavenlylight as when Zeus came to Dana in a golden shower, andthe air was filled with a heavenly harmony as the chorus ofhe gods, with Brahma and Siva at their head, poured forththeir gladness in song.1All these marvels (which the BhagavataPurana assigns to the birth of the child) are reportedto Kamsa by the warders, and his jealousy and fear aare1This song would of itself suffice to cities, Tillages, hamlets, and towns ; allprovehow thoroughly Krishna, like Dyu, the fires, waters, and winds; the stars,Indra, Varurja, Agni, or any other astensms, and planets the , sky crowdednames, denotes the mere conception of with the variegated chariots of the gods,the One True God, who is hut feebly and ether that provides space for allshadowed forth under these titles and substance ; the several spheres of earth,by the symbolism of these myths. ^'As sky, and^heaven, of saints, sages,Aditi,' say the gods to Devaki the ascetics, and of Brahma ;the whole eggmother of the unborn Krishna, 'thou of Brahma with all its population ofart the parent of the gods; as Diti, gods, demons, spirits, snake-gods, fiends,thou art the mother of the Daityas, ghosts and imps, men and brutes, andtheir foes. . . . The whole earth, deco- whatever creatures have life, comprisedxated with oceans, rivers, continents, in him who is their eternal lord and

MYTHOLOGY OF THE AKYAtf NATIONS.still more vehemently excited. But the fatal hour drawsnigh, and in a cave, like Zeus and Mithras, Krishna, as theincarnation of Vishnu, is horn with four arms and all thecattributes of that On god. the day of his birth the quartersof the horizon were irradiate with joy, as if more light werediffused over the whole earth. The virtuous experiencednfew delight 5the strong winds were .hushed, and the riversglidedtranquilly when Janaxddana was about to be born.The seas with their melodious murmurings made the music,while the spiritsand the nymphs of heaven danced andsang.3 1For a moment he takes away from the eyes of his.earthly parents the veil which prevents them from seeingthings as they are, and they behold the deity in all bismajesty. But the mists are again suffered to fall upon them,and they see only the helpless babe in his cradle. Then the*voice of an angel sounds in the father's ears, bidding him takethe child and go into Gokala, the land of cows, to the houseof Nanda, where he should find a new-born maiden.Thischild he must bring back, leaving Krishna in her place.This he is at once enabled to do, for the fetters fall from hishandsand the prison doors open of their own accord ;andguided by a dragon or snake, who here plays the part of thedragons or snakes in the myths of lamos or Medeia, hereaches the house of Kanda. STanda himself is in profoundsleep, and his wife prostrate from pain when Krishnawas left under their roof. As the husband of Devaki reentersthe prison, the doors close againand the chains,fasten themselves on his wrists, while the cry of the infantrouses the warders, who in their turn carry the tidings tothe object of all apprehension ;whose Milton was led into tho same strain ofreal form, nature, names, and dimcn- thought as he -wrote his Christmassions are not within human appre- Hymn'tension, are now with that Vishnu _,inthee Thou art SwJU; thou'Peaceful was theartnightSwadha: thou art ^herein the Princewi&dom, ambrosia,of Lightlight, and heaven. Thou Hl8hast de- **& of P 6^6 *Pon the eaAiseended upon earth for the preserve- m J^gan,Iran of the world. The 1Vishnuwith wonder whistPurana, ^jndsE. H. Wilson, p. $01. The same idea *5?Py the waters kissed,animates much of the devotion ad- whispering new joys to the milddressed to the Virgin Mary, as in theOcean _,>1Litany of Loretto and in Wto nowmany amonghath^ fo *got to rave,the authorised hymns of the While Ms of calmBreviarysit brooding on the*Wilson, 503. charmed wave/

KRISHNA AND THE GOPIAS. 135the king. At midnight Kamsa enters the dungeon, andDevati entreats his mercy for the babe. Shebut beforeprays in vain;Kamsa can accomplish his will, the child slipsfrom his grasp, and he hears the voice of Bhavani, tellinghim that his destroyer is born and has been placed beyondhis reach. Mad with rage, the tyrant summons his counciland asks what should be done. The answer is that, as theyknow not where the child is, he should order all the newlyborninfants or all children under two years to be slain.More assured than ever that his great enemy was his sister'schild, he sets everything in motion to insure his destruction.But the demon Putana, who assaults the child in his cradle,is dealt with as summarily as the dragons who seek tostrangle the infant Herakles. This demon, finding Krishnaasleep, took him up and gave him her breast to suck, thedoom of all who do so suck being instant death; but Krishnastrains it with such violence as to drain Putana of all life,a touch which recalls the mythconnexion with the Milky Way. 1of Herakles and E6r& inAs Krishna grew up, hebecame the darling of the milk-maidens, in whom some haveseen the stars of the morning sky, an inference whichseems to be here warranted by the myth that Krishna stoleof thetheir milk, seemingly as the sun puts out the lightstars 3and this inference is strengthened by the story whichconnected the formation of the milky way with the nursingof Herakles by B&&tWhen the maidens complained of thewrong, Krishna opened his mouth, and therein they sawrevealed his full splendour. They now beheld him seatedin the midst of all created things, receiving adoration fromall. But from this glimpse of his real glory the legendreturns to the myths told of swan-maidens and their lovers*5In the nine days' harvest feast of Bhavani (the nine daysfestival of D&nSt&r) the Gopias, each and all,goddess that they maypray to thebecome the brides of Krishna.2*See page 44. of the1girls. Thus, like Agni, India,12 This myth is in strict accordance and Yama, he is the husband of thewith the old Vedic phrase addressed towives, an expression which, in Professorthe Sun as the horse: 'After thee is Max Mutter's opinion, was probablythe chariot ;after thee, Arvan, the man ;'meant originally for the evening sun as.after thee the cows ; after thee. the host surrounded by the splendours of the

MYTHOLOGY136,OF THE ARTAN NATIONS.As they bathe in a stream, Krishna takes their clothes andrefuses to surrender them unless each comes separately forher raiment. Thus the prayeris fulfilled, and Krishna,playing on his flute among the Gopias, becomes the HellenicApoll6n Nbmios, 1whose harpis the harp of Orpheus, rousingall things into life and energy. With these maidens hedances, lite Apoll6n with the Muses, each maiden fancyingthat she alone is his partner (an idea which we find again inthe story of the Athenian Prokris).Only Radha, who lovedKrishna with an absorbing affection, saw things as theyreally were, and withdrew herself from the company. Invain Krishna sent maidens to soothe her and bring herback.To none would she listen, until the godcame to herhimself. His words soon healed the wrong, and so greacwas his joy with her that he lengthened the night which,followed to the length of six months, an incident which hasbut half preserved itsmeaning in the myth of Zeus andAlkmn, but which here points clearly to the six monthswhich PersephonS spends with her mother D

OF KRISHNA. 137prisoners back to him, who then suffered the phantasms CHAP,which he had evoked to vanish away. Here we have the ^J^. _^sleep of the sun-god which in other myths becomes the sleepof Persephon and Brynhild, of Bndymi6n or Adonis, theslumber of autumn when the bright clouds are imprisonedin the cave of Cacus or the Panis, while the new created'youths and maideus represent merely the days and monthswhich come round again as in the years that had passedaway. In his solar character Krishna must again be theslayer of the Dragon or Black Snake, Ealinak, the oldserpent with the thousand heads, who, like Vritra or theSphinx, poisons or shuts 1up the waters. In the fight whichfollows, and which Hindu art has especially delighted insymbolising, Krishna freed himself from the coils of thesnake, and stamped upon his heads until he had crushedthem all. The sequel of the myth in its more recent formgoes on to relate his death, how Balarama lay down tosleep beneath the Banyan tree, how from his throat issueda monstrous snake, like the cobra of Vikram in the modernHindu story, how Krishna himself became sorely depressed,how, as he lay among the bushes with his foot so placedthat his heel, in which alone he, like so many others, wasvulnerable, was exposed, a huntsman, thinking that he wasaiming at a gazelle, shot him with an arrow, and the groundwas bathed with his blood, incidents which are at onceexplained by a reference to the myths of Baldur, Adonis, orOsiris. 21The Visltnu Purana (Wilson, 514) ritual, in separate mansions. Sixteentells us how, stirred up by the incite- thousand and one hundred was thements of Nanda, Krishna hold of laysnumber of the maidens ,and into sothe middle hood of the chief of the many forms did the son of Hadhu mulsnakeswith both hands, and, bending it tiply himself, so that every one of thedown, dances upon it in triumph damsels thought that he had weddedWhenever the snake attempted to raise- her in her single person ' Vishnu PMhishead, it was again trodden down, acd rana, ib. 589. This myth is beyond allmany bruises were inflicted on the hood doubt simply that of Prokris in anotherby the pressure of the toes of Krishna, form. The dew becomes visible onlyAmong the many foes conquered by when the blackness of the nightis dis-Krishna is Kiraka, from whom he pelled, and the same sun is reflected inrescues elephants, horses, women, &c. the thousands of sparkling drops: but*At an auspicious season he espoused the language of the Purana is m sinallthe maidens whom Naraka had guldr accordance with the phraseologyearned off from their friends. At one in which Roman Catholic writers delightand the same moment he received the to speak of nuns as the brides of Christ,hands of all of them, according to the 2 It is, of course, true that these

138 MYTHOLOGY OF THE AEYAN NATIONS.SECTION XIV.THE MOON..BOOK As Endymi6n sinks into his dreamless sleep beneath, theIL. Latmian 'hill, the heautifol Seln comes to gaze upon theSelene- and being whom she loves only to lose. The phrasePan *was tootransparent to allow of the growth of a highly developedmyth. In the one name we have the sun sinking down intothe unseen land where all things are forgotten in the otherthe full moon comes forth from the east togreet the sun,before he dies in the western sky. Hence there is littletold of Sel6n which fails to carry with it an obvious meaning.She is the beautiful eye of night, the daughter ofEyperi6n, of Pallas, or of Helios ;the sister of PhoibosApoll6n. Like the sun, she moves across the heaven in achariot drawn by white horses from which her soft lightstreams down to the earth; or she is the huntress, rovinglike Alpheios, over hill and dale. She is the bride of Zeus,and the mother of Pandia, the full orb which gleams in thelnightly sky ;or as loving, like him, the crags, the streams,and the hills, she is beloved by Pan, who entices her into thedark woods under the guise of a snow-white ram. 2In otherwords, the soft whispering wind 3 driving before it the shiningfleecy clouds, draws the moon onwards into the sombregroves. In another version, she is Asterodia, the wandereramong the stars, the mother of the fifty daughters ofEndymi6n, the Ursula of modern legend with her manyvirgins. 316 the In. the story of 16, the moon appears in connexion withheifer.myths have been crystallised round the rature of the Teutonic tribes. Practinameof Krishna in ages subsequent to cally the myths of Krishna seem tothe f have been fully developed in the days ofVedic literature came into existence; Megasthenes, who identifies him withbut the myths themselves are found in the Greek Herakles. Nork, s. y.this older literature associated with Krishna, 398.other gods, and not always only inJ'Pandia, d. h. die ganz leuchtende,"germ. Krishna as slaying 'the dragon Preller, Or. Mytki. 347.is simply Indra smiting Vritra or aAhi, Virg. Greorg.iii 391.or Phoibos destroying the Python.* Preller regards the number SO hereThere is no more room for inferring as denoting the fifty moons of the Olyn>foreign influence in the growth of any pian Festal Cycle. Gr, i.Myth. 848.of these myths than, as Bunsen rightly But the myth must be taken along withinsists, there is room for Chris- tracingthe legends of the fifty sons or daughterstian influence in the earlier epical lite- of Aigyptos, Danaos, or Priam.

THE WATERINGS OP l6. 139the myths of Hermes, Prometheus, and other tales.pre-eminently the horned being,16 iswhose existence is one ofbrief joy, much suffering, and many changes and wanderings ;in other words, her life is the life of the moon in its severalphases, from full to new, and thence back to the full again.She is the pure priestess of the great queen of heaven, onwhom Zeus, the lord of the untroubled ether, looks downwith unfailing love. 1But Hr is the wife of Zeus, and thusat once she is jealous of 16, whom she 2changes into a heifer(the well-known symbol of the young or horned morn), andplaces in the charge of Argos Panopt^s, the being with athousand eyes, some of which he opens when the stars arise,while others he closes when their orbs go down. Whetherthese eyes are, as in some versions, placed on his brow andon the back of his head, or, as in others, scattered all overhis body, Argos is the star-illumined sky watching over themoon as she wandersOf climbing heaven and gazing on the earth,Wandering companionlessAmong the stars that have a different birth,3In this aspect Argos appears in the Cretan myth asAsteri6n, or the Minotauros, the guardian of the Daidaleanlabyrinth, the mazes of the star-clothed heavens.From this terrible bondage she is rescued at the bidding of AigosZeus by Hermes, who appears here as a god of the morningtide.By the power of his magic rod, and by the music ofhis flute, the soft whisper of the morning breeze, he lulls evenAjgos himself into slumber, and then his sword falls, andthe thousand eyes are closed in death, as the stars go outwhen the morning comes, and leave the moon alone. 4 Thisrescue of 16 by Hermes is, in the opinion of Preller, the tem-1 16 becomes a mother imrvoias of the Old Man and the Hind, where theAi6s, JEsch. Suwp. 18 a; myth which transformation is precisely owing to themay be compared with the story of the jealousy of H6r& for 16 and her oftmaresof Diomfid&s.spring.8 *In the Norse story of Tatterhood, It is not likely that Shelley wasthe younger of the two sisters who thinking of the myth of Argos Panoptosanswer to the Dioskouroi is changed whin he wrote these lines ;but ho hasinto a calf, and the tale immediately singularly reproduced this idea of theconnects the transformation with the antagonism between the moon and thevoyage of Isis. The same incidents are stars,found in the Arabian Nights in the * story The myth is thus explained which

140 MYTHOLOGY OF TEE ARYAtf ffAHOKS.BOOK^_ T '_r . unknownporary disappearance of the moon, during her wanderings inregions until she appearsas Pandia, the full moon,in the eastern heaven. 1This time was naturally conceivedas one of trouble and toil,and so the myth went that 16 wasdriven from one place to another by a gadfly sent by Hr,who suffers her neither to rest by day nor to sleep by night.16 and These wanderings have been related by JUschylos in hisimmortal drama of the bound Prometheus. They carry herover regions, some of whose names belong to our earthlygeography; but any attempts to fix her course in accordancewith the actual position of these regionsis mere labour lost.That for such accuracy JBschylos cared nothing is plain fromthe fact that the course which T6 takes in his play of tibSuppliants cannot be reconciled with the account given inthe Prometheus. It isenough to note that the poet takesapproaching the Bast and the South,his moon from the West towards the North, graduallyuntil in the beautifulAigyptos she is suffered to resume her proper form,or in other words, appear as the full moon, the shapein which she was seen before E6r6 changed her into thehorned heifer or new moon.This mention of Egypt, or theland of the Nile, as the cradle of her child Epaphos, naturallyled the Greeks to identify 16 with the Egyptian Isis, andher son with the bull Apis an identification to which noobjection can be raised, so long as it is not maintained thatthe Hellenic names and conceptions of the gods were borrowedfrom those of Egypt.The great Athenian poet wouldnaturally introduce among the places visited by 16 placesand peoples which excited his curiosity, his wonder, or hisveneration. She from whom was to spring the delivererof Prometheus must herself learn from the tortured Titanwhat must be the course of her own sufferings and theirissue. She must cross the heifer's passage, or Bosporos,which bears her name :she must journey through the countrymakes Hermes the father of Autolykos, as transparent as that of Argoswhointhe Pa-Odyssey is the grandfather nopte's, The eyes of the dead Argoe areof Odysseus and the craftiest of men a 1placed by Here in the peacock's tail;character which, as Freller remarks, is but this was only another symbol forsimply reflected from Hermes. Gr. the starry heavens. Preller, *&. ii. 41.Myth i, 305. The name Autolykos is 1ii. 39.Gr.Myth

HEKATB AND PHOIBOS. 141of the Chalybes, beings akin to the KyH6pes who forge theCHAP,thunderbolts of Zens ;she mnst trust herself to the guidance ^J^l-of the Amazons who will lead her to the rocks of Salmydessos,rocks not unlike the Symplegades in the Argonautic story :she mnst encounter the Gr&iai and the Gorgons in the landof the gloaming and the night, and finally she is to see theend of her sorrows when she reaches the well or fountains ofthe sun. There her child will be born, and the series ofgenerationswill roll on,which are to end in the gloriousvictories of her descendant, Herakles. 1To Phoibos, as Hekatos, the far-shooting lord of light,Hekat stands in the relation which Diana holds towardsliianus or Janus. She falls, in short, into the ranks of correlativedeities with the Asvins and the Dioskouroi, SuryS,and Savitri, and many others already named. Her keennessof hearing and sight is second only to that of Helios, forwhen D6m6t&r is searching in agony for her lost child, it isHekat alone who says that she has heard her cries, whileHelios is further able to tell her whither Hades has departedwith the maiden. She is then the queen of the night, themoon, and as such she may be described as sprung eitherfrom Zeus and HM, or like Phoibos himself, from Lto, or2even from Tartaros, or again, from Asteria, the starlit night.In a comparison of offices and honours it is hard to seewhether Phoibos or Hekat stands higher; and all thatcan be said is that the Hesiodic poet could hardly havespoken of her in a strain so highflown if the thought ofApoll&n and his wisdom, incommunicable even to Hermes,had at the moment crossed his mind, just as the worshipperof Brahma or Yishnu must have modified his language, hadhe wished to bringit into apparent consistency with what hemay have said elsewhere in his devotions to Varuna, Dyaus, orSoma. She is the benignant being, ever ready to hear thosewho offer to her a holy sacrifice* Nor has she fallen from1It is, of course, quite possiblethat or a horned maiden. Both alike losewith this particular myth of 16 some their children and search for them asfeatures borrowed from Semitic mytho- De'me'te'rforsearched^ Persephone,logy may have been designedly blended. Preller, Gfr. ii.Myih. 44.The Phenician Astarte, Ashtaroth, was2 Hes. Tkeog. 411.also represented as a wandering heifer,

142 MYTHOLOGY OP THE ARYAN NATIONS.the high estate which was hers before Zeus vanquished theTitans ;but she remains mighty as ever, in the heavens, onthe earth, and in the sea.She is the giver of victory in war,the helper of Mngs in the ministration of justice, the guardianof the flocks and of the vineyards ;and thus she is namedpre-eminently Kourotrophos, the nurse and the cherisher ofmen. But these great powers could scarcely fail to throwover her an air of mystery and awe. She would be sometimesthe solitary inhabitant of a dismal region, caringnothing for the sympathy or the love of others ;and the veryto Dmtrhelp which with her flaming torch she giveswould make her a goddess of the dark nether world to whichshe leads the sorrowing mother. Her ministers thereforemust be as mysterious as herself, and thus the Kour&fces andKabeiroi become the chosen servants of her sacrifices.LikeArtemis, she is accompanied by hounds, not flashing-footedlike that which Prokris received from the twin-sister ofPhoibos, but Stygian dogs akin to Kerberos and the awfulhounds of Tama. Only one step more was needed to reachthat ideal of witchcraft which is exhibited in its most exaltedform in the wise woman Medeia. It is from a cave, likethat in which Kirke and Kalypso dwell, that she marks thestealing away of PersephonS, and her form is but dimly seenas she moves among murky mists. She thus becomes thespectral queen who sends from her gloomy realm vain dreamsand visions, horrible demons and phantoms, and who impartsto others the evil knowledge of which she has become possess.sdherself. Her own form becomes more and morefearful. Like Kerberos, she assumes three heads or faces,which denote the monthly phases of the moonthe horsewith its streaming mane pointing to the moon at its full,and the snake and the dog representing its waxing andwaning, until it disappears from the sight of men.Aitemis In some traditions Artemis is the twin sister of Phoibos,with whom she takes her place in the ranks of correlativedeities. In others she is born so long before him that she canaid Lt6 her mother at the birth of Phoibos a myth whichspeaks of the dawn and the sun as alike sprung from thenight. Thus her birthplace is either Delos or Ortygia, in

ARTEMIS. 143either case the bright morning land, and her purity is thatCHAP,of Ath&a& and Hestia. Over these three deities alone v**'Aphrodit^ has no power. Love cannot touch the maidenwhose delight is in the violet tints of dawn or in thearrows which she sends forth with never failing precision,1And which seal the doom, while they are given to avenge thewrongs of Prokris. Like Phoibos, she has the power of lifeand death; she can lessen or take away the miseries andplagues which she brings upon men, and those who honourher are rich in flocks and herds and reach a happy old age.From those who neglect her she exacts a fearful penalty ;and the Kalydonian boar ravages the fields of Oineus onlybecause he had forgotten to include her among the deities toIn a word the colours may bewhom he offered sacrifice. 2paler, but her features and form generally are those of herglorious brother. With him she takes delight in song, 3 andas Phoibos overcomes the Pyth&n, so is she the slayer ofTityos. 4It seems unnecessary to draw any sharp distinction be- TheAriweenthe Arkadian and the Delian Artemis. If she is no ^ilaSlonger the mere reflection of Phoibos, she still calls herself a Artemis.child of Lt6, 5 and appears as the glorious morning rovingthrough the heaven before the birth of the sun. This broadspreadinglight is represented by her wanderings among theglens and along the mountain summits of Arkadia. LikeAthn6 and AphroditS, she belongs to or springs from therunning waters, and she demands from Zeus an attendanttroop of fifty Okeanid and twenty Amnisiad, or river,nymphs. 6 With these she chases her prey on the heightsioxttipa.ApT^y, and regards tho epithet as de-8 Mr. Grote remarks that in the hunt noting her unsullied purity as well aswhich follows for the destruction of the her physical rigour Her kindly andboat, Artemis, who is sometimes conindignantaspects are with him thefounded even with her attendant varying, yet constantly recurring, effectsnymphs, reappears in the form of Ata- produced "by the moon on the phenolante.Hist, Or, i. 76. The name of mena of the seasons, and, as was sup-Camilla, the counterpart of Atalant& in posed, of human life. For the Ephesianthe Mmicl, is, according to M. Maury, Artemis, see p. 66.that of a Gallic divinity, being theKallim. Hymn to Artemis, 110.feminine form of Gamulus (Camillas)5 2&. KO! yap tyk Aijrafoy e/Vu. SheGrtyances et Idgendes de vAntigv&te, desires to be worshipped under many229, et scq. names, that she may not need to fear8Hymn to Aphrodite, 19. Preller, the rivalry of Apollon, 7.Myth i. 228, adopts the *explanationJ&. 20, &c.which connects her name with the word.

144 MYTHOLOGY OF THE AEYAN NATIONS.BOOK of ErymanthoSj Mainalos, and Taygetos. Her chariot isfashioned . by the fiery Hephaistos, and Pan, the breeze>,..^whispering among the reeds, provides her with dogs, theclouds which speed across the sty driven by the summerwinds. Here, like Arethousa, she is loved and pursued byAlpheios, who fails to seize her.Artemis But the cultus of the Spartan Artemis, whose epitheth2ri Tauro- ^x^2> "would seem * denote a phallic deity, is marked bypola. features so repulsive, and so little involved in the myth ofthe Delian sister of Phoibos, that the inference of an earlierreligion, into which Aryan mythical names were imported,becomes not unwarrantable. Whether or not this Artemisbethe same as the Artemis known by the epithets Tauricaor Tauropola, she is a mere demon, glutted with the humansacrifices which seem to have formed a stage in the religiousdevelopement of every nation on the earth. We have heremanifestly the belief that the gods are all malignant powers,hungering for the blood of human victims, and soothed bythe smoke of the fat as it curls up heavenwards. 1 But theprevalence of this earlier form of faith or practice would tendto prove only that the mythology of the Greeks was notnecessarily their religion, and was certainly not commen-1The extent to which these horrible the English goblin, seems to representsuperstitions prevailed among the histo- etymologically the Teutonic Kobold andrieal Greeks as well as among other races the Greek Kobalos, beings doubtless ofand tribes has been excellently traced closely kindred character. If this be so,by Mr. Paley in a paper on ' Ohthonian the idea of sacrifice is traced back to anWorship* (Jburnd of PMbhgy, No. I. utterly revolting source in the thoughtsJune, 1868) His conclusion is that, as of the still savage man. To the questionthe propitiation of malignant powers which asks how this conclusion ' can be*rather than the adoration of a supreme reconciled with the Jewish doctrine ofgood seems to have formed the basis of sacrifice and all its momentous consetheearly religions of the world,' so a quences,' he answers, ' I think we maylarge part of the early religious systems fairly reply, we are not called upon toof the Greeks exhibits this character reconcile them. We are not building upof devil-worship,in which streams of questionable theories, but expounding"human blood were the only effectual unquestionable matters of fact, and itofferings. The unsatisfied shades or is a perfectly open subject of discussionghosts of heroes became hateful demons, whether the pagan idea of sacrifice is agoing about with wide-stretched mouths corruption of a revealed obligation offor anything which might serve as a^man to his Creator, or whether it wasprey These are tho Latin Manduci (as many will think more probable) inandLemures, the Greek JLamyroi, and dependency derived and developed fromCharon, the gaper, words 'all pointing the materialistic and sensuous notionsto swallowing and devouring, as our of the untutored races of antiquity aboutgoUm is supposed to do/ p. 7. The the nature, condition, and wants ofgeneral proposition is indisputable, but beings, infernal and supernal/ p. 13.

ARTEMIS AND IPHIGENEIA.HEsurate with. it.Still, although there is not much in thephenomena of morning, or in the myth of the Delian Artemis,to suggest the practice of slaying youths and maidens,or scourging them until the blood ran in streams to glut theangry demon, there are not wanting mythical phrases which,if translated into the conditions of human life, would pointto such reTolting systems.Adonis cannot rise to the life ofthe blessed gods until he has been slain. The morningcannot come until the E6s who closed the previous day hasfaded away and died in the black abyss of night.So it isalso with Memn6n and SarpM&n, with Endymifin and Nai 1 -kissos. But all these are the children of Zeus or Phoibos,or some other deity of the heaven or the sun ;and thus theparents may be said to sacrifice their children, as Tantalosplaced the mangled Pelops on the banquet-table of Zeus.ii is thus seemingly that Iphigeneia must die before Helencan be brought again from Bion : but Helen is herself Iphigeneia,and thus the return of Helen is the resurrection ofthe victim doomed by the words of Kalehas aoid the consentof Agamemnon, and Iphigeneia becomes the priestess ofArtemis, whose wrath she had been slain to expiate. Withan unconscious fidelity to the old mythical phrases, which isstill more remarkable, Iphigeneia is herself Artemis, and thusthe story resolves itself into the saying that the evening andthe morning axe the same, but that she must die at nightbefore she can spring into life again at dawn. Nor must itbe forgotten that Helen stolen away from the Argive orgleaming land of the West is the golden light stolen awayin the evening. The weary voyage from the Achaian shoresisthe long journey of the sun-children for the stolen treasure,beginning-just when the twilight is deepening intonight, and when the lagging hours seem likely never to passaway. Iphigeneia is slain at the beginning of this dismaljourney in other words, she dies in the evening thatHelen may come back in the morning, when, after ten longhours of mortal strife, the walls of Ilion have fallen.But when Artemis, Helen, and Iphigeneia, had receivedeach her own distinct personality, it was easy to say thatthe anger of Artemis, offended for some supposed neglectVOL. II.L

146 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.Iphigeneia. 1The distinction between Artemis and Britomartis is as-slight as that which separates her from Iphigeneia. Whateverbe the origin of the name, Britomartis is spoken of as adaughter of L6t8, or of Zeus and Karm, and as flying from2the pursuit of Minos as Artemis flies from that of Alpheios. 'Prom this pursuit she escapes, like Arethousa and Daphne,only by throwing herself into the sea as some said, becauseshe leaped from the heights of Diktynnaion, or, as othersfc "or affront of Agamemnon,was the cause of the death ofwould have it, because she fell into the nets (M/cTva) of thefishermen.Eescued from the water she goes to Aigina, andis reverenced there under the name of Aphaia. The wanderingsof Britomartis are simply the journey of the dayacross the heaven, and the story of the nets must clearlybe compared with that of Dana6 and the kindly treatmentof Diktys of Seriphos, who is contrasted with his gloomybrother Polydekt^s a mere reflection of Hades Polydegmon.When the name of Diktys is further comparedwith the myth of the Diktaian cave, we can no longer doubtthat Artemis Diktynna is simply Artemis the light-giving,and that the nets were brought into the myths by an equivocationsimilar to that which converted Arkas and Kallist6into bears and Lyk&6ninto a wolf.31For the Ephesian or Asiatic Artemis,see p. 662 Kallim. Hymn. Art. 192, &c.3As the dawn springs fully armedfrom the forehead of the cloven sky, sothe eye first discerns the blue of heavenas the first faint arch of light is seen in?the East. This arch is the Diktaiancave in -which the infant Zens is nourisheduntil he reaches his full strengthin other words, until the day is fully

147OHAPTEE III.THE LOST TREASURE.SECTION I.THE GOLDEN FLEECE.THE idea of wealth is one of the most prominent characteristicsin the legends of Helios, Ixi6n, Sisyphos andTantalos. The golden palace of Helios, "blazing with intolerablesplendour, isreflected in the magnificent home ofthe Phrygian and Corinthian kings. So dazzling indeed is foundthe "brilliance of this treasure-house that none may look ^e Aryanclosely uponit and live. Hence Dia the beautiful wife of nations.Ixi6n has never seen her husband's wealth, as the Dawnmay never see the sun when high in the heavens : and herfather Hesioneus who insists on being put into possession ofall the glorious things which Ixi&n said should follow hisunion with Dia, the radiant morning, finds himself plungedinto a gulf of fire. These treasures, in the myth of Prokris,B6s herself bestows on Kephalos that he may beguile thegentle daughter of the dew. They are the beautiful flowerswhich bloom in the Hyperborean gardens, the wonderfulweb wrought and unwrought by Penelop, the riches whichthe suitors waste in the absence of Odysseus, the herds ofcattle which are fed by the glistening nymphs who rise fromthe ocean stream. They are the light of day in all its variedaspects and with all its wonderful powers. With them isbound up the idea of life, health, and joy: and hence whenthese treasures are taken away, the very blackness of desolationmust follow.What can the sons of men do, when thebright being who has gladdened their eyes is taken from theirsight? Must they not either sit stiU in utter despair orwait with feverish impatiencfe until they see his kindly faceagain P What again must be the drama of those dark and12JiJ

148 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.BOOK

RECUBRING- CYCLES. 149features are the same in all, if there is absolutely no politicalmotive or interest in any one which may not be found moreor less prominent in all the rest, if it is every where thesame tale of treasure stolen, treasure searched for andfought for, treasure recovered and brought back, why are weto suppose that we are dealing in each case with a differentWhy are we to conjure upstory 9a hundred local conflictseach from precisely the same causes, each with precisely thesame incidents and the same results ?Whythat the treasures of E6s aro not the treasuresare we to thinkof Helen,that Helen's wealth is not the wealth of Brynhild, and thatBrynhiLTs riches are not the dower of the wife of Waltharof Aquitaine 9 Why, when myth after myth of the Hellenictribes exhibits the one ceaseless series of precious thingstaken away and after fearful toils recovered, and after notless terrible labours brought back, are we to believe that theerrand on which the Achaian chieftains depart from Hellasis in every case different 9 If it be urged that such movementsare those of a squirrel in its cage, and that suchmovements, though/ they may be graceful, yet must be monotonous,the answer is that not only is the daily alternation oflight and darkness proved to be monotonous, but all the incidentsand the whole course of human life may be investedwith the same dull colouring. Men are married, love and hate,and the mono-get wealth or struggle in poverty, and die ;the toilstony is broken only when we have distinguishedand acts of one man from those of another and learnt to seethe points of interest which meet us every where on the boundlessfield of human life, as they meet us also in all the countlessaspects of the changing heavens. There is in short no dulnessexcept in those who bring the charge; and the story ofDaphne and Echo does not lose its charm because it is alltold over again in the legends of Arethousa and Seln&The taking away of precious things, and the united search Bepetitioaof armed hosts for their recovery come before us first in the mytihgreat myth of the Argonautic Voyage. The tale is repeatedin the stealing of Helen and her treasures, and is once more forms.told in the banishment of the HeraHeidai and their efforts,at last successful, to recover their lost inheritance. These

find150 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAff NATIONS.BOOK myths fall into a regular series, and are repeated until we^'ourselves on the confines of genuine history, which cutsthe threads of the mythical drama just where it happens tomeet them ;and we leave the subject in the full confidencethat the radiant maiden would have been stolen and the childrenof the sun banished from the west yet many timesmore under different names and circumstancessufficientlyvaried, had not men been awakened to the need of providingin contemporary writing a sure means for the preservationTheof historical facts.Into the Argonautic story, as into the mythical historiesReece! or sagas which Mow it,a number of subordinate legendshave been interwoven, many of which have been alreadynoticed as belonging to the myths of the heavens and thelight, clouds, waters, winds, and darkness ;and we have nowonly to follow the main thread of the narrative from themoment when1Phrixos, the child of the mist, has reachedthe Eolchian land and the home of king AiStSs, a name in'which we recognise one of the many words denoting thebreath or motion of the air.Hell, the warm and brillianttintedmaiden, has died by the way, and the cold light onlyremains when the golden-fleeced ram, the offspring of Poseid&nand Theophang, the lord of the air and the waters, andthe bright gleaming sky, reaches its journey's end. Thetreasures of the day, brought to the east, are now in thewords of Mimnermos represented byfa large fleece in thetown of Aits, where the rays of Helioschamber. 5rest in a goldenThese treasures must be sought out so soon asthe man destined to achieve the task is forthcoming.He isfound by the same tokens which foretold the future greatnessof Oidipous, Perseus, Tlephos, Eomulus, or Cyrus. Pelias,the chief of lolkos, who had driven away his brother Neleus,had been told that one of the children of Aiolos would be hisdestroyer, and decreed therefore that all should be slain,Ias6n only (aname which must be classed with the manyto the sameothers, lasion, lamos, lolaos, laso, belongingThe name belongs apparently to the freeze, the story of the spoiling of the1same root with Prokris, vol. i , p 430, corn being the result of a false etymoandis thus connected with (ppta-tea, our logy.

ORPHEUS AND THE ARGONAUTAI. 151Toot), is preserved, and brought up like Achilleus by thewise Kentaur Cheiron, the son or descendant of Ixi&n andNephel, the sun and the cloud. The child grows up Pelias:receives another warning to be on his guard against the onesandalledman; and he discerns his enemy when las&n.appears with one foot only shod, having dropped the otherslipper into the stream Anauros. There is nothing, however,that he can do beyond putting him to the perfermance ofimpossible tasks ;and thus as Eurystheussent Herakles onhopeless errands, so Pelias thinks to be rid of Ias6n by biddinghim bring the 1golden fleece back to lolkos. The journeyis too long and across seas too stormy, and the toil is too greatfor any one man, be he ever so mighty; and as all the kinsfolkof Hell6 are equally sufferers by the robbery, so all mustninite to avenge her wrongs and regain her wealth. Promall parts they come together, fifty in number, like thechildren of Danaos and Aigyptos, of Thestios and Asterodia,to the building of the great ship Argo, which Ath^nS endowswith the gift of speech and the power, possessed also by thePhaiakian barks, of understanding the thoughts of men. But'before they could leave their own land there was need of yetfarther help to enable them to tame the fury of savage beasts,birds, and creeping things ;and thus las&n betakes himselfto the harper Orpheus, whose sweet tones no living thingcan withstand. He alone can find his way to the utmostbounds of darkness and return in. safety ;and the tidingsthat Orpheus would accompany them scattered the gloomwhich was gathering thickly on the hearts of the Argonautai.His poweris soon shown. In spite of all efforts todislodge her, the Ajgo remains fast fixed to the spot onwhich she was built; but at the sound of the harp ofOrpheus it went down quickly and smoothly into the sea.Before she sets out on her perilous voyage, Cheiron givesthem a feast, and a contest in music follows between theZentaur, who sings of the wars with the Lapithai, andIt is scarcely necessary to notice the assumed the form of an old woman, that1-many versions of this myth. In some so she may be borne in his arms,we have the Enipeus or the Evenos in- Others make Pelias declare himselfstead of the Anauros ;in others Ias6u ready to yield up his place and powerloses his sandal while carrying across to Ias6n, only he must first Taring back'the stream Here, who loves him and has the lost treasure.

152 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.Orpheus, who, lite Hermes, discourses of all things fromChaos downwards, of Eros and Kronos and the giants, likethe song of the winds which seem to speak of things incomprehensibleby man.Argo- Setting out from lolkos,the confederate chiefs reachLemnos, while the island is seemingly sufferingfrom theplagues which produced the myths of the Danaides in Argos.Like them, the Lemnian women all kill their husbands,,one, only, Thoas, being saved, like Lynkeus, by his daughtersand his wife TTypsipyl& These women yield themselves tothe Argonautai, as the Danaides take other husbands whenlliey have slain the sons of Aigyptos. 1In the country of theDoliones they are welcomed by the chief Kyzikos, who, however,isregret.subsequently slain by them unwittingly and to theirIn Amykos, the king of the Bebrykes, or roaringwinds, they encounter Namuki, one of the Vedic adevas.or enemies of the 2bright gods, who slays Polydeukes, thetwin brother of Kastor. In the Thrakian Salmydessosthey receive further counsel from Phineus the seer, whosuffers from the attacksof the Harpyiai, a foe akin to theBebrykes. In gratitude for his deliverance from thesemonsters, Phineus tells them that if they would avoid beirc;crushed by the Syrnplgades, or floating rocks, which partasunder and dose with a crash like thunder, they must markthe flight of a dove, and shape their course accordingly* Thedove loses only the feathers of its tail ;and the Argo, urgedon by the power of Her, loses only some of its stern ornaments,and henceforth the rocks remain fixed for ever. 3 The1That this incident is precisely the in the ages during which the myth wassame as the story of the sojourn of developed were seen in the Black Sea,Odysseus in the land of tho Lotophagoi, and which melted away at the mouth ofis manifest from the phrase used m the the Bosporos. In support of the posi-Argonautics. They all, we are told, tion that the myth thus points to phyforgotthe duty set "before them, nor sical phenomena now no longer known,would they have left the island, but for in that sea, Mr. Paley remarks thatthe strains of Orpheus winch recalled their name Kyaneai is very significant,them to their sense of right and law, and that ' they are described as rolling490. Thus this incident throws light and plunging precisely as icebergs are'on the nature of the enjoyments signi- often seen to do.' When tho rontusfied by the eating of the lotos. See was a closed lake, as even human tradip.120. tion distinctly states that it once was2Max Mulkr, Chypst &c. ii. 188. (Diod. S v. 47), it was very likely in-8 It has been supposed that the deed, especially towards the close of arepresent icebergs which glacial period, that a great accumulation.

MEDEIA AND ABSYRTOS. 15*3incidents which follow their arrival in Kolchis repeat in partCHAP,the myth of Kadmos at Thebes and indeed the teeth$of the -_?'_-dragon which Aits bids him sow are the very teeth whichKadmos had not needed to nse. The men who spring fromthem fight with and slay each other as in the Thebanlegend, and by the aid of Medeia Ias6n also tames the firebreathingbulls, beings which answer to the Minotauros ofCrete and the brazen bull in which Phalaris is said tohave burnt his victims. 1 Dangersthicken round them.While lason is thus doing the bidding of the chieftain,AiStes is forming a plan to burn the Achaian ships, and isanticipatedonly by Medeia, who has lavished her love onlason with all the devotion of E6s for Orion. She hastenswith her lover on board the Argo, &nd hurriedly leavesKolchis, taking with her her brother Absyrtos. But Ai&fcsis not yet prepared to yield. The Gorgonsisters cannot restwithout at the least making an effort to avenge Medousa onher destroyer Perseus. Ai&ts is fast overtaking the Argowhen Medeia tears her brother's body limb from limb, andcasts the bleeding and mangled members into the seaimage of the torn and blood-red clouds reflected in the bluewaters, as the blood which streams from the body of Hera-Hes represents the fiery clouds stretched along the flamingsky. 2 But Absyrtos is as dear to Ait6s as Polyph&mosto Poseid6n 5and as he stops to gather up the limbs, theArgo makes her way onward, and the Kolchian chiefanhasof ice should have been formed in so the Phenician Moloch. The iniquitiesvast a basin, borne down from the attributed to him are the horrid holo-Northern rivers. When the lake burst causts which defiled the temples ofof Hinnom,its barriers, they would be carried by Carthage and the valleythe current towards the entrance of the His name is probably connected withstraits, and there become stranded, as Pales, Palikoi, Pallas, Palatium, andthe story says that in fact they did,' Phalloa, and would thus point to thoPindar t introd. xxiv. Among other cruel forms which the worship of Aohmythspointing to physical facts of a roditfi, Artemis, and the Light deitiespast age Mr. Paley cites the story of the generally, often ussumed.ri&ing of Khodos from the sea, compar-* The same fate is allotted to Myrtilos,ing with it the fact of tho recent up- whom Pelops throws into that portion ofheaval of part of Santorin, the ancient the Egean seawhich was supposedto bearThora, ana the old legend of the up- his name. It is, in fact, half the myth ofheaving of Delps, a* all showing th* Pelops himself, the difference being thatthese islands lie 'within an irea of while all are thrown into the water,known volcanic disturbance,' Pelops is brought to hfe again the dif-1Of any historical Phalaris wo know1ference, in other words, between Sarpe-absolutely nothing; and the tradition d6n in the common version andMemnfin,simply assigns to him the character of between AskiSpios and Osiris and Baldur.

154 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAJST NATIONS.BOOK to return home discomfited. The Achaians are now pos-^^ _. sessed of the golden fleece, but Zeus also is wroth at thedeath of Absyrtos, and raises a storm, of which the resultsare similar to thoseof the tempest raised by Poseid6n toavenge the mutilation of Polyph&nos. In fact, the chiefincidents in the return of Odysseus we find here also, inthe magic songs of the Seirens, and the wisdom of Kirk,in Skylla and Charybdis and the PhaiaHan people. Fromthe Seirens they are saved by the strains of Orpheus, strainseven sweeter than theirs, which make the stuffing of thesailors' ears with wax a work of supererogation. It is uselessto go into further detail. The accounts givenof thecourse of the voyage vary indefinitely in the different myfchographers,each of whom sought to describe a journey throughcountries and by tracks least known to himself, and there-The geography, in short, of thefore the most mysterious.Argonautic voyageis as much and as little worth investigatingas the geography of the travels of 16 and the sonsand daughters of her descendants Danaos and Aigyptos.The prophecy uttered long ago to Pelus remained yet^fijflu^ .an(j -^Q^ ias5n returned to lolkos, he found, likeOdysseus on his return to Ithaka, according to some versions,that his father Aison was still living, although worn out withThe wise woman Medeia is endowed with the powers ofage.Asklpios by virtue of the magic robe bestowed on her byHelios himself, and these powers are exercised in makingAison young again. Pelias too, she says, shall recover all hisancient strength and vigour, if his daughters will cut up hislimbs and boil them in a caldron ;but when they do herbidding, Medeia suffers the limbs to waste away withoutpronouncing the words which would have brought him to lifeagain. Thus is Ias6n, like Oidipous and Perseus, Cyrus andEoinulus, one of the fatal children whose doom it is to slaytheir sires. The sequel of the myth of Ias6n has few, if any,features peculiarto itself. Ias6n can no more be constant toMedeia than Theseus to Ariadn6 or Phoibos to Eor6nis.Corinth he sees the beautiful GlaukS, another of the brightbeings whose dwelling is in the morning or evening sky; butthe nuptials must be as fatal as those of Iol and Eerakles.At

THE CHILDREN OF MEDEIA. 155The robe of Helios, which has been thus far only the goldenfleece under another name, now assumes the deadly powersof the arrows of Herakles, Achillcus, or Philoktts, and eatsinto the fleshof GlaukS and her father Kreon, as the robebathed in the blood of the Kentaur Ifessos consumed thebody of Herakles. In the murder of the children of lasonby their mother Medeia we have only another version of theslaughter of Pelops by Tantalos, while the winged dragonswhich bear away her chariot are not the dragons of thenight, like the snakes which seek to strangle the infantHerakles, but the keener-eyed serpents of the morning, whichfeed the babe lamos with honey in the violet beds. Butthis portion of the story may be told, and is told, in ahundred different ways. In one version she goes to Thebes,and there cures Herakles of his poisoned wound; in anothershe is reconciled to las&n ;in another she becomes the wifeof Aigeus,king of Athens, and the enemy of his son Theseus.Others again carry lasfin back with Medeia to Kolchis, ormake him die, crushed beneath the timber-head of the Argo.SECTION IIHELEN.There was, however, no need to carry Ias6n and Medeia Thewith her golden robe back again to the eastern land.treasure broughtremain long in the west ;Theback from that distant shore could notand in the stealing away of Helenand her wealth we have an incident which, from the magnificentseries of myths to which it has given birth or withwhich it is interwoven, seems to dwarf almost every otherfeature in the mythical history of the Aryan nations. Thestory has been complicated with countless local traditions ;it has received a plausible colouring from the introductionof accurate geographical details, of portraits which may betrue to national character, of accounts of laws, customs, andusages, which doubtless prevailed at the time when the poetwrote. Tet in spite of epithets which may still be appliedto the ruins of Tiryns and Mykenai, in spite of the cairns whichstill bear the names of Achilleus or of Aias on the shores ofthe strong-flowing Hellespontos, Helen is simply the radiant

156 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN HTATIOKB.The steal-light, whether of the morning or the evening. 1the dawn which peers about in search of the bright cowswhich the Panis have stolen from Indra, we have seen heralready listening, though but for a moment, to the evil wordsof the robbers. These evil words are reproduced in thesophistry of the Trojan Paris, who is only a little moresuccessful than the thief of the Vedic hymns, and the momentaryunfaithfulness of the one becomes the long-continuedfaithlessness of the other. But it is a faithlessness more inseemingAsthan in fact. Helen is soon awakened from heFevil dream, and her heart remains always in beautiful Argos,1in the house of her husband who never showed her anythingbut kindness and love. Though Paris is beautiful, yet shefeelsthat she has nothing in common with him, and thusshe returns with a chastened joy to the home from whichshe had been taken away.But to be stolen or persecuted for her beauty was the lotHeien and of Helen almost from her cradle. Li the myth of Theseushershe is brought into Attica, and guarded in early youth byAithra in the stronghold of Aphidnai until she is deliveredby her brothers, the Dioskouroi; and when she had beenstolen by Paris, and spent ten weary years in Troy, she issaid in some versions to have become the wife of Deiphobos,another son of Priam, and another representative of thedark beings who own kinship with the Vedic Vritra.WhenParis is slain, the brother of the seducer will" not sufferHelen to be given up to tiie Achaians ;and thus, on the fallof Hion, his house is the first to be set on fire. Even afterher death the fate of Helen is not changed. In Leuk&, thewhite island of the dawn, she is wedded to Achilleus, andbecomes the mother of Euphorion, the winged child who isfirst loved and then smitten by the thunderbolts of Zeus inMelos. 2 Throughout she is a being not belonging to theland of mortal men. She is sprung from the egg of Leda rthe being to whom Zeus comes in the form of a swan,i1This is fully recognised by Preller, Medeia also as his brides in this brightwho compares her, as such, with the island: and these are Simply otherMater Matuta of the Latins. Gr.Myth. names for the dawn or the eveningii. 108.tlight.2 But Achilleus has^ ^Iphfreneia and

HELENS DENDRITIS. 157Jier brothers are the Dioskonroi, or Asvins.When the timefor her marriage draws nigh, suitors come thronging from allparts of Hellas, their numbers being one for each day of thelunar month a myth which simply tells us that every day,the sun woos the dawn. In the Hiad she is never spoken ofexcept as the daughter of Zeus ;sacrificesand Isokrates notices theoffered in Thera,pnai to her and to Menelaos, not,as1heroes but as gods. She is worshipped by the women ofSparta as the source of all fruitfulness, and in 4rgos as themother of Iphigeneia, the child of Theseus, and as having2^dedicated a temple to Eileithyia. In Rhodes she is HelenDendritis, and a wild legend was invented to account forthe name. 3Lastly, the myth of her journey to Hion and herreturn is in its framework simply the myth of Aug, themother of Tlephos, like her, taken away to the same land,and, like her, brought back again when all enemies hare.been overcome. 4This is, practically, the Gaelic story of Conall Gulban, The storywhich may be fairly regarded as embodying a whole cycle ofmythical tradition. The materials of which it is made upcarry us to a vast number of legends in Aryan mythology,.but the main story is that of Herakles, AchiUeus, and Helen.Conall himself is the solar hero, despisedat first for hishomely appearance and seeming weakness, but triumphantin the end over all his enemies. Nay, as he becomes anidiot in the Lay of the Great Fool, so here he is emphaticallyAnalkis,the coward. But he is resolved nevertheless toPreller, Gr Myth.ii. 109-110; tt. tlie Erinyes as dawn-goddesses, while it1*ii. 426 ,Od. iv. 184, &c. : Isokr. Helen, mingles with it the later notion whichEnfam. 63. represented them as Furies. The tree2 Paus. ii. 22, 7. points probably to her connexion with3 Id. 11. 19, 10. the sun, and thus carries us back to thThis story relatesthat Helen, being persecuted by Mega- special form of worship paid to herpenthes and Nilcostratos after the death at Sparta, as well as to the myth ofof Menelaos, took refuge at Rhodes in Wuotan. See vol. i p. 371, 430.the house of Polyxd, who, being angry * This myth is to Preller ' ernewith Helen as the cause of the Trojan Vorstellung welche ursprunghch hochsfrwar and thus of the death of her wdhrschemlichauchmitihrerBedeutunghusband Tlepolemos whom Sarp6d6n im Naturleben zusammenhmg.' Gr.nlew, sent some maidens, disguised as ii.Myth. 110: and he draws betweenKnnyes, who surprised Helen while the stories of Helen and Augfc a parallelfbathmg, and hung her up to a tree which may be exhibited in the followingThis myth is simply a picture of the equation:dawn rifting like Aphrodit6 from the -Augfc : Teuthras : : Helenfc : Paris,bea ;and it preborves the recollection of Tegea : Mysia : : Sparta : Ilion,

158 MYTHOLOGY OP THE AKYAN NATIONS.BOOK make the daughter of the King of Laidheann his wife,._ ** ^although, like Brynhild and Briar Eose and Surya Bai, sheisguarded within barriers which the knight who would winher must pass at the cost of his life if he fails. The fortresshada great wall, with iron spikes within a foot of eachother, and a man's head ilpon every spike but the one spikewhich had been left for his own, althoughit was never to begraced by it. It is the hedge of spears of the modern Hindulegends, the fiery circle which Sigurd must enter to wakenthe maiden who sleeps within it. As he draws nigh to thefbarrier, one of the soldiers says, I perceivethat thou art abeggar who was in the land of Eirinn what*wrath would;the king of Laidheann have if he should come and find hisdaughtershamed by any one coward of Eirinn 9 * At awindow in this fastness stands the Breast of Light, theHelen of the tale.'Oonall stood a little while gazing at her,but at last he put his palm on the point of his spear, he gavehis rounded spring, and he was in at the window beside theBreast of Light/ a name which recalls the Eur6p&, Buryganeia,and Euryphassa of Hellenic myths. The maidenbids him not make &n attempt which must end in his death,tbut he leaps over the heads of the guards. Was not thatthe hero and the worthy wooer, that his like is not to befound to-day 9 'Yet she is not altogether pleased that it iscthe coward of the great world 5that has taken her away;but Oonall is preparing to take a vengeance like that ofOdysseus, and all the guards and warriors are slain. Theinsult is wiped out in blood, but with marvellous fidelity tothe old mythical phrases, Conall is made to tell the Breast ofLight 'that he had a failing, every time that he did anydeed of valour he must sleep before he could do brave deedsagain/ The sun must sleep through the night before he canagain do battle with his foes. The sequel is as in the Lay ofthe Great Pool. Paris comes while Menelaos slumbers, orheeds him not, or is absent. He has a mirror in his shipwhich will rise up for none but the daughter of the king ofLaidheann, and as it rises for her, he knows that he hasfound the fated sister of the Dioskouroi, and with her hesails straightway to his home across the wine-faced sea*

THE STORY OF CONALL GULBAN. 159But the seducer has sworn to leave her free for a year and CHAP,a day, if Conall has so much courage as to come in pursuit>,-L^of her. Like Helen, she is shut up in the robber's stronghold,* sorrowful that so much blood was being spilt for her ;'but Conall conquers in the struggle and rescues her cout ofthe dark place in which she was/ the gloomy cave of thePanis. Then follow more wanderings answering to the Nostoi,and, like Odysseus, Conall appears in worn-out clothes inorder to make his way into the king's fortress, and again ascene of blood ensues, as in the hall of slaughter in thecourts of the Ithakan and Burgundian chieftains. The storynow repeats itself. The king of the Green Isle has a daughterwho, like Dana, is shut up in a tower, and the otherwarriors try in vain to set her free, till Conall f struck a kickon one of the posts that was keeping the turret aloft, andthe post broke and the turret fell,but Conall caught it betweenhis hands before it reached the ground. A door openedand Sunbeam came out, the daughter of the king of the GreenIsle, and she clasped her two arms about the neck of Conall,and Conall put his two arms about Sunbeam, and he boreher into the great house, and he said to the king of the GreenIsle, Thy daughter is won.' The myth is transparent. Sunbeamwould marry Conall, but he tells her that he is alreadywedded to Breast of Light, and she becomes the wife of Maca-Moir,the Great Hero, the son of the king of Light.The stealing away of Helen and all her treasures is bhe The voycauseof another expedition which, like the mission of the ^chafonTArgonautai, brings together all the Achaian chieftains ;and to llion.the mythical history of these princes, interwoven with theold talegrown upof the death or the taking away of the day, hasinto the magnificentstorehouse of Greek epical literature.poems which make up theBut the main threadof the stoiy remains clear and simple enough. If the searchand the struggle which end it represent the course of thenight, they must last for something like ten hours, and thuswe get the ten years of the war. The journey is accomplishedduring the dark hours but it cannot :begin until the eveningis ended, or in other words, until the twilight has completelyfaded away.Hence the calm which stays the Achaian fleet

160 MYTHOLOGY OP THE ARYAX NATION'S.in Aulis cannot end until Iphigeneia has been offered as avictim to the offended Artemis, the goddessof the moon orthe night. It is vain to resist. The sin of Agamemnon isbrought back to his mind, as he remembers how he promisedbefore the birth of his child that he would offer up the mostbeautiful thing which that year might produce, and how hehad failed to fulfil his vow. But now the evening must dieif the light of morning is to be seen again and :Iphigeneia isslain that Helen may come back to Sparta. But althoughher blood flows to the grief and agony of her father and herkinsfolk, the war must still last for ten years, for so it hadbeen decreed by Zeus, who sent the snake to eat up thesparrow and her young; land thus room was given for theintroduction of any number of episodes, to account for, or toexplain the lengthening out of the struggle and the machi-;nery of a thousand myths was obviously available for thepurpose. Like Hippodameia or Atalant, Helen was beautiful,but many must fail while one alone could win her.Sigurd only can waken Brynhild and the;dead bodies ofthe unsuccessful knights lie before the hedge or wall ofspears in^the Hindu folk-lore. Thus with the introductionof Achilleus, as the great hero without whom the war cannever be brought to an end, the whole framework of the epicpoem was complete. It only remained to show what theothers vainly attempted, and what Achilleus alone succeededin doing.That the life of Achilleus should run in the samemagic groove with the lives of other heroes, mattered nothing.The story which most resembled that of Achilleus is indeedchosen by the poet to pointneeded most of all to take to heart.to him the moral which heMeagros This story is the life of Meleagros, and it is recited toAcMleus b J Phoinix, the teacher of his childhood, thedweller in that purple land of the east from which Eur&pfiwas taken to her western home. It is the picture of theshort-lived sun, whose existence isbound up with the lightor the torch of day, who is cursed by his mother for killing1This incident* II. \i. 300, is related and not at all as the cause of the lengthsimply as a sign of the numher of yearsof the struggle,which must precede the fall of fiioii,

MELEAGBOS AND THE KOURETES. 161her brothers, the clouds which are scattered by his spear CHAP,rays, who moves on his way moodily and sullenly, as the v _ Tclouds pass across his face, and appears at intervals to theterror of all his enemies. He is a son of Oineus or Ars,and Althaia the nourishing D&mAt&r; and he proves his skillin the use of the javelin by bringing down the monstrousboar which the chieftains assembled at Kalydon had failedto kill. But the interest of his life lies in the burning torchand the prophecy of the Moirai, that with its extinction hisown life must come to an end. His mother thereforesnatches it from the fire, and carefully guardsit from harm.But the doom must be accomplished.Artemis stirsup strife^between the men of Kalydon and the Kour^tes for the spoilsof the boar, and a war follows in which the former arealways conquerors whenever Meleagros is among them.But the Eouretes are, like the Korybantes and the IdaianDaktyloi, the mystic dancers who can change their forms atwill, and thus their defeat is the victory of the sun whoscatters the clouds as they wheel in their airy movementsround him. These clouds reappear in the brothers ofAlthaia, and when they are slain her wrath is ro%sed, likethe anger of Poseid6n when Polyph&naos is blinded, or therage of Zeus when the Kykl&pes are slain. The curse nowlies heavy on Meleagros. His voice is no more heard in thecouncil ;his spear is seen no more in the fight. He lies idlein his golden chambers with the beautiful Kleopatra;Eephalos is taking his rest with E6s behind the cloudswhich hide his face from mortal men, and he will not comeforth. Wearied out at last, his mother brings forth thefatal brand and throws it into the fire, and as its last sparkflickers out, Meleagros dies. With him die his wife and hismother; D&ianeira and Oin6n cannot live when Heraklesand Paris are gone.1So passes away the hero who can onlythus be slain, and his sisters who are changed into guineahensweep for his death, as the sisters of Phaeth6n, thebright fleecy clouds, shed tears of amber over their brother'sgrave.1In the Mad Meleagros does not heard the cnrse of Althaia overtakereturn home from the fight with the him. This is only another form of theKottretes, for the Erinyes who have myth of Helene Dendritis.VOL. II.M

162 MYTHOLOGY OP THE ARYAN NATIONS.BOOK In this story Phoinix tells Achilleus that he may see a>_^ : , reflection of himself ;and the parallel is closer than perhapsThetis and the poet imagined. Like Meleagros, he is a being in whose'in.s flows the blood of the gods. His mother is the sea-like Athnnymph Thetis, for, like Kephalos and AphroditS,and lamos, the sun-god must rise from the waters and in;the life of his father Peleus the threads of a large numberof myths are strangely ravelled together. The tale of hissojourn in lolkos repeats the story of Belleroph6n andAnteia; and as Proitos sends Belleroph6n that he may beput to death by other hands than his own, so Akastos, thehusband -who thinks himself injured, leaves Peleus withoutarms on the heights of Pelion, that the wild beasts maydevour him. He is here attacked by Kentaurs, but saved byCheiron, who giveshim back his sword. Here also he becomesthe husband of Thetis, at whose wedding-feast the seeds ofthe strifeare sown which produce their baleful fruits in thestealing away of Helen and all its wretched consequences.But the feast itself is made the occasion for the investitureof Peleus with all the insignia of Helios or Phoibos. Hislance is the gift of Cheiron : from Poseid6n, the god of theair and the waters, come the immortal horses Xanthos andBalios, the golden and speckled steeds which draw the chariotof the sun through the sky, or the car of Achilleus on theplains of Hion. Tor her child Thetis desires, as she herselfpossesses,the gift of immortality, and the legend, asgiven by Apollodoros, here introduces almost unchangedthe story of Dm6t6r and Triptolemos. Like the Eleusiniangoddess, Thetis bathes her babe by night in fire,to destroy the mortality inherited from his father. Peleus,chancing one day to see the act, cries out in terror, andThetis leaves his house for ever. 1 Of the manystories toldof his later years, the myth of the siege of lolkos and thedeath of Astydameia repeats that of Absyrtos and hasprobably the same meaning. The involuntary slaughter ofEurytion finds a parallel in the death of Eunomos, who isunwittingly killed by Herakles; and the flocks which heoffers in atonement to Iros the father, are the flocks which1Apollod lii. 13, 6.

AOHILLEUS IN WOMAN'S GAKB. 163appear in all the legends of Phoibos and Helios. Iros refusesto receive them, and Peleus suffers them to wanderuntended until they are devoured by a wolf,a phrase whichbetrays the nature both of the herds and their destroyer,and carries us to the death of the gentle Prokris.When Thetis had vanished away, Peleus carried the child The wotothe wise Kentaur Oheiron, who taught him how torideand shoot, a myth which at once explainsremember that the Kentaurs are the offspring of Ixi6n andMephelS.itself when weIn his earlier years Achilleus resembles the youthfulDionysos, Theseus, and Phoibos, in the womanly appearanceof his form, the gentler aspect of the new risen sunwhen the nymphs wash him in pure water and wrap him inrobes of spotless white. But while his limbs yet showedonly the rounded outlines of youth, Kalchas the prophetcould still foresee that only with his help could the strongholdof the seducer of Helen be taken, and that none butAchilleus could conquer Hektor. Only the death of hisenemy must soon be followed by his own. The night mustfollow the blazing sunset in which the clouds pour out theirstreanas of blood-red colour, like the Trojan youths slain onthe great altar of sacrifice. To avert this doom,if it bepossible to do so, Thetis clothed the child, now nine yearsold, in girlish raiment and placed him in Skyros among thedaughters of where from his Lykomedes? golden locks hereceived the name of Pyrrha. But he could not long behid :and the young boy who had in his infancy been calledLigyron, the whining, was recognised by Odysseus thechieftain of Ithaka as the great champion of the Achaianarmies.Thus was Achilleusengaged in a quarrel which was not The careerhis own; and on this fact we can scarcely lay a greater istress than he does himself. The task is laid upon him, asit was on Heraldes or on Perseus ;and the sons of Atreusare to him what Polydektes and Eurystheus had been to thesons of DanaS and* AlkmSn& The men of Hion had neverravaged his fields or hurt his cattle ;and not only were hisexploits made to shed lustre on the greedy chiefs who used himfor a tool, but in every battle the brunt of the fight felluponM 2

164 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAff KATIONS.Mm, while almost all the booty went to them. It is theservitude of Phoibos: but the despot is here a harshermaster than AdxnStos, and the grief which Achilleus ismade to suffer isdeeper than that of Apoll&n when Daphnvanishes from his sight, or of BLerakles when Eury tos refusesto perform the compact which pledged him to make Iol thebride of the hero. The Achaian campis visited with aterrible plague. First the beasts die,, then the men, and thesmoke of funeral pyres ascends up everywhere to heaven. Atlength they learn from Kalchas that the wrath of Phoiboshas been roused by the wrong done to the priest Chryseswho had in vain offered to Agamemnon a splendid ransomfor his daughter, and that not until the maiden isgiven upwill the hand of the god cease to lie heavy on the people.At length the kingisbrought to submit to the will of thedeity, but he declares that in place of the daughter ofChrys6s, Bris&s, the child of the Vedic Brisaya, shall be tornaway from the tents of Achilleus, and thus the maiden onwhom Achilleus had lavished all his love passes away into thehands of the man whom he utterly despises for his cowardiceand his greed.For him the light is blotted out of the skyas thoroughly as the first beauty of the day is gone when thefair hues of morning give way before the more monotonoustints which take their place. Henceforth his journey mustbe solitary, but he can take that vengeance on his persecxztorwhich the sun may exact of those who have deprived him ofhis treasure. He may hide himself in his tent, or sullenlysit on the sea-shore, as the sun may veil his face behind theclouds, while the battle of the winds goes on beneath them.Then, in the sudden outburst of his grief, he makes a solemnvow that when the Achaians are smitten down by their enemieshis sword shall not be unsheathed in their behalf; and whenhis mother comes from her coral caves to comfort him, hebeseeches her to go to Zeus and pray him to turn the scaleof victory on the Trojan side, that the Argives may see whatsort of a king they have, and Agamemnon may rue the follywhich dishonoured the best and bravest of all the Achaianchieftains.So Thetis hastens to Olympos, and Zeus swearsto her that Hion shall not fall until the insult done to her

THE WRATH OF ACHILLEUS. 165son lias been fully atoned. But to thisAgamemnonnot yet stoop. His chieftains stand around him in unimpairedstrength, and the men whom theylead are eagerforthe conflict. It was obviously the point at which the poetmight pass from the story of Achilleus to the exploits ofother chieftains, and accordingly many books of the Iliadare taken up with narratives showing what those chiefscould and could not do without Achilleus. Whether thesenarratives formed part of the Iliad in its earliest form, is apoint which has been examined elsewhere; but they are soarranged as to lead to the humiliating confession of Agamemnonthat he has lost too many men to be able to continuethe struggle with any hope of success a confessionwhich only admits in other words that the conqueror ofIlion is not now in their assembly. The answer is obvious.Briseis must be restored, and Agamemnon must express hissorrow for all his evil words and evil deeds. If then anyattempts were made to appease the wrath of Achilleus beforethe final reparation which he accepted, it follows that thoseattempts did not fulfil the conditions on which he insisted,and hence that the ninth of the books of the Iliad, as it nowstands, could not possibly have formed part of the originalAchillas or Ilias. The apology which is here rejected isword for word the same as that which isafterwards held tosuffice, and the reparation offered after the death of Patroklosis in no way larger than that which had been offeredbefore. The rejection of a less complete submission is, however,in thorough accordance with the spirit of the old myth,and the mediation of Phoinix serves well to exhibit Achilleusto himself in the mirror of the character of Meleagros. Buttaking the story as it now stands, we may well stand amazedat the unbounded savagery of the picture. There is notonly no pausing on the partof Achilleus to reflect thatAgamemnon has a heart to feel as well as himself, and thatthe loss of Chrys&s might at least weigh something againstthat of the daughter of Brisks, but there is not the slightestheed to the sufferings of his countrymen and the hopelessmisery of the protracteii struggle. The one redeeming featnreis his truthfulness, if this can be held to redeem a cha-

166 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS..BOOK racter which. Patroklos describes 1 as fitonly for one who is-TC*_. the child of the rugged rocks and the bairen sea. If thetears of Patroklos are of any avail, it is not because he tellshim of the wretched plightof the Achaian hosts, but becausehe is his friend, and his friendship is part of himself, hisown selfish and personal concern ;and thus when that friendprays him, if he will not go forth himself, to let him havehis horses, his armour, and his Myrmidons, Achilleus tellshad taken fromhim that all his rage is because Agamemnonof his bow and spear, and that even now hehim the prizewould not have yielded a jot of his vow, if the war had notat length touched his own ships.2When, further, his friendhas fallen by the hand of Hektor, and Achilleus makes hisdeadly oath that the funeral rites shall not be performed overhis bodyuntil the head and the arms of Hektor can beplaced by its side, the submission of the Argivechiefs isaccepted not from any notion that his inaction has sprungfrom an exorbitant selfishness, but because his own grief andunbounded fury for the loss of his friend drive him to do thethe less exci-things to which the chiefs would urge him byNow that his wrathting arguments of a cooler patriotism.is thus kindled, the strife shall indeed be ended in the bloodof his enemies* Hektor shall die, though the death ofAchilleus may follow ever so closely upon it, and the bloodof twelve human victims, deliberately reserved for the frightfulsacrifice, shall stream on the pyre of Patroklos. As theportrait of a human being, the picture is from first to lastinexpressibly revolting; and it is only when we take thestory to pieces and trace the origin of its several portions,that we begin to see how there lay on the poet a necessitythan that which forced Achilleus to hisnot less constrainingfitful fury and his early doom, a necessity which compelledhim to describe under the guise of human warriors theactions of the hosts which meet fortheir great battle everymorning in the heavens. Regarded thus, there is scarcelya single feature, utterly perplexing thoughitmay'be on thesupposition that we are dealing with a human portrait,which is not seen to be full of life and meaning. We are no''S. xvi 34.2 Jh. xvi. 63.

