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"persecuted maiden finds a mare's head , which beseeches her to relieve and cover it ; at last it invites her to enter the right ear and come out of the left one . The persecuted girl comes out in the form of an exceedingly beautiful ..."--Zoological Mythology, Or The Legends of Animals (1872) by Angelo De Gubernatis The immense vault of heaven which over-arches the earth, as the eternal storehouse of light and rain, as the power which causes the grass to grow, and therefore the animals which pasture upon it, assumes in the Vedic literature the name of Aditis, or the infinite, the inexhaustible, the fountain of ambrosia."--Zoological Mythology, Or The Legends of Animals (1872) by Angelo De Gubernatis

{{Template}} Zoological Mythology, Or The Legends of Animals (1872) is a book by Angelo De Gubernatis.

Full text of volume 1[1]

ZOOLOGICAL MYTHOLOGY

OR

THE LEGENDS OF ANIMALS

BY

ANGELO DE GUBERNATIS

PROFESSOR OF SANSKRIT AND COMPARATIVE LITERATURE IN THE ISTITUTO DI STUDII SUPERIORI E DI PERFEZIONAMENTO, AT FLORENCE FOREIGN MEMBER OF THE ROYAL INSTITUTE OF PHILOLOGY AND ETHNOGRAPHY OF THE DUTCH INDIES

_IN TWO VOLUMES_

VOL. I.

LONDON

TRÜBNER & CO., 60 PATERNOSTER ROW

1872

[_All rights reserved_]

PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND COMPANY EDINBURGH AND LONDON

 TO

 MICHELE AMARI AND MICHELE COPPINO

 This Work

 IS DEDICATED

 AS A TRIBUTE OF LIVELY GRATITUDE AND

 PROFOUND ESTEEM

 BY

 THE AUTHOR.

ZOOLOGICAL MYTHOLOGY;

OR

THE LEGENDS OF ANIMALS.

First Part.

THE ANIMALS OF THE EARTH.

CHAPTER I.

THE COW AND THE BULL.

SECTION I.--THE COW AND THE BULL IN THE VEDIC HYMNS.

SUMMARY.

   Prelude.--The vault of Heaven as a luminous cow.--The gods and
   goddesses, sons and daughters of this cow.--The vault of Heaven as a
   spotted cow.--The sons and daughters of this cow, _i.e._ the winds,
   Marutas, and the clouds, Priēnayas.--The wind-bulls subdue the
   cloud-cows.--Indras, the rain-sending, thundering, lightening,
   radiant sun, who makes the rain fall and the light return, called
   the bull of bulls.--The bull Indras drinks the water of
   strength.--Hunger and thirst of the heroes of mythology.--The
   cloud-barrel.--The horns of the bull and of the cow are
   sharpened.--The thunderbolt-horns.--The cloud as a cow, and even as
   a stable or hiding-place for cows.--Cavern where the cows are shut
   up, of which cavern the bull Indras and the bulls Marutas remove the
   stone, and force the entrance, to reconquer the cows, delivering
   them from the monster; the male Indras finds himself again with his
   wife.--The cloud-fortress, which Indras destroys and Agnis sets on
   fire.--The cloud-forest, which the gods destroy.--The cloud-cow; the
   cow-bow; the bird-thunderbolts; the birds come out of the cow.--The
   monstrous cloud-cow, the wife of the monster.--Some phenomena of
   the cloudy sky are analogous to those of the gloomy sky of night and
   of winter.--The moment most fit for an epic poem is the meeting of
   such phenomena in a nocturnal tempest.--The stars, cows put to
   flight by the sun.--The moon, a milk-yielding cow.--The ambrosial
   moon fished up in the fountain, gives nourishment to Indras.--The
   moon as a male, or bull, discomfits, with the bull Indras, the
   monster.--The two bulls, or the two stallions, the two horsemen, the
   twins.--The bull chases the wolf from the waters.--The cow
   tied.--The aurora, or ambrosial cow, formed out of the skin of
   another cow by the Ribhavas.--The Ribhavas, bulls and wise
   birds.--The three Ribhavas reproduce the triple Indras and the
   triple Vishnus; their three relationships; the three brothers,
   eldest, middle, youngest; the three brother workmen; the youngest
   brother is the most intelligent, although at first thought stupid;
   the reason why.--The three brothers guests of a king.--The third of
   the Ribhavas, the third and youngest son becomes Tritas the third,
   in the heroic form of Indras, who kills the monster; Tritas, the
   third brother, after having accomplished the great heroic
   undertaking, is abandoned by his envious brothers in the well; the
   second brother is the son of the cow.--Indras a cowherd, parent of
   the sun and the aurora, the cow of abundance, milk-yielding and
   luminous.--The cow Sītā.--Relationship of the sun to the
   aurora.--The aurora as cow-nurse of the sun, mother of the cows; the
   aurora cowherd; the sun hostler and cowherd.--The riddle of the
   wonderful cowherd; the sun solves the riddle proposed by the
   aurora.--The aurora wins the race, being the first to arrive at the
   barrier, without making use of her feet.--The chariot of the
   aurora.--She who has no feet, who leaves no footsteps; she who is
   without footsteps of the measure of the feet; she who has no slipper
   (which is the measure of the foot).--The sun who never puts his foot
   down, the sun without feet, the sun lame, who, during the night,
   becomes blind; the blind and the lame who help each other, whom
   Indra helps, whom the ambrosia of the aurora enables to walk and to
   see.--The aurora of evening, witch who blinds the sun; the sun
   Indras, in the morning, chases the aurora away; Indras subdues and
   destroys the witch aurora.--The brother sun follows, as a seducer,
   the aurora his sister, and wishes to burn her.--The sun follows his
   daughter the aurora.--The aurora, a beautiful young girl, deliverer
   of the sun, rich in treasure, awakener of the sleepers, saviour of
   mankind, foreseeing; from small becomes large, from dark becomes
   brilliant, from infirm, whole, from blind, seeing and protectress of
   sight.--Night and aurora, now mother and daughter, now
   sisters.--The luminous night a good sister; the gloomy night gives
   place to the aurora, her elder or better sister, working, purifying,
   cleansing.--The aurora shines only when near the sun her husband,
   before whom she dances splendidly dressed; the aurora Urvaēī.--The
   wife of the sun followed by the monster.--The husband of the aurora
   subject to the same persecution.

We are on the vast table-land of Central Asia; gigantic mountains send forth on every side their thousand rivers; immense pasture-lands and forests cover it; migratory tribes of pastoral nations traverse it; the _gopatis_, the shepherd or lord of the cows, is the king; the gopatis who has most herds is the most powerful. The story begins with a graceful pastoral idyll.

To increase the number of the cows, to render them fruitful in milk and prolific in calves, to have them well looked after, is the dream, the ideal of the ancient Aryan. The bull, the _foecundator_, is the type of every male perfection, and the symbol of regal strength.

Hence, it is only natural that the two most prominent animal figures in the mythical heaven should be the cow and the bull.

The cow is the ready, loving, faithful, fruitful Providence of the shepherd.

The worst enemy of the Aryan, therefore, is he who carries off the cow; the best, the most illustrious, of his friends, he who is able to recover it from the hands of the robber.

The same idea is hence transferred to heaven; in heaven there is a beneficent, fruitful power, which is called the cow, and a beneficent _foecundator_ of this same power, which is called the bull.

The dewy moon, the dewy aurora, the watery cloud, the entire vault of heaven, that giver of the quickening and benignant rain, that benefactress of mankind,--are each, with special predilection, represented as the beneficent cow of abundance. The lord of this multiform cow of heaven, he who makes it pregnant and fruitful and milk-yielding, the spring or morning sun, the rain-giving sun (or moon) is often represented as a bull.

Now, to apprehend all this clearly, we ought to go back, as nearly as possible, to that epoch in which such conceptions would arise spontaneously; but as the imagination so indulged is apt to betray us into mere fantastical conceits, into an _ą priori_ system, we shall begin by excluding it entirely from these preliminary researches, as being hazardous and misleading, and content ourselves with the humbler office of collecting the testimonies of the poets themselves who assisted in the creation of the mythology in question.

I do not mean to say anything of the Vedic myths that is not taken from one or other of the hymns contained in the greatest of the Vedas, but only to arrange and connect together the links of the chain as they certainly existed in the imagination of the ancient Aryan people, and which the _Rigvedas_, the work of a hundred poets and of several centuries, presents to us as a whole, continuous and artistic. I shall indeed suppose myself in the valley of Kaēmīra, or on the banks of the Sindhus, under that sky, at the foot of these mountains, among these rivers; but I shall search in the sky for that which I find in the hymns, and not in the hymns for that which I may imagine I see in the sky. I shall begin my voyage with a trusty chart, and shall consult it with all the diligence in my power, in order not to lose any of the advantages that a voyage so full of surprises has to offer. Hence the notes will all, or nearly all, consist of quotations from my guide, in order that the learned reader may be able to verify for himself every separate assertion. And as to the frequent stoppages we shall have to make by the way, let me ask the reader not to ascribe these to anything arbitrary on my part, but rather to the necessities of a voyage, made, as it is, step by step, in a region but little known, and by the help of a guide, where nearly everything indeed is to be found, but where, as in a rich inventory, it is easier to lose one's way than to find it again.

The immense vault of heaven which over-arches the earth, as the eternal storehouse of light and rain, as the power which causes the grass to grow, and therefore the animals which pasture upon it, assumes in the Vedic literature the name of Aditis, or the infinite, the inexhaustible, the fountain of ambrosia (_amritasya nabhis_). Thus far, however, we have no personification, as yet we have no myth. The _amritas_ is simply the immortal, and only poetically represents the rain, the dew, the luminous wave. But the inexhaustible soon comes to mean that which can be milked without end--and hence also, a celestial cow, an inoffensive cow, which we must not offend, which must remain intact.[1] The whole heavens being thus represented as an infinite cow, it was natural that the principal and most visible phenomena of the sky should become, in their turn, children of the cow, or themselves cows or bulls, and that the _foecundator_ of the great mother should also be called a bull. Hence we read that the wind (_Vāyus_ or _Rudrās_) gave birth, from the womb of the celestial cow, to the winds that howl in the tempest (_Marutas_ and _Rudrās_), called for this reason children of the cow.[2] But, since this great celestial cow produces the tempestuous, noisy winds, she represents not only the serene, tranquil vault of the shining sky, but also the cloudy and tenebrous mother of storms. This great cow, this immense cloud, that occupies all the vault of heaven and unchains the winds, is a brown, dark, spotted (_priēnis_) cow; and so the winds, or Marutas, her sons, are called the children of the spotted one.[3] The singular has thus become a plural; the male sons of the cloud, the winds, are 21; the daughters, the clouds themselves, called the spotted ones (_priēnayas_) are also three times seven, or 21: 3 and 7 are sacred numbers in the Aryan faith; and the number 21 is only a multiple of these two great legendary numbers, by which either the strength of a god or that of a monster is often symbolised. If _priēnis_, or the variegated cow, therefore, is the mother of the Marutas, the winds, and of the variegated ones (_priēnayas_), the clouds, we may say that the clouds are the sisters of the winds. We often have three or seven sisters, three or seven brothers in the legends. Now, that 21, in the _Rigvedas_ itself, involves a reference to 3, is evident, if we only observe how one hymn speaks of the 3 times 7 spotted cows who bring to the god the divine drink, while another speaks of the spotted ones (the number not being specified) who give him three lakes to drink.[4] Evidently here the 3, or 7, or 21 sister cows that yield to the god of the eastern heavens their own nutritious milk, and amidst whose milky humours the winds, now become invulnerable, increase,[5] fulfil the pious duties of benevolent guardian fates.

But if the winds are sons of a cow, and the cows are their nurses, the winds, or Marutas, must, as masculine, be necessarily represented as bulls. In reality the Wind (_Vāyus_), their father, is borne by bulls--that is, by the winds themselves, who hurry, who grow, are movable as the rays of the sun, very strong, and indomitable;[6] the strength of the wind is compared to that of the bull or the bear;[7] the winds, as lusty as bulls, overcome and subdue the dark ones.[8] Here, therefore, the clouds are no longer represented as the cows that nurse, but with the gloomy aspect of a monster. The Marutas, the winds that howl in the tempest, are as swift as lightning, and surround themselves with lightning. Hence they are celebrated for their luminous vestments; and hence it is said that the reddish winds are resplendent with gems, as some bulls with stars.[9] As such--that is, as subduers of the clouds, and as they who run impetuously through them--these winds, these bulls, are the best friends, the most powerful helpers, of the great bellowing bull; of the god of thunder and rain; of the sun, the dispeller of clouds and darkness; of the supreme Vedic god, Indras, the friend of light and ambrosia--of Indras, who brings with him daylight and fine weather, who sends us the beneficent dew and the fertilising rain. Like the winds his companions, the sun Indras--the sun (and the luminous sky) hidden in the dark, who strives to dissipate the shadows, the sun hidden in the cloud that thunders and lightens, to dissolve it in rain--is represented as a powerful bull, as the bull of bulls, invincible son of the cow, that bellows like the Marutas.[10]

But in order to become a bull, in order to grow, to develop the strength necessary to kill the serpent, Indras must drink; and he drinks the water of strength, the _somas_.[11] "Drink and grow,"[12] one of the poets says to him, while offering the symbolical libation of the cup of sacrifice, which is a type of the cup of heaven, now the heavenly vault, now the cloud, now the sun, and now the moon. From the sweet food of the celestial cow, Indras acquires a swiftness which resembles that of the horse;[13] and he eats and drinks at one time enough to enable him to attain maturity at once. The gods give him three hundred oxen to eat, and three lakes of ambrosial liquor[14] to drink, in order that he may be able to kill the monster serpent. The hunger and thirst of the heroes is always proportioned to the miracle they are called upon to perform; and for this reason the hymns of the _Rigvedas_ and of the _Atharvavedas_ often represent the cloud as an immense great-bellied barrel (_Kabandhas_), which is carried by the divine _bull_.[15]

But when and how does the hero-bull display his extraordinary strength? The terrible bull bellows, and shows his strength, as he sharpens his horns:[16] the splendid bull, with sharpened horns, who is able of himself to overthrow all peoples.[17] But what are the horns of the bull Indras, the god of thunder? Evidently the thunderbolts; Indras is, in fact, said to sharpen the thunderbolts as a bull sharpens his horns;[18] the thunderbolt of Indras is said to be thousand-pointed;[19] the bull Indras is called the bull with the thousand horns, who rises from the sea[20] (or from the cloudy ocean as a thunder-dealing sun, from the gloomy ocean as a radiant sun--the thunderbolt being supposed to be rays from the solar disc). Sometimes the thunderbolt of Indras is itself called a bull,[21] and is sharpened by its beloved refulgent cows,[22] being used, now to withdraw the cows from the darkness, now to deliver them from the monster of darkness that envelops them,[23] and now to destroy the monster of clouds and darkness itself. Besides the name of Indras, this exceedingly powerful horned bull, who sharpens his horns to plunge them into the monster, assumes also, as the fire which sends forth lightning, as that which sends forth rays of light from the clouds and the darkness, the name of Agnis; and, as such, has two heads, four horns, three feet, seven hands, teeth of fire, and wings; he is borne on the wind, and blows.[24]

Thus far, then, we have heavenly cows which nurture heavenly bulls, and heavenly bulls and cows which use their horns for a battle that is fought in heaven.

Let us now suppose ourselves on the field of battle, and let us visit both the hostile camps. In one we find the sun (and sometimes the moon), the bull of bulls Indras, with the winds, Marutas, the radiant and bellowing bulls; in the other, a multiform monster, in the shape of wolves, serpents, wild boars, owls, mice, and such like. The bull Indras has cows with him, who help him; the monster has also cows, either such as he has carried off from Indras, and which he imprisons and secretes in gloomy caverns, towers, or fortresses, or those which he caresses as his own wives. In the one case, the cows consider the bull Indras as their friend and liberating hero; in the other, those with the monster are themselves monsters and enemies of Indras, who fights against them. The clouds, in a word, are regarded at one time as the friends of the rain-giving sun, who delivers them from the monster that keeps back the rain, and at another as attacked by the sun, as they who wickedly envelop him, and endeavour to destroy him. Let us now go on to search, in the _Rigvedas_, the proofs of this double battle.

To begin with the first phase of the conflict, where in the sky does Indras fight the most celebrated of all his battles?

The clouds generally assume the aspect of mountains; the words _adris_ and _parvatas_, in the Vedic language, expressing the several ideas of stone, mountain, and cloud.[25] The cloud being compared to a stone, a rock, or a mountain, it was natural,--1st, To imagine in the rock or mountain dens or caverns, which, as they imprisoned cows, might be likened to stables;[26] 2d, To pass from the idea of a rock to that of citadel, fortress, fortified city, tower; 3d, To pass from the idea of a mountain, which is immovable, to that of a tree which, though it cannot move from its place, yet rears itself and expands in the air; and from the idea of the tree of the forest to the shadowy and awe-inspiring grove. Hence the bull, or hero, or god Indras, or the sun of thunder, lightning, and rain, now does battle within a cavern, now carries a fortified town by assault, and now draws forth the cow from the forest, or unbinds it from the tree, destroying the _rakshas_, or monster, that enchained it.

The Vedic poetry celebrates, in particular, the exploit of Indras against the cavern, enclosure, or mountain in which the monster (called by different names and especially by those of Valas, Vritras, Cushnas, of enemy, black one, thief, serpent, wolf, or wild boar) conceals the herds of the celestial heroes, or slaughters them.

The black bull bellows; the thunderbolt bellows, that is, the thunder follows the lightning, as the cow follows its calf;[27] the Marutas bulls ascend the rock--now, by their own efforts, moving and making the sonorous stone, the rock mountain, fall;[28] now, with the iron edge of their rolling chariots violently splitting the mountain;[29] the valiant hero, beloved by the gods, moves the stone;[30] Indras hears the cows: by the aid of the wind-bulls he finds the cows hidden in the cavern; he himself, furnished with an arm of stone, opens the grotto of Valas, who keeps the cows; or, opens the cavern to the cows; he vanquishes, kills, and pursues the thieves in battle; the bulls bellow; the cows move forward to meet them; the bull, Indras, bellows and leaves his seed in the herd; the thunder-dealing male, Indras, and his spouse are glad and rejoice.[31]

In this fabled enterprise, three moments must be noted: 1st, The effort to raise the stone; 2d, The struggle with the monster who carried off the cows; 3d, The liberation of the prisoners. It is an entire epic poem.

The second form of the enterprise of Indras in the cloudy heavens is that which has for its object the destruction of the celestial fortresses, of the ninety, or ninety-nine, or hundred cities of Ēambaras, of the cities which were the wives of the demons; and from this undertaking Indras acquired the surname of _puramdaras_ (explained as destroyer of cities); although he had in it a most valuable companion-in-arms, Agnis, that is, Fire, which naturally suggests to our thoughts the notion of destruction by fire.[32]

In a hymn to Indras, the gods arrive at last, bring their axes, and with their edges destroy the woods, and burn the monsters who restrain the milk in the breasts of the cows.[33] The clouded sky here figures in the imagination as a great forest inhabited by _rakshasas_, or monsters, which render it unfruitful--that is, which prevent the great celestial cow from giving her milk. The cow that gives the honey, the ambrosial cow of the Vedās, is thus replaced by a forest which hides the honey, the ambrosia beloved by the gods. And although the Vedic hymns do not dwell much upon this conception of the cloudy-sky, preferring as they do to represent the darkness of night as a gloomy forest, the above passage from the Vedās is worthy of notice as indicating the existence at least during the Vedic period of a myth which was afterwards largely amplified in zoological legend.[34]

In this threefold battle of Indras, we must, moreover, remark a curious feature. The thunder-dealing Indras overpowers his enemies with arrows and darts; the same cloud which thunders, bellows, and therefore is called a cow, becomes, as throwing darts, a bow: hence we have the cow-bow, from which Indras hurls the iron stone, the thunderbolt; and the cord itself of that bellowing bow is called a cow; from the bow-cow, from the cord-cow, come forth the winged darts, the thunderbolts, called birds, that eat men; and when they come forth, all the world trembles.[35] We shall come upon the same idea again further on.

Thus far we have considered the cow-cloud as a victim of the monster (that Indras comes to subdue). But it is not uncommon to see the cloud itself or the darkness, that is, the cow, the fortress, or the forest represented as a monster. Thus, a Vedic hymn informs us that the monster Valas had the shape of a cow;[36] another hymn represents the cloud as the cow that forms the waters, and that has now one foot, now four, now eight, now nine, and fills the highest heaven with sounds;[37] still another hymn sings that the sun hurls his golden disc in the variegated cow;[38] they who have been carried off, who are guarded by the monster serpent, the waters, the cows, are become the wives of the demons;[39] and they must be malignant, since a poet can use as a curse the wish that the malign spirits, the demons, may drink the poison of those cows.[40] We have already seen that the fortresses are wives of demons, and that the demons possessed the forests.[41]

It is in the beclouded and thundering heavens that the warrior hero displays his greatest strength; but it cannot be denied that the great majority of the myths, and the most poetical, exemplify or represent the relation between the nocturnal sky (now dark, tenebrous, watery, horrid, wild, now lit up by the ambrosial moon-beams, and now bespangled with stars) and the two glowing skies--the two resplendent ambrosial twilights of morning and evening (of autumn and spring). We have here the same general phenomenon of light and darkness engaged in strife; here, again, the sun Indras is hidden, as though in a cloud, to prepare the light, to recover from the monster of darkness the waters of youth and light, the riches, the cows, which he keeps concealed; but this conquest is only made by the hero after long wandering amidst many dangers, and is finally accomplished by battles, in which the principal credit is often due to a heroine; except in those cases, not frequent but well worthy of remark, in which the clouds, hurricanes, tempests of lightning and thunderbolts, coincide with the end of the night (or of winter), and the sun Indras, by tearing the clouds, at the same time disperses the darkness of night and brings dawn (or spring) back to the sky. In such coincidences, the sun Indras, besides being the greatest of the gods, reveals himself to be also the most epic of the heroes; the two skies, the dark and the clouded, with their relative monsters, and the two suns, the thundering and the radiant, with their relative companions, are confounded, and the myth then assumes all its poetical splendour. And the most solemn moments of the great national Aryan epic poems, the _Rāmāyanam_ and the _Mahābhāratam_, the _Book of Kings_, as well as those of the _Iliad_, the _Song of Roland_ and the _Nibelungen_, are founded upon this very coincidence of the two solar actions--the cloudy and shadowy monster thunderstruck, and the dawn (or spring) delivered and resuscitated. In truth, the _Rigvedas_ itself, in a passage already quoted,[42] tells us that the clouds--the three times seven spotted cows--cause their milk to drop to a god (whom, from another similar passage,[43] we know to be Indras, the sun) in the eastern sky (_pūrve vyomani_), that is, towards the morning, and sometimes towards the spring, many of the phenomena of which correspond to those of the aurora. The _Priēnayas_, or spotted ones, are beyond doubt the clouds, as the Marutas, sons of Priēnis, or the spotted one, are the winds that howl and lighten in the storm cloud. It is therefore necessary to carry back the cloudy sky towards the morning, to understand the Priēnayas feeding the sun Indras in the eastern heavens and the seven _Ańgirasas_, the seven sunbeams, the seven wise men, who also sing hymns in the morning;--it seems to me that the hymn of these fabled wise men can be nothing else than the crash of the thunderbolts, which, as we have already seen, are supposed to be detached from the solar rays. Allusions to Indras thundering in the morning are so frequent in the Vedic hymns, that I hope to be excused for this short digression, from which I must at once return, because my sole object here is to treat in detail of the mythical animals, and because the road we have to take will be a long one.

Even the luminous night has its cows; the stars, which the sun puts to flight with his rays,[44] are cows: the cows themselves, whose dwellings the dwellings of the sun's cows must adjoin, are called the many-horned ones.[45] These dwellings seem to me worthy of passing remark, they are the celestial houses that move, the enchanted huts and palaces that appear, disappear, and are transformed so often in the popular stories of the Aryans.

The moon is generally a male, for its most popular names, _Candras_, _Indus_, and _Somas_ are masculine; but as Somas signifies ambrosia, the moon, as giver of ambrosia, soon came to be considered a milk-giving cow; in fact, moon is one among the various meanings given in Sanskrit to the word _gāus_ (cow). The moon, Somas, who illumines the nocturnal sky, and the pluvial sun, Indras, who during the night, or the winter, prepares the light of morn, or spring, are represented as companions; a young girl, the evening, or autumnal, twilight, who goes to draw water towards night, or winter, finds in the well, and takes to Indras, the ambrosial moon, that is, the Somas whom he loves. Here are the very words of the Vedic hymn:--"The young girl, descending towards the water, found the moon in the fountain, and said: 'I will take you to Indras, I will take you to Ēakras; flow, O moon, and envelop Indras.'"[46] The moon and ambrosia in the word indus, as well as somas, are confounded with one another; hence, Indras, the drinker _par excellence_ of _somas_ (somapātamas), is also the best friend and companion of the ambrosial or pluvial moon, and so the sun and moon (as also Indras and Vishnus) together come to suggest to us the idea of two friends, two brothers (Indus and Indras), two twins, the two Aēvināu; often the two twilights, properly speaking, the morning and the evening, the spring and the autumn, twilights, the former, however, being especially associated with the red sun which appears in the morning (or in the spring), and the latter with the pale moon which appears in the evening (or in the autumn, as a particular regent of the cold season). Indras and Somas (_Indrāsomāu_) are more frequently represented as two bulls who together discomfit the monster (_rakshohanāu_), who destroy by fire the monsters that live in darkness.[47] The word _vrishanāu_ properly means the two who pour out, or fertilise. Here it means the two bulls; but as the word _vrishan_ signifies stallion as well as bull, the two stallions, the vrishanāu Indras and Somas, are, by a natural transition, soon transformed into two horses or horsemen, the two Aēvināu. Hence, in popular tales, we find near the young princess the hero, who now leads out the cows to pasture, and now, as hostler or groom, takes excellent care of the horses. But we must not anticipate comparisons which we shall have to make further on. Having noticed that, in the _Rigvedas_, we find the moon represented either as a bull or a cow (the masculine, _Indus_, _somas_, _candras_, is always a bull; while the feminine, _rākā_, suggests more naturally the idea of a cow), let us now consider the bull Indras in relation to the cow Aurora (or spring).

Five bulls stand in the midst of the heavens, and chase out of the way the wolf who crosses the waters;[48] the luminous Vasavas unbind the cow that is tied by its foot.[49]

How now is this cow brought forth?

This ambrosial cow is created by the artists of the gods, by the three brothers _Ribhavas_, who draw it out of the skin of a cow; that is, they make a cow, and, to give it life, cover it with the skin of a dead cow.[50] It being understood that the cow Aurora (or Spring) dies at even (or in the autumn), the Ribhavas, the threefold sun Indras, _i.e._, the sun in the three watches of the night, prepares the skin of this cow, one Ribhus taking off the skin from the dead cow, another Ribhus preparing it during the night (or winter), and the third Ribhus, in the early morning (or at the end of winter) dressing the new cow, the aurora (or the spring) with it. Thus it is that Indras, in three distinct moments, takes the skin from off the girl that he loves, who had become ugly during the night, and restores her beauty in the morning.[51] And the three Ribhavas may, it seems to me, be the more easily identified with the triple Indras, with Indra-Vishnus, who measures the world in three paces, since, as Indras is called a bull, they also are called bulls;[52] as Indras is often a falcon, they also are named birds;[53] and their miracles are sometimes also those of Indras. This identification of the bulls Ribhavas, whom we speak of here as producers of the cow Aurora (the same sterile cow of the sleeping hero Ēayus, that which the Aēvināu, the two horsemen of the twilight, restored to youth by the Ribhavas, rendered fruitful again),[54] with the bull, or hero Indras, appears to me to be of the greatest importance, inasmuch as it affords us the key to much that is most vital to the Aryan legends.

The Ribhavas, then, are three brothers. They prepare themselves to procure the cups which are to serve for the gods to drink out of. Each has a cup in his hand; the eldest brother defies the others to make two cups out of one; the second defies them to make three out of one; the youngest brother comes forward and defies them to make four. The victory is his, and the greatest workman of heaven, the Vedic Vulcan, _Tvashtar_, praises their wonderful work.[55] The youngest of the three brothers is therefore the most skilful. We find in the _Rigvedas_ the name of _Sukarmas_, or maker of fine works, good workman, given to each of the three brothers; and though only one of them, who is properly called Ribhus, or _Rībhukshā_, is said to serve the god Indras in the quality of a workman (whence Indras himself sometimes received the name of Ribhukshā, Ribhvan, or Ribhvas), yet the other two brothers, _Vāgas_ and _Vibhvan_, are in the service, one of all the gods, the other of Varunas, the god of night.[56] It would seem natural to recognise in Ribhus, the protégé of Indras, the most skilful of the three brothers, who, as we have seen above, was the youngest; yet, as we cannot infer anything from the order in which the hymns name the three brothers--as, in one, Vāgas is first named, then Ribhukshā, and finally Vibhvan; in another, Vāgas first, Vibhvan second, and Ribhus third;[57] in another, again, Ribhus is invoked first, then Vibhvan, and lastly Vāgas; and as we also find all the Ribhavas saluted under the common epithet of Vāgas, and Vāgas himself by the name of Indras, or rather Indras saluted in his triple form of Ribhus, Vibhvan, and Vāgas,[58] it remains uncertain which of these was the proper name of the third brother of the Ribhavas. But what seems to be sufficiently clear is, that Indras is identified with the Ribhavas (_Indravantas_), that the third brother is the most skilful, and that the three brothers serve the lords of heaven as workmen. And here we meet with an interesting element. In two hymns of the _Rigvedas_, the host of the Ribhavas appears as one only, Indras himself, or the sun (Savitar), under the name of _Agohyas_ (_i.e._, who cannot be hidden). During the twelve days (the twelve hours of the night, or the twelve months of the year) in which they are the guests of Agohyas, they bring as they sleep every species of prosperity to the land, by making the fields fertile, causing the rivers to flow, and refreshing the grass of the field. In this, however, let us not forget that they are the beneficent sons of _Sudhanvan_, the good archer, and archers themselves, representatives of the great celestial archer, of the thunder-dealing and rain-giving Indras; and that therefore their sleep is only a figure of speech to express their latent existence in darkness and the clouds of night.

But the _Rigvedas_ introduces the three brothers under other names, and especially in one, and that an important aspect. The third brother is called _Tritas_, or the third, and as such, is also identified with Indras. Thus, for instance, the moments of Indras in the sky are three--evening, night, and towards morning; and the horse of Tritas (the horse that Tritas has received from _Yamas_) is now mysteriously Yama himself, now the son of Āditis (whom we have already seen to be the cow, or the son of the cow), now Tritas himself, whom Tritas alone can yoke, and Indras alone ride upon, a horse bedewed with ambrosia, which has three relationships in heaven, three in the waters, three in the ocean;[60] that is to say, one relation is Yamas, the elder brother; the second is the son of the cow, or the second brother; the last is Tritas himself, or the youngest brother. This Tritas is called intelligent; he therefore corresponds to the third brother, who makes four cups out of one. How then does he appear sometimes stupid? The language itself supplies the explanation. In Sanskrit, _bālas_ means both child and stolid; and the third brother is supposed to be stolid, because, at his first appearance especially, he is a child,--and we constantly see him as a child do wonderful things, and give proofs of superhuman wisdom. With this key, the meaning of the myth is obvious. The eldest brother, Yamas, the dying sun, with all his wisdom and experience, is unable of himself to recover the ravished or missing princess; the son of the cow Āditis, that is, Ādityas, the sun in the middle of the night, gives often proof of strength great enough to disperse the darkness and the clouds, and break the incantation; but, generally it is the third sun, the morning sun, Indras in his third moment, Vishnus taking his third step,[61] the third brother, Tritas, who seems to obtain the victory, and deliver the young aurora from the monster of night. All this seems to me to be very evident.

Tritas, like Indras, drinks the water of strength, and thereupon tears the monster in pieces;[62] the victory of the young hero must be achieved in the same way in which it is accomplished by Indras, his more splendid and grandiose impersonation. But Tritas, or _Trāitanas_, after having killed the monster of the waters, is afraid that the waters themselves may devour him; after cutting off the head of the monster, some enemies have lowered him down into the waters.[63] The sun has vanquished the monster that kept the fountain of waters shut--he has unchained the waters, but he himself has not been able to break through the cloud; he has delivered from the dark and cloudy monster the princess, the dawn that was to have been its prey, but he himself does not yet come forth--is still invisible. Now, who are the enemies here that have placed the young hero in the cistern, down into the well, in the sea? We have already seen that Tritas has two brothers; and it is these two brothers who, in a fit of jealousy, on account of his wife, the aurora, and the riches she brings with her from the realm of darkness, the cistern or well, detain their brother in the well,--all which is told us in a single but eloquent verse of the Vedas. The intelligent Tritas in the well calls out (_rebhati_) on account of his brothers;[64] and the two horsemen of the twilight, the Aēvināu, come to deliver the invoker (_rebhas_) covered and enveloped by the waters.[65] In another hymn, the deliverer appears to be Brihaspatis, the lord of prayer, who having heard how Tritas, thrust down into the well, was invoking the gods, made the large from the small;[66] that is to say, opened for the young hero a way to escape from the well and show himself in his glory.

Having seen how in the Vedic hymns Tritas, the third brother, and the ablest as well as best, is persecuted by his brothers, it is interesting to note the form of the myth in popular Hindoo tradition:--"Three brothers, _Ekatas_ (_i.e._, the first), _Dvitas_ (_i.e._, the second), and _Tritas_ (_i.e._, the third), were travelling in a desert, and distressed with thirst, came to a well, from which the youngest, Tritas, drew water and gave it to his seniors. In requital, they threw him into the well, in order to appropriate his property, and having covered the top with a cart-wheel, left him within it. In this extremity he prayed to the gods to extricate him, and by their favour he made his escape."[67]

Thus have we brought the three brothers, of whom Tritas is the youngest, into close affinity with the three Ribhavas, and both the former and the latter into an equally close connection with the three moments of Indras. We have already said that the Ribhavas created the cow; in the same way _Uēanā Kāvyās_, the desiring wise one protected by Indras, another name for the sun-hero of the morning, sends the cows together before him;[68] and Indras himself is the only lord of the cows, the only real celestial shepherd;[69] or, rather, it is he that begets the sun and the aurora,[70] or, as another hymn says, who gives the horses and the sun and the cow of abundance.[71]

Here, therefore, the aurora is explicitly the cow of abundance; she is still also the milk-giving and luminous cow, in which is found all sweetness;[72] and finally, _usrā_ or _ushā_ are two words, two appellations, which indiscriminately express aurora and cow as the red or brilliant one. The identification of the aurora with the cow, in the mythical sky of the Vedas, is therefore a certainty.

Another of the names which the milk-yielding cow assumes in the _Rigvedas_, besides the ordinary one of _Ushā_, is _Sītā_, whom Indras also causes to descend from heaven, like the aurora, and who must be milked by the sun-god _Pūshan_,[73] the nourisher, the _foecundator_, compared in one hymn to a pugnacious buffalo.[74] This Indras, protector and friend of Sītā, prepares therefore Vishnus, the protector, in the form of Rāmas, of his wife Sītā. And even the Ribhavas are the protectors of the cow, as well as the producers.[75]

But Indras, whose special function it is to lighten, to thunder, to fight the monster of darkness, and to prepare the light, generally figures in the popular imagination, at dawn (aurora), as the sun, under his three names of _Sūryas_, of _Ritas_, and of _Savitar_.

The sun, with respect to the aurora, is now the father, now the husband, now the son, and now the brother. As begotten of Indras simultaneously with the aurora, he is the brother; as following and embracing the aurora, he is the husband; as simply coming after the aurora, he is the son; and as sending the cow or the aurora before him, he is the father. These four relationships of the sun to the aurora or dawn are all mentioned in the _Rigvedas_.

In one of the hymns, the pure effulgence with which the aurora chases away the shadows of night is said to resemble the milk of a cow;[76] that is, the whitish light of the daybreak precedes in the eastern heavens the rosy light of aurora. The aurora is the cow-nurse, and the oriental mother of the old sun; at the sound of the hymn in praise of the dawn, the two horsemen of twilight, the Aēvināu, awaken.[77] Two cows--[_i.e._, the two twilights, that of the evening and that of the morning, related to the two horsemen, the evening one and the morning one, whom we also find together in the morning, the one white and the other red, the one in company with daybreak and the other with the aurora, and who may therefore be sometimes identified with the two morning dawns, the white dawn (alba) or daybreak, and the red dawn (aurora), and, from another point of view, the lunar dawn and the solar one]--drop milk towards the sun, in the heaven.[78] The aurora is the mother of the cows.[79]

As the sun approaches, the heavenly cows, who walk without covering themselves with dust, celebrate him[80] with songs. The red rays of the high sun fly and join themselves to the sun's cows.[81] The seven wise _Ańgirasas_ (the seven solar rays, or else the Angiras, the seven-rayed or seven-faced sun, as another hymn[82] represents him) celebrate in their songs the herds of cows which belong to the aurora, who appears upon the mountain.[83] Let us notice more particularly what is said of the aurora that appears with the cows upon the mountain. It is the sun that enables the Ańgirasas to split the mountain, to bellow along with the cows, and to surround themselves with the splendour of the aurora.[84] The aurora, the daughter of the sky, the splendid one, appears; at the same time, the sun draws up the cows.[85] The aurora is carried by red luminous cows, whilst the sun, the hero-archer, kills the enemies.[86] The aurora breaks open the prison of the cows; the cows exult towards the aurora;[87] the aurora comes out of the darkness as cows come out of their stable.[88] As the solar hero, Indras, is the guardian or shepherd of horses and of cows,[89] so the auroras are often celebrated in the _Rigvedas_ as _aēvāvatīs_ and _gomatīs_, that is, as provided with and attended by horses and cows. The aurora keeps together the herd of red cows, and always accompanies them.[90]

Thus have we passed from the pastor-hero to the pastoral heroine upon the mountain. The pastoral aurora, unveiling her body in the east, follows the path of the sun;[91] and the sun is represented to us in the following riddle as a wonderful cowherd:--"I have seen a shepherd who never set down his foot, and yet went and disappeared on the roads; and who, taking the same and yet different roads, goes round and round amidst the worlds."[92] The sun goes round in the ether, and never puts down a foot, for he has none; and he takes the same, yet different, roads in the sky, _i.e._, luminous by day, and gloomy by night. The puzzle of the riddle lies in its self-contradiction; and the beautiful girl is the prize appointed for him who, by his actions, resolves it. A similar riddle is, in the _Rigvedas_ itself, proposed to _Mitras_, the sun, and to _Varunas_, the night. The riddle is as follows:--"The first of them who walk afoot (_padvatīnam_) comes without feet (_apād_);" and the two divine heroes are asked, "Which of you two has guessed it?"[93] He who solves this enigma we may be sure is Mitras, the sun, who recognises the aurora, the girl who comes making use of feet, although she seem to have none, for she comes borne in a chariot, of which the wheels appear to be feet, which is the same luminous chariot that rolls well,[94] given by the Ribhavas to the two horsemen Aēvināu (represented sometimes as two old men made young again by the Ribhavas, and sometimes simply as two handsome youths), into which chariot she mounts by the help of the Aēvināu; and the daughter of the sun is, in the race, the first to come to the winning-post, amid the enthusiastic plaudits of the gods.[95] Then the hymns to the aurora sometimes represent that vast chariot as belonging to the eastern aurora, who guides a hundred chariots, and who, in turn, helps the immortal gods to ascend into the chariot beside her.[96] The aurora, as the first of those who appear every day in the eastern sky, as the first to know the break of day,[97] is naturally represented as one of the swiftest among those who are the guests of the sun-prince during the night; and like her cows, which do not cover themselves with dust (this being an attribute which, in the Indian faith, distinguishes the gods from mortals, for the former walk in the heavens, and the latter upon earth), she, in her onward flight, leaves no footsteps behind her. The word _apād_ (_pad_ and _pada_, being synonymous) may, indeed, mean not only she who has no feet, but also she who has no footsteps (that is, what is the measure of the foot), or, again, she who has no slippers, the aurora having, as appears, lost them; for the prince Mitras, while following the beautiful young girl, finds a slipper which shows her footstep, the measure of her foot, a foot so small, that no other woman has a foot like it, an almost unfindable, almost imperceptible foot, which brings us back again to the idea of her who has no feet. The legend of the lost slipper, and of the prince who tries to find the foot predestined to wear it, the central interest in the popular story of Cinderella, seems to me to repose entirely upon the double meaning of the word _apād_, _i.e._, who has no feet, or what is the measure of the foot, which may be either the footstep or the slipper; often, moreover, in the story of Cinderella, the prince cannot overtake the fugitive, because a chariot bears her away.

The word _apād_, which we have heretofore seen applied to the heroine, was applied, moreover, to the hero, giving rise to another popular legend, of which the _Rigvedas_ offers us the mythical elements. We have already seen the sun as _anipadyamanas_, _i.e._, the sun who never puts his foot down; but this sun who never puts down his foot easily, came to be conceived of and represented as a sun without feet, or as a lame hero, who, during the night, by the perfidy of the witch, the dusk of evening, became also blind. In one hymn, the blind and the lame are not one, but two, whom propitious Indras guides;[98] in another, the blind-lame is one person, with the name of _Pāravrig_, whom the two horsemen Aēvināu, the two friends of the dawn, enable to walk and to see.[99] The lame one who sees, shows the way to the blind who is able to walk, or the lame carries the blind; Indras, the hidden sun, guides the blind and the lame; or, the blind and the lame, lost in the forest, help each other; in the morning, the Aēvināu, the two horsemen, friends of the aurora, with the water of sight and of strength (that is, Pįravrig, the blind-lame having discovered the hidden fountain of the young girls of the dawn,[100] with the ambrosia of the aurora, with the aurora itself), make the blind see, and him who has no feet, the lame, walk; that is, they burst forth into the upper air again, transfigured now into the luminous sun who sets out on his heavenly voyage. I have said above that the hero becomes blind and lame through the perfidy and magic of the evening aurora: nor was the assertion unfounded; for the Vedic hymn in which Indras guides the blind and the lame, _i.e._, himself or the sun, in the gloomy tardy night, is the very same hymn in which is celebrated his heroic and manly enterprise of the destruction of the daughter of the sky. The sun Indras revenges himself in the morning upon the aurora of the morning, for the wrong done him by the aurora of the evening, beautiful, but faithless.

For the aurora counts among her other talents that of magic; when the Ribhavas created the aurora cow of morning, investing her with the skin of the aurora cow of evening, they endowed her with Protean qualities (_Viēvarūpām_), and on this account the aurora herself is also called witch or enchantress (_Mājinī_).[101] This aurora, this virago, this Amazon, this Vedic Medea, who, treacherously plunging her husband, or brother, the solar hero, into a fiery furnace, blinds and lames him, is punished in the morning for her crime of the evening. The hero vanquishes her, overcomes her incantations, and annihilates her. The Vedic hymn sings--"A manly and heroic undertaking thou hast accomplished, O Indras, for an evil-doing woman, the daughter of the heavens, thou hast smitten; the growing daughter of the heaven, the aurora, O Indras, thou hast destroyed; from the chariot, broken in pieces, fell the aurora, trembling, because the bull had struck her."[102] Here the mythical animal reappears on the same stage with the heroes, and for the image of the hero and the heroine there is substituted that of the cow and the bull.[103]

The sun and the aurora, therefore, do not always seek each other from promptings of affection only, nor is the hateful part always played by the aurora. The sun, also appears as a perverse persecutor in his turn. One Vedic hymn advises the aurora not to stretch out the web she works at too far, lest the sun, like a robber, with hostile intention, set fire to and burn her.[104] Another hymn tells us that the handsome one follows the beautiful one, the brother the sister, like a lover,[105]--the aurora fleeing from the sun, her brother, out of shame, and her brother following her, actuated by a brutal instinct. Finally, a third hymn shows us the Vedic Vulcan, the blacksmith of the gods, the sun Tvashtar, called also the omniform sun (_Sāvitā Viēvarūpah_), as father of Saranyū, another name for the aurora, omniform herself, like her father (and, like the cow, undergoing the triple transmutation at the hands of Tvashtar, _i.e._, the three brothers, the Ribhavas), creating another form of himself, that is, the sun _Vivasvant_, to be able to espouse the aurora. Saranyū, perceiving perhaps that Vivasvant is her father under another shape, creates another woman like herself, and flees away on the chariot that flies of itself, and that was before given her by her father; and thereupon Vivasvant, in order to overtake her, transforms himself into a horse.[106]

But sometimes the alienation the sun and the aurora, the young husband and wife, is not due to evil propensities in themselves, but the decree of fate working through the machinations of monsters. The two beautiful ones are at bottom united by love and reciprocal gratitude; for now it is the sun who delivers the aurora, and now the aurora who liberates the sun; and we have already seen the aurora making the ambrosial milk drop for the sun from her cows, and the sun drawing up and delivering the cows of the aurora. There is a hymn in which the divine girl, the aurora, comes up in the east, with a lascivious air, smiling, fresh, uncovering her bosom, resplendent, towards the god who sacrifices himself,[107] that is to say, towards the sun, towards _Ēunahēepas_ (the sun), who, in three verses of another hymn,[108] invokes her, the well-known legend of which, narrated in the _Āitareya-Brāhmanam_, I shall briefly relate. The aurora has also the merit of having, with her pure and purifying light, opened the gates of the gloomy cavern, discomfited the enemies, the shades of night, and exposed to view the treasures hidden by the darkness (and here we have Medea again, but this time in a benignant form); she awakens to activity the sleepers and everything with life (and therefore, among the living sleepers, the sun, her son, whom one of the hymns represents as sleeping profoundly in the bosom of the darkness of night); she is the saviour of mortals,[109] that is to say, she protects mortals from death, and resuscitates them; she sees and foresees everything.[110] The awakener is also the awakened; the illuminator is also the illumined, or the wise; and the illumined or luminous one is also the beautiful one. From being small, she is become large[111] (the heroes and heroines of mythology are only small at birth, and pass at once into fulness of stature); from being infirm and sombre-visaged, by the grace of Indras and of the Aēvināu, she is cured and restored to strength and clearness.[112] But why was she dark at first? Because her mother, the night, is the black one; she, the white one, is born of the black one.[113]

During the night, the young girl was blind, and she recovers her sight by the grace of a wise one, one who, protected by Indras, another shape of Indras, has become enamoured of her. We have seen above that it is the Aēvināu who, with the aurora, give back to the sun his sight; here it is the sun who makes the aurora see, it is the sun who gives her light; and she who, having been blind, recovers her sight, becomes the protectress of the blind and preserver of vision,[114] like St Lucia, virgin and martyr, in the Christian Mythology. Physical truth and the mythical narration are in perfect accordance.

The night is now the mother, now the sister of the aurora; but the gloomy night is sometimes her step-mother, sometimes her half-sister. There is a riddle which celebrates the luminous night and the aurora, as two diversely beautiful ones who go together, but of whom one goes while the other comes.[115] Another hymn sings of them thus: "The brilliantly-decked one approaches, the white aurora comes; the black one prepares for her her rooms. The one immortal having joined the other, the two appear alternately in the heavens. One and eternal is the path of the two sisters; they follow it, one after the other, guided by the gods; they do not meet, and they never stand still--the two good nurses, night and aurora, one in soul yet different in form."[116] The two good nurses, night and aurora, whose hues alternate eternally, nourish between them one and the same child (the sun).[117] But the _Rigvedas_ itself tells us that the night is not always the legitimate sister of the aurora; the latter "abandons now the one that is, now the one that is not, properly its sister."[118] Here probably we must understand by the proper sister of the aurora the luminous or moonlight night, and by the half-sister, the gloomy night, the night without a moon. This is the sister whom, in a hymn, the aurora removes, sends far away from her, while she shines to be seen of her husband;[119] and her half-sister, the night, is obliged to resign her place to her elder or better sister,[120] the word _gyeshthas_ meaning not only the eldest, but the best. We have already seen that the aurora is the first to appear; as such, and as she who in the evening precedes the night (the evening aurora), she is the first-born, the eldest, the most experienced, the best; while, from another point of view, she is represented to us as the little one who becomes great, and, in this case, as younger sister of the night (the morning dawn). The dawns, or auroras, are saluted with the epithet of workwomen,[121] just as the good sister, with respect to the bad one, is always she who works, doing wonderful work, that is, spinning or weaving the rosy cloth. But the auroras are not only the workers, they are also the pure purifying and cleansing ones;[122] hence one can understand how one of the tasks imposed upon the youngest sister was that of purifying, purging, or separating the grain during the night, taking from it all that is impure, in which task she is assisted sometimes by a good fairy, sometimes by the Virgin Mary, who, according to all probability, is the moon.

One of the singular qualities of the younger sister is that she displays her beauty only before the eyes of her husband. The wife aurora manifests herself in the sight of her husband;[123] united, in her splendour, with the rays of the sun,[124] like a wife she prepares the dwelling of the sun.[125] Very brilliant, like a wife cleansed by her mother, she uncovers her body;[126] like a bather who shows herself, the shining one unveils her body;[127] she adorns herself like a dancer, uncovering, like a cow, her breast;[128] she displays her luminous garments;[129] all-radiant, with beautiful face, she laughs;[130] and he who has made the aurora laugh, her, the beautiful princess, who, at first, that is, during the night, did not laugh, espouses her; the sun espouses the aurora.

The celestial nuptials take place, and the ceremony is minutely described in the 85th hymn of the 10th book of the _Rigvedas_. But the marriage of the two celestials is never consummated except under conditions; these conditions are always accepted and afterwards forgotten, and it is now the husband who, by forsaking his wife, now the wife who, by abandoning her husband, violates the promise given. One of these estrangements, these temporary alienations of husband and wife, is described in the _Rigvedas_ by the poetical myth of the dawn _Urvaēī_ and her husband _Purūravas_, one of the names given to the sun. Urvaēī says of herself, "I have arrived like the first of the auroras;"[131] thereupon Urvaēī suddenly abandons her husband Purūravas, because he breaks an agreement made between them. We shall see further on in this chapter what this agreement was. Besides, having given him a son before her departure, she consoles him by permitting him to come and find her again in heaven, that is, by endowing the sun with the immortality she possesses herself. In the morning the aurora precedes the sun; he follows her too closely, and she disappears, but leaves a son, _i.e._, the new sun. In the evening the aurora precedes the sun; he follows her again, and she loses herself, now in a forest, now in the sea. The same phenomenon, a divorce of husband from wife, or a separation of brother and sister, or the flight of a sister from her brother, or again, that of a daughter from her father, presents itself twice every day (and every year) in the sky. Sometimes, on the other hand, it is a witch, or the monster of nocturnal darkness, who takes the place of the radiant bride, or the aurora, near the sun; and in that case the aurora, the beauteous bride, is spirited away into a wood to be killed or thrown into the sea, from both of which predicaments, however, she always escapes. Sometimes the witch of night throws the brother and sister, the mother and son, the sun and the aurora, together into the waves of the sea, whence they both escape again, to reappear in the morning.

All these alternative variations of a mythical representation become each in turn a legend by itself, as we shall see again more in detail, when the study of the different animals that take part in them shall furnish us with opportunities of doing so. In the meantime, we have here finished our enumeration of all that in the hymns of the _Rigvedas_ refers in any way to the bull and the cow,--to the wind, moon, and sun bulls, to the cow-cloud, moon, spring and aurora,--leaving it, however, to be understood how natural it is to pass from the bull to the handsome hero-prince, and from the cow to the beautiful girl, the rich princess, the valiant heroine, or the wise fairy. For though in the mythical hymns of the _Rigvedas_ we have little more than hints or foreshadows of the many popular legends which we have thus referred to, often without naming them, these are so many and so precise that it seems to me to be almost impossible not to recognise them. To demonstrate this, however, it will be necessary for me to show further what form the mythological ideas and figures relating to the animals dispersed in the Vedic hymns afterwards assumed in the Hindoo traditions.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Mā gām anāgām aditim vadhishta; _Rigv._ viii. 90, 15.

[2] Gomātarah; _Rigv._ i. 8, 1, 3.--Aditis, called "mātā rudrānām;" _Rigv._ viii. 90, 15.

[3] Tubhyam (to Vāyus, to the wind), dhenuh sabardughā viēvā vasūni dohate aganayo maruto vakshanābhyah; _Rigv._ i. 134, 4.

[4] Imās ta indra priēnayo ghritam duhata āēiram; _Rigv._ viii. 6, 19.--Trir asmāi sapta dhenavo duduhre satyām āēiram pūrvye vyomani; _Rigv._ ix. 70, 1.--Trīni sarānsi priēnayo duduhre vagrine madhu; _Rigv._ viii. 7, 10.--In the _Rāmāyanan_, i. 48, the Marutas also appear in the number of 7.

[5] Pra ēansā goshv aghnyam krīlam yac chardho mārutam gambhe rasasya vāvridhe; _Rigv._ i. 37, 5.

[6] Ime ye te su vāyo bāhvogaso 'ntar nadī te patayanty ukshano mahi vrādhanta ukshanah dhanvan cid ye anāēavo girāē, cid agirāukasah sūryasyeva raēmayo durniyantavo hastayor durniyantavah; _Rigv._ i. 135, 9.

[7] Riksho na vo marutah ēimīvān amo dudhro gāur iva bhīmayuh; _Rigv._ v. 56, 3.

[8] Te syandrāso nokshano 'ti shkandanti ēarvarīh; _Rigv._ v. 52, 3.

[9] Tvam vātāir arunāir yāsi; _Tāittiriya Yagurvedas_, i. 3, 14.--Angibhir vy ānagre ke cid usrā iva stribhih; _Rigv._ i. 87, 1.

[10] Vrishā vrishabhih; _Rigv._ i. 100, 4.--Grishtih sasūva sthaviram tavāgām anādhrishyam vrishabham tumram indram; _Rigv._ iv. 18, 10.--Sa mātarā na dadriēāna usriyo nānadad eti marutām iva svanah; _Rigv._ ix. 70, 6.

[11] Vrishāyamāno vrinita somam; _Rigv._ i. 32, 3.--Pitum nu stosham maho dharmānam tavishīm yasya trito (Tritas, as we shall see, is an _alter ego_ of the god Indras) vy ogasā vritram viparvam ardayat; _Rigv._ i. 187, 1.

[12] Pibā vardhasva; _Rigv._ iii. 36, 3.

[13] Indro madhu sambhritam usriyāyām padvad viveda ēaphavan name goh; _Rigv._ iii. 39, 6.

[14] Trī yac chatā mahishānām agho mās trī sarānsi maghavā somyāpāh kāram na viēve ahvanta devā bharam indrāya yad ahim gaghāna; _Rigv._ v. 29, 8.

[15] Vasoh kabandhamrishabho bibharti; _Atharvavedas_, ix. 4, 3.

[16] Sruvati bhīmo vrishabhas tavishyayā ērińge ēiēāno harinī vicakshanah; _Rigv._ ix. 70, 7.

[17] Yas tigmaērińgo vrishabho na bhīma ekah krishtīē cyāvayati pra viēvāh; _Rigv._ vii. 19, 1.--Idam namo vrishabhāya svarāge satyaēushmāya tavase 'vāci; _Rigv._ i. 51, 15.

[18] Ēiēīte vagram tegase na vansagah; _Rigv._ i. 55, 1.

[19] Abhy enam vagra āyasah sahasrabhrishtir āyatārcano; _Rigv._ i. 80, 12.

[20] Sahasraērińgo vrishabho yah samudrād udācarat; _Rigv._ vii. 55, 7.

[21] Vi tigmena vrishabhena puro 'bhet; _Rigv._ i. 33, 13.

[22] Priyā indrasya dhenavo vagram hinvanti sāyakam vasvīh; _Rigv._ i. 84, 10, 11, 12. The root, HI, properly signifies to _distend, draw out_; here, to _draw out_ the arm of Indras seems to me to mean to elongate it, to render it as fine as a thread--to sharpen it (in Italian, _affilare_); the cows that sharpen (It. _affilanti_), are a variety of the cows that _spin_ (It. _filanti_).

[23] Yugam vagram vrishabhaē cakra indro nir gyotishā tamaso gā adukshat; _Rigv._ i. 33, 10.

[24] Ēiēīte ērińge rakshase vinikshe; _Rigv._ v. 2, 9.--Catvāri ērińgā trayo asya pādā dve ēīrshe sapta hastāso asya; _Rigv._ iv. 58, 3.--Tapurgambho vana ā vātacodito yūthe na sāhvān ava vāti vansagah abhi vragann akshitam pāgasā ragah sthātuē caratham bhayate patatrinah; _Rigv._ i. 58, 5. In this stanza, however, _Vansagah_ may probably signify rather _the stallion_ than _the bull_, as we find in the second stanza this same Agnis already compared to a radiant horse (atyo na prishtham prushitasya rocate).

[25] _Adris_ and _parvatas_ properly mean mountain, but, in the Vedās, often cloud; and among their many meanings there is also that of tree; _agas_ (properly that which does not move) expresses equally tree and mountain. Hence perhaps the Italian proverb: _Le montagne stanno ferme, ma gli uomini s'incontrano_, Mountains stand still, but men meet; hence the cry of Rāmas in the _Rāmāyanam_, ii. 122, that the Himālayas would move before he should become a traitor; hence the assurance with which Macbeth, after the celebrated prophecy of the witches, can say: "That will never be; who can impress the forest; bid the tree unfix his earth-bound root?" _Shakespeare_ (_Macbeth_, iv. 1.) Nevertheless the forest moved, as it not unfrequently does in the myths, where the tree-clouds walk, and fill all with terror wherever they go, where heroes and monsters often fight, by unrooting the trees of a whole forest. Cfr. _Rāmāyanam_, iii. 3, 5, and the chapters of this work which treat of the Horse, the Bear, and the Monkey.

[26] Vragam gacha gosthānam; _Tāittir. Yagśr._ i. 1, 9; cfr. _Ēatapathabrāhmanam_, i. 2, 3, 4.

[27] Krishno nonāva vrishabhah; _Rigv._ i. 79, 2.--Vāēreva vidyun mimāti vatsam na mātā sishakti; _Rigv._ i. 38, 8.

[28] Aēmānam cit svaryam parvatam girim pra cyāvayanti yāmabhih; _Rigv._ v. 96, 4.

[29] Pavyā rathānām adrim bhindanty ogasā; _Rigv._ v. 52, 9. _Pavis_, in general, is the iron part, the iron end (of a dart, or a lance); here it would appear to be the iron tire of the chariot's wheels, which, driving furiously over the mountain, break it,--thunder, in fact, often suggests the idea of a noisy chariot making ruin in heaven.

[30] Vīrah karmanyah sudaksho yuktagrāvā gāyate devakāmah; _Rigv._ iii. 4, 9.

[31] Ayam ērinve adha gayann uta ghnann ayam uta pra krinute yudhā gāh; _Rigv._ iv. 17, 10.--Vilu cid ārugatnubhir guhā cid indra vahnibhih avinda usriyā anu; _Rigv._ i. 6, 5.--Tvam valasya gomato 'pavar adrivo bilam; _Rigv._ i. 11, 5.--Vi gobhir adrim āirayat; _Rigv._ i. 7, 3.--Ukshā mimāti prati yanti dhenavah; _Rigv._ ix. 69, 4.--Yad anyāsu vrishabho roravīti so anyasmin yūthe ni dadhāti retah; _Rigv._ iii. 55, 17.--Pūshanvān vagrint sam u patnyāmadah; _Rigv._ i. 82, 6.

[32] Indrāgnī navatim puro dāsapatnīr adhūnutam sākam ekena karmanā; _Rigv._ iii. 12, 6; _Tāitt. Yagurv._ i. 1, 14. Cfr. chap. on Serpent.

[33] Devāsa āyan paraēūnr abibhran vanā vriēcanto abhi vidbhir āyan ni sudrvam dadhato vakshanāsu yatrā kripītam anu tad dahanti; _Rigv._ x. 28, 8.

[34] Cfr. the chapter on the Bear and the Monkey.

[35] Vrikshe-vrikshe niyatā mīmayad gāus tato vayah pra patān pūrushādah viēvam bhuvanam bhayāte; _Rigv._ x. 27, 22.--Tvam āyasam prati vartayo gor divo aēmānam; _Rigv._ i. 121, 9.

[36] Brihaspatir govapusho valasya nir maggānam na parvano gabhāra; _Rigv._ x. 68, 9.

[37] Gāurīr mimāya salilāni takshaty ekapadī dvipadī sā catushpadī--ashtāpadī navapadī babhūvushī sahasrāksharā parame vyoman; _Rigv._ i. 164, 41.

[38] Utādah parushe gavi sūraē cakram hiranyayam; _Rigv._ vi. 56, 3.

[39] Dāsapatnīr ahigopā atishthan niruddhā āpah panineva gāvah; _Rigv._ i. 32, 11.

[40] Visham gavām yātudhānah pibantu; _Rigv._ x. 87, 18. The same passage can, however, be also translated: "The demons of the cows may drink the poison."

[41] _Rigv._ iii. 12, 6; x. 27, 22.

[42] _Rigv._ ix. 70, 1.

[43] viii. 6, 19. Cfr. the chapters on the Horse and the Cuckoo.

[44] Vi raēmibhih sasrige sūryo gāh; _Rigv._ vii. 36, 1.

[45] Ta vām (the gods Vishnus and Indras) vāstūny uēmasi gama-dhyāi yatra gāvo bhūriērińgā ayāsah; _Rigv._ i. 154, 6. Here all the stars or cows together form _many horns_; but perhaps each star or cow in itself was supposed to have but _one horn_; for the stars, like the moon, shed but one ray of light, but one light. This, it appears to me, may be inferred from the name of _Ekaērińgās_ or _unicorns_, given, in the later mythology of the Indians, to an entire order of Mani, of whom the stars are represented as the supreme habitations, and even purest forms.

[46] Kanyā vār avāyatī somam api srutāvidat astam bharanty abravīd indrāya sunavāi tvā ēakrāya sunavāi tvā.--Indrāyendo pari srava; _Rigv._ viii. 80, 1, 3.

[47] Indrāsomā tapatam raksha ubgatam ny arpayatam vrishanā tamovridhah; _Rigv._ vii, 104, 1.--The following stanzas reproduce and develop the same argument.

[48] Pancokshano madhye tasthur maho divah--Te sedhanti patho vrikam tarantam yahvatīr apah; _Rigv._ i. 105, 10, 11.

[49] Vasavo gāuryam cit padi shitām amuncatā yagtrāh; _Rigv._ iv. 12, 6.

[50] Takshan dhenum sabardugham; _Rigv._ i. 20, 3.--Niē carmano gām arinīta dhītibhih; _Rigv._ i. 161, 7, e, iv. 36, 4.

[51] This interesting particular is more fully developed in the chapters which treat of the Wolf, the Pig and the Wild Boar, _q. v._--To avoid useless and troublesome repetitions, I must observe here that the myths of morning and evening are often applied to spring and autumn, and the myths of night to winter.

[52] Rayim ribhavah sarvavīram ā takshata vrishano mandasānāh; _Rigv._ iv. 35, 6.

[53] Rayim ribhavas takshatā vayah; _Rigv._ iv. 36, 8.--Here again we have the cow in relation to the birds, since the riches given by the Ribhavas consist above all in cows. (Ye gomantam vāgavantam suvīram rayim dhattha vasumantam purukshum te agrepā ribhavo mandasānā asme dhatta ye ca rātim grinanti; _Rigv._ iv. 34, 10.)

[54] Ēayave cin nāsātyā ēacibhir gasuraye staryam pipyathur gām; _Rigv._ i. 116. 22.--Yā garantā yuvaēā tākrinotana; _Rigv._ i. 161, 7.

[55] Gyeshtha āha camasā dvā kareti kanīyān trīn krinavāmety āha kanishtha āha caturas kareti tvashta ribhavas tat panayad vaco vah; _Rigv._ iv. 33, 5.

[56] Vāgo devānām abhavat sukarmendrasya ribhukshā varunasya vibhvā; _Rigv._ iv. 33, 9.

[57] Te vāgo vibhvān ribhur indravantah; _Rigv._ iv. 33, 3.

[58] Ribhur vibhvā vāga indro no achemam yagnam ratnadheyopa yāta; _Rigv._ iv. 34, 1.--Pibata vāgā ribhavo; _Rigv._ iv. 34, 4.

[59] Dvādaēa dyūn yad agohyasyātithye ranann ribhavah sasantah sukshetrākrinvann anayanta sindhūn dhanvātishthann oshadhīr nimnam āpah; _Rigv._ iv. 33, 7.--Cfr. _Rigv._ i. 161, 11-13.

[60] Yamena dattam trita enam āyunag indra enam prathamo adhy atishthat; _Rigv._ i. 163, 2.--Asi yamo asy ādityo arvann asi trito guhyena vratena asi somena samayā viprikta āhus te trīni divi bandhanāni trīni ta āhur divi bandhanāni trīny apsu trīny antah samudre; _Rigv._ i. 163, 3, 4.

[61] Vishnus the three-faced is already spoken of in the _Rigvedas_ and in the _Yagurvedas_. The third step of Vishnus is taken among the cows with the great or many horns: Gamadhye gāvo yatra bhūri-ērińgā ayāsah atrā 'ha tad urugāyasya vishnoh paramam padam ava bhāti bhūreh; _Tāittiriya Yagurv._ i. 3, 6.

[62] _Rigv._ i. 187, 1, the passage already cited, when speaking of the water of strength.

[63] Na mā garan nadyo mātritamā dāsā yad īm susamubdham avādhuh ēiro yad asya trāitano vitakshat; _Rigv._ i. 158, 5. We shall have occasion to return more than once to an analogous myth referring to Indras.

[64] Tritas tad vedāptyah sa gāmitvāya rebhati; _Rigv._ i. 105, 9.--_Gāmitvā_ is properly the relation of brotherhood, and also relationship in general. _Rebhas_, or the invoker, represented as a hero, is no other than our _Trita āptyas_.

[65] Rebham nivritam sitam adbhyah; _Rigv._ i. 112, 5.

[66] Tritah kūpe 'vahito devān havata ūtaye tac chuērāva brihaspatih krinvann anhūranād uru; _Rigv._ i. 105, 17.

[67] _Nītimangarī_, quoted by Wilson, _Rigvedas-Samhitā_, vol. i.

[68] Ā gā āgad uēanā kāvyah sacā; _Rigv._ i. 83, 5.

[69] Patir gavām abhavad eka indrah; _Rigv._ iii. 31, 4.

[70] Gagāna sūryam ushāsam; _Rigv._ iii. 32, 8.

[71] Sasānātyān uta sūryam sasānendrah sasāna purubhogasam gām; _Rigv._ iii. 34, 9.

[72] Mahi gyotir nihitam vakshanāsu āmā pakvam carati bibhratī gāuh viēvam svādma sambhritam usriyāyām; _Rigv._ iii. 30, 14.

[73] Indrah sītām ni grihnātu tām pūshānu yachatu sā nah payasvatī duhām uttarām-uttarām samām; _Rigv._ iv. 57, 7.

[74] Mridha ushtro na; _Rigv._ i. 138, 2.

[75] Yat samvatsam ribhavo gām arakshan yat samvatsam ribhavo mā apinēan; _Rigv._ iv. 33, 4.

[76] Ushā nā rāmīr arunāir apornute maho gyotishā ēucatā goarnasā; _Rigv._ ii. 34, 12.

[77] Dhenuh pratnasya kāmyam duhānāntah putraē carati dakshināyāhā dyotanim vahati ēubhrayāmoshasah stomo aēvināv agigah; _Rigv._ iii. 58, 1.

[78] Ritāya dhenū parame duhāte; _Rigv._ iv. 23, 10.

[79] Gavām mātā; _Rigv._ v. 45, 2.

[80] Arenāvas tuga ā sadman dhenavah svaranti tā uparatāti sūryam; _Rigv._ i. 151, 5.

[81] Ud apaptann arunā bhānavo vrithā svāyugo arushīr gā ayukshata; _Rigv._ i. 92, 2

[82] Yenā navagve ańgire daēagve saptāsye revatī revad ūsha; _Rigv._ iv. 51, 4.--The sun is also said to be drawn by seven fair horses; _Rigv._ i. 50, 9.--Cfr. the following chapter.

[83] Ta usho adrisāno gotrā gavām ańgiraso grinanti; _Rigv._ vi. 65, 5.

[84] Ritenādrim vy asan bhidantah sam ańgiraso navanta gobhih ēūnam narah pari shadann ushāsam; _Rigv._ iv. 3, 11.

[85] Praty u adarēy āyaty uchantī duhitā divah--Ud usriyāh srigate sūryah sacā; _Rigv._ vii. 81, 1, 2.

[86] Vahanti sīm arunāso ruēanto gāvah subhagām urviyā prathānām apegate ēūro asteva ēatrūn bādhate; _Rigv._ vi. 64, 3.

[87] Rugad drilhāni dadad usriyānām prati gāva ushasam vāvaēanta; _Rigv._ vii. 75, 7.

[88] Gāvo na vragam vy ushā avar tamah; _Rigv._ i. 92, 4.

[89] Yo aēvānām yo gavām gopatih; _Rigv._ i. 101, 4.

[90] Yuńkte gavām arunānām anīkam; _Rigv._ i. 124, 11.--Esha gobhir arunebhir yugānā; _Rigv._ v. 80, 3.

[91] Avishk Krinvānā tanvam purastat ritasya panthām anv eti; _Rigv._ v. 80, 4.

[92] Apaēyam gopām anipadyamānam ā ca parā ca pathibhiē carantam sa sadhrīcīh sa vishūcir vasāna ā varīvarti bhuvaneshv antah; _Rigv._ x. 177, 3.

[93] Apād eti prathamā padvatīnām kas tad vām ciketa; _Rigv._ i. 152, 3.

[94] Ratham ye cakruh suvritam; _Rigv._ iv. 33, 8.--Takshan nāsatyābhyām parigmānam sukham ratham; _Rigv._ i. 20, 3.

[95] Yuvo ratham duhitā sūryasya saha ēriyā nāsatyāvrinīta; _Rigv._ i. 117, 13.--Ā vām ratham duhitā sūryasya kārshmevātishthad arvatā gayantī viēve devā anv amanyanta hridbhih; _Rigv._ i. 116, 17.

[96] Yuktvā ratham upa devān ayātana; _Rigv._ i. 161, 7.--Prithū ratho dakshināyā ayogy āenam devāso amritāso asthuh; _Rigv._ i. 123, 1.--Devī girā rathānām; _Rigv._ i. 48, 3.--Ēatam rathebhih subhagoshā iyam vi yāty abhi mānushān; _Rigv._ i. 48, 7.

[97] Gānaty ahnah prathamasya; _Rigv._ i. 123, 9.

[98] Anu dvā gahitā nayo 'ndham ēronam ca vritrahan; _Rigv._ iv. 30, 19.

[99] Sakhābhūd aēvinor ushāh; _Rigv._ iv. 52, 2.--Parāvrigam prandham ēronam cakshasa etave krithah; _Rigv._ i. 112, 8.--I here explicitly abandon the hypothesis I advanced six years ago in the "Life and Miracles of the God Indras in the Rigvedas," pp. 22 and 24, to the effect that the hero Pāravrig is the lightning flashing from the dark cloud; whereas the blind-lame seems now to me the sun in the darkness of night or winter.

[100] Sa vidvān apagoham kanīnām āvir bhavann udatishthat parāvrik prati ēronah sthād vy anag acashta; _Rigv._ ii. 15, 7.

[101] _Rigv._ v. 48, 1.

[102] Etad ghed uta vīryam indra cakartha pāunsyam striyam yad durhanā yuvam vadhīr duhitaram divah divaē cid ghā duhitaram mahān mahīyamānām ushāsam indra sam pinak aposhā anasah sarat sampishtād aha bibhyushī ni yat sīm ēiēnathad vrishā; _Rigv._ iv. 30, 8-11.

[103] The two arms of Indras are said to vanquish the cow (or the cows); Gogitā bahū; _Rigv._ i. 102, 6.

[104] Vy uchā duhitar divo mā ciram tanuthā apah net tvā stenam yathā ripum tapāti sūro arcishā; _Rigv._ v. 79, 9.--Cfr. the chapter which treats of the Spider.

[105] Bhadro bhadrayā sacamāna āgāt svasāram gāro abhy eti paēcat; _Rigv._ x. 3, 3.

[106] Cfr. _Rigv._ x. 17, and Max Müller's "Lectures on the Science of Language," second series, 481-486.

[107] Kanyeva tanvā ēāēadānān (arepasā tanvā ēāēadānā; _Rigv._ i. 124, 6), eshi devi devam iyakshamānam samsmayamānā yuvatih purastād āvir vakshānsi krinushe vibhātī; _Rigv._ i. 123, 10.

[108] _Rigv._ i. 30, 20-22.

[109] Vy ū vragasya tamaso dvārochantīr avran chucayah pāvakāh; _Rigv._ iv. 51, 2.--Apa dvesho bādhamānā tamānsy ushā divo duhitā gyotishāgāt; _Rigv._ v. 80, 5.--Spārhā vasūni tamasāpagūlhā āvish, krinvanty ushaso vibhātīh; _Rigv._ i. 123, 6.--Sasato bodhayantī; _Rigv._ i. 124, 4.--Viēvam givam carase bodhayantī; _Rigv._ i. 92, 9.--Martyatrā; _Rigv._ i. 123, 3.

[110] Viēvāni devī bhuvanābhicakshyā; _Rigv._ i. 92, 6.--Pragānatī; _Rigv._ i. 124, 3.

[111] Arbhād īshate na maho vibhātī; _Rigv._ i. 124, 6.

[112] As to Ghoshā, cured by the Aēvināu (_Rigv._ i. 117, 7), and Apalā, cured by Indras (_Rigv._ viii. 80), see the same subject discussed more in detail in the chapter which treats of the Hog.

[113] Ēukrā krishnād aganishta ēvitīcī; _Rigv._ i. 123, 9.

[114] Yasyānakshā duhitā gātvāsa kas tām vidvān abhi manyāte andhām kataro menim prati tam mucāte ya īm vahāte ya īm vā vareyāt; _Rigv._ x. 27, 11.--Vritrasya kanīnikā 'si cakshushpā asi; _Tāittir. Yagurv._ i. 2, 1.

[115] Apānyad ety abhy anyad eti vishurūpe ahanī sam carete; _Rigv._ i. 123, 7.

[116] Ruēadvatsā ruēatī ēvetyāgād ārāig u krishnā sadanāny asyāh samānabandhū amrite anūcī dyāvā varnam carata āmināne samāno adhvā svasror anantas tam anyānyā carato devaēishte na methete na tasthatuh sumeke naktoshāsa samanasā virūpe; _Rigv._ i. 113, 2, 3.

[117] Naktoshāsā varnam āmemyāne dhāpayete ēiēum ekam samīcī; _Rigv._ i. 96, 5.

[118] Nāgāmim na pari vrinakti gāmim; _Rigv._ i. 124, 6.

[119] Vyūrnvatī divo antān abodhy apa svasāram sanutar yuyoti praminatī manushyā yugāni yoshā garasya cakshasā vi bhāti; _Rigv._ i. 92, 11.

[120] Svasā svasre gyāyasyāi yonim ārāik; _Rigv._ i. 124, 8.

[121] Nārīr apasah; _Rigv._ i. 92, 3.

[122] Ēucayah pāvakāh; _Rigv._ iv. 51, 2.

[123] Yoshā gārasya cakshasā vibhāti; _Rigv._ quoted above, i. 92, 11.

[124] Yatamānā raēmibhih sūryasya; _Rigv._ i. 123, 12.--Vyuchantī raēmibhih sūryasya; _Rigv._ i. 124, 8.

[125] Ritasya yoshā na mināti dhāma; _Rigv._ i. 123, 9.

[126] Susamkāēā mātrimrishteva yoshāvis tanvam krinushe driēe kam; _Rigv._ i. 123, 11.

[127] Eshā ēubhrā na tanvo vidānordhveva snātī driēaye no asthāt; _Rigv._ v. 80, 5.

[128] Adhi peēānsi vapate nritūr ivāpornute vaksha usreva bargaham; _Rigv._ i. 92, 4.

[129] Bhadrā vastrā tanvate; _Rigv._ i. 134, 4.

[130] Smayate vibhātī supratīkā; _Rigv._ i. 92, 6.

[131] Prākramisham ushasām agriyeva; _Rigv._ x. 95, 2.

SECTION II.

THE WORSHIP OF THE BULL AND OF THE COW IN INDIA, AND THE BRĀHMANIC LEGENDS RELATING TO IT.

SUMMARY.

   The princes called bulls.--The bull the symbol of the god
   Ēivas.--The cow was not to be killed.--Exchange of the bull and the
   cow for other animals; the bull and the cow, considered as the
   greatest reward desired by the legislating priests of India.--The
   cow's hide in nuptial usages a symbol of abundance; its elasticity
   and power of extension; the cow and its hide during the pregnancy of
   women an augury of happy birth, and in funeral ceremonies an augury
   of resurrection.--Cows sent to pasture with auguries.--Cows seen by
   night in a dream are a sinister omen; meaning of this Hindoo
   superstition.--The black cow which produces white milk in the Vedic
   hymns.--The reins of the cow or black goat sacrificed in funerals
   given as a viaticum or provision to the dead man, that they may
   contribute to his resurrection.--The variegated cow comes again in a
   brāhmanam, and is interpreted as a cloud.--The coming out of the
   cow-dawns feasted.--The cornucopia.--The milk of the cows is the
   serpent's poison.--The salutary herb.--The enchanted gem, the ring
   of recognition.--The moon, as a female, a good fairy who works for
   the aurora, and who entertains and guides the hero.--The moon, as a
   male, a white bull.--The city of the moon.--Indras consoles and
   nourishes the unhappy Sītā.--Rāmas assimilated to Indras.--The
   coadjutors of Rāmas are those of Indras.--The bull Rāmas.--The names
   of the monsters and the names of the heroes in the
   Rāmāyanam.--Rāmas, the Hindoo Xerxes, chastises the sea.--The
   celestial ocean; the cloud-mountains carried by the heroes; the
   bridge across the sea made of these mountains; while the bridge is
   being made, it rains.--The battle of Rāmas is a winter and a
   nocturnal one, in a cloudy sky.--The monster barrel again; the
   monster trunk with a cavity; Kabandhas.--The dying monster thanks
   the hero, who delivers him from an ancient malediction, and becomes
   again a handsome luminous youth.--The dawn Sītā sacrificed in the
   fire.--Sītā daughter of the sun.--The Buddhist legend of Rāmas and
   Sītā.--Sītā predestined as the reward of valour.--An indiscretion of
   the husband Rāmas causes him to lose his wife Sītā.--The story of
   Urvaēī again, the first of the auroras; the wife flees because her
   husband has revealed her secret, because her husband has looked at
   another woman, because he has let himself be seen naked; the
   fugitive wife hides herself in a plant.--The wife stays with her
   husband as long as he says nothing displeasing to her.--The wife
   kills her sons; the husband complains and the wife flees.--The
   contrary.--The story of Ēunahēepas again.--The god Varunas, who
   binds; the son sacrificed to the monster against his will by his
   father.--The hero-hunter.--The middle son sold, the son of the
   cow.--The cow herself, Aditi, or Ēabalā, or Kāmadhuk, wife of
   Vasishtas, sacrificed instead of the son of Viēvāmitras.--Indras
   delivers the bound hero, _i.e._, he delivers himself. The aurora, or
   the daughter of the black one, liberates Ēunahēepas, bound by the
   black one, that is, she delivers the sun her husband.--The fetters
   of Varunas and of Agigartas are equivalent to the bridle of the
   horse and to the collar of the dog sold to the demon in European
   fairy tales.--The golden palace of Varunas on the western
   mountain.--Monstrous fathers.--Identification of Hariēcandras,
   Agigartas, and Viēvāmitras.--The contention of Viēvāmitras and
   Vasishtas for the possession of the cow Ēabalā.--Demoniacal
   character of Viēvāmitras.--The sister of the monster-lover or
   seducer of the hero.--The cloud drum.--The cloudy monster Dundubhis,
   in the form of a buffalo with sharpened horns, destroyed by the son
   of Indras.--The buffalo a monster, the bull a hero.--Krishnas the
   monster becomes a god.--The god Indras fallen for having killed a
   brāhman monster.--The three heads of the monster cut off at a
   blow.--The three brothers in the palace of Lańkā; the eldest brother
   has the royal dignity; the second, the strong one, sleeps, and only
   wakens to eat and prove his strength; the third is good and is
   victorious.--The three brothers Pāndavas, sons of Yamas, Vāyus and
   Indras in the Mahābhāratam; the first is wise, the second is strong,
   the third is handsome and victorious; he is the best.--Again the
   three working brothers entertained by a king.--The three disciples
   of Dhāumyas.--The blind one who falls into the well.--The voyage of
   Utańkas to hell.--He meets a bull.--The excrement of the bull,
   ambrosia.--The stone uplifted with the help of the lever, of the
   thunderbolt of Indras.--The earrings of the queen carried off; their
   mythical meaning.--Indras and Krishnas also search for the
   earrings.--The three Buddhist brothers.--The eldest brother frees
   the younger ones by his knowledge in questions and riddles.--The
   hero and the monster ill or vulnerable in their feet.--The two rival
   sisters.--The good sister thrown into the well by the wicked
   one.--The prince comes to deliver her.--The wicked sister takes the
   place of the good one.--The three brothers again.--The sons make
   their father and mother recognise each other.--The third brother,
   Pūrus, the only good one, assists his aged father Yayātis, by taking
   his old age upon himself.--The old blind man, Dīrghatamas, thrown
   into the water by his sons.--Yayātis and Dīrghatamas, Hindoo King
   Lears.--The queen Sudeshnā makes her maid or foster-sister take her
   place; a Hindoo form of Queen Berta.--The blind and the crooked or
   lame, or hunchbacked, again with the three-breasted princess.--They
   cure each other.--The bride disputed by the brothers.--The aurora
   and the sun flee from each other.--The beautiful girl, the daughter
   of the sun, flees after having seen the prince upon the
   mountain.--The prince cannot overtake her; the third time, at last,
   the prince marries the daughter of the sun.--The marvellous cow of
   Vasishthas.--The hero Vasishthas wishes to kill himself, but cannot;
   he is immortal; he throws himself down from the mountain and does
   not hurt himself; he goes through fire and is not burnt; he throws
   himself into the water and does not drown; mythical signification of
   these prodigies.--The wind runs after women.--Conclusion of the
   study of the myth and of the legends which refer to the bull and the
   cow of India.

Just as the importance of the cattle to primitive and pastoral Aryan life explains the propensity of the Aryan mind to conceive of the mobile phenomena of the heavens, at first considered living beings, as bulls and cows, so the consecration of these animals, associated and identified with the celestial phenomena and the gods, naturally gave rise to the superstitious worship of the bull and the cow, common to all the Aryan nations, but particularly, through the intervention of the brāhmanic priests, to the Hindoos.

It is a remarkable fact that the words _vrishas_, _vrishabhas_, and _rishabhas_, which mean the bull as the one who pours out, the _foecundator_, is often used in Sanscrit to denote the best, the first, the prince; and hence the bull, that is to say, the best _foecundator_, is in India the most sacred symbol of royalty. For this reason the phallic and destroying god, the royal _Ēivas_, who inhabits _Gokarnas_ (a word which properly means cow's ear), has both for his steed and his emblem a brāhmanic bull, _i.e._, a bull with a hunch on its back; the _nandin_, or joyful attribute, being given to Ēivas himself, inasmuch as, being the _Deus phallicus_, he is the god of joyfulness and beatitude.[132]

Still more honour is paid to the cow (like the Vedic dawn _anavadyā_, innocent or inculpable[133]), which therefore it was a crime to kill.[134] An interesting chapter of the _Āitareya-brāhmanam_,[135] on the sacrifice of animals, shows us how, next to man, the horse was the supreme sacrifice offered to the gods; how the cow afterwards took the place of the horse; the sheep, of the cow; the goat, of the sheep; and, at last, vegetable products were substituted for animals;--a substitution or cheating of the gods in the sacrifice, which, perhaps, serves to explain even more the fraud of which, in popular stories, the simpleton is always the victim; the simpleton here being the god himself, and the cheater man, who changes, under a sacred pretext, the noblest and most valued animals for common and less valuable ones, and finally for vegetables apparently of no value whatever. In the Hindoo codes of law we have the same fraudulent substitution of animals under a legal pretext. "The killer of a cow," says the code attributed to _Yāgnavalkyas_,[136] "must stay a month in penitence, drinking the _pancagavyam_ (_i.e._, the five good productions of the cow, which, according to Manus,[137] are milk, curds, butter, urine, and dung), sleeping in a stable and following the cows; and he must purify himself by the gift of another cow." Thus, according to _Yāgnavalkya_,[138] the killer of a parrot is purified by giving a two-year-old calf; the killer of a crane by giving a calf three years old; the killer of an ass, a goat, or a sheep, by the gift of a bull; the killer of an elephant by the gift of five black bulls (_nīlavrishāp_). And one need not be astonished to find these contracts (which remind one of that between Jacob and Laban) in the Hindoo codes of law, when, in the Vedic hymns themselves, a poet offers to sell to whoever will buy it, an Indras of his, that is to say, a bull, for ten cows.[139] Another interesting verse of _Yāgnavalkyas_[140] tells us they die pure who are killed by lightning or in battle for the sake of the cows or the brāhmans. The cow was often the object heroes fought for in heaven; the Brāhman wished to be the object heroes should fight for upon earth.

We learn from the domestic ceremonies referred to by _Grihyasūtrāni_ with how much respect the bull and the cow were treated as the symbols of abundance in a family. In _Āēvalāyanas_,[141] we find the bull's hide stretched out near the nuptial hearth, the wife seated upon it, and the husband, touching his wife, saying, "May the lord of all creatures allow us to have children;"--words taken from the Vedic nuptial hymn.[142] We have seen above how the Ribhavas, from the hide of a dead cow, formed a new and beautiful one, or, in other words, how, from the dusk of evening, by stretching it in the night, they formed the dawn of morning. This cow's hide plays also an important _rōle_ in the popular faith; an extraordinary elasticity is attributed to it, a power of endless expansibility, and for this reason it is adopted as a symbol of fecundity, upon which the wife must place herself in order to become a mother of children. The cow's hide (_gocarman_), in the _Mahābhāratam_,[143] is the garment of the god Vishnus; and the gocarman divided into thongs, and afterwards fastened to each other, served formerly in India to measure the circumference of a piece of ground;[144] hence the cow's hide suggested the idea of a species of infinity. Further on we shall find it put to extraordinary uses in western legend; we find it even in the hymns of the Vedic age used to cover the body of a dead man, the fire being invoked not to consume it, almost as if the cow's hide had the virtue of resuscitating the dead.[145]

The cow, being the symbol of fruitfulness, was also the companion of the wife during pregnancy. _Āēvalāyanas_[146] tells us how, in the third month, the husband was to give his wife to drink of the sour milk of a cow that has a calf like itself, and in it two beans and a grain of barley; the husband was then to ask his wife three times, "What drinkest thou?" and she was to answer three times: "The generation of males." In the fourth month, the wife, according to _Āēvalāyanas_, was to put herself again upon the bull's hide, near the fire of sacrifice, when they again invoked the god _Pragāpatis_, lord of all creatures, or of procreation; the moon, like a celestial bull and cow, was invited to be present at the generation of men;[147] and a bull, during the Vedic period, was the gift which sufficed for the priest. In the Vedic antiquity, neither bulls nor cows were allowed to go to pasture without some special augury, which, in the domestic ceremonials of _Āēvalāyanas_,[148] has been also handed down to us; the cows were to give milk and honey, for the strength and increase of whoever possessed them. Here we have again the cows not only as the beneficent, but as the strong ones, they who help the hero or the heroine who takes them to pasture.

But although beautiful cows, when seen by day, are a sign of good luck, seen in dreams they are of evil omen; for in that case they are of course the black cows, the shadows of night, or the gloomy waters of the nocturnal ocean. Already in the _Rigvedas_, the dawn, or the luminous cow, comes to deliver the fore-mentioned solar hero, Tritas Aptyas, from the evil sleep which he sleeps amidst the cows[149] of night. _Āēvalāyanas_, in his turn, recommends us when we have an evil dream, to invoke the sun, to hasten the approach of the morning, or, better still, to recite the hymn of five verses to the dawn which we have already referred to, and which begins with the words, "And like an evil dream amidst the cows." Here the belief is not yet an entirely superstitious one; and we understand what is meant by the cows who envelop us in the sleep of night, when we are told to invoke the sun and the dawn to come and deliver us from them.

A cow (probably a black one), often a black goat, was sometimes also sacrificed in the funeral ceremonies of the Hindoos, as if to augur that, just as the black cow, night, produces the milky humours of the aurora, or is fruitful, so will he who has passed through the kingdom of darkness rise again in the world of light. We have already seen the black night as the mother of the white and luminous aurora; I quote below yet another Vedic sentence, in which a poet ingenuously wonders why the cows of Indras, the black ones as well as the light-coloured (the black clouds, as well as the white and red ones), should both yield white milk.[150] And even the gloomy nocturnal kingdom of Yamas, the god of the dead, has its cows of black appearance, which are nevertheless milk-yielding; and thus the black cow of the funeral sacrifices comes to forebode resurrection.

In the same way the viaticum, or provision of food for his journey, given to the dead man is a symbol of his resurrection. The journey being considered as a short one, the provision of food which is to sustain the traveller to the kingdom of the dead is limited, and each dead hero carries it with him, generally not so much for himself, as to ensure a passage into the kingdom of the dead. For this reason we read, even in the domestic ceremonials of _Āēvalāyanas_, that it is recommended to put into the hands of the dead man,[151] what is the greatest symbol of strength, the reins of the animal killed in the funeral sacrifice (or, in default of an animal victim, at least two cakes of rice or of flour), in order that the dead man may throw them down the throats of the two Cerberi, the two sons of the bitch _Saramā_, so that they may let the deceased enter scatheless into the death-kingdom, the mysterious kingdom of Yamas; and here we find the monster of the popular tales, into whose house the hero, having passed through many dangers, enters, by the advice of a good fairy or of a good old man, giving something to appease the hunger of the two dogs who guard its gate.

They who return from the funeral must touch the stone of Priapus, a fire, the excrement of a cow,[152] a grain of barley, a grain of sesame and water,--all symbols of that fecundity which the contact with a corpse might have destroyed.

The Vedic hymns have shown us the principal mythical aspects and functions of the cow and the bull; we have also seen how the brāhmanic codes confirmed, by the sanction of law, the worship of these animals, and how jealously the domestic tradition of the Hindoos has guarded it. Let us now see from the _Āitareya-brāhmanam_, how the Brāhmans themselves, those of the era immediately following that of the Vedās, interpreted the myth of the cow.