PATROKLOS ATO SABPfiDCN. 167longer perplexed to know why Patroklos, who can move in CHAP,the armour of Achilleus, yet cannot wield his spear, why the - ,'_^horses which Zeus gave to Peleus are the offspring of thewest-wind and the harpy Podarg, and why theirmotherfeeds in a meadow by the side of the ocean stream. 1All isnow plain.The Myrmidons must be compared with thewolves which appear almost everywhere in the myths ofPhoibos Apoll6n their ; tongues and their cheeks must bered as with blood. We see at once why Patroklos can returnsafe from the fight only if he does strictly the biddingof Achilleus, for Patroklos is but the son of Klymen6, whomust not dare to whipthe horses of Helios. When atlength Patroklos goes forth and encounters Sarpd6n, it iscurious to trace the inconsistencies which are forced uponthe poet as he interweaves several solar myths together. Onthe one side is the Zeus who has sworn to Thefcis that hewill avenge the wrongs done to Aehilleus,a promise whichcannot be fulfilled by allowing his friend to be slaughtered,on the other the Zeus whose heart is grieved for the deathof his own child Sarpd6n. His vow to Thetis binds him toshield Patroklos from harm; his relation to the braveLykian chieftain makes him look upon the son of Menoitiosas he looked on Phaeth6n while doing deadly mischief inthe chariot of Helios. So here Zeus takes counsel whetherhe shall smite him at once or suffer him to go on a littlelonger in his headlong course. But each story remainsperfectly clear. Sarpd6n falls bythe same doom whichpresses not only on the man who slays him, but on Achilleus,on Belleroph&n, on Kephalos and a hundred others. TheLykian chief dies, like his enemy, in the prime of goldenyouth and in the far west, for his Lykia lay far away to theeast of Ilion, where the sun comes up, and the Dawn isgreeting the earth when the powers of sleep and death beartheir beautiful burden to the doors of his golden home.the same inconsistency the eastern tradition made Apoll&nthe enemy of Patroklos, as it afterwards associates him withParis in the death of Achilleus 5 yet the power by which hepreserves the body of Hektor from decay is employed by1H xvi. 150.By

,168 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.BOOK Thetis to preserve that of Patroklos. But the terrible fight

THE AKMING OF ACHILLEUS. 169he tells us how the dazzling light thrown from his face CHAP,reached up to the high ether of Zeus, and how the horses - r^of the Trojans felt the woes that were coming, and theirdrivers were astonished, as they beheld the awful fire kindledon the head of the great-hearted son of Peleus by the dawngoddessPallas Athn& But for the present there is theblaze of light,and nothing more. At the bidding of Hrthe sun goes down, and the strife is stayed. But as thehours of the night wear on, the fire-god toils on the taskwhich Thetis prays him to undertake ;and when the mightydisk of the shield and the breast-plate more dazzling thanthe fiercest fire are ready, Thetis flieswith them to her sonlike a hawk wingingitsway from the snow-clad Olympos.The hour of vengeanceis now indeed come. As his motherlays before him the gifts of Hephaistos, his eyes flash likethe lightning, and his only fear is that while he is fighting,the body of Patroklos may decay. But Thetis bids him beof good cheer. No unseemly thing shall come near to marthat beautiful form, thoughit should lie unheeded the wholeyear round. There can be now no delay, and no pausein the conflict. The black clouds have hidden the face ofAchilleus long enough ;but now he will not eat before hisdeadly task is done. He is braced for the final struggle bya sight which he had scarcely hoped to see again. TheAchaian chiefs appear to make the submission of Agamemnon,and like Iol& coming to HeraHes, or Antigon6 to thedying Oidipous, Bris&s is restored to him unscathed aswhen she was torn away from his tent. In her grief for'Patroklos, whom she had left full of life, we have the griefof the dawn for the death of the sun in his gentler aspect.In him there had been no fierceness, and if his gentlertemper went along with a lack of strength, like that ofPhaeth6n in the chariot of Helios, he was. none the lessdeserving of her love. In the arming which follows we have,as plainly as words can paint it, the conflagration of theheavens :and the phrases used by the poet, if regarded as adescription of any earthly hero and any earthly army, mightbe pronounced a series of monstrous hyperboles with fargreater justice than the hundred-headed narcissus to whichColonel Mure appliesthe term when speaking of the myth

170 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ABYAN NATIONS.BOOK of Persephon& The shield flashinglike a beacon-fire far~_.^' ..- away on the deep sea, the helmet crest gleaming like a star,the armour which bears up the hero as on the pinions of abird, the spear which Cheiron cut on the heights of Pelion,the undying horses gifted with the mind and the speech ofman, all belong to no earthly warfare. Of the mighty conflictwhich follows we have already spoken ;but it is scarcelypossible to lay too much stress on the singular parallelism,between the several stages in this fatal contest, as comparedwith the battle between Odysseus and the suitors. Thehero with the irresistible weapons which no other armcan wield, filled with thestrength of AthM herself, fightingwith enemies who almost overpower him just whenhe seems to be on the point of winning the victory, thestruggle in which the powers of heaven and hell take part,the utter discomfiture of a host by the might of one invinciblewarrior, the time of placid repose which followsthe awful turmoil, the doom which in spite of the presentglory still awaits the conqueror, all form a picture, the linesof which are in each case the same, and in which we seereflected the fortunes of Perseus, Oidipous, Belleroph6n,and all the crowd of heroes who have each their Hektor tovanquishand their Ilion to overthrow,whether in the denof Ohimaira, the labyrinth of the Minotaur, the cave dfCaeus, the frowning rook of the Sphinx, or the stronghold ofthe Panis. Nor is the meaning of the tale materially alteredwhether we take the myth that he fell in the western gatesby the sword of Paris aided by the might of Phoibos, or theversion of Diktys of Crete, that in his love for Polyzena thedaughter of Priam he promised to join the Trojans, andgoing unarmed into the temple of Apollon at Thymbra, wasthere slain by the seducer of Helen. As the sun is the childof the night, so, as the evening draws on, he may be said toally himself with the kindred of the night again ;and hisdoom is equally certain whether the being whom he is saidto love represent the dawn or the sister of the night that iscoming. With all the ferocity which he shows on the loss ofBris&s, Achilleus none the less resembles Herakles ;but thepity which he feels for the amazon Penthesileia, when

THE RETUKff OF THE ACHAIAffS. 171he discovers her beauty, explains the myths which mate CHAP,IILhim the lover of Diomd and Polyxena, and the hus- -_band of Medeia, or Iphigeneia, or of Helen herself on thedazzling isle of LeukS. We are dealing with the lovesof the snn for the dawn, the twilight, and the violet-tintedclouds.But if the myth of Achilleus is, as Phoinix himself is made Theto say, only another form of the tale of Meleagros, the story of Nost01 'the sun doomed to go down in the full brightness of his splendourafter a career as brief as it is brilliant if for him theslaughter of Eektor marks the approaching end of his ownlife, the myth of Helen carries us back to another aspect ofthe great drama. She is the treasure stolen from the gleamingwest, and with her wealth she is again the prize of theAchaians when Paris fallsby the poisoned arrows of Philoktts.This rescue of the Spartan queen from the seducerwhom she utterly despises is the deliverance of Sararnfrom the loathsome Panis ;but the long hours of theday must pass before her eyes can be gladdened by the sightof her home. Thus the ten hours' cycle is oiice more repeatedin the Nostoi, or return of the heroes,for in theMediterranean latitudes, where the night and day may beroughly taken as dividing the twenty-fourhours into twoequal portions, two periods of ten hours each would representthe time not taken up with the phenomena of daybreakand sunrise, sunset and twilight. Thus although the wholenight is a hidden struggle with the powers of darkness, thedecisive exploits of Achilleus, and indeed the activeoperationsof the war are reserved for the tenth year and furnishthe materials for the Iliad, while in the Odyssey the tenyears' wanderings are followed by the few hours in whichthe beggar throws off his rags and takes dire vengeance onhis enemies. Hence it is that Odysseus Returns, a man ofmany griefs and much bowed with toil, in the twentieth yearfrom the time when the Achaian fleet set sail from Aulis.The interest of the homeward voyage of the treasure-seek- oaersis centered in the fortunes of Odysseus, the brave and ^ Awise chieftain whose one yearning it is to see his wife and y 8 'his child once more before he dies.He has fought the battle-

172 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.of the children of the sun against the dark thieves of night,and now his history must he that of the lord of day as hegoes on his journey through the sty instorm and calm, inpeace or in strife. This transparence of meaning marksnot only the myth of itOdysseus;is seen in all that isrelated of his kinsfolk. The character of his parents merelyreflects his own. His grandfather is Autolykos, the true orthe absolute light which kindles the heavens at dawn. ButAutolykos, who is endowed with a wisdom which comingfrom Helios passes into a craft like that of Medeia, is a childof Hermes, the morning breeze, and Telaugfi the far-shining.His bride is Neaira, the early dawn, whose daughters feedthe cattle of Helios in Thrinakia. His child is Antikleia, aname which suggests a comparison with AntigonS andAntiop ;and Antikleia is the wife of Laertes, a being akinto the Laios of Theban tradition, or of Sisyphos, whose storyis that of the sun toiling to the uppermost heights of theheaven with his huge orb, only to see it roll down again tothe sea. From these springs Odysseus, whose name, in thebelief of the poet, 2 indicated the wrath or hatred of hisgrandsire Autolykos, but which through the form Olyseus, theLatin TJlyxes or Ulysses, may perhaps rather represent theSanskrit ulukshaya, the Eurykreion or widely ruling kingof the Greeks. With the abode of Autolykos on Parnassos isconnected the story of the boar's bite, by whose mark Eurykleiathe old nurse recognises Odysseus on his return fromIlion ;nor can we doubt that this boar is the beast whosetusk wroughtthe death of Adonis.It is true indeed thatin Autolykos the idea suggested by the penetrating powersof sunlight has produced a character far lower than that ofOdysseus but : it must not be forgotten that the latter canlie, or steal, or stab secretly when it suits his purpose to doso. If the splendour of the sun is in one sense an image ofabsolute openness and sincerity, the rays which peer intodark crannies or into the depths of the sea may as naturallyindicate a craft or cunning which must suggest the formsassumed by the myth in the stories of Medeia, Autolykos,1He is also called the husband of Amphithea, the light which gleams all roundthe heaven,*Od. six. 410.

PENELOPfi. 173and Sisyphos.The process is the same as that which convertedthe flashing weapon of Chrys&6r into the poisonedarrows of Herakles, Odysseus, and Philokt&tes.But Odysseus, the suitor of Helen, is known especially asthe husband of Penelop, who weaves by day the beautifulOdysseusweb of cirri clouds which is undone again 'during the night ;and it is as the weaver that she defeats the schemes of thesuitors in that long contest which runs parallel to the greatconflict at Ilion.Tor the departure of the Achaian chieftainsat Troy is the departure of the light after sundown ;and the powers of darkness as necessarily assail Penelopthey fight to retain Helen in the city of Priam and Paris.How then could she withstand their importunities except byof a webdevising some such condition as that of the finishingwhich cannot be seen completed except by the light of thesun, in other : words, until Odysseus should have come back?Eegarded thus, Penelopis the faithful bride of the sun,pure and unsullied in her truthfulness as Ath6n herself, andcherishing the memory of Odysseus through weary years ofsorrow and suffering. As such, the poet of the Odyssey haschosen to exhibit her ;but there were legends which spokeof Pan as the offspring of PenelopS and Hermes, or of PenelopSand all the suitors together. Of this myth, whichsimply exhibits the evening twilight and the darkness as theparents of the breeze which murmurs softly in the night, itisenough to say that we have no right to put it down asnecessarily of later growth than the myth which forms thesubject of the Odyssey. There is nothing to be urgedagainst, there is much to be urged for, the priority of suchmyths as Kephalos and Prokris, Dmtr and PersephonS, overby far the larger number of legends noticed or narrated inour Homeric poems ;and if one story is to be pronounced oflater growth than another, the verdict must be based onother and more conclusive evidence than the mere fact thatithappens not to be mentioned in our Iliad or Odyssey.PenelopS indeed is only the dawn or the evening light and:AphroditS is but another aspect of Ath&n6. As such, Penelop6is thrown by her parents into the sea at her birth,and she becomes AnadyomenS when the sea-birds, fromas

MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.BOOK wliicli slie was also said to have her name, raise her up on._ n ^ their cloud-like wings. As such also, when Odysseus hasThe wo-Odysseus.been slain by Telegonos, 1she becomes the wife of his murderer,either in Aiaia or in Leuk where Helen is alsowedded to Achilleus.To the success of the Trojan expedition Odysseus is onlyless necessary than the great chieftain of Phthia and hence;we have the same story of his unwillingness to engage in itwhich we find in the story of Achilleus. In this case as inthe other it is a work to be done for the profit of others, nothis own. It is in short a task undertaken against his will ;and1it answers strictly to the servitude of Phoibos in thehouse of Adm&tos, or the subjection of Herakles to thebidding of Eurystheus. With the idea of the yoke thus laidupon them isclosely connected that notion of weakness toof thewhich the Homeric hymn points when it speaksnymphs as wrapping Phoibos in the white swaddling-clothesbefore he became Chrysler. This raiment becomes a disguise,and thus the workmen jeer at Theseus for his girlishappearance, and Achilleus is found in woman's garb by thosewho come to take him to Ilion. The idea of disguise, however,readily suggests that of feigned madness, and as suchit comes before us in the story of Odysseus, who is describedas sowing salt behind a plough drawn by an ox and an ass.The trick is found out by Palamedes, who, placing the infantTelemachos in his way, makes Odysseus turn the ploughaside and avoid him. He is now bound to attempt therescue of Helen, as he and all her suitors had sworn to dowhen they sought her hand. At Troy, however, he is butone of many Achaian chieftains, although he is second onlyto Achilleus jand thus he goes with Menelaos to Ilion todemand the surrender of Helen, before the strife is formallybegun. In the long contest which follows he is renownedchiefly for his wisdom and his eloquence. In the council1 This name, like Memachos, Me- the sun, it follows that all who die arephos and T&ephassa, denotes the far- slam by these gods. Hence Odysseusreaching spears (rays) of the sun and not less than his enemies must be slainas Helios and Phoibos became the lords by Phoibos or somebody who representsof life and death, of the light and him.darkness which depends on the orb of

ODYSSEUS AND HIS COMRADES. 175none lias greater power; and his coolunimpassioned sobrietystands out in singular contrast with, the fierce impetuosity ofAchilleus. He can also serve, if need be, as a spy, and inambush none are more formidable. With him, according toone tradition, originated that device of the wooden horsewhich, simply reproduces the Argo on dry land. As the shipbears the confederated Achaians who contrive to win awelcome from the Eolchian king, so the wooden horsecarries all the bravest of the Argives on their errand ofdeath to the Trojans and of rescue to Helen, whose wealthis the Golden Fleece.With the fall of Ilion Odysseus at once appears in another Odysseusaspect.He is now the man who longs to see his wife, whocannot tarry where he is, and who must go on his wayhomewards in spite of all that may oppose him or seek toweaken the memory of her beauty and her love. On thisthread the poet of the Odyssey has strung together the seriesof adventures, most of which we have already sufficientlyexamined in the myths under which each naturallyThese adventures are interwoven with wonderful skill ;falls.butthey may each be traced to some simple phrase denotingoriginally the phenomena of the sun's daily or yearly coursethrough the heaven. Among the most remarkable featuresof the story are the changes in the companions of Odysseus,He sets out from Ilion with a gallant fleet and a goodly company: he lands in Ithaka from a beautiful bark with a noblecrew : but of those who had left Troy with him not one remaineda vivid image of the sun setting among clouds, butthe clouds are not the same as those which surrounded hima

176 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.and their raiment, the rough shaggylocks and uncouthfaces of the beings who represent the dark vapours, the purewhite robes and heavenly countenances of the maidens whodwell in the fair Phaiakian land. Thus the enemies andfriendsof the sun attend him throughout his journey, andthe times of peace may at any moment be followed by a timeof war.But these gloomy storm-clouds, which move likegiants with clubs as high as a ship's mast, all rise from thesea. In other words they are sons of Poseid6n, and thus isexplained that enmity of Poseid&n for Odysseus which ispartially counteracted by the dawn-goddess Athn. Hencealso many of the beings whom he encounters are only oldfriends or enemies in a new form or dress. There is reallyno difference in kind between the Kikones, the Laistrygonians,and the Eykl6pes, between the Lotos-eaters, KirkS,and the Seirens. It is but a question of the degree of riskand extent of loss in each case.Thus the Kikones gathertogether, like the leaves of the trees in number, and they gaintheir victory as the sun goes down in the west. Thesebeings reappear in more formidable shape on the islandwhere the KyH6pes feed their shaggy flocks, the vapourswhich lie low and seem to browse upon the hills. Necessarilythey can but pasture their herds, for vines or cornfields theycan have none. It is hard to say how far the details of thestory may not be strictly mythical in their origin.itCertainseems that when Odysseus, havingleft eleven ships in thegoat island, approaches the home of the Kykl&pes with onlyone, we see the sun drawing near to the huge storm-cloudwith but a single Phaiakian bark by his side. As his orbpasses behind the mass of vapour the giant becomes theone-eyed or round-faced Kyklops, who devours one by onethe comrades of Odysseus, as the beautiful clouds vanish oneafter the other behind this sombre veil. As the vapoursthicken still more, the face of the sun can no longer be seen ;in other words, PolyphSmos has been blinded, and his rageis seen in the convulsive movements of the vapours, frombeneath which, as from beneath the shaggy-fleeced rams,the white clouds which belong to the Phaiakian regions areseen stealing away, until at last from under the hugest beast

THE BAG OF WINDS. 177of the flock the sun himself emerges, only to draw down onCHAP.himself another savage attack from the madly rushing storm- ^__.?*: ,cloud. Polyph&nos has been smitten, and as on the discomfitureof Vritra, or the Sphinx, or the Pythian dragon,the mighty waters burst forth, and the ship of Odysseusiswell-nigh overwhelmed in the sea.The incidents which follow the departure of- Odysseus Odysseusfrom the island of Aiolos are a picture of a violent galefollowed by profound calm. Aiolos himself gives to Odysseusa bag containing all the winds, from which he mightlet outthe Zephyr to waft him on his way. As he sleeps, his comradesbewail the evil fate which sends them home emptyhandedwhile Odysseus has received from the king of thewinds vast treasures which would enrich them all. Thisnotion impels them to open the bag,and all the winds ofheaven burst forth in wild fury, and carry them back toAiolia, whence the king drives them away as being underthe curse of the gods, and says that henceforth he will nothelp them more. At once Odysseusis made to relate howhismen were now tired out with rowing day and night,because there was not a breath of air to speed them on theirvoyage.In the city of the Laistrygonians, Lamos, a name con- Thenected with the Greek Lamuroi and the Latin Lemures, wesee simply the awful caves in which the Vritra hides awaythe stolen cattle of Indra. It is hard by the confines of Dayand Night, and round it rise the rocks sheer and smoothfrom the sea, while two promontories leave a narrow entrancefor ships.Within it there is neither wave nor wind, but anawful stillness broken only by the dull sound whenShepherd calls to shepherd, entering throughThe portals, and the other makes answer due,1like thunder-clouds greeting each other with their mysteriousvoices. No cheering sight, however, meets the* eye; andwhen the men of Odysseus are led by the daughter ofAntiphates the chief into his palace, they gaze with horrorat his wife, who stands before them huge as a rock. ByVOL. II.1Worsley, Odyssey, x, 234.N

178 MYTHOLOGY OF THE AKYAff NATIONS.>BOOKAntiphates himself they are necessarilytreated lite their,' - comrades in the KyH6ps* island, and Odysseus escapes afterThe Lotos-losing many of his men only by cutting the mooring-ropesof his ship and hastening out to sea.In the land of the Lotos-eaters Odysseusencounters dangersof another kind. The myth carries us to the manyemblems of the reproductive powers of nature, of which theLotos is one of the most prominent.forbidden fruit, and the eating of it soIt here becomes thepoisons the blood asto take away all memory and care for home and kinsfolk, forlaw, right, and duty.The sensual inducements held out bythe Lotophagoi are, in short, those by which Venus temptsTanhaiiser into her home in the Horselberg ;and the degradationof the bard answers to the dreamy indolence ofthe groups who make life one long holiday in the Lotosland. The Venus of the medieval story is but another formof Kirk, the queen of Aiaia ;but the sloth and sensuality ofthe Lotos-eaters here turns its victims into actual swine,while the spellis a tangible poison poured by Kirk intotheir cups. The rod which she uses as the instrument oftransformation gives a farther significance to the story.EVom these swinish pleasures they are awakened only throughthe interference of Odysseus, who has received from Hermesan antidote which deprives the charms of Kirk& of allpowerto hurt him. The Herakles of Prodikos is after ail theHerakles whom we see in the myths of Echidna or of thedaughters of Thestios, and thus Odysseus dallies with Erkeas he listens also to the song of the Seirens. True, he hasnot forgotten his home or his wife, but he is ready to availhimself of all enjoyments which will not hinder him fromreaching home at last. So he tarries with Kirke and withthe fairer Kalypso, whose beautiful abode is the palace ofTara Bai in the Hindu legend, while she herself isUrsula,the moon, wandering, like Asterodia, among the myriadstars, the lovely being who throws a veil over the Swwhile he sojourns in her peaceful home.Trom the abode of Eirk Odysseus betakes himself to theKalypso. re gi ons of Hades, where from Teiresias he learns that hemay yet escape from the anger of Poseid&n, if he and his

ODYSSEUS IN 1THAKA. 179comrades will but abstain from hurting the cattle of HeliosCHAP,in the island of Thrinakia or in other words, as we have -_ ^ ,seen, if they will not waste time by the way.Coming backio Erk& he is further warned against other foes in the airanxl the waters in the Seirens and Skylla and Charybdis.Worse than all, however, is the fate which awaits him inThrinakia. The storm which is sent after the death of theoxen of Helios destroys all his ships and all his comrades,and Odysseus alone reaches the island of Zalypso, who, likeE6s, promises him immortality if he will but tarry with herfor ever. But itmay not be. The yearning for his homeand his wife may be repressed for a time, but it cannot beand Athn6 has exacted from Zeus an oathextinguished ;that Odysseus shall assuredly be avenged of all who havewronged him. So at the bidding of Hermes Zalypso helpsOdysseus to build a raft, which bears him towards Scheria,until Poseid6n again hurls him from it. But Ino Leukotheais at hand to save him, and he isat last thrown up almostdead on the shore of the Phaiakian land, where Ath6n bringsNausikafi, to his rescue. He is now in the true cloudland ofhis friends, where everything is beautiful and radiant ;andin one of the magic ships of Alkinoos he is wafted to Ithaka,and landed on his native soil, buried in a profound slumber.Here the wanderer of twenty years, who finds himself anoutcast from his own home, where the suitors have beenwasting his substance with riotous living, preparesfor hislast great work of vengeance, and for a battle which answersto the fatal conflict between Achilleus and Hektor. He ishimself but just returned from the search and the recoveryof a stolen treasure ;but before he can. rest in peace, thereremains yet another woman whom he must rescue, andanother treasure on which he must lay his hands.Of theincidents of this struggleit is unnecessary here to say morethan that they exhibit the victory of the poor despised outcast,whether it be Boots, or Cinderella, or Jack the GiantKiller, over those who pride themselves on their grandeurand their strength. He stands a beggar in his own hall.AthSnS herself has taken all beauty from his face, allcolourfrom his golden hair but there remains;yet the bow which

.aloneISOBOOKMYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.he alone can bend, the gleaming slipper which Cinderella>,-can put on. The whole picture is wonderfully true tothe phenomena of the earth and the heavens, but as aportrait of human character, it is not more happy than thatof Achilleus. There is the same complete disproportionbetween the offence committed and the vengeance taken, thesame frightful delight in blood and torturethe mutilationof Melanthios and the deliberate slaughter of the handmaidensanswering to the insults offered by Achilleus to thebody of Hektor, and the cold-blooded murder of the twelveTrojan youths on the funeral pyre of Patroklos. How completelythe incidents of the decisive conflict answer to thoseof the battle of Achilleus, we have seen All already. that weneed now say is that Odysseusis united with his wife, towhom Athn6 imparts all the radiant beauty of youth inwhich she shone when Odysseus had left her twenty yearsago. The splendid scene with which the narrative endsanswers to the benignant aspect in which Achilleus appearswhen Hektor is dead and his great toil against Hion is over.SECTION TILTHE CHILDREN OF THE STINT.The ex-We have thus far traced the second return of the treasureseekers.In each case the work to which they had devotedthemselves is accomplished. The golden fleece and Helenare each brought back to the land from which they had beentaken ;and though Odysseus may have suffered many andgrievous disasters on the way, still even with him the destructionof the suitors is followed by a season of serenerepose.But the poet who here leaves him with the bride ofhis youth restored to aH her ancient beauty, tells us neverthelessthat the chieftain and his wife must again be parted ;and myths might be framed from this point of view as readilyas from the other. It was as natural to speak of the sun asconquered in the evening by the powers of darkness as itwasto speak of him as victorious over these same foes in themorning as natural to describe the approach of night underthe guise of an expulsion of the children of Helios or Herakles,as to represent the reappearance of the sunset hues in

HYLLOS AND EURYSTHEUS. 181the west by a myth relating their triumphant return. Such CHAP.myths are in fact the germs of those In Orecurring expulsions, and ...those attempted or successful restorations which form what iscommonly called the history of the Eerakleidai.to which an element of actual history maybeThe extenttraced in thesemythical narratives is a question on which something hasbeen said already, and probablyit will not be disputed thateven if many of the names may be those of real local chieftains(and some of the incidents may possibly be traditionsof real local events), yet the narratives in their main featuresclosely resemble the other epical myths with which they areconnected. These stories were altered at will by later poetsand mythographers in accordance with local or tribal prejudicesor fancies, and forced into arrangements which wereregarded as chronological. Thus, some speak of the Trojanwar as taking place in the interval between the death ofHyllos and the return of his son Kleodaios ;but the historicalcharacter of all these events has been swept away,and we are left free to reduce the narratives to the simpledements of which they are composed. Thus the story ranthat when Herakles died, his tyrant and tormentor Eurystheusinsisted on the surrender of his sons, and that Hyllos,the son of D&aneira, with his brothers, hastily fled, and afterwandering to many other places at last found a refuge inAthens. This was only saying in other words that on thedeath of the sun the golden hues of eveningwere soonbanished from the western sky, but that after many wearyhours they are seen again in the country of the Dawn, asindeed they could be seen nowhere else. Athens is the onlypossible refuge for the children of Herakles but their enemieswill not allow them to slip;from their l^ands without astruggle. The;Gorgonsisters almost seize Perseus as hehurries away after the slaughter of Medousa; and thusEurystheus marches with his hosts against Athens. Butthe dawn must discomfit the dark beings. The Atheniansare led on by Theseus, the great solar hero of the land, bylolaos, the son of Iphikles, the twin brother of Herakles, and'by the banished Hyllos. Eurystheus is slain, and Hyllos carrieshis head to Alkm&od.

182 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ABYAN NATIONS.kleids.If we choose now to follow the ordinary arrangement ofthese stories, we shall see in them a series which might beindefinitely extended, but of whose mythical origin we canscarcely feel a doubt. If after the defeat of Eurystheus theHerakleids return to the Peloponnesos, we find that theycannot maintain their footing there for more than a year,and that then by an irresistible necessity they find theirway back to Athens 5and these alternations, which representsimply the succession of day and night, might and wouldhave been repeated any number of times, if the myths hadnot at length become mixed up with traditions of the localsettlement of the country in other words, if certain namesfound in the myths had not become associated with particularspotsor districts in the Peloponnesos. To follow all theversions and variations of these legends is a task perhapsnot much more profitable than threading the mazes of alabyrinth ;but we may trace in some, probablyin most ofthem, the working of the same ideas. Thus the Aversionwhich after the death of Eurystheus takes Hyllos to Thebesmakes him dwell by the Elektrian or amber-gates. Thenext stage in the history is another return of the children ofHerakles, which ends in the slaughter of Hyllos in singlecombat with Echemos a name connected perhaps with thatof Echidna, Ahi, the throttling snake. The night is once ,more victorious, and the Herakleidai are bound by a compactto forego all attempts at return for fifty or a hundred years,periods which are mere multiples of the ten years of theTrojan war, and of the Nbstoi or homeward wanderings ofthe Achaian chiefs. Once more the children of the dawngoddess give them shelter in Trikorythos, a region answeringto the Hypereia or upper land, in which the Phaiakiansdwelt before they were driven from itby the Kyklopes. Thesubsequent fortunes of Eleodaio& and Aristomachos the sonand grandson of Herakles simply repeat those of Hyllos ;but at length in the next generation the myth pauses, asinlie case of Odysseus and Achilleus in the Iliad and thfiof tibeOdyssey, at the moment of victory, and the repetitionold drama is prevented by the gradual awakening of thehistorical sense in the Hellenic tribes. For this last return

EAK3STOS AND CHRYS&S. ,183the preparations are on a scale which, may remind us in somedegree of the brilliant gathering of the Achaian chieftainswith their hosts in Aulis. A fleet is built at the entrance ofthe Corinthian gulf, at a spot which hence bore the name ofNaupaktos, and the three sons of Aristoinachos, Aristodemos,Temenos and Eresphontes, mate ready for the last greatenterprise.But Aristodemos is smitten by lightning beforehe can pass over into the heritage of his fathers 3and hisplace is taken by his twin sons Eurysthenes and Prokles, inwhose fortunes we see that rivalry and animosity which,appearing in its germ in the myth of the Dioskouroi, isbrought to a head in the story of Bteokles and Polyneikes,the sons of Oidipous. The sequel exhibits yet other pointsof resemblance to the stpry of the Trojan war. The soothsayerChryss reappears as the prophet Karnos, whose deathby the hand of Hippot&sanswers to the insults offered toChrys&s by Agamemnon. In either case the wrath ofApoH6m is roused, and a plagueis the consequence. Thelifted 'frompeople die of famine, nor is the hand of the godoff them, until, as for ChrysSs, a full atonement and recompenseis made. Hippots is banished, and the chiefs arethen told to take as their guide the three-eyed man, who isfound in the Aitolian Oxylos who rides on a one-eyed horse.But as the local myth exhibited Tisamenos the son ofOrestes as at this time the ruler of Peloponnesos, thatprince must be brought forward as the antagonist of thereturning Herakleids ;and a great battle follows in whichhe is slain, while, according to one version, Pamphylos andDymas, the sons of the Dorian Aigimios, fall on the side ofthe invaders. With the partition of the Peloponnesos amongthe conquerors the myth comes to an end. Argosfalls tothe lot of Temenos, while Sparta becomes the portion of thesons of Aristodemos, and Mess&nS that of Kresphontes.these chiefs onsacrifice is offered by way of thanksgiving bytheir respective altars ;and as they drew near to completeihe rite, on the altar of Sparta was seen a serpent, on thatof Argos a toad, on that of MessSnS a fox. The soothsayerswere, of course, ready with their interpretations. The slowand sluggish toad denoted the dull and unenterprising dis-A

184 MYTHOLOGY OP THE ABYAN NATIONS.BOOK position of the future Argive people the; serpent betokened^ /,^ the terrible energy of the Spartans the; fox, the wiliness andcunningof the Messenians. As indications of nationalcharacter, more appropriate emblems might perhaps havebeen found; but itmay be noted that the toad or frogreappears in the Hindu legend of BheM 5the frog-sun, andin the G-erman story of the frog-prince ;that the serpent inthis legend belongs to the class of dragons which appear inthe myths of Helios, Medeia and Iamos$ and that the Messenianfox is an animal closely akin to the wolf which wemeet in the myths of the Lykian Apoll6n and the ArkadianSECTION IV.THE THEBAN WAES.Adiastos In spite of all differences of detail between the legends ofthe Trojan and the Theban wars, the points of resemblanceare at the least as worthy of remark. In each case thereare two wars and two sieges ;and if the Argive chiefs tinderAdrastos are not so successful as HeraHes with his six shipsat Ilion, still the Trojan power was no more destroyed by thelatter than that of Eteokles was crushed by Polyneikes aiidhis allies. In either case also there is a hero whose presence-is indispensable to the success of the enterprise. In theTheban story this hero isAmphiaraos, the Achilleus of theTrojan legend in this its most important feature: and asTroy cannot fall unless Achilleus fights against it, so theArgives cannot hope to take ^Thebes unless Amphiaraos goeswith them- But as neither Achilleus nor Odysseus wishedto fight in a quarrel which was not their own, so Amphiaraosshrinks from any concern in a contest in which theprophetic mind inherited by him from his ancestor Melampoustells him that all the chiefs engagedin it must die*1The three sons, Aristodemos, point to Yng, Askr, and Irmin. ToTemenos and Kresphontes, who in this Yng, probably, we may trace "Chestage of the myth represent the line of English name : in Askr we see the ash-Herakles, are seen again in the three born man, the race of which the Greeksons of the German Mann, the Mannus spoke as sprung & pfXiav : Innm is theof Tacitus : but the names in the old Saxon god, whose name is familiarTeutonic storyare more significant, to us under its later form Herman, theThe names of the three great tribes, Arminius of Tacitus. Max Muller,Ingsevones, Iscsevones, Herminones. Lectures, second series, 458.

AMPHIARAOS AND ERIPHYLfi. 185with the one exception of Adrastos.But he had promisedthe Argive ting that in any differences which mightarise between them he would abide by the decision of hiswife Eriphyl, and EriphylS had been bribed by Polyneiieswith the giftof the necklace and peplos of Hannonia to decidein favour of the expedition. Thus Amphiaraos departsfor Thebes with a presentiment of his own coming doomas strong as the consciousness of Achilleus that his careermust be brief; but before he sets out, he charges hissons Amphilochos ajad Altmaion to slay their mother, sosoon as they hear of his death, and to march against thehated city of Thebes; and thus the starting point wasfurnished not only for the Theban war, but for a new seriesof woes to be wrought by the Erinyes of Eriphyl&The germs of the rivalry,which in the case of the sons of The sonOidipous grew into a deadly hatred, are seen in the ,pointsof contrast afforded by almost all the correlative deities ofGreet and Vedic mythology, and the twin heroes whetherof the east or the west. 1 Thus there is a close parallelbetween the Diostouroi and the sons of Oidipous. Theformer may not be seen together; the latter agree to reignover Thebes in turn ;and it was a ready device to accountfor the subsequent feud by saying that the brother whosetime was over refused to abide by his compact. HencePolyneites became an exile but it ;is not easy to determineprecisely to what degree a purely moral element has forcedits way into this series of legends from the horror which a\union lite that of lotastS and Oidipous, when regarded as afact in the lives of two human \ beings,Here also the Erinys might exercise her fatal office,could not fail to inspire.jfor the blood of lotastS must cry for vengeance as loudly asftiat of Iphigeneia or Amphiaraos; and the same feelingyhich suggested the curse of Amphiaraos on EriphylS would^so suggest the curse of Oidipous on his children. In the1 They are, in short, the rival brothers True and Untrue, by Big Peter andncipnly of the royal houses of Sparta, Little Peter in Dasent's Norse Talesbulin a vast number of stories in Aryan In the story of the Widow's Son (Dasent)folklore, and are represented by Ferdi- we have a closer adherence to the typena^ tho Faithful and Ferdinand the of the Dioskouroi in the two princes, oneUniithful in Grimm's collection, by of whom is turned into a horse.

,Latin'1SGMYTHOLOGY OF THE AKYAN NATIONS.BOOK older poems on the subject this erase was pronounced for>^.Tydeus.offences not very grave, if regarded merely from an ethicalpoint of view. His sons had been accustomed to bring himthe shoulders of victims offered in sacrifice, and they oncebrought him a thigh. At another time they put before himthe table and the wine-cup of Kadmos, although he hadcharged them never to do so. But the former of these twoacts implied a slight like that which Prometheus put uponZeus when giving him the choice of the portion for thegods; and the latter made him think of the golden dayswhen he sat down with Iokast to banquets as brilliant asthose of the long-lived Aithiopians and drank purple winefrom the inexhaustible horn of Amaltheia. But to Sophokls,who looked at the matter simply as a moralist, thesecauses were so inadequate that he at once charged the sonswith cruel treatment of their father, whom they drove awayfrom his home to fight with poverty as well as blindness.Polyneikes, when in his turn an exile, betook himself towith whom he quarrels.Argos where he fell in with Tydeus, 1But it had been shown long ago to Adrastos that he shouldwed his two daughters to a lion and a boar ;and when hefound these two men fighting, withshields which had severallythe sign of the boar and the lion, he came to the conclusionthat these were the destined husbands of Argeia andDeipylS.Hence also he readily agreed to avenge the allegedwrongs of Polyneikes, and the league was soon formed,which in the later Attic legend carried the Seven ArgiveChiefs to the walls of Thebes, but which for the poets ofthe Thebais involved as large a gathering as that of thechieftains who assembled to hunt the Kalydonian boar or torecover the Golden Fleece. How far these poets may havesucceeded in imparting to their subject the charm of oiuIliad or Odyssey, the scanty fragments of the poem whidalone we possess make it impossible to say; but there wjsmore than one incident in the struggle which mighttreated as fairly to win for the poem a title to the1Tkia name, like that of Tyndare6s, conveyed by the -word is thusmeans apparently the hammerer. The that of Thor Miolmr, of thetwo forms may be compared with the and the Aloadai.tundo, tutudi, to beat. The idea

Epigonoi, or the children of the discomfited chiefs of theformer expedition. But it must be noted that as the BferaiTHE DEATH OF AMPHIAKiOS. 187praise bestowed upon it by Pausanias. 1 Thus the story told CHAP.by DiomSdfe of his father Tydeus when sent to Thebes to -_ _-demand the restoration of Polyneikes reproduces in part thestory of Belleroph6n. 2Victorious in the strife of boxing orwrestling to which, lie had challenged the Kadmeians, he isassailed on his way back to the Argive host by an ambuscadeof fifty Thebans, all of whom he slays except Maion,who is saved by the special intervention of the gods. Sotoo the prophecy of Teiresias that the Thebans should beconquerors in the war if Ars received the youthful Menoikeusas a victim, must be compared with those utterancesof Zalchas which sealed the doom of Iphigeneia and Polyxena;and finally when the Argives are routed and Penklymenosisabout to slay Amphiaraos, we see in his rescue bythe earth which receives him with his chariot and horsesanother form of the plunge of Endymi6n into the sea or ofthe leap of Kephalos from the Leukadian cape. It is thevanishing from mortal sight of the sun which can never die,and so the story went that Zeus thus took away Amphiaraosthat he might make him immortal.This first assault of the Argives against Thebes answersto the ineffectual attemptstheir paternal inheritance.of the Herakleidai to recoverIt was therefore followed by asecond attack in the struggle known as the war of theHeids find a refuge in Athens after the slaughter of Hyllosby Echemos, so Adrastos, who alone had been saved from thecarnage by the speed of his horse Areion, betakes himself tothe Attic Eleusis, whence Theseus marches against theThebans to insist on the surrender and the burial of thedead,an incident in which the historical Athenians tookpride as an actual event in their annals. The doom ofThebes was now come, and the Epigonoi approach like theHfrakleidai when their period of inforced idleness is at anend. The Thebans are utterly routed by the Argives underAJ^maion, the son of Amphiaraos ; and Teiresias declaresJix 9, 3.

188 MTTHOLOOT OF THE ABYAN NATIONS.BOOK that there is no longer ajiy hope, as the gods have abandoned -them. The city is therefore surrendered, and Thersandros,the son of Polyneikes, is seated on the throne of Kadmos.Antigonfc Of the remaining incidents connected with these twomon.**"great strugglesthe most remarkable isthe doom of AntigonS,who is condemned by Ere6n to be buried alive becauseshe had performed the funeral rites over the body of Polyneikes,which had been cast forth to the birds and dogs. Ofthe sentiments which SophoHes puts into her mouth asexplaining her motives and justifying her actions all that weneed to say here is that they belong seemingly rather tothe Eastern than the Western world, and may be a genuineportion of the Persian myth which Herodotos has clothed ina Greek garb in the story of the Seven Conspirators. Butthe dismal cave in which she is left to die seems but thehorrid den into which the Panis sought to entice Saramft,and in which they shut up the beautifol cattle of the dawn.It is the cave of night into which the evening must sink andwhere she must die before the day can again dawn in theeast. Nor can we well fail to notice the many instances inwhich those who mourn for mythical heroes taken away putan end to their own lives by hanging. It is thus that Haimonends his misery when he finds himself too late to saveAntigon ; it is thus that lokastS hides her shame from thesight of the world it is;thus that Althaia and Kleopatrahasten away from life which without Meleagros is not worththe living for. The death of these beings is the victory ofEchidna and Ahi, the throttling or strangling snake ;andthe tradition unconsciously preserved may have determinedthe mode in which these luckless beings must die.^or "^ we ^or e* *kat a^er *ke death of Amphiaraosthe fortunes of his house run parallel with those of thehouse of Agamemnon after his return from Dion. Inobedience to his father's command Alkmaion slays hismother Eriphylg, and the awful Erinys, the avengertrfblood, pursues him with the unrelenting pertinacity of thegadfly sent by BM to torment the heifer 16. Go where hewill, she is there to torture him by day and scare him bynight; and not until he has surrendered to Phoibos the

ORESTES AND PYLADES.precious necklace of Harmonia or Kadmos, and found out aCHAPLspot to dwell in on which the sun had never looted at the s. ,time when EriphylS met her doom, can Alkmaion haveany rest. Such a refuge was furnished by the Oiniadai,islands which had grown up at the mouth of the riverAchel6os from the deposits brought down by the stream tothe sea. Here he marries Kallirhoe the daughter of theriver god, who causes his death at the hands of the sons ofPhegeus by insisting on his fetching her the necklace ofEuriphyl. But Kallirhoe is, like Leda and Leto, the motherof twin sons, and she prays that they may at once grow intomature manhood and become the avengers of their father, asHyllos is avenged by the Herakleids of a later generation.This is substantially the story of Orestes, who slays OrestesKlytainmestra for murdering her husband Agamemnon asEuriphyl6 had brought about the death of Amphiaraos,who is therefore chased, like Alkmaion, from land to land bythe Erinyes of his mother, until at last he comes to Athens,the dawn city,and is there by the casting vote of Ath&n6herself acquitted in the court of Areiopagos. Of this myththere were, as we might expect, many variations: andamong these we may notice the story which speaks of himand his friend Pylades as slaying Helen when Menelaosand tra,refused to rescue them from the angry Argives, and lastly,the legend that Orestes himself, like Eurydike, died from thebite of a snake, doubtless the AM or throttling serpent ofVedic mythology....

190 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ABYAN NATIONS.CHAPTEE IV.THESECTION I.AG-NI.BOOK WHEN" the old Vedie faith had been long overlaid by an._ ^ . elaborate sacerdotal ceremonialism, Agni still remained, asLight and'it had been from the first, a name for light or heat as per-vading aH things or as concentrated in the flame of fire.In the Satapatha-Br&hmana, Svetaketu tells king Janatathat he sacrifices to two heats in one another which are evershining and filling the world with their splendour. Whenthe king asks how this may be, the answer is * Aditya (thesnn) is heat : to him do I sacrifice in the evening in the fire(Agni). Agni is heat: to him do I sacrifice in the morningin the sun (Aditya). When to Somasushma, who saysthat he sacrifices to light in light, the king puts the samequestion, the Brahman replies, ' Aditya is light; to himdo I sacrifice in the evening in Agni. Agni is light ;to himdo I sacrifice in the morning in Aditya.' 1Them- Thus Agni, like Indra, is sometimes addressed as the onefAgm. g* 6*1* g ^ wk makes all things, sometimes as the light whichfills the heavens, sometimes as the blazing lightning, or asthe clear flame of earthly fire.The poets pass from one applicationof the word to another with perfect ease, as consciousthat in each case they are using a mere name which maydenote similar qualities in many objects.There is no rivalryor antagonism between these deities. 2 Agni is greatest,Varuna is greatest, and Indra is greatest ;but when the1Mas Muller, Sanskrit Lit. 421. has never been taken into consideration8 Professor Max Miiller, making this by those who have written on the historyremark, adds, ' This is a most important of ancient polytheism.' 8an*far. IM.feature m the religion of the Veda, and 546.

THE PAKENTAGE OF AGJSTI. 19]one is so described, the others are for the time unnoticed, orelse are placed in a subordinate position. Thus Agni is saidto comprehend all other gods -within himself, as the circumferenceof a wheel embraces its spokes; 1 and not unfrequentlyIndra is said to be Agni? and Agniis said to beIndra, while both alike are Skambha, the supporter ofthe universe.Hence the character of the god, as we might expect, isalmost wholly physical. The blessings which his worshipperspray for are commonly temporal, and very rarely is heasked, like Varuna, to forgive sin. In the earlier hymns,he is generallyaddressed as the fire which to mortal menis an indispensable boon: in the more developed ceremonialismof later times he is chiefly concerned with theordering of the sacrifice. As bearing up the offerings on theflames which mount to the sky, he stands in the place ofHermes as the messenger between gods and men. LikePhoibos and Indra, he is full of a secret wisdom. He is thetongue (of fire) through which gods and men receive eachtheir share of the victims offered on the altar.Nay, soclearly is his mythical character still understood, that,although he is sometimes the originator of all things, atothers he is said to have been kindled by Manu (man), andthe expression at once carries us to the legends of Prometheus,Hermes, and Phor&neus, who is himself the Yedic godof fire Bhuranyu. The very sticks which Manu rubbedtogether are called the parents of Agni, who is said to havedestroyed them, as Oidipous and Perseus, Cyrus and Bomulusare said to have destroyed their fathers. The hymnsdescribe simply the phenomena of fire.'Agni, thou from whom, as a new-born male, undyingflames proceed, the brilliant smoke-god goes towards thesky, for as messenger thou art sent to the gods.6Thou, whose power spreads over the earth in a momentwhen thou hast grasped food with thy jaws like a dashingarmy thy blast goes forth; with thy lambent flame thouseemest to tear up the grass.'Him alone, the ever youthful Agni, men groom, like a1Huir, fnncipd Mites of ft. 7. 570.Phjsic.il

192 MTTHOLOOT OF THE AKYAJSi NATIONS.BOOK horse in the evening and at dawn ; they ted him as a stran-.. ," .,ger in his conch; the lightof Agni, the worshipped male,islighted.sThy appearance is fair to behold, thou bright-faced Agni,when like gold thou shinest at hand; thy brightness come&like the lightning of heaven ;the bright sun.' 1thou showest splendour like'Adorable and excellent Agni, emit the moving and gracefulsmoke.'The flames of Agni are luminous, powerful, fearful, andnot to be trusted :' 2phrases which bring before us at once the capriciousnessand sullenness of Meleagros and Achilleus. Like Indra^Agniis also Vritrahan.'I extol the greatness of that showerer of rain whom mencelebrate as the slayer of Vritra : the* Agni, VaiSwanara, slewthe stealer of the waters.' 3Like Indra, again, and the later Krishna, he is * the lover54of the maidens, the husband of the wives. He is * blackbacked'and c many-limbed;' c his hair is flame,' and 'he itis whom the two sticks have engendered, like a new-bornbabe.'eThou art laid hold of with difficulty,' the poet truly says,'like the young of tortuously twining snakes, thou who art a5consumer of many forests as a beast is of fodder.'The in- As the infant Hermes soon reaches his full strength, soan gni-^ flames Of Agni, who, puny at his birth, is kept alive byclarified butter, roar after a little while like the waves of theAgni thepampas'sea. But Agni consumes that which Hermes is constrainedto leave untasted, and scathes the forest with his tongue,-shearing off the hair of the earth as with a razor. As the special guardian and regulator of sacrifices, Agniassumes the character of the Hellenic Hestia, and almostattains the majesty of the Latin Vesta. He is the lord andprotector of every house, and the father, mother, brother,and son of every one of the worshippers,6He is the keeper1 J?. V. Tii. 3 ;Max Muller, SantJnr. 3H. H. Wilson, Rig Veda S. ii. 158.Lit. 567.2 H. H. Wilson, Biff Veda S. vol. i.4 lb. ii. 180.* Ib. ill 253.pp. 102-104. Mtiir, Mufp. D. ofR. 7. 569.

KALI AND KABALI. 193of hidden treasures, and all blessings proceed from him as CHAP.the giver. He is Vasu, the lord of light. 1 During life he ^^_.shields men from harm, and at death he becomes the Psychopompos,as conveying the c 'unborn part of the dead tothe unseen world.But in every phase of his character the appellative force of Thehis name remains discernible ;nor are there wanting plainassertions that Agni is but one of manytitles for the OneGreat Cause of all things.eThey call (him) Indra, Mitra, Varuna, Agni ;then he isthe well-winged heavenly Garutmat : that which is One, thewise call itmany ways: they call it Agni, Tama, M&tarigvan.' 2In India, however, as in the western world, there was aconstant tendency to convert names into persons, and thento frame for them a mythical history in accordance withtheir meaning. Thus two of the ever-flickering tongues ofthe blact-pathed Agni were called Kali, the black, andEarali, the terrific ;and these became names of Durga, thewife of Siva, who was developed out of Agni ;sacrificial worship was the result. 3and a bloodyiOf the existence of the root vas, to have the modified form rat in Skr.shine, there can "be, of course, no doubt. samvat, as well as in yatsa, vatsara,It is shown sufficiently by its derivatives and samvatsara, and in the Greek,$dos> Qaiva), Q-rjpi,

194: MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.Like TJshas and E6s, Agni never growsold. He is emphaticallythe youngest of all the gods, not as being thelatest born, but as never losing his strength and might; andin this name Yavishtha, which is never given to any otherYedic god, we may recognise the Hellenic Hephaistos. 1But the name Agniis nowhere found in the west as thename of any deity. In the Greek dialects the word itselfseems to have been lost, while the Latin ignis, with whichit is identical, is merely a name for fire ;associated with the Lithuanian Agni.nor are any mythsSECTION II.PHOEONEUS AJSTD HESTIA.The Wmd The myth of Hermes brings before us one of the manyandthp,modes in which men were supposed to have become firstj?irpossessed of the boon of fire. Butalthough Hermes is theresaid to have been the first to bestow this gift upon mankind,it issimply as supplying or kindling the materials, not asbeing himself the fire. The hymn-writer is careful to distinguishbetween the two. He is the fire-giver because herubs the branches of the forest trees together till they burstinto a flame: but the wood thus kindled and the meatwhich is roasted are devoured not by himself but by theflames. Hermes remains hungry, although he # is representedas longing for the food whose savour fills his nostrils.Nothing can show more clearly that we are dealing simplywith the wind or with air in motion, in other words, withthe bellows not with the fire.Hence with a keen sense ofthe meaning of the myth, Shelley, in his translation of the'1Professor Max Muller thinks that ought to be represented by the Greekthis identification must be regarded as Hephistos, he replies that the Zendscarcely open to doubt The name form stavaesta represents the SanskritHephaistos, he says, became the subject sthavistha, and thus from the analogousof myths in the West, precisely because yftvae&ta we should reach Hephaistos.it is not in strict analogy "with the Thus, with the' exception of Agni, allSanskrit yavishtha, the superlative of the names of the fire and the fireyuvah,Lat juvenis, young. The kindred god were carried away by the Westernform yavan, found also in Zend, yields:Aryans and we have Prometheusjavya, the name of the Greek H&be1 .answering to Pramantha, Phor6neus toThe only difficulty is presented by the Bhuranyu, and the Latin Vulcanns tochange of the (Sanskrit v into the the Skr. ulkah, a firebrand, a word usedGreek j8 ;but this change is seen in the in connection with the flames or sparksGreek^fc for the Sanskrit svas. To of Agni.the objection that the Sanskrit yavishtha

PHORflNEUS AND NIOBffi. 195line, speaks of Hermes as supplying to men c matches, tinderboxand steel 'for the kindling of the flame.Another discoverer or bestower of fire is the Argive Pho- The Arrfineus,who represents the Vedic fire-god Bhuranyu, andwhose name is thus seen to be another form of the GreekPur, the Teutonic feuer and fire. Phor6neus is thus thefire itself, and as such he dwelt on the Astu Phor6nikon ofArgos, in other words he is the Argive Hestia with its holyflame of everlasting fire. 1 In this aspect he was naturallyrepresented as the first of men and the father of all who aresubject to death ;and as such, he is also described, in accordancewith the myth of the Askingas, as springing froman ash-tree. 2 To Phoroneus himself more than one wife isassigned. In one version he is the husband of Kerdo, theclever or winsome, a name pointingto the influence of fireon the comfort and the arts of life 5in another of Telodik6,a word which indicates the judicial powers of the GreekHestia and the Latin Testa.also wedded to Peitho, persuasion.For the same reason, he isAmong his children areof whom a later tradition saidPelasgos, lasos and Agenor,that after their father's death they divided the kingdom ofArgos among themselves. He is thus described as thefather of the Pelasgic race, in contrast with Deukalion, whois the progenitor of the Hellenic tribes. But it is unnecessaryto enter the ethnological labyrinth from which it seemsas impossible to gather fruit as from the barren sea. Itis enough to say that Agenor, in this Argive myth, is abrother of Eur6p6, while in that of the Phoinikian land he isher father, and that Argos and Phoinikia are alike theglistening regions of the purple dawn. The phrase thatEur&pS, the broad-spreading morning light, is the daughterof Phor&neus, corresponds precisely with the myth whichmakes Hephaistos cleave the head of Zeus to allow the dawnto leap forth in its full splendour. But from fire comessmoke and vapour, and Phor6neus is thus the father ofNiob& 5the rain-cloud, who weeps herself to death on MountSipylos.1 Preller, Gr. Myth. ii. 37, chos, -who thus becomes the father of3 Ib. Melia, of course, becomes a Phor6neus.nymph, and is said to be wedded to Ina-

196 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN" NATIONS.As gathering to one centre the Argives, who had thus fardwelt scattered without a notion of social order and law,Hestia. Phor6neus discharges the functions of Hestia. Nay, hisAstu is Hestia, the inviolable fire on the sacred hearthwhich1may not be moved but stands fast for ever. But nogreat accretion of myths was possiblein the case either ofPhor6neus or of Hestia. The legend, such as it is, belongsto that class of transparent stories among which the mythsof Endymi&n, Narkissos, Daphn6, Sarpd6n, and Memn&nare among the most conspicuous; and the beneficial influenceof her cultus is perhaps most strongly marked by thealmost complete absence of folk-lorein connexion with hername. She is so clearly the fire on the hearth, the symboland the pledge of kindliness and good faith, of law andorder, of wealth and fair dealing, that it was impossible tolose sight of her attributes or to forget their origin; andexcept under these conditions there can be no full developementof mythology. Of no other deity perhaps was theworship so nearly an unmixed blessing. Falsehood andtreachery, fickleness and insincerity, were to her thingsutterly hateful. Her purity could brook no uncleanness;her youth could know no decay, and thus her sacred dwellingbecame the centre of influences which breathed some lifeinto a society prone to become more and more heartless andselfish. From the horrible devil-worship of Artemis Orthia,or Tauropola, we may turn to the redeeming cultus of Hestiaand Askl&pios, the shrines of the one being the strongholdof generosity and sympathy, the temples of the otherbeing devoted to those works of mercy, which we are disposedto regard as the exclusive products of Christianity. 2The sacred Hestia in the common legend is the eldest daughter offire.1The names Astu and Hestia are thus denote the glistening flame, andboth referred by Preller to the Sanskrit "would be akin to the names for thevas, to dwell, the cognate Greek forms hot wind, Euros and Auster, al

HESTIA AffD PHOIBOS. 197Eronos and Bheia, and is wooed both by Phoibos andPoseiddn; but their suit is vain. Hestia makes a solemnvow that she will never be a bride, and as her reward shereceives honour and glory both among gods and among men.As the pure maiden, she is to have her home in the inmostpart of every dwelling, and at every sacrifice offered to Zeusand the other deities she is to preside and to receive the firstinvocation and the first share. As apart from her there canbe no security for truth, peace, and justice, each town, city,and state must have its own Prytaneion, with its centralhearth, unitingcommon interests.the citizens in a common faith and inHere the suppliant should obtain at theleast the boon of a fair trial, here should all compacts,whether between states or private men, receive their mostsolemn sanction ;and when it became necessary to lightenthe pressure of population at home by sending forth some ofthe citizens into new countries, from this hearth should thesacred fire be taken as the link which was to bind togetherthe new home with the old. This fire should never be extinguished;but if by chanceit was to be lit again,kindled fire, by friction,such calamity should befall,not from common flame but as Hermesor drawn by burning-glasses fromthe sun itself. Hands impure might not touch her altar,,and the guardians of her sacred fire should be pure andchaste as herself. All this is so transparent that we cannotbe said to have entered here on the domain of mythology ;and even the great hearth of the Universe is but an extensionto the whole Kosmos of the idea which regarded Hestiaas the very foundation of human society.SECTION III HEPEAISTOS AOT) LOKLIn Hephaistos, the ever-young,1we see an image of fire, Thenot as the symbol and pledge of faith and honour, of law S ai ? edand equity, but like Agni, dark and stunted in its first tos. P WS "beginnings but able to do wonders in its power over earthsand metals. He is the mighty workman who, at the prayerof Thetis, forges for Achilleus the irresistible armour in1 See note , p. 194.

198 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.which he is to avenge the death of Patr6klos, as Begin thesmith of Hialprek the king of Denmark fashions a newsword for Sigurd at the intercession of his mother Hjordis.But in spite of all his power he himself is subject to greatweakness, the result, according to one version, of his mother'sharshness, in another, of the cruelty of Zeus. The formerrelates that Hr6 was so horrified by his deformity and limpinggait that she cast him forth from Olympos, and left himto find a refuge with the Ocean nymphs Thetis and EurynomlThe other tells how when once he was taldng his mother'spart in one of her quarrels with her husband, Zeus, indignantat his interference, seized him by the leg andhurled him out of heaven. Throughout the livelong day hecontinued to fall, and as the sun went down he lay stunnedon the soil of Lemnos, where the Sintians took him up andtended him in his weakness. 1 The mythalso ran that hehad no father, as AthSn has no mother, and that he wasthe child of H6r alone, who in like manner is called thesolitary parent of Typhon. The mystery of his birth perplexedHephaistos: and the stratagem in which he discoveredit reappears in the Norse story of the Master Smith,who, like Hephaistos, possesses a chair from which none canrise against the owner's will. In the one case it is Hr&, inthe other it is the devil who is thus entrapped, but in boththe device is successful.The forgeThe Olympian dwelling of Hephaistos is a palace gleam-*n w^k ^e splendour of a thousand stars. At his hugeanvils mighty bellows keep up a stream of air of their ownaccord; and giant forms, Brontfes, SferopSs, Pyrakmon(the thunders, lightnings and flames) aid him in his labours.With him dwells his wife, who in the Iliad, as we have seen,is Charis, in the Odyssey Aphrodit& In its reference tophStos.Hephaistos the layof Demodokos which relates the feith-1The tradition which assigns this in- halting and so furnishing the gods with.cidentast.be cause of his lameness refers a source of inextinguishable laughter,probably to the weakened powers of fire as they see him puffing and panting inwhen either materials or draught fail it. his ministrations as the cup-bearer.The Vedic hymn speaks of Agni as The golden supports which hold him upclothed or hindered by smoke only at as he walks are the glittering flameshis birth > but with a feeling not less which curl upward beneath the Tolumestrue to the phenomena of fire, the poets of smoke which rise above them,of the Ihad represent him as always

HEPHAISTOS AND LOKI. 199lessness of AphroditS is worth/of note chiefly as it attributes CHAP,to him the powers of Daidalos. The thin chains which, catch- ^J^-' _,ing the eye scarcely more than, spiders' webs, entrap ArSsand Aphrodit in a network from which there is no escape,at once suggest a comparison with the tortuous labyrinthmade for PasiphaS in the land of Min&s.In our Homeric poems no children of Hephaistos are Eephaismentioned.In Apollodoros we have the strange story whichmates him and Athen the parents of Erichthonios, and thelegend which represents him as the father of the robberPeriphets, who is slain by Theseus myths transparentenough to render any detailed explanation superfluous. TheChristian missionaries converted Hephaistos into a demon,and thus he became the limping devil known in Warwickshiretradition as Wayland the Smith.Of the Latin Vulcan little more needs to be said than that The Latinhe too is a god of fire, whose name also denotes his office,Vulcaja -for it points to the Sanskrit ulka, a firebrand, and to thekindred words fulgur and fulmen, names for the flashinglightning. 1Like most other Latin gods, he has in strictnessof speech no mythology but it \ pleased the later Eomantaste to attribute to him allHephaistos.The name Loki, likethat Greek legends related ofthat of the Latin Vulcanus, denotes The firethelight or blaze of fire,and in such phrases as Locke dricker s d Lold -vand, Loki drinks water, described the phenomena of the sundrinking when, its light streams in shafts from the cloud riftsto the earth or the waters beneath. The word thus carriesus to the old verbliuhan, the Latin lucere, to shine, and to'Logi as its earlier form, the modern German lohe, glow;but as the Greek tradition referred the name Oidipous tothe two words olSa and oiSeo>, to know and to swell, so asupposed connexion with the verb lukan, to shut or lock,substituted the name Loki for Logi, and modified his characteraccordingly.2He thus becomes the being who holds1In the Gaelic Lay of Magnus, the ruddy daughters of the King of Lightsmith or forging god appears under the marry the twelve foster-brothers ofname B-ilcan, his son being the sailor. Manns the herothe months of theThis looks as if the Latin name hdd year Campbell, ni 347.been borrowed. In this story the twelve Grimm. D M. t221.

200 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS,the keys of the prison-house,like the malignant Grendel inBeowulf, or the English fire-demon Grant mentioned by Gervaseof Tilbury, a name connected with the Old Norse grind,a grating, and the modern German grenz,a boundary. Atno time, however, did Loki exhibit the features of the Semiticdevil or the Iranian Ahriman.Like Hephaistos,a god ofthe fire, he resembles him also in his halting gait and in theuncouth figure which provokes the laughter of the gods ;and if we are not told that like him Loki was hurled out ofheaven, yetwe see him bound for his evildeeds, and, likePrometheus, he shall be set free, we are told, at the end ofthe world, and shall hurry in the form of a wolf to swallowthe moon, as the deliverance of Prometheus is to be followedby the overthrow of his tormentor. Hence the Norse phrase,'Loki er or bondum/ answering to the expression, 'DerTeufel ist frei 1gelasscn/ the devil is loose.Loh the The last day of the week bore, in Grimm's opinion, the16 'name of this deity.2In place of our Saturday we have theOld Norse laugardagr, the Swedish logerdag, the Danishloverdag, a word which at a later periodthe day appointed for bathing or washing,was held to meanbut which wasmore probably used at first in the original sense of brightnessattached to Loki's name. When, however, this meaninggave way before the darker sense extracted from theverb Inkan, to shut or imprison, Loki became known asSsetere,the thief who sits in ambush. The Christian missionarieswere not slow to point out the resemblance of thisword to the Semitic Satan and the Latin Saturnus, who wereequally described as malignant demons and thus the notions;grew up that the name of the last day of the week was importedfrom the old mythology of Italy, or that the Teutonicgod was also the agricultural deity of the Latin tribes.JThe root of the two myths of Loki family of the gods. The vulture ofand Prometheus is thus precisely the Prometheus is in the case of Loki resameIn each case the benefactor of placed by a serpent whose venomman is a being as subtle as he is wise, trickles down upon his face,"and as such he is expelled from the * Grimm, J). M., ii, 227.

201SECTION IV.PROMETHEUS.Another and in some versions a very differentfire is given in the mythsof Prometheus.account ofIn the HesiodicTheogony Prometheus is a son of the Titan lapetos, his Ibro- Thethers being Epimetheus, Atlas, and Ifenoitios. But even ofthese the Hesiodic account cannot easily be reconciled withthat of the Odyssey. In the latter, Atlas (Skarnbha) is theguardian and keeper of the pillars which hold up the heavenabove the earth, and he knows all the depths of the sea. 1Inthe former he is condemned by Zeus to support the heavenon his head and hands, 2 while Menoitios undergoes a punishmentcorresponding to that of Sisyphos or Ixi&n, and withhis father lapetos is consigned to the abyss of Tartaros. Inshort, if we put aside the assertion that in some way orother Prometheus was a giver of the boon of fire to men, thestory istold with a singular varietyof inconsistent details.Nothing can be more clear and emphatic tha.n the narrativein which .ZEschylos asserts the utter and hopeless savagery ofmankind before Prometheus came to their aid. They had nosettled homes, no notion of marriage or of the duties whichbind the members of a family together ; they burrowed inthe ground like the digger Indians, and contented themselveswith food not much better than that of the insect-eatingBushmen, because they knew nothing about fire, and howfar itmight raise them above the beasts of the field. Thiswretched state was their original condition, not one towhich they had fallen from a higher and a better one, andit was from mere compassion to their utter helplessness thatPrometheus stole fire from the house of Zeus, and hiding it ina ferule, imparted it to men, teaching them at the same timehow to cook their food and build houses. With this notionthe narrative of the Hesiodic Theogony isin complete antagonism,ta this legend the existence of man upon earthbegan with a golden age, during which the earth yieldedher fruits of her own accord, and in which plagues and sicknesseswere unknown. They were subjectindeed to the1Qdyst. i. 52. Grote, Hist. Or I 101.? Hegiod, Tfaog. 516.

202 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.doom of death \but they died as though they were merelygoing to sleep, and became the righteous demons who, wanderinglike the Erinyes everywhere through the air, watchthe ways and works of men, to uphold the righteous andoverturn the wicked. The second is the silver age, the menof which incurred the wrath of Zeus, and were hidden byhim beneath the earth for impiously witholding the honoursdue to the immortal gods. Still when they die they arereckoned among the blessed, and are not without honoursthemselves. 1 The brazen age which followed exhibits arace of men who ate no corn and had hearts of adamant,and whose hands sprung from their vast shoulders. Thesewere the workers in brass (for men had not yet needed orcome to know the use of iron), and their weapons were usedto their own destruction. Like the men sprung from thedragon's teeth in the Theban and Argonautic myths, theyfought with and slaughtered each other, and went downwithout a name to the gloomy underworld of Hades. Butit must not be forgotten that the Hesiodic poet knows of notransitional periods. The old age does not fade away insensiblyinto the new. It is completely swept off, and the newtakes its place as virtually a new creation. Thus the earthbecomes the possession of a series of degenerating inhabitants,the race of the poet's own day being the worst of all. These1The portions thus allotted to the reason, therefore, why they should notdeparted of the golden and silver races be represented by others as evil demons. ;tended to foster and develope that idea and this step which, as Mr Grrote reofa moral conflict between good and marks, was taken by Empedokles andevil which first took distinct shape on Xenokrates, led to that systematic di&-Iraman soil. The evil spirits are there tinction of which the Christian teachersthe malignant powers of darkness who availed themselves for the overthrowrepresent both in name and in attributes or rather the transformation of thethe gloomy antagonist of the sun-god system itself It only remained forIndra. The Hesiodic myth coincides them to insist on the reality of the evilcompletely with this sentiment, while it demons thus brought into existence, andextends it. Here the spirits of the men then, as the gods themselves are in thebelonging to the golden age are the Ihad and Odyssey and elsewhere calledgood demons, these demons being gene- demons, to include all together in therically different from the blessed gods one class of malignant devils and atofOl^mpos: but it was easy to assign once the victory of the new creed wasto the departed souls of the silver age a insured Tho old mythology was notlower, or oven a positively malignant, killed, but it took a different shape, and,character. They are not called Dai- losing all its ancient beauty, acquiredmones by the Hesiodic poet, but they new powers of mischief and corruption,have a recognised position and dignity Gbrote, Hist. Greece, L 96, &c.in the realm of the air There was no

TIIJ3 HESIODIC AGES. 203are the men of the iron age, who know no peace by day andCHAP,by night, and for whom, although some good may yet be ^JJl_^mingled with the evil, the poet anticipates nothing but anincreasing misery which at the last will become unbearable.Good faith and kindly dealing will in the end vanish fromthe face of the earth, until Aid&s and Nemesis (reverenceand righteousness) will wrap their shining garments aroundtheir radiant forms, and soar away into the heights neverpierced by 'the eye of man.Such is the purely ethical legend by which the Hesiodie Thepoet accounts for the HeT01cpresent condition of mankind a statenot only opposed to the legends of Hermes, Prometheus, andPhoroneus, but also to all the associations which had takenthe strongest hold on the popular mind. The stories recitedby bards or rhapsodists told them of a time when menwalked the earth who were the children of immortal mothers,whose joys and sorrows were alike beyond those of men nowliving, who had done great deeds and committed greatcrimes, but who nevertheless held open converse with theflashing-eyed goddess of the dawn, and for whom the firegodforged irresistible weapons and impenetrable armour. Inthe conviction of the Hesiodie as of our Homeric poets, theheroes of this magnificent but chequered age were utterlydifferent from the miserable race which had followed them,nor could they be identified with the beings of the threeraces wjio had gone before them. It was, however, impossibleeven for a poet, who probably preferred his ethicalmaxims to the story of the wrath of AchilleuS or the avengingof Helen, to pass them by in contemptuous silence.They must -therefore be placed by themselves in a positionwhich breaks the ethical order of the primeval ages ;1andthus the poet contents himself with saying that many ofthem slew each other at Thebes fighting for the apples orthe cows of Oidipous, while others met their doom at Troy.All these were placed by Zeus in a region far away from theundying gods and beyond the bounds of the earth, whereKronos is their king, and where the teeming soil produces1It is noteworthy that the genera- Vuh are interrupted after the thirdtaons given in the Theogony of the Popol creation. Max Midler, Chips, i. 335.

204 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN" NATIONS.BOOKyearly its triple harvests in the islands of the blessed by the^J?l ' deep eddying ocean.The Pro- In contrast with this gloomier belief, the Prometheanj^y^ exhibits mankind in a scale ascending from theJsavage astate in which they knew the use neither of fire nor of metalsto that high civilisationin which Zeus fears that men maybecome like the gods in wisdom and thus share their power.For this myth, as related by JEschylos, knows nothing of aprevious knowledge of fire, which, according to the Hesiodicversion, Zeus took away from men in revenge for the cheatwhich left only the fat and bones of victims as the portionof the gods.consistent with other passagesThis explanation, which is not altogetherin the Hesiodic Theogony,completely excludes the idea which lies at the very root ofthe JEschylean tradition, for Prometheus expressly speaksof men not as having lost high powers and the fruits ofgreat results achieved by those powers, but as never havingbeen awakened to the consciousness of the senses withwhich they were endowed.Prom the first, until he came totheir aid, they were beings to whom sight and hearing werewholly useless, and for whom life presented only the confusedshapes of a dream. The sunless caves, in which they livedlike ants, were not wrought into shape by their hands. Forthem there were no distinctions of seasons, no knowledge ofthe rising and setting of the stars. For this state of unspeakablemisery there was no remedy until men qpuld beroused to a knowledge of their own powers and be placed inthe conditions indispensable for tjieirexercise a result tobe achieved only by bestowing on them the boon of fire.But this very idea involves the fact that till then fire was athing unknown to men upon the earth. They might see itin the cloven thunderclouds, or tremble at the fiery streamshurled into the air from the heaving volcano, but to themfirewas at the least a thing which they dared not approachwith the thought of mastering and turningwiser being than they must therefore bringitit to use. Someto them in aform which shall depriveit of its terrors and make it theservant, not the destroyer of man. That being is Prometheus,who, ascending to the palace of Zeus, fills a ferule with fire,

THE GIFT OF FIEE. 205and thus brings down the precious "boon to the woe-begoneCHAPIchildren of men. Henceforth the task of raising them was , y,practically stripped of its difficulty, and Prometheus wasenabled to teach men how to cook and build, and where tofind the riches stored up within the earth. Prom him camethe knowledge of the movements of the heavens, and thechanges of the seasons ; by him men were taught to ploughand reap, and to launch themselves in ships on the watersand spread their white wings to the breeze. From himthey received skill in the discernment of herbs and rootsfor the healing of diseases under which they had groaned inhopeless suffering and from him;they learnt to understandthe signs of the calm and the troubled heavens, and themeanings of the muscular movements of victims slain insacrifice.It was impossible forthe poet to show more clearly that ThePrometheus was the friend who bestowed on man, originallya creature more feeble and helpless than any of the brute ome -1>1'beasts, all that can make life valuable. Of any earlier conditionin which men lived, as in the golden or silver ages, orof any state better in any respect than the one in which hefound them, the Prometheus of the great tragic poet knowsnothing. ISTor can we well lay too great a stress on thisfact, because the version given by JEschylos not only makesthe whole myth self-consistent, but it is clearlythe earlierform of the legend into which the Hesiodic poet introducedthe vengeance taken by Zeus for the cheat put upon him.This story is really, a mere patchwork; for according to itmen, deprived of fire as a punishment, lose a thing on whichmuch of their comfort may depend, but they are not deprivedof the crafty wisdom in which Prometheus had been theirteacher. In short, they are as far as ever from that state ofunawakened powers which is of the very essence of the storyin the tragedy of JEschylos. But there were two things which2Eschylos felt it needful to explain. The very mode in whichPrometheus became possessed of the priceless treasure impliedthat he was acting in opposition to the will of Zeus, or atthe least without his knowledge, while it showed that hehad access to the gleaming palace of the father of the gods.

206 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.How then came it about that Prometheus should be ablethus to enter Olympos, and why should he seek to concealthe deed which he had resolved to do ? These questions thepoet answered by a reference to other myths with whichPrometheus was connected. This friend of man was himselfeither a Titan or the son of the Titan lapetos ;and when hisgigantic kinsfolk rose in rebellion against Zeus, Prometheusplayed the part of Michael in the great war waged withinthe courts of heaven. Finding that all good counsels werecast away on the brutal partisans of Kronos, Prometheusthrows in the weight of his wisdom on the side of Zeus, andthe result isthat Kronos with his adherents is hurled, likeSatan with the revolted angels, into the abyss of Tartaros orhell.Thus far Prometheus was a benefactor to Zeus withoutawakening either his jealousy or his wrath.Henceforth hemight have remained for ever in the bright homes of Olymposhad it not been for the injustice of which Zeus became guiltyas soon as he found himself securely seated on the throne ofheaven.and function ;To each of the deathless gods he assigned a placeof men alone he took no count, his heart'sdesire being to sweep the whole race from the earth and tocreate another. But it is clear that this resolution wasformed not because men were already becoming too wise andtoo powerful, as the Hesiodic version would represent it, butbecause man was too mean and wretched a thing to besuffered to cumber the earth.and Prometheus isopposedHere Zeus expresses no fear,to him not because he is toosevere upon enemies whom he dreads, but because he feelsno pity for creatures whose wretchedness calls only for compassion.The mercy refused by Zeus is extended to them byPrometheus, who determines to raise them from their abjectmisery and by stealing the fire converts the opposition ofZeus into a fierce longing for vengeance against the mightybeing who had dared to thwart his will. The great heartwhose pulses had beaten in sympathy with the griefs andwants of men shall itself be torn with an agony far surpassingtheir puny woes. In the sentence thus passed uponhim it seems difficult not to discern a phrase or a sentiment inclose analogy with those which are seen in the myths of Erinys

or At.throughTHE TORTURING OF PROMETHEUS. 207The awful being, who with sleepless eye wandersthe air to watch the deeds of men and exact arighteous penalty for the shedding of innocent blood, hadbeen, or was, in the land of the Five Streams only the beautifulSaranyii or morning. But the natural phrase,ethedawn will find out the evil doer,' changes Saranyu in Hellasinto the dread minister of divine vengeance; and it wasnecessary only to give a physical meaning to the phrase thatthe hearts of the enemies of Zeus shall be racked with pain,to furnish a starting-point for the myth which told how thevulture gnawed the heart of Prometheus as he lay bound tothe frozen crags of Caucasus. But the visible vulture gnawinga bleeding heart would soon have finished its horrid task ;the heart, therefore, must constantly grow, and thus thestory ran that the portion consumed during the day wasrestored in the night, and the region of everlasting ice andstorm was chosen as the place of torture presenting the mostawful contrast with the sunlit halls of Olympos.The cheat-The zeal of Prometheus on behalf of mankind is broughtto a climax in the institutional legend which professed toaccount for the portion assigned to the gods in the distributionof victims slain in sacrifices.They have only thebones and the fat, while the meat and the entrails belong tomen. This practice is ascribed strictly to the craft of Prometheus,who, in the great contest between gods and menin Mk6n, divided an ox, and placing the meat under thestomach and the bones under the more inviting and auspiciousfat, called on Zeus to make his choice. The god with greateagerness placed both hands on the fat, and was enraged onfinding that it concealed only a heap of bones. 1 This1The Hesiodic poet in relating this duced simply to save the majesty ofstory makes use of one or 'two erpres- Zeus at the cost of complete inconsissionswhich imply or assert that Zeus tency with the story Had he thus seensaw through the trick from the first, through^the trick, he would have deandthat thus it was in fact no trick at feated it, and would certainly haveall. When Zeus saw the two heaps shown no feverish eagerness to lay hiskid out for his choice, he is made to hands on the tempting heap of fat.say that the division is not fair. The But Prometheus succeeds in his scheme ;poet adds that this was a sarcasm from in other words, Zeus is really outwitted,a god whose wisdom was boundless ;Mr. Grote sees clearly that the poet'sand in the same way, when he is sum- reservation cannot be admitted. Hist.moned to choose, the poet says that he Greece, i. 86. In one point, however,did so with his eyes open, yvu f ou$' the JEschylean version is as singularly$6\ov. The words are intro- at variance with jtself as in all others it

208 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.BOOKIIPrometheusandPandora.insult, according to the Hesiodic Theogony, Zeus avenged bydepriving men of fire a sequel hopelesslyat variance withthe more genuine form of the myth as related by JEschylos.But the name Prometheus 1 suggested -to the Greeks aconnexion with words springing from the same root withMetis and Medeia. It came, in short, to mean Forethoughtor Providence, and thus they were led to its antithesis Epimetheus,Afterthought, and to exalt the one by framing astory to illustrate the vanity of the other. This is as manifestlyimplied by the storyof Pandora as the overreachingof Zeus is patent in the institutional myth of the sacrifices,Prometheus is the wise and cautious counsellor, whoseadvice, if followed, will assuredly mitigate an evil or preventa catastrophe. As such, he had bidden men, and moreespecially his brother Epimetheus, to be on their guardagainst any gifts which might be offered to them by Zens,as their acceptance would be followed only by pain andmisery. But it was impossible thus to defeat the schemesof Zeus or avert the doom of man. No sooner had Zeusbeen tricked in the matter of the sacrificial victims than hebade the fire-god Hephaistos mould of clay the figure of amaiden, 2 into which Athn the dawn-goddess breathed thebreath of life, clothing her with silver raiment, whileis with the Hesiodic myth. These childrenof men, who are described as beingunable either to see or hear, and asclustering together like ants in theirsunless caves until they receive theboon of fire and the blessings whichfollow that gift, yet possess a knowledgeof things to come, and see most clearlywhat is to be the course and the close oftheir lives, TrpotiepKtffQai /uipop, beforePrometheus brings down for them theheavenly fire. This power he takesaway from them, substituting blindhopes or dreams in its place and when,he has added to this benefit the gift ofthe fire, he then instructs them in divination,thus supplying in a measure thevery knowledge which he had wished totake away, and of which he had in factdeprived them. The contradictioncould not be more complete1It has been connected by Dr. Kuhnwith the Sanskrit Pramantha or churnused for kindling fire with dried piecesof wood. The wood thus has referencenot to his wisdom but to his giving ofthe fire ;and it was in this case a mereresemblance of sound which led theGreeks to explain the name as denotingforethought. Hence Epimetheus isstnctiy the result of a false etymology ;and the process which brought him intoexistence is illustrated by the languageof Pindar, Pyth. v. 25, who assignstoEpimetheus a daughter Prophasis, Excuse,the offspring of after-thought.Grote, Btst 6rr i 102.2 In the Finnish epic of Wainainoinen,the smith is Ilmarinen, who makes, notfor others, but for himself, a wife of goldand silver whom he brings to life aftervast trouble, He finds however, thatthat side of his body which has touchedthe golden Bride is very cold in themorning. Hence he is willing to turnher over to "Wainamomen, who, notmuch relishing the gift, advises himto take it to some place where gold isin more request.

THE MYTH OF PANDORA. 209Hermes gave her the mind of a dog, to cozen, deceive, and CHAP,ruin those with whom she, might come in contact. The ^_.'-maiden, thus arrayed, is brought to Epimetheus, and presentedto him under the name Pandora, the gift of all thegods. 1Thus was woman brought to man; and the poet ofthe Theogony only adds that through woman man wasspeedily plunged into woe irremediable. The author of theWorks and Days gives the reasons in detail. In the keepingof Epimetheus was a fatal jar, whose cover couldnot be lifted without grievous consequences to mankind.Pandora of course raises the lid, and a thousand evils arelet loose. Thus far men had been plagued by no diseases :now the air was filled with the seeds of sickness which everywhere produced their baneful fruit ;and the only possiblealleviation of their woe was rendered impossible .by theshutting up of Hope, which alone remained a prisoner withinthe cask when Pandora in her terror hastily replaced thecover. 2 Here manifestly we have an account of the originof evil which is altogether at variance with the true Prometheanlegend. The disaster thus caused by Pandoraoccurs long after the theft of the fire from Olympos, andat a time when Prometheus was paying the penalty for hisoffence. But in the version given by JUschylos Prometheusmentions, as one of his reasons for wishing to bestow onmen the boon of fire, the crowd of diseases and plagueswhich they were unable either to mitigate or to cure.The reconciliation of these two myths, thus sprung fromtwo different lines of thought,is an impossibility. But theHegiodic legend is indeed inconsistent throughout. The1In another and a more probable Pandora, he gays, does not in Hesiodtradition Pandora is an epithet of G-aia,*bring with her the cask .... Thethe bountiful earth, lavish of her gifts case is analogous to that of the closedto all her childreff: it would thus bag of unfavourable winds which JSolusanswer to the phrase 5cr/> low?, gives into the hands of Odysseus, and2The opinion that Hope was which the guilty companions of theleft a*prisoner out of mercy to men seems un- latter force open,to the entire rum oftenable. The genuineness of the line his hopes .... The diseases andin which Zeus bids Pandora replace the evils are inoperative so long as theylid is very doubtful, while the whole remain shut up in tiie cask : the samelegend assuredly represents Zeus as in- mischief-making which lets them out toexorably hostile to men, and hence as their calamitous work takes care thatmost unlikely to interfere in their "be- Hope shall still continue a powerlesshal In Mr. Grote's opinion the point prisoner in the inside.' Hist. Gr. i.is one which does not admit of question. 104.VOL. II.P

210 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.mere comparison instituted between Prometheus and Epimetheus,the fore-thinker and the after-thinker, implies thatthere must he some advantage in the one, some lossin thecrther, if the contrast is to have any force. But in theTheogony and the Works and Days there is no more to hesaid in behalf of one than of the other. The provident andthe improvident are alike outwitted and punished ;and theto the man who doesgain, if any there be, is decidedlynot see the coming evils as they cast their shadows beforethem*Prome- Putting aside these mythsas the result of a mistaken*ymology, we see in Prometheus simply another Phoroneus,the giver of fire, and, by consequence, of the blessings whichspring from the knowledge of fire. As wakening the sensesof men, as providing them with the appliances and comfortsof life,as teaching them how to plough and build, to crossthe seas and search the mines, he is practically the creatorand the creative functionas well as the preserver of men ;thus assigned to him isbrought out still more in the storyof his son Deukalion, in whose days the great flood ofwaters overwhelms the whole of Hellas, By his father'sadvice Deukalion builds an ark, in which with his wifePyrrha he floats for nine days and nights until the vesselrested on the summits of Parnassos. 1 When descending ofrom the ark with Pyrrha (a name denoting redness,whether of the soil, or, as other names in the myth renderfar more probable, of the early morning), he offers his firstsacrifice. Hermes is sent to grant them any one thing whichthey may choose. The prayerof Deukalion reflects thespirit of Prometheus; and he beseeches Zeus to restoremankind, now that the race has been swept away, ashis father had entreated him to stay his hand when firstresolved to destroy them. The answer, whether given byhe1For other versions of this Flood see led them to the heights of Parnassos,page 87, and vol. i page4H. In all these where, of course, the city of Lykoreia,deluges only the righteous, or those -who or Mountain of Light, is founded. Mehavea consecrated character, are saved, garos, again, who is saved by followingThe men of Delphoi are the ministers of the high-soaring cranes, is a son of Zeusthe light-god Phoibos : hence wolves, by and a Sithman nymph, or, in other words,the same equivocation which led to the a child of the waters, akin to the morningconfounding of the tail of light, Lykos- deities Athene", Artemis, and Aphroditfe.oura (Lykabas), with that of the wolf, Paus. i, 40, 1.

THE TWILIGHT OF THE GODS, 211Zeus or by Theseus, is that they must cast the bones of CHAP,their mother behind them as they go upon their way, and .

212 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.the mother of Aethlios, whose wife, Kalyke,is the motherof Endymi6n, the husband of Asterodia, who bears himfifty children. Translating these words into English, wehave simply the assertions that the clear purple tints usherin the early dawn, the mother of the straggling sun, fromwhose union with the earth springs the wearied sun of evening,who, plunging into the western waters, is wedded tothe tranquil night moving among the stars who are herchildren.SECTION V.THE LIGHTING.The With the gift of fire Prometheus imparted to man theTitans.p 0wer Of interpreting the fiery lightnings which flash acrossthe sty and seem to pierce the very bowels of the earth.These lightnings are the mighty fires in which the invincibleweapons and arms are welded for beings like Phoibos,Herakles, or Achilleus; or they are themselves the awfulthunderbolts forged by Hephaistos, the fire-god, and hisministers for Zeus himself.These ministers are the giganticdo service toTitans, some of whom are thus compelled tothe god against whom they had rebelled ;while others, likeTyph&eus and Enkelados, are bound on fiery couches beneathhuge mountains, through which they vomit forth ^streams ofmolten fire. Thus, among the myths related of these beings,we find some which refer to the manifestations of fire in theheaven, while others exhibit the working of the same forcesupon the earth or under it. When we reach the Hesiodicor Orphic theogonies, these myths have been modified andwoven together in a highly elaborate system. It is true thateven here we find the poets, or mythographers, working moreor lessin unconscious fidelity to the old mythical phrases,which had mainly furnished them with their materials.Thus when the Orphic poet desired to go further back thanthe point to which the Hesiodic theogony traces the generationof the Xosmos, he traced the universe to the greatmundane egg produced by Ghronos, time, out of Chaos andAith&r, a symbol answering to the mighty mixing-bowl ofthe Platonic demiourgos, and akin to all the circular, oval,

POLYPHBMOS. 213or boat-shaped emblems of fertility which have been associatedwith the signs of the male-powers in nature. Butthe artificial character of these theogonies can neither beignored nor explained away 5nor can it be denied, that thedeliberate process of manufacture which they have undergonedeprives them in great part of any mythological value,while it frees us from the necessity of going through theirtedious details, or of adhering invariably to their order.Thus, if we take the story, whether of the gigantic PolyphSmosor of the ZyH&pes among whom he is reckoned, we arenot bound to go through the cumbrous genealogy of Ouraniones,Titans, and Gigantes with which the theogonies areoverloaded. It is enough to say that when Args, Steropgs,and Brontes are spoken of as Kykl&pes, these are manifestlythe dazzling and scorching flashes which plough up thestorm-clad heavens. But althoughit is possiblethe affinity between these Kykl&pes and the beingsto traceto whomthe poets of the Iliad and the Odyssey give the same name,the latter exhibit nevertheless features very different fromthe former. The Kykl&ps of the Odyssey has nothing to dowith fire 5he is the son of Poseid&n and the nymph Tho6sa ;in other words, he is emphatically the child of the waters,and of the waters only the huge mists which wrap theearth in a dark shroud. Instead of forging armour, hefeeds his flock of sheep and goats on the rough hill-side.These herds answer to the cattle of Helios in every respectexcept their brilliance. The flocks of the Zykl6ps axe therough and misshapen vapours on which no sunshine shedsits glory, while the Kykl6ps himself is the oppressive andblackening mist, through which glares the ghastly eye ofthe shrouded sun. This terrible being may be seen drawnwith wonderful fidelity to the spirit of the old myth inTurner's picture of the overthrow of the troops sent byCambyses to the shrine of the Libyan Ammon ;and they whosee the one-eyed monster glaring down on the devoted army,where the painter was probably utterly unconscious that hewas doing more than representing the simoom of the desert,will recognise at once the unconscious accuracy with whichthe modern painter conveys the old Homeric conception of

214 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ABYAN NATIONSPolyph&nos. In this picture,as in the storms of the desert,the sun becomes the one great eye of an enormous monster,who devours every living thing that crosses his path, as1Polyphemos devoured the comrades of Odysseus. Theblinding of this monster is the natural sequel when his merebrute force is pitted against the craft of his adversary. 2 Inhis seeming insignificance and his despised estate, in hiswayworn mien and his many sorrows, Odysseus takes theplace of the Boots or Cinderella of Teutonic folk-lore ;and asthe giant is manifestly the enemy of the bright being whosesplendours are for the time hidden beneath a veil, so it isthe representative of the sun himself who pierces out hiseye ;and thus Odysseus, Boots, and Jack the Giant Killeralike overcome and escape from the enemy, although theymay each be said to escape with the skin of their teeth.TheKy- Polyphmos then is the Kykl6ps, in his aspect as apes * shepherd feeding his vast flocks on the mountain sides but;from the mighty vapours through which his great eye glaresmay dart at any moment the forked streams of lightning ;and thus the Zykl&pes are connected with the fire-convulsedheaven, and with Hephaistos the lord of the awful flames.These,with the Hekatoncheires, or hundred-handed monsters,are the true Gigantes, the earth-borri. children of Ouranos,whom he thrusts down into the nether abyss, like the pentupfires of a vol&wo. But the Titans still remained free.Whatever may be the names of these beings, they are clearlythe mighty forceswhich carry on the stupendous changes1The sun, thus glaring through the is equally true to the phenomena ofstorm cloud, may be regarded not nature. Even if the notion of themerely as the eye but as the whole face round face was suggested before theof some horrible monster ,and the name Greek myth-makers reached the idea ofKyklops agrees etymologically with the the one eye in the centre of the forehead,latter meamngbetter than with the other, we can see at once how readily theThe word no more means of necessity a latter notion may be derived from thebeing with one eye m the middle of hissight of the black storm-cloud, as itforehead, than GHaukopis, as an epithet suffers the sun to glare dimly throughof Athena, implies that she had only a its mysterious shadows,grey eye. This name really denotes the 8The story and attributes of Polyblmdjagsplendour of her countenance ; phemos with a thousand others wereand thus the Kyklops became a being transferred to the devil, when thenot with an eye in the middle of his Christian missionaries had converted allhead, but with a round face In this the ancient gods into demons Seeease, as it so happens, either description ch. x. of this book, section 8.

THE WAES OF THE TITANS. 215wrought from time to time in the physical world.titlesOf thegiven to them by mythographers, many doubtless, likethe abstract conceptions of Themis and MnemosynS, areartificial additions, and may be the manufacture of themythographers themselves. Others, as Krios and Hyperion,denote simply might or supremacy, and as such mightbecome the names of Helios, Phoibos, or other kindredbeings. Others, as Kronos, have their origin in epithetswrongly understood. Between these beings and their fathera second war iswaged, in which Gaia enables her children tomutilate Ouranos, from whose blood spring the Erinyes, sofearful on Hellenic soil, so beautiful in the land of the fivestreams, and Aphrodit, the dawn goddess, who may beterrible as well as lovely. The Eykl6pes are now deliveredfrom their prison-house, ,and Eronos becomes the supremeking but time;can only swallow the things which he hasmade, and vomit them forth again. The thing which hathbeen, shall be, and there is nothing new under the sun.But it was as impossible that the Kykl6pes could continuethe allies of any monarch of heaven, as that the same foun-'tain should send forth sweet water and bitter; and againthey are thrust down into the depths from which they hadbeen rescued, once more to be avenged when the Titans, ledon by Zeus, waged a third war of elements, in which Zronosis hurled from his throne, and the child born in the Diktaian(or Light) cave reignsin his stead. Butwhen the Kykl6pesare once more set free, Zeus avails himself of their might tocrush the Titans ;and finally the Eykl6pes themselves areslain by Phoibos in vengeance for the death of AsklSpios theHealer and the Saviour.These several contests are not distinguishedfrom each by any peculiar features; and thetheogonies simply heap together mountains of words almostas vast as the rocks hurled by the hands of the giants, as if^conscious of the barrenness of their theme, and of its lackof interest as compared with myths springing from phraseswhich, though they may denote the phenomena of nature,strike a responsive chord in the human heart.It is, in fact,the old story of the struggle between Indra and Yritra,

216 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ASYAJST NATIONS.SchamiiSassafras,regarded from a point of view which removes it altogetherfrom the region of human sympathies.1Thus, then, the myth of the Eykl6ps brings before us inclose connexion the two images of the cloud and the lightning.This connexion may be traced through a vast numberof stories, in many cases but slightly resembling eachother, yet all adhering to the originalideas of mist and fire.In these the lightning becomes an arrow capable of piercingthe mountain side or the huge storm-cloud, and displayingfor a moment marvellous treasures of jewels and gold. Theeffects produced by this arrow or spear are sometimes good,sometimes disastrous. It may scorch and paralyse, or intimes of drought, when the waters are pent up in the cloud,itmay cleave the vapours and call the dead earth to lifeagain with the streams let loose upon her parched surface.But the cloud might assume the form not only of sheep andcattle, as in the Vedic hymns and in the Thrinakian legend,but of birds, as of swans or eagles ;and as the clouds carrythe lightning with them until the time comes for using themighty weapons, so the bird carries a stone capable of splittingthe hardest substance. Finally the stone becomes aworm, and thus we have the framework of a large family ofstories which, if they have their origin among Aryan tribes,have been extended far beyond the limits of that race,These myths have been so fully traced by Mr. Baring Gould, 2that nothingis left for us but to follow his steps. In themany versions devised by Hebrew tradition for a legendgained through their contact with Iranian tribes, the cloudis in each case a bird, the lightning being eithera worm.a stone orThus Benaiah, the son of Jehoiada, discovers thewonder-working pebble Schamir, by watching a moor-hen,which, finding a piece of glass laid over her nest, flies away,and fetching a worm, splits the cover; or Solomon obtainsitin the form of a stone from the raven, of whom he hasbeen informed by the demon Sackar,In similar stories told1In short, tibese theogonies are the myths, which might be carried out inresult, in part, of a backward process, any way most congenial to the worker,which led the mytiographer back to the Ounous Myths, second series,mundane egg, and, in part, of that 'Schamir.'systematic rearrangement of current

ROOK-SPLITTING PLANTS.21Tby JElian and Pliny of the woodpecker or the hoopoe, the in- CHAPstrument by which the bird gets at her young is a IVgrass and; ._ *_.thus we reach the family of plants whose power of splittingrocks has won for them the name of Saxifrage, or Sassafras.This grass or plant will either reveal treasures, as in theblinding glare of the electric fluid, or will restore life, as inthe effects of lightning in setting free the waters on aparched-up soil. Thus the story of Glaukos and Polyidos,ofthe Three Snake Leaves, and of Eama and Luxman, is repeatedin Fouqu#s Sir Elidoc, where the young Amyot iswatching the corpse of a woman as Glaukos watches that ofPolyidos. This mysterious herb becomes the German Luckflower,the possessor of which is enabled to go down into therocks which gape to receive him, and to fill his pockets withthe glittering treasures of which the beautiful queen of thishidden palace bids him take his fill, warning him only notto forget the best. This warning is, of course, understoodby the peasant as a charge to select the most preciousstones, and leaving the flower behind him, he finds, as therocks close with a crash, that the mountain is closed to himfor ever.This flower is sometimes inclosed in a staff, whichis obviously only another form of the lighning-spear, as inthe tale of the luckless shepherd of Ilsenstein, who, forgettingto take the staff as he leaves the cave, is himselfcloven by the closing rocks. In all these cases the flower orplant, as the talismanic spell, is more precious than the hidtreasures ;and unless the treasure-seeker keeps it by him heis lost. It is, in short, the flower, sometimes blue, sometimesyellow or red (as the hues vary of the lightningflashes), which, in Mr. Gould's words, exclaims in feeblepiteous tone, * Forget me not/ but its little cry is unheeded.In the story of All Baba and the Forty Thieves the flower Aimeditself has disappeared, but the spell still liesin its name;for; as Mr. Gould remarks, ' sesame is the name of a wellknown Eastern plant (Sesamum orimtale) \so that probably,in the original form of the Persian tale absorbed into theArabian Nights, a flower was employed to give admission tothe mountaia.* In the story of Allah-ud-deen, the sameverbal talisman is employed by the African magician, when

218 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.lie has kindled a fire from which, rises a dense smoke andvapour, and the instantaneous effect, as of the lightning, isthe discovery of a way into the depths of the earth. In thetale of Ahmed and the Peri Banou, the Schamir or Sassafrasis again an arrow which, when shot by the hand of theprince, travels so far as to become invisible, as the lightningsshine from the east and give light to the uttermostwest. Following its course, he comes to a great mountain,and finds the arrow just where an opening in the rocks showshim a door by which he descends into a palace of unimaginablesplendour. Here he is greeted by the queen of thismagnificent domain, who calls him by his name, and havingconvinced him of her knowledge of all his actions by recountingincidents of his past life, offers herself to him as his bride-With her he dwells in happiness and luxury, until, drivenby a yearning to see his home and his father once more, hebeseeches the benignant being to suffer him to go, and atlength obtains his wish after promising, like true Thomasin the myth of Ercildoune, that he will soon return. Thisbeautiful Peri with her vast treasures and her marvellouswisdom is but a reflection of the wise Erk6 and Medeia, orof the more tender Kalypso, who woos the brave Odysseusin her glistening cave, until she is compelled to let the manof many sorrows go on his way to his wife Penelop. She is,in short, the Venus of the Horselberg or Ercildoune (the hillof Ursula and her eleven thousand Yirgins),for the namesare the same, and the prince Ahmed is Tanhaiiser, or Thomasthe Ehymer, wooed and won by the Elfland queen.It is obvious that for the name of the flower which is toopen the cave or the treasure-house might besubstitutedany magical formula, while the lightning flash might berepresented by the lighting of a miraculous taper, the extinguishingof which is followed by a loud crashing noise.With these modifications, the myth at once assumes theform of the Spanish legend of the Moor's Legacy, as relatedby Washington Irving. In this delightful tele we have allthe usual incidents or features the buried treasures theincantation which has c such virtue that the strongest boltsand bars, nay, the adamantine rock itself, will yield before

(CHE LIGHTNING. 219it 5 the wonderful taper "bywhose light alone the incantationcan be readthe opening of the secret places ofthe earth while the taper continues to burnthe crash withwhich the gates close when the light is gone. All thesefeatures are so skilfullyfitted into the modern Alhambrauntil welegend, as fairly to hide the origin of the story,apply the right key to the lock. No sooner is this donethan the myth is as clearly revealed as the treasure of therobbers' cave on pronouncing the word * Sesame.' Of thereal meaning of the tale, Irving doubtless knew nothing ;but he has preserved it as faithfully as the hymn-writeradhered to the spirit of the myth of Hermes. *The scroll5was produced (the sassafras or sesame), 'the yellow waxentaper lighted *(the flash of the yellow lightning), ' the earthtrembled and the pavement opened with a thundering sound.'While the taper burns, the Moor and the water-carrier loadthe panniers of their ass with costly treasures ;but whenthey have satisfied themselves,the costliest still remainuntouched, and the greedy Alcalde, having in vain prayedthem to bring up these also, descends with his gripingretainers still lower into the vault. 'No sooner did theMoor behold them fairly earthed, than he extinguished theyellow taper '(the darkness closes in after the flash of lightning),'the pavement closed with the usual crash, and bhethree worthies remained buried in its womb.' Doubtless,when reduced to their primitive elements, these tales mayseem poor and monotonous enough; but the marvellouspowers of growth which these germs possess have seldombeen more clearly exhibited than in the folklore which hasyielded the legends of the Forty Thieves, the Peri Banou,AUah-ud-deen, and the Legacy of the Moor, with the Germanstories of Simeli Mountain and the Glass Coffin. 1Once more, the light flashing from the dim and dusky Mediaevalstorm-cloud becomes the Hand of Glory, which, formed of a spells>dead man's limbs, aids the mediaeval treasure-seeker in his1In this story the office of Schamir lightning, it splits the rocks open andis discharged by a goat, suggesting a the Tailor descends through, the openingcomparison with the Aigis o? Ath&ie" into the hidden chamber, where the(see 11. 347-8). The beast thrusts his maiden sleeps in the Glass Coffin,horns with such force thai, like the

220 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.BOOKforbidden search, whether in the depths of the earth or after._ ^ ^ his neighbour's goods ;nor have we far to seek in mucholder writings for the very same image without its repulsivetransformation. The hand of glory is the red light ofJupiter, with which he smites the sacred citadels; 1 andwith thishand ofIndra Savit&r.we may compare the myth of the golden1Horace, Od. i. 2.

221CHAPTEE V.THE WINDS.SECTION LVAYTJ AMD THE MARUTS.THE god of the bright heaven, who is known as Dyu, India,CHAP,and Agni,is also called Vayu, a name denoting, it would .. .,!*seem, simply the gentler movements of the air, which are Vayu andGreek Pan and theexpressed by the sweet pipings of thesoft breathings of the Latin Favonius. As such, he comesearly in the morning to chase away the demons, and theHe is drawn by theDawns weave for him golden raiment. 1Nirjuts, and has Indra for his charioteer. 2 With some hethe deities.was, along with Agni and Surya, supreme among*There are* only three deities, according to the Nairuktas(etymologists) : Agni whose place is on earth ; Vayu or Lidrawhose place is in the atmosphere, and Surya whose place isin the sky/3The blusteringrage of the Greek Boreas and the more Boreasviolent moods of Hermes are represented by the crowd ofMaruts, or storm-winds, who attend on Indra and aid himin his struggle with his great enemy Vritra. Of thesebeings it is enough to say, that the language used in describingtheir functions is, if possible, more transparent thanthat of the poem known as the Homeric Hymn to Hermes.They overturn trees and destroy forests, they roar like lionsand are as swift as thought, they shake the mountains andare clothed with rain.horses ;They are borne on tawny-colouredthey are brothers, ' of whom no one is the elder, noone the younger.3Theyare born self-luminous with the1Mmr, Sanskmt Texts> part iv. Muir, Swsfo. Texts, iv. 3, 7.p. 337 s Muir, Skr. Texts, part iv. p. 57.2 H. H Wilson, B. V. S. iii, 209;

222 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.TheCnnih-spotted deer, the spears, the daggers, the glittering ornaments.1These spears and daggers are the lightnings, andthe spotted deer are seen in the spotted lynxes who playround Phoibos as he pipesto the flocks of Adm6tos. 2 Theworshipper hears the cracking of their whips in their handsas they go upon their way. After their mightiest exploitsthey assume again, ( according to their wont, the form ofnew-born 3 babes,' a phrase which exhibits the germ, andmore than the germ, of the myth of Hermes returning like achild to his cradle after tearing up the forests. Their voiceis louder than that of Stentor.'Whither now?' asks the poet. 'On what errand ofyours are you going,in heaven not on earth? Where areyour cows sporting ? From the shout of the Maruts overthe whole space of the earth men reeled forward.' 4(They make the rocks to tremble ;they tear asunder thekings of the forest/ like Hermes in his rage.'Lances gleam, Maruts, upon your shoulders, anklets onyour feet, golden cuirasses on your breasts, and pure (watersshine) on your chariots :lightnings blazing with fire glow inyour hands, and golden tiaras are towering on your heads.' 5In the traditions of Northern Europe these furious Marutsbecome the fearful Ogres, who come tearing along in theirships (the clouds), while the wind roars and growls afterthem, and who, after desperate conflicts, are vanquished byShortshanks in the Norse tale. The ogre of this storycarries with him * a great thick iron club,' which sends theearth and stones flying five yards in the air at each stroke.But pre-eminently, as the name denotes, the Maruts are*ke ^ushers or grinders ;and thus, as made to share in thedeadly strife between Indra and Vritra, they assume an exclusivelywarlike character. The history of the root whichfurnishes this name has been 6already traced, and has linkedtogether the Greek war-god Ars, the gigantic Aloadai andMoliones, the Latin Mars and Mors, and the Teutonic ThorMiolnir.They are the children of Eudra, worshipped as the1Max Muller, Rig Veda Sanhita, i.* Ib. 65.59.2*H. H. Wilson, 5. 7. 8. vol. a.M 579. 333Eurip.Max Unite, 5. 7, 8. i. 3.p.Vol i. p. 34,

RUDRA. 223destroyer and reproducer, for these functions were blendedby the same association of ideas which gavebirth to thelong series of correlative deities in Aryan mythology.'Adorned with armlets, the Maruts have shone lite theskies with their stars ;they have glittered like showers fromthe clouds, at the time when the prolificEudra generatedyou, Maruts, with jewels on your breasts, from the shiningudder of Prisni.' lThe several phases which the character of this godsumes in the later Hindu literature are minutely traced byDr. Muir 2but ; among the monstrous overgrowths of wildfancies we find some of the more prominent attributes of thecognate Greek deity ascribed to Rudra in his character asFather of the Winds. Like the Asvins and Agni, likeProteus, Phoibos, and the other fish-gods, Eudra can changehis form at will.'Father of the Maruts, may thy felicityexclude us not from the light of the sun.'Thou, Eudra, art the chiefest of beings in glory*extend to us :Thou,wielder of the thunderbolt, art the mightiest of the mighty.6Where, Eudra, is thy joy-dispensing hand P Firm withstrong limbs, assuming many forms, he shines with goldenornaments. 3 3Like Hermes, Eudra is worshipped as the robber, thecheat, the deceiver, the Master Thief.4 The mocking laughterof the wind as it passes on after wreaking its fury couldnot fail to suggest the same ideas in the most distant lands.As we might expect, Eudra, like Siva, whose gracious namewas a mere euphemism to deprecate his deadly wrath., atlength eclipses Indra, asIndra had put Dyaus and Varunainto the background, and he becomes associated most closelywith that phallic worship which seemingly found but littlefavour in the true Vedic age.6as- Rudra.12?. 7. ii 34, 2; Muir, 8fa Texts. See also rol. i.part iv. p 260. * Dr. Muir fully admits the scantiness8 Muir, 4&. part IT. ch. iv. sect. 3. of the evidence on which the negative8 H H. Wilson, R. 7. 8. h 289. conclusion rests, 8kr. Texts, iv.p 348.4Muir, jSifer. Texts, part iv. p. 341.

,224 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.SECTION IIHEEMES.BOOKThe character of the more gentle Yayu, who comes with. , the blush of early morning, carries us to the strange legendsffindu and of Hermes ;and we have to see how the phrases whichmyths of yielded but a slight harvest of myth in the East grew up inthe wind, the West into stories enriched by an exquisite fancy, whileThe storythey remained free from the cumbrous and repulsive extravagancesof later Hindu mythology, and how true to thespirit of the old mythical speech and thought is the legendof that son of Zeus, who was born early in the morning in acave of the Eyllenian hill, who at noon played softly andsweetly on his harp, and who at eventide stole away thecattle of Phoibos. 1Eising from his cradle (so the story runs), the babe steppedofHermes.^^ from ^ cave? an

THE CRADLE OF HERMES.22 Jxan old man who was at work in his Yineyard to forget thethings which it might not be convenient to remember.Hastening onwards with the cattle, he reached the bants The theftof Alpheios, as the moon rose up in the sty. There hebrought together a heap of wood, and, kindling the firstflame that shone upon the earth, he slew two of the cows,and stretching their hides on the roct, cut up the flesh intotwelve portions.1But sorely though his hunger pressedhim, he touched not the savoury food, and hurling his sandalsinto the river, he brote up the blazing pile, and scatteredthe ashes all night long beneath the bright light of themoon. Early in the morning he reached Kylln, neithergod nor man having spied him on the road ;and passingthrough the bolt-hole of the cave like a mist or a softautumn breeze,2 he lay down in his cradle, playing amongthe clothes with one hand, while he held his lyre in theother. To the warning of his mother, who told him thatPhoibos would take a fearful vengeance, and bade him begoneas born to be the plague of gods and men,3 Hermes simplyanswered that he meant to be the equal of Phoibos, and thatif this right were refused to him, he would go and sact hiswealthy house at Pytho.Meanwhile, Phoibos, hastening to Onchestos in search of The covehiscattle, had asked the old vinedresser to say who hadtaken them. But the words of Hermes stillrang in the oldman's ears, and he could remember only that he had seencows and a babe following them with a staffin his hand.Knowing now who had stolen them, 4 Phoibos hastened on to1Hermes is thus especially connected Shifty Lad, in the Scottish version ofwith the ordering of burnt sacrifices, the myth.4But this we have seen to be the especial Hymn to Hermes, 214-5. Nothingattribute or function of Agni. could show more clearly than these* In other words the great giant has words that the myth pointed to areduced himself almost to nothing, physical phenomenon with whichThis is the story of the Fisherman and Phoibos was already familiar. Hadthe Jin in the Arabian Nights, of the the story been told by one who meantSpirit in the Bottle in Grimm's German to speak of any human child, he wouldstores, of the devil in the purse of the never have represented ApollSn asMaster Smith, and again in the story ofthe Lad and the Devil (Dasent), andknowing who the thief was before hisname was mentioned or the clue to histhe Gaelic tale of The Soldier. Campbell, hiding-place furnished. The poet mightii. 279. indeed have said that the child had3With this we may compare the stolen the cows many times already:prognostications of the mother of the but the statement would not have agreedVOL. II*Q

226 MYTHOLOGY OF THE AEYAN NATIONS.Pylos, and there stood amazed at the confused tracts whichthe beasts had left behind them. Hurrying onwards toKylln, Apoll&n caught the child in his cradle, and taxedchim with the theft. How can it be that I have stolen thecows? 3 said the babe, 'I who can but sleep and suck andplay with the clothes of my cradle.I was born but yester-haveday, and my feet are tender, and the groundis hard. Inot taken your cattle, and I know nothing of cows but theirname.'But as he spoke he winked slilywith his eyes, anda long low whistle came from his lips. Smiling in spite ofhis anger, Phoibos saw that the craftof Hermes would setmany a herdsman grieving, and that he had won the rightto be called the prince of robbers and the Master Thief forever.Then seizing the child he was bearing him away whena loud noise made him let go his hold; but at length bothappeared before the judgment-seat of Zeus, and the babe,who spoke of himself as a most truthful person, said that hemust be guiltless, as he knew not even what sort of thingscows were. The plea was not admitted, and the nod of Zeuswarned Hermes that his command to restore the oxen wasnot to be disobeyed.So on the banks of Alpheios he showedthe lost cattle to Phoibos, who, dismayed at the signs ofrecent slaughter, again seized the babe in his anger. Ingreat fear Hermes bethought him of his lyre, and strikingits chords wakened sounds most soft and soothing as he sangof the old time when the gods were born and tihe world wasyoung. As he listened to the beautiful harmony, Phoibos,angry no more, longed only to learn whence the child hadthis wondrous power, and to gain for himself this marvellousgift of csong. At once Hermes granted his prayer, Take mylyre/ he said, * which to those who can use it deftly will discourseof all sweet things, but will babble nonsense andmoan strangely to all who know not how todraw forth itsspeech/ So the strife between them was ended, and Phoibosplacedin the hand of Hermes his three-leafed rod of wealthand happiness, and gave him charge over all his cattle. 1well with his special object m relating German story the Little Panner whothe myth viz to account for the alliance cheats the greedy townsmen with thebetween Phoibos and Hermes. sight of his flocks in the water. *There1Thus Hermes becomes in the happened to be a fine blue 'sky with

THE COMPACT BETWEEN HEBMES AND PHOIBOS. 227Then touching the tortoise-lyre, Apoll&n called forth itssweet music, and Hermes, taking courage, prayedthat tohim also might be granted the secret wisdom of Phoibos ;but'Apoll6n said, This alone may not be. None but myselfmay know the hidden counsels of Zeus ;but other thingsthere are which mortal men may never learn, and thesethings the Thriai shall teach thee, who dwell far down in theclifts of Parnassos.Other honours too are in store for thee.Thou shalt be the guardian of all flocks and herds, themessengerof the gods, and the guide of the dead to the darkland of Hades.' Thus was the compact between them made,and Phoibos became the lord of the sweefc-yoiced lyre, andHermes for his part sware that no harm should come to theholy home of Apoll6n at Delphoi. But tp men Hermesbrings no great help, for he has a way of cheating themThe mean-through the dusky hours of night.It is obvious that the legend, as thus related in the hymn,cannot be understood until we have traced to their sourcethe mythicalfacts that Hermes was born in the morning,that from him come the gifts of music and song, that hereached his full strength at midday, that although he couldkindle flame he could not eat the food nhich the firedevoured,and that he could at will He like a child in hiscradle or terrify gods and men with his sudden blasts. 1Themystery is certainly not solved if with Mr. Gxote 2 we holdthat 'the general types of Hermes and Apoll&n, coupledwith the present fact that no tibdef ever approached the richand seemingly accessible treasures of Delphi, engender astring of expository incidents, cast into a quasi-historicalform, and detailing how ithappened that Hermes hadbound himself by especial convention to respect the Delphiantemple/Mr. Grrote cannot mean that the immunityof the Pythian shrine from theft and plunder originatedthe general types of the two gods, and it is precisely withplenty of fleecy clouds over which it, contains, perhaps, the only reallyWP coarsemirrored in the water and looked expression in the whole poem ;and thelike little lambs. The farmers called reference to the action of wind in itsone to another, " Look there, we can see sadden outbursts at once makes it boththe sheep already on the ground below innocent and graphic,the water." ' a Eistory of Greece, parti. ch. iHym, to Semes, 296. This line

!,228 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.these types that we are now concerned. If a conventionshould be made at all, why should it be with Hermesrather than with any other god? If it be answered thatHermes was the prince and patron of thieves, we have thento ask why this should be his character and whence the1notion came. The mere pointing out of a contrast does notexplain the origin of that contrast ;and Mr. Gladstone laysdown a principle of universal application when he says that*invention cannot absolutely create; it can only work onwhat it finds already provided to hand.' 1 The criticismsof Colonel Mure 2might have some force if we could supposethat the poet created his own materials ;but it is manifestlyuseless to explain as a jest the relations between Hermesand Apoll6n3 until we have shown why these particularrelations should be invested with a ludicrous character. Itis strange that Colonel Mure should suppose that he hadtouched the real point at issue by asserting that in order tohe is content to put aside as 'aII. 9.2History of Greek literature, ii 340.'monstrous hyperbole In point of fact,No wish to disparage the great learningthe poet chose the narcissus because itsof Colonel Mure or to depreciatehis name denotes the deadly languor andservices in the important subject to lethargy which comes over the earth inwhich he devoted himself must be inferredautumn, and which is expressed morefrom the expressionof a conviction fully in the myth of Narkissos, thethat he was incapable of analysing fairlyany mythical narrative, the truth beingthat he knew nothing of the nature ofmyths in general Thus in the presentcase he seems to have a fixed idea thathis work is done when he says that thewhole Hymn to Hermes is designed as acounterpart of Endymi6n. (See page 33.)It is not, however, accurate to speak ofthe ' baby habits ' of Hermes. His childishways are confined to the time whichhe spends in his cradle. As soon as heleaves it,he begins to move with giantstrides, and nothing of the child remainsabout him. Colonel Mure adds that ' asthe patron deity of cunning and intrigue,he is at once qualified to compete withand to surpass even Apollo, hithertoconsidered as unrivalled in these arts. 1There is not the slightest ground forthinking that Apoll6n was at any timeconnected with the notion of cunningand intrigue, and still less for supposingthat he was regarded as the embodimentor ideal of those qualities until theburlesque, that the absurdity is intendedto lie in the contrast 'between theHerculean exploits of the divine urchinand his baby form and habits/ and thatthe supernatural element of the story'alone gives point and seasoning to9an otherwise palpable extravagance.There is not an expression throughoutthe whole hymn which implies anyconsciousness of extravagance or burlesqueor absurdity on the part of thepoet, who evidently writes in all possible questionable honour was transferred toseriousness. But with Colonel Mure Hermes It is, in fact, impossible toalmost all mythical incidents resolve determine whether the myth of Phoibosthemselves into the mere extravagances has the priority of time over that ofof a disordered or ill-regulated fancyThe hundred-headed narcissus, whosefragrance made earth and heaven smile,and which tempted Persephone to leaveher companions in the fields of Enna,Hermes, and therefore we cannot sayhow the former was regarded before thelatter furnished the notion of the MasterThief.

INFANCY OF THE GODS.accommodate the dispute 'on terms honourable to eachparty' 'an elegant expedient suggested itself 3 in the inventionof the lyre by Hermes, and the transference ofthis instalment,' which could not faila heavy debt of gratitudeto the donor. 1to lay Apoll6n underThis leaves altogetherout of sight the fact that Phoibos imparted toHermes such secrets as it was lawful for him to disclose,and in no way explains why Hermes should invent the lyreand Phoibos be possessedof a hidden wisdom. To say that'Hernies in his capacity of god is gifted from the firstmoment of his existence with divine power and Energy,' andthat * as a member of the Hellenic pantheon he is subjectedto the natural drawbacks of humanity, and hence at hisbirth to those of infancy/ is partly to misrepresent the mythand partly to say of him that which may be said -justwell of Apoll&n, or Dionysos, or AphroditS. Hermes, it istrue, is represented as a babe at his birth in the morning :but it is ludicrous to speak of natural human drawbacks fora child who can leave his cradle when a few hours old, andexert the strength of a giant at his will. If, again, Apoll6nat his birth was bathed by the nymphs in pure water andwrapped in a soft and spotless robe, he yet became very soon'the Ghrys&6r whose invincible sword must win him thevictory over all his enemies.We are thus beating the air until we discover the ground- Thework or source of the ideas which led to the notion of contrastand rivalry between the two gods. Far from concern- Hermesingourselves in the first placeaswith the mode devised fortheir reconciliation, it is this very rivalry and antagonismfor which we have to account. If the legend in its Greekform fails to carry us to the source of the idea, we mustnecessarilylook elsewhere : and we shall not search thehymns of the Yeda in vain. 'The divine greyhoundSaram&,' says Dr. Mommsen, 2 * who guards for the lord ofheaven the golden herd of stars and sunbeams, and for himcollects the nourishing rainclouds of heaven for the milking,and who moreover faithfully conducts the pious dead intothe world of the blessed, becomes in the hands of the Greeks1Cnt. Hist. Gr. Lit. h. 344.2History of Rome,1. 18.

230 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.BOOK tie son of Saram&, Sar&meyas, or Hermeias.' In the Vedic* -Saram& Dr. Kuhn finds a name identical with the Teutonicad ofstorm and the Greek HormS. Although neither of thesestatements accords strictly with the Yedic passages whichspeak of SaramA and Sarameya, the controversy which hasturned upon these names may perhaps be compared to thebattle of the knights for the sides of the silvered andbrazened shield in the old tale.Confining our view strictly to the Veda, we find no divinethe moving greyhound Saramft. The beautiful being known by thisaw -name is the Greek Helen6, the words * being phoneticallyidentical, not only in every consonant and vowel, but even in9their accent1;and both are traced to the root Sar, to go orto creep. When the cows of Indra are stolen by the Panis,Saram& is the first to spy out the clift in which they werehidden, and 'the first to hear their lowings. The cows whichshe thus recovers Indra reconquers from the Panis, whohave striven with all their powers to corrupt the fidelity of'What kind of man is Indra? 3 they ask, c he as whosemessenger thou comest from afar ?Let us make thee oursister, do not go away again: we will give thee part of thecows,darling/SaramS,, then, as going, like TJshas, before Indra, is theDawn, and Sarameya or Hermeias is the Dawn-child. Intothe conception of the former, Professor Max Muller rightlyasserts that the idea of storm never entered 5and the passagesin which mention is made of Sararaeya lead him alsoto exclude this notion from the character of Hermes. Withhim, then, Hermes is 'the god of twilight, who betrays hisequivocal nature by stealing, though only in fan, the herdsof Apolldn, bat restoring them without the violent combatthat iswaged for the same herds in India between tlndra thebright god and Vala the robber. In India the dawn bringsthe light, in Greece the twilight is itself supposed to havestolen it,or to hold back the light, and Hermes the twilightsurrenders the booty when challengedby the sun-god Apollo/2This view explains at most only two or three of the traits1 Max Muller, Ltatnm on Language, second series, 471. JJ. 475.

HERMES AND SAKAMEYA. 231which make up the character of the Hellenic Hermes ;does not show us how the functions of the twilight could belcarried on through the live-long night ; still less does itaccount for the radical idea of sound connected with Hermesas contrasted with the light which is the chief characteristicof Apoll6n.Tet Professor Max Miiller himself supplies theclue which may lead us through the labyrinth when he tellsus that Hermes is born in the morning, * as Sarameya wouldbe the son of the twilight, or, itmay be, the first breeze ofthe dawn.' 2 The idea which lies at the root of the VedicSaram& and Sarameyais that of brightness ;itthe idea whichof Hermes is essen-furnishes the groundwork for the mythtially that of sound. There is nothing to bewilder us in thisfact. Both ideas are equally involved in the root Sar, whichexpressed only motion; and the degree of difference discerniblebetween the Vedic Saram.fi. and the Greek Hermes isthe worst precisely that which we should expect from thedisintegrating process brought about by a partial or completeforgetfulness of the original meaning of words. That thetales of one nation are not borrowed directly from the legendsof another, the whole course of philological science tends, aswe have seen, more and more to prove. Names which aremere attributes in one mythology are attached to distinctpersons in another. The title Arjuni, which in the Veda isa transparent epithet of the dawn, becomes in the WestArgennos, known only as a favourite of Agamemnon ;andthe mysterious Varuna of the Hindu is very inadequatelyrepresented by the Hellenic Ouranos. The Greek Oharitesand the Latin Gratis are in name identical with the SanskritHants :Erinys is Saranyu, and Helen is Saraml But theGreek did not get his Oharis from the Harit of the Brahman;the western poets didnot receive their Helen fromVedic bards : the Hellenic Hermes does not owe his parentageto Sarameya. Carrying with them an earlier form ofthose names from the common home of the race, the Greekdeveloped his own myths as the Vedic rishis developedtheirs.The common element insured resemblance, while itrendered absolute1 Bywffi to Herms, 141.agreement impossible, and an indefinite2 Lect, en Lang, second series, 473.at

232 MYTHOLOGY OP THE ARYAN NATIONS.divergence in detail inevitable. If the myth, so developed isfound to contradict the essential idea of a less developedSanskrit phrase, there would be good cause for perplexity ;tut here there is no such contrariety. The idea of the dawnis associated with that of the breeze almost as much as withthat of light; and although the idea of SaramA excludes thebare notion of storm, it does not exclude the thought of thewhispering airs of morning tide. The action of Hermes inthe Homeric hymn cannot be consistently explained by amere reference to storms ;and the Saram&, whose child heis, is unmistakably the Dawn who peersabout after thebright cows which have been stolen by the night and hiddenin its secret caves. With this beingthe Hellenic Hermesretains all the affinity which from the general results ofComparative Mythology we should expect him to exhibit.We may with Professor Max Miiller lay stress on the factsthat 'he loves HersS, the dew, and Aglauros, her sister;among his sons is Kephalos, the head of the day. He isthe herald of the gods ;so is the twilight: so was SaramS.the messenger of Indra. He is the spy of the night, VVKTQSoTrcffjrrjTrjp ; he sends sleep and dreams; the bird of themorning, the cock, stands by his side. Lastly,he is theguide of travellers, and particularly of the souls who travelon their last journey he : is the Psychopompos.' l And yetor to accountthe single idea of light fails utterly to explainfor the origin of the series of incidents narrated in theHomeric hymn. Throughout this singularly beautiful poemthe leading idea is that of air in motion, or wind, varying indegree from the soft breath of a summer breeze to the rageof the groaning hurricane. His silence in the morning, hissoftharping at midday, the huge strides with which in theevening he hurries after the cattle of Phoibos, the crashingof the forest branches until they burst into flame, the sacrificewhich Hermes prepares, but of which he cannot taste thoughgrievously pressed by hunger, the wearied steps with whichhe returns to sleep in his cradle, the long low whistle withwhich he slily closes his reply to the charge of theft, theloud blast which makes Apolldn let go his hold, the soft1Leet. on Lang, second series, 476.

THE GOD OP THE MOVING AIR. 233music "by which, the babe assuages his wrath, the longing ofHermes to learn, the secret wisdom of the sun-god, are alltraits exquisitely beautiful if told of the wind, but withabsolutely no meaning if applied to the light or the dawn.Analysed with reference to the idea of air in motion, the Transpawholestory becomes self-luminous. Lite the fire which atits first kindling steps out with the strength of a horse from myth,its prison, the wind may freshen to a gale before it be anhour old, and sweep before it the mighty clouds big withthe rain that is to refresh the ea^th. Where it cannotthrow down it can penetrate. It pries unseen into holesand crannies, it sweeps round dark corners, it plunges intoglens and caves 5and when the folk come out to see themischief that it has done, they hear itsmocking laughter asit hastens on its way. These few phrases lay Bare the wholeframework of the Homeric legend, and account for the notill-natured slyness and love of practical jokes which enterinto the character of Hermes. 1The babe leaves the cradlebefore he is an hour old. The breath of the breeze is atfirst soft and harmonious as the sounds which he summonsBut his strength grows rapidly, andfrom his tortoise-lyre.he lays aside his harp to set out on a plundering expedition.With mighty strides he hastens from the heights of Kyll&iuntil he drives from their pastures the cattle of Apolldn,obliterating the foot-tracks after the fashion of the autumnwinds,which cover the roads with leaves and mire. 2In hiscourse he sees an old man working in his vineyard, and, likea catspaw on the surface of the sea, he whispers in his ear awarning of which but half the sound is6aught before thebreeze has passed away. All the night long the wind roared,or, as the poet says, Hermes toiled till the branches of thetrees, rubbing against each other, burst into a flame and;so men praise Hermes, like Prometheus, Phoroneus, andBhuranyu, as the giver of the kindliest boon fire.3 Theflames, fanned by the wind, consume the sacrifice ;but thewind, though hungry, cannot eat of it, 4 and when themorning has come he returns to his mother's cave, passing,,1Hor. Od. i. 10 Hymn to Hermes, 110.4,& 181.* Hymn to Hermes, 75.

234 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.BOOKthrough the opening of the bolt lite the sigh of a summer.- ?' -, breeze or mist on a hill side. 1 The wind is tired of blowing,or, in other words, the feet of Hermes patter almost noiselesslyover the floor, 2 till he lies down to sleep in his cradlewhich he had left but a few hours ago. The sun rises andfinds to his discomfiture that the herds are gone.He toosees the hedger of Onchestos, who thinks, but is not sure,3that he had seen a babe driving cows before him.The sunhastens on his way, sorely perplexedat the confused foottrackscovered with mud and strewn with leaves, justas ifthe oaks had taken to walking on their heads.4 Butwhenhe charges the child with the theft, the defence is groundedon his tender age. Can the breeze of a day old, breathingas softly as a babe new born, be guilty of so much mischief Pshould it strideIts 5proper home is the summer land ; whywantonly over bleak hills and bare heaths ? But, with aninstinct singularly true, Hermes is represented as closing hisdefence with a long whistle,6 which sounds very much likemockery and tends perhaps to heighten the scepticism ofApoll6n. The latter seizes the child, who with a loud blastmakes him suddenly let go, and then appeals against hisunkind treatment to his father (the sky).7Zeus refuses toaccept his plea of infancy but;when Hermes brings backthe cows, the suspicions of Apoll6n are again roused, and,dreading his angry looks, the child strikes his tortoise-lyreand wakens sounds so soft and tender 8 that the hardestheartedman cannot choose but listen. Never on the heightsof Olympos, where winds perhaps blow strong as they commonlydo on mountain summits, had Phoibos heard a strain9so soothing. Like the pleasant murmur of a breeze in thepalm-groves of the south, it filled his heart with a strangeyearning, 10carrying him back to the days when the worldwas young and all the bright gods kept holiday, and hemade the life oflonged for the 11glorious gift of music whichHermes a joy on the earth. His prayer is at once granted,the wind grudges not his music to the sun ;he seeks only to1Hymn to 7Hermes, 147.Hymn to Hermes, 312.*St. 149. R 208. Jb. 349. 8 Ib 419. J&. 445, 450."Ib. 267-8. & 280. 2b. 422. J&. 457.

THE PRYING HERMES. 235know the secrets which his own eyes cannot penetrate, 1 for CHAP.Phoibos sits in the high heaven vby the side of Zeus, knowingthe inmost mind of his father, and his keen glance can piercethe depths of the green sea. This wisdom the sun may notimpart. The wind may not vex the pure ether or break inupon the eternal repose of the ocean depths.other honours in store for him, many and great.be the guardian of the bright clouds ;Still there areHe shallhis song shall cheerthe sons of men and lessen the sum of human suffering; hisbreath shall waft the dead to the world unseen, and when hewills he may get wisdom by holding converse with the hoarysisters far down in the clifts of Parnassos, as the wind maybe heard mysteriously whispering in hidden glens and unfathomablecaves. The compactis ratified by the oath thatthe wind shall do no hurt to the home of the sun, whodeckres in his turn that he loves nothing so well as thefresh breeze of heaven. 2 True to the last to the spirit ofthe myth, the poet adds that his friendship for man is notequal to his love for the sun. Thewind has a way of doingmen mischief while they sleep.The idea which has explained every incident of the hymn Humouraccounts also for the humour which runs throughit. It isa humour depending not upon the contrast between the punyform and the mighty exploits of Hermes or on the supernaturalelement which in Colonel Mure's belief alone givespoint to what would otherwise be mere extravagance. Itis the result of an exquisitely faithful noting of outwardphenomena, and, as such, it was not the invention of theHomeric or post-Homeric poets, but a part of the rich inheritancewhich gave them likewise the chief features inthe charactersof Achilleus, Meleagros, Odysseus, and othermythical heroes. For those who have eyes to see it, naturehas her comedy not less than her sad and mournful tragedy.If some have seen in the death of the ambitious or graspingman, cut off in the midst of his schemes, an irony whichwould excite a smile if the subject were lessenter intoawful, we maythe laughter of Hermes, as he pries into nooksand crannies, or uproots forests, or tears down, as the pas-1Hymn to Sirmes, 472, 532.* X>. 525.