We have recognised in the Vedic heavens, as reflected in the hymns of the _Rigvedas_, three cows--the cow-cloud, the cow-moon, and the cow-aurora. These three cows, and especially the first and the third, are also quite distinct from one another in the _Āitareya-brāhmanam_.

It tells us how the _gāuh priēnih_, the variegated cow, or spotted cow, of the _Rigvedas_, must be celebrated to make the earth fruitful[153] (or that one must sing to the cloud that it may fertilise the pastures and fields with rain), and how one must sacrifice a bull to _Viēvakarman_ (or the one that does all), who is transformed into the god Indras when killing the demon Vritras,[154] or the monster who keeps the rain in the cloud.

It shows us the full moon, _Rākā_, joined to the aurora, as a source of abundance,[155] and the aurora with the cow.[156] It tells us explicitly that the characteristic form of the aurora is the red cow, because she moves with the red cows.[157] The gods, after having discovered the cows in the cavern, open the cavern with the third libation of the morning;[158] when the cows come out, the gods, the _Ādityās_, also come out; hence the coming forth of the gods (_Ādityānām ayanam_) is equivalent to the coming forth of the cows (_gavām ayanam_). The cows come out when they have their horns, and adorn themselves.[159]

The aurora is a cow; this cow has horns; her horns are radiant and golden. When the cow aurora comes forth, all that falls from her horns brings good luck; hence in the _Mahābhāratam_,[160] the benefits received from a holy hermit, called Matańgas, are compared to those of a _gavām ayanam_, _i.e._, a coming out of cows. To understand this simile, besides a reference to the Vedic texts, it is necessary to compare it with the modern usages of India, in which, in celebration of the new solar year, or the birth of the pastoral god Krishnas (the god who is black during the night, but who becomes luminous in the morning among the cows of the dawning, or among the female cowherds), it is customary, towards the end of December, to give cows to the Brāhmans, exchange presents of cows and calves, besprinkle one another with milk, to adorn a beautiful milch cow, crown her with flowers, gild her horns, or paint them various colours, to deck her to overloading with flowers, fruit, and little cakes, and then hunt her from the village to the sound of drums and trumpets, in order that, full of terror, she may flee away with distraction and impetuosity. The cow loses her ornaments in her flight, and these, being estimated as propitious treasures, are eagerly picked up by the faithful, and preserved as sacred relics.[161]

In the _Āitareya-brāhmanam_,[162] the sun is born of the cows (_gogā_), is the son of the cow aurora; as the sun's mother she naturally nourishes him with her milk; hence the same _Āitareya_[163] tells us that the gods Mitras and Varunas, by means of the curdled milk, took from the drink of the gods the inebriating poison which the long-tongued witch (_Dīrghagihvī_) had poured into it. This curdled milk is the same milky sea, with health-giving herbs scattered in it, and which the gods agitate to form ambrosia, in the _Rāmāyanam_, the _Mahābhāratam_, and the Puranic legends; a sea and herbs which we find already spoken of together in a Vedic hymn.[164] But in the sky, where the ambrosial milk and the health-giving herbs are produced, there are gods and demons; and the milk, which is at one time the rain, at another ambrosia, is now in the cloud, now in the moon (called also _Oshadhipatis_, or lord of herbs), now round the dawn. Hanumant, who, in the _Rāmāyanam_, goes in quest of the health-giving grass to restore their souls to the half-dead heroes, looks for it now between the mountain bull (_rishabhas_) and the heavenly mountain _Kāilasas_, now between the Mount Lunus (_Ēandras_) and the mountain cup (_Dronas_); and the mountain which possesses the herb for which Hanumant is searching is itself called herb (_oshadhis_), or the one that causes to rejoice with perfumes (_Gandhamādanas_[165]), which two words are used synonymously. Here the milky, ambrosial, and healthful humour is supposed to be produced, not by a cow, but by an herb. And the gods and demons contend in heaven for the possession of this herb, as well as for the ambrosia; the only difference being that the gods enjoy both one and the other without corrupting them, whilst the demons poison them as they drink them; that is to say, they spread darkness over the light, they move about in the darkness, in the gloomy waters, in the black humour which comes out of the herb itself, which, in contact with them, becomes poisonous, so that they in turn suck the poison. On the other hand, the _Gandharvās_,[166] an amphibious race, in whom at one time the nature of the gods predominates, at another that of the demons, and who consequently take now the side of the gods, now that of the demons, are simply guards who, as against theft, keep watch and ward over the perfumes and healthful herbs, which are their own property, and the healthful or ambrosial waters, the ambrosia which belongs to their wives, the nymphs; they are, in a word, the earliest representatives of the enjoying and jealous proprietor. We have already heard, in the _Rigvedas_, the demoniacal monsters call on each other to suck the poison of the celestial cows; and we have seen that the _Āitareya-brāhmanam_ accuses a witch of being the poisoner of the divine ambrosia; we have, moreover, noticed that a Vedic hymn already associates together the ambrosial milk and the healthful herb, and that, in the brāhmanic cosmogony, the milk and the herb which produces it are manifested together, which herb or grass is beneficent or the reverse according as the gods or the demons enjoy it; from all which it will be easy to understand this interesting Hindoo proverb, "The grass gives the milk to the cows, and the milk gives the poison to the serpents."[167] It is indeed the milk of the cow of the dawn and of the cow of the moon which destroys the serpents of darkness, the demoniacal shadows of night.

But the idea of the healthful herb is incorporated in another image, very familiar to the popular Indo-European legends, and which is contained even in the Vedic hymns. The cow produces the sun and the moon; the circular shape, the disc of sun and moon, suggests variously the idea of a ring, a gem, and a pearl; and the sun, _Savitar_, he who gives the juice, and the generator, is introduced in a Vedic hymn, as the one who has immortal juice, who gives the pearl.[168] The humours of the cow have passed to the herb, and from the herb to the pearl; and the naturalness of this figure recommends itself to our modern conception, for when we would describe a diamond or other gem as of the purest quality, we say it is a diamond or gem of the first water. Even the pearl-moon and the pearl-sun, from their ambrosial humours, have a fine water. In the _Rāmāyanam_,[169] at the moment of production of ambrosia from the stirring up of the milky sea, we see, near the healthful herb, the gem _Kāustubhas_, the same which we afterwards find on the breast of the sun-god Vishnus, and which is sometimes his navel; whence Vishnus, in the _Mahābhāratam_,[170] is saluted by the name of _ratnanābhas_--that is to say, he who has a pearl for his navel; as the sun is in like manner saluted by the name of _Maniērińgas_--_i.e._, who has horns of pearls.[171] In the _Rāmāyanam_,[172] the bright-shining grass and the solar disc appear together on the summit of the mountain Gandhamādanas; no sooner does he smell its odour than the solar hero _Lakshmanas_, delivered from the iron that oppressed him, lifts himself up from the ground; _i.e._, scarcely has the sun formed his disc, and begun to shine like a celestial gem, than the sun-hero, whom the monsters had vanquished during the night, rises in victory. And it is on the summit of the mountain that, with a mountain metal of a colour similar to that of the young sun,[173] the sun _Rāmas_ imprints a dazzling mark on the forehead of the dawn Sītā, as if to be able to recognise her--that is to say, he places himself upon the forehead of the aurora or dawn. When the sun Rāmas is separated from the dawn Sītā, he sends her in recognition, as a symbol of his disc, his own ring, which appears again in the famous ring given by King _Dushmantas_ to the beautiful _Ēakuntalā_, the daughter of the nymph, and by means of which alone the lost bride can be recognised by the young and forgetful king; and Sītā sends back to Rāmas, by the hands of Hanumant, as a sign of recognition, the dazzling ornament which Rāmas had one day placed upon her forehead in an idyllic scene among the mountains known to them alone. This ring of recognition, this magic pearl, often turns up in the Hindoo legends. It is enough for me to indicate here the two most famous examples.

The aurora who possesses the pearl becomes she who is rich in pearls, and herself a source of pearls; but the pearl, as we have already seen, is not only the sun, it is also the moon. The moon is the friend of the aurora; she comforts her in the evening under her persecutions; she loads her with presents during the night, accompanies and guides her, and helps her to find her husband.

In the _Rāmāyanam_, I frequently find the moon as a beneficent fairy, who succours the dawn Sītā; for the moon, as _rįganīkaras_ (she who gives light to the night), assumes a benignant aspect. We have already said that the moon is generally a male in India; but as full moon and new moon it assumes, even in the Vedic texts, a feminine name. In a Vedic hymn, _Rākā_, the full moon is exhorted to sew the work with a needle that cannot be broken.[174] Here we have the moon personified as a marvellous workwoman, a fairy with golden fingers, a good fairy; and in this character we find her again in the _Rāmāyanam_, under the form of the old _Anasūyā_, who anoints the darkened Sītā (for Sītā, like the Vedic girl, is dark and ugly during the night, or winter, when she is hidden) in the wood, with a divine unguent; gives her a garland, various ornaments, and two beauteous garments, which are always pure (as, _i.e._, they do not touch the earth, like the cows of the Vedic dawn, who do not cover themselves with dust), and similar in colour to the young sun;[175] in all which the fairy moon appears as working during the night for the aurora, preparing her luminous garments--the two garments, of which the one is for the evening and the other for the morning, one lunar and of silver, the other solar and of gold--in order that she may please her husband Rāmas, or the sun Vishnus, who is glad when he sees her thus adorned. In the _Svayamprabhā_, too, we meet with the moon as a good fairy, who, from the golden palace which she reserves for her friend Hemā (the golden one), is during a month the guide, in the vast cavern, of Hanumant and his companions, who have lost their way in the search of the dawn Sītā. To come out of this cavern, it is necessary to shut the eyes, in order not to see its entrance; all Hanumant's companions are come out, but Taras, who shines like the moon,[176] would wish to return. The same moon can be recognised in the benignant fairies _Trigātā_, _Suramā_, and _Saramā_, who announce to Sītā that her husband will soon arrive, and that she will soon see him. The first, while the arrival of Rāmas is imminent, dreams that the monsters, dressed in yellow, are playing in a lake of cow's milk;[177] at the time when Suramā announces to Sītā the approach of Rāmas, Sītā shines by her own beauty, like the opening dawn;[178] finally, Saramā (who seems to be the same as Suramā), whom Sītā calls her twin-sister (_sahodarā_), penetrating underground, like the moon Proserpine, also announces to Sītā her approaching deliverance at the hands of Rāmas.[179] As to Trigatā, it is not difficult to recognise in her the moon, when we remember that Trgiatas is a name which is frequently given to the evening sun, or rising moon, _Ēivas_, who is represented with the moon for a diadem, whence his other name of _Ēandracūdas_ (having the moon for his diadem). Suramā I believe to be, not a mythical, but only an orthographical variation, and more incorrect one, of Saramā, whose relation to the moon we shall see in detail when we come to the chapter which treats of the mythical dog.

Thus far we have a moon fairy; but we find the moon designated at other times in the _Rāmāyanam_ by its common masculine name. The guardian of the forest of honey, _Dadhimukhas_, in which forest, with its honey, the heroes who accompany Sītā enjoy themselves, is said to be generated by the god Lunus.[180] And the moon, who assists Hanumant in his search of Sītā, is said to shine like a white bull with a sharpened horn, with a full horn;[181] in which we come back to the moon as a horned animal, and to the cornucopia. Moreover, we find the same lunar horn again in the city of _Ērińgaveram_, where first the solar hero Rāmas, and afterwards his brother Bharatas, are hospitably received when the sun is darkened,[182] by _Guhas_, king of the black _Wishādās_, who also is of the colour of a black cloud;[183] and Rāmas and Bharatas take their departure in the morning from Guhas, who is said to wander always in the forests.[184] Now, this Guhas, who, though always hidden, yet wishes to entertain the solar hero during the night with presents of the town of Ērińgaveram, appears to me to be just another form of the solar hero himself, who enters and hides himself in the night, hospitably received in the lunar habitation, another form of the god Indras, whom we have seen in the _Rigvedas_ united during the night to Indus or Somas--that is, to the moon--and who, in the _Rāmāyanam_[185], when Sītā is in the power of the monster, comes down during the night to console her, lulls her keepers to sleep, and nourishes her with the ambrosial milk (with Soma, the moon, the same moon which, in the _Rigvedas_, the dawn, the girl beloved of Indras, and whom therefore he does good to, brings him as a present), encouraging her with the prospect of the near advent of Rāmas, the deliverer.

But it remains to us to adduce clearer evidence to show that in the _Rāmāyanam_ Rāmas is the sun, and Sītā the dawn, or aurora.

Without taking into account that Rāmas is the most popular personification of Vishnus, and that Vishnus is often the solar hero (although he is not seldom identified with the moon), let us see how Rāmas manifests himself, and what he does in the _Rāmāyanam_ to vindicate especially his solar nature.

It is my opinion that the best way to prove this is to show how Rāmas performs the very same miracles that Indras does. Rāmas, like Indras, gives, while still young, extraordinary proofs of his strength; Rāmas, like Indras, achieves his greatest enterprises while he is himself hidden; Rāmas, like Indras, vanquishes the monster, reconquers Sītā, and enjoys of right the company of his wife. Till Rāmas goes into the forests, as Indras into the clouds and shadows, his great epopee does not begin. Indras has for assistants the winds (the Marutas); Rāmas has for his greatest help Hanumant, the son of the wind (_Mārutātmagah_);[186] Hanumant amuses himself with the monsters, as the wind with the archer-clouds of the thousand-eyed Indras;[187] and it is said that Rāmas gets on Hanumant's back, as Indras does on the elephant _Āiravatas_. The elephant with a proboscis is not unfrequently substituted, in the brāhmanic tradition, for the horned bull of the Vedās.[188] But the bull Indras is reproduced in the bull Rāmas, and the monkeys who assist Rāmas have kept at least the tail of the Vedic cows, the helpers of Indras, whence their generic name of _golāńgulās_ (who have cows' tails).[189] The bow with which Rāmas shoots the monsters is made of a horn, whence his name of _Ēārngadhanvant_ (he who shoots with the horn);[190] Rāmas receives the shower of hostile darts, as a bull upon its horns the abundant rains of autumn.[191] Sītā herself calls both her Rāmas and his brother Lakshmanas by the name of _sinharshabhāu_,[192] or the lion and the bull, which are conjoined so frequently in the mythology, on account of equal strength; hence the terror of the lion when he hears the bull bellow in the first book of the _Pancatantram_, and in all the numerous Eastern and Western variations of that book. Indras has his conflicts in the cloudy, rainy, and gloomy sky; these are also the battle-fields of Rāmas. The names of the monsters of the _Rāmāyanam_, as, for instance, _Vidyuggivas_ (he who lives upon thunderbolts), _Vagrodarī_ (she who has thunderbolts in her stomach), _Indragit_ (who vanquishes Indras with magical arts), _Meghanādas_ (thundering cloud),[193] and others, show us the nature of the battle. In the battle-field of Rāmas, instead, the assisting hero is now a bull (_rishabhas_), now an ox's eye (_gavākshas_), now _gavayas_ (_bos gavoeus_), and beings of similar appellations, which remind us of the Vedic deities. Indras strikes with lightning the celestial ocean; Rāmas, an Indian Xerxes, chastises the sea with burning arrows.[194] Indras, in the _Rigvedas_, crosses the sea and passes ninety-nine rivers; Rāmas crosses the ocean upon a bridge of mountains, in carrying which Hanumant, the son of the wind, shows himself peculiarly skilful; the winds carry the clouds, which we have seen, in the language of the Vedās, represented as mountains. And that clouds, and not real mountains, are here spoken of, we deduce from observing, as we read, that while the animal army of Rāmas carries the bridge on to the ocean, or the winds carry the clouds into the sky, the sun cannot burn the weary monkey-workers, because that clouds arise and cover it, rain falls, and the wind expires.[195] The field of this epic battle is evidently the same as that of the mythical battle of Indras. And in the _Rāmāyanam_ we find at every step the similarity of the combatants to the dark clouds, the bellowing clouds, the clouds carried by the wind. The forest which Rāmas goes through is compared to a group of clouds.[196] The name of wanderer by night (_raganīcaras_), afterwards given frequently in the _Rāmāyanam_, to the monster whom Rāmas combats, implies, of course, that the battle is fought by night. The fact that, as we read, the witch _Ēūrpanakhā_ comes in winter to seduce Rāmas whilst he is in the forest,[197] and the monster _Kumbhakarnas_ awakens after six months' sleep, like a rainy cloud which increases towards the end of summer (_tapānte_),[198] shows us that the epic poem of Rāmas embraces, besides the nightly battle of the sun over darkness, also the great annual battle of the sun in winter to recover and rejoin the spring. Anyhow, it is always a battle of the sun against the monster of darkness. Rāmas, in the very beginning of the great poem, says to his brother Lakshmanas:--"See, O Lakshmanas, Māricas is come here with his followers, making a noise like thunder, and with him the wanderer by night Subāhus; thou wilt see them to-day, like a mass of dark clouds, dispersed by me in a moment, like clouds by the wind."[199] Here we find almost the whole battle of Indras.

And similar battles in the clouds are found in several other episodes of the _Rāmāyanam_. The dart of Rāmas falls upon the monster _Kharas_ (the monster ass), as upon a great tree falls the thunderbolt hurled by Indras.[200] Heroes and monsters combat with stones and rocks from the great mountain, and fall, overthrown on the earth, like mountains. The monster Rāvanas carries off Sītā with the magic of the wind and the tempest.[201] Heroes and monsters fight with trunks of trees from the great forest; moreover, the trunks themselves, having become monsters, join the fray, stretch out their strange arms, and devour the hero in their cavities. And here we come upon the interesting legend of _Kabandhas_, in which we find again the forests and trees combating, and the barrel of the Vedās carried by the divine bull. The _Dānavās_ or demons also appear, in the _Mahābhāratam_,[202] in the forms of sounding barrels. In the _Rāmāyanam_, the highest of the demons (_dānavottamah_) is called by the name of _Kabandhas_ (barrel and trunk), compared to a black thundering cloud, and represented as an enormous trunk, having one large yellowish eye, and an enormous devouring mouth in his chest.[203] In Tuscany, we say of water that gushes copiously out of a reservoir, that it pours as from a barrel's mouth. The monster Kabandhas draws towards himself, with his long arms, the two brothers Rāmas and Lakshmanas (compared several times in the _Rāmāyanam_[204] to the two Aēvināu, who resemble each other in everything). Rāmas and Lakshmanas, _i.e._, the two Aēvināu, the morning and evening, the spring and autumn suns, the two twilights, who, in a passage of the _Rāmāyanam_, are called the two ears of Rāmas, cut off the two extremities, the two long arms, of the monster _Kabandhas_; upon which the trunk, able no longer to support itself, falls to the ground. The fallen monster then relates to the two brothers that he was once a beautiful demon; but that, by a malediction, Indras one day made his head and legs enter his body; his arms having been lacerated by the two brothers, the monster is disenchanted from this malediction, and having resumed his form of a splendid demon, he ascends to heaven in a luminous form. Here we have the all-radiant sun shut up in the cloud, he being the yellow eye, the burning mouth, of Kabandhas, and, in union with the cloud, forming a hideous monster; the hero comes to destroy his monstrous form, and the monster thanks him, for thus he becomes the glorious god, the splendid being, the handsome prince he was before. Rāmas who delivers Kabandhas from his monstrous form by cutting off his two arms, is the sun Rāmas coming forth from the gloomy forest, and uncovering the sky in the east and in the west. Rāmas delivering Kabandhas is simply the sun delivering himself from the monster of gloom and cloud that envelops him. And, indeed, the greater part of the myths have their origin in the plurality of appellations given to the same phenomenon. Each appellation grows into a distinct personality, and the various personalities fight with each other. Hence the hero who delivers himself becomes the deliverer of the hero, viewed as a different person from the hero; the monstrous form which envelops the hero is often his own malediction; the hero who comes to kill this monstrous form is his benefactor.[205]

This theory of the monster who thanks the hero that kills him, agrees with what we find on several other occasions in the _Rāmāyanam_, as in the case of the stag _Marīcas_,[206] which, after being killed by Rāmas, re-ascends to heaven in a luminous form; of the sea-monster, which Hanumant destroys, and restores to its primitive form, that of a celestial nymph; of the old Ēavarī, who, after having seen Rāmas, sacrifices herself in the fire, and re-ascends young and beautiful to heaven (the usual Vedic young girl, the dawn whom, ugly during the night, Indras, by taking off her ugly skin, restores to beauty in the morning); an episodical variation of what afterwards happens to Sītā herself, who, having been ugly when in the power of the monster Rāvanas, recovers her beauty by the sacrifice of fire, in order to prove her innocence to her husband Rāmas, and shines again a young girl, like the young sun, adorned with burning gold, and wearing a red dress;[207] and when Rāmas comes near (like the young dawn, when she sees her husband), she resembles the first light (Prabhā), the wife of the sun.[208] This Sītā, daughter of Ganakas (the generator), whom the _Tāittiriya Brāhmanam_ calls Savitar[209] or the sun, seems to me to be no other than the dawn, the daughter of light, the daughter of Indras, the god of the Vedic texts. These, indeed, sometimes represent Sūryā, the daughter of the sun, as the lover of the moon (who is then masculine); but we find more frequently the loves of the dawn and the sun, of the beautiful heroine and the splendid solar hero, while the moon is generally the brother, or the pitying sister of the hero and the heroine, the beneficent old man, the foreseeing fairy, the good hostess, who aids them in their enterprises; although we also find the dawn as a sister of the sun and his succourer. In fact, the Buddhist tradition of the legend of Rāmas, illustrated by Weber,[210] represents Sītā to us as the sister of the two brothers Rāmas and Lakshmanas, who go into banishment for twelve years to escape the persecutions of their cruel step-mother (of whom the _Kāikeyī_ of the _Rāmāyanam_ offers a confused image), in the same way as the Vedic dawn is united to the twin Aēvināu; and the same tradition makes Rāmas, at the termination of his exile, end with marrying his own sister Sītā, as the sun marries the dawn. And the fact of Sītā being not born from the womb, but produced from the ground, a girl of heavenly beauty, destined to be the reward of valour,[211] not only does not exclude her relationship with the dawn, but confirms it; for we have seen the dawn rise from the mountain, as the daughter of light and the sun, whom the young sun wins for his bride, as a reward for his wonderful skill as an archer against the monsters of darkness; and we have seen that the dawn marries only her predestined husband, and her predestined husband is he who performs the greatest miracles, restores her lost gaiety, and most resembles her. We have just seen the old Ēavarī and the ugly Sītā, at the sight of the sun Rāmas, deliver themselves in the fire from every mortal danger, and become beautiful and happy once more.

But the concord between the mythical husband and wife is not more steadfast than that of mortal couples. Rāmas is very apt to be suspicious. Having returned to his kingdom of Ayodhyā, he allows himself to brood upon what his subjects may say of him for having taken back his wife, after she had been in the hands of the monster (they were not present at the first fire-sacrifice of Sītā); Rāmas reveals his suspicions to Sītā, and blames the evil-speaking of the citizens for originating them; she submits a second time to the trial by fire, but, offended by his continual suspicions, she flees from her husband, and on a car of light, drawn by serpents (_Pannagās_), goes down again underground (which appears to mean simply this--the dawn, or spring, marries the sun in the morning, or she stays all day, or all summer, in his kingdom, and in the evening, or in the autumn, goes down into the shades of night, or of winter).[212] It is an indiscretion of the husband which causes his wife to abandon him.

Thus, in the _Rigvedas_, we have seen _Urvaēī_, the first of the dawns, flee from the sun _Purūravas_. In _Somadevas_,[213] the king Purūravas loses his wife Urvaēī, because he has let it be known in heaven that she was with him; in Kālidāsas's drama of _Vikramorvaēī_, the king Purūravas, having helped Indras in the fight, receives from him Urvaēī to wife, with whom he engages to stay till a child is born to them; the king, shortly after having espoused Urvaēī, looks at another nymph, Udakavatī (the watery). Urvaēī, offended, flees; she enters a wood to hide herself, and is transformed into a creeper. In the brāhmanic tradition of the _Yagurvedas_, referred to at length by Professor Max Müller, in his "Oxford Essays," Purūravas loses sight of Urvaēī, because he has let himself be seen by her without his regal dress, or even naked.

We find yet another similar legend in the _Mahābhāratam_.[214] The wise and splendid Ēāntanus goes to the chase on the banks of the Gańgā, and there finds a beautiful nymph whom he becomes enamoured of. The nymph responds to his suit, and consents to remain with him, on condition that he will never say anything displeasing to her, whatever she may do or meditate; and the enamoured king assents to the grave condition. They live together happily, for the king yields to the nymph in everything; but in the course of time, eight sons are born to them; the nymph has already thrown seven into the river, and the king, although inwardly full of grief, dares not say anything to her; but when she is about to throw the last one in, the king implores her not to do it, and challenges her to say who she is. The nymph then confesses to him that she is the Gańgā itself personified, and that the eight sons born to their loves are human personifications of the eight divine Vasavas, who, by being thrown into the Gańgā, are liberated from the curse of the human form: the only Vasus who is pleased to remain among men is Dyāus (the sky), in the form of the eunuch Bhīshmas, whom Ēāntanus would not allow to be thrown into the waters. The same curse falls upon the Vasavas for having ravished the cow of abundance from the penitent Apavas. We shall find a legendary subject analogous to this one of Ēāntanus in several of the popular tales of Europe, with this difference that, in European tradition, it is generally the husband who abandons his indiscreet partner. The Hindoo tradition, however, also offers us an example of the husband who abandons his wife, in the wise Garatkarus, who marries the sister of the king of the serpents, on condition that she never does anything to displease him.[215] One day the wise man sleeps; evening comes on; he ought to be awakened in order to say his evening prayers; if he does not say them, he does not do his duty, and she would do wrong did she not warn him. If she awaken him, he will be enraged. What is to be done? She takes the latter course. The wise man awakes, becomes enraged, and abandons her, after she had given him a son.[216]

The glowing aspect of the sky, morning and evening, suggested the idea, now of a splendid nuptial feast, now of a fire. In this fire, sometimes the witch who persecutes the hero and heroine is burnt, and sometimes the hero and heroine themselves are immolated. The sacrifice of Ēavarī and of Sītā, who are delivered by the sun Rāmas, is only a variation of that of Ēunahēepas, liberated by the dawn in the _Rigvedas_. The story of Ēunahēepas has already been made known by Professor Rodolph Roth,[217] and by Professor Max Müller,[218] who translated it from the _Āitareya-brāhmanam_; and I refer the reader to these translations, as well as to the English version which Professor Martin Haugh has given us of all the _Āitareya_. I shall, therefore, here give but a short account of it, with a few observations apropos to the subject in hand.

The king Hariēcandras has no sons; the god Varunas the coverer, the gloomy, the watery, the king of the waters,[219] obliges him to promise that he will sacrifice to him whatever is born to him. The king promises; a child is born, who is named the red (Rohitas). Varunas claims him; the father begs him to wait till the child has cut his teeth, then till his first teeth are cast, then till he is able to bear armour. It is evident that the father wishes to wait till his son be strong enough to defend himself against his persecutor, Varunas. Varunas thereupon claims him in a more resolute manner, and Hariēcandras informs the son himself that he must be given up in sacrifice. Rohitas takes his bow and flees into the woods, where he lives by the chase. This first part of the legend corresponds with those numerous European popular tales, in which, now the devil, now the aquatic monster, now the serpent, demands from a father the son who has just been born to him without his knowledge. The second part of the story of Ēunahēepas shows us the hero in the forest; he has taken his bow with him, and hence, like Rāmas in the _Rāmāyanam_, who has scarcely entered the forest than he begins to hunt, Rohitas turns hunter, and hunts for the six years during which he remains in the forest. But his chase is unsuccessful; he wanders about in quest of some one to take his place as the victim of Varunas; at last he finds the brāhmanas Agigartas, who consents to give his own second son, Ēunahēepas, for a hundred cows. The first-born being particularly dear to the father, and the third being especially beloved by the mother, cannot be sacrificed; the second son, therefore, is ceded to Varunas, the gloomy god of night, who, like Yamas, binds all creatures with his cords. We have already observed how the middle son is the son of the celestial cow Aditis, the hidden sun, the sun during and covered by the darkness of night, or, in other words, bound by the fetters of Varunas--and it is his own father who binds him with those fetters. His sacrifice begins in the evening. During the night he appeals to all the gods. At last Indras, flattered by the praise heaped upon him, concedes to him a golden chariot, upon which, with praises to the Aēvināu, and help from the dawn, Ēunahēepas, unbound from the fetters of Varunas, is delivered. These fetters of Varunas, which imprison the victim, bound and sacrificed by his own father, help us to understand the second part of the European popular tale of the son sacrificed against his will to the demon by his father; for Ēunahēepas, towards the end of the European story, takes the form of a horse, Varunas that of a demon, and the fetters of Varunas are the bridle of the horse, which the imprudent father sells to the demon, together with his son in the shape of a horse;[220] the beautiful daughter of the demon (the white one, who, as usual, comes out of the black monster) delivers the young man transformed into a horse; as in the Vedic story of Ēunahēepas, it is explicitly the dawn who is the young girl that delivers.[221] Varunas is called in the _Rāmāyanam_ the god who has in his hand a rope (_pāēahastas_); his dwelling is on Mount Astas, where the sun goes down, and which it is impossible to touch, because it burns, in an immense palace, the work of Viēvakarman, which has a hundred rooms, lakes with nymphs, and trees of gold.[222] Evidently, Varunas is here, not a different form, but a different name of the god Yamas, the pāēin, or furnished with rope, the constrictor _par excellence_; for we are to suppose the magic display of golden splendour in the evening heavens not so much the work of the sun itself, as produced by the gloomy god who sits on the mountain, who invests and surprises the solar hero, and drags him into his kingdom. As to Hariēcandras and Agigartas, Rohitas and Ēunahēepas, they appear, in my opinion, to be themselves different names for not only the same celestial phenomenon, but the same mythical personage. Hariēcandras is celebrated in the legends as a solar king; Rohitas, his son, the red one, is his _alter ego_, as well as his successor Ēunahēepas. Hariēcandras, moreover, who promises to sacrifice his son to Varunas, seems to differ little, if at all, from Agigartas, who sells his own son for the sacrifice. The _Rāmāyanam_,[223] has given us a third name for the same unnatural father,[224] in Viēvāmitras, who asks his own sons to sacrifice themselves, instead of Ēunahēepas, who is under his protection, and as they refuse to obey, he curses them.

The variation of the same legend which we find in the _Harivanēas_[225] proves these identities, and adds a new and notable particular. The wife of Viēvāmitras designs, on account of her poverty, to barter her middle son for a hundred cows, and with that view already keeps him tied with a rope like a slave. The grandfather of Rohitas, Hariēcandras's father, Triēańkus, wanders through the woods, and delivers this son of Viēvāmitras, whose family he thenceforth protects and maintains. The deeds of Triēańkus, who begs of Vasishtas to be allowed to ascend to heaven bodily, and who, by grace of Viēvāmitras, obtains instead the favour of remaining suspended in the air like a constellation, are also attributed to his son Hariēcandras; whence we may affirm, without much risk of contradiction, that as Triēańkus is another name for his son Hariēcandras, so Hariēcandras is another name for his son Rohitas, and that, therefore, the Triēańkus of the _Harivanēas_ is the same as the Rohitas of the _Āitareya_, with this difference, that Triēańkus buys the son destined to the sacrifice in order to free him, while Rohitas buys him to free himself. But the first hundred cows given by Triēańkus to Viēvāmitras do not suffice for him, and the fruits of his hunting in the forest are not enough to maintain the family, a circumstance which weighs upon him almost as much as if the family were his own; upon which, in order to save Viēvāmitras, in order to save Viēvāmitras's son, and, we can perhaps add, to save himself, he resolves to sacrifice, to kill the beautiful and dearly-prized wife of Vasishtas (the very luminous). I have said the wife of Vasishtas, but the _Harivanēas_ says, speaking strictly, it was the cow of Vasishtas who was killed. But we know from the _Rāmāyanam_[226] that this cow of Vasishtas, this kāmadhuk or kāmadhenus, which yields at pleasure all that is wished for, this cow of abundance, is kept by Vasishtas, under the name of Ēabālā, as his own wife. Viēvāmitras is covetous of her; he demands her from Vasishtas, and offers a hundred cows for her, the exact price which, in the _Harivanēas_, he receives from Triēańkus for his own son. Vasishtas answers that he will not give her for a hundred, nor for a thousand, nor even for a hundred thousand cows, for Ēabālā is his gem, his riches, his all, his life.[227] Viēvāmitras carries her off; she returns to the feet of Vasishtas, and bellows; her bellowing calls forth armies, who come out of her own body; the hundred sons of Viēvāmitras are burned to ashes by them. These armies which come out of the body of Vasishtas's cow remind us again of the Vedic cow, from which come forth winged darts, or birds, by which the enemies are filled with terror. Vasishtas is a form of Indras; his cow is here the rain-cloud. Viēvāmitras, who wishes to ravish the cow from Vasishtas, often assumes monstrous forms in the Hindoo legends, and is almost always malignant, perverse, and revengeful. His hundred sons burned to cinders by Vasishtas remind us, from one point of view, of the hundred cities of Ēambaras destroyed by Indras, and the hundred perverse Dhritarāshtrides of the _Mahābhāratam_; whence his name, Viēvāmitras, which may also mean the enemy of all (_viēva-amitras_), would agree well with his almost demoniacal character.

This story of the cow of Vasishtas, whose relationship with the legend of Ēunahēepas cannot be doubted, brings us back to the animal forms of heroes and heroines from which we started. In the story of Vasishtas, the cow-cloud, the cow ēabālā, or the spotted-cow, plays in the epic poem the part of the cow Aditis, the cow priēnis (spotted, variegated), with which we are already familiar in the Vedic hymns. This cow is benignant towards the god, or the hero, or the wise Vasishtas, as the priēnis is to the god Indras. But we have seen in the _Rigvedas_ itself the cloud as the enemy of the god, and represented as a female form of the monster, as his sister. This sister generally tries to seduce the god, promising to deliver into his hands the monster her brother, and she sometimes succeeds, as the witch Hidimbā of the _Mahābhāratam_, who gives up her brother, the monster Hidimbas, into the hands of the hero Bhīmas, who thereupon espouses her. On the other hand, Ēūrpanakhā, the sister of the monster Rāvanas, does not succeed in her intent; making herself beautiful, she endeavours to win the affection of the hero Rāmas; but being ridiculed by him and by Lakshmanas, she becomes deformed, and sends forth cries like a cloud in the rainy season,[228] exciting her brothers to annihilate Rāmas.

The same cloud-monster is found again in the _Rāmāyanam_, under the name of Dundubhis, in the form of a terrible buffalo with sharpened horns.[229] The buffalo, as a wild animal, is often chosen to represent the principle of evil, in the same way as the bull, increaser of the bovine herds, is selected as the image of good. This bellowing buffalo, whence his name of Dundubhis (drum), strikes and knocks with his two horns at the door of the cavern[230] of the son of Indras (Bālin), the king of the monkeys. But Bālin takes Dundubhis by the horns, throws him on the ground, and destroys him.

Dundus is also a name given to the father of Krishnas, or the black one, who in the _Rigvedas_ is still a demon, and only later becomes the god of cows and cowherds, a govindas, or pastor _par excellence_.[231] Indras, his enemy in the Vedas, having fallen from heaven, he became one of the most popular gods, and even sometimes the most popular form of the deity. In the _Mahābhāratam_, for instance, he is almost the _deus ex machina_ of the battles between the Pāndavas and the Dhārtarāshtrās, and presents many analogies to the Zeus of the Iliad; whereas Indras plays only a part in the episodes, the rain-giver and thunderer being often forgotten for the black one who prepares and hurls the light. But the fall of Indras begins in the Vedās themselves. In the _Yagurvedas_, Viēvarūpas, the son of Tvashtar, whom Indras kills, appears as no less than the purohitas or high-priest of the gods, and son of a daughter of the Asurās; he has three heads, of which one drinks the ambrosia, another the spirituous drink, while the third eats food. Indras cuts off Viēvarūpas's three heads, in revenge of the one which drinks his ambrosia; he is therefore charged with having killed a Brāhman, and decried as a brāhmanicide.[232] In the _Āitareya-brāhmanam_,[233] the criminality of Indras in this regard is confirmed, to which the _Kāushītaki-Upanishad_ also refers. In the seventh book of the _Rāmāyanam_, even the multiform monster Rāvanas is represented as a great penitent, whom Brāhman fills with supreme grace; in the sixth book, the son of the wind, Hanumant, cuts off the three heads of the Rāvanide monster Triēiras (having three heads), as one day Indras cut off the three heads of the monster Vritras, son of Tvashtar;[234] and he cuts all the three heads off together (_samas_), as the hero of the European popular tales must cut off, at a blow, the three heads of the serpent, the wizard, otherwise he is powerless, and able to do nothing. The monster, like the hero, seems to have a special affinity for the number three: hence the three heads of Triēiras, as also the three brothers of Lańkā--Rāvanas, the eldest brother, who reigns; Kumbhakarnas, the middle brother, who sleeps; Vibhishanas, the third brother, whom the two others do not care about, but who alone is just and good, and who alone obtains the gift of immortality.[235] We have evidently here again the three Vedic brothers; the two eldest in demoniacal form, the youngest a friend of the divine hero, and who, by the victory of Rāmas over the monster Rāvanas, obtains the kingdom of Lańkā. As to the brothers Rāmas and Lakshmanas, and the brothers Bālin and Sugrīvas, their natural place is in the story of the two twins, which will be referred to in the next chapter, although Hanumant, the son of the wind, figures second to them in the character of strong brother.

The three interesting heroic brothers come out more prominently in the _Mahābhāratam_, where of the five Pāndavas brothers, three stay on one side, and are Yudhishthiras, son of the god Yamas, the wise brother; Bhīmas (the terrible), or Vrikodāras (wolf's belly), son of Vāyus (the wind), the strong brother (another form of Hanumant, in company with whom he is also found in the _Mahābhāratam_, on Mount Gandhamādanas); and Argunas (the splendid), the son of Indras, the genial, dexterous, fortunate, victorious brother, he who wins the bride. The first brother gives the best advice; the second shows proof of greatest strength; the third brother wins, conquers the bride. They are precisely the three Vedic brothers Ribhavas, Ekatas, Dvītas, and Tritas, in the same relationships to one another and with the same natures; only the legend is amplified.[236] As to their other brothers, twins, born of another mother, Nakulas and Sahadevas, they are the sons of the two Aēvināu, and feebly repeat in the _Mahābhāratam_ the exploits of the two celestial twins. Bhīmas or Vrikodāras, the second brother, is considered the strongest, (balavatām ēreshthah), because immediately after birth, _i.e._, scarcely has he come forth out of his mother (like the Vedic Marutas), than he breaks the rock upon which he falls, because he breaks his fetters as soon as he is bound with them (like Hanumant when he becomes the prisoner of Rāvanas), because he carries his brothers during the night (as Hanumant carries Rāmas), as he flees from the burning house prepared by the impious Duryodhanas (_i.e._, from the burning sky of evening), and because in the kingdom of serpents, where Duryodhanas threw him down (that is, the night), he drinks the water of strength. A serpent, wishing to benefit Bhīmas, says to Vasukis, king of the serpents--"Let there be given to him as much strength as he can drink from that cistern in which is placed the strength of a thousand serpents."[237] Bhīmas, at one draught, drinks the whole cisternful; and with similar expedition, he drains consecutively eight cisterns.[238] The first-born of the Pāndavas is dear to his father Yamas, the god of justice, Dharmarāgas,--and is himself indeed called Dharmarāgas; and when he prepares himself to ascend into heaven, the god Yamas follows him in the form of a dog: by his skill in solving enigmas, he saves his brother Bhīmas from the king of the serpents. The third brother, Argunas, son of Indras, is the Benjamin of the Vedic supreme God. Indras welcomes him with festivals in heaven, whither Argunas had gone to find him. Argunas is an infallible archer, like Indras; like Indras, he several times regains the cows from the robbers or from the enemies; and, like Indras, he wins and conquers his bride; he is born by the assistance of all the celestials; he is invincible (_agayas_); he is the best son (_varah putras_);[239] he alone of the three brothers has compassion on his master Dronas and delivers him from an aquatic monster.[240]

But there is yet another particular which shows the resemblance between the three brothers Pāndavas and the three brothers of the Vedas; it is their dwelling, hidden in the palace of the king Virāta, in the fourth book of the _Mahābhāratam_. They are exiled from the kingdom, like Rāmas; they flee from the persecution of their enemies, now into the woods, now, as the Ribhavas, disguised as workmen in the palace of Virātas, to whom their presence brings every kind of happiness.

We meet with these three brothers again, episodically, in the three disciples of Dhāumyas, in the first book of the _Mahābhāratam_.[241] The first disciple, Upamanyus, takes his master's cows out to pasture, and, out of sensitive regard for his master's interest, refuses to drink not only their milk, but even the foam from their mouths, and fasts till, like to perish of hunger, he bites a leaf of arkapatrā (properly, leaf of the sun, the _aristolochia indica_), when he instantly becomes blind. He wanders about and falls into a well; he there sings a hymn to the Aēvināu, and they come immediately to deliver him. The second brother, Uddālakas, places his body, as a dike, to arrest the course of the waters. The third brother is Vedas, he who sees, he who knows, whose disciple Utańkas is himself in the form of a hero. Utańkas, like the Vedic Tritas, and the Pāndavas Argunas, is protected by Indras. He is sent by the wife of his master to abstract the earrings of the wife of King Pāushyas. He sets out; on his way he meets a gigantic bull, and a horseman, who bids him, if he would succeed, eat the excrement of the bull; he does so, rinsing his mouth afterwards. He then presents himself to King Pāushyas and informs him of his message; the king consigns the earrings to him, but cautions him to beware of Takshakas, the king of the serpents. Utańkas says that he is not afraid of him, and sets out with the earrings; but as he puts down the earrings upon the shore, in order to bathe, Takshakas presents himself in the shape of a naked mendicant, whips them up, and flees away with them. Utańkas follows him, but Takshakas resumes his serpent form, penetrates the ground, and descends under it; Utańkas attempts to follow the serpent, but does not succeed in cleaving the entrance, which corresponds to the Vedic rock under which the monster keeps his prey. Indras sees him tiring himself in vain, and sends his weapon, in order that it may be for a help to Utańkas; that weapon, or club, penetrating, opened the cavern.[242] This club, this weapon of Indras is evidently the thunderbolt.[243] Utańkas descends into the kingdom of the serpents, full of infinite wonders. Indras reappears at his side in the shape of a horse,[244] and obliges the king, Takshakas, to give back the earrings; having taken which, Utańkas mounts the horse, that he may be carried more swiftly to the wife of his master, from whom he learns that the horseman seen by him on the way was none other than Indras himself; his horse, Agnis, the god of fire; the bull, the steed of Indras, or the elephant Āiravatas; the excrement of the bull, the ambrosia, which made him immortal in the kingdom of the serpents. In another episode of the same (the first) book of the _Mahābhāratam_,[245] we again find Indras busied in the search of the earrings, that is to say, of the excessively fleshy part hanging from the ears of Karnas, the child of the sun, who, as soon as born, had been abandoned upon the waters. We have seen above how the two Aēvināu are also represented in the _Rāmāyanam_ as the two ears of Vishnus Rāmas (as the sun and moon are said to be his eyes); hence it seems to me that these mythical earrings, coveted by Indras, and protected by him, are nothing else than the two Aēvināu, the two luminous twilights (in connection with the sun and the moon), in which Indras, and, still more than he, the aurora, his wife, take such delight.[246]

In the commentary of _Buddhagoshas_ on the Buddhist Dhammapadam, we have the three brothers again; the two eldest are represented as fleeing from the persecution of their cruel step-mother; the third brother, Suriyas (Sūryas, the sun), goes to overtake them. The eldest counsels or commands, the second lends his aid, and the youngest fights. The second and third brothers fall into a fountain, under the power of a monster; the first-born saves them by his knowledge, as, in the _Mahābhāratam_, Yudhishthiras, by his skill in solving riddles, delivers the second brother from the fetters of the forest of the monster serpent.

This mode of delivering the hero, by propounding a question or a riddle, is very common in the Hindoo legends. Even in the _Pancatantram_,[247] a Brāhman who falls under the power of a forest monster who leaps on his shoulders, frees himself by asking why his feet are so soft. The monster confesses that it is because, on account of a vow, he cannot touch the earth with his feet. The Brāhman then betakes himself to a sacred pond; the monster wishes to take a bath, and the Brāhman throws him in; the monster orders him to stay there till he has bathed and said his orisons. The Brāhman profits by this opportunity to make his escape, knowing that the monster will not be able to overtake him, as he cannot put his feet to the ground. It is the usual vulnerability, weakness, or imperfection of the hero, or the monster, in the feet, and, if an animal is spoken of, in the tail.[248]

The _Mahābhāratam_ has shown us the three Vedic brothers, of whom the youngest has fallen into the well; it also presents to us, in the witch (_asurī_) Ēarmishthā, daughter of Vrishaparvan, king of the demons, and in the nymph Devayānī, daughter of Ēukras, who credits herself with the virtue of Indras as the rain-giver,[249] the two rival sisters of the Vedas, the good and the evil. In the _Rāmāyanam_,[250] the witch Ēūrpanakhā, who seduces Rāmas, in order to take the place of Sītā at his side, is compared to Ēarmishthā, who seduced Nāhushas. In the _Mahābhāratam_, Ēarmishthā assumes the guise of Devayānī, whom she throws into a well. Yayātis, son of King Nāhushas, goes to the chase; feeling thirsty, he stops near the well; from the bottom of the well a young girl looks up, like a flame of fire.[251] The prince takes her by the right hand and draws her up; and because in the marriage ceremony, the bride is taken by the right hand,[252] the prince Yayātis is said to marry Devayānī. But even after she is a wife, Ēarmishthā continues to seduce her husband, to whom she unites herself. Two sons are born of Devayānī, Yadus and Turvasas, similar to Indras and Vishnus (a new form of the twins, of the Aēvināu); three are born of Ēarmishthā, Duhyus, Anus, and Pūrus; and here also the third brother is the most glorious and valiant. And in this way the episode is connected with the essential legend of the _Mahābhāratam_, and one and the same general myth is multiplied into an infinity of particular legends. As the genealogy of the gods and heroes is infinite, so is there an infinite number of forms assumed by the same myth and of the names assumed by the same hero. Each day gave birth in the heavens to a new hero and a new monster, who exterminate each other, and afterwards revive in an aspect more or less glorious, according as their names were more or less fortunate.

It is for the same reason that the sons always recognise their fathers without having once seen them or even heard them spoken of; they recognise themselves in their fathers. Thus Ēakuntalā and Urvacī enable their mother to find again the husband that she has lost, and their father to recover his lost wife. Thus in the episode of Devayānī and Ēarmishthā, when the former wishes to know who is the father of the three sons of Ēarmishthā, so similar to the sons of immortals, she turns to them, and they tell her at once.

For this fault, Yayātis, from being young, is fated to become old. He then beseeches the two eldest of the three sons that he had by Ēarmishthā to take on themselves the old age of their father; they refuse, but the third son, Pūrus, out of reverence for his father, consents to become old in his stead, to give up his youth to his father. After a thousand years, the king Yayātis, satiated with life, restores to his son Pūrus his youth, and although he is the youngest, along with his youth, the kingdom, because he found him the only one of the three who respected the paternal will; and he expels the two eldest brothers.[253]

Sometimes, however, the blind old father is entirely abandoned by his sons. Thus the old Dīrghatamas (of the vast darkness), blind from birth, is deprived of food, and thrown into the water by his wife and sons,[254] but a heroic king saves him, in order, by his wife, to beget sons for him. We have in Dīrghatamas and Yayātis, King Lear in embryo.

In the same legend of Dīrghatamas, we find an exchange of wives. Queen Sudeshnā, instead of going herself, sends her servant-maid, her foster-sister, to be embraced by Dīrghatamas.[255] In the cunning Sudeshnā we have an ancient variation of Queen Berta.

Other blind men occur frequently in the Hindoo legends. I shall here cite only Andhakas (the blind one) and Vrishnis (the sheep, as the lame one),[256] who appear in the _Harivanēas_[257] as the two sons of Mādrī. But we know from the _Mahābhāratam_, that the two sons of Mādrī are a human incarnation of the celestial twins, the Aēvināu; and here we come again upon the blind-lame one of the Vedas, the solar hero in his twin forms, the two Aēvināu protected by Indras, and companions of the dawn.

The _Pancatantram_[258] represents the blind and the crooked, or hunchbacked,[259] in union with the three-breasted princess (_i.e._, the triple sister, the aurora in the evening, the aurora in the night, the aurora in the morning; the breast of the night nourishing the defective, the monstrous, which the morning sweeps away). The crooked guides the blind with a stick; they both marry the three-breasted princess. The blind recovers sight by the steam of the poison of a black serpent, cooked in milk (the darkness of night, or of winter, mixed with the clearness of day, or of the snow); he then, being a strongly-built man, takes the hunchback by the legs, and beats his hunch against the third and superfluous breast of the princess. The anterior prominence of the latter, and the posterior one of the former, enter into their respective bodies;[260] thus the blind, the crooked, and the three-breasted princess help and cure each other; the two Aēvināu and the aurora (or the spring) reappear together in beauty. The Aēvināu and the aurora also come forth together from the monstrous shades of night; the Aēvināu contend for the aurora; as we shall see soon, and in the next chapter, the delivered bride disputed for by the brothers.

The sun and the aurora flee from each other; this spectacle has been represented in different ways by the popular imagination; and one of the most familiar is certainly that of a beautiful young girl who, running more quickly than the prince, escapes from him. This incident, which is already described in the _Rigvedas_, occurs again in the _Mahābhāratam_,[261] in the legend of the loves of the virgin Tapatī, daughter of the sun (the luminous and burning aurora, and also the summer season, ardent as Dahanā), with the king Samvaranas, son of the bear (_rikshaputras_, a kind of Indras). The king Samvaranas arrives on horseback with his retinue at the mountain, in order to hunt; he ties his horse up and begins the chase, when he sees on the mountain the beautiful girl, the daughter of the sun, who, covered with ornaments, shines like the sun; he declares his love and wishes to make her his own; she answers not a word, but flees and disappears like the lightning in the clouds;[262] the king cannot overtake her, because his horse, while he was hunting, has died of hunger and thirst; he searches in vain through the forest, but not seeing her, he throws himself almost breathless to the ground. As he lies there the beautiful girl appears again, approaches and wakens him; he again speaks to her of love, and she answers that he must ask her father the sun, and then, still quite innocent, she disappears swiftly on high (_ūrdhvam_). The king again faints; his minister sprinkles him with the water of health, and makes him revive, but he refuses to leave the mountain, and having dismissed his hunting company, he awaits the arrival of the great purohitas Vasishthas, by whose mediation he demands from the sun his daughter Tapatī to wife; the sun consents, and Vasishthas reconducts to Samvaranas, for the third time, the beautiful girl as his legitimate wife. The husband and wife live together happily on the mountain of their loves; but as long as King Samvaranas remains with Tapatī upon this mountain, no rain falls upon the earth; wherefore the king, out of love for his subjects, returns to his palace, upon which Indras pours down the rain, and begins again to fructify the earth.[263]

We said a little ago that Vasishthas himself caused it to rain (_abhyavarshata_); and the mention of Vasishthas reminds us of the particularly rain-giving, cloudy, and lunar function of his cow Kādmadhenus, whose wonderful productions are again described in the _Mahābhāratam_.[264] Besides milk and ambrosia, she yields herbs and gems, which we have already referred to, as analogous products in mythology. The cow of Vasishthas is, besides her tail, celebrated for her breasts, her horns, and even her ears ending in a point; whence her name of _ēańkukarnā_ (the masculine form of which is generally applied to the ass). And in the _Mahābhāratam_, also, the wise Viēvāmitras is covetous of this wonderful cow; the cow bellows and drops fire from her tail, and radiates from every part of her body armies which disperse those of the son of Gadhis. Viēvāmitras then avenges himself in other ways upon the sons of Vasishthas; having, _e.g._, become a cannibal, he eats them.

Vasishthas cannot endure the pain this causes him: he tries to throw himself down from the summit of Mount Merus, but he falls without hurting himself; he throws himself into the fire, but does not burn himself; and, finally, he leaps into the sea, but is not drowned. These three miracles are accomplished every day by the solar hero, who throws himself down from the mountain into the gloomy ocean of night, after having passed through the burning sky of evening.

Vasishthas ends by freeing, with the help of charmed water, the monster Viēvāmitras from his curse; and the latter is no sooner delivered from the demon who possessed him, than he begins again to illumine the forest with his splendour, as the sun illumines a twilight cloud. The friendships, enmities, and rivalries of Vasishthas and Viēvāmitras seem to be another version of those of the two Aēvināu, whom we shall particularly describe in the next chapter.

Meanwhile, it is high time, as the reader will think, to conclude this part of our study, which treats of the mythical cow of India. We might easily, indeed, have made it much larger, had our design been to chain together, link by link, all the traditions and legends in which the cow plays a primary or subordinate part. But it is better to stop short, lest, by expatiating further, we should lose sight of the essential aim of our work, and be tempted into digressions from the legends relating to beasts to those relating to men; besides, we think that we have sufficiently proved the thesis of this chapter, and shown how the principal mythical subjects of the Vedic hymns are not only preserved, but developed, in the posterior Hindoo traditions. It is not entirely our fault if, from cows, we pass so often to princesses, and from bulls to princes; the myth itself involves and indicates these transformations. Hence we find the bull Indras, the winner of the cows, become a winner and a seducer of women; we see the bull Wind, who aids Indras in the conquest of the cows, become the violator of a hundred damsels;[265] we read of the bull and god Rudras, as husband of Umā, given up to sensual indulgence for a hundred years without a pause; that the son of the bull, or of the wind, Hanumant, does prodigies of valour and strength for the sake of a beautiful woman, and receives, as a reward for his zeal, from the king Bharatas, a hundred thousand cows, sixteen wives, and a hundred servant-maids.[266] What could Hanumant have done with so many wives and maids, if he were simply a bull? or what could he have done with so many cows, if he had been an ape? It is these inconsistencies which have caused mythology to be condemned by the crowd of old but prolific pedants, as a vain science; whereas, on the contrary, it is precisely these inconsistencies which raise it, in our esteem, to the rank of a valid science. He who handed down to us the feats of Hanumant, took care also to tell us how he had the faculty of changing his form at will; and this faculty, attributed to this impersonation of a celestial phenomenon, is the fruit of one of the most _naļve_ but just observations of virgin and grandiose nature.

FOOTNOTES:

[132] I must, however, observe that competent authorities, such as Professor Weber, consider the phallical worship of Ēivas to have originated in the beliefs of the indigenous tribes of Dravidian race.

[133] _Rigv._ i. 123, 8.

[134] Vidique saepe, sed cumprimis anno 1785 in Malabaria ad flumen templo celebri Ambalapushe proximum, extra oppidum Callureąta in silvula, sententia regis Travancoridis Rįma Varmer, quinque viros arbori appensos et morti traditos, quod, contra regni leges et religionis pręscripta, voluntarie unicam vaccam occiderint; _Systema Brahmanicum_, illustr. Fr. Paullinus a S. Bartholomęo, Romę, 179.--Cfr. _Mānava-Dharmaēāstram_, xi. 60, and _Yāgnavalkya-Dharmaēāstram_, iii. 234.

[135] ii. 1, 8.

[136] Pancagavyam piban goghno māsam āsīta samyatah goshtreēayo go 'nugāmī gopradānena ēudhyati; _Dharm._ iii. 263.

[137] _Dharm._ xi. 166.

[138] Ibid. iii. 271.

[139] Ka imam daēabhir mamendram krīnāti dhenubhih; _Rigv._ iv. 24, 10.

[140] _Dharm._ iii. 27.

[141] _Grihyasūtrāni_, i. 8, 9.--It was, moreover, on the occasion of a marriage, the custom to give cows to the Brāhmans; in the _Rāmāyanam_, i. 74, the King Daēarathas, at the nuptials of his four sons, gives 400,000 cows.

[142] Ā nah pragām ganayatu pragāpatih; _Rigv._ x. 85, 43.

[143] Gocarmavasano harih; xiii. 1228.

[144] Cfr. Böhtlingk u. Roth's, _Sanskrit Wörterbuch_ s. v. _gocarman_.

[145] Āēvalāy. _Grihyasū._ iv. 3.

[146] _Grihyasū._ i. 13.--The commentator _Nārāyanas_, quoted by Professor Stenzler, in his version of _Āēvalāyanas_, explains how the two beans and grain of barley express by their form the male organs of generation.

[147] _Grihyasū._ i. 14.

[148] _Grihyasū._ ii. 10.--The St Antony, protector of animals, of the Vedic faith was the god Rudras, the wind, to whom, when the cattle were afflicted by a disease, it was necessary to sacrifice in the midst of an enclosure of cows.--Cfr. the same, _Āēvalāy._ iv. 8.

[149] Yac ca goshu dushvapnyam yac cāsme duhitar divah tritāya tad vibhāvary āptyāya parā vahānehaso va ūtayah suūtayo va ūtayah; _Rigv._ viii. 47, 14.

[150] Payah krishnāsu ruēad rohinīshu; _Rigv._ i. 62, 9.--Cfr. _Rigv._ i. 123, 9.

[151] _Grihyasū._ iv. 3.

[152] Āēvalāy; _Grihyasū._

[153] v. 4, 23.

[154] Indro vāi vritram hatvā viēvakarmābhavat; iv. 3, 22.

[155] iii. 2, 37.

[156] Ushase carum yoshāh sā rākā so eva trishtup gave carum ya gįuh sā sinīvālī (the new moon) so eva gagati; iii. 2, 48.

[157] Abhūd ushā ruēatpaēur ityushaso rūpam; i. 2, 18.--Gobhirarunāir ushā āgimadhāvat tasmād ushasyagatāyām arunam ivaeva pra-bhįtyushasorūpam; iv. 2, 9.--Abhūd ushā ruēatpaēur ityushaso rūpam; i. 2, 18.

[158] _Āit.-brāhm._ vi. 4, 24.

[159] _Āit.-brāhm._ iv. 3, 17.

[160] iii. 8080.

[161] Cfr. Weber's _Über die Krishnagamāshtamī_, Berlin, 1868; _L'Inde Franēaise_, par Eugčne Burnouf, Paris, 1828; _The Hindoos_, London, 1834, vol. i.

[162] iv. 3, 20.

[163] i. 3. 22.

[164] Mahīnām payo 'sy oshadhīnįm rasah; _Taittir. Yagurv._ i. 1, 10.--Kshīrodam sāgaram sarve mathnīmah sahitā vayam nāuāushadhīh samāhritya prakshipya ca tatastatah; _Rāmāy._ i. 46.--Cfr. Kuhn's _Die Herabkunft des Feuers und des Göttertranks_, Berlin, 1859.

[165] The _Gandhamādanas_ is especially defended by the _Gandharvās_, a word which seems to be composed of _gandha_, perfume, and _arvas_, the one who goes on (and afterwards the horse), from the root _arv_, expansion of _riv_; according to this, they would therefore be those who go in the perfumes, as the nymphs beloved and guarded by them are they who go in the waters (ap-sarasas). Cfr. the chapter on the Ass.

[166] Cfr. _Rāmāy._ vi. 82, 83.

[167] Böhtlingk's _Indische Sprüche_, 122, erster Theil; 2^te Aufl. S. Petersburg, 1870.--Cfr. _Mahābhāratam_, i. 1143-1145.

[168] Abhi tyam devam savitāram ūnyoh kavikratum arcāmi satyasavasam ratnadhām abhi priyam matim; _Tāittir. Yagurv._ i. 2, 6.

[169] i. 46.

[170] xiii. 7034.

[171] Hariv., 12,367.

[172] Āruhya tasya ēikhare so 'paēyat paramāushadīm drishtvā cotpātayāmāsa viēalyakaranīm ēubhām.--Viēalyo nirugah ēīghramudatishthanmahītalāt; vi. 83.

[173] Sa nighrishāńgulim rāmo dhāute manahēilāgirāu cakara tilakam patnyā lalāte ruciram tadā bālārkasamavarnena tena sā giridhātunā lalāte vinivishthe na sasamdheva niēābhavat; _Rāmāy._ ii. 105.

[174] Sīvyatu apah sūcyāchidyamānayā dadātu vīram ēatadāyam ukthyam; _Rigv._ ii. 32, 4.

[175] Tatah ēubham sā tarunārkasamnibham gataklamā vasrayugam sadā malam srago 'ńgarāgam ca vibhūshanāni ca prasannacetā gagrihe tu māithilī; _Rāmāy._ iii. 5.

[176] _Rāmāy._ iv. 50-53.

[177] Pītāirnivāsitā vastrāih krīdanto gomaye hrade; _Rāmāy._ v. 27.--Cfr. vi. 23.

[178] Sītāmuvāca ha dīpyamānām svayā lakshmyā sandhyāmāutpātikīmiva; _Rāmāy._ v. 52.

[179] Samarthā gatanam gantumapivā tvam rasātalam--Acirammokshyase sīte; _Rāmāy._ vi. 9, 10.

[180] Sāumyah somātmagįh; _Rāmāy._ vi. 6.

[181] Sitah kakudvāniva tīkshnaērińgo rarāga candrah paripūrnaērińgah; _Rāmāy._ v. 11.--Cfr. v. 20.

[182] Babhāu nashtaprabhah sūryo raganī cābhyavartata; _Rāmāy._ ii. 92.

[183] Nishādarāgo guhah sanīlāmbudatulyavarnah; _Rāmāy._ ii. 48.

[184] Sadā vanagocarah; _Rāmāy._ ii. 98.

[185] iii. 63.

[186] _Rāmāy._ iv. 1.

[187] Sahasrākshadhanushmadbhis toyadāiriva mārutah; _Rāmāy._ v. 40.

[188] _Rāmāy._ v. 73.--In the _Rāmāyanam_ itself, Rāmas, overpowered with grief, is compared now to a bull (v. 34), now to an elephant tormented by a lion (v. 37).

[189] _Rāmāy._ vi. 105.

[190] _Rāmāy._ vi. 102.

[191] Ēāradam sthūlaprishatam ērińgābhyām govrisho yathā; _Rāmāy._ iii. 32.

[192] _Rāmāy._ v. 28.--The monster Kabandhas salutes them both with the name of _Vrishabhaskandhāu_, or they who have bulls' shoulders; _Rāmāy._ iii. 74.

[193] _Rāmāy._ vii. 36-38.

[194] _Rāmāy._ v. 93.

[195] Ērantānstu na tapet sūryah kathancidvānarānapi abhrāni gagnire digbhyas chādayitvā raveh prabhām pravavarsha ca parganyo mārutaēca ēivo vavāu; _Rāmāy._ v. 95.

[196] _Rāmāy._ iii. 77.

[197] _Rāmāy._ iii. 23.

[198] _Rāmāy._ vi. 37.

[199] Paēya lakshmana mārīcam mahāēanisamasvanam sapadānugamāyāntam subāhum ca niēācaram etāvadya mayā paēya nīlāncanacayopamāu asmin kshane samādhūtāvanilenāmbudāviva; _Rāmāy._ i. 33.

[200] Ēakreneva vinirmukto vagrastaruvaropari; _Rāmāy._ iii. 35.

[201] Māyāmāēritya vipulām vātadurdinasamkulām; _Rāmāy._ iii. 73.

[202] Te nikrittabhugaskandhās kavandhākriti ekadarēanāh nadanto bhāiravānnādānnāpatanti sma dānavās; _Mbh._ iii. 806.

[203] Atha tatra mahāghoram vikritam tam mahocchrayam vivriddhamaēirogrīvam kabandhamudare mukham romabhirnicitam tikshnāirmahāgirimivocchritam nīlameghanibham ghoram meghastanitanisvanam mahatā cātipińgena vipulenāyatenaca ekenorasi dīrghena nayanenātidarēinā; _Rāmāy._ iii. 74.--The one yellowish eye of Kabandhas reminds us of Vāiēravanas with only one yellowish eye (_ekapinghekshanas_), his other eye having been burnt out by the goddess Parvatī; _Rāmāy._ vii. 13.

[204] i. 49; ii. 7, _et passim_.

[205] Cfr. the chapter on the Wolf.

[206] iii. 40, _et seq._

[207] Tarunādityasamkāēām taptakāncanabhūshitām raktāmbaradharām bālām; _Rāmāy._ vi. 103.--Of the dress of Sītā we read in another place that it shines "like the light of the sun upon the summit of a mountain" (Sūryaprabheva ēāilāgre tasyāh kāusheyamuttamam; iv. 58).

[208] _Rāmāy._ vi. 99.

[209] Cfr. Weber's _Ueber das Rāmāyana_, Berlin, 1870, p. 9.

[210] Ibid. p. 1.

[211] Vīryaēulkā ca me kanyā divyarūpā gunānvitā bhūtalādutthitā pūrvam nāmnā sītetyayonigā; _Rāmāy._ i. 68.

[212] _Rāmāy._ vii. 104, 105.

[213] _Kathā sarit sāgaras_, iii. 17.

[214] i. 3888-3965.

[215] "Apriyanca na kartavyam krite cāinām tyagāmyaham," says Garatkarus; _Mbh._ i. 1871.

[216] _Mbh._ i. 1870-1911.

[217] _Indische Studien_, vol. i. pp. 457-464, vol. ii. pp. 111-128.

[218] _History of Ancient Sanskrit Literature._

[219] Varunas, the god of night, has, like the night, a double aspect; now he is the gloomy ocean, now the luminous milky ocean without a moon. He is represented under the latter aspect in the 7th book of the _Rāmāyanam_ (canto 27), in which the solar hero, having entered the celestial city of Varunas, finds the cow which always yields milk (payah ksharantām satatam tatra gām ca dadarēa sah), whence the white-rayed moon emerges, whence also the ambrosia and the nectar (yataēcandrah prabhavati ēītaraēmih--yasmādamritamutpannam sudhā cāpi).

[220] Cfr. the chapter on the Horse.

[221] In the _Rāmāyanam_, i. 63, the deliverer is Indras, who, even in the _Āitareya_, does much for Ēunahēepas.

[222] Tegasā gharmadah sadā--Prāsādaēatasambādham nirmitam viēvakarmanā ēobhitam padminībhiēca kāncanāiēca mahādrumāih nilayah pāēahastasya varunasya mahātmanah; _Rāmāy._ iv. 43.

[223] i. 64.

[224] The Puranic-legend gives an instance of such another father in Hiranyakaēipus, who, persecuting his own son Prahlādas, tries to destroy him in several ways, and finally throws him into the sea; Prahlādas praises Vishnus, and is delivered.--Cfr. _The Vishnu Purāna_, translated by H. Wilson, i. 17-20. London: Trübner, 1864.

[225] Chap. xii. 13.

[226] i. 54-56.

[227] Etadeva hi me ratnametadeva hi me dhanam etadva hi sarvasvam etadeva hi givitam; _Rāmāy._ 1. c.

[228] Nanāda vividhān nādān yathā prāvrishi toyadah; _Rāmāy._ iii. 24.

[229] Dhārayan māhisham rupam tīkshnaērińgo bhayāvahah; _Rāmāy._ iv. 9.--Further on, instead (iv. 46), the buffalo is said to be the brother of Dundubhis, and to have the strength of a thousand serpents (balam nāgasahasrasya dhārayan) or elephants, for the word _nāgas_ is equivocal.

[230] Ērińgābhyāmālikhan darpat taddvāram; _Rāmāy_, iv. 9.--Cfr. the two chapters which treat of the Horse and the Monkey.

[231] I do not insist upon this brāhmanic god, because his legend is now popular.--Cfr., for the rest, for the relationship of Krishnas with the cows, the cowherds, and the cow-maiden, the whole 5th book of the _Vishnu Purāna_, translated by H. Wilson, and the _Gītagovindas_ of Gayadevas, edidit Lassen, Bonn, 1836.

[232] Viēvarūpo vāi tvāshtrah purohito devānām āsīt svasriyo 'surānām tasya trīni ēirshāny asant--Indras tasya vagram ādāya ēīrshāny achinad yat somapānam--Brahma-hatyam upā 'grihnat--Tam bhūtāny abhy akroēan brahmahann iti; _Tāittirīya Samhitā_, ed. Weber. ii. 5, 1-6.

[233] vii. 5, 28.

[234] Sa tasya khańgena mahāēirānsi kapih samas tām sukundalām kruddhah praciccheda tadā hanūmāns tvāshtrātmagasyeva ēirānsi ēakrah; _Rāmāy._ vii. 50.

[235] _Rāmāy._ vii. 10.

[236] _Mbh._ i. 4990.--Cfr. also the three phallical and solar brothers of the story of Ēunahēepas (him with the luminous tail or phallus).

[237] i. 4775.

[238] Balam nāgasahasrasya yasmin kunde pratishthitam yāvatpivati bālo 'yam tāvad asmāi pradīyatam--ekocchvāsāttatah kundam danah; _Mbh._ i. 5030, 5032.--A similar legend is found again in the third book of the _Mahābhāratam_, under the form of an impenetrable forest, in which the king of the serpents envelops Bhīmas.

[239] _Mbh._ i. 4777.

[240] i. 5300-5304.

[241] i. 680-828.

[242] Tam kliēyamānamindro 'paēyatsa vagram preshayāmāsa--gacchāsya brāhmanasya sāhāyyam kurusveti--atha vagram dandakāshthamanupraviēya tadvilamadārayat; _Mbh._ i. 794-795.

[243] In a legend of the Tibetan Buddhists, referred to by Professor Schiefner in his interesting work, _Ueber Indra's Donnerkeil_ (St Petersburg), 1848, we find two valiant heroes who, upon Mount Gridhrakūta (the vulture's peak), strive, in presence of their master, to lift the vagram (that is, the arm in the form of a wedge, the lever-rod, the thunderbolt of Indras), but in vain; Vagrapānis alone succeeds in lifting the vagram with his right hand. Rāmas makes a similar trial of strength in the _Rāmāyanam_, when he lifts and breaks in pieces a bow, which no one had before been able even to move.

[244] Cfr. the following chapter.

[245] i. 2772-2783.

[246] To the myth of the ravished earrings is almost always joined, even in the popular tales, the story of the horse, which is always especially referred to the Aēvināu, as that of the bull to Indras. In the Puranic legends, Krishnas receives from the earth the earrings of Aditis (whom we already know to be a cow), whilst he frees the princesses from the infernal Narakas.--Cfr. the _Vishnu Purāna_, v. 29.

[247] v. 17.

[248] Cfr. the chapters which treat of the Wolf, the Fox, and the Serpent; and also the foregoing discussion on the Vedic riddles, where the sun is called _anipadyamānas_.

[249] Aham galam kimuncāmi pragānām hitakāmyayā; _Mbh._ i. 3317.

[250] iii. 23, 24.

[251] Dadarēa rāgā tām tatra kanyāmagniēikhāmiva; _Mbh._ i. 3294.

[252] _Mbh._ i. 3379-3394

[253] _Mbh._ i. 3435-3545.

[254] _Mbh._ i. 4193-4211.

[255] _Mbh._ i. 4211-4216.

[256] We shall find the lame goat in the chapter which treats of the Lamb and the Goat.

[257] 1908.

[258] v. 12.

[259] The word _badhiras_ means here the crooked, the crippled one, and not the deaf (from the root _badh_ or _vadh_, to wound, to cut); the more so that here the name of the blind man's companion is Mantharakas, a word which properly means the slow one. The curved line and the slow line correspond; and the curved one, who cannot stand upright, may be the hunchback just as well as the cripple, the crooked, the lame.--Cfr. The chapter on the Tortoise.

[260] For the incident of the hunchback who betrays the blind man, in the same popular tale, cfr. next chapter.

[261] i. 6527.

[262] Sāudāminīva cābhreshu tatrāevāntaradhīyata; _Mbh._ i. 6557.

[263] Tasminnripatiēārdūle pravishte nagaram punah pravavarsha sahasrākshah ēasyāni ganayanprabhuh; _Mbh._ 6629, 6630.

[264] i. 6651-6772.

[265] The hundred daughters of King Kuēanabhas, and of the nymph Ghritāci, who walks in curdled milk, recalling to us the mythical cow.--Cfr. _Rāmāy._ i. 35.

[266] Cfr. Virgil, _Ęnėid_, I. 65-75, where Juno gives the nymph Deiopea to Ęolus.

SECTION III.

THE BULL AND THE COW IN IRANIAN AND TURANIAN TRADITION.

SUMMARY.

   The bull the first created in Persian tradition.--The bull of
   Mithra.--Mithra and Yamas.--The excrements of the celestial cow and
   bull.--Exorcisms for chasing the evil one away from the beasts of
   the stable.--The salutary herb, rue.--The heavenly cypress and the
   mythical forest.--The mountain and the gem.--The mountain of the
   heroes.--The defenceless soul of the bull recommends itself to the
   mercy of the gods.--The moon, as a cow or bitch, guides the hero
   over the funereal bridge.--The many-eyed god.--The golden-hoofed
   bull.--The spinners of the sky.--Friendship between sun and
   moon.--The Geusurva is the full moon.--The purifying
   moon.--Ardhvī-Ēūra-Anāhita, the Persian aurora, has all the
   characteristics of the Vedic aurora, elevated, luminous, discomfiter
   of the demons, deliverer of the hero Thraetaona from the water,
   having golden shoes, swift, the first to arrive with her chariot,
   guesser of riddles, revered at the break of day.--The aurora sung to
   by her own name, the cow-aurora.--Mithra, the shepherd-god,--Mithra,
   the hero who fights to recover his cows.--The bull
   Veretraghna.--Thrita and Thraetaona.--The three brothers in the
   Avesta.--The two brothers.--The three sisters.--The strength of the
   solar hero consists in the wind.--The winds have golden shoes and an
   especial foible for women, as the women have for them.--Indras
   envious of the Marutas.--Kereēāēpa envious of the wind.--The wind,
   with its whistling and wailing, makes everything tremble; the hero
   presses him tightly and forces him to be silent.--The bound
   hero.--The bow-cow, and the birds coming out of the cow in the
   Avesta.--The darts, horns of the cow.--The rich brother and the poor
   one.--The poor one, who has a lean ox and a lean horse, makes his
   fortune.--Ashis Vaguhi, another equivalent of the aurora who also
   frees the hero Thraetaona.--Other names of the three Persian
   brothers.--Importance of the Avesta on account of its mythical
   contents.--The hero exposed on the mountain.--The hero-shepherd, the
   wonderful child, Cyrus.--Feridun.--The three brothers, sons of
   Feridun; the third brother is the best, and is murdered by the two
   elder ones.--Sal, with white hair, the hero exposed and nourished by
   a bird, solves riddles, and receives in reward the daughter of the
   king.--The hero Rustem, with the mace of a bull's head, with the
   strong horse that vanquishes the lion, the strong hero, the Persian
   Orlando, kills and binds demons, monsters, and giants, who fight
   with rocks.--From black comes white.--The prince Kawus recovers his
   sight after the death of the monster.--The demon in the mountain,
   who keeps back the waters, is the same as the demon in the
   mill.--The hero Rustem unites himself with the daughter of the
   demoniacal and hostile king.--Sohrab is born of this union, with a
   demoniacal nature.--Gurdaferid, the Persian amazon princess,
   assailed in her white castle by the hero-demon Sohrab.--Rustem
   fights, wins, and kills his son Sohrab; he then retires from
   warfare.--Explanation of this myth.--The end of Rustem in an
   ambuscade.--Sijavush persecuted by his stepmother, whose love he had
   disdained; the young prince submits to the trial by fire, and comes
   out safely: the cruel stepmother was to have undergone the same
   trial, but Sijavush intercedes for her; she continues to persecute
   him; Sijavush dies in the country of his demoniacal father-in-law,
   and is avenged by Rustem, who kills the cruel stepmother.--The
   child-hero Kai Khosru consigned to the care of shepherds; during his
   childhood he performs prodigies of valour, and passes a river with
   dry feet.--The strength of the hair of the hero Firud.--The two
   hero-brothers again; one brother avenges the other.--The old hero
   becomes a penitent, and disappears in a tempest upon a
   mountain.--The seven heroic undertakings of Isfendiar.--The legend
   of Iskander.--The Tuti-Name.--The hero who wishes to kill himself
   for the king's sake; the deity prevents the sacrifice.--The story of
   the poor man and the rich one again.--The beautiful woman persecuted
   by her brother-in-law the seducer; the oriental Crescentia or
   Genevičve.--The sea, invited to the wedding, brings pearls and
   gold.--The maiden who discovers the thief by means of a riddle.--The
   girl who gives his eyesight back to the blind man against her
   will.--The lovers flee upon the bull's back.--The lover forsakes his
   mistress on the shore after having despoiled her.--The three
   brothers deliver the beautiful maiden and dispute for her; the
   maiden takes refuge in a convent.--The wise child who distinguishes
   false from true, honest from dishonest.--The money of the dead
   man.--The adulterer condemned to death who bites off the nose of his
   companion in guilt and dissoluteness.--The wife despoiled of her
   riches by her husband and thrown into the water.--Romeo and Juliet
   in the East.--The three brothers: the seer; the strong carrier, or
   Christophoros; the victorious one.--The disputed bride again.--The
   little pipkin of abundance; Perrette in the East.--The small
   porringer of abundance, which the two brothers contend for.--The
   shoes which take one in an instant wherever one wishes to go.--The
   little purse which is filled as fast as it is emptied.--The sword
   which makes a city rise.--The animals which contend for the division
   of the prey, and the third comer who profits between two
   disputers.--The four mines of the four brothers.--Why old men have
   white hair.--Calmuc and Mongol tradition.--The six companions are
   the same as three.--The bride torn in pieces.--A man unites himself
   with a cow, which brings forth a Minotaur of a good nature, who
   fights against the demons in favour of the gods.--The gem in the
   cow's litter.--The bull lost.--The three sisters; the third sister
   marries the monster bird; she loses him, because she has burned the
   aviary.--The painter and the woodman in Paradise; the painter is
   burned.--The two brothers, the rich one and the poor one; the rich
   brother ends badly.--The husband who despoils his wife and hides her
   in a chest in the sand of the desert.--The gem of the prince falls
   to the ground; his nose bleeds and he dies; explanation of this
   myth.--The wonderful hammer, which, when used, brings one whatever
   is wished for.--The rich and poor brothers; the poor one becomes
   rich.--The lengthened nose and the corresponding Italian
   proverb.--The wife kills her husband with the hammer, wishing to
   knock a protuberance off his nose.--The old man who eats his last
   cow; his wife continues, even after its death, to nourish and
   protect him until the wild beasts in the cavern devour him.--The
   woman disguised as a solar hero.--The lion and the bull friends, or
   foster-brothers; their friendship is put an end to by the fox.--The
   projects of Perrette again.--The horns of the dead buffalo.--The
   grateful animals.--The laughing princess.--The wise
   herd-children.--The wise puppets.--The prince born of a cake.--The
   boy learns in the forest every art, even devilish ones.--The son of
   the wolves who understands their language.--Heroes and demons cut
   in pieces multiply themselves.--The hero has good luck, because he
   has performed funeral services to the dead.--Four young shepherds, a
   new form of the Ribhavas, make a beautiful maiden of wood, and then
   dispute for her.--The wife throws her husband into the fountain out
   of jealousy, having heard another voice, perhaps the echo of her
   own.--The princess Light of the sun, who must be seen by no one, and
   who is visited by the minister Moon.--Turanian tradition in
   Siberia.--The three brothers dream upon the mountain; the third
   brother is persecuted on account of his dream; he finds the blind
   woman and lame man, and induces them to adopt him; he hunts, fights
   against the devil, and vanquishes him; from the body of the demon
   come forth animals, men, and treasures; he fishes up in the sea of
   milk the casket which contains the eyes of the blind woman; receives
   extraordinary gifts, and above all the faculty of transforming
   himself; wins his predestined bride, and kills his own cruel
   father.--The hero who solves enigmas.--Ancient and modern
   riddles.--The cow devours the wolf, and the wolf devours the
   cow.--The bow of horn.--The wolves fastened to the calf's tail.--The
   soul of the black bull in the rainbow, the bridge of souls, wounded
   by the young hero, who then espouses the daughter of the sky, after
   attaining the third heaven, and accomplishing heroic undertakings to
   merit her.--The sleeper in the cup, the gem in the fish.--The
   Argonauts and Medea in Turan.--The Finnish Diana.--The Finnish
   thundering God, Kave Ukko.--The little sun, the Finnish
   dwarf-hero.--The second of the three brothers.--The strong
   bear.--The monster giant darkness or cloud.--The Orpheus and the
   lyre of the Finns; grief the inspirer of song.--Finnish and Aryan
   myths.--The Sampo.--Esthonian tradition.--The three sisters; the
   third is the most beautiful, and is persecuted by her stepmother,
   and delivered by the prince.--The bird of light.--The maiden
   transformed into a pond-rose, and delivered by her husband in the
   shape of a shrimp.--The witch is burned in the form of a cat.--The
   gold of the witch.--Explanation of several myths.--The third brother
   is the swiftest.--The wise maiden.--The golden fairy.--The
   puppet.--The magical rod makes the cock come out of the
   mountain.--The fairy is good towards the good, and punishes the
   wicked.--The cow lost.--The old hospitable dwarf.--The leaf which
   carries the hero across the waters.--Heroic undertakings against the
   serpent and the tortoise.--The third brother, expelled from home,
   travels and solves riddles on the way.--The rod which makes a
   bridge.--In heaven and in hell time passes quickly.--The hero
   under-cook.--The golden birds and the voyages to hell.--The brothers
   punished, and the bride won by the magical sword.--The son of
   thunder.--The weapon carried off from the god of thunder.--The
   weapon recovered.--The fisherman-god.--The marvellous musical
   instrument; the magical flute.--The three dwarfs.--The hat that
   makes its owner invisible, made of men's nails; the shoes which
   carry one where-ever one wishes, and the stick which fights of
   itself.--The proverb of the third who profits between two disputers
   again.--The third brother is the son of a king, exposed when a
   child; he awakens the princess who sleeps in the glass mountain;
   _non est mortua puella, sed dormit_.--Passage from the dawn of the
   day to the dawn of the year.--The child sold by his father without
   the latter's knowledge.--The boy exchanged.--The boy sets out to
   deliver the maiden from the demon.--The pea, the kidney-bean, the
   cabbage, and the pumpkin of funerals accompany the solar hero in his
   nocturnal voyage.--The symbol of abundance, of generation, of
   stupidity.--The nuptial beans.--Meaning of the myth concerning
   vegetables.--The region of silence.--The region of noise.--The wise
   girl helps the hero.--The cow milked and the calf bound.--The
   luminous ball comes out of the calf.--The antithesis of white and of
   black.--Hungarian proverbs.--The luminous ball comes out of the
   stone.--The luminous ball and the ring.--The fearless hero frees the
   castle from spirits.--The Esthonian story of Blue Beard.--The
   charivari in the nuptials of widowers.--The widow who burns
   herself.--The hero exposed, and then brought up among cowherds,
   feels himself predestined to reign, and learns the art by guiding
   herds.--The German (or Western) witch endeavours to take the red
   strawberries from the Esthonian hero.--The boy avenges this injury
   by causing her to be devoured by wolves, who will not touch her
   heart.--The gardener's daughter.--The broken ring; the two parts of
   the ring unite again; the husband and wife find each other once
   more.--The maiden born of the egg in the shape of a puppet.--The
   casket which brings good luck disappears when the young couple are
   married.

Moving now from India westwards, we find on one side the Iranian, and on the other the Turanian traditions. We cannot pass into Europe without at least indicating the general character of each.

In the Persian cosmogony, the bull (_gāus aevo dāto_) is one of the first of created existences, being as old as the elements. It is, moreover, well known how much importance was ascribed to the bull among the Persians in the mysteries of the solar god Mithra, who is represented as a beautiful youth, holding the horns of a bull in his left hand, and having the knife of sacrifice in his right. Mithra sacrificing the bull is just the solar hero sacrificing himself in the evening. Indeed, in the Persian tradition, Mithra, like the Hindoo Yamas, holds the office of god of the dead, and as such, like Yamas, is of a monstrous aspect, and is found in the _Yaēna_ represented with a thousand ears and ten thousand eyes.

As in India, so in Persia, the urine of the cow is used in ceremonies of purification, during which it is drunk.[267] We have already seen in the story of Utańkas how the excrement of the bull, upon which Utańkas fed, was ambrosia itself; and, indeed, all is beneficial which is given by the cow of abundance (the moon, the cloud, and the aurora), and by the divine bull (the moon and the sun). The mythical belief was natural, however disgusting when we insist on literal interpretation.

And even in the Persian tradition itself, a distinction already exists between common bulls or oxen and sacred or privileged ones. This distinction appears in the legend of Gemshid, whose bulls were all devoured by the devil, as long as they were protected by no magical rites; whilst, when he was given a red ox (or bull) cooked in old, that is strong, vinegar, to which was added garlic and rue (famous for its potency in exorcism), he disappeared and was never seen again.[268] The rue is probably the fabulous plant which the Zend tradition surmises to have sprung from the sea _Vōuru-Kasha_, whence Ahura Mazda draws the clouds, from which all healthful water is derived, and which corresponds to the sea of milk of Hindoo tradition, in which the ambrosia is agitated.

Thus the funereal cypress of Kishmar (planted by Zarathustra, with a branch from the tree of Paradise), under which more than two thousand cows and sheep could pasture, and the innumerable birds of which darkened the air, obscuring the light of the sun, reminds us of the celestial forest of the Vedās, in which the shepherd-hero and the hunter-hero wander and are lost.

The idea of the funereal tree recalls to us that of the Persian mountain Arezūra or Demāvend, where the demons met together to plot evil, and where was the gate of hell.[269]

The Zend word _aēma_, which signifies stone and heaven, yields us, in its double meaning, the key to the interpretation of the myth. This stone, inasmuch as it is dark, is of evil omen; inasmuch as it shines, it is a gem, or gives the gem (the moon or the sun); whence, according to the _Minokhired_, the sky is the progeny of a precious stone.[270]

Thus to the mountain of the demons (where the sun goes down), is opposed in Persian tradition the glorious mountain, out of which are born the heroes and the kings (or from which the sun rises and the moon); because Haoma is born there (the Hindoo Somas), the ambrosial, golden, and health-bringing god, who gives them the divine nourishment, and because the sacred bird, which stays on that mountain, feeds them with ambrosia, whence the _Yaēna_[271] invites Haoma to grow on the road of the birds.

In a rather obscure passage of the _Gāthā Ahunavaiti_, confirmed by the _Bundehesh_, the soul of the bull (or of the cow, as the case may be), despoiled of his body by the evil one, complains to the Supreme Creator that he is without defence against the assaults of his enemies, and that he has no invincible protector. Ahura Mazda seems to wish only to give him spiritual help, but the bull continues to declare himself unsatisfied, until Zarathustra, the defender, accords it, and he receives the gift of efficacious favours which Ahura Mazda alone possesses.[272] Zarathustra is himself also born upon a mountain;[273] while his son Ēaoshyanē, the deliverer, comes out of the waters.

A sacred cow, or at least a bitch which guards the cows (_paēuvaiti_), seems, besides a good fairy, to be, in the _Vendiad_ itself,[274] the conductor of the souls across the bridge Cinvat, created by Ahura Mazda, to the kingdom of the blessed. The cow, as the guide of the souls[275] lost in the kingdom of the dead, and placed upon the bridge, is probably the moon; the bitch (also the moon) reminds us of the Hindoo Saramā, the bitch which aids the heroes who have lost themselves in the nocturnal forest, grotto, or darkness. In the same chapter, after accounts of the bridge, we read the praise of the good Ēaoka, who has many eyes (like the brāhmanic Indras, disguised as a woman, having a thousand eyes, and, after the adventure of Ahalyā, a thousand wombs--the god hidden in the night, who looks at the world through a thousand stars); after Ēaoka, of the splendid Veretraghna (who corresponds to Vritrahan, properly the discomfiter of the all-covering darkness); and after him, of the luminous star Tistar, which seems a bull with golden hoofs,[276] which again must refer to the moon; as the Gāhs, who, according to Anquetil, "sont occupées ą filer des robes pour les justes dans le ciel," like the cows and Madonnas in our popular tales, cannot be very different from the fairy, or at least from the stars which form her crown. The _Khorda Avesta_, in its hymns in praise of Mithra, celebrates the perfect friendship which reigns between the sun and the moon, and sings of the moon immediately after singing of the sun Mithra, and the splendid Tistar immediately after the moon, whose light is said to come from the constellation Tistrya.

We can thus divine the meaning of Geusurva (the soul of the bull or the cow), of which, besides the soul, the body also is invoked in the _Yaēna_.[277] The Geusurva appears in the _Yaēna_ itself[278] as the protectress of the fourteenth day of the month, or of the full-moon, viewed as a full cow. And when it is said in the _Khorda Avesta_[279] that one must not sacrifice to the Geusurva at the time when the Daevas, or demons, are practising their evil-doings, it seems to me to indicate clearly enough that the sacrifice was to take place while the moon was increasing, and not while it was diminishing. Thus Asha Vahista, who reminds us of the Hindoo Vasishthas and his marvellous cow, has the power of conjuring away illness, north winds--in a word, evil of every kind--only when Agro-mainyus appears without help.[280]

We have seen in the legend of Utankas how, as the youth is on his way to take the queen's earrings, he meets a bull, upon the excrement of which he feeds, as upon ambrosia; that this ambrosial bull stays near Indras, as Indras and Somas are invoked together; and we noticed that from this mythical belief was derived the superstitious Hindoo custom of purifying one's self by means of the excrement of a cow. The same custom passed into Persia; and the _Khorda Avesta_[281] has preserved the formula to be recited by the devotee, whilst he holds in his hands the urine of an ox or cow, preparatory to washing his face with it:--"Destroyed, destroyed be the demon Ahriman, whose actions and works are cursed. His actions and works do not come to us. May the thirty-three Amshaspands (the immortal saints, who correspond to the thirty-three Vedic devās), and Ormazd, be victorious and pure!" It is said this remedial formula was used for the first time by Yima, when, from having touched Ahriman, in order to extricate from his body, by fraud, Takh mo Urupa, whom the demon had devoured, he had an eruption on his hand. Finally, it is interesting to learn that one of the Zend names of the moon is _gaocithra_, which means he that contains the seed of the bull, since, according to the _Bundehesh_, the seed of the primitive bull passed into the moon, who, having purified it, used it to procreate other cattle (_pōuru ēaredho_).