236 MYTHOLOGY OF THE AMAH" NATIONS.time of an hour, fabrics raised with the toil of many years.The idea of the sun as bringing forth rich harvests fromthe earth in many lands, and passing from one to the otherwith an imperturbable indifference, may suggest the notionof a selfish sensuality which may run into broad burlesque. 1On these grounds we should expect to find a ludicrous sideto the stories told of Zeus, HeraHes and Hermes as representingthe sky, the sun, and the wind; but in eachcase the humour, whether coarse or refined, was involvedin the very truthfulness of the conception, although thisconception was worked out with an unconscious fidelitywhich is indeed astonishing. Thfc burlesque with which theadventures of Herakles may easily be invested, arose fromno intention of disparaging the hero's greatness ;and weare scarcely justified in saying with Mr. Grote that thehymnographer concludes the song to Hermes with frankness2unusual in speaking of a god/ The Greek spoke as theneeds of his subject required him to speak; and the slyhumour which marks the theft of Hermes in Pieria no moredetracts from the dignity of Hermes, than the ' frolicsomeand irregular'3exploits of Samson degraded the Jewish heroin the estimation of his countrymen. Even if the hymnwriterhad failed to identify Hermes with the winds ofheaven as confidently as, when he spoke of Seln6 watchingover Endymi&n, he must have felt that he was speakingreally of the moon and the sun, this would prove only thatthe original conception of the myth led him unconsciously tohandle all his materials in strictaccordance with the leadingidea. That the meaning of the myth of Hermes hadnot been so far forgotten, will perhaps be generally conceded.The idea of sound, which underlies all the incidents of theHeimes,the mes-Homeric hymn, explains most of the attributes and invensengerandthe thief, tions ascribed to Hermes. The soft music of the breezewould at once make him the author of the harp or lyre.1Hence, while Herakles is a good- boasting,humoured glutton in the Alkebtis ofs Hut. Greece, i. 82.Euripides, lie becomes the Valiant Little 3Stanley, lectures on the JewishTailor of the German story, who succeeds Church.in all his exploits by sheer force of

LATER ATTRIBUTES OP HERMES. 237As driving the clouds across the blue fields of heaven, he CHAP.would be the messenger of Apolldn, and this office would ^ v '_^soon be merged in that of the herald of Zeus and all thegods. As such again, he would be skilled in the use ofwords, and he would be employed in tasks where eloquencewas needed. Thus he appears before Priam in the time ofhis anguish, not in hisdivine character, but as one of theservants of Achilleus, and, by the force of his words alone,persuades the old man to go and beg the 1body of Hektor.So too he wins the assent of Hades to the return of PersephonSfrom the underworld. 2 Hermes thus became associatedwith all that calls for wisdom, tact, and skill in theintercourse between man and m^n, and thus he isexhibitedat once as a cunning thief, and as the presiding god ofwealth. 3 It is possible, however, or likely,that in latertimes, the functions of Hermes were largely multiplied by aconfusion between words, the fraitfal source of secondarymyths. If such words as eppyveta and sp^vsvsiv9 to interpret,are to be traced to the name Hermes, there are others, aseppa, a prop, Spfiaics^ heaps of stones, epfjLarl&w, to ballast aghip, which clearly can have nothing to do with it. Tet onthe strength of these words Hermes becomes a god ofboundaries, the guardian of gymnasia, and lastly the patronof gymnastic games 5and his statues were thus placed atthe entrance of the Agora.4The cause of this confusion11. Br6al finds in the word sppifitov or ep/AaSiov, commonlyU xxiv. 400. for all who wish to determine the1 2 Hymn to DMtSr, 335. character of the god: and it is, to say8 7rAovroS4n??< iraXty/taTrqXos. Orph. the least, extremely difficult to discernxxviii. The so called Orphic hymns, as even the germ of this idea in the fliadwe have seen, string togetherall the or Odyssey, The Latin god Mercuriusepithets which the conceptions or in- is, it is true, simply a god of traffickers,ferences of poets and mythographers (merx, mercari). but he possessed nothad accumulated during a long series of a single attribute in common with theages. Among these the epithet Tris- Hellenic Hermes and the;Malesmegistos, the ' ter maximus Hermes ' ofpersistently refused to admit th*irAusonius, has degenerated into the identity, in spite of the fashion whichsupposed Saracenic idol Termagant, attached the Greek myths to LatinGrimm, D. M. 137.deities with which they had nothing to*Hermes Agoraios "We are thus do. The Hellenic Hermes is a harper,brought to the later developements which a thief, a guide, or a messenger butconnected him in some degreewith not a merchant. Whatever honours hetraffic and merchandise Of this notion may have apart from his inherentnot a trace can be found in the so-called powers of song and mischief areHomeric Hymn to ffermes, which must bestowed on him by Phofbo&.be regarded as of the first importance

'238 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ABYAN NATIONS.HermesChutes.taken to signify a small statue of Hermes, but which mightThis word ippa M. Bralalso mean a small prop or stay.connects with the Greek itpyv and Spxos; and the Latinarcere, erctum, may in the same way have led to the identifi-of boun-cation of the Labin Ercules or Herculus, the goddaries, with the Greek Herakles. The word ty/Low, asdenoting a god-send or treasure-trove, may belong to eitherthe one root or the other. 1The office of Hermes connects him necessarily with manyle g end s,and especially with those of Prometheus, 16, Paris,and Deukalion: but it is more noteworthy that 'as theDawn in the Veda is brought by the bright Harits, soHermes is called the leader of the Charites.' 2 His worship,we are told, was instituted first in Arkadia, and thencetransferred to Athens. 3 That itmay have been so is possible,but in the absence of all historical evidence, we cannot affirmit as fact : and no argument can be based on traditions concernedwith, such names as Athens, Arkadia, Ortygia orEleusis.If Hermes be the son of the twilight, or the firstbreeze of the morning, his worship would as certainly beginin Arkadia (the glistening land), or at Athens (the home ofthe Dawn), and his first temple be built by Lyk&6n (thegleaming), as the worship of Phoibos would spring up in thebrilliant D&os, or by the banks of the golden Xanthos in thefar-off Lykia or land of light, whence Sarp&l&n came to thehelp of Hektor. The reasons have been already given, 4which seem to warrant the conclusion that historical inferencesbased on names which, although applied afterwards toreal citiesor countries, come from the mythical cloudland,Hermesthe herald,can be likened only to castles built in the air,^j^The staff or rod which Hermes received from Phoibos, andconnects this myth with the special emblem of Vishnu,*was regarded as denoting his heraldic office. It was, however,always endowed with magic properties, and had thepower even of raising the dead. 6 The fillets of this staff1 See M. Bre"aTs letter on this subject,* Hygin, Fab. 225.inserted in Prof Max Mullor's Lect. on 4 See book i. ch. x.Lang, second series, 474. See page H3.2 7J76jip Xapf-iw, Max Miiller, ib.' Vug.Aiv. 242.473.

ORPHEUS AND EURYDIKB. 239sometimes gave place to serpents \and the golden sandals,which in the Iliad and Odyssey bear him through the airmore swiftly than the wind, were at length, probably fromthe needs of the sculptor and the painter,fitted with wings,and the Orphic hymn-writer salutes him accordingly as thegod of the winged sandals. 1In the legend of Medousa thesesandals bear Perseus away from the pursuit of the angryGorgons into the Hyperborean gardens and thence to theshores of Libya.SECTION III. ORPHEUS.'Of the myth of Orpheus it may also be said that it bringsbefore us a being, in whom some attributes which belong tothe light or tiie sun are blended with others which point asclearly to the wind. Thecharm of the harping of Hermes isfully admitted in the Homeric hymn, but its effect is simplythe effect of exquisite music on those who have ears to hearand hearts to feel it. In the story of Orpheus the actionbecomes almost wholly mechanical. If his lyre has powerover living beings, it has power also over stones, roots, andtrees. What then is Orpheus ? Is he, like Hermes, thechild of the dawn, or is he the sun-god himself joined fora little while with a beautiful bride -whom he is to recoveronly to lose her again?There can be no doubt that thissolar myth has been bodily imported into the legend ofOrpheus, even if it does not constitute its essence. Thename of his wife, Eurydik,is one of the many names whichdenote the wide-spreading flush of the dawn ;and this fairbeing isstung by the serpent of night as she wanders closeby the water which is fatal alike to Melusina and Undine,to the Lady of Geierstein and to the more ancient Bheki orfrog-sun. But if his Helen is thus stolen away by the darkpower, Orpheus must seek her as pertinaciously as theAchaians strive for the recovery of Helen or the Argonautsfor that of the Golden Fleece. All night long he will wanderthrough the regions of night, fearing no danger and dauntedby no obstacles, if only his eyes may rest once more on her1Hymn XXVIII,Points ofOrpheus

240 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN" NATIONS.BOOK who was the delight of his life. At last he comes to the>- 3 ?'. grim abode of the king of the dead, and at length obtainsthe boon that his wife may follow him to the land of theliving, on the one condition that he is not to look back untilshe has fairly reached the earth. The promiseis not kept;and when Orpheus, overcome by an irresistible yearning,turns round to gaze on the beautiful face of his bride, hesees her form vanish away like mist at the rising of the sun.This, it is obvious, is but another form of the myth whichis seen in the stories of Phoibos and Daphn, of Indra andDahauA, of Arethousa and Alpheios and as; such, it wouldbe purely solar. But the legend as thus related is shorn ofother features not lessessential than these solar attributes.Orpheus is never without his harp. It is with this that hecharms all things conscious or unconscious. With this hegathers together the bright herds of Helios and all the beastsof the field. As he draws forth its sweet sounds, the trees,the rocks, the streams, all hasten to hear him, or to followhim as he moves onwards on his journey. Only when Eurydikeis dead, are its delicious sounds silenced ;but when atthe gates of the palace of Hades the three-headed houndEerberos growls savagely at him, its soft tones charm awayhis fury, and the same spell subdues the heart of therugged king himself, It is thus only that he wins thedesire of his heart, and when Eurydik&is torn fromher the second time, the heavenly music is heard ag&inno more. It is impossible to regard this part of thestory as a solar myth, except on the supposition thatOrpheusis but another form of Phoibos after he has becomepossessed of the lyre of Hermes. But the truth is that themyth of the Hellenic Hermes is not more essentially connectedwith the idea of sound than is that of Orpheus togetherwith the long series of myths based on the same notionwhich are found scattered over almost all the world. In theopinion of Professor Max MiiDer c Orpheusis the same wordas the Sanskrit Eibhu or Arbhu, which though it is bestknown as the name of the three Eibhus, was used in theVeda as an epithet of Indra, and a name for the Sun. 3 x1Chips, $c. h. 127.

THE HAEP OF ORPHEUS. 241Mr. Kelly, following Dr. Kuhn, sees in the Ribhus thestorm-winds which sweep trees and rocks in wild dancebefore them by the force of their magic song. 1But even ifthe Sanskrit name can be applied only to the sun, thiswould only show that the name of Orpheus underwent in itsjourney to the west a modification similar to that of thename Hermes. It must, however, be noted that Orpheusacts only by means of his harp, which always rouses to motion.The action of Hermes is twofold, and when he isgoing forth on his plundering expedition he lays aside hislyre, which he resumes only when he comes back to lie downlike a child in his cradle. Hence the lyre of Hermes onlycharms and soothes. Its sweet tones conquer the angrysun-god, and lull to sleep the all-seeing Argos of the hundredeyes, when Hermes seeks to deliver 16 from his ceaselessBut scrutiny. among the Greek poets the idea whichwould connect Orpheus with the sun was wholly lost. InPindar he is sent indeed by ApollSn to the gathering of theArgonauts, but this would point simply to a phrase whichspoke of the sun as sending or bringing the morning breeze :and with the poet he is simply the harper and the father ofsongs. 2 In -SSschylos he leads everything after him by thegladness with which his strain inspires them. 3 In Euripideshe is the harper who compels the rocks to follow him, 4 whilein speaking of him as the originator of sacred mysteries thepoet transfers to him the idea which represents Hermes asobtaining mysterious wisdom in the hidden caves of theThriai. 5 In the so-called Orphic Argonautika the harper isthe son of Oiagros and KalliopS, the latter name denotingsimply the beauty of sound, even if the former be not aresult of the onomatopoeia which ha,sproduced such Greekwords as e%h 700$, and 01/^0777. No sooner does he call onthe divine ship which the heroes had vainly tried to move,than the Argo, charmfed by the tones, glides gently into thesea, 6The same tones wake the voyagers in Lemnos fromthe sensuous spellwhich makes Odysseus dread the land ofJ Curiosities of Indo-European Folk- *IpMg. in Aul. 1213.'Ion, 17.tf^- 943 , Hymn to Hermes, 552.* 'Pyth. iv 315.Argonaut. 262.VOL. IT.

'242 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS,the Lotos-eaters. 1At the magic sound the Kyanean rocksparted asunder to make room for the speaking ship, and theSymplegades which had been dashed together in the fury ofages remained steadfast for evermore. 2 But it is singularthat when it becomes needful to stupify the dragon whichguards the golden fleece, the work is done not by the harpof Orpheus, but by the sleep-god Hypnos himself, whomOrpheus summons to lull the Vritra to slumber. 3The Sei- The same irresistible spell belongs to the music of theT&*s'Seirens, who are represented as meeting their doom, in onelegend, by means of Orpheus, in another, through Odysseus.Whether these beings represent the Seirai, or belts of calms,which are so treacherous and fatal to mariners, or whetherthe name itself is found again in the Syrinx or pipe of thegod Pan, and in the Latin susurras, 4 the whisper of thebreeze, is a point of no great importance, so long as we notethe fact that none who listened to their song could be withheldfrom rushing under its influence to their own destruction.In the story of the Odyssey, Odysseus breaks the spellby filling his sailors' ears with wax, while he has himselfstoutly tied to the mast of his ship. In the Orphic myththe divine harper counteracts their witchery by his own strain,and the Seirans throw themselves into the sea and arechanged into rocks according to the doom which grantedthem life only until some one should sing more sweetly andpowerfully than they.The Piper This mysterious spell is the burden of a vast number ofofHameln, St ries, many of which have been gathered together by Mr.Baring Gould in his chapter on the Piper ofHameln, who,wroth at being cheated of his promised recompense forpiping away into the Weser the rats which had plagued thecity,5 returns to take an unlooked-for vengeance. No sooner1Argonaut.480.sun-god in the temples where he was wor-8$ 740 shipped undor this name. But the story'& 1008. accounted for this by saying that the4The name is more probably con- mouse was endowed with tne gift ofnected with the Latin Silanus,see p. 318. prophecy, and was therefore put by the6 This tale at once carries us to the side of the deity who was possessed ofSimnthianworshipof Apoll6n. Sminthos, the profound wisdom of Sfous himselfit is said, was a Cretanword for a This in the opinion of Welcker is a meremouse, and certain it is that a mouse was inversion, which assigned to the mouseplaced at the foot of the statues of the an attribute which had belonged ex-

THE PIPER OF BRANDENBURG. 243is a note of his music heard than there is throughout thetown a sound of pattering feet.All the little boys and girls"With rosycheeks and fluen curiaAnd sparkling eyes and teeth like pearlsTripping, skipping, ran merrily afterThe wonderful music with shouting and laughter.The musician goes "before them to a hill rising above theWeser, and as they follow him into a cavern, the door in themountain-side shuts fast, and their happy voices are heardno more. According to one version none were saved but alame boy, who remained sad and cheerless because he couldnot see the beautiful land to which the piper had said thathe was leading thema landWhere waters gushed and fruit trees grew,And flowers put forth a fairer hue,And everything was strange and new,Aud sparrows were brighter than peacocks here,And their dogs outran our fallow deer,And honey bees had lost their stings.And horses were born with eagles' wings.1The temptation to follow Mr. Gould through his series oftales is almost as powerful as the spell of the piper himself.We may yield to it only so far as we must do so to prove thewide range of these stories in the North, the East, and theWest. At Brandenburg the plague from which the piperdelivers the people is a host of ants, whom he charms intothe water. The promised paymentis not made, and whenlie came again, all the pigs followed him into the lake atouch borrowed probably from the narrative of the miracle atGadara. In this myth there is a tripleseries of incidents.Tailing to receive his recompense the second year for sweepingaway a cloud of crickets, the piper takes awayall theirships. In the third year all the children vanish as fromHamelpi, the unpaid toil of the piper having been this timeexpended in driving away a legionof rats.clusively to the god near whom it was churches to fall on their knees and prayplaced; accordingly he refers the myth God to destroy the mice. Gmckuihawithout hesitation to Apoll6n as the Gotterhkre,i. 482.ldeliverer from those plagues of mice These lines are quoted from Mr.which have been dreaded or hated as a Browning by Mr. Gould, who does notterrible scourge, and which even now mention the poet's name.draw German peasants in crowds to theB2

244 MYTHOLOGY OP THE ARYANThe idea of music as charming away souls from earth iscommon to all these legends, and this notion is brought outTheErl- more fully not only in Gothe's ballad of the Erlking, whokms ' charms the child to death in his father's arms, but also, inThe Jewthdthorn!Mr. Gould's opinion, in superstitions still prevalent amongcertain classes of peoplein this country, who believe thatthe dying hear the sound of sweet music discoursing to themof the happy land far away. 1The idea of the shrubs and trees as moved by the harping^ Orpheus ^as ru:a ou^ k-to strange forms. In some myths,the musician who compels all to dance at his wiU is endowedwith the thievish ways of Hermes, although these again areattributed to an honest servant who at theend of threeyears receives three farthings as his recompense. ,In theGerman story of the Jew among the Thorns the servant givesthese farthings to a dwarf who grants him three wishes inreturn. The first two wishes are, of course, for a weaponthat shall strike down all it aims at, and a fiddle that shallmake every one dance, while by the third he obtains thepower of forcing every one to comply with any request thathe may make. IVom this point the story turns more onthe Homeric than on the Orphic myth. Strangely enough,Phoibos is here metamorphosed into the Jew, who is robbednot of cows but of a bird, and made to dance until his clothesare all torn to shreds. The appeal to a judge and the trial,with the shifty excuses, the dismissal of the plea, and thesentence, follow in their due order. But just as Hermesdelivers himself by waking the sweet music of his lyre whenPhoibos on discovering the skins of the slaughtered cattle isabout to slay him, so the servant at the gallows makes hisrequest to be allowed to play one more tune, when judge,hangman, accuser, and spectators, all join in the magicdance. Another modern turn is given to the legend whenthe Jew is made to confess that he had stolen the moneywhich he gave the honest servant, and is himself hanged inthe servant's stead. 21Curious Myths, second series, 160. witch dance against her "will to a* This marvellous piper reappears in "bewitched tune, and of the ValiantGnmna's stones of the Wonderful Tailor who thus conquers tho Bear asMusician, of Roland who makes theOrpheus masters Kerberos,

TEE HORN OF OBERON. 245In a less developed form this story is the same as thelegend of Arion, who, though supposed to be a friend of theCorinthian tyrant Periandros, is still represented as a son of The storyPoseid6n. In this case the musician's OI n 'harpfails to win hislife at the hands of the men who grudge him his wealth, buthis wish seems to carry with it a power which they are notable to resist, while his playing brings to the side of theship a dolphin who bears Arion on his back to Corinth. Inthe trial which follows, the tables are turned on the sailorsmuch as they are on the Jew in the German story, andInchantedArion recovers his harp which was to play an importantpart in many another Aryan myth.The German form of the myth Mr. Gould has traced intoIceland, where Sigurd's harp in the hands of Bosi makeschairs and tables, king and courtiers, leap and reel, until allfall down from sheer weariness and Bosi makes off with hisbride who was about to be given to some one else. Thehorn of Oberon in the romance of Huon of Bordeaux hasthe same powers, while it further becomes, like the Sangreal,a test of good and evil, for only those of blameless characterdance when its strains are heard. Still more marvellousare the properties of the lyre of Glenkundie :He'd harpit a fish, out o' saut water,Or water out o' a stane,Or milk out o' a maiden's breastThat bairn had never nane. 1The instrument reappears in the pipe of the Irish Maurice The harpConnor, which could waken the dead as well as stir theliving; but Maurice is himself enticed by a mermaid, andvanishes with her beneath the waters. It is seen againin the magic lyre which the ghost of Zorayhayda gives tothe Eose of the Alhambra in the charming legend related byWashington Irving, and which rouses the mad Philip V.from his would-be coffin to a sudden outburst of martialvehemence. In Sclavonic stories the harp exhibits only thelulling qualities of the lyre of Hermes, and in this Mr. Gouldperceives the deadeninginfluence of the autumn winds1 Jamieson's Scottish Eallads, i, 98 ; Price, Introd. to WarMs Hist. Bng+foctry, Ixiv.

246 MYTHOLOGY OF THE AKYAN NATIONS.to Sbw.which, chill all vegetation into the sleep of winter, until thesun comes back to rouse it from slumber in the spring. Itcomes before us again in the story of Jack the Giant-killer,in which the Giant, who in the unchristianised myth wasWuotan himself, possessed an inchanting harp, bags of goldand diamonds, and a hen which daily laid a golden egg.*The harp/ says Mr. Gould, 'is the wind, the bags are theclouds dropping the sparkling rain, and the golden egg, laidevery morning by the red hen, is the dawn-produced Sun.' 1This magic lyre is further found where perhaps we shouldlittle look for it, in the grotesque myths of ike Quiches ofGuatemala. It is seen in its fullmight in the songof theFinnish Wainamoinen, and in the wonderful effects producedby the chanting of the sons of Ealew on the woods,which burst instantly into flowers and fruit, before the songis ended. The close parallelism between the myth ofWainamoinen and the legends of Hermes and Orpheus cannotbe better given than in the words of Mr. Gould.6Wainamoinen went to a waterfall and killed a pikewhich swam below it. Of the boiies of this fish he constructeda harp, just as Hermes made his lyreof the tortoiseshell.But he dropped this instrument into the sea,and thus it fell into the power of the sea-gods, whichaccounts for the music of the ocean on the beach. Thehero then made another from the forest wood, and with itdescended to Pohjola, the realm of darkness, in quest of themystic Sampo, just as in the classic myth Orpheus wentdown to Hades to bring thence Eurydice. When in therealm of gloom perpetual, the Finn demigod struck hiskantele and sent all the inhabitants of Pohjola tosleep, asHermes when about to steal 16 made the eyes of Argus closeat the sound of his lyre. Then he ran off with the Sampo,and had nearly got it to the land of light when the dwellersin Pohjola awoke, and pursued and fought him for theravished treasure which, in the struggle, fell into the seaand was lost; again reminding us of the classic tale ofOrpheus/ 3Wuotai1 a 6 a>n k *he Teutonic mythology is1Curious Myths,ii. 160. * Ib. ii, 177.Galdner the

THE EASTERN AND WESTERN SIBYLS. 247:singer and in the Gudrunlied the time which, it wouldtake one to ride a thousand miles passed in a moment whileany one listened to the singing of Hjarrandi. The christian-of the Monk and theised form of this myth, as the LegendBird, is well known to the readers of Longfellow and ArchbishopTrench, and is noteworthy chiefly as inverting theparts, and making the bird charm the wearied and doubtingman.Still more remarkable is the connexion of this mystic The Sfbyl.harp in the legend of Gunddhya with a myth which reproducesthat of the Sibylline books offered in diminishedquantities, but always at the same price, to the Eoman kingTarquiu. In the Eastern tale the part of Tarquin is playedby King S&tav&hana to whom Gun&dhya sends a poem ofseven hundred thousand slokas written in his own blood.written in the PischaThis poem the king rejects as beingdialect.GunMhya then burns a portion of the poemou thetop of a mountain, but while it is being consumed, his songbrings together all the beasts of the forest who weep for joyat the beauty of his tale. The king falls ill, and is told thathe must eat game bxit none is to be had, for all the beasts:are listening to Gun&dhya. On hearing this news, the kinghastens to the spot and buys the poem, or rather theseventh portion which now alone remained of the whole, 1It is scarcely necessary to add that in this tale, as in that ofWainamoinen, we have two stories which must be traced toa common source with the myths of Hermes, Orpheus, andthe Sibyl,in other words, to a story,the framework ofwhich had been -put together before the separation of theAryan tribes.2 SECTION IV. PAN".The lyre of Orpheus and the harp of Hermes are but The songother forms of the reed pipe of Pan. Of the real meaning ^JJ ittof this name the Western poets were utterly unconscious, the reeds.In the Homeric Hymn he is said to be so called because allthe gods were cheered by his music.8 Still throughall the1JCatJia Sant Sagara,i. 8, Gould,* See rol. i p. 121, etseo^.(term* Myth, ii. 172. 3Eym% to Pan, 47.

248 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.BOOKgrotesque and uncouth details of the myth, which tell us of* -r his goat's feet and horns, his noisy laughter and capriciousaction, the idea of wind is pre-eminent. It is the notion notso much of the soft and lulling strains of Hermes in hisgentler mood, or of the irresistible power of the harp ofOrpheus, as of the purifying breezes which blow gently orstrong, for a long or a little while, waking the echoes nowhere now there, in defiance of all plan or system, and with awantonness which baffles all human powers of calculation.To this idea the Homeric hymn adheres with a singularfidelity, as it tells us how he wanders sometimes on themountain summits, sometimes plunging into the thickets ofthe glen, sometimes by the stream side or up the toweringcrags, or singing among the reeds at eventide. So swift ishis pace that the birds of the air cannot pass him. by. Withhim play the water-maidens, and the patter of the nymphs'*feet is heard as they join in his song by the side of the darkfountain. 1 Like Hermes again and Sarameya, he is thechild of the dawn and the morning, and it is his wont to liedown at noontide in a slumber from which he takes it ill ifhe be rudely roused. 2Of his parentage we have many stories,but the same notion underlies them all.Sometimes, as inthe Homeric Hymn, he is the son of Hermes and of thenymph Dryops, sometimes of Hermes and Penelop6, sometimesof Penelop6 and Odysseus 5but Penelop is the brideof the toiling sun, who is parted from her whether at morningor eventide, and to be her son is to be the child of SaramS,.Nor is the idea changed if he be spoken of as the son ofheaven and earth (Ouranos and Gaia), or of air and water(Aith&r and a Nereid).Pan, the Pan then is strictly the purifying breeze, the SanskritP avatia 3a aame>which reappears in the Latin Favonius,and perhaps also in Faunus ; and his real character, as thegod of the gentler winds, is brought out most prominentlyin the story of his love for Pitys, and of the jealousy of theblustering Boreas, who hurled the maiden from a rock andchanged her into a pine-tree. The myth explains itself,In Professor Max Miiller's words, 'We need but walk with1Hymn to Pan, 7-20. a Theok. vii. 107. Max Mulkr, Chips, u. 159.

PAN AND PITYS* 249our eyes open along the cliffs of Bournemouth to see themeaning of that legend/ the tale of Pitys,cthe pine-treewooed by Pan, the gentle wind, and struck down by jealousBoreas, the north wind/ Of Boreas himself we need saybut little.as thatHis true character was as little forgottenof Seln, and thus the name remained comparatively barren.The Athenian was scarcely speaking in mythical languagewhen he said that Boreas had aided the Athenians by scatteringthe fleets of Xerxes. The phrases were almost astransparent which spoke of him as a son of Astraios andEds, the star-god and the dawn, or as carrying off Oreithyia,the daughter of Erechtheus, the king of the dawn-city.Another myth made Pan the lover of the nymph Syrinx ;but this is but a slight veil thrown over the phrase which 8y*-the river'sspoke of the wind playing on its pipe of reeds bybank ;and the tale which related how Syrinx, flying fromPan, like Dapku6 from Phoibos, was changed into a reed, isbut another form of the story which made Pan the lover ofthe nymph. Echo, just as the unrequited love of Echo for3Sfarkissos is but the complement of the unrequited love ofSel&ifor Endymi&n.pan an(j,SECTION V.AMPHION" AND ZETHOS.The same powerof the wind which issignifiedbythe Theharp of Orpheus is seen in the story of Amphion, a being Orpheus,localised in the traditions of Thebes. But Amphion is atwin-brother of Zethos, and the two are, in the words ofEuripides, simply the Dioskouroi,riding on white horses,aad thus fall into the ranks of the correlative deities ofHindu and Greek mythology. But the myth runs intomany other legends, the fortunes of their mother Antiopdiffering' but little from those of Aug$, Tyr&, EvadnS, orKor6nis. The tale is told in many versions. One of thesecalls her a daughter of Nykteus, the brother of Lykos,another speaks of Lykos as her husband; but this is onlysaying that Artemis HekatS may be regarded as either thechild of the darkness or the bride of the light. A thirdversion makes her a daughter of the river As&pos, a parent-

250 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARTAff NATIONS.BOOK..,'age which shows her affinity with Athn, Aphrodit, and'all other deities of the light and the dawn. Her children,like Oidipous, T&ephos and many others, are exposed ontheir birth, and likethem found and brought up by shepherds,among whom Antiop herself is said to have longremained a captive, lite Dana$ in the house of Polydektes.We have now the same distinction of office or employmentwhich marks the other twin brothers of Greek myths. Zethostends the flocks, while Amphlon receives from Hermesa harp which makes the stones not merely move but fixthemselves in their proper places as he builds the walls ofThebes. The sequel of the history of AntiopS exhibits,like the myths of Tyr6, In6, and other legends, the jealoussecond wife or step-mother, who is slain by Amphion andZethos, as Sidr6 is killed by Pelias and Neleus. Amphlonhimself becomes the husband of NiobS, the mother who presumesto compare her children with the offspring of Zeusand Lto.Zethos In one tradition Zethos, the brother Amphion,is the hus-Prokne\band of ProknS, the daughter of the Athenian Pandion and5in this version thestory ran that she killed her own childby mistake, when through envy of her fertility she proposedto slay the eldest son of her sister-in-law Niob^. 1But in itsmore complete form the myth makes her a wife of Tereus,who is king either of the hill-country (Thrace) or of theWhen her son Itys was born, Tereus cutMegarian Pegai.out his wife's tongue and hid her away with her babe, andthen married her sister Philomela, whom he deceived bythat ProknS was dead. When the sisters discoveredsayinghis guilt, ProknS killed her own child Itys, and served uphis flesh as a meal for Tereus. Tereus in his turn, learningwhat had been done, pursues the sisters as they fly from him,and he has almost seized them when they pray that theymay be changed into birds. Tereus thus became a hoopoe,2Prokn a swallow, and Philomela a nightingale. Hence itis that as the spring comes round, the bride mourns for herlost child with an inconsolable sorrow, as in the Megarian1Preller, Or. Myth HI. ii. of the sisters, and made Prokue the8 Another verwoa reversed the doom nightingale and Philomela the swallow.

PHILOMELA ATS T D PROKNfi. 251legend tlie living ProknS wept herself to death, like NiobSmourning for her sons and daughters. The story is easilytaken to pieces. The transformation is the result of thesame process which turned Lyk&6n into a wolf, and Kallistdinto a bear ;and as Philomela was a name for the nightingale,so the daughter of Pandion is said to have beenchanged into that bird. With the nightingale as a birdof spring the swallow is closely associated, and this fittingtransformation was at once suggested for Prokne. But itbecomes at the least possible that in its earlier shape the*rnyth may have known only one wife of Tereus, who mightbe called either ProknS or Philomela. Of these two namesProkn& is apparently only another form of Prokris, who isalso the daughter of an Athenian king ;and thus the legendseems to explain itself, foras in Tantalos and LyH6n wehave the sun scorching up and destroying his children, sohere the dew is represented as offering the limbs of hermurdered child to her husband, the sun, as he dries up thedewdrops. The myth is thus onlyanother version of thetale of Kephalos or Prokris. The name Philomela, again,may denote one who loves the flocks, or one who lovesapples but we have;already seen how the sheep or flocksof Helios becomes the apples of the Hesperides, and thusPhilomela is really the lover of the golden-tinted clouds,which greet the rising sun, and the name might well begiven to either the dawn or the dew.The mournful or dirge-like sound of the wind is signi-Linos andfied by another Boiotian tradition, which related how thematrons and maidens mourned for Linos at the feast whichwas called Amis because Linos had grown up among thelambs, in other words, the dirge-like breeze had sprung upwhile the heaven was flecked with the fleecy clouds which,in the German popular stories, lured the rivals of Dummlingto their destruction in the waters. The myth that Linoswas torn to pieces by dogs points to the raging storm whichmay follow the morning breeze. Between these two in forcewould come Zephyros, the strong wind from the eveningland,the son of Astraios the starry heaven, and of E6s whoThe wife of Zephyrosiscloses, as she had begun, the day.

252 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.BOOK the Harpyia Podarg6, the white-footed wind, Notes Args-^..?' . ts, who drives before her the snowy vapours, and who isthe mother of Santhos and Balios, the immortal horses ofAchilleus. But as the clouds seem to before fly PodargA orZephyros, so the phenomenon of clouds coming up seeminglyagainst the wind is indicated in the myth of the windKaikias, a name which seems to throw light on the story ofHercules and Cacus.SECTION VIAIOLOS AND ABES.lThe In the^Odysseyall the winds are placed by Zeus underianthe of thecharge of Aiolos, who has the power of rousing or stillingWinds. them at his will. But beyond this fact the poem has nothingmore to say of him than that he was the father of sixsons and six daughters, and that he dwelt in an island whichbore his name. With the mythology which grew up aroundthe persons of his supposed descendants we are not here concerned.As a local or a -tribal name, it has as much and aslittle value as that of Hellen, Ion, or Achaios. In itselfthe word is connected apparently with the names Aia andAits, and may denote the changeful and restless sky fromwhich the winds are born. But the ingenuity of later mythographerswas exercised in arranging or reconciling thepedigrees of the several children assigned to Aiolos, andtheir efforts were rewarded by complications which wererelieved of intolerable weariness only by the mythical interestattaching to some of the many names thus grouped ina more or less arbitrary connexion. With them this associationwas valuable, chiefly as accounting for the historicaldistribution of certain Hellenic clans; and this supposedfacthas been imported into the controversy respecting thedate and composition of our Homeric poems,, by some criticswho hold that Homer was essentially an Aiolic poet, whowished to glorify his tribesmen over all the other membersof the Hellenic race. Itmay be enough to say that thereis no trace of such a feelingin either our Iliad or ourOdyssey, which simply speak of Aiolos as a son of Hippotsand the steward of the winds of heaven.

THE MOLlONES AND AKTORIDAI, 253But Hermes, Orpheus, Amphlon, and Pan, are not the CHAP.only conceptions of the effects of air in motion to be found ^_ T- _^in Greek mythology. The Vedic Maruts are the winds, not Theas alternately soothing and furious, like the capricious actionof Hermes, not as constraining everything to do their magicbidding, likethe harping of Orpheus and Amphion, nor yetas discoursing their plaintive music among the reeds, likethe pipe of Pan ;but simply in their force as the grinders orcrushers of everything that comes in their way. Thesecrushers are found in more than one set of mythical beingsin Greek legends. They are the Moliones, or mill-men, orthe Aktoridai, the pounders of grain, who have one body buttwo heads, four hands, and four feet,- who first undertake toaid Herakles in his struggle with Augeias, and then turningagainst the hero a-re slain by him near Zle6nai. Theserepresentatives of Thor Miolnir we see also in the Aloadai, 1the sons of Iphimedousa, whose love for Poseid6n led her toroam along the sea-shore, pouring the salt water over herare asbody. The myth is transparent enough. Theymighty in their infancy as Hermes. When they are nineyears old, their bodies are nine cubits in breadth and twentysevenin height a ruie yet not inapt image of the stormywind heaping up in a few hours its vast masses of angryvapour. It was inevitable that the phenomena of stormshould suggest their warfare with the gods, and that oneversion should represent them as successful, the other asvanquished. The storm-clouds scattered by the sun in hismight are the Aloadai when defeated by Phoibos beforetheir beards begin to be seen, in other words, before the1The identity of the names Aloadai, analogies of pfoxos and foxos, a tenderand Moliones must be determined by shoot or branch, fa for /*fo m Homer, thethe answer to be given to the question, Latin mola, and the Greek ofaaf, meal,whether &\

254 MYTHOLOGY 01? THE ASIAN NATIONS.Ar&j andexpanding vapours have time to spread themselves over theThe same clouds in their triumph are the Aloadaiwhen they bind Ars and keep him for months in chains, asthe gigantic ranges of vapours may be seen sometimes keepingan almost motionless guard around the heaven, whilethe wind seems to chafe beneath, as in a prison from whichit cannot get forth. The piling of the cumuli clouds in theskies is the heaping up of Ossa on Olympos and of Pelion onOssa to scale the heavens, while their threat to make the seadry land and the dry land sea is the savage fury of the stormwhen the earth and the air seem mingled in inextricableconfusion. The daring of the giants goes even further.Ephialtes, like Ixl6n, seeks to win Er while Otos followsArtemis, who, -in the form of a stag, so runs between thebrothers that they, aiming at her at the same .time, killeach other, as the thunderclouds perish from their owndischarges. 1Ars, the god imprisoned by the Aloadai, whose name heghgj.^ represents like them the storm-wind raging throughthe sky. As the idea of calm yet keen intellect is inseparablefrom Ath6n3, so the character of Ar&s exhibits simplya blind force without foresight or judgment, and not unfrequentlyillustrates the poet's phrase that strength withoutcounsel insures only its own destruction. Hence Ar&s andAthn6 are open enemies. The pure dawn can have nothingin common with the cloud-laden and wind-oppressed atmosphere.2He is then in no sense a god of war, unless war istaken as mere quarrelling and slaughtering for its own sake.Of the merits of contending parties he has neither knowledgenor care. Where the carcases are likely to lie thickest,thither like a vulture will he go ;and thus he becomes preeminentlyfickle and treacherous, 3 the object of hatred anddisgust to all the gods, except when, as in the lay of Demodokos,he is loved by ApbroditS. But this legend implies that' l ' Otos and Ephialtes, the wind An& and the Maruts discovered theand the hurricane,' i, e. the leaper. personification of the sky as excited byMax Muller, Lect on Lang, second storm.' Athn& then, according toseries. Proller, ' als Gottin der remen Luft und'2 Professor Max Muller remarks, tb. des JEthers die naturliche Femdin des325, that < In Xrfe, Ptellw, without any Ares i&t.'

ABfiS AND ADONIS. 255the god lias laid aside his fury, and so is entrapped in thecoils cast round him by Hephaistos, an episode which merelyrepeats his imprisonment by the Aloadai. Like these, hisbody is of enormous size, and his roar, like the roar of a hurricane,is louder than the shouting of ten thousand men. Butin spite of his strength, his life is little more than a series ofdisasters, for the storm-wind must soon be conquered by thepowers of the bright heaven. Hence he is defeated byHerakles when he seeks to defend his son Kyknos againstthat hero, and wounded by DiomedSs, who fights under theprotection of Athene. In the myth of Adonis he is the boarwho smites the darling of Aphrodit, of whom he is jealous,as the storm-winds of autumn grudge to the dawn the lioiitof the beautiful summer. 11When Herodotos says that Ares was this Hellenic name, no one will nowworshipped by Scythian tribes under maintain and the ,judgment of Herotheform of a sword, to which even dotos on a comparison of attributeshuman sacrifices were offered, we have would not be altogether trustworthy,to receive his statement with as much The so-called Egyptian Ares has muchcaution as the account given by him of more of the features of Dionysos. Thethe Ar&s worshipped by the Egyptians. Scythian sword belongs to another setThat the deities were worshipped under of ideas. See ch. ii. beet. xii.

256 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.CHAPTEK VI.THE "WATERS.SECTION I.THE DWELLERS IN THE SEA.BOOK BETWEEN Proteus, the child of Poseid6n, and Kerens, the^_- ,^ son of Pontos, there is little distinction beyond that of name.Proteus Both dwell in the waters, and although the name of thelatter points more especially to the sea as his abode, yet thepower which, according to Apollpdoros, he possesses ofchanging his form at will indicates his affinity to the clouddeities, unless it be taken as referring to the changing faceof the ocean with its tossed and twisting waves. It must,however, be noted that, far from giving him this power, theHesiodic Theogony seems to exclude it by denying to himthe capricious fickleness of Proteus. He is called the oldman, we are here told, because he is truthful and cannot lie,because he is trustworthy and kindly, because he forgets notlaw but knows all good counsels and just wordsa singularcontrast to the being who will yield only to the argument offorce. Like Proteus, he is gifted with mysterious wisdom,and his advice guides Herakles in the search for the apples(or flocks) of the Hesperides. His wife Doris is naturallythe mother of a goodly offspring, in fifty number, like thechildren of Danaos, Aigyptos, Thestios, and Asterodia 5 butthe ingenuity of later mythographers was scarcely equal tothe task of inventing for all of them names of decentmythical semblance. Some few, as Amphitrit6 and Galateia,are genuine names for dwellers in the waters ;but most ofthem, as Dynamen, Pherousa, Proto, Kymodoke, Nesaia,Aktaia, are mere epithets denoting their power and strength,their office or their abode. Of Pontos himself, the fatherof Nereus, there is even less to be said. In the Hesiodic

THE NYMPHS.Theogony lie is a son of G-aia alone, as Typh6eus springsonly from H6r and AthnS has no mother. In the Iliadand Odyssey, Pontos is a mere name for the sea 5and thephrases TTQVTOS a\b$ TroXwjs and 0d\ao-ffa irovrov show thatthe poets were not altogether unconscious of itsmeaningand of its affinity with their word iraro^ a path. It istherefore a name applied to thesea by a people who, tillthey had seen the great water, had used it only of roadwayson land. In the myth of Thaumas, the son of Pontos andthe father of Iris and the Harpyiai, we are again carriedback to the phenomena of the heavens ;the latter being thegreedy storm-clouds stretching out their crooked claws fortheir prey, the former the rainbow joining the heavens andthe earth with itspath of light.Another son of Poseid6n, whose home is also in the waters,is the Boiotian Glaukos, the builder of the divine ship Arg6and its helmsman. After the fight of lascm with theTyrrhenians, Glaukos sinks into the sea, and thenceforthis endowed with many of the attributes of Nereus. Likehim, he is continually roaming, and yearly he visits all thecoasts and islands of Hellas ; like him, he is full of wisdom,and his words may be implicitly trusted.The domain in which these deities dwell is thickly peopled.Their subjects and companions are the nymphs, whose name, *n

258 MYTHOLOGY OF THE AKYAN NATIONS.friend PatroHos. For the most partj indeed, they remainmere names 3but their radiailt forms are needed to fillupthe background of those magnificent scenes in which thecareer of the shortJived and suffering sun is brought to aclose. And beyond this, they answered a good purpose byfilling the whole earth with a joyous and unfailing life. Ifit be said that to the Greek this earth was his mother, andthat he cared not to rise above it, yet itwas better that histhoughts should be where they were, than that he shouldmake vain profession of a higher faith at the cost ofpeopling whole worlds with beings malignant as they werepowerful. The effect of Christian teaching would necessarilyinvest the Hellenic nymphs with some portion of this malignity,and as they would still be objects of worship to theunconverted, that worship would become constantly moreand more superstitious ;and superstition, althoughits natureremains unchanged, is stripped of half its horrors when itsobjects are beings whose nature is wholly genial. Thiscomparatively wholesome influence the idea of nymphsinhabiting every portion of the world exercised on theHellenic mind- Each fountain and lake, each river andmarsh, each well, tree, hill, and vale had its guardian,whose presence was a blessing, not a curse* As dwelling inthe deep running waters, the nymphs who in name answerprecisely to the Yedic Apsaras, or movers in the waters,have in some measure the wisdom of Nereus, Glaufcos, andof Proteus ;hence the soothsayer, as he uttered the oraclesof the god, was sometimes said to be filled with their spirit.They guarded the flocks and fostered the sacredness ofhome, while on the sick they exercised the beneficent artand skill of AsHpios.These kindly beings must, however, be distinguished fromMaidens^ gwan . inaideng an(j other creatures of Aryan mythology,Apsaras. whose nature is more akin to the clouds and vapours. Thelakes on which these maidens are seen to swim are the blueseasof heaven, in which may be seen beautiful or repulsiveforms, the daughters of Phorkys, Gorgons, Harpies, Eentaurs,Titans, Graiai, Phaiakians. Nor can it be said that Thetis,though called a Nereid, is in all points like the companions

THETIS. 259among whom she dwells. She lives, indeed, in the sea;but she has been brought up by Hr6 the queen of the highheaven, and like the Telchines and ZourStes, like Proteusand Glaukos, she can change her form at will, and Peleusobtains her as his bride only when he has treated her asAristaios treats the guardian of the ocean herds. Shebelongs thus partly to the sea, and in part to the upper air,and thus the story of her life runs through not a little of themythical history of the Greeks. When Dionysosflies fromLykourgos, and Hephaistos is hurled down from Olympos, itis Thetis who gives them a refuge ;and if she is married toa mortal man, it is only because at the suggestion, it is said,of H3r, she refuses to become the bride of Zeus, or as otherswould have it, because itwas fated that her child should bemightier tha.n his father a myth which can be only solar inits character. In yet another version she plays the part ofAphrodit^ to Anchises in the Homeric Hyton, and winsPeleus as her husband by promising that his son shall bethe most renowned of all the heroes. The story of herwedding carries us far away from her native element, andwhen, as in the Iliad, she preserves the body of Patroklosfrom decay, she appears rather in the character of the dawngoddesswho keeps off allunseemly things from the slainHektor. Nor is she seen in her true character as a Nereid,before the last sad scene, when, rising from the sea with herattendant nymphs, she bathes the body of her dead son, andwraps it in that robe of spotless white, in which the samenymphs folded the infant Chrysi&r.But as the sea-goddess thus puts on some of the qualitiesand is invested with some of the functions which might seemto belong exclusively to the powers of the heavens and thelight, so the latter are all connected more or less closely withthe waters, and the nymphs might not unnaturally see theirkinsfolk in Ath6n Tritogeneia; in DaphnS, the child of thePeneian stream ;in Phoibos Apollfin her lover, and in AphroditSAnadyomen6 herseli All these, indeed, whatever maybe their destiny, are at their rising the offspring of Tritos(Triton), the lord of the waters. The Triton of Hellenic mythology,who dwells in his golden palace in the lowest depths82Tritons

260 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS..BOOK of the sea, rides on the billows which are his snow-crestedIL. horses. This god of the waters is reflected in Amphitrit,the wife of Poseid&n in some versions, who is present at thebirth of Phoibos in Delos. In the Odyssey she is simply thesea,, purple-faced and loud-sounding.The Another aspect of the great deep is presented in the Sei-Selrensrens, who by their beautiful singing lure mariners to theirruin. As basking among the rocks in the sunlit waters, theysome have supposed, the belts (Seirai) ofmay represent, asdeceitful calms against which the sailor must be ever on hisguard, lest he suffer them to draw his ship to sandbanks orquicksands. But apart from the beautiful passage in theOdyssey, which tells us how their song rose with a strangepower through the still air when the god had lulled thewaves to sleep, the mythology of these beings is almostwholly artificial. They are children of Acheron and Sterop,of Phorkos, MelpomenS, and others, and names were devisedfor them in accordance with their parentage. Inform they were half women, half fishes, and thus are akinto Echidna and Melusina ;and their doom was that theyshould live only until some one should escape their toils.Hence by some mythographers they are said to have flungthemselves into the sea and to have been changed intorocks, when Odysseus had effected his escape, while othersascribe their defeat to Orpheus. 1 Other versions gave themwings, and again deprived them of them, for aidingor refusingto aid D&tnt6r in her search for PersephonS.Skylla and Nor are there wanting mythical beings who work theiriapy s *wm among storm-beaten rocks and awful whirlpools.Among the former dwells Skylla, and in the latter the moreterrible Ohajybdis. These creatures the Odyssey places ontwo rocks, distant about an arrow's flight from each other,and between these the ship of Odysseus must pass. If hegoes near the one whose smooth scarped sides run up into acovering of everlasting cloud, he will lose six of his men as aprey to the six mouths which Skylla will open to engulfthem. But better thus to sacrifice a few to this monsterwith six outstretching necks and twelve shapeless fetet, as she1See page 242.

SKYLLA. 261shoots out her hungry hands from her dismal dens, thanto have the shipsknocked to piecesin the whirlpool whereCharybdis thrice in the day drinks in the waters of the sea,and thrice spouts them forth again. The peril may seem tobe less. The sides of the rock beneath which she dwells arenot so rugged, and on it blooms a large wild fig-tree, 1 withdense foliage ;but no ship that ever came within reach ofthe whirling eddies ever saw the light again. In otherwords, Skylla is the one who tears her prey, while Charybdisswallows them ;the one is the boiling surf beating against aprecipitous and iron-bound coast, the other the treacherousback-currents of a gulf full of hidden rocks.The name Krataiisalso given to her in the Odyssey denotes simply herirresistible power. This horrid being is put to death himany ways. In one version she is slain by Herakles, andbrought to life again by her father Phorkys as he burns herbody. In another she is a beautiful princess, who is lovedby Zeus, and who, being robbed of her children by the jealousHdr6, hides herself in a dismal cavern, and is there changedinto a terrific goblin which preys uponlittle children. ThisSkylla, who is called a daughter of Lamia the devourer, is in1fact the hobgoblin of modern tales and was, manifestly usedby nurses in the days of Euripides much as nurses may usesuch names now to quiet or frighten their charges.2Inanother version she refuses her love to the sea-god Glaukos,who betakes himself to Kirk6 ;but Kirk instead of aidinghim to win her, threw some herbs into the well where Skyllabathed and changed her into the form of Echidna. It is needlessto cite other legends which are much to the same effect.The Megarian tradition brings before us another Skylla,Thewho is probably only another form of the being beloved byGlaukos or Triton. Here the beautiful maiden gives herlove to the Cretan Minos, who is besieging Megara torevenge the death of Androge&s, and in order to become hiswife she steals the purple lock on the head of her fatherNisos, on which depended her own life and the safety of the1Preller here suspects a play between ota oTSe Aapfes r,the wprdb Ipiwbs and tyivvs. quoted from Euripides by Bioduros2 rls T* offwjuo T& faovsltiurrov Pporois xx. 41. Preller, Or. i.Myth 484.

262 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ABTAN NATIONS.city. But she reaps no good from her treachery. In onestory she is tied to the stern of the ship of Minos anddrowned in the Saronic gulf;in another she throws herselfinto the water, as Minos sails away, and is turned into abird, while her father, who has been changed into an eagle,swoops down after her into the sea.SECTION II.THE LORD OP THE WATERS.Zens Po-861 n*Over all these beings of the world of waters Poseid6n is inthe later mythologj exalted as the supreme king. Hisname, like that of Indra, exhibits him apparently as the godof moisture, the rain-bringer, who makes the thirsty earthdrink and yield her fruits. 1Hence in some myths he is thefriend and guardian of Dionysos, and the lover of Dm4tr,who becomes the mother of Despoina and the horse Orion ;and although he can descend to the depths of the sea andthere dwell, yet he can appear at will on Olymposy and hispower is exercised scarcely less in the heavens than in thedepths beneath. Like Zeus, he is the gatherer of the clouds,and he can let loose the winds from their prison-house. Buthis empire was not well defined, and thus the myths relatingto him turn chiefly on his contests with other deities,even with some towards whom he is generally friendly. Itwas not unnatural that the god of the waters which comefrom the heaven as well as of those which feed and form thesea,should wish to give his name to the lands and citieswhich are refreshed by his showers or washed by his waves.It was as natural that the dawn-goddess should wish therocky heights on which her first beams rest to bear hername ;and thus a contest between the two became inevitable.In the dispute with Zeus for Aigina, the water-godhad been successful, and the island retained one of the manynames denoting spots where break the waves of Poseid&n.His power and his dwelling were in like manner seen at Aigai1'Sem Name druckt die flussigehm IIo

POSEIDON THE HORSE-TAMER. 263and at Helik, spots where the billows curl and dash uponthe shore. 1But in the cityon the banks of Kephisos he encountersa mightier rival ;and here he fails to give his nameto it, although in one version he shows his power and hisbeneficence by strikinghis trident into the rock of theAkropolis and causing the waters to leap forth. In herturn Athn6 produces the olive, and this is adjudged to bethe better gift for men. Poseid6n here acts in strict accordancewith the meaning of his name ;but it is not easyto see on what grounds the claims of Athn are allowedprecedence, and hence we may supposethat the moregenuine form of this mythis to be found in the otherversion which makes Poseid&n call forth from the earth nota well but a horse.That Poseid6n should become the lord and tamer of the Pospid6nhorse was a necessary result as soon as his empire wasdefinitely limited to the sea. As the rays of the sun becamethe Harits and Rohits, his gleaming steeds, so thecurling waves with their white crests would be the flowingmanedhorses of the sea-king. Thus he ascends his chariotat Aigai, and his steeds with golden hair streaming fromtheir shoulders speed across the waters. Bound him playthe monsters of the deep, and the sea in her gladness makesa path for her lord. 2 In the myth which traces the name ofthe [JBgean] Aigaian sea, to the goat.3 which is said to havesprung from its surface, we have a story which might havemade Poseid6n the goatherd, whose goats leap from rock torock as the waves toss to and fro in the sea. But it failedto take root, probably because such names as Aigialos,the shore where the sea breaks, retained their meaning tooclearly. There was nothing to prevent the other association,and thus Poseid&n became especially the god whobestowed on man the horse, and by teaching them how totame and use it fostered the art of war and the love of1 'und Eelik$ bedeuten 2-ffigse eigent-JR. xiii. 23-30.lich das Meer &der die 3M>eresku&te,^ rb pev Alyouov Tr&aryos of fa ebbwo sich die Wogen brechen ' Preller, Gr -rifr wepl K&vas olybs Mvvfwv yeyovevmMyth. i. 443. Thus the name Hehkon ol &feQcurlv, fab rijs Kopuorias TTJSdenotes the upward curling or spouting Atyofojy ^ofiafo/ievTjs Sch. Apollon.i,of the water when the soil is dinted by 11. 65.' Preller Gr. i.Myth, 445.fchehoofofPegasos.

264 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.strife. Thus the verdict of the godsin his contest withPoseidonand theTelchines.Ath&n6 receives its full justification.His defeat is followed,as we might expect, by a plague of waters which hurst overthe land when he is worsted by Ath6n, or by the drying upof the rivers when Hr& refuses to let him be king in Argos.In Corinth there is a compromise. Helios remains masterof the Akropolis which greets him on his rising, whilePoseid&n is lord of the Isthmus watered by his waves. Allthese disputes, together with his claim on Naxos againstDionysos, and on Delos against Apoll&n, mark simply theprocess which gradually converted Poseid&n the lord of therain-giving atmosphere into the local king of the sea.It is the degradation of Zeus Ombrios to the lordship ofa small portion of his ancient realm. 1 But he still remainsthe shaker of the earth, and his trident exercises always itsmysterious powers. 2Of the process which assigned to him a definite place inthe later theogonies it is scarcely necessary to speak. LikeZeus, Poseid6n had been Kronids, and when this name hadbeen made to yield a mythical personality, he became also ason of Eronos, and was swallowed by him, like the otherchildren of Ehea. A truer feelingis seen in the mythwhich makes the Telehines, the mystic dancers of the sky,-Poseid6nthe Bondman.guardians of his infancy. 3 Like Zeus, again, he must fightagainst the Titans, and when after their defeat the tripledivision is made between the Eronid brothers, Poseid6nmust be made to own allegiance to Zeus, an admissionwhich is followed by no great harmony. He can retort theangry words of Zeus, and he* plots with H6r and AthenS tobind him.The myth which makes Poseid&n and Phoibos togetherbuild the walls of Ilion for Laomed&n belongs to the earlierstage in the growth of the myth, during which he is stillthe king of the upper air, and therefore may be represented,like the Delian god and the heroes who share his nature, astoiling for the benefit of mean and ungrateful man, For atthe hands of Laomed6n he receives no better recompense1This earlier identity of Poseiddn 2 iwofflycuos, ffeurixQuv. Preller, ii.with his brother is attested by the name i. 446.Zenoposeidon. Pieller, Gr.MytA.1. 452. Diod. v. 55,

MELIKERTES AND EADMOS. 265than that which Eurystheus accords to Herakles; andhence the wrath of Poseid&n against Ilion and its peopleburns as fiercely as that of Hr. The monster which hebrings up from the sea to punish Laorned&n is the hugestorm-cloud, which appears in the Cretan legend as the bullsent by Poseid6n to be sacrificed by Minos, who instead ofso dealing with it hides itamong his own cattle, the fittingpunishment for thus allowing the dark vapours to minglewith the bright clouds being that the love of Pasiphaisgiven to the monster, and thus is born the dreadful Minotauros.Lastly, when by AmphitritS he becomes the fatherof Triton, the myth goes back to the early significance of thename Poseid6n.Among other mythical inhabitants of the sea are In6, the Meiiclaughterkertes. Their earthly history belongsto the myth of theGolden Fleece; but when on failing to bring about thedeath of Phrixos she plunges, like Bndymidn, into the sea,she is the antithesis of Aphrodit6 Anadyomn. With herchange of abode her nature seemingly becomes more genial.She is the pitying nymph who hastens to the help ofOdysseus as he is tossed on the stormywaters after thebreaking up of his raft; and thus she is especially thewhite goddess whose light tints the sky or crests the waves.In his riew home her son Melikertes, we are told, becomesPalaimon, the wrestler, or, as some would have it, Glaukos.The few stories related of him have no importance ;but hisname is more significant.It is clearly that of the SemiticMelkarth, and thus the sacrifices of children in his honour,and the horrid nature of his cultus generally, are at onceexplained. It becomes, therefore, the more probable thatKadmos is but a Greek form of the Semitic Kedem, theeast ;and thus the Boiotian mythology presents us with atleast two undoubted Phenician or Semitic names, whateverof Kadmos and Harmonia, and her child Melies

266 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAff NATIONS.BOOK stream no storm can ever ruffle. He dwells in the far west,v. r'where are the sources of all things. From him flow allrivers and all the tossing floods, all fountains and all wells. 1Nay, he is himself the spring of all existence, 2 whether tothe gods or to men. 3 He is therefore with Tthys his wifethe guardian of H&r, while Zeus isbusy warring with theTitans. His children are recounted in numbers whichdenote infinity ;and the Hesiodic Theogony which calls hima son of Ouranos and Gaia gives him three thousanddaughters who dwell in the lakes and fountains of theearthj and three thousand sons who inhabit the murmuringstreams, 4 and seems also to point dimly to the source of theOcean itself. 5SECTION IIITHE RIVERS &KD FOUNTAINS.DanaosAigyptos.If in the legend of Danaos and Aigyptos with their fiftysons an

FOREIGN NAMES IN GREEK MYTHOLOGY. 267to account for the similarity of myths suggested bythe CHAP,horns of the new moon. The mischief began with the -, r',^notion that the whole Greek mythology not merely exhibitedcertain points of likeness or contact with that ofSemitic or other alien tribes, but was directly borrowedfrom it; and when for this portentous fact no evidencewas demanded or furnished beyond the impudent assertionsof Egyptian priests, there was obviouslyno limit and nodifficulty in making any one Greek god the counterpart of adeity in the mythology of Egypt. Hence, speaking generally,we are fully justified in sweeping awayall such statementsas groundless fabrications. Nay more, when Herodotostells us that Danaos and Lynkeus were natives ofChemmis, and that the Egyptians trace from them thegenealogy of Perseus, the periodical appearance of whosegigantic slipper caused infinite joy in Egypt, we can notbe sure that his informers even knew the names which thehistorian puts into their mouths. In all probability, thepoints of likeness were supplied by Herodotos himself,although doubtless the Egyptians said all that they couldto strengthen his fixed idea that Egypt was the source ofthe mythology and religion, the art and science of Greece ;nor does the appearance of a solitary sandal lead us necessarilyto suppose that the being who wore it was in any wayakin to the Argive hero who receives two sandals from theOcean nymphs.Hence it is possible or likely that the names Belos and TheirAigyptos may have been late importations into a purely daughters,native myth, while the wanderings of Danaos and Aigyptoswith their sons and daughters have just as much and as littlevalue as the pilgrimage of 16.In the form thus assigned toit, the legend runs that Libya, the daughter of Epaphos thecalf-child of 16, became the bride of Poseid6n and themother of Agenor and Belos. Of these the former is placedin Phoinikia, and takes his place in the purely solar mythof T&ephassa, Kadmos, and Eur6pS: the latter remains inLibya, and marrying AnchirrhoS (the mighty stream), adaughter of the Nile, becomes the father of the twinsDanaos and Aigyptos, whose lives exhibit not much more

MYTHOLOGY268,OJF THE ARYAN NATIONS..BOOK,.!harmony and concord than those of many other pairs of twins. in Aryan story. These sons of Belos marry many wives,and while Aigyptos has fifty sons, Danaos has fifty daughters,numbers which must be compared with the fifty daughtersof Nereus or the fifty children of Endymi6n and Asterodia.The action of the story begins with the tyranny of Aigyptosand his sons over Danaos and his daughters. the aid ofAiMnS, Danaos builds a fifty-oared vessel, and departingwith his children, comes first to the Ehodian Lindos, thento Argos, where they disembark near Lernai during a timeof terrible drought caused by the wrath of Poseid6n. He atonce sends his daughters to seek for water 5and Amymon(the blameless), chancing to hit a Satyr while aiming ata stag,is rescued from his hot pursuit by Poseid6n whosebride she becomes and who calls up for her the never-failingfountain of Lerna. But Aigyptos and his sons waste littletime in following them. At first they exhibit all their oldvehemence and ferocity, but presently changing their tone,they make proposals to marry, each, one of the fifty Danaides.1 The proffer is accepted in apparent friendship ; buton the day of the wedding Danaos places a dagger in thehands of each maiden, and charges her to smite her husbandbefore the day again breaks upon the earth*. HisBybidding isobeyed by all except Hypermnestra (the overloving or gentle)who prefers to be thought weak and wavering rather thanto be a murderess. All the others cut off the heads of thesons of Aigyptos, and bury them in the marshland of Lerna,while they placed their bodies at the gates of the city: fromthis crime they were purified by Athn and Hermes at thebidding of Zeus, who thus showed his approval of their deed.Nevertheless, the story grew up that in the world of thedead the guilty daughters of Danaos were condemned topour water everlastingly into sieves.Hyper- Danaos had now to find husbands for his eight and fortydaughters, Hypermnestra being still married to Lynkeusand Amymone to Poseid&n. This he found no easy task,but at length he succeeded through the device afterwards1With this number we may compare the fifty daughters of Daksha in Hindumythology, and of Thestios, and the fifty sous of Piillas and Priam,

DANAOS AND QELAFOR. 269adopted, we are told, by Kleisthenes. There were, however,versions which spoke of them as all slain by Lynkeus, whoalso putDanaos himself to death. There is little that isnoteworthy in the rest of the legend, unless it be the way inwhich he became chief in the land where the people wereafter him called Danaoi.The dispute for supremacy betweenhimself and Gelanor is referred to the people, and the decisionis to be given on the following day, when, before the appointedhour, a wolf rushed in upon the herd feeding before the gatesand pulled down the leader. The wolf was, of course, theminister of the Lykian Apoll&n ;the stricken herd were thesubjects of the native king, and the smitten ox was the kinghimself. The interpretation was obvious, and Gelanor hadto give way to Danaos.What is the meaning and origin cf this strange tale? Origin ofWith an ingenuity which must go far towards producingtliem yt]lconviction,Preller answers this question by a reference tothe physical geography of Argolis. Not much, he thinks,can be done by referring the name Danaos to the root da, toburn, which we find in Ahan, Dahan&, and Daphn^,1denoting the dry and waterless nature of the Argive soil.This dryness, he remarks, is only superficial, the wholeterritory being rich in wells or fountains which, it must bespecially noted, are in the myth assigned as the works ofDanaos, who causes them to be dug. These springs werethe object of a special veneration, and the fifty daughters ofDanaos are thus the representatives of the many Argive wellsor springs, and belong strictly to the ranks of water nymphs. 2In the summer these springs mayfail. Still later eventhe beds of the larger streams, as of the Inachos or theKephisos, may be left dry, while in the rainy portion of theyear these Charadrai or Cheimarroi, winter flowing streams,come down with great force and overflow their banks. Thusthe mythresolves itself into phrasesaswhich described ori-1The objection on the scow of thesIf the name Danaos itself denotesquantity of the fir^t syllable, which in water, it must be identified with Tanais,Danaos is short, while in Daphne 1 and Don, Donau, Tyne, Teign, Tone, and5wfc tf\a, wood easily inflammable, it other forms of the Celtic and Slavonicis long, is perhaps one on which, too words for a running stream,much stress should not be laid.

270 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.ginally these alternations of flood and drought. The downwardrush of the winter torrents is the wild pursuit of thesons of Aigyptos, who threaten to overwhelm the Danaides,or nymphs of the fountains ;but as their strength begins tofail, they offer themselves as their husbands, and are takenat their word. But the time for vengeance has come ;thewaters of the torrents fail more and more, until their streamis even more scanty than that of the springs. In otherwords, they are slain by their wives, who draw or cut off thewaters from their sources. These sources are the heads ofthe rivers, and thus it is said that the Danaides cut off theirhusbands' heads. A precise parallel to this mythis furnishedby the Arkadian tale, which speaks of Skephros (thedroughty) as slandering or reviling Leimon (themoist orwatery being), and as presently slain by Leimon, who inhis turn is killed by Artemis. If in place of the latter wesubstitute the Danaides, and for the former the sons ofThe mean-Aigyptos, we have at once the Argive tradition.ing becomes still more obvious when we mark the fact thatthe Danaides threw the heads into the marsh-grounds ofLernai (in other words, that there the sources of the waterswere preserved according to the promise of Poseid6n thatthat fountain should never fail), while the bodies of the sonsof Aigyptos, the dry beds of the rivers, were exposed in thesight of all the people.therefore well be doubtedwhether the name Aigyptos itself be not a word which mayItmayin its earlier form have shown its affinity with Aigai, Aigaion,Aigialos, Aigaia, and other names denoting simply the breakingor dashing of water against the shores of the sea or thebanks of a river. 1TheLyr- But one of the Danaides refused or failed to slay herhusband*The name of this son of Aigyptos is Lynkeus, amyth to which Pausanias furnishes a clue by giving its otherform Lyrkeios. But Lyrkeios was the name given to theriver Inachos in the earlier portion of its course, and thusthis story would simply mean that although the other streams1Preller thinks that when the idea ings presented an obvious point of eonvof a foreign origin for Aigyptos and parison with the Cheimarroi or winter-Danaog was once suggested, the Nile torrents of thePeloponnesos. Gr,with its } early inundations and shrink- li.Myth. 47.

LYNKEUS. 271were quite dried up, tlie waters of the Lyrkeios did notwholly fail. 1CHAP.VI.1The head of Lynkeus (Lyr'veois), theone stream which is not dried tip,answers to the neck of the LernaianHydra. So long as streams were suppliedfrom the mam source, Herakleshad still to struggle with the Hydra.His victory was not achieved until hehad severed this neck which Hyper*mnestra refused to touch. The heads ofthe slam sons of Aigyptos are the headswhich Herakles hewed off from theHydra's neck- and thus this lahour ofHerakles resolves itself into the struggleof the sun with the streams of the earth,the conquest of which is of course thesetting in of thorough drought.

272 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.CHAPTER YILTHE CLOUDS.SECTION I.THE CHILDREN OE THE MIST.THE name NephelS stands almost at the beginning of thatseries of mythical narratives which stretch down to a timePhrixos even later than the alleged period of the return of thee'Herakleids. She is the mother of the children whose disappearanceled to the long searching of the Argonautai forthe Golden Fleece, to be followed by the disappearance ofHelen and then of the children of Heraldes ;each with itsastonishing train of marvellous incidents which, when closelyviewed, are found more or less to repeat each other undera different colouring, and with names sometimes only slightlydisguised, sometimes even unchanged. But NTephelS herselfis strictly the representative of tiie mist or the cloud, and assuch she becomes the wife of Athamas, a being on whosenature some light is thrown by the fact that he is the brotherof Sisyphos, the sun condemned, like Ixi&n, to an endless anda fruitless toil. In this aspect, the myth resolves itself intoa series of transparent phrases. The statement that Athamasmarried Nephel at the bidding of Hr is merely the assertionthat the wedding of the sun with the clouds, ofHerakles with Iol, is brought to pass in the sight of theblue heaven. From this union spring two children, Phrixosand HellS, whose names and attributes are purely atmospheric.It is true that a mistaken etymology led some ofthe old myfchographersto connect the name of Phrixos with'the roasting of corn in order to kill the seed, as an explanationof the anger of Athamas and his crime but; we haveto mark the sequel of the tale, in which it is of the very

INO AND OTPHELfi. 273essence of the story that Phrixos reaches Kolchis safely onthe back of the ram, while Hell falls off and is drowned.That the name of this ill-fated maiden is the same as that ofthe Helloi, or Selloi, or Hellenes, and that the latter are thechildren of Helios, will probably be disputed by none.Hell&then is the bright clear air as ffluminated by the rays of thesun 5and she is carried away from the western Thessaly tothe far eastern land. But before the dawn can come theevening light must die out utterly, and hence it was inevitablethat Hell6 should meet her doom in the broad-flowingHellespontos, the path which bears her name. What thenis her brother but the air or ether in itself, and not merelyas litup by the splendour of the sun? It was impossible,,then, that the frigid Phrixos could feel the weariness whichconquered his sister. Her force might fail, but his armswould cling only the more closely round the neck of the ram,until at last, as the first blush of light was wakened in theeastern sky, he reaches the home of the Kolchian king.Not less clear are the other incidents of the Athamaslegend.Athamas has been wedded to aod In6fNephel but;he is no more atease than is lason with Medeia, and theKadmeian In6 playsin this tale the part of the Corinthian Grlauk. Finding thather husband's love has been given to another, Nepheli vanishesaway. The morning mist retreats to Niflheim, itscloud-home, leaving her children in the hands of In6 Leukothea,the open and glaring day, in which there isnothingto keep down the heat of the sun. Hence between her andthe children of the mist there is an enmity as natural as thatwhich exists between Ares and Athn, and this enmity is asnaturally signified in the drought or famine which she bringsupon the land. It is, in fact, the same plague with whichthe Sphinx tormented the men of Thebes and Ahi scourgedthe worshippers of Indra. When consulted as to the causeof all this misery, the Delphian priestess answers that thechildren of Athamas must be sacrificed, or in other wordsthat the crime of Tantalos and Lyka6n must be committedagain. In& seeks to bring the doom on the children ofNephelS, who now sends the golden-fleeced ram to bear themaway to Kolchis, But the curse works on still 5and theVOL. II.T

274 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ABYAff NATIONS.y .?'BOOK madness of Herakles falls on Athamas, who carries out thex sentence of the Pythia by slaying his son Learchos. Thedroughthas reached its height;and In&, with her otherchild, Melikertes, casts herself into the sea. Left alone,Athamas now asks whither he must go and where he mayfind a home : and the answer is that he must make hisabode where wild beasts receive him hospitably. This welcomehe finds in a spot where wolves, having torn somesheep, leave for him the untasted banquet. The beasts mustneeds be wolves, and the country of which he thus becomesthe lord is the Aleian plain, through which the lonely Bellerophonwandered in the closing days of his life.SECTION II.THE CLOUD-LMD.Nephelthen is the mist of morning tide, which vanishes,The myths of the earth under itsmany names bring theclouds before us in other forms, as the Kourts, who weavetheir mystic dances round the infant Zeus ;the Idaian Daktyls,who impart to the harp of Orpheus its irresistible power ;and the marvellous Telchlnes, who can change their formsat will. 1 But the cloud-land in all its magnificence andimperial array is displayed not so much in these isolatedstories as in the great Phaiakian legend of the Odyssey.may be safely said that there is scarcely a single detail inthis marvellous narrative which fails to show the nature andthe origin of the subjects of Alkinoos. We may,if weplease, regard them as a people settled historically in theisland known to us as Korkyra or Corfu ;and withPreller orother writers we may lay stress on the fact that they arealtogether a people of ships and of the sea, living far awayfrom mortal men near the western Okeanos $but no one whowishes really to get at the truth of facts can thus convincehimself that he has solved the problem.be or be not theItWhether ScheriaMediterranean Korkyra, the meaning ofmost of the names occurring in the myth is beyond alldoubt ;and we have simply to follow the poet as he tells the

THE PHAIAXIAN LAND. 275tale, how long ago they had dwelt in the broad Hypereia,near to the rude and gigantic Kykl&pes, who were mightieruntil Nausithoos ledthan they and did them sore harm,them away to Scheria, and there built them a city andplanted them vineyards and raised temples to the gods. 1Here we have no sooner recalled to mind the nature of theKyH&ps as the storm-cloud which clings to, or keeps itsflocks, on the rough mountain-side, than the whole storybecomes transparent. The broad Hypereiais the upperregion, where dwell also the Hyperboreans in their beautifulgardens. BTay, we may safely say that the Phaiakians arethe Hyperboreans who have been driven from their earlyhome by the black vapours between whom and themselvesthere can be no friendship. From these malignant foes theycan but fly to Scheria, their fixed abode, 2 where these ruggedshepherds 3 cannot trouble them.This new home then is that ideal land far away in the tfhe palacowest, over which is spread the soft beauty of an everlastingunsullied by unseemly mists and murky vapours,twilight,where the radiant processions which gladden the eyes ofmortal men only when the heavens are clear are f ever passingthrough the streets and along the flower-clad hills. On thisbeautiful conception the imagination of the poet might feed,and find there an inexhaustible banquet and;we need onlymark the several images which he has chosen to see howfaithfully he adheres (and it may be unconsciously) to theof cloud-land.phenomena He who has seen in the eastern orwestern sky as litup by the rising or setting sun the cloudcappedtowers and gorgeous temples catching the light ontheir burnished faces, can wellfeel whence came the surpassingand everlasting glory of the palace and the gardensof Alkinoos. In those marvellous scenes which more thanall other painters Turner delighted to transfer to paper orcanvas, we may see the walls and chambers of that splendiddw&lling gleaming with the lustre of the sun or the moon,the brazen walls with their purple bands and stringcourses,Od. vi. 1, &e. akin to12 Of the word Scheria Preller says 8The &vfas a\4>?j

276 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN KATI05S.the golden doors, and stepsof silver.Nay,who has notwatched the varying forms and half convinced himself thatthe unsubstantial figuresbefore him are the shapes of menand beasts who people that shadowy kingdom 9 Who hasnot seen there the dogs of gold and silver who guard thehouse of Alkinoos and on whom old ageand death cannever lay a finger the golden youths standing around theinmost shrine with torches in their hands, whose light neverdies out the busy maidens plying their golden distaffs astheir fingers run along the filmy threads spread on the bareground of the unfading ether? "Who does not understandthe poet at once when he says that their marvellous skillcame from Ath&a, the goddess of the dawn? And who doesnot see that in the gardens of this beautiful palace mustbloom treesladen always with golden fruits, that here thesoft west wind brings new blossoms before the old havpripened, that here fountains send their crystalstreams tofreshen the meadows which laugh beneath the radiant heaven?It is certainly possible that in this description the poet mayhave introduced some features in the art or civilization ofhis own day; but the magnificent imagination even of aSpanish beggar has never dreamed of a home so splendid asthat of the Scherian chieftain, and assuredly golden statuesand doors, silver stairs and brazen walls formed no part ofthe possessions of any king of the east or the west from thedays of the Homeric poets to our own. In truth, there isnothing of the earth in this exquisite picture. In the Phaiakianland sorrow and trouble are things unknown. Thehouse of Alkinobs is the house of feasting, where the dancersare never weary, and the harpis never silent.The fleets But the poet carries us to the true Phaiakian domain,l"w^en ke makes Alkinoos say that though his people are notgood boxers or wrestlers, none can outrun them on knd orrival their skill on shipboard ;and we may well suppose thatsome consciousness of the meaningof his tale must havebeen presentto the mind of the bard as he recounted thewonders of the Phaiakian ships.These mysterious vesselshave neither helmsmen nor rudders, rigging nor tackling ;but they know the thoughts and the minds of men. There

THE fHAIAKIAN FLEET. 277is not a city nor a cornfield -throughout the wide earth whichthey fail to visit, as they traverse the sea veiled in mist andcloud; and in this their ceaseless voyaging they dread nodisaster. 1No bark of that goodly fleet has ever been strandedor wrecked, for so the gods have ordained for the blamelessleaders and guides of all across the sounding seas.the distance only looms a dangerof which the wise Nausithooshas dimly warned the king;Tar inand whence can theperil come but from Poseid6n, whose huge and ungentleoffspring drove them from their ancient heritage? Butwhether the sea-god will really be able to fulfil his threatand sink the gallant Phaiakian bark, -is a matter whichAlkinoos is content to leave to the disposal of God. Soin the light of a sun which has not yet gone down dwellthe happy Phaiakian people ;but their beautiful ships areseen not only by Achaian eyes. The old Teutonic poet alsobeheld SMdbladnir, the magic bark of IVeya; the Icelandersaw the good ship Ellide, as the wish-breeze bore themalong to their destination. Nor were these the only vesselsendowed with the power and wisdom of the Phaiakian ships.The divine Argo can speak the language of men, and guideits crew to the land which they seek; but at this point thestory of the speaking vessel becomes mingled with imageswhich belong to another set of myths. The Argo containswithin itself all the warriors of the Achaian land, and Skidbladnir,which can carry all the Asas, may yet be folded uplike a mist and carried in the hand like a garment; andthus the imagery of the cloud is interwoven with that ofthe earth and its teeming womb. One question only remains.If the ships of Alkinoos have neither helm, nor rudder, norrigging, what can these shipsbe but the Phaiakians themselves,as they sail at will through the blue seas of heaven, not1In theNorse story of Big Bird Dan the look at you/ In short, each time thatship has become an iron boat jbut still the club (of the Maruts) is raised, theit * sails of itself, if 7011 only say, Boat, fiercer mil be the storm. The oldboat, go on. In that boat there is an myth is still further apparent in theiron club, and that club you must lift a concluding direction. *When you'velittle when you see the ship [which is got to land, you're no need to botherbearing away the dawn-maiden] straight yourself at all about the boat; firstahead of you, and then the/11 get such turn it about and shove it off and say,a rattling fair breeze, they'll forget to Boat, boat, go back home. 1

278 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.on the watery deep which, conches beneath? l Their veryOdysseus,name points to the twilight land, and when the ship bringsOdysseus back to his own island, it comes like the gleamingstar'ushering E&s, the early^ ^ born. 2K 7^P es are ^e na*! enemies of the Phaialdans,so the latter have a natural friendship and love for the brightbeings who gladden them with their light.When the heavensare veiled with the murky storm vapours, the lovelyPhaiakians may still be thought of as comforting the brighthero in his sorrow : and hence the sympathy which by theNiob$ ar.dagency of the dawn-goddess Athn is kindled in the heartof the pure Nausika& for the stranger whom she finds on thesea-shore wearied almost unto death. This man of manygriefs is not indeed what he seems ;and the real nature ofthe being whom they thus befriend b^aks out from time totime beneath the poor disguise which for the present he iscontent to wear. No sooner has Odysseus cleansed his face,than the soft locks flow down over his shoulders withthe hue of the hyacinth flower, and his form gleams like agolden statue 8;and the same air of regal majesty is thrownover him when he stands in the assembly of the Phaiakians,4who must love him when they see his glory.jftom the sorrows of the forsaken NephelS we passed tothe happiness of the cloudland itself. Erom this peacefulregion we must pass again to deeper griefs than those of thewife of Athamas. Of the many tales related of the luckl^s.Miob, there is perhaps not one of which the meaningis noteasily seen. Her name itself shows her affinity to the motherof Phrixos and Hell ;and if in one version she is called a1The poet, as we might expect, con- about to die, lie bids his men lay himtradicts himself when he relates the armed in the boat and put him out tovoyage of the Pliaiakmns as they carry sea. This is the bark Ellicle of Ice-Odysseus from Phaiakia to Ithaka. landic legend, the wonderful ship of thefore the ship has oarsmen and oars, Norse tale of Shortshanks, which beandthese imply the furniture of other comes bigger and bigger as soon as theships, which he has expressly denied to hero steps into it, which goes withoutthem before, rudder or sail, and when he comes out2 Od. xiii. 93 ; Preller, Gr. i.Myth. becomes as small as it was before.495. Not lessmysterious than the Phai- This is, manifestly, nothing more thanakian ships is the vessel without sail or the swelling and shrinking of vapour:rudder, which brings Scild, the son of and so the ship which can carry aU theSceaf, the skiff, to the coast of Scandia Asas may be folded up like a napkin.3cildbecomesthekingoftheland,andin* Od. vi. 225.*the layof Beowulf, when he feels fcimsetf Od, vni, 21,

THE KOURETES AND TELCHlNES. 279a bride of Zens, aredaughter of Phoronens, from whom, asborn Argos and Pelasgos, this only tells us that the mist isthe child of fire or heat, and that from its union with theheaven springs the light-crowned cloud. But the commonerversion which represents her as a daughter of Tantalos isstill more significant.Here Nlobfe, the bride of the ThebanAmphion, a being aMn to Orpheus, Pan, and Hermes, becomesthe mother of beautiful children, whose number variesas much as that of the sons and daughters of Endyrni&n, orof the mystic Kour&es and Telchines. Then follows therivalry of the proud mother with the mightier parent ofArtemis and Phoibos the presumption of the mist or the icewhich dares to match the golden-tinted clouds with the sunand moon in their splendour.The children of L6t6 are buttwo in number; her own cluster round her, a bloomingtroop of sons and daughters. 1But Lt6 had only to carry thestory of her troubles to her children, and the unerring arrowssoon smote the unconscious causes of her anger. NiobSherself sat down overcome with woe on the summits ofSipylos, and there her grief turned her into stone, as thewater turns into ice on the cold hill -side. 2 Local traditionso preserved the story that the people fancied that they sawon the heights of Sipylos the actual figure of Niob6 mourningfor her children; but in fact, there were many NiobSs inmany lands, and the same luckless portion was the lot of all. 31The number of these children is on her stony seat, point to the meltingvariously given in almost every account, or weeping of the petrified or frozenThe clouds are never the same. winter earth. Professor Max Muller9SophoTdes, Antig. 830, speaks compares this myth with that of Chione1expressly of the snow which never leavesher, and thus shows that he is dealingfaito, hiems, winter), who for presump-tion much like that of Niobfc is slain bywith the phenomena of congelation. Artemis. PreLLer, Gr. Myth 11. 383,8With many other , names, that of takes a different view. 'NiobeistselbstNiob& may be traced back to a root snu, die Bhea dieser Bergen und dieserto flow, which yields the Sanskrit Nyava, Thaler ' [of Sipylos],'die fruchtbaresnow, as from Dyu we have Dyava,i. e. Mutter und doch so traurig, im Fnihlmge&7j(a. Hence Professor Max Midler prangend in dem Schmueke bluhendersees in Niob& the goddess of winter, Kinder, im Sommer, wenn die heissenwhose children are smitten by the Pfeile der G-otter des Lichtes treffen,arrows of Phoibos and Artemis, as the verwaast, und wie Rachel, die uber denwinder gives place to summer. Thus Leichen ihrer Kinder sitzt und "will

280 MYTHOLOGY OF THE AEYAff NATIONS.BOOK In the Vedic hymns, the cloud myths are inextricably'^ ^ intermingled -with those of the dawn and the light. TheThe cattlevery enemy of Indra hidingthe stolen herds in his horridden is but the storm-cloud which shuts up the rain-clouds ,ready to refresh the parched earth. He is Cacus who dragsthe cattle of G-eryon into his cave, and the Sphinx whichplagues the Kadmeians with drought. Of the beautifulcattle of Indra thus stolen by the Panis Saramfr is theguardian; each morning she comes forth to lead them totheir1pastures, each evening she reappears to drive themhome.The same scenes are repeated daily in the HomericThrinakia, when the cattle of the sun are tended by thenymphs Phaethousa and Lampeti, the fair-haired childrenwhom JsTeaira, the early morning, bare to Helios Hyperl&n.But although the companions of Odysseus are made actuallyto slay some of these cows, and although strange signsfollow their crime, yet the story itself points to anotherorigin for these particular herds. The Thrinakian cattle arenot the clouds, but the days of the year. The herds areseven in number, and in each herd are fifty cows, never less,and representing in all the three hundred and fifty days ofthe lunar year.2Thus in the story that the comrades ofOdysseus did not return home with him because they slewthe cattle of the sun, we may * recognize an old proverbialor mythological expression, too literally interpreted even byHomer, and therefore turned into mythology/If, then, asiProfessor Miiller adds, the original phrase ran that Odysseusreached his home because he persevered in Ms task, whilehis companions ' wasted their time, killed the days, i.e., thecattle of Helios, and were therefore punished, nothing wouldbe more natural than that after a time their punishmentshould have been ascribed to their actually devouring theoxen in the island of Thrinakia.' 31 In many popular tales these blue in Dasent's Norse Tales ;the Gaelicpastures -with the white flocks feeding story of the Three Widows, Campbell,on them are reflected m the water, and ii 224, 228, 237; and the German talethe sheep feeding for down in the depths of the Little Farmer, Grimm.are made the means by which Boots or2 Sir G-. C. Lewis, Astronomy of theDummling (the beggar Odysseus) lures Ancients, 21.his stupid brothers to their death. See sChips, $c. u, 166. 1the story of ' Big Peter andlittle Peter,1

281SECTION HL-THB NYMPHS AND SWAN-MilDBNS.On the cloud-origin of the Vedic Gandharvas, the Hellenic CHAP.Kentaurs, and the KyH6pes whether of our Homeric or ^J^,.Hesiodic poems, enough has perhaps been said in the The swananalysisof the myths of Urvasi, Psych, Ixi&n, and Asldpios.These myths may each run into others which relatemore exclusively to the earth or the sun; but the closeconnexion of earth, light and vapour, is so constantlypresent to the minds of all the Aryan tribes that it becomesalmost impossible to set down any one myth, as a whole, asa specimen of one definite class ;and thus the languageused of the powers of darkness themselves is appliedto thegloomy storm-vapours, whether they appear as the monstrousPolyph&nos, or as the three daughters of Phorkos,who have but one tootheach and possess a single eye incommon. These beings .ffischylos especially calls swanshaped,and here we have the germ of a large family eflegends common to all the Aryan tribes and extending, itwould seem, far beyond them. We have already seen theclouds, whether as litup by the sun or as refreshing theearth with rain, spoken of as cows tended by nymphs,while the stormy vapours, their relentless enemies, aresnakes, worms, or dragons, which throttle or strangle theirprey. But the Sphinx, one of the most prominent of thisrepulsive tribe, is called particularly the winged hound, 1andthe swan-shaped Phorkides answer to the black ravens who,as messengers of Wuotan, roam across the sty. These twoclasses of vapours are kept tolerably distinct, The onebrings only famine and sickness; the other recalls the deadearth to life, like the serpents with their snake-leaves in thestories of Glaukos, of Faithful John, and of Paneh PhulEanee. Sometimes, however, the vapours playan intermediatepart, being neither wholly malignant, nor kindly.Thus in the Arabian Nights the rushing vapouris the roe,'which broods over its great luminous egg, the sun, andwhich haunts the sparkling vaJley of diamonds, the starryAch, P/. 1024; Agam. 136.

'282 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATION'S.The MusesHere the single eyein the forehead of Polyph&nossly.' lbecomes the golden egg which reappears in the story of Jackthe Giant Killer as the egg which the red hen lays everymorning. This monstrous bird appears as the kindly ministerof the light-born princein the Norse story of FarmerWeathersky.In the Hymn to Apoll6n the clouds appear as the nymphsor goddesses who bathe the new-born Phoibos, and thewhite robe which they wrap around him isbe seen ascend-morning mist, through which his orb maying amidst zones of gold. Among these nymphsthe garment ofare theCharites, who attend on Aphrodit6, the lovely clouds whichdance in the morning sky, while in the hymn of Kallimachosthe clouds are plainly spoken of as the singing swanswho hasten from Pakt&los and fly seven times round Delosat the birth of Phoibos, who therefore in after years fixes onseven notes as the complement of the musical scale. Thesebeautiful beings in their thousand forms all spring fromtile water, whether it be Athn or AphroditS, Melusina, orTIrvasLAll therefore are the Apsaras or water-maidens, ofwhom the germs may be seen in Vedic hymns,later Hindu epics they appear with allwhile inthe features of theTeutonic Valkyrien; and the consolation addressed to thewarriors of the MaMbhSrata is that by which Mahomet'cheers the hearts of the faithful. A hero slain is not to belamented, for he is exalted in heaven. Thousands of beautifulnymphs (apsaras) run quickly up to the hero who hasbeen slain in battle, saying to him,' Be my husband.' 3 Herethen we have the groundwork of all those tales which speakof men as wedded to fairies, nymphs, nixies, mermaids,swan-maidens, or other supernatural beings. The detailsmay vary indefinitely but the 5 Aryan and Turanian mythsalike point to the same phep.omena. JVom the thoughtwhich regarded the cloud as an eagle or a swan, it was easyto pass to the idea that these birds were beautiful maidens,and hence that they cottld at will, or on the ending of theinch^ntment, assume their human form. This would, in1Gould, Curious Myths, second series, 146.* Muip, Sto. Texts, part iv. p. 235.

SWAN-MAIDENS. 283fact, be nothing more than the power exercised by HeraHes,who, whenever he desired it,could lay'aside his robe of lion'sskin. Then would follow the myth, that the only way tocapture these beings was to seize their garment of swan's oreagle's feathers, without which they were powerless ;andthis myth has been reflected in a thousand tales which relatehow men, searching for something lost, have reachedsome peaceful lake (the blue heaven) on which were floatingthe silver swans, birds only in outward seeming, and so longas they were suffered to wear their feathery robes. 1Somespecimens of Turanian myths belonging to this class, cited byMr. Gould, are noteworthy as containing not only this idea butall the chief incidents belonging to the Teutonic story of theGiant who had no Heart in his Body, and the Hindu tale ofPunchkin. Among the Minussinian Tartars, Mr. Gouldadds, these maidens appear, like the Hellenic Harpyiai, asbeing which scourge themselves into action with a sword,and fly gorged with blood through the heavens, forty innumber, yet running into one, like the many clouds absorbedinto a single mass. The vapour in this, its less invitingaspect, is seen in the myth of Kyknos, the swan son of ArSs,or Sthenelos, ortPoseid6n (for all these versions a^e found),who after a hard fight is slain by Herakles.In the legend of Helen and the Dioskouroi Zeus himself The swancomesto Leda in the guise of a swan, as to Dana heappears in the form of a golden shower; and hence fromthe two eggs sprung severally, according to one of manyTersions, Kastor and Helen, Polydeukes and Elytaimnestra,while others say that the brothers were the sonsof Zeus,When theand Helen the child of the mortal Tyndare&s.notion which regarded Helen as doomed to bring ruin onher kinsfolk and friends ha.d been more fully developed,the story ran that the egg came not from Leda but fromNemesis, the power which, like the Noras, gives to eachman his portion*'.The ideas of inchantment and transformation once1These robes in other tales become Fairy Mythology,^. With these legendsfairygarments, withoutwhiehthe PersianPeri cannot leave the human husbandwe may also compare the stories of mermaidswho unite themselves with humanto -whom she is wedded, Eeightley,lovers,

284 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.BOOK awakened ran riot in a crowd of stories which resemble*r in some of their features the myths of which the tale ofInchantedPsychS and Eros is a type;in others, the legends in whichthe youngest brother or sister, Boots or Cinderella, is in theend exalted over those who had thoughtlittleof him intimes past, and, in others again, the narratives of jealouswives or stepmothers, found in the mythology of all theAryan tribes. Thus the ship and the swan are bothprominent in the mediaeval romance of the Kiiight of theSwan, in which the son of queen Matabrune, havingmarried the beautiful Beatrice, leaves her in his mother'scharge. After his departure, Beatrice gives birth to sixsons and a daughter, each with a silver collar round itsneck.she isThese children the stepmother seeks to destroy, butcheated by the usual device which substitutes somebeast for the human victim. At length Matabrune isinformed that seven children maybe seen each with asilver collar, and again she decrees their death, They are,however, only deprived of their collars, and the loss changesthem into swans, all but the youngest, Helias, whom ahermit had taken away as his companion. 1 Helias, ofcourse, avenges his mothers innocence, when she isaboutto be put to death, and then makes a vow that he will neverrest until he has delivered his brothers and sister from theevil inchantment. Having recovered five of the collars, hesucceeds at length in restoring five to their human shape ;but one remains spellbound, his collar having been meltedto make a drinking-cup for Matabrune. This swanbrothernow appears drawing a boat, in which Helias embarks,and arriving at Neumagen fights on behalf of the ladywho claimed the duchy of Bouillon. His victory makeshim duke of Bouillon, but he warns the duchess that if sheasks his name he must leave her. In due time the ques

THE STORY OF GUZRA BAL 285versions of the story, regards as a localmyth of Brabantineorigin, the name Helias being a corruption of the Kelticala, eala, ealadh, a swan. This is but saying, in otherwords, that an old mythhas been worked into the traditionsof European towns, and attached, like the story of the earlylife of Cyrus, to names undoubtedly historical. The taleitself agrees in all its essential features not only "with manyTeutonic legends but with the Hindu story of Guzra Bai,the Beatrice of the tale of Truth's Triumph. This beautifulmaiden is the Mower Girl, or the Gardener's daughter, inother words, the child of Dm6tr playing on the floweryplain of Nysa or Enna, the teeming source of life as distinguishedfrom the dead or inert matter on which it works.She thus becomes at once, like Beatrice, the mother ofmany children; here the number is a hundred and one,this one being as with Beatrice a daughter. These beautifulchildren awaken the jealousy and hatred of the twelvechildless wives to whom the husband of Guzra Bai wasalready married, and in whom we may see an imageof themonths of the year or the hours of the night, in themselvesproducing nothing, until the spring reawakens the slumberingearth or the dawn flushes the eastern sky. In eithercase, it is but one hour or one day doing the work whichotherwise many hours and many days would be unable toaccomplish. Then follows a series of transformations whichhave the effect of counteracting the arts of the twelvequeens as those of Matabrune are frustrated in the westernstory, and which end in the change of all the brothers notinto swans but into crows, the only one of Guzra Bai'schildren who is saved being the daughter, as Helias alone, isnot transformed in the myth of Matabrune. The subsequentmarriage of Guzra Bai's daughter under the name ofDraupadi to a king who sees her feeding the crows is thereturn of PersephonS from the lower world in more than herformer beauty. Draupadi now becomes the mother of aof DanaS, and punishes the demon who, with thechild who avenges her wrongs as Perseus requites the persecutorswand of Kirk, had changed his mother's brothers into crows.The final incident is the deliverance of Guzra Bai from the

286 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN MTIOKS.Theprison to which the twelve princesses had committed her,and the discomfiture of the latter, answering to the humiliationof Matabrune.As the storm-cloud brooding over the earth without yield-5?" ing rain became in Greek mythology the Thebm Sphinx orPleiades.tte Pyftian Dragon, so the clouds as rain-givers were theHyades or the rainy sisters. These, it is obvious, might bedescribed in a hundred ways, and accordingly almost everymythographer has a different account to give of them.They are the daughters of Atlas and Aithra, the heavenand the pure air, or of Okeanos, the water, or of Erechtheus(the earth) ;and thus the myths do but repeat the generationof the cloud,I am the daughter of earth and water,And the nursling of the sky,it giving names which all denote their cherishing, fructifying,and reviving powers. 1They are the nymphs of ITysaor Dodona, who guard the infant Dionysos,or are thenurses of Zeus himself \and this kindness the wine-godrequites by causing Medeia, the wise dawn-goddess, torestore them to youth when they had grown old, a sightwitnessed every morning. These nymphs are seen againthe Pleiades, whose name, pointing only toin their sisterstheir watery nature, became confused with that of the ringdove, Peleias, and so the story ran that they were changedinto doves and placed among the stars. Generally thesePleiades are seven in number, six being visible and oneinvisible. Without taking into account any supposedastronomical explanations,it is enough to note that thesame difference marks the stories already cited of Matabrune,Guzra Bai, and others, in which of a troop of childrensome remain visible while the rest vanish throughinchantment.The These sisters are either always youthftil and radiant, orGraiai.^ey are from ^me to ^me restored to their former beauty.But we may think also of clouds as dwelling for ever faraway iji the doubtful gloaming, not wholly dark, but faintly*Eudora, Althaia, Phyto, Ambrosia, &fc

THE GLOAMim 287visible in a weird and dismal twilight. These clouds, whichare never kindled into beauty by the rays of the sun, are theGraiai, the daughter of Phorkys, whose hair was grey fromtheir birth, like the white streamers which move in ghastlylines across the sky, as evening dies away into night. Theswan form of these sisters points clearly, as we have seen, totheir cloud origin ;and the story of the single tooth and thecommon eye would follow from the notion of their everlastingold age, even if these features were not suggested bymyths like those of Polyphemos and the Kyklfipes. 1Some of the features which characterise these gloomy TheGorsisterswore transferred to the Gorgons, if the idea of one 8 MiGorgon, as in our Hiad and Odyssey, be older than theHesiodic myth of the three Gorgon daughters of Phorkysand K&4 Stheino or Stheno, EuryalS, and Medousa, TheGorgo of the Odyssey is the hideous head of a monsterbelonging to the nether world; in the Odyssey she is abeing with an awful face and a terrific glance. In theHesiodic Theogony the two undying and barren sisters aresharply distinguished from Medousa, the woman of pitiablewoes.* It is, of course, possible or even likely, that thewrithing snakes which, by the doom passed on her, take theplace of her beautiful locks may represent the hideous stormvapours streaming across the heaven at night, and still morelikely that the wings and claws given to her fearful sistersattest their cloud nature. But this explanation does notaccount for the myth of the mortal maiden who onco"Walked in beauty like tho nightOf cloudiowj climes and starry skies,whom Poseiddn loved inthe soft green meadow among theflowers of spring, and who became the mother of the mightyChrysfLOr and the winged horse Pegasos who rose fromiflaven to the house of Zeus, where he is the bearer of^tenders and lightnings to tho king of gods and men. Hereplainly Medousa is none other than L6t6, the mother of1Among tho many monsters which gong. Tho licroatorm*clpudassumesare either children of Posoidon or arc the snake form which in tho, Hindusent up by him from tho sea are the two mythology belongs to Vritra and Ahi,serpents who destroy Laokoou and Ms 3 Afypi TO0ov

288 MOTHOLOai OP THE ARYAN NATIONS.Ataifo.Cihiys6r, the lord of the golden sword :in otter words, thenight in its benignant aspect as the parent of the sun, andtherefore as mortal, for must not the birth of the sun befatal to the darkness from which it springs P Hence Perseus,the child of the golden shower, must bring her weary woe toan end. The remaining feature of the story is the earlyloveliness of Medousa, which tempts her into rivalry with thedawn goddess Ath6n herself, a rivalry which they who knowthe moonlit nights of the Mediterranean can well understand.But let the storm-clouds pass across the sky, and the maiden'sbeauty is at once marred. She is no longer the darling ofPoseid&n, sporting on the grassy shore. The unseemlyvapours stream like serpents across her once beautiful face,hissing with the breath of the night-breeze, and a look ofagony unutterable comes over her countenance, chilling andfreezing the hearts' blood of those who gaze on the browof the storm-tormented night. This agony can pass awayonly with her life; in other words, when the sword ofPhoibos smites and scatters the murky mists. But althoughMedousa may die, the source from which the storm-cloudscome cannot be choked, and thus the Gorgons who seekto avenge on Perseus their sister's death are themselvesimmortal.in the Theban myth of Aktaidn, the son of the KadmeianAutonoS, the cloud appears as a huntsman who has beentaught by the Kentaur Cheiron, but who is torn to pieces byhis own dogs, just as the large masses of vapour are rentand scattered by the wind, which bear them across the sky.As this rending is most easily seen in a heaven tolerably freefrom clouds, so the story ran that Aktaion was thus punishedbecause he had rashly looked on Artemis while she wasbathing in the fountain of Gargaphia.Medousa Not less significant is the myth of Pegasos,the offs?6r,spring of Medousa with ChrysMr, the magnificent piles ofsunlit cloud, which seem to rise as if on eagle's wings tothe highest heaven, and in whose bosom may lurk the lightningsand thunders of Zeus. LikeAthng and Aphrodit^like Baphnfe and Arethousa, this horse of the morning (E6s)must be born from the waters \hence he is Pegasos, sprung

ATHfiNB CHALINlTIS. 289from the fountains of Poseid6n> the sea. 1 On this horseBeUerophftn is mounted in his contest with the Ohimaira :but he becomes possessed of this steed only by the aid ofAth&n6 Chalinitis, who, giving him a bridle, enables him tocatch the horse as he drinks from the well Peirn, or, asothers said, brings him Pegasos already tamed and bridled.When the Chiinaira was slain, Belleroph6n, the story ran,sought to rise to heaven on the back of his steed, but waseither thrown off or fell oft from giddiness, while the horsecontinued to soar upwards, like the cumuli clouds which faroutstrip the sun as they rise with him into the sky.Pegasos, however, is not only the thundering horse of PegasoaZeus ;he is also connected with the Muses, who in theirswan forms * are the beautiful clouds sailing along the skyto the soft music of the morning breezes. The same blendingof the myths of vapour and wind is seen in the rivalrybetween the Pierides and the Helikonian Muses, When theformer sang, everything, it is said, became dark and gloomy,a0 when the wind sighs through the pinewoods at night,while with the song of the Muses the light of gladnessreturned, and Helikon itself leaped up in its joy and roseheavenwards, until a blow from the hoof of Pegasos smote itdown, as a sudden thunderstorm may check the soaring cirriin their heavenward way. But Pegasos is still in this myththe moisture-laden cloud. Prom the spot dinted by hishoof sprang the fountain whether in Boiotia orHippokrne:in Argos.IV.THE HUNTERS AND DANCERS OP THEHEAVENS.The vapour in more than one of its aspects receives Orion,another embodiment in the myth of Orion, which in almostall itsmany versions remains transparent. Like other1With Pegasos we may compare the 'at the safee moment a fearful noisehome in Grimm's story of the Two was hewtf, ana a piece out of the groundWanderers (Dioskouroi), which courses of the court rose up into the air like athrice round the castle yard as swiftly ball/ and a stream of water leaps80 lightning, and then falls. This is forth, as on the discomfiture of thethe moment of the lightning flash, and Sphinxthe story of course goes on to say that * gallim. Hymn to Delos, 255.TOIu II.t7

29Q MYTHOLOGY OF TIIE ARYAN NATIONS.beings of the same kind, he is sprungfrom the earth ortiie waters, as a son whether of Poseidfin and Euryatf, orof Oinopion.He grows up a mighty hunter, tho cloudranging in wild freedom over hills and valleys.At Chios hesees the beautiful Aer6,but when he seeks to make her hisbride, he is blinded by her father, who, on the advice ofDionysos, comes upon him in his sleep* Orion is now toldthat he may yet recover his sight if he would go to the eastand look toward the rising sun. Thither he is led by thehelp of Eephaistos, who sends Kedalion as his guide-On his return he vainly tries to seize and ptznish the manwho had blinded him, and then wandering onwards meetsand is loved by Artemis,It is but the story of the beautifulcloud left in darkness when the sun goes down, but recoveringits brilliance when he rises again in the east. Ofhis death many stories were told. In the Odyssey he isslain in Ortygia, the dawn land, by Artemis, who is jealouspf her rival E6s. In another version Artemis slays himunwittingly, having aimed at a mark on the sea whichPhoibos had declared that she could not hit. This markwas the head of Orion, who had been swimmingin thewaters ; in other words, of the vapour as it begins to risefrom the surface of the sea. But so nearly is he akin to thepowers of light, that Askl6pios seeks to raise him from thedead, and thus brings on his own doom from the thunderboltsof Zeusout of the suna myth which points to the blottingfrom the sky by the thundercloud, just as he was rekindlingthe faded vapours which lie motionless on the horizon.Seirios. Like Andromeda, Ariadn&, and other mythical beings,Orion was after his death placed among the constellations,and his hound became the dog-star Seirios, who marks thetime of yearly drought. He is thus the deadly star l whoburns up the fields of Aristaios and destroys his bees, and isstayed from his ravages only by the moistening heaven.8This, however, is but one of the countless myths springingfrom old phrases which spoke of the madness of the sun,who destroys his own children, the fruits of his bride theearth- The word Seirios itself springs from the same rooi*otfMo*J

THE DAXCEBS OP THE SKY. 291with the Sanskrit Surya and the Greek Helios, HM, and CHAP.Herakles ;and with Archiiochos and Suidas it was still a .vn> _.mere name for the sun. 1The characteristics of the Phaiakians and their ships ThoToicarrytis to other myths of the clouds and the light. Asroaming over hill and dale, as visiting every corn-field andseeing all the works of men, and as endowed with powers ofthought, these mysterious vessels are possessed in somemeasure of the wisdom of Phoibos himself. The kindredTelchlnes and Koxiretes,the unwearied dancers who moveacross the skies, have the power also of changing their formsat will. 3 If we put these attributes together, we at oncehave the wise yet treacherous, and the capricious yet truthfulProteus, the Farmer Weathersky of Teutonic tales.Thisthe old man of the sea, who reappears instrange being isthe voyages of Sindbad. He is necessarily a subject, somesaid a son, of Poseid&n ;and he lives not far from the riverAigyptos, a phrase akin to the myth of the AithiopianMemnfin. Huge flocks of seals sport around him in thewaters, like clouds w gambolling in the heavens and when;the heat is greatest he raises himself from the deeps andtakes his rest on the sea-shore the repose of the cloudarmies which hang round the heaven in the hot noon-tide.It is at this time that Virgil represents Aristaios as fetteringthe old man by the advice of his mother Arethousa. Thoattempt is followed by many changes of form ;and Proteus 3becomes first a fire, then a snake, and passes through otherchanges before he is compelled to return to his proper form.In Proteus, the king of Egypt, we have one of those persons1In support of his assertion that Wo can inhabit At our caseBaltics -was a name for any glittering In either earth or air.kennt die Form Seir fur Bonn*.Arnt.Or unto it repair;, canti,Triumph),

292 MYTHOLOGY OF TUB ARYAN NATIONS,of whom the Euemerists availed themselves to escape fromthe necessity of believing the incredible tale of Troy. Accordingto one version of the story, Paris came to Egyptwith Helen in the course of his homeward wanderings fromSparta. It was easy to say that the real Helen went nofurther, and that the Helen seen in Ilion was only a phantomwith which Proteus cheated the senses of Paris and hiscountrymen. It isenough to remark that of such a tale thepoets of our Iliad and Odyssey know nothing ;and that theEgyptian Proteus is none other than the son of Poseidfin,gifted with more than the wisdom of Hermes,

293CHAPTER VIILTEE EARTH.SECTION LDIONYSOS.THE Homeric hymn tells tlie simple talc how Dionysos inthe first bloom of youth was sitting on a jutting rock by thesea-shore, a purple robe thrown over his shoulders and hisgolden locks streaming from his head, when he was seizedby some Tyrrhenian mariners who had seen him as theywere sailing by. These men placed him on board theirvessel and strongly bound him, but the chains snapped liketwigs and fell from his hands and feet, while he sat smilingon them with his deep blue eyes.The helmsman at oncesaw the folly of his comrades, and bade them let him go lestthe god, for such he must be, should do them some harm.His words fefl on unheeding ears, and they declared thatthey would take him away to Kypros, Egypt, or the Hyperboreanland. Bat no sooner had they taken to their oars thana purple stream Sowed along the decks, and the" air wasfilled with its fragrance. Then the vine-plant shot up themasts, and its branches laden with rosy fruithung from theyardanns', mingled with clustering ivy, while the oar pegswere all wreathed in glistening garlands. The sailors nowbeseech Medeides, ihe steersman, to bring the ship to shore}but it is too late. For Dionysos now took the forms of alion and a bear, and thus rushing upon them drove the cruelmariners intothe sea, where they became dolphins, whilethe good steersman was crowned with honour and glory.In this story we have clearly the manifestation of thatpower which ripens the fruits of the earth, and more especiallythe vine, in the several stages from its germ to its

294 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.maturity. The fearful power displayed by tlio god is theinfluence which, the grape exercises on man. Its juice mayflow as a quiet stream, filling the air with sweet odours, butas men drink of it its aspect is changed, and it becomes likea wild beast urging them to their destruction. But thepenalty thus inflicted upon the Tyrrhenian mariners is strictlyfor their evil treatment of the god, whose character is merelyjovial, and by no means designedly malignant. Nor is thegod himself invested with the majesty of the supreme Zeus,or of Phoibos or Poseid6n, although the helmsman says thateither of these gods may possibly have taken the form of theyouthful Dionysos. But before we find ourselves in historicalHellas a complete change has taken place. Dionysosis now the horned Zagreos after his death and resurrection,and the myth of the son of Semel is anticipated or repeatedby the legend of this child of Persephone, whom his fatherZeus places beside him on his throne. In this, as in othercases, the jealousy of H&re is roused, and at her instigationthe Titans slay Zagreos, and cutting up his limbs, leave onlyhis heart, which Athen carries to Zeus. This heart is givento SemelS, who thus becomes the mother of Dionysos. Thisslaughter and cutting up of Zagreos is only another form ofthe rape of PersephonS herself. It is the stripping off ofleaves and fruits in the gloomy autumn which leaves onlythe heart or trunk of the tree to give birth to the foliage ofthe coming year, and the resurrection of Zagreos is thereturn of Persephonto' her mother Ddmdtfir* Henceforthwith D&nStr, who really is his mother also, Dionysos becomesa deity of the first rank ;land into his mythology areintroduced a number of foreign elements, pointing to thecomparatively recent influence exercised by Egypt and Syriaon the popular Hellenic religion. The opposition of theThrakian Lykourgos and the Theban Pentheus to the frenziedrites thus foisted on the cultus of Dionysosisamong the fewindications of historical facts exhibited in Hellenic mythology.DiouysosIn the Homeric hymn the^Tyrrhenian mariners avow theirintention of taking Dionysos to Egypt, or Ethiopia, or theHyperborean land $and this idea of change of abode becomesGfrote, m&t, Greece, 1 31,

BIONYSOS THE WAKDERER, 295the prominent feature in the later developements of the wan- CHAP."dering wine-god. It is unnecessary to trace these journeys >,, ,in detail, for when the notion was once suggested, everycountry and even every town would naturally frame its ownstory of the wonderful things done by Dionysos as he abodein each. Thus he flays Damaskos alive for refusing to allowthe introduction of the vine which Dionysos had discovered,and a false etymology suggested the myth that a tiger borehim across the river Tigris. But wherever he goes there isthe same monotonous exhibition of fury and frenzy by whichmothers become strange unto their own fleshand maidensabandon themselves to frantic excitement. All this is merelytranslating into action phrases which mighttell of themanifest powers of the wine-god ;and the epithets appliedto him show that these phrased were not limited merely tohis exciting or maddening influences.In his gentler aspectshe is the giver of joy, the healer of sicknesses, the guardianagainst plagues. As such he is even a lawgiver, and a promoterof peace and concord* As kindling new or strangethoughts in the mind, he is a giver of wisdom and the revealerof hidden secrets of the future. In this, as his moregenuine and earlier clxaracter, he is attended by the beautifulCharites, the maidens and ministers of the dawn-goddessAphroditfi, who give place in the later mythology to fearfultroops of raging Mainades or Bassarides, bearing in theirhands the budding thyrsus, which x&arks the connection ofthis cultus with that of the great restoring or revivifyingforces of the world.The changes which come over the person of Dionysos are The veinaccordance with the natural facts indicated by his attribntes.Weak and seemingly helpless in his infancy, likeHermes or Phoibos himself, he is to attain in the end toboundless power ; but the intervening stages exhibit in himtlie languid and voluptuous character which marks the earlyfoliage and vegetation of summer. Hence the story thatPersephong placed her child Dionysos in the hands of Inoand Athamas to be brought up as a girl ;and from thischaracter of feminine gracefulness he passes to the vehementlicence of his heated worshippers*

296 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.The mo-isPersephonS, as we have seen, is not Ms only mother 5 northe myth which makes him born of his mother Semelamidst the blaze of the thunderbolts the only legend of hisHe is spoken of sometimes as a son of 16, or ofand there was &of Di6n, or Amaltheia, the nurse of Zeus ;tale which related how, when Kadmos heard that Zens hadmade his child SemelS a mother, he placed her and her babein a chest, and launched them, as Akrisios launched Dana6and her in&nt, upon the sea. The chest, according to localtradition, was carried to Brasiai, where the babe was rescuedby In6 5 SemelS, who was found dead, being solemnly buriedon the shore. 1 SECTION IL DThe stay The myth ^ which gives most fully and most clearly theo ersehjat^yOf ear(jL through the changing year is to befound not so much in the legend of Adonis as in the legendof Persephon herself. This story as related in the Hymn toDemeter tells us how the beautiful maiden (and in her relationswith the upper world she ispre-eminently the maiden,KorS), was playing with her companions on the floweryNysian plain, when far away across the meadow her eyecaught the gleam of a narcissus flower. As she ran towardsit alone, a fragrance, which reached to the heaven and madethe earth and sea laugh for gladness, filled her with delight ;but when she stretched out her arms to seize the stalk withits hundred flowers, the earth gaped, and before her stoodthe immortal horses bearing the car of the king Polydegmdn,who placed her by his side. In vain the maiden cried aloud,and made her prayer to the son of Kronos ,for Zeus was faraway, receiving the prayers and offeringsof men in hisholy place, and there was none to hear save HekatS, who inher secret cave heard the wail of her agony, and Helios, thebright son of Hyperi6n, and one other theloving mother,1Ereller, Gr> Myth. i. 523, regards jenes Leibethron am Mafcedonisclientne name Dionysos as simply an epithet Olymp, -wo Bionysos und Orpheus seitof Zeus as the Nysaian or ripening god: alter Zeit in der Umgetrong der Mnsen'Der Name scheint einen feuchten, verehrt warden.'saftig fruchtbaren Ort zu Tbedenten, Trie

MtE SEAfeCII FOB THE LOST ilAIDEtf.whose heart was pierced as with a sword, as the cry of her CHAP.child reached her ears, a cry which echoed mournfully over . VIILhills, and vales, and waters.Then D&ntr threw the darkveil over her shoulders, and hastened like a bird over land andsea, searching for her child. But neither god nor man couldgive her tidings until, with torch in hand, she reached thecave of HekatS, who knew only of the theft of the maiden,but could not tell whither she had gone, From Helios,whom she addresses as the all-seeing, Demeter receivesclearer tidings and a deeper sympathy, and now she learnsthat her child is tho bride of Aidoneus, who reigns in theunseen laud beneath the earth. The grief of the mourningmother is almost swallowed up in rage, as sho leaves thehome of the gods and wanders along the fields and by thecities of men, so changed in form, and so closely veiled thatnone could know the beautiful queen who had tillthen sheda charm of loveliness over all the wide world. At last shesat down by the wayside, near Eleusis, where the maidens ofthe city come to draw water from the fountain. Here, whenquestioned by the daughters of Kelcos the king, the mournertells them that her name is D6, and that, having escapedfrom Cretan kidnappers, she seeks a refuge and a home,where she may nurse young children. Such a home shefinds in the house of Keleos, which the poet makes her enterveiled from head to foot. 1Not a word does she utter inanswer to tho kindly greetings of Metaneira, and the deepgloom is lessened only by the jests and sarcasms of Iamb&When Metaneira offers her wine, she says that now she maynot taste it, but asks for a draught of water mingled withflour and mint, and then takes charge of the new-bom son ofKeleos, whom she names Demophodn. Under her care thebabe thrives marvellously, though he has no nourishmenteither of bread or of milk. The kindly nurse designs, in*deed, to make Mm immortal; and thus by day she anointshim with ambrosia, and in the night she plunges him, likea torch, into a bath of flre. But her purposeis frustratedby the folly of Metaneira, who, seeing the child thus basking1The hymn writer forgets for a touched the roof, whilo a blaze of lightmoment the wiled BaterDolorosa,vIieiiat her entrance ho snys that her headstreamed through tho doors and filledthe dwelling.

298 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.in the flames, screams with fear, and is told by Dmet6r that,though, her child shall ever receive honour because he hasslumbered in her arms, still, lite all the sons of men, and likeAchilleus himself, he must die.Nevertheless, though she castthe child away from her, she abode yetin the house of Eeleos,mourning and grieving for the maiden, so that all things inthe heaven above and the earth beneath felt the weight ofher sorrow. In vain the ploughs turned up the soil, in vainwas the barley seed scattered along the farrows. In Olympositself tAre was only gloom and sadness, so that Zeus chargedIris to go and summon D&n&b&r to the palace of the gods.But neither her words nor those of the deities who follow heravail to lessen her grief or to bend her will. The mourningmother will not leave the place of her exile till her eyes havelooted upon her child once more. Then Hermes,at thebidding of Zeus, enters the dismal underworld, and Polydegm6nconsents to the return of Persephong, who leapswith delight for the joy that is coming. Still he cannotaltogether give up his bride, and PersephonS finds that shehas unwittingly eaten the pomegranate seed, 1and must comebact to Aid6neus again. But even with this condition thejoy of the meeting is scarcely lessened. A third part onlyof the year she must be queen in Hades 5 throughall theother months she is to be once more the beautiful maidenwho sported on the plains of Nysa. The wrath of D&n6t6rhas departed with her grief, the air is filled with fragrance,and the corn-fields wave with the ripening grain.in Teutonic tradition Persephonis represented by Iduna,the beautiful, whom Loti brings bact in the shape of a quail(Wachtel), a myth which cannot fail to remind us of ArtemisOrtygia. Loti here distinctly plays the part of Perseus,for the giantsaway Iduna, as the Gorgon sistersof cold hasten after him as he bearschase Perseus on his way1'Am Mufigsten ward dor Gfranat- den Mytken erscheint dor Granatbanmapfel als Symbol des Zeugung und als entsprosson aus dom auf die ErdeEmpfangm&s verwendet, was wohl davon geflossenen Blute eines des Zeugegliedwherruhrt dass er, well seme Kerne beraubten Crottes: und Nana, diezugleich Samonkerne sind, Samen- Tochter des Flussgotte Sanganifl, wurdebehaltniss 1st , und diese inspfernKerne schon dadurch schwanger, weil aid einenin zahlreicher Menge in ihm enthalten Granatapfel in ihren Schooss gelegtsind, diente er sehr passend zum Symbol hatto (Arnob, oft. Ctot fi).Kork, slv,4es Greschlechtsveyhaltnwses, . . , Tn Apfel "

THE MAIDED AND THE MOTHER. 299to the Hyperborean gardens. Tins myik in Bunsen's belief CHAP.*is an exact counterpart of tlic earliestmyth of VIn 'Herakles, ^iwho falls into tlie sleep of winter and lies thero stiff andstark till lolaus wakes him by holding a quail to his nose, 3This idea of the palsied or feeble sun is reproduced in theEgyptian llarp-i-chruti (the Grccised Harpokrates), the sunregarded as an infant, the lame child of Isis, the earth, aphrase which carries us to that wide class of legends, whichspeak of the sun, or the wind, or the light, as weak, if notimpotent, in their first manifestations. Osiriscan be avengedonly by Horos, the full-grown sun, after the vernal equinox.Although with the mythical history of Persephone aremingltxi some institutional legends explaining the ritual ofthe Eleusinian mysteries, the mythitself is so transparentas to need but little interpretation. The stupifying narcissuswith its hundred flowers springing from a single stem isin the opinion of Colonel Mure a monstrous hyperbole ; yetit must be a narcotic which lulls to sleep the vegetation ofnature in the bright yet sad autumn days when heaven andearth smile with the beauty of the dying year, and the mythnecessarily chose the flower whose name denoted this dreamylethargy. Even in her gloomy nether abode the characterof the maiden is not wholly changed. She is still notthe fierce queen who delightsin death, but tho daughteryeurning to be clasped once more in her mother's arms.That mother is carefully nursing the child of Eeleos, theseed which grows without food or drink, except the nourishmentof the dew and the heat which still lurks in the bosomof the winter-smitten earth. But while she is engaged inthis task, she ismourning still for the daughter who hasbeen taken away from her, and the dreary time which passesbefore they meet againisthe reign of the gloomy winter,which keeps the leaves off the trees and condemns the tillersof the soil to unwilling idleness* The sequel of the hymnsimply depicts the joy of returning spring and summer,when the mourning mother is exalted in glory to the everlastinghalls of Olympos. Hence, so far as the meaning oftho myth isit matters little whether Dmt&r beconcerned,herself the earth grieving for ifce lost treasures of summer,^

300 MYTHOLOGY off THIS Am NATIONS.or the dawn-mother mourningfor the desolation of theearth which she loves. 1The sleep This story is naturally found in all lands where the difofWinter,erenoe ^etween glimmer and winter is sufficiently markedto le:ive on the mind the impression of death and resurrection.Its forms of course vary indefinitely, but it is infact repeated virtually in every solar legend.The beautifulas truly theearth laughing amidst the summer flowers isbride of the sun as is the blushing dawn with its violet tints.The griefof Dftm&tftr for Koris the sorrow of Apoll&n whenbereft of Daphn3, as its converse is the mourning of Psych6for Eros or Sel&i for Endymi6n. But there is hope for allSarpSd&n, Adonis, Memndn, Arethousa shall all rise again,but only when the time is come to join the being who hasloved them, or who has the power to rouse them from theirsleep.The utter barrenness of the earth, so long as the wrathof DSm^r lasts, answers to the locking up of the treasures inTeutonic folk-lore ;"but the awakening of spring may be saidto be the result of the return, not only of the maiden fromthe underworld, but of the sun from the far-off regions towhich he had departed. In the former case the divinemessenger comes to summon the daughter from the unseenland; in the other the sleeper rests unawakened until shefeels the magic touch of the only being who can rouse her,With either of these ideas it was possible and easy to workout the myth into an infinite variety of detail; and thus iathe northern story PersephonS becomes the maiden Brynhildwho sleeps within the flaming walls, as the heroine ofthe Hindu tales lies in a palace of glass surrounded by sevenhedges of spears. But she must sleep until the knightarrives who is to slay the dragon, and the successful exploitof Sigurd would suggest the failure of weaker men who hadmade the same attempt before him. Thus we have the germof those countless tales in which the father promises to be*1Professor Mas Mullor profors the Poseidon or Helios to Apollon, (kmlatter explanation and refers tho name is thus tho actual soil from which thoto the Sanskrit dyav&matar. Lectures, deadly narcissus springs, and thereforesecond series, 517- If D&met&r, or De6, tho accomplice of Polydegmta, whileas she also styles herself, he only a D&neter is tho mysterious power whichname for the earth, then Oaia stands to causes all living things to grow andD&met&r, in the relation of Ncreus to rippn.

THIS WITCH'S GASDEN, 301stow his daughter on the man who can either leap over thevnLwail of spears or work his way through flic hedge of thorns, .or slay the monster who guards her dwelling, death beingthe penalty for all who try and fail. The victorious knightis the sun when it has gained sufficient strength to break thechains of winter and set the maiden free ;the luckless beingswho precede him are the suns which rise and set, makingvain efforts in the first bleak days of spring to rouse naturefrom her deathlike slumbers. This is the simple tale ofDornroschen or Briar Rose, who pricks her finger with aspindle and falls into a sleep of a hundred years, the spindleanswering hero to the stupifying narcissus in the myth ofPersephonS. This sudden touch of winter, arresting all thelife and activity of nature, followed in some climates by areturn of spring scarcely less sudden, would naturally suggestthe idea of human sleepers resuming their tasks at thepreoisfc point at which they were interrupted; and thus when,after many princes who had died while trying to force theirway through the hedge of briars, the king's son arrives atthe end of the fated time and findsthe way open, m air ofburlesque is given to the tale (scarcely more extravagant,however, than that which Euripides has imparted to thedeliverer of Alk&stis), and the cook on his waking gives thea blow which he had raised his hand to strike ascullion boyhundred years ago.This myth of the stealing away of the summer-child is Thetold ia Grimm's story of Bapunzel, where the witch's gardenis the earth with its fertilising powers pent tip within highwalls. Bapunzel herself is Kor6, the maiden, the Rose ofthe Alhainbra, while the witch isthe icy Rredegonda, whosestory Washington Irving has told with marvellous but un-The maiden is shut up, like Dana^ in aoonscious fidelity.high tower, but the sequel reverses the Argive legend. Itis not Zeus who comes in the form of a golden shower, butthe prince who ascends on the long golden locks whichstream to the earth from the head of Raptmzel. In thestory of the Dwarfs Persephonfi is the maiden who eats agolden apple (the narkissos), and thereupon sinks a hundredfathoms deep in the earth, where the prince (HeraMes) findsCHAP,.

302 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.her with the nine-headed dragon resting on her lap. Thoreturn of Persephon is strangely set forth in the story ofthe House in the Wood, which in other stories is the honsoor case of ice in which the seemingly dead princess islaid*This house breaks up, like the ice, at the return of spring.The sides crack, 'the doors were slammed back against thewalls ;the beams groaned as if they were being riven awayfrom their fastenings; the stairs fell down, and at last itseemed as if the whole roof fdl in. 3 On waking from hersleep the maiden finds herself in a splendid palace, surroundedby regal luxuries. The maiden has returned fromthedreaay abode of Hades to the green couch of the life-*giving mother.The The gradual lengthening of the days after the winterSing days"solstice is singularly seen in Grimm's story of the Nix of theMill Pond. la this tale, the dawn-bride, severed from herhusband, betakes herself to an old woman, who comforts herand bids her comb her long hair by the water-side arid seewhat would happen. As she plies her golden comb, a waverolling to the bank carries it away. Presently the watersbegan to bubble and the head of the huntsman (Alpheios)'appears. He did not speak, but looked at his wife sorrowfully,and at the same moment another wave rolled on andcovered his head.' A second time she goes to the oldwoman, who gives her a flute, and this time there * appearednot only the head, but half tho body of the man, whostretched out his arms towards his wife ;but at the same mo*ment a wave came and covering his head drew him downagain. 1The third time she comes with a spinning-wheel ofgold (the wheel of Lci6n), and the huntsman leaping out ofthe waters hurries away with his wife from the demonswho seek to seize them. In the story of Jungfrau Muloen(Eor), the princess and her maid are shut up in a darktower, and are constrained to scrape a hole through the wallin order to let in the light.When they are able to peep outthey see a blue sky, but everything on the earth is desolateas at the close of a northern winter, and like Cinderella, themaiden is obliged to take the cook's place in the king'spalace, where at length, as in other stories, sho becomes the

THE WINTER PRISON. 303bride of the prince. The Norse tale of the Old Dame and CHAP,her Hen repeats the same myth. Here the maiden who - VI11 '*falls down into the cave within the hill is disconsolate Ibe- .cause she cannot get back to her mother, *who is hardpinched, she knows, for meat and drink, and has no onewith her,' a/ true picture of the lonely Dem&xjr on the Eleusinianplain.The Binkrank (Hades) of the German storyis hero a Troll, who is cheated in the same way, the sisterswhom the Maiden sends back to the xipper world before herselfbeing the less genial spring-days which precede thereturn of the true summer.In the Spanish story Jungfrau Maleen assumes a loss The illattractiveform. She is here the iE-tempered princess, whois shut up in a castle which has no door. To this strongholdcomes a poor young knight in search of adventures, theOdysseus, Sigurd, Boots, or Beggar, of Greek and Teutoniclegends ;and he and his three companions for a long timestrive in vain to make a breach in the wall. The grip ofwinter is too strong to be overcome, &nd the hill of icecannot yet be scaled. At last they hear a cry which seemsto come from an old well overgrown with creeping plants ;but on opening the cover of the well, they find that the holeseems to go down to the very depths of the earth, in short,to Hades, They then set to work to twist a rope by whichto descend for the rescue of the maiden who is imprisonedin this dismal dungeon; but when it is ready, his companionsdraw off from further share in the enterprise.Sigurd alone can ride through the flames to awaken Brynhild,and the young knight alone has the courage to godown into the black abyss. The maiden who has beencarried off by a horned demon becomes, of course, theknight's wife. For awhile she behaves fairly, but at lengthher illtemper so far gets the better of her that the knightis heartily glad when the demon takes her away once more.In other words, the worn-out summer puts on the sorry garbof autumn, and is again carried away into the winter-land.But far more noteworthyis the Hindu story of Little story ofor the sun-child, as exhibiting a developement of1Patraua?, or Spanish Stories, legendary and traditional,

304 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.the myth far more elaborate than that of either Hellenic orTeutonic legends. This beautiful child, the daughter of apoor milkwoman, is stolen by two eagles,who bear her to anest made of wood hooped with iron, and having sevendoors. Here, having lavished upontreasures of the earth, they leave her, to goher all the costliestand fetch adiamond ring for her little finger.While they are stillaway, the fire in the nest, without which the maiden couldnot cook her food, isput out ;and in her perplexity, Suiy&,peering over the walls of the nest, sees smoke curling upafar off, and going towards it, finds herself at the house ofa Eakshas, or evil demon, whose mother tries to keep herthat she may serve as a feast for her son. S{try& Bad, however,will not stay; and when the Eakshas, learning fromhis mother what a prize he had missed, comes to the nest, hefinds the little maiden asleep, and in his frantic efforts tobreak open the walls, leavesthe crack* of the door.a piece of his claw sticking inThis nail is, of course, the spindlowhich wounds Briar Rose and the narcissus which stupifiesPersephonS and;thus Suryft, placing her hand unwittinglyupon it, loses all consciousness. In this state she is foundby a Bajah, who, after gazing long upon her, feels sure thather slumber is not the sleep of death, and spies the clawsticking in her hand. As soon as it is taken out, Sfiryftrevives, and becomes the bride of the Rajah, thus rousingthe jealousy of his other wife, as 16 rouses the jealousy ofH&S ;and like 16, Sury&is made to disappear, not by thestinging of a gadfly, but by the fate which H6r had designedfor Semel& and her child Dionysos. Sftry& is enticed to theedge of a tank and thrown in ;but on the spot where shefell there sprang up a golden sunflower, which the Eajahsees as he wanders about in his inconsolable agony. Theflower bends lovingly towards him, and he lavishes on it thewealth of affection which he had bestowed on Siiryft, untilthe jealous wife has the flower earned into a forest andburnt. Prom its ashes a mango tree rises, with one fairblossom on its topmost bough, which swells into a fruit sobeautiful that it is to be kept only for the Rajah- Thismango, when ripe, falls into the can of the poor milkwoman,

EARTH, THE MOTHER, 305who carries it home, and is astonished to see that the can CHAP.contains not a mango, but a tiny lady richly dressed in red .and gold and no bigger than the fruit.But she grows withVI(*- ,wonderful quickness, and when she reaches her full stature,she is again seen by the Rajah, who claims his bride, but isrepulsed by the milkwoman. The truth, however, cannotbe hid : and the Rajah and the milkwoman each recognisethe lost maiden, when Suryfi, tells her own tale and confessesthat an irresistible impulse made her throw herself into themilk can, while her form was yet that of the mango.The milkwoman of thismyth is simply Demeter in the Theaspect with which the Vedic hymn-writers were most familiar.To them the earth was pre-eminently the being who nourishesall living things with heavenly milk, who satisfies alldesires without being herself exhausted. 1The eagles whichcarry the child are the clouds of sunrise and sunsetthe Asvinsor the Dioskouroi, who cany away Aithra from Athens,the swan-maidens of Teutonic folk-lore, the Erinyes and Harpyiaiof Hellenic legend. The nest is the secret place wherePersephonS is hidden, whether Hades, or the lonely heathwhere Brynhild sleeps, or the gloomy Niflheim where Fafnirguards the stolen treasures. But dreary though it may be,it is not without fire to keep up the maiden's life, as that ofDemophoon is strengthened by the fiery bath of D&oa&t&r.The journey of Suryil to the Rakshas' country denotes theblight and frost which may nip and chill the first vegetationof spring. From this slumber she is roused by the Rajah,who, like Sigurd, is the sun. The jealousyof the elderqueen is matched, not only by that of H$r, but moreprecisely by that of Eos, the rival of Prokris, Thus Sftry&,exposed to countless dangers, is yet imperishable. If throwninto the water, she rises like Aphrodite in renewed beauty :if consumed by fire, the fruit-tree rises from her ashes,1I can but follow here the writer of in the Rfy Fedet. We see, however, aa very able review of Miss Frore's conception as early as that of the G&Drccan Tales, which appearedill the Pumm&tur of JEschyloa in the invocationfyectafnr for April 25, 1868. The May the Earth which the Afrvins meted*piisHiigcfl quntnl are from the Athana out, on which Vishnu hath stepped,Veda, but these are perhapsmore talu- which the mighty Indra ha rid of allable for the purpose of illustrating the his enemies, may Earth pour out hercurrent folk-lore than if they occurred milt'mother Earth to me her sonVOL. n.x

306 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN STATIONS.BOOK until at last the mangofalls into the milkwoman's can._ IL -as the ripe fruit must fall into the lap of the earth, itsmother. 1Holda. The idea of Dm&tr finds an expression in the TeutonicEolda, the benignant goddess or lady, who reappears asPrau Berchta, the bright maiden, the Phaethousa or Lampedof the Odyssey. The few details which we have ofthese beings agree strictly with the meaning of their names.Thus Holda gently wraps the earth in a mantle of snow, andwhen the snow falls Holda is said to be making her bed, ofwhich the feathers fly about, reminding us of the Scythianstatement made by Herodotos that the air in the northernmostpart of Europe is always full of feathers. This Frau Holda(verelde) is transformed into Pharaildis, a name said to havebeen given to Herodias, who in the medieval myth was confoundedwith her daughter, and of whom the story was toldthat she loved the Baptist, and determined never to wod anyman if she could not be his wife ;that Herod, discoveringthis, ordered John to be put to death, and that the bringingof the head on a charger was not for any purposes of insult,,but that she 2might bathe it with her tears. Thehead fliesfrom her kisses, and she is left mourning like Aphrodit forAdonis. A third part of the human race is made subject toher by way of atonement for her sufferings. The same mythis told of dame Habonde in the Eoman de la Rose. 3The Elei,- It is in this kindly and attractive guise that PersephonSappears in the myth of Eleusis. Here the story took rootmost firmly; and the fountain where the daughters of Keleosaccosted the mourning mother, and the spot where lamMassailed her with friendly jests, were pointed out to theveneration of the faithful who came tocelebrate her solemnmysteries. To the Eleusinians, beyond a doubt, the wholenarrative was4genuine and sacred history. But this beliefwould, of course, explain to them as littleas it would to us1The modern Hindu storyteller is, of the nature of thoir materials a condoubtless,not more conscious of the ception which must almost have reachedmeaning and origin of this Ule than the the stage of knowledge in lie author ofauthors of the Homeric hymns were of the Hymnto H&rmes.the myths of Aphrodite", or aDionysos. Grimm, D. M. 262.Now and then we can scarcely suppose 3 2b t 265.that they foil to have some conception*Grrote, History of Greece, i. 55,

DfiMftTfiR AND USIOtf. 307tlie origin and nature of the story. Both are alike laid bare CHAP.by a comparison which, has shown that every incident may ^^'^be matched with incidents in other legends so far resemblingeach other as to leave no room for questioning their realidentity, yet so far unlike as to preclude the idea that theone was borrowed from or directly suggested by the other.But the Eleusinian could adduce in evidence of his belief notonly the mysteries which were there enacted, but the geographicalnames which the story consecrated ;and here hefound himself in the magic circle from which the inhabitantsof Athens or Argos, Arkadia or Lykia, Debs or Ortygia,could never escape. Eleusis itself was a town or village inthe land of the dawn-goddess Athene, and the name denotedsimply the approach of Derneter to greet her returning child.If, again, it pleased the Athenians to think that Persephon4was stolen away from Kol&nos, or even from the spot whereshe met her mother, there were other versions which localisedthis incident on some Nysaian plain, as in the Homerichymn, in the Sicilian Enna, or near the well of Arethousa.As we might expect, the myth of Derneter is intertwined jwm&tfcrwith the legends of many other beings, both human and all d la 'Adivine* Like Horakles and Zeus, she has, in many lands,many loves and many children. As the wife of Poseidonshe is the mother of 1Despoina and Orion. The earth mustlove the beautifully tinted skies of morning and thus D6m&-;ter loves lasion, the son of Zeus and Hemera, the heavenand the day, or of Minos and the nymph Pyronea, 2 andbecomes the mother of Plouton or Ploutos, the god whoguards the treasures of the earth, and whom the Latinsidentified with Hades* She must hate those who spoil hertrees and waste her fruits jhence she punishes with fearful1Max Muller, Lectures, second series, a like kind. There are but few which517 , iii. Apollod. 6, 8. would be found to withstand the test of8The name Minos, it but even -where thishas been already philological analysis ;pnid, i, like Monu, the same word as is the case, we are fully justified annHin the measurer or thinker. But selecting those versions which explainMinos himself is the husband of IPasi- themselves. The mere fact that m onephii& the and the father of of them lasion. is called a son of Zeuslight-giver,Ariadne who guides Theseus to the den and Hemera, is sufficient evidence thatof the Muiotauroa. It is scarcely neees- thin was one way of accounting for hissarytogive all the names which occur existence; and this phrase is transinthe storyof laswn or other myths of parent.