As to the aurora, there seems to be no doubt but that she was represented in ancient Persia by Ardvī Ēūra Anāhita, the elevated, the strong, the innocent or pure, according to the interpretation of Professor Spiegel; she also drives a chariot drawn by four white horses, which she guides herself; she has a veil, a diadem, and bracelets of gold, beautiful earrings (the Vedic Aēvināu), a dress of beavers' skin, and prominent breasts; she is beautiful, and she is a good young girl who protects men and women. She is often invoked in the _Khorda Avesta_, like the Vedic aurora, to exorcise the demons, and to help the heroes who combat them; she herself has the strength of a thousand men, and is a marvellous heroine, like the Vedic amazon whom Indras fought with; her body is girt round with a girdle. The probability of this comparison seems to pass into certainty after reading a hymn of the _Khorda Avesta_,[282] even in the version of Professor Spiegel, who perhaps would have introduced some little variation if he had recognised the aurora in Ardvī Ēūra Anāhita. In this hymn, the victorious and mighty Thraetaona, in the form of a bird, flies for three days and three nights, which reminds us of the fugitive Indras of the _Rigvedas_, who wades across the rivers after his victory; at the end of the third night he arrives near the aurora, and beseeches Ardvī Ēūra Anāhita (that is, as it seems to us, the aurora herself, elevated, mighty, and innocent) to come and help him, that he may pass the waters and touch the ground at her habitation. Then Ardvī Ēūra Anāhita appears in the shape of a beautiful, strong, and splendid girl, having a golden diadem and wearing shoes of gold (cfr. the _Yast_, xxi. 19) on her feet (this is perhaps another feeble foreshadow of Cinderella's slippers); the beautiful girl takes him by one arm (the bird has, it seems, become a hero), and gives him back health and strength. But the certainty increases still more when, as the Vedic aurora is the first of those who arrive, winning the race in her chariot, the so-called Ardhvī Ēūra Anāhita appears in the _Khorda Avesta_ as "the first who guides the chariot;"[283] and we are recommended to offer up sacrifices to her at break of day, before the sun rises.[284] We have seen the Vedic aurora and the sun propose and solve riddles; we have seen the Hindoo solar hero free himself from the monster by proposing or solving insoluble enigmas; in the same way, in the _Avesta_, the hero Yaēto Fryanananm asks Ardvī Ēūra Anāhita to help him to solve ninety-nine enigmas, in order that he may free himself from the monster Akhtya.

Add to this that Ardvī Ēūra Anāhita, like the Vedic aurora, is a giver of cows and horses, and that these animals are offered to her by her devotees. The aurora herself, in the invocation made to her in the sixth prayer of the _Khorda Avesta_, is also called "elevated," and furnished with swift and splendid horses.[285] The fact of finding the Anāhita drawn by four white horses, like the sun Mithra, enhances the evidence of this identity. And if the aurora is not explicitly represented in the _Avesta_ as a cow, we infer that it was so conceived of, from the worship of Mithra, who was adored from the first streak of daylight till midday. Mithra often receives the epithet of "he who possesses vast pasture-lands;" the morning sun is therefore a pastoral god; and if so, we are constrained to think of the Persian aurora too as, if not a cow, at least a female cowherd.

But Mithra is not a god of mere idyllic exploits, he is also a hero; the _Vendidad_[286] salutes him as "the most victorious of the victors." The booty of his victory [essentially due to his immediate predecessors Veretraghna (Vritrahan) and Ēraosha][287] must have been the cows of the aurora, without which his immense pasture-lands would have been of no use to him. Indeed it is said that Mithra enables owners of herds to recover their lost oxen.[288]

But Mithra is not the only prominent hero of the _Avesta_. Besides him, the above-cited Veretraghna, with all his secondary and tertiary reflections, plays an important part in it. Now, this Veretraghna, who offers numerous analogies to the Vedic Indras, killer of Vritras, is, like Indras, now a hero, now a horse, now a bird, now a sheep, now a wild boar, and now a bull.[289] As the bull Indras assists Tritas, Trāitanas, and Kavya Ucanas[290] in the _Rigvedas_, so the bull Veretraghna in the _Avesta_, partaking of the nature of one Thrita[291] who is rich, splendid, and strong, and who, like Indras, cures maladies by the help of the guardian of the metals (the usual co-relation between the hero and the magic pearl), assists Thraetaona, the killer of the serpent Duhāka (Azhi Dahāka) and the hero Kava Uēa, of which Kava Haoērava is another name rather than another form. The Thrita and Thraetaona of the _Zend_ are peculiarly interesting, because they remind us, though vaguely, of the Vedic myth of the three brothers. Only the _Avesta_ names Thrita and Thraetaona as two distinct divine heroes; it attributes to Thraetaona the second place among the three brothers; and as in the _Mahābhāratam_, it is the second brother, the strong Bhīmas, who falls into the waters, whilst the third brother, Argunas, delivers others from the marine monster by his valour, so in the _Avesta_ it is Thraetaona who comes out of the waters, or who is the son of Athvya (-Āptya). But every one can see the point of contact, connection, or identification between the two hero-brothers. It is Bhīmas who comes out of the waters, and Argunas who extricates him, that is, who extricates his own strength, expressed in Bhīmas (the subject, and his virtue, become the object, being inclosed in one person). They are confounded together, inasmuch as Thraetaona, son of him who stays in the waters, or of the watery one, or he who comes out of the waters, and kills the demon, must be the same as Thrita, the third one, who has the virtue of curing demoniacal diseases. Thraetaona, the killer of the serpent, and Thrita, who destroys the evil-doing ones, are found again, with a different splendour, in the same heroic adventure. Scarcely an instant transpires between the time when the hero was a victim and that in which Veretraghna, or Thraetaona, or Thrita, the hero, triumphs in his own liberation.

In the _Yaēna_,[292] we find three men who, by their piety, win the favour of the god Haoma (Soma, the lunar god, the moon, the good magician, the good fairy). The first is Vivaghāo, the second Āthvya, and the third Thrita; from which we are led to conclude that Vivaghāo is the eldest brother, Āthvya the second, and Thrita the youngest. On account of their piety, they obtain sons; the son of Vivaghāo is Yima (the Vedic Yamas), the wise, the happy, the heavenly; the son of Āthvya is Thraetaona, the warrior who discomfits the monster; the third, Thrita, called the most useful, has two sons, Urvāksha and Kereēāēpa, who remind us of the Aēvināu. Āthvya's son and Thrita being confounded in one person, Thraetaona, or Thrita, forms a new triumvirate with Urvāksha and Kereēāēpa, as the Vedic Indras with the two Aēvināu. The story of the three brothers and that of the two brothers seem to be interwoven even in the myth, as they certainly are afterwards in the legend. To the three brothers, moreover, correspond, in the _Avesta_, the three sisters, the three daughters of Zarathustra and of Hvōvi: Freni, Thriti, and Pouruciēsta.[293] The first seems to correspond to Yamas, the second to Āptya and his son Thraetaona (or Thrita), the third, the luminous, the beautiful (as being the aurora), to the two handsome brother horsemen, Urvāksha and Kereēāēpa (the Aēvināu).

The solar hero comes out of his difficulties, and triumphs over his enemies, not only by force of arms, but by his innate strength and prowess. This extraordinary strength, by which he moves and is borne along, and which renders him irresistible, is the wind, invoked by the heroes in the _Avesta_ under the name of Rāman. The wind, according to the _Avesta_, is not only the swiftest of the swift, but the strongest of the strong (like the Marutas, Hanumant, or Bhīmas, Hindoo winds, or sons of the wind). Even in the _Avesta_, he fights and assures the heroes of victory, and is dear to woman and girls. (In the same way, Sītā has a leaning for Hanumant, and Hidimbā, of all the Pāndavas, gives the preference to Bhīmas.) Moreover, in the _Avesta_, girls invoke the wind in order to obtain a husband.[294]

A hymn of the _Rigvedas_, however, celebrates a kind of quarrel between the winds Marutas and the god Indras, prompted by rivalry; a quarrel which ends in Indras having the advantage. It is interesting to find in the Persian tradition[295] the same rivalry between the wind (vāta) and the son of Thrita, the hero Kereēāēpa. An evil genie informs the wind that Kereēāēpa boasts of being superior to him in strength. Thereupon the wind begins to howl and rage in such a terrifying manner that nothing can resist him, and the very trees are cleft in two or torn up, till Kereēāēpa comes and squeezes him so tightly in his arms that he is obliged to cease. This interesting mythical incident is a prefigurement of the loud whistle of the heroes and the monsters in fairy tales, which is brought to an end in a summary fashion, similar to that of the Persian legend; which also leads us to suppose that Thraetaona vanquished the serpent Dahāka, merely by tying him to the demoniacal mountain Demāvend.[296] This style of vanquishing the enemy by binding him occurs often enough in the Persian legends and in the _Avesta_ itself;[297] and is also mentioned in the Hindoo traditions. The arrows of the monsters hurled against the heroes of the _Rāmāyanam_ bind them; the god Yamas and the god Varunas bind their victims; the first draws tight, tightens the reins (_i.e._, the evening sun shortens his rays); the second envelops, covers and binds with the darkness that which Yamas reined in. The solar ray which shortens itself, the shadow which advances, are images of the ensnarer of heroes; whereas the solar ray which lengthens itself, the thunderbolt which traverses all the heavens, surrounded by clouds and darkness, represents the hero who grasps around, presses tightly, and strangles the monster.

The bow of Mithra is formed of a thousand bows, prepared from the tough hide of a cow; these bows, in the _Avesta_, also hurl a thousand darts, which fly with winged vultures' feathers.[298] This carries us back again to the Vedic myth of the birds which come out of the cow.

The bow being considered a cow, this cow sharpens its horns; whence the _Khorda Avesta_ celebrates the horned darts of the bow of Mithra, _i.e._, the horns of the cow, which have become weapons[299] or the thunderbolts.

The legend of the two brothers is connected more with the myth of the horse than with that of the cow or the ox. But inasmuch as it presents the two brothers to us as the one poor and the other rich, the riches are symbolised by the ox. However, if I am not mistaken, there are two heroes, celebrated in the _Avesta_ one after the other (and whom I therefore suppose to be brothers), who derive their origin from this legend; one is called Ērīraokhsan (or who has a fine ox), the other Kereēaokhsan (or who has a lean ox). As the _Avesta_ does not go on to develop this subject more in detail, I dare not insist upon it; nevertheless it is gratifying to me to remark that, of the two brothers, Kereēaokhsan was the most valiant, as of the two brothers Urvāksha (a word which may perhaps signify the one who has the fat horse, and which is perhaps synonymous with Urvāēpa[300]) and Kereēāēpa (he of the lean horse), it is the second who is the glorious hero; as in the Russian popular tales, we shall find the third brother, though thought to be an idiot, despised by the others, and riding the worst jade of the stable, yet becoming afterwards the most fortunate hero. Kereēāēpa avenges his brother Urvāksha against Hitāēpa, whom Professor Spiegel[301] interprets to mean the bound horse, but which can also be rendered he who keeps the horse bound, which would bring us back again to the story of the bridle and of the hero-horse, whom the demon keeps bound to himself, which we have already noticed above in the story of the sacrifice of Ēunahēepas, delivered by the aurora.

It is uncertain whether we must recognise the aurora or the moon, in the _Avesta_, in the so-called Ashis Vaguhi, the elevated (like Ardvī Ēūra Anāhita), who appears upon the high mountain, rich, beautiful, splendid, golden-eyed, beneficent, giver of cattle, posterity, and abundance, who discomfits the demons, guides chariots, and is invoked by the son of the watery one, Thraetaona, in the _Ashi Yast_,[302] in order that she may help him to vanquish the three-headed monster-serpent Dahāka. Now, Thraetaona, the victorious and rich in oxen,[303] being a well-known form of the solar hero Mithra, it is interesting to learn how the heroine, the so-called Ashis Vaguhi (the aurora, or the moon, as the three words Ardvī Ēūra Anāhita are simple names of the aurora), having the same supreme god for her father, has three brothers, of whom the first is Ēraosha, the pious; the second, Rashnus, the strong; and the third, Mithra, the victorious.

She is, moreover, herself represented as being pursued by enemies on horseback; and it is now a bull, now a sheep, now a child, anon a virgin who hides her from her pursuers. Not knowing where to go, whether to ascend into heaven, or creep along the earth, she applies to Ahura Mazda, who answers that she must neither ascend into heaven nor creep along the earth, but betake herself to the middle of a beautiful king's habitation.[304] How is it possible not to recognise in her the moon, or the aurora, who follows the path of the sun her husband, the moon, or the aurora, who appears on the summit of the high mountains?

Other facts not devoid of mythological interest might perhaps be found in the _Avesta_, which, on account of the uncertainty attending the translation of the original texts, has hitherto been, it seems to me, utterly neglected by mythologists. And yet, though Anquetil, Burnouf, Benfey, Spiegel, Haugh, Kossowicz, and all who have turned their talents and science to the interpretation of the Zendic texts, disagree in the more abstruse passages, there are many of which the interpretation is certain, in which the learned translators agree, which offer interesting mythological data, and permit us, in any case, to extract from the _Avesta_ an embryo of mythology, in the same way as an embryo of grammar has already been extracted from it. The brief references which I have now made to the myth of the cow and the bull in the _Avesta_, anyhow appear to me sufficient to warrant the conclusion I draw, that the cow and the bull presented the same aspects, and generated the same myths and the same beliefs in Persia as in India, albeit in a form far more feeble and indeterminate.

The solar hero of Persia occurs again in the costume of historical legend in the Cyrus ([Greek: Kyros]) of Herodotus and Ktesias, the first of which represents to us the child exposed by his parents, saved and educated during his infancy (like the Hindoo Karnas, child of the sun, and Krishnas) among the shepherds, where for some time he gives extraordinary proofs of his valour; the second shows us the young hero who wins his own bride, Amytis, daughter of Astyages.

Finally, the same hero appears in several splendid and glorious forms in the _Shahname_.

As in the _Rigvedas_, Tritas or Trāitanas, and in the _Avesta_, Thraetaona (of whom Thritas is a corresponding form), accomplish the great exploit of killing the monster, and more especially the serpent, so Feridun, the Persian synonym (by means of the intermediate form Phreduna) for the Zendic Thraetaona is, in subsequent Persian tradition, the most distinguished hero in the struggle against the monster. I shall not insist upon the deeds of Feridun and his mythical valour, after the learned paper written upon the subject by Professor R. Roth, which appears in the Transactions of the Oriental Society of Leipzig, and the able and highly-valued essay by Professor Michael Bréal on the myth of Hercules and Cacus. I shall therefore content myself with quoting from the legend of Feridun the episode of his old age, which reminds us of the Vedic myth of the three brothers.

The great king Feridun has three sons, Selm, Tūr, and Ireg (Selm, Tūr, and Er are also the sons of Thraetaona); he divides the world into three parts and gives the west to the first-born, and the north to the second, whilst he keeps Iran for the youngest. The two eldest are jealous, and announce to their father their intention of declaring war against him, unless he expels their younger brother Ireg from the palace. Feridun replies to their impious threat with haughty reproofs, and meanwhile warns the young Ireg of the danger he is in. The youth proposes to go in person to his brothers, and induce them to make peace; his father is unwilling to let him go, but finally consents, and gives him a letter for the two brothers, in which he commends him as his best-loved son to their care. Ireg arrives at his brothers' dwelling; their soldiers see him, and cannot take their eyes off him, as though they already recognised him for their lord. Then Selm, the eldest, advises Tūr, the second, the strong one, to kill Ireg; Tūr thereupon assaults the defenceless Ireg, and transfixes his breast with a dagger. Ireg is afterwards avenged by the son of his daughter (born after his death of a maid whom he had left pregnant), the hero Minucehr, who kills Selm and Tūr.

The hero who succeeds Minucehr is Sal, the son of Sam, whom, because born with white hair, his father had exposed upon Mount Alburs, where the bird Simurg nourished and saved him. Sal proves his wisdom before Minucehr by solving six astronomical riddles which King Minucehr proposes to him. The king, satisfied, orders him to be dressed in festive clothes; he then, to prove his strength, challenges him to run a tilt with the horsemen; Sal is victorious, and obtains another robe of honour and innumerable royal gifts; after which he espouses Rudabe, daughter of King Mihrab.

Sal distinguishes himself, like Minucehr, in his wars against the perverse Turanians, the dragons and the monsters, in which he takes along with him as his chief helper the mighty hero Rustem, whose weapon is a club surmounted with the head of a bull[305] or a horned mace (the hero is the bull, the thunderbolts are his horns), and whose horse is so powerful as by itself to fight and vanquish a lion while Rustem is asleep. The hero himself kills a dragon, and a witch transformed into a beautiful woman, but who resumes her monstrous shape as soon as the hero pronounces the name of a god. He thunders like a cloud, is dark, and describes himself as a thunder-cloud which hurls the thunderbolt.[306] He binds the warrior Aulad, and obliges him to reveal where the demons detain in prison King Kawus, who is become blind in their kingdom of darkness. Kawus then informs Rustem that to recover his sight his eyes must be anointed with three drops of blood from the slain demon Sefid; upon which Rustem sets out to kill the demon. The demons can be vanquished only by day; when it is light, they sleep, and then they can be conquered, says Aulad to Rustem; for this reason, Rustem does not begin the enterprise till the sun is in mid-heaven;[307] then he thunders and lightens at the demons. Like a sun, he sets out towards the mountain (no doubt, towards sunset), where the demon Sefid sits, and arrives at the mouth of a deep and gloomy cavern, from which Sefid sallies forth in the form of a black giant just awakened from his sleep. The giant himself, like an enormous mountain assaulting the earth, hurls a rock like a millstone at Rustem; Rustem strikes the monster on the feet, and lops away one of them; the lame giant continuing the fight, Rustem at last wrestles with him, lifts him into the air, then beats him several times furiously against the ground, and so takes his life. He throws the body of Sefid into the mountain cavern, whilst his blood saturates the earth, and gives back to the prince Kawus his eyesight and his splendour. The myth is a beautiful and an expressive one. As from the black venomous serpent comes white healthy milk, so from the black monster, at his death, comes blood, which gives back his eyesight to the blinded prince; the red aurora is here represented as the blood of the nocturnal monster, discomfited by the solar hero.

Let me ask the reader to notice the Persian comparison of the rock thrown by the demon to a millstone, as it is important to explain a superstition still extant in the West, to the effect that the devil goes under the millstone to carry out his evil designs. The stone or mountain fractured by the waters was naturally compared to a millstone moved by the waters; the demons inhabit the cavernous mountain to guard the waters; thus the devil, the evil one, the hobgoblins, prefer mills as their dwellings.

Rustem fights, in the _Shahname_, many other victoriously successful battles against Afrasiab the Turanian, and other demoniacal beings, in the service of sundry heroic kings, with epic incidents to boot, which are nearly all uniform. His struggle against his son Sohrab, however, is of an entirely different character.

Rustem goes to the chase. In the forest, Turkish bandits rob him of his invaluable horse while he sleeps; he then sets out, alone and sad, towards the city of Semengam, following the track left by his horse. When he appears, emerging from the wood, the king of Semengam and his courtiers note the phenomenon as though it were the sun coming out of the clouds of morning.[308] The king receives Rustem with great hospitality, and, as if to fill to the full the measure of his courtesy, he sends at night to the room where he sleeps his exceedingly beautiful daughter Tehmime. The hero and the beauty separate in the morning; but Rustem, before parting from Tehmime, leaves her a pearl of recognition. If a daughter is born to their loves, she is to wear it as an amulet in her hair; if a son, he is to wear it on his arm, and he will become an invincible hero. After nine months, Tehmime gives birth to Sohrab; at the age of one month he seems a year old, at three years of age he amuses himself with arms, at five he gives proof of a lion's courage, and at ten he vanquishes all his companions, and asks his mother to inform him of his father, threatening to kill her if she does not tell him. Scarcely does Sohrab learn that he is the son of Rustem, than he conceives the desire of becoming king of Iran and supplanting Kawus; he then commences his persecution of the Iranian heroes by assaulting the white castle (the white morning sky, the alba), defended by a beautiful warrior princess, Gurdaferid, dear to the Iranian warriors. Sohrab conquers and destroys the white castle, but in the moment of triumph, the warrior maiden disappears. The old hero Rustem then moves against his own son Sohrab; the latter throws him down, but Rustem, in his turn, mortally wounds Sohrab. In the old Rustem thrown down on the mountain it is not difficult to recognise the setting sun; in Sohrab mortally wounded by Rustem, the sun itself, which dies; and in fact, the dying sun has a different appearance from the new sun which rises and triumphs in the heavens: these two appearances might give rise to the idea of a struggle between the old and the young sun, in which both are sacrificed. Indeed, Rustem feels, when he mortally wounds Sohrab, that he is wounding himself; he curses his work and immediately sends for a healing balsam; but in the meantime Sohrab dies. The only one who could destroy the young sun was the old sun; the sun grows old and dies; Rustem alone could kill Sohrab. With the death of Sohrab the glory of Rustem is also eclipsed; he retires unto solitude, and the most grandiose period of his epic life comes to an end. After this he only reappears in episodic battles or enterprises; as, for instance, in his setting fire to Turan, in which he resembles Hanumant, burner of Lańkā; in the liberation of the young hero Bishen, who had been taken prisoner and incarcerated by the Turanians; in the killing of the powerful and perverse Turanian Afrasiab; and in his own death in an ambuscade set by young rivals of the old lion, who dies taking vengeance on his enemies.

In the very palace of Kawus (he who was protected by Rustem), a notable legendary drama takes place. Sijavush, son of King Kawus, is seduced by the queen-mother Sudabe, who burns with love for him. The youth spurns this love, upon which she accuses him to King Kawus as her seducer. The father, after hearing his son's defence in proof of his innocence, cannot believe the queen; and thereupon she devises another method for destroying the young Sijavush. She concerts with a slave she has, who is a sorceress, and persuades her to create two little venomous monsters, which she straightway proclaims aloud are the children of Sijavush. Then Sijavush, to prove his innocence, submits willingly to the trial by fire; he enters the flames upon his black horse, after having embraced his trembling father; both horse and horseman come out of the immense fire, amid the plaudits of all the spectators. Then the king gives orders to strangle the unnatural queen; but his son Sijavush intercedes in her favour, and Sudabe is allowed to live by grace of the young prince, whom, however, she continues to persecute, till, on the death of Sijavush, Rustem, who bewailed him as his own son, or as his other self, avenges him first by killing Sudabe, on account of whom Sijavush had been obliged to repair to Turan, and afterwards by carrying the war into Turan, where, after a very agitated life, Sijavush had fallen into the power of his father-in-law, Afrasiab, and been put to death.

The wife of Sijavush, Ferengis by name, being pregnant, is hospitably entertained by Piran, and gives birth to the hero Kai Khosru; and no sooner is he born than he is consigned to the shepherds of the mountain. As early as seven years of age, his favourite amusement is that of drawing the bow; at ten, he confronts wild boars, bears, lions, and tigers with only his shepherd's staff. When Afrasiab sees the young shepherd, he inquires at him about his sheep and the peaceful pursuits of shepherds; the boy replies with stories of lions having sharp teeth, and of other wild animals, of which he is not afraid. As soon as he comes to manhood, he flees from Turan, followed by the Turanians; he arrives at the banks of a river, where the ferryman asks impossible conditions to take him over; upon which, like Feridun, he crosses the river safely, but without a boat, and on dry feet (it is the sun traversing the cloudy and gloomy ocean without wetting himself);[309] arrived at length in Iran, he is feasted and fźted as the future king. His reign begins; he then assigns different tasks to different heroes, among whom is his brother Firud, born of another mother, of whom it is said that a single hair of his head has more strength in it than many warriors (one ray of the sun is enough to break the darkness). One evening, however, at sunset, Firud is killed in his castle upon the mountain, being surrounded by a crowd of enemies, after having lost his horse, and after his mother Cerire had dreamt that a fire had consumed both mountain and castle. His mother Cerire (the evening aurora) throws herself among the flames with her maids, and dies also. Kai Khosru bewails the loss of his brother Firud all the night through, till the cock crows; when morning comes he thinks of avenging him.

After this, the life of Kai Khosru is consumed in battles fought by his heroes against the Turanians. Only towards the end of his days does he become a penitent king; he will no longer allow his subjects to fight, and his only occupation is prayer; he takes leave of his people and his daughters in peace, ascends a mountain, and disappears in a tempest, leaving no trace of himself. In a similar manner the heroes Yudhishthiras, Cyrus, and Romulus disappear (not to speak of the biblical Moses, still less of Christ, as we do not wish to complicate a comparison of which the materials are already so extensive, by mixing up the Aryan elements with those of Semitic origin; although the legends of the serpent, of Noah, of Abraham and his regained wife, of Abraham and his son Isaac, of Joseph and his brethren, of Joshua, of Job, and other and more recent biblical heroes, by their mythical or astronomical import, present numerous analogies with the Indo-European legends); in a similar manner, the old sun, weary of reigning in the heavens and fighting for his life, becomes invisible every evening on the mountain-peaks.

The _Shahname_ contains numerous other legends besides those which we have thus far briefly described; and one of the most notable is, beyond a doubt, that of Isfendiar, who goes with his brother Bishutem to deliver his two sisters, imprisoned in a fortress by the Turanian king Ardshasp. The seven adventures of Isfendiar, _i.e._, his meeting with the wolf, the lion, the dragon, the witch (who makes herself beautiful, but who is no sooner bound with the enchanted necklace of Isfendiar [the solar disc] than she becomes old and ugly again), the gigantic bird, the tempest and the river, all of which dangers he victoriously overcomes, are reproductions, in an analogous form too, of the seven adventures of Rustem.

Finally, the legend of Iskander or Iskender (the name of Alexander of Macedon), full of extraordinary adventures, became exceedingly popular in Persia, and thence, no doubt, passed with all its charms into Europe. The audacity and good fortune, the glory and the power of the great conqueror were the reasons why there grouped round his name so many extraordinary stories, which wandered dispersedly through the world without epic unity. To make up one glorious and never-to-be-forgotten hero, were combined together the achievements of many anonymous or nearly forgotten ones. The Persian _Iskendername_ of Nishāmi, is, as its name denotes, entirely taken up with the celebration of the deeds of the Macedonian hero, of which the most illustrious are the liberation of the princess Nushābe (taken prisoner by the Russians), and the voyage in search of the fountain of life and immortality, which, however, Iskander cannot find. From Persia the same legend afterwards passed, with new disguises, into Egypt, Armenia, and Greece, whence it was diffused during the middle ages over almost the whole of Western Europe.[310]

As a bridge of transition between the Hindoo and Persian, and the Turk or Tartar traditions, we shall make use of three works: the Turkish version[311] of the Persian _Tuti-Name_, itself a translation and in part a paraphrase of the Hindoo _Ēuka-Saptatī_, _i.e._, the seventy (stories) of the parrot; the Mongol stories of _Siddhi-kūr_, and the Mongol history of _Ardshi-Bordshi Khān_,[312] the first being a paraphrase of the Hindoo _Vetāla-Pancavinēatī_, _i.e._, the twenty-five of the Vetāla (a kind of demon), and the second of the Hindoo _Vikrama-caritram_ (the heroic action).

We have seen in the _Āitareya Brahmānam_ the father who prepares to offer up his son, and in the _Mahābhāratam_, the son who forfeits youth that his father may live. In the _Tuti-Name_,[313] the faithful Merdi Gānbāz prepares to sacrifice his wife and sons, and afterwards himself, to prolong the life of the king; but his devotion and fidelity being proved, he is arrested by God before he can accomplish the cruel sacrifice, and receives numberless benefits from the king.

In the story of the goldsmith and the woodcutter, the _Tuti-Name_[314] reproduces the two brothers or friends, of whom one is wicked, rich, and avaricious, while the other is defrauded of the money due to him, because, though, in reality intelligent, he is supposed to be an idiot. The woodcutter avenges himself upon the goldsmith by a plan which we shall find described in the legend of the bear, and recovers, thanks to his craftiness, the gold which his brother or friend had kept from him.

In the interesting story of Merhuma,[315] we read of the wife who is persecuted by the seducer her brother-in-law. To avenge her refusal, he causes her to be stoned during the absence of his brother; being innocent, she rises again from under the stones; being sheltered by a Bedouin, a monster of a slave seduces her; being repulsed, he accuses her of the death of the Bedouin's little son, whom he had himself killed; the beautiful girl flees away; she frees a youth who was condemned to death, and who in his turn seduces her. She then embarks in a ship; while she is at sea all the sailors become enamoured of her and wish to possess her; she invokes the god who caused Pharaoh to be drowned and who saved Noah from the waters. The waves begin to move; a thunderbolt descends and burns to ashes all who are in the ship, with the exception of the beautiful girl, who lands safe and sound upon the shore (it is the aurora coming out of the gloomy ocean of night, and the monsters who persecute her are burned to ashes by the thunderbolts and the sun's rays); she thence escapes into a convent, in which she ministers to the unfortunate, cures the lame, and gives eyesight to the blind. Among the latter is her persecutor, the brother of her husband; she pardons him and gives him back his eyesight; in the same way she cures all her other persecutors. It is scarcely necessary for me to remind the reader how this oriental tale, which developed itself from the myth of the persecuted and delivering aurora which we have seen in the Vedic hymns, reappears in numerous very popular western legends, of which Crescentia and Genevičve are the most brilliant types.

The aurora comes out of the gloomy ocean and is espoused by the sun; these heavenly nuptials in proximity to the sea gave rise to the popular tale[316] of the king who wishes the sea with its pearls to be present at his nuptials; the pearls of the bride-aurora are supposed to come out of the sea of night. The sea sends as gifts to the king a casket of pearls, a chest of precious dresses, a horse that goes like the morning wind, and a chest full of gold.

The wise aurora figures again in the story of the ingenious princess[317] who discovers, by means of a story-riddle, the robbers who, during the night, stole the precious gem destined for the king.

The aurora imparts splendour and eyesight to the blinded sun. The story of the three-breasted princess who, while she meditates poisoning the blind man, in order that she may enjoy unrestrained the affections of her young and handsome lover, relents and gives him back his sight, reappears in a rather incomplete form in the _Tuti-Name_.[318]

The girl who has been married to a monster, whom she flees from to follow a handsome young lover, who, arriving at the banks of a river, despoils her of her riches, leaves her naked and passes over to the other side, after which she resigns herself to her fate and resolves to return to her husband the monster,[319] represents the evening aurora, who flees before the monster of night to follow her lover the sun, who, in the morning, after adorning himself with her splendour, leaves her on the shore of the gloomy ocean and runs away, the aurora being thereupon obliged in the evening to re-unite herself to her husband the monster. It is interesting, moreover, as bearing upon our subject, to note the expression of which the youth who flees with the beautiful woman makes use to express his fear of discovery. He says that the monster-husband will follow them, and that should he sit upon the horns of the bull (the moon) he would be sure to recognise him. The story of two young people fleeing upon a bull, and followed by the monster, occurs again in the Russian popular tales. By the horns of the bull, the youth means the most prominent and visible situation; and he knows, moreover, that if the monster overtakes them, he will be sure to demonstrate the truth of the brave proverb which advises us in arduous undertakings to take the bull by the horns.

It is also the aurora who is represented by the beautiful maiden[320] whom her father, mother, and brother have, without each other's knowledge, severally affianced to three youths of different professions. The three young men contend for her person, but while the quarrel is undecided, the girl dies. The three then go to visit her tomb; one discovers her body, the second finds that there is still some life in her, and the third strikes her and raises her up alive, upon which the quarrel is resumed. She flees from them, and withdraws into another living tomb, a convent. In the most popular form of this legend the three companions, or three brothers, fighting for the bride, divide her; the aurora is torn into pieces as soon as the sun, her true lover and rightful suitor, appears.

From darkness comes forth light; from the old, the young; from death, life; from the dust of a dead man's skull, tasted by a virgin, is born a wonderful child, who knows how to distinguish false pearls from real, dishonest women from honest ones[321] (the morning sun can distinguish between light and darkness); the wise boy (the young sun) is the brother of the wise girl (the young aurora). The flesh of a killed Brāhman is turned into gold in another story of the _Tuti-Name_.[322]

We have seen that the aurora and the sun are mother and son, brother and sister, or lover and mistress. The sun in the evening dies ignominiously, is sacrificed and hanged upon a gibbet, and with himself sacrifices his mother or his mistress. The legend is popular and ancient which speaks of the robber son, when about to end his life upon a gibbet,[323] biting the nose off his mother, who gave birth to him and brought him up badly. In the _Tuti-Name_,[324] it is the young adulterer (and robber too) who, condemned to death for his adultery, asks to see his mistress once more before his death and kiss her, and who, as she does so, gratifies his revenge by inflicting upon her a like indignity. It is remarkable how, even in the Hindoo popular tale, the story of the adulterer is confounded with that of a thief; the adulterer ends by being thrown into the water (the sun and the aurora fall into the gloomy ocean of night).

In the next story it is the wicked husband who, travelling with his rich wife for change of dwelling-place, despoils her of her clothes, and then throws her into a well in order to ensure possession of her jewels and wardrobe. These riches, however, do not last long; he becomes poor and goes begging alms, dressed as a mendicant, until he finds his wife again, who had been saved by divine intervention from the well, and provided anew with clothes and jewels of equal gorgeousness. The husband passes some time with his wife, and then sets out again on a voyage with her; he arrives at the same well, and throws her in as before to enjoy alone her stripped-off garnitures and riches. (The meaning of the myth is evident; it is the sun throwing the splendid aurora into the gloomy waters of the night.)

A king becomes enamoured of the beauteous Mahrusa;[325] his councillors tear him from his love, upon which he pines away in solitude and dies. The beautiful girl unites herself to him in the grave (Romeo and Juliet, the evening aurora and the sun die together).

The story of the three brothers, the Ribhavas, occurs again in the _Tuti-Name_,[326] with other particulars which we already know. The first brother is the wise one; the second is a maker of talismans (amongst other things he can make a horse which will run in one day over a space of ground that would take other horses thirty); the third and youngest brother is the victorious archer. They set out to search for the beautiful maiden who has fled by night from the house of her father. The first brother discovers, by his wisdom, that the maiden was carried off by the fairies into an island-mountain which men cannot reach. The second creates a wonderful animal upon which to traverse the intervening waters (Christophoros or Bhīmas). Having arrived at the island-mountain, the third and youngest brother fights the demon, the lord of the fairies, vanquishes him, and frees the beautiful girl, who thereupon is conducted back to her father. Then there arises the usual quarrel between the three brothers as to who is to possess the bride.

In the Vedās, we have the sky and the moon represented as a cup. From the little cup of abundance (the moon) it is easy to pass to the miraculous little pipkin (the moon), in which the kind-hearted but poor housekeeper of the Pāndavas, in the _Mahābhāratam_, still finds abundance of vegetables, after her powers of hospitality had been exhausted on the god Krishnas disguised as a beggar--to the pipkin from which can be taken whatever is wished for. In the _Tuti-Name_,[327] a woodcutter finds ten magicians round a pipkin, and eating out of it as much and whatever they want; they are pleased with the woodcutter, and, at his request, give him the pipkin. He invites his acquaintances to a banquet at his house, but not able to contain himself for joy, he places the pipkin upon his head, and begins to dance. The pipkin falls to the ground and is broken to pieces, and with it his fortune vanishes (the story of Perrette).

A variation of the small cup is the wooden porringer (the moon), which two brothers (the Aēvināu) dispute for, in the history of the king of China,[328] and from which can be taken whatever drink and food is wished for; as, in the same story, we find the enchanted shoes which carry us in an instant wherever we wish to go;--which brings us back to the fugitive Vedic aurora, the swiftest in the race, and to the popular tales relating to Cinderella, who is overtaken and found again by the prince only when she has lost her enchanted slipper. With the porringer and the enchanted shoes we find, in the popular tales, the little purse full of money which fills again as fast as it is emptied (another form of the cup of abundance), and a sword which, when unsheathed, causes a fine, rich, and great city to arise in a desert, which city disappears when the sword is put back into the sheath (the solar ray is the drawn sword, which makes the luminous city of the rich aurora arise; scarcely does the sun's ray vanish, or scarcely is the sword sheathed, than the marvellous city vanishes). The rest of the story is also interesting, because it applies to three men a double and well-known fable of the animals which contend for the prey (as the three brothers contend for the beautiful maiden whom they have found again). The animals cannot divide it equally; they refer to the judgment of a man passing by; he divides it so well that the animals are ever after grateful to him, and help him in every danger. The story of the _Tuti-Name_ touches upon this form of the myth, but soon abandons it for another equally zoological, and a more familiar one, that of the third who comes in between two that quarrel, and enjoys the prey. The young adventurer undertakes to put an end to the dispute of the two brothers as to the division of the purse, the porringer, the sword and the wonderful shoes; he does so by putting the shoes on his feet and fleeing away with the other three articles contended for (the two brothers Aēvināu, the two twilights, contend for the moon and also for the aurora, as we shall see better in the next chapter; the sun puts an end to their quarrel by espousing her himself).

We are already familiar with the Vedic Ribhavas who out of one cup make four. Probably upon this legend depends that of the four brothers of the _Tuti-Name_,[329] who, as they let each a pearl fall from their forehead upon the ground, see four mines open, one of copper, the second of silver, the third of gold (the third brother is here again the favourite), the fourth only of iron. The gem appears to be the sun itself. The four mines seem to me to represent respectively the coppery sky in the evening, the silver sky in the moonlight night, the sky in the morning, golden with the dawn, and the iron sky, the grey or azure, of the day. The word _nīlas_ in Sanskrit means azure, as well as black, and between azure and black is grey, the colour of iron.

Of the three brothers, the most learned, he who solves the enigmas, is often the eldest; and in the story of the _Tuti-Name_,[330] the eldest of the three brothers explains why old men have white hair, saying that this whiteness is a symbol of the clearness of their thoughts.

      *       *       *       *       *

Let us now pass to the Calmuc and Mongol stories of _Siddhi-kūr_, which, as we have said above, are also of Hindoo origin.

In the first story, the three companions, forming at first three groups of two, have resolved into six. The night-time is divided into three, into six, into seven (six, _plus_ an extraordinary one, born afterwards), into nine (three groups of three), into twelve (three groups of four). Hence, near the monster with three, six, seven, nine, or twelve heads, we find sometimes three, sometimes six, seven, nine, twelve brother-heroes. The last head (or the last two, three, or four heads) of the monster, the decisive one, is the most difficult, and even dangerous, to cut off; the last of the brothers is he who, by cutting it off, is victorious. In the first Calmuc story of _Siddhi-kūr_, six brothers or companions separate where six rivers take their rise, and go in search of fortune. The first-born perishes; the second, by means of his wisdom (he partakes of the wisdom of the first-born, with whom he is grouped), discovers the place where the dead one is buried; the third, the strong one, breaks the rock under which the eldest is hidden; the fourth resuscitates him by means of a health-bringing drink, as Bhīmas, the strong hero of the _Mahābhāratam_, arises again when he drinks the water of health and strength; the fifth brother creates a bird, which the sixth colours; this bird flies to the bride of the eldest brother, and brings her among his companions, who, finding her exceedingly beautiful, become, one and all, enamoured of her; they fight for her, and, that each may have a part, end by cutting her to pieces. We already know the mythical meaning of this legend.

The third and fourth Calmuc tales introduce explicitly the bull and the cow. In the third, a man who possesses but one cow unites himself to her, in order to make her fruitful. Of this union a tailed monster is born, having a man's body and a bull's head. The man-bull (Minotauros) goes into the forest, where he finds three companions--one black, one green, and one white--who accompany him. The man-bull overcomes the enchantments of a dwarf witch; his three companions lower him into a well and leave him there, but he escapes. He meets a beautiful maiden drawing water, at whose every footstep a flower arises; he follows her, and finally finds himself in heaven; he fights against the demons, in favour of the gods, and dies in this enterprise. This story, of Hindoo origin, where the bull and the cow take the place of the hero and the maiden, appears to me to justify the amplitude of the comparisons.

We have already seen the beneficial qualities of the excrement of the cow. In the fourth story, it is under the excrement of a cow that the enchanted gem, lost by the daughter of the king, is found. It is of the cow that the pearl is the secretion. The moon-cow and the aurora-cow are rich in pearls; they are pearls themselves, like the sun; the sun comes out of the aurora, the pearl comes out of the cow.

The subject of the seventh tale is the three sisters who, taking the cattle to pasture, lose a buffalo, or black bull. In their search for it, they came across an enchanted castle, tenanted by a white bird, who offers to marry them. The third sister consents, and marries him. The bird turns out then to be a handsome cavalier (a form of Lohengrin). But having, by the advice of a witch, burned the aviary, she loses him, and cannot recover him till the aviary is restored. We shall see the sun as a bird in the Vedic hymns; the aurora is the aviary, made of flames, of this divine bird. When the aviary is burned at morn, the aurora and the sun separate; they meet again in the evening, when the aviary is reconstructed.

Another beautiful myth of analogous import occurs again in the eighth story. A woodman and a painter envy each other; the painter makes the king believe that the woodman's father, who is in heaven, has written ordering his son to repair to paradise, in order to build him a temple, and to take the route that the painter shall indicate. The king orders the woodman to set out for paradise. The painter prepares a funeral pyre, by way of exit; from this the woodman succeeds in escaping, and, going back to the king, he tells him that he has been to paradise, and presents a letter which his father has given him, ordering the painter to come by the same road, and paint the temple. The king requires the summons to be obeyed, and the perfidious painter perishes in the flames. The morning sun emerges safe and sound from the flames of the morning aurora; the evening sun passes through those flames, and dies.

The tenth Calmuc tale gives us the myth of the two brothers; the rich one avaricious and wicked, and the poor one virtuous. The story ends in a manner analogous to that of the dying adulterer, who, as we have seen in the _Tuti-Name_, bites off his mistress's nose.

The eleventh story is a variation of that of the lover, or husband, who abandons or kills his wife, after having despoiled her of her riches; but instead of the waters of the sea, we have here the sea of sand, the sandy desert, in a cavity of which is deposited the young girl, shut up in a chest, the same chest which in other popular tales drifts about on the surface of the water.[331] But into the place where it was laid, the chest having been taken away by a young prince, a tiger enters; the unworthy husband turns up himself to abstract the chest, and is torn to pieces by the tiger. The sterile night is a vast desert, a sea of waters, a sea of sand; the sun-prince frees the aurora from the waters, out of the well, or the cavern of the desert; the tiger kills the monster-husband.

In the twelfth tale, a thief steals the enchanted gem from the prince; he throws the gem to the ground, the consequence of which is that the prince's nose bleeds so excessively that he dies. The nose is the most prominent part of the face, the most conspicuous and splendid part; it is the gem of the sun-prince. The sun falls at night upon the mountain; the gem falls to the ground; the prince's nose bleeds; he has struck his nose against the ground, and it bleeds. The sun-prince dies, and the evening sky is tinged red, blood-colour; the sun, who loses his blood in the evening, dies.

The thirteen Calmuc stories are followed by ten Mongol tales; in all, twenty-three, of which the sixteenth, however, is lost.

The fourteenth tells us of the rich and avaricious man whose poor brother goes in despair into the forest to die upon a rock; but his presence not being known to the spirits, he has the good luck to come upon a hammer and a sack, of which the former, when struck against an object, produces whatever is desired by the owner, the latter being used to carry away the objects thus obtained, this hammer and this sack having been left there by the hobgoblins. Thus the poor brother becomes rich, and is envied by the other, who goes to the same place, in hopes of experiencing the same good fortune; but as he does not hide himself, the hobgoblins see him, and believing him to be the man who stole the hammer and the sack, avenge themselves upon him by lengthening his nose, and covering it with protuberances. To this myth may perhaps be referred the origin of the Italian expression, "Restare con uno o due palmi di naso," to remain with one or two spans of the nose; that is to say, to be laughed at, and with the gesture by which derision is accompanied, and which is addressed to the man who is laughed at, by applying one or sometimes both hands to the end of one's nose. The poor brother, now rich, visits the miserly brother, who has a long nose covered with protuberances, and knocks them off with his hammer. He had already knocked off eight, and only one remained, when, at his wife's request, he desisted and left the last one on. The rich man's wife, seeing how the protuberances had been taken off by striking them, tries herself to remove the last one, and strikes it with a hammer; but not calculating her aim accurately, she splits her husband's head open, and he dies.

In the seventeenth Mongol story, an old man and an old woman have nine cows. The old man is fond of meat, and eats all the calves; the old woman, on the other hand, has a great liking for milk and butter, with which she satiates herself. When the old man has eaten all the calves, he thinks that one cow more or less will not affect his wealth; reasoning thus, he eats all the cows except one, which he spares out of respect for the whim of his old wife. But one day that the old woman is out, the old man cannot resist the temptation, and kills the last cow. His wife returns, is angry, and abandons him, upon which he throws after her one of the cow's breasts. The woman, in grateful memory of the milk and butter she liked so much, takes it up and goes up the mountain, where she strikes the cow's breast against the summit of the rock, and thereupon there flow out milk and butter in rivers. She satisfies her appetite, and then remembers that her husband is perhaps dying of hunger, feeding, as he does, upon ashes; she therefore, but secretly, throws butter into the house down the chimney, and then disappears. In this attention the old man recognises the love of his wife, and resolves upon the plan of following her footsteps during the night upon the snow. He comes to the mountain, sees the breast, and cannot resist the temptation it offers; he eats it, and takes the butter away with him. The old woman wanders about till she comes upon a herd of deer, who pasture freely, and who, instead of fleeing, let themselves be milked. Again, she thinks of her husband, and she throws deer's butter down the chimney. The old man follows her over the snow, finds her near the deer, and kills them in his inordinate passion for meat. The old woman continues to wander about, and stumbles this time upon a cavern of the wild beasts, guarded by a hare. The hare defends her from the wild beasts; but she then conceives the idea of giving her husband a stick, and throws it down the chimney whilst he is taking the ashes up with a spoon. He follows her, and comes to the cave of the wild animals, who, seeing them arrive together, tear them to pieces. Here again we have the myth of the sun and the aurora (or the fine season); the hare who guards the cavern and tames the wild beasts is, as we shall see in the chapter which treats of it, the moon, the cows and the deer being the same. The ferocious animals of the cavern of night rend both sun and aurora (or fine season), both old man and old woman.

The eighteenth Mongol story is too indecent for me to relate, or for the reader to peruse; suffice it to say, that we have in it a comic variation of the Amazon heroine, and that this heroine calls herself Sūrya (the sun) Bagatur (to which corresponds the bagatķr; or hero, of the Russians).

In the twentieth tale we have a calf and a lion's whelp brought up together by a lioness upon the same milk.[332] When grown, the lion goes and inhabits the forest, or the desert, and the bull, the mountain illumined by the sun, meeting as good friends and brothers to drink the same water. This good understanding is, however, put an end to by their perfidious uncle the fox, who persuades the lion to believe that the bull designs to kill him, and adds that when the bull in the morning strikes the ground with his horns, and bellows loudly, will be the sign that he is going to carry his purpose into effect; he then tells the bull that the lion has a similar design against him. In the morning, when the two brothers, bull and lion, go to drink the same water, they approach each other with suspicion, engage in battle and kill each other, the fox, or wolf, being the only one to benefit by the quarrel. This is a form of the story of the two twilights (the Aēvināu), which we shall illustrate in the following chapter.

The beginning of the twenty-first Mongol story offers a new analogy with the apologue of Perrette.[333] A poor father and mother find a little lamb's-wool; they consult together, and resolve with the wool to make cloth, and with the cloth to buy an ass. Upon this ass they will place their little child, and go a-begging; by begging they will become yet richer, and buy another ass. Of the two, a young ass will be born. The youngster immediately exclaims that if a young donkey is born he will ride upon it; whereupon his mother answers, "You would break its back," when, accompanying these words with the movement of a stick, she strikes the youngster's head with it, and kills him; with him the fine projects of the poor parents also vanish.

In the last of the stories of _Siddhi-kūr_, which is joined to the three legends of the grateful animals, the disguises, and the laughing princess, a man uses the horns of his dead buffalo to grub up the roots upon which he lives in exile.

The history of _Ardshi-Bordshi_ also contains several interesting stories.

It begins with a challenge among the children who keep the king's cows to run a race from the summit of a mountain. The first who comes to the winning-post is honoured as a king by his companions for that day, and acts and judges on the spot where the race takes place as a real king; indeed, he judges and decides as a court of final appeal on cases which have not been well examined by the great king of the country. He unmasks and convicts robbers and false witnesses acquitted by the king as innocent, and sends a missive to the king, recommending him to be more cautious in future in his judgments, or else to resign his royal dignity. The great king wonders at the extraordinary wisdom of the king of the children, and ascribes his preternatural sagacity to the magical influence of the mountain where the children who guard the cows play their games. On another occasion, the king of the children, by his craftiness, detects a demon in one whom the king had thought to be the legitimate son of his minister. The discovery is made by means of a challenge to the minister's real son and his demoniacal counterfeit to get into a small jug at hand. The real son cannot; but the supposititious makes himself small and enters the jug, in which the king of the children shuts him up with a diamond, and administers thereupon fresh reproof to the great king for his carelessness. The great king then visits the mountain of the children, and sees a golden throne with thirty-two steps emerge from the ground; upon each step there is a wooden puppet (the moon). The great king has the throne carried into his palace, and endeavours to ascend it; the puppets arrest him, and one of them tells him that this was once the throne of the god Indras, and afterwards of King Vikramādityas. The great king inclines himself in reverence, and one of the puppets begins to narrate the history of Vikramādityas.

The history of Vikramādityas, narrated by the puppets, refers to a wise child, born of the wife of the king, after she had eaten a cake made of earth mixed with oil, and dissolved in water in a porcelain vase (of which cake the servant-maid eats the remainder). The young Vikramādityas passes his infancy in the forests, where he learns all the arts, not excluding the art of thieving, taught him by the most experienced robbers, as well as every kind of mercantile fraud; by cheating, he becomes possessed of an enchanted gem which was in the hip of a dead man, and of a child who has the faculty of understanding the language of the wolves, and who calls himself son of the wolves, but was, in fact, born by the roadside of the maid who had eaten the rest of the cake; this child is nursed by his mother, and although at first ill-favoured, becomes in the long run very handsome. Vikramādityas afterwards kills the king of the demons in battle, in which it is remarkable that as many new demons arise to combat him as there are pieces into which the hero cuts the demon, until the hero multiplies himself in his turn, and to every demon opposes a lion sprung from his own body. Vikramādityas mounts upon a throne where those who had sat before him had all perished, each after a reign of twenty-four hours, because they had omitted to offer up funeral sacrifices to the dead during the night; Vikramādityas, with his companion, the son of the wolf, fulfils the sacred duty, and escapes death.

In the same story, which reminds us of the _Ribhavas_ and the four cups and the cow, four young shepherds, one after another, work at the same piece of wood; one gives it the general shape of a woman, the second colours it, the third imparts the features peculiar to the feminine form, and the fourth gives it life; they then dispute for her person. The case is referred to the king; a wise man pronounces that the two first who worked the wood are the father and mother, the third is the priest, the fourth, who gave it life, is the legitimate husband. Thus the four become three, by making a group of the first two.

Next comes the legend of the wife who, taking her husband by the feet, makes him fall into a fountain, because she hears a melodious voice, perhaps an echo of her own, which charms her; she sees a monster instead, and bewails her lost husband. In zoological mythology, the fable of the dog who, at the sight of his own shadow, lets the meat drop into the river, is analogous to this legend, which, however, we introduce here, only because of its relation to the similar stories of the wife who kills her husband, and of the husband who kills his wife by throwing her into the water, already vaguely hinted at in the Vedic hymns.

The last of the tales contained in the history of _Ardshi Bordshi_ shows us, on the other hand, a far too complaisant wife. A king has a daughter, named Light of the sun, who is to be seen by no one. The daughter asks to be allowed to go out into the city to walk on the 15th of the month (at full moon); this granted, the king orders every one to stay that day in his house, and all the doors and windows to be shut; and capital punishment is the penalty of disobeying the king's command. (The like occurs again in the British legend of Godiva, the Countess of Mercia, in the eleventh century.) A minister, Ssaran by name (moon), cannot repress his curiosity, and observes her from a balcony; the girl makes signs to him, inviting him to join her; the wife of the inquisitive minister interprets the signs to him, and urges him to overtake the beautiful girl, giving him, at parting, a pearl of recognition. Light of the sun and Light of the moon meet at the foot of a tree, and spend the night until sunrise in amorous dalliance. One of the persons employed to guard the princess discovers this intrigue, and denounces it before the king; the wife of the minister Ssaran ascertains, by means of the pearl, that her husband is in danger; she rejoins him, disguises and disfigures him, suggesting a formula of oath by which Light of the sun swears that it was the monster, and the monster only she embraced; which seeming impossible to the king and courtiers, the minister Ssaran and Light of the sun are acquitted. (The aurora, or the sun, hides during the night, and no one sees, no one is allowed to see her; the god Lunus shows himself; he remains during the night with the sun, or with the solar aurora, whom no one can see during the night; the god Lunus then transforms and disfigures himself, so that he becomes unrecognisable, invisible; the guilty one glides away, and escapes; it then seems impossible that the god Lunus, who is no longer seen, can have been with the light of the sun; their loves having come to an end, the adulterers being separated, their guilt is no longer believed, their innocence is recognised, and the morality of the myth is left to take care of itself as best it can.)

But the Calmuc and Mongol stories _Siddhi-kūr_, and the history of _Ardshi Bordshi_, being, as they are, only paraphrases of Hindoo tales, would not alone suffice to prove the derivation from the zoological legends of Aryan mythology of the oral Turco-Finnic tradition, properly speaking. We must, therefore, search for the proofs of their influence in other quarters as well.

A Turanian story of the south of Siberia[334] combines together several of the mythical subjects which we are already acquainted with.

A poor old man and woman have three sons; the three sons go upon the mountain to dream; the two eldest dream of riches, and the third dreams that his father and mother are lean camels, his brothers two hungry wolves running towards the mountains, while he himself, between the sun and the moon, wears the morning star upon his forehead. The father orders the brothers to kill him; they dare not do so; they only expel him from the house, and kill the dog instead, the blood of which they take to their father, who, thinking it is his son's, says they have done well. The young man wanders about till he comes to a hut where a lame old man and a blind old woman are eating out of a golden cup, which of itself fills with meat as they empty it (the moon). The hungry youth helps himself to some of this meat, but the old man finds, as he continues to eat the food, that some one has put his teeth into it; with a hook, which he whirls around him, he clutches hold of the young man, who begs for his life, pledging himself to be the eye of her who has no eyes, and the foot of him who has no feet. This proposal pleases the old couple, and they adopt him as their son; he makes himself a bow and a wooden arrow, and goes to hunt wildfowl for their support. The old man lends him his iron-grey horse, one day old, but advises him to ride him only by day; the young man, thinking that by night he conceals treasures, cattle, and people, disobeys, and rides by night. What the horse then does we shall see in the next chapter. The youth fights and vanquishes the demon, by fastening one of his lips to the heavens, and the other to the earth; the defeated demon advises him to rub himself with the fat of his stomach; inside his stomach he will find a casket of silver, inside that a casket of gold, and inside that another casket of silver; he is to take it and throw it into the sea of milk. From the monster's stomach, cut open, come forth innumerable animals, men, treasures, and other objects. Some of the men say, "What noble man has delivered us from the black night? what noble man has shown us the clear day?" The youth finds in the caskets money and a white handkerchief, which he puts into his pocket; from the last casket come forth more men, animals, and valuables of every kind; he drives the white cattle before him and returns home, where the old couple are asleep. He opens the handkerchief, and finds in it the old woman's eyes; whilst he is smoking near the fire, the old people waken, see him, and embrace him. The old man then endows him with the power of transforming himself into a fox, a wolf, a lion, a vulture, and other shapes, at will. He goes, to find for himself a wife, to the residence of the prince Ai-Kan; the latter promises to give his daughter to whoever will bring him the necessary amount of gold. It is in the shape of a vulture[335] that the young man sets out to search for it; he then wins the young maiden who has the gold, and she, who is herself the daughter of Ai-Kan, says to him, "Thou art my husband." After various other transformations, in one of which the two lean camels reappear, _i.e._, his two parents, of whom he had dreamt, whom he loads with a sack, he ends by taking to himself another wife, the daughter of Kün-Kan, and he lives now with one, now with the other, to whom he gives the flesh of his own infanticide father to eat. Let us recapitulate the moments of this significant legend:--1st, We have the presage, the dream of the mountain-peak; 2d, The three brothers, the third of whom, predestined to good fortune, the others wish to sacrifice; 3d, The lame and the blind in the forest; 4th, The hero's hunt; 5th, The struggle with the monster of night; 6th, The treasures, spiritual and material, which come out of the monster; 7th, The cattle in conjunction with the sea of milk; 8th, The passage of the hero from the milky sea to the fireside, from the alba to the aurora, from the whitish sky to the reddish one; 9th, The awakening of the sleepers, and restoration of sight to the blind, whilst he sits by the fire, whilst the sun is united to the aurora; 10th, The transformation of the hero himself; 11th, Winning his bride, by procuring the necessary amount of gold; 12th, His marriage of two wives; 13th, His revenge on his persecuting father. The legend is in itself an epic poem, and we can only regret that the Altaic story-tellers did not give it a more artistic form than that in which it appears in the excellent collection of Radloff.

Another interesting Turanian story, in the same collection, which preserves several traces of the primitive myth, is another version of the story of the hero who solves the riddle proposed by his father-in-law, and thus wins his wife. A father has three sons; the first-born dreams that their cow has devoured a wolf; he goes to see, and finds it is true (the aurora destroys the night). We have already seen that, as the third brother is the wise child, so the first-born of the three is often the one who possesses the secret of solving riddles. The father of the three brothers wishes to obtain a wife for his first-born son, and the bride's father, to give her up, demands that the bridegroom's father should come to take her, arriving, the first time, with a fur-coat and without one (in the morning the old man, by the advice of the eldest son, departs wearing a coat of fur which seems to be one, but is not, being in reality a coat of mail), and coming, the second time, without touching the road, yet not off the road, on horseback, yet without horses (the old man, by the advice again of his first-born son, arrives at the father-in-law's abode, going on the side of the road, and riding on a stick; thus he obtains permission to take the bride away for his son).

Professor Schiefner gives a Finnic variation of the same story. A king orders the son of a peasant to come neither by day nor by night, neither by the road nor by the road-side, neither on horseback nor on foot, neither dressed nor naked, neither inside nor outside. The intelligent boy makes a robe of goat's skin, goes to the city lying in the bottom of a coffin, during the morning twilight, having a sieve fastened to one foot, and a brush to the other, and stops on the doorstep of the antechamber, with one leg out and the other in.

Such was the humour, and such the wisdom of our fathers; ingenuity was measured by skill in solving astronomical riddles. Now the riddles have taken another form; they are strokes of diplomacy, amorous hieroglyphs, ethical ambiguities, metaphysical nebulosities, which we, the men of progress, must solve; but not wishing to acknowledge our inferiority in acuteness to the children of the legends, we are fain to persuade ourselves that the new riddles are more obscure than the ancient.

In the Vedic riddles proposed to one another by the aurora and the sun, we have seen how they were solved in the morning by the nuptials of the guesser and the guessee. Thus in the two riddles which we have just described, the son of the old man and the child solve the riddle in the morning. As to the sieve, the brush, and the coffin, they are mythical furniture of great interest and obvious import. The nocturnal sky is the great coffin; to sweep the sky of night, we must have a brush; to sunder the good grain from the bad during the night, as the cruel mother-in-law commands, we must have a sieve; the child-sun arrives, in the twilight, in the bottom of the coffin, at the doorstep of the royal palace, and presents to the maiden aurora (the Vedic cleaner or purifier) the brush and the sieve. The sun, at twilight, is neither in nor out. In the second Scottish story of Mr J. F. Campbell, the giant commands the hero, among other things, to cleanse, in one day, the stables which had not been cleansed for seven years (Heraklés and Augeias).

But let us continue our subject, for the path is a long one.

A Mongol tradition, contained in the _Mongol Crestomathy_ of Papoff,[336] speaks of the boy who comes riding upon a black ox, instead of in a coffin.

We have seen above the cow who eats the wolf; in another Altaic legend we find an old woman who gives up her seven azure (dark-coloured) cows to be eaten by the seven wolves, in order that the latter may spare the child Kan Püdai, whom she had found at the foot of a tree; meanwhile the child, who has fed upon two hundred hares,[337] has become strong, and breaks his iron cradle (the iron sky of night is the cradle of the young sun); from the horns of six roebucks he makes himself a bow; from the skin of a colossal marine animal (the cloud, the gloomy one), he makes a string for the bow (the string of the Hindoo bow is also called _go_, _i.e._, cow, as a cloud in the sky, and as being formed from the hide of a cow); he rides upon the azure calf (the dark calf, which recalls our attention to the black ox, and leads us to conclude the colossal animal to have been a cow), and subdues and tames it; he then comes to a field of snow, upon which he breathes a black and numbing wind, and where he finds the seven wolves; he ties them to the tail of his calf, and drags them along the ground till they die. The boy continues his wild beast hunt; he kills the black and fat ones, and leaves the yellow and lean ones alone. He goes into a black sea, and erects there a black castle, into which he receives both the old woman who had sustained him, and his azure (_i.e._, dark-coloured) calf. Thereafter the young Kan Püdai, applying himself to warfare, forsakes or exchanges his calf for a horse. We shall see in the next chapter what he does with his horse;--suffice it to notice here, that, in the end, he meets the black bull, who will one day be the king of the Altaļ. The soul of the black bull takes refuge in a red thread in the middle of the rainbow (in the popular belief of the East the rainbow was supposed to be a bridge, a road traversed by the souls of mortals); the young Kan Püdai transfixes it with his arrows. He wins the white cattle, kills the monstrous Kara Kula, and, taking the latter's wife and daughter with him, returns home; and for seven days there is eating, drinking, and festivity in the house of Kan Püdai. But up to this point it is not said that he has espoused the daughter and the wife of Kara Kula. Kan Püdai is, on the contrary, passionately enamoured of Tämän Ökö, the daughter of the sky (duhitar divas, or daughter of the sky, is the name usually given to the aurora in the Vedic hymns), and ascends, in order to secure her and make her his wife, to the third heaven (it is the third step of Vishnus; it is the third brother, the sun of the third night-watch, who carries off the palm against the gloomy monster). In order to become worthy of the daughter of the sky, Kan Püdai has to kill two monsters; to scatter ashes on the field of victory, and lead away from it the white cattle; to catch the three bears; to take the three black bulls and make them swallow three hills; to take the tiger and give it the grass of the three mountains to eat; to kill the whale in the azure sea (all different forms of one and the same mythical and heroic battle); and, finally, to play upon the mountain-peak with the golden-haired monster Andalma. He then obtains his bride, and returns with her to his own country, where he hunts, and makes war, and vanquishes all his enemies, until he grows old; he then renounces all except his old companion (the old sun and the old aurora meet again in the evening).

Here evidently the mythology is really zoological.

In the complicated legend of Ai-Kan, we have in the brother Altyn Ayak, who sleeps in the form of a golden cup, and who awakens to help Ai-Kan, a figure which, though not the same as, is similar to, that of the sleeping brother Kumbhakarnas (conch-ear) in the _Rāmāyanam_, who awakens to help Rāvanas. We have the inebriating liquor which gives strength to the hero, who is resuscitated three times from death, after having been the food of dogs; the wolves who devour Sary-Kan, or the fair-haired prince; the hero (the sun) who beats the wife (the aurora) given him by the two brothers (the Aēvināu); the friendly dog and cat; the golden cup in which the brother of Ai-Kan is shut up asleep, and which falls into the sea; the grateful animals which search for the cup; the gem found in the stomach of a fish (from the whale of the nocturnal ocean the gem comes forth); and the consequent awakening of the sleeping Altyn Ayak.

The following is from an Altaic saga, in the collection of Radloff:--Beyond the sea, on a rock surrounded with treasures, a dwarf girl is brought up, against whom aggressive warriors can prevail nothing. She sends all enemies away, after loading them with gold and silver, and placing on their heads part of the hair of her forehead, which proves to be sufficient to cover seven men. In this marvellous hair, in this enchanted maiden, and in the warriors who come by sea, who does not recognise the veil of the maiden aurora of the Vedās, who uncovers her bosom before the sun her husband, and the sea which the warrior-sun crosses, and from which he emerges to come to the aurora?--who does not recognise the golden fleece, Jason, Medea, the Argonauts of Hellenic tradition?

In the Finnic mythology of the _Kalevala_[338] also, we have upon the mountain a good and pure hostess, a generous giver, from the golden windows of whose house are observed the women who give the wildfowl; but in this Finnic representation, it is not the heroic girl-aurora, it seems to me, we recognise, but the moon, Diana the huntress (the German _Helljäger_), who also appears on the mountain-peak, surrounded by the stars of the nocturnal forest, where the wildfowl is found, which she can therefore lavish upon the hero.

The Finns worship a thundering god, united with the clouds, who has the thunderbolt for his sword, and who is called Ukko,[339] father of Väinämöinen, the valorous and wise hero, who speaks in the womb of his mother, who performs prodigies when yet a child, and who produces the sun and the moon.

This child-hero occurs again in their dwarf-god (_pikku mies_), who, although, like the Hindoo Vishnus, he is but a span long, wields in his hand an axe the length of a man, with which he cuts down an oak-tree that no one had yet been able to bring to the ground. The sun-hero is little; but his ray, his thunderbolt, his weapon, his hand, lengthen themselves, extend themselves as far as the dwarf-hero can desire, in order to destroy the enemy, who wears here the well-known aspect of the trunk of a tree, or of a dark forest. The woodcutter is therefore a favourite figure in popular tradition. And the fact that Väinämöinen, having grown old and truthful in speech, cuts down in the _Kalevala_,[340] by the help of the little god, the prodigious oak, shows us that this little god is a new and junior form, a younger and victorious brother, or self-reproduction of the erewhile child-hero Väinämöinen, who has lived his life of a day. The valiant child-sun of morning has become the experienced old sun of evening; but as this old sun is not strong enough to cut down the oak-tree, under whose shadow he loses himself, he is obliged to become a child again to develope the requisite amount of strength; he needs a younger brother, a hero or dwarf-god, to free him from the evil shades of the forest of night. To this end he also invokes the sun and the moon to illumine the forest, and also the bear (the middle brother)--(in the _Kalevala_, of the three heroes it is the bear Ilmarinen who shows the greatest strength, and who wins the virgin for his bride)--in order that by his strength he may root up the tree. But to root up the tree is all that bears can do, while Väinämöinen wishes it to be cut down; and so this victorious enterprise is intrusted to the dwarf-god. Thus, without explicit mention of their names, we find the three brothers described in the entirely mythical epopee of the Finns.

Alongside of the dwarf, by force of antithesis, there arises, even in the Finnic mythology, the idea of a giant, a Titan who amuses himself with uplifting and hurling rocks and mountains. The cloud, the monster of darkness, being represented as a mountain, the monster inhabiting this country must fight by means of the mountain itself. The cloudy mountain moves; it is a giant monster that moves it; it is the second brother, the strong brother, the son of the cow, the bear, who amuses himself with it, who shakes, carries, and throws it like a weapon. And such mythical battles must have seemed so much the more natural in the age in which the greater number of the myths were conceived and produced, as we know it to have been the age which archęologists call the age of stone. The sun, as a dwarf, destroys the vast cloud, the vast darkness, viewed as a giant.

But battles are not always going on in the heavens; even the wild animals of the gloomy forest become tame and rest themselves; music fills the soul with calm sentiments. Therefore even the warrior Gandharvās of the Hindoo Olympus are transformed into expert musicians, who entrance the very gods with wonder. The song of the Sirens attracts and seduces the traveller; the lyre of Orpheus draws after it mountains, trees, and animals; the harp of Väinämöinen, in the _Kalevala_, makes the wolf forget his ferocity, the bear his wildness, the fish his coldness. And it is grief which is the first inspirer of song; the first stanza of the poet Vālmīkis had its origin in the sorrow he felt upon seeing a bird bereft of its companion. Orpheus (the Thracian sun) sings and plays for grief, when the serpent (the shade of night) has bitten and thrown into the gloomy regions his sweet bride Eurydice (the aurora), and moves the demons to pity; the harp of Väinämöinen is also born of sorrow.[341]

The epopee of the Finns contains, moreover, several other myths cognate with those of Aryan mythical tradition;--such as the resuscitated hero; the winning of the maiden by display of heroism; the bride heroically won and afterwards cut in pieces; the cup of abundance, or the cornucopia (the Sampo); the golden cradle; the marvellous vessel in which the hero crosses the sea; the three sisters, of whom one gives black milk, one white, and one red (night, the alba or moon, and aurora); the invulnerable shirt; the magician who makes children of gold and silver; and others of secondary importance,[342] but all tending to prove that formerly the Turanian and Aryan races, in their neighbouring abodes, were originally much more similar to each other than they now appear, on account of partly diversity of language, and partly their different degrees of civilisation.

I have just named the Finnish Sampo as a cup of abundance or cornucopia; it does, in fact, yield marvellous abundance to whoever possesses it, and wherever it falls. It is made of the feather of a swan, or of a duck (the swan and the duck are, as we shall see, confounded together in tradition, and the duck, like the hen, is a symbol of abundance), of a tuft of wool, of a grain of corn, and of chips from a spindle, all evident symbols of abundance; and it becomes so large that it has to be carried by a hundred-horned ox (reminding us of the horns of the cow which spin). The ox bears abundance upon its horns, it yields abundance from its horns. The cornucopia is, in my mind, unmistakably implied in these mythical data.

The same mythical correspondence which we have found to exist between the Finnic epos and the various legendary Aryan traditions is observable between the latter and the Esthonian popular tales. In the collection of Frederic Kreuzwald[343] we find numerous proofs of this correspondence.

In the first story we have, in a hut in the forest, three sisters, of whom the youngest is the most beautiful. The old witch, her step-mother, persecutes her, and always gives her filaments of gold to spin, hiding from time to time the gold she has spun in a secret room. During the summer the old woman goes out of the house, no one knows where, after having apportioned their respective tasks to the three sisters. While the old woman is out, a young prince, having lost himself in the forest, finds his way to the hut, and becomes enamoured of the youngest of the three sisters. The young couple speak to each other of love in the light of the moon and of the stars; while the old king, impatient at the absence of his son, falls into grief, and sends everywhere to look for him. After three days he is found; before going back to the palace, he secretly promises to the youngest sister that he will return. Meanwhile the old woman comes back, finds the work badly done, curses, threatens, and maltreats the girl. Early in the morning, while the old woman and the two elder sisters are slumbering, the maiden slips out, and leaves the house. During her childhood she had learned the language of birds; accordingly, when she meets a crow, she salutes him by the name of "bird of light," and sends him as a messenger to the young prince, to warn him not to come back to see her, on account of the fury of the old woman. The prince then names her another trysting-place, and the young couple meet under a tree, between the second and third crowing of the cock; and when the sun rises, they flee away together. The old witch causes them to be followed by a ball made of nine evil herbs, and carried by malignant winds. The fugitives are overtaken on the banks of a river, where the ball strikes the prince's horse; it rears up on its hind legs, and the girl falls off into the river, into the hands of a marine monster; upon which the prince is struck by a disease which no one can cure. By eating the flesh of a hog, the prince acquires a knowledge of the language of birds; he sends the swallows as messengers to the magician of Finland, that he may teach him the way to free a girl who has been transformed into a pond-rose (lotus-flower). The answer, instead of being brought by the swallows, is brought by an eagle. The prince must become a shrimp, in order to enter the water without being drowned; he must detach the lotus by its root, draw it along the surface of the water to the bank, near a stone, and pronounce these words, "From the pond-rose, a maiden--from the shrimp, a man." The crow confirms the eagle's words. The prince hears a song issue from the rose; he then determines to deliver the girl. The two young people emerge together from the water. The maiden is ashamed of being naked, and the prince goes to procure nuptial robes for her; after which he conducts her to the palace in a beautiful chariot, where a joyous and gorgeous wedding-festival is celebrated. Soon afterwards the old witch dies, to appear again in the form of a cat, which is taken by the tail and flung into the fire. In the witch's house are found mountains of spun gold, which serve for the dowry of the three sisters. We have already said that the three sisters correspond to the three brothers, and the youngest sister to the youngest brother. The epithet of _young_ is often given to the Vedic aurora, whom the sun marries. Here the prince marries the youngest of the three sisters; the morning aurora is united to the sun. Towards night she falls into the water; it is the witch (night) who throws her in; the hog which the prince (the sun) eats we shall see to be a figurative representation of the nocturnal monster, or the moon. Eating the hog, staying in the forest of night, the prince learns the language of birds. The prince frees the maiden from the waters; the sun delivers the aurora from the gloomy ocean of night, and robes her in his splendour, causing the witch of night to be burned in the flames of the aurora, and taking from the witch's abode the spun gold or golden fleece.

In the third Esthonian story, a woman, called mother-of-gold, bears, by the favour of a dwarf, three dwarf-sons at the same time, who become three heroes. The first is the seer (the wise brother), the second has a ready arm (the strong brother), the third runs swiftly in the race (a quality distinctive of the third brother, Argunas, in the _Mahābhāratam_, and which is applicable to the victorious sun of morning, who wins the race, together with the aurora).

A variation of the story relating to the youngest sister and the dwarf is that of the girl seven years old, the wise girl (the aurora), in the fourth Esthonian tale, who, being persecuted by her step-mother, retires into the forest (the night). While there, it seems to her that she is in heaven, where, in a house of crystal and pearls, she is received by a well-dressed woman of gold (the fair-haired moon). The girl asks the golden woman to be allowed to take care of the cattle, like the cowmaid aurora. In the history of _Ardshi Bordshi_ we have seen the wise puppet. This form of the wise girl, the dressed girl of wood, occurs again in the Esthonian story; in which she is made of wood from the forest, of three anchovies, of bread, of a black serpent, and of the blood of the girl herself, to whom the image has a great likeness, and which may be beaten by the old step-mother without being hurt. From the forest-tree, wood, or wooden box of the night, with the juice of the black serpent of night and the blood of the girl aurora of evening, comes forth the maiden aurora of morning, the wise, the speaking puppet, the puppet who guesses the riddles. The girl who comes out of wood is represented as a wooden puppet; more frequently the puppet is the moon, the wise fairy who comes out of the forest. In the same story we have the magic rod which produces a cock upon the mountain, beside which a tablecloth spreads itself out, while the chairs range themselves in their places, and the dishes are filled of their own accord. The story ends with the usual marriage between the beautiful maiden, and a king's son returning from the chase (or the son who comes out of the forest of night, viewed as infested by ferocious animals).

In the sixth Esthonian tale, the poor girl finds a woman in a white robe (the moon), adorned with gold, upon a rock near a fountain, who announces her approaching marriage with a youth as poor as herself; but the good fairy godmother--for in the legends the godmother is represented as good, as the stepmother is wicked--promises to make them both rich and happy. She calls herself the lady of the waters, secret wife of the wind, and she judges the criminals who present themselves at her tribunal (Proserpina or Persephonź).

In the seventh tale, a boy nine years of age, the third son of two poor people, goes out to be a cowherd; his master treats him well, but his mistress gives him more floggings than bread. One day the young cowherd is unfortunate enough to lose a cow; he searches for it all through the forest, but in vain. He re-enters the house with the cattle, after the sun has set some time. The observant eye of his mistress perceives at once that there is a cow missing; she beats the boy without pity, and sends him out to look for it, threatening to kill him if he returns without it. He wanders through the forest; but when the sun arises from out the bosom of the dawn, he resolves to stay out of the house, and not to return to his persecutor (the young morning sun flees from the old and perverse night). In the evening, the boy finds an old dwarf, who is his host during the night (the moon), and who says to him, "When the sun rises to-morrow, carefully observe the spot in which he rises. Thou must go in that direction, so that every morning thou may'st have the sun before thee, and every evening the sun behind thee. Thus thy strength will increase more and more every day." How can one indicate better the apparent course of the solar hero, or of the sun in the night? The hero, in order to go towards the morning sun, must necessarily have the sun of evening behind him. The old dwarf also gives him a sack and a little barrel, in which he will always find the food and drink he requires; but he recommends him never to eat or drink more than is necessary, that he may have to give to a hungry bird or a thirsty wild beast. He also leaves him a rolled-up leaf of burdock, upon which, by rolling it out, he will always be able to cross water (a new form of the cup). We know how the Hindoos represented their god as floating upon a lotus-leaf in the midst of the waters, and how Padmagas (born of the lotus-flower, or the rose of the waters, which shuts during the night) was one of the names of Brāhman; here we have the god or hero shutting himself up in the flower, from which he afterwards comes out. In the chapters on the Serpent and the Frog we shall again see how the god sometimes shuts himself up in a monstrous form in this flower, the rose, on account of a curse from which he is to be freed by a beautiful maiden. We have seen how the Esthonian girl, who was by the curse of the old woman thrown into the water, was transformed into a water-rose or lotus-flower, and delivered by the young prince. The Esthonian boy finds himself before a small lake; he throws the leaf in, and it becomes a magical boat, which carries him over. Meanwhile he has become strong. Upon the mountain he sees a serpent, a tortoise, and an eagle, all three of enormous dimensions, approaching to attack him, with a man upon a black horse, which has wings on its feet, in the rear of them. He kills the serpent and the tortoise, but the eagle flies away. The man with the black horse takes the boy into his house, and appoints him to look after the dogs, that they may not get loose from their chains, a danger against which the man provides by making twelve colossal oxen fetch rocks upon rocks, to repair the damage done by the dogs. The rocks, touched by a magical rod, arrange themselves upon the car drawn by the oxen. At last, by the advice of the eagle, he steals his master's horse, and departs to sojourn among mankind, taking a wife with him.

In the eighth Esthonian story too, the third brother is the cunning one. His two elder brothers, after the death of their father, despoil him of his share of the inheritance, and he is reduced to wander alone and impoverished about the world in quest of good fortune. He falls in with a woman who complains to him that her husband regularly beats her when she is unable to procure for him the things he wants, which he asks for in the form of a riddle. The third brother solves the enigma for the woman (the moon), who, in gratitude, gives him provisions for his travels. He then comes to a palace, where the king is engaged in celebrating a summer festival, and he undertakes to provide and prepare the feast. A magician presents himself at the festival in the shape of an old man, and asks to taste the food. The young man suspects him, but, seeing a ring upon his finger, he consents to allow him if he gives him a pledge. The magician vows that he has nothing to give. The youth asks for his ring, and the old man in his gluttony at once gives it up; upon which the youth, who, along with the ring, has taken all the magician's strength away, first binds and derides him, and then has him beaten by seven strong men. The old man breaks the ropes and disappears; however, the young man, having the ring in his hands, possesses the means of tracking his footsteps and making him his. (This is the usual disc, lasso, or bridle which is now in the hands of the hero, now in those of the monster.) The youth follows the magician underground. The latter, it appears, is served by three maidens, who, when they perceive that the sorcerer has lost his ring, and that they have a young man for companion, enjoy themselves with him while the magician is asleep. The youth learns from them that the old wizard also possesses a sword which can destroy armies, and a magical rod which can create a bridge to span the sea; these, therefore, he steals, and departs, returning by a wonderful bridge thrown over the sea to the palace whence he had started. It seems to him as if his journey had lasted only two nights, instead of which a year has passed.[344] He finds on his arrival his two brothers in the king's service, one as coachman and the other as a valet, both enriched because they have received the pay due to their younger brother for having prepared the great feast. The young man now engages himself in another capacity, in a species of service especially dear to the young hero, next to those of stable-boy and cowherd; that is to say, he becomes under-cook of the king. (In the _Vīrāta-Parvam_ of the _Mahābhāratam_, it is the second of the brothers who disguises himself as a cook, in order to prepare good sauces and substantial food for the king whose guest he is; the elder brother is disguised as a Brāhmanas, a wise adviser; the third brother, Argunas, the agile, the swift one, pretends to be a eunuch, is given in exchange for a woman, and teaches dancing, music, and singing in the gynecium. Of the two sons of the Aēvināu, one becomes a groom, the other a cowherd.) His brothers continue to dislike him, and because he boasts to them that he had seen in hell golden birds, they induce the king to send him to hell in order to procure them. He accomplishes this undertaking with great difficulty, and brings the birds in a sack made of spiders' webs, which is so strong that the birds enclosed in it cannot extricate themselves. In the same sack, during another expedition, the young man brings from hell many precious objects of gold and silver. In compensation, he only asks of the king to send the princess, his daughter, to listen for one evening to the conversation of his two brothers the coachman and the valet. Both boast of having enjoyed to satiety the favours of the princess. The latter, indignant and full of shame, runs to tell the king everything, upon which he arraigns them before him and has them judged. The third brother is named Counsellor; with his enchanted sword he destroys an entire army of enemies, and obtains in reward for his services and his valour the king's daughter to wife.

The ninth Esthonian story presents to us the son of the thunder, who sells his soul to the devil, on condition that the latter serves him for seven years. The time agreed upon is nearly come to an end, and the son of the thunder wishes to escape from him, and profits by an opportunity which has chanced. The devil sees a black cloud, which is a sign of an approaching tempest; he is afraid, hides himself under a stone, and asks the son of the thunder to keep him company. The latter consents; but seeing that the devil is afraid, at each thunderclap he presses his ears and eyes in such a manner as to make him perspire and shiver all over. The devil, believing this to be the effect of the thunder, promises the son of the thunder that he will not only leave him his soul, but give him three other souls, if he will deliver him from the evils which he suffers on account of the thunder, by taking from the thundering god, the father of the clouds, his weapon (which is also a musical instrument). This weapon, having been ravished from the god, is taken by the devil into hell, into a chamber of iron, shut up within seven castles. A great drought coming upon the earth, the son of the thunder repents of having rendered such a service to the devil; he finds means, however, of informing the thunder-god where his weapon is concealed. The thunder-god then becomes a child, and engages himself in the service of a fisherman, near a lake which the devil is accustomed to visit to steal the fishes. He surprises him in the act of robbery, and by the help of a magician takes him prisoner, and has him beaten without pity, until he promises to pay a heavy ransom in money to be let free, the fisherman and his child to accompany him to hell itself to receive the sum of money. Arrived in hell, the devil entertains them like a gentleman. The child tells the fisherman to ask the devil to show them the musical instrument which he keeps enclosed in the iron room. The devil kindly consents, but cannot draw from the instrument anything more musical than the mewing of a cat or the grunting of a pig. The fisherman then laughs at the devil, and says that his boy can play better. The devil does not believe it, and laughingly gives the instrument, which he calls bagpipes, to the boy. The latter blows into them and makes such a noise that all hell resounds with it, and the devils fall to the earth as if dead. The child then becomes the god of thunder again, and returns to heaven, where by the noise of his instrument he opens the celestial reservoirs and lets out the beneficent rain. The description of the tempest which occurs in many Vedic hymns is the germ of this interesting myth. The drum or kettledrum thunder is a familiar image in Hindoo poetry, and the Gandharvās, the musician-warriors of the Hindoo Olympus, have no other instrument than the thunder. The conch of the warrior Pāndavās in the _Mahābhāratam_, and the famous horn of Orlando (which comes from the golden horn of Odin), are epical reminiscences of thunder. Orpheus, who in hell plays on his lyre and tames the animals, is a more lucid and more perfect form of this Esthonian thunder-god who plays the bagpipes in hell. It is also remarkable how, in harmony with the pastoral bagpipes, in the tenth Esthonian story, which is a variation of the preceding one, the god transformed into a powerful boy is called a little shepherd or cowherd--another interesting fact, which completes his identification with Orpheus.[345] The magic flute is a variation of the same celestial musical instrument. The magic flute, the bagpipes or wonderful pipe, occurs again in the twenty-third Esthonian story, in which the good Tiidu, by means of it and of his virtue, obtains riches. The magical harp of Gunnar in the Edda has the same marvellous effects.

Evidently the monster-dwarf is a favourite subject of Esthonian tradition, and it often occurs in the Hindoo and in the German traditions, as well as in the Franco-Latin tradition of Charlemagne. The eleventh story introduces us to three dwarf-brothers who contend for the inheritance left by their father, consisting of a miraculous hat, which enables its wearer to see everything, whilst he can himself be visible or invisible at pleasure (this hat is made of pieces of men's nails cut up);[346] of a pair of slippers which transport the owner in an instant wherever he wishes (we must not forget that Cinderella, when she loses the slipper, is overtaken by the prince bridegroom); and of a stick which strikes of itself, and destroys everything, even stronger than the thunderbolt (the thunderbolt itself). The three brothers maintain that these three articles, to be really useful, must be the property of one; but who is to enjoy this privilege? A man comes up to put an end to the dispute, and feigns disbelief in the virtue of these three things, unless he proves it himself. The three simpletons give them to him that he may prove them. The man takes them off, and the three dwarfs are left to meditate upon the truth of the above-quoted proverb, "Between two disputers the third profits," or at least that variation of it which their own case suggests "Between three that dispute, the fourth profits."

In the thirteenth Esthonian story, the privileged character of the third brother is explained, as we are told that he is the son of a king, but was exchanged by a witch during his infancy for the child of a peasant. The latter died in the palace, whilst the king's son grew in the hut, showing in every action his royal pedigree. Here we have the story of the hero who is exposed on the mountains intimately connected with that of the third brother. To this third brother, who alone shows himself to be devoted to his father, and who alone makes a vow to watch by his grave, is also attributed the merit of having delivered, upon a high mountain of crystal, from a seven years' sleep, a princess, who then becomes his wife. We have seen the aurora-awakener in the Vedic hymns--the sun and the aurora arouse each other: the sun sends forth the aurora; the aurora draws out the sun. The myth reproduces itself every day, and expresses in its entirety a daily phenomenon of light in the heavens. In Northern countries, where the contrast is great between winter and spring, and therefore the impression is striking which is caused by the cessation of vegetation in autumn, the earth also assumed the aspect of a dead young princess; but an omniscient magician having said, _Non est mortua puella, sed dormit_, the third brother, predestined to the enterprise, lays down his poor robes, and dresses himself, on the first occasion, in the colour of bronze; on the second, the colour of silver; on the third, the colour of gold, and ascends the mountain of crystal, or ice, whence he brings forth the beautiful spring. The sky, grey in autumn, snowy in winter, and golden in spring, corresponds to the grey sky of evening, the silver one of night, and the golden one of morning. Spring is the dawn of the year; the primitive myth is but amplified; the last hour of the day awakens the aurora; the last month of the solar year awakens the spring. The application of the myth of the day to the year is one of the greatest simplicity.

In the fourteenth story, the king of the golden country loses himself in the forest full of ferocious animals, and cannot find his way out. A stranger (no doubt the devil) conducts him out, on condition that he will give him whatever first comes to meet him. The king promises. The first thing he sees on his return is his royal child, who, carried by his nurse, stretches out his arms to his father. The king exchanges him for a peasant's girl, whom he gives up to the stranger, allowing his own son to be brought up among the peasant's herds. The king's son, having grown to manhood, determines to go and deliver the poor girl. He disguises himself as a poor man, puts a sack of peas on his shoulders, and goes into the forest where his father was lost eighteen years before. He also loses himself, and meets the stranger, who promises to direct him if he will give him the peas which are in the sack, as they will serve, he alleges, to recompense the assistants at the funeral of his aunt, who died in poverty during the night.--This pulse in funeral ceremonies refers to a very ancient custom. The Vedic ceremonials already mention them in connection with funerals; and in the Greek belief, the dead carried vegetables with them to hell, either for the right of passage or as provisions for travelling. In Piedmont, it is still the custom on the second of November (All Soul's Day) to make a great distribution of kidney-beans to the poor, who pray for the souls of the dead. Vegetables, peas, vetches, and kidney-beans are symbols of abundance, and to this belief may be traced the numerous Indo-European stories in which mention is made of beans which multiply themselves in the pipkin, or of peas which grow up to the sky, and up the stalk of which the hero climbs to heaven. The vegetables necessary for being introduced into the kingdom of the dead, and the pea by means of which the hero enters heaven, are variations of the same mythical subject. In Hindoo tradition, besides the pea or kidney-bean, we have the pumpkin as a symbol of abundance, which is multiplied infinitely, or which mounts up to heaven. The wife of the hero Sagaras gives birth to a pumpkin, from which afterwards come forth sixty thousand sons. The kidney-bean, the pea, the vetch, the common bean, and the pumpkin are also symbols of generation, not only on account of the facility with which they multiply, but also on account of their form. We have seen in the Vedic ceremonials what organs are represented by the two kidney-beans; we shall also see, in the chapter on the Ass, how the names given to the organs of generation are also used to designate fools. Now, it is worthy of notice that the Sanskrit word _māshas_ (or kidney-bean) also signified the foolish, the stolid one, in the same way as in Piedmont a _bonus vir_ is called a kidney-bean. Thus, too, the pumpkin, which expresses fecundity, also means, in Italian, idiocy or stupidity. As to beans, I have already remarked, in my work upon "Nuptial Usages," upon their symbolical meaning, and cited the Russian and Piedmontese custom of putting a black and a white bean into the cake eaten at Epiphany, one of which represents the male and the other the female, one the king and the other the queen. The two who find the beans kiss each other with joyful auguries. As all these vegetables personify the moon, which we know to be considered as a giver of abundance, and which, by its form of a turning ball, can well be represented by the turning pea, in this personification we must search for the solution of the principal myths relating to vegetables.--The young prince of the Esthonian story, having obtained the stranger's favour in the gloomy forest by means of the peas, engages himself in his service, with intent to deliver the girl who had freed him by taking his place with the stranger during eighteen years. He therefore follows him; but on the way he lets a pea fall to the ground from time to time, in order to know the way back. He is conducted by a strange and wild subterranean passage, where silence as of the tomb reigns--it is, in fact, the kingdom of the dead--where birds have the appearance of wishing to sing, dogs to bark, and oxen to low, but cannot, and where the water flows without a murmur. The young prince feels in his heart a kind of anguish; the universal stillness in the midst of animated beings oppresses him. Having passed the region of silence, they come to that of deafening noise. The young prince thinks he hears the excruciating din of twenty-four saws at work; but the old stranger tells him that it is only his grandmother who has fallen asleep, and is snoring. At last they come to the stranger's dwelling, where the prince finds the beautiful maiden, but the old stranger will not let him speak. He sees in the stable a white horse and a black cow, with a white or luminous-headed calf. This cow the young prince is ordered to milk until there is not a drop of milk in its breast; instead of milking it with his fingers, he, by the advice of the girl, uses for that purpose red-hot pincers. Another time the youth is told to lead away the enchanted calf with the white or luminous head. In order that it may not escape, the girl gives him a magic thread, of which one end is to be tied to the left leg of the calf, and the other to the little toe of the prince's left foot.--The little finger, although the smallest, is the most privileged of the five. It is the one that knows everything; and in Piedmont, when the mothers wish to make their children believe that they are in communication with a mysterious spy, who sees everything that they do, they are accustomed to awe them by the words, "My little finger tells me everything."--At last the two young people resolve to flee. Before starting, the prince splits open the forehead of the white-headed calf; from its skull comes forth an enchanted little red ball, which shines like a small sun. He wraps it up, leaving part of it uncovered to light the way, and flees away with the girl. Being followed by malignant spirits, who are sent by the old man to follow them, the two fugitives, by means of the enchanted little ball (or pearl), turned round three times, become, first the one a pond and the other a fish, then the one a rose-bush and the other a rose, then again the one a breeze and the other a gnat, until the stone which covers the entrance to the subterranean world having been lifted up, they arrive again safe and happy upon the earth; and by means of the little red ball, they show themselves to mankind in splendid and princely robes. I scarcely think it necessary to explain to the reader the sense of this lucid mythical story. The black cow which produces the calf with the white or luminous head is a Vedic antithesis which we have already seen;[347] the cow (night) produces the calf (the moon). The prince takes the little red ball out of the calf; by means of this ball, the girl is delivered from the regions of gloom. The little ball moves the stone; the sun and the aurora come out together from the mountain, after having travelled together in the kingdom of shadows; the sun delivers the aurora. This story unites together and puts in order several myths of an analogous character, but born separately.

The three next stories describe other voyages made by the solar hero to heaven, or in hell, and end by meaning the same thing. In the eighteenth story we again find the enchanted ring, called Solomon's ring, which the young hero goes to search for; when he finds it, by taking it from the daughter of hell, and puts it on his finger, he is of a sudden endowed with such strength that he can split a rock with one blow of his fist. The little red ball of the story just described, which lifts up the rock, and this ring which splits the stone, represent the same mythical object, _i.e._, the sun, the sun's ball or disc.

The twenty-first story shows us the fearless hero who frees a castle from the presence of the demons, and who thus gains a treasure; riches are the reward of valour.

The twentieth Esthonian story is a variation of the exceedingly popular tale of Blue Beard, the killer of his wives. The Esthonian monster-husband has already killed eleven, and is about to murder the twelfth, by way of punishing her for having, against his express prohibition, visited the secret room opened by the golden key (perhaps the moon), when a youth who takes care of the goslings, the friend of her childhood, comes to deliver her. From the subject itself, and the expressions used in this story, we can discover the origin of the terrible charivari in the nuptials of widowers or widows. This savage custom is intended not only to deride the lust of the old man or woman who marries again, but to warn the girl who marries the one, or the youth who marries the other, of the possibility of a fate similar to the first wife or husband. When, therefore, the wife _apatighnī_ (who does not kill her husband) is praised to the Vedic husband, we must understand that the _patighnī_ (or killer of her husband) is a widow, whom no one must marry, as being suspected of murder. Hence, to free herself from this suspicion, an honest Hindoo wife (like Gudrun in the Edda) was to throw herself into the fire after the death of her husband; the evening aurora, after the death of the sun, dies too.

In the twenty-second story we have once more the myth of the young pastoral hero; he is the son of a king. By the order of his step-mother, a witch, who carries off shepherds, steals him from the palace during his infancy, and abandons him in a solitary place, where he is brought up by cowherds, and becomes himself an excellent cowherd. An old man finds him and says, looking at him and at the cattle, "Thou dost not seem to me born to remain a cowherd." The boy answers that he knows he was born to command, and adds, "Here I learn the duties of a commander by anticipation. If things go well with the quadrupeds, I shall also prosper with bipeds." The shepherd is therefore a little king; a good shepherd will become a good king. The boy goes through several adventures, in which he displays his valour. A wicked German lady wishes to take from him the strawberries which he has plucked. He defends himself bravely; his mistress persecutes him; and he takes twelve wolves, shuts them up in a cavern, and each day gives them a lamb to eat, in order to avenge himself upon his wicked mistress, to whom he simply says that the wolves have devoured them. At last he causes her to be devoured herself by the wolves, who eat her all up, leaving only the heart (the sun) and the tongue, which are too full of venom for the wolves of the night, because they burn their mouths. At the age of eighteen, the youth has several other adventures. He becomes enamoured of a gardener's daughter, and is found again by the king his father, who, before allowing him to marry the beautiful gardener's daughter, wishes to prove that they are predestined to each other. He cuts a ring in two with his sword, and gives one part to the young prince and the other to the maiden; the two halves must be preserved by both, and one day they will meet of themselves and form again the whole ring, in such a manner that it will be impossible to find the place where it was broken.--In a Tuscan story, the beautiful maiden gives half her necklace to the third brother. The young couple lose each other; their meeting again and mutual recognition take place when the two parts of the necklace join each other. The use of the wedding-ring has a mythical origin. The solar (and sometimes the lunar disc) is the ring which unites the heavenly husband and wife.--When, after other adventures, the two young people of the Esthonian story join together the two halves of their ring, their misfortunes come to an end; they marry and live together happily, whilst the cruel step-mother, who meanwhile has become a widow, is expelled from the kingdom.

The last Esthonian story tells of the extraordinary births, in the same day, of a handsome prince and a beautiful princess. The princess is born in a bird's egg, laid like a pearl in the bosom of the queen; she has at first the form of a living puppet, and afterwards, when warmed in wool, she becomes a real girl. Whilst she undergoes this transformation, the queen also gives birth to a beautiful boy. The two children are considered as twins, and baptized together. To the baptism of the girl there comes as godmother, in a splendid chariot drawn by six horses, a young woman dressed in rose-coloured and golden robes, who shines like the sun, and who, as she lets her veil drop, like the beautiful Argive Helen, fills the bystanders with admiration. [The aurora, who, before appearing in the form of a beautiful girl, is enclosed in the wood of the forest, is a wooden puppet, and becomes a wooden puppet once more when, fleeing from the sun, she hides herself in a creeping-plant, like the Hindoo Urvaēī (the first of the dawns), or in a laurel-plant, like the Hellenic Daphne (the Vedic Dahanā-aurora). The aurora is born together with the sun; the beautiful doll-maiden is born with the little prince. The mother and the beneficent godmother seem to be the moon, or a more ancient aurora.] The mother, dying, leaves her daughter, putting it upon her breast, a gem which is to bring her happiness; that is, the little basket which contained the bird's egg, with the eggshell itself. By means of the magical little basket, and by pronouncing some magic words, the maiden can find all that she searches or wishes for. The young man and woman end by marrying each other, having discovered that, although both born of a king, they are children of different fathers; they marry, and the little basket of happiness mysteriously disappears.

FOOTNOTES:

[267] _Anquetil du Perron, Zendavesta_, ii. p. 545.

[268] Misit itaque Deus justissimus citissime Angelum Behman quasi esset fumus (jubendo): Ito et bovem rubrum accipiens mactato in nomine Dei qui prudentiam dat; eumque coquito in aceto veteri, et cave accurate facias, allio ac rutā, superadditis; et in nomine Dei ex olla effundito: deinde coram eo adpone ut comedat. Cumque portiunculam panis in ķllud friasset, Diabolus ille maledictus inde aufugit, abiit, evanuit et disparuit, nec deinde, illum aliquis postea vidit; _Sadder_, p. 94.--The Russian peasants still believe that a household devil, the damavoi, enters into the stable, who, during the night, mounts on horses and oxen and makes them sweat and grow lean.--Cfr. also, on the _Damavoi_, Ralston's _Songs of the Russian people_, London, 1872, pp. 119-139.

[269] Cfr. Spiegel's _Avesta_, vol. ii.; _Einleitung_, vii.

[270] Cfr. Spiegel's _Avesta_, vol. ii. 21.

[271] x. 11.

[272] xxix.

[273] Cfr. Spiegel's _Avesta_, vol. ii. p. 8.

[274] xix. 99-101. Professor Spiegel translates "Mit dem Hunde, mit Entscheidung, mit Vieh, mit Stärke, mit Tugend, diese bringt die Seelen der Reinen über den Harabezaiti hinweg: über die Brücke Chinvat bringt sie das Heer der himmlischen Yazatas."

[275] Cows and calves, as a funeral gift, are spoken of in the _Khorda Avesta_, li. 15, Spiegel's version.

[276] Cfr. also the Tistrya with a whole eye of the _Khorda Avesta_ of Spiegel, p. 9, and all the _Tistar Yast_ in the _Khorda Avesta_, xxiv. If Tistar is the moon, Tistrya would appear to perform the same duties as the good fairy--that is, of showing, by means of her good eyes, her good eyesight, and her splendour, the way to the lost heroes. The Hindoo cow of Vasishthas, which yields every good thing, and which then fights in the clouds against Viēvāmitras, would sometimes appear to be the moon veiled by the rainy cloud; thus we can explain the rain-giving character of the star Tistrya, which, according to the _Bundehesh_, by raining ten days and ten nights, destroyed the monsters of dryness created by the demon Agro-mainyus.

[277] xxxix. 1.

[278] xvii. 25.

[279] Spiegel's version, p. 149.--Cfr. the three litanies for the body and soul of the cow, in the fragments of the same vol. p. 254.

[280] _Khorda Avesta_, Spiegel's version, _Einl._ x.

[281] Spiegel's version, p. 4.

[282] These are the exact terms used by Spiegel:--"Dieser opferte der frühere Vifra-navāza, als ihn aufrief der siegreiche, starke Thraetaona, in der Gestalt eines Vogels, eines Kahrkāēa. Dieser flog dort während dreier Tage und dreier Nächte hin zu seiner eigenen Wohnung, nicht abwärts, nicht abwärts gelangte er genährt. Er ging hervor gegen die Morgenröthe der dritten Nacht, der starken, beim Zerfliessen der Morgenröthe und betete zur Ardvī Ēūra, der fleckenlosen; Ardvī Ēūra, fleckenlose! eile mir schnell zu Hülfe, bringe nun mir Beistand, ich will dir tausend Opfer mit Haoma und Fleisch versehene, gereinigte, wohl ausgesuchte, bringen hin zu dem Wasser Ragha, wenn ich lebend hinkomme zu der von Ahura geschaffenen Erde, hin zu meiner Wohnung. Es lief herbei Ardvī Ēūra, die fleckenlose, in Gestalt eines schönen Mädchens, eines sehr kräftigen, wohlgewachsenen, aufgeschürzten, reinen, mit glänzendem Gesichte, edlen, unten am Fusse mit Schuhen bekleidet, mit goldnem Diadem auf dem Scheitel. Diese ergriff ihm am Arme, bald war das, nicht lange dauerte es, dass er hinstrebte kräftig zu von Ahura geschaffenen Erde, gesund, so unverletzt als wie vorher, zu seiner eignen Wohnung;" _Khorda Avesta_, pp. 51, 52.

[283] Welche zuerst den Wagen fährt; _Khorda Avesta_, Spiegel's version, p. 45.

[284] Professor Spiegel says, however, "Vom Aufgang der Sonne bis Tagesanbruch," which in a note he explains, "Vom Sonnenaufgang bis Mitternacht," which it appears to us cannot stand scrutiny, any more than the conclusion inferred from this, that the sacrifice was to be made "den ganzen Tag hindurch." Zarathustra would not have been obliged to ask the precise time at which to sacrifice to the goddess, if she was to answer him in such a general way. What occasion is there to pray in midday, in full daylight, that the darkness may be dispersed?--If there be any equivoque, it can only be, in my opinion, in the rather frequent exchange of the maiden Aurora and the fairy Moon.

[285] Cfr. _Khorda Avesta_, Spiegel's version, pp. 7, 27.

[286] xix. 52.

[287] Cfr. the chapter which treats of the Cock.

[288] Cfr. _Khorda Avesta_, Spiegel's version, _Einl._ xxv., and all the important _Mirh Yast_, or collection of hymns in honour of Mithra, in the _Khorda Avesta_, xxvi.

[289] Cfr. _Khorda Avesta_, Spiegel's version, _Einl._ xxxiii., and the _Bahrām Yast_ in the _Khorda Avesta_, xxx. 7, Spiegel's version. It is then that he says of himself, "As to strength, I am the strongest." Further on it is said that strength belongs to the bull (or the cow).

[290] In a hymn, Indras even calls himself Uēanā, with the added denomination of kavis; Aham kaviruēanā: _Rigv._ iv. 26, 1.

[291] _Vendidad_, xxii. 11.

[292] Chap. ix.

[293] Cfr. _Farvardin Yast_ in the _Khorda Avesta_, xxix. 30, Spiegel's version.

[294] Cfr. _Khorda Avesta_, Spiegel's version, _Einleit._ xxxiv., and the _Rām Yast_ in the _Khorda Avesta_, xxxi. 40.--The 57th strophe appears to be a real Vedic hymn to the Marutas; the wind is celebrated as the strongest of the strong, the swiftest of the swift, having arms and ornaments of gold, a golden wheel and a golden chariot; his golden shoes and his girdle of gold besides show his sympathy and relation with the Ardvī Ēūra Anāhita, who, in the form of aurora, is referred to in the 55th strophe.

[295] Cfr. _Khorda Avesta_, p. lxix.

[296] Cfr. ibid. p. lxi.

[297] Denn Verethraghna, der von Ahura geschaffene, hält die Hände zurück der furchtbaren Kampfesreihen, der verbündeten Länder und der mithratrügenden Menschen, er umhüllt ihr Gesicht, verhüllt ihre Ohren, nicht lässt er ihre Füsse ausschreiten, nicht sind sie mächtig; _Khorda Avesta._ xxx. 63, Spiegel's version.

[298] Cfr. the _Mihr Yast_ in the _Khorda Avesta_, xxvi. 128, 129.

[299] Cfr. ibid.

[300] Urvāksha is also called the accumulator; _Khorda Avesta_, xl. 3, Spiegel's version.

[301] _Khorda Avesta_, p. 155.

[302] _Khorda Avesta_, xxxiii., Spiegel's version.

[303] Mögest du reich an Rindern sein wie (der Sohn) de Athvyānischen (clanes); _Khorda Avesta_, xl. 4, Spiegel's version.

[304] Soll ich zum Himmel aufsteigen, soll ich in die Erde kriechen? Darauf entgegnete Ahura Mazda: Schöne Ashi, vom Schöpfer geschaffene! steige nicht zum Himmel auf, krieche nicht in die Erde; gehe du hieher in die Mitte der Wohnung eines schönen Königs; _Khorda Avesta_, xxxiii. 59, 60, Spiegel's version.--Cfr. xxxiv. 3, and following, where are celebrated the handsome husband of the beautiful Ashis and his rich kingdom.

[305] Die Stierkopfkeule in der Rechten schwingend; Schack, _Heldensagen von Firdusi_, iv. 2.--Cfr. viii. 9.

[306] Die Donnerwolke bin ich, die Blitzeskeule schleudert; Schack, _Heldensagen von Firdusi_, v. 5.

[307] Die Diwe (the demons) pflegen um Mittagszeit zur Ruhe sich zu legen; das ist die Stunde sie zu besiegen. Nicht eher schreitet Rustem zu der That, bis sich die Sonne hoch erhoben hat; _Schack, Heldensagen von Firdusi_, v. 5.

[308] Ist's Rustem? ist es nicht die Sonne, die durch Morgenwolken bricht? _Schack, Heldensagen von Firdusi_, vii. 2.

[309] Indeed, this undertaking seems to the ferryman himself so supernatural, that he says these cannot be called men: "In Wahrheit, Menschen kann man sie nicht heissen." _Schack, Heldensagen von Firdusi_, x. 27.

[310] Cfr. Spiegel's _Die Alexandersage bei den Orientale_, Leipzig, 1851; and Zacher's _Pseudocallisthenes, Forschungen zur Kritik und Geschichte der ältesten Aufzeichnung der Alexandersage_, Halle, 1867.

[311] Georg Rosen's version, Leipzig, Brockhaus, 1858, 2 vols.

[312] Bernhard Jülg's version, Innsbruck, 1867-1868.

[313] i. 5.

[314] i. 6.

[315] _Tuti-Name_, i. 7.

[316] _Tuti-Name_, i. 13.

[317] _Tuti-Name_, i. 14.--Cfr. Afanassieff, _Narodnija ruskija skaski_, vi. 23.

[318] iii. 27.

[319] ii. 17.

[320] _Tuti-Name_, ii. 19.

[321] ii. 21.

[322] ii. 28.

[323] This story was current in Italy as early as the fifteenth century, having been related to her son by the mother of the philosopher and man of letters Pontano, as I find from his biography, published last year by Professor Tallarigo (Sanseverino-Marche).

[324] ii. 21.

[325] _Tuti-Name_, ii. 25.

[326] ii. 24.

[327] ii. 26.

[328] ii. 28.

[329] ii. 29.

[330] ii. 29.

[331] Cfr. also the chapter on the Hog, where we shall expound the myths and legends relating to disguises.

[332] Cfr. also the chapters on the Lion and the Fox.

[333] Cfr. on the story of Perrette, an interesting essay of Professor Max Müller in the _Contemporary Review_, 1870.

[334] Radloff, _Proben der Volkslitteratur der Türkischen Stämme süd-Sibiriens_.

[335] Professor Schiefner has already compared with this passage a story published by Ahlquist in his _Versuch einer Mokscha-Mordwinischen Grammatik_, p. 97.

[336] Kasan, 1836, quoted by Professor Schiefner in the introduction to the _Proben_, &c., of Radloff.

[337] Cfr., for the meaning of this myth, the chapter which treats of the Hare.

[338] _Rune_, 7.--Cfr. Castren's _Kleinere Schriften_, Petersburg, 1862, and the French translation of the _Kalevala_, published in 1867 by Leouzon le Duc.

[339] I find combined in the _Kleinere Schriften_ of Castren (p. 25) the same _Ukko_ with the word _Kave_ (_Kave Ukko_). I would with diffidence ask the learned Finnish philologists, whether, as _Ukko_ is a Finnish form of the deity whom the Hindoos called Indras, and as the hero protected by Indras, the hero in whom Indras is reproduced, is called in the Vedic (and Iranian) tradition _Kāvya Uēanā_, or even _Uēanā Kavis_, the words _Kave Ukko_ may not have some relation to the name given to the Vedic and Iranian hero?

[340] Väinämöinen, alt und wahrhaft, konnt durch ihn die Eiche fällen; _Kal._ 24, in Castren's _Kleinere Schriften_, p. 233.

[341] Nur aus Trauer ward die Harfe, nur aus Kummer sie geschaffen; harten Tagen ist die Wölbung, ist das Stammholz zu verdanken, nur Verdruss spannt ihre Saiten, andre Mühsal macht die Wirbel; _Kanteletar_, i., quoted by Castren in the _Kleinere Schriften_, p. 277.

[342] The origin of the bad and poor mythical iron, described in the _Kalevala_, is one of these: the mythical iron is the cloudy or tenebrous sky. The description is original, but the myths to which it refers are known to Indo-Europeans; as, for instance, the honey which becomes poison.

[343] _Ehsthnische Märchen_ aufgezeichnet von Fried. Kreuzwald, aus dem Ehsthnischen, übersetzt von F. Löwe, with notes by A. Schiefner and R. Köhler, Halle, 1869.

[344] This is the phenomenon which occurs in the winter solstice on Christmas Eve and that of New Year's Day, in which we pass from one year to another; in one night we become older by a year.

[345] In a popular Swedish song, the maiden Gundela, who plays marvellously upon the harp, and, in order to play it, demands the king to marry her, is also a shepherdess.--Cfr. _Schwedische Volkslieder der Vorzeit_, übertragen von Warrens, Leipzig, Brockhaus, 1857.

[346] Cfr. the note of F. Löwe, illustrating this passage, in his version of the collection of Kreuzwald, pp. 144 and 145.--[This is also a myth of easy interpretation, if I am not mistaken: at evening, the sun loses his rays; the lion, the hero, loses his nails; these nails are picked up by the demoniacal monster, who forms out of them a hat (the gloom of night, or the clouds), by which the wearer has the gift of seeing without being seen. The magician who sees with his eyes shut is an interesting variation of this subject.]

[347] A similar antithesis is found in a Hungarian proverb, communicated to me by my learned friend Count Geza Kunn, together with other notices of Hungarian beliefs relating to animals. This proverb is as follows: "Even the black cow's milk is white." The black cow is spoken of in two other Hungarian proverbs; one says, "The black cow has not trodden upon his heel," meaning that no misfortune has happened to him; it is the usual vulnerable heel, the heel of Achilles, the posterior part, for which is substituted sometimes, as we shall see in the chapter on the Fox and the Serpent, the tail or extreme hind part. Another proverb is, "In the dark all cows are black;" but it does not seem to have any mythical importance.

SECTION IV.

THE BULL AND THE COW IN SLAVONIC TRADITION.

SUMMARY.

   The red cow and the black cow; what they prognosticate.--The red hue
   of evening.--The bull that drinks.--The bull corrupts the
   water.--The bull's hoofs.--The cow in the bartering of animals.--The
   hero ascends into heaven.--The bull sold to the tree; the tree,
   split open, yields gold.--The fool sells the bull.--Two bulls
   conduct the poor brother to riches.--The bull carries the fugitive
   home.--The bull is split in two, and is useful even after
   death.--Ivan and Helen, followed by the bear, flee upon the bull
   with their faces turned to the part whence the bear is likely to
   come.--The dwarf comes out of the bull's bones; the dwarf dies amid
   the flames.--The beasts of prey help the hero.--John and Mary, sun
   and aurora of the Christians.--The saviour-bull again.--From the
   dead bull an apple-tree springs up.--Ivan delivers Mary.--Mary, the
   step-daughter, and persecuted.--The cow that spins, the good fairy,
   the Madonna, the moon.--The maiden who combs the hair is the same as
   the purifier.--The demoniacal cow obliges men to kiss her under her
   tail.--The witch who sucks the beautiful girl's breast whilst the
   latter combs her hair.--The hide of the demoniacal cow taken
   off.--The eye which does not sleep and plays the spy.--From the cow,
   the apple-tree; from the apple-tree, the branches which wound the
   wicked sisters, and let the good one pluck their fruit; from the
   apple, the husband.--The maiden bows to the right foot of the
   beneficent cow; a tree springs up again from the killed cow.--The
   red apples which cause horns to grow, and the white ones which give
   beauty and youth.--Ivan, the sun, persecuted by the witch his
   sister, is saved by the sister of the sun, the aurora.--The mythical
   scales; the scales of St Michael.--The cows with golden horns and
   tails.--The black demoniacal bull strikes the ground with his horns,
   in order to prevent a wedding from taking place.--The hare and the
   crow put obstacles in the way of nuptials.--The demon blinded whilst
   drinking.--The third son of the peasant throws down the bull.--The
   avaricious merchant.--The epidemic among the animals, and the bull
   killed because he has stolen some hay from a priest.--The bull in
   the forest.--The robber of cows and of oxen.--The black bull led
   away by Ivan, by means of a cock.--The hero comes out of the
   cow.--The intestines of the calf eaten by the fox.--Out of the calf
   come birds.--The son of the cow, the strongest brother.--The three
   brothers reduced to one with the qualities of the three.--The third
   brother mounts into heaven by means of the cow's hide.--He who
   ascends does not come down again.--Dreams.--The wife of the old man,
   carried to heaven in a sack, is let fall to the ground and
   dies.--The ascent into heaven by means of
   vegetables.--Turn-little-Pea, the third brother, the killer of
   monsters; Turn-little-Pea and Ivan identified.--Ivan followed by the
   serpent-witches.--The female serpent tries to file the iron gate
   with her tongue, which is caught by the pincers and burned.--The
   three brothers, the evening one, the midnight one, and the
   clearly-seeing one; the third is the victorious hero; he delivers
   three princesses out of three castles of copper, of silver, and of
   gold, and receives from them three eggs of copper, of silver, and of
   gold, new forms corresponding to those of the three brothers; the
   third brother, abandoned by his elders, after various vicissitudes,
   finds his bride again; explanation of this beautiful myth.--Ivan
   identified with Svetazór.--The mother of the birds, in gratitude,
   delivers the hero.--The third brother, the cunning one, despoils his
   two elder brothers of their precious objects.--Ivan of the dog is
   equivalent to Svetazór; the story of the goldsmith.--Ivan the great
   drinker.--Ivan the prince, Ivan the fool; Ivan and Emilius, foolish
   and lazy, are one and the same person.--The red shoes in the
   legend.--The sister kills her little brother to take his red shoes;
   a magical flute discovers the crime.--The slippers attract the
   bridegroom; corresponding nuptial usages.--The slipper tried on; the
   toe cut off.--The change of wives.--The ugly one becomes
   beautiful.--The grateful pike.--The barrel full of water, which
   walks of its own accord.--The forest which is cut down and walks of
   itself, the chariot which goes on by itself, the stove that moves
   and carries Emilius where he wishes, the cask in which the hero and
   heroine are shut up and thrown into the sea, all forms of the cloud
   and of the gloom of night; the ugly becomes beautiful; the poor,
   rich and pleasing.--The wine allowed to run out of the barrel,
   _i.e._, the cloud which dissolves itself in rain.--Ivan, thought to
   be stupid, makes his fortune out of having watched by his father's
   grave.--Ivan, thought to be stupid, speculates upon his dead mother;
   his brothers try to do the same by their wives, and are
   punished.--The law of atavism in tradition.--The foolish mother and
   the cunning son.--The funereal storks.--The thief cheats the
   gentleman in several ways, and finally places him to guard his
   hat.--Ivan without fear; a little fish terrifies him.--Various
   heroical forms of Ivan in Russian tradition: Alessino, the son of
   the priest, invokes the rain against the monster-serpent; Baldak
   spits in the Sultan's face--the star under his heel; Basil and
   Plavacek, who demand a gift from the monster; the fortunate
   fictitious hero; the cunning little Thomas; the third brother, who
   does not allow himself to be put to sleep; the thief Klimka, who
   terrifies the other thieves in order to rob them; the Cossack who
   delivers the maiden from the flames, and receives precious gifts;
   Ilia Muromietz and his companions; the merchant's son educated by
   the devil; the boy who understands the language of birds; the
   virtuous workman, who prefers good advice to a large reward.--The
   flying ship; the protector of the unfortunate rewarded; eating and
   drinking.--The girl who solves the riddle of the prince, who comes
   with the hare and the quail, and obtains her husband.--The dwarf
   Allwis obtains the bride by answering the questions of his
   father-in-law.--The wonderful puppet (the moon), that sews for the
   priest's daughter (the aurora) the shirt destined for the
   prince.--The girl-heroine, protectress of her brother, helper of the
   young hero in dangers and trials of heroism.--The cow-herd's
   daughter, who never says anything displeasing to her husband the
   king, whatever the latter does.--By contact with the monster, the
   heroine is perverted, and also becomes a persecutor of the hero, her
   brother or husband; analogous types of the perfidious
   woman.--Dangerous trials imposed on the hero.--The sister bound to
   the tree.--The wife subdued, and the magical belt.--The tooth of a
   dead man thrust into Ivan's head; the animals deliver him; the fox
   knows better than the rest how to manage it.--The towel which causes
   a bridge to spring up across the water; the hero's sister steals the
   towel, and unites herself to the monster-serpent; she demands from
   her brother Ivan wild beasts' milk, and the flour or powder of gold
   which is under a mill guarded by twelve gates.--The monster burned,
   and the hero's sister condemned to weep and to eat hay.--The
   exchange of the hero.--The crow brings the water of death and of
   life.--The stepmother who persecutes Ivan.--Ivan resuscitated by his
   two sons.--Ivan chaunts his death-song; the liberating animals
   appear to help him.--Ivan and his preceptor persecuted by his wife
   Anna.--The blind man, the lame man, and the beautiful girl whose
   breast is sucked by the witch.--The witch is forced to find the
   fountain of life and of health; the blind man sees, the lame walks,
   and the girl recovers her good health.--The maiden blinded; the wife
   changed; the dew which gives eyesight; the girl finds her husband; a
   Russian variety of the legend of Berta.

Having drawn so far the general outline of the Turanian boundaries of Slavonian tradition, it is now time to begin to study the tradition of the Slaves itself, as far as it concerns the myth and the legend of the bull and the cow.

The Russian peasants and shepherds are accustomed to remark that the weather will be fine when a red cow places herself at the head of the herd, and that it will rain or be bad weather when, on the contrary, the first of the cows to re-enter the stable at evening is a black one. We already know what the black and the red cow signify in the language of the Vedās. The aurora of morning and evening, that is, the red cows promise fine weather; the cloud (or black cow) announces wet weather. In Piedmont, when a beautiful evening aurora is observed, it is the custom to say--

            "Rosso di sera,
             Buon tempo si spera."
     (Red at eve, we hope for fine weather.)

Let us now follow the Russian tradition relating to the cow and the bull in two of the many invaluable collections of popular stories already printed in Russia, as well as in the celebrated fables of Kriloff.[348]

We shall begin with those stories and fables in which the cow or the bull is explicitly mentioned. They show us the bull who protects the hero and the heroine, the bull who enriches the hero, the bull that is sold, the grateful bull, the bull who sacrifices himself, the persecuted bull, the demoniacal bull; the cow who spins, the beneficent cow, the son of the cow, the birds that come out from the cow, the cow's hide which becomes a rope to mount up to heaven, the cow exchanged, the demoniacal cow, the cow's horns. Here, again, therefore, we have the double aspect of the Vedic cow; the dark-coloured one (cloud and darkness), generally monstrous, the luminous one (moon and aurora), usually divine and beneficent.

One of the special characteristics of the bull and of the cow is their capacity of drinking. We have already seen how much the bull Indras (the sun in the cloud) drank. In the third story of the first book of _Afanassieff_, when the good maiden, persecuted by the witch, stretches out a towel, and thus causes a river to arise, in order that the witch may not overtake her, the latter leads forward the bull to drink up the river (a form of the Hindoo Agastyas, who, in the _Mahābhāratam_,[349] absorbs the sea). But the bull, who could dry up the river, refuses to do so on account of a debt of gratitude he owes to the good maiden. The water where this bull, or cow, belonging to the witch, drinks, has the property of transforming into a calf the man who drinks of it;[350] nay, to drink out of the hoof of the bull itself is enough to turn him into a calf.[351] The water which comes out of the hoof of the demoniacal bull is the opposite of the water of Hippokrene, which flows from the hoofs of the divine horse of the Hellenes, the Pźgasos.

In the second book of _Afanassieff_, there is a story which speaks of the exchange of animals in the very same order as in the _Āitareya-brāhmanam_, _i.e._, the gold for a horse, the horse for a cow, the cow for a goat or sheep. The Russian peasant goes on with his unfortunate exchanges; he barters the sheep for a young pig, the young pig for a goose, the goose for a duck, the duck for a little stick with which he sees some children playing; he takes the stick home to his wife, and she beats him with it. In the twelfth story of the fifth book of _Afanassieff_, an old man also begins to barter the golden stockings and silver garters received in heaven from God for a horse, the horse for a bull, the bull for a lamb; his last exchange is for a little needle, which he loses. In the second story of the sixth book, the same foolish liberality is attributed to the third brother, the stupid one (who, in another Russian variation of the same story, is the cunning one), who, having learned that in heaven cows are cheap, gives his cow for a fly, his ox for a horse-fly, and mounts up to heaven.

But, generally speaking, the bull and the cow are the beginning of good luck for the heroes of popular tales.

In the fifty-second story of the fifth book of _Afanassieff_, the third brother, the truthful and fortunate fool, has, for his inheritance from his father, one bull alone; he goes to sell it, and passes a dry old tree, which rattles; thinking that the tree wishes to buy his bull, he gives it, promising to come back for the money. On his return the bull is gone; he asks the tree for the money, and, receiving no answer, proceeds to cut it down with his hatchet, when from the tree there drops out a treasure which some robbers had hidden in it;[352] the young man then takes it up and carries it home. In a variation of the same story, in the collection of _Erlenwein_,[353] the third son of the miller, before going to sell his bull, or ox, seeing the second son milking the cow, endeavours to milk the bull too; finding that his efforts are in vain, he resolves upon selling an animal which appears to him to be so utterly useless.

In the thirty-fourth story of the fifth book of _Afanassieff_, we meet again the two brothers, one rich and miserly, the other poor; the poor one borrows from a neighbour two bulls, and is conducted by Misery (gory) to a stone, under which he finds a cavity full of gold. The poor man fills his waggon, and, on coming out, tells Misery that there is plenty more inside. Misery turns in to see; the ex-pauper thereupon closes up the entrance with the stone, and returns home.[354]

But the bull and the cow do not only provide the hero with riches, they help him in danger. In the eleventh story of _Erlenwein_,[355] Ivan Tzarevic, or the Prince John,--the name of the favourite hero of Slavonian popular tradition (he is the third brother, the strongest, the most fortunate, the victorious, the most intelligent, after having been the most foolish)--wishes to flee from the serpent, and, not knowing how, sits down on the trunk of a tree and weeps. The hare comes to carry him away, but is killed by the serpent; the wolf comes, but is killed too. At last the ox or bull comes, and carries him off. Ivan having arrived at his dwelling, the ox has himself divided in two; one part must be placed under the sacred images, which ornament a corner of every room in Russian houses, the other part under the window; Ivan must then look out sharp till two dogs and two bears appear, who will serve him in the chase, and be his strength.

In the twenty-seventh story of the fifth book of _Afanassieff_, Ivan Tzarevic and the beautiful Helen are pursued by a monstrous bear with iron bristles; they escape upon a bull (the moon), and Ivan, by the bull's advice, rides him with his face turned towards the place whence the pursuing bear is likely to come, in order that he may not take them by surprise. When Ivan sees that the bear is coming, the bull turns round and tears his eyes out; the blind bear follows them still, but the fugitives pass a river on the bull's back, in which the bear is drowned. Ivan and Helen feel hungry; the bull tells them to cut him to pieces and eat him, but to preserve his bones, and to strike them together; from the bones of the bull, when struck, a dwarf, the height of a finger-nail, but with a beard a cubit long, comes out; he assists Ivan in finding the milk of a wolf, a she-bear, and a lioness, until he is swallowed by the burning bird, whose eggs he wished to steal. (The bear is the night; the bull is the sun's steed in the night, the moon; the bull-moon is sacrificed; then comes forth a little sun with long rays, the dwarf with a long beard, an _alter ego_ of Ivan, who ends his life in the burning furnace of the phoenix, or of the evening aurora.) Ivan is threatened with death when the dwarf dies, but he is at that moment helped by the wild beasts he had tamed and fed, who save him from danger. These were, as we have seen before, given to him after the death of the bull, his deliverer, being born of the bull himself, cut in pieces (the wild animals of the forest of night are born as soon as the evening sun is sacrificed).

The same subject occurs again, with some variations, in the twenty-eighth story, which follows; only instead of John and Helen, we have John and Mary, the sun and the aurora of the Christians. Near the abode of Ivan and Mary a funeral pile arises, on which the bull sacrifices himself. The bull's bones are sown in three furrows; from the first furrow a horse comes forth, from the second a dog, and in the third an apple-tree grows up. Ivan mounts upon the horse, followed by the dog, and hunts wolves' whelps and young bears, which he afterwards tames and uses to kill the serpent, who has shut up his dog in a cavern, and carried off his sister; he forces the entrance of the place where the dog is hidden, by striking the bolt of the door with three small branches of the apple-tree; the bolt breaks into pieces, the door bursts open, and the dog is delivered; dog, wolf, and young bear then worry the serpent, and Ivan liberates the Princess Mary.

In the sixth book of _Afanassieff_,[356] the young Mary, being persecuted, is miraculously assisted by a cow. An old woman has three daughters of her own (of whom one has one eye, another two, and the third three), and a step-daughter called Mary; her own three do nothing, and eat much; the step-daughter must work hard and eat little. Her step-mother gives her for one night alone, while she takes the cow to pasture, to spin, make into skeins, weave, and bleach, the weight of five pounds. The maiden goes to the pasture-ground, embraces her variegated cow, leans on her neck and bewails her fate. The cow says to her, "Beautiful girl, enter one of my ears, and come out by the other, and all will be done."--In the Italian variety of this story,[357] the cow spins with her horns for the good maiden, whilst she combs the head of the old woman or the Madonna. I think I have already said that I recognise in this good old woman, fairy, or Madonna, the moon. The moon, like the sun, is considered as in relation with the aurora, and especially the evening aurora, which she accompanies; she is the hostess, the guide, and the protectress of the hero and heroine of evening, lost and pursued in the night; after the evening aurora, the white moon comes out, in the same way as after the morning aurora the sun comes out in effulgence. We have seen that the name of purifier, cleanser, is given to the Vedic aurora; from this expression to the image of comber or cleanser of the head of the old Madonna the transition is easy;[358] from, _i.e._, after, the aurora, the moon comes out shining and clean, in a beautiful and serene sky; and on this account pearls fall from the Madonna's head; but when, on the other hand, the beautiful maiden, the aurora, does not come, when the step-mother sends to the pasture-ground, near the old woman, one of her own daughters, foul lice fall from the head of the old fairy or Madonna, inasmuch as the moon cannot show herself in her splendour amid the shadows of the cloudy and black night. The Russian story shows us how the beneficent cow of the good maiden, who caresses her and serves her well, and the Madonna or good old woman grateful for the careful combing of her hair of Italian tradition, are one and the same thing. In the thirty-fifth story of the fifth book of _Afanassieff_, on the contrary, where the cow appears in a demoniacal aspect, whom the hero Ivan, condemned from a prince to become a cowherd, must kiss under her tail, which she lifts with this intent, we meet with an old witch who sucks the white breasts of the beautiful girl, while the latter is obliged to hunt the vermin in her head; in the witch, as well as in the cow who insolently lifts up her tail, we can recognise the gloomy night, an explanation which is justified by the fact that the hero-shepherd Katoma, the adorned one, the agile-footed, ends by flaying the shameless cow (the morning sun, shepherd of the luminous cows, takes off the skin of the dark-coloured cow of the gloomy night). But, to return to the fifty-fourth story.--When the stepmother sees that the girl has done all the work assigned her, she begins to suspect that there is some one who helps her, and so sends next night her first daughter, who has but one eye, to watch the daughter-in-law, who goes to the pasture-ground. The young Mary then says to her, "Eye, sleep;" and immediately her step-sister falls asleep, thus allowing the cow to assist her without any one perceiving it. The second night, the second daughter, who has two eyes, is sent; Mary says twice to her, "Eye, sleep," and obtains, without being seen, the same favours from the cow. The third night, the third sister, who has three eyes, is sent; Mary does not remember the third eye, and only says twice, "Eye, sleep:" and so the third sister sees with her remaining eye[359] what the cow does with Mary, and in the morning tells everything to her mother, who gives orders that the cow be killed. Mary warns the cow; and the cow recommends her to eat none of her flesh, to keep the bones, sow them in the garden, and water them. The maiden does so; every day, however hungry she may be, she eats none of the meat, only collects the bones together. From the bones sown in the garden arises a marvellous apple-tree, with leaves of gold, and branches of silver, which prick and wound the three daughters of the stepmother, whilst, on the other hand, they offer apples to the beautiful maiden, in order that she may present one to the young and rich lord who is to make her his wife. In the following story, the fifty-fifth, which is a variation of the preceding one, the girl is named Mary, and her husband Ivan Tzarevic; when she goes to the pasture, and when she returns, she is accustomed to make obeisance to the right foot of the cow. When the cow, being killed, revives again in the shape of a tree, it swarms with birds, which sing songs for kings and peasants alike, and make the sweet fruits fall upon Mary's plate.

The apples that cause horns to grow, and those which beautify and make young, mentioned in the thirty-sixth story of the fifth book, and again in the last book of the collection of _Afanassieff_, as well as in other European variations of the same subject, are connected, in my opinion, with the myth of the evening sky, and of the lunar night, in the shape of an apple-tree. In the fifteenth story of the collection of _Erlenwein_, the third brother, the usual Ivan, comes to an apple-tree which has red apples, and eats four of them, upon which four horns grow on his head, to such a height that he cannot enter the forest; he goes to an apple-tree that bears white fruit, eats four apples, and the four horns disappear. (The solar hero at evening approaches the tree with the red apples, the evening aurora, and immediately becomes deformed; horns grow on his head; he loses himself in the shades of night; in the moonlight and the alba, he approaches the tree with the white apples, loses his horns, and becomes young and beautiful again.)

In the fifty-seventh story of the sixth book of _Afanassieff's_ collection, Ivan Tzarevic is presented with the apples which restore youth to him who eats them, by the sister of the sun, to whose abode he is lifted in the following manner: Ivan (the sun) has for his sister (no doubt half-sister) a serpent-witch (night), who has already devoured his father and mother (the sun and the aurora of evening, which create the night, and are destroyed by it); the witch persecutes her little brother Ivan, and endeavours to eat him; he flees, and she overtakes him in the vicinity of the dwelling of the sister of the sun (the aurora, the true sister of Ivan). The witch makes a proposal to Ivan, that they be weighed together in the scales. Ivan accepts this proposal, upon which the one enters the one scale, and the other the other; no sooner does the witch put her foot on the scale than, as she weighs so much more than Ivan, he is lifted up to heaven, the dwelling of the sister of the sun, where he is welcomed and admitted. (A beautiful myth, of which the meaning is evident. Ivan is the sun, the aurora is his sister; at morning, near the abode of the aurora, that is, in the east, the shades of night go underground, and the sun arises to the heavens; this is the mythical pair of scales. Thus, in the Christian belief, St Michael weighs human souls: those who weigh much sink down into hell, and those who are light arise to the heavenly paradise.)

By means of the sister of the sun, Ivan saves himself from the witch. In another story in _Afanassieff_,[360] by means of the sister of the hero Nikanore, the same Ivan, running after the cows, causes them to have golden horns and tails, with sides formed of stars; and afterwards, with the assistance of the hero Nikanore in person (of the sun, that is, of himself), he kills the serpent.

We have already seen the cloudy and the gloomy sky represented in the Vedic poems, now as a black cow, now as a stable which encloses the bulls and cows. The black bull or cow of night is considered to be demoniacal. In a story given in _Afanassieff_,[361] we find the devil in the shape of a bull, which bellows, and throws up the earth with its horns, arresting a nuptial procession. From a bull he turns into a bear, then a hare, and then a crow, to put obstacles in the way of the marriage, until, having presented himself in the form of a devil, a soldier-hero blinds him while he is drinking. A variation of this soldier is the third son of the peasant,[362] who is so strong that with a snap of his fingers he makes the bull and the bear fall dead, and then by a single pinch strips off their skins. The same hero hires himself to a merchant, whom he engages to serve for two years, on condition of receiving as his reward, at the end of them, the permission to give him a snap with the fingers and a pinch. The merchant thinks he is getting the man's service for nothing, but pays for it with his life. The merchant seldom plays a good part in popular stories. He and the miser are synonymous,--the miser is the monster which keeps treasures hidden; and on this account, as we have already seen in the Vedic hymns themselves, the enemies of the gods, the monsters that ravish and conceal the treasures, are represented as panayas or merchants, cheats, robbers, or misers. The currency of this epithet as a term of infamy must have been owing in part to the dislike with which the priestly sacrificers of the last Vedic period regarded the merchants, in whom they saw only a pack of misers, because, on account of their wandering life, they had neither cows nor bulls to give them for sacrifice, but carried with them all their fortune, and did not require the fertilising rain of the god Indras to multiply their gold and their silver.

The celestial bull comes out of the night or the nocturnal stables either, as we have seen, to help the hero, to be sacrificed, to flee from persecution, or because he has been stolen by a skilful thief.

In one of Kriloff's fables, God sends a terrible plague among the animals, of which they perish in great numbers. They are so terrified by it that they forsake their habits, and begin to wander aimlessly hither and thither. The wolf no longer eats the sheep; the fox leaves the hens unmolested; the turtle-doves no longer make love to each other. Then the lion holds a council of the animals, and exhorts them all to confess their faults. The cunning fox essays to quiet the lion-judge by assuring him that though he stole some sheep, he did not thereby commit a fault; and so he justifies his own ravages; as also do the bear, the tiger, the wolf, and all the most wicked of the animals. Then the simple bull comes forward, and, in his turn, confesses that he stole a little hay from the priest. This crime appears so heinous that the council of animals sentences the bull to be offered in sacrifice.[363]

Sometimes, on the contrary, the bull, either because he cannot bear the bad treatment that he receives from his masters, or in order to avoid the danger of being killed or sold by the stupid son, who is in need of money that he may marry a wife, a danger of which he has a presentiment, abandons the stable with other animals, constructs a hut or isbą and shuts himself up in it.[364] He has with him the lamb, the goose, the cock, or else some other tame animals. The fox passes by, hears the crowing of the cock, and goes to call his friends the bear and the wolf to help him. The bear opens the door, the fox enters, and the bull by goring him with his horns, the lamb by butting against his sides, and the cock by pecking his eyes out, put an end to the unwelcome intruder. The wolf, who goes in, curious to see what is going on, has the same fate, and the bear, who comes last, only succeeds with great difficulty, and after having been severely maltreated, in effecting his escape. In another variation of the same story, the bear dies of fear, and the stupid son takes his skin, sells it and makes money; then, the danger of being sold having passed by, the bull and his company return home. The battle between the tame and the savage animals, won by the former, is an expression in zoological form of the victory of the heroes (the sun and the moon) over the monsters of darkness.

The story of the hero-thief is generally connected with the carrying off of his master's horse; but not unfrequently the hero, like the monster, becomes a robber of cows and oxen.

The thief Ivan[365] is required to steal from his master a black bull or ox tied to the plough; if he succeeds, he is to have a hundred roubles for his reward; but if he does not, he is to receive instead a hundred bastinadoes. In order to steal it, Ivan adopts the following device: he takes a cock, plucks it, and puts it alive under a clod of earth. The ploughmen come with the oxen; while they are ploughing, the cock starts up; they leave the plough to run after it, upon which Ivan, who was hidden behind a bush, comes out. He cuts off one ox's tail and puts it in another ox's mouth, and then leads away the black ox. The ploughmen, not having been able to overtake the cock, come back, and when they see only two animals instead of three, conclude that one ox has eaten the black ox and is beginning to eat the tail of the other, the variegated ox. In the twenty-first story of the fifth book of _Afanassieff_, the boy-dwarf steals an ox from the priest and eats its tripe.[366]

From the cow the hero is born; under a putrid cow thrown into a ditch lies Ivan Tzarevic; a bird takes the water off and Ivan Tzarevic comes forth.[367] In another story of _Afanassieff_, the fox-heroine, companion of the wolf, whilst the wolf is absent, eats the intestines of the calf, their common property (which they had received from cowherds in exchange for a certain cake contaminated by their excrement, the usual excrement which is the beginning of riches); she then fills the calf or cow with straw and sparrows, and departs. The wolf returns, is astonished that the calf should have eaten so much straw that it comes out, and draws out the straw. The birds fly away, the calf falls, and the wolf flees away terrified.[368] With these two myths are connected two more, that of the son of the cow and that of the ascent into heaven by means of the cow's hide.

The king has no sons; he catches a pike, which the cook washes, giving thereafter the dirty water to the cow to drink; the fish they give to the black girl to carry to the queen; the black girl eats a piece of it on the way, and the queen eats what remains. At the expiration of nine months, the cow, the maid, and the queen, give each birth to a son. The three sons resemble each other completely; but the son of the cow, the hero-tempest, is the strongest of the three brothers, and accomplishes the most difficult enterprises. In another variation of the same story, in _Afanassieff_,[369] instead of the cow we have the bitch giving birth to the strongest of the three brothers.[370] In the nineteenth story of _Erlenwein_, instead of the cow and the bitch, we have the mare; the strongest brother is here the son of the black girl, Burghraver or the hero-tempest (Burya-Bagatķr). In the third story of _Erlenwein_, Ivan Tzarevic appears as the son of the black girl. As in numerous other Russian stories, Ivan Tzarevic, usually the third brother, appears not only (as) the most skilful, but the strongest of the brothers, we are driven to recognise in the three brothers, the son of the black girl, the son of the cow, and the queen's son, who alternately accomplish the same heroic undertakings, the same solar personage, whose mother, Night, is represented now as a queen, now as a cow (we have just seen Ivan Tzarevic come out of the putrid cow), now as a black slave (the negro washerwoman, the Saracen woman of Italian stories [Holda]; the cleaned fish which is carried by the black girl may perhaps be a link connecting the imagery of Russian tradition with that of Italian legend).

In the second story of the fifth book of _Afanassieff_, the third brother, the cunning one, by means of the hides of his cows and oxen converted into thongs, ascends into heaven; thus, in a variation of the same story, the third brother thinks to let himself down by the cow's hide, cut into pieces and made into thongs, being fastened to the confines of heaven; but he perceives on the way that the thong is not long enough. Some peasants are threshing corn, and the chaff rises into the air; he tries to make a rope with this chaff, but the rope breaks and he falls to the ground. This successful ascent into heaven, followed by an unlucky descent, is often referred to, with curious details, in Russian popular legend; to which a play of words in the language must have not a little contributed. It is as follows, "He who mounts does not descend,"[371] _i.e._, when one is doing one thing he cannot be doing the contrary. This elementary truth was afterwards altered by changing the tenses. "He who has been able to ascend will not be able to come down again;" which is only partly true, and means that while in dreams we require only a thin thread to mount up high, when we wish to come down from the world of dreams to that of reality, the fall is heavy; we come down with leaden wings, with that difficulty in breathing which oppresses us in dreams when we seem to fall from a height with painful slowness. And as at the end of the dream, after the painful fall from the sky, we awaken alive, so the story does not say of the hero who fell from heaven that he is dead, only that his dreams are dead. He is only unlucky when, the second time, he attempts the descent with a greater weight.

While reasonings such as these may have helped to diffuse the myths, I believe that the myths, at their formation, pleased more as images of nature than of reason, and as the images of mythology are almost all celestial, so in the third brother, or old man of other varieties of the story, who mounts up to heaven and comes down again by means of the cow's hide, I always recognise the sun. The old man who ascends into heaven, after the cow is dead, does so also by means of a vegetable of funereal omen which grows up in a marvellous manner.

An old man and an old woman have one daughter; she eats some beans and lets one fall to the ground; a plant (the moon) grows up till it reaches the sky. The old man mounts up and then comes back again. He tries to take his wife up in a sack, but unable to bear the weight, he lets her fall to the ground, when she dies.[372]

A cabbage grows up near an old man's dwelling, till in like manner it rises up to the sky. The old man climbs up, makes a hole in the sky, and eats and drinks to satiety. He then returns and narrates everything to his wife. She wishes to go up too; when they are half way, the old man lets the sack drop, the old woman dies, and her husband prepares her funeral, calling in the fox[373] as a mourner.

Other variations of the same story offer us, instead of the cow's hide, the cabbage, and the beanstalk, the pea-plant, and even the oak-tree, which grows up to heaven.[374]

From the vegetable or funereal plant,--a symbol, as we have already remarked, at once of abundance and resurrection,--by which the hero ascends to heaven, where he finds riches and abundance of food, the transition was very natural to the pea which turns round, of which the hero Turn-little-Pea (the son of the king of the peas) is born.

In the second story of the third book of _Afanassieff_,[375] Turn-little-Pea appears as the third of the brothers, as the youngest brother, who delivers his sister and his two brothers from the monster. But the ungrateful brothers (perhaps covetous of the maiden, here called a sister, but, who is virtually the same, the bride delivered and disputed for by the three brothers in numerous Indo-European legends), tie him to an oak-tree and go home alone. Turn-little-Pea unroots the whole oak and goes off. He afterwards kills three more monster-serpents, and the she-serpents their wives.

In the thirtieth story of the second book of _Afanassieff_, this enterprise against the serpents, male and female, is attributed to the usual Ivan. He goes with his brothers against the serpent with twelve heads, and with his iron stick alone kills nine of them, and the three remaining ones by the help of his two brothers. Then the she-serpent and her three daughters persecute the three brothers, and Ivan in particular. She causes them to find a beautiful cushion upon the ground; Ivan, who is suspicious of some trick, first beats the cushion, upon which blood gushes out of it (in the story of _Turn-little-Pea_, the young hero averts the danger by making the sign of the cross with his sword, when blood comes out). The serpent then tempts them by an apple-tree with gold and silver apples. The brothers wish to pluck some; Ivan, however, first strikes the tree, and blood flows from it. They then come to a beautiful fountain, where the brothers would like to drink; Ivan strikes the fountain, and again blood comes from it. The cushion, the apple-tree, and the fountain were the three daughters of the serpent. Then the serpent, having failed to deceive them, rushes upon Ivan; the latter escapes with his brothers into a forge shut by twelve iron gates; the serpent licks the doors with her tongue to force a passage, and her tongue is caught with red-hot pincers.

In the fourth story of _Erlenwein_, the three brothers occur again with interesting mythical names. A woman bears three sons; one at evening, who is on this account called Vecernik, or the evening one; the second at midnight, whence he is named Polunocnik, or the midnight one; the third at the aurora, who is named Svetazór, or the clearly-seeing. The three brothers become adults in a few hours. The most valiant of the three is Svetazór, the last one. To prove his strength, he goes to the blacksmith and orders an iron club that weighs twelve puds (480 pounds); he throws it into the air and catches it on the palm of his hand, the club breaks. He orders one of twenty puds (800 pounds), throws it up, catches it on his knee, and it breaks. Finally he orders one of thirty puds (1200 pounds), throws it up, and catches it on his forehead; it bends but does not break. Svetazór has it straightened and takes it with him, as he goes with his two brothers to deliver the three daughters of the Tzar, carried off by three magicians into the three castles of copper, silver, and gold. Svetazór, after having drunk the water of strength, and received from the first princess an egg of copper, from the second one of silver, and from the third a golden one, delivers the three princesses and brings them out. The two brothers, seeing that the third princess is more beautiful than the others, think that the youngest brother is reserving her for himself, and throw him into the water. Svetazór wanders about the subterranean world, and delivers the daughter of another Tzar by killing a monster and burying him under a rock. A soldier boasts before the Tzar of having accomplished this heroic act. Svetazór invites the soldier to prove his strength, and so the truth of his boast, by lifting the rock up. He does not succeed, and Svetazór wins the trial of strength, upon which the soldier is executed by order of the Tzar. After this, Svetazór, for having once spared the life of a crow, is carried by it into the world of the living, on condition that he gives it something to eat by the way. Svetazór has at length to feed the crow with his own flesh, yet is in the end set down again safe and sound, with all his flesh, in the world above, where, with the eggs of copper, silver, and gold, he causes the castles formed of these metals to arise, in which are found the ring, the slipper, and the robe demanded from their bridegrooms by the three princesses, who hoped by this expedient to see again their lost Svetazór. Then Svetazór begins to sweep out the terrace of the golden castle. The third princess expresses her intention to take him for her husband. The nuptials are celebrated, Svetazór pardoning his two elder brothers and giving them the two elder sisters of his bride. (The princess of the copper is the evening aurora, the princess of the silver is the silvery moon, and that of the gold is the morning aurora, to whom Svetazór, the clearly-seeing, the illumined, the sun, is married.)

In the sixth story of the first book of _Afanassieff_, the same undertaking is accomplished by the third brother, Ivan. The monster which carries off the three sisters is an aquatic one, an otter. Abandoned by his brothers in the nether world, Ivan is overtaken by a great tempest; he takes pity upon some young birds that are bathing, and saves them under his dress, upon which the grateful mother of the birds brings him back to the upper world. In the fifteenth story of _Erlenwein_, the third brother is the cunning one, who, by a stratagem, and by means of his purse, which is self-replenishing, steals from his two brothers the snuff-box out of which issue as many armies as are wished for, and the cloth which makes the wearer invisible (both figures to represent the cloud from which come forth riches, solar rays, thunderbolts, and weapons, and which hides the hero, that is, renders him invisible). In the fifty-fourth story of the fifth book of _Afanassieff_, Ivan of the dog, the hero sacrificed by his brothers, is the strong one, he who delivers the three princesses, who possesses the three rings, and gives them to the goldsmith from whom they were ordered, and who is not able to make them, by which means he is recognised.

Ivan Tzarevic, inasmuch as he was born of a cow, as we have also seen above, was necessarily represented as a bull; the bull displays part of his strength by drinking; Ivan Tzarevic drinks, at a gulp, whole barrels of wine of marvellous strength. In this capacity he resembles Indras, the great drinker of somas, and the drinker Bhīmas, the second brother of the Pāndavas.

The third brother is now Prince Ivan (Ivan Tzarevic, Ivan Karolievic, Ivan Kralievic), now the stupid Ivan (Ivan durak), Ivan the little fool (Ivan Duraciok). But, as I have already remarked, the fool generally makes his fortune, either because the kingdom of heaven is for the poor in spirit, or because the stupidity of Ivan is feigned, or else because the fool becomes wise. In a story given in _Afanassieff_,[376] the fool is also lazy, and takes the name of Emilius.

Emilius is sent with a barrel to draw water; he only goes on account of the promise made him by his sister, that he will receive as a reward a pair of red boots.--This desire of the boy-hero, and of the girl-heroine, is spoken of in many popular songs, and among others, in a Piedmontese one, as yet unpublished. In the seventeenth story of the fifth book of _Afanassieff_,[377] the sister kills her brother, Little John, to possess herself of his red strawberries (as in the Esthonian tale), and his red little shoes. Upon his grave a fine cane grows; a shepherd makes a flute of it, and the flute, pressed to the lips, begins to emit the following lamentation:--

     "Gently, gently, little shepherd, play;
      Do not wound my heart!
      My little sister, the traitress,
      For the red little strawberries, for the red little shoes!"

When the flute is pressed to the sister's lips, instead of the word "little shepherd," it says, "Little sister, thou hast betrayed me,"[378] and her crime is thus discovered. These little red shoes are simply a variation of the slippers which are lost by the fugitive aurora, and found again by the sun, and which both wish to wear. (I refer to this myth the origin of the nuptial custom in Europe of maidens, towards the new year, throwing the slipper to know whether, during the next year, they will be married, and who is to be their husband.)[379] The slipper lost by the maiden, Little Mary (Masha, the Marion of Piedmontese and French legends), and found by the prince, also occurs in the Russian tales. In the thirtieth of the sixth book of _Afanassieff_, Little Mary's elder sister begins by trying on the slipper; but it is too small; the foot will not go in. Seeing this, Little Mary's step-mother advises her daughter to cut off her great toe, which would not enter; then the foot goes in, and the messengers of the prince lead the eldest sister away; but two doves fly after them and cry out, "Blood on her foot, blood on her foot." The deceit is discovered, and the eldest sister sent back; the prince causes his true and predestined bride, Little Mary, to be carried off. (This is the usual exchange of wives, upon which I have remarked in my "Essay on the Comparative History of Nuptial Usages," and of which the legend of Queen Berta is one of the most popular examples. The Russian Little Mary, like Cinderella, is at first of ugly aspect, and then beautiful. In the Russian story, the maiden becomes beautiful by mounting upon the stove. Sītā comes forth, beautiful in her innocence, passing through the fire; the morning aurora only seems beautiful when it passes through the flames of the Eastern sky. The stove brings us back to the interrupted story of the foolish and lazy Emilius (or Ivan).--On account, therefore, of the promise made to him of the red boots, he goes to the fountain with the barrel to draw water. In the fountain he catches a pike, who beseeches him to set him at liberty, and promises in return to make him fortunate. Being lazy, the greatest favour that he wishes for at this moment is that he may be helped to carry the barrel; the grateful pike performs the miracle of the barrel full of water which walks of its own accord. (I have already endeavoured to explain this myth: the cloud is represented as a barrel in the Vedic hymns; it moves on of its own accord; the barrel does the same; the hero, as long as he is shut up in the cloud, remains foolish; the barrel of the fool walks of itself.) Emilius is then sent to cut wood; by favour of the grateful pike, it is enough for him to send his hatchet, which cuts the wood of itself; the wood piles itself upon the waggon, and the waggon, without being drawn by any one, advances, passing or crushing whatever it meets; they endeavour to arrest its progress, when the trunk of an oak-tree detaches itself from the waggon, and, like a stick, beating on every side, sweeps the road (these are all curious variations of the walking forest or cloud). The Tzar then sends to invite him to court, and knowing his weak penchant for things of a red colour, he promises him a red robe, a red hat, and red boots. When the Tzar's envoys arrive, Emilius, like his _alter ego_ Ivan Durak (Ivan the fool), is warming himself at the stove; grudging all trouble, he obtains from the pike the favour of being carried by the stove itself to the Tzar at court. The Tzar's daughter falls in love with him; the Tzar shuts the young couple up in a cask (the usual cloud-barrel, which occurs in the form of a little chest in other stories, a variation of the wooden dress), and has them thrown into the sea. Emilius, who was drunk in the cask, sleeps; the princess wakens him, and beseeches him to save her; by means of the pike, the cask comes to a beautiful island, where it breaks open; Emilius becomes handsome, rich, and happy in a beautiful palace with the young princess. (The aurora and the sun of evening are thrown together into the ocean of night, until they land on the happy isle of the east, where they reappear again together in all their splendour.) One of the most popular stupidities of the fool is that of letting the wine contained in the barrel flow out upon the ground, when he is left alone at home; in the Russian story, too, Ivan the fool leaves the beer that is fermenting in the barrel open (Indras with his lightning makes a hole in the cloud-barrel, and the rain comes out).[380]

The fool Ivan takes his good luck from the living, but he also does so from the dead. On account of having watched three nights by the tomb of his father, his luck begins,[381] the shade of his father having blessed him; but, as the dead bring good luck (a belief which, at any rate, has always been entertained by the heirs of rich men deceased), the third brother speculates on the body of his own mother. We do not know whether he does so out of pure simplicity, or with some hidden and far-seeing design, presumable from the ease with which he exchanges the character of a fool for that of a cunning schemer (the first Brutus of popular tradition). In the seventeenth story of _Erlenwein_, after he has carried a treasure home, by selling his ox to the tree, and then cutting down the tree, which contains money, he always guards his money, and sleeps upon it. His brothers know this, and resolve to go and kill him. But that very night, the third, the foolish brother, leaves his mother in charge of the treasure; the brothers come and kill his mother by mistake, instead of him. He turns up, and threatens to give them up to justice; they bribe him with a hundred roubles to keep silence. Then the third brother takes his mother's body and carries it into the middle of the road, in order that a merchant's waggon may crush it; when this happens, he accuses the merchant of murder, until the latter gives him a hundred more roubles to say nothing about it. He then comes to a village by night with his mother's corpse; he places it against a peasant's door, and knocks at the window; the peasant opens the door, the body falls, and the peasant treads upon it, upon which the so-called stupid son cries out that he has killed his mother, and receives another hundred roubles, on promise of silence. Then the two elder brothers, finding that it is possible to speculate upon corpses, and make one's fortune, kill their wives, and go to town with their bodies; they are immediately arrested and put into prison.

The law of atavism evolves itself in the generation of the heroes of mythical legends, no less than in that of simple mortals upon earth. Of a stupid father is born a wise son, and then the wise son in turn has a foolish one. I do not as yet know how to explain this singular fact of natural history; its appearance in mythology, however, is not difficult to understand. To the luminous day succeeds the gloomy night, and then again to the dark night the luminous day; to summer succeeds winter, and to winter summer; to white black, and to black white; to heat cold, and to cold heat.

On this account, in legends, when the mother is intelligent, the son, generally speaking, is silly; whereas, when the mother is silly,[382] the son is usually intelligent.

In the fifth story of the sixth book of _Afanassieff_, a soldier enters the house of a woman, while her son is travelling, and induces her to believe that he has just returned from hell, where he had seen her son employed in taking the storks to pasture, and greatly in want of money; the soldier says that he is about to return to hell, and will be happy to take with him whatever the woman wishes to send to her son. The credulous woman gives him some money, directing him to take it immediately to hell, and give it to her poor child. The soldier disappears, and shortly afterwards the woman's son returns home; his mother is greatly astonished at his appearance, and tells him how she has been deceived; he gets angry and leaves the house again, swearing never to return till he finds some one more foolish than his mother. He is a skilful thief; he steals from a lady, whilst her husband is absent, a hog with its little pigs, and puts them in safe concealment; the husband returns, hears what has taken place, and follows the thief with a carriage and horses. The robber hears him coming; squats down on the ground, takes off his hat, and pretends to be covering with it a bird or a falcon, which wishes to escape. The husband comes and asks him if he has seen the robber; the latter answers that he has seen him, but that he is a long way off, and that the roads by which he can be overtaken are many and winding. The husband, who, perhaps, does not know the proverb which says, "Who wishes, let him go; who wishes not, let him send," asks the robber to overtake the fugitive; the thief demurs, saying that he has under his hat a falcon, which cost his master three hundred roubles, and that it may escape. The gentleman promises to take care of it, and if the falcon escapes, to pay the three hundred roubles. The thief does not believe his promise, and desires the three hundred roubles in pledge of his good faith; the gentleman gives them, and the thief goes off with the carriage, the horses, and the three hundred roubles. The gentleman stays till evening looking at the hat, waiting for his friend to return; at last he loses patience, wants to see what there is under the hat, and finds nothing--but a proof of his own stupidity.[383]

Ivan (John), and oftener still Vaniusha (Little John, the Giovannino of Italian legends), distinguishes himself, not only by his thieving accomplishments, but also by his courage. In order to play the part of a thief, as Little John does in all the Indo-Europeans legends, not only industry, but courage must be called into requisition; hence he acquires, like the Chevalier Bayard, the good reputation of a hero without fear and without reproach. The hero Ivan is now the son of a king, now of a merchant, and now of a peasant; the merchants wished, no less than the peasants, to appropriate to themselves the most popular hero of tradition. In the forty-sixth story of the fifth book of _Afanassieff_, neither the shades of night, nor brigands, nor death, can make the hero afraid; but he is terrified and dies, falling into the water, when the little _iersh_ (the perch) leaps upon his stomach, whilst he is asleep in his fishing-boat. In the Tuscan story,[384] the fearless hero Giovannino, after having confronted every kind of danger, dies from the terror the sight of his own shadow inspires him with. In the same way, in the _Rigvedas_, the god Indras, terrified at his own shadow, or, probably, that of his dead enemy, takes to flight after the killing of the serpent Ahis.[385]

The following heroes are also variations of Prince Ivan, Ivan the son of the cow, Ivan the peasant's son, Ivan the merchant's son, and the cunning Ivan:--1st, Alessino Papovic, the son of the priest (it is well known that the Russian priests are not bound to celibacy), who kills Tugarin, the son of the serpent, by prayer, that is, by praying to the Holy Mother of God, to order the black cloud to cause drops of rain to fall on the monster's wings, upon which the son of the serpent, like the Vedic Ahis, when Indras opens a way for the rivers to come out, instantly falls to the ground;[386] 2d, Baldak, son of Boris, the boy seven years old, who succeeds in spitting in the Sultan's face--(I have already remarked, in the preface to this work, that the king of the Turks is, in the Slavonic tradition, as well as in that of Persia, the representative of the devil; the demon, when the hero approaches, smells the odour of human flesh in India, of Christian flesh in Western stories,[387] and of Russian flesh in Russian fairy tales)--but who afterwards becomes the Sultan's prisoner, because he appears to the third daughter of the latter with a star under his heel, or shows his heel (which is the vulnerable part of both hero and monster); 3d, Basil Bes-ciastnoi, who goes, by his father-in-law's order, into the kingdom of the serpent, in order to receive a gift from him, with adventures similar to those of the young Plavacek in Bohemian stories, when he goes to seek the three golden hairs of the old Vsieveda (the all-seeing, the Vedic sun Viēvavedas);[388] 4th, The third brother who exchanges two sacks of flies and gnats he has caught for good cattle.[389] The same hero takes the name of Little Thomas Berennikoff; being blind of one eye, he kills an army of flies, and boasts of having killed an army of heroes; he thus dishonestly gains the reputation of being a hero, and is fortunate in having an opportunity offered him of proving his bravery by killing a monster-serpent, who, out of foolhardiness, shuts both eyes when he sees that Thomas has but one; he afterwards destroys an army of Chinese with the trunk of a tree, rooted up by his indomitable horse, which a real hero had bound to the tree;[390] 5th, The cunning rogue, Little Thomas (Thomka; the quacks in Piedmont are accustomed to give the name of Tommasino to the little devil which they conjure out of a phial), who, by means of disguises, cheats and robs the priest;[391] 6th, The third brother who does not suffer himself to be put to sleep by the witch (as we have seen above the third sister who keeps one of her three eyes open);[392] 7th, The famous robber, Klimka,[393] who, by means of a drum (in Indian tales a trumpet), terrifies his accomplices, the robbers, and takes their money, and then steals from a gentleman his horse, his casket of jewels, and even his wife; 8th, The Cossack who delivers the maiden from the flames, and carries her to his golden house, where there are two other maidens (be it understood, the one in the silver house, and the other in that of copper); from which three maidens the Cossack receives a shirt which renders him invulnerable, a sword which produces the most marvellous effects in slaughtering men, and a purse which, when shaken, drops money;[394] 9th, The celebrated Ilia Muromietz (Elias of Murom), round whom, as also around Svetazór and Svyatogor (holy mount), Dobrynia Nikitic, and the heroes of Vladimir, is grouped an entire heroic Russian epic poem.[395]

Other variations of the same hero are the son of the merchant given up to be educated by the devil, who teaches him every kind of craft; the boy Basil, who understands the language of birds, and who makes his parents serve him;[396] the merchant or son of a peasant,[397] who, because he prefers good advice to money, acquires a fortune; the virtuous workman, who receives by way of pay for his labour only three kapeika, which, spent in good works, enables him at last to marry the king's daughter, or the princess who did not laugh.[398]

The legend of the hero Ivan has yet other interesting forms, reflective of the beautiful Vedic myth of the Aēvināu, who into their flying chariot-vessel also take up the unhappy. In _Afanassieff_,[399] the third brother, thought to be foolish, is ill-treated by his parents, who dress and feed him badly. The king issues a proclamation, that whoever can make a flying vessel will obtain his daughter to wife. The mother sends forth her three sons in quest of the necessary enchantment; to her third son she gives a little brown bread and water, whilst the two eldest go provided with good white loaves and some brandy. The fool meets on the way a poor old man, salutes him, and begins to share with him his scanty store of food; the old man transmutes his brown bread into white, and his water into brandy, and then advises him to enter the forest, to make the sign of the cross upon the first tree he finds, and to strike it with his axe; then to throw himself on the ground and stay there until he wakens; he will see a vessel ready before him: "Sit down in it," added the old man, "and fly whither your behest requires you; and by the way take up beside you as many as you meet."[400] This chariot is freighted with abundance, both to eat and to drink; the young man overtakes several needy beggars, and invites them up into the chariot; he receives only poor people, not a single rich man.[401] But these poor men afterwards show their gratitude to the hero, and help him in other adventures imposed upon him by the Tzar, who hopes by this means to get rid of a son-in-law of such vulgar origin. One of the new tasks imposed requires him to eat twelve oxen, and to drink at one gulp forty barrels of wine; in this he is helped by Eating (Abiédalo) and by Drinking (Apivįlo), whom he had entertained in his chariot-ship, and who eat and drink instead of him.[402] At last he comes to claim and marry the young princess. (The hero-sun, taken up into the chariot of the Aēvināu, by the grace of the Aēvināu, invoked by him in danger, is delivered, and espouses the aurora.)

In a variation of this legend, a prince, fifteen years of age, who has been lost by his parents, is found again by means of a riddle which they propose, and which he alone can solve.[403] In the Vedic hymns it is now the aurora, the beautiful maiden, who delivers the hero-sun, and now the hero-sun who delivers the beautiful maiden, the aurora. In the forty-first story of the sixth book of _Afanassieff_, a little girl, seven years old (semilietkį), presents herself to the Tzar, who must marry her, inasmuch as she solves the riddle proposed by him, by arriving riding on a hare (an animal which represents the moon), with a quail (an animal which seems to represent the sun) tied to her hand.[404] She too, like the aurora, knows all; she too protects the poor against the rich, and the innocent against the guilty. The dwarf Allwis is a form of this child. Allwis is the omniscient man of the Edda, who solves all the questions put to him by the god Thor, in order to obtain his daughter; when he is done with answering these questions, day breaks, and the sun shines.

The wondrous girl of seven years of age (the aurora), brings us back to the marvellous puppet (generally, the moon). It is three puppets (the wooden chest of Marion d'bosch, or wooden little Mary of the Piedmontese story, the dark forest of night, the tree that hides the splendid treasures of the evening aurora; another variety of the same myth in relation to the sun) that hide the three splendid dresses of the stars, the moon and the sun, which belong to the beautiful maiden, the daughter of the priest (a variation of the Vedic aurora, duhitar divas, or daughter of the sky). It is the three puppets which enable the beautiful girl to descend through the ground, and so escape from the persecutions of her father and seducer (in other versions, of her brother), and which go down with her, dressed as old women, and enter a forest, where, near an oak-tree, there is the house of a princess, who has a young and handsome son.[405] In a variation of this story,[406] the girl is persecuted, not by her father, but the well-known cruel stepmother, for whom she divides the wheat from the barley, and draws water at the fountain (like the Vedic maiden Apalā); she goes three times splendidly dressed to church (which takes the place of the ball-room of other stories), where she is seen three times by a handsome prince; she is twice followed, and twice disappears; the third time the prince has gum (pitch, in other variations) put on the ground; the fugitive loses her golden slipper in consequence, which the prince picks up, and tries on all the maidens till he finds his bride. In another story,[407] where the relation of the aurora with the two Aēvināu comes out in wonderful distinctness,[408] it is by means of her marvellous speaking puppet (_i.e._, the moon, the Vedic Rakā, very small, but very intelligent, enclosed in the wooden dress, in the forest of night) that the girl, persecuted by her step-mother, weaves a cloth so fine that it can pass like a thread through the eye of a needle (just as the girl's feet are very small, so also are the puppet's hands). The marvellous cloth is brought to the Tzar, but no one is found who is able to sew it into a shirt for the Tzar.[409] The maiden alone, by the help of her puppet, succeeds; the Tzar wishes to see the girl who prepared his extraordinary shirt, and goes to find her; he is astonished at her beauty, and marries her. In the _Rigvedas_, the aurora weaves a robe for her husband the sun.

The same girl (the aurora) whom we have here only as a good, beautiful, intelligent, and skilful maiden, appears in other stories given in _Afanassieff_ as a heroic damsel. In the seventh story of the first book she disguises herself as a man, and mocks the Tzar three times. In the fourteenth story of the first book, the same girl, under the name of Anastasia the beautiful, vanquishes and binds the serpent, and discovers the secret of how he can be killed. Under the name of Helen, or Little Helen, she is the protectress of her little brother, Ivanusca (Little John),[410] and his guide through the world; and when the boy, by the incantation of a witch, is transformed into a lamb or kid (in a story of the Canavese, in Piedmont, the seven monks, brothers of the courageous girl, are transformed into seven hogs), she recommends him to the care of the prince, her husband, in order that he may destroy the evil work of the witch. The same maiden is found again as the very wise Basilia (Vasilisa Premudraia), who succours the young hero, because, after stealing her dress while she was bathing in the sea, he restores it to her, agreeably to her prayer. For this favour she gratefully accomplishes for him the labours imposed upon him by the king of the waters, and ends, after many vicissitudes, by marrying him.[411] She appears once more as the royal maiden (Tzar-dievitza), who comes three times with her ships by sea to lead away the young Ivan, beloved by her;[412] and I also place among the girl-heroines the daughter of the shepherd in the twenty-ninth story of the fifth book of _Afanassieff_, of which this is an abridgment. There was once a king who could not find a maiden beautiful enough to suit his taste. One day, returning from the chase (the solar hero always meets the aurora, his bride, when returning from the hunt in the forest of night), he meets a shepherd's daughter, who is leading out the flock to pasture, so beautiful that her like would be sought for in vain over the world. He becomes enamoured of her, and promises to make her his wife, but only on condition that she will never say anything displeasing to him, whatever he may do; the poor enamoured maiden consents, the nuptials are celebrated, and the couple live together happily for a year. A boy is born to them; then the king says roughly to his wife that the boy must be killed, that it may never be said the heir to the throne is the son of a shepherdess. The poor woman resigns herself to her fate, remarking, "The will of the king must be done." Another year passes, and a daughter is born. The king informs his wife that she too must be killed, as she can never become a princess, but will always remain a peasant girl. The unhappy mother once more bows her head to the will of the king, who, however, consigns his son and daughter, not to an executioner, but to his sister, that they may receive all the attentions due to their royal pedigree and standing. Years pass away; the little prince and princess grow up beautiful, healthy, good, and happy, and pass adolescence. Then the king puts his wife to the last proof. He sends her back to her house in the dress of a shepherdess, signifying at the same time that she has lived with him long enough. Then he orders her to return, to put the rooms in order, and to wait upon the new bride whom he intends to take her place; the shepherd's daughter obeys again without a murmur. The new bride arrives, and is set down at the table; they eat, drink, and are merry; the shepherd's daughter is obliged to see and hear all, and to serve in silence; at last the king asks her, "Well, is not my bride beautiful?" To which the unhappy woman responds with a heroic effort, "If she seem beautiful to thee, still more does she seem so to me." Then the king, at the summit of his felicity, exclaims, "Dress thyself again in thy royal robes, and place thyself by my side; thou hast been, and shalt always be, my wife, my only wife; this, my supposed bride, is thy daughter, and this handsome youth is thy son." The poor heroine had undergone the last proof of her virtue, and triumphed.

But the virtue of the legendary heroine is not always so sound. Often the good wife, sister, maiden, or woman is corrupted by contact with the wicked. We have already seen how the beautiful aurora, the pitying and beneficent maiden, becomes, in the Vedic hymns themselves, the evil-doer, whom the god Indras overthrows and destroys. The Hellenic Amazons, the beautiful and proud warrior-women, were also pursued, fought with, and vanquished by the Hellenic heroes. Thus the Scandinavian warrior, Walkiries, has a double aspect, a good and a bad. The Russian stories also supply numerous instances of the ease with which the good degenerates into the demon, the hero into the monster, and the beautiful heroine into the powerful and mischief-working witch.

This good sister Helen or Little Helen, so careful a guardian of her brother John, ends, when she conceives a passion for the monster, with becoming his perfidious persecutor. (The evening aurora is represented as a friend of the monster of night, who conspires with him against her brother the sun; and whoever observes the sinister aspect often assumed by the reddish sky of evening, will find this fiction a very natural one. I have said above that a Piedmontese proverb predicts bad weather for the morrow from a red evening; but in Piedmont the belief is also widely diffused that the red of evening signifies blood, and that this bloody redness signifies war. It certainly does mean war, but a mythical war--the war in which the hero, fighting against the monster, succumbs and sheds blood. It is a woman that is the hero's destruction. A counter-type of the biblical Delilah is found in all the popular Indo-European traditions; the Vedic aurora, the sister of Rāvanas in the _Rāmāyanam_, the sister of Hidimbas in the _Mahābhāratam_, the Hellenic Dejanira, Ariadne, Medea, the Amazons, Helen, the Slavonic Helen, and Anna the Sabine woman, the Scandinavian Walkiries, Freya, Idun, Brünhilt, Gudrun, the Germanic Krīmhilt, are all forms of one and the same heroine, conceived now in the light of a saint, and now in that of a witch.

In the Russian story,[413] after the bull has saved from the bear the fugitive brother and sister, Ivan Tzarevic and Helen the exceedingly beautiful (Prekraēna), they enter a brigand's house. Their bull, having become a dwarf, kills all the brigands, and shuts their bodies up in a room, which he forbids Helen to enter; the latter, not attending to the prohibition, enters, and seeing the head of the brigand chief, falls in love with him, resuscitates him by means of the water of life, and then conspires with him to destroy her brother Ivan, by requiring him to accomplish enterprises in which death seemed inevitable, or else by ordering him to bring her, first, the milk of a wolf, then that of a she-bear, and then that of a lioness. Ivan, by the help of his dwarf (or the sun grown small during the night, and perhaps also the moon), accomplishes all these undertakings. We have already seen how white comes from black; the milk of the wolf, the bear, and the lioness is the _alba luna_, or the white morning sky brought back by the solar hero. Ivan is then sent to fetch the eggs of the burning bird (Szar-ptitza). Ivan goes with his dwarf (that is to say, the moon, or he makes himself a dwarf, in other words, renders himself invisible); the bird is enraged, and swallows the dwarf (_i.e._, the red sky of evening, the burning bird, or phoenix, absorbs the moon or the sun in its flames.[414]) Ivan goes back to his sister without the eggs, upon which she threatens to burn him in the bath. Ivan, with the help of the wolf's, the bear's, and the lion's whelps, or Ivan, with the young wolf, bear, or lion (the moon), or Ivan the son of the wolf, Ivan the son of the bear, Ivan the son of the lion (Ivan born of the she-wolf Night, the she-bear Night, or the lioness Night), tears the brigand to pieces, and binds his sister (as the Vedic cow) to a tree (the aurora almost always loses herself in a tree or the water). Then Ivan wishes to marry a heroine. [Two myths are here united in the story, originating in one and the same phenomenon, which seems twofold, because observed at different, almost literally succeeding, instants. The morning sun comes and puts to flight his sister the aurora, driving her back into the forest of night, and binding her to the tree; the morning sun passes safe and sound through the flames (like Sīfrit in the _Nibelungen_), vanquishes and subdues the aurora, makes her his, and espouses her.] He fights with her first, and succeeds in throwing her with his lance from her horse, and subduing her. The first night--that is, when evening comes, she embraces and presses him so tightly, and with such strength, that he cannot succeed in extricating himself (the evening aurora envelops and surrounds the sun; it is the famous nuptial belt, the belt of strength of the god Thor, the shirt of Nessus). At last, however, towards morning, Ivan vanquishes, subdues, and throws down (like Sīfrit in the _Nibelungen_) the girl-heroine (the morning sun, as Indras, throws down the aurora). He then thinks of liberating his sister Helen, who is bound to the tree, in order to take her with him; but she, under the pretext of combing his hair, thrusts a dead man's tooth into his head. Ivan is about to die. Here the primary myth of the sun and aurora, as brother and sister, reappears, and the secondary one of the husband and wife is forgotten. The lion's whelp comes forward and extracts the tooth; the lion is on the point of dying, when the young bear runs up and extracts it again. He is also about to die; the fox then comes up, who assumes towards the end of the story the part played in the middle by the young wolf (in the same way as in Indian tales the jackal is substituted for the fox), and, with more cunning, throws the dead man's tooth into the fire, and thus saves himself--_i.e._, the solar hero, passing through the flames, comes out of the shadows which enveloped him during the night. Helen is attached to the tail of a horse (of Ivan's solar horse itself), and is thus made to perish (when the sun comes forth in the morning the aurora loses herself behind him).

The same story of Ivan's perfidious sister, of which the mythical sense appears to me more than usually evident, occurs again in other forms in Russian tales.

Whilst Ivan is travelling with his sister towards the kingdom where all the people die[415] (that is, towards the night), a fairy gives him a towel, by shaking which a bridge may be thrown across a river--(is this bridge the milky way, the bridge or road to be taken by the souls in the Persian and Porphyrian belief, as well as in the German?)--but advises him never to let his sister see him shake it. Ivan arrives with his sister in the kingdom of the dead; they come upon a river on the further bank of which there is a serpent, who has the power of transforming himself into a handsome youth; Ivan's sister becomes enamoured of him, and he induces her to steal the towel from her brother and shake it. The sister, under the pretext of washing the dirty linen, takes off the fairy's towel and shakes it; a bridge rises, upon which the serpent crosses the river, and then conspires with the girl with intent to work Ivan's ruin. They demand the usual milk, which Ivan brings; then the flour which is shut up within twelve doors. Ivan goes thither with his beasts of prey, takes the flour and brings it away, but his beasts remain shut up inside; then his strength diminishes, and the serpent, boasting that he fears him no longer, prepares to devour him. Ivan, by the advice of a crow, prays for time, and procrastinates till his beasts of prey, gnawing the twelve doors through, come to his help, and tear the serpent in pieces. The serpent's bones are burned in the fire, its ashes are dispersed to the four winds, and the sister is bound to a stone pillar (to the rock or mountain upon which the aurora arises, fading away afterwards when the sun appears). Ivan places near her some hay and a vessel full of water, that she may have whereof to eat and drink, and another empty vessel, which she is to fill with her tears: when she has eaten the hay, drunk the water, and filled the vessel with her tears, it will be a sign that God has forgiven her; when Ivan too will forgive her. Meanwhile, Ivan goes into a kingdom where there is nothing but mourning, because a twelve-headed serpent is massacring all the people (the usual nocturnal sky, where it is now the hero-sun, now the heroine aurora that sacrifices itself), and the king's daughter is the next victim. Ivan, by the help of his hunting animals, cuts the serpent to pieces, and then goes to sleep on the knees of the king's daughter. While he sleeps, a water-carrier passes towards morning, cuts off his head, and presents himself to the king as the deliverer of the princess, whom he demands for his wife. The beasts of prey come up, descry the crow upon Ivan's corpse, and prepare to eat it, when the crow begs for its life; they consent, and in return require it to search for the water of life and death, by means of which Ivan is resuscitated; the water-carrier's deceit is found out, and Ivan marries the princess whom he had delivered from the monster. Then he goes to look for his sister, and finds she has eaten the hay, drunk the water, and filled half the vessel with tears; upon this he pardons her, and takes her away with him.

In another story,[416] instead of the perfidious sister, we have the perfidious mother (probably step-mother), who, to please her demon lover, feigns illness, and demands from Ivan the heart, first of the three-headed, then of the six-headed, and finally of the twelve-headed monster. Ivan accomplishes these undertakings. He is then sent to a hot bath, to weaken his strength. Ivan goes, and his head is cut off by the monster. But Ivan's two sons resuscitate him by rubbing a root upon his body; the demon lover of Ivan's mother dies as soon as the hero revives again. In the two sons of Ivan we recognise again the myth of the Aēvināu, the celestial physicians who resuscitate the solar hero.

In another story, Ivan Karolievic (king's son) is threatened with death by his own wife,[417] who, feigning illness, demands the usual milk of a she-wolf, a she-bear, and a lioness, and then the enchanted powder (powder of gold or flour), which is under the devils mill, barred behind twelve doors. Ivan comes out, but his beasts remain inside. He returns and finds his wife with the serpent, the son of the serpent; he chaunts the song of death--he sings it three times;[418] on hearing which the serpent is thrown down, and the beasts, regaining strength to deliver themselves, come out and tear the serpent, and with him the perfidious wife is put to death.

Ivan's perfidious wife occurs again in the thirty-fifth story of the fifth book of _Afanassieff_, under the name of Anna the very beautiful (Prekraēnaia). She has married Ivan Tzarevic against her will, because she could not solve a riddle which he proposed to her; she does not love him, and endeavours to destroy him by requiring an extraordinary proof of his valour,[419] in which, by the help of his tutor, Katoma, Ivan is victorious, so that Anna falls into his hands. But, understanding that Ivan's strength is not in himself, but his tutor, she induces Ivan to send him away, after depriving him of his feet. Anna then sends Ivan to take the cows to pasture. The lame Katoma finds in the forest a blind man, also made so by Anna;[420] they become friends and consociate together, and carry off a beautiful maiden to be their sister; but a witch comes and makes the maiden comb her hair, whilst she sucks her breast (we must remember that in the Indian story the girl has three breasts, or is defective in her breast, in the same way as the witch makes the Russian girl so by sucking her breast). The poor girl grows thin and ugly, until the old witch is surprised in her evil doings by the two heroes, fallen upon by them like a mountain of stone, and pressed so tightly that she cries for mercy. Then they demand to be shown where the fountain of life and healing can be found. The old woman conducts them into a dense forest, and shows them a fountain. They first throw a dry twig in, which immediately takes fire; they threaten to kill the old witch, and force her to lead them to another fountain, into which they throw another dry twig; it becomes green again. Then one rubs his eyes, and the other his feet, with the water, and both become healthy and strong again. They throw the witch into the fountain of fire. Katoma, in a shepherd's dress, goes to deliver the hero Ivan from the demon cow, which lifts up its tail and gives him back his strength and splendour. This is again the Vedic myth of the Aēvināu united to the aurora, who cure the blind and the lame, _i.e._, themselves, and save the multiform solar hero.

Finally, such as we have found the blind girl in the Vedic hymns, so we meet her again in Russian tradition.[421] A servant-maid takes out the eyes of the maiden her mistress, after having put her to sleep by means of a herb, and marries the king in her stead. The girl awakens, hears but does not see; an old shepherd receives her into his house; during the night she, although blind, sews a crown for the Tzar and sends the old man to court to sell it for an eye (this is a variation of Queen Berta in the forest). The servant-maid, now become queen, tempted by the beauty of this crown, takes one of the girls eyes out of her pocket and gives it to the old man. The maiden arises at the aurora, washes her eye in her own saliva (_i.e._, the dew. In Tuscany, the peasants believe that whoever washes his face in the dew before the sun rises on St John's Day, will have no illness all the year following), puts it in the socket and sees. She then sews another crown, and, in the same manner, recovers her other eye at the next aurora. Then the servant-queen learns that she is alive, and makes hired murderers cut her to pieces. Where the maiden is buried, a garden arises and a boy shows himself. The boy goes to the palace and runs after the queen, making such a din that she is obliged, in order to silence him, to give him the girl's heart, which she had kept hidden. The boy then runs off contented; the king follows him, and finds himself before the resuscitated maiden. He marries her, and the servant-girl is blinded, and then torn to pieces by being fastened to the tails of horses. Like the German Genevičve and the Hindoo Ēakuntalā, the Russian wife is recognised by her husband by means of a boy. This is the young sun, who enables the old one to be born again, to arise again and be young once more; this is the son who, in the Hindoo legend, gives his father his eyesight back, and by doing so, naturally imparts to him the means of recognising his wife, whom he had forgotten, or rejected, or lost, according to the various forms assumed by the celestial myth of the separation of husband and wife.

I might now carry on this comparison by entering the mythical field of the more Western Slavonic nations;[422] but it is not my intention to convert this modest volume into an entire library of legends; neither is it necessary for my purpose, as by so doing I should not add much more evidence to that which I have thus far attempted to collect, in order to prove how zoological mythology is the same in existing Slavonic tradition as it was in Hindoo antiquity. I have, moreover, gone rather minutely into the contents of Russian tradition in particular, because, on account of our ignorance of the language, which is beautiful and worthy of study, it is little known, and because it is of especial importance in our present inquiry. I believe, if I do not deceive myself, that I have, up to this point, given an account of all the more essential legends developed in the Eastern Aryan world relating to the myth of the cow and the bull; and now, in moving towards the West, I think I may venture to proceed with greater expedition, because we shall find ourselves in a region already familiar to us. It seemed to me that it was especially necessary, for a just comparison, to determine and fix the character of Oriental tradition, in order that it may be easy for the student to classify the interminable stories and traditions which have already been collected in Western Europe, and which are published in languages which are, certainly, different from each other, but all, comparatively speaking, readily accessible. If I have succeeded in imparting to the reader an understanding of the more authentic sources of legendary traditions and their most probable meanings, I shall go on with more courage and a greater confidence to the investigations that follow.

FOOTNOTES:

[348] These last have already been translated into English, and illustrated, by W. R. S. Ralston, M.A. The _Narodnija Skaski_ sabrannija selskimi uciteliami, isdanie A. A. Erlenwein (Moskva 1863), and the more voluminous N. Aphanasieva, _Narodnija ruskija skaski_, Isd. 2 (Moskva 1860, 1861), have not thus far been translated into other European languages. I have therefore thought fit to make copious quotations from them as well for the use of Western readers, as on account of the real importance of their mythical contents, whilst awaiting the publication of the competent work which Mr Ralston is expressly preparing upon Russian songs.