308 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.BOOK hunger tlie earth-tearer Erysichthon. As possessing and^_ IL _-guarding the wealth of the earth, she takes her place amongthe Chthonian deities, whose work is carried on unseen bymortaleyes. As teaching men how to plough, to sow, andto reap, she is Dmt6r Thesinophoros, the lover of law,order, peace and justice.Ceres and Of the Latin Ceres it isenough to say that altlxmgh, likeSaturn.her nameot]ier ^^ deitiegj glie j^ no S p eeiai mythology,at least is significant. She is strictly the ripener of thefruits of the. earth; and since, as such, she could have noattribute wholly inconsistent with the character of the GreekD&mMr, it became easytold of the Hellenic goddess.1to attach to Ceres all the storiesWith the name of Ceres weought to connect that of Saturn, a god who has no featurein common with the Greek Kronos with whom the laterEomans identified him, as they identified his wife Ops, aname corresponding in meaning with that of Ploutos, withEhea. Saturn, as the sower of the seed, 2 answers far morenearly to the Greek Triptolemos, who istaught by DSm3tr.At the end of his work Saturn is said to have vanished fromthe earth, as Persephon disappears when the summer hascome to an end jand the local tradition went that Latiumwas his lurking-place.3SECTION IILTHE CHILDREN OF THE EARTH.Enchtho- As the Eleusinian myth tells the story of the earth andmos 'her treasures under the name of DSm&Sr, so the Athenianlegend tells the same storyunder the name of Erechtheus orErichthonios, a son of Hephaistos, according to one version,by Atthis, a daughter of Kranaos, according to another, byAth&n herself. 4 In the latter version Ath&n6 becomes his1The name has by some been identifiedwith the Greek Kor&, by others with2 Br^al, Hertnde et Ctoctui t 38* The name must necessarily be tracedthe Latin Garanus or Recaranus* ByProfessor Max Muller it is referred tothrough its cognate forms; and thus,before we can judge positively,we mustthe root which yields the Sanskrit Sarad, compare it with Latini, Lafcini, La vim,autumn, viz. sri or sri, to cook or ripen. &c. See vol. ip. 235.Sri, or Lakshmi, is in the Eamayana the 4As Kranaa is a title of AthlnA,1wife of Vishnu Like Aphrodite ,&he Atthis thfi child of Kranaos is probablyrises from the sea, but with four arms, only Ath6n6 under a sliglit disguise,and her dwelling is in the Lotos.

BRECHTHBUS AND KEKROPS. 309mother when she goes to Hephaistosto ask for a suit of CHAP,armour, the fire-fashioned raiment of the morning. When thechild is bom she nourishes it, as D6m&ter nursed Demopho6n,with the design of renderingit immortal ; and, placing itin a chest, she gave the child to Pandrosos, Herse, and1Agraulos, charging them not to raise the lid.They disobey,and finding that the coils of a snake are folded round thebody of the child, are either slain by Athene or throw themselvesdown the precipiceof the Akropolis. Henceforth thedragon-bodied or snake-bound Erichthonios dwells in theshrine of Athene, and under her special protection._,_'There were other stories of Erichthonios or Erechtheus 2 Erpchwhichsome myikographers assign to a grandson of the tlleussupposed child of Hephaistosand Athdnd. Of this latterErectheus, the san of Pandion, it is said that he was killedby the thunderbolts of Zeus, after his daughters had beensacrificed to atone for the slaughter of Eumolpos by theAthenians a tale manifestly akin to the punishment ofTantalos after the crime committed on his son Pelops.But the legend of Erichthonios is merely a repetition of Kekrops.the myth of the dragon-bodied Kekrops, who gave his nameto the land which had till then been called Akt, and whobecame the father not only of Erysichthon but of the threesisters who proved faithlessin the charge of Erichthonios.To the time of Kekrops is assigned one version of the storjrbut herewhich relates the rivalry of Poseidon and Athn4 ;Poseidon produces not a horse, but a well on jihe Akropolis,a work for which he is careless enough to produce no witness,while AtliflnS makes her olive tree grow up beneath*The names Pandrosos and fl>rnAholding a double personality. *Thetranslate each other: thn addition of Homeric Scholiast treated ErichtheusAgraulos merely states that the dew and Erichthonios as the same personcovers the fields. under two nam?s; and since in regard*Of the name Enchthonioa, Prollpr, to such mythical persons there exists noGr. Myth.I 169, Bays, *Der Name . . . other test of identity of the subjectnehtcigpntlich emen Genius der frueht- except perfect similarity of attributes,baron Erdbodens bedeutet/ and com- tins seems the reasonable conclusion.'itpareswith ipMbiy*, $#&>Aos, and Grote, ffutery ofi. Greece, 284. Theother words. If Erechtheus and Erich- case is, however, altered when we findthonios ure names for one and the same the names in the mythology of otherperson, the explanation which regards nations, in which the origin of the wordthe nnm as a compound of xtffr, the no longer remains open to doubt,earth, seems to become at least doubtful. Preller, Or. Myth, n. 136.There is, however, no ground for tip-

310 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ABYA2T RATION'S.the eye of Kekrops, who gives judgment that the city shall1bear the name of the dawn-goddess.A more transparent myth of the earth is found iu thehistory of Pelops, the son of Tantalos and Dione, or as somehave it, Klytia or Euryanassa. His father in his magnificentpalace and with his inexhaustible wealth is manifestly onlyanother form of Ixifin and Helios ;and the child whom heslays represents not less clearly the fruitsof the earth firstsustained by his warmth and then scorched by his ragingheat.This horrible banquet of his flesh he sets before Zeus,for the ravagesof drought areaccomplishedin the face ofthe blue heaven ; but none of the gods will eat of it, exceptDmtr, who, plunged in grief for the loss of her child, eatsthe shoulder: ajid thus the story ran that when at thebidding of Zeus Hermes boiled the limbs and restored themto life, an ivory shoulder supplied the place of the partdevoured by Dm6tr. 3 In the story of Eippodameia, aname which occurs as an epithet of Aphrodit, 3 Pelopsplays the part of the successful hero in the myths of Bryn-or Briar Kose, The heads of those who have failed tohild,conquer Oinomaos in the chariot race stare down upon himfrom the doorposts ;but nothing daunted, he makes a compactwith Myrtilos the charioteer to loosen the wheels ofOinamaos. Pelops is thus the victor; but as even thesummer which succeeds in ripening the grape must die, soPelops is made to fall under the curse of Myrtilos, whom heungratefully drowns in the sea. This curse was wroughtout in the fortunes of all his children, whose life and deathdo but exhibit one of the many aspects of the great tragedyof nature.1ThemeaningofthemythofKekrops* Hence the notion that his deissufficiently clear, whether we adoptor scendants likewise had one shoulderreject Preller's explanation of the word white as ivory.Pmdar rejects tho story,'Ser Name schemt mit /capirta und preferring the version that he wasKpfaiov zusammenhangen, so dass sich carried off by Poseid6n, as Gfanymedesalso schon dadurch die Bcaehung auf was taken by the eagle to Olympoa.Frucht und Erndte ankundigen wurde ' 01. i. 40.Gr. Myth, n 137. Preller, Gr. ii.Myth. 385.

311SECTION IV.THE PRIESTS OF THE GREAT MOTHER,The earth itself, as the soil distinguished from the fruits CHAP.which grow from it or the power which nourishes them, is - ,known as Gaia in the Hesiodic Theogony, where she is Gaianuddescribed seemingly as self-existent, for no parents areassigned either to her or to Chaos, Tartaros, and Bros. Allthis, however, with the assignment of Erebos and Nyx aschildren of Chaos, and of Aither and Heinera as children ofNyx, the night, nmy have been to the poet as mere anallegory as the birth of the long hills which together withthe troubled sea are brought into being by Gaia. Thenfollows the bridal of the earth and sky, and Gaia becomesthe mother of a host of children, representing either the sununder the name of Hyperifin, or the forcesnatural world, tlieat work in thethunders and lightnings, here called theround-eyed giants, and the hundred-handed monsters, oneof whom, Briareos, rescues Zeus from the wiles of Hr6,Athene and Poseid6n. But in all this there is really notmuch more mythology than in the little which has to besaid of the Latin Tellus or Terra, a name, the meaning ofwhich was never either lost or weakened. It was otherwisewith Mars, a god who, worshipped originallyasthe ripenerof fruits and grain, was afterwards from the accident of hisname invested with the attributes of the fierce and brutalAres of the Greeks* 1 In his own character, as fosteringwealth of com and cattle, he was worshipped at Prseneste,as Herodotos would have us believe that Scythian tribesworshipped Ar&s, with the symbol of a sword, one of themany forms assumed by the Hindu Linga- As such, he waspre-eminently the father of all living things, Marspiter, orMaspiter, the parent of the twin-born Romulus and Bemus.1The root is mar, which yields the 'Marmr and Marmor, old Latin namesname of the Maruts an4 many other for Maw, are reduplicated forms , andmythical beings. See vol. I p. 32, &c* in the Oacan Mamers the r of theHare, with his common epithet Silvanus, reduplicated syllableis lost. Mayors i&i the softener of the earth and the more difficult to explain,for thmi is noripnu'r of its harvests. The name instance in Latin of n in tho middle ofToccurs under the forms Mamers and a word being changed to v. Lectures,Mavors, Of these Professor Muller says, second series, 324.

312 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAtf NATIONS.As the ripener and grinder of the corn he isPilnnmus andPicumnns, 1 although the process of disintegration constantlyat work on mythical names converted these epithetsinto two independent deities, while another myth affirmedthat he received the name Picumnus as being the god towhom the woodpecker was consecrated.Another representative of the earth is Rhea,* herself achild of Ouranos and Gaia, and the wife of Kronos, bywhom she becomes the mother of the great Olympiandeities Eestia, D&nt6r, BM, Hades, Poseiddn, all swallowedby their father, and lastly, Zeus, who is saved to bebrought up in the cave of Dikt. But throughout Bhearemained a name and a power, worshipped as the greatreproductive force of the world, as producing life throughdeath, and thus as honoured by the sacrifice of the reproductivepower in her ministers. Thus she became preeminentlythe great mother, worshipped under the titlesM& and Ammas, and perhaps even more widely known andfeared as Kybel$ or Kybfibfi. 812'Pilummis et Picumnus, deux The origin of tho name is doubtful.anciens paiticipes presents,k dm gui Preller, Gr. Myth, i. 502, inclines tobrow et Is dieu qui fend. Le pilum, regard it as a form of Oea, Gaia, Deo,avant d'etre 1'arme du soldat roraain, si instancing as changes of 8 into the/>c&ebre chez les historiens, fut le pilon words Kripfafiov, caduceue; raendies,qui sert a broyer le bl6 Pttwn est une medidies.contraction de f&ttikm, et Yient de* This name PreBer explains, afterpmsere. Pila est le vase oh Von broyait, Hesychios, as denoting her abode on theet Pilumnufe, comme le dit expresse'ment lulls: but such interpretations must beServius (Mn. ix. 4), le dieu des boulangers.Picumwis yient d'une raciue $10 number of foreign word** were associatedregarded with great suspicion. A largequi Tent dire fendre on la trouve dans with the :worship of such doities aspwus, le pic-vert qui creuse le tronc Bhea and and Dwnysps,we are as littledes arbre&, pour y chercher sa noumture justified in one withidentifyinganotheret y loger ses 'petits Bre'al, Hercule et as* we are an adopting the conclusion of1Cacus, 34.Herodotos, that Athene is only anotherThe Latin Jupiter Pi&tor is another form of the Egyptian word Neith Togod whose name belongs to the same Mas, as a name of Ilhpu, Pupus as aroot with Pilumnus Of this deityProfessor Muller says that he 'wasoriginally the god who crushes with thothunderbolt, and the Moke Martisseem to rest on an analogous conceptionof the nature of Mars 'Lectures, secondseries, 324. It seems more probablethat Jupiter Pistor, like Hars Silrauusor Pilumnus, was a rustic god Theexpression Molae Martis, like the Greekfi&Kos "Aprjos, is one which might suiteither the crushing or the softeninggod.title of the Phrygian #PU8 prmer-lycorresponds Prellw, j/j. i. 511 Theyare no more than tho terms Pater andMater applied to Zeus and D66, or All-Father aa a name of Odin. The oldtitle of Ehea is applied, whether withor without design, to the Virgin Mary.Thus Dr tfaber, writing to Mr. WattsBus&ett, asks him to think of him *araidthe Clones of Chri&tian Rome on thoseSunday evenings in October, all dedicatedto dearest Mama 'J% p. 329.

PHOIBOS AND THE TELCIllNES. 313With the name of Bhea are connected the mystic beingsCHAP.known as the Kourtes, the Korybantes, the Idaian -_ VITn> _^Daktyloi, and the Kabeiroi. Into the ethnological specu-The Koulationsof which these names have been made the subject i^JJ1"1it is unnecessary to enter. It is as possible that they may, Baktyls.some or all of them, denote races displaced and overthrownby the advancing Hellenic tribes, as that the Trolls mayrepresent aboriginal inhabitants driven to the mountainsby the Teutonic invaders. But in the absence of all historicalevidence it is as useless to affirm with Dr. Thirlwall,as it is unnecessary to deny,that the name Telchines isonly another name for the historical Phenician people, orthat the legends related by them cembody recollections ofarts introduced or refined by foreigners who attracted theadmiration of the rude tribes whom they visited.' 1 Itisenough to remark here that the art of the Telchines issimply that of Hephaistos, Like him, they forge ironweapons or instruments for the gods and : they resemblethe Kyklfipes not only in this their work, but in theirparentage, which exhibits them as sons of Poseid&n, orThalassa, the troubled sea. Thus also we see in them notonly the fellow-helpers of Hephaistos in the Iliad, but therude shepherds of the Odyssey. The "clouds from which thelightningsdart are the one the mists :clinging to the hillsare the other. Hence they are creatures without feet, asthe Phaiakian ships have neither rudders nor oars. Theycan pour down rain or snow on the earth, and, like theclouds, they can change their form at will ;and thus theyare destroyed by Phoibos in the guise of a wolf, as the sun'srays scatter the mists at noon-day. In this capacity ofchanging their form and bringing storms upon the earthwe have ail that is needed as the groundwork of theirreputation as sorcerers, even if we refuse to indulge in anyconjectures as to the origin of the name, 2 Their office asnurses of Poseiddn* is even more significant, as showing'HM, Gr&ee, part i. eh. iii. Schlage, wdche das Bewusstaem ver-*MtorNiunc TA;$w iat ahamlriten dunkt-ln, rt\xw*s genannt hatte.'i. 473.von W\7 m der Bodeutung Lezaubera, Preller, Or. Myth.(lurch IfcruhrunR berucken, d*her * Thirlwall, Hist. Greece, i. 76.Stesickoroi* dio Keren und betaubende

314 MYTHOLOGY OF THE AEYAX XATIOXS.their close affinity to the nurses of Zens in the cave otDikt&, the soft clouds which hang at dawn on the easternsky as contrasted with the rough mists which seem to broodover and to feed the sea. Hence the story recorded byStrabo that those of the Telchines who went with Bhea toCrete were there called Kour&es, the guardians of the child(wvpos) Zeus. 1 These are the dancers clad in everlastingyouth, like the lovely cirri which career in their mysticmovements through the sky, the Daktyloi, or pointers, ofIda, the nourishing earth, the bride of 3Dyaus the heaven.These also are beings endowed with a strange wisdom andwith magical powers, and from them Orpheus received thecharm which gave to his harp its irresistible power. Theirnumbers vary, sometimes only a few being seen, sometimesa troop of fifty or a hundred, like the fiftychildren ofDanaos, Thestios, or'Asterodia.TheKa- That the Kabeiroi and Korybantes were sometimes re-Koryban^ garded as exhibiting only another phase of the idea whichtes -underlies the conception, of the mythical Kourfrfces, is a pointscarcely open to doubt. Like the latter, they have a protectingand soothing power, and hence are nourishers of theearth and its fruits, and the giversof wine to the Argonautai.They are sons or descendants of Hephaistos or Proteus, or ofZeus and Kalliope, all names pointing to the generation ofvapours from the sea or the sky. But as the myths of Oacusor the Kykl6pes seem in some of their features to indicatethe phenomena of volcanic action, so it is quite possible thatsuch phenomena may have modified the stories told of theseveral classes of these mysterious beings. The fires of theKykl6pes may be either the lightnings seen in the heaven orthe flames which burst from the earth ;and the mysteriousflash which reveals the treasures of the earth to the Arabianprince or the Teutonic Tanhaiiser may equally representboth.1Preller, Gr. Myth i. 103. grow up when the real meaning of the* The connection of SdUruXos and name was wfakened or forgotten,digitus with the root from which sprung although it would be scarcely an extheGreek felKWju, the Latin indico and aggeration to say that the clouds areother words, is generally admitted. The the fingers of the earth which she canmyth that they served Ehea as the point as she wills,fingers serve the hand would naturally

315SECTION V.THE PEOPLE OF THE WOODS AND WATERS.The woods and lulls form the special domain of the Satyrs, CHAP.a worthless and idle race with pointed ears, small horns, and ^ VIILthe tail of a goat or a horse. Their life is spentin wild The Sahuntsthrough the forest, in tending their flocks, or in idledalliance and dancing with the nymphs, Their music mayconstantly be heard as they play on the flute, bagpipe, orcymbals, or on the syrinx of Pan. Their capricious andcunningnature makes them no safe companions for man.Nay, if the sheepfold were entered and the cattle hurt orstolon, if women were scared by goblin shapes as they passedthrough the woods, this was the doing of the Satyrs. Wecan scarcely bo at a loss in our search for the origin of thesemythical beings and their characteristics. When we findthem represented as sprung, like the nymphs and the mysticdancers, the Kouretes, from the daughters of Hekataios orPhoroneus, or as the offspring of Hermes and Iphthim&;when also we find that Pan, whom they resemble in outwardform and powers of music, is also a son of Hermes and theBymph Bryops or Kallisto, or of Penelop who weaves themorning clouds, we can scarcely fail to see in these Satyrsthe phenomena of the life which seems to animate the woodsas the branches of the trees move in wild dances with theclouds which course through the air above, or assume formsstrange or grotesque or fearful, in the deep nooks and glensor in the dim and dusky tints of the gloaming. At suchhours, or in such places, the wayfarer may be frightenedwith strange sounds like the pattering of feet behind him, orugly shapes which seem to bar the path before him, or entanglehis feet and limbs as he forces his way through thebrushwood. If we translate all this into the language ofmythology, we have more than the germ of all that is toldus about the Satyrs. But the source thus opened was foundto be a fruitful one, and the Satyrs became the companionsof Dionysos, the lord of the wine-cup and the revel, or ofHerakles, the burly and heedless being who goes throughlife toiling for a mean and worthless master, yet takingtyrs

316 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.BOOK such enjoyment as the passing hours may chance to bring,' _ , him. 1 The burlesque form in which they exhibited Heraklesas robbed of his weapons, or teased and angered by theirbanter until they take to their heels, suggested a methodwhich might be applied to other gods or heroes, and calledinto existence the Greet satyric drama. Nor could a limitbe placed to their strange vagaries, or the shapes whichthey might assume. The wild revel of the woods mightbe followed by a profound stillness, of whicli men wouldspeak as the sleep of Satyrs wearied out with dancing anddrinking. The white clouds, which may be seen like shipsanchored in a blue sea, hanging motionless over the thicket,would be nymphs listening to their music or charmed( bytheir wooing.ThaSei- Of these Satyrs the oldest are named the Seilnoi, orchildren of SeilSnos.But although there are between thesebeings many points of likeness, both in form and character,there is this marked distinction, that while the Satyrs dwellamong woods and hiUs, the Seil&aoi haunt streams, fountains,or marshy grounds. They are thus, like the Naiads, spiritsof the waters, with attributes borrowed from, or shared with,the clouds that float above them. The grotesque form whichSeil&nos is made to assume may be an exaggeration of thewestern Greeks, who saw in the ass which bore him a meresign of his folly and absurdity, while it points rather to thehigh value set on the ass by Eastern nations. It was, in fact,the symbol of his wisdom and his prophetical powers, and notthe mere beast of burden which, in western myths, staggeredalong under the weight of an unwieldy drunkard.The same1With these creatures we are brought Smith- and thus tho whole fabric ofalmost into the domain of modern fairy modern superstition is but *itravesty ofmythology, of which it is enough here myths with which in other forms we areto say that there is scarcely an important already familiar, Thus m these mythsfeature in it which has not its parallel dwarfed or maimed beings abound;in the so-called classical mythology of amongthosebeingtheKak>irw,theIdaianGreece and Koine The Latin Lares areDaktyls, the Athenian Anakes the theBrownies, the Venus who takes Etruscan Tages, and the Lakedaimonianaway the lover of 1Psyche the ,Kalypso Dioskouroi. So too tho Latin Lemureswho seeks to the lay spell of her beauty and Larvae arc the ghosts of modernon Odysseus, is the Fairy Queen of days, and the Manes are literally thoTanhauser and of True Thomas, the Goodies of popular Teutonic super-KyHops is the misshapen Unsk. the station,limping Hephaistos is Wayland the

MIDAS AND MABSYAS. 317iiloa doubtless lay at the root of the story of Midas, to whom CHAPthe ass's ears were at first not his shame but his glory.-This Phrygian king is, in short, only Tantalos under anothername> and with Tantalos, as with Sisyphos, the idea of wealthis inseparable from that of wisdom or craft. If, again, Tantalosand Sisyphos have palaces rich in all conceivable treasures,Midas has his beautiful rose-gardens, in which thecountry folk catch Seilenos, who isbrought bound before theof allking. By him Midas is instructed in the knowledgeevents, whether past or future, as well as in the origin andnature of all things. In return for the kindness with whichhe is treated, Dionysos promises to grant to Midas any wishMidas asks that everything whichwhich he may express.ho touches may be turned into gold, and finds to his dismaythat it is as impossible to swallow his food as the dishes onwhich it is laid. To his prayer for deliverance the answer isthat he must gb and wash in the stream of Paktolos, whichhas ever since retained a golden hue. This myth is nothingmore than a story framed on a saying, like the Germanproverb, * Morgenstunde hat Gold im Munde/ 'Morninghourhas gold in her mouth/ land simply expressed the factthat the newly risen sun sheds a glory over all the earth, inother words, turns everything into gold. The sequel, whichspeaks of the misery of Midas, would be suggested by theliteral interpretation of the words, while the command tobathe in the river finds a meaning in the fact that theflaming splendours of the sun are quenched when, like Endymifin,he plunges beneath the waters. A faint reflectionof similar ideas seems to mark the story which accounted forthe ass'sMarsyasears, as a punishment for adjudging the prize toin his contest with Phoibos. It now becomes amysterious secret; but his servant discovers it, and beingunable to keep it to himself, digs a hole and whispers into itthat Midas has ass's ears. A reed growing up on the spotrepeats the words, and the rushes aE round take up thestrain, and publish the fact to all the world.1Max ItiillH, Lttfww, second aeries, 378. Tfcis proverb has acquired thoVI11 ' -didactic moaning of the English dfstith,1Early to bed and early to riseMakes a man healthy, wealthy, and wise/which keeps up the same connexion between wealth and wisdom.

318 MYTHOLOGY OF THIS ARYAN NATIONS.The name of Seil&aos as a water-sprite suggests to Prellerits affinity with the Italian Silanus, a word for gushing orTV Latm bubbling water ;nor is it easy to avoid a comparison with theanus *Seirenes, who, like Seil&aos, haunt the waters. As thedweller in the fertilising streams, he can bestow draughts ofwonderful sweetness ;and the wine which his son Evanthesgives to Odysseus is pronounced by Polyphemos to be moredelicious than honey. As such also, he is the guardian andteacher of Dionysos, for from the life-giving streams alonecan the grape acquire its sweetness and its power.Priapos.But this higher and more dignified aspect of Seilnos,which led Plato to speak of Sokrates as getting wisdom fromhim as well as from his scholar Marsyas, was obscured inthe folk-lore of the western tribes by the characteristics ofjollity and intemperance exhibited by the Satyrs and theHerakles whom they cheat and tease, while his office as thefertiliserof the vineyard brought him into ^close connexionwith Priapos, who exhibits the merely sensuous idea ofreproduction in its grossest form, and of whom we need onlysay here that he is a son of Dionysos, Adonis, Hermes, orPan, while his mother isAphrodit6 or the Naid Chionc,names denoting simply the relations of the. waters with thewinds or the sun. 11Priapos is, in short, only a coarser to comf . The same idea was oxprossodform of Vishnu, Proteus, Onnes and by tho Latin Mutmus, Mutumis, or Mutotherlike beings and as such, he has tunus, who was represented by thelike them, the power of predicting things same symbol.

S19CHAPTEE IS.THE UNDEBWORLD*SficriON IHADES.THE myths of DemetCr and PersephonS have already carriedus to the hidden land beneath the earth'ssiarface, in whichthe seeds of all life lie dormant, until Zens sends Hermes toTreasure>fetch the maiden back to her mother, or in other words,until Sigurd comes to waken Brynhild out of her sleep.Hence, as containing the germs of all future harvests, thisunseen region becomes at once a land of boundless wealth,and othereven if we take no thought of the gold, silver,metals stored up in its secret places.This wealth may be oflittle use to its possessor, and poverty beneath the sunlitheaven may be happiness compared with the dismal pomp ofthe underworld ;but its kingis nevertheless the wealthiestof all monarchs, and thus the husband of Persephon6 l isknown especially as Plouton, the king who never smiles inThe buriedthe midst of all his grandeur.On this slender framework was raised the mythology of Had?* orHades, a mythology which runs continually into the storiesrelated of the dark powers who fight with and are vanquishedby the lord of light.The dog of the hateful king, theKerberos of the Hesiodie Theogony, is but another form ofOrthros, who is called his brother ;and Orthros is only areflectionof the Vedic Vritra, the dark robber who hidesaway the cattle of Indra. But the conception of Hades asthe ruler of this nether region is precisely parallel to that of1A fltory was told that Hades was transformation is, of course, a mere playalso a lover of the nymph Leukfl, who on her name, while the myth reaolrcaon her death was changed into a white itself into the phrase that the nightpopkr and planted in Klyeioa. The loves the tender light of morning.

,_^_,long320 MYTHOLOGY OF tfHE ARYAK NATIONS.BOOK Poseid6n as the god of the sea, and of the sea alone. Soas the word Kronides remained a mere epithet, theZeus of Olympos was also Zenoposeid6n, and as ZeusKatachthonios he would be also Hades, Ais, or Aidoneus,the king of the lower world; and the identity of the two isproved not only by these titles, but also by the power which,after the triple partition, Hades, lite Poseiddn,retains ofappearing at will in Olympos. Zeus then, as Hades, issimply the unseen, or the being who can make himself aswell as others invisible. As such,. he wears the invisiblecap or helmet, which appears as the tarn-kappe or nebelkappeof Teutonic legends. This cap he bestows on Hermes,who is thus enabled to enter unseen the Gorgons' dwelling,and escape the pursuit of the angry sisters. But his homeisalso the bourne to which all the children of men mustcome, and from which no traveller returns; and thus hebecomes the host who must receive all under his roof, andwhom it is best therefore to invoke as one who will givethem a kindly welcome, in other words, as Polydekt&g,Polydegm6n, or Pankoit&s, the hospitable one who willassign to every man his place of repose. Still, none mayever forget the awful character of the gate-keeper (TTV-\apTris)-of the lower world, He must be addressed, not asHades the unseen, but as Plout6n the wealthy, the Euveraof the Ramayana ;and the averted face of the man whooffered sacrificeto him may recall to our minds the horridrites of the devil-worshippers of the Lebanon. 1Hades, then, in the definite authority assignedto himofthetfn- after the war with the Titans, is the only being who is"regarded as the lord who remains alwaysin his dismalkingdom, for PersephonS, who shares his throne, returns forhalf the year as Kor to gladden the hearts of men, andZagreos, Adonis, and Dionysos are also beings over whomthe princeof darkness has no permanent dominion. Of the1Like Hermes, and Herakles, Hades and refuses to lot it free untilhas also assumed a burlesque form, as her the ladder by which he climbs outin the German story of Old Rinkrank, of the mountain-depths into the openwho dwells in a great cave into which air. Thus escaping, she returns withthe King's daughter falls in themnun- hor heiuenly lover, and despoils Binktainof glass* (ice) The unwilling wife rank (Ploutin) of all his treasures*contrives to catch his beard in a door,

THE RIVERS OF HADES. 321geography of this land of the dead we need say little more CHAP.than that it is no genuine growth of mythology. It was _ * r _-easy for poets and mythographers, when they had oncestarted with the idea of a gloomy land watered with rivers ofwoe, to place Styx, the stream which makes men shudder,as the boundary which separates it from the world of livingin whichmen, and to lead through it the channels of Lth,all things are forgotten, of Kokytos, which echoes only withshrieks of pain, of 1Pyryphlegethon, with its waves of fire.SECTION ILBLTSIOKBut, in truth, such details as these, produced as they are, Thenot by the necessities of mythical developement but by the Jgrowth or the wants of a religious faith, belong rather to thehistory of religion, and not to the domain of mythology,which is concerned only or mainly with legends springingfrom words and phrases whose original meaning has beenmisunderstoood or else either wholly or in part forgotten.Thus, although the ideas of Elysion in the conception of theepic or lyric poets may be full of the deepest interest asthrowing light on the thoughts and convictions of the time,their mythological value must be measured by the degree inwhich they may be traced tophrases denoting originallyof the heavens and the earth.only the physical phenomenaWith the state and the feelings of the departed we are nothere concerned ;but there isenough in the descriptions ofthe asphodel meadows and the land where the corn ripensthrice in the year, to guide us to the source of all these notions.The Elysian plain is far away in the west where thesun goes down beyond the bounds of the earth, when Eosgladdens the close of day as she sheds her violet tints overthe sky. The abodes of the blessed are golden islands sailingin a sea of blue, the burnished clouds floating in the pureether. Grief and sorrow cannot approach them j plague andsickness cannot touch them. The barks of the Fhaiakiansdread no disaster; and thus the blissful company gathered1Acheron, the remaining river, is have baea in the earlier myths the oneprobably only another form of AcheWoa, river of Hades,the flowing water, and may perhapsVOIi. II,T

322 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.BOOK together in that fax western land inherits a tearless eternity.1IL.__- Of the other details in the picture the greater number wouldbe suggested directly by these images drawn from the phenomenaof sunset and twilight.What spot or stain can beseen on the deep blue ocean in which the islands of theblessed repose for ever P What unseemly forms can mar thebeauty of that golden home lit by the radiance of a sunwhich can never go down? Who then but the pure in heart,the truthful and the generous, can be suffered to tread theviolet fields? And how shall they be tested save by judgeswho can weigh the thoughts and intents of the heart? Thusevery soul, as it drew near to that joyous land, was broughtbefore the august tribunal of Minos, Rhadamanthys, andAiakos; and they whose faith was in truth a quickeningpower might draw from the ordeal those golden lessonswhich Plato has put into the mouth of Sokrates whileawaiting the return of the theoric ship from Delos. These,however, are the inferences of later thought. The belief ofearlier ages was content to picture to itself the meeting ofOdysseus and Laertes in that blissful land, the forgiveness ofold wrongs, th^ reconciliation of deadly feuds as the hand ofHektor is clasped in the hand of the hero who slew him.There, as the story ran, the lovely Helen,'pardoned and purified,'became the bride of the short-lived yet long-sufferingAchffleus, even as lolS comforted the dying Herakles onearth, and H6b became his solace in Olympos. But whatis the meeting of Helen and Achilleus, -of Iol6, and ESbS,and Herakles, but the return of the violet tints to greet thesun in the west, which had greeted him in the east in themorning? The idea was purely physical, yet it suggestedthe thoughts of trial, atonement, and purification; and it isunnecessary to say that the human mind, having advancedthus far, must make itswaystill further.The To these islands of the blessed only they could be ad-m^e

TAETAROS,323common crowd in wickedness or presumption as these wereunworthy to tread the asphodel meadows of Elysion. Henceone of the names of the unseen world, which denoted especiallyits everlasting unrest, would be chosen to signify thehopeless prisons of the reprobate. There can be littledoubt that in the name Tartaros we have a word from thesame root with Thalassa, the heaving and restless sea, andthat Tartaros was as strictlya mere epithet of Hades asPlout&n or Polydegmfln. The creation of a place of utterdarkness for abandoned sinners was a moral or theological,not a mythical necessity ;and hence the mythology of Tartarosas a place of torment is as scanty and artificial as thatof the Nereid and Okeanid nymphs ;Theogony makes Tartaros and Gaia the "parentsfor when the Hesiodicof the Qigantes,of Typh&eus, and Echidna, this only places Tartarosin the same rank with Poseid6n, who is the father of Poljph&mosor of H6r$, who, according to another myth, is herselfthe mother of TypMon, another TypMeus.Tft

324 MYTHOLOGY Ofl THE AKYAN NATIONS.CHAPTER X.DARKNESS.SECTION LVRITBA AND AHLThe storyNo mythical phrases have so powerfully affected the historyof religionas the expressions which described originally thephysical struggle between light and darkness as exhibited inaid Helen *ke alternations of day and night. These phrases stand out'with wonderful vividness in the hymns of the Eig Veda. Therain-god Indra is concerned with the sacrifices of men, chieflybecause these supply him with food to sustain his steeds inthe deadly conflict, and the drink which is to invigorate hisown strength. On the Soma, of which, as of the AchaianNektar, all the gods have need, the might of Indra especiallydepends; and as soon as he has quaffed enough, he departsto do battle with his enemy. This struggle may be consideredas the theme, which in a thousand different formsenters into all the conceptions of Indra and into all theprayers addressed to him. Like himself, his adversary hasmany names ;but in every word we have the contrast betweentliebeaming god of the heaven with his golden locksand his flashing spear, and the sullen demon of darkness,who Jurks within his hidden caves, drinking the milk of thecows which he has stolen. The issue of the battle is alwaysthe same ;but the apparent monotony of the subject neverdeprives the language used in it describing of the forcewhich belongs to a genuine and heartfelt conviction, Sofar from the truth is the fancy that great national epicscannot have their origin in the same radical idea, and that.the monotony which would thus underlie them all is of itselfconclusive proof that in their general plan the Iliad and the

OUTLINES OP THE STOEY OP HELEN. 325Odyssey, the story of the Volsungs and the Mbelung Song,the Ramayana of Hindustan and the Persian Shahnamehhare nothing in common. In the brief and changeful courseof the bright but short-lived sun ;in his love for the dawn,who vanishes as he fixes his gaze upon her, and for the dewwhich is scorched by his piercing rays in;his toil for creaturesso poor and weak as man, in his grief for the loss ofthe beautiful morning which cheered him at his rising, inthe sullenness with which he hides his grief behind theclouds, in the vengeance which he takes on the dark powerswho have dimmed his glory, in the serene and dazzlingsplendour which follows his victory,in the restoration of hisearly love, who now comes before him as the evening twilightwith the same fairy network of luminous cloud, therecan be no monotony. It is a tale which may be told a thousandtimes without losing its freshness, and may furnish thegerm of countless epics to those who have hearts to feel itstouching beauty. They who see monotony here may wellsee monotony also in the whole drama of human life. It isno exaggeration to say that the phrases which produced themyth of Indra must have given birth to the Iliad.The two stories are, in truth, the same. The enemy of Infra andIndra keeps shut up in his prison-house the beautiful cloudswhich give rain to the earth ;and the struggle which endsin their deliverance isthe battle of Achilleus with Hektor,and of the Achaians with the men of Ilion, which ends in therescue of Helen. The weary hours during which the godfights with his hidden foe are the long years which rollaway in the siege of Troy and;the lightnings which sealthe 3oom of the hated thief represent the awful havoc inthe midst of which Paris the seducer receives the recompenseof his treachery. Of this deathless story the most ancienthymns addressed to Indra exhibit the unmistakeable outlines.In its simplest form the fight of Indra with thedemon is nothing more than a struggle to gain possessionof the rainclouds. 1But the ideas soon become more fullydeveloped, and his enemy assumes a thoroughly hatefulcharactet as the throttling snake of darkness. But in the1Br&l, EercuLe 4 Cacu* t39.

326 MTTHOLOGT OF THE ABYAN NATIONS.less simple hymns the strictly mythical imagery is, as M.Brfal well remarks, intermingled with phrases which speaknot of anthropomorphised gods, but of floods, clouds, windsand darkness. 1Throughout these hymns two imagesstand out before usbetween with overpowering distinctness. On one side is the bright^ ^ *ke keaven >as beneficent as he is irresistible ;on theother the demon of night and of darkness, as false andtreacherous as he is malignant. On both of these contendingpowers the Hindu lavished all his wealth of speech to exaltthe one and to expresshis hatred of the other. The latter(as his name Vritra, from var, to veil, indicates,) is pre-eminentlythe thief who hides away the rainclouds. But althoughthe name comes from the same root which yieldedthat of Yaruna, the lurking place of Vritra has nothing todo with that broad-spreadingveil which Varuna stretchesover the loved earth which is his bride. But the myth isyet in too early a state to allow of the definite designationswhich are brought before us in the conflicts of Zeus withTyphon and his monstrous progeny, of Apoll6n with the Pyth&n,of Belleroph6n with Chiinaira, of Oidipous with theSphinx, of Hercules with Cacus, of Sigurd with the dragonFafnir \and thus not only is Vritra known by many names,but he is opposed sometimes by Indra, sometimes by Agnithe fire-god, sometimes by Trita, Brihaspati, or other deities ;or rather these are all names for one and the same god.T0AAj> ovofJL&rtav poptyfy /Jo.Tfce greatNay, although Indra is known pre-eminently as Vritrahan,the Vritra-slayer, yet Vritra, far from being petrified intoa dead personality, became a name which might be appliedto any enemy. The Vritra of the Yriiras denoted the mostmalignant of adversaries.3 So again Vritra, the thief, isalso called Ahi, the throttling snake, or dragon with threeheads, like Geryon, the steaJer of the cows of Herakles, orKerberos, whose name reappears in ^arvaxa, another epithetof the antagonist of Indra. He is also Yala, the enemy, aname which we trace through the Teutonic lands until waBr

TOITKA AND ORTIIROS. 327reach, flie cave of 1Wayland Smiiix in Warwicksliire. Othernames of this hateful monster are Qushna, 9 am hara, Namuki;*but the most notable of all is Pani, which marks himas the seducer. Such he as is, enticing the cows of Indrato leave their pastures, and more especially as seeking tocorrupt Saram&, when at Indra's bidding she comes to reclaimthe plundered cattle.The name Pani reappears in Paris, the seducer of Helen ;Pam andbut as round this 1>aris'destroyer of his house and kinsfolk ideas are grouped which belong to the conception of Phoibos andHelios, of Achilleus, Theseus, and other solar heroes, so initsHellenic form Yritra has sometimes a fair and sometimesa repulsive form- Orthros is the hound of Geryon, slain byHerakles ;but it is also a name for the first pale light of thedawn, 3 just as the night may be regarded now as the evilpower which kills the light, now as the sombre but benignantmother of the morning.4This difference of view accountsprecisely for the contrast between Varuna and Yritra.Between the Yedic and the Hellenic myths there is thisdifference only, that in the latter the poets and mythographerswho tell the story recount without understandingit.They are no longer conscious that Geryon and Typhon,Echidna and Orthros, Python and Kerberos, are names forthe same thing, and that the combats of Herakles, Perseus,Theseus, and Kadmos with these monsters denote simply thechanges of the visible heavens. Each story has its own localname% and its own mythical geography, and this fact aloneconstituted an almost insurmountable hindrance to the successfulanalysis of the legends. But the language of theYedic hymns explains itself; and the personality of Indra andYritra is after all, as M. Bral has noted, only intermittent. 5Groek andVritra then, the enemy of Indra, reappears in all the Snakes anddragons, snakes, or worms, slain by all the heroes of Aryanmythology; and if the dragons of some myths wear a lessrepulsive form, if they are yoked to the chariot of Medeia orimpart a mysterious wisdom to lames and the children ofGrimm, toutecfo MyMofa 943.*BiM Hercule et Caeus, 93.* Brfol, ffercute ft CMUS, 97, 98.* #. 105, &C. Muir, JViwc. D. qf R. 7. 662.orm8*

323 MYTHOLOGY OP THE ARYAN NATIONS.BOOK AsklSpios, this is a result only of the process which from tho.- ! f:,.- same root formed words for tho very opposite conceptions ofYaruna and Yritra. The dragonis but the keen-eyed creature,and the name may well seem to denote the beings who areyoked to the chariot which Helios gave to the daughter ofAiet&s, and who teach strange lessons to the children of theDawn. The serpent form of these dragons is of later growth.In itself, the name is but an epithet which denoted the keensight, as the Tedic Hants and Rohits denoted the glisteningcolour, of the steeds who drew the car of Indra. Then, whenfor the same reason the name was applied to certain kinds ofreptiles, these steeds were by an inevitable process convertedinto serpents. Vritra, however, is properly not the dragon,but the snake which chokes or throttles its victim ;and thenames which are used to describe his loathsome features arethe names which the Iranian and Teutonic tribes have givento their personations of moral and physical evil. The VedicAM is eiymologically identical with the Greek Echidna, inwhose home Herakles finds the cattle of which he is insearch,although in this story they have strayed instead, ofbeing stolen.The stolen Whether the rain-clouds were converted into cows by theCattle.The Block-Fountains.p rocess of radical or poetical metaphor l is a question ofcomparatively slight importance. If the Sanskrit go, theEnglish cow, designated at first, like the Greek npofiaTov,simply the moving thing, the name might be applied asstrictly to the clouds which move in the heavens as jfco thecattle which walk on the earth. 2 The myth would comeinto existence only when the name had become confined tohorned cattle. It is but another instance of the processwhich changed the flocks of Helios into the apples guardedby the Hesperides, 3 and by transforming Lyk&on into a wolflaid the foundations of the horrible superstitions of lykanthropy/The Hellenic tribes carried away from their common AryankOIo e Bot merely the phrases which told of a battle between1Max Muller, Lectures on language, fact that the word fifaa, has the meaningsecond series, 353, &c.both of apples and sheep.2*&, Keren!* et Caws, 108.*Herwhd see alsoThis is at once explained by theBreal, (beta, 115;vol i appendix F, p. 469.

THE ENEMIES OF INDEA. 329the god of the heaven and his cloud-enemy, but those alsowhich described the nature of the struggle. If the nameYritra remains only in that of the Hellenic hound Orthros,his evil work, as imprisoning the waters, reappears in almostevery western myth of monsters slain by solar heroes. WhenPhoibos smites the Pythfin at Delphoi, a stream of watergushes out from the earth ;the dragon slain by the ThebanKadmos blocks all access to a fountain; and the defeat ofthe Sphinx can alone bring rain to refresh the parchedBoiotian soiL This warm and fertilising rain becomes frommere necessities of climate the hidden treasure guarded,in,the Teutonic legend, by the dragon whom Sigurd slaysthe snow-clad or glistening heath-A later stage in the developement of the Hindu myth isonTiio stolenseen in the few passages which speak of the victims of ^"P1*-Vritra not as clouds but as women.As sailing along in thebright heavens (dyu), the clouds were naturally called devi,the brilliant, and the conversion of the word deva into ageneral name for the gods transformed them into Gn&s,yttvaucss, or Nymphs, in whom we see the fair Helen whomParis stole from Menelaos, and Sita, the bride of Rama, whois carried off by the giant Havana. 1But here also, as in itsearlier form, the myth remains purely physical;have to turn to the Iranian land to see the fulland wegrowth ofthe idea which the old Hindu worshippers faintly shadowedin the prayer that Yritra might not be suffered to reign overthem.In the later Hindu mythology the power of darkness is Havanaknown by the names Bali, Ravana, or Graha, The first of andsiutheseisin the Ramayana the conqueror of Indra himself,and after his victory over the sun or the rain-god he enjoysthe empire of the three worlds, intoxicated with the increaseof his power* But the darkness which has ended the briefcareer of Achifleus must in turn be subdued by one who isbut Achilleus in another form ;and Bali, the son of Yirochana,meets his match in Vishnu, who confronts him in his dwarfincarnation as Kara. 2 In the readiness with which Baliyields to the request of the dwarf, who asks only for leave toBrkl, Hcrwte et Caw, 117, 118.* Muir, Sanskrit Texts, iv. 117.

330 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.step three paces, we see the germ of that short-sightednessto their own interests which has imparted a burlesque characterto the trolls and fairies of Northern Europe.1Nosooner is the prayer granted than the dwarf, who is noneother than the sun, measures the whole heaven with histhree strides, and sends Bali to his fit abode in the darkPatala.But Bali himself iscloselyakin, or rather identical,with the giant Havana, who steals away Sita, the bride ofEama, by whom he is himself slain, as Paris falls by thearrows of Philokt&t&s. This story is modified in the VishnuPurana to suit the idea of the transmigration of souls, andEavana we are here told had been in a former birth Sisupala,the great enemy of Vishnu, whom he daily curses with allthe force of relentless hatred.But these maledictions had,nevertheless, the effect of keeping the name of the god constantlybefore his mind; and thus, when he was slain byVishnu, he beheld the deity in his true character, and8became united with his divine adversary. But Vishnu, thediscus-bearing god, has another enemy in Graha, in whom wesee again only a new form of Eavana and Bali.8 Againstthis wise and powerful being, for the Panis are possessed ofa hidden treasure which passes for the possession of know^ledge, not even the discus of Vishnu nor a thousand thunderboltshave the least effect The darkness is at the least asdifficult to subdue as is the dawn or the day.TheTrojan The three names, Pani, Vritra, and Ahi, which arespecially used to denote the antagonist of Indra, reappear inthe mythology of other tribes, sometimes under a strangedisguise, which has invested a being originally dark andsombre, with not a little of the beauty and glory of hisconqueror. With these modified names appear others which1The Pani appears in the German deceive him. The brothers and tinsstoryof the Feather Bird as a sorcerer, folk of the bride now come to rescuewho went begging from house to her; 'they immediately closed tip allhouse that he might steal little girls, the doors of the house, and then sat toHe is, in short, Paris Gynaimane's, the to it ; and the sorcerer and all his ae-Bluebeard of modern stories, who gives'complices were burnt to ashfts ;a burn*each successive wife the keys of his ing which is manifestly the destructionhouse, charging her not to look into a of Ilion.2certain chamber. At last he is cheated Muir, Sanskrit Z&rfo, ISO, note,' Ib, 159,by the Helen whom he carries to hisdwelling, and who dresses up a turnip to

THE TROJAN PABIS. 331virtually translate the Vedic epithets* But in no case arethe common and essential features of the myth so much lostsight of, or rather overlaid with colours borrowed from othermythical conceptions, as in the case of Paris. That theHelen of the Iliad is etymologically the Saramfl, of the Tedichymns, there is no question ;that the Pani who tempts, orwho prevails over Saram& is the Trojan Paris, is not lessclear. Both alike are deceivers and seducers, and bothbring down their own doom by their offence. But when wehave said that Paris, like the Panis and Vritra, steals awaythe fairest of women and her treasures (in which we seeagain the cows of Saramfi.) from the western land, that hehides her away for ten long years in Hion, 1as the clouds areshut up in the prison-house of the Panis, and that the fightbetween Paris and Menelaos with his Achaian hosts ends ina discomfiture precisely corresponding to the defeat anddeath of Pa$i by the spear of Indra, we have in fact notedevery feature in the western legend which identifies Paris2with the dark powers.This Hion Dr, 0. Meyer, in hissecond series, 472. Doubtless1Qua&tumes Homericas, has sought to the germ of Parts is not solar* So faridentify with the Sanskrit word vl/u, as he is the seducer of Helen and thewhich he translates by stronghold. On destroyerthis Professor Max Muller (% people byVeda his Bin, he is the counterpart of theiVwAt/rt, i. 31) remarks 'that v!fti in the Vedic Pani. But this explanation coversVeda has not dwindled down as yet to amere name, and that therefore itmayhave originally retained its purely appellativeonly this part of the myth and : it mustnot be fo gotten in the mythology of allAryan nations that the sun is not lesspower in Greek as well as in fickle, capricious, and treacherous thankSansknt, and from meaning a stronghold tho darkness itself. In every case the"in general, have coma to mean the strongholdsolar lii-roes either lose or desert theirof Troy/brides. Ariadne; Brynhild, Prokris,1 Profttwor Miillor, having identified Koronis, Echo, S&ene, Aithra, withmany others, form a mournful companylinked together in tho same sad destiny,which makes it impossible for Heraklesthe, name Paris with that of the Panis,although he adds that the etymology ofPagi w afl doubtful as that of Paris,thinks that I am mistaken in my ' endeavoursto show that Paris belongs tothe class of bright solar heroes/ andnays that * if the germ of the Iliad is thebattle between the solar and nocturnalor Phoibos, Porseus or Sigurd, to tarrywith the women whose lote they havewon. Hence there was nothing tmt thename of Pans to prevent the Hellenictribes from investing the tempter ofHelen with the characteristics of thepowers, Parifl surely belongs to thelatter, and he whose destiny it is to killAchilleus in the Western Gatesdeserter of Ariadnft ;and the meaningof this name seems to have been whollyiv

!332 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.BOOK In the Odyssey, Saramfi; reappearsas in the older Todic- -^ portraits, pure and unswerving in her fidelity to her absentHelen and lord. The dark powers or Panis are here the suitors whocrowd around the beautiful Penelopfi, while Odysseus isjourneying homewards from the plains of Ilion. But theand the treasures ofmyth has here reached a later stage,Indra are no longer the refreshing rain-clouda, but thewealth which Odysseus has left stored up in his home, andwhich the suitors waste at their will. The temptation ofPenelopS assumes the very form of the ordeal whichSaramS, is obliged to go through. She, too, shall have hershare of the treasures, if she will but submit to become thewife of any one of the chiefs who are striving for her hand.The wheedling and bullying of the Panis in the Vedic hymnsis reproduced in the alternate coaxing and blustering of thewestern suitors ;but as SaramS, rejects their offers, strongthrough the might of the absent' Indra, so Penelopfi has herscheme for frustrating the suitors* plans, trusting in themidst of all her grief and agony that Odysseus will assuredlyone day come back. This device adheres with singularfidelity to the phenomena which mark the last moments of asummer day. Far above, in the upper regions of Hypereia,where the beautiM Phaiakians dwelt before the uncouthKykl&pes sought to do them mischief, the feiry network ofcirri clouds is seen at sundown flushing with deeper tints"$& tthe chariot of the lord of day sinks lower in the &fe^."TOjtis the network of the weaver PenelopS, who like lolS spreadsher veil of violet clouds over the heaven in the morning andin the evening.Below it, stealing up from the dark waters,Hermes differ from those of the Vedic went to seek and if need be to ffcht forSarameya, and how completely in this the golden fleece the Trojans representcase the idea of the morning has given the Panis, it can as little be questionedway befow that of air in motion There that some of those who fisht on the sidecan be no doubt that the Greek Orthros of Hektor belong as eloarly as Phoibosis in name identical with the Vedic or Heraklos himself to the ranks ofVntra ;and yet the former, as taken to solar heroes. It is enough to mentiondenote the first wakening of the dawn, the instances of Sarp&tin und Memn6a,assumes a shape far less fearful than even if no stress bp Imd on the fact thattnat of the hated snake who chokes the Paris himself is the darling of Aphrortitfewin-cloudy And again, although as which ho could scarcely be if regardedfitng against the children of the sun simply as an embodiment of the darki. ch. x.) who come to recover and treacherous night Such modiftaand her treasures as the Argonautscations are obvioubly inevitable.

PENBLOPft AND THE SUITOBS. 333are seen the sombre clouds which, blot the light from thehorizon, and rise from right and left as with outstretchedarms, to clasp the fairy forms which still shed their bea,utyover the upper heavens. At first their efforts are vain;twice itmay be, or thrice, the exquisite network fades fromsight, and then appears again with its lustre dimmed, as ifthrough grief for the lover of Eos or of DaphnS, who hasgone away* But the shades of night grow deeper, and withitdeepens the tumult and rage of the black vapours whichand the endbghurry to seize their prey of;the web whichthe suitors compel Penelop to finish is the closing in of thenight when the beautiful cirri clouds are shrouded in impenetrabledarkness. Then follows the weary strife in whichthe suitors seek to overcome the obstinacy of PenelopS, andwhich corresponds to the terrible struggle which precedesthe recovery of Helen from the thief who has stolen heraway.But like the Panis, and Paris, and Vritra, the suitorsbring about their own destruction. *I do not know th^tIndra is to be subdued,* says Sarara&, * for it is he himselfthat subdues ; you Panis will lie prostrate, killed by Indra/So too PenelopS can point to a weapon which none of thesuitors can wield, and which shall bring them to death ifever the chief returns to his home. In the house of Odysseusthere may be servants and handmaids who cast in their lotwith the suitors, as Saram& proved faithless when sheaccepted the milk offered to her by the Panis and;for thesethere is a penalty in store, like the blow of Indra whichpunished Sarain& for her faithlessness. 1 Finally, by hisvictory, Odysseus rescues Penelop and his wealth from thehands of his enemies, who are smitten down by his unerringarrows, as Vritra is slain by the irresistible spear of Indra.The wealth of the Ithakan chieftain has assumed a dif- HeraUeeferent form from that of the cows of SararnA: but there areother myths in which the cattle of Indra reappear as in theVedic hymns.Herakles has more than once to search, like1As In the case of Sarama, so in that mother of Pan either by Hermes or "byof P

'MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.Phoibos., for Stolen cows, or sometimes horses, and each timethey are found hidden away in the secret dwelling of therobber. In the story of Echidna we have not only the cattleand the cave, hut the very name of the throttling snake Ahi,the epithet by which the Hindu specially sought to expresshis hatred for the serpent Yritra. Accordingly in theEesiodic Theogony Echidna is the parent of ail the monsterswho represent the cloud-enemy of Indra. Night and dayfollow or produce each other, and as Phoibos is the child ofL&6, so is he in his turn the father of the night which ishis deadliest enemy. The black darkness follows the beautifultwilight, and thus in the Hesiodic version Echidna is thedaughter of the lord of the Chrys&6r? golden sword and of thebeautiful ]Tallirho& But although her offspring may causedisgust and dread, she herself retains some portion of herparents' beauty. Like the French Melusina, from the waistupwards she is a beautiful maiden, 1 the rest of her bodybfing that of a huge snake. Her abode, according to Hcsiod,isamong the Arimoi, where Typhdeus slumbers, or accordingto Herodotos, far away in the icy Scythia. Amongher children, of some of whom Typh&6n, ' the terrible andwanton wind/ isthe father, are the dogs Orthros and Zerberos,the Lernaian Hydra, the Chimaira, and the deadlyPhix or Sphinx which brings drought and plague Oft Thebes.But whether in Hesiod, Apollodoros, or Ser6dotos> tttfc iof Echidna isintertwined with that of Qeryoiies,herself is not only a child of ChrysfiAr and Kaflirhofi,monster, who has the bodies of three men united at the waist.This being lived in Erytheia, the red land, which, in someversions, was on the coast of Epeiros, in others, near Gadeiraor Gades beyond the Pillars of Herakles. In either case, heabode in the western regions, and there kept his herds of redoxen. In other words the myth of Geryones exhibits a fieryand stormy sunset in which the red, or purple oxen are theflaming clouds which gather in the western horizon. Theseherds are guarded by the shepherd Eurytion and the twoheadeddog Orthros, the offspring of Echidna and Typhon.These herds Herakles ischarged to bring to Eurystheus,1 Hes. Thsog. 297,

GERYONES AND KERBEROS. 335and accordingly he journeys westward, receiving from Heliosthe golden cup in which Helios himself journeys every nightfrom the west to the east. Havingslain Orthros andEurytion, Herakles has a final struggle with Geryones, inwhich he wins a victory answering to that of Indra overVritra ;and placing the purple oxen in the golden cup heconveys them across the Ocean stream, and begins hisjourney westward. 1The stories of Alebion and Derkynos, andagain of Eryx, as noted by Apollodoros, 2 are only freshversions of the myth of the Panis, while the final incidentof the gadfly sent by Hr to scatter the herds reproducesthe legend of the same gadfly as sent to torment the heifer16. The myth as related by Herodotos has a greater interest,although he starts with speaking of oxen and endswith a story of stolen horses. Here the events occur in thewintry Scythian land, where Herakles coming himself withhis lionskin goes to sleep,and his horses straying away arecaught by Echidna and imprisoned in her cave. ThitherHerakles comes in search of them, and her reply to hisquestion is that the animals cannot be restored to him untilhe should have sojourned with her for a time. Heraklesmust fare as Odysseus fared in the palace ofcave of Kalypso ;Kirke and theand Echidna becomes the mother of threesons, whose strength is to be tested by the same ordeal towhich Theseus and Sigurd are compelled to submit. Heonly of the three shall remain in the land who can bracearound his body the girdle of Herakles and stretch his bow.To the girdle is attached a golden phial or cup, of which wehave already traced the history.Afi the name Alii reappears in that of Echidna, so that ofVritra is reproduced in Orthros, who, in the Hesiodic Theogonyis simply a hound sprung from Echidna and Geryones,but in ApoUodoros becomes a dog with two heads, as Kerberosappears with three, although in Hesiod his heads arenot less than fifty in number. It must however be notedthat Orthros is sometimes himself called Kerberos. He isthus the being who, like Vritra, hides away the lightor theglistening cows of the sun ;but the time specially assigned* Max Muller, Chipt, ii. 184. * ii. 5, 10.

336 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.to Mm as to the Asvins is that which marks the first faintstreak pf dawn, the time in which darkness is still supremealthough its reign is drawing towards its close* 1 It was atthis time that Hermes, having toiled all night in the kindledfprests, returned home gently to lay himself down like achild in his cradle, as the soft breeae of morning follows thegale which may have raged through the night. ThisOrthros, who with Zerberos answers seemingly to the twoslain by Herakles, as Vritra is killed bydogs of Yama, isIndra>who thus obtains the same of Vritrahan, a namewhich must have assumed in Greek the form Orthroph&n.Nor is the name of Kerberos, who, armed with serpents forhis mane and tail, has sometimes even a hundred heads,wanting in the Veda, which exhibits it under the formSarvari, an epithet for the night, meaning originally darkor pale. Kerberos is thus * the dog of night, watching the3path to the lower world/The same terrible enemy ofthe powers of light appears againunder the names Typhon, and Typb&eus, which denote thesmoke and flames vomited out by Vritra, Geryon or Cacus,other words, the lightning flashes which precede the fallthe pent-up rain. This being is in the Hesiodic Theogoiiy,8thefather of all the dreadful winds which bring mischiefand ruin tomortals, destroying ships at sea and houses andcrops on land. By this fearful hurricane, Seo^y vftptorfyvOPE/AOV, Echidna becomes the mother of Kerberos, theLernaian Hydra, the Ohimaira,the Sphinx, and the NefifceftaLion, all of them representing under different forms thedark powers who struggle with and are conquered by thelord of day, and whose mightiest hosts are seen in thearmies of the Titans leagued against the Kronid Zeus. Ofthese beings it isenough to say that later mythologistsarranged their names and their functions almost at theirwill.Among the former appear some, as Hyperifin aadPhoibe, which are elsewhere mere names for the sun andmoon 5and in this its later form the mythis little mowth,an aa attempt to explain how it was that Kronos, time,was not able to devour and destroy all his children. WithJnof1 Max Muller,.6%*, ii. 185. * #. 188.*Ttoog, 869.

THE STOLEN CATTLE. 337this insatiable parent Zeus must be inevitably engaged in aninternecine war, the issue of which could not be doubtful. ,The thunderbolts by which Indra overwhelms his foe reappearin tha Greek myth as the Kyklfipes and the Hekatoncheiresor hundred-handed beings whom on the advice ofGaia the king of the blue heaven summons from the depthsof Tartaros into which Kronos and his associates are hurled.This struggle is, indeed, reproduced in myth after myth.The enemies who had assailed Ouranos are seen once morein the Gigantes or earth-born beings who league themselvesagainst all the gods. These giants are mentioned inHesiod merely as children sprung from Gaia along with theErinyes after the mutilation of Ouranos. Elsewhere theyare a horrible race destroyed for their impiety, fearful inaspect, and like Echidna and AM, with snaky bodies. 1Against these foes even Zeus himself is powerless unless hecan gain the help of the mortal Herakles, and the latter inhis turn can prevail over Alkyoneus only by taking himaway from his own soil, from which, like Antaios, he riseswith renewed strength after every downfall. When atlength the struggle is ended, the giants are imprisoned, likethe Titans, beneath the islands of the sea.CHAP.*,SECTION H THE LATIN MYTH.The main features of the myths of Vritra, Geryon andEchidna reappear in the singular Latin legend known to usas that of Hercules and Cacus. This story had undergonestrange transformations before it assumed its Euemerisedforms in the hands of Livy and of the Halikarnassian Dionysios,with whom even the account which he rejects asmythical has been carefully stripped of aH supernatural incidents.According to Dionysios, HeraHes driving before himthe oxen of Geryon had reached the Palatine hill when, as inthe myth of Echidna, he was overcome by sleep. On wakinghe found that some of his cattle had been stolen by somethief who had dragged them away by their tails.Doubtlessalld Cacus*1Pans. viii. 29, 3.TOXi. XX.Z

338 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS,Dionysiosmeans that lie sawthrough the clumsy device,which the writer of the Homeric hymn discreetly avoided bymating Hermes drive the cattle hither and thither, untilall possibility of tracking them was lost ;and with him thestory goes on with a colloquy between Heratles and Caeus,who stands at the entrance of the cave and denies all knowledgeof the cattle. But his guilt is proved when the lowingof the other cattle whom Herakles brings up rouses theimprisoned oxen to reply.He then slays Cacus with ablow of his club, and builds an altar to Zeus the discoverer(evpsffios) near the Porta Trigemina. 1The myth as related by Viigil and Ovid carries us backof Vrittr at once to ^ lan g* a e of the Vedic liynnw; * this fact,of which the poets were of course profoundly unconscious,shows the fidelity with which they adhered to the genuinetradition of the country. Here we have the deep cave ofVritra, with itshuge rocks beetling over it, the mighty masswhich represents the dark thundercloud in which the watersare confined.*Into this cave the rays of the sun can neverenter; 8 and here dwelt the monster, who, like Echidna, isbut half a human being, and of whom the fire-god Vulcan is1Dion. H. i. 89-41 This version hero, and is substituted for Potitms,Dionysios rejects as fabolotis 'because nay, for Evander; the latter does not'the expedition of Eerakles to drive oxen appear at all,. HOT do any Arcadians:from the far west, in order to please none but natives are mentioned. So aBurystheus, is an improbable event, not sifter of Cam, Cafta, WAS worshippedbecauses it contravenes the order of like Vesta, with eternal flre.' Niebuhr,nature' -Lewis, Credibility of Burly History of &ww, i.; *Th* AboriginesRoman History, I 289. Dionysios had and Latins 9 Kietmbraaw that in tliiano scruple in converting the myth into legend 'the worship of the S&binehistory by making Herakles the leader Semo Sancus was transferred to the sonof a great army, and by stating that the of Alkmenft : ' but he merely states thestolen beasts belonged to his commis- fact without attempting to account forsanat Eerakles is also invested byit.him with that high moral character on The version of tho lopond pivon bywhich the apologueof Prodikos is madeLivy differs from that of Dionywos onlyto turn. Sir Cornewall Lewis re- in tne description of (VnnaH a Hhi'phem.marks that in A legend of the Epize- Dionysiou simply spcuku of him asphyrian Lokrians ' Latinns fills the place thief, Tho former ranks him with theof Cacus and steals the oxen of Hercules/pastoral Kykl5pf>s the : latter

HERCULES AND HERCULUS. 339the father. In the lowing of the imprisoned cattle, as inthe dark speech of the Sphinx, we have the rumbling of thethunder before the rain bursts from its confinement in theclouds. The hurling down of the rock by Hercules is theshattering of the castle of Vritra by the spear of Indra. Nosooner is the blow struck than the horrible abyss of hisdwelling is lighted up by the flames which burst from themonster's mouth, in other words, the darkness of the stormcloudis pierced by the lightning. Then follows the deathof the monster, to whose carcase the poet applies an epithetwhich links this myth with the legend of the Chimaira slainby Belleroph6n and thus connects it again with that ofVritra. 1But we have here to meet the difficulty noticed by Me- san

340 MYTHOLOGY OP THE ARYAN NATIONS.,BOOKhad the characteristics of the Greek Herakles and the Yedicrc-^ Indra ;and hence when the Eoman became acquainted withthe Greet hero, whose name so closely resembled that of oneamongst his own ancient gods, he attributed to his ownHercules the deeds which were rightly told of the son of6, and doubtless also of the god into whose place hewas thus intruded. The god thus displaced was, in M,Br^al's judgment, the deity known as Sancus or Eecaranus.The former, answering to Zeus Pistios of the Greek and theDius Fidius of the Latins, imparted to the Ara Maxima thepeculiarsanction which rendered all oaths there taken inviolable.1 The name Eecaranus, which is actually givenby Aurelius Victor as that of the slayer of Cacus, 2 must inM. Br&L's judgment be referred to the root en, or fcri, whichhas furnished to Sanskrit, Greek, and Latin a large numberof words denoting the ideas of creation and power. M. Br&ilcites from Pestus the word cerus as an epithet of Janus, 3 andconnects with it the Greek Kronos and the Kres, who havepower over the life aad death of men.4 If then Caranus orGaranus, is the maker, Eecaranus must be the god who makesagain, or who, like Dahand, renders all things young; andthus Eecaranus would denote the Ee-creator, and so theEecuperatoror recoverer of the cattle stolen by Cacus, Geryon orVritra, When, however, the Eoman, becoming acquaintedwith Greek myths, found the word Alexikakos among the epithetsof Herakles, he naturally came to regard Eecaranus asonly another name for that hero. But the quantity of thename Oacus leaves no room for this identification. The firstsyllable is long, and the word, given by Diodoros under the1Bre"al, Hercufo et Caws, 57. The here preserved the genuine Roman teanameSemo with which that of Sancus dition.is so often connected is an * 'epithet denot- Buonus cerus es, duonus .ing fertility and wealth, as in ' semen :' The name is found on a cup preservedand Eerculus himself is necessarily in- in the Gregorian museum at Borne andeluded in the number of the Semones, inscribed ' Ceri Poculom/along with Ceres, Pales, and Flora. *fy> ewdroto. The words fy*.Orig. Gen, Sm. vi. 'Becaranus and Kolpavos have passed into the notionquidam, Graecsa originis, ingentis cor- of mastery from the obvious fact thatpons et magnarum virium pastor. he who , . has made a . thing must hareHercules appellatus.' That Victor should power over it. So Kpalvw is to decree,look on Recaranus as strictly a Greek because an effectual command can beword is not surprising; but as it does given only by him who has a constrainnotoccur in any Greek myths, theitig i, authority, e. who can make othersevidence becomes conclusive that he has do his bidding.