[349] iii. 8805, and following.

[350] _Afanassieff_, ii. 29.

[351] iv. 45.

[352] This subject is already given in _Ęsop's Fables_, in the twenty-first fable (ed. Del Furia, Florence, 1809): the man prays to a wooden idol (xülinon theon) that it may make him rich; the statue does not answer; he breaks it to pieces, and gold comes out of it.

[353] Seventeenth story.

[354] Cfr. also in _Afanassieff_, the story, v. 19.

[355] Cfr. also, for the variations, the twenty-second of _Erlenwein_, and iii. 24, of _Afanassieff_.

[356] Story 54.

[357] Cfr. the first story of my collection of the _Novelline di Santo Stefano di Calcinaia_, Torino, A. F. Negro, 1869. I am also acquainted with a Piedmontese variation, differing but little from this Tuscan story.

[358] In the story, ii. 27, of the collection of _Afanassieff_, the beautiful princess, near the sea, combs the youngest son of the Tzar, who goes to sleep.

[359] Cfr. the chapter on the Goat.

[360] v. 37.

[361] v. 50.

[362] v. 9.

[363] In Lafontaine, _Fables_, vii. 1, the animal sacrificed is the ass.

[364] _Afanassieff_, iv. 20-22.--In a Lithuanian song, which describes the nuptials of animals, the bull appears as a woodcutter or woodman.--Cfr. Uhland's _Schriften zur Geschichte der Dichtung und Sage_, iii. 75.

[365] _Afanassieff_, v. 6.

[366] Cfr. the chapter which treats of the Wolf.

[367] _Afanassieff_, v. 41.

[368] _Afanassieff_, iv. 1.--In another variation of the same myth, which we have already referred to in the Vedic hymns, the birds come, on the contrary, out of a horse.

[369] v. 54.

[370] Cfr. _Afanassieff_, v. 54, and the chapters on the Fish and the Eel.

[371] I read in the travels of Olearius in Persia during the year 1638, French translation: "Les Persans disent que la montagne de Kilissim a une telle propriété que tous ceux qui y montent n'en descendent point; que le schach Abas obligea un jour un de ses chasseurs, en lui promettant une grosse somme d'argent, ą monter sur cette montagne, et qu'il y monta effectivement, l'ayant fait connoītre par le feu qu'il alluma; mais qu'il n'en descendit point, et que l'on ne sēait point ce qu'il devint avec son chien, qu'il menait avec lui."

[372] _Afanassieff_, iv. 9.--In the well-known English story of _Jack and the Bean-stalk_, it is the giant who is killed by the fall from heaven, when Jack cuts the bean-stalk close to the ground.

[373] _Afanassieff_, iv. 7.--Cfr. the chapter on the Fox.

[374] _Afanassieff_, v. 12, and vi. 2.--Cfr. the chapters on the Goat, the Fox, the Wolf, and the Duck, where other episodes of this legend are found again.--In the twelfth story of the fifth book of _Afanassieff_, the old man goes up to heaven to call God to account for the peas that He has taken from the top of the pea-plant; God gives him in exchange stockings of gold and garters of silver.

[375] Cfr. also v. 24.

[376] v. 55.--Cfr. also vi. 22.--Cfr. the _Contes et Proverbes Populaires recueillis en Armagnac_, par Bladé (Paris, 1867), where the foolish and lazy one occurs again under the name of Joan Lou Pigre.

[377] Cfr. also the two variations in _Afanassieff_, vi. 25.

[378]

     Po malu, malu, sestritze, grai
     Nie vraszi ti mavó serdienkį vkrai!
     Ti-sz mini szradila
     Sza krasni yagodki, sza corvonni cobotki!

Also cfr. the chapter on the Peacock.

[379] In the Festival of the Epiphany, which is also a festival of the husband and wife, the good fairy is accustomed to bring to the child, husband, and wife, a boot or a stocking full of presents. This nuptial boot occurs again in the English custom of throwing a slipper after a newly-married couple. Another meaning was also given to the slippers which are thrown away in the popular belief. Instead of being the heroine's shoes which, having been abandoned, serve to attract and guide the predestined husband, they are also considered as the old shoes which the devil leaves behind him when he flees (his tail, which betrays itself). The Germanic wild huntress Gueroryssa, another form of the Frau Holle--the phantom of winter expelled at Epiphany--is represented with a serpent's tail. Hence in the German carnival the use of the _Schuh-teufel laufen_, or running in the devil's slippers.

[380] Cfr. _Afanassieff_, v. 4, and the chapter on the Stork.

[381] Cfr. _Afanassieff_, ii. 25, ii. 28, iv. 47, v. 37.

[382] The _mčre sotte_ has become proverbial in France, where, in the sixteenth century, Pierre Gringore wrote a satirical comedy with the title of _Le Jeu de Mčre Sotte_, in which the Mčre Sotte is the Catholic Church.

[383] A similar story, which, on account of its indecent details, I was not able to publish in my collection of the _Novelline di Santo Stefano di Calcinaia_, is narrated upon the hills of Signa, near Florence. It is also told, with some variations, in Piedmont.--Cfr. a Russian variety of the same story in the chapter on the Hen.

[384] _Novelline di Santo Stefano di Calcinaia_, 22.

[385] Cfr. the chapter on the Fishes.

[386] _Afanassieff_, vi. 59.--But in the tale v. 11, he knows how to fight well.

[387] In England the monster smells the blood of an Englishman, as in the familiar lines in _Jack the Giant-Killer_--

     "Fe fo fum,
      I smell the blood of an Englishman;
      Be he alive or be he dead,
      I'll grind his bones to make my bread."

[388] Cfr. Teza, _The Three Golden Hairs of the Grandfather Know-all_, a Bohemian tale (_I tre Capelli d'oro del Nonno Satutto_, Bologna, 1866).

[389] _Afanassieff_, ii. 7.

[390] v. 11.

[391] _Afanassieff_, v. 7, 8.

[392] iv. 46.

[393] v. 6; _Erlenwein_, 7.

[394] _Erlenwein_, 5.--In the first story of _Erlenwein_, the last-born, Vaniusha (Little John), takes from disputing peasants, by a stratagem, first a marvellous arrow, then a hat which makes the wearer invisible, and, finally, a mantle which flies of itself. He promises to divide them equitably, and for this service makes them pay him beforehand, each of the three times, a hundred roubles; he then throws the objects far away and says, that he who is able to find them will have them; all search, but he alone finds them. (Thus Argunas, in the _Mahābhāratam_, hides his wonderful arms in the trunk of a tree, in which he alone can find them.)

[395] Cfr. Schiefner, _Zur Russischen Heldensage_, Petersburg, 1861. This is how the hero Svyatogor is described in a Russian popular epic song cited by Ralston (_The Songs of the Russian people_): "There comes a hero taller than the standing woods, whose head reaches to the fleeting clouds, bearing on his shoulders a crystal coffer."

[396] _Afanassieff_, vi. 41.

[397] v. 31, and _Erlenwein_, 16.

[398] v. 32.

[399] vi. 27.

[400] Ēadis v nievó, i leti kuda nadobno; da po daroghie zabirįi k sebié vsiįkavo vstriecnavo.

[401] Na karablié niet ni adnavó pįna, a vsió córnie ludi.

[402] Cfr. _Afanassieff_, v. 23.--Ice, in the form of an old man, comes to try the boiling bath into which the king of the sea wishes to throw the young hero; when Ice has tried the bath, the youth enters it without suffering any harm.--The trial of drinking occurs again in a grandiose form in the combat between Loki and Thor to empty the cup in the Edda of Snorri, a different form of the Hindoo legend of Agastyas, who dries up the sea.--Odin, too, as Indras and as Bhīmas, at three gulps dries up three lakes of mead.

[403] _Afanassieff_, v. 42.

[404] Cfr. the chapters on the Hare and the Quail.

[405] _Afanassieff_, vi. 28, and ii. 31.

[406] _Afanassieff_, vi. 20.--Cfr. i. 3, and ii. 31, where we have the same particular of the prince who strikes three times the disguised girl who serves him, as in the Tuscan story of the Wooden Top (the puppet), the third in my collection of the _Novelline di Santo Stefano di Calcinaia_.

[407] iv. 44.

[408] Cfr. next chapter.

[409] Cfr. the chapter on the Spider.

[410] _Afanassieff_, ii. 29, and iv. 45.

[411] v. 23.

[412] v. 42.

[413] _Afanassieff_, v. 27.

[414] Cfr. the chapter which treats of the Eagle, the Vulture, and the Falcon.

[415] _Afanassieff_, vi. 52.

[416] _Afanassieff_, vi. 63.

[417] vi. 51.

[418] In the story, vi. 52, Ivan, by playing in a marvellous manner on a flute, is recognised by the princess whom he had delivered from the monster.

[419] Cf. next chapter.

[420] We find the blind-lame man again in an epigram by Ausonius of Bordeaux, a writer of the fourth century:--

     "Insidens cęco graditur pede claudus utroque,
        Quo caret alteruter, sumit ab alterutro.
     Cęcus namque pedes claudo gressumque ministrat,
        At claudus cęco lumina, pro pedibus."

[421] _Afanassieff_, v. 39.

[422] The student who wishes to extend his researches in Slavonic tradition may consult with profit, among others, the following works:--Schwenck, _Mythologie der Slaven_; Hanusch, _Slavische Mythologie_; Woycicki, _Polnische Märchen_; Schleicher, _Littauische Märchen_; Wenzig, _Westslavischer Märchenschatz_; Kapper, _Die Gesänge der Serben_; Chodzko, _Contes des Paysans et des Pātres Slaves_; Teza, _Itre Capelli d'oro del Nonno Satutto_, a Bohemian story; Miēkievic, _Canti Popolari Illirici_.

SECTION V.

THE BULL AND THE COW IN THE GERMANICO-SCANDINAVIAN AND FRANCO-CELTIC TRADITIONS.

SUMMARY.

   The four bulls, sons of the virgin Gefion.--The bull which comes out
   of the sea.--The bull progenitor of royal races.--The bull who
   carries the maiden.--The cow of abundance, Audhumla, nurse and
   mother of heroes.--The three brothers of Scandinavian and German
   mythology.--The warrior-cow.--The sacred cow of Ögwaldr burned upon
   the hero's tomb.--The rod-phallos used to strike the cow, as an
   augury of abundance and fecundity.--The head of the ox used as a
   hook to catch the sea-serpent.--The Scandinavian cornucopia made of
   the horns of oxen.--The horn full of honey.--The horn-trumpet.--The
   daughter that milks.--The hero who eats oxen.--Atli eats the hearts
   of his sons, believing them to be the hearts of
   calves.--Hornboge.--To a wicked cow God gives short horns; to cut
   off the cow's horns; to take the bull or cow by the horns, three
   Germanic proverbs.--To dream of eagles announces the vicinity of
   cows; Scandinavian corresponding legend.--A red cow on a certain
   bridge announces a battle.--The Germanico-Scandinavian mythical
   bridge.--The red cow and the black cow yield white milk.--Digression
   upon mythical proverbs, and the explanation which seems to be the
   most likely.--To shut the stable after the cow has been
   stolen.--When the daughter is stolen, shut Peppergate.--He who has
   lost a cow and gets its tail back again has not much, but he has
   more than nothing.--To take by the horns.--Even if the cow's tail
   moves it does not fall.--The tails in the mud.--The virtues of the
   tail.--The ascent to heaven by means of the tails.--The hero in the
   sack made of a cow's hide thrown into the sea.--The punishment of
   the bull.--When the cow places herself upon the eggs, do not expect
   fowls.--The black cow has crushed him.--The sack of the wolf or of
   the black beast is his body itself.--The trial between hero and
   monster to take off their skins; the hero gives cows' skins, but the
   monster is obliged to give his own.--The cow's hide, when sold, is
   the beginning of good luck.--The daughter flees from her father, who
   wishes to seduce her; the story of the slipper again.--The cow can
   pass before the hare.--The cow jumped over the moon.--Tarde sed
   tute.--To take the hare with the chariot.--All those who blow the
   horn do not hunt hares.--As a blind cow finds a pea.--Marvellous
   pipkins and amphorę.--The cow that laughs.--The princess who
   laughs.--The cow that speaks.--The language of animals.--Phallical
   mysteries.--What the king said in the queen's ear.--Because they
   have spoken, the husband and wife are separated.--Bulls that speak
   at Rome.--Women know everything, even how Zeus married Hźra.--The
   mythical laugh is in the sun's ray and in the lightning.--The fishes
   that laugh; Phallic meaning of the myth.--If the cow-maid must spin,
   there will be little yarn.--The cows that spin.--The spinning
   Berta.--Berchta and Holda.--The time is passed when Berta spun.--The
   times of King Pipino.--Berta with the large foot.--Berta with the
   goose's foot.--St Lucia and St Luke.--Virgins after
   parturition.--The old husband Pepin, a form of St Joseph.--The wife
   Berta changed.--The Italian proverbs dare la Berta and dare la Madre
   d'Orlando.--Continuation of the story of Berta persecuted in the
   forest.--Orlando and Charlemagne.--The bull-priest and the
   priest-bull.--The bull in funerals, in pregnancy, and as the food of
   the hero.--The dwarf and the giant.--A French dwarf explains a myth
   to us; a Scandinavian explains other myths to us.

I shall here combine under one category the Germanico-Scandinavian and Franco-Celtic traditions, as traditions which, in the Middle Ages especially, had a close and continual correlation of correspondence with each other.

The _Edda_ of Snorri begins with the voyage of Gefion, with the four oxen, her sons (although she is a virgin), yoked to a plough. The king Gylfi concedes to her the right of occupying and possessing as much ground as she can plough in twenty-four hours. When they come to the western sea-board, the four oxen rush forward and drag Gefion with them into the sea, until they arrive at the land of Seelund (Seeland).[423] In which, it is obvious we have again the Vedic bull with a thousand horns which comes out of the sea, and the bull which carries off the maiden. The bull which comes out of the sea is also found in Irish legends, and in German ones. According to a German legend, of which several variations exist, a shepherd received a dinner every day and a clean shirt every Sunday from a variegated bull that came out of the sea.[424] A bull on the seaside begets, by the sleeping queen, the king Meroveus, the first of the Merovingians; perhaps it is on this account that we find a golden bull's head represented on the tomb of King Childeric. Charles Simrock[425] found a similar legend also in Spain. The bull which carries the girl, which we have already met with in the Russian stories, occurs again in the Norse tale[426] of "_Katee Wooden Cloak_ (Dasent), endowed with the powers of wish. In its left ear is a cloth (which reminds us of that spun on the cow's horns), which, when spread out, is covered with dainties of all kinds for the dawn-maiden, who has been thrust out of her father's house; but when the step-mother informs her that she cannot rest until she has eaten the dun bull's flesh, the animal, hearing her, engages to deliver her, and offers, if she so wills, to carry her away."

In the voyage of Gylfi in the _Edda_ of Snorri, we find that the cow Audhumla, the cow of abundance, was the parent of the supreme Scandinavian god Odin, as it was of the supreme Vedic god Indras. The cow Audhumla nourishes with her milk Ymir, the first of the giants. She licks the salt mountain of ice (the Esthonian ice-mountain, the twelve glasses of the Russian princess, through which the young hero Ivan penetrates to kiss her). From the ice which the cow has licked, comes forth, first the hair, then the head, then the whole body, of the hero Buri. (The sun arises little by little from the mountain of the east, warmed, attracted by the cow-aurora, and shows, first a few rays, then his disc, and then himself in all his splendour and strength; and that which the sun does every day he repeats on a larger scale once a year, rising again from the ice of winter through the tepidity of spring.) Of Buri, who is at birth strong, is born Bör, who has, by Bestla, the daughter of the giant Bölthorn, three sons, Odin, Wili, and We (the usual three brothers of the legends), who correspond to the three sons of Mannus in German tradition, that is, Inguis, Istio, and Irminius. The Swedish king Eistein had a great veneration for the cow Sibilia, and used to take her with him to battle, that she might terrify the enemy by her lowing. (The lowing of cows plays an important part in the battles of the Vedic hero Indras. In the _Pancatantram_, as we have noticed, the bellowing of the bull fills the lion with terror.) The Scandinavian king, Ögwaldr, was accompanied everywhere by a sacred cow, of which he drank the milk, and with which he desired to be buried. In the _Rigvedas_, as we have seen, the hero Indras makes the cow fruitful; and the thunderbolt of the god, penetrating the cloud, takes the form of a phallos. Afterwards, as a symbol of the rod-phallos, the branch or rod of the tree palāēas was adopted, with which the cow was struck to make it fruitful; such a magic rod is used in Germany to this day, where it is in many parts the custom to strike the cow, in the belief that it will render her fruitful.[427]

It is with the head of the most beautiful of the giant Hymir's oxen fastened to his hook that, in Snorri's _Edda_, the god Thor goes to fish up the immense serpent of Midgard from the bottom of the sea, and destroys it upon the sea-shore. (This myth, if I am not mistaken, has the following meaning:--The head of the solar, or lunar, bull is devoured by the monster of night; this same head, tossed about, draws up, towards morning as sun, and towards evening as moon, upon the shore of the sea of night, that is to say, on the eastern mountain, the monster-serpent: thus Hanumant, in the _Rāmāyanam_, passes over to the opposite shore of the sea, crossing the body of the marine monster, which he causes to burst; thus Indras kills Ahis the serpent upon the mountain).

Nor is there the cow of abundance only. Scandinavian tradition, in the short poem on the dwarf Allwis, offers us the cornucopia in the cup formed of the defence of oxen (_i.e._, with their horns), in which the god Thor drinks hydromel. Thus Sigurd offers to Brünhilt a horn full of mead to drink. And this horn, moreover, besides serving as a cornucopia, becomes as a golden horn the war-trumpet of Odin (the Giallarhorn).

The Scandinavian hero then, it appears also, has his relationship with cows, though his life has far more of a warlike character than a pastoral one; he therefore accuses Loki, and in so doing fills him with shame, with having passed eight winters underground occupied in milking the cows like a woman. (It is known that the Hindoo word _duhitar_, whence Tochter, means she who milks). The Scandinavian hero, instead of milking cows, eats bulls. We find more than once in the _Eddas_ the heroes occupied in roasting oxen. Atli, the husband of Gudrun, boasts of having killed some oxen and having eaten them with her. Gudrun, the Scandinavian Medea, gives Atli the hearts of his two sons to eat, assuring him that they are calves' hearts. The god Thor, disguised as the goddess Freya, drinks three barrels of mead, and eats a whole bull, when he sets out on the enterprise of recovering his marvellous hammer. The bull's or cow's horn, moreover, not only supplies mead to the hero, nor is it only used to call his friends to his aid and to throw down the enemy; it also forms the hero's bow, which therefore, in the _Vilkina Saga_,[428] also takes the name of Hornboge, and, as such, assists the greatest hero, Thidrek or Dītrich, and is the parent of the celebrated hero Sigurd (Sīfrit, or Siegfried). And, in conclusion, the horns are considered such an important weapon of the cow and bull, that a proverb, which is at once Slavonic, German, and Italian, says, "To a wicked cow, God gives short horns" (that it may do no harm, or rather, because it wears them away by use); to cut off the cow's horns means, in a German proverb, to surmount a difficulty; and to take the bull or cow by the horns, is to disarm them.[429]

In the Greenland poem on Atli, in the _Edda_ of Sömund, Högni says, that when many cattle are killed much blood is seen, and that when one dreams of eagles, oxen are not far distant. In the _Edda_ of Snorri, whilst Odin, Loki, and Hönir are cooking an ox under a tree, an eagle on its summit prevents the meat from being cooked, till the heroes consent to give him part of it. The heroes consent, but the eagle carries off no less than the two thighs and the two shoulders of the ox. The eagle has in the _Edda_ the same demoniacal and infernal character that is in other traditions ascribed to the crow, the funereal stork, and the vulture: it searches for oxen; and therefore to dream of eagles is an intimation that an ox is near, in the same way as they say the presence of a vulture is a sign of the proximity of a corpse.

A German legend, cited by Kuhn and Schwartz,[430] makes a battle begin "as soon as a red cow is led over a certain bridge." We remember the Russian story of the girl who, by means of the magical towel of her brother, makes a bridge arise over the river, over which the monster-serpent, in the form of a handsome young man, crosses to take her; how the brother is sacrificed in the battle which he is obliged to fight against the monster, who disarms him by fraud; and how the battle between the hero and the monster begins when the maiden, passing the bridge, abandons the hero, her brother, who falls and sheds his blood in the unequal struggle. I have already remarked that in the popular belief the bloody sun of evening forebodes war, and the red cow of German tradition represents no other than this sky. As to the bridge, an interesting note of Kuhn and Schwartz[431] seems to confirm the hypothesis which I have already hinted at in connection with the Slavonic story, _i.e._, that it represents the milky way; from this note, too, in which a resemblance is noticed between the bridge of the red cow, which determines the beginning of a battle, and the Scandinavian celestial Bīfröst (as perhaps there is between it and even the Persian bridge Cinvant itself), I gather that in Frisia the milky way is called Kau-pat (or Kuh-pfad, cow's-path). That is to say, it is supposed that the red cow of evening passes during the night along the milky way, scattering her milk over it; whence perhaps is derived the German proverb, "Even red cows yield white milk,"[432]--like that other which we have already seen current in India, and met with again in Turanian tradition, and which exists as a German, Slavonic, and Italian proverb, "Even the black cow yields white milk"--(the black night which produces the alba or white dawn of morning, and we might add, the silver moon and the milky way).

Since it seems to me, therefore, as I trust it also does to the reader, that the maiden who crosses the bridge in the Slavonic stories is, without doubt, the same as the red cow which does the like in German legend, and if I have not been mistaken in identifying the maiden who travels with her brother to the kingdom of the dead with the evening aurora and the dying sun, I shall here adduce a few other German proverbs, which may also be said to be universal in European tradition, relating to the cow, all pointing to a similar conclusion. They are as follows:--"Shutting the stable after the cow has been stolen." "He who has lost a cow, and recovers her tail, has not much, but he has more than nothing." "A cow's tail might reach heaven, if it were only a long one."[434] "A cow does not know what her tail is worth till she loses it." "To take the cow by her tail." "The black cow has crushed him, or has got upon him." "A cow cannot overtake a hare." "The cow has outrun the hare." "Not all who sound the horn hunt the hare." "When the cows laugh." "As a blind cow can find a pea." "He must be carried about in an old cow's hide." "If the cow-maid spins, there will be little yarn." "The cow will learn to spin first."[435]

Meditating upon all these German proverbs, it is, it appears to me, not difficult to recognise in them a reminiscence of ancient myths with which we are already acquainted. When we reflect that almost every proverb has passed into contradictory forms and varieties, and as in these varieties we may trace the elements of the history of a great number of strange proverbs, it does not seem rash to affirm that the said history generally had, in like manner, its origin in a myth. Not to wander from the subject in hand, that the same proverb is attributed to different animals, not only by different nations, but in the oral traditions of the same people, I must refer the reader to what I have remarked in the preface to this volume concerning the contradiction which exists between certain superstitious beliefs. The contradiction between many proverbs, as also between many superstitions, compared with each other, can only be reconciled by referring both back to the battle-field of mythology, where an inconceivable number of myths arise, and can only arise, out of contradictions; that is, out of contrasted aspects which celestial phenomena present, even to the same observer, still more so to different observers. The comparative history of mythical proverbs is yet to be written, and perhaps it is not yet possible to write it according to rigorous scientific method in all its completeness. A preliminary study of the details is necessary to understand a proverb as well as a popular custom, a superstitious belief, a legend, or a myth; and this study will demand some labour; for one proverb, completely illustrated, may involve the development of an entire epical history. I shall not presume here to solve the enigma of the above-quoted German proverbs, but only to indicate what seems to me to be the way of arriving at their most probable solution. In the study of a proverb, it is necessary to lay great stress upon its intonation. Upon the different tones in which an ancient proverb was originally pronounced, and afterwards repeated, passing from tongue to tongue, and from people to people, depends a great part of the alteration in the meaning even of the most interesting of the proverbs, which are a patrimony we owe in common to Aryan tradition. A proverb, for instance, began by being a simple affirmation, the simple expression of a natural mythical image; with the lapse of time the expression remained, and the myth was forgotten; the expression then appeared to refer to a strange thing, and was accompanied, when pronounced, with a doubtful mark of interrogation; it was now adopted in the denial of an impossible thing, and became an instrument for satire. Thus many proverbs which have become satirical, must have been originally nothing more than mythical affirmative phrases.

"To shut the stable after the cow has been stolen." In England, instead of the cow, we have in the proverb a girl: "When your daughter is stolen, shut Peppergate" (the name of a little gate of the city of Chester, which it is said the mayor ordered to be shut when his daughter had been carried off). The proverb is now used to stir up a laugh at the expense of those who are at pains to guard their property after it has been robbed; but it perhaps had not always the same meaning. We are already familiar in Hindoo tradition with the hero who delivers the beautiful maiden out of the enclosure, and have seen how she is scarcely free, when she is led away by iniquitous brothers or companions, after shutting up the legitimate proprietor of the cow or maiden in the cave whence the cow or girl came forth; how the ravishing brothers shut the door of the stable or cavern, after having carried off the maiden. The hero imprisoned in the stable, the hero shut up in the darkness of night, often assumed in mythology the form of a fool. Hence from the idea of shutting the gate of the stable upon the hero, by the ravishers of his cow, the transition seems natural, in my opinion, to the hero lost in the cavern, to the hero become foolish, to the peasant who shuts the door of the stable when the cow has been robbed, or to the mayor of Chester, who, being shut up in the town, shuts the Peppergate, through which the girl who had been carried off passed.

"He who has lost a cow and recovers its tail has not much, but he has more than nothing." This proverb also appears to me to have a mythical meaning. I have already remarked that the tail, the heel, the feet, that is to say, the lower or hinder extremities, betray the mythical animal; which we shall see more convincingly when we come to examine the legends which refer to the wolf, the fox, and the serpent. It is the footprint which, in all the European traditions, betrays the beautiful maiden in her flight; and when the brigand Cacus carried off the oxen of Hercules, the hero, to recover them, searches for their footprints. But in order that these may not be recognised, the cunning brigand, instead of leading the oxen by their heads, takes them by their tails,[436] and makes them walk backwards. Hence, to take by the tail, means to take hold of the wrong way, and it is applied to the ass as well as the cow. It is said in Germany that a cow once fell into a ditch from which none of the bystanders dared to extricate it. The peasant to whom the cow belonged came up, and, according to some, took it fearlessly by the horns, while, according to others, he dragged it out by its tail, whence can be explained the double proverb to take by the horns, _i.e._, to take by the right side, and to take by the tail, or, as we have said, to take by the wrong. But the peasant could only take his cow out by the horns, or by the tail, according to the way in which it had fallen in; that is, if it had fallen down head foremost, it could only be dragged out by the tail, and if, on the contrary, it had fallen in tail foremost, he could only extricate it by laying hold of its horns. The cow-aurora is taken by surprise and devoured by the wolf, bear, wild-boar, or serpent of night, who takes her by the shoulders (it is on this account that, in the Russian story, we have seen the bull recommend the fugitive hero, accompanied by his sister, to keep his face turned in the direction whence the pursuing monster might be expected to come up). The monster (the shadow, or the cloud) clutches the cow by her tail and devours her, or drags her into his cave. The hero, in order to deliver his cow out of the cave, can take her by the horns only on condition that he penetrates into the cavern by the same way by which the cow entered, that is, by the monster's mouth; but, as the monster endeavours to surprise the hero from behind, so the hero often wounds the monster from behind, catches hold of him by the tail, and in this way drags him out of the cavern, ditch, or mud--his fallen cow. In a Hindoo fable in the second book of the _Pancatantram_, we have the story of a jackal, who, to satisfy a desire of his wife, follows the bull for whole years together, in the hope that his two hanging testicles might fall some day or another. In a joke of Poggius, and in Lessing,[437] we find the same subject spoken of, of which a variation is given in a German proverb, "Though the cow's tail moves, it does not fall."[438] In the hope of this it is that the wolf, or the fox, runs after the tail of the cow or bull. There is a Piedmontese story which I heard in my infancy, one comic feature of which lingers vividly in the memory: a boy who took the hogs to pasture, cut off their tails and stuck them in the mud, and then made off with the animals. The owner of the hogs, seeing their tails, is under the impression that they have sunk into the mud. He tugs at them, brings away their tails, but cannot fish up their bodies. In a Russian story given by _Afanassieff_,[439] we read that the cunning Little Thomas (Thomka, Fomka) cheats the priest of his horse (in some versions his ass) by cutting off its tail and planting it in the mud of a marsh. He makes the priest believe that his horse has fallen into the marsh; the priest, thinking to pull it out, gives one stiff tug, and falls down on his back with the tail in his hand; upon which Tom persuades him to believe that he has broken it off himself, and to be content with the recovery of so much of the lost animal. In the fifty-seventh Gaelic story of Campbell,[440] a priest endeavours to pull out of the water a drowning sheep, but the tail comes away, and the story-teller adds, "If the tail had not come off, the story would have been longer." And so the owner of the cow, the robber of which has left the tail behind as a consolation, has in reality but little, but yet this little is something; for, just as the slipper left behind her by the fugitive girl, although it is of little value, enables the hero to identify her, so in the tail of his cow the owner has something in hand to set out on its search with, and to recover his lost property; either because the tail of an animal is like its shadow and serves to trace it, as the slipper does the maiden by showing the footstep; or else, because tailless cows are evidently stolen ones. (In the myth of Cacus, in which Hercules traces the stolen oxen by the footprints, and Cacus drags them by their tails, the mythical figure of the slipper and that of the lost tail are perhaps united. It is possible that the tails of the oxen came off in the hands of Cacus when dragging them into the cavern, and that, thrown away by the brigand, and found by Hercules, they may have served him as a guide to recover his oxen. It is also possible that Cacus, pursued by Hercules, had not time to drive the oxen in entirely, but that their tails still protruded and betrayed their whereabouts. Relative to the Latin legend of Cacus, these are simply hypotheses, and I have therefore enclosed them in a parenthesis; but inasmuch as in the above-quoted Russian story, we find the horse's tail cut off by the robber, and as in the chapter on the fox, we shall see the fox who betrays himself by not drawing in his tail, whence the proverb, "Cauda de vulpe testatur," the two hypotheses advanced above are, after all, not so visionary.) In _Pausanias_[441] the hero Aristomenes, who has been thrown into a deep cistern, liberates himself in a marvellous manner by means of an eagle, after a fox had opened a passage. The fox's tail has such a bewitching power of attraction, that according to popular tradition, when it is moved the cock falls down unable to resist the charm. According to popular belief, the tail (as well as the nose and mouth) is the most splendid part of the body of an animal. The great monkey Hanumant, with his tail on fire, burns Lanka (in the same way as the burning tails of the foxes of the biblical Samson burn the ripe harvests of the Philistines). The grey, or black, horse of mythology (having devoured the solar white, or red horse) emits fire from his mouth or tail. This black horse being the night, the horse's jaws and tail, which emit fire, represent the luminous heavens of evening and of morning; when, therefore, the tail of his horse (stolen by the robber in the same way as the bull and the cow[442]) remains in the mythical hero's hand, this light-streaming tail is enough to enable him to find the whole animal, _i.e._, the solar hero comes out of his hiding-place (Hanumant comes out of the hinder parts of the marine monster, the dwarf comes out of the wolf's back[443]), the bull-sun finds his cow the aurora again; the prince sun, the princess aurora; the peasant recovers his ass or his cow; Hercules, his oxen; the white horse comes out of the tail of the black horse, who had eaten him, and then, by means of the tail, ascends to heaven;[444] the white bull comes out of the black one; the white, or the red, cow comes out of the black cow; the tail comes out of the body; the hero comes out of the sack, or hide, in which he had been enclosed or sewed up. The sack plays a great part in the tradition of the hidden or persecuted hero; this sack is the night or the cloud, or the winter; the hero shut up in the sack, and thrown into the sea, is the sun. The hero enclosed in the sack and thrown into the sea, and the heroine shut up in a chest (covered, moreover, with a cow's hide, in the myth of Pasiphäe) or barrel, and abandoned to the water,[445] are equivalent to each other, and so are the heroes shut up in the well, in the cavern, in the stables, and even in the cow. Inasmuch as the sack in which, according to the proverb quoted above, the delinquent hero is to be sewed, is an old cow's-hide, or else the hide of an old cow, or a dark one (of the night), when this black cow sits on the eggs of the bird of evening, to hatch them, the eggs come to evil; whence I derive the German proverb, "When the cow sits upon the eggs, do not expect fowls."[446] And when the night was observed to overwhelm the sun and withdraw him from human sight, this other proverb took its origin, "The black cow has crushed him." The black cow does not only crush the hero, but, as the wolf does, shuts him up in her own hide,[447] in her own sack, _i.e._, devours him--to fill the sack is the same as to fill the body, and to empty the sack as to empty the body. In the Piedmontese story of the dwarf child (the Norwegian Schmierbock), whom the wolf[448] encloses in the sack, the dwarf comes out of the sack while the wolf is emptying his body. Of two Russian stories given by _Afanassieff_, which we shall examine in the chapter on the wolf, one shows us the wolf who puts the peasant in a sack, and the other the wolf who puts the dwarf-hero in his body; and both peasant and dwarf save themselves. The two variations took their origin in the comparison drawn between the body and a sack, which, in mythical speech, are therefore the same thing. The hide of the black bull, black ox, black or grey horse, or black or grey wolf, and the sack which wraps up the hero or the devil, play a great part in popular Indo-European tradition.[449] From the sack of the funeral stork (the night), in a Russian story,[450] come forth two young heroes (the Aēvināu), defeaters of their enemies, who spread out the tablecloth of abundance (the aurora), and a horse which drops gold (the sun). The hero shut up in the sack, or the cow's hide, and thrown into the water, escapes from shipwreck in the same way as those navigators of the Chinese sea described in his voyages by Benjamin of Tudela, who, he says, when shipwrecked, escaped being swallowed up by the waves by covering themselves with the whole hide of a cow or an ox; for the eagles, mistaking them for real, flew to the spot and pouncing upon them, drew them ashore. The ship with the buffalo's hide is found again in popular stories. This is evidently a reminiscence of mythical derivation (from which was, perhaps, afterwards derived the idea of torture, as in the famous bull of Phalaris, in which many see a symbol of the god of the waters, the bull's hide in which the tetrarch Acarnides, vanquished by Memnon, was sewed up,[451] in antiquity, and, in the Middle Ages, the ox's hide in which, according to the chronicles, the horrid Duke of Spalato Euroia orders Paulus Chuporus, prefect of the Emperor Sigismond, to be sewed, to revenge himself upon him, because he had, out of contempt, saluted him by bellowing like an ox). Thus with the Celtic hero Brian,[452] the pretended fool, who speculates upon the stupidity of those who are reputed wise. When one of these so-called sages, deceived by him, proposes to throw him into the sea shut up in a sack, he makes another man take his place by means of a witty invention, as Goldoni's liar would say, whilst he himself comes back to the shore with a whole herd of cattle. In the other Celtic, Slavonic, German, and Italian variations of this story, the would-be fool begins his fortune-making, in one version, by putting a few coins into his dead cow's hide, and then selling it at a very high price as a purse which will give out money whenever shaken; and in another, by palming off his ass or horse, persuading the purchaser, by means of an easy deceit, to believe that it yields gold and silver, and thus obtaining a high price for it. With the cow are also connected the two horns, by blowing into which he causes his wife, who feigns death, to rise to life again, which horns he thus prevails on his brothers or companions to buy at a great ransom, who, thinking themselves cunning, and wishing by means of the horns to speculate upon corpses,[453] begin by killing people, and are ruined. I have said above, that the sack in which the hero is generally enclosed is the same as the chest in which the heroine is usually shut up on account of her beauty, that is to say, in which the beautiful heroine hides her splendour, or in which the red cow, the evening aurora with the sun, loses herself. The fourteenth Scottish story of Mr J. F. Campbell's contains the following narrative:--A king, whose first wife (the morning aurora) is dead, engages to marry the woman whom the dead queen's dresses will fit, and finds no one who can wear them except his own daughter (the evening aurora). She makes her father give her gold and silver dresses and shoes (that is, she takes from her father, the sun, the splendour of the morning aurora); she shuts herself up with them in a chest, and lets herself be thrown into the sea. The chest drifts about on the waves, and comes at last to the shore; the beautiful maiden enters the service of a young king; she shows herself in church with her splendid robes; the young king, who does not recognise his servant-maid in this beautiful princess, becomes enamoured of her, and hastens to overtake her; she flees and loses her golden slipper; the king finds it, and to discover her, has it measured on every foot; many maidens cut off their toes to make the slipper go on, but a bird divulges the deceit; the young king marries the beautiful maiden who came out of the wooden chest. Here we have again, not only the heroine who escapes, but the walking heroine; this heroine is the aurora, and the aurora is often a cow. Another swift cow passes in the proverb before the hare (the leaping moon), in the fable of the ant and the grasshopper, of which the former represents the cloud or the night, or Indras or the aurora in the cloud of night, or the earth,[454] and the latter, the leaping one, the moon; the ant passes the grasshopper in the race, not because it walks faster, but because the two runners must necessarily meet, and therefore the one must pass the other. The English infantile rhyme, "Hey! diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle, the cow jumped over the moon," refers to the myth of the cow which jumps over the hare. The observation of celestial phenomena being afterwards neglected, and it being forgotten that the running ant or cow meant the cloud, or the sun, or the aurora, or the earth, and the jumping hare or grasshopper the moon, only a regular and parallel race, on the terrestrial soil, between cow and hare, or ant and grasshopper, was seen; and from the myth of the two animals which meet and pass each other in the sky, was derived, according to the different characters of nations or eras, a double proverb--one deriding the slow and rash animal which presumes to try and overtake the swift one in the race, the other serving as an example to prove the truth of the sentence, "Tarde sed tute," which, in Italian, is "Chi va piano va sano e va lontano" (he who goes slowly, goes well and far). The first proverb has for its parent the Greek one, "to hunt the hare with an ox," which, in Italian, is "pigliar la lepre col carro" (to take the hare with a car);[455] referring to cases where means disproportionate to the end are made use of. When the hare and the cow meet, if the cow is obliged to stop the hare, she crushes it, as we have seen above that she crushes the bird's eggs instead of hatching them. The idea, moreover, of the ox hunting the hare arose naturally out of the idea of the ox or cow overtaking and passing beyond the hare. To these proverbs can perhaps be joined the next German one:--"All who blow the horn do not hunt hares," which is now directed against those who think by an easy method, such as blowing a horn, to accomplish a difficult enterprise, such as hunting a hare; in the same way as in Germany it is said, that all thunder-clouds do not give rain, and the cow must do more than low in order to have much milk, or the cow that lows most is not the one that yields most milk.[456] In fact, a cow which lows much is unwell, neither while it is lowing can it eat and make milk; so he who fatigues himself with blowing the horn is not able, at the same time, to run after the hare; as in the Italian proverb, "Il can che abbaia non morde" (the dog that barks does not bite), for the simple reason that whilst he opens his mouth to bark, he cannot shut it to bite. The hen that clucks, on the other hand, is the one that lays the egg, because the act of clucking with the mouth does not interfere with the operation of egg-laying; there is no incompatibility of offices.

The German proverb, "As a blind cow finds a pea," is now used to indicate an impossibility; and yet in the myth the blind cow (or the night) really finds the pea, kidney-bean, or bean (the moon), which are the same thing to all intents and purposes. The night is sacred to the dead; for the dead are as eaten vegetables--kidney-beans, vetches, peas, and cabbages--lunar symbols of resurrection and abundance. In the ninth story of the fourth book of _Afanassieff_, the daughter of the old man and woman eats beans; a bean falls upon the ground, and grows up to the sky; upon this bean the old man (the sun) climbs up to heaven and sees everything. In the numerous stories in which the young hero sells a cow or cow's hide, we almost always find a pipkin full of kidney-beans, which he induces people to think can cook themselves, the hero having first cooked them, and then placed them upon the fire covered with ashes (the darkness); the pipkin is also the moon. The stories of the pipkin belonging to the house-mother in the _Mahābhāratam_, which the god Krishnas, having been hospitably entertained by her, refills with beans, and of the lord who, in an unpublished Piedmontese legend, disguised as a poor old man, throws pebbles into the kettle of the pious widow, which, as soon as thrown in, become kidney-beans, involve the same myth. In the same way I think the kidney-bean is evidently intended by the fruit of fruits, which, according to the _Mahābhāratam_, the merciful man receives in exchange for the little black cow (_krishnadhenukā_) given to the priest.[457] In the English fairy tale of "Jack and the Bean-stalk," Jack barters his cow for some beans; his mother (the blind cow) scatters the beans; one of them takes root, and grows up to the sky.[458] By means of the black cow, of the funereal or blind cow, of the cow-aurora, which becomes black or blind during the night, the hero finds the bean or the pea of abundance (the moon), by means of which he sees again in the morning and becomes rich.

We have seen a sack, instead of the hide of a black cow, used to signify the night; in like manner, after or instead of this same cow's hide (which the hero goes to sell), as well as the pea or bean, we have the pipkin--the poor hero finds the moon. The Slavonic story of the potter who becomes rich, and that of the brother believed to be stupid, who sells at a high price his pipkin, which makes the beans boil without a fire, are varieties of the same subject. In a Russian story in _Afanassieff_,[459] the amphora takes the place of the pipkin that makes its owner rich. The poor brother draws it out of the water; from the broken amphora comes a duck, which lays one day golden eggs, and the next silver ones--the sun and the moon (at morning the aurora hatches the golden day, at evening the silver night).

We have still to explain the proverbs of the cow that laughs and the cow that spins. The laughing aurora (after having, during the night, acted the princess that never laughs) and the spinning aurora (in relation with the cow, the moon, that spins by means of its horns) are already known to us. The aurora laughs at morn in the sky, at the sight of her husband; thus the princess that never laughs, in a numerous series of Slavonic, German, and Italian stories, laughs when she sees her predestined husband.[460] The proverb of the cow that laughs is connected with that of the cow that speaks; it is perhaps on this account that bulls and cows (and other animals) which speak, and say and do complimentary things among themselves, in an entire cycle of Indo-European stories, which have been learnedly illustrated by Professor Benfey, in _Orient und Occident_, under the title of "Ein Märchen von der Thiersprachen," always make the man who understands, and indiscreetly listens to their language, laugh. But if the man reveals what the bulls or cows (or other animals) have said to each other, he prepares his own ruin: the language and the inner life of animals must not be divulged to all; if published abroad, the augury is a sinister one. That which makes the princess of the Russian tale laugh, is seeing the courtesy which the animals, like men, show to the man taken out of the mud; that which makes the man who understands the language of animals laugh, is seeing them speak and act to each other exactly as men do in similar private relations. To betray this mystery is to wish for one's death. No one must know what the bull said in secret to the cow, the sun to his mistress, what the king said in the queen's ear. The violator of the mysteries of Venus is guilty of sacrilege, and merits the punishment of death, or at least brings evil down upon his head. Woe to the heroine if the hero hidden in the skin of an animal, on account of some indiscretion, or because she has spoken to her sisters, shows himself naked in his human form; she loses him, and their separation is inevitable.

We are already acquainted with the cloud-cow and the cloud-bull; the cloud thunders, the bull bellows and speaks. The clouds, the Vedic _gnā devapatnīs_, _gnā devīs_,[461] that is, the goddesses, or divine and knowing wives, the fairy goddesses (women with their presentiments, the women that know more than the devil), are also prophetic cows; these cows, in their character of fairies, speak with a human voice, and so do the cloud-bulls. Hence the Romans could take their auguries from an ox that spoke with a human voice. It has been said that this omen was a sinister one, but it is a mistake. According to Livy, under the consulate of Cn. Domitius and L. Quintius, an ox threw Rome into terror by the words, _Cave tibi, Roma_. These words seem to have a sinister meaning, but they are in reality nothing more than a friendly counsel or admonition, as much as to say, Look to your field occupations, O Rome; the thunder has been heard which announces the summer. Thus, when we read in the fifth book of Pliny's _Natural History_ that whenever an ox was known to have spoken with a man's voice, the Roman Senate was accustomed to meet in the open air--_sub dio_, I only see in this allusion, and in ascribing this practice to the Senate, one way of saying that when thunder is heard (that is to say, when the ox speaks) it is a sign of summer, and we may go out into the country and sleep in the open air. And so, finally, when, according to Eusebius, an ox said, that for the death of Cęsar (which, as every one knows, took place on the Ides of March, that is to say, at the beginning of spring) there would be more blades of corn than men, I see a most evident announcement of the approach of summer, in which men or reapers are in fact never too many, and even rare when the harvest is a large one. The ox that with a man's voice heralds the near advent of summer corresponds to the cuckoo, the legend of which we shall reserve for a special chapter. Meanwhile, to confirm still more our identification, we shall cite here the almost proverbial verse of Theocritos: Women know everything, even how Zeus married Hźra (or that which the king said in the queen's ear). Zeus, transformed into a cuckoo, flew to the mountain, and alighted on the knees of Hźra, who, to protect him from the cold, covered him over with her robes. The cuckoo, or Zeus, disappears soon after having spoken, that is, announced the summer loves of the sun. After St John's Day the cuckoo, who appears in March, is no longer seen; so the ox, soon after it has spoken and betrayed the loves of Zeus, or soon after the cloud has thundered, revealing the secret loves of the sun within the sky covered with clouds, or the confidential speeches and secret caresses of the animals, pays for this indiscretion by his own death. As the aurora is represented in the Vedic hymns by a maiden who does not laugh, and smiles only when she sees her husband,[462] so the lightning that tears the cloud and comes before the thunder is compared to the laughing of an ox or a cow, or else of the man who has seen their loves. As long as the sky only lightens, or merely smiles,[463] there is little harm done. No one can know as yet why the ox or the cow, the hero or heroine, or the third person who is looking on, smiles before the spectator; but when the hero or the heroine speaks, betraying the thought or singular surprise which makes him or her smile, the penalty of the indiscretion is death; the thundering cloud is soon dissolved into rain. Nor will my identification of the cloud that lightens (making a distinction between the lightning and the thunderbolt) with the smiling cow, or ox, or man who, understanding the language of animals, as they speak in low tones, and seeing their most familiar habits, smiles, seem forced when we reflect that our language has preserved the figures of a ray of joy, of a flash of joy, to indicate a smile, of which we say that it shines, illumines, or lightens. Lightning is the cloud's smile. In the ninth story of the third book of _Afanassieff_, we meet with a fish which laughs in the face of the onlooker (the cloud that lightens, and also the moon that comes out of the ocean of night), and for which, on account of this singular property, the poor man (the sun in the cloud or in the night) obtains an extraordinary sum from a rich lord, even all his riches--_i.e._, the poor man takes the place of the lord; the splendid sun takes the place of the sun hidden in the cloud or in the darkness. In a Hindoo story of _Somadevas_ (i. 5), a fish laughs upon seeing men disguised as women in the king's apartment. In the _Tuti-Name_ (ii. 21), the fishes laugh when they see the prudery of an adulteress. With this is connected the fable of Lafontane, "Le Rieur et les Poissons" (viii. 8). In the legend of Merlin, the magician also laughs because the wife of Julius Cęsar lives with twelve heroes disguised as women, and because he himself allowed himself to be taken by Grisandole, a princess disguised as a cavalier.[464]

The fish is a phallic symbol (in the Neapolitan dialect, _pesce_, fish, is the phallos itself). The fish that laughs because it has been the spectator of adultery is the phallos itself _in gaudio Veneris_. The thunderbolt of Indras is his phallos that breaks the cloud. In Ovid,[465] we have Jupiter, who, by means of riddles, teaches Numa the way of forming the thunderbolt.

     "Coede caput, dixit, cui Rex, Parebimus, inquit;
        Coedenda est hortis eruta cepa meis.
      Addidit hic, Hominis: Summos, ait ille, capillos.
        Postulat hic animam: cui Numa, Piscis, ait.
      Risit; et His, inquit, facito mea tela procures,
        O vir colloquio non abigende meo."

The joke of the April fish (le poisson d'Avril), with which so many of our ladies ingenuously amuse themselves, has a scandalously phallical signification.[466] The fishes of the Zodiac are twins, a male and a female bound together, born of Erōs (Amor) and Aphroditź (Venus). In the Adiparvam of the _Mahābhāratam_, we read of a fish which devours a man's seed, and a girl who, having eaten it, brings forth a child. The same myth occurs again in the Western popular tales.

The cow that spins still remains to be explained. We have already seen that the cow spins with her horns for the maiden; this cow is, generally, the moon, which spins gold and silver during the night. The aurora is ordered by her step-mother, the night, both to pasture the cow (the moon) and spin. If the cow-maid is to take care of her cow and guard her well, she will be able to spin but little; whence the German proverb is right when it says that if the cow-maid must spin there will be little yarn. The good cow-maid prefers to keep her cow well, and pays every regard to it, in order that it may find good pasturage; then the grateful cow (the moon) puts gold and silver upon its horns to spin for the maiden.[467] In the morning the girl appears upon the mountain with the gold and silver yarn, with the gold and silver robes given her by the good fairy or by the good cow.[468] And when the old woman kills the cow, the girl who keeps its bones and sows them in the garden sees, instead of the cow, an apple-tree with gold and silver apples grow up, by offering one of which to a young prince the maiden obtains a husband, whilst perverse women are beaten by the apple-tree or find themselves opposed by horns. This apple-legend is a variation of the star which falls upon the good maiden's forehead on the mountain, and of the horns, or donkey's tail, which grow out of the forehead of the bad sister who has maltreated the cow or badly combed the Madonna's head. The story of the good maiden and the wicked one, of the beautiful and the ugly one, finishes with the attempt made by the ugly and wicked girl to take the place of the beautiful and good one in her husband's bed, in the same way as, in other stories, a black washerwoman tries to take the place of the beautiful princess; and this conclusion brings us to the interesting story of the spinning Berta, or Queen Bertha, as she is called.

In German mythology we have the luminous Berchta, who spins, in contrast with the dark and wild Holda at the fountain (the washerwoman of fairy tales). The former seems to be (besides the moon as a white woman, in her period of light, the silvery night) the aurora, the spring, or the luminous aspect of the heavens; the latter (besides the moon in her period of darkness, Proserpina or Persephonź in hell), the dark night, winter, the old witch.[469] The same name is given to the various phenomena of the gloomy sky, in the same way as a contrary name is given to the various phenomena of the luminous heavens. On this account lunar and solar myths, daily and annual myths, enter into the story of Berta or Berchta.

Berta, like the cow of the fairy tales, spins silver and gold. Therefore, when we say in Italy that the time when Berta spun is past,[470] this expression means, that the golden age, the age in which gold abounded is past. And instead of this expression we also use another in Italy to denote an incident which took place in a very ancient era, at a time very remote from the memory of men; we say, in the times of King Pipino (Pepin). Queen Berta having been the wife of Pepin, it was natural that the times of the husband should correspond to the fabled era of his wife, who was, tradition alleges, mother of Charlemagne, the hero so-named of the legends, of whom it is said, in Turpin's Chronicle, that he had long feet, and his _alter ego_ Orlando (a new and splendid medięval form of the twin heroes), rather than of the King Charlemagne of history.

Berta has a large foot, like the goddess Freya, the German Venus, who has swan's feet. It is this large foot that distinguishes her from other women, and enables her husband to recognise her, in the same way as it is the foot, or footprint (the sun follows the path taken by the aurora), that betrays and discovers the fugitive maiden, who, we have said, is the aurora with the vast chariot (the vast chariot which, if it pass over the hare, may crush it. Frau Stempe, and Frau Trempe, and the large-footed Bertha, are the same person)--vast, because she occupies a large extent of the heavens when she appears. When standing on the chariot, she seems to have no feet, or a very small, an imperceptible foot; but the chariot on which she stands and which represents her foot is so much the larger; therefore when we leave the chariot out of account, and suppose, on the contrary, that she goes on foot, inasmuch as, when walking, she takes up much room, the swan's, or goose's, or duck's foot given to her in the myth of Freya and the legend of Berta is quite suited to her. And seeing, as we have said, that the foot (the myths almost always speak of one foot alone; even the devil is lame, or has only one foot) and the tail of an animal are often substituted for each other in mythology, we can understand how, in a Russian story,[471] the hero who has fallen into a marsh was able to deliver himself by clutching hold of the tail of a duck. This duck being the aurora, and having a wide spreading tail as well as a large foot, the solar hero, or the sun, can easily, by holding on to her, raise himself out of the swamp of night. There is a German story[472] in which the white woman, or the Berta, is transformed into a duck. In another German legend,[473] instead of the swan-footed Berta, we have the Virgin Mary (who, as a maiden, represents the virgin aurora, always pure, even after having given birth to the sun; like the Kuntī of the _Mahābhāratam_, who gives birth to Karnas, the child of the sun, and yet is still a virgin. On the other hand, when a good old woman, good woman or Madonna, she generally personifies, in the legends, the moon) who, in the shape of a swan, comes to deliver from the prison of the infidels (the Saracens or Turks, here the black demons, or the darkness of night), and carry off by land and by sea, the young hero whom she protects (the aurora delivers the sun from the night).[474] The same luminous Berta also assumes, in popular German tradition, the form of St Lucia, that is, the saint who, after having been made blind, became the protectress of eyesight. Of the blind or black cow of night is born the luminous cow of morning, the aurora that sees everything herself and makes us see everything. For the same reason that the cow or duck, Berta, is consecrated to St Lucia, whose appearance she assumes, the bull (the sun) is sacred to St Luke, the festival of whom is on this account celebrated at Charlton, near London, with a horn-fair or exhibition of horns, generally ornamented and perfumed.

In the above-quoted Hindoo legend of the _Mahābhāratam_, the queen will not sleep with the old blind man, but sends instead her servant-maid. In the _Reali di Francia_, King Pepin is advised by his barons to take a wife, when he is already "far advanced in years" (he is a form of St Joseph). The barons look for a wife, and find, in Hungary, Berta, the daughter of King Philip, "the most beautiful and skilful horsewoman," or Berta with the large foot upon a beautiful and stately horse, which goes along the road bounding, whilst she is always laughing. Berta has a maid called Elizabeth, who resembles her in every respect except her feet. King Pepin is married by proxy to Berta, sends for her, and comes to meet her. Berta when she sees that King Pepin is so ill-favoured, grieves "although forewarned of his old age." When evening comes she takes off her royal robes and gives them to Elizabeth, that she may take her place and sleep with the king.[475] Hence the Italian proverbs, "Dar la Berta" (to give the Berta), and "Pigliar la Berta" (to take the Berta), meaning to deride and to be derided. But instead of to give the Berta, in Italy we also say, "Dar la madre d'Orlando" (to give the mother of Orlando). The _Reali di Francia_ informs us that King Pepin had, by Elizabeth, two perverse bastards, Lanfroi and Olderigi, and by Berta, Charlemagne and another Berta, mother of Orlando; but the Italian proverb is perhaps nearer the mythical truth when it recognises the mother of Orlando as herself Pepin's wife, so that Charlemagne and Orlando are brothers; and, in fact, they accomplish several of the undertakings mentioned in the legend of the two brothers. In the so-called Chronicle of Turpin[476] when Orlando dies, Charlemagne says that Orlando was his right arm, and he has no longer anything to do in life without him; but he lives long enough to avenge the death of Orlando; and after this vengeance, the heroic life of Charlemagne comes at once to an end. In the _Chanson de Roland_, too, after the death of his hero, whom he avenges, Charlemagne feels the burden of life, weeps, tears his beard, unable to support this solitude; but in the _Chanson_, as well as in the _Reali di Francia_, Orlando explicitly appears as the nephew of Charlemagne, that is, as the son of his sister Berta. (As the Vedic aurora was now the mother, now the sister of the sun and of the Aēvināu, thus Berta may, mythically, be mother or sister of Charlemagne, and yet be always the mother of Orlando).

It would be a never-ending work to collect together all the Germanic, Scandinavian, and Celtic legends which, in one way or another, are connected with the myth of the cow and of the bull. The literature relating to this subject is composed not of one or a hundred, but of thousands of volumes, of which some (such, for instance, as the poem of the _Nibelungen_, and the poems of the _Round Table_) individually contain, in the germ, almost the whole diverse world of fairy tales. I must therefore limit myself to the indication of the more general features, leaving to more diligent investigators the minuter comparisons; and esteeming myself, I repeat, too happy if my brief notices should be found clear enough to spare others the labour of preparing the warp upon which to weave comparisons.

From what we have said thus far, it seems to me that two essential particulars have been made clear:--1st, That the worship of the bull and the cow was wide-spread, even in northern nations; 2d, That the mythical bull and cow were easily transformed into a hero and heroine.

The sacred character ascribed to the cow and the bull is further evidenced by a Scandinavian song, in which, on the occasion of the nuptials of the animals (the crow and the crane), the calf (perhaps the bull) appears as a priest, and reads a beautiful text.[477] As a symbol of generation, the bull is the best adapted to propitiate the married couple; so the priest in the _Atharvavedas_ teaches the inexperienced husband and wife, by formulas _ad hoc_, the mysteries of Venus. Thus the _jus primę noctis_ was conceded to the Brahman in medięval India; and so in the ritual of medięval France, we still find indications of the priest _pronubus_. The beautiful text that the calf, or bull, recites in the Scandinavian song must be the same which, according to the ceremonial recorded by Villemarqué, the priest recited, whilst sprinkling them with incense, to the married couple _sedentes vel jacentes in lectulo suo_.[478] Thus, when the wolf dies (in a German writing of the twelfth century), it is the ox that reads the gospel.[479] Besides marriages and funerals, the bull or ox also appears, finally, as in the Hindoo ceremonial, in pregnancy. Gargamelle, while she has Gargantua in her womb, eats an excessive quantity[480] of tripe of fattened oxen. When she feels the pains of child-birth, her husband comforts her with an agricultural proverb of Poitou, "Laissez faire aux quatre beufz de devant;" and she then gives birth to Gargantua, who comes out of her left ear, in the same way as in the Slavonic stories we find the heroes come out of the ears of the horse (or of the ass of night; the luminous solar hero comes out of the ears of the ass, or of the grey or black horse; the twin horsemen come out of the two ears). Rabelais, to explain this extraordinary birth, asks "Minerve ne naquit-elle pas du cerveau par l'aureille de Iupiter?" No sooner is Gargantua born, than he asks with loud cries for something to drink; to give him milk, 17,913 cows are brought, his mother's breasts not being enough, although each time she is milked she yields "quatorze cens deux pipes neuf potées de laict." This is the giant of popular tradition, whom the gigantic phantasy of Rabelais has coloured in order to make him the butt of an immense satire. It is an amplified and humorous rendering in a literary form of the popular Superlatif,[481] whose mythical character is revealed in the curse hurled against him by the old dwarf-fairy, whom he maltreated: "One sun, to accomplish his work, eats eleven entire moons; but this time every moon will eat the work of a sun." The ascending and descending life of the solar hero is thus indicated. Superlatif will become continually smaller, until it seems as though he were about to disappear altogether; but at that very instant the curse comes to an end, and from a dwarf, he grows into a giant again in the arms of his bride.[482] Thus the days become continually shorter and shorter, till the winter solstice, till Christmas. At Christmas the sun is born again, the days lengthen, the dwarf grows tall; the sun, by a double but analogous conception of ideas, passes once each day and once each year from giant to dwarf, and from dwarf to giant.

And the dwarfs of tradition know and reveal the mythical how and why of their transformations, since, though they are dwarfs and hidden, they see all and learn all. It is from the knowing dwarf Allwis, his diminutive _alter ego_, that the mighty Thor, in the _Edda_, learns the names of the moon, the sun, the clouds, and the winds. The moon, according to Allwis, when it is in the kingdom of hell (in the kingdom of death, in the infernal world, when it is Proserpina), is called a wheel that is hurrying on; it then shines among the dwarfs (_i.e._, in the luminous night, in which the sun hides itself; it becomes an invisible dwarf). The sun among the dwarfs (_i.e._, when it is a dwarf) plays with Dwalin (the mythical stag, probably the horned moon); among the giants (_i.e._, when in the aurora, it becomes a giant again), it is a burning brand; among the gods (the Ases), it is the light of the world. The cloud, the dwarf Allwis goes on to inform us, is the ship of the winds, the strength of the winds, the helmet (or hat, or hood) which makes its wearer invisible. The wind, again, is the wanderer, the noisy one, the weeper, the bellower, the whistler (no one can resist the cries or the whistling of the hero of fairy tales; the bellowing of the bull makes the lion tremble in his cave). In this learned lesson on Germanico-Scandinavian mythology, given us by the dwarf Allwis, we have a further justification of the transition which we here assume to have been made from the natural celestial phenomenon to its personification in an animal, and to the personification of the animal in a man: Allwis, who knew all things, has explained the mystery to us.

FOOTNOTES:

[423] _Les Eddas_, traduites de l'ancien idiome Scandinave par Mdlle. du Puget, 2čme édition, p. 16.

[424] Kuhn und Schwartz, _Norddeutsche Sagen, Märchen und Gebräuche_, p. 501.

[425] _Handbuch der Deutschen Mythologie_, mit Einschluss der nordischen, 2te. aufl. p. 437.--We find also in Eginhardus (_Vita Caroli Magni_): "Quocumque eundum erat, carpento ibat, quod bubus junctis et bubulco rustico more agente, trahebatur."--The bull is a symbol of generation; the man who fears the bull is a stupid and ridiculous eunuch. We find in Du Cange, Lit. Remiss, ann. 1397, "Le suppliant, lui dist, Eudet, vous avéz un toreau qui purte les gens et ne osent aler aux champs pour luy; lequel Eudet luy respondis: as tu nom Jehannot?" Faire Johan dicitur mulier, quę marito fidem non servat (a variety of the Mongol Sūrya Bagatur).

[426] Recorded by Cox, _Mythology of the Aryan Nations_, vol. i. p. 438, when speaking of the Hellenic myth of Zeus and Eurōpā.

[427] Cfr. Kuhn, _Die Herabkunft des Feuers und des Göttertranks_, p. 181 and following.--In Du Cange, _Glossarium Medię et Infimę Latinitatis_, s. v. Acannizare, we read an extract of a paper of Jacob, i. _Regis Arag._ fol. 16: "Quicunque Acannizaverit vaccam vel bovem, si bos vel vacca fecerit damnum casu fortuito, dum Acannizatur, cujus est amittat ipsum bovem vel vaccam, nisi Acannizetur causa nuptiarum;" and in Du Cange also: "Ut in anserem ludendo baculos torquere in usu fuit, ita et in bovem."

[428] _Die Deutsche Heldensage_, von Wilhelm Grimm, 2te Aus., No 102, 182.

[429] Cfr. the chapter on the Goat and He-goat for more information on mythical horns.

[430] _Vide_ p. 497.

[431] Diese Brücke wird keine andere sein, als die himmlische Bīfröst, deren er hütet, eine Vermuthung, die noch an Wahrscheinlichkeit gewinnt, wenn man den friesischen Namen der Milchstrasse Kaupat, der Kuhpfad, hinzunimmt; denn Milchstrasse und Regenbogen berühren einander sehr nahe. Dieser ist die Tagesbrücke zwischen Göttern und Menschen, jene die nächtliche.

[432] Rothe Kühe geben auch weisse Milch; Wander, _Deutsches Sprichwörter Lexicon_, Leipzig, Brockhaus, 1870.

[433] Auch eine schwarze Kuh gibt weisse Milch; Wander, _ibid._

[434] This reminds us of the familiar English riddle, "How many cows' tails would it take to reach the moon? One, if it were long enough."

[435] Wenn die Kuh gestohlen ist, verwahrt man den Stall.--Wer eine Kuh verloren und den Schwanz zurück erhält, hat nicht viel, aber mehr als nichts.--Die Kuh könnte mit dem Schwanze bis an den Himmel reichen, wenn er nur lang genug wäre.--Une vache ne sceit que lui vault sa queue jusques elle l'a perdue.--Die Kuh beim Schwanz fassen.--Die schwarze Kuh hat ihn gedrückt.--Eine Kuh kann keinen Hasen erlaufen.--Die Kuh überläuft einen Hasen.--Nicht alle, die Hörner blasen, jagen Hasen.--Wenn die Kühe lachen.--Wie eine blinde Kuh eine Erbse findet.--Den sollt man in einer alten Kuhhaut herumfahren.--Soll die Kuhmagd spinnen, wird man wenig Garn gewinnen.--Man würde eher einer Kuh spinnen lehren; Wander's _Lexicon of German Proverbs_, ii. 1666-1695.

[436] Livius i.: "Quia si, agendo, armentum in speluncam compulisset, ipsa vestigia quęrentem dominum eo deductura erant, aversos boves eximium quemque pulchritudine caudis in speluncam traxit."

[437] _Facetię_, Krakau, 1592, quoted by Benfey in his introduction to the _Pancatantram_, Leipzig, Brockhaus, p. 323: "Quia testiculi mei quadraginta annos pependerunt casuro similes et nunquam ceciderant."--And in Lessing, xi. 250, we read of Lachmann-Maltzahn: "De vulpe quadam asini testiculos manducandi cupido."--In Aldrovandi, _De Quadrupedibus Bisulcis_, i. Bologna, 1642, we read, "Membrum tauri in aceto maceratum et illitum, splendidam, teste secto, facit faciem; Rasis ait, genitale tauri rubri aridum tritum, et aurei pondere propinatum mulieri, fastidium coitus afferre; e contrario quidam recentiores, ut in viris Venerem excitent, tauri membrum cęteris hujus facultatibus admiscent."

[438] Wenn auch der Kuhschwanz wackelt, so fällt er doch nicht ab; in Wander, _Deutsches Sprichwörter Lexicon_.

[439] v. 8.

[440] Referred to by Köhler in _Orient und Occident_.

[441] iv. 15.

[442] Whence the proverb quoted above, relating to the stable that is shut when the cow is stolen, is also quoted as follows: "Shutting the stable when the horse has been stolen."

[443] Cfr. the chapter on the Wolf, where the dwarf enters the wolf by his mouth and comes out by his tail.

[444] In a Russian story, in _Afanassieff_, vi. 2, when the old peasant (the old sun) falls from the sky into a marsh (the sea of night), a duck (the moon or the aurora) comes to make its nest and lay an egg upon his head; the peasant clutches hold of its tail; the duck struggles and draws the peasant out of the marsh (the sun out of the night), and the peasant with the duck and its egg flies and returns to his house (the sky whence he had fallen).--In a variation of the same story in _Afanassieff_ (the two stories together refer to that of Aristomenes) the old man falls from heaven into the mud. A fox places seven young foxes on his head. A wolf comes to eat the young foxes; the peasant catches hold of his tail; the wolf, by one pull, draws him out; by another, leaves his tail in the peasant's hand. The tail of the wolf of night is the morning aurora.--In the story of _Turn-Little-Pea_, _Afanassieff_, iii. 2, the young hero enters into the horse after having taken off his (black) hide, and after having taken him by the tail, _i.e._, he becomes the luminous horse of the sun.

[445] In the Russian story of lazy and stupid Emilius, who makes his fortune, the hero is shut up in a barrel with the heroine, and thrown into the sea: the sun and the aurora, made prisoners, and shut up together, cross together the sea of night.

[446] Wenn sich eine Kuh auf die Eier legt, so erwarte keine Hühner; Wander, the work quoted before.

[447] In the Russian story of _Afanassieff_, v. 36, the hero-workman kills the monster-serpent by gambling with him for the price of his own skin. Thinking that he may lose, he has provided himself beforehand with seven ox hides and with iron claws. He loses seven times; each time the monster thinks he has him in his power, but the workman as often imposes upon him with an ox's hide, inducing him to believe that it is his own. At last the serpent loses, and the workman, with his iron claws, really takes off his skin, upon which the serpent dies. To take the sack or hide from the monster, to burn the skin of the monster-serpent, goat, hog, frog, &c., to burn the enchanted mantle or hood in which the hero is wrapped up, is the same as to kill the monster.

[448] See the chapter on the Wolf.

[449] For the German one, cfr. Simrock, the work quoted before, p. 199.

[450] _Afanassieff_, ii. 17.

[451] Acarnides insutus pelle juvenci; Ovidius, _In Ibin_.

[452] Köhler, _Ueber T. F. Campbell's Sammlung gälischer Märchen_, in _Orient und Occident_.--Cfr. the 30th of the _Novelline di Santo Stefano di Calcinaia_.

[453] Köhler, the work quoted above.

[454] To this myth of the cow which goes over the moon, the observation of a lunar eclipse might have contributed materially, in which the cow earth (in Sanskrit, _go_ means earth as well as cow) really passes over the moon or hare. Or else, the cloud and the night, as a black cow, very frequently goes over the hare or moon.

[455] In the Russian superstition, when a hare passes between the wheels of the vehicle which carries a newly-married couple, it bodes misfortune; nor is this without reason: the hare is the moon; the moon is the protectress of marriages; if she throws obstacles in the way, the marriage cannot be happy; consequently, marriages in India were celebrated at full moon.

[456] Die Kuh, die viel brüllt, gibt nicht die meiste Milch.

[457] Phalānām phalam aēnoti tadā dattvā; _Mahābhāratam_, iii. 13, 423.

[458] In the German legend of King Volmar, in Simrock, the work quoted before, p. 451, we find the peas in the ashes. In the seventh of the _Contes Merveilleux_ of Porchat, we have the pot in which the cabbages are boiled, from which come forth money and partridges. In the sixth of the same _Contes Merveilleux_, the young curioso sees a nest upon an elm-tree, and wishes to climb up; the ascent never comes to an end; the tree takes him up near to heaven. On the summit of the elm-tree there is a nest, from which comes forth a beautiful fair-haired maiden (the moon).

[459] i. 53.

[460] In the story, vi. 58, of _Afanassieff_, the honest workman, when he wishes to fix his eyes upon the princess who never laughs, falls into a marsh; the fish, the beetle, and the mouse, in gratitude, clean him again; then the princess laughs for the first time, and marries the honest workman. In the 25th of the _Novelline di Santo Stefano_, an analogous detail is found, but this is not enough to make the princess laugh; it is the eagles which draw after themselves everything they touch that accomplish the miracle of making the queen's daughter laugh. In the third story of the _Pentameron_, the princess laughs upon seeing Pervonto carried by the faggot of wood, instead of carrying it. The Russian stories of the ducks which save the hero, in _Afanassieff_, vi. 17-19, and the faithless wife and her lover bound together, are variations of the eagles of the Tuscan story.

[461] _Rigvedas_, v. 46, 8; v. 43, 6; i. 61, 8.

[462] In the _Nibelungen_, Krīmhilt, who has never saluted any one, (diu nie gruozte reeken), salutes for the first time the young Sīfrit, the victorious and predestined hero, and, whilst she is saluting him, turns the colour of flame (do erzunde sich sīn varwe).

[463] In a medięval paper in Du Cange, s. v. _Abocellus_, we read: "De quodam cęco vaccarum custode," who, "quod colores et staturam vaccarum singularium specialiter discerneret," was believed to be demoniacal; hence the sacrament of confirmation was given him to deliver him from this diabolical faculty, and the paper narrates that he was immediately deprived of it. The blind hero who sees, who distinguishes his cows from each other, is the sun in the cloud. No sooner does he receive confirmation (which is a second baptism), than he ceases to see his cows, for the simple reason that the clouds are dissolved in rain, or that himself has recovered his vision.

[464] Cfr. the papers relative to Merlin by Liebrecht and Benfey in _Orient und Occident_.

[465] _Fasti_, iii. 339.

[466] Cfr. the chapter on the Fishes; where the custom of eating fish on Friday is also explained.

[467] In the first of the stories of _Santo Stefano di Calcinaia_, the cow-maid says to her cow, "Cow, my cow, spin with your mouth and wind with your horns; I will make you a faggot of green boughs."

[468] The maiden spins for her step-mother; the fairy gives luminous robes to the maiden; the maiden weaves dresses for her husband; these are all details which confound themselves in one. In the _Nibelungen_, the virgins prepared dresses of gold and pearls for the young hero Sīfrit.

[469] Holda, or Frau Holle, is burnt every year in Thuringia on the day of Epiphany, on which day (or, perhaps, better still, on the Berchtennacht, the preceding night, or Berta's night) the good fairy expels the wicked one. In England, too, the witch is burned on the day of Epiphany.--Cfr. Reinsberg von Düringsfeld, _Das festliche Jahr_, p. 19.

[470] In the _Pentameron_ of Basil, i. 9, we read: "Passaie lo tiempo che Berta filava; mo hanno apierto l'huocchie li gattille."

[471] _Afanassieff_, vi. 2.

[472] Cfr. Simrock, the work quoted before, p. 409, and the ninth of the _Novelline di Santo Stefano di Calcinaia_, in which the luminous maiden disguised as an old woman is uncovered by the geese, when she puts down the dress of an old woman.

[473] Simrock, the work quoted before, p. 410.

[474] Wuotan also saves him whom he protects upon a mantle;--this is the flying carpet or mantle, hood, or hat, which renders the wearer invisible, and for which the three brothers disputed, which is also represented as a tablecloth that lays itself. Thus the poor man who goes to sell his cow's hide finds the pot of abundance and riches. The dispute for the tablecloth is the same as the dispute for riches, for the beautiful princess who is afterwards divided, or else carried off by a third or fourth person who takes the lion's share. We must not forget the fable of the animals who wish to divide the stag among themselves, of which the lion takes all, because he is named lion. In the _Nibelungen_, Schilbung and Nibelung dispute with each other for the division of a treasure; they beg Sīfrit to divide it; Sīfrit solves the question by killing them both and taking to himself the treasure, and the hood that makes its wearer invisible (Tarnkappe).

[475] The romance of Berta continues in the _Reali di Francia_ in harmony with the popular stories of an analogous character; the false wife really causes King Pepin to marry her, and sends Berta into the forest to be killed; the hired murderers pity her, and grant her her life. Berta, whilst in the forest bound to a tree (like the Vedic cow), is found by a hunter; out of gratitude she works (she, no doubt, spins and weaves), in order that the hunter may sell her work at Paris for a high price. Meanwhile her father and mother dream that she is beset by bears and wolves who threaten to devour her, that thereupon, throwing herself into the water, a fisherman saves her (in the dream, the water has taken the place of the forest, and the fisherman that of the hunter). King Pepin goes into the forest, finds her, recognises and marries her, whilst Elizabeth is burnt alive. The change of wives also occurs in a graceful form (with a variation of the episode of the beauty thrown into the fountain) in the twelfth of the _Contes Merveilleux_ of Porchat, Paris, 1863.

[476] _Histoire de la Vie de Charlemagne et de Roland_, par Jean Turpin, traduction de Alex. de Saint-Albin, Paris, 1865, preceded by the Chanson de Roland, počme de Théroulde.--Cfr. the _Histoire Poétique de Charlemagne_, par Gaston Paris.

[477] Uhland's _Schriften zur Geschichte der Dichtung und Sage_, iii. 77.

[478] "Seigneur, bénissez ce lit et ceux qui s'y trouvent; bénissez ces chers enfants, comme vous avez béni Tobie et Sara; daignez les bénir ainsi, Seigneur, afin qu'en votre nom ils vivent et vieillissent et multiplient, par le Christ notre Seigneur.--Ainsi soit-il." Villemarqué, _Barzaz Breiz, Chants Populaires de la Bretagne_, sixičme édition, Paris, 1867, p. 423.

[479] Uhland, the work quoted above, p. 81.--In the French romance of _Renard_, on occasion of the apparent death of the fox, the gospel is read, on the contrary, by the horse. In the German customs the bull also appears as a funeral animal, and is fastened to the hearse. If, while he is drawing the hearse, he turns his head back, it is considered a sinister omen. According to a popular belief, the bulls and other stalled animals speak to each other on Christmas night. A tradition narrates, that a peasant wished on that night to hide himself and hear what the bulls were saying; he heard them say that they would soon have to draw him to the grave, and died of terror. This is the usual indiscretion and its punishment.--Cfr. Rochholz, _Deutscher Glaube und Brauch_, Berlin, 1867, i. 164, and Menzel, _Die Vorchristliche Unsterblichkeits-Lehre_, Leipzig, 1870.--We have the speaking oxen again in Phędrus's fable of the stag who takes refuge in the stable, ii. 8, where the master is called "ille qui oculos centum habet."

[480] Elle en mangea seze muiz, deux bussars et six tupins; Rabelais, _Gargantua_, i. 4.

[481] Cfr. Porchat, _Contes Merveilleux_, Paris, 1863.

[482] In _Porchat_, Superlatif, while he is a dwarf, is shut up in a clothes-press; he is a male form of the wooden girl, of the wise puppet, of the sun hidden in the trunk of a tree, in the tree of night, in the nocturnal (or cloudy, or wintry) night, full of mysteries, which the little solar hero surprises from his hiding-place. The hero in hell, or who, educated by the devil, learns every kind of evil, is a variation of this multiform idea. The dwarf of _Porchat_, who comes out of the clothes-press, is in perfect accord with the popular belief which makes the man be born in the wood, on the stump of a tree, of which the Christmas-tree is a lively reminiscence.

SECTION VI.

THE BULL AND THE COW IN GREEK AND LATIN TRADITION.

SUMMARY.

   Preparatory works.--Bos quoque formosa est.--Zeus as a bull.--Iō and
   Eurōpź as cows.--The cow sacred to Minerva, the calf to Mercury, and
   the bull to Zeus.--Demoniacal bulls.--Taurus draconem genuit et
   taurum draco.--White bulls sacrificed to Zeus, and black ones to
   Poseidōn.--Poseidōn as a bull.--The horn of abundance broken off the
   bull Acheloos.--The bulls of Aiźtas.--The bull who kills
   Ampelos.--Dionysos a bull.--The bull that comes out of the sea.--The
   eaters of bulls.--The sacrifice of the bull.--The intestines of the
   bull.--From the cow, the lamb.--The bull's entrails are wanting when
   the hero is about to die, that is, when the hero has no heart.--Even
   the bull goes into the forest.--The bull that flees is a good omen
   when taken and sacrificed.--The bull and the cow guide the lost
   hero.--Analogy between solar and lunar phenomena.--Hźraklźs passes
   the sea now on the cow's neck, now in a golden cup.--Hźraklźs shoots
   at the sun.--The moon, the bull of Hźraklźs, becomes an apple-tree;
   anecdote relating to this.--The moon as a golden apple.--The moon as
   a cake.--The funeral cake.--Instead of a cow of flesh, a cow made of
   paste, in Plutarch and Ęsop.--Ashes and excrement of the cow.--L'eau
   de millefleurs.--The bulls of the sun.--Hźraklźs stable-boy and
   cleaner of the herds.--The bull Phaethōn.--The myth of the bull and
   the lion.--The bull's horns.--The god a witty thief; the demon an
   infamous one.--The myth of Cacus again.--The worm or serpent that
   eats bulls.--The bellowing or thundering bull, celestial
   musician.--The bull and the lyre.--The voice of Zeus--Bull-god and
   cow-goddess.

In descending now from the North upon the Hellenic and Latin soils, to search for the mythical and legendary forms assumed there by the bull and the cow, the mass of available material in point which offers, instead of diminishing, has increased prodigiously. Not to speak of the rich literary traditions of medięval Italy and Spain (as to those of France, they are often but an echo of the Celtic and Germanic), nor the significant traditions of the Latin historians and poets themselves, nor the beliefs, superstitious customs, and legends still existing on the half-Catholic, half-Pagan soil of Italy, all of which are notably fraught with the earliest mythical ideas, we here find ourselves face to face with the colossal and splendid edifice of Greek poetry or mythology itself; for that which constitutes the greatness and real originality of Greek poetry is its mythology, by means of which it is that a divinity breathes in every artistic work of Hellenic genius. The poet and the artist are almost always in direct correspondence with the deities, and therefore it is that they so often assume such a divine and inspired expression. It would, therefore, be a bold presumption on my part if I were to essay to extract and present, in a few pages, the soul, the contents of this endless mythology. I have, moreover, the good fortune of being able to plead relief from the obligation to venture on any such attempt, by referring the reader to the learned preparatory works published in England, in the same interest, by Max Müller and George Cox, upon the Hellenic myths in relation to the other mythologies. It is certainly possible to take exception to interpretations of particular myths proposed by these two eminent scholars, as, no doubt, might be the fate of many of mine, were I to enter into minute explanations, and were my lucubrations fortunate enough to obtain any measure of consideration. But as I flatter myself with the hope that, notwithstanding occasional diversions, in which I may have gone aside and lost myself for a few minutes, I am taking the royal road which alone leads to the solution of the great questions of comparative mythology, I recognise with gratitude the labours of Max Müller and Cox upon Greek mythology, the writings of Michael Bréal upon Roman mythology, the immortal work of Adalbert Kuhn upon the Indo-European myth of fire and water, and a few other helpful beacon-towers which send their light-shafts clear and steady athwart the waste, and serve as useful guides to the studious navigator of the _mare magnum_ of the myths. And because that which there is yet to do is immense in proportion to the little that has been done well, I shall take for granted what has already been demonstrated by my learned predecessors (to one and all of whom I confidently and respectfully refer my readers), and go on with my own researches, restricting myself, however, entirely to the zoological field, in order not to increase, out of all proportion, the dimensions of this opening chapter, which already threatens to straiten the space I must leave for the rest of my undertaking.

     "Bos quoque formosa est,"

says Ovid, in the first book of the _Metamorphoses_, when the daughter of Inachos is transformed into a luminous cow by Jupiter. The bull Zeus of Nonnos is also beautiful, as he swims on the sea, carrying the beautiful maiden Eurōpź. Her brothers wonder why oxen wish to marry women; but we shall not wonder when we remark that Iō and Eurōpź are duplicates of one and the same animal, or, at least, that Iō and Eurōpź both took the shape of a cow--one as the moon especially,[483] the other, the far-observing daughter of Telephaessa, the far-shining,[484] as the moon also, or the aurora. In the first case it is the heroine that becomes a cow; in the second, it is the hero who shows himself in the shape of a bull.[485] These forms are, however, only provisional and unnatural, in the same way as in the Vedic hymns the representation of the aurora, the moon, and the sun as cow and bull is only a passing one. The cow and the bull send their calf before them; the sun, the moon, and the aurora are preceded or followed by the twilight. Jupiter and Minerva have for their messenger the winged Mercurius; and hence also Ovid[486] was able to sing:--

                       "Mactatur vacca Minervę,
     Alipedi vitulus, taurus tibi, summe Deorum."[487]

The fruit of the nuptials of Iō and of Eurōpź with Zeus is of a monstrous nature, such as the evil-doing daughters of Danaos, who, on account of their crimes, are condemned in hell to fill the famous barrel (the cloud) that is ever emptying (the counterpart of the cup which, in the Scandinavian myth, is never emptied); such too as Minōs, he who ordered the labyrinth to be made, the infernal judge, the feeder of the Minōtauros (of which the monstrous bull of Marathon, first subdued by Hźraklźs and afterwards killed by Theseus, is a later form), the son of his wife and the gloomy and watery black bull Poseidōn. Even Kadmos, the brother of Eurōpź, ends his life badly. He descends into the kingdom of the dead in the form of a serpent. Of good, evil is born, and of evil, good; of the beautiful, the hideous, and of the hideous, the beautiful; of light, darkness, and of darkness, light; of day, night, and of night, day; of heat, cold, and of cold, heat. Each day and each year the monotonous antithesis is renewed; the serpent's head always finds and bites its tail again. A Tarentine verse of Arnobius expresses very happily these celestial vicissitudes:

     "Taurus draconem genuit et taurum draco."

Thus, in the romance of Heliodoros (_Aithiopika_) we read that the queen of Ethiopia, being black, gave birth to a white son; that is to say, the black night gives birth to the white moon and to the white dawn of morning. To Zeus (Dyāus, the luminous,) are sacrificed white bulls; to his brother Poseidōn, black ones; indeed, entirely black[488] ones, according to the Homeric expression.

Poseidōn, in Hesiod (_Theog._ 453), is the eldest brother; in Homer (_Il._ xv. 187), he is, on the contrary, the youngest; and both are right; it is the question of the egg and the hen; which is born first, darkness or light? The son of Poseidōn, Polyphźmos the Cyclop, is blinded by Odysseus. Poseidōn, representing the watery, cloudy, or nocturnal sky, his one-eyed son seems to be that sky itself, with the solar star, the eye of the heavens, in the midst of the darkness or of the clouds (the mouth of the barrel). When Odysseus blinds his son, Poseidōn avenges him by condemning Odysseus to wander on the waters (that is, lost in the ocean or the clouds of night). Inasmuch, moreover, as Zeus, properly the luminous one, is often called and represented by Homer as black as the clouds and pluvial,[489] he is assimilated to Poseidōn, the _presbżtatos_ or oldest; in fact, in the oldest Hellenic myths, Poseidōn is essentially the pluvial form of Zeus. When Poseidōn, in the form of a bull, seduces Pasiphaź, the daughter of the sun and wife of Minōs, he appears, indeed, of a white colour, but has between his horns a black spot.[490] This spot, however small, is enough to betray his tenebrous nature. Thus Acheloos, vanquished by Hźraklźs in the shape of a serpent, rises again in that of a pugnacious bull, one of whose horns Hźraklźs breaks,[491] which he gives to the Ętolians, who receive abundance from it (the waters of the Acheloos fertilise the country traversed by them; the dragon of the cloud kept back the waters; Hźraklźs discomfits the dragon, _i.e._, the darkness, and it then reappears in the form of a bull; when its horns are broken, abundance is the consequence). This monster reappears in the two perverse and terrible bulls of King Aiźtas, with copper feet (_taurō chalkópode_), which breathe dark-red flames and smoke, and advance against the hero Iźsōn in the cavern; in the same way as the king of the monkeys in the _Rāmāyanam_ vanquishes the demoniacal bull that fights with its horns, by taking hold of the horns themselves, and throwing it down; so Iźsōn does in Apollōnios.[492] The same bull is repeated in that ridden by the youth Ampelos, dear to Diónysos (who has also the nature of a bull, _taurophüsźs_, but of a luminous one). Ampelos, persuaded by the death-bringing Atź (_thanatźphóros Atź_), mounts on this bull, and is thrown by it upon a rock where his skull is broken, because he was full of pride against the horned moon, her who agitates the oxen, who, offended, sends a gadfly to the bull and maddens it. The bull Diónysos wishes to avenge the young Ampelos, by fixing his horns in the belly of the perverse and homicidal bull.[493] In this myth, the black bull of night and the bull-moon are confounded together in one sinister action.

From the ocean of night comes forth the head of the solar and lunar bull, and on this account, in Euripides[494] Okeanos is called the bull-headed (_taurókranos_); or else the head of the solar bull enters the nocturnal forest, or that of the lunar bull comes out of it. This phenomenon gave rise to several poetical images. The bull is devoured by the monsters of night; hence in the _Seven at Thebes_ (xlii.) of Ęschylos, the messenger accuses of impiety the seven eaters of bulls, who touch with their hands the blood of bulls; hence in the forty-third fable of Ęsop, the dogs flee, horrified, from the peasant who, being of a gluttonous nature (like the old man of the Russian story who eats all his cows), after having devoured sheep and goats, prepares to eat the working oxen themselves.[495] The bulls head, or even the bull itself, or the milch-cow, which must not be eaten, can, however, be sacrificed; nay, he is lucky who offers them up (except when the deity is named Heliogabalus, who receives the _taurobolium_ as a homage due to him, without giving anything in exchange to the devoted sacrificers).[496] According to Valerius Maximus,[497] the empire of the world would, by an oracle of the time of Servius Tullius, belong to the nation who should sacrifice to the Diana of the Aventine a certain wonderful cow belonging to a Sabine (the aurora or the moon, from the sacrifice of which the sun comes out at morning). The Sabine prepares to sacrifice it, but a Roman priest takes it from him by fraud, whilst the Sabine is sent to purify himself in the water near at hand. This is a zoological form of the epico-mythic rape of the Sabines, of the exchange of the wife or of the precious object, of the exchange effected in the sack.

In Ovid,[498] the same myth occurs again with a variation:

     "Matre satus Terra, monstrum mirabile, taurus
        Parte sui serpens posteriore fuit.
      Hunc triplici muro lucis incluserat atris
        Parcarum monitu Styx violenta trium.
      Viscera qui tauri flammis adolenda dedisset,
        Sors erat, ęternos vincere posse Deos.
      Immolat hunc Briareus factu ex adamante securi;
        Et jam jam flammis exta daturus erat.
      Jupiter alitibus rapere imperat. Attulit illi
        Milvus; et meritis venit in astra suis."

We shall return to this myth in the following chapters. The monster is killed only when his heart, which he keeps shut up, is taken away. Sometimes he does not keep it shut up in his own body, but in a duck (the aurora), which comes out of a hare (the moon sacrificed in the morning).[499] When this duck is opened, a golden egg (the sun) is found. When the egg is thrown on the ground, or at the monster's head, the monster dies. The golden duck, whence the monster's heart, the sun, comes forth, is the same as the cow which gives birth to the lamb (the night gives birth to the aurora, and the aurora to the solar lamb). The historian Flavius cites, among the prodigies which preceded the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem, a miracle of this kind, which took place in the middle of the temple itself, in the case of a cow led thither to be sacrificed. It occurs still every morning in the mythical heavens, and was a phenomenon familiar to human observation in the remotest antiquity, when it became a proverb; but, as often happened, the proverb which affirmed an evident myth, when its sense was lost, was adopted to indicate an impossibility; wherefore we read in the second satire (cxxii.) of Juvenal:--

     "Scilicet horreres maioraque monstra putares,
      Si mulier vitulum, vel si bos ederet agnum?"

In Greek and Latin authors[500] we find frequent examples of the sacrifice of a bull a short time before the death of the hero by whom it was ordered, in which it was noticed as a very sinister omen that the entrails were missing, and particularly the heart or the liver. Having observed that the monster's heart is the solar hero, or the sun itself, we can easily understand how, in the sacrifice of a bull, this heart must be wanting when the hero approaches his end. In the mythical bull sacrificed at evening, the hero's heart is not to be found; the monster has eaten his intestines, of which, according to the legend, he is particularly greedy.

But the bull does not always let himself be sacrificed patiently; he often flees in order not to be killed. We have seen in the Russian stories how the bull, which his owner intends to sacrifice, flees into the forest, with the lamb (the bull and the lamb are two equivalent forms of the morning and evening solar hero) and the other domestic animals. The proverb of Theokritos, "Even the bull goes into the forest,"[501] can have no other origin than in the two analogous myths of the moon which wanders through the forest of night, and of the sun who hides himself in the same forest, when he sees the preparations made for the sacrifice; the sun in the night becomes the moon.

I have said that the bull, when sacrificed, often, on account of his being devoid of intestines, forebodes unlucky occurrences to the hero; the solar bull of the evening is without strength, he has no heroic entrails. But after he has been to pasture freely in the forest, after having exercised his powers in battle with the wolves of night, after having, by his bellowing (in the darkness, in the thundering cloud), filled all the animals with terror, the bull is found again and led towards his dwelling of the morning, full of light, like a sacrificed hero; heroic entrails are found in him; from the black bull who is sacrificed towards morning, from the forest, from the bull of night, come forth the heart, the liver, the life and strength, the sun, the hero-sun; and the human hero, observing his sacrifice, considers it a good omen. We can thus understand the narrative of Ammianus Marcellinus: "Decimus (taurus) diffractis vinculis, lapsus ęgre reductus est, et mactatus ominosa signa monstravit."[502] Whilst he is hidden in the forest, the solar bull is black, but often (_i.e._, in all the nights illumined by the moon), giving up his place to the moon, he appears in the form of a white bull or cow, who guides the hero lost in the darkness. Thoas is called the king of the Tauroi (or bulls) in the _Iphigenia in Tauris_ of Euripides, because he has wings on his feet. The cow Iō flees without stopping in the _Prometheus_ of Ęschylos. Euripides[503] says that she gave birth to the king of the Kadmoeans. Here, therefore, we find once more the intimate relation between Iō and Eurōpź, the sister of Kadmos, which I noticed above. Kadmos, the brother of Eurōpź, unites himself with Iō. But Iō is a cow, and we find a cow, a travelling cow, marked with a white spot in the shape of a full moon (the moon itself, or Iō), in the legend of Kadmos in Boeotia, according to Pausanias,[504] and to Ovid,[505] who sings--

     "Bos tibi, Phoebus ait, solis occurret in arvis,[506]
      Nullum passa jugum, curvique immunis aratri.
      Hac duce carpe vias, et, qua requieverit herba,
      Moenia fac condas: Boeotia ilia vocato.
      Vix bene Castalio Cadmus descenderat antro:
      Incustoditam lente videt ire juvencam,
      Nullum servitii signum cervice gerentem.
      Subsequitur, pressoque legit vestigia gressu;
      Auctoremque vię Phoebum taciturnus adorat.
      Jam vada Cephisi, Panopesque evaserat arva;
      Bos stetit; et, tollens spatiosam cornibus altis
      Ad coelum frontem, mugitibus impulit auras.
      Atque ita, respiciens comites sua terga sequentes,
      Procubuit, teneraque latus submisit in herba."

This is the good fairy, or good old man, who shows the way to the heroes in popular tales; it is the cow which succours the maiden persecuted by her step-mother, the puppet which spins, sews, and weaves for the maiden aurora. For just as we have seen that the wooden girl is the aurora herself, which at morn comes out of, and at even re-enters, the forest of night,[507] as is clearly shown by the myths of Urvaēī and of Daphne, so in like manner the moon comes out of and re-enters the nocturnal forest, transforming herself from a tree to a cow, and from a cow to a tree, wooden girl, or puppet. Some myths relating to the aurora are also applicable to the moon, on account of the resemblance of the phenomena (the lunar and solar bulls also are interchangeable), as they both come out of the nocturnal gloom, both drop dewy humours, and both run after the sun, of which the aurora is the deliverer in the morning, and the moon the protectress, guide, hostess, and good advising fairy, who teaches him the secret by which to avoid the ambuscades of the monster. Hźraklźs passes the sea upon the neck of the cow-moon; but instead of the cow, we also find in the mythical sky of Hźraklźs the golden cup, which is the same thing. From the cow-moon comes forth the horn of abundance; from the cornucopia to the cup the passage is easy. It is said that Hźraklźs, approaching the oxen of Geryon, the West, felt himself burned by the sun's rays, and shot arrows at him (in the same way as Indras in the _Rigvedas_ breaks a wheel of the car of Sūryas, the sun). The sun admires the courage and strength of the hero, and lends him his golden cup, upon which Hźraklźs passes the sea. This being accomplished, Hźraklźs restores the cup to the sun, and finds the oxen.

The bull which carries the hero and heroine, in the Russian story, arises again in another form, if its essential part (now the intestines, now the bones, now the ashes) is preserved. The cow which helps the maiden becomes, as we have already seen, an apple-tree, and helps her again in this form. We find the same myth transformed in Greece. In _Coelius_, quoted by Aldrovandi,[508] we read, "Cum rustici quidam Herculi Alexicaco bovem essent immolaturi, isque rupto fune profugisset (the bull destined to the sacrifice repairs to the forest of night), nec esset quod sacrificaretur, malum arreptum suppositis quatuor ramis crurum vice, deinde additis alteris duobus ceu cornuum loco, bovem utcumque fuisse imitatos, idque ridiculum simulacrum pro victima sacrificasse Herculi." This account is confirmed by the facts recorded by Julius Pollux,[509] that the apple-tree was sacrificed to Hźraklźs. The moon, on account of its circular form, assumed, besides the figure of a pea, a pumpkin and a cabbage, also that of a golden apple. As it contains honey, the sweet apple represents well the ambrosial moon. Moreover, in the same way as we have seen the pea which fell on the ground become a tree, and rise to heaven, so the apple became an apple-tree, the tree of golden apples found in the Western garden of the Hesperides.

The moon, besides the form of a horned cow, also assumed, in the popular Āryan belief, that of a tart, of a cake, either on account of its circular shape, or of the ambrosial honey supposed to be contained by the moon, because of the dew or rain which it spreads on the ground. The cake has in Slavonic tradition the same importance as the pea, kidney-bean, or cabbage. The bull or cow of the fool, bartered for a pea, is perhaps the same as the sun or aurora of evening, bartered during the night for the moon, or else meeting the moon. The funereal pea or kidney-bean, the vegetable which serves as provision for the journey in the kingdom of the dead, and which brings the hero riches, is perhaps only the moon, which the solar hero finds on the way during the night, and which he receives in exchange for his cow's hide. When the hero possesses this pea, he is assured of every kind of good fortune, and can enter or ascend into the luminous sky, as well as come out of the gloomy hell, into which the monster has drawn him. A similar virtue is attributed to the cake, which we find in Indo-European funeral customs instead of the vegetable of the dead.

After this we can understand what Plutarch tells us in the Life of Lucullus concerning the Cyziceni, of whom he writes, that, pressed by siege, they offered up to Proserpine (the moon in hell) a cow of black paste, not being able to offer up one of flesh; and he adds, that the sacrifice was agreeable to the goddess. Thus, in the thirty-sixth fable of Ęsop, we read of an invalid who promises to the gods that he will sacrifice a hundred oxen to them in the event of a cure; when cured, as he does not possess a hundred oxen of flesh, he makes a hundred of paste, and burns them upon the hearth. But, according to Ęsop, the gods were not satisfied, and endeavoured to play off a joke upon him; an attempt, which, however, did not succeed, inasmuch as the cunning man used it to his own profit; for the solar hero in the night, not being really a fool, merely feigns to be one.

But, to return to the cow-moon: we must complete the explanation of another myth, that of the excrement of the cow considered as purifying. The moon, as the aurora, yields ambrosia; it is considered to be a cow; the urine of this cow is ambrosia or holy water; he who drinks this water purifies himself, as the ambrosia which rains from the lunar ray and the aurora cleans the paths of the sky, purifies and makes clear (_dīrghaya cakshase_) the paths of the sky which the shadows of night darken and contaminate. The same virtue is attributed, moreover, to cow's dung, a conception also derived from the cow, and given to the moon as well as to the morning aurora. These two cows are conceived as making the earth fruitful by means of their ambrosial excrements; these excrements, being also luminous, both those of the moon and those of the aurora are considered as purifiers. The ashes of these cows (which their friend the heroine preserves) are not only ashes, but golden powder or golden flour (the golden cake occurs again in that flour or powder of gold which the witch demands from the hero in Russian stories), which, mixed with excrement, brings good fortune to the cunning and robber hero. The ashes of the sacrificed pregnant cow (_i.e._, the cow which dies after having given birth to a calf) were religiously preserved by the Romans in the temple of Vesta, with bean-stalks (which are used to fatten the earth sown with corn), as a means of expiation. Ovid[510] mentions this rite:--

     "Nox abiit, oriturque Aurora. Palilia poscor,
        Non poscor frustra, si favet alma Pales.
      Alma Pales, faveas pastoria sacra canenti;
        Prosequor officio si tua festa pio.
      Certe ego de vitulo cinerem, stipulasque fabales,
        Sępe tuli plena februa casta, manu."

The ashes of a cow are preserved both as a symbol of resurrection and as a means of purification. As to the excrements of the cow, they are still used to form the so-called _eau de millefleurs_, recommended by several pharmacopoeias as a remedy for cachexy.[511]

I have noticed above the myth of Hźraklźs, in which, having passed the sea upon the golden cup, he finds the oxen upon the shore. These oxen are thus described by Theokritos, in the myth of King Augeias, as the child of the sun. The sun, says Theokritos, granted to his son the honour of being richer than all other men in herds. All these herds are healthy, and multiply without limit, always becoming better. Among the bulls, three hundred have white legs (like the alba of morning), two hundred are red (like the sun's rays), with curved horns. These bulls are to be used for purposes of reproduction; besides them there are twelve sacred to the sun, which shine like swans. One of them is superior to all the rest in size, and is called a star, or Phaethōn (the luminous, an epithet given to Hźlios, the sun, in the _Odyssey_, the guider of the chariot of the sun, who, after finishing his diurnal course, is unable to rein in the horses, and is precipitated with the chariot into the water, in order that the burning horses may not set fire to the world. Instead of solar oxen, which draw the chariot, and fall, at evening, into the nocturnal marsh, we find in this myth the chariot drawn by horses overturned into the waves; but the Phaethōn, the very luminous and excellent ox, as represented by Theokritos, justifies our identification of the two mythical episodes of the ox and of the horse which falls into the water). The bull Phaethōn of Theokritos sees Hźraklźs, and, taking him for a lion, rushes upon him and endeavours to wound him with his horns. The sun, as a golden-haired hero, is a very strong lion (Hźraklźs, Samson); as a golden-horned hero, he is a very strong bull; enclosed in the cloud, they roar and bellow. The two images of the sun-lion and of the sun-bull are now in harmony and now in discordance, and fight with one another. In the _Rāmāyanam_ we found the two brother-heroes Rāmas and Lakshmanas, an epic form of the two Aēvināu, represented respectively as a bull and a lion. In the Hellenic fables we frequently find the lion and the bull together, and afterwards in discordance, as happens in the legend of the two brother-heroes. In Ęsop and in Avianus, the bull (perhaps the moon) fleeing from the lion (_i.e._, from the sun in its monstrous evening or autumnal form of a lion), enters the hiding-place of the goat (the moon in the grotto of night), and is insulted and provoked by it. In another Ęsopian fable, on the contrary, it is the lion who fears the horns of the bull, and induces him to part with them, in order that the bull may become his prey.[512] In yet another Ęsopian fable taken from Syntipa, the bull kills the lion, while asleep, with his horns. In Phędrus, the wild boar with his tusks, the bull with his horns, and the ass with kicks, put an end to the old and infirm lion. In Phędrus's fable of the ox and the ass drawing together, the ox falls inert upon the ground when he loses his horns. Aristoteles, in the third book on the Parts of Animals, censures the Momos of Ęsop, who laughs at the bull because he has his horns on his forehead instead of on his arms, showing that if the bull had his horns on any other part of his body, they would be a useless weight, and would impede his other functions without aiding him in anything. The ox and the lion were also painted together in Christian churches.[513]

To continue the legend of the solar hero and the oxen, we find again in Hźraklźs, as employed among the herds in the service of King Augeias, the sun, the usual hostler-hero; he is not only to guard the herds well, but in one day to cleanse them thoroughly, and make them shine. Defrauded of the price by Augeias, he kills him, and ravages all his country. In the same way, in Homer, Apollo guards, for a stipulated price, the herds of King Laomedon upon Mount Ida, and is cheated of his reward. In the same way, Hermes takes the herds of King Admetos to pasture; he leads them to browse near the herds of Apollo, from whom he steals a hundred bulls and twelve cows, preventing the dogs from barking (as Hźraklźs does when he leads away Geryon's oxen). This Hermes, this god Mercury, god of merchants, this merchant and robber, is the same as the skilful and cunning thief of the stories who carries off horses, draught oxen, caskets, and ear-rings from the king; he is the hero-thief; but a shade distinguishes him from the monster brigand or Vedic demoniacal Panis; the hero who hides himself and the monster that hides things both do a furtive action. When Hermes leads away the herds stolen from the solar god, the sun, he also takes care to fasten branches of trees to their tails, which, by sweeping the road, shall destroy the track of the bulls and cows that have been led away. The shepherd Battos plays the spy, although, as the price of his silence, Hermes has promised him a white cow (the moon, and perhaps Battos himself, the spy, is the moon). Hermes tests him, by disguising himself and promising him a bull and a cow if he speaks. Battos speaks, and Hermes punishes him by transforming him into a stone:--

                                       "Vertit
     In durum silicem, qui nunc quoque dicitur index."[514]

This god Mercury, who steals the bulls from Apollo (as Hźraklźs leads away the oxen of Geryon), is the divine form of the thief. His demoniacal form, is--Cacus, the son of Vulcan (as the Vedic Vritras is the son of Tvashtar), who vomits fire; a giant who envelops himself in darkness, in Virgil; three-headed (like the Vedic monster), in Propertius;[515] who inhabits in the Aventine forest a cavern full of human bones (like the monster of fairy tales); who thunders (flammas ore sonante vomit), who fights with rocks and trunks of trees, in Ovid[516] (like the heroes in the Hindoo, Slavonic, German, and Homeric tradition); who steals the cows from Hźraklźs, and hides their footprints by dragging them backwards into the cavern, in Livy; who also tells us that the cows in the cavern low, wishing for the bulls from whom they are separated (as in the Vedic hymns). The hero, hearing them, finds the cavern, overturns with a great noise the rock which five pair of oxen yoked together could scarcely have moved (like the Marutas who break the rock, like Indras who splits the crag open), and with the three-knotted club (trinodis) kills the monster and frees the cows. The solar hero who at evening leads away oxen or cows, or who at morning steals them from the stable, is a skilful robber who has acted meritoriously, and marries, in reward, the princess aurora; the cloudy or gloomy monster who steals the solar cows to shut them up in the cavern, whence he then throws out smoke and flames, is an infamous criminal. The divine thief steals almost out of playfulness, either to show his craftiness or to prove his valour; the demoniacal thief steals because of his malevolent character, and instinct to devour what he steals, as does the fabled worm of the river Indus (the Vedic Sindhus, or heavenly ocean), who draws into the abyss and devours the thirsty oxen who go to drink.[517]

The monster of the clouds who whistles and thunders only terrifies; the god who whistles and thunders in the cloud, on the other hand, is _par excellence_ a celestial musician; his musical instrument, the thunder, astonishes us by its marvels,[518] and makes stones and plants tremble, that is, makes stones and plants move, especially celestial ones (_i.e._, cloud-mountains and cloud-trees); it draws after it the wild animals (of the heavenly forest), tames and subdues them. The bellowing bull terrifies the lion himself. We, therefore, also read in Nonnos,[519] that Dionysos gives a bull in reward to Ęagros, who has won in the competition of song and of the lyre, whilst he reserves a hirsute he-goat for him who loses; on this account we find on the capitals of columns in old Milanese churches, calves and bulls represented as playing on the lyre.[520] It is a variation of the myth of the ass and the lyre, which has the same meaning. The bull and the ass, for the same reason, are found represented together, because they bellow and bray (like Christian Corybantes) near the cradle of the new-born god, in order to hide, by their noise, his birth from the old king or deity who is to be dethroned.[521] The conch of Bhīmas, the elephant-horn of Orlando, the Greek war-bugle tauraia, by means of which armies were moved, derived their character and their name from the mythical bull, the thundering god. The voice of the bull is compared in Euripides to the voice of Zeus;[522] the music which pleases the heroes is certainly not the air of the _Casta diva_; it is the braying of the ass,[523] the roar of the lion, the bellowing of the bull, who occupies the first place in the heavens, and has occupied us so long, because the supreme god took his form, after having carried off Eurōpź. Zeus left on the earth his divine form, and the more generally preferred heroic form of a bull took him up to heaven:--

     "Litoribus tactis stabat sine cornibus ullis
      Juppiter, inque deum de bove versus erat.
      Taurus init coelum."[524]

We thus, after a long pilgrimage in the fields of tradition, return to the Vedic bull Indras, from whom we started, and to his female form, which, having a human nature, became a cow, and being a cow, assumed a divine shape:--

     "Quę bos ex homine, ex bove facta Dea."[525]

FOOTNOTES:

[483] According to Eustatius, "Iō gar hź selźnź katą tźn tōn Argetōn dialekton."

[484] Cfr. Pott, _Studien zur griechischen Mythologie_, Leipzig, Teubner, 1859; and Cox, the work quoted before.

[485] _Dionysiakōn_, i. 45, and following; iii. 306, and following.

[486] _Metamorphoseōn_, iv. 754.

[487] In England, as I have already noticed, the bull or ox is sacred to St Luke; in Russia, to the saints Froh and Laver. In Sicily, the protector of oxen is San Cataldo, who was bishop of Taranto. (For the notices relating to Sicilian beliefs concerning animals, I am indebted to my good friend Giuseppe Pitrč.) In Tuscany, and in other parts of Italy, oxen and horses are recommended to the care of St Antony, the great protector of domestic animals. In the rural parts of Tuscany, it was the custom, on the 17th of February, to lead oxen and horses to the church-door, that they might be blessed. Now, to save trouble, only a basket of hay is carried to be blessed; which done, it is taken to the animals that they may eat it and be preserved from evil. On Palm Sunday, to drive away every evil, juniper is put into the stables in Tuscany.

[488] Taśrous pammélanai, in the _Odyssey_; the commentator explains that the bulls are black because they resemble the colour of water.

[489] Kelainefčs-nefelźgeréta Ześs; _Odyssey_, xiii. 147 and 153.

[490]

     Signatus tenui media inter cornua nigro
     Una fuit labes; coetera lactis erant.
                           Ovidius, _De Arte Amandi_.

[491] In _Diodoros_, Hammon loves the virgin Amalthea, who has a horn resembling that of an ox. The goat and the cow in the lunar and cloudy myth are the same; and on this account we find them both in connection with the apple-tree, a vegetable form, and with the cornucopia, since both are seers, and spies, and guides. The golden doe is a variation of the same lunar myth.

[492] _Argonantikōn_, iii. 410, 1277.

[493] Nonnos, _Dionysiakōn_, xi. 113 and following.

[494] _Orestźs_, 1380.

[495] _Ergazoménous Bóas._--In the twelfth book of his _History of Animals_, Ęlianos writes: "Among the Phrygians, if any one kills a working ox, he atones for it with his life." And Varro, _De Re Rusticā_: "Bos socius hominum in rustico opere et Cereris minister. Ab hoc antiqui ita manus abstineri voluerunt ut capite sanxerint si quis occidisset."

[496] _Scriptores Historię Augustę_, Lampridius, in the life of Heliogabalus.

[497] vii. 3.

[498] _Fasti_, iii. 800.

[499] Cfr. the chapter on the Hare.

[500] Plutarch, in the Life of Marcellus, Arrianos and Appianos among the Greeks, Livy, Cicero (De Divinatione), Pliny the elder, Julius Capitolinus, Julius Obsequens among the Latins.

[501] _Éba kai tįuros an hülan_, xiv. 43. In Theokritos, the proverb is used to intimate that he is gone to other and perfidious loves; he, too, is a traitor.

[502] _Rerum gestarum_, xxii.--Cfr. the episode of the ox which lets itself fall into the marsh or swamp, in the various versions of the first book of the _Pancatantram_.--The astrologers placed the brain under the protection of the moon, and the heart under that of the sun; Celoria, _La Luna_, Milano, 1871.

[503] Kadmeiōn Basilźas egeinato; _Phoinissai_, 835.

[504] _Boiotia._

[505] _Metam._, iii. 10.--Cfr. Nonnos, _Dionys._, iv. 290, and following.

[506] Or, on the path of the sun in the sky.

[507] In an unpublished Piedmontese story, which is very widely spread, the girl carried off by robbers escapes from their hands, and hides in the trunk of a tree.

[508] _De Quadrupedibus Bisulcis_, i.

[509] _De Vocabulis_, i., quoted by Aldrovandi.

[510] _Fasti_, iv. 721.

[511] Cfr. Ott. Targioni Tozzetti, _Lezioni di Materia Medica_, Firenze, 1821.

[512] In an Ęsopian fable taken from Syntipa, which corresponds to the first of Lokman, two bulls combine against the lion, and resist him; the lion excites them against each other, and tears them to pieces. In the sixth fable of Aphtonios, the bulls are three; in the eighteenth of Avianus, they are four. The lion already knew the motto of kings: "Divide et impera."

[513] Durandus, _Rational._ i. 3, quoted by Du Cange.

[514] Ovidius, _Metam._, ii. 706.

[515] Per tria partitos qui dabat ora sonos; _Ecl._ iv.

[516] _Fasti_, i. 550.

[517] Philź, _Stichoi peri zōōn idiotźtos_, lix.

[518] In Italian, _attonito_ (or, properly speaking, struck by thunder) is the same as "who is much surprised").

[519] _Dionys._ xix 58.

[520] Cfr. Martigny, _Dictionnaire des Antiquités Chrétiennes_, s. v. _veau._

[521] In _Phędrus_, as we have already observed, the ox and the ass are yoked together.

[522] _Ippolitos_, _Ōs fonź Diņs_, 1200-1229.

[523] Cfr. the chapter relating to the Ass.

[524] Ovidius, _Fasti_, v. 615.

[525] _Ib._ v. 620.

CHAPTER II.

THE HORSE.

SUMMARY.

   The horse, favourite animal of the solar hero.--Attributes of the
   Vedic solar hero.--Animals which draw the Vedic gods.--The Aēvināu
   sons of a mare.--The mule, the ass, and the horse in relation to
   each other.--The hero's horse, prior to being noble and handsome, is
   vile and ill-favoured; proofs.--The teeth of the horse.--The figs
   that make tails grow.--The excrement of the horse.--Three colours of
   the heroic horse.--Pluto's horses abhor the light.--Pźgasos an
   imperfect horse.--The black horse generally demoniacal.--The
   hippomanes.--The monster that makes horses perspire and grow lean;
   the fire in stables.--To dream of black horses.--The horse of the
   third brother is small, humpbacked, and lame.--The hero transforms
   himself into a horse.--The grey horse differs from the black
   one.--The red horse frees the hero.--The three steps, the three
   races, the three leaps, the three castles, the three days, the three
   brothers, and the three horses correspond to each other.--Two
   horsemen change the hero's bad horse into a heroic steed.--The
   horse's ears; the hero in the horse's ears.--The horse's head
   blesses the good maiden, and devours the wicked one.--The black
   horseman, the white horseman, and the red one.--The horse-monster
   that devastates the field surprised by the hero, and destroyed by
   fire, in the _Rigvedas_.--The Dioscuri washing the sweat off their
   horses.--Salt on the horse's back.--The hero-horse covered by the
   waters.--The Aēvināu and Agnis give a good horse to the hero who has
   a bad one.--The three steps of Vishnus are made by the horses of
   Indras.--Vishnus as horse.--Indras and the Aēvināu find the bride on
   horseback.--Rāmas as horse.--Dadhyanc and his ambrosial horse's
   head, which discomfits the hostile monsters.--The bones of the
   horse.--The exchange of heads.--The two brother horses Pźgasos and
   Chrüsaor in opposition to one another.--Castor and
   Pollux.--Discussion upon the nature of the Aēvināu.--The two
   brothers at discord; Sundas and Upasundas.--Nakulas and
   Vasudevas.--Rāmas and Lakshmanas.--The brothers who resemble each
   other; Bālin and Sugrīvas; the brother betrays his brother and
   steals his wife.--Kereēāēpa and Urvāksha.--Piran and Pilsem.--The
   sky a mountain of stone; heroes, heroines, and horses of stone.--The
   brother seducer in the _Tuti-Name_.--Sunlight and moonlight, two
   brothers.--The minister's son and the king's son.--Horse and
   cat.--The two brothers on a journey; one becomes a king, the other
   spits gold; the candle of one of the two brothers lights of its own
   accord, and he therefore obtains the kingdom; the other brother's
   treasure.--Digression concerning the interpretation of the
   myth.--Agamźdźs and Trophonios; Piedmontese story of the skilful
   thief.--The two brothers who resemble each other; mistaken one for
   the other by the wife of one of them; the brother sleeps with his
   sister-in-law without touching her; the legend of the pilgrim who
   comes from Rome; the head fastened on again.--The horse led away out
   of hell.--The solar horse destined for sacrifice carried off by
   Kapilas; that is, the solar horse escapes, like the solar bull, from
   the sacrifice.--The stallion destined for the sacrifice touched, and
   the horse's fat smelted by Kāuēalyā as an augury of
   fruitfulness.--The horse's head as the mouth of hell.--The robber of
   the horse and of the treasure.--The horns of the stag, the horns or
   mane of the horse, and the hair of the hero, which catch and fasten
   themselves to the trees of the forest.--The thief now protects
   thieves, and now protects men from thieves.--The Miles gloriosus;
   hero, horse, and tree, united together, discomfit the enemies.--The
   heroic horse.--The tail of Indras's horse, and the Hindoo
   war-horse.--The war-horses of Rustem, of Alexander, of Bellerophon,
   and of Cęsar; the winged horse.--The horse goes through water and
   fire.--The horse and the apple.--The chains of the heroic horse, and
   the difficulty of riding him.--The horse that speaks; the
   horse-spy.--The chariot that speaks.--The solar horse bound that it
   may not come back again.--The hero who flees in the shape of a
   horse, and the horse sold with the bridle; transformations of the
   horse.--The sun without a horse and without a bridle.--The horses of
   the sun, arrested or wounded, precipitate the solar hero into the
   waters.--The eternal hunter.--Etaēas, Phaethōn, Hippolytos.--The
   horse that delivers the hero.--The neighing of Indras's horse; the
   horse of Darius which neighs at the sight of the sun on account of
   the smell of a mare.--Number of the solar horses.--The hero born of
   a mare.--The mare's egg.--The hare born of a mare devours the
   mare.--Spanish mares made pregnant by the wind.--Horses sons of the
   wind.--The hero Aēvatthāman neighs immediately after birth.--The
   horses that weep; mythical signification of these tears.--Vedic
   riddle and play of words upon the letter _r_, and the root _varsh_
   relative to the horse.--The foam from the horse's mouth destroys
   enemies and cures the cough.--The Aēvināu, the Dioscuri, Asklźpios
   and his two sons as physicians.--Caballus.--Ambrosia from the hoof
   of the Vedic horse.--Hippokrźnź; the horse's hoof in relation with
   water.--Exchanges between moon and sun and between bull and
   horse.--Horses sacred to the gods and to saints.--Holy horsemen who
   help the heroes _mercede pacta_.

The myth of the horse is perhaps not so rich in legends as that of the bull and the cow, but certainly no less interesting. As the horseman is the finest type of the hero, so the horse which carries him is in mythology the noblest of animals.

We have already observed that the best of the three brothers, the third, the victorious one, the morning sun, is, in tradition, distinguished from the other brothers by his swiftness; and that the morning dawn or aurora, which is the third sister, the good one, the best of the three sisters, is she who wins the race. It is, therefore, natural that the favourite animal of the hero should be his horse. The two Hindoo Dioscuri, that is, the Aēvināu, the two horsemen, derive their name from the aēvas or horse, as being the swift one;[526] and they are very probably identical with the two fair-haired, amiable, splendid, and ardent coursers of Indras, of Savitar (the sun), and proper and worthy to bear heroes,[527] who yoke themselves at a word,[528] are maned, adapted to make fruitful, full of life,[529] having eyes like the sun,[530] made by the Ribhavas,[531] who, as they made the cow out of a cow, also made a horse out of the horse,[532] black, with white feet, drawing the chariot with the golden yoke, revealing the beings;[533] the two rapid ones; the two most rapid ones;[534] plunging into the inebriating drink before Indras yokes them;[535] beautiful, by means of which the chariot of the Aēvināu is as swift as thought;[536] who carry Indras, as every day they carry the sun;[537] are the two rays of the sun;[538] who neigh, dropping ambrosia;[539] the very pure horses of the bull Indras, inebriated, who illumine the sky,[540] with manes the colour of a peacock,[541] bridled sixty times (properly six times twice five);[542] beneficent, winged, indefatigable, resolute destroyers (of the enemies).[543] The _Āitareya Brāhmanam_, when giving the characteristics of the race of each god, whilst it tells us that Agnis, at the marriage of Somas and Sūryā, is drawn by mules, and the aurora by red cows (or bulls), teaches us that Indras is drawn by horses, and the Aēvināu by asses; the Aēvināu carried off the prize.[544] In the _Mahābhāratam_,[545] we find another important circumstance, _i.e._, the Aēvināu represented as sons of a mare, or of Tvashtrī, wife of the sun Savitar, who took the form of a mare. Therefore we have here the sons of the mare, who may be horses or mules, according as the mare united herself with a horse or with an ass. Here, then, we have already an evident proof of the identification of the heroes Aēvināu with the animals, horses or asses, which draw them. The _Rigvedas_ does not as yet know the word _aēvatara_, or mule, but in representing the Aēvināu drawn now by horses and now by asses, it shows us the intermediate character of the real animal that draws the Aēvināu, a grey beast, dark-coloured, and white only in its fore parts. Night is the mule that carries the Aēvināu or twilights, in the same way as, in the above-quoted _Āitareya_, it carries or awakens Agnis, fire or light. In the _Iliad_,[546] mules are sung of as being better adapted than oxen to draw the plough.

The hero's horse, like the hero himself, begins by being ugly, deformed, and inept, and ends by becoming beautiful, luminous, heroic, and victorious.

The mythical horse of the Hungarians, the horse Tįtos, or Tįtos lo, when born, is of an ugly aspect, defective and lean; it is therefore said in Hungarian, that "the Tįtos comes out of a defective horse." It is, however, always born with teeth,[547] although its chin is sometimes wanting; its bursts out of a black pentagonal egg on an Ash Wednesday, after the hero has carried it for seven summers and seven winters under his arm. In the _Mahābhāratam_,[548] the first created horse Uccāihēravas, the king of the horses (and therefore the horse of Indras), which is as swift as thought, follows the path of the sun, and is luminous and white, has, however, a black tail, made so by the magic of the serpents, who have covered it with black hairs. This is probably the black ass's or horse's tail which remains upon the ugly or wicked sister's forehead, in the popular European story of the two sisters.[549] It must also be remarked that, as the word _Uccāihēravas_ means, properly, him of the high ears, it indicates the ass better than the horse.

In the same way, therefore, as the hero of popular tales before becoming a wise man is generally an ass, the animal ridden by the solar hero, prior to being a real and noble horse, is usually a worthless jade, or a dark-coloured ass. The sun, in the beginning of the night, rides a black horse, and afterwards a grey one, or else an ass or a mule, but in the morning, on the contrary, a white and luminous horse, which has a black tail; or else the dark horse of night has a white head, or white legs, or anterior parts of the body, with golden ears, and the nape of the neck formed of pearls.[550] The monstrous Trojan horse too, of Epeios, a figure which represents the horse of mythology, in Tryphiodōros the Egyptian,[551] has a golden mane, red eyes, and silver teeth.

In the Turkish stories of Siberia,[552] it is upon an iron-coloured horse that the third brother, hated by his father and his two elder brothers, advances against the demon Ker Iutpa. The hero becomes the excrement of a horse, and the horse a crow; the former glues the monster's lower lip to the earth, the latter suspends his upper lip to the sky. In order better to understand this strange myth, we must remember that the name of one of the Valkiries is "Mist," a word which means excrement and fog. The fog, or frost, or rain, or dew, falls to the ground; the solar horse, or the sun, rises in the sky; the monster of night or of clouds is dispersed.

In the thirteenth Esthonian story of _Kreutzwald_, the third brother comes three times to deliver the princess from the mountain of glass (or ice), where she sleeps. The first time he is dressed the colour of bronze, upon a bronze-coloured horse; the second time dressed in silver, upon a horse the colour of silver; and the third time upon a gold-coloured horse, dressed in gold.

In an unpublished Piedmontese story, the young prince, whose beloved princess has been ravished beyond seas, is borne over the waves by an eagle, which he feeds with his own flesh. Arrived beyond the sea, he hears that the princess is destined to be the wife of the hero who wins the race three times; the first time he appears dressed in black, upon a black horse; the second time dressed in white, upon a white horse; and the third time dressed in red, upon a red horse. Each time he wins the race, and thereafter receives the beautiful princess in marriage.

Thus we see the first horse of the hero is always dark-coloured, like the devil's horse, like the horses of Pluto, which, accustomed to darkness, are terrified by light;[553] it then becomes the grey horse of the giantess, the grey horse which smells the dead hero Sigurd in the _Edda_. Pźgasos himself, the _hieros hippos_ of Aratos, is born semi-perfect (źmitelźs),[554] an expression which reminds me of the _equus dimidius_ of an Alsatian paper of 1336, in Du Cange, by which the mule is meant. The Hindoo Arunas, charioteer of the sun (or even the brother of the sun himself, inasmuch as he is the brother of Garudas, the solar bird), is said to be born with an imperfect body;[555] he can be luminous and divine only in part. The black horse, on the contrary, has generally an evil and demoniacal nature; the black horse corresponds to the black devil; the colour black itself is, according to popular superstition, the product of bad humours.[556] Every horse, when born, has, according to Maestro Agostino, a piece of black flesh upon its lips, called hippomanes by the Greeks: "La quale carne dici lo vulgo essere molto sospettosa a li maleficii." Maestro Agostino adds, moreover, that the mother refuses to give suck to the colt as long as it carries this piece of flesh upon its lips, and some say that the mother herself eats it. In an idyll of Theokritos, we read that the Hippomanes is born among the Arcadians, and maddens colts and swift mares.[557] In the first chapter we mentioned the Russian _damavoi_, the demon who, during the night, rides upon cows, oxen, and horses, and makes them perspire. This superstition was already combated in Italy in the sixteenth century by Maestro Agostino;[558] and to it can probably be traced the custom, still observed by many grooms, of leaving a lamp lighted in the stable during the night. The devil, as is well known, is afraid of the light (Agnis is called rakshohan, or monster-killer), and his black horse likewise. It is therefore a sinister omen, according to two verses in _Suidas_,[559] to dream of black horses, whilst, on the contrary, it is a good omen to dream of white ones. In the Norman legend of the priest Walchelm, a black horse presents itself to him in the first days of January of the year 1091, and tempts him to mount upon its back; scarcely has Walchelm done so, than the black horse sets off for hell.[560] The dead, too, according to the popular belief, often ride upon black or demoniacal horses.[561]

A well-known Russian story in verse, the _Kaniok Garbunok_, or _Little Hump-backed Horse_, of Jershoff, commences thus:--An old man has three sons, the youngest of which is the usual Ivan Durįk, or Ivan the fool. The old man finds his corn-field devastated every morning; he wishes to find out who the devastator is, and sends his first-born son to watch the first night. The first-born has drunk too much, and falls asleep, and so does the second son, and from the same cause, on the second night. On the third night it is Ivan's turn to watch; he does not fall asleep. At midnight he sees a mare which breathes flames coming. Ivan ties her by a rope, leaps upon her, seizes her by the mane, torments and subdues her, until the mare, to be let free, promises to give Ivan one of her young ones, and carries him to the stable where her three young ones are. She gives Ivan a little hump-backed horse with long ears (the Hindoo Uccāihsravas), that flies. By means of this little hump-backed horse, Ivan will make his fortune; when he leads it away, the mare and the two other colts follow it. Ivan's two brothers steal the mare and two colts, and go to sell them to the Sultan. Ivan rejoins them, and the three brothers stay in the Sultan's service as grooms; sometime afterwards, Ivan saves himself from drowning by means of his horse.

In the third of _Erlenwein's_ Russian stories, a stallion is born to the Tzar's mare, that had drunk the water in which a certain fish (a pike, in the nineteenth story) had been washed, at the same time as the Tzar's daughter and her maid give birth to two heroes, Ivan Tzarevic and Ivan Dievic--_i.e._, John of the Tzar and John of the girl, a form representing the Aēvināu. Ivan Tzarevic rides upon the stallion. In the nineteenth story, the son of the mare is called Demetrius of the Tzar (Dmitri Tzarevic); hero and horse being identified. In the fifth story of _Erlenwein_, a Cossack goes into the forest, where he is betrayed into the enemy's hands, who gives orders that he be cut in pieces, put into a sack, and attached to his horse. The horse starts, and carries him to the house of silver and gold, where he is resuscitated. During the following night, an old man and woman, whose guest the Cossack is, drag him, in order to waken him, by the cross which hangs on his neck, and he is thus transformed into a horse of gold and silver. Towards evening, the horse, by the Tzar's order, is killed, and (like the bull and the cow) becomes an apple-tree of silver and gold. The apple-tree is cut down, and becomes a golden duck. The golden duck is the same as the golden horse, or as the hero resuscitated, _i.e._, the morning sun. The sack and the horse which carry the hero cut in pieces represent the voyage of the sun in the gloom of night, or the voyage of the grey horse, the imperfect horse, the bastard mule, or the ass.

In the Russian tales, moreover, a distinction is made between the grey and the black horse; the grey horse helps the hero in the night very effectively, and the black one, on the contrary, is the herald of death. When, in the ninth story of _Erlenwein_, the horse of Ivan the merchant's son goes to search for the horses of the princess from beyond the sea, Ivan waits for him upon the shore. If he sees grey horses come forth, it is to be a sign that his own steed is alive; but if, on the other hand, black horses appear, he is to conclude that his own horse is dead. Grey is the colour of sadness, black is the colour of death.

In _Afanassieff_, we find new interesting data. Ivan the fool watches during the night to surprise the horse which devastates his father's crops, and succeeds in binding it with rods from a linden-tree, after it has smelt the odour of tobacco. Then, by the help of the sister of the hero Nikanore, it acquires the faculty, when running after cows and horses, of turning their tails into gold, as well as their horns or manes, and their flanks into stars. What better image could there be of the starry sky of night, the golden tail of which is the red evening, and the front parts, also of gold, the morning aurora?[562]

In another story,[563] we have Ivan the son of the bitch occupying the place and playing the part of Ivan the son of the mare. Ivan of the bitch, after having delivered the three princesses from the deep cistern, is himself thrown into it. The black horse comes to deliver him, and cannot; the grey horse comes, and cannot either; the red horse comes, and succeeds in dragging the hero out. The black horse represents the dark night, the grey horse the night beginning to clear, and the red horse the roseate morning, which delivers the sun or solar hero.

The third brother Ivan, mounted on a marvellous horse, comes first to the bronze castle, then to the silver one, and lastly to that of gold.[564] This is a variety of the same myth, and represents similarly the solar voyage from evening to morning. The next mythical legend, however, probably alludes rather to the three days of the winter solstice, which the sun takes to return. The hero, Theodore, finds a horse that has been just brought forth, which the wolves have driven towards him; he makes it pasture upon the dew for three dawns (like the Hungarian Tįtos, who feeds upon the golden oats in a silver field, that is to say, who, during the silvery night, or else during the white dawn, or the snowy winter, absorbs the dewy humours of the spring, or the morning aurora). The first day, the young horse becomes as high as half a tree; the second, higher than the tree; the third day it is as high as the heavens, and bears the hero Theodore and his wife Anastasia on its back.

Ivan Durįk watches three nights at his father's tomb.[565] His father tells him that if at any time of need he calls with a hero's whistle, a wonderful grey horse will appear to help him, whose eyes shoot flames, and from whose nostrils issues smoke. Ivan does so, and is answered; he gets into his right ear, and comes out of the left. By means of this horse, Ivan succeeds in taking down the portrait of the Tzar's daughter three times, though hung high up on the wall of the palace, and thus obtains the beautiful princess to wife.

According to another variety of this story,[566] Ivan, the third and foolish brother, goes with the most worthless jade in the stable into the open air, and calls up the grey horse with a loud shout; he enters into him by one ear, and comes out at the other. Two young horsemen (the Aēvināu) appear to him, and make a horse with golden mane and tail come forth; upon this horse Ivan succeeds in three times kissing, through twelve glasses (the glass mountain of the Esthonian story), the daughter of the Tzar, who therefore becomes his wife. Here, therefore, we find the ugly horse which is made beautiful by the two horsemen, represented by the two ears of the grey horse out of which they come. These two horsemen give the hero a better steed. Be it understood that their own heroic steed (that is, the sun's horse), from being ugly or asinine during the night, became beautiful and noble; in the Küllaros of the Dioscuri, too, we ought probably to recognise a courser that has been transformed from an ass to a heroic horse.

Sometimes, instead of the horse, we have only its head. The step-mother persecutes the old man's daughter;[567] the persecuted maiden finds a mare's head, which beseeches her to relieve and cover it; at last it invites her to enter the right ear and come out of the left one. The persecuted girl comes out in the form of an exceedingly beautiful maiden. The step-mother sends her own daughter to try the same means of becoming beautiful; but she maltreats the mare's head, and the mare's head devours her.

There is also a singularly clear allusion to the Aēvināu in the forty-fourth story of the fifth book of _Afanassieff_, which seems to me to be a full confirmation of these interpretations. When Basiliēa, the girl persecuted by her step-mother, approaches the house of the old witch (the baba-jegį), she sees galloping towards the great door of it a black horseman, dressed all in black, upon a black horse, who disappears underground, upon which night begins.[568] When the day begins to appear, Basiliēa sees before her a white horseman, dressed all in white, upon a white horse, caparisoned in white. The maiden goes on; when the sun begins to rise, she sees a red horseman, dressed in red, upon a red horse.[569] The myth does not require comment; but it happens to be given to us in the story itself by the witch, who, to appease the curiosity of the girl Basiliēa, reveals to her that the black horseman represents the dark night (noc tiómnaja), the white horseman the clear day (dien jasnoi), and the red horseman the little red sun (solnishko krasnoje).

Returning from Slavonic to Asiatic tradition, we meet with the same myths.

Let us begin with the demoniacal horse, or demon of horses. The _Rigvedas_ already knows it; the yātudhanas, or monster, feeds now upon human flesh (like the Bucephalus of the legend of Alexander), now upon horse flesh, and now milk from cows. We have said it seems probable that the custom of keeping a lamp lighted in the stables is a form of exorcism against the demon; the _Rigvedas_, indeed, tells us that Agnis (that is, Fire, with his flame) cuts off the heads of such monsters.[570] But this is not enough; the _Rigvedas_ offers us in the same hymn the proof of another identification. We have seen in the last chapter how Rebhas, the invoker, is the third brother, whom his envious and perfidious brothers threw into the well; and we have seen above how Ivan, who is also the third brother, invokes with a sonorous voice the grey horse which is to help him, and how the same Ivan is the one that discovers the monstrous horse which ravages the seed or the crops in his father's field. In the same Vedic hymn where the flame of Agnis beats down the heads of the monster that torments horses, Agnis (that is, fire) is invoked in order that the hero Rebhas may see the monster which devastates with its claws.[571] Rebhas and Bhugyus are two names of the hero who falls into the cistern in the _Rigvedas_. We have seen, not long ago, in the Russian story, that Ivan, the third brother, who is thrown down into the cistern, is delivered by the red horse. The Aēvināu, in the _Rigvedas_, deliver Bhugyus out of the sea by means of red-winged horses.[572] Here the grey and imperfect horse of night is become a red horse. In the same Vedic hymn, Rebhas, overwhelmed in the waters, is identified with his own horse (Ivan is son of the bitch, or the cow, or the mare), he being compared to a horse hidden by wicked ones.[573]

We saw above, in the Russian story, how the two horsemen who come out of the grey horse's ear give to the foolish Ivan, who has an ugly and worthless horse, a handsome hero's palfrey, by means of which he accomplishes the arduous undertakings which entitle him to the hand of the king's daughter. It is remarkable how completely the Vedic myth agrees with this European legend. The Aēvināu have given, for his eternal happiness, a luminous horse to him who has a bad one.[574] In another hymn, the god Agnis gives to his worshipper a pious, truthful, invincible, and very glorious son, who vanquishes heroes, and a swift, victorious, and unconquered horse.[575]

We have seen, moreover, how Ivan, the most popular type of the Russian hero, has always to make three essays before he accomplishes his undertaking upon the wonderful horse which he has obtained from the two horsemen. The _Rigvedas_, which celebrates the famous mythical enterprise of the three steps of Vishnus, of the great body (brihaccharīrah),[576] of the very vast step (urukramishtah),[577] who, in three steps, measured or traversed the whole span of the heavens,[578] betrays in another hymn the secret of Vishnus's success in this divine enterprise, since it says that when, with the strength of Indras, he made his three steps, he was drawn by the two fair-haired horses of Indras[579] (that is, the two Aēvināu lent him the swift and strong horse which was to bear him on to victory). The three steps of Vishnus correspond, therefore, to the three stations of Ivan, to the three races of the young hero to win the beautiful princess. Vishnus also appears in the _Rāmāyanam_,[580] in the midst of the sea of liquified butter, attractive to all beings, in the form of a horse's head. Hero and the solar or lunar horse are identified.

Indras is requested to yoke his right and his left (horses), to approach, inebriated, his dear wife.[581] By means of the horse obtained from the two horsemen, the Russian Ivan acquires his wife; in the _Rigvedas_, the two Aēvināu themselves, by means of their rapid chariot, became husbands of the daughter of the sun.[582] The horses of the sun are so fully identified with the chariot drawn by them, that they are said to be dependent on it, united with it, and almost born of it.[583] The Aēvināu, therefore, by means of the horse now enable the wife to be found by the solar hero, by the old Cyavanas made young again (Tithōn),[584] now by the sun, and now find her themselves (perhaps drawing the chariot like horses). Rāmas, too, who is represented in the _Rāmāyanam_[585] as the deliverer of Sītā, is compared to the solar horse, to the sun born upon the mountain.

We have seen in the Russian stories how the horse's head possesses the same magic power as the marvellous horse which the two horsemen give to the hero Ivan. Thus, in the Vedic myth, and in the corresponding brāhmanic tradition, the horse's head Dadhyanc stands in direct relation with the myth of the Aēvināu. The wise Dadhyanc shows himself pious towards the Aēvināu, to whom, although he knows that he will pay with his head for the revelation he makes, he communicates what he knows concerning the ambrosia or the Madhuvidyā. For this, accordingly, Dadhyanc forfeits his head; but the Aēvināu present him with a horse's head (his own), which heroically achieves wonders. With the bones of Dadhyanc, or with the head of the horse Dadhyanc (he who walks in butter or ambrosia), fished up in the ambrosial lake Ēaryanāvat (the head of the horse Vishnus in the sea of butter),[586] Indras discomfits the ninety-nine hostile monsters (as Samson the Philistines with the jawbone of an ass).[587] This exchange of heads seems to be common to the traditions which are founded upon the myth of the Aēvināu, that is, to the legends of the two brother or companion heroes. In the _Tuti-Name_,[588] the heads of the prince and of the Brāhman, who are exceedingly like each other, are cut off and then fastened on again; but, by some mistake, the head of the one is attached to the body of the other, so that the prince's wife is embarrassed between them. This exchange of the husband (which corresponds to the exchange of the wife in the legend of Berta, referred to in the first chapter) is very frequent in the legend of the two brothers, and often ends in the rupture of the perfect concord reigning between them. The two brothers or companions who dispute about the wife, is a variety of the legend of the three brothers who, having delivered the beautiful princess, wish to divide her between them.

The _Rigvedas_ does not seem as yet explicitly to exhibit the two Aēvināu at discord--they generally are united in doing good; but as we already know the Vedic blind man and lame man who are cured by the grace of Indras, or of the Aēvināu themselves; as we know that the Aēvināu, in the _Rigvedas_, make Dadhyanc, who has a horse's head, conduct them to the ambrosia, or indicate where it is, probably in order that they may procure health and strength for themselves; as in the ninth strophe of the 117th hymn of the first book of the _Rigvedas_, the marvellous horse of the Aēvināu, which kills the monster-serpent (ahihan), is but one; as we know that the Aēvināu run to gain the bride for themselves; and as we cannot ignore the fact that in the story of the blind and lame man, when a woman comes upon the scene, they endeavour to do harm to each other; as we know that of the two Hellenic brothers, the Dioscuri, one alone had from the gods the gift of immortality; as, finally, it is known to us that of the two brothers, he alone is the true hero who, by means of his horse, gains the victory over the monster,--it is clear that if we have not as yet in the _Rigvedas_ the myth of the two brothers at discord, we have, at least, in the ambrosia, and in the bride won by them the origin of the myth already indicated; and from the idea of the privileged brother that of the envious one would naturally arise.

In Hesiod's _Theogony_ we have the two brothers Chrysäor and Pźgasos, that come out of the Medusa (the evening aurora), who is made pregnant by Poseidōn, after Perseus has cut off her head. Pźgasos, the younger brother, becomes the heroic horse. In Hesiod himself, and in the _Metamorphoses_ of Ovid, he carries the thunder and the thunderbolts for Zeus. The hero Bellerophontes rides him, and vanquishes, by his help, the Chimaira and the Amazons; he becomes the horse of the aurora, the horse of the Muses, the ambrosial steed. The monstrous Chimaira appears, in the _Theogony_ of Hesiod, as the daughter of Typhaon and the Echidna, the monstrous daughter of Chrysäor. Therefore in the conflict which Bellerophontes maintains against the Chimaira, we have a form of the battle which goes on between the twin horses Pźgasos and Chrysäor, the one divine, the other demoniacal.

In the analogous myth of the Hellenic Dioscuri (the sons of the luminous one, _i.e._, of Zeus, just as the Vedic Aēvināu are the sons of the luminous sky;[589] Zeus is united with the Dioscuri, as Indras is with the Aēvināu), we again find the twins who fight to recover a woman who had been carried off from them, _i.e._, their own sister Helen. One of the two brothers is mortal, and the other immortal; he who is immortal passes the night in hell with his mortal brother. The double aspect of the sun, which at evening enters and loses itself in the night, now black, now illumined by the moon, and which, in the morning, comes forth in a luminous form, has enriched the story of the two brothers of mythology. One of the two brothers, the red horseman, is in especial relation with the morning sun; the other, in intimate connection with the silvery moon, the white horseman, and when the latter is amissing, with the infernal gloom.

Several mythologists have interpreted the Aēvināu as only the two twilights; but it seems more exact, inasmuch as they are often found together, whilst the two twilights are always apart, to recognise in them two crepuscular lights, the lunar of evening and autumn, and the solar of morning and spring.[590] Of the twin-brothers, one is always imperfect; the lunar crepuscular light offers us a similar imperfection, with respect to the sun. Inasmuch as the Aēvināu are affiliated both to the sun and the moon, when they come out of the two ears of the horse of night, we should understand, it would appear, that on one side the moon goes down, while on the other the sun is born, or that the solar horse arises, upon which the young hero lost in the night mounts and wins the princess aurora. In the Russian stories referred to in the preceding chapter, we have seen how the maiden abandons her hero-husband, or brother, to give herself into the monster's hands; the evening aurora forsakes the sun to throw herself into the night, and the evening twilight stays for a long time with the evening aurora (the reddish sky of evening), when the sun is already gone. In the morning the two lovers, the twilight, or sun and moon, and the aurora, meet once more; when the sun, or solar hero, arrives, he surprises them _in flagrante delicto_, and punishes them. Sometimes, on the contrary, the twilight and the aurora stay together, preserving their chastity; in this case the brother twilight figures as the good and honest guardian of the rights of his brother the sun. This appears to me to have been the most ancient, as it is the most subtle, interpretation of the myth; afterwards, it is possible, and even probable, that in the two Aēvināu only the two gods of morning and of evening were seen, with their respective twilights, considered as two brothers, so like that they were easily mistaken for each other. But from the data of the Russian story, which gives us the lunar twilight as a white horseman and the rising sun as a red one, the aurora being found exactly between the white and the red horsemen, between the moon or the white dawn (alba) and the sunrise, and seeing that the _Rigvedas_, which makes the aurora mount upon the chariot of the Aēvināu, considers them in the celebrated nuptial hymn as the _paranymphoi_ of Sūryā, the daughter of the sun or of the aurora herself, I venture to insist upon my interpretation as the most obvious, and perhaps the most logical one. The two brothers may very naturally be conceived of as contending for the possession of the bride when they have her between them, since the Aēvināu, considered as lunar light and sun, really take the aurora between them. The Vedic hymn cited above shows us how both the Aēvināu, arriving on the swift-running chariot, became the husbands of Sūryā, the daughter of the sun. But this very Sūryā, in the Vedic nuptial hymn, must be satisfied with one husband, who is called Somas, so that the Aēvināu can only occupy the place of paranymphs. The Aēvināu, therefore, would appear to be excluded from the wedding of Sūryā as principal personages; they would seem to be nothing more than assistants, and, in fact, they often assume this part in the Vedic hymns, by enabling now the bride to find a husband, now the husband to recover his bride. We know already that by means of them Cyavanas, the old sun (a Vedic Tithōn), became young again, and was able to espouse the aurora. We know that they gave sight to Vandanas (properly, the Face), that they made the blind see,[591] the lame walk, and performed sundry other works of charity, which would, however, have been much more glorious if these acts did not, in fact, always issue in benefit to themselves, as blind, lame, or drowned. It is hence very probable that when they give a bride to the hero, they, being now lunar, now solar heroes, do only appropriate her to themselves. When, therefore, we read that the Aēvināu assist as paranymphs at the nuptials of Sūryā and Somas, we are much inclined to think that under Somas in this case one of the Aēvināu is hidden. In Indras and Somas, often sung of together in the _Rigvedas_, it seems to me that we have just another form of the Aēvināu, the more so because I also find them both, like the Aēvināu, personified in one and the same horse, whose back is covered with honey, and who is terrible and swift,[592] and because they are invoked together against the yātudhānas, which, by the grace of the Aēvināu, the hero Rebhas succeeds in discovering and then chasing away.[593] The _Tāittiriya_ _Brāhmanam_[594] represents to us the daughter of the sun (Sāvitrī) by the name of Sītā, as enamoured of Somas, who, on the contrary, loves another woman, the Ēraddhā (_i.e._, Faith), almost as if the daughter of the sun, the aurora, were, for him at least, a symbol of infidelity. Probably this embryo of a myth refers to the passage of the aurora, in the morning, from her amours with the white horseman (the white twilight), which, as we have said, was supposed to be in particular relation with the moon (Somas), to her amours with the red horseman (the sun), or, _vice versa_, to the aurora who, in the evening, abandons the red horseman, the sun (now her father, now her husband), to throw herself into the arms of the white horseman, the white twilight, the king Somas, or silver god Lunus. Moreover, Yāskas, in the _Niruktam_,[595] already notices that the Aēvināu were identified now with the day and the night,[596] now with the sun and the moon.

When, therefore, we read that the Aēvināu obtained for their wife the daughter of the sun, and when we learn that she chose both for husbands,[597] we must interpret the passage with discrimination, and conclude that one of them was sometimes preferred, inasmuch as the Vedic nuptial hymn speaks of only one husband of Sūryā, with the name of Somas, with whom, as we have said, Yāskas identifies one of the Aēvināu. We read in _Pausanias_ that, among the Greek usages, when the bride was conducted to the bridegroom's house, she was accustomed to mount a chariot and sit down in the middle, having the bridegroom on one side, and on the other her nearest relation as paranymphos. The preference given to one of the two brothers over the other is naturally suggestive of a contention between them; however, as I say, the _Rigvedas_, which offers us already the myth of the third brother abandoned in the well by his relations, does not record any example of an open strife between the two brothers (_i.e._, the Aēvināu, the lunar and the solar light).

An evidently Hindoo variation of this myth is contained in the well-known episode of the _Mahābhāratam_, which relates the adventures of Sundas and Upasundas, two inseparable brothers, who lived together in love and concord, each being ruled by the will of the other, and who had never all their lives either said or done anything to displease each other. The gods become envious of their virtue, and wish to prove it, and send to seduce them a nymph of enchanting beauty. The two brothers, on seeing her, desire each the exclusive possession of the divine maiden, and strive between themselves to carry her off. They fight so long and so desperately that they both die (the moon and the sun see the aurora in the morning, and dispute for her; they see her again in the evening, and fight so long that they both perish miserably, and die in the night). The gods who are envious of the virtue of the two brothers Sundas and Upasundas, are the same as those who, envying the good which the Aēvināu do to mankind, treat them as celestial Ēudrās, under the pretext that they pollute themselves by their contact with men, and refuse to admit them, being impure, to the sacrifices.[598]

In the twin brothers, Nakulas and Saladevas, sons of the Aēvināu, the Aēvināu themselves revive again, are made better, according to the expression of the first book of the _Mahābhāratam_. The first-born, Nakulas, too, is perhaps the real Aēvin who kills the monster. Nakulas is the name given to the _viverra ichneumon_, the mortal enemy of the serpents, which refers us back to the horse Ahihan (or killer of the serpent), as the horse of the Aēvināu, or perhaps rather of one of the Aēvināu, is called, in the _Rigvedas_. Of the two Dioscuri, moreover, one alone is especially the horseman; the other is the valiant in combat.[599] The mortal brother, he who has to remain in hell, and who has to fight the monsters of night, is Castor the horseman. Pollux, the strong-armed, is, on the contrary, the immortal one, the daily sun, he who profits from the victory obtained by his brother who has fought in the night, during which the Gandharvās (the horses in the perfumes, they who walk in perfume) also ride upon war-horses, heroic, invulnerable, divine, exceedingly swift, who change colour at will--the Gandharvās, whose strength increases during the night, as one of them informs Argunas in the _Mahābhāratam_, when communicating to him Gandharvic knowledge.[600]

In the _Rāmāyanam_, the two brothers Rāmas and Lakshmanas are compared to the Aēvināu, to the sun and moon, as similar the one to the other; and their reciprocal love reminds us of that of the Aēvināu.[601] Rāmas and Lakshmanas are always at peace with each other; there is, however, a passage which may serve as a link to connect the myth of the two friendly brothers and that of the two hostile ones. When Rāmas combats alone in the forest thousands of monsters, Lakshmanas stays with Sītā, hidden in a cavern.

But the _Rāmāyanam_ itself shows us the two brothers in open strife in the legend of the two brothers Bālin and Sugrīvas, children of the sun, beauteous as the two Aēvināu, so perfectly like one another that it is impossible to distinguish one from the other; and so that when Rāmas, to please Sugrīvas, wishes to kill Bālin, he does not know which to strike, until Sugrīvas puts a garland on his head as a sign of recognition.[602] Once Bālin and Sugrīvas were intimate friends, but, on account of a woman, they became mortal enemies. Sugrīvas complains that Bālin, his elder brother, has deprived him of his wife Rumā;[603] but it is not certain that Sugrīvas did not rather steal Bālin's wife. Bālin seems especially to represent the evening sun; the _Rāmāyanam_[604] says of him that, while the sun is not risen (_i.e._, in the night), he is unweariedly passing from the western to the eastern ocean; by this is described the supposed voyage of the sun in the ocean of night, in the grotto or the darkness. When Bālin is in the grotto, he is betrayed by his brother Sugrīvas. The two brothers, Bālin and Sugrīvas, while still friends, set out together to follow the monster Māyāvin (the brother of Dundubhis, who, in the _Rāmāyanam_ itself,[605] fights in the shape of a demoniacal buffalo against Bālin, near the entrance of the cave). The moon rises to show them the way. The monster escapes into the cavern, upon which Bālin enters and follows him, whilst Sugrīvas remains without, awaiting his return. After waiting a long time, Sugrīvas sees blood flow out of the cave (in analogous legends, instead of blood, it is a treasure, or else a princess or a beautiful maiden comes out in shining garments). This is the blood of the monster, killed by Bālin; but Sugrīvas believes it to be that of his brother Bālin. He returns home, and showing his sorrow in public, declares that Bālin is dead, and allows himself to be consecrated king in his stead (probably also enjoying with the crown the wife of his brother). Meanwhile Bālin, after having killed the monster Māyāvin, endeavours to come out of the cavern, but he finds the entrance closed. Attributing at once this wicked action to the brother Sugrīvas, he succeeds, after great efforts, in effecting an opening; he comes out, returns to the palace, and expels Sugrīvas from it, whom he persecutes ever after.[606] Even Ańgadas, Bālin's son, irritated one day with Sugrīvas, accuses him of having once shut up his brother Bālin in the cave, in order to possess himself of the latter's wife.

In the _Avesta_, the name and the myth of Kereēāēpa seems to me to be of special interest. To the Zend word _kereēāēpa_ corresponds the Sanskrit _kriēāēvas_ (the name of a warlike rishis and hero), that is, he of the lean horse. The hero Kereēāēpa has, in the _Avesta_, a brother called Urvāksha (a word which is perhaps the same as _urvāēpa_, and, if this equivalence is admitted, _urvāksha_ would mean him of the fat or great horse, of the heroic horse.[607] We have already noticed that the Vedic and Slavonic hero begins his fortune with an ugly and bad horse; the hero Kereēāēpa, too, of the two brothers of the Zend myth, is the good, the heroic, and truly glorious one. His brother, Urvāksha, according to a Parsee tradition,[608] was banished to hell because he had struck the fire which did not obey his commands (the evening sun which descends into the infernal night); Kereēāēpa avenges him. This is evidently a Persian form of the myth of the Dioscuri, who, as it seems to me, reappear once more in the two Zend brothers, Gustāēp and Aēpāyaodha (he who fights with the horse).

In the epic poem of Firdusi, the two brothers Piran and Pilsem, who fight together against the Turanians, and of whom the former and elder delivers the latter and younger from the dangers that he is exposed to among the enemies, seem to me re-embodiments of the same myth.

We find the cloudy or tenebrous sky of night represented in the _Rigvedas_ and in the _Avesta_ as aēman, or mountain of stone. When the evening sun falls upon the mountain, it turns to stone, and the whole sky assumes the colour of this mountain. When the hero of the popular story follows the monster, the latter hides under a rock; the hero lifts up the rock and descends into the grotto, that is, hides himself in the mountain of stone, or is turned to stone, and if he has a horse, it undergoes the same transformation.

In the story of Merhuma, who is stoned (the aurora lost in the mountain of stone), in the _Tuti-Name_,[609] we have the brother possessed by a demon, who seduces the wife of his brother, who is travelling abroad. In that of Mansūr, in the same _Tuti-Name_,[610] the monstrous Fari assumes the very shape of the absent husband, and succeeds in seducing his wife. In another story in the _Tuti-Name_,[611] two brothers, finding themselves deceived in their expectations, set out together, each, for love of the other, wandering about the world in search of a better fate. These are three forms of the myth of the Aēvināu. With them is connected the story of the maiden who comes out of the wood, of whom as many men, when she appears, become enamoured.[612]

The fifth Calmuck story (of Hindoo origin) is unmistakably a reproduction of the myth of the Aēvināu, even to the very mythical names themselves. The king, Kun-snang (he who illumines all, like the Vedic Viēvavedas and the Slavonic Vsievedas, the all-seer), has by two different mothers two sons--Sunlight (born in the year of the tiger; perhaps in the sol-leo, in July, in summer, under the solar influence) and Moonlight. The second wife does not love her step-son Sunlight, and persecutes him, but the two brothers are devoted to each other, and when Sunlight goes into exile (like Rāmas), Moonlight follows him (as Lakshmanas follows Rāmas, as the white lunar twilight follows the sun in the forest of night). On the way, Moonlight is thirsty; Sunlight goes to find water for him, but in the meantime Moonlight dies.[613] Sunlight returns, and is in despair at the sight of his dead brother; however, a hermit has pity upon him, and, having resuscitated Moonlight, adopts the two brothers as his own sons. Near his abode there is a kingdom where the dragons keep back the waters, unless they are given a young man born in the year of the tiger. It oozes out that Sunlight is such a young man, and he is led away to the king of that country. The daughter of the king falls in love with him, and begs Sunlight not to be given to the dragons. The king is furious against his daughter, and has her thrown with Sunlight into the swamp where the dragons are.[614] The young couple break out into such piteous lamentations, that the dragons are touched, and let Sunlight and the young princess go free. When free, they find Moonlight, who also becomes the husband of the beautiful princess, the two brothers being inseparable, like the Vedic Aēvināu. The three personages (white twilight, or white moonlight, aurora, and sun) return together into the kingdom of their birth, where, upon seeing them arrive, Sunlight's step-mother (Night) dies of terror. Here the legend has all its mythical splendour.

In the sixteenth Mongol story, on the contrary, the friendship of the two companions cannot last, because of the perfidy of one of them; while they are travelling in the forest, the minister's son kills the king's son.

In the history of _Ardshi-Bordshi_, the two men born in the palace are so like each other in everything, in shape, complexion, dress, and horses, that they cannot be distinguished one from the other; hence they dispute between themselves for the possession of everything, of wife and sons. One is made like the other by witchcraft; he is the son of a demon; and it is the marvellous king of the children who discovers the secret.[615]

This exchange of husbands, or heroes, by means of demoniacal craft, often occurs in European fairy-tales, like the exchange of wives. The demon is now a water-carrier, now a washerman, now a woodcutter, now a charcoal-burner, now a gipsy, now a Saracen, and now the devil _in propria persona_.

The Russian fairy-tales show us the two forms of the two brothers or companions, _i.e._, the two that remain friends _usque ad mortem_, and the friend betrayed by his perfidious companion.

We find a zoological form of the legend of the two friends in one of Afanassieff's stories. The horse delivers the child of one of his masters from the bear, upon which his grateful masters feed him better, whereas before they had almost let him die of starvation. The horse (the sun) remembers in prosperity his companion in misfortune, the cat (the moon), who is also allowed to starve, and gives it a part of what he receives from his masters. The latter perceive this, and again ill-treat the horse, who then forms the resolution of killing himself, in order that the cat may eat him; but the cat refuses to eat his friend the horse,[616] and is also determined to die.

The two brothers who, because they have eaten one the head and the other the heart of a duck, are predestined, in _Afanassieff_,[617] one to be king and the other to spit gold, flee from their perfidious mother (probably step-mother), who persecutes them in their father's absence. They meet with a cowherd taking his cows to the pasturage, and are hospitably entertained by him. Then, continuing their journey, they come to a place where two roads meet, where, upon a pillar, this is written, "He who goes to the right (to the east) will become a king; he who goes to the left (to the west, into the kingdom of Kuveras, the western sun, the god of riches; when the sun rises in the east the moon goes down in the west) will become rich." One goes to the right; when it is morning, he rises, washes, and dresses himself. He learns that the old king is dead (the old sun), and that funeral honours are being paid to him in church. A decree says that he whose candle lights of itself will be the new Tzar.[618] The Vedic god also has the distinctive attribute of this wonderful candle, that of being lighted by himself, of shining of himself, _i.e._, he is svabhānus. The candle, therefore, of our youth predestined to be king lights of its own accord, and he is immediately proclaimed the new king. The daughter of the old king (the aurora) marries him, recognising in him her predestined husband, and makes with her golden ring (the solar disc) a mark upon his forehead (as Rāmas does with Sītā). The young man (the sun), after having remained some time with his bride (the aurora), wishes to go towards the part where his brother went (that is, to the left, to the west). He traverses for a long time different countries (_i.e._, the sun describes the whole arc of heaven which arches over the earth), and finds at last (in the western sky, towards the setting sun) his brother, who lives in great wealth. In his rooms whole mountains of gold arise; when he spits, all is gold; there is no place to put it,[619] (the evening sky is one mass of gold). The two brothers then set out together to find their poor old father (the sun during the night). The younger brother goes to find for himself a bride (probably the silvery moon), and the wicked mother (the step-mother, night) is forsaken. Here, too, the legend is entirely of a mythical character. In the two brothers we see now twilight and sun, now the two twilights, now the spring and autumnal lights, now the sun and the moon, but always the Aēvināu, always two deities, two heavenly beings closely connected with the phenomena of the lunar and solar light.

And here allow me to say that I deem it enough for me to collect in one body legends which betray a common origin; as to explaining all mythology in the legends, this is beyond my power, and therefore outside my pretensions. I only point out, as I proceed, interpretations which I think come near the truth; but the objects embodied in mythology are so mobile and multiform, that, if grasped too tightly, they easily evaporate and disappear. Their richness consists in their very mobility and uncertainty. If the sun and moon were always seen in the same place, there would be no myths. The myths which originated the greatest number of legends are those which are founded upon the most fleeting phenomena of the sky.[620] The myth of the Aēvināu cannot be solved by mathematical demonstrations, precisely on account of the uncertainty presented by the crepuscular light which probably gave rise to it. This continuous succession of shadows, penumbrę, chiaroscuri, and shades of light, from the black darkness to the silver moon, from the silver moon to the grey twilight of morning, which gradually melts into, and confounds itself with the dawn, from the dawn to the aurora, from the aurora to the sun; the same variations recurring, but inversely, in the evening, from the dying sun to the reddish and blood-coloured sky or evening aurora, from the evening aurora to the grey twilight, from the grey twilight to the silver moon, from the silver moon to the gloomy night,--this continual change of colours, which meet, unite with, and pass into each other, originated the idea of celestial companions, friends, or relations, who are now in unison and now separate, who now approach to love each other, to move together and affectionately follow each other, now rush upon each other to fight, despoil, betray, and destroy each other turn by turn, who now attract and are now attracted, are now seduced and now seducers, now cheated and now deceivers, now victims, now sacrificers. Where there is a family, there is love, hence come exemplary brothers, husbands, wives, sons, daughters, fathers, and mothers, full of tenderness; that is the obverse of the medal: where there are relations, there are disputes, hence contentions between brothers, out of jealousy in love, or envy of riches; perverse mothers-in-law, step-mothers, and sisters-in-law, tyrannous fathers, perfidious wives; that is the reverse. This contradiction of feelings is difficult to explain psychologically even in man; how much more, therefore, is it so when it has to be analysed in a mythical image, which assumes an animal form in one rapid flash of imagination, and then disappears? On this account, in the case of some myths, we must content ourselves with a general demonstration, at least until new and positive data appear, on which it may be possible to base, in a solid foundation, the real nature of the details of mythology. In the absence of these data, we can only offer probabilities, and not rules to the reader. As to the Vedic Aēvināu, this much is certain: they are found in unison with their wife, the aurora, after having passed through the dangers of night, or after having enabled the heroes protected by them--that is to say, their own heroic forms--to pass through them; they are two splendid brother-horsemen; and they are especially invoked in the first hours of morning. The myth in this Vedic form would not appear to be of dubious interpretation. The white moon and the sun take the aurora between them, that is, marry her; or else they present her in marriage to Somas (with whom one of the Aēvināu, the white light or twilight, is in particular relation), in the quality of paranymphs. The aurora, in the morning, as well as in the evening, taken between the sun and the moon, disappears. One would think that the twilight and the sun present her together at the same time to the king or god Somas, or Lunus, for whom the daughter of the sun has affection. One would also think that she was especially united with the twilight, which is in especial relation with Somas, observing how in the morning the aurora immediately succeeds the twilight, and disappears when the sun shows himself, that is, rejoins the twilight and forsakes the sun; and how in the evening, when the sun hides himself, or when her husband is absent, she again unites herself with the twilight, with whom she again flees and disappears, to reappear once more with him in the morning. To continue; the absence of the sun during the night tormented the popular phantasy in several ways. As much as the aspect of the sky was negative with regard to the mythical hero--that is to say, as much as the hero or god hides himself from the view--just so much the more does popular imagination invest him with positive qualities and exalt his greatness. The greatest of all deities is that which is seen the least;--would that Roman Catholic priests understood this mythological truth! Indras and Zeus are great when within the thundering and lightning cloud. The sun becomes a hero when he loses himself in the darkness of night and in the cloud. But it is just at this very point that the demonstration of mythical particulars becomes more difficult, because the myths are now founded, not merely upon an external appearance or image, but often upon a simple subjective hypothesis; and while the ancient image, possessing an objectivity irrespective of the subject, can always be reconciled with the observation of the new celestial phenomena which reproduce it, the subjective hypothesis, being an individual phantasy, is lost. The demonstration is therefore possible only in the essential parts. When the sun was seen to disappear in the nocturnal sky, this sky appeared in the various aspects of an ocean, a mountain, a forest, a cavern, or a voracious monster which devoured the hero. But has the sun lost himself by accident, or has he been precipitated into the night by the aurora and her crepuscular lover, perfidiously united together, in order that they may have more freedom in their loves? This is a dilemma of which the two solutions originate a double series of legends,--the brother betrayed by the brother, and the hero who goes to succour his unfortunate brother fallen into the power of the monsters. The hour of day which the French indicate by the expressive phrase _entre chien et loup_, is the great epical hour of the fox, which partakes of the nature of the domestic dog and the savage wolf. It is the hour of betrayals, of perfidies, of doubts, and mythical uncertainties. Who can tell whether the aurora is a widow by an accident which happens to her husband the sun, or whether she herself has betrayed him?--whether she has been a chaste and faithful Genevičve, or a perfidious and luxurious Helen? It is these very mythical doubts which have made the fortune and the charm of tradition, as they are the despair of mythologists. When, moreover, the sun is within the night, what can he do? According to the different aspect assumed by the night, the acts of the solar hero lost in it are modified, and these modifications can be explained without too great an effort of imagination; but, sometimes, the relations between the hero and his companions or brothers in the world of the dead, can only be conceived by means of poetical dreams. When the sun is seen to enter the obscure night in the evening, and to come out of it safe and sound in the morning, after having dispersed the darkness, it is natural to think that throughout the night he is singly intent upon killing the monster. The action of the principal hero is well defined, and therefore evident; and the reference is equally clear when the aurora is represented as experiencing the same fate as the sun, her husband or brother. They descend together into the night, which makes them invisible, and together emerge from it happily.

The myth becomes richer when the aurora throws herself into the arms of a rival of her husband, because the character of this rival is various. Now he is a handsome youth who resembles the legitimate husband, either as the twilight or as Lunus; now he is a real demoniacal monster, the demon himself, the black night. In proportion to the variety of aspects and relations which the hero's rival assumes, does the myth become more complicated, and its interpretation more difficult; hence the story-tellers are often in the habit of interrupting their narrative by saying, "Now, let us leave this or that hero, and return to such or such another." These interruptions of the stories have their mythological reason. We can understand, for instance, how the aurora, or daughter of the sun, should be conceived of as, in a moment of feminine weakness, falling in love with the moon, which she sees on the other side of the heavens, and desirous of being conducted to him as his bride. We can understand how Lunus, reciprocating the love-glance of the aurora at the other extremity of the sky, should appear to be drawing her to himself, and wishing to seduce her. We can also understand how now the moon, now the sun, appears to seduce the aurora and carry her off from her legitimate husband. In these cases the infidelity of the hero or the heroine is evident; but woe to him who attempts to carry the demonstration or the proof of this interpretation too far, for when the seducer and seduced, be the seducer male or female, are thought of as enjoying together the fruits of their perfidy, the myth must come to an end, as no one can conceive the possibility of the moon and the aurora living or doing anything together; no one can tell what the aurora and the twilight, phenomena appertaining exclusively to the morning and evening, and which only appear when the sun rises from the mountain, do together in the night. The phenomenon ceases, the mythical personages vanish too, and the story-teller breaks off his narrative, because he possesses no data upon which to continue it. And so with all the myths; they can only be explained on the condition that we do not insist upon explaining too much. We must therefore be contented to see the girl aurora carried off in the evening and the hero sun recover her in the morning, or to conceive of the aurora and the sun fleeing away together into the night, but we must not be too inquisitive as to the manner in which they do so. The moon, or good fairy, sometimes teaches them the way; but their nocturnal actions are but little seen into; those which are spoken of as performed by them at night refer either to the moment in which night begins, or to that in which it comes to an end. During the night they wander about until they see a light (the guiding moon or delivering light of day); they remain in the chest or cask thrown into the water until it is carried to the other shore beyond the sea, or on the eastern coast. In their nocturnal journey the moon plays the part now of the good old man, or the good fairy; now of the good cow, or the bull; now of the grey horse, the steed of night, who, in three stations, bears them to their goal; now of the bird who, nourished upon their flesh, carries them to their destination; and now we have, on the contrary, the monster itself, or the step-mother who threatens, tortures, and persecutes them. The hero shows his greatest strength when hidden, but it is used now to send out the cows, now to recover the ravished bride, now to unchain the rivers kept back by the dragons, now to make the water of health gush forth, and now to destroy the monster and deliver himself. The hero displays his greatest powers when contending with the monster; but it is in order to his own deliverance. In the earliest epochs of the legend he is foolish, ill, drunken, unhappy, and stony; one can only speak of him by what is seen of him externally. The cloud-barrel moves; it is the barrel full of water which moves of its own accord in order to please the hero: the cloud-barrel drops rain upon the earth; it is the foolish one who lets the wine run out of the cask: the cloud-forest moves; it is the trunk of a tree which attaches itself to the horse ridden by the hero, and massacres his enemies--_i.e._, the cloud or darkness disappears, and the hero comes out victorious. The part performed by the solar hero in the night or in the cloud seems to me, therefore, almost always of a nearly certain interpretation, but only so long as he is alone, or with but one companion; when the one hero is transformed into three, or five, or six, who accompany each other, or when he meets other mythical personages of a nature akin to his own, and when he speaks and acts in unison with them, the legend confuses the myth, in order to explain which, we are often obliged to stretch the sense of the adverb _together_ to the signification, now of a whole night, and now of an entire year. When we find, for instance, in tradition, the twelve months of the year associated with twelve old men round the fire, we know that the fire is the sun, round which the twelve months turn in the sky in the space of a year. Here _together_ is amplified to denote, therefore, the period of a year and the entire width of the sky.

I have been led into this long, but, I trust, not idle digression, in order to explain the Russian story of the two brothers, of whom it is said that they go together, one to the right and the other to the left. In whatever way the Aēvināu are to be understood, whether as twilight and sun, as spring and autumn, or as sun and moon, it is impossible to comprehend how they can travel in the same direction; the ways they take must therefore be separate. The sun and the evening twilight do not advance in opposite directions; the morning sun and that of evening occupy opposite positions, but not at the same time; the sun and moon advance at the same time in the sky, but not conjointly and upon the same path, like two travelling companions. It is therefore necessary to suppose that the journey of the two brothers either happens at different periods, although it may be in the same night or the same day, or else takes its start from different places, although always in the sky; in the evening the moon is seen advancing from east to west, whilst the hidden sun travels from west to east; when the sun has arrived in the east, the moon goes down in the west. The eastern sun is bent, in the daytime, upon following and finding his brother who has gone to the west; and when he arrives there he sees, besides his brother, his brother's immense treasures also. With this is connected the other version of the myth of the Aēvināu, the poor brother and the rich one. This is probably the weary, thirsty, and hungry sun, who, having during the day given all his wealth away, demands hospitality from, and offers his services to, his rich brother; the latter drives him away, and the poor brother wanders alone, poorer and sadder than before, into the forest, where he makes his fortune by digging up a treasure which enriches him, whilst his rich brother in the west becomes poor. The story of the treasure, in connection with the two brothers and the skilful thief, was familiar to the Greeks in the vicissitudes of Agamźdźs and Trophonios (in _Pausanias_[621]), who stole King Hürieus's treasure, on which account one of the two brothers was to lose his head.

Were I to follow the story of the two brothers in its Western versions, I could compose an entire volume on the subject, which is indeed of such interest that a student, by connecting it with that of the three brothers, might profitably address himself to the work. But to resume the account of the horse. I must here limit myself to recording only one other interesting variety of this legend, offered us in the seventh story of Basile's _Pentamerone_.[622]

There were once two brothers, named respectively Cienzo and Meo (Vincenzo and Meo). When they were born two enchanted horses and two enchanted dogs also came into the world. Cienzo goes about the world in search of fortune; he comes to a place where there is a dragon with seven heads, from whom a beautiful princess must be delivered. As long as he does not cut all the heads off, the dragon goes and rubs itself against a herb which possesses the virtue of fastening on to the body again the head which had been cut off. Cienzo cuts off all the dragon's heads, "pe gratia de lo sole Lione" (by the grace of the Lion sun, _i.e._, when the sun is in the sign of Leo, which corresponds to the tiger of the Indo-Turanian story recorded above, or when the solar hero possesses all his strength; the lion and the tiger are equivalent in Hindoo symbolism as heroic types, and are therefore all the same in the zodiac). Cienzo marries the beautiful princess delivered by him; but a beautiful fairy who lives in the opposite house fascinates him by her beauty, attracts him, and binds him with her hair. Meanwhile Meo, who by signs settled upon beforehand learns that his brother Cienzo is in danger, comes to the house where the latter's wife lives, accompanied by his enchanted horse and dog. The wife believes him to be Cienzo (the story of the Menechmi, of the two brothers who resemble each other in everything, was no doubt taken by the Greek poet, and afterwards by Plautus, from popular tradition), fźtes him on his arrival, and receives him into her bed; but the faithful brother, in order not to touch her, divides the sheets between them so that they have one each, and refuses to touch his sister-in-law. Thus Sifrīt, as well as his Scandinavian _alter ego_ Sigurd, places a sword between himself and Brünhilt, the destined bride of the king, in order not to touch her when she lies beside him; and when Brünhilt throws herself upon the funeral pyre, she also places a sword between herself and Sigurd's corpse.[623] In the royal or heroic weddings by proxy of the Middle Ages a similar custom was observed. In the popular Piedmontese, Bergamasc, and Venetian song[624] of the pilgrim who comes from Rome, the pilgrim is separated from the woman only by a wisp of straw. Towards morning Meo also sees the beautiful fairy in the house over the way; he guesses that Cienzo has been drawn into her snare, and goes to deliver him. He makes his enchanted dog devour her, and frees his brother, awakening him out of his sleep. Cienzo learning that Meo had slept with his wife, cuts off his head; but when he learns from his wife how Meo had divided the sheets when he lay beside her, he bewails his rashness, has recourse to the herb with which the dragon rubbed itself when one of its heads had been cut off, and by this means fastens Meo's head on to his body again.

The principal auxiliary, however, to one in particular of the two brothers, as of the third in the legend of the three brothers, is his horse.

When the hero devotes himself to the trade of thieving, his most glorious achievement is robbing the king's horse.

When the young hero has been educated by the devil, it is in the shape of a horse that he succeeds in escaping from him.

When the solar hero fights, his greatest strength is in his horse.

When the hero dies, his horse, too, is sacrificed.

Let us now illustrate, by some examples, these four circumstances relative to the myth of the horse.

In the _Mahābhāratam_,[625] the god Indras appears in the form now of a horseman, now of a horse. It is, moreover, upon such a heroic horse that the young Utańkas flees from the king of the serpents, after having recovered from him the queen's earrings, which the king of the serpents had stolen. In this legend reference is made to several myths; to that of the hero in the infernal regions, to that of the hero-thief, and to the legend of the horse which saves the fugitive hero, the same as the hero who leads away the horse.

In the _Vishnu P._,[626] we have Kapilas, a form of Vishnus, or of the solar hero (inasmuch as he is of a reddish colour, or else of the evening sun), who carries off the horse destined for the aēvamedhas, that is to be sacrificed. (In other words, the solar horse, the horse which was meant for the sacrifice, escapes from it, in the same way as, in the preceding chapter, we have seen the bull escape into the forests.) In the _Rāmāyanam_,[627] the horse destined for the sacrifice is, on the contrary, carried off by a serpent (_i.e._, the monster of night ravishes the evening sun, whilst, in the western sky, the fire is being prepared for his immolation). The sons of Sagaras (the clouds of the heavenly ocean, the word _sagaras_ meaning sea), make a noise like thunder, searching for the horse that had been carried off from them. They find it near the god Vishnus or Kapilas (here the sun himself, the solar horse itself, carried off into the cloudy ocean of night); believing him to be the ravisher, they assail him; Kapilas (or the solar horse), full of indignation, burns them to ashes. Their nephew, Ansumant (he who is furnished with rays, the radiant sun of morning), on the contrary, delivers the horse out of the forest. In the evening he is reconducted back to the place of sacrifice, on the golden pavement, after having made the journey round the world.[628] In the same way as we have seen, in the preceding chapter, that the bull or the cow is touched or struck as an augury of fruitfulness and abundance, in the _Rāmāyanam_,[629] Kāuēalyā touches the horse (a stallion) in order to be fruitful, as he desires to have sons (_putrakāmyayā_), and the king and queen smell the odour of the burnt marrow or fat of the horse, as a talisman which may work for them the gratification of a like wish.[630] Of course we must always refer the legend to the myth of the solar horse, which, even when sacrificed, makes itself fruitful, so that it may rise again in the morning in a new and young form. And we can easily prove that the horse of the aēvamedhas was a mythical horse, since the aēvamedhas was originally a celestial ceremony, seeing we read in the _Rigvedas_ how the swift heroic horse destined to be sacrificed was born of the gods, and how the Vasavas had adorned it with the colours of the sun.[631] We saw a short time ago how in the _Rigvedas_ itself it is now the Aēvināu, and now Agnis who give the heroic steed to the predestined youth. Agnis, moreover, who gives a horse to the hero, is himself now a handsome red horse, and now an excellent ghridhnus,[632] a word which means the ravisher, as well as the vulture (as a bird of prey). The thief plays a principal part, even in the Vedic myths. In the war between the demons and the gods, described at length in the first book of the _Mahābhāratam_, there is a continual strife between the two sides as to who will show himself the most skilful in stealing the cup which contains the ambrosia. And the horse's head which, according to Hindoo cosmogony, is born in the very production of the ambrosia with the mythical gem, the horse's heads of Dadhyanc and of Vishnus, which are found in the ambrosia [through the mouth of which (Vadavamukhas) it is necessary to pass in order to enter hell, where one hears the cries and howls of the tormented, who inhabit the water[633]], shows us how already in the myth the legend of the theft of the earrings (the Aēvināu), or of the queen's gem (the sun), or of the treasure, must be united with the theft of the horse (the sun itself), as it seems to be united in the legend of Utańkas, before quoted, in which Utańkas flees upon the divine horse as he carries away from hell the earrings of the queen, which another skilful thief, the king of the serpents, had, in his turn, stolen from him. (Herodotos already knew the story of the skilful thief who robs the king's treasure and obtains the king's daughter to wife; he applies it to the king of Egypt, Rampsinitos.)

When the stag, in the fable, flees in the forest, his high horns betray him; when the bull flees, he fears that his horns may betray the fugitives; even the mane of the solar hero takes the name of horns. The Vedic hymn describing the horse destined for the sacrifice, represents it as having golden horns, and feet as rapid as thought (like the stag), whose horns (or whose mane, like the hair of the biblical Absalom, who revives again in the legendary tradition of Medięval Europe under an analogous form), stretching here and there, are caught in the trees of the forest.[634] Here, therefore, we have the swift-footed animal, whose mane and horns are entangled to the trees. Another Vedic hymn presents to us the hero Tugras lost in the sea, who embraces a tree, and is saved by means of it.[635] In popular stories, the hero is often saved upon a tree, either because the thieves or the bear cannot see him, or because he is thus able to see the horizon; the tree brings good luck to him, now because by letting something drop or making a noise, he terrifies the thieves, now because he cheats the cowherds, whose cattle he wishes to possess himself of, by appearing now upon one tree, and now upon another; whereupon the cowherds begin to dispute about his identity, one affirming that it is the same person, another that it cannot be; they therefore hastily go back to inspect the first tree, and leave the cattle unguarded, upon which the hero-thief descends from the tree, and drives them away before him (this occurs in _Afanassieff_; the enemy of robbers is generally himself an exceedingly skilful thief; Kereēāēpa was no less a cunning thief than Mercury, the god of robbers, who discovers the deceit of others, because he is himself so expert a deceiver). In the nineteenth Mongol story, which is of Hindoo origin, the young hero, after having discharged his pious filial duties at the tomb of his father, mounts a fiery horse, while he seizes the branch of a tree. The tree is uprooted, and with it the horse and the hero massacre the army of the king, whose daughter the hero wishes to marry. In the Russian story[636] which narrates the adventures of Little Thomas Berennikoff, blind of an eye, the _miles gloriosus_, Little Tom, after killing an army of flies, begins to boast of the heroism he had shown in overthrowing, by himself, a whole army of light cavalry. He meets with two real heroes, Elias of Murom and Alexin Papovic (son of the priest), who, on hearing him narrate his achievements, immediately own and honour him as their elder brother. The valour of the three is soon put to the proof; Elias and Alexin show themselves to be true heroes; at last it comes to Little Tom's turn to make proof of his valour; he kills a hostile hero whilst his eyes are shut, and then endeavours to ride his horse, but cannot. It is a hero's horse, and can be ridden only by a hero. At length he fastens the horse to an oak-tree, and climbs up the tree in order to leap from it upon the horse's back. The horse feels the man on his back, and plunges so much that he roots up the whole tree, and drags it after him, carrying Tom away into the heart of the Chinese army. The Chinese are struck down by the oak-tree and trodden under foot by the furious charger, and those who are not killed are put to flight. (The mythical wooden horse which proved so fatal to the Trojans appears to be a mythical variety of this horse with the tree so fatal to the Chinese.) The Emperor of China declares that he will never make war again with a hero of Little Tom's strength. Then the King of Prussia, an enemy of the Chinese, gives, in gratitude to Tom, and as a reward for his valour, his own daughter to wife. It is remarkable that, in the course of the story, Alexin once observes to Elias that the horse which Little Tom had brought from his house showed none of the characteristic qualities of a hero's horse. Alexin, as the priest's son, is the wise hero; Elias, the strong one, who had conceived a high opinion of his new colleague, Little Tom, seriously answers that a hero's strength consists in himself, and not in his horse. However, the development of the story shows that Alexin was right; without the fiery horse of the dead hero, Tom would not have dispersed the Chinese.

Thus, in a Vedic hymn,[637] we read that Indras, when he removes himself from his two horses, becomes like to a weak and wearied mortal; when he yokes them, he becomes strong. The enemies in the battles cannot resist the charge of the two fair-coloured horses of the god Indras;[638] and not only this, but one part alone of the divine horse is sometimes sufficient to give assurance of victory to the hero-god. Another hymn[639] sings, "A horse's tail wert thou then, O Indras;" that is, when Indras vanquished the monster serpent. It is with the head of the horse Dadhyanc that Indras discomfits his enemies.[640] The horse of the Aēvināu, which kills the monster serpent, has already been referred to in these pages. The solar horse Dadhikrā, the same as Dadhyanc, in another hymn of the _Rigvedas_,[641] is celebrated as a swift falcon, luminous, impetuous, who destroys his enemies like a hero-prince, who runs like the wind. His enemies tremble, terrified by him, as by the thundering sky; he fights against a thousand enemies--invincible, formidable, and resplendent. Finally, the horses of the god Agnis are said to vanquish the enemies with their fore-feet.[642]

When Ańgadas wishes to fight with the monster Narāntakas, in the _Rāmāyanam_,[643] he strikes with his fist the head of his great and swift-footed horse, and then with another blow he smites the monster in the chest, and kills him.