342 MYTHOLOGY OP THE ARYAN NATIONS.BOOK appearing to weave it, in Aurnav&bha, the wool-provider,v_ ,',,, one of the enemies slain by Indra, in the Eussian v&lna, theGothic vulla, the English wool, in the Latin villus andvelhis, and the English fleece. But as in Varuna the ideaof covering gives place to that of guarding or shielding, souranaA is a ram, but ur&wa/& is a protector. The meaning ofthe word is further modified from hairiness or woollinessinto that of mere roughness, and the term varvara wasapplied by the Aryan invaders to the negro-like aboriginaltribes, whom the Greets would have termed barbarians.That this last word can be referred to no other root isfurther proved by a comparison of the Sanskrit lornasya withthe Greek Sacrv^s, words in which the shagginess of hairfurnishes a metaphor denoting roughness of pronunciation. 1But the Sanskrit varvara transliterated into Greek wouldyield the word Belleros :and thus we retain some notion ofa being of whom the Greek myth gives otherwise no accountwhatever. The invention of a noble Corinthian of thisname, to serve as the victim of Hipponoos the son ofGlaukos, is on a par with the explanations given by mythographersfor such names as Pan, Odysseus, Oidipous, orAias. Belleros then is some shaggy or hairy monster, slainby the hero named from this exploit, in short, anotherCacus, or Ahi or Vritra ;and as Indra is Yritra-han, theslayer of Indra, so is BeHeroph&n the slayerof Belleros.8Although no mythical being is actually found bearing thisname in the Eig Veda, yet the black cloud is one of thechief enemies (dasas) of Indra. This cloud is sometimescalled the black skin, sometimes the rain-giving and fertilisingskin, 3 while the demon of the cloud appears as aram, or a shaggy and hairy creature, with ninety-nine arms*This wool- or fleece-covered animal is therefore reproducednot only in the monster Belleros, bxit in the Chimaira which1 It is needless for me to do more Sanskrit kan, the Greek $Avo$> and thothan refer the reader to Professor Max English bane. Tho precise Greek equi-Muller's chapter on Bellerophta (C%>$, valent for Vritrahan would be Orthrovoliu), where he will find the subject phon, a word which i not actmllytreated at length and mo&t convincingly, found, although Horakles isreallyWere I to repeat my obligations as often Orthrophontos, the slayer of the shaggyas I feel that I ought to repeat them, I hound Orthros.might become wearisome. 8Max Miillor, Chips, ii. 180,a We may trace the root in the

CHIMAIRA. 343Hipponoos Js said to have slain, a being, like Ger yon, Kerberos,Orthros, and Echidna* of a double or triple body. In theChimaira the fore-part is that of a lion, the middle that of agoat, while the hinder-part, like that of his mother Echidna1and all other cognate beings, is the tail of a fish or serpent.The death of Yritra or the wool-weaver (Aurnav&bha) isfollowed by the loosening or the downfall of the rain ;butalthough it is not said that this is the effect of the slaughterof Chimaira, the idea of rain or moisture as repressed by themonster is not absent from the myth of Belleroph6n,Hisvictory is won by means of Pegasos, the winged horse,whom he finds feeding by the fountain or waters (TT^) ofPeirene, and from its back, as he soars aloft in the air,Hipponoos pours down his deadly arrows on the offspring ofEchidna, as Indra from his chariot in the heaven hurls hislance against the gloomy Yritra.But Vritra, Ahi, the Panis and the other dark beings are LophonaJlof them enemies (dasas) of the gods, and he who destroys*"them is dasyuhan, the slayer of the dasas a name whichtranslated into Greek would yield Leophontes. This epithetis applied to Hipponoos as well as that of Bellerophdn and ; itis clear that he cannot be so called as killing lions, for hewould then be Leontophontes. Mor is it easyto connectthis Leo or Deo, of which he is the conqueror, with anythingbut the Sanskrit dasa, which reappears in d&sapati, theGreek Despoils, or lord of subjects,in other words, of conqueredenemies.2 In the Theban legend this foe is reproducedas Laios,* who is doomed, like Akrisios, to perish1 It is possible that the introduction* With this we must compare notof tha word Chinmira into this aijth only the Ortek Aorff, Af&, people, butmay be the result of a confusion hta the adjective Ufas, hostile. This wordthose already noticed between Arkshus Profrwwr Max Midler (Chips, n. 187),and Rikshae, Leukos and Lute, c. traces to the root das, to perish, althoughAt the Least, Chimaira is A naao not he adds that, ' in its frequent applicaforgoats of any age, but only for thoae tion to fire the adjective S&os mightwhich are one year old. The older well be referred to the root du, togoate axe called Aiges. Theofcr. i. 6. burn.' The difference in meaningA be-Chimaira then, is strictly a winter- tweea them is not greater thaa thatling, (ie. ft yearling), just as the Latin which separatee Vamna from Yritra, ortimus or trimus (bi-himus, hieirus),Uranah from Ui&nah.*denotes things of two or three winters Laios, in the opinion both of Proold.Bat tho sun is the slayer of fessor Mull-er and of M. Bral, is anwinter; and hence the creature which exact equivalent of the Sanskrit Dusyu.he slays would be the Chimaira. To the assertion of M, Compawlti that

344 MYTHOLOGY OP THE AETA1T NATIONS.by the hand of his child, as the night must give place to theday.SECTION TV.THE THBBAN MYTH,TheSphinx,The close affinity of the Theban Sphinx with the Aid, thethrottling snake, is manifest from its name, which belongsto the same root with the verb 0-^177, to bind tight,tosqueeze, and so to choke. In the Hesiodic Theogony thisword is given under the form Phix, and points to the connexionbetween the words o$4yya, Tnfoz/v/w, and the Latinfigo, to fix or fasten. If tiie Thebans derived this namefrom the mount Phikion, their mistake was but a repetitionof the process which traced the surnames of Phoibos to theisland of Delos and the country of Lykia.The Sphinx, then,like Yritra and the Panis, is a being who imprisons the rainin hidden dungeons. Like them, she takes her seat on arock, and there she utters her dark sayings, and destroys themen who cannot expound them. In Hesiod, she is a daughterof Orthros and Chimaira, who with her mother Echidna exhibitsthe same composite form which reappears in theSphinx. In the Sphinx the head of a woman is combinedwith the body of a beast, having like Typhon the clawsof the lion, the wings of the bird, and the serpent's tail :and in Apollodoros Typhon is himself her father, 1 It is, ofcourse, possible that the so-called Egyptian Sphinx may bean expression for the same idea which has given birth toAhi, Vritra, the Panis, and the kindred beings of Greekmythology; but neither the name nor the figures of theHellenic Sphinx have been borrowed from Egypt. Thean Aryan d never appears in Greek as I, into X as unheard of in Greok, must, inProfessor Muller replies by saying that Professor Muller's opinion, be speakingthe instances in support of his own of classical Greek, and nob of the Greekposition were supplied by Ahrens, De dialects, ' which are nevertheless of the1Dialeeto Dorica, who cites A^VTJ= greatest importance in the interprata-$0(^77, 'OXi/o-flrctW'OSuoWs, andxfcrm tion of the names of local gods andBf

VKITRA AND THE SPHINX, 345Egyptian Sphinx isnever winged, and is never representedexcept as prone and recumbent, or in any form except thatof a lion with a human head and bust. The notion that theriddling Sphinx of Thebes was derived from the land of thehave beenMe may have originated with Herodotos, or maytaken for granted on the bare assertion of Egyptian priestsby others before himself; but the name existed in Greekmythology long before the port of Naukratis was opened toGreek commerce. The conclusions which Herodotos drewfrom his Egyptian informants on the subjects of ethnologyand mythology were in almost every case wrong; and theSphinx is too closely connected with Echidna and Zohak,with Orthros, Vritra, Geryon and Oacus ?to justify anyclassification which professes to account for one without1explaining the restIn point of feet, few Greek myths are more transparent TheRiddlethan that of the monster which is slain by Oidipous.story which made her the daughter of Orthros or Typhon,said simply that the cloud in which the thunder abode, andin which the rain was imprisoned, was the child of the darkness:the version which made her a daughter of Laios 2spoke of her as sprung from the great enemy of Indra andPhoibos the darkness under another name. The hugestormcloud moves slowly through the air : and so the phrasewent that Here the goddess of the open heaven had sent theSphinx, because the Thebans had not punished her enemyLaios, who had carried off Chrysippos from Pisa. Othersrelated that she had been sent by Ar&s, the grinder, toavenge herself on Kadmos for slaying his child the dragon, orthat she was come to do the bidding of Dionysos or of Hades.The effect of her coming is precisely that which follows thetheft of the cows of Indra by the Panis. The blue heaven isveiled from sight, the light of the sun is blotted out, andover the city broods the mighty mass, beetling like a giganticThe 6olved'1In the Vislupu $wr&fi& (H, H. "Wil- branches of which it struck down abunflon,514) the sphinx appears as the dance of fruit, like raindrops poureddemon Bheanka, whom Kama ' seized upon earth by the wind/ The simileby both hind legs, and whirling him hewgives the original form of the myth,round until he expired, tossed his carcaseto the top of a palm-tree, from the* Pans, ix, 26, 2.

'346 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ABYAS NATIONS.>BOOK.TT,-rock, which can never be moved until some one comes withstrength enough to conquer and to slay her. The robbery andrescuing of the cows are the onlyincidents which havefallen out of the Theban legend, but in the discomfiture ofthe Sphinx, who dashes herself from the rock when her riddleis solved, we have the sudden downfall of the waters when thethundercloud has been pierced by the lance of Indra. Theissue of the Boiotian story was determined by an explanationgiven of the name of Oidipous. According to some, the namedenoted the swelling of the child's feet as he lay exposed onthe slopes of Kithairon ; by others who rejected the derivationfrom the verb ol$sa> 9to swell, it was referred to his wisdom,in solving the enigma of the feet. That the unintelligiblemuttering of the thunder should suggest the introduction ofsome popular riddle into the old myth, was natural andperhaps inevitable and the time at which it was5 engraftedinto the legendis a matter of little or no importance. Wisdomisamong the most prominent attributes of the beingswho do battle with the powers of darkness. Whether it beHelios possessed of a knowledge which he cannot imparteven to Hermes, or of a robe which makes Medeia the wonderof all for her sagacity and her power, or whether it be Tantalos,or Sisyphos, or Ixl&n, whose wisdom is no security againsttheir downfall, whether it be Phoibos endowing his ministersat Delphoi with the gift of prophecy, or Kadmos instmctinghis people in all art and learning, we see in one and all thekeenness of wit and strength of purpose which do their workwhile gods and men think little of the dwarfs Vishnu and Hari,the halting Hephaistos, or Apoll&n wrapped in his swaddlingclothesat Delos. Their career begins in weakness to end instrength, in defeat to be crowned by victory. In threestrides the child Vishnu traverses the heaven; and thedespised Oidipous, e who knows nothing,' solves the riddle ofthe Sphinx as surely as Indra and Herakles discover thehiding-placesof their cattle. It is but another version ofthe story of Odysseus flouted as a beggar in his own hall, orBoots sitting among the ashes while his elders laugh him toscorn, but each winning a victory which is due rather totheir wisdom than to their power.

THE SNAKE OF WINTER. 347But if the riddle was introduced into the story at a comparativelylate stage, the idea which suggestedit is essentialto the myth. It is that of the fatal voice of the thunder,1The Voicethe utterancesof TypM&n, which even the gods can onlysometimes understand,2 and which cease when the cloud hasbeen pierced by the lightning and the rain has fallen uponthe earth. Thus, in two or three mythical phrases, we have*the framework of the whole myth. The first, Oidipous istalking with the Sphinx/ indicates the struggle of Indrawith the Panis, of Zeus with Typhon, of Apoll&n with the*Delphian dragon in the; second, Oidipous has smitten theSphinx,' we have the consummation which sets the landfree from the plague of drought.SECTION V.THE DELPHIAN AND CEETAJST MTTHS.In other myths the incidents of the imprisonment and ThePyliberationof the waters are marked with scarcely less clearnessthan in the histoiy of Indra himself. The being withwhom Apoll&n has to fight is the dragon of Pytho, who hadchased and vexed his mother during her journeyings beforeshe reached Delos,and at whose death the imprisoned watersstarted from the sources opened by the spear of Phoibos.In the Theban myth the snake who is slain by Kadmosguards the well of Ar&s* and slays all who come to fetchwater until Kadmos himself deals it the death-blow. 3 Thesnakes or serpents are no other than the dragon of theglistening heath, which, in the myths of the frost-boundregions of the north, lies coiled round the sleeping Brynhildand all her treasures. The myth is changed only in thepoint of view which substitutes deliverance from the deadlycold of winter for deliverance from the not less dreadfulplague of drought. The latter idea may be traced in thestrange story related by Pausanias 4 of the hero of Temessa,fow 0fyua. Piod.Jfy*& les Tochers, 4 la place ot il dfeparutiv. 350. Tine source s'elanca de la pierre.' This* Hes. Thecg, 837. monster, under the form of a huge wild*M. Bral (Hercule et Cacus, 113) ass, who haunts a spring, is slain againadds the instance of Eury bates: by the Persian Eustem. Keightley,'Eurybate ayant tirfi de spa antre le Airy Mythology 1 19.raonstre Bybara qui dfoolait les envi- * vi. 6,rons de Delphi, et 1'ayant brise" contre

348 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.BOOK The enemy here is not a snake but an evil spirit, or ratherIL.the demon of one of the companions of Odysseus who hadbeen slain for wrong done to a maiden of that city. The.__Tta Mmo-ravages of this demon, not less terrible than those of theSphinx, could be stayed, the Pythian priestess said, only bybuilding a temple to this hero or demon* and offering to himonce a year a beautiful maiden. IVom this point the storyis but another version of the myth of Perseus. Like him,Euthymos (a wrestler who is said to have woii several victoriesat Olympia between the 70th and 80th Olympiads, butwhom his countrymen regarded as a son of the river Kaikinfis)resolves to rescue the maiden, and wins her as his bride, 1while the demon, like the Libyan dragon, sinks into thesea. Of the mode by which Euthymos mastered him nothingis said but Pausanias adds that; Euthymos was notsubjected to death, and that the demon whom he overcamewas a creature terribly dark and black, with the skin of awolf for his garment. With this legend we may comparethe story of the monsters slain by Beowulf, the wolf-tamer,the first of these being Grendel, who ravages the country ofKing Hrothgar, and whom he slays after a struggle asarduous as that of Indra with the Panis, The second is butanother form of the first. It is a huge dragon which guardsa treasure-hoard near the sea-shore, and which sinks intothe waters when smitten by the hero, who, like Sigurd,becomes master of all his wealth*^e same devouring enemy of the lord of light reappearsin the Cretan Minotauros ;and here also, as we resolve themyth into its component parts, we see the simple frameworkon which it has been built up. The story in its later formran that at the prayer of Minos Poseidon sent up from thesea a bull, by whom PasiphaS became the mother of a compositebeing like Echidna, Orthros, Geryon, or Kerberos;that this monster was shut up in the labyrinth made by thecunning workman Daidalos, and there fed with the childrenwhom the Athenians were obliged to send yearly, until atlength the tribute-ship brought among the intended victims1In a still more modern shape tbe story may be found in Souther's metricaltale of the Dragon of AntiocK *

THE TRIBUTE CHILDEEN* OF ATHENS. 349the hero Theseus, who by the aid of Ariadn6 slew thehuman-headed trail, or the bull-headed man, for this beingis exhibited under both forms. To search this myth for aresiduum of fact, pointing to some early dependence of historicalAthens on the maritime supremacy of some Cretanting, is, as we have seen, utterly useless. We know nothingof Minos, Athens, or Crete at the alleged time to whichthese myths relate except what we learn from the mythsthemselves, and these utter no uncertain sounds. The Minotaurosis the offspring of the bull from the sea, which appearsagain in the myth of Eur&pS and is yoked to the chariot ofIndra, and of Pasipha, who gives light to all. This incidentis but a translation of the fact that the night follows or isborn from the day* The same notion assigns Phoibos Chrys&6r,the lord of the golden sword, and the fairnymphHie mon-Kallirhofi, as the parents of the frightful Geryon.ster so bom must share the nature of AM, Tritra, the Panis,Cacus, and i3ie Sphinx. In other words, he must steal, kill,and devour, and his victims must belong to the brightbeings from whom he is sprung. The Panis can steal onlythe cows of Indra, and the Minotauros can consume only thebeautiful children of the dawn-goddess Athn ;in otherwords, the tribube can come onlyfrom Athens. But allthese fearful monsters lurk in secret places ;each has hiscave or mountain fastness, where he gorges himself on hisprey. The road to it isgloomy and bewildering; and inthe expression put into lie mouth of the Panis, who tellSaramfi, that c the way is far and leads tortuously away/ wehave something more than the germ of the twisting andhazy labyrinth we have the labyrinth itself. This intricateabode is indeed the work of the magnificent Daidalos ; butthe walls of Dion,beautiful Helen, arebuilt by Phoibos and EeraHes themselves.to which Paris the seducer takes theIn this dark retreat lurks the monster who can beslain only by one invincible hero; but although Indra is thedestined destroyer of Vritra, he cannot find out where hisenemy is hidden away except by the aid of Saram&. Inthis lovely being, who, peering about through the sky insearch of the stolen cattle, guidesIndra to the den of the

350 MYTHOLOGY OP THE ARIAff NATIONS.BOOK^_ IL ^we see the not less beautiful Ariadnfi whothrottling serpent,points out to Theseus the clue which is to guide him to theabode of the Minotaur ;resolves itselfand thus the mythinto a few phrases which spoke of the night as sprung fromthe day, asstealing the treasures of the day and devouringits victims through the hours of darkness, and as discovered bythe early morning who brings upits destined conqueror, thesun.SECTION VI. -THE GLOAMING AND THE NIGHT.The Phor-Nor are myths wanting for the other phases of the heaven^i and between setting and the rising of the sun. If the lovelyGorgois. flush of the first twilight is betokened by the visits of Seltbdto Endymi6n, the dusky gloaming is embodied in the Graiai,or daughters of Phorkys and Kt6, who are grey or ashencolouredfrom their birth. Thus the phrase that Perseushad reached the home of the Graiai only said in other wordsthat the sun had sunk beneath the horizon. In the HesiodicTheogony 1 they are only two in number, PephrMo and Eny6,the latter name being akin to Enyalios and Enosichthon,epithetsof Ar&s and Poseid&n as shakers of the earth andsea. In the scholiast on JEschylos*they appear as swanmaidens,who have only one tooth and one eye in common,which they borrow from one another as each may need them.The night again, as litup by a grave and sombre beauty, or asoppressing men by its pitchy darkness, is represented by theother daughters of Phorkys and Kt6 who are known as theGorgons. Of these three sisters, one only, Medousa, as embodyingthe short-lived night, is subject to death ; the others,Sthein& and BuryalS, as signifying the eternal abyss ofdarkness, are immortal. According to the Hesiodic poet>Poseid&n loved Medousa in the soft meadow among theflowers of spring jand when her head fell beneath the swordof Perseus, there sprang from it ChrysS/&r with his gleamingsword, and the winged horse P%asos an incident which issimply the counterpart of the birth of Geryoneus from Eal-Iirho6 and Chrys&&r.According to another version, Medousa'273,*frm. 7. 793,

MEDOUSA. 351had once been beantifdl, but had roused the wrathas becoming the mother of glorious children, or as havingdared to set her own beauty in comparison with the lovelinessof the Dawn herself. The rivalry was indeed vain.The serenest night cannot vie with the exquisite hues of themorning ;and henceforth, to requite her daring, the ravenlocks of Medousa must be turned into hissing snakes, thedeadly glance of her joyless face should freeze all who gazedon it into stone, and even Perseus could bring her longagony to an end only by fixing his eye on the burnishedmirror while the sword of Phoibos fell on the neck of thesleeping Gorgon.The notion of these serpent enemies of the bright gods The Nightruns through the mythology of all the Aryan nations.Sometimes they have iforee heads, sometimes seven or evenmore : but we cannot forget that the words Ahi, Echidna,anguis, expressed an idea which had nothing in commonwith the thought denoted by the dragon. The latter wasstrictly the keen-sighted being, and as such belonged to theheavenly hierarchy. The dragons who bear the chariot ofMedeia through the air, or who impart to the infant lamosthe gift of prophecy, are connected only by the accident ofa name with the snakes whom Herakles strangles in hiscradle, whom Phoibos slays at Delphoi, or Indra smites inthe land of the Panis. 1 But when by the weakening ofin his throat and willmemory the same word was used to denote the malignantserpent and the beneficent dragon, the attributes of the onebecame in some myths more or less blended with those ofthe other. In the popular Hindu story of Vikram Maharajah,the cobra who curls himself upnot be dislodged is clearly the snake of winter, who takesaway the gladness and joy of summer; for this disaster isfollowed by the rajah's exile, and his people mourn hisabsence as D&mSt&r grieves while her child PersephonS issojourning in Hades. It is in fact the story of Sigurd and1In Teutonic folk-lore the night or with her scarlet rote of twilight. Indarkness is commonly the ravening wolf, one version of this story Little Bed Capthe Perms of the &dtia. This is the escapes his malice, as Memnon risesevil beast who swallows up Little Bed again from Hades.Cap or Bed Biding Hood, the evening,

352 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYA2T NATION'S.^BOOK Brynhild reversed ;for here it is Vikram who is banished or**. sleeps, while the beautiful princessBuccoulee sees herdestined husband in her dreams, and recognises him amonga group of beggars as Eurykleia recognises Odysseus in hisHim she follows, although ho leads her tosqualid raiment.a hut in the jungle, where she has but a hard time of itwhile the cobra still remains coiled up in his throat. Thiswoful state is brought to an end by an incident which occursin the stories of Panch Phul Ranee and of Gkukos andPolyidos.Buccotilee hears two cobras conversing, andlearns from them the way not merely to rid her husband ofhis tormentor, but to gain possession of the splendid treasurewhich these snakes guard like the dragon of theglistening heath or the monsters of the 1legend of Beowulf.Modifica- Still more notably is the idea of the old myth softenedtion^ofthe^^ ^ ^ ^ of rj^ for jjion jg ^ 8tron gholdof Paristhe deceiver, and Hektor is the stoutest warrior uid thenoblest man in all the hosts of Priam, To the treacheryof Alexandras he opposes the most thorough truthfulness, tohis indolent selfishness the most disinterested generosity andthe most active patriotism*But Hektor had had no sharein the sin of Paris, and there was nothing even in theearliest form of the myth which would require that thekinsmen of Paris should not fight bravely for their hearthsand homes. We have, however, seen already that themythical instinct was satisfied when the legend as a wholeffionconveyed the idea from which the myth sprung up.was indeed the fastness of the dark powers 5but each chiefand warrior who fought on their side would have his ownmythical history, and threads from very different loomsmight be woven together into a single skein. This hashappened to a singular extent in the Trojan legend. Thewarmer hues which are seen in the pictures of Phoibos,Perseus, and Herakles have been shed over the features evenof Paris himself, while Glaukos, SarpSdfin, and Memnfin arechildren of the dawn who come from the gleaming eastern1In the story of Muchie Lai, the fact, the snake who dwells In the shrineseven-headed cobra is the friend and de-fender of the dawn-maiden, and is, inof Athene, the goddess of the morning.J)wcan ?kfa> 244, &o.

AHBIMAN. 353lands watered by golden streams. Hence it is that AphroditSthe dawn-goddess has her child Aineias within theTrojan lines; and when the brave Hektor has been smittenbeneath the spear of Achilleus, she keeps his body fromdecay as Ath6n6 watched over the corpse of Patroklos.SECTION VTLTHE PHYSICAL STRUGGLE SPIRITUALISED.Thus far the struggle between the bright being and his Contrastenemy has been entirely physical; and nothing more than Betweenthe faintest germs of moral sentiment or conviction as Iranianattaching to this conflict can be traced in the mythology J^ "whether of the Hindus or the Western Aryans. In themere expression of the wish that the wicked Vritra mightnot be suffered to reign over the worshippers of Indra, andin the admission made by Zeus 1that the fight between theEJronzd gods and the Titans is one for sovereignty or subjection,for life or death, we have all that we can cite assymptoms of that marvellous change which on Iranian soilconverted this myth of Vritra into a religion and a philosophy.So completely does the system thus developed exhibita metaphysical character, and so distinctly does it seem topoint to a purely intellectual origin, that we might welldoubt the identity of Ahriman and Vritra, were it not thatan identity of names and attributes runs through Vedicthetand Iranian myths to a degree which makes doubt impossible.This agreement in names is indeed far more striking identity ofbetween the Hindu and Persian mythology than between y^^dthat of the former and the Greeks. The names of Ahi, PersianVritra, Sarama^and the Panis reappear in the west as J^ "Echidna, Orthros, Helene and Paris ;but Trita or Traitanaas a name of the god of the air has been lost, and we fail tofind the form Orthrophontes as a parallel to Vritrahan,although such epithets as Leophontes and Bellerophonteswould lead us to expect it. In the Zendavesta not merelydoes this name seem but little changed, as Verethragna, butVOL. IX.* Hesiod, Thtog. 646.A A

MYTHOLOGY OF THE AttYAN NATIONS.BOOK we also find the Trita, Yama and Krisasva of the Veda inn. the Tima-EshaSta, Thra&ana and Keresaspa of the Avesta,the representativesof three of the earliest generations ofAncU-mankind, justas the Germans spoke of the Ingrcvones,Herminones and Iscsevones as sprang front Mannus the sonof Tuiseo (Tyr).The identification of these names withthe Feridun, Jemshid and Garshasp of the modem Persianepic of the Shahnameh is regarded by Professor Max Mulletas among the most hrilliant discoveries of one of the greatestof French scholars. 1Going beyond this, Eugene Burnoufasserts that as Vivasvat is the father of Taina in the Veda,so is Yivanghvat the father of the Zend Yima, and that thefather of the Yedic Trita isAptya while the fattier of Thrafitanais Athwya.But Thratana is also known as Verethragna,, the Verethraor Vriiaca slayer, although his enemy iscommonly spoken ofunder the name of Azidah&ka, the biting snake, the throttlingAhi of Vedic, and the Echidna of Hellenic, myths.8Thesenames again M. Burnouf has traced into the great epic ofFirdusi ;for the Pehlevi form of his name leads us to Feridun,and Teridun is in the Shahnameh the slayer of the tyrantZohak. But the struggle, which as carried on betweenIndra and Yritra is clearly a fight to set free the pent-upwaters, is between Thra&fcana and Azidah&ka a contest betweena good and an evil being. The myth has received amoral turn, and it suggested a series of conflicts between thelike opposing powers, until they culminated in the eternalwarfare of Ormuzd and Ahriman. In India the thought ofthe people another channel*ran^inWith them Indra, Dyu,Agni, Yishnxt, Yaruxia, were but names for one and the samedivine Being, who alone was to them the Maker and Preserverof all things. If it was said that they had enemies,their foes were manifestly physical ; nor was there anythingin the phraseology of their hymns to lead us to the notion ofany evil power as having an existence independent of thegreat Cause of all things. But on Persian soil, the word1 Lectures -on Language, second aeries, the changes which from the same root522, have produced the Greek Zdicpv, the2The wd Dahak reappears in the Gothic tagr, and the English tear, withGieek ftawa, and in *pared mth tig* and viih %. ForLangw^ second aeries, 2fl>

OKMU2D. 355Yerethragna, transparent in its meaning to the worshippersof Indra, so thoroughly lost its original sense that it cameto denote mere strength or power; 1 and as from a metaphysicalpoint of view the power opposed to the righteous Godmust be a moral one, a seriesof synonyms were employedwhich imparted to the representative of Vritra more andmore of a spiritual character. The Devas of the Teda arethe bright gods who fight on the side of Indra ;in the Avestathe word has come to mean an evil spirit, and the Zoroastrianwas bound to declare that he ceased to be a worshipper ofthe daev&s, 2 Thus Verethra and all kindred deities wereplaced in this class of malignant beings, and branded with theepithet Drukhs, deceitful. 8 But the special distinction ofthe being known to us under the familiar name of Ahriman,was the title of Angr6-Mainyus, or spirit of darkness. 4This name was simply an offset to that of his righteous adversary,Spento-Mainyus, or the spirit of light. But Spento-Mainyus was only another name for the Supreme Being,whose name Ahuro-mazd&o we repeat in the shortened formof Ormuzd. 5 In this Beingthe devout Zoroastrian trusted1As such, M, Breal^ remarks that it mauvais, 1'nlAe (Tune divinite* adversaire'became an adjective, and ifi sometimes constante d'Orrauzd et de Mithra 'used in the superlative degree, a hymn Croyances et Lkqmdes de I'Antiguiti, 61.being spoken of as Verethraza^tema. The degradation of Aryaraan involvedHercule et Caws, 129. the exaltation of Mithra 'Une fois*Max Miiller, Chipati. 26. devenu la personification de la v&ite*9The word IB probably found in the et de la bonne foi, Mithra rt^ut leGreek -rpK-

356 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.with, all the strength, of spiritual conviction :but the idea ofhis enemy was as closely linked with that of the righteousGod as the idea of Vritra with that of Indra ;and the exaltationof Ormuzd carried the greatness of Ahriman to a pitchwhich made him thecreator and the sovereign of an evilIranianuniverse at war with the Kosmos of the spirit of light.g-Q^ -was the origin of Iranian dualism, a dualism whichdivided the world between two opposing self-existent deities,while it professedly left to men the power of choosing whomthey should obey.c Ahura-mazda is holy, true, to be honouredthrough truth, through holy deeds.' 'You cannot .servehim and his enemy. 5 ' In the beginning there was a pair oftwins, two spirits, each of a peculiar activity. These arethe Good and the Base in thought, word, and deed.Chooseone of these two spirits.Be good, not base/ But practicallyAhriman took continually a stronger hold on the popularimagination, and the full effects of this process were to berealised elsewhere. The religion of Zoroaster has been regardedas a reform ;in H. Bral's judgment,it was rather areturn to a classification which the Hindu had abandoned orhad never cared to*adopt. While Brahmanism kept to theold belief only in the letter, Mazdeism preserved its spirit.The Parsee, who sees the universe divided between twoforces, everywhere present and each in turn victorious untilthe final victory of Ormuzd, is nearer to the mythicalrepresentations of the first age than the Hindu, who, lookingon everything as an illusion of the senses, wraps up theuniverse and his own personality in the existence of one singleBeing:/ o1WHln. this dualism theIts in-Jews were brought into contactfhaence onduring the captivity at Babylon. That the Hebrew emprophetshad reiterated their belief in one God with the most profoundconviction, is not to be questioned; but as little can it bedoubted that as a people the Jews had exhibited little impulsetowards Monotheism, and that from this time wediscern a readiness to adopt the Zoroastrian demonology*Thus far Satan had appealed, as in the book of Job, among1 Hercvle et Cacus, 129. The same logy is taken by M. Mauiy, Crwanott,view of the origin of the Bualistic theo- ^c., 97.

ST,1GEORGE AND THE DRAGON . 357the ministers of God; but in later boots we have a closerapproximation to the Iranian creed. In the words of M.Brfialj*Satan assumes, in Zacharias and in the first book ofOhonicles, the character of Ahriman, and appears as theauthor of evil. Still later he becomes the prince of thedevils, the source of wicked thoughts, the enemy of theword of God. He tempts the Son of God ;he enters intoJudas for his ruin.The Apocalypse exhibits Satan with thephysical attributes of Ahriman he : is called the dragon, theold serpent, who fights against God and his angels. TheVedie myth, transformed and exaggerated in the Iranianbooks, finds its way through this channel into Christianity.'The idea thus introduced was that of the struggle betweenSatanand Michael which ended in the overthrow of theformer, and the casting forth of all his hosts out of heaven ;but it coincided too nearly with a myth spread in countriesheld byall the Aryan nations to avoid further modification.Local traditions substituted St. Georgeor St. Theodore forJupiter, ApolWta, Herakles, or Perseus. 'It is under thisdisguise,' adds M. Br6al, 'that the'Yedic myth has comedown to our own times, and has still its festivals and itsmonuments. Art has consecrated it in a thousand ways.St Michael, lance in hand, treading on the dragon, is animage as familiar now as, thirty centuries ago,that of Indratreading under foot the demon Yritra could possibly havebeen to the Hindu/ lThat this myth should be Euemerised by Jirdusi was The epicof Firdasi *natural and inevitable, when once the poet had made Feriduna king of the first Persian dynasty. He could no longerrepresent Zohak as a monster with three heads, three tails,six eyes, and a thousand forces ; *but the power of the oldmyth gave shape to his statement that, after the embrace ofthe demon, a snake started up from each of Ms shoulders,whose head, like that of the Lernaian hydra, grew as fast asit was cut off. Nor has it influenced the modern poet only.Cyrus is as historical as Charlemagne but from ; mythicalhistory we should learn as much of the former as we shouldblow of the latter,if our information came only from th&* ft. 130.

358 MYTHOLOGY OP THE ARYAN NATIONS.BOOK myth of Boland. What Cyrus reallydid we learn froms- ,'.., other sources ;but in the legendary story he is simply anotherOidipous and T&ephos, compelled for a time to live,like Odysseus and the Boots of German tales, in mean disguise,until his inborn nobleness proclaims him the son of aking. But as in the case of Oidipous, Perseus, Theseus,and many more, the father or the grandsire dreads the birthof the child, for the sun must destroy the darkness to whomhe seems to owe his life. This sire of Cyrus must belongtherefore to the class of beings who represent the powers ofnight in other words, he must be akin to Vritra or to Ahi ;and in his name accordingly we find the familiar words.Astyages, the Persian Asdahag,is but another form ofthe modern Zohak, the Azidah&ka, or biting snake, ofVedic and Iranian mythology; and the epithet reappearsseemingly in the name of Deiokes, the first king of theMedian nation. 1SECTION VHLTHE SEMITIC AMD AETAN DEVIL.The Semi- Thus far it is only on Iranian soil that we have seen thetic Satan,giggle between day and night, the sun and the darkness,represented as a conflict between moral good and evil, theresult being a practical, if not a theoretical dualism, in whichthe unclean spiritis at the least as powerful as the righteousbeing with whom he is at war. This absolute partition ofthe universe between two contending principles was thevery groundwork of Iranian belief; but the idea was onewhich could not fail to strike root in any congenial soil. Toa certain extent it found such a soil in the mind of theJewish people, who had become familiar, by whatever means,with the notion of a being whose office it was to tempt or trythe children of men. The Satan who discharges this dutyis, however, one of the sons of God ;and in the book of Jobthere is no indication of any essential antagonism between1The story of Deiokes is certainly this self-made sovereign, and bis inaenottold by Herodotos for the purpose cessible retreat vutlnn & palace fromof establishing the divine right of kings , which, he never emerges, may have betabut it is more than possible that the suggested by the myth to which iuaselfishness and rapacity which mark name belongs*

IRANIAN DBMONOLOGY. 359ihem.The position of Satan in this narrative is indeed instrict accordance with the Hebrew philosophy which regardedGod as the author both of good and evil, as the being whohardened Pharaoh's heart and authorised the lying spirit togo forth and prevail among the prophets of Ahab. Butwhen a portion of the Jewish people was brought intocontact with the fully developed system of Persian dualism,the victory of the Iranian theology seemed complete. Henceforththe notion of two hierarchies, the one heavenly, theother diabolical, took possession of their minds 5and theSatan, who ruled over the powers of darkness and exerciseda wide dominion as prince of the air, was confined to a levellower than that of Ahriman, only because he had once stoodamong the most brilliant angelsin the courts of heaven. Atthis level he remained a fallen creature ruling over hosts ofmalignant demons who did his will among* mankind, plaguingthem with sorrow, disease, and madness, until the convictionsof the first Christian societies magnified him into proportionsif possible more overpowering than those of the Iranianenemy of Ormuzd. The Jew, chiefly, if not wholly, fromthe conviction which led him to regard God as the authorboth of good and evil, drew no sharp distinction betweenmind and matter as existing in irreconcilable antagonism ;and since as a nation they can scarcely be said tothe lastto have attained to any definite ideas either of the fact orthe conditions of a life continued after death, Satan couldwith them obviously have no definite dominion beyond thebounds of our present existence. He could torture thebodies, afflict the souls, or darken the minds of men but of5Ms everlasting reign over countless multitudes ruined by hissubtle wiles we find no very definite notionBut Christianity, while it rested on a distinct assurance of Effect ofpersonal immortality altogether stronger than any to whichthe most fervent of the Hebrew prophets had ever attained,took root among nations who had filled all the world withgods or demons, each with his own special sphere and office.These deities the Christian teachers dethroned; but farfrom attempting to destroy them, they were careful to insistthat they had always been, and must for ever continue to be,

360 MYTHOLOGY Off THE ABYAN NATIONS.^BOOK malignant devils 5but unless their horrible fellowship wasl**'^speedily to come to an end, they must be trader the rale ofsome king, and this king they found in the Semitic Satan.Of the theology which sprung from this root it isenough tosay that it endowed the king of the fallen angels with thepowers of omnipresence and omniscience, and made him sofar a conqueror in hisgreat struggle with the author of hisbeing as to succeed in wresting for ever out of the hands ofGod all but an insignificant fraction of the whole race ofmankind. The victory of the Almighty God could notextend either to the destruction of Satan and his subordinatedemons, or to the rescue of the souls whom he had enticedto their ruin; and if power be measured by the multitude ofsubjects, his defeat by Michael could scarcely be regarded asmuch impairing his magnificent success. Of the effect ofthis belief on the moral and social developement of Christendom,it is unnecessary to speak: but it must not be forgottenthat this particular developement of the Jewish demonologywas the natural outgrowth of passionate convictions animatinga scanty band in an almost hopeless struggle against asociety thoroughly corrupt and impure.It was almost impossiblefor any whose eyes were opened to its horrors tolook upon it as anything but a loathsome mass which couldnever be cleansed from its defilement.What could they seebut a vast gulf separating the few who were the soldiers ofChrist from themyriads who thronged together under thestandard of his adversary? Hence grew up by a processwhich cannot much excite our wonder that severe theology,which, known especially as that of Augustine, representedthe Christian Church as an ark floating on a raging sea,open only to those who received the sacrament of baptism^and shut both here and hereafter to infants dying before itcould be administered. It was inevitable that under suchconditions the image of Satan should more and more fill the1The Christian missionaries were und stmdlieh, nicht als absolut nichtigfurther conscious that their own thau- echilderfce : die Wunder den Christenmaturgy might be called into question, erscheinen dadurch glaubhafter, dawif that of the old creed were treated as aiich d

LOKI AKD UVL 361theologicalhorizon for the few whose enthusiasm and convictionswere sincere. But these conditions were changedwith the conversion of tribes, in whom the thought of onemalignant spirit marring and undoing the work of God hadnever been awakened ;and although henceforth the teachingof the priesthood might continue to be as severe as that ofAugustine or Fulgentius, it was met by the passive resistanceof men whose superstitions were less harsh and oppressive.* *The Aryan Nations,' says Professor Max Miiller, had nodevil. Pluto, though of a sombre character, was a veryrespectable personage: and Loki, though a mischievousperson, was not a fiend. The German goddess, Hel, toolike Proserpine had seen better days/ l It was thus noeasy task to imbue them with an adequate horror of a beingof whose absolute malignity they could form no clear conception.But these tribes had their full share of that large inherit-The Tananceof phrases which had described originally the coveringthe rain-cloudsor biting snake, Vritra or Ahi, who shuts upin his prison-house. Probably not one of the phrases whichfurnished the groundwork of Iranian dualism had been lostor forgotten by any other of the Aryan tribes; but likeVritra or Ahi, like the Sphinx or the Pyth6n, likeBellerosor Chimaira, or Echidna, the beings to whom the Germantribes applied these phrases had already been overcome.The phrases also had varied in character from gravesolemnity to comedy or burlesque, from the type of thein the apologue of Prodikos to theHerakles whom we seeHerakles who jests with Thanatos (Death) after he hasthe latterstolen away Alkfistis. To the people at largemode of thinking and speaking on the subject was morecongenial ; and to it the ideas of the old godswere moreCkip9 t &c., ToL ii. p. 235, Dr. tongue. Thifl notion Christianity1Daaent's words are not less explicit, brought withtit from the east; and'The notion of an Arch-enemy of godand man, a fallen angel, to whom powerthough it is a plant which has struckdeep roots, grown distorted and awry,was permitted at certain times for ap and borne a bitter crop of superstition,all-wise purpose by the Great fiuler of it required all the authority of thethe universe, was as foreign to the Church to prepare the soil for its recephoathcmlomof our ancestors as his name tion.' Popular Tales from the Norse,was outlandish and strange to their introduction, p. xcvm,

362 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.BOOKreadily adapted. Eel had been, lite Persephon6, the queen._ *** . of the unseen-land, in the ideas of the northern tribes,a land of bitter cold and icy walls. She now becamenot the queen of Niflheim, but Niflheim itself,while herabode, though gloomy enough, was not wholly destitute ofmaterial comforts* It became the Hell where the old manhews wood for the Christmas fire, and where the Devil inhis eagerness to buy the flitch of bacon yields up themarvellous quern which is e good to grind almost anything.* 1It was not so pleasant, indeed, as heaven yor the old Valhalla,but it was better to be there than shut out in theouter cold beyond its padlocked gates. 2 But more particularlythe devil was a being who under pressure of hungermight be drawn into acting against his own interest; inother words, he might be outwitted, and this character of apoor or stupid devil is almost the onlyone exhibited inTeutonic legends.8In fact, as Professor Max Miiller remarks,the Germans, when they had been c indoctrinatedwith the idea of a real devil, the Semitic Satan or Diabolus,treated him in the most good-humoured manner ;*nor isit easy to resist Dr. Dasent's conclusion that * no greaterproof can be given of the small hold which the ChristianDevil has taken of the Norse mind, than the heathen aspectunder which he constantly appears, and the ludicrous way inwhich he is always outwitted.' 4Wayiand But this freedom was- never taken witix Satan. Whilethe Smith.'Why the Sea is Salt' Dasent, carefully locked. Dr. Daseat remarks1Norse Tales, ii. This inexhaustible that the Smith makes trial of hell inquern is only another form of the trea- the first instance, for ' having behavedsures of Helen or Brynhild But though ill to the ruler ' of hwavon, and ' actuallythe enow may veil all the wealth of quarrelled with the master* of hell,fruits and vegetables,this wealth is of ho * was naturally anxious * to knowno use to the chill beings who have laid whether he would bo received by either,their grasp upon it. These beings must Ibid, cube therefore so hard pressed for hunger It has been said of that Southoyhe'that, like Esau, they may be ready to could never think of the devil withoutpart with anything or everything for a laughing. This is but saying that hemess of pottageor a flitch of bacon had the genuine humour of our Teutonic9The Master Smith, in the heathenish ancestors. His version of the legend ofstory so entitled, entraps the devil into Eloe'mon may be compared with any ofa purse, as the Fisherman entraps the the popular tales in which Satan itJin in the Arabian Tale, and the devil overmatched by men whom he despises.is so scared that when the Smith pre- Grimm, 969.sents himself at the gate of hell, he *None Tcdcs %introd. ciiugives orders to have the nine padlocks'

363that name remained unchanged in tlie language of theology,CHAPthe word devil passed into an immense number of forms, the .-.../.-*Gothic tieval, dmval, diufal, the Icelandic djofull, Swedishdjevful, all of them, together with the Italian, French, andSpanish forms carrying back the word 8taj8o\o$ to the sameroot which furnised the Latin Dims, Djovis, and the Sanskritdeva. 1 To this devil were applied familiarly thoseepithets which are bestowed in the Vedic hymnson theantagonist of Indra. Like Vritra, he is often spoken ofsimply as the fiend or the enemy (o TTOW?/X>'$) ;more oftenhe is described as the old devil or serpent, the ealda deofolof Ciedinoii, the old Nick* and old Davy of common Englishspeech at the present day. Like Pani, he is Volant, thecheat or seducer,3 who appears in a female form as Talandiane.4 But to the Germans the fall of the devil fromheaven suggested the idea that, like Eephaistos, he musthave been lamed by the descent, and hence we have the lamedevil, or devil upon two- sticks, who represents the limpingHephaistos not only in his gait but in his office. Likehim, the VaJant is a smith, and the name, which hasassumed elsewhere the forms Faland, Phaland, Foland,Valland, passes into the English form Wayknd, and givesus the Wayland Smith whom Tresilian confronts in Scott'snovel of Kenilworth. 5 Like the robbers who steal Indra'scattle, he is also the dark, murky, or black being, theGraumann or Greyman of German folk-lore. 6 Like theFauns and other mythical beings of Greek and Latinmythology, he has a body which is either wholly or in partthat of a beast. Some times he leaves behind him the printof a horse's hoof, and the English demon Grant, another1Grimm, Deutsche MytMogw, 939. Scott's romance, Waylandis a mere im-* This name, one of a vast number of postor who avails himself of a popularforms through which the root of the superstition to keep up an air of my&teryG reek v^x, to swim, has passed, denotes about himself and his work: but thesimply a water-spirit, the mcor of the character to which he makes pretence^Buowulf, the nix or nixy of German belongs to the genuine Teutonic legend.fairy tales. The devil is here * regarded Grimm, 3). M.> 945. This blackas dwelling in the water, and thus the demon is the Slavish Tschernibog (ZerxuuucexplnmH the sailor's phrase ' Davy's nibog), who is represented as the enemylocker. 1 Grimm, $> Af., 456. of Bjelbog, the white god, a dualism* Nib. 1334. which Grimm regards as of late growth,* Ib. 1688 ; Grimm, JE>. AT., 948, V. #., 986.*Grimm, $, M., 945, In SID Vf.

364 MYTHOLOGY OP THE AKYAN NATIONS.form probably of GrendeV showed itselffoal.in the form of aThe devil of the witches was a black buck or goat ;athat of the fathers of the Christian Church was a devouringwolf. 8 Like Ahi, again, and Pythdn and Echidna^ he isnot only the old serpent or dragon but the hell-worm, andthe walfish or leviathan (a name in which we see again4the Vala or deceiver). Like Baalzebub, he assumes theform of a as fly, Psych& may denote either a good or anevil spirit. As the hammer which crushes the world, andinflicts the penalty of sin on the sinner, he plays the partof the Aloadai and Thor Miolnir. As the guardian of theunderworld, he is the hellward and the hell-shepherd orhost. His gloomy abode lies towards the njorth, whether asthe gloomy Ovelgunne, which has furnished a name formany places in Germany, the Hekelfelde, Heklufiall, orhag's fell, or the nobiskroech, nobiskrug, which answersto the gate beyond which the lost souls leave hope behindthem. 5 The same process, which converted the kindlyHolda into the malignant Unholda, attributed to the deviloccupations borrowed from those of the Teutonic Odin andthe Greek Orion. But it is no longer the mighty hunterfollowing his prey on the asphodel meadow, or the godtraversing his domain in stately procession. The brave andgood who had followed the midnight journeys of Wuotangive place to the wretched throng of evil-doers who arehurried along in the devil's train, or in that of some humanbeing, who for his pre-eminent wickedness is made totake the devil's place. In Denmark the hunter isKingWaldemar, in Germany Dietrich of Bern, in France KingHugh or Charles V. in ;Englandit is Herne the Hunter ofWindsor, and the one-handed Boughton or Lady SkipwithGrimm, J). M. 946. the former answering to the1* Grimm, ib 946-7. The buck was Korberow. Ho alno rampartm th Oldspecially wicred to DonarorThor, but German wwrfc, a wolf, with rhe Pnlinhit is possible that this transformation, wrog, the Bohemian torah, the Hlovmianlike that of LykAon and Arkas, was sug- wag, an evil-dour.gested by an equivocal wamej and the*Grimm, ih. 9S0.buck may be only a kindred form to the * //>. 96

POLYPHfiMOS.S65of Warwickshire tradition, 1 Other myths were subjected to CHAP.the same process of degradation. The kindly D&n&Sr be- - x>comes the devil's mother, 2 grandmother, or sister, who stillshows something of her ancient character in the part whichshe plays towards those who throw themselves on her protection.Thus she shields Thor and Tyr in the house ofHymir, as the giant's mother shelters Jack in the nurserystory. In the lay of Beowulf Grendel's mother is less complying,and avenges on the hero the death of her son. Thebinding of the devil, like that of Prometheus and Ahriman,is implied in the phrase 'the devil is loose/ the sequel being* tlio devil is dead/One legend of the devil'sdeath furnishes some singular Thepoints of comparison with the myth of Polyph&mos,, althoughit seems rash to infer any direct derivation of the storyfrom the Odyssey. The devil asks a man who is mouldingand when the man answersbuttons what he may be doing ;that he is moulding eyes, asks him further whether he cangive him a pair of new eyes. He is told to come againanother day and when he makes his appearance accord-;ingly, the man tells him that the operation cannot be performedrightly unless he is first tightly bound with his backfastened to a bench. While he is thus pinioned, he asks themail's name. The reply is Issi (* himself). When the leadis melted, the devil opens his eyes wide to receive the deadlystream. As soon as he is blinded he starts up in agony,bearing away the bench to which he had been bound,devil therefore has a beard of that colour,*Grimm, J>. AT. 000, 958. In other and the thunderbolts are his followers.Dasont, Namt 7W, mtrod. Ixxxiv.legends it in Herodmfl, who, confounded Many expressions common to Englandwith her daughter, is made to danco on and Germany come from the same_'for ever ;or Satia, Bertha, Abundit, source. The compassionate phrase der(names denoting kindliness,arme Teufel' wasbrightness,formerly 'der arme''or plenty), who, with Frigga, and Froya, Donner jand the expletives Bagel*Artomis and Diana, are degraded into *Donner-wetter' and ' unser Herr-Gott 7leader* of midnight troops. point to the time when the heathenf Here JDionysosis lowered to the Donar was lord of the atmosphereatune level with Orion or "Wuotan, (ih. 965). His conduct to his wife alsoGrimm, D. M. 961. The devil, of carries us back to some of the oldestcourse, has his children, * devil's brood,' mythical phrases. He is said to beat'devil's imps.'Grimm remarks that his wife when the rain falls in sun-TttifflHkind is synonymous with Don- shine, and the rapid alternation of suniwrskind,and that here again we are shine and shower is said to be causedconfronted with old mythical expires- by his blanching his grandmother.sicms. Thunder is red-bearded, and the-

366 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAK NATIONS.and when some workpeople in the fieldsask him wlio hadthus treated him, his answer is

367APPENDICES.APPENDIX A. Page 72.Laws and Daw/it.The objections raised by M. Comparetti (Edvpo e la Mitologia,Comparata), can scarcely be regarded as of weight against theidentification of tlie Greek Laios with the Yedic Dasa or Dasyu, anenemy. Professor Max Mutter, who thinks that daoc as a name ofslaves, on which M. Bral lays stress, may admit of a different explanation,still holds that Le6phont6s as a name of Bellerophdn is aGreek equivalent of the Sanskrit dasyuhantu, the slayer of theenemies of the bright gods, i.e., of the dasas or demons of the Veda,esuch as Vritra, "Opflpoc, !Namuki 7 'A/zucoc, Sambara and others.' Hewould even be inclined to trace back the common Greek word forpeople Xaoc, to the same source with the Sanskrit dasa, were it notthat the change of d to I in Greek is restricted to certain dialects,and that * it cannot be admitted as a general rule, unless there besome evidence to that effect,' Chips,ii. 167, 186-7. Some suchevidence may be furnished by Sevw and \ovu> as being both thoequivalents of the Latin lavare in our Homeric poems. Of theadjective dcuoc or 3//Y0?, hostile, he says, that it is clearly derivedfrom the same source, the root being das, to perish, thoughit istime that in its frequent application to fire the adjective 5

368 APPENDIX.APPENDIX B. Page 102.I give this conclusion in Professor Max Muller's words, Cfkipfi Ac.ii. 234, not only because they must strengthen any inferences whichI may venture to make, but because I wish to disclaim, any merit ofhaving been the first to proclaim it. I must be forgiven if I noticehere, once for all,the strange plan which some writers have thoughtfit to adopt of quoting as coining from myself passages which Ihave quoted from others. Thus Mr. Moaley, writing in the Gontewipur&ryRemew, rejected the solar character of the TrojanWar on theground that this conclusion was a fancy on my part shared by noneothers, and cited without inverted commas words which in theMawwxl of Mythology I had quoted with inverted commas fromProfessor Max Miiller's Lectures on Language, second series, p. 471.These words are the simple assertion that the siege of Troy is * a reflectionof the daily siege of the East by the solar powers that everyevening are robbed of their brightest treasures in the West.' I amfully prepared to share the responsibility which may be involved inthis belief, supported as it isby amass of evidence which it is almostimpossible to strengthen, and which might rather be thought, andprobably hereafter will be thought, ludicrously excessive in amount;but I cannot claim the merit of having been the first to propound it.The solar character of Achilleus and of the Odyssey I had fullyrecognised and distinctly declared in the Introduction to the Talcsof Thebes affid Argosy but on the meaning of the siege of Troyitself I had said nothing.I cannot but regret the remarks with which Mr. Gould haclosedhis excellent chapter on the Tell story, which ho thinks has not itssignification * 'painted on the surface like the legends of Phoibos or6B&ldur. Though it is possible,' ho adds, * that Gesaler or Haraldmay be the power of evil and darkness, and the bold archer thestorm-cloud with his arrow of lightning and his iris bow benfcagainst the sun which is resting like a coin or golden apple on tlioedge of the horizon, yet we have no guarantee that such an interpretationnot an i*5 overstraining of a theory/ Such an OUTHI rainingwould probably bo confined to himself. Tho eleuiontu commonto all the versions of the myth are the apple, or some other roundobject, and an uneiring archer; but here, as we havo soon, the abfloluteagreement ends ;and it isenough to say that the attributesassigned to Tell, Cloudeslee (whose very name marks him as aninhabitant of the Phaiakian or Oloudland), and the rest are theattributes of the sun in all the systems of Aryan mythology, whileno such unfailing skill is attributed to the storm-cloud. Still lea*

THE -MYTH OF TELL. 369was it necessary to insert here a caution which in its proper place may"be of great service. This caution is directed against a supposed temptationfelt by Comparative Mythologists to resolve real history into solarlegends, and it is supported by an ingenious and amusing argumentproving that Napoleon Bonaparte was the Sun. The parallel citedby Mr. Gould is drawn out with great cleverness; but with referenceto the legend of Tell it is absolutely without point. Mr. Gouldhas demolished its historical character and cast it aside as a narrativebased on actual facts not less decidedly than Professor Max Maileror Dr. Dasent. Like the latter ho is perfectly aware that c it is nottold at all of Tell in Switzerland before the year 1499, and the earlierSwiss Chronicles omit it altogether.' Dasent, Norse Tales, Introduction,xxxv. Hence we are dealing with matters which have notonly no sort of contemporary attestation but which cannot be madeto fit in with the known facts of the time. Thus the warningbased on the supposed mythical character of Napoleon applies onlyto those who may resolve Perikles or Alexander the Great into thesun; and we may well wait until some Comparative Mythologistevents andgravely asserts that we may treat or regard as mythicalcharacters for which we have the undoubted and unquestionabletestimony of contemporary writers. The lack or the completeabsence of all such evidence is an essential criterion in the assignmentof a narrative to the respective domains of mythology or historyor to the.border lands which may separate the one from theother. Al^ therefore, that Professor Max Miiller does for the storyof Toll is to group it with other legends more or less closely resemblingit, and then to state the meaning of a myth, whichis not more a myth, in his own judgment than it is in that of Mr.Gould.APPENDIX C. Page 115.The Stawros or Cross.The forms of these crosses varied indefinitely from the simpleTau to the most elaborate crosses of four limbs, with whoso modifiedoutlines the beautiful designs of Christian art have made us familiar.*Ware das Kreuz keine Phallus-zeichen, so fragt sich, was solltedie Kreuzigung der Psych6 (die Seele ist hier, weil sie zur Sinnlichkeitsich hinneigt, als weibliches Wesen aufgefasst) durch Bros, fureinen Sinn gehabt haben? Oder welohe Absicht leitete jenenMaler, dessen Kunstwerk den Ausoniufl zu der Idylle, Cupido cruciamxus, begeiaterte?' Nork, s. v. Krws, S89. The malefactor'scross or gibbet, the infelix arbos or accursed tree of the old RomanVOL. II.B B

THE -MYTH OF TELL. 369was it necessary to insert here a caution which in its proper place may"be of great service. This caution is directed against a supposed temptationfelt by Comparative Mythologists to resolve real history into solarlegends, and it is supported by an ingenious and amusing argumentproving that Napoleon Bonaparte was the Sun. The parallel citedby Mr. Gould is drawn out with great cleverness; but with referenceto the legend of Tell it is absolutely without point. Mr. Gouldhas demolished its historical character and cast it aside as a narrativebased on actual facts not less decidedly than Professor Max Maileror Dr. Dasent. Like the latter ho is perfectly aware that c it is nottold at all of Tell in Switzerland before the year 1499, and the earlierSwiss Chronicles omit it altogether.' Dasent, Norse Tales, Introduction,xxxv. Hence we are dealing with matters which have notonly no sort of contemporary attestation but which cannot be madeto fit in with the known facts of the time. Thus the warningbased on the supposed mythical character of Napoleon applies onlyto those who may resolve Perikles or Alexander the Great into thesun; and we may well wait until some Comparative Mythologistevents andgravely asserts that we may treat or regard as mythicalcharacters for which we have the undoubted and unquestionabletestimony of contemporary writers. The lack or the completeabsence of all such evidence is an essential criterion in the assignmentof a narrative to the respective domains of mythology or historyor to the.border lands which may separate the one from theother. Al^ therefore, that Professor Max Miiller does for the storyof Toll is to group it with other legends more or less closely resemblingit, and then to state the meaning of a myth, whichis not more a myth, in his own judgment than it is in that of Mr.Gould.APPENDIX C. Page 115.The Stawros or Cross.The forms of these crosses varied indefinitely from the simpleTau to the most elaborate crosses of four limbs, with whoso modifiedoutlines the beautiful designs of Christian art have made us familiar.*Ware das Kreuz keine Phallus-zeichen, so fragt sich, was solltedie Kreuzigung der Psych6 (die Seele ist hier, weil sie zur Sinnlichkeitsich hinneigt, als weibliches Wesen aufgefasst) durch Bros, fureinen Sinn gehabt haben? Oder welohe Absicht leitete jenenMaler, dessen Kunstwerk den Ausoniufl zu der Idylle, Cupido cruciamxus, begeiaterte?' Nork, s. v. Krws, S89. The malefactor'scross or gibbet, the infelix arbos or accursed tree of the old RomanVOL. II.B B

THE -MYTH OF TELL. 369was it necessary to insert here a caution which in its proper place may"be of great service. This caution is directed against a supposed temptationfeltby Comparative Mythologists to resolve real history into solarlegends, and it is supported by an ingenious and amusing argumentproving that Napoleon Bonaparte was the Sun. The parallel citedby Mr. Gould is drawn out with great cleverness; but with referenceto the legend of Tell it is absolutely without point. Mr. Gouldhas demolished its historical character and cast it aside as a narrativebased on actual facts not less decidedly than Professor Max Mulloror Dr. Dasent. Like the latter ho is perfectly aware that ' it is nottold at all of Tell in Switzerland before the year 1499, and the earlierSwiss Chronicles omit it altogether.' Dasent, Norse Tales, Introduction,xxxv. Hence we are dealing with matters which have notonly no sort of contemporary attestation but which cannot be madeto fit in with the known facts of the time. Thus the warningbased on the supposed mythical character of Napoleon applies onlyto those who may resolve Perikles or Alexander the Great into thosun; and we may well wait until some Comparative Mythologistgravely asserts that we may treat or regard as mythical events andcharacters for which we have the undoubted and unquestionabletestimony of contemporary writers. The lack or the completeabsence of all such evidence is an essential criterion in the assignmentof a narrative to the respective domains of mythology or historyor to the.border lands which may separate the one from theother. All, therefore, that Professor Max Miiller does for the storyof Toll is to group it with other tegends more or less closely resemblingit, and then to state the meaning of a myth, whichis not more a myth in his own judgment than it is in that of Mr.Gould.APPENDIX C. Page 115.The Stawros or Cross.The forms of these crosses varied indefinitely from the simpleTan to the most elaborate crosses of four limbs, with whose modifiedoutlines the beautiful designs of Christian art have made us familiar.*Ware das Kreuz keine Phallus-zeichen, so feagt sich, was solltedie Kreuzigung der Psychd (die Seele ist hier, weil sie zur Sinnlichkeitsich hinneigt, als weibliches Wesen aufgefasst) durch Eros, fureinen Sinn gehabt haben? Oder welche Absicht leitete jenenMaler, dessen Kunstwerk den Ausoniufl zu der Idylle, Cupido cruciafibtus, begeisterte ? f Nork, s. v. Krew, B89. The malefactor'scross or gibbet, the infelix arbos or accursed tree of the old RomanVOL. n.B B

372 APPENDIX.that on further consideration the reviewer willsec that the factswhich he has brought together do not support his conclusions.I avail myself, further, of this opportunity of referring to asuggestive paper by Mr* 1ST. Ck Batt, on tho Corruption of Christianityby Paganism, CuHkmpnrary Jftv/Yw, March 1870, and ofquoting his remarks on the phallicby the 'pillared saints/character of the columns used*One of the most extraordinary accommodations of heathen ideasto corrupt Christianity is the now obsolete form of asceticism, introducedby Simon Stylites in the neighbourhood of Antioch, and verypopular during the last age of the Roman empire. We are told byLucian in his interestingtreatise on the Syrian goddess, that inEierapolis on the Euphrates there stood a renowned temple of theAssyrian Juno, in front of which two columns, each thirty cubitshigh, were set up in the shape of " phalli. Now it was tho annualcustom for a priestto climb to tho top of one of thcso pillars bythe aid of a cord drawn round tho column and his own body,in the same manner as the gatherers of dates ascend theirpalm-trees,And the reason of his going up is thin,that mostpeople think that from this height he converses with tho gtxla, andasks blessingsfor all Syria.He remainn f horo seven days, drawingup his food by a rope. The pilgrimR bring some gold ami silver,and others brass money, which they lay down Mlms him, whileanother priest repeatstheir names to him, upon which ho prays foreach offerer by name, ringing a bell aa ho does so. Ho never sloops,for if he did it is said that a scorpion would bite him. Moreover,this temple exhales a most delightful perfume like that of Arabia,which never leaves the garments of such as approach it," Nowwith the classical author's account compare the narrative of Kvagriusfour centuries later." Simon of holy memozy originated ( ?) the contrivanceof stationing himself on the top of a column forty cubitshigh, where, placed between earth and heaven, he holds communionwith God, and unites in praises with the angels, from earth offeringhis intercessions on behalf of men, and from heaven drawing down'upon them the divine favour/'In other words, the so-called Christian practice waheathen ;and the heathen rite was indubitably phaUic,indubitably

INDEX.AKBABA164 et stq. Akraia, ii. 20A BARIS, ii. 114Agathos Daim6n, ii. 20, 129Jix Abstract Words, tise of, i. 45 Agenor, i. 43S;ii. 195Absyrtos, ii. 40, 138, 102Abuudw, ii. 306, 365Acoa Larentm, ii. 82Ages, Hesiodic,ii. 201Aglaia, ii. 3Aglanros,ii. 232Acerbas, i. 433Agni, i, 105 ; ii. 190 et seq.Achaia, i.3tflAcbaians,i. 234Achaimanidai,i. 235Agraulos, ii. 309Ahaly&, i. 86, 346Ahan4, L 418Acheron, ii. 260, 266, 321Ahans, the two,i. 390Achillas, i, 1?5, 244 ^ stq.ii. 165; Ahi, 1.342, ii. 72, 328Aehilleus, i. 90, 191, 236, 292, 430;ii. 76, 156, 32Sthe womanly,S. 248 ; ii. 64, 163* the bondman,ii. 163armour of, i. 246 ; ii. 168 et seg. Aiakos, ii 87, 322career of, i. 245 etseq.character of, i. 254 et seq. j ii. 165Aias,i. 448Aid6neus, u. 297, 320et wq.Aid6s, ii, 203horses of, i. 341, 434 ; ii. 252Aietes, i. 304, 429 ; ii. 150vengeance of, i. 249Aigai, ii. 263Adam Bell ii. 100ii.Aigaidn, 88Adeva, i. 354i.4-diti, 333Aditya, i. 332, 334Aigcus, i. 274, 436 ;Aigimios,ii. 183Aigina, ii. 88, 263ii. 64 etAdmAtofl, ii. 41Adonis, i. 66, 286; ii, 5, 66, 113Aigis, i, 348, 383 ;Aigl6, il 3ii. 219Aclnistcia, i. 360 ; ii, 20Aigyptos, ii. 30, 266 et scq.Adrastos, ii, 184 et se$Ajneiadai, i. 92, 453JEftciis fAmkos]Aineias, i. 260 ; ii. 4, 853JSgina f Aigina]tt[LafM]/Egyptus [Aigyptosjtineas, i. 260, 432jEneid of Virgil, i.260, 432JEolus [Aiolos]Afer, i. 347Aiolians, i. 236Aiolic migration,i. 202Aiohdai, i. 202Aiolos, i. 202, 237 ; ii. 177, 252ii.Aipytos, 81i.Air, 349AJLS, ii. 820Aer6 f ii. 290ii. 17Ajsa,Aerth, iH!9Aison,ii 154Aithte, i. 251, 327, 329, 347, 373JEsir, i. 335Aithiopians, i. 234, 432Either [Aithftr]AethlioB, ii. 30, 212Aithra, i. 435 ,Ajax [Aias]ii. 37, 156Agam&te and Troph6nios, L 116; ii. Akastofi, ii 162Akersekom&s, i. 107, 369 ;ii. 33Agamemnon, L 259, 261 ; ii. 48, 160, Akmftn, i, 358, 359Ahriman, i. 335; ii. 14, 353 et seq,Ahura,i. 335Ahuro-mazd&o, i. 210, 335 ; ii. 355Aiaia, ii. 174, 178g., 88