In the seven adventures of Rustem, related by Firdusi, the hero's horse fights against the monster, and drives him away, while the hero sleeps.

It is said of Bucephalus, the horse which Alexander the Great alone was able to tame--so called because he had, it would seem, on his head protuberances similar to the horns of a bull (we saw not long since how the mane of the solar horse is spoken of as horns in the Vedic hymns)--that he several times saved Alexander in battle, and that, though mortally wounded, in an engagement in India, in the flank and head, he still summoned up strength enough to flee away with extraordinary swiftness and save his master, and then died. Pliny, quoting Philarcus, says that when Antiochus was slain, the warrior who had killed him endeavoured to ride his horse, but that the latter threw him on the ground, and he expired.

Of Pźgasos, the winged horse which bore the hero Bellerophon over the waters, and by means of whom that hero won his glorious victories, we know that the warrior-goddess Pallas wore the effigy upon her helmet.

Suetonius writes of the horse of Julius Cęsar that it had almost human feet, with toes ("pedibus prope humanis, et in modum digitorum ungulis fissis"), from which the aruspices prognosticated to Cęsar the empire of the world; this horse, like Bucephalus, and every heroic courser, would bear no other rider than its master--the great conqueror.

The horse Baiardo, in _Ariosto_, fights the enemies with its feet. The hippogriff of Ariosto has, moreover, the privilege of being winged like Pźgasos, and of walking on air, like the Tatos of the Hungarians. The name of Falke, given to the horse of the Germanic and Scandinavian hero Dietrich or Thidrek (Theodoricus), induces us to believe that it too had the same winged nature.

In the _Edda_, Skirner receives from Frey a horse which carried its rider through fogs (waters) and flames, and the sword which strikes of itself when the wearer of it happens to be a hero. The horse of Sigurd or Sīfrit exhibits the same bravery in bearing the hero intact through the flames. This happens in the morning, when the sun emerges safe and sound from the flames of the aurora; in the evening, on the contrary, when the sun loses itself in the flames of the aurora, or when the solar hero dies, his horse, too, like the horse of Balder in the _Edda_, is burned upon the pyre or sacrificed; the resurrection of the dead horse and that of the dead hero happen at the same time. The horse's head which protrudes out of the window, represented in ancient Hellenic tombs, and preserved in Germanic customs,[644] is, for man, a symbol of resurrection. The head of Vishnus, that of Uccāihēravas, and that of Dadhyanc, in Hindoo tradition, have the same meaning. He who enters into this head finds death and hell; he who comes out of it rises again to new life. The pious Christian belief in the resurrection that is to come, and the numerous medięval legends of Europe concerning dead heroes or maidens who are resuscitated, had their origin and ground in the contemplation of the annual and daily resurrection of the sun.

In the thirty-eighth story of the fifth book of _Afanassieff_, the young prince receives from an enchanted bird the present of a war-charger, and of an apple the colour of the sun. (The youth gives the golden apple to a beautiful princess for the pleasure of passing the night with her; remark here, again, the relation of the horse and the apple, and probably of the horse and the bull, the sun and moon). In other Russian stories, the horse of the hero, Ivan Tzarevic, is at first bound underground by twelve iron chains; when Ivan rides him, he breaks them all.[645] The horse which Ivan the thief is told to carry off from his master[646] is shut up within three gates made fast by six bolts; if he steals it, he is to receive a reward of 200 roubles; and if he does not, 200 bastinadoes will be his punishment. Ivan takes his master's clothes, disguises himself as a gentleman, and, imitating his voice, orders the grooms to bring him his favourite horse. The grooms are deceived, and obey, and thus Ivan carries the horse off. Finally, in a third Russian story,[647] Ivan Tzarevic must ride a hero's horse on the occasion of his nuptials with the beautiful but wicked Anna. He has recourse to his preceptor Katoma, surnamed Hat of Oak (here we find again the hero in relation with the tree and the horse), who orders the blacksmith to prepare a hero's horse; twelve young blacksmiths (the twelve hours of the night, or else the twelve months of the year) draw twelve bolts, open twelve doors, and lead out an enchanted horse, bound with twelve iron chains. Scarcely has the preceptor mounted on its back when it flies higher than the forest which stays still, and lower than the cloud which moves.[648] The preceptor subdues it by taking hold of its mane with one hand, and striking it with the other between the ears with four pieces, one after another, of an enchanted iron pillar. The horse then begs, with a man's voice, for its life, the power of speech being a distinctive attribute of the hero's horse (a power of which it often makes use, as Rustem's horse does, for instance, to warn the hero of the dangers which surround him, and to give him good advice; sometimes, on the contrary, when it is in the monster's power, it plays the part of a spy upon the hero's actions, and reports them to the monster);[649] it promises also to do the will of the preceptor. Katoma, calling the horse dog's flesh, orders it to stay still the next day, which is the day fixed for the wedding, and, when the bridegroom Ivan is to ride it, to seem as though it were oppressed by a great weight.

In the seventh Esthonian story, the young hero steals the horse from the master (the devil, or the black monster of night) in whose service he had engaged himself. When he comes to the place where the sun sets, he bethinks himself of binding the horse with iron chains (the rope of Yamas, or Varunas, the nocturnal coverer or binder, which binds the Vedic hero Ēunahēepas, the sun, he of the golden rod), in order that it may not escape and go back again. This particular is very interesting, as rendering the meaning of the myth more manifest. Seeing that the sun, in the evening, does not return, it was supposed that the solar horse had been bound by the hero himself, who had stolen it.

In the European popular tales we sometimes have, instead of the hero who carries off his master's horse, the hero himself, who escapes from his master in the form of a horse, helped in his flight by the daughter of his master, by the magician's or demon's daughter or black maiden (who afterwards becomes beautiful and luminous). In the Hungarian belief, the youngest of the witch's daughters (the aurora) often assumes the form of the heroic horse of the Tatos. She becomes Tatos when the hero, meeting her, strikes her on the forehead with the bridle; then she carries him, in the shape of a horse, into the air. In the Russian story,[650] the son of a merchant goes to be instructed by a wise magician, who teaches him every kind of knowledge, and, among the rest, what sheep say when they bleat, birds when they sing, and horses when they neigh. At last the young man, having learned every species of mischief, returns home and transforms himself into a horse, in order that his father may sell him at the market and make money; but he warns his father not to give up the bridle, that he may not fall again into the hands of the magician. The father forgets, and sells horse and bridle together. The magician attaches the horse by a ring to an oak-tree; the black maiden (dievki cernavke), the sister of the devil, gives the horse millet and hydromel; the horse thus gains strength enough to break the chain which binds him to the tree, and escapes. The devil follows him; the horse becomes a fish, and from a fish a ring; the king's daughter buys the ring and puts it on her finger; during the day it is a ring (the solar disc), and during the night a handsome youth, who lies in the bed of the queen's daughter (the hidden sun, or the moon, in the darkness of night). One day the princess lets the ring fall on the ground, and it breaks into a thousand pieces (the evening sun which falls upon the mountain); then the devil becomes a cock, to pick up the pieces of the broken ring; but a little piece falls under the princess's foot; this piece is transformed into a falcon, which strangles and devours the cock.

In the bridle which binds this hero who becomes a horse, I think I can recognise the lasso with which Varunas keeps Ēunahēepas bound in the _Āitareya Br._ In the _Rigvedas_,[651] we have Sūryas, the sun, as Sāuvaēvyas, or son of Svaēvyas, that is, of him who has fine horses; but as, besides Svaēvyas, we find Svaēvas, he who has a fine horse, the sun itself would seem to be this horse. The legend narrates that Svaēvas, having no children, requested the sun to give him some, and that the sun, to please him, was himself born of him. Svaēvas, he who has a fine horse and has no sons, is perhaps the same as the old man who has lost his son by selling the horse; when the sun returns his son also comes back again. In the Vedic expressions, _without a horse, born without a bridle, the sun_ (as a courser[652]), the hero would seem to be indicated who has not as yet that horse or that bridle, without which he is powerless; for the idea of the hero is rarely unaccompanied by that of the horseman.

For the horseman hero his horse is his all, and sometimes it even takes the bit in its mouth, then the hero punishes it. We have already noticed the well-known Hellenic myth of Phaethōn, who is, with both the chariot and the horses, precipitated into the waters, because the horses threatened to set the earth on fire. This happens every day towards evening, when the sun sets; the whole sky goes down, then the sun is thrown down into the ocean of night; the course of the solar steeds is interrupted, and the wheels of the chariot no longer turn. A similar catastrophe is repeated on St John's Day, at the summer solstice, in which the sun stops and begins to retire, for which reason the light of day, from this time to Christmas, grows less and less.

It is a custom on St John's Day, in Germany,[653] for hunters to fire at the sun, believing that they will thereby become infallible hunters. According to another popular German belief, he who, on St John's Day, fires towards the sun is condemned ever after to hunt for ever, like Odin, the eternal hunter; and both superstitions have their reason. In the night, as well as in the period during which the splendour of the sun diminishes, and especially in autumn, the gloomy forest of heaven is filled with every kind of ferocious animal; the sun enters this forest, becomes moon, and hunts the wild beasts in it during the whole of the night, or of the year that is, until he is born again. In the _Rigvedas_, where we have seven sister-mares yoked to the sun-chariot,[654] Indras, to please his favourite, Etaēas, after having drunk the ambrosia, pushes the clouds that had fallen behind before the flying steeds of the sun,[655] that is to say, he prevents the solar hero, drawn by horses, either by the cloud in a tempest, or by the darkness of night, from going on; and he even strikes the wheels themselves of the solar chariot to arrest its incendiary course. From these Vedic data it is easy to pass to the Hellenic Phaethōn, who is precipitated into the waters on account of the horses. The hero killed on account of his horses is a frequent subject of mythology, and the Greek name Hippolytos refers to this kind of death. Hippolytos, the son of Theseus, fleeing from his father, who supposes him guilty of incest with his step-mother Phedra, is thrown from the chariot broken to pieces, when the horses that draw it approach the sea and are terrified by marine monsters. This is a variation of the legend of the young hero, persecuted by his step-mother, who is thrown into the sea, with the novel and remarkable accompaniment that it is his horses themselves which are the cause of his death. The Christian legend of St Hippolytos has appropriated this particular trait, representing the holy martyr, who was prefect under the emperors Decius and Valerian, as dying, having been condemned to be torn in pieces by horses. The poet Prudentius comments upon the story in these two curious distichs, on the occasion of the Roman judge pronouncing capital punishment against St Hippolytos--

     "Ille supinata residens cervice, quis inquit
         Dicitur? affirmant dicier Hippolytum.
      Ergo sit Hippolytus; quatiat turbetque jugales
         Intereatque feris dilaceratus equis."

But the horses which draw the hero into the water are the same as those that save him by carrying him over the deep, drawing the chariot or ship on the sea towards the shore. The Aēvināu do the same in the _Rigvedas_, where they save from the waves both themselves and other heroes upon their chariot, which is compared to a ship.[656] Hero and horse always have the same fate.

When the hero approaches, or when some fortunate incident is about to happen to the hero, his horse neighs for joy.

In the _Rigvedas_,[657] on the arrival of the god Indras, the horse neighs, the cow lows, like a messenger between heaven and earth. The neighing of this horse, and the lowing of this cow, are the thundering of the sun in the cloud. By this neighing or lowing, man is informed that the hero-god Indras is beginning his battles in heaven. Another hymn, which calls the two horses of Indras two rays of the sun (sūryasya ketū), celebrates them as neighing and pouring out ambrosia,[658] _i.e._, the sun makes rain fall from the clouds; when he shows himself in the east at morn, his horse neighs and drops the dew on the ground.

Herodotus, and, after him, Oppianos and Valerius Maximus, relate the mythical story of Darius Hystaspes, who unexpectedly succeeded to the empire from having persuaded his colleagues to decree that he should obtain the crown whose horse happened first to neigh at the sight of the sun. It is narrated that when he came to the place, Darius, in order to assure himself of success, made his horse smell the odour of a mare.[659] Neighing is the laughter of the horse. We have seen, in the preceding chapter, how the bull speaks and the fish laughs at sight of coition; and so we have here, in the story of Darius, the horse who neighs on account of the mare.--To return to the horse of mythology; the solar horse neighs within the thundering-cloud which, as a cow, the bull makes pregnant, and as a mare, the stallion, and neighs at the approach of the aurora, who appears now as the driver of a hundred chariots[660] (a round number, like the hundred thousand horses which, in another hymn,[661] the god Indras drives; a favourite number, like seven, which is applied to the same solar horses, solar rays and Ańgirasas[662])--on which account it can be compared with the Hellenic Aphroditź Hippodameia--now even as a real mare. The sun is now a driver of horses, and now himself a horse; in the same way, the aurora is now an Amazon horsewoman, now a driver of chariots, now aēvāvatī, and now a mare. When the sun approaches the aurora, or when the horse approaches the mare, the horse neighs. We know how the Aēvināu considered themselves sons of the wife of the sun, Saranyū, daughter of Tvashtar, who united herself to the sun in the form of a mare. Whether this Saranyū be the cloud or the aurora, we have in her, anyhow, a mare with which the sun, solar hero, or solar horse, unites himself to produce the twin heroes, who are, for this reason, also called the two sons of the mare.[663] We have already seen, in the preceding chapter, a hero and a heroine who are hatched from eggs; of the Dioscuri, we know that they were born of the egg of Leda; and the mare's egg is the subject of a story in the _Ukermark_.[664] Greek writers have handed down several cases of coition between men and mares, and between horses and women, with corresponding births of monstrous conformation. Now, unnatural as such births must appear to us, they are, in mythology, in strict accordance with nature. In the preceding chapter we saw the cow which leaps over the hare, and explained this phenomenon by the cloud or darkness covering the moon, and also by the earth covering the moon in eclipses. In Herodotus and Valerius Maximus, a mare, in the time of Xerxes, gives birth to a hare; and we must here understand the hare to be the moon, coming out of the darkness or clouds; and when we read that the hare suffocated the mare, we must understand it to mean the moon as dispersing the darkness or clouds (perhaps also the sun or evening aurora). We must have recourse in this way to the myth to comprehend the examples of parturition without coition found in some Hindoo legends, and applied to heroes, as well as the curious discussions and information which we find in the ancients, from Aristotle, Varro, Pliny, Columella, Solinus, and St Augustin, to Albertus Magnus and Aldrovandi, concerning mares, and especially Spanish and Portuguese mares, made pregnant by the wind (called by Oppianos[665] of the windy feet), and which are also spoken of in the _Pentamerone_,[666] with less decency, in reference to the myth of the maiden born of the tree.

The horse of Ariosto, too, has a similar nature--

     "Questo č il destrier che fu dell' Argalia
      Che di fiamma e di vento era concetto
      E senza fieno e biada si nutria
      De l'aria pura e Rabican fu detto."

The horse of Ciolle, in a Tuscan proverb, also feeds upon wind alone.

The horse of Dardanos, son of Zeus, was also said to be born of the wind, which brings us back to the Vedic Marutas, whose chariots have horses for wings, and to the _volucer currus_ of the Diespiter of Horace.[667] In the Sanskrit tongue, the expression _vātāēvas_, or wind-horse, is very common, to indicate a very swift-footed horse.

No sooner is the horse Uccāihēravas born than he neighs; and like him, in the _Mahābhāratam_, the hero Aēvatthāman laughs, the son of Dronas, properly he who has strength in his horse, which is the same as the hero-horse.

Moreover, as the horse exults by neighing over the good fortune of the hero who rides him, so he not only becomes sad, but sheds real tears when his rider is about to meet with misfortune.

When Rāvanas, in the _Rāmāyanam_, comes forth in his chariot, to join in final combat with Rāmas, his coursers shed tears,[668] as a sinister omen, Rāvanas is the monster of darkness and clouds; when the cloud begins to disperse, drops of rain fall, that is, the horses of the monster weep. The treacherous sister who is confederate with the monster against her brother, in Russian stories, is condemned by her brother, who kills the monster, to fill a whole basin with her tears.[669] These tears are also a legendary symbol of the rain which falls when the solar hero has torn the cloud in two.

Suetonius, in the Life of Cęsar, writes that the horses consecrated by Cęsar to Mars, and then set at liberty after the passage of the Rubicon, refused to eat, and wept abundantly.[670] Note that this legend of the horses that weep is connected with the passage of water, of the Rubicon (a river which no geographer has been able to identify with certainty, probably because the legend of Cęsar relating to it is a fable of mythical origin. We know how mythical beliefs incline to assume a human form, and are especially prone to group themselves round the great personages of history--Cyrus, Alexander, Romulus, Cęsar, Augustus, Vespasian, Attila, Theodoric, and Charlemagne are proofs of this; and perhaps a day will come in which Napoleon I. or Garibaldi will offer a new _mannequin_ to some popular tradition, which is now uncertain and wandering). Thus it is said that Cęsar's horse itself shed tears for three days before the hero's death. In the _Iliad_,[671] the horses of Achilleus weep for the death of Patroklos, whom Hektor has thrown from his chariot into the dust; in the _Paraleipomenoi_ of Quintus Smyrneus,[672] the horses of Achilleus weep bitterly for the death of their hero. This is a variety of the legend of the horses which throw the solar hero down into the waters, the ocean of night or the clouds, and of that of the horses of Poseidōn. The mists which after sunset in the evening impregnate the air, and the diurnal or nocturnal rains, as well as the autumnal ones, cause tears to fall upon the ground, or weep over the (apparent) death of the solar hero.

The dew of the morning, on the contrary, which comes from the mouth of the solar horse like foam, or from its hoof as ambrosia and salutary water, is fraught with every species of healthful influence.

The horse and the bull of mythology are pourers out _par excellence_. In a Vedic strophe--which seems in my eyes to be one of those riddles which are recited in order to loosen the thread of the tongue--relative to the two outpouring or fertilising horses of Indras, there is a continual play kept up upon the root _varsh_ or _vrish_, which means at once to pour out and to make fruitful,[673] and upon the letter _r_ which enters into almost every word of the verse. Not only do the horses of Indras pour out and make fruitful; the same virtue is attributed to the chariot which they draw.[674] We have seen already that the horse of the Aēvināu is the killer of the monster serpent, and that the horse's head Dadhyanc, he who goes in the milk or in the liquefied butter, and who is found in a sea of milk, discomfits the enemies of Indras. A Vedic hymn sings that, with the foam of the waters, Indras beats down the head of the monster serpent.[675] In Tuscany, the whooping-cough is called the horse-cough or asinine-cough,[676] and it is thought that the cough is cured by giving the children to drink the foam from the horse's mouth, or causing them to drink in the water where a horse has been drinking. This is a remedy founded upon the principle _similia similibus_, the foam being used against the convulsive cough, which, like all convulsions in general, brings much saliva or foam to the mouth. The credit, however, of this marvellous medicine is slightly compromised when we read that the same foam is also very efficacious for ear-ache. Pliny, Sextus Empiricus, and Marcellus, quoted by Aldrovandi,[677] also recommend the saliva of a horse as a cure for cough, particularly in the case of consumptive patients, adding that the sick person is cured in three days, but that the horse dies; a superstition which must have had its origin in the mythical horse who feeds on ambrosia, and who loses his strength, and expires when his saliva, foam, ambrosia, or dew is taken from him. It is well known that the Aēvināu, besides being luminous horsemen, were, as friends of men, also exceedingly skilful physicians; nor could they be otherwise, having in their power the head of Dadhyanc which is in the ambrosia, that is, whose foam is ambrosia. The Dioscuri also frequently appear, in European legends, as unexpected and miraculous deliverers. With this mythical belief of the horse that produces ambrosia, is also connected the transformation, described by Ovid in the second book of the _Metamorphoses_, of Ocyroe into a mare, because she had predicted that Ęsculapius would save men from death by the medical art. It is a well-known fact that Ęsculapius was revered near fountains whose waters were supposed to have salutary effects, and that he was protected by the sun-god Apollo; and the two physicians, sons of Asklźpios or Ęsculapius, seem to be nothing more than a specific form of the Dioscuri.

But the solar horse does not produce ambrosia with his mouth alone.

He has great strength in his hoofs (whence Isidorus and other medięval etymologists derived the name _caballus_, thus, "Quod ungula terram cavet"[678]), and makes use of them in the myth, and in the legend, not only to combat the enemies, but also to break open the earth, and cause ambrosial fountains to spring out of it. Sometimes ambrosia pours out of the hoof of the horse itself. In the _Rigvedas_,[679] the horses of Agnis are said to have hands (_i.e._, hoofs of the fore-feet) that pour out; and the horse given by the Aēvināu to the hero protected by them (that is, to the solar horse, to the morning sun), with his strong hoof fills a hundred jars with inebriating liquor.[680] It is not necessary for me to instance here the famous fountain of the horse, or Hippokrźnź, which Bellerophon's horse Pźgasos caused to spring out of the earth by breaking the soil with his hoof (called also for this reason _Pźgasķa krźnź_). In Latin tradition, the horse's hoof was worshipped on a spot near Lake Regillus, where it is said that the Dioscuri had appeared.[681] In a Russian story,[682] when Johnny (Ivanushka) sees a horse's hoof, he is sorely tempted to drink out of it, but is dissuaded by his sister. He experiences the same temptation upon seeing a bull's hoof, and afterwards that of a kid. At last he gives way, drinks from the kid's hoof, and is himself transformed into a kid. In the footprint of a horse's hoof, in other stories, the ant is in danger of being drowned; saved by a man, it is ever afterwards grateful to him.[683]

Several myths which we have already noticed in the preceding chapter as applied to the bull, occur again in connection with the horse; as, for instance, the birds which come out of the horse; the hero who takes the horse's skin off, seizing it by the tail in order to make a sack of it; the swift horse of Adrastus, which runs after the tortoise (a Greek proverb);[684] the lunar horse, and the solar one. These exchanges between moon and sun, and between bull and horse, are happily indicated by the Latin poet, Fulgentius:--

     "Jam Phoebus disjungit equos, jam Cynthia jungit,
      Quasque soror liquit, frater pede temperat undas:
      Tum nox stellato coelum circumlita peplo
      Coerula rorigenis pigrescere jusserat alis
      Astrigeroque nitens diademate luna bicornis
      Bullarum bijugis conscenderat ęquora tauris."

The gods had often a liking to transform themselves into horses; so much so, that the sacrifice of the god, that is, the god's death, is represented by the death of the horse. Every one knows that gods and heroes delighted in showing themselves good horsemen, or, at least, good charioteers. On this account, it would be difficult to say to which god in particular the horse is sacred. The Vedic Aēvināu, the Vedic aurora, who wins the race in her chariot, Agnis, Savitar, Indras, victorious and splendid by means of their steeds, the hippios Poseidōn, the hippeia Athźnź, the hippodameia Aphroditź, the horsemen Dioscuri, Mars, Apollo, Zeus, Pluto, and the German Wuotan (like his _alter ego_, St Zacchęus), never show themselves otherwise than on horseback; hence the horse was naturally sacred to all of them. In the Christian faith, the innumerable gods of the ancients having become innumerable saints (when they were not so unfortunate as to degenerate into devils), the horse is now recommended in its stable to the protection of several saints, from the obscure Sicilian St Aloi to the no less modest Russians St Froh and St Laver, who take the horse, as well as the mule and the ass, under their especial protection, not to speak of the glorious horsemen St George, St Michael, St James, St Maurice, St Stephen, St Vladimir, and St Martin, especially revered by warriors, and in whose honour the principal orders of knighthood in Europe were founded. But religions being, from one point of view, the caricature of mythologies, there is now some difference between the mythical old deities and the legendary new ones, inasmuch as the former would at times ingenuously accept the homage of the animal in effigy, as we have observed in the preceding chapter; while the latter, and they who purvey to them upon earth, not being quite so simple, never leave their devotee in peace until they have received, at sight and without discount, the full value of their favours. In the Life of San Gallo, we read that, in the times of King Pepin (we already know what these times mean), a certain Willimar, being ill, promised, if cured, to offer a horse to the Church of San Gallo. Having recovered his health, he forgot his promise; but passing one day before the church of the saint, his horse stopped before the gate, and by no possibility could it be induced to-move on, until Willimar had at last declared his intention of fulfilling his vow. In the Life of St Martin, there is a rather gayer variation of the same anecdote. King Clodoveus, after having become a Christian, when fighting against the Visigoths, promises his own horse to St Martin, if he grants the victory to him. Having obtained it, Clodoveus regrets being obliged to deprive himself of his good charger, and beseeches St Martin to be kind enough to take money instead, offering him a hundred pieces of gold. St Martin thinks the sum insufficient, and asks for double, which Clodoveus gives; but, inasmuch as a little heretic blood still runs in his veins, he cannot refrain from aiming a pointed witticism at him: "Martinus, quantum video, auxiliator est facilis, sed mercator difficilis!"[685]

FOOTNOTES:

[526] The word _atyas_ has the same meaning.

[527] Yungantv asya kāmyā harī vipakshasā rathe ēonā dhrishnū nrivāhasā; _Rigv._ i. 6, 2.

[528] Vacoyugāu; _Rigv._ i. 7, 2.

[529] Yukshvā hi keēinā harī vrishanā kakshyaprā; _Rigv._ i. 10, 3.

[530] Sūracakshasah; _Rigv._ i. 16, 1.

[531] Indrāya vacoyugā tatakshur manasā harī; _Rigv._ i. 20, 2.

[532] Saudhanvanā aēvād aēvam atakshata; _Rigv._ i. 161, 7.

[533] Vi ganān chyāvah ēitipādo akhyan ratham hiranyaprāugam vahantah; _Rigv._ i. 33, 5.

[534] Indro vańkū vańkutarādhi tishthati; _Rigv._ i. 5, 11.

[535] Yukshvā madacyutā harī; _Rigv._ i. 81, 3.

[536] Vām aēvinā manaso gaviyān rathah svaēvah; _Rigv._ i. 117, 2.

[537] Ā tvā yachantu harito na sūryam ahā viēveva sūryam; _Rigv._ i. 130, 2.

[538] Harī sūryasya ketū; _Rigv._ ii. 11, 6.

[539] Ghritaēcutam svāram asvārshtām; _Rigv._ ii. 11, 7.

[540] Pra ye dvitā diva ringanty ātāh susammrishtāso vrishabhasya mūrah; _Rigv._ iii. 43, 6.

[541] Indra haribhir yāhi mayūraromabhih; _Rigv._ iii. 45. 1.

[542] Sholhā yuktāh panca-pancā vahanti; _Rigv._ iii. 55, 18.

[543] Patatribhir aēramāir avyatibhir dansanābhih; _Rigv._ vii. 69, 7. The Aēvināu also are called dravatpānī (swift-hoofed); _Rigv._ i. 3, 1.

[544] Aēvatarī--rathenāgnir āgimadhāvattāsām prāgamāno yonimakūlayattįsmāttā na vigāyante. Gobhirarunāirushā āgimadhāvattasmādushasyagatāyāmarunamivaeva prabhātyushasorūpamaēvarathenendra āgimadhāvattasmātsa uccāirghosha upabdimānkshatrasya rūpamāindro hi sa gadarbharathenāēvinā udagayatāmaēvināvāēnuvātām; _Ait. Br._ iv. 2, 9.

[545] Tvāshtrī tu savitur bhāryā vadavārupadhārinī asūyata mahābhāgā sā 'ntarīkshe 'ēvināvubhāu; _Mbh._ i. 2599.

[546] _Il._ x. 352.

[547] In the Monferrato, according to the information kindly given me, concerning the beliefs relative to animals current in this country, by Dr Giuseppe Ferraro, the young collector of the popular songs and stories of the Monferrato, it is believed that the horse's teeth hung upon the necks of infants at the breast cause them to cut their teeth, and that the two incisors of the horse, when worn, are a spell to charm away every evil.

[548] _Mbh._ i. 1093-1237.

[549] Cfr. the first of the Tuscan stories of _Santo Stefano di Calcinaia_.--In the preceding chapter, we have seen how the apples of a certain apple-tree cause horns to grow on whoever eats them. In an unpublished Italian story, instead of the apple-tree, we have the fig-tree, and instead of horns, the tail. It is narrated by an old man of Osimo, in the Marches:--Three poor brothers, having but little inclination for work, go in search of fortune round the world. Overtaken in the country by night, they fall asleep in the open air. A fairy, under the aspect of a hideous old woman, comes up and wakens them, offering herself as their wife. The three brothers excuse themselves, and declare that they wish for nothing except a little money with which to make merry. The fairy answers, "Tell me what you wish for, and you shall have it." The first asks for a purse, which shall always be full of money; the second for a whistle, by blowing into which a whole army of brave combatants would be summoned to his side; the third a mantle, which would make its wearer invisible. The fairy satisfies them, and then disappears in flames, like the devil. The eldest brother, Stephen, goes with his purse into Portugal, where he plays and loses, but still remains rich. This comes to the queen-dowager's ears, who wishes to see the stranger, hoping to possess herself of his secret; she feigns to love him, and the wedding-day is fixed; but before it comes she has already gained his confidence, and taking the purse from him, she orders him to be flogged. Stephen returns to his brothers, relates his grievance, and proposing to revenge himself upon the queen, induces them to lend him the whistle, which calls armies into existence. The queen softens towards him, protesting that she expected to the last that he would have appeared on the day appointed for the wedding, and that he had been flogged without her knowledge. Stephen gives way, and the whistle passes out of his hands into those of the queen. He is flogged again, but twice as severely as before. Again he has recourse to his brothers; he implores, supplicates, and promises to get everything back by the miraculous mantle; but having obtained it, he allows himself to be deceived once more by the queen. Deprived of everything, he wanders about in despair, reduced to beggary. In the middle of January, he sees a tree covered with beautiful figs; desirous of them, he eats with avidity; but for every fig that he swallows, a span of tail as thick as a boa grows on to him. He goes on his way, still more desperate, till he finds more figs, of a smaller size; he eats them, and the tail disappears. Contented with this discovery, he fills a basket with the first figs, and disguised as a countryman, comes to the palace of the Queen of Portugal. Every one marvels on seeing such fine figs in January. The queen buys the basket, and every one eats; but tails immediately grow on their backs. Stephen then dresses himself as a doctor, and with the little figs, cures many persons. The queen has him called; he obliges her to confess to him first, and in the confession makes her say where the three marvellous gifts of the fairy are kept. Having recovered them, he leaves the queen with ten spans of tail, and returns rich and happy to his brothers. In this story there must be some parts wanting; it is probable that the fairy warned the brothers not to discover their secret to any one. The last enterprise, moreover, is more likely to have been undertaken by the third brother, who always assumes in fairy tales the part of the cunning one, than by the first-born, who in this story represents the part of the fool.--Polydorus speaks of the horse's tail as a chastisement for an insult to Thomas Archbishop of Canterbury, in the thirteenth book of his _Hist. Angl._:--"Irridentes Archiepiscopum, caudam equi cui insidebat, amputarunt. At postea nutu Dei ita accidit, ut omnes ex eo hominum genere qui id facinus fecissent, nati sunt instar brutorum caudati."

[550] Hiranyakarnam manigrīvam arnas; _Rigv._ i. 122, 14.

[551] _Ilķou Halōsis_, 65-72.

[552] In the before-quoted collection of Radloff, _Täktäbäi Märgän_.

[553]

                    Longa solitos caligine pasci
     Terruit orbis equos; pressis hęsere lupatis
     Attoniti meliore polo; rursusque verendum
     In chaos obliquo pugnant temone reverti.
                 Claudianus, _De Raptu Proserpinę_, ii. 193.

[554] _Phainomena_, 215.

[555] _Mbh._ i. 1470, 1471.

[556] Quelli cavalli che sono de pilo morello se fanno de humore colerico impero che e pił caldo humore et sicco che non e lo sangue et per questo produce ad nigredine el pelo. _I tre Libri della Natura Dei Cavalli et del Modo di medicar le Loro Infermitą_, composti da Maestro Agostino Columbre; _Prologo._ 6, Vinegia, 1547.

[557]

     Hippomanes phüton esti par Arkasi tōi d'epi pasai
     Kai pōloi mainontai an ōrea, kai thoai hippoi; ii. 48.

[558] Devennosi corrigere et emendare quelli li quali se posseno dire heretici, impero che voleno dire che quelle tal bestie che portano li crini advolte et atrezate; et con loro poco cognoscimento dicono che sono le streghe che li cavalcano et chiamanli cavalli stregari;" _Prologo._ 10, the work quoted before.--Cfr. on the Damavoi, Ralston, _The Songs of the Russian People_, p. 120, 139.

[559]

     Hippous melaķnas ou kalon pantōs blepein
     Hippōn de leukōn opsis, aggelōn phasis.

In Tuscany, flying horses, when seen in dreams, announce news; no doubt, this flying horse seen in dreams can only refer to the nocturnal voyage of the solar horse.

[560] Cfr. Menzel, _Die Vorchristliche Unsterblichkeits-Lehre_, Leipzig, 1870.

[561] The Hungarians call the bier of the dead St Michael's horse; Neo-Greek popular songs represent the ferryman of the dead, Charon, on horseback; in Switzerland, the sight of a horse is a harbinger of approaching death for a person seriously ill.--Cfr. Rochholtz, _Deutscher Glaube und Brauch_, i. 163, 164.

[562] _Afanassieff_, v. 37.

[563] _Ib._ v. 54.

[564] _Afanassieff_, i. 6.

[565] _Ib._ ii. 25.--Cfr. iii. 5, iv. 27.

[566] _Afanassieff_, ii. 28.

[567] _Ib._ iv. 41.--In the twenty-first story of _Erlenwein_, the poor brother obtains wealth by means of a mare's head, while the rich brother, on the other hand, becomes poor.--In _Af._ v. 21, the dwarf-boy, who possesses great strength, enters into the ear of one of the two horses when in the act of ploughing; upon which they plough of their own accord, and the old father of the dwarf is at liberty to rest.--In the sixth Calmuck story, the head of the dead horse, when fallen from the tree, brings riches and good luck to him who lets it fall, who finds under it a golden cup: this is a form of the ambrosia which comes out of the horse's head, which we shall find farther on.

[568] The Russian text seems to me of too much importance, in the history of myths, not to deserve to be recorded here: "Iediet apiįt vsadnik: sam cornoi, adiet va vsiem cornom; na cornom kanié; padskakįl k varótam babijaghķ i is-cesz, kak skvosz szemlin pravalķlsia; nastįla noc."

[569] Idiót anį i draszķt. Vdrśg skacet mimo iejį vsadnik sam bieloi, adiet v bielom, kon pod nim bieloi, i sbruja na kanié biélaja; na dvarié stalo raszvietįt. Idiót anį dalshe, kak skacet drugoi vsadnik; sam krasnoi, adiét v krasnom i na krasnom kanie; stalo vshódit solntze.

[570] Yah pāurusheyena kravishā samańkte yo aēvyena paēunā yātudhānah yo aghnyāyā bharati kshīram agne teshāin ēīrshāni harasāpi vriēca; _Rigv._ x. 87, 16.--Cfr. the dragon that torments the horses in the _Tuti-Name_ of Rosen, ii. 300.

[571] Tad agne cakshuh prati dhehi rebhe ēaphārugam yena paēyasi yātudhānam; _Rigv._ x. 87, 12.--The demon Hayagrīvas killed by Vishnus, which is the same as horse's neck, and Hayaēiras, or horse's head, another monster giant in the _Rāmāyanam_, iv. 43, 44, always refer to the Vedic aēva-yātudhānas. We are already acquainted with the demon who, during the night, makes the horses sweat and grow lean, _i.e._, who makes them ugly. In the Latin tradition, after having assisted the Romans in the battle of the Lake Regillus, Castor and Pollux were seen, near the ambrosial lacus Iuturnę (Ovidius, _Fasti_, i.), to wash the sweat off their horses with the water of this lake, which was near the temple of Vesta. To this Macaulay alludes in his verses--

     "And washed their horses in the well
      That springs by Vesta's fane."
             --_Battle of the Lake Regillus_, xxxix.

The salutary water of the Dioscuri, or sons of the luminous one, would here occupy the place of the fire lighted by night in stables, and of the Vedic Agnis who kills the monster of horses. My friend Giuseppe Pitrč writes me, that in Sicily, when an ass, a mule, or a horse is to enter a new stable, salt is put upon its back (a form of Christian baptism), in order that the fairies may not lame it.--The Küllaros, the heroic horse of the Dioscuri, is perhaps not unrelated to the word _küllos_, which means lame and bent; the solar horse, before being heroic, is hump-backed, lame, lean, and ugly; the lame hero, the lame horse (ass or mule), the lame devil, seem to me to be three _penumbrę_ of the solar hero, or of the sun in the darkness.

[572] Vibhir ūhathur rigrebhir aēvāih; _Rigv._ i. 117, 14.--Cfr. vii. 69, 7.

[573] Aēvain na gūlham aēvinā durevāir rishim narā vrishanā rebham apsu; _Rigv._ i. 117, 4.--The Aēvināu pass the sea upon a chariot, which resembles a ship; this chariot is said to have the sun for a covering--rathena sūryatvacā; _Rigv._ i. 47, 9.

[574] Yam aēvinā dadathuh ēvetam aēvam aghāēvāya ēaēvad it svasti; _Rigv._ i. 116, 6.

[575] Agnis tuviēravastamain tuvibrahmānam uttamam atūrtam ērāvayatpatim putram dadāti dāēushe--Agnir dadāti satpatim sāsāha yo yudhā nribhih agnir atyam raghushyadam getāram aparāgitam; _Rigv._ v. 25, 5, 6.

[576] _Rigv._ i. 155, 6.

[577] i. 154, 4.

[578] Vishnor nu kam vīryani pra vocam yah pārthivāni vimame ragānsi yo askabhāyad uttaram sadhastham vicakramānas tredhorugāyah; _Rigv._ i. 154, 1.

[579] Yadā te vishnur ogasā trīni padā vicakram ād it te haryatā harī vavakshatuh; _Rigv._ viii. 12, 27.

[580] _Rāmāy._ iv. 40.

[581] Yuktas te astu dakshina uta savyah ēatakrato tena gāyām upa priyām mandāno yāhy andhaso yogā; _Rigv._ i. 82, 5.

[582] Tad ū shu vām agiram ceti yānain yena patī bhavathah sūryāyāh; _Rigv._ iv. 43, 6.--In the following hymn, strophe 1st, the aurora is called now daughter of the sun, now cow: Tam vām ratham vayam adyā huvema prithugrayam aēvinā samgatim goh--Tah sūryām vahati.

[583] Rathasya naptyah; _Rigv._ i. 50. 9.

[584] _Rigv._ i. 116, 10.

[585] vi. 9.

[586] The lake of Brāhman, visited by Hanumant in the _Rāmāyanam_, vi. 53, has the form of a horse's snout (hayānanam).

[587] Indro dadhīco asthabhir vritrāny apratishkutah gaghāna navatīr nava; _Rigv._ i. 84, 13, 14, i. 117, 22, and the corresponding commentary of Sāyanas.--The bones of the heroic horse possess strength equal to that of the horse itself; thus in the last chapter we have seen how, when the bones of the sacrificed bull or cow are kept, it springs up again with renewed strength.--Cfr. concerning this subject the interesting and copious details relating to European beliefs to be found in Rochholtz, _Deutscher Glaube und Brauch_, i. 219-253.

[588] ii. 24.

[589] Divo napātā; _Rigv._ i. 182, 1.

[590] As to the Vedic passage, v. 76, 3, where it would seem that the Aēvināu are invoked in the morning, at midday, and in the evening, there seems to me to be room for discussion. The text says: Utā yātam sańgave prātar ahno (that is, in the early dawn, when the cows are gathered together), madhyandine (which, in my mind, is the middle term which separates the gloomy hours from the luminous ones), uditā sūryasya (which, meaning the rising of the sun, cannot express evening, but precisely the rising of the morning sun). We too would have thus expressed the three moments in the morning in which it was opportune to invoke the Aēvināu.

[591] Sushupvānsam na nirriter upasthe sūryam na dasrā tamasi kshiyantam ēubhe rukmam na darēatam nikhātam ud ūpathur aēvinā vandanāya; _Rigv._ i. 117, 5.

[592] Madhuprishtham ghoram ayāsam aēvam; _Rigv._ ix. 89, 4.

[593] _Rigv._ viii. 104, 15-25.

[594] Quoted in Muir's _Sanskrit Texts_, v. 264.--Somas united with Agnis in the _Rigvedas_, Somas united with Rudras, seem, in my opinion, to be the same as Somas united with Indras.--Cfr. Muir, v. 269, 270.

[595] xii. 1, quoted by Muir in his _Sanskrit Texts_, v. 224.

[596] In the _Edda_ we find the Aēvināu under the forms of night and day. Odin took Natt and Dag her son, gave them two horses and two drays, and placed them in the heavens to go round the earth in twenty-four hours. Natt was the first to advance with Hrimfaxe, her horse; he scatters every morning the foam from his bit upon the earth; it is the dew. The horse of Dag is named Skenfaxe; the air and the earth are illumined by his mane.

[597] Ā vām patitvam sakhyāya gagmushī yoshāvrinīta genyā yuvām patī; _Rigv._ i. 119, 5.

[598] Cfr. the legends relating to Cyavanas cured by the Aēvināu in the _Ēatapatha Brāhmanam_ and in the _Mahābhāratam_, referred to by Muir in the above-quoted fifth volume of the _Sanskrit Texts_, p. 250, and those following.

[599] In the _Rigv._ i. 8, 2, also, the invokers of Indras desire to fight the enemies, the monsters Mushtihatyayā and Arvatā, by fist and by horses.

[600] _Mbh._ i. 6484-6504.

[601] _Rāmāy._ i. 49, ii. 7.

[602] iv. 12.

[603] iv. 7, 17.

[604] iv. 8.

[605] iv. 10.

[606] _Rāmāy._ iv. 8.

[607] The Persian hero often takes his name from his horse or his horses; hence Kereēāēpa, Vīstāēpa, Argāēp, Gustāēp, Yapāēp, Pūrushāēpa, Aēpāyaodha, &c.

[608] Cfr. Spiegel's _Avesta_, ii. 72.--In the Servian stories of Wuck, one of two brothers sleeps, transformed into stone with all his people, until the other comes to free and resuscitate him.

[609] i. 91, and following, Rosen's version.

[610] ii. 20, and following.

[611] ii. 157.

[612] _Tuti-Name_, i. 151.

[613] Cfr. a zoological variety of this myth in the chapter on the Cock and the Hen.

[614] This is a variety of the legend of the Tzar's daughter enamoured of Emilius, the foolish and idle, though fortunate, youth, whom the indignant Tzar orders to be shut up in a cask and thrown with her lover into the sea, as we have seen in the first chapter.

[615] iv. 24.

[616] We shall shortly find the hare (the moon) who devours the mare.

[617] i. 53.

[618] U kavó preszde sviecā sama saboi zagaritsia, tot tzar budiet.

[619] Tzelijį kuci zolotį v anbarah nasipani; cto ni pluniet on, to vsié zólotom; dievat niekudį!

[620] It will, I hope, be deemed not inappropriate to quote here the words with which Professor Roth begins his essay upon the legend of Ēunahēepas in the first volume of the _Indische Studien_: "Die Deutung der indischen Sagengeschichte sucht noch die Regeln, nach welchen die das überlieferte verworrene Material behanden soll. Eine und dieselbe Sage wird vielleicht in zehn verschiedenen Büchern in zehnfacher Form erzählt. Glaubt man einen festen Punkt gefunden zu haben, auf welchen nach einem Berichte die Spitze der Erzählung zusammenläuft, so streben andere Berichte wieder nach ganz anderem Ziele und treiben denjenigen, der einen festen Kern der Sage fassen will, rathlos im Kreise herum. Die Widersprüche, mit welchen ein Sammler und Ordner griechischer Heldensagen zu kämpfen hat, sind lauter Einklang und Klarheit im Vergleiche zu dem wirren Knäuel, in welchen die Willkühr indischer Poeten die reichen Ueberlieferungen ihrer Vorzeit zusammengeballt hat."

[621] ix. 37, 3.--I observe that the same craft as that used by the two brothers to steal the treasure, in an as yet unpublished fairy tale of the Canavese in Piedmont, was employed by the inexperienced robber, who becomes at length very skilful to rob the loaves from the baker's oven. The Piedmontese thief makes an opening from without, and thus carries the bread off. The same thief then steals the king's horse. At first, he learns his profession from the chief of the robbers. The chief sends him the first time to waylay some travellers, and bids him leap upon them; the young thief obeys these directions to the letter; he makes the travellers lie down and then jumps upon them, but does not rob them. The second time the chief tells him to take the travellers' quattrini (the name of a very small coin, by which money in general is also expressed). The young thief takes the quattrini alone, and lets the travellers keep their dollars and napoleons. At last, however, he becomes an accomplished thief.

[622] Cfr. in the same _Pentamerone_, the ninth story of the first book; the eighteenth of the _Novelline di Santo Stefano di Calcinaia_; the thirty-ninth of the Sicilian stories of the _Gonzenbach_; the sixtieth and the eighty-fifth story of Grimm's collection, _Kinder und Hausmärchen_; the tenth of Kuhn and Schwartz's _Märchen_; the twenty-second of the Greek stories of Hahn, _Griechische und Albanesische Märchen_; the fourth of Campbell's in _Orient und Occident_; the first book of the _Pancatantram_, and the twelfth story of the fifth book of the same; and Cox, the work quoted before, i. 141, 142, 161, 281, 393, &c.

[623] In the _Pentamerone_, i. 9, the queen's son does the same with the wife of his twin-brother; "Mese la spata arrancata comme staccione 'miego ad isso ed a Fenizia."

[624] In the corresponding collections of Ferraro, Bolza, and Wolf.--Cfr. the end of the twenty-eighth of the _Novelline di Santo Stefano di Calcinaia_.

[625] i. 807 and following.

[626] iv. 4.

[627] i. 41-43.

[628] _Rāmāy._ i. 13.

[629] i. 13.

[630] In the Western stories, instead of the horse's fat or marrow, it is generally the fish eaten by the queen and her servant-maid which gives life to the two brothers, who become three when the water in which the fish was washed is given to be drunk by the mare or the bitch, whence the son of the mare or bitch is born. I have already attempted to prove the identity of the fish with the phallos; the fish eaten by the queen, the maid, the mare, or the bitch, which renders them pregnant, seems to me a symbol of coition. The horse's fat or marrow smelled by the queen seems to have the same meaning.

[631] Vāgino devagātasya sapteh pravakshyāmo vidathe vīryāni; _Rigv._ i. 162, 1.--Sūrād aēvam vasavo nir atashta; _Rigv._ i. 163, 2.

[632] Sādhur na gridhnuh; _Rigv._ i. 70, 11.

[633] Vikroēatām nādo bhūtānām salilāukasām ērūyate bhriēāmārttānām viēatām vadavāmukham; _Rāmāy._ iv. 40.--Aurvas, who, in the shape of a horse's head, swallows the water of the sea and vomits flames, is a variety of the same solar myth; _Mbh._ i. 6802, and following verses.

[634] Hiranyaērińgo yo asya pādā manogavā; _Rigv._ i. 163, 9.--Tava ērińgāni vishthitā purutr āranyeshu garbhurānā caranti. 11.--We find the stag in relation with the horse, as his stronger rival until man mounts upon the horse's back, in the well-known apologue of Horace, _Epist._ i. 10.

     "Cervus equum pugna melior communibus herbis
      Pellebat, donec minor in certamine longo
      Imploravit opes hominis, frenumque recepit;
      Sed postquam victor discessit ab hoste,
      Non equitem dorso, non frenum depulit ore."

[635] Vriksho nishthito madhye arnaso yam tāugryo nādhitah paryashasvagat; _Rigv._ i. 182, 7.

[636] _Afanassieff_, v. 11.

[637] Apa yor indrah pāpaga ā marto na ēaēramāno bibhīvān ēubhe yad yuyuge tavishīvān; _Rigv._ x. 105, 3.

[638] Iasya samsthe na vrinvate harī samatsu ēatravah; _Rigv._ i. 5, 4.

[639] Aēvyo vāro abhavas tad indra; _Rigv._ i. 32, 12; and the Hindoo commentator notes that Indras chased the enemy as the tail of a horse shakes off the insects that place themselves upon it, which it is much more natural to believe of the tail of Indras's horse, which is covered with milk, butter, honey, and ambrosia.

[640] _Rigv._, the hymn quoted before, i. 84, 13, 14; Agnis, too, is honoured as a tailed horse (vāravantam aēvam), _Rigv._ i. 27, 1.

[641] Rigipyam ēyenam prushitapsum āēum carkrityam aryo nripatim na ēūram--vātam iva dhragantam--uta smāsya tanyator iva dyor righāyato abhiyugo bhayante yadā sahasram abhi shīm ayodhīd durvartuh smā bhavati bhīma ringan; _Rigv._ iv. 38, 2, 3, 8.

[642] Avakrāmantah prapadāir amitrān; _Rigv._ vi. 75, 7.

[643] vi. 49.

[644] Cfr. Simrock, _Handbuch der Deutschen Mythologie_, p. 375, and Rochholtz, the work quoted before.

[645] _Afanassieff_, ii. 24.

[646] _Ib._ v. 6.

[647] _Ib._ v. 35.

[648] Povķshe liessś stajįcavo, ponķsze ablakį hadiįcavo.

[649] For instance, in the _Pentamerone_, iii. 7, where the king of Scotland sends Corvetto to steal the horse of the ogre who lives ten miles distant from Scotland: "Haveva st' Huorco no bellissimo cavallo, che pareva fatto co lo penniello, e tra le autre bellizze no le mancava manco la parola." When Corvetto carries off the horse, it cries out, "A l'erta ca Corvetto me ne porta."--Cfr. also the _Pentamerone_, iii. 1.--Not only has the horse the gift of speech, but the chariot too: in the seventh book of the _Rāmāyanam_, 44, the chariot Pushpakam speaks to Rāmas, and says to him that he alone is worthy of driving it.

[650] _Afanassieff_, vi. 46.--Cfr. also v. 22, and the 26th of the _Novelline di Santo Stefano di Calcinaia_.

[651] i. 61, 15.

[652] Anaēvo gāto anabhīēur arvā; _Rigv._ i. 152, 5.

[653] Cfr. Menzel, _Die Vorchristliche Unsterblichkeits-Lehre_.

[654] Sapta svasārah suvitāya sūryam vahanti harito rathe; _Rigv._ vii. 66, 15.

[655] Adha kratvā maghavan tubhyam devā anu viēve adaduh somapeyam yat sūryasya haritah patantīh purah satīr uparā etaēe kah; _Rigv._ v. 29, 5.

[656] Ā no nāvā matīnām yātam parāya gantave, yungāthām aēvinā ratham; _Rigv._ i. 46, 7.

[657] Krandad aēvo nayamāno ruvad gāur antar dūto na rodasī carad vāk; _Rigv._ i. 173, 3.

[658] Ghritaēcutam svāram asvārshtām; _Rigv._ ii. 11, 7.

[659] ... in equę genitalem partem demissam manum, cum ad eum locum ventum esset, naribus equi admovit, quo odore irritatus ante omnes hinnitum edidit, auditoque eo sex reliqui summę potestatis continuo equis dilapsi candidati, ut mos est Persarum, humi prostratis corporibus Darium regem salutarunt; Valerius Maximus, _Mem._ vii.; _Herodotus_, iii. 87. Herodotus also refers to another variation of the same anecdote, where he adds, that at the first dawn of day it lightninged and thundered.

[660] Devī gīrā rathānām; _Rigv._ i. 48, 3.--Ēatam rathebhih subhagoshā iyam vi yāty abhi mānushān; i. 48, 7.

[661] Upa tmani dadhāno dhury āēūnt sahasrāni ēatāni vagrabāhuh; _Rigv._ iv. 29, 4.

[662] Cfr. _Rigv._ iv. 3, 11; iv. 13, 3.

[663] Cfr. Böhtling u. Roth, _Sanskrit Wörterbuch_, s. v. _aēvin_.

[664] Kuhn u. Schwartz, p. 330.--The English proverbial expression, "a mare's nest," now used to denote an impossibility, probably originally referred to a real myth.

[665] _Künźgetikōn_, i. 284.

[666] ii. 3.--"Allecordatose d'haver 'ntiso na vota da certe stodiante, che le cavalle de Spagna se'mpreńano co lo viento;" and the story goes on to speak of the ogre's surprise, who, seeing a beautiful maiden in his garden, "penzaie che lo shiavro de lo pideto, havesse 'ngravedato quarche arvolo, e ne fosse sciuta sta penta criatura; perzo abbracciatala co gran'ammore, decette, figlia mia, parte de sto cuorpo, shiato de lo spireto mio, e chi me l' havesse ditto mai, che co na ventosetate, havesse dato forma a ssa bella facce?" Varro seriously wrote: "In fętura res incredibilis est in Hispania, sed est vera, quod in Lusitania ad Oceanum in ea regione, ubi est oppidum Olyssipo monte Tagro, quędam e vento concipiunt equę, ut hic gallinę solent, quarum ova hypanemia appellant, sed ex his equis qui nati pulli, non plus triennium vivunt."

[667] Rathebhir aēvaparnāih; _Rigv._ i. 88, 1.--In Horace, _Carm._ i. 14--

               "Namque Diespiter,
     Igni corusco nubila dividens,
     Plerumque per purum tonantes
     Egit equos, volucremque currum."

[668] Aērūni cāsya mumucurvāginah; _Rāmāy._ vi. 75.

[669] In the corresponding Italian stories, the hero or heroine, punished for some indiscretion, must, before being pardoned, wear out seven pairs of iron shoes, and fill seven flasks with their tears.

[670] Proximus diebus equorum greges, quos in trajiciendo Rubicon Marti consacraverat, ac sine custodibus vagos dimiserat, comperit pabulo pertinacissime abstinere, ubertimque flere.

[671] xvii. 426.

[672] iii. 740.

[673] Vrishā tvā vrishanam vardhatu dyāur vrishā vrishabhyām vahase haribhyām sa no vrisha vrisharathah suēipra vrishakrato vrishā vagrin bhare dhāh; _Rigv._ v. 36, 5.--In Piedmont there exists a game of conversation, consisting in the description of the presents which one intends making to one's bride, in which description the letter _r_ must never enter; he who introduces it loses the game.

[674] Vrishāyam indra te ratha uto te vrishanā harī; _Rigv._ viii. 13, 31.

[675] Apām phenena namuceh ēira indrod avartayah; _Rigv._ viii. 14, 13.

[676] It is also called the canine cough, and it is believed on this account that it is cured when the children are made to drink where a dog has been drinking.

[677] _De Quadrupedibus_ i.

[678] Du Cange, _Gloss. Medię et Infimę Latinitatis_, s. v. _caballus_.

[679] Vrshapānayo 'ēvāh; _Rigv._ vi. 75, 7.

[680] Kārotarāc chaphād aēvasya vrishnah ēatam kumbhān asincatam surāyah; _Rigv._ i. 116, 7.

[681] "One spot on the margin of Lake Regillus was for many ages regarded with superstitious awe. A mark, resembling in shape a horse's hoof, was discernible in the volcanic rock; and this mark was believed to have been made by one of the celestial chargers."--Macaulay, Preface to the _Battle of the Lake Regillus_.

[682] _Afanassieff_, iv. 45.

[683] The milk of white mares, which, according to Olaus Magnus (i. 24) was poured into the ground by the king of the Goths every year, on the 28th of August, in honour of the gods, who received it with great avidity, would seem to be an announcement of the imminent rains of autumn; the horse loses his ambrosial humour, and his end is at hand.

[684] The Gręco-Latin proverb, "Equus me portat, alit rex," would seem also to have a mythical origin, and to refer to the mythical legend of the betrayed blind man, who carries the cunning hunchback or lame man; who sometimes only feigns lameness, in order to play off his practical jokes upon his companion.

[685] The fable in _Phędrus_, iv. 24, of the poet Simonides saved by the Dioscuri, is well known; but the gods punish the miser who refuses to give the reward that he had promised, not on their own account, but on account of the wrong done to the poet, whom they love. It is remarkable that, as the Latin legend shows us the horses of the Dioscuri perspiring, so Phędrus represents the Dioscuri themselves as--

                     "Sparsi pulvere
     Sudore multo diffluentes corpore."

This sweat must be the crepuscular mists, in the same way as the poet Simonides, who alone escapes, being delivered by the Dioscuri, the ceiling of whose banqueting-hall he had ruined, seems to conceal an image of the sun saved from the night.

CHAPTER III.

THE ASS.

SUMMARY.

   Glory has been pernicious to the ass.--The purely stupid ass not an
   ancient belief in India.--Eastern and Western asses; the ass of an
   inferior quality pays the penalty of the reputation acquired in the
   East by his superior congener.--Christianity, instead of improving
   the condition of the ass, has aggravated it.--The medięval hymn in
   honour of the ass is a satire.--The ass in the sacred ceremonies of
   the Church.--Physical and moral decadence of the ass.--Indian names
   of the ass; equivoques in language form myths.--Gardabhas and
   gandharbas.--Identification of the mythical ass with the gandharvas;
   both are in connection with salutary waters, with perfumes or
   unguents, and with women.--The ass which carries mysteries.--The
   flight into Egypt; the ass laden; the old man, the boy, and the
   ass.--Peau d'āne.--The onokentauros.--Urvaēī and Purūravas in
   connection with the gandharvas; Cupid and Psyche in connection with
   the ass.--The mythical ass and the kentauros correspond, as well as
   the ass and the gandharvas.--The Hindoo onocentaur and satyr; monkey
   and gandharvas as warriors.--Kentauros, gandharvas, and ass in the
   capacity of musicians and dancers.--Kriēāēvas
   dancing-master.--Kriēānus and Kereēāni.--Hybrid nature of the
   mythical ass and of the gandharvas.--The Aēvināu ride asses, and
   give youth to Cyavanas; the youthfulness of the ass.--The Vedic ass
   as a warrior.--The Vedic ass flies.--The decadence of the ass dates
   as far back as the Vedās; its explanation.--The phallic ass and the
   punishment of the ass for adulterers.--The braying of the ass in
   heaven; Indras kills the ass.--The funereal and demoniacal ass of
   the Hindoos; the ass piēācas; the faces of parrots; equivoque
   originated by the words _haris_ and _harit_.--The golden ass.--The
   ass in love.--The ass in the tiger's skin.--The ass who betrays
   himself by singing.--The Zend lame ass who brays in the
   water.--Rustem, devourer of asses.--The ass's kick.--The fool and
   the ass, the trumpet and the drum, the trumpet of Malacoda.--The
   king Midas in the Mongol story; the hero forced to speak, in order
   not to burst.--The ass among the monkeys.--Midas, king of Phrygia,
   in connection with the ass, with Silenos, Dionysos, the roses, gold,
   blades of corn, and waters.--The centaurs among the flowers.--The
   ass awakens Vesta whilst she is being seduced.--Priapos and the ass
   of Silenos.--The ass as a musical umpire between the cuckoo and the
   nightingale.--Midas judges between Pan and Apollo.--The ears of King
   Midas; his secret revealed by the young man who combs his hair.--The
   Phrygian ass held up to derision by the Greeks.--The Greek spirit of
   nationality still more pernicious to the ass.--The ass of Vicenza
   impaled.--Pan and the ass.--Gandharvās and satyrs.--Pan and the
   nymphs.--Syrinx and the reed or cane; the leaf of the cane, and the
   ass.--Pan chases away fear; the ass's skin gives courage.--The ass
   in hell; golden excrements.--The heroic ass and Pan.--Perseus who
   eats asses.--The ass and the water of the Styx; the horned ass.--The
   cornucopia.--Ass and goat.--The asses save the hero out of the
   water.--The asses in heaven.--The ass carries the water of
   youth.--Ass's milk has a cosmetic virtue.--Youth and beauty of the
   ass.--The deaths of the ass.--The ass carries wine and drinks
   water.--The ass wet by the rain, the ass's ears predict rainy
   weather.--The shadow of the ass; the ass's wool; lana caprina; to
   shear the ass; the gold on the ass's head.--Asini prospectus.--The
   ass and the gardener.--The ass chases the winds away.--The third
   braying or flatus of the ass kills the fool.--The prophetic ass; the
   kick of the ass kills the lion; the ass a good listener, who hears
   everything; the hero Oidin Oidon; the ears of Lucifer.

The ass, in Europe at least, has had the misfortune to have been born under an evil star, a circumstance which must be reckoned to the account of the Greeks and Romans, whose humour it was to treat it as a sort of Don Quixote of animals. Its liability to be flogged has always increased with its celebrity, which, no one can deny, is great and indefeasible. The poor ass has paid very dear, and continues to pay still dearer, upon earth for the flight which the fantasy of primeval men made it take in the mythical heavens. May this chapter--if it produce no other effect--have at least that of sparing the poor calumniated animal some few of the many blows which, given in fun, it is accustomed to receive, as if to afford a vent for the satirical humour of our race, and _ad exhilarandam caveam_.

The germ of the reputation the ass has of being both a stupid and a petulant animal, acquired in Greece and in Italy, spreading thence into all the other parts of Europe, may already be found in the ancient myths of the Hindoos. Professor Weber,[686] however, has proved, in answer to Herr Wagener, that the idea of a stupid and presumptuous ass, such as we always find it represented in the fables of the _Pancatantram_, was diffused in India by the Greeks, and is not indigenous to Hindoo faith and literature.

In India, the ass was not a particular object of ridicule; and this was perhaps for the simple reason that the Eastern varieties of the asinine family are far handsomer and nobler than the Western ones. The ass in the East is generally ardent, lively, and swift-footed, as in the West it is generally slow and lazy, having no real energy except of a sensual nature. For if even the West (and especially the south of Europe) possesses a distinct species of ass, which reminds us of the _multinummus_ ass of Varro (in the same way as the East also, though exceptionally, has inferior varieties), the asinine multitude in Europe is composed of animals of a low type and a down-trodden appearance, and it is against them that our jests and our floggings are especially directed. This is the proverbial ass's kick against the fallen; the poor outcast of the West dearly pays the penalty of the honours conceded to his illustrious mythical ancestors of the East. We think that the ass of which we hear heroic achievements related is the same as that which now humbly carries the pack; and since we no longer regard him as capable of a magnanimous action, we suppose that he (unfortunate animal!) appropriates to himself all these ancient glories out of vain presumption, for which reason there is no affront which we do not feel entitled to offer to him. Nor did Christianity succeed in delivering him from persecution,--Christianity, which, as it represents the Sun of nations, the Redeemer of the world, as born between the two musical animals, the ox and the ass (who were to prevent His cries from being heard), and introduces the ass as the saviour of the Divine Child persecuted during the night, and as the animal ridden by Christ, in his last entry into Jerusalem, invested him with more than one sacred title which ought from its devotees to have procured for him a little more regard. Unfortunately, the same famous medięval ecclesiastical hymn which was sung in France on the 14th of January in honour of the ass, richly caparisoned near the altar, to celebrate the flight into Egypt, was turned into a satire. It must have been not without some gay levity that priest and people exclaimed "Hinham!" three times after the conclusion of the mass, on the day of the festival of the ass.[687] Nor did the inhabitants of Empoli show him more reverence, when, on the eighth day after the festival of the _Corpus Domini_--that is, near the summer solstice--they made him fly in the air, amid the jeers of the crowd; nor the Germans, who, in Westphalia, made the ass a symbol of the dull St Thomas, who was the last of the apostles to believe in the resurrection. The Westphalians were accustomed to call by the name of "the ass Thomas" (as in Holland he is called "luilak") the boy who on St Thomas's Day was the last to enter school.[688] On Christmas Day, in the Carnival, on Palm-Sunday, and in the processions which follow the festival of _Corpus Domini_,[689] the Church often introduced the ass into her ceremonies, but more in order to exhilarate the minds of her devotees than to edify them by any suggestion of the virtues it represents in the Gospels; so that, notwithstanding the great services rendered by the ass to the Founder of the new religion, he not only received no benefit in return from Christianity, but became instead the unfortunate object of new attentions, which rather depressed than heightened his already sufficiently degraded social condition.

And so the Greeks and Romans first, and the Catholic priests afterwards, combined, by their treatment of him, to make the ass more indifferent than he would otherwise have been to the passion and spirited struggle for life shown in all the other animals. He was perhaps intended for a higher fate, if man had not come upon earth, and interfered too persistently to thwart his vocation. And probably his race gradually deteriorated, just because, having become ridiculous, few cared to preserve or increase his nobleness. As the proverb said that it was useless to wash the ass's head, so it seemed useless for man to endeavour to ameliorate or civilise his form: the physical decadence of the ass was contemporary and parallel with his decline morally.

But although it was in Greece and Rome that the poor ass was thrown completely down from his rank in the animal kingdom, the first decree of his fall was pronounced in his ancient Asiatic abode. Let us prove this.

In the _Rigvedas_, the ass already appears under two different aspects--one divine and the other demoniacal--to which may perhaps be added a third intermediate or gandharvic aspect.

In the _Rigvedas_, the ass has the names of _gardabhas_ and _rāsabhas_; in Sanskrit, also those of _kharas, cakrīvant, ciramehin_, and _bāleyas_.

It is important to notice how each of these designations tends to lapse into ambiguity; and ambiguity in words plays a considerable part in the formation of myths and popular beliefs.

Let us begin with the most modern designations.

_Bāleyas_ may mean the childish one (from _bālas_ = child, and stupid[690]), as well as the demoniacal (from _balis_; and indeed, besides being a name given to the ass, _bāleyas_ is also a name for a demon).

_Ciramehin_ is the ass as _longe mingens_ (a quality which can apply to the ass, but still more so to the rainy cloud).

_Cakrīvant_ means he who is furnished with wheels, with round objects or testicles (an epithet equally applicable to the ass and his phallos).

_Kharas_ signifies he who cries out, as well as the ardent one (and _kharus_, which ought to have the same meaning, signifies, according to the Petropolitan Dictionary, foolish, and horse; perhaps ass too).

_Rāsabhas_ is derived from the double root _ras_, whence _rasa_ = humour, juice, water, savour, sperm, and _rāsa_ = din, tumultuous noise.

_Gardabhas_ comes from the root _gard_,[691] to resound, to bellow; but I think I can recognise in the word _gardabhas_ the same meaning as _gandharbas_ or _gandharvas_, and _vice versa_. The _gardabhas_ explains to me how the _gandharvas_ was conceived to be a musician; and the _gandharvas_ (a word which, I repeat, seems to me composed of _gandha_ + _arvas_, developed out of a hypothetic _rivas_,[692] that is, he who walks in the unguent, or he who goes in the perfume) helps me to understand the proverb, "Asinus in unguento," and the corresponding legends. The equivocal word _rāsabhas_, in its two meanings, seems to unite together the sonorous _gardabhas_ with the _gandharbas_ who likes perfumes, or the _gandharvo apsu_ (_gandharvas_ in the waters) of the _Rigvedas_,[693] the guardian of the ambrosial plant.[694] The mythical ass and the Vedic _gandharvas_ have the same qualities and the same instincts. The gandharvās, for instance, are represented in the _Āitareya Br._ as lovers of women,[695] so much so that for a woman's sake they allow themselves to be deprived of the ambrosia (or somas); and it is also known from the story of Urvaēī how jealous they are of their nymphs, the _apsarās_, or them who flow by on the waters (the clouds), and from the story of Hanumant, in the _Rāmāyanam_, how greedy they are of their salutary herbs and waters.[696] The mythical and legendary ass also has a foible for beautiful maidens; it is unnecessary to give the reason of this belief.[697] When Circe wishes to give, by means of an unguent, an ass's head to Odysseus, we find an allusion to the loves of the ass and the beautiful woman. When the Lucius of Apuleius, while endeavouring to change himself into a bird (another of the names by which the phallos is indicated), becomes instead, by means of the woman's unguent, an ass, the ass is another name for the phallical bird. And as the Vedic ass delights in the _rasas_, or humour, water or sperm (the two words _rāsas_ and _rasas_, derived from a common root, being easily interchangeable); as the mythical ass, when it finds the ambrosia of the roseate morning aurora, once more becomes the splendid young sun; so the ass of Apuleius, too, becomes Lucius again, or the luminous and handsome youth that he was before, as soon as he has an opportunity of feeding upon roses: he becomes an ass for love of a woman, and regains his splendour in the rosy aurora. During the night, being subject to the enchantment of a beautiful fairy, the hero remains an ass; and in the form of an ass, and under an ass's skin, he carries the priapoean mysteries, whence the expression of Aristophanes in the _Frogs_, "The ass which carries mysteries" (onos agōn müstźria), the same mysteries as the Phallagia or Perifallia of Rome. In the Christian myth, this mystery is the flight of the new-born Divine Child into Egypt;[698] in the story of Perrault, it is the beautiful maiden, the evening aurora, the girl persecuted by her father and would-be seducer, who disguises herself during the night with an ass's skin;[699] the beautiful girl evidently transfers her erotic sympathies to the ass that loves her. Of loves such as these,--of an ass with a maiden, or of the young hero and an ass,--are born the monstrous onokentaurs and Empusa, now a beautiful maiden, and now the terrifier of children, who is represented with ass's feet, because her mother was an ass, and her father, Aristoxenes, enamoured of an ass. It is now the evening aurora, now the dying sun, and now both, who, under the cloud of night, or in winter, are represented as covered with an ass's skin. Professor Kuhn has already proved the close affinity, amounting to identity, between the gandharvās and the Hellenic kentauroi, both of which come before us in connection with the inebriating drink; but the kentauros is essentially a hippokentauros, or, still better, an onokentauros,[700] or centaur ass. The fable of Cupid and Psyche in Apuleius, in its relation with the story of the ass, perfectly agrees with the analogous Hindoo fable of the loves of Purūravas and Urvaēī, united with the story of the Gandharvās. Peau d'āne, Psyche, and Urvaēī are therefore mythical sisters.

Professor Kuhn's proof of the identity of the gandharvas and the kentauros being admitted, the identity of the gardabhas with the gandharbas, and of the ass with the gandharvas, seems to follow as a natural consequence. The myth of the kentauros, either hippokentauros or onokentauros, no less than the myth of the gandharvas, corresponds entirely with that of the ass. The kentauros loves wine and women; he plays the lyre upon the car of Dionysos in conjunction with satyrs, nymphs, and bacchantes; he teaches on Mount Pelion music,[701] the science of health, and the prophetic art to the Dioscuri, which are all subjects that occur again with slight modifications in the Hindoo legends concerning the gandharvās, and in the fable of the ass, as we shall prove hereafter.--But to return to the Hindoo myth; in the same way as the gandharvās has a hybrid nature, and shows himself at one time in the aspect of a demi-god, at another in that of a semi-demon, so the mythical ass of India has now a divine nature, and now a human. The gandharvas is the guardian of riches and waters: inasmuch as he defends them from the demoniacal robbers, preserves them from mortals, and distributes them among the pious, he appears under a beneficent and divine aspect; inasmuch, on the other hand, as he carries them off and keeps them shut up like a miser, he resembles the monster that is fabled to guard fountains and treasures, the demon who keeps the waters shut up, the thieves who gather treasures together, and the devil, the master of all riches. For the same reason we already find in Hindoo tradition the beneficent ass and his evil-doing congener. The sun (sometimes the moon also) in the cloud and the darkness of night is the same as the treasure in the cavern, the treasure in hell, and the hero or heroine in the gloomy forest; and this cavern and hell sometimes assume the form of an ass's skin, or of an ass simply. That which comes out of the cloud, and of the gloom, also comes out of the ass; the soul of the ass is the sun, or the hero or heroine, or the riches which he conceals. The Aēvināu are often found in connection with the worthless horse, which afterwards becomes handsome by means of the ambrosia itself that the horse produces; the gandharvās, a more nocturnal and cloudy form, if I may use the expression, of the solar or lunar hero, are in near relation with the ass, their _alter ego_, who enjoys the blessing of eternal youth. The Aēvināu themselves, the two horsemen who have given youth to the old Cyavanas, rode upon asses before they rode upon horses. The myth of the gandharvās and that of the Aēvināu, the myth of the horse and that of the ass, are intimately connected: from the gandharvās the aēvin comes forth; from the mythical ass the horse comes out. This is unnatural in zoology, but it is very natural in mythology: the sun comes, now out of the grey shades of night, and now out of the grey cloud.

The Vedic hymns already present us with several interesting myths concerning the ass.

The ass of the Aēvināu is swift; the devotees ask the Aēvināu when they are to yoke it, that they may be carried by it to the sacrifice.[702] In another hymn, as the Aēvināu are two, so are their asses two (rāsabhāv aēvinoh). Finally, the second strophe of the 116th hymn offers us a twofold significant particularity, viz., the ass, that vanquishes a thousand in the rich battlefield of Yamas (or in the nocturnal battle, in the struggle in hell, in which the ass appears as a real warrior, joined with riches, and fighting for riches), and is helped by strong and rapid wings (in which it shows us the ass that flies).[703]

The _Rigvedas_ also represents the ass of Indras as swift-footed.[704] But in the same hymn we already see the reverse of the medal, that is to say, the swift ones who deride him who is not swift, the horses that are urged before the ass.[705] The solar hero, towards morning, substitutes the horse for the ass, or appears with horses, leaving the ass or asses behind. We have learned in the preceding chapter how, in the heavenly race of the Vedic gods, the asses gained the palm of victory; but it was an effort superior to their powers. The _Āitareya Br._ informs us that by this effort they lost their swiftness and became draught animals, deprived of honey, but yet preserving great vigour in their sperm, so that the male ass can generate offspring in two ways, that is, mules by union with a mare, and asses by union with an ass.[706] Here, therefore, the ass is already considered an animal of an essentially phallical nature, which notion is confirmed by the precept of Kātyāyanas, recorded by Professor Weber,[707] which enjoins the sacrificing of an ass to expiate violated chastity. To chastise the ass, to sacrifice the ass, must mean the same as to chastise and to mortify the body,[708] and especially the phallos; and the Eastern and Western punishment of leading adulterers about upon an ass has the same meaning; the real martyr, however, in this punishment being the ass, who is exposed to every kind of derision and ill-treatment. In the same way, the henpecked husband who allowed himself to be beaten by his wife, used, in several villages of Piedmont, only a few years ago, to be led about ignominiously upon an ass: a husband who lets his wife impose upon him, and cannot subdue her, deserves to be chastised by means of an ass; he is not a man, and his ass, the emblem of his manly strength, must on this account suffer the punishment, because he has not shown himself able to assert his marital rights. The adulterer upon the ass, and the silly husband upon the ass, are punishments for phallic offences in, and in connection with, the person of that which represents the phallos: one is chastised for having wished, in this regard, to do too much, and the other for not having been able to do enough. On this account the condemned person was forced, in similar cases, to ride upon an ass with his face turned towards the animal's tail, another image which is yet more manifestly phallical; whence the very name of the punishment, "asini caudam in manu tenere."[709] As to the other proverb which says, "He to whom the ass belongs, holds him by the tail," it is explained by the narrative of a peasant who drew his ass out of a swamp, taking it by the tail; but this story too seems to have a phallic signification.

The ass, therefore, is already deposed from his noble place as a swift-footed courser in the _Rigvedas_ itself. And in the _Rigvedas_, too, where we have observed the ass described as a warrior who fights for the gods, we find him in the demoniacal form of a disagreeable singer who terrifies the worshippers of the god Indras; the latter is therefore requested by the poet to kill the ass who sings with a horrible voice.[710] Here the ass already appears as a real monster, worthy even of the steel of the prince of the celestial heroes himself, who prepares to combat him. The ass, therefore, is already sacred to the monsters in the white Yagurvedas.[711]

In the _Rāmāyanam_,[712] the slowness of the ass has already become proverbial. The modest Bharatas excuses himself from not being able to equal his brother Rāmas in the science of government, just as the ass, he says, cannot run like the horse, or other birds cannot fly like the vulture. The mythical ass, moreover, appears in this epic poem[713] in a demoniacal and infernal aspect: Bharatas, in fact, dreams of seeing his dead father Daēarathas, in blood-coloured clothes, borne to the southern funereal region on a car drawn by asses; and we are told that when a man is seen upon a car drawn by asses, it is a sign of his departure for the abode of Yamas. Kharas, a word which, as we already know, means ass, is also the name of a younger brother of the great monster Rāvanas. Rāvanas himself is drawn by asses upon a chariot adorned with gold and gems. These asses have the faces of the monster Piēācās,[714] that is, faces of parrots, as Hanumant afterwards informs us when he speaks of the monsters which he has seen in Lańkā, which he also says are as swift as thought.[715] We know that the coursers of Rāvanas were asses, and therefore the asses with the faces of the Piēācās, and the horses of the monsters with the faces of parrots, are the same. The monster Piēācās, therefore, has the face of a parrot. How is it that the parrot is reared in India as a sacred bird? It appears to me that equivocation in language had something to do with the formation of this singular mythological image. The word _piēācas_ is derived, like _piēańgas_, which means golden and red, from the root _piē_, to adorn; whence also the Vedic feminine _piē_, ornament, and the Vedic neuter, _peēas_, coloured tissue. The ass piēācas, who draw the chariot full of gold, are therefore themselves, at least in their face, in their foremost part, golden asses, or red like the colour of gold, red like the colour of the sun; in fact, we find kharas (the ardent) as the proper name of an attendant on the sun, and kharānēus or khararaēmih, he of the burning ray, as Sanskrit names of the sun. Kharaketus, he who has a burning ray, is also the name of one of the monsters in the _Rāmāyanam_.[716] We therefore already see here the golden ass and the infernal monster identified with the sun; and hence we are very near the monster with the parrot's face. In the preceding chapter we observed how the solar horse appears in the morning luminous at first in its foremost parts,--now in its legs, now in its face, now in its mane, which is called golden; it is only the head of the horse which is found in the butter; of Dadhyanc we perceive only his head in connection with the ambrosia. Thus of the nocturnal ass, of the demoniacal ass, of the demon himself, the piēācas (the piēācās are called carnivorous[717]), only the face is seen, in the same way as of the piēācās, and of the horses belonging to the monsters, only the head is that of a parrot. But what connection can there be between the gold colour of the ass piēācas and the green colour of the parrot? The equivoque lies probably in the words _hari_ and _harit_, both of which, in the Hindoo tongue mean yellow, as well as green. Haris and hari signify the sun, and the moon, as being yellow; harayas and haritas are the horses of the sun; harī are the two horses of Indras and of the Aēvināu, of whom we also know that they more usually rode upon asses. We thus arrive at the light-coloured asses, at the asses that are golden, at least in their foremost parts, that is, in the morning twilight, when after his nocturnal course, the solar horseman is on the point of arriving at his golden eastern destination, whence the head of the ass which carries the divine horseman is illumined by him. But _haris_, besides signifying the solar hero as being yellow, also signifies the parrot as green; on this account the ass or demon with a golden head was exchanged with the ass or monster with the green head, or with the parrot's head. We shall see in the chapters concerning birds how the bird was often substituted for the horse in the office of carrying the deity or the hero.

To conclude the subject of the Hindoo mythical ass, it is certain that it existed in the heavens; it is certain that it flies in the sky, that it fights in the sky like a valiant warrior, that it terrifies its enemies in the sky with its terrible voice; that, in a word, it was a real and legitimate heroic animal. It is certain, moreover, that, considered under another aspect, it not only throws down the heroes, but carries them to hell, serves the infernal monsters, and is found in connection with the treasures of hell. Moreover, admitting, as I hope the reader will, my identification of the mythical ass with the gandharvas, we have the ass as dancer, the ass as musician, the ass who loves women, and the ass in the odorous ointment and in the inebriating drink, the somas which occupies the place of the wine of the Dionysian mysteries, in which the Hellenic ass took a solemn part.

In the fables of the _Pancatantram_, the ass is partly modelled on the Hellenic type and partly preserves its primitive character. The fourth book shows us the ass twice attracted towards the lion by the jackal, who induces him to believe that a beautiful female ass is awaiting him. The ass is distrustful and shows his fear, but the argument of the female ass, upon which the artful jackal insists, overcomes his timidity. He is, however, cunning enough to send the jackal before him; and at the sight of the lion he perceives the jackal's treachery and turns, fleeing away with such rapidity that the lion cannot overtake him. The jackal returns to the assault, and convinces the ass that he did wrong to abandon the beautiful female ass when he was on the point of receiving her favours; and thus touching the tender chord of his heart, he goes on to assure him that the female ass will throw herself into the fire or the water if she does not see him return. "Omnia vincit amor;" the ass returns, and this time the lion surprises and tears him to pieces; upon which the lion, before partaking of his meal, goes to perform his ablutions and devotions. Meanwhile the jackal eats the ass's heart and ears, and makes the lion, on his return, believe that the stupid animal had neither the one nor the other, because if he had had them, he would not have returned to the dangerous spot after having once escaped. The lion declares himself to be perfectly satisfied with this explanation. Here we have a mixture in the ass of swift-footedness, lust, and stupidity, his stupidity being caused by his lustfulness. Now, it is possible that his acquaintance with the Hellenic ass may have induced the author of the _Pancatantram_ to embody in the ass a quality which is generally attributed in fables of Hindoo origin to the monkey; but this is not absolutely necessary in order to explain the narrative of which we have now given the epitome.

On the other hand, in the fourth book of the _Pancatantram_, the fable of the ass in the tiger's skin--an insignificant variety of the ass in the lion's skin--was, as Professor Weber has already proved, taken from the Ęsopian fable. Another fable, in the fifth book, which tells us of the ass who, being passionately fond of music,[718] insisted upon singing, and was thus discovered and made a slave of, also seems to be of Hellenic origin. But, although the editing of these two Hindoo fables in a literary form had its origin in the knowledge of Hellenic literature, the original myth of the ass-lion (haris, which is the horse of Indras, also means the lion), and that of the ass-musician (as gandharvas and gardabhas), can be traced as far back as the Vedic scriptures.

In the Zendic _Yaēna_,[719] I find a new proof, which appears to me a very satisfactory one, of the identification which I have proposed of the ass with the gandharvas. I have already mentioned the gandharvas who guards over the somas in the midst of the waters, and I observed how the gandharvas kriēānus of the Vedās, and the Zend kereēāni who guards over the _hom_ in the _Vōuru-Kasha_, have been identified. But the same office is fulfilled in the _Yaēna_ by a three-legged ass, that is, a lame ass (or the solar horse who has become lame during the night, in the same way as the solar hero becomes lame, or a lame devil), who, by braying, terrifies the monsters and prevents them from contaminating the water.

In the first of the seven adventures of Rustem, in the _Shah-Name_ of Firdusi, the starving Rustem goes with his brave heroic horse to chase wild asses. The asses flee, but the hero's horse is swifter than they, and overtakes them; Rustem takes one by means of a lasso, and has it cooked, throwing away the bones. He then goes to sleep (_then_ sometimes expresses in the myths the interval of a whole day or of a whole year.--The hero does almost the same in his second adventure and in the book of _Sohrab_). While Rustem sleeps, a monstrous lion makes its appearance to surprise the hero; Rustem's heroic horse throws the lion down and tears it to pieces with its hoofs and teeth. This battle between the horse of the sleeping hero and the monster lion is an epic form of the fable which represents the animals as being terrified in the forest by the braying of the ass, and of that of the lion itself killed by the ass's kick. Probably the bones of the dead ass, when preserved, gave heroic strength to Rustem's horse.

In the Mongol stories, of which we have on a previous occasion indicated the Hindoo origin, we find two other legends relating to the ass. In the eighteenth Mongol story, a foolish man goes with his ass to hang up some rice; he hides his ass in a cave; some merchants pass by with their goods, and the fool sends forth, by means of a trumpet, such a sonorous shout, that the merchants, thinking brigands are hidden in the cavern, escape, leaving their goods in the ass's possession. Here the fool and the ass are already identified. The trumpet and the blowing made by the fool correspond to the braying of the ass, of whom we shall soon see other miracles related. The sense of the myth is this: the solar hero in the night or in the cloud grows stupid; he becomes an ass during the night or in the cloud; the cloud thunders, and the thunder of the cloud gives rise to the idea now of the braying and now of the flatus of the ass (or the fool), now of a trumpet,[720] and now of a drum. We must not forget that the word _dundubhis_ which properly means kettledrum or drum, is also the name of a monster, and that Dundubhī is the proper name of the wife of a gandharvas, or of a gandharvī. The skin of the drum being made of an ass's hide is one more reason why the thundering cloud, being very naturally likened to a drum, the thunder should be also considered now as a _flatus oris_, now as a _flatus ventris_ of the celestial ass, or of the foolish hero who accompanies him.

In the twenty-second Mongol story we have a variety, though partly a less complete and partly a richer one, of the fable of the Phrygian king Midas. A king who has golden ass ears, has his head combed every night with golden combs by young men, who are immediately after put to death (to comb the ass's head is about the same as to wash it; but however much it is combed, the ears can never be abolished). One day a young man predestined to the highest honours, before going to comb the king's head, receives from his mother a cake made of her own milk and flour. The young man offers the cake to the king, who likes it, and spares the youth's life on condition that he tells no one, not even his mother, the great secret, _viz._, that the king has golden ears. The youth promises to preserve silence, and makes a very great effort indeed to keep his promise, but this effort makes him seriously ill, so much so that he feels he will burst if he does not tell the secret. His mother then advises him to go and relieve his mind by whispering it into a fissure of the earth or of a tree. The young man does so; he goes into the open country, finds a squirrel's hole, and breathes gently down it, "Our king has ass's ears;" but animals have understanding and can speak, and there are men who understand their language. The secret is conveyed from one to another, till the king hears that the young man has divulged it. He threatens to take his life; but relents when he hears from him how it happened, and not only pardons him, but makes him his prime minister. The fortunate youth's first act is to invent a cap of the shape of the ears of an ass, in order that the king may be able to conceal the deformity; and when the people see the king with a cap of this shape, it pleases them so much that they all adopt it; and so the king, by means of his young minister, is no longer obliged to live secluded, and in the constant tormenting dread of discovery, but lives at his ease and happily ever afterwards.

Having thus examined under its principal aspects the most popular Asiatic tradition relative to the ass, let us now go on to epitomise the European tradition, and, if possible, more briefly; all the more that the reader, having, as I hope, now the key of the myth, will be of himself able to refer to it many analogous particulars of Gręco-Latin tradition. I say Gręco-Latin alone, because the myth of the ass among Slavonic and Germanic nations, where the ass is little, if at all, known, had no especial and independent development. In Slavonic countries, the part of the ass is generally sustained by Ivan the fool or Emilius the lazy one, as also by the bear or wolf, as in India it is often sustained by the monkey;[721] ass, bear, wolf, and monkey, as mythical animals, represent almost identical phenomena.

Let us take the story of Midas again at its commencement.

Midas appears in _Herodotus_, not only as a king of Phrygia, but as a progenitor of the Phrygians. In the Tusculans of Cicero, the drunken satyr Silenos (originally another form of the same Midas, the satyrs having ass's ears), the master of Dionysos, loses himself in the rose-garden belonging to Midas, before whom he is conducted, and by whom he is benevolently received and entertained, and then sent back with honour to the god, who, in gratitude, concedes to Midas the gift of turning to gold everything that he touches, to such an extent as to affect the food that he wishes to eat and the water in which he bathes. This myth is probably of a complex nature. Midas ought, like the ass, to turn to gold what he has eaten, that is, to turn his food and drink into excrements of gold, to fructify the golden ears of corn, _i.e._, in heaven, the solar rays. Cicero himself leads us to suppose that the myth of Midas is in relation with the ears of corn, when, in his first book _De Divinatione_, he says that the ants carried grains of wheat into the mouth of Midas when a child; these being symbols of abundance and of fecundity which are quite applicable to the mythical ass. For although the common ass is not a privileged foecundator, the mythical ass, in its capacity of a rain-giving cloud or ciramehin, is the best fertiliser of the fields. The sun, or gold, or treasure, comes out of the ass-darkness or ass-cloud. The ass Lucius, after having eaten the roses of morning or the east, again becomes Lucius the luminous one (the sun). On this account the ass Midas, too, who also delights in roses, turns to gold whatever he eats, as well as the dew or ambrosial fountain in which he bathes; the rosy becomes the golden; the sun comes out of the contact of the ass of night with the aurora.

Servius, in his commentary on the sixth book of the _Ęneid_, also tells us the centauri "in floribus stabulant," as the Hindoo gandharvas in the perfumes. These perfumes are rain and dew. The ass crowned with loaves of bread[722] and flowers, in the Latin worship of Vesta, who remembered the service rendered to her one day by the braying of the ass, which aroused her from her sleep when some one was attempting to violate her, is another variety of the myth of the aurora who awakes out of the night, golden, that is, rich in golden oats and in golden wheat. The ass itself is sacrificed, because, perhaps, it was the ass itself that had made an attempt to deprive Vesta of her chastity; but having betrayed itself, as it often happens in fables, by its braying, it arouses Vesta, who punishes it by offering it in sacrifice. In a variation of the same story in the first book of Ovid's _Fasti_, where instead of Vesta we have the nymph Lothis asleep, the red Priapos, who wishes to violate her, also loses his opportunity, because the ass of Silenos--

     "Intempestivos edidit ore sonos,"

on which account it is killed by Priapos:

     "Morte dedit poenas auctor clamoris, et hęc est
      Hellespontiaco victima sacra Deo."

The apologue is well known of the long-eared ass, who, when called upon to judge between the nightingale and the cuckoo as to who has the sweetest voice, decides in favour of the cuckoo. The nightingale then appeals to man with the sweet song that we are all acquainted with.[723] In the myth of Midas, the Phrygian hero is given ass's ears as a chastisement by Apollo, because, having been called upon to judge between the cithern or lyre of Apollo (whence the proverb "Asinus ad lyram") and the pastoral pipe (calamus agrestis) of Pan (who is represented as a horned and bearded satyr, with a tail and long ears), he pronounced that the pan-pipes were the most harmonious instrument. Midas hides his ears in a red cap, but his comber lets out the secret, as in the Mongol story, and in a manner almost identical--

     "Ille quidem celat, turpique onerata pudore
      Tempora purpureis tentat velare tiaris:
      Sed, solitus longos ferro resecare capillos,
      Viderat hoc famulus: qui, cum nec prodere visum
      Dedecus auderet, cupiens efferre sub auras,
      Nec posset reticere tamen, secedit; humumque
      Effodit, et domini quales aspexerit aures,
      Voce refert parva: terręque immurmurat haustę.
      Indiciumque suę vocis tellure regesta
      Obruit, et scrobibus tacitus discedit opertis.
      Creber arundinibus tremulis ibi surgere lucus
      Coepit; et, ut primum pleno maturuit anno,
      Prodidit agricolam: leni jam motus ab Austro
      Obruta verba refert; dominique coarguit aures."[724]

The same Greeks who held the ass up to derision, made the Phrygian king Midas, of the ass's ears, the object of their satire. This is a particular form of the mythico-heroic struggle between Greeks and Phrygians or Trojans. Apollo is the enemy of the Trojans, as he is the enemy of the Phrygian king Midas. The Trojans and Troy are represented by the ass, and the Greeks, who vanquish and take by assault the Trojan fortress, by the horse; the sun disperses the night; the hero kills the centaur; the horse defeats the ass, the Greek the Trojan; and every one can see how the fact that the Greeks personified in the ass their enemies in Asia Minor, must have damaged the reputation of the poor long-eared animal. The most bitter and cutting satire is always that which is directed towards one's own enemies; and the ass, unfortunately, had at one time the honour of representing the Phrygian, the traditional enemy of the Greek. The ass bore the load of this heroic war, in the same way as in the Middle Ages he was publicly impaled by the Paduans for having had the misfortune of being the sacred animal on the arms of the city of Vicenza, with which the Paduans lived in rivalry.[725]

In the same eleventh book of Ovid where the transformation of the human ears of Midas into ass's ears is described, it is very remarkable that the new ears are called whitish, as in the Mongol story they are said to be golden. This confirms still more the interpretation of the myth, to the effect that the ass is the solar steed during the night. The head and the tail of the night, conceived as an animal, are now the two whitish or grey twilights, and now the two golden auroras of morning and evening.