374 INDEX.AKBAkrisios,!. 436; ii. 68Aktaion, ii. 288Akt6r, ii. 54Aktondai, ii. 253Alalkomena, ii. 41Albanians, i. 227Alcis, i. 286Alda, i. 308Alebios, ii. 335Aleian Plain, ii. 55, 68, 274Aleos,i. 437Alexandras, i. 64 ; ii. 78Alexiares, i. 432 ; iu 55Alexikakos,ii. 340Alfar, i. 381Alfhehn, i. 381Alfur, i. 286Ali, ii. 95Alkaios, ii. 47Alk&tis, ii. 41 et seq.Alkides, ii. 47Alkimos, i. 251Alkinoos, ii. 276 et seq.AIkmai6n, ii. 185 et $?q.Alkmen$,i. 309; ii. 41, 136, 181ii.AJkyoneiis, 337AJlfekto, n. 16All-Father, ii. 312Aloadai, i. 32Alop&,ii. 63Alpheios,i. 400; ii. 28, 143Alraune,i. 280Althaia, i.438; ii, 73, 188Amaltheia, i. 360; ii. 296Amata, i. 239Amazons, ii 65Ambika, i. 389Ammas, ii 312Amnisiads, or river nymphs,Amphiaraos, ii 184 et seq.Amphi6n, it 249, 279Amphithea, h. 172Amphitrite, i. 441 ; ii. 21, 260Amphitryon, i. 309 ; ii. 92i.Amshaspands, 335Amulius, i, 80 ;n 63, 82Amykos, i. 343 ; ii. 28, 152Amyraone',ii. 268Ananke,i.365; ii 13,17Anchirrhoe, ii. 268Anchises, i. 434 ; ii. 4ii.Androgeds, 64Androgynous Deities, i. 346,444Andromeda,i. 437Andrari, i. 277, 282Angeltmrga,i. 457Angels, guardian,ii. 21Angiras, i. 342, 414, 417Angro-mainyus, ii 355Aniketos, 432 i. ; iL 55ii. 143ABBAniroddha, i. 417Anna, i. 432 et $eq.Anna Perenna, i. 433Anostos, i. 411Antaios, ii. 51 T 387Antanges,i. 86Anteia, ii. 66, 68, 73, 162Anthropomorphous gods, i. 4 4t wq. t26, 355Antigonft, ii. 73, 188Antikleia, ii. 172Antilochos, i. 432 ; ii. 91Antiope, ii. 66, 73, 249Antiphates,ii. 177i.Anygros, 430i. Apatfe, 58Aphaia,ii. 146Aphareus,ii. 79Aphrodite, i. 48 ; ii. 1 et a^. 79Anadyomenfi, ii. 2Argyimis, i. 48, 425 ii. 4,*the armed, ii. 8Emilia and Pontia, i. 48 ; ii. 2kestos of, i. 304Ourania, ii. 4Pandemos, ii. 4Philomed^s, i. 357Philomeidfcj, i. 357rmgof,ii. 115shell of, ii. 118Apis, ii. 129, 140Apollfin, i. 442 ; ii. 21 et *&Akepflckomfts, ii 33Daphnephoros,ii. 55DelphinW i. 292, 435; ii, 25Delphian,i. 414Hekatos, ii. 102Klarian, ii. 113i.-Lykfigenes, 266Lykeios, Lykios, ii. 23NomioH, ii. 34, 121Olympios,ii. 55Pangenet&r, ii. 55Phanaios, ii. 23Sminfchios, ii, 242Thyxnbraios, ii. 170Thyrxis, ii 34, 121the four-armed, i. 370Apna Puma, i. 433Apples, golden, i. 234 ; ii. 22, 38, 78,301and sheep,ii. 38, 251, 328Apsaras, ii, 258, 282Aptya,i. 4*1; ii. 354i.Apulians, 239Ara, i. 424Arbhu,ii. 240Arcturue [Arktoiaros}Arci6n, i:. 187Areiopagos, h. 189Arethousa, i. 400 ; it. 11, 28

INDEX. 375ABEAres, i.32, 369; ii. 12, 51, 254-Arge, H. 296iiArgeia, 186Argeiphontes, ii. 139 et $e%.Argennos, i 230Argls, n. 213ii.Arghanautha, 126ii. Argiopfc, 75Argives, the, i. 230i.Argive legends, 220Argo, the ship, i. 278, 313, 322 ; ii.118, 175, 161, 241Argonautai, i. 204; n. 149 et .,241Argos, the i.dog, 269Pauoptes,i. 231, 382the land of, i 230Argynnis, i. 48, 230, 425ii.Argyros, 30Ariadn,i. 429, 435; "-65,87Arf6n, ii, 26, 245Ark, i. 414; ii. 118Arkas, i, 48, 231Arkshas or Shiners,I. 414Arktouros, i. 47Arihta ii* 64Aristaios, ii. 290Ariateas, L 376Aristhanas,ii. 35Aristodemos, ii, 183Aristomachos, ii. 182Arotomeaes, ii. 121Amna, i. 425 ; ii. 132i, 424Arjuzrf,Arkadia,i. 361Arkadians,i. 230Arkah, the sun, i. 231Arnaios,i. 139Arrows, poisoned,use of, i. 49, 56 ; ii.46, 80ii. 34Amn>&,Artomis^i. 430 ; ii. 29, 92, 142 et teg.,290Diktynna, i. 364 ; ii. 146EphestaB,Orthia,ii. 66ii> 143ii. 144Tauropola,Arthur,i. 308 6 sea.Arthur's Bound Table,Arufiha, i. 426Arushi I 426Aryaman, i. 334 j ii 355Asas, i. 3S5, 872Asdahag, ii. 83, 358ii. 121i.Asgard, 371ABhera,ii. 86, 112,113Ashtaroth, ii. 141A8klk>ios, i. 430; ii. 33, 66* 196, 290Askr, ii. 19, 184, 195Aalauga, 5. 61, 107, 284Asmodous, L 210, 354AtJRAs6pos,ii 249Asphodel Meadows, ii. 322Astart&, ii. 141Asteria, i. 233, 418, 429Asterion, ii. 10, 87Asterodia, i. 418 ii. ; 30, 138, 212Asteropaios, i 164Astolat, i. 315Astrabakos, ii 116Astraios, i. 432 n. 38;Asm Phoronikon, ii. 195Abtyages, i. 80, 442; ii. 83 et *$.,358Astydameia,ii. 162Astymedousa,ii, 71Asura, i 335Asuro-medhas, ii. 355Asvins, i, 423Atalant^, ii. 29, 143At&, L 365, 424 ; ii. 15, 19, 43i. Atergatis, 400Athatnas, ii. 272 et seq.Athenai, i.440, 443, ii. 181Athtad, i. 141, 269, 365, 418 et $*q.;ii. 11, 44, 79, 199, 264, 308i.Ageleia, 443Akria, i. 228, 344, 441 ii. ; 12, 20Alalkqmen&, ii, 41Chaltnitis, ii. 289Q-lauk6pis, i 443 ,il 3Hell6tis, i. 237i.Hermaphrodites 44-4Koryphasia i. 228, 441olive of, i. 443 ;h 309i.Ophthalmitis, 443Optiletis, i. 443Oxyderkes, i 443Pallas, i. 357 ; ii. 114peplos of, i. 444relations of, with Zeus, i, 16, 444,ii. 47serpent of, i. 444 it. 128;Tritogeneia, i. 228, 440Athenians i. 228 et seq.ii. ; 57Athwya, n. 354Atlas, i. 337, 371 ; ii. 11, 18 et *?,60, 201Atii, i. 189, 283 et ag., 342, ii. 97Atman, i. 372, 373Atn, i. 342ii.Atropos, 16Attila, i. 189, 289, 290, 301Attabiscar, song of, i. 189Attes, h. 118Atthis, ii. 308Atys, ii. 8Audhumla, i. 371Aug&, i. 435, 437 ii. ; 53, 157ii Augeias, 49Auramazda, ii. 355Aureola, i. 370

376 INDEX.Bhavani, ii. 213 ci sec[.AITS'BUNAurinia, ii. 280Aurnavabha, ii. 341Bhvki, i. 16^,400; ii. 26Aurora, i. 415Auster, ii. 196i. 413Bhrtgu,Bhu, i. SS4Autolykos, i. 334 ; ii. 44, 139, 172 Bhuvaim. i. 346Automed6n, i. 251.Autonoo, ii. 288Bhuninyiu i. 399 ;hliiulu i. 377ii. 101, 195Avenging of Baldur, ii. 95Avatars of Vifehnu, ii. 206Bikki, i. 284iroHt, i. 382Grettir, i. 325olbng, il 92, 363Sigurd, i. 284 ft ttg,k, u 247Avilion, i. 316Blanche* Flo*, i. 317Aeidahaka, ii. 83, 354Bloda, i. 289Blindness of solar heroes, il 71, 72Bloilel, i. 299Altar of, ii. 118Biudi, i. 289BAAL, Baal-peor, ii. 11$,.Baalti,u. 118Boar, bite of the, ii. 172Bacehos, ii. 4Kalydonian, ii 53, 14SBacon, Lord, his method of explainingGreek mythology,i. 28Bala, i. 343Bogy,ii. 36 1Bolma, ii, 29Boltliorn, i. 371Balarama, ii. 107, 133, 136, 137 Bondage of solar heroes, i. 92 ; ii. 13,Balcan, ii. 19928, 41, 86, 163, 174, 264Bali, ii. 104, 329Boots, L 138, 168, 266, 321 : ii. 179,Balia,i. 308, 311214, 346Baldag, ii. 93Boreas, i. 432 ; ii. 221, 248Baldur, i. 286, 291, 369 ; ii, 93 et Bor,i. 371Borrowed myths, hypothesis of, i.Baldringas,i. 239129 et seq. t 166Balios, i. 247, 341 ;ii 162, 253Bors, 2. 314 ; ii. 123Baimung, i. 292, 300Bosi, ii. 245Barbaroasa, i. 413Bassarides, ii. 295Bosporoa,ii. 140Bout&s, n, 8Baudiy, M., on the origin, of myths, Bragi, i 287, 381i.43Brahma, i. 337, 344 d *eq. ; ii. 136Bears in mythology, i. 162 ; ii. 78the four-iirmed, i. 870Beast epic, Northern, i. 63Brahmanaspati, ii, 104Beasts in mythology,i. 140, 162, 405. Bran, ii. 120ri. 78Beatrice, ii. 284 et seqBrandenburg, Piper of, ii. 24$Br4al, M., on the myth of Oidipons,Beauty and the Beast, i. 402, 406,i. 454 et segt. ; ii. 70 et aeq.459on the myth of Cacus, ii. 339 tt sea.Bebrykes, ii. 50, 152Breast of Light, ii. 158Bedivere, i. 315Breidablick, ii. 96Beggars m mythology,i. 158 et aeq* BriaroCs, i 360; ii. 12, 311257, 301, 321 ,u. 158, 179, 303 Bridge of Hfimrkll, i. 144Bego,i. 317i.Bnhafiputi, 420Beidsla, i. 371Brisaya, i 240Bellerophontes, Bellerophon, i. 324, Bnseis, i.448 seq.; ii. 55, 68 et seq,, 162, 342 Bnsingamon,i. 380Belleros, :i. 67, 341 et $eg>*BritonmrhX h. 145Belos, n 257Brond, n. 93Beowulf, i. 274; ii. 93, 200, 348Berchta, Frau, ii. 306, 365Bertha Largefoot, i. 317Bestla, i. 371Bens of i.Hampton, 31 6KrontK ii. 198, 213Brownies, ii, 306Bui, ii. 96Balls in mythology, i. 107, 4$7 438 ;ii. 49Bhaga,ii. 104Bhava,i.337,416; iBunson, on the influence of the Iliadand Odyssey on Crook literature, i,

INDEX. 377BXJRCYCBuri, i. 371Clouds as eagles, i. 405, ii. 216, 304Burning brand, the, i. 439fingers of the earth, ii. 314maidens, ii. 65, 281 et seq.ships,/1ABIRI seq[Kabeiroi]swans, i. 405, 456 ; ii. 216, 281\J Cacus, 419 ; ii. 88, 280, 337Caeculus, ii. 3 Uet seq.Cloudeslee, William of, n. 95, 368Camilla, ii. 29, 143Codes, ii. 88Caraulus, ii, 143Cocytus [Kokytos](pambara, 11 327Coelma Mons, i. 382Camelot, i, 311Comparetti, M., on the myth of Oidipous,454Cap, invisible i.[Tarnkappo]Caradoc, ii. 120Conall G-ulban, ii. 157Caranus, ii. 340Consontes, Dii, i. 316Cattle of the Sun, i, 54, 421 ; ii. 213, Consualia, i 347280Census, i. 346Cave of Dikte i. 357 ; ii. 146Correlative Deities and Twin Heroes,Kjltfnd,ii. 224i. 286, 389 ft seq., 423 ; n. 40, 268LutmuH, ii. 31Correlatives, Asvms, i. 390, 423Lyktos, i. 357, 364Amphtdn and Zeth6s, ii. 249Cave-lK>m gods, ii. 133Ahans,i. 390Centaurs [Kentaors]Dtinaos and Aigyptos,ii. 26$Ceres, ii. 308Dioskouroi, i. 390Ceridwen, ii. 220Dyava,i. 423caldron of, ii. 122Eros and Anteros, i 393Cestro [Kestos]Etsoklcfi and Polynakes,i. 391 ;Chalybes, ii. 140ii. 184Chalk6d6n, ii. 63Chaos, 329 Eurysthen^s and Prokles, ii 183i. ; ii 212Glaukos and SarpMon, ii. 85, 89Chando, the bull, ii. 84Grettir and lllugi, i 324Chandragupta,x. 260: ii. 84Herakles and Iphikl6s, ii. 43Charifl, i. 48 ; ii. 2Hermaphrodites,i. 393Charites, the, i48, 210 ; ii. 3 et sea., Indrapfm,i. 390295Krishna and Arjuna,i. 394, 425Charms and talismans, i. 410 et *g.Patroklos and Achilleus,i. 247, 394Charon, n. 144Peirithoos and Theseus, i. 394 ;Charybdiw, ii. 260ii 40Gharltmagne [Karl the Great]Pelias and NeleusChatumcrus, n. 93Phaethfin and Hehos, i. 247, 394ChMrftn,i. 280; ii. 35, 150, 162Phoibos and Artemis, ii 141Chimairu, ii. 49, 68, 342Podatorios and Machaftn, i. 391Chion&, :i. 27 r >Prometheus and Epimetheus,ii.Christianity, influence of, on mythology,; ii. 357, 3o9Kama and Luxman, i, 425201, 208Chrcmos, ii. 212Komulus and Remus, ii. 74, 82i.Chrysi&r, S38 ; ii. 101Kudrau, i. 391Chryses,ii. 164, 183Soma and SAry4,i. 393Ohrysippos, ii# 70, 345Telemachos and Odysseus,i. 394Chtho&ian gods and chthonian "woxship,ii. 144, 808, 320Urna and Soma, i. 389Theseus and Hippolytou,ii. 66.Chumuri, i. 343TJshasau, i. 390,423Cinderella, i. 139, 157, 304, 43$, 440; Varuna and Hitra, i 330ii. 179Cities, meaning of the names Credibility, historical, i. 177 et segi.of Greek, Oreusa, i. 260, 434i. 227 et seqCromwell, Oliver, traditions respectingCiea, ii. 66i. 187Clym of the Glotagh, ii. 99Cross of Osins, ii. 114Clytemneetra [Klytaimnestaa]Cross and Crescent, ii. 115Clouds, ii. 91, 136, 1 61. 259, 272 tt seq. Curetes fKourgtes]Clouds, as apples or sheep, ii. 38~~ as cows, i* 425 [Kybele]is,the, i. 86

378 INDEX.CYCCyclops [Kykl&ps]Cyclopes [Kyklopes]Cyrus, i. 260, 309 , ii. 74, 83ii.Cups, divining, 122and drinking-horns,ii. 120Qushna,ii. 327T\A

INDEX. 379DBYDryops, ii, 284, 314Dualism in theology,i. 121Iranian, i, 121 ; ii. 14, 356 et seq.of nature, m, i. 389Durandal, i. 274, 308Durga, i. 343 ; ii. 193Dyaus, i. 327 et se$.pitar, i. 828Dyavftpnthivl,i. 389Dymas,ii. 183Dyotana,i. 418Dyu, i. 325, 327, 349Dwarf Incarnation, ii. 104 et seq.Dwarfs in Hindu mythology,ii. 104,130, 316in Teutonic mythology, i. 276, 369TTIARTH, ii.119, 293 et seq.JU Echoroos, i. 76 ; ii. 182Echidna, i. 224, 390 ; ii. 11, 50, 261,334, ft seq.Echo, i. 898 ; ii. 32, 73, 249Ecke, Dietrich and, i* 305 et seq.Eckesahs, i. 383Eckiiart, L 165Ector, i. 310Eelliats, i. 23$Egeria,ii, 66Efeg, Mundane, i. 345; iL 133, 212of Nemesis, ii. 283Eggs and apples, ii. 246, 282ii.EgSl, 100Eileithyia** ii. 21Eileithyiai, h. 13, 43Eilimir, i. 286Eindridi, ii. 100Ekata, Dwita, Trita, myth of, i. 441Elaine, i. 312, 314Elberich, i. 412Elektra, i. 366Elektrian gates, ii. 182Eleusis, I 440; ii. 187, 297Btathmi, i, $65Elf, iL 29Elfland, i. 381Elidoo, Fouque's, u. 217Elissa, i. 48SEllide, th ship, ii. 277Elves i. 381Elysion, i.346; ii. 321Endymion, i. 306, 355 ii. ; 80 et &q*Enkelados, ii. 212Bnosiehthon, ii. 350Enyalios, ii, 350Boyo,ii. 350Eos, i. 431 ; ii. 92Epaphos, ii. 140, 267Ephfaltes, ii. 254I,Epic cycle, 86Epic poems, Aryan, i. 108, 209EYEEpic poetry, origin of, i. 42Epigonoi, the, u. 187Epimenides,i. 413Epimetheus, ii. 201, 208Eponymoi, ii. 82, 84Ercildoune, i 324, 412; ii. 218Ercules, ii. 238Erebos, i. 329Erechtheus, i. 442 ; ii. 128, 308Erginos, ii 46 ,Erichthomos, i. 86, 346; ii. 124, 199,308 et scq.ErigonS,i. 430Erinyes, ii. 13 et seq.Eriuys, i. 419, 423 ; ii. 188Eriphyle, n. 185 et sea.Ens,i. 58, 424, ii, 11, 78Erl king, the, i. 121 ;ii. 244Eros, i. 329Er6s, i. 401 et &?., 427Erp, i. 284 et $eq.Erymanthos, boar o ii. 49Erysichthon, ii. 308, 309Erytheia, n. 11, 334Eryx,ii. 335Eteokles, ii. 184 et sea.Ether [Aither]i.Ethiopians, 234table of the, ii. 120Ethnological distinctions, i. 240Euemertsm, modern, difficulties of, i.172 et seq.of Thucydides,ii, 81Eu&meros, 1. 170his method not devised bvhimself ,i. 171 et seq.Eumenides, i. 423 ; ii. 14, 73ii.Eumolpos, 309Eunomos, ii. 39, 53, 162Euphon6n,ii. 156Euros, ii. 196Euryale, ii. 2$7, 290t&sa, i. 434; ii. 310i.107, 417, 437; ii. 85, 195ii. 347Eurydike, i. 315, 400 ; ii. 30, 34, 42,239Eurydomene, ii. 3i.Euryganeia, 417, 439; ii. 71i.Euiykleia, 266, 270Eurykreifin, ii. 172Eurylochos, i. 263 ; ii 39Eurynonie,i. 359, 417; ii. 3, 198Euryphassa, i. 417 ; ii. 38Eurystheus, i. 293, 365, 424 ; ii. 41,et seq., 181Eurytion, ii. 162, 334Euthymos,ii. 348Evadne, ii. 81Evanthes, ii. 318Eveuos, i. 439

330 INDEX,Evidence, historical, i. 178 et seq. 191tEwain, i. 312Excalibux, 1. 138, 274, 310i. 276FA.FNIR,Fairyland, L 4 11Fairy Queen, i. 411, 418Eaith, the ship,a. 313Fatal children, the,i. 80, 273, 312,436 ; 11. 9, 33, 68, 65, 69, 78, 132,154, 191Fatal sisters, the, lii. 16 et $(&Fatuin,ii. 17Faustulus, ii. 82Eavomus, ii, 221, 248Fenris, i. 370 ii. 351,Feridun, i. 441 n. 354,Fetish worship,i. 73i. 369Fialar,Fiction, plausible, i. 171 et tcq.Fifty Argonauts, 11, ir>0children of Proteus and Doris, ii.2,16Daktyloi,daughters of AMcrncHa, ii. 30, 138Danaos, it. 30, 266 et ##.~- Sel6m\ii. 30Thestioa, ii. 46sons of Aigyptos, iL 30, 266 ct jw,, Pallas, h,G4Priam, 5L 183Fionn, i. 316Fingall's Cave, i. 92,Fire, myths of the, i. 225 ;201 it *9Gnlatfia. u. 256Galaxy,GuMiiflr, ii. 240Gnmiharlm-Srna, i, 278GandhurvuN, i, 226, 39d ; ii. 35Gnncsft, t. 347OAiiynuW,i. 432GnnymMi-K, I -132 ; ii. 70, 310Gan : /.Mu'k, ii. 96(inrnnus, ii. aim, HtOGarden, Ormt Koat*, i, 307GanleikH, Ifyporl>i>r

INDEX. 381OLAGlankfc, 5. 429, ii. 154Glaukos, i. 161, 232; ii.90 f 257Glenkundie, Harp of, ii. 245Gloaming, ii, 38, 350Gnas, ii 320Gnostics, ii. 128Goblins, ii. 144Godiva, i. 121Godmund, ii 89Godwin**, Earl, traditional history of,i. 285Gokala, ii. 134Golden Age,i 373Golden clips and bods, ii. 39Golden fleece, the, i. 204 ; 11. 150 et seg>.Goodies, ii. 316i.Goose-girl, 321Gopias,ii. 135Gorgo, ii, 36Gorgons, ii. 37, 60, 287, 350 et $eq.Gorlois, i. 309Govinda, ii. 130GAH, the root, i. 34Graces, the, i. 426Grseci, ]. 237Graha, if. 329HELGraiai, ii. 60, 140, 286, 350 et seq.Ctaukoi, u 237Grail, the holy, i. 309, et, say.Grainne,i. 316Oraioi, i. 237Gran, i. 247, 279Granmar, i, 287Grant, ii. 363Gram, i. 150, 224, 274, 281,298, 310 ;ii. 62Gratise, i 426Great Fool, Lay of the, i. 139Groat Hose Garden, the i. 307Greekn, i. 238, bolief of the, in their mythology,I 76 et seq.tribal , Irgends of the, i. 220Owin, i. 280Grendel, i. 279 ; ii. 200, 348, 363Grettir, i. 300, 320 et seq.Saga,i. 319Greyman,ii. 363Grimhild, i. 281Grimm's law, i 327Gripir, i 274Grom,ii. 253Grote, Mr., his method of treatingGreek myths, i. 7, his remarks on the structure ofthe Iliad, i. 244Guardian angels, ii. 21Gudrun, i. 62, 89, 280 et seq., 804Guenevere, i 311, 325, Round Table of, ii. 119Gunadhya, ii* 247ii77, 88, 135, 192, 330Gundicar, i. 290i.Gungnir, 376Guunar, i 62, 281Gunputti,i, 130Gunther, i 189, 288, 303Guttnrm, i. 282Gwyddno, basket of, :i. 121a.Gygos, 144, ring of, ii. 125Dame, ii. 306HABONDE, Bacon, i. 321 ;n. 306ii.Hadupraht, 93nados, i. 337, 360 ; ii. 302, 319 ethelmet, of, ii 320Hagone, Hagen, i. 156, 281, 283, 288,292 ct 5^., 303 ; ii. 80Hagno,i. 361Hags 1 fell, ii. 364Halimr, i 277, 372Haim6n, ii, 73, 188Hakolberend, i. 376Halfdan,i. 288HaU of Slaughter,i.258, 299, 307, 322Humdir, i 284 et seq.Hameln, piper of, i. 121; ii. 243Hammer of Thor, i. 265, 359, 380 ; ii,115Hand cf glory, ii. 219Hansavati Rich, i 342Hari, i 426 ; ii. 105, 130Hants, i. 48, 229, 426 ; ii. 2Harmonia, necklace of, ii. 86Harold Fairhair, i. 321Gorm&on,ftignrdarson, ii. 100i.Harpagos, 300Harps and horns, inchanted; ii. 245Hartmut, i. 304Healers or Saviours, the, i. 377, 391 ;ii. 27, 33, 35, 55Heaven, ideas of the, i. 326ii. 100Heb, 432 i. ;n. 12, 55, 57, 194Hedin, i. 286Heimdall, i. 144, 381Hekabe, i. 245 ; ii. 78Hekale, ii. 64Hekataios, i, 321 ; ii. 315Hekat&, i. 428, 429 , ii. 39, 14111., Kourotrophos, 141the, toee-handed, i. 370 ; ii, 142Hekatoncheires, u. 214Hekatos, ii. 141Heklufiall, ii. 364Hekt6r, i. 252 et seq. ; ii. 6, 77Hel, i. 370 ii. 94, 361 et , seq.Helche, i. 295Helen [Helen&]

.382 INDEX.BELHelgis, tho three, i. 285Helgi Haddingaheld,i. 27son of, Hiorvaidur, i. 286i.Hundingsbana, 286Heliades, h. 40Helias, i. 457 ; ii. 284Helikon, ii 263, 289Helios, i. 263 ; ii 26, 39cattle, of, i. 54, 421robe of, i. 150,Helene, i. 64, 139, 205, 311, 422 ; ii.5, 67, 75 et seq.,155 et *j,, 283,292Dendritis, i. 430 ; ii, 157, 161the-, name, i. 458Hellas, i, 237Hell6,i-236; ii. 150, 272Hellfcn, i. 236Hellenes, i. 236 et seq. ;ii. 273i.Hellespont, 237, 435Helmet of Hades [Tarnkappe]Hemera,1239; ii. 91, 807ii.Hemmg, 100Hefisphoros, i 432 ; ii 38i.Hephai&tos, 370, 427, 441, 444; ii.12, 104, 168, 197, 290Eerakleids, expulsion of the, i. 205et ii. seq 57, 181 et , seq., return of the, i. 199 et seq.; ii.67, 182Herakleb, 11. 42 et seq. 135, 318, 11.Daphnephoros, 55,labours of, ii 43 et seq.Mcui/rfpevos, ii 41, 47ii.Olympics, 55Pangenet6r, ii. 55pillars of, ii. 19Hercules, ii. 56, 339Herculus, ii, 56, 238, 339Herentas, ii. 9Herleus, i 311Hermanric, i. 284Hermeias, ii. 230Hermaphrodites, i. 346, 393, 444Hermes, i. 366, 375, 441 , ii. 173, 192,224 $.; 315, 320, the god of song, ii. 26, 226 et seq., the Master Thief, i. 119 , ii. 226Psychopompos,ii 232Tnsmegistos, n. 237Hermodhur, or Heermuth, i. 287Herae the hunter, ii. 364Her&, i. 357, 366 ; ii. 9 et seq. ; 43, 79,135Akraia, ii. 12,the matron, ii. 12He>6, i. 434, 435Herodias, iu 365Herodotos, his idea of the Trojanwar, i. 183 et seq.Herodotos, historical method of, i.181HORHerodotos, scepticism of,i. 181 et*Sf-Heroes guarded by Ath^n^ i. 269Heroic Age, the ii. 203Hersfe, i. 430 ; ii. 30, 91, 232, 309Herth, ii. 119Hesiodic Ages,ii. 201poems, morality of the i. 19, 351> works and Days> I 19Hesion6, ii* 48Hesioneus, i. 226; ii. 36, 147Hesperidea,ii. $8, apples of the, i. 234 ; ii, 22Hesperioi, i. 238Hesperion, ii, 89Hesperos,ii. 38Hestia, i. 357 ; ii. 11, 192, 196Hettel, i. 304Hialprek, 1.276; ii. 198Hiarbas, i. 433Hierodouloi, ii. 4, 117Hilaeira, ii. 34Hilda, i. 304Hildebrand, i. 301Hildegund, i 303Himeros, i. 48, 334; ii. 2Himmbiorg,i. 382Hitopadesa,I. 113Hipponoos ii. 67Hippot^s, i. 202, 252 ; ii. 183Hippodaraeia, i. 393 ; ii. 29, 310ii.Hippokren6, 289ii.Hippolyt^, 50Hippolytos,ii. 66Historical credibility, law of, i. 178Hjarrandi, ii. 247Hjordia, i. 276 et seg., 322; ii. 46,168, 198HI6dr, ii. 34Hlorridi, i. 381Hnikar, i. 377Hnossa i. 372Hoard, The Hibtang,i. 383, 293 etHod?,' i. 369; ii. 93Hogni, i. 281, 283Holda, i. 317; ii. 115, 506Holle, i. 317Homer,i 175, 449 #eg.biographers of, i. 196Homeric poems, historical value of,i. 194 et seqage of the, i. 214 et seq.. materials for the btructureof the,i, 196 et seq.i.iphy, 184r, i. 449 et seq.w logy, i. 242Hope, ii. 3Horai, i. 360; ii. 10,28$Horant, i, 304

''INDEX. 383HOBHoros,Horse, the wooden, ii. 175Horses, immortal, i 434; ii. 162of the sea, n. 263 et seq,sun, i. 152Horselberg, i. 165, 412 ; ii. 218Horseshoes, ii. 127Hours, the, ii. 285Hrimgerda,i. 286Hrimthursen, i. 371Hrodmar, i. 286iiHrotbgar, 348i.Hrungnir, 369Hugmn,i. 376Hunding, i. 275, 279i.Hundmgsbana, 286Huon of Bordeaux, i. 412'; ii. 120Hvergcltnir, ii. 18Hyades,ii. 38,286ii.Hydra, 48and Lynkeus*ii. 271Hymir,i. 364'HylloM- 206; ii.57,181Hyperborean Gardens, i, 102, 307,423; ii. 11,60DS, ii. 23, 279, ii. 182, 279a, i. 357; ii. 38Hypermnistra,ii. 268i.Hypnos, 866ii.HypsipyW, 152Hyrieus, i. 116; ii. 24TAMBfi,ii. 209ii. 297JL lamos, ii. 33, 81 et sea.ItA, ii*n3Iasi6n, i. 364; ii. 307lasios, i. 364laso, ii. 150lason, i. 429; ii, 118, 150Jason, ii. 195lapetos,i. 357; ii. 201larnsaxa, i. 369Ic

384 INDEX.JONJonakr,i. 284Jord, i. 372Jusoph of Arimnthsea, i. 314 ; ii. 122Jotunhoim, i 380 ; ii. 80Jotuns, i* 381Juno, ii. 13Matrona, ii 13Monota, i. 41f>; ii. 13Virgmaiis,ii, 13i.Jupiter, 328Indigos, i 435Pistor, ii. 312Pluvius, i, 349, 376State, i. 340 .Tonans,i. 379Jnturna, i. 23dT7-ABEIROI, ii. 142, 314JX Kadmos, i. 107, 438;wq., 265the bondman, ii 87Kaikias, n. 88, 252, 341Kalchas, n. 164KalS, ii 3Kalewala, i. 316Kali, i 343, 370 ; ii. 193Kalinak, ii. 136KalliopS, u. 241, 310, 314KalhrhoS, i. 290 ; ii. 189Kalh&to, i, 48, 231 ; ii. 314Kalyke, ii 30,212Kama, i 329, 375, 427Kamsa, ii. 133Kara, i 288Karali, iu 193Karm6,n 11 fiKarnoa, i 206 ; ii. 183Kasancbu, ii 78Kassiopeia, i 137ii. 85 ctKastor, ii. 44, 283Kaunos, i. 58Kuuravas, i 180Karl tho Great in mythology,1. 189Kebrfin, ii. 78Kedalion, ii. 290i.Keingala, 319Kekrops, i. 363, ii. 128, 309Keleos, 11. 297Kentaurs, i. 226 , ii. 35, 47, 162Kephalos, i. 49 , 11. 80, 91Kepheua, i. 437 ; ii. 47Zerberos, h. 46, 95, 142, 240, 319,336Kerdo, ii 195Kfcrefl, ii. 17, 340Keresaspa, ii r 354Kerk6pes,ii. 63Kerkyon, li, 63Kerynsia, stag of, ii* 48EYZKoyx,Keatoa of Aphtoditft,i. 804Kikones, ii, 175Kilix, ii. 85King and qxtoon, th words, i. 3di.Kipicho, 375KirU, i. 159, 324 ; ii. 178Kttrrat fwonriKa, ii. 1 19Kluitos, i. 432Kleiflthcuos, ii. 269Kleodaios, ii. 181Kleopatra, i. 283, 439 ; ii. 161, 188K16t4, ii. 3Klim of the dough,ii, 99Kloth&, ii. 16, 17Klymen,ii, 167Klytaimn&stra, i. 261 ; ii. 283Klytia,ii. 310Knights of the Bound Table, L 818Kobalos, ii. 144Kobold, ii. 144Koios, i. 3r">7Koiranos, n. 36Kokalos, 11. 88Kokytos,ii. 321Korfi, ii, 39, 296, 320Kor6rns, i. 430 ; ii. 33 ct seq.Koryhantes, ii. 161, 314Korythos,ii. 74Kourfites, i. 360; ii. 142, 161, 259,274, 290, 314Kraka, i. 61Kranaoi, i. 227KranaoB, u 227 ; ii. 308Kratahs, ii. 261Kreon, i. 429 ; ii. 73, 188KrC'S, ii. 88Kresphonti-H, ii. 183Kretoa, i. 361Kriemhild, i. 288Krioft, i,357; ii. 215Kri&asva, ii. 354ii. 51Krishna, i. 335, 346, 357; ii. 107,130, et seq.Krommy6n, son of, ii. 63Kronid&s, i. 358Kronion, i. 358Kronos, i. 356, ct sea. ; ii. 132Kteatoa, ii. 49Kumara, 11. 105KumArila, i. 87Kuvera, ii. 320Kyanean rocks, ii. 242KybeU, KyMbi\ii. 118, 312Kykl6pos, ii. 350, 361 ; ii. 41, 176Kyklops, ii. 176, 213 et g.KyknoH, ii, fil f 2f>5, 288KymodokA,Kynthos,Kypselos, chest of, i, 216Kyzikos, ii, 152ii, 256ii. 22

IKDEX. 385LABT ABYKINTH, theJU 139,109Cretan, ii. 65,La diesis, n 16Ladders to heaven, i. 144, 3G7Ladon, h. 22, 38Lams, i 442 ; ii, 69, 83, 343the word, u 367Lake, Lady of tho, i. 313Lakshmi, i. 433 ;n. 308Lamia, ii. 261Lamas, ii. 177i.Lampotifr, 421i.Lampos, 431ii.Lamyroi, 1H, 177Lancelot du Lake, i. 314 et $cq, 312,325L-mdnama-hok. u 321Laodanicia, n. 80Laokoun, ii 287LnomtKlim, i. 91 , ii. 31, 47, 265Lap version of tho myth of Polyphfinws,ii, 366Lapithai, it 151i. 422lair,Lures, ii. 316Larvae, H, 816Latini, i, 253Latmos, ii. 22, 31Laimfal and the Fuy Triamour, i.402LftumiR, i. 225Lavinia, i. 235, 260, 434Leandnr [LcMtuidroH]Leda, 439 iii.j 3, 22, 156,283Lcmndros, i, 434 ft xeq.Leibothron, ii 296Lemurt'H, ii> 144, 177, 316Lonoro, BiirgorXi. 287Leophontf's ii. 72, 343, 353Lefts, "n 61licnmian hydra,ii. 48, 271ht-, ii. 3", 22, 321i. 359 ; ii. 3, 21 tf wq., 270, ii, 156, 174, 319ii. 34ippOH,Leukothea, ii. 273Lewis, 8ir G. O. t on the early historyof the Hellenic and Italian tribes,i. 201 w *on t&6 laws of evidence, i. 179,-- on the return of the Herakleids,i. 201Liber and Libora, i, 081Libya,LiehaK, ii. 54, 65Lin i. 370Light and darkness, conflict of, ii. 14,148, 170, 324etegr.* Breast of, ii, 158Kmgof, ii. 159, 199VOL. II.ii. 267MAILightning, myths of the, i.161, 198 ,n. 212

3S6INDEX.MYRMAMMerlin, i. 311Humors, ii. 311it. 282Man, ii. 18*iL 69',Manduci, ii. 144Manos, ii. 316, 339, ii. 297Mini*, i. 445Mannus,i. 206; ii. 184, 354i 42. 48, 425Kami, i. 414; ii. 87, 191Wtw, i. 3fi8, 441;Manus, ii. 199Michael Sx-ott, H. 121MiVH, the root, i. 34Marathonian bull, ii. 64Marhaus, i. 312Marko, i. 247Midgard,i, 371Milky way,ii. 135Minms, ii, 18Marniar, Marmor, ii. 311Mar&, i. 32 ; ii. 311Marspiter, Maspitor,ii. 311Capta,i, 228* 442Marsyas, iu 317Maruts, i. 32, 117, 132 ; ii. 221 et sc$.Master Thief, the, i. Ill et M$., 127 ;ii. 105, 223, 226Matabrune, 11 284 et se$.MatansuLn, ii. 193Mater Dolorosa, n 297Matuta, i. 445 ; 11. 1,)6Mnevis, ii. 129Materialsof rhe Arthur romances,i. 308Grettir Saga,i. 319Modrod, i. 313Moiru, ii. 10Helgi Sag*w, i. 28 oMoirai,Homeric poems,i. 259 et scq.Holv aiiirtiH, H. 312Nibeiungonlied, i. 289 et aeg.Mohon(\ii. 5tShahnameh, n 3.37tnle of Roland, i. 307MOIUOH, i. >8i.Volsung story, 273IMoiiota, i, 415Maurice Connor, ii. 2 15Mtiroi'8, ii 311]\Ia\polo, ii 127MecU-ia, i. 428 ; ii. 142robe of, :. 429Medoidos, ii. 293Modousa, L 101, 221 ; ii. 82, 287, 350Moon, tho, ii.Mnranu, i. 32JMegairu, ii. 16Mordur, i. 372Megapenthes, n. 61, 157"Morgan, the Fay, i.Megara, 11. 47, 54Mow, ii. 17Megannn tradition, i. 223MelknthioB, i. 269, 271 ; ii. 180Melantho, i. 206--- Toll, ii. 102Moleagros, i. 90, 254, 412, 439 ; ii.76, 160Muninn, i. 376Meha, ii. 195Melikertes, i, 401 ; ii. 86, 265Melitg, fountain of, i. 233Melkarth, i. 401; ii. 86Mui-dha-divah, i. 440ii.Melpomvno, 260Melusina, i 161,401; it. 50Mfimnon, i. 232, 432: ii. 19, 91Menelaos, ii. 79>, 105Menestheus, ii 67Menoikeus,ii. 187Menoitios, ii. 167, 201i.MuHpelheim,371Mentor, i. 416Menu [Manu]Mykcnai,i. 184Mercuriue, ii, 237, influence of, on mythology,ii. 355Midas, i. 132, 38 403 ; ii. 317Mrniini. 376; 5u 18,91Mmorva, i, 358, 374, 417, 445Minos, i. 293 ; ii. 65, 85, 307, 322Minotauroa, ii. 87, 264, 348 t stv.Miolnir, Thor, i. 82, 380 ; ii. 186Mist, children of tho, ii. 272Mithras, i. 335, 357 ; ii* 355Mitra, i 330 et seq.Mnrmosjno, i. 359 ; ii. 215i. 127, 36f>, 438; ii. 16 f jev.Molionos, i. 32, 117 ; 54, 253Monk un

.Northern,MTRMyrtilos, ii, 153, 310Mysteries,ii. 241Eleusinian, ri. 126Hellenic, ii, 126Semitic, ii. 125Mystic chests, ii. 119Mythical geography, i. 355, 361 etscq.,440 ; ii, 80, 154, 238, 274, 307heroes, i. 60, 78 ft scq* t 92, 220names, significance of, i* 84, 189,270phrases, i. 41, 53, 93, 100 et s?q.,326, 395, 424 ; ii. 27, 76, 32, 347speech, dcvvlopemonts from, i. 54i.weapons, 4, 138, 274, 308 : ii.170Mythology, relation of, to language,i. 31repulsive, aspects of, i. 3, 56, 72,8 1 l, 68, 76, 3,">6primary and secondary,i. proverbial, 385; ii. 317relative age of, i. 53solar, L 41, 43; ii.66NAIADS,i. 42i. 877: ii. 257, 316ODTTNames, significance of tribal, i,220 ft *6q.Namuki, i. 3*2 ; ii. 152Nana,ii. 298Nanda,iL 130,134Nanna, ii. 93Naraka, ii. 137ii.Narayana,130Narcissus, the flower, ii. 33, 299Narkissos, i. 306 ; ii. 32 et *0g.Nwatya,i. 423INDEX. 387Naubandhana, i. 414NausikaA, i. 257 ; ii. 278Nausithoos, 11. 279Neaira, i. 436 ; ii. 172Necessity, doctrine of, ii. 13, 37Nectar, i. 225, 387Neda,i. 361N&s, ii. 30Neith, u. 313Neleus, ii. 82, 150Nemesis, 11. 19, 203egg of, ii, 20, 283Neoptolemos, ii. 46NephelS, ii. 35, 148, 272 et segr.Neptunus,i. 376Nereides, 11. 257Nereus, ii. 256 et $eq.Nerthus, i. 381Messos, ii. 54Nibelungenlied, i.189, 289 et seq.historical value of the, i. 189 et*,2$8Nic i. 377Nicolaitans, ii. 128Nicor, i. 377Nidhogr,ii. 19Niflheim, i. 370, 371 ; ii. 305, 362Niflungs, i. 281, 285treasure of the, i. 290, 297 ; ii-802 C CNikostratos, ii. 157Nine worlds, tho, 3. 382Nines, ii. 84Niob$, i. 437 ; ii. 195, 278NiSrdr, i 381Nujuts,ii. 221Nirriti, i. 344Nishtigri, i. 344Nisos, i. 48, 108, 224, 249; ii. 262Nines,i. 377i.Njal, 300Nobiskrug,ii. 364Norns, i. 287, 365Nostoi ti. 205 ;n. 159, 171 et seq.Notos, i. 432Numa, ii. 72Nuodung, shield of, i. 297ii.Nykteus, 249Nymphs, i. 306 ii.; 257 et se$., 281 etNyx/i.58, 329;ii. 311AANNES,ii.84U Oberon, 412 i. ; ii. 120, 245Ocean, stream of, ii. 38Odin (Wuotan),i. 274, 277, 368 etseq. ii. 364;on Yggdrasil,i, 371Odin's Rune song, i. 371Odur,i. 372

388 INDEX.ODTOdysseus, i. 139, 257, 325, 399 ;70, 105, 346^the womanly, ii. 174character of, i. 264 et &q.return of, from Ilion, i. 267vengeance of, i. 269weapons of, i. 256Odyssoy, didactic purpose oftho,ii. 46story of the, i.Uoflstructure of the, i. 196ii. 45,(EdipuB [Oidipous]i. Oegir, 381Oegishialmr,i. 383OfiVs dyke,i. 92i.Ogen, 383Ogicr the Bane, i. 317, 412Ogres, i. 382 , ii. 222i.Ogyges, 383Oiagros,ii. 241Oidipous, i. 222, 423, 454 et **%* >ri. 15,23, 69rf?., 186Oineus, i. 439; ri. 47, 161Oinomaos, ii. 310Oin6n, 64 i , h. 78 ct seq,ii.Oinopia, 88ii.Oinopion, 290Okeanos, i. 356 iL; 10,266Olaf, ri 100Old Davy,ri. 363Old Nick,ii. 363Olgor Bansk [Oginr the Bane]Olive of Athem\ n. 309ri.Olyseus, 172i.Olympia, 364Olympian dritios, it. 312Olympps, i. 356, 361Olympian hierarchy, later, i. 336OmphalMi. 52On, Onnes, ii. 84One-handed gods and heroes, i* 303,325, 369, 385One-eyed gods, 1. 104, 369, 376 ; ii. 19Oneiros, i. 58Ophites, ii. 128Ops,ii. 308Oral tradition, valne oft i, 187Oreads, ii. 257Oreithyia, ii. 249Orestes, ii. 183Ortdn, i. 432 ; ii.262, 289 et *.> 307Ormuzd, ii. 14, 354 et $ey.Oromazes, ii. 355Orpheus, i. 120, 283, 292 5 si. 42, 95,151, 154, 239 et seq.Orphic hymns,i. 86theogony,ri. 212Ortbros, i. 66; ii. 48, 319, 327Ortlieb,i.299Ortwein, i. 30*Ortygta, i. 23$;iiOsei, Oski, i. 357Oskfthyrr, I 875i. 37oi. 375t-s ' jar,Othy riul^s, 5. 70Otnit,i. AHA, 412, i, :t:it, :u. i, :

PELINDEX. 389Phorkys, i. ; ii. i. 114, 127; u. 247POPPellea, ii. 123Phorflneus, i 399, 441 ; ii.Plhnore, i. 310etseq., 275, 315191, 194Pelopids, story of the, i. 224Phorkides, ii 281Pi'lops, K 393; n. 14."), 310Phosphoros,ii. 38Pneiop6, i. 258, 270, 399; ii. 173 Phrixos, u. 150, 272et $eq., 248, 315, 322 et MfrPhyleus, n. 54Pentheus, ii. 294Pickle,i. 379Penthesiloia, n. 171Picum n us, ii. 312Pophr&lo,ii. 350Pioria, 11. 224Pt'plos, n. 113Piendes, ii. 289Preiwl,i. 315, ii. 123Pikollos,i. 37911.Poriklymenob, 187Pilumnus, 11. 312Perilous scat, tho, i. 312Pmai'u, iL 56ii.Pmphotes, 62Pens the, ii. 283Perkunas, i, 379Piper of Hameln, i. 121Pjpcis, mysterious, ii. 242 et scq.Pipon,i. 343Perse phone,i. GO; ii. 33, 67, 13C, Pillared samts, ii. 114, 372296 et *eg.Pillars of Atlas, ii. 37Purse UH, ii. 37, 58 et jvgf,Perun, PioruiK Peraun, i. 379Dionysos^ ii. 1 14Herakles, ii. 19, 114, 372Phaenna, ii* 3Bolaffil ii. 19PlMathfin, i. 431, 432 ; it 39, 161Osirflfii. 114Phaethouaa, i. 421Sesostns, ii. 114Phaia, ii. 63Pinarius, ii. 338Phaiakian ships, L 377,381, 457,276, Pitamaha, ii. 131ttatq,Pitys, il 248Phaiakians, ii.154, 176, 274 et 6($. Pleiades, ii. 37, 286Phaidra, ii. 66Phaiaris, it, 153Phalios, ah 11 a, U6**Mg.PhaiiainH, n. 23Plianfe, i. 86Pleione, ii. 37Plough and Ship,ii. 119Plouton, ii. 36, 307, 319, 320Ploutos, ii. 307PJuto, u. 361PUamildis, ii. 306Podaleirios, i, 391 ; ii 36PhoReuH, ii. 189Podarge, i. 247 ii. , 167, 252PhiffluoH, i. 299ii.Pohjola, 246Phi-nix, n. 23Poms, ii. 55rhi'iiK'iiLiiH, i. 229, 362, 438Poisoned irrows, t 49, 56, 230, 265 ;PhMfdur, ii. 124PhiloktMs it 8, 171ii. 46, 80PoUoued robes, L 56, 429 ; ii. 54,Philomela, ii. 2ftIMinuuiH, ii. 60, 152155Polyboa,ii. 69Fhix, ii. 3t4Polydegmdn, i. 370 ; ii. 296Phlegniiun Fields, ii, 53Phlcg>-au ( ii, 24PolydektSs, i. 370, 436 ; ii. 59Polydeukfis, i. 395 ; ii. 152, 283Phobos, it. 4Phoib*, ii. S4, 336Phoibos, i. 337 h* 21 et ; stq., 3X8Akersekom6s, i. 311 ; ii. 33Polyidos, 5. 161 ; ii. 36, 217, 352Polykrates,i. 406Polyneikes, ii. 184 et $eq.Polyonymy, as a source of myths, L 43,Akosios and Akestor, ii 27219 ;ii. 110the bondman, ii. 28, 46Polyphemos, i, 267, 356; ii. 3, 52,ii.Dolphmios, 25176, 213 et seg., 366i.Lykteen&i, 48, 232; ii. 23Polytheibm, Aryan,ii. 110Lyk

390 INDEX.POPPopular Tales, continued :Alluh-\Kl-deen, I 121, 282, 402;ii. 30, 121, 125, 217Almond Tree, n, 3-iBabes in the Wood, i. 162 ii.; 72Ball of Costal, 234iBattle of the Birds, i. 158; SL 40Bearskin, i. 408Beauty and the Beast, 5. 403* 406Bodreddin Hassan, ii. 121Best Wish, i. 159, 266, 375Big Bird Dun, i. 189, 281 ; ii. 277Big Peter and Little Pctor, ii. 185,280Bluebeard, ii. 36, 330- Blue Belt, ii t 72Boots mado of Buffalo Leather,i. 159Boots who ate a match with thei. Troll, 266Brahman and the Goat, i, 211-Brahman, tho Jackal, and thBarter, i. 133Briar-ruse, n. 33, 301, 304Broken Oath, MCJiBrother Lustfo i. 375, 429BKWH Bear of the Glen, i 138Bushy Bride, i. 132, 422 ;Champa Jfaneo, i* 126Chf&t, the, i. 404Chundun Rajah,i. 249ii. 18Omdcrella,i'. 139, 2(>5, 375; ii,125, 302Conall Crnvi, i. 144Conall Gulban, ii. 157Cuchullin and Ferrhah, ii, 30Dame of the Jb'ine Gruen Kirtta,i. 291Dapplogrim, i. 1*14 891 ;Daughter of the Skies, i, 403Dog and tho i.Sparrow, 124Doll in the Grass, i 2tt6Donkey Cabbages, j 376Drummer, the, L 375, 408Dummlinff, ii. 251Dwarfs, tho, ii. 301Easaidh Rtuulh, Young King of,i 136East of the Bun and West of thoMoon, i. 408Faithful John,i, 145, 161, $93;ii. 281it. 20beasts, i, 234, $75Farmer Weathersky,ii. 18, 26,282,291Fearaclras Ifeigb, i, 81Feather Bird, ii. 330Ferdinand the Faithful and Ferdinandthe Unfaithful, ii, l$dFir Apple,ii 26Fisherman and his "Wife, i. 292rorPopular TA!OSitahrrnmn and the Jin,ii. 2fl4 F 222,3fi2Forty Thieves i. 114-Four itmmipliNhwl Brothers, i 117IVmee, i. 147, 331, 375; iLSfnn, i. 403

I3STDEX 391POPPopular Talcs, continued:Master Thief, i. Ill ct scq., 127Miller's Son and the Cat, i* 109Moor's Legacy,ri. 218Muchio Lai, li 352Nauteh Girl and the Parrot,i. 125Nighean Itigh Fo Thumn, i. 402,405Nix of tho Mill-pond,i. 234 ,ii.302Nuad of the Silver Hand, i 385Old Dame and her Hen, n. 303Old Griffin, i. 234Old Man and the Hind, n 139One who travelled to Icnrix whatshivi-rmg meant* i. 138Osgar, son of Oisein, i. 3i56Paneli Phul Kanee, i 155Pilgrim of Love, 1. 151Pink, the, i. 376Pour Man and the Rich Man, i 375Pruiif who was afraid of nothing,i. 280; iL72Princess on the Olasa 1X111,1. 159Punchkin, I 135; ii. 283Putraka, i. 144, 159, 375Quoon Bee, i. 410Queen of the Five Flowers, i. 155Kama and Luxman, i. 145Itapuiurel, ii. 72, 301ltd Riding Hood, ii 351Rinknuik, n. 303, 320Hitter Red, i. 281Robber and his Sons, ii. 3(55Rogue and his Muster, i. 117Roland, u. 26, 244Host* of the Alhambra, i. 121 , ii.245, 301XtumpriMttltHkin, 265Sea-maiden, i. 1 66Sharp Grey Hhvepti. 318fthnrtHlwnk**, i. Iu9, 206; ii. 18,105, 222, 279Shifty Litd, i. 112, 116, 225Hick Quetm, it. 26Kimeh Mountain, ii. 219Sindbad, Voyages of, i* 160; ii.36, 3661- Six Servants, i. 382Hue Swans, i 404, 409Snake Leaven, i. 160 T ii. 36Know White and Roae K*d, i. 266,427Soaring Lark, i. 407Sodewa Bat, i. 157, 249Soldier, the, ii. 225Hon of the Scottish Yeoman,i. 127Soria Moria Castle, i. 159tipindle, the Shuttle, aad theX, i. 265Spirit in the Bottle, ii. 224, 225PREPopular Talcs, continued:Star Lady, i. 164, 310Strong Hans, i. 280, 408Surya Bai, i. 155, 282, 304; u,303 ct say.Table, fche Ass, and the Stick, i. 131Tailor's Son of Basic, i. 412Tarn Bai, i.164, 310Tatterhood, ii. 139Three Aunts, ii. 1 8Throe Feathers, i.234, 375 , ii 36Three Little Men in the Wood, 1. 132Throe Princesses of WUiteland, i.144Thvoo Soldiers, i 138Throe Spmators, IL 18Throe Widows, ii. 280Thrushbeard,Tom i 138Thumb, ii. 105Travels of Dummling, i 117True and Untrue, ii. 72, 185Tre Bride, i. 280, 408Trwsty Henry,i. 149Truth's Triumph, i. 165; ii. 291Twelve Brothers, i 404, 409Twelve Wild Ducks, i. 266Two Brothers,!. 141, 142, 161, 281,393Two King's Children, ii. 26Two Sisters, i 137,410Two Step-sisters, u 371 ;Jd. 49Two Wanderers, ii. 71, 29Valiant Tailor, i 265 ,u 236, 244Vjeram Maharajah,i. 155, 351White and the Black Bride, the, ii.284White Snake, i. 406Why the Sea is salt, ii. 121, 362Widow and her Daughters,ii. 36Widow's Son, i. 154, 159, 185Wishes, The Three, i 144,159,375Wolf and the Seven Little Grodts,i. 358, 410Wonderful Musician, ii. 244Woodcutter's Child, i. 280, 409;ii. 36Young Giant, i. 117Portia, judgment of, i, 404Poseidon, i. 267, 359, 369, 443; u.176, 262 et *%. ^the bondman, ii. 264Pylaochos, i, 335prophecy of, i, 91, 453trident of, iL 115Potitii, ii. 56Potitius, n. 338Pradyumna,ii, 26PrajApati, i 87, 337, 391Pramantha, ii. 208Preller, on the Myth of the Danaides,ii. 269

392 INDEX,FBIPriamos, Priam, 434 i. ; ii, 78Priapos.5 34C; ii. 4, 113,318rnsni, ii. 223Pritliivt, i 328Prodikos, apologue of, i. 306 ; ii. 44Proitos, i. 4i8; ai. 68Proktes, ii. 183ProknS, ii. 91, 250Prokris, i. 49, 5*, 430 ; ii. 30, 91, 137,251Prokrotistos, ii. 63Prometheus, i. 332, 368, 360, 441,441; ii.201 ttwq.Prophu&is, n. 208Prosorpme,ji. 361i,Protagoras, 363Proteus, 5. 164, 183; ii. 26, 256, tfsrq.; 291, 311trident of, ii. 115ProtogOBPia, i. 8ti ; ii. 30, 211i.Protogonoe, 8(3PrytaiK-ion, n 197Psyche, i. 402, ti wy.Psjchoponipus,! 392; i. 103,232Puck. n. 36 iPuncher, 11. 100Pur&mvaH, i. 103, 305Pu&lian, ii. 101Futuna, ii. 13.)i.Pygmalion, 133Pylades u. 1Mi!Pythagoras, 120i.Python, 5S70; )i. 24Pyr.ikmun, u. 198Pyriphlogethon,ii. 321.Pyronia, 307.. ii. 82nit. i. 31Si. 273SAT, t.original, 0* 37ii. Ht, &&Kluia, i. 3a7, 361 ; it. 10, 133,312Hi.t or 8Hvm, ii. 82a 19iix, i. 1^7,iiHh of, ii. 121Jxu-iifi', i. 311Riml, J. 3iJl> ; ii* 07in inithohpY.i. U77 -78,, :wa " ii. n;, i ifi * rwy*, thr KrtMi, i. 47. 4lKm', this ii.itisoin'tU t. 1TH); ii. &l, 1.Kohits. i., ,I2; ii, 2i. .'HO; ii. 74, 82jtl, i. 188. 1H< 3U7'HxtiUcK, hnttti* of, L 18r, kmir. K 80 JICinnul 1\if.!f, thf, t.^7Kmlip r. i.Kudm, 3!; i. ii. 13Utin- M,iMo, ii. 246Suntwa, ii. 104,ii, 193iL 298, ii. n 10Kil, tlie, i, Kifi ; ii. 122 *4 *^,SiLpuriiim, i, 427SanimA, ii. 207, 01 t 419 et wff. ; ilf)6. 220

ItfDEX. 393SATSatyrs,ii. 315Stiurli, i. 284 et scq.Savarna,i. 415 ; 11 35Suvitar, i. 303, 38 i ct seq. ;iL 220tho uno-liandcd, i. 370tho wanderer, i. 324, 310Saxifrage, ii. 217Reraf, i. 458 , ii. 33, 278Schamir, ii. 216Scharatz, i. 247SeluTm, ii. 179, 274Solid, i. 4*8 ; ii. 278Sehurk, i. 305Si*ilt>noi, ii. 310SoiU'-nos, ii 316, 318Hi'irvnes.Si'ircna, ii. 154, 242, 260,318fcfcirios, ii 290Soi&tron, ii 111Si'h'no, ii 30 *

394 INDEX.SEASraddha, 5. 344Kri, ii. 308Sientor, ii. 222Sterope,ii. 260ii,Sterop&s, 108, 213Stheino, Stheno, h. 286Stymphalos, "birds of, n. 50Styx, ii 322Suitors of Penelope, and the Panis,ii. 332Summer, sleep or death of, i. 145Bun. the fi&h, rii. 25brides of the, i. 61, 435 ; ii. 135cattle of the, i, 54, 421 ; ii. 213horses of the, i. 162Sunbeam, ii. 159Superstitions arising from equivocalvords, i. 428, 429Surya, i. 237, 384 et seq.Surya,i. 237Sushna,i. 343Sutala, i. 346, 392Suttee, i. 223Svar, i. 427Svayambhu,i. 415Swadha, ii. 134Swaha, ii. 134S wan, knight of the, i 457Swan maidens, i 296, 318, 456 ; ii.135, 258. 281 et seq.SwanhiMjIj&i 189, 284Swans, tne singing, 11. 282Swava, i 286Swiss myth of Tell, ii. 97Sympathetic trees, gems, and stones,i. 292, 401Symplegades, ii 152, 242Syrinx,ii. 249HpABLE of the i.Ethiopians, 166JL Tages, n. 316Taliesm, ii. 122Talisman, ii. 125Tdl6s, ii. 88Tamanaks, myths of the, ii. 211Tamlane, ballad of, i. 411 ; 11. 115,291Tammuz, ii 90, 113Tananis, i. 379Tanhauser, i 324, 409, 412; ii. 218Tantalos, i. 363, 367 ; 11. 27, 275, 317Taranis, i. 379Tarnkappe, i 144, 292 ; ii. 59, 320Tirquin, ii. 247Tartaros, i. 329; ii. 141, 206, 323Tegan Euroron, ii. 120Teiresias, i. 444; ii 3, 178, 187Telauge, ii. 172TelchGies, i. 391 ; ii. 259, 264, 274,291, 31$TISTelebouns, ft, 92Tele'gonos, ii. 174Telomtichos,i. 278TVlophafi

INDEX. 395Titania and Bottom, i, 402TychS Akraia, ii. 20Twin deities, i. 301 ; ii. 82, 114Grettir, i. 323ii,Tyche, 20Kriemhtld, i. 299 et w,Agatbe, ii, 20 Odysseus, i. 160, 269Titans, ii 206* 212 et seq.Tydcus, i 380; n. 186Tithonos, i. 413, 415, 431 ; ii. 31, 89ii.Tyndareos, 79, 186, 283Titurel, ii. 122Tjphafin, Typhoeus, Typhon, i 359,Tityosi. 438; ii. 143360, 3C5 ; ii. JiJt, 71, 212, 334Tlepolomos, ii. 48, 51Tyr,i. 370, 377Tradition, oral, value of, i. 187 et scq. Tu'ins, i 184Traitana, i. 441*; ii. 35311.Tyro, 82Transformation, power of, i 301, 395 ;it. 26, 223, 2o6, 239, 291 ct seq., 313Treasure, the lost or stolen, i 204, TTCKESAHS,i. 383276, 283, 313, 413; ii. 80 T 147 U Ukko, i 120et scq., 319Ulvbset., Ulyxes,ii. 172Tms and serpent worship,ii 36, 116 Uma, i 3t3, 389Trilttl legends, Greek, i 77, 83, 219 Una and the Bed Cross Knight,i.thv i.Argivo story, 220437-- Athenian story, 5. 224Undmt, Fouqu&'s,i. 400i.Mrgarian stor>, 223Unholdft, ii. 364-- Polopnl story,i, 224Upeudra,ii 131-- Teutonic story,i. 239Urd, iL 11-- Tholtan story,i, 221Urisk, ii. 316, 366Tribute children, ii. 65, 34$Urro of i.Hungary, 315Trikorythos, ii. 182Ursula, St. i. 164, 231, 410 ; ii. 218Tnmurtti, i. 345, 372, 384Urilkl, i. 397Triptolemoe, i. 292 ; ii* 162, 309[Ouranos]Tristram, i. 312 ; ii. 33, 120I'rvusi, a. 103, 397 * *?.and Iseult, i. 323i.Ushapati, 427Trite, i. 440, 441 ;h. 354Ushas, i 20, 115, 415, 440Trito, i. 440Uther, i. 309TntogeneiaTriton, i. 440Tritonis, i. 440Tritopator, i. 441YACH, i. 344, 382Vaisviinara, n. 192Tnvikrama, ii. 131Yala, i. 441 ii. ; 230, 326Trolls, i. 141, 408, 438, ii. 51, 303, Valandmne, ii 362313Valant, u. 362Trophonios, i, 116 ; Valhalla, 1. 375 ; ii. 326ii. 24Tros, ii. 84Troy, sieges of,Valkyne,*. 280, 375; ii. 285Vali, i. 309i. 190, 219; ii. 48,160, 368i.Vampire, 363wars of, i. 156, 193, 254 ; n. 5, Vanahexm, i. 372160Vanatnali, the flower-crowned Krishna,-- as related by Dion Chrysostom,ii. 132i.184Vanir,i. 381-- Herodotos, i. 183Varuna,Steeichoros, i. 183, 186-- Thacydides,i, 183 Aw327, 330 et se.horses of, i. 335VAS, the root, ii. 123Tachmubng, 363. Vasishtha, i. 395Tuiaco, i. 354, 416i.VastoshpntS, 422Tullius, 8erviufi, i. 260V,ia, i. 342 ; ii. 130, 196Turanian i.myths, 456Vayu, i. 153 ; ii. 221Turnna, i. 239 r260Vedic hymns, language of the,Trashtar, i. 391102ii.Twilight, 38i. Vedjovis, V^jovis, 354of th gods, i 70, 368 f ii. 95, 211i.Vengeance, mythical, 160the sister of 5.Nighty 418Twelw Olympian gods,i, 360Twins, the, x. 391of Achilleus, i. 249i.Brynhild, 289Conall, ii. 58

396 INDEX.TENVengeance of Perseus, ii, 60of Siggeir, i. 274Venilia, i. 239Venus, i. 402 j ii, 8, 115Barbate, ii. 9Calm, n. 9Cloftcina, ii. 9Equestns, ii. 9Mihtana, ii 9Myrtea, ii. 9i.Vemibberg, 324Verdandhi, n. 11Verethra, ii. 354Verethragna,ii. 353Vesica Piscis, ii. 115, 120Vesta, ii. 126, 192Vestal Virgins, u. 117Vibhvan, n. 104Vigblar, i. 287Vikramaditya,i. 273Vilkina Saga,11. 100Vindhialm, i. 287Violet colour, the, i. 81Vipar, i 341Virbius, ii 66Virochanrt, ii 104, 329Vishnu, ii. 102 ct scq.avaturs of, ii. 106d\mrinearnatu>n of, ii. 329the fpr-armed, i 370~~ ^^MK^'s of i- 378;ii. 103VisvdkaWlb, 3i6i.Vivanghvat, i. 392 ; ii, 354Virasvat, i 392, 415 , ii. 35, 354Volcanoes, ii. 314Volker, i. 296 et seg.Volsung,i. 273Volsunga Saga, . 66, 189, 273Volundr, i. 457Voluspa Saga, i, 370V6r, i 381Vrishakapayi,i. 390Vritra, i, 50 342 ; ii. 102, 326 ett seq.Vritruhnn, ii. 326, 336Vulcanus, ii. 194, 199Vurdh, ii. 18TT7ALI,n 95TT Wanmmoinen, i,246120, ii. 208,Wanen, i. 381Waltam, ii. 95Walfhar of Aquitaine, I.325 ; ii. 80302 et wq.Wanderers in mythology, i. 159. 291,324, 394, 406 ; ii. 95, 294, 303Wanderer, Bellerophon the, ii. 68Bntomartis, ii 14$Bionysos the, ii. 294Dummhng the, i* 117wuoWantlcrrr, Grettir the, i.Horukk'S, ii, 40 ei *ryladm, i, 324, 340Ii>, \\, 140, ii. U>, 23, 09iu 58Phuihos, ii. 2^i.HicgfHwl, 291Sigurd,i. 2?UTheseus, ii. 62 ft *rq.Wuotaa, i. 291, 372 ; ii. 05Water, in connexion with nn tha of thoDawn and tho Sun, ri, 'J.'iUWater, mytliu of the*, ii, a">(> rt wg.Wayknd, i. 343; H. 85, 1510, 310,327, 363Weapons, mythioal, X, 49, 138, 150,2ft

wuoWuotan Harbard, i. 376the one-eyed,i. 104 t 370, 376Siogfadr, 'Siegvater, i. 374Wegtem,ii. 95on Yggdrasil,i. 371Wuusch [Wish], i. 232, 341A. the horso, 12, 162Xfiiopliuiu's, 3A3Xeracos, canal of, at Athos,Xouthos, i. 237INDEX. 397Zamolxis, i. 135 Zoroaster, i. 339ZOBTIeii, i. 354Zrrmbop, ii. 3C3Zothos, ii. 249Arkadioa, i 361Aigiochos,i. 347Cretan, i. 361i. 92Duphnephoros,ii. 55Dodonaios, i. 364Herkeios, iu 56ItcnreMos, n. 338YAHA, i. ii.dogs of, ii. Konaios, ii. 302 , 47, 354336- Kutachthonios, ii. 32054Yaman, i. 301Kerauneios, i. 379Yanu'ii, i. 392Iiybuos, i. 362Yamx, i, 392i.Olympics, 364Yanhtha,427; ii. 194Ypgdnril, i. 274, 370 ; ii. 18Ourani&n, i. 349Yima, i. 392ii.Pangenet6r, 55Yima-KahHeta, ii, 354Patfcr, i. 348Yimir, i. 371Phrygian, ii. 312Yng, 5.240; ii. 184Pistios, ii 340Yoni,L27$; ii. 113Poseid&n, ii. 264, 320Sabazios, n. 128ii.Swanshaped, 283T7AGHEOS, ii. 294, 3207.10, i. 354/J /.aloukos, ii. 72Xtzj, n. 66, 119XalmoxjH, i. 135, 412Zohak.ii 83,354Zophyros, i. 247, 367, 432 ; ii. 177,251Zous, i 347 ct seg. ; ii. 11 ct se% ,207forms of the xiame, i 354the judge,i. 350,367ivlaLiuns of, with H6r&> ii. 12 ct seq.Ombnps, i. 376; it 264J> CO.,XffiD PA.BUCAHENT fiXEEBT