                               "Nec Delius aures
     Humanam stolidas patitur retinere figuram,
     Sed trahit in spatium villisque albentibus implet
     Instabilesque illas facit et dat posse moveri."

The changeableness of the twilights must have served very well to express the mobility of the ears of an ass.

In the story of the ass, Midas, the musical critic, the predestined ass, pronounces in favour of Pan; and he does so not only on account of the consanguinity between himself and the god, but also from a patriotic feeling. Pan was born in a forest of Arcadia, of Zeus and the nymph Kallisto; and it is well known that antiquity celebrated the asses of Arcadia above those of every other country. The ass as a musician, the ass as a musical critic, Pan the musician, and Pan preferred by the ass, are the same person. Arcadia, the country of pastoral music, of whistling shepherds, which made the Italy of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries bleat out so many useless verses, the country of Pan the satyr, _par excellence_, is the country of the ass. Arcadia is the most mountainous and wooded part of Greece,[726] and therefore, when the Olympians came down from heaven, celestial nymphs and satyrs came to people the forests and fountains of Arcadia. The divine guardian of the ambrosia in the heavenly cloud takes, in the Arcadian forest, the form of Pan, god of shepherds, who keeps guard over the honey. The gandharvās, who danced and sung in the Hindoo Olympus with the apsarasas, has descended into Arcadia in the shape of Pan, to dance and sing with the nymphs.[727] Pan who goes alone into the gloomy forest, Pan who chases fear away, connected as he is with the story of the ass, reminds us on the one hand of the superstition recorded by Pliny, to the effect that an ass's skin put upon children chases fear from them[728] (in the same way as in the province of Girgenti, in Sicily, it is believed that shoes made of a wolf's skin, put on children's feet, make them daring and lucky in battle), and, on the other hand, of the unpublished Piedmontese story of the fearless Giovannino, who, in reward for his courage in going alone to hell, brings away with him an ass which throws gold from its tail.[729] In Tzetzas[730] I find again the curious notion that Midas sold his own _stercus_ out of avarice, that is, that he changed it into gold, as Vespasian used to do by selling the excrement of his horse.

The Ęsopian ass, when he goes to battle, terrifies by his braying all the animals of the forest; so Pan defeats his enemies by means of his terrible voice; and according to Herodotus,[731] in the heroic battle of Marathon, the Athenians were helped by the powerful voice of the god Pan. Finally, as we have seen Apollo to be the rival of Pan and the enemy of the Phrygian Midas, the predestined ass, as well as of the Trojans, so, in the eleventh of the Pythic odes of Pindar, we find the hero Perseus, among the Hyperboreans,[732] eating asses.[733] The morning sun devours the ass of night, as we have seen the solar hero Rustem do in the _Shah-Name_, where he eats the wild asses.

But we must look for more mythical personages in connection with the ass Midas in Arcadia, as the region of Pan and of asses. The ass Midas is considered as a rich progenitor of races, and is supposed to have been the first Phrygian. Windischmann has already observed (with the examples of Yamas, Yima, Manus, Minos, and Radamanthüs) the connection between the rich progenitor of races and the rich king or judge of hell. To Midas the progenitor and to Midas the judge, corresponds the ass whose excrements are of gold, the ass judge and prophet, the Arcadian and prophetic Pan. The Arcadians considered themselves not only autocthonoi, but proselźnoi, or anterior to the moon. But they are also considered in the light of inhabitants of an infernal region. In Arcadia was situated the lake Stümphalos, the demoniacal birds of which were slain by Hźraklźs in Arcadia; in a chasm formed of wild rocks was the source of the Styx, the principal infernal river, that by which the Hellenic infernal beings were accustomed to swear. Greek and Latin writers used to narrate of the ass (and the mule) that it had an especial aversion to the water of the Styx, as being poisonous. This superstition, when referred to the myth, appears to mean that, when the solar hero drinks this water--the water of the dark or cloudy ocean--he becomes a dark ass. (We find in Russian stories the hero who is transformed into a bull, a horse, or a he-goat, when he drinks water of which a demoniacal bull, horse, or he-goat has previously drunk.) Ęlianos, in his tenth book relative to animals, speaking of the horned asses of Scythia, writes that they held in their horns the water of the Styx. A similar narrative is given by Philostratos in the third book of his romantic Life of Apollonios, concerning the fabulous horned ass of India. "It is said," he writes, "that in the marshy ground near the Indian river Hyphasis many wild asses are to be found; and that these wild beasts have on their heads a horn with which they fight bravely like bulls" (this seems to be a reminiscence of the Indian rhinoceros); "and that the Indians form out of these horns drinking-cups, affirming that those who drink out of these cups are delivered from every illness for all that day; when wounded they feel no pain, they pass safely through flames, nor, when they have drunk out of it, can they be hurt by any poison. They say that these cups belong to kings alone, nor is it permitted to any other than a king to hunt the animal. It is narrated that Apollonios (the hero of the romance) had seen this animal and observed its nature with wonder. Moreover, to Damis, who asked him whether he had faith in what was commonly said concerning the virtue of this cup, he answered 'I will believe it when I shall have learned that in this country the king is immortal.'" And no doubt Apollonios would have believed had it been impossible for him to divine that the king who makes use of this marvellous cup is the immortal sun, to whom alone it is reserved to kill the ass of the nocturnal forest, the ass whose hairy ears are like horns,[734] whose ears are of gold.

The horn of the Scythian ass full of Stygian water, the horn of the ass which, when used as a cup, gives health and happiness to him who drinks out of it, remind us (not to speak of Samson's jaw-bone of an ass, which makes water flow) especially of the myth of the cornucopia and that of the goat, with which the satyrs and fauns, having goat's feet, stand in particular connection. It is also for this reason that the ass is found in relation with Pan; wherefore it is too that Silenos rides upon an ass, and appears, as we have already seen, in the story of Midas, in his garden of roses; indeed the mythical centaurs or onocentaurs, satyr, faun, ass, and goat are equivalent expressions. We have seen, a few pages back, the Zendic three-legged ass; in the following chapter we shall find the lame goat.

As the ass was ridden by Silenos,[735] so was he the animal dedicated to Bacchus and to Priapos, whose mysteries were celebrated in the Dionysian feasts. It is said that when Bacchus had to traverse a marsh, he met with two young asses, and was conveyed by one of them, who was endowed with human speech, to the other side without touching the water. (The 116th hymn of the first book of the _Rigvedas_ merits being especially compared with this. In it, immediately after having represented the Aēvināu as drawn by winged asses, the poet celebrates the Aēvināu as delivering the hero Bhugyus out of the waters upon a vessel that moved of itself in the air.)[736] On this account it is said that Bacchus, in gratitude, placed the two young asses among the stars.[737] This is another confirmation of the fact that the mythical ass really had the virtue of flying; and the proverb "Asinus si volat habet alas"[738] alludes to this myth. The fable of the ass who wishes to fly, and the flight of the ass, are derisive allusions, applied to the earthly ass. The celestial myth lingers in the memory, but is no longer understood.

In the myth of Prometheus, in _Ęlianos_ (vi. 5), we have the ass who carries the talisman which makes young again, which Zeus intended for him who should discover the robber of the divine fire (Prometheus). The ass, being thirsty, approaches a fountain, and is about to drink, when a snake who guards the fountain prevents him from doing so. The ass offers the snake the charm which he is carrying, upon which the serpent strips off its old age, and the ass, drinking at the fountain, acquires the power of becoming young again. The ass of night, when he drinks the dew of the dawn, grows young and handsome again every day. It is on this account, I repeat, that youth is celebrated as a peculiar virtue of the ass; it is on this account that the Romans attributed a great cosmetic virtue to ass's milk[739] (the white dawn, or moon).

The mythical ass seems to die every day, whereas, on the contrary it is born anew every day, and becomes young again; whence the Greek proverb does not celebrate the death in the singular, but the deaths of the ass ("Onou thanatous").

The Italian proverb of the ass that carries wine and drinks water, probably alludes to the ass that carries the water of youth, and then, being thirsty, drinks at the fountain in the legend of Prometheus. The wine of the Hellenic and Latin myth corresponds to the inebriating drink or somas in which Indras delights so much in the _Rigvedas_. The ass bears the drunken Silenos on its back.

The sun, who in the cloud is covered with the skin of an ass, carries the rain; whence the Greek proverb the ass is wetted by the rain ("Onos hüetai"), and the popular belief that when the ears of the ass or of a satyr (that is to say, of the ass itself) move, it is an indication of rainy weather (or dew). When the sun comes out of the shadows of night, he drinks the milk or white humour of the early morning sky, the same white foaming humour which caused the birth of Aphroditź, the same humour out of which, by the loves of Dionysos (or of Pan, of a satyr, or of the ass itself) and Aphroditź, the satyr was procreated--Priapos, whose phallic loves are discovered by the ass. The satyr serves as a link between the myth of the ass and that of the goat. On this account (that is, on account of the close relation between the mythical ass and the mythical goat) two ancient Greek and Latin proverbs--_i.e._, to dispute about the shadow of the ass ("Peri onou skias") and to dispute, "De lana caprina"--have the same meaning, a dispute concerning a bagatelle (but which is no trifle in the myth, where the skin of the goat or of the ass is sometimes changed into a golden fleece), which seems so much the more probable, as the Greeks have also handed down to us another proverb in which the man who expects to reap where he has not sown is laughed at as one who looks for the wool of the ass ("Onou pokas zźteis"), or who shears the ass ("Ton onon keireis"). We have seen, in the myth of Midas, the king, whose ears, when combed, betray his asinine nature. The Piedmontese story of the maiden on whose forehead a horn or an ass's tail grows, because she has badly combed the good fairy's head, is connected with this story of the combing of the long-eared Midas. The combed ass and the sheared ass correspond with one another; the combed ass has golden ears, in the same way as gold and gems fall from the head of the good fairy combed by the good girl in the fairy tale. To this mythical belief, I think, may be traced the origin of the medięval custom in the Roman Church, which lasted till the time of Gregory VII., in which public ovations were offered to the Pope, and an ass bearing money upon its head was brought before him.[740]

The shadow of the ass[741] betrays him, no less than his ears, his nose, and his braying. The shadow of the ass and his nose are found in connection with each other in the legend of the Golden Ass of Apuleius, which, after narrating how the ass, by putting his head out of the window, had betrayed his master the greengrocer or gardener (the friend of perfumes, "Gandharvas, asinus, in unguento, onos en müro"), concludes thus: "The miserable gardener having been found again, and taken before the magistrates to pay the fine, they lead him to a public prison, and with great laughter cease not, says the ass Lucius, to "make merry with my face;" whence also was derived the popular proverb concerning the face and shadow of the ass ('De prospectu et umbra asini')." The ass who betrays his master the greengrocer or gardener by his face is a variety of the ass who, dressed in the forest in the lion's skin[742] (like Hźraklźs who goes into hell dressed in a lion's skin), betrays himself by his braying, and of the ass who discovers by his braying Priapos, who delights in gardens (the vulva), Priapos the gardener, like the ogre[743] of the _Pentamerone_, who finds before him in his garden a beautiful maiden.

The ass can restrain neither his voice nor his flatus; we have already seen something similar in the story of Midas, where the comber of the ass feels he will burst if he is not permitted to relieve himself of the secret of the ass. Diogenźs of Laertes narrates that the fields of Agrigentum being devastated by malignant winds which destroyed the crops, the philosopher Empedocles instructed them to take asses' skins, and having made sacks of them, carry them to the summits of the hills and mountains, to chase the winds away. Ęlianos, confounding one noise with another, suggests, to prevent the ass from braying, the advantage of appending a stone to its tail. This ancient Greek fable is to this day very popular in Italy, and the narrator is accustomed to furbish it up with a character of actuality, as if it had happened yesterday, and among his acquaintances.

In the Italian stories,[744] when the ass brays upon the mountain, a tail grows on the forehead of the step-mother's ugly daughter; the third crowing of the cock is the signal for the monster's death; the third braying or flatus of the ass announces the death of the fool. With the end of the night the ass disappears, and the fool also disappears or dies. The braying of the ass cannot mount up into heaven; after the ass has brayed, after the cloud has thundered, the ass comes down upon the earth, is dissolved into rain, is dispersed and dies; the dark ass cannot remain in the luminous sky, it can only inhabit the cloudy, watery, or gloomy sky of hell. The way in which the fool of the story tries to elude death resembles that which was used, according to Ęlianos, to prevent the ass from braying. In a story of Armagnac,[745] Joan lou Péc runs after a man whom he believes to be a sage, and asks him when he will die; the man answers, "Joan lou Péc, mouriras au troisičmo pet de toun ase." The ass does so twice; the fool endeavours to prevent the third: "Cop sec s'en-angonc cerca un pau (a stake) bien pounchut et l'enfouncéc das un martet dens lou cu de l'ase. Mes l'ase s'enflec tant, e hasconc tant gran effort, que lou pau sourtisconc coumo no balo e tučc lou praube Joan lou Péc."

In _Herodotus_, the Scythians are defeated when the asses bray, and the dogs bark among Darius's tents. The braying of the ass, the thunder of the cloud, is an oracle; the ass that brays is a judge and a prophet. In hell everything is known; the devil knows every art, every species of malice, every secret; the ass in hell participates in this knowledge. The ass Nicon, in _Plutarch_, in the Life of Antony, predicts to Augustus his victory at the battle of Actium; on the contrary, in the Life of Alexander, by the same author, an ass who kills with a kick a great lion belonging to the Macedonian, appears to the great conqueror in the light of an evil omen. The dying sun of evening, the old lion, is killed in the evening by the ass of night; in the morning, on the contrary, the ass of night announces his fortune to the solar hero, who again becomes luminous and wise. The ass can predict all things, because it knows all things; it knows everything, because it hears everything, and it hears everything by means of its exceedingly long ears; the ass of Apuleius says of itself: "Recreabar quod auribus pręditus cuncta longule etiam dissita sentiebam." And this ass which listens from a distance reminds us again of the third brother, now a fool, and now only supposed to be a fool; to the Andalusian Oidin-Oidon, hijo del buen oidor (a relation of the already cited Vedic Indras āērutkarnas), of the second cuento of Caballero,[746] who hears everything that is done in the deepest parts of hell, where Lucifer sits, horned and large-eared. The hero who combats with Lucifer only thinks of cutting off his ear; the ass without ears is no longer an ass; the ears of the mythical ass are its vital and characteristic organs. Instead of ears, give horns to the mythical ass, and we have the mythical goat; take the horns away and we have now the mythical abject sheep, now the hog; this is what we shall see in the two next chapters.

FOOTNOTES:

[686] _Ueber den Zusammenhang indischer Fabeln mit griechischen_, eine kritische Abhandlung von A. Weber, Berlin, 1855.

[687] Here is the hymn as given by Du Cange in his _Gloss. M. et I. L._:--

     "Orentis partibus
      Adventavit Asinus,
      Pulcher et fortissimus,
      Sarcinis aptissimus.
        Hez, Sire Asnes, car chantez,
        Belle bouche rechignez,
        Vous aurez du fom assez
        Et de l'avoine ą plantez.

     "Lentus erat pedibus
      Nisi foret baculus
      Et eum in clunibus
      Pungeret aculeus.
        Hez, Sire Asnes, &c.

     "Hic in collibus Sichem,
      Jam nutritus sub Ruben,
      Transiit per Jordanem,
      Saliit in Bethleem.
        Hez, Sire Asnes, &c.

     "Ecce magnis auribus
      Subjugalis filius
      Asinus egregius
      Asinorum dominus.
        Hez, Sire Asnes, &c.

     "Saltu vincit hinnulos,
      Damas et capreolos,
      Super dromedarios
      Velox Madianeos.
        Hez, Sire Asnes, &c.

     "Auram de Arabia,
      Thus et myrrhum de Saba
      Tulit in ecclesia
      Virtus Asinaria.
        Hez, Sire Asnes, &c.

     "Dum trahit vehicula
      Multa cum sarcinula,
      Illius mandibula,
      Dura terit pabula,
        Hez, Sire Asnes, &c.

     "Cum aristis hordeum
      Comedit et carduum;
      Triticum a palea
      Segregat in area.
        Hez, Sire Asnes, &c.

     "Amen, dicas, Asine,
               (_Hic genuflectabatur._)
      Jam satur de gramine:
      Amen, amen itera
      Aspernare vetera.
        Hez va! hez va! hez va! hez!
        Bialz! Sire Asne, car allez;
        Belle bouche car chantez."

[688] Cfr. Reinsberg von Düringsfeld, _Das festliche Jahr_.

[689] Sometimes the place of the ass is taken by the mule. At Turin, for instance, it is narrated that the church dedicated to the _Corpus Domini_ was erected several centuries ago on account of the miracle of a mule which carried some sacred goods stolen by an impious thief. Having arrived in the little square where the Church of the _Corpus Domini_ now stands, the mule refused to go any farther; and out of a cup, which was among the sacred objects stolen, a wafer containing the body of our Saviour rose into the air. Nor would it come down again until the bishop came forth, and, holding the cup high in the air, besought the wafer to come back into it; which having been miraculously accomplished, the Church of the _Corpus Domini_ was erected on the spot, from which starts and to which returns the solemn procession which takes place annually at Turin on the festival of _Corpus Domini_, and in which, about twenty years ago, the princes and great dignitaries of the state, with the professors of the university, used to take part in all the pomp of medięval ceremony and costume.--In Persia the festival of asses is celebrated at the approach of spring; the ass personifying here the end of the winter season.

[690] The same analogy presents itself in the Sanskrit word _arbhakas_, which means little and foolish.

[691] Cfr. the root _gad_, from which we might perhaps deduce an imaginary intermediate form, gadarbhas, besides the known gardabhas and gandharbas or gandharvas.

[692] Cfr. _arvan_ with the roots _arv, arb, arp, riph, riph, riv, rinv_.

[693] x. 10, 5.

[694] Gandharva itthā padam asya rakshati.; _Rigv._ ix. 83, 4.

[695] Strīkāmāh vāi gandharvāh; i. 27.

[696] Professor Kuhn (_Die Herabkunft_, d. f. &c.) has already compared to this the Zend Gandhrawa, who, in the Lake Vōuru-Kasha, keeps guard over the tree _hom_ (the Vedic Somas). Kuhn and Weber, moreover, have identified the Vedic gandharvas, Kriēānus, who wounds the ravisher of the Somas, with the Zend Kereēāni, who endeavours to destroy riches; here the gandharvas would appear to be a monstrous and demoniacal being.

[697] ... ut omittam eos, quos libidinis ac foedę voluptatis causa, coluisse nomen illud atque imposuisse suis, a scriptoribus notatur, qualis olim Onos ille Commodi; qualis exsecrandus Marci Verotrasinus, qualis et alterius Onobelos, quales, quos matronis in deliciis fuisse scimus. Unde illud atque alium bipedem sibi quęrit asellum, ejus nempe membri causa, quod, in asino, clava, a Nicandro dicitur; _Laus Asini_, Lugd. Batavorum, ex officina Elzeviriana, p. 194.

[698] To this flight into Egypt upon the ass can be referred the Piedmontese custom among children in the middle of Lent--that is, near the festival of St Joseph--of attaching to their companions now a saw, now a devil's head, now an ass's head, pronouncing the words, "L'asu cariį che gnün lu sa" (the ass burdened, and no one knows it). Moreover, it seems to me that to the Christian tradition of Joseph, and of the child Jesus carried upon the ass, can be referred the well-known European fable of the old man, the boy, and the ass, of which numerous varieties may be read in the article upon the _asinus vulgi_ in the _Orient und Occident_ of Benfey.

[699] Professor Benfey, in his learned Einleitung to the _Pancatantram_, p. 268, says that the disguise by means of the skin of an ass is found in a Latin poem of the fifteenth century.

[700] "Addo ex Conrado Lycosthene in libro de ostentis et prodigiis hanc iconem quam hippokentauri esse credebam, ipse vero (nescio ex quo) Apothami vocat, Apothami (inquit) in aqua morantes, qui una parte hominem, alia vero caballum sive equum referunt. Sic etiam memorię tradiderunt mulieres esse capite plano sine crinibus, promissas autem barbas habentes. Atqui ea descriptio plane ad Onocentauros pertinere videtur, quos Aelianus et Philes sic fere delineant. Quę vero de Onocentauro fama accepi, hęc sunt: Eum homini ore et promissa barba similem esse, simul et collum et pectus, humanam speciem gerere; mammas distantes tamquam mulieris ex pectore pendere; humeros, brachia, digitos, humanam figuram habere; dorsum, ventrem, latera, posteriores pedes, asino persimiles et quemadmodum asinum sic cinereo colore esse; imum ventrem leviter exalbescere: duplicem usum ei manus pręstare; nam celeritate ubi sit opus eę manus pręcurrunt ante posteriores pedes; ex quo fit, ut non cęterorum quadrupedum cursu superetur. Ac ubi rursus habet necesse vel cibum capere vel aliud quidpiam tollere, qui ante pedes erant manus efficiuntur, tumque non graditur, sed in sessione quiescit: Animal est gravi animi acerbitate; nam si capiatur, non ferens servitutem, libertatis desiderio ab omni cibo abhorret, et fame sibi mortem consciscit, licet pullus adhuc fuerit. Hęc de Onocentauro Pythagoram narrare testatur Crates, ex Mysio Pergamo profectus;" Aldrovandi, _De Quadrupedibus_, i.--In the Indian satyrs described by Pliny, in the seventh book of his _Natural History_, we find represented an analogous animal: "Sunt et satyri subsolanis Indorum montibus (Cartadulonum dicitur regio) pernicissimum animal, turn quadrupes, turn recte currens, humana effigie, propter velocitatem nisi senes aut ęgri, aut capiuntur." Evidently this refers to some kind of monkey (probably the orang-outang); but as the myth of the monkey does not differ much from that of the ass, as we shall see, even the Hindoo gandharvas is represented as a monkey.--"In _A. V._ iv. 37, 11, the gandharvas, a class of gods, who are described as hairy, like dogs and monkeys, but as assuming a handsome appearance to seduce the affections of earthly females, are implored to desist from this unbecoming practice, and not to interfere with mortals, as they had wives of their own, the Apsarases;" Muir's _Sanskrit Texts_, v. 309.--We have the monkey-gandharvas and the warrior-gandharvas in the Vedic hymns, the warrior-monkey in the _Rāmāyanam_, and the warrior-kentauros and warrior-ass in Hellenic myths.

[701] We also read of the ass that dances, which reminds us of the gandharvas in their capacity of heavenly musicians and dancers, who teach the gods how to dance. Nor is it perhaps without reason that the author of precepts for dancers and mimics is named _Kriēāēvas_: kriēāēvas means, as we already know, he who possesses a lean horse, or simply the lean horse. Between the lean horse, the mule, and the ass, the distance is short; nor can we overlook the fact that in the gandharvas Kriēānus is recognised as he who causes to become lean, which calls us back to the monster who makes horses grow lean, to the monster of horses, the ugly horse, the horse-monster, who destroys the golden ears of the fields, making them dry up, like the monster Ēushnas, or the destroyer of riches, like the Zend Kereēāni.--In the before-quoted book, _Laus Asini_, the author says in jest, "Fortassis Pegasum fuisse asinum;" and in this jest a great truth is contained.

[702] Kadā yogo vāgino rāsabhasya yena yagnam nāsatyopayāthah; _Rigv._ i. 34, 9.

[703] Vilupatmabhir āēuhemabhir vā devānām vā gūtibhih ēāēadānā tad rāsabho nāsatyā sahasram āgā yamasya pradhane gigāya.

[704] Yatrā rathasya brihato nidhānam vimocanam vāgino rāsabhasya; _Rigv._ iii. 53, 5.

[705] Nāvāginam vāginā hāsayanti na gardabham puro aēvān nayanti; _Rigv._ iii. 53, 23.

[706] Gardabharathenāēvinā udagayatāmaēvināvāēnuvātām yadaēvinā udagayatāmaēvināvāēnuvātām tasmātsasritagavo dugdhadohah sarveshāmetarhi vāhanānāmanāēishto retasastvasya vīryam nāharatām tasmātsa dviretā vāgī; _Āit. Br._ iv. 2, 9.

[707] _Ueber den Zusammenhang indischer Fabeln mit griechischen_, Berlin, 1855.

[708] St Jerome, in the Life of Saint Hilarion: "Ego, inquit, Aselle, faciam ut non calcitres necte hordeo alam, sed paleis; fame te conficiam et sitis gravi onerabo pondere; per ęstus indagabo et frigore, ut cibum potius quam lasciviam cogites."--St Paulinus wrote, "Sit fortis anima mortificans asinum suum."--In Italian, too, there is a low term by which we say, _il mio asino_, instead of _il mio corpo_.

[709] A. c. i. m. t.,--poena seu mulcta, quę reis irrogari solebat, ut colligitur ex decreto Nepesini populi ann. 1134.--Iis et maxime maritis, qui a suis vapulabant mulieribus; quod eo usque insanię deventum erat, ut si maritus aufugisset, proximior vicinus eam ipse poenam luere teneretur; quem morem non omnino periisse audivi. Du Cange, whose words these are, gives several examples of a similar chastisement.--In the _Tuti-Name_, ii. 20, a certain man complains to a sage that he has lost his ass, and begs the wise man to find it again for him; the latter points out a man who grew old without having known love; he who does not love is a fool.--It is a remarkable fact that the ass, generally considered a very lustful animal, is sometimes despised as unadapted to make fruitful, and the reason of this is given by Aldrovandi (_De Quadrupedibus_, i.)--Quamvis modo libidine maxime pruriat, ob verendi tamen enormitatem, qua supra modum pręditus est, ad generandum admodum segnem esse compertum est, sicuti et homines qui simili genitalis productione conspicui sunt, quod in emissione per eam longitudinem semen transmeans hebetetur et frigidius fiat. Testaturque Ęlianus inter causas cur Ęgyptii asinos odere, et hanc quoque accedere putari, quod eum populi prędicti omnes foecundos animantes colant, asinus minime foecundans nullus in honore sit.

[710] Sam, indra, gardabham mrina nuvantam pāpayāmuyā; _Rigv._ i. 29, 5.

[711] Quoted by Weber, _Ueber den Zusammenhang indischer Fabeln mit griechischen_, where the braying ass would also appear to be born of the omniform monster: "Entsteht, nach Ē. xii. 7, 1, 5, nebst Ross und Maulthier, aus dem Ruhm (yaēas, which, however, may perhaps here also simply mean splendour), welcher dem Ohr des getödteten Viēvarūpa Tvāshtra entfloss, worin der Bezug auf sein lautes Geschrei wohl nicht zu verkennen ist."--We have already seen, in the Russian stories quoted in the preceding chapter, how the two horsemen who protect the hero come out of the ears of the grey horse, and how the hero himself, entering by one ear, and coming out of the other, finds a heroic horse. Here we can, perhaps, detect an allusion to the long-eared ass, in the same way as in the appellation of āērutkarnas, or the ear which listens, given to Indras (_Rigv._ i. 10, 9), the long-eared Indras may possibly be a form representing the long-eared Midas, or the ass with long ears.

[712] Gatim khara ivāēvasya suparnasyeva pakshinah anāgantum na ēakto 'smi rāgyam tava mahīpate.

[713] _Rāmāy._ ii. 71.

[714] _Rāmāy._ iii. 38, 48.

[715] _Ib._ v. 12.

[716] vi. 74.

[717] Kravyādah piēācāh, in the _Atharvavedas_, viii. 2, 12.

[718] Cfr. also the _Tuti-Name_ of Rosen, ii. 218, for the musical ass; and the same, ii. 149, for the ass in a lion's skin.

[719] xli. 28.--Cfr. the _Khorda Avesta_, Spiegel's _Einleitung_, p. 54: "Dort ist der dreibeinige Esel der in der Mitte des Sees steht und mit seinem Geschrei die bösen Wesen vertreibt und alles Wasser, das mit unreinen Wesen und Dingen in Berührung kommt, sogleich reinigt."

[720] Readers of Dante are acquainted with the trumpet of the devil Malacoda, which is used in the same way as the fool uses his in the Mongol story.

[721] In Menander, quoted by Aulus Gellius, a husband complains of the injuries done him by his wife, using the proverb, "The ass amongst the monkeys." Monkeys are well known for their impudent lasciviousness; the ass, who represents the phallos, among this lascivious fraternity finds himself often in the condition of an impotent and weak husband.

[722]

     Lampsacus huic soli solita est mactare Priapo.
       Apta asini flammis indicis exta damus.
     Quem tu diva memor de pane monilibus ornas;
       Cessat opus; vacuę conticuere molę.
                                --Ovidius, _Fasti_, vi.

[723] From the myth of the ass, as a musician and judge of music, is derived the Tuscan game of the ass, which is thus described by Signor Fanfani in his _Vocabolario dell' Uso Tuscano_, Firenze, 1863:--"Each member of the party chooses an animal whose voice or song he must imitate. The head player represents the ass, and is the king of the other animals. When the head player, sitting in the middle, calls one of the animals who encircle him, the dog, for instance, this animal must bark; when he calls the cock, it must cry chicchiricł; when he calls the ox, he who represents it must bellow, and so on. When the ass brays, then all the animals emit their respective cries. Whoever laughs, or omits to give forth the voice or song of the animal which he represents, pays a forfeit."

[724] Ovidius, _Metam._ xi. 180.

[725] According to the _Annals of Padova_, cited by Berrardino Scardeone, in Aldrovandi. _De Quadrupedibus_, i.

[726] The German proverb, "Wald hat Ohren, Feld hat Gesicht," is well known. Cfr. the varieties of this proverb upon the ears of the forest, in the third vol. pp. 120 and 173, of Uhland's _Schriften zur Geschichte der Dichtung und Sage_, Stüttgart, 1866.

[727] The reader is acquainted with the myth of the nymph Syrinx, beloved of Pan, who was changed into a cane or reed, from which Pan made a flute. We find the leaf of the cane in connection with the ass in Hungarian tradition. A singular indentation can be observed upon the leaves of the cane, which has a great resemblance to the mark of three teeth. To explain this strange mark the Hungarian people narrate, that the ass of the Redeemer once bit the leaf of a cane, but as Christ was in a hurry, the ass was unable to eat the leaf, and so it happened that its three teeth only left the mark of the bite upon the cane. From that time forward every leaf of a cane bears record to this. The two lines which stretch down the two flanks of the ass are said in Hungary to be caused by the blood of our Redeemer. The popular belief in Ireland is that these lines remain as a memorial of Christ having once struck the ass.--Cfr. the chapter on the Peacock and that on the Eel, where we shall find the hero and the heroine again transformed into canes.

[728] The loss of heart or courage is expressed in Italian by the low term "Quķ mi casca l'asino" (here my ass falls). This expression, however, may perhaps be of Hellenic origin; the equivoque between the two equisonant expressions, "ap' onou" and "apo nou" is well-known; whence to fall off the ass and to fall from one's mind became synonymous.

[729] There is an unpublished story which I heard narrated at Antignano, near Leghorn, of a mother who has a silly son named Pipetta. The latter asks his mother for a quattrino (a small coin) to buy a vetch, and afterwards a bean, because it grows higher; he sows it, and it attains a marvellous height. Climbing up the bean-stalk he comes to the gates of paradise, which are opened to him, but St Peter sends him back; he then finds the entrance to hell, which he wishes to visit. The devil shows him all the sights; the two then play at cards, and Pipetta wins a sackful of souls. The devil fears that Pipetta will empty hell, so he allows him to depart with the sack, and an ass which throws gold from its tail; he mounts up to heaven, and consigns the sack of souls to St Peter. The story ends with the usual exchange of asses at the inn where Pipetta sleeps upon his descent from the beanstalk.

[730] _Biblion Istorikon_, i. 116.--It is added, that when Titus remonstrated with his father on his avarice, Vespasian made him smell the gold for which the horse's dung had been sold, asking him whether it smelt bad.--In the Mongol story we saw the fool who goes out with his ass and hides it in a cavern afterwards despoiling a merchant's caravan.--_Tzetzas_, i. 128, records the existence in Phrygia of a village called "Ass's-ears" (ź klźsis onou ōta), inhabited by robbers, and belonging to Midas; he thinks, moreover, that Midas was surnamed the large-eared on account of this village of his.

[731] vi. 105.

[732] Kleitas onōn hekatombas, xi. 51.

[733] In _Anton. Liberalis_ we find a long narrative from which we gather that Apollo would only suffer the ass to be sacrificed to him among the Hyperboreans.

[734] I read on this subject in the curious volume _Laus Asini_, printed at Leyden by Elzevir, the following notice: "Si quis graviter a scorpione ictus, id in aurem insusurret asino, ex tempore curetur."

[735]

     "Te senior turpi sequitur Silenus asello
      Turgida pampineis redimitus tempora sertis
      Condita lascivi deducunt orgya mystę."
                                 --Seneca, _Oedipus_.

[736] Tam ūhathur nāubhir ātmanvatībhir antarikshaprudbhir apodakābhih; strophe 3.--Cfr. strophe 4th and 5th of the same hymn.

[737] Another reason is also assigned for the honour given to the ass in heaven: the ass and Priapos contend together as to who is superior; Priapos defeats the ass, and Dionysos takes pity upon the vanquished, and places it in heaven among the stars.

[738] _Laus Asini_, Ludg. Batavorum, ex officina Elzeviriana.

[739] "Conferre aliquid et candori in mulierum cute existimatur. Poppaea certe Domitii Neronis conjux quingentas secum per omnia trahens fętas balnearum etiam solio totum corpus illo lacte macerabat, extendi quoque cutem credens;" _Aldrov._ To which custom Juvenal alludes in his 6th satire:

                     "Atque illo lacte fovetur
     Propter quod secum comites educit asellas
     Exul hyperboreum si dimittetur ad axim."

[740] "Finitis laudibus, surgit quidam archipresbyter, retro se ascendit asinum preparatum a curia; quidam cubicularius tenet in capite asini bacilem cum xx. solidis denariorum," &c.; in Du Cange, the work quoted before, _s. v. cornomannia_.--We also find in Du Cange that a soldier was called in the middle ages "caput asini, pro magnitudine capitis et congerie capillorum."

[741] In the _Pentamerone_, iii. 8, the night is called "l'aseno de l'ombre."

[742] In the _Pentamerone_, ii. I, we have a variation of the other Ęsopian fable of the lion who is afraid of the ass. The old witch, in order to deliver herself from the lion which Petrosinella has caused to rise, flays an ass and dresses herself in its skin; the lion, believing it to be really an ass, runs off.--In the thirteenth of the Sicilian stories collected by Signora Laura Gonzenbach, and published at Leipzig by Brockhaus, the ass and the lion dispute the spoil; the young hero divides it, giving to the ass the hay that the lion has in its mouth, and to the lion the bones in the ass's mouth. But probably the lion here represents the dog, according to the Greek proverb, "Küni didōs achüra, onōi ta ostea," to express a thing done the wrong way.

[743] In the _Pentamerone_ again, in the island of the ogres, an old ogress feeds a number of asses, who afterwards jump on to the bank of a river and kick the swans; here the ass is demoniacal, as it is in the _Rāmāyanam_; the swans, as we shall see, are a form of the luminous Aēvināu.--In obscene literature, the _mentula_ as a gardener, and the _vulva_ as a garden, are two frequent images; cfr., among others, the Italian poem, _La Menta_.

[744] Cfr. the first of the _Novelline di Santo Stefano di Calcinaia_, in which we also find the third brother, believed to be stupid, who makes his ass throw gold from its tail; the foolish Pimpi, who kills his ass whilst cutting wood; the son of the poor man, who amuses himself by sending the ass before him tied to a string, and then making it return; the peasant who drags up the ass which had fallen into the marsh, and who then marries the daughter of the king of Russia (the wintry, the gloomy, the nocturnal one), who never laughed and whom he causes to laugh; and the ass who dies after eating a poisoned loaf.

[745] _Contes et Proverbes Populaires recueillis en Armagnac_, par J. F. Bladé, Paris, Franck.

[746] _Cuentos y Poesias Populares Andaluces_, collecionados por Fernan Caballero, Leipzig, Brockhaus, 1866.

CHAPTER IV.

THE SHEEP, THE RAM, AND THE GOAT.

SUMMARY.

   The sun-shepherd, and the sun-lamb, ram, or goat.--The dark-coloured
   he-goat.--The goat-moon.--Agas; explanation given by Professor
   Bréal; the Finnic aija.--Meshas; she-goat, ram, skin, sack.--The ram
   Indras.--The goats Aēvināu.--The he-goat Veretraghna.--The lamb and
   the goat in the forest opposed to the wolf.--The apple-tree and the
   she-goat; the cloud and the apple-tree.--The goat, the nut-tree and
   the hazel-nuts.--The wolf assumes the goat's voice; the wolf in the
   fire.--The witch takes the voice of the little hero's mother; the
   child born of a tree.--The hero among the sheep, or in the spoils of
   the sheep, escapes from the witch.--Pūshan agāēvas and his
   sister.--The brother who becomes a kid while drinking; the sister in
   the sea.--The husband-goat; the goat's skin burned; the monster
   appears once more a handsome youth; the funereal mantle of the young
   hero; when it is burned, the hero lives again handsome and
   splendid.--The children changed into kids.--The cunning Schmier-bock
   in the sack.--Agamukhī--Ilvalas and Wātāpis.--Indras meshāndas,
   sahasradhāras and sahasradāras.--The rams of the wolf eaten.--The
   goat of expiation, the goat and the stupidity of the hero disappear
   at the same time.--The devil-ram; the putrid sheep that throws gold
   behind it.--The goat which deprives men of sight.--The young prince,
   riding on the goat, solves the riddle.--The spy of heaven; the eye
   of God.--The constellation of the she-goat and two kids.--The lame
   goat.--The heroine and the goat her guide and nurse.--The milky way
   and the she-goat.--The goat's blood, manus Dei; the stone
   bezoar.--The cunning goat.--The goat deceives the wolf; the goat
   eats the leaf.--The she-goat possessed of a devil.--The
   ram-vessel.--Ram and he-goat foecundators.--The he-goat and the
   horned husband.--Zeus he-goat and the satyr Pan; Hźraklźs the rival
   of a goat; the old powerless man called a he-goat.--Hellenic forms
   of the myth of the goat.--Phrixos and Helle; Jupiter Ammon; the
   altar of Apollo; the fleece of the Iberians; the golden ram of
   Atreus; Aigüsthos; Diana and the white sheep; Neptune a ram; satyrs
   and fauns; Hermźs krioforos; the sheep of Epimenis; lambs, rams, and
   he-goats sacrificed; aixourania and the cornucopia.--The mythical
   goat; its threefold form; black, white, and light-coloured
   lambs.--Pecus and pecunia.

When the girl aurora leads out of the stable in the morning her radiant flock, among them there are found to be white lambs, white kids, and luminous sheep; in the evening the same aurora leads the lambs, the kids, and the sheep back to the fold. In the early dawn all this flock is white, by and by their fleeces are golden fleeces; the white, and afterwards the golden heavens of the east (or the west) constituting this white and golden flock, and the sun's rays their fleeces. Then the sun himself, who steps forth from this flock, is now its young shepherd-king, and now the lamb, the ram, or he-goat. When the sun enters into the region of night, the he-goat or lamb goes back to the fold and becomes dark-coloured; the sun veiled by the night or the cloud is a dark-coloured ram, he-goat, or she-goat. In the night, says the proverb, all cows are black; and the same might be said of goats, except in the case of the goat, luminous and all-seeing, coming out of the nocturnal darkness in the form of the moon. We must, therefore, consider the sheep or goat under a triple aspect; the principal and most interesting aspect being that of the sun veiled by the gloom, or by the cloud, which wears often a demoniacal form, such as that of the ass or of the hero in hell; the second being that of the grey-white, and afterwards golden sky of morning, or of the golden and thereafter grey-white sky of evening which, as a luminous, is therefore generally a divine form of the goat; and the third aspect being that of the moon.

The richest myths refer to the sun enclosed in the cloud or the shades of night, or to the cloud or darkness of night closing round the sun. The shifting shadow and the moving cloud on the one side, the damp night and the rainy cloud on the other, easily came to be represented as a goat and as a ram. In the Indian tongue, or even the Vedic, _agas_ is a word which means, properly speaking, pushing, drawing, moving (agens), and afterwards he-goat; the he-goat butts with its horns; the sun in the cloud butts with its rays until it opens the stable and its horns come out.[747] The ram is called _meshas_, or _mehas_, that is, the pourer or spreader, mingens (like the ass ciramehin), which corresponds with the _meghas_, or cloud mingens. Moreover, as in Greek from _aix_,[748] a goat, we have _aigis_, a skin (Ęgis), so in Sanskrit from _agas_, a goat, we have _aginas_, a skin; and from _meshas_, a ram, _meshas_, a fleece, a skin, and that which is formed from it; whence the Petropolitan Dictionary compares with it the Russian _mieh_ (Lithuanian, _maiszas_) skin and sack.

Let us now first of all see how these simple images developed themselves in the Hindoo myth.

Indras, the pluvial and thundering god, is represented in the first strophe of a Vedic hymn as a very celebrated heroic ram;[749] in the second strophe, as the one who pours out ambrosial honey (madacyutam); in the third strophe, as opening the stable or precinct of the cows to the Ańgirasas;[750] in the fourth strophe, as killing the serpent that covers or keeps back; in the fifth strophe, as expelling the enchanters with enchantments, and breaking the strong cities of the monster Piprus;[751] and in the sixth strophe, as crushing under his foot the giant-like monster Arbudas[752] or monster serpent. Thus far we have two aspects of the myth, the ram which pours out ambrosial honey, and the ram which opens the gate and crushes with its foot. In another hymn the Aēvināu are compared to two he-goats (ageva), to two horns (ērińgeva), and to two swift dogs.[753] A third hymn informs us that Indras by means of a ram killed a leonine monster.[754]

Here we evidently have a heroic he-goat or ram.

Let us compare it with other traditions. In the _Khorda Avesta_[755] we find Veretraghna (the Zend form of Indras, as Vritrahan) "with the body of a warrior he-goat, handsome, and with sharpened horns."

In the Russian tale given by _Afanassieff_,[756] the lamb, companion of the bull in the wood, kills the wolf by butting against its sides, while the bull also wounds the ferocious beast with its horns. In another variation of the same story,[757] the cat is confederate with the lamb against the wolf; the lamb butts hard at the wolf, while the cat scratches it till blood flows. In yet another version, besides the lamb, the he-goat also appears; the cat twists some of the bark of the birch-tree round the horns of the he-goat, and bids the lamb rub against it to produce fire; sparks come from it, the cat fetches hay, and the three companions warm themselves. The wolves come up, and the cat makes them run, presenting them the goat as a scarecrow, and frightening them further by ominous hints as to the strength contained in its beard. Finally, we have in the Russian stories two singular variations of the fable of the goat, the kids, and the wolf.[758] The goat is about to give birth to her young ones under an apple-tree. (We have seen in Chapter I. the apple-tree, the fruit of which, when eaten, causes horns to sprout. It is well-known that in Greek, _mźlon_ means a goat and an apple-tree, as the Hindoo masculine noun _petvas_, which means a ram, is in the neuter _petvam_ = ambrosia. The mythical apple-tree is ambrosial, like the cornucopia of the goat of mythology; and it seems to me that here, too, I can find an analogy in the Slavonic field itself between the Russian words _óblaka_, clouds, in the plural _ablakį_, the clouds, and _iablony_, apple-tree, plural _jįblogna_, the apple-trees, _jablok_, the apple.) The apple-tree advises the goat to betake itself to some other place, as the apples might fall upon its new-born kids and kill them. The goat then goes to give birth to her young ones under an equally shady walnut-tree; the walnut-tree also advises her to go away, as the nuts might fall and do serious harm to her little ones;[759] upon which the goat goes to a deserted tent in the forest, another form of the cloud of night. When the kids are brought forth, the goat issues forth out of the tent to procure food, and cautions her children not to open to any one (the fable is well known in the West, but the Slavonic variations are particularly interesting). The wolf comes and pronounces the same password as the goat to induce the kids to open, but they perceive by the rough voice of the wolf that it is not their mother, and refuse to admit him. The wolf then goes to the blacksmith, and has a voice made for him resembling that of the goat; the deceived kids open, and the wolf devours them all except the smallest, who hides under the stove (the favourite place where the little Slavonic hero, the third brother, the ill-favoured fool, who afterwards becomes handsome and wise, is accustomed to squat). The goat returns, and learns from the kid which has escaped the massacre of its brothers. She thinks how to avenge herself, and invites her friend and gossip the fox with the wolf to dinner; the unsuspecting wolf arrives along with the fox. After dinner, the goat, to divert her guests, invites them to amuse themselves by leaping over an opening made in the floor; the goat leaps first, then the fox leaps, and then the wolf, but falls down on the burning ashes and is burnt to death, like the witch in some other stories, as the night is burned by the morning aurora; and the goat chaunts a marvellous _Te Deum_ (cudesnoi pamin) in the wolf's honour. The other Russian version adds some new and curious details. The goat goes to find food, and leaves the kids alone; they shut the door after her. She returns and says, "Open, my sons, my little fathers; your mother is come; she has brought some milk, half a side full of milk, half a horn full of fresh cheese, half a little horn full of clear water (the cornucopia)."[760] The kids open immediately. The second day the goat goes out again; the wolf, who had heard the song, tries to sing it to the kids; but the latter perceive that it is not their mother's voice, and do not open. Next day the wolf again imitates the mother's voice; the kids open the door, and are all devoured except one which hides itself in the stove, and afterwards narrates to the mother-goat all that has happened. The goat avenges herself as follows: She goes into the forest with the wolf, and comes to a ditch where some workmen had cooked some gruel, and left the fire still burning. The goat challenges the wolf to leap the ditch; the wolf tries and falls into it, where the fire makes his belly split open, from which the kids, still alive, skip out and run to their mother.

Another story, however,[761] affords us still more aid in the interpretation of the myth; that is, in leading us to see in the goat and her kids the sun horned or furnished with rays, as it issues radiant out of the cloud, or darkness, or ocean of night, and in the wolf, or in the wolf's skin, split open or burned, out of which the kids come, the dark, cloudy, watery nocturnal sky. Instead of the wolf we have a witch, instead of the goat a woman, and instead of the kids the young Vaniushka (Little John); the witch has a voice made by the blacksmith like that of Vaniushka's or Tereshicko's mother, and thus attracts him to her. Tereshicha says that he was originally the stump of a tree, which his father and mother, being childless, had picked up in the forest, and wrapped up and rocked in a cradle till he was born.

The monster wolf, or the witch, having the faculty of simulating the voice of the goat,[762] and an especial predilection for both sheep and goats,--so much so that the witch Liho (properly Evil) keeps some in her house, and those which come out (of the dark sky) in the morning, and which re-enter (the dark sky) in the evening, are considered her peculiar property,[763]--often transforms the hero (the evening sun) into a kid (into the darkness or cloud of night). Of course, as the dark and cloudy monster is often represented as a wolf, it is easy to understand his wish that everything should be transformed into a lamb in order to eat it. But the mythical lamb or kid, the young solar hero, generally escapes out of the jaws of the wolf, out of the hands of the witch, or out of the darkness, the waters, or the cloud of night.

A Vedic hymn celebrates the strong Pūshan, who has a he-goat for his horse (or who is a goat-horse), and is called the lover of his sister. Perhaps these words contain the germ of the Russian story of Little John, brother of Little Helen, who is changed by witchcraft into a kid. I have already observed in Chapter I. how Helen, who at the commencement of the story shows affection for her brother John, ends by betraying him. The Vedic hymn would appear to contain the notion of the brother Pūshan transformed into a he-goat (the sun which enters into the cloud or darkness of night), because he has loved his sister. In another Vedic hymn we have the sister Yamī, who seduces her brother Yamas. In European fairy tales, the sister loves her brother, who is metamorphosed by the art of a witch, now into a young hog, and now into a kid. In the forty-fifth story of the fourth book of _Afanassieff_, Ivanushka (Little John) becomes a kid after drinking out of a goat's hoof. In the twenty-ninth story of the second book of _Afanassieff_, Ivanushka and Little Helen, the children of a Tzar, wander alone about the world. Ivanushka wishes to drink where cows, horses, sheep, and hogs feed and drink; his sister Little Helen advises him not to do so, lest he should turn into a calf, a colt, a lamb, or a young pig; but at last John is overcome by thirst, and, against the advice of his sister, he drinks where goats drink, and becomes a kid. A young Tzar marries the sister, and gives every honour to the kid, but a witch throws the young queen into the sea (Phrixos and Helle; in other European stories, into a cistern), and usurps her place, inducing the people to believe that she is Helen, and commanding the kid to be put to death. The kid runs to the shore and invokes his sister, who answers from the bottom of the sea that she can do nothing. The young Tzar, to whom the affair is referred, hastens to deliver Helen out of the sea; the kid can again skip about in safety, and everything is green again, and flourishes as much as it withered before; the witch is burnt alive.[764]

According to the fiftieth story of the sixth book of _Afanassieff_, a merchant has three daughters. He builds a new house, and sends his three daughters by turns to pass the night there, in order to see what they dream about. (The belief that the man dreamed of by a maiden during the night of St John's Day, Christmas Day, or the Epiphany, is her predestined husband, still exists in the popular superstitions of Europe.) The eldest daughter dreams that she marries a merchant's son, the second a noble, and the third a he-goat. The father commands his youngest daughter never to go out of the house; she disobeys; a he-goat appears and carries her off upon his horns towards a rocky place. Saliva and mucous matter fall from the goat's mouth and nostrils; the good maiden is not disgusted, but patiently wipes the goat's mouth. This pleases the animal, who tells her that if she had shown horror towards him, she would have had the same fate as his former wives, whose heads were impaled on a stake. The geese bring to the girl news of her father and sisters; they announce that the eldest sister is about to be married; she wishes to be present at the wedding, and is permitted by the goat to go, who orders for her use three horses as black as a crow, who arrive at their destination in three leaps (the three steps of Vishnus), whilst he himself sits upon a flying carpet, and is transported to the wedding in the form of a handsome and young stranger. The same happens on the occasion of the second sister's marriage, when the third sister guesses that this handsome youth is her own husband. She departs before the rest, comes home, finds the skin of the goat and burns it; then her husband always preserves the form of a handsome youth, inasmuch as the enchantment of the witch has come to an end.[765]

The lamb, the he-goat, and the sheep are favourite forms of the witch. In the European story, when the beautiful princess, in the absence of the prince, her husband, gives birth to two beautiful sons, the witch induces the absent prince to believe that, instead of real sons, his young wife has given birth to pups. In the seventh story of the third book of _Afanassieff_, the young queen gives birth, during the king's absence, to two sons, of whom one has the moon on his forehead, and the other a star on the nape of his neck (the Aēvināu). The wicked sister of the young queen buries the children. Where they were buried a golden sprout and a silver one spring up. A sheep feeds upon these plants, and gives birth to two lambs, having, the one the moon on its head, the other a star on its neck. The wicked sister, who has meanwhile been married to the king, orders them to be torn in pieces, and their intestines to be thrown out into the road. The good lawful queen has them cooked, eats them, and again gives birth to her two sons, who grow up hardy and strong, and who, when interrogated by the king, narrate to him the story of their origin; their mother is recognised, and becomes once more the king's wife; the wicked sister is put to death.[766]

The witch is sometimes herself (as a wolf-cloud or wolf-darkness) a devourer of young luminous kids or lambs, such as the Schmierbock in the Norwegian story. The witch carries Schmierbock three times away in a sack; the first and second time Schmierbock escapes by making a hole in the sack; but the third time the witch succeeds in carrying him to her house, where she prepares to eat him. The cunning Schmierbock, however, smuggles the witch's own daughter into his place, and, climbing up, conceals himself in the chimney (a variation of the stove, the place where the young Russian hero usually hides himself, in the same way as in the Tuscan story the foolish Pimpi conceals himself in the oven). From this post of security he laughs at the witch, who endeavours to recapture him; he throws a stone down the chimney and kills her, upon which he descends, rifles her treasure-stores, and carries off all her gold. Here the young hero is called a he-goat; in the chapter on the wolf, we shall find the witch of the Norwegian story actually bears the name of wolf. These two data complete the myth; the wolf which wishes to devour the little hero, and the witch who endeavours to eat the little lamb, are completed by the fable which represents the wolf as, at the rivulet, eating the lamb, which, in the mythical heavens, means the cloudy and gloomy monster which devours the sun.

We have seen above the witch who imitates the voice of the mother of the little hero, in order to be able to eat him, and the wolf who mimics the voice of the goat and eats the kids; but the wolf does more than assume the goat's voice; he sometimes even takes her form.

In the _Rāmāyanam_,[767] Agamukhī, or goat's face, is called a witch, who wishes Sītā to be torn to pieces. In the legend of Ilvalas and Vātāpis,[768] the two wizard brothers who conspire to harm the Brāhmanās, Vātāpis transforms himself into a wether, and lets himself be sacrificed in the funeral rites by the Brāhmanās. The unsuspecting Brāhmanās eat its flesh; then Ilvalas cries out to his brother, "Come forth, O Vātāpis!" and his brother, Vātāpis, comes out of the bodies of the Brāhmanās, lacerating them, until the rishis Agastyas eats of himself the whole of Vātāpis, and burns Ilvalas to ashes. The _Rāmāyanam_ itself explains to us why, in these sacrifices, a wether, and not a ram, is spoken of,[769] when it narrates the legend of Ahalyā. It is said in this passage that the god Indras was one day condemned to lose his testicles by the malediction of the rishis Gāutamas, with whose wife, Ahalyā, he had committed adultery. The gods, moved to pity, took the testicles of a ram and gave them to Indras, who was therefore called Meshāndas; on this account, says the _Rāmāyanam_, the Pitaras feed on wethers, and not on rams, in funeral oblations. This legend is evidently of brāhmanic origin. The Brāhmanās, being interested in discrediting the god of the warriors, Indras, and finding him called in the Vedās by the name of Meshas or ram, invented the story of the ram's testicles, in the same way as, finding Indras in the Vedās called by the name of Sahasrākshas (_i.e._, he of the thousand eyes), they malignantly connected this appellation with the same scandalous story of the seduction of Ahalyā, and degraded the honourable epithet into an infamous one, he of the thousand wombs, probably by the confusion arising out of the equivoque between the words _sahasradhāras_, the sun (as carrying, now a thousand stars, now a thousand rays), or _sahasrānēus_, and _sahasradāras_, which has a very different meaning.

In the important 116th hymn of the first book of the _Rigvedas_, Rigrāēvas (_i.e._, the red horse, or the hero of the red horse) eats a hundred rams belonging to the she-wolf (in the following hymn, a hundred and one); his father blinds him on this account; the two marvellous physicians, the Aēvināu, give him back his two eyes.[770] Evidently the father of the solar hero is here the gloomy monster of night himself; the sun, at evening, becomes the devourer of the rams who come out of the she-wolf, or who belong to the she-wolf; it is for this reason that the monster wolf blinds him when evening comes. The red horse Rigrāēvas, or the hero of the red horse, who eats the rams of the she-wolf, affords a further key to enable us to understand the expiatory goat, which in the _Rigvedas_ itself is sacrificed instead of the horse. We are told in a hymn, that in the sacrifice of the horse the omniform he-goat (ago viēvarūpah) has preceded the horse;[771] and the _Āitareya Br._, commenting on this exchange of animals, also speaks of the he-goat as the last animal destined for the sacrifice. In the Russian stories, too, the goat has to pay the price of the follies or rogueries done by the man, and is sacrificed.[772] This sacrificed he-goat appears to be the same as the ass which undergoes punishment for all the animals in the celebrated fable of Lafontaine (which becomes a bull in the hands of the Russian fabulist Kriloff, who could not introduce the ass, an animal almost unknown in Russia); and we already know that the ass represents the sun in the cloud or the sun in the darkness; and we have also said that the ass and the fool die together in the legend. The she-goat dies in the Russian story to deliver the fool, who, after her death, is a fool no longer, his folly having died with her.[773] The popular story offers us another proof of the identity of the mythical ass and the mythical goat. We have also seen above, in the Norwegian story, how the witch possesses a treasure which is carried off by the Schmierbock, who kills her; the magician, or the devil, is always rich. The ass which the devil gives to Little Johnny throws gold from its tail; the ass personifies the devil. But the devil, as we have observed, also has a predilection to embody himself in a ram, a lamb, or a he-goat. I remember the puppets who every day improvised popular representations in the little wooden theatre on the Piazza Castello, at Turin, when I was a boy; the final doom of the personage who represented the tyrant was generally to die under the bastinadoes of Arlecchino, or to be carried to hell by the devil in the form of a bleating lamb, which came upon the scene expressly to carry him away with him, this disappearance being accompanied by much throbbing of the spectators' hearts, to whom the manager preached a salutary sermon.[774] In the twenty-first of the Tuscan stories published by me, it is not the devil, but the little old man, Gesł, who gives to the third brother, instead of the usual ass, a putrid sheep, which, however, has the virtue of throwing louis-d'or behind it. This putrid, or wet, or damp sheep represents still better the damp night.

Rigrāēvas, as we have said, eats the ram and becomes blind, his father having blinded him to avenge the she-wolf to whom the rams belonged; but the mother of the rams being the sheep, it is probable that the she-wolf who possessed the rams had assumed the form of a putrid sheep, in the same way as we have seen her above transformed into a she-goat; the father of Rigrāēvas, who avenges the she-wolf on account of the hundred rams, may perhaps himself have been a horned wolf transformed into a he-goat, and have blinded Rigrāēvas with his horns. In the popular story, the she-goat, when she is in the forest, takes a special pleasure in wounding people's eyes with her horns; hence is probably derived the name of the reptile agakāvas, conjured with in the _Rigvedas_,[775] as durdriēikas, or making to see badly, damaging the eyesight, and the name of agakā, given to an illness in the eyes by the Hindoo physician Suērutas. However, we must not forget the connection between the idea of skin and that of goat, by which the agakā might mean simply the thin membrane that sometimes harms the pupil of the eye, and produces blindness. This thin membrane, stretched over the eye of the solar hero, blinds him. We shall see in the chapter on the frog and the toad, which very often represent, in the myths, the cloud and the damp night, that the toad[776] causes blindness only by means of the venom which it is fabled to exude, like the reptile agakāvas.

But, as the hero in hell learns and sees everything, the goat, which deprives others of sight, has itself the property of seeing everything; this is the case, because the goat, being the sun enclosed in the cloud or gloomy night, sees the secrets of hell, and also because, being the horned moon or starry sky, it is the spy of the heavens. We have already observed in the first chapter how the marvellous girl of seven years of age, to answer the acted riddle proposed by the Tzar, arrives upon a hare, which, in mythology, represents the moon. In a variation of the same story given by _Afanassieff_,[777] instead of riding upon a hare, the royal boy comes upon a goat, and is recognised by his father; the goat, in its capacity of steed of the lost hero, seems here to represent the moon, as the hare does.

We have already spoken of Indras sahasrākshas, _i.e._, of the thousand eyes; Hindoo painters represent him with these thousand eyes, that is, as an azure sky bespangled with stars. Indras as the nocturnal sun hides himself, transformed, in the starry heavens; the stars are his eyes. The hundred-eyed or all-seeing (panoptźs) Argos placed as a spy over the actions of the cow beloved of Zeus, is the Hellenic equivalent of this form of Indras. In Chapter I. we also saw the witch's daughter of the Russian fairy tale who has three eyes, and with her third eye plays the spy over the cow, which protects the good maiden. In the second story of the sixth book of _Afanassieff_, when the peasant ascends into heaven upon the pea-plant, and enters into a room where geese, hogs, and pastry are being cooked, he sees a goat on guard; he only discovers six eyes, as the goat has its seventh eye in its back; the peasant puts the six eyes to sleep, but the goat, by means of its seventh eye, sees that the peasant eats and drinks as much as he likes, and informs the lord of the sky of the fact. In another variation of the story, given by _Afanassieff_,[778] the old man finds in heaven a little house guarded in turns by twelve goats, of which one has one eye, another two, a third three, and so on up to twelve. The old man says to one after the other, "One eye, two eyes, three eyes, &c., sleep." On the twelfth day, instead of saying "twelve eyes," he makes a mistake and says "eleven;" the goat with twelve eyes then sees and secures him. The eye of God which sees everything, in the popular faith, is a variation of Argos Panoptźs, the Vedic Viēvavedas, and the Slavonic Vsievedas, the eye of the goat which sees what is being done in heaven. When the moon shines in the sky, the stars grow pale, the eyes of the witch of heaven fall asleep, but some few eyes still stay open, some few stars continue to shine to observe the movements of the cow-moon, the fairy-moon, the Madonna-moon, who protects the young hero and the beautiful solar maiden lost in the darkness of night.

This spying goat's eye is perhaps connected with the constellation of the goat and two kids. Columella writes that the kids appear in the sky towards the end of September, when the west, and sometimes the south, wind blows and brings rain. According to Servius, the goat united with the two kids in the constellation of Aquarius is the same goat which was the nurse of Zeus; he says that it appears in October, with the sign of Scorpio. Ovid, in _De Arte Amandi_, and in the first book _Tristium_, and Virgil in the ninth book of the _Ęneid_,[779] also celebrate the goat and the kids of heaven as bringers of rain. Horace, in the seventh ode, elegantly calls the goat's stars insane:--

               "Ille nothis actus ad Oricum
     Post insana caprę sidera, frigidas
     Noctes non sine multis
     Insomnis lachrymis agit."

We have already seen Indras as a ram or pluvial cloud; and the goat with only one foot (ekapād agah), or he who has but one goat's foot, who supports the heavens, who lightens and thunders,[780] is a form of the same pluvial Indras who supports the heavens in the rainy season. We have seen the Aēvināu compared to two goats, two horns, two hoofs; each, therefore, would seem to have but one horn, but one goat's foot (which might perhaps explain the ekapād agah); hence on one side the cornucopia, and on the other the lame goat.[781] The nymph Galathea (the milky one), who loves a faun (or one who has goat's feet), seems to be a Hellenic form of the loves of Esmeralda and the goat with Quasimodo. The goat loves him who has goat's feet; the solar hero (or heroine) in the night has goat's feet; he is a satyr, a faun, a he-goat, an ass; he is deformed and foolish, but he interests the good fairy, who, in the form of a she-goat (as the moon and as the milky way), guides him in the night, and, as the dawn (white aurora) in the morning, saves him and makes him happy. In the German legend, the poor princess who, with her son, is persecuted in the forest, is assisted now by a she-goat, now by a doe, which gives milk to the child; by means of this animal, which serves as his guide, the prince finds his lost bride. This guiding she-goat, or doe, the nurse of the child-hero, which Servius recognised in the constellation of the goat (with respect to Zeus, who is essentially pluvial, as the Vedic Indras has the clouds himself for his nurses), must have generally represented the moon. But even the milky way of the sky (the bridge of souls) is the milk spilt by the she-goat of heaven; the white morning sky is also the milk of this same she-goat. The horned moon,[782] the milky way, and the white dawn are represented in the form of a beneficent she-goat which assists the hero and the heroine in the forest, in the darkness; whilst, on the contrary, the sun enclosed in the cloud, the darkness, or the starry sky of night (with the insana caprę sidera), is now a good and wise he-goat or ram, full of good advice, like the ram who advises the king of India in the _Tuti-Name_,[783] and now a malignant monster, a demoniacal being. Inasmuch as the goat gives light and milk, it is divine; inasmuch as it conceals the beauty of the young hero or heroine and opposes them, it may be considered demoniacal.

The connection between the she-goat and the milky way can also be proved from the name St James's Way, given by the common people to the galaxy, or galathea, or way of milk;[784] and it is interesting to learn from Baron Reinsberg,[785] how, in several parts of Bohemia, it is the custom on St James's Day to throw a he-goat out of the window, and to preserve its blood, which is said to be of potent avail against several diseases, such, for instance, as the spitting of blood. In the _Lezioni di Materia Medica_ of Professor Targioni-Tozzetti,[786] we also read that the he-goat's blood was known by no less a name than _manus Dei_, and believed to be especially useful against contusions of the back, pleurisy, and the stone. But the disease of the stone was supposed to be cured by the stone called _capra_ (goat), which was said to be found in the bodies of some Indian goats. Targioni-Tozzetti himself seriously describes the goat-stones as follows:--"These stones are usually clear on their surface, and dark-coloured; they have an odour of musk when rubbed and heated by the hands. In them (the stone Bezoar[787]) analeptic and alexipharmic virtues were supposed to exist, which were able to resist the evil effects of poison and contagious diseases, the plague not excepted, and to save the patient by causing an abundant and healthy perspiration to break out on his skin. For this reason these stones were sold very dear. The same virtues are attributed to those found in the West, but in a much less degree." When the heavenly goat dissolves in rain or in dew, when moisture comes from the goat-cloud, the mountain-cloud, or the stone-cloud, these humours are salutary. When St James, who is joined with the goat and the rain, pours out his bottle, as the Piedmontese people say, the vapour which falls from the sky on these days is considered by the peasants, as in fact it is for the country, and especially for the vines, a real blessing. In the fable of _Babrios_, the vine, whose leaves are eaten by the he-goat, threatens it, saying that it will nevertheless produce wine, and that when the wine is made (_i.e._, at the Dionysian mysteries), the goat will be sacrificed to the gods. In the spring, on the other hand, or on the Easter of the resurrection, it was the custom to sacrifice in effigy the _Agnus Dei_, in the belief that it would serve to defend the fields and vineyards against demoniacal wiles, thunderbolts and thunder, facilitate parturition, and deliver from shipwreck, fire, and sudden death.[788] In the Witches' Sabbath in Germany, it was said that the witches burned a he-goat, and divided its ashes among themselves.[789]

The cunning she-goat is an intermediate form between the good wise fairy and the witch who is an expert in every kind of malice. In the same way as the hero, at first foolish, learns malice from the devil, to use it afterwards against the devil himself, it may be presumed that the hero, in his form of a goat, has learned from the monsters all that cunning by which he afterwards distinguishes himself. The Vedic ram, Indras, also uses magic against the monster magicians.

In the second of the Esthonian stories, we read that the king of the serpents has a golden cup containing the milk of a heavenly goat; if bread is dipped into this milk, and put into the mouth, one can discover every secret thing that has happened in the night, without any one perceiving how.

In the French medięval poem of _Ysengrin_,[790] the she-goat deceives the wolf in a way similar to that in which, in the first number of _Afanassieff's_ stories, the peasant cheats the bear, and in the Italian stories the same peasant defrauds the devil. The she-goat shows a fox-like cunning, keeping for itself the leaf of the corn, and leaving the root for the wolf. Hence, in my eyes, the origin of the Piedmontese proverbial expression, "La crava a l'ą mangią la föja" (the goat ate the leaf), and even the simple one of "Mangé la föja" (to eat the leaf), meaning to understand cunning.[791] I heard from a certain Uliva Selvi, at Antignano (near Leghorn), the narrative of a witch who sent a boy every day to take the she-goat to the pasturage, ordering him to pay attention that it should eat well, but leave the corn alone. When the goat returned, the witch asked it--

     "Capra, mia capra Mergolla,
      Come se' ben satolla?"
      (Goat, my goat Mergolla,
      Are you quite satiated?)

To which the goat answered--

        "Son satolla e cavalcata,
         Tutto il giorno digiunata."
     (I am satiated, and have been ridden;
     I have fasted all day.)

Then the boy was put to death by the witch. It happened thus to twelve boys, until the thirteenth, more cunning, caressed the goat and gave it the corn to eat; then the goat answered to the witch's question--

        "Son ben satolla e governata,
         Tutto il giorno m' ha pasturata."
     (I am quite satiated, and have been well kept;
     He has given me to eat all day.)

And the boy, too, was well treated.

The devil's pupil always outwits his master; the she-goat beguiles the wolf to its destruction. We have seen this in the Russian story, and it is confirmed in the legend of _Ysengrin_. The peasants of Piedmont and of Sicily have, for this reason, so much respect for the goat, that they consider it brings a blessing to the house near which it is maintained; and if, by chance, they show a perverse nature, this perversity is attributed to the devil himself, who, they believe, has maliciously taken possession of them. A few years ago, a goatherd of the Val di Formazza, in the Ossola in Piedmont, had two goats which he believed to be possessed by some evil spirit, for which reason they always wandered about, in order, as he thought, that the demon might at last be able to throw them down some abyss. One day the two goats were lost; the goatherd searched for them for a short time, but finding his search bootless, he resolved to go and make a vow to the Madonna of Einsiedlen. Chance so arranged it, that at the very moment in which he was returning from his pious pilgrimage, his two goats also approached the door of his house; therefore, of course, this was declared to be a miracle in Formazza, and as such it is still believed in that district.[792]

In the preceding chapter we saw the ass represented in two aspects, as regards its generative capabilities; that is, it is now represented as an ardent, insatiable, and competent foecundator, and now as a ridiculous imbecile, and powerless to generate. We also saw the ass closely connected with the satyrs with goat's or he-goat's feet. The he-goats and rams, too, have a double and self-contradictory reputation. We know, for instance, that the god Thor, the god of the Scandinavians, who thunders in the cloud, is drawn by he-goats (the vessel of Thor and Hymir, the cloud, is called in the _Edda_ a navigating ram or he-goat, in the same way as the Vedic Indras is represented as a god-ram); he is, moreover, the protector of marriages. Scandinavian mythology, therefore, appears to regard the goat as essentially the one that makes fruitful, as a pluvial cloud. In the Hindoo mythology of the brāhmanic period, the god Indras loses, on the contrary, his divine power, becomes stupid and obscure, and is lost in his form of a ram. In one of his _Passeggiate nel Canavese_, Signor A. Bertolotti recently observed, at Muraglio, a curious custom which is observed by the young men of the country when a projected wedding falls through; they run up to the bride's house and obstreperously demand her to give her sheep up to them, upon which they go to the bridegroom's house and cry out, "Vente a sarrar quist motogn" (come and shut up these rams). Here the ram represents the husband, and the sheep the wife. In Du Cange the name of goat (caper) is given to the "in pueris insuavis odor cum ad virilitatem accedunt."[793] In _Apuleius_, unmeasured lasciviousness is called "cohircinatio." According to Ęlianos, the he-goat, at the age of seven days (of seven months according to Columella), already yearns for coition.

But in the same way as the ass is the stupid patient animal, the ram is the stupid quiet one. The he-goat is said to be an indifferent husband, who allows his she-goats to be covered by other goats without showing a sign of jealousy; hence our expressions, "horned goat," and simply "horned," to indicate the husband of an unfaithful woman, that is, of a woman who makes him wear horns, like the goat, and the Italian proverb, "E meglio esser geloso che becco" (it is better to be jealous than a he-goat). This reputation, however, as assigned to the he-goat, is contrary to all that has been said and written, and that is known concerning the lust of the he-goat. On the contrary, Aristotle says explicitly that two he-goats, which have always lived together in concord at the pasturage, fall out and fight with violence in the time of coition. Moreover, the verse of Pindaros is well known, in which he makes he-goats unite even with women. It is also said that Hermźs, or Zeus, assuming the form of a he-goat, united himself with Penelope, whence was born the great goat-footed satyr, Pan; that Hźraklźs (as an ass, in his lion's skin) competed with a he-goat in phallical powers (in Athenaios he joins himself with fifty virgins in the space of seven nights); that, in Ęlianos, a jealous he-goat punished with death the goatherd Crathis, who had incestuously joined himself with one of his she-goats. Nevertheless, the Greeks already called by the name of _aix_, as we Italians by that of _capra_, a woman of an immoral life, or an adulteress. Columella gives us the key of the enigma, observing that the he-goat, by abuse of the Venus, which he uses too soon (like the ass), becomes powerless before the age of six years, so that it is not out of indifference that he is simply a spectator of his she-goat's infidelity, but only because he cannot do otherwise. Hence the application of _hircosus_, which Plautus gives to an old man.

It is the Hellenic tradition which, more than any other, developed to a greater extent the myth of the goat and the sheep, under all their aspects--demoniacal, divine, and hybrid.

The golden fleece, or the fleece of the sheep or ram which had been transported into Colchis by Phrixos, the son of Nephźlź (the cloud) and of Helle;[794] Jupiter Ammon (in the fifth book of Ovid's _Metamorphoses_), who, afraid of the giants (as, in the last book of the _Rāmāyanam_, the gods, terrified by the monsters, transform themselves into different animals), hides himself in Lybia in the shape of a horned ram; the altar of Apollo in the isle of Delos, constructed with innumerable horns; the woolly skins in which, according to Strabo,[795] the Iberians gathered up gold, whence the Greek geographer believed the fable of the golden fleece to have arisen; the golden lamb kept by Atreus, which was to bring Thyestes to the throne, and the name of Aigüsthos, born of the incestuous loves of Thyestes with his own daughter; Pan (with goat's feet, the son of the he-goat Zeus or Hermes), who, in the fifth book of the _Saturnalians_ of Macrobius, loves the moon and obtains its favours by means of sheep with white but rough and coarse wool; Endymion, who, according to the commentator Servius, induces the moon to love him by means of exceedingly white sheep; Neptune, who, in the form of a ram, in the sixth book of the _Metamorphoses_ of Ovid, seduces the beautiful virgin Bisaltis; the satyrs, the fauns with goat's feet, into which the gods transform themselves in order to seduce nymphs or maidens of the earth, as, for instance, Jove again, in the same book of Ovid--

               "Satyri celatus imagine pulchram
     Jupiter implevit gemino Nycteida foetu;"

Hermźs, called Krioforos, or carrier of a ram (that is, of a ram which delivers the land from the plague, a form of St James); the two predestined sheep which Epimenides sacrifices to make the Athenian plague cease, in the twenty-seventh Olympiad, in Diogenes Laertźs; the bleating goats that King Priam (in the fragments of Ennius) sacrifices to dissipate the evil threatened by sinister dreams; the black sheep sacrificed to Pluto, Proserpine, the Furies, and all the infernal deities; the lamb, the ram, and the he-goat sacrificed to the genital Fates in the Sybilline verses translated by Angelo Poliziano--

     "Cum nox atra premit terram, tectusque latet Sol;"

the white lamb sacrificed to Hercules, to Mars, to Jove, to Neptune, to Bacchus, to Pan (the goat being sacrificed to Diana), to Apollo (_i.e._, when the sun shines), to Ceres (the goddess of the light-coloured ears of corn), to Venus, to the gods and goddesses; to his divine forms (similia similibus); and several other mythical notions (not to speak of the very popular legend relating to the goat Amalthea, who nourished Zeus with her milk, and was by Zeus translated for this service to the stars, under the name of Aixourania, or heavenly goat, after he had taken off one of its horns, to give, in gratitude to the two nymphs who had protected him, the faculty of pouring out everything that was wished for);[796] all these account, in an eloquent manner, for the wide-spread worship that the goat and the sheep received, even in Gręco-Latin antiquity, enriching with many episodes the mythical and legendary traditions of these nations, now as the type of a god, now of a demon, and now of an intermediate being, such as the satyr, for instance.

In the same way as the mythical horse has, from evening to morning, three conspicuous moments of action--black, grey, and white or red--and as the mythical ass throws gold from behind and has golden ears, so the mythical goat and sheep, which are dark-coloured in the night or in the cloud, throw gold from behind and have golden horns which pour out ambrosia, or else have even the cornucopia itself. It is always the same myth of the cloudy and aqueous, of the nocturnal and tenebrous sky, with its two glowing twilights or auroras, or else of the luminous heavenly hero who traverses the night or the cloud (or the wintry season), disguised in the shapes of various animals, now by his own will, now by a divine malediction or by diabolical witchcraft.

In the third book of Aristotle's _History of Animals_, we read of the river Psikros in Thrace, that white sheep, when they drink of its waters, bring forth black lambs; that in Antandria there are two rivers, of which one makes the sheep black, and the other white, and that the river Xanthos or Skamandros makes the sheep fair (or golden). This belief involves in itself the three transformations of the celestial hero into the three he-goats or rams of different natures, of which we have spoken. The last transformation calls our attention to the sheep with golden wool, the golden lamb, and the _Agnus Dei_, the symbol of happiness, power and riches. Wealth in sheep, even more than wealth in cows, became the symbol of universal riches. The horn poured out every kind of treasure upon the earth, and upon the earth itself the _pecus_ became _pecunia_.

FOOTNOTES:

[747] The Petropolitan Dictionary sees in the he-goat agas, the movable one (agilis). To illustrate the same analogies in the case of the Greek myth, it will be useful to repeat the words of Professor Bréal: "Le verbe grec _aļssō_, qui signifie s'élancer, a fait d'une part le substantif _aix_, chčvre (ą cause de la nature bondissante de l'animal), et de l'autre les mots _kataļx, kataigis, tempźte_ (as it seems to me, that which shakes, which causes to move or tremble, inasmuch as I maintain that _agas_ does not mean the movable, or him that rushes, so much as him that pushes, that butts, or causes to move). De lą une nouvelle série d'images et de fables oł la chčvre joue le rōle principal. L'égide, avant d'źtre un bouclier fait en peau de chčvre, était le ciel au moment de l'orage; Jupiter aigiochos était le dieu qui envoie la tempźte; plus tard, on traduisit le dieu qui porte l'égide. Homčre semble se souvenir de la premičre signification, quand il nous montre, au seul mouvement du bouclier le tonnerre qui éclate, l'Ida qui se couvre de nuages et les hommes frappés de terreur." Mr Ralston compares very well the Russian _ablakagragonniki_ (cloud-compellers) to the Zeus _nephelźgeretes_. In the _Rigv._ i. 10, 8, it is said similarly to Indras: geshah svarvatīr apah sam gā asmabhyam dhūnuhi.

[748] Let Finnish philologists observe whether it is not possible to refer to this their Aija, an equivalent of Ukko, their Indras, called hattarojen hallitsia, the master of the cloud-lambs.--Cfr. Castren's _Kleinere Schriften_, St Petersburg, 1862, p. 230.

[749] Mesham puruhūtam; _Rigv._ i. 51, 1.--Tad indro artham cetati yūthena vrishnir egati; _Rigv._ i. 10, 2.

[750] Tvam gotram ańigirobhyo 'vrinor; _Rigv._ i. 51, 3.

[751] Tvam māyābhir apa māyino 'dhamah--tvam pipror nrimanah prārugah purah; _Rigv._ i. 51, 5.

[752] Mahantam cid arbudam ni kramīh padā; _Rigv._ i. 51, 6.--Arbudas is also in Sanskrit the proper name of a mountain and of a hell; the cloud-mountain and the hell in the cloudy and nocturnal sky have already been noticed in this volume.

[753] Ēaphāv iva garbhurānā tarobhih; _Rigv._ ii. 39, 3.

[754] Sinhyam cit petvenā gaghāna; _Rigv._ vii. 18, 17.--In Firdusi we find, in the adventures of Isfendiar, two horned wolves that catch lions; these seem to be demoniacal forms of the ram of Indras which kills the lion.

[755] xxx. 9.--Here the horns are the sun's rays or the thunderbolts, which come again in the Italian superstition on the _iettatura_; the horns of the goat, it is said, and the red coral horns excel the devil and his magic.

[756] iv. 21.

[757] iii. 18.--In the story, i. 20, we are told that the lamb fled away into the forest with the he-goat, because its master took the skin off one of its sides (that is, the wool). The lambs appear in the morning and in the evening with luminous wool; they are sheared during the night.

[758] _Afanassieff_, ii. 4; iv. 17.

[759] The walnut-tree is also found in relation with the goat in a fable of _Afanassieff_, ii. 1, that of the accused who exculpate themselves by inculpating others. The cock and the hen gather nuts together; the cock throws one which strikes the hen on the ear; the hen weeps; a boiard asks the reason; the hen accuses the cock, the cock accuses the walnut-tree, the walnut-tree accuses the goat, the goat accuses the shepherd, the shepherd accuses the housewife, the housewife accuses the hog, the hog accuses the wolf, the wolf accuses God, but beyond God it is impossible to go.--In another jest in verse, intended to exercise the memory and loosen the tongue, and given by _Afanassieff_, iv. 16, we find the goat in connection with hazel-nuts. The he-goat begins to complain that the she-goat does not come back with the hazel-nuts (nķet kaszi s ariehami); the song goes on to say, that the he-goat will send the wolf to find the she-goat, the bear after the wolf, the men after the bear, the oak-tree after the men, the axe after the oak-tree, the grindstone after the axe, the fire after the grindstone, the water after the fire, and the hurricane after the water; then the hurricane sends the water, the water the fire, the fire burns the grindstone, the stone grinds the axe, the axe cuts down the oak-tree, the oak-tree made into a stick (as we have already seen in Chapters I. and II.) beats the men, the men shoot against the bear, the bear fights with the wolves, the wolves hunt the she-goat, and here the she-goat comes back with the hazel-nuts (vot kasza s ariehami).

[760]

     Ah vi, dietuski,
     Moi batiuski
     Ataprģtessia
     Atamknķtessia;
     Vasha mat prishlį
     Malakį prinieslį
     Polni bakį malakį,
     Polni ragį tvaragį
     Polni kopitzi vaditzi.

[761] _Afanassieff_, vi. 17.

[762] In the story, ii. 32 of _Afanassieff_, a similar voice has the same effect as that of the ass; it terrifies all the other animals. However, here, a goat that has been shorn is alone spoken of,--that is, the goat which has lost its hair or luminous wool, the thundering goat-cloud.--In the twenty-fifth story of the first book of the _Narodnija iusznoruskija Skazki_ (_Popular Stories of South Russia_), edited by Rudcenko, Kiev, 1869, the goat terrifies by its voice the first fox and then the wolf, until she herself is terrified by the voice of the cock. (The morning sun, personified in the cock, destroys the she-goat of night.)

[763] _Afanassieff_, iii. 15.--She sends them to the pasturage; a young blacksmith, who is in her power, adopts the follow mode of deliverance: He puts his pelisse on outside-in, feigns himself a sheep, and passes out with the other sheep, escaping thus from the witch: the young sun comes out at morn like a shepherd-hero among the sheep. Thus Odysseus delivers himself from the grotto of Polyphemos with his companions, by hiding himself among the flock which comes out of it.

[764] Cfr. the eleventh of the _Novelline di Santo Stefano di Calcinaia_, where we have the lamb instead of the kid.

[765] A very interesting variation of this is contained in another unpublished story which I heard from a certain Marianna Nesti of Fucecchio in Tuscany.

There was once a queen that had a son, who, at the age of seven years, was enchanted, so that he lay constantly in bed like one deprived of life. Only at midnight he went out of the house, returning at one o'clock, covered with blood, and throwing himself as if dead into the bed. A woman had to remain regularly on the watch for the purpose of opening the door for him at midnight and at one o'clock; but no girl had, from very fright, been able to continue in the service more than one night. Near the city lived an old woman with three daughters; the two eldest tried to discharge the prescribed duty, but were overcome with fear; the youngest, more courageous, remained. The first night, at twelve o'clock, the dead man lifts up one arm; she runs to him and lifts the other; he tries to raise himself; she helps him to get out of bed. At one o'clock he returns covered with blood, and the girl asks him who has reduced him to this condition, but he answers nothing, and throws himself on the bed as if a corpse. The second night she follows him, and sees him enter a subterranean cavern; he comes to the foot of a flight of stairs, puts down his mantle and remains as naked as when he was born, a handsome youth of eighteen years of age. At the summit of the stairs two great witches cry, "Here he is! come, pretty one!" He ascends and is beaten by the witches for an hour till blood flows, he crying out the while for mercy. At one o'clock he is allowed to go, comes back to the foot of the stairs, takes his mantle and returns home dead. The third night his attendant again follows him, and when he puts down his mantle at the foot of the stairs and goes up, she takes the mantle and presses it tightly; the witches scream. The young man comes to the summit; but when they try to beat him they cannot lift the stick. Perceiving this, the girl presses and bites the mantle; when she does so, the witches feel themselves bitten; then the girl runs to the palace, orders a great fire to be lighted, and throws the mantle into it; upon its being burnt, the two witches expire, their enchantment is destroyed, and the prince marries his deliverer.

[766] In the eighth story of the first book of the _Pentamerone_, the ungrateful young woman, Renzolla, is condemned by her own protecting fairy to have the face of a horned goat until she shows her repentance.

[767] v. 25.

[768] iii. 16.

[769] i. 50; vii. 38.

[770] Ēatam meshān vrikye cakshadānam rigrāēvam tam pitāndham cakāra tasma akshī nāsatyā vicaksha ādhattam dasrā bhishagāv anarvan; _Rigv._ i. 116, 16.--Cfr. 117, 18.

[771] Esha chāgah puro aēvena vāginā; _Rigv._ i. 162, 3.

[772] Cfr. _Afanassieff_, v. 7, where the rogue passes the she-goat off as his sister, and lets her be killed, in order to oblige the murderer, by threats of exposure, to give him a large sum of money in compensation; and v. 52, where the head of a goat is cut off to conceal the murder of a sacristan, committed by the foolish third brother.--Cfr. _Erlenwein_, 17.

[773] The she-goat is also sacrificed, in the eighth of the Sicilian stories collected by Laura Gonzenbach, to test the virtue of a truthful peasant. The wife of a minister who is jealous of the peasant Veritą (Truth), who has the custody of a goat, a lamb, a ram, and a wether belonging to the king, persuades him to believe that her life is forfeit, and can be ransomed only by the sacrifice of the wether. The peasant, overcome partly by love and partly by compassion, gives way and consents to the sacrifice. The minister hopes that the peasant will conceal his fault, but is disappointed in his expectation, inasmuch as, on the contrary, he ingenuously confesses everything; and he becomes, in consequence, yet dearer to the king.

[774] The devil also presents himself to do his evil deeds in the _Bélier de Rochefort_, in Bonnafoux, _Légendes et Croyances Superstitieuses Conservées dans le Départment de la Creuse_, Gueret, 1867, p. 17.--In a legend of Baden, too, recorded by Simrock (work quoted before, p. 260; cfr., in the same work, p. 501), the devil appears with the feet of a he-goat.

[775] vii. 50, 1.--In the _Classical Dictionary of Natural History of Audouin, Bourdon_, &c., first Italian translation, Venice, Tasso, 1831, we read: "Goat, species of ophidian reptiles, indigenous in Congo, and also in Bengal; as yet unclassified by zoologists, and which, it is said, throw from afar a kind of saliva causing blindness."

[776] Cfr. the lacerta cornuta of the _Pentamerone_.

[777] vi. 42.

[778] iv. 7.

[779]

     Differ opus, tunc tristis hiems, tunc pleiades instant
     Tunc et in ęquorea mergitur hędus aqua.
     Sępe ego nimbosis dubius jactabar ab hędis.
     Nascitur Oleneę signum pluviale capellę.
                                           --_Ovid._

     Quantus ab occasu veniens pluvialibus hędis
     Verberat imber humum.
                                   --_Virgil._

[780] Pāvīravī tanyatur ekapād ago divo dhartā; _Rigv._ x. 65, 13.--Cfr. the aga ekapād invoked after Ahirbudhnya and before Tritas, in the _Rigv._ ii. 31, 6, and the agāikapād, a name given to Vishnus, in the _Hariv_; the reader remembers also the _goat-footed races_ of Herodotus.

[781] We also find the lame goat, or he-goat, in the legend of Thor. The god kills his he-goats, takes off their skins, and keeps their bones, to be able to resuscitate them at pleasure. His son, Thialfi, steals the thigh-bone of one of the goats, in order to go and sell it; then one of the he-goats of Thor, being resuscitated, is lame.--Cfr. for the analogous traditions the notices given by Simrock, work quoted before, p. 260.

[782] In a Russian song we read: "Moon! moon! golden horns!"

[783] ii. 240.

[784] Cfr. Du Cange, _s. v._ galaxia.

[785] _Das festliche Jahr_, zweite Ausg., p. 216.

[786] Florence, Piatti, 1821.

[787] Concerning this stone, cfr. a whole chapter in Aldrovandi, _De Quadrupedibus Bisulcis_, i.

[788] Cfr. Du Cange, _s. v. Agnus Dei_, where we even find the verses with which Urban V. accompanied the gift of an _Agnus Dei_ to John Paleologus.--In the month of October, the Thuringians celebrate the festival of the race after the ram, which, when overtaken, is led to a large rock and there killed. For the race after the ram, cfr. also Villemarqué, _Chants Populaires de la Bretagne_.--In a popular song, in which _England_ is transformed into _Engelland_ (or country of the angels), Mary, the nurse of God, appears with the white lamb:--

     "Die Himmelsthür wird aufgehen;
      Maria Gottes Amme
      Kommt mit dem weissen Lamme."

[789] Menzel, the work quoted before.

[790] Professor Emilio Teza has published a medięval Italian version of this poem with notes.

[791] Cfr. the before-quoted fable of _Babrios_, in which the vine complains of the he-goat which eats its leaves.--In the Italian proverb, "Salvar la capra e i cavoli," the she-goat is again indicated as an eater of leaves.--The leaves of the sorb-apple, according to the Norwegian belief, cure sick goats, by which the god Thor is drawn.--Cfr. Kuhn, _Die H. d. F. u. d. G._

[792] From a narrative made to me by my friend Valentino Carrera, an intrepid Alp-climber and popular dramatist.

[793] Referred to by Martial's epigram:--

     "Tam male Thais olet, quam non fullonis avari
      Tecta vetus media, sed modo fracta via.
      Non ab amore recens hircus," &c.

[794] With this myth of the brother Phrixos and of the sister Helle, who pass the sea or fly through the air with the sheep, is connected the Russian story recorded above of Ivan and Helena; Ivan is changed into a little kid or lamb. In the Italian variety of the same story, the sister is thrown into the sea by the witch. Whilst the brother and sister pass the Hellespont upon the golden ram, Helle falls into the sea. We learn from Apōllonios, in the second book of the _Argon._, that the fleece of the sheep became gold only when, on its arrival in Colchis, it was sacrificed and suspended upon an oak-tree. The cloud-ram becomes golden only in the morning and evening sky.--The luminous fleece can perhaps be recognised in the bride of the _Rigvedas_, who, leaning towards the relations of Kakshīvant, says: "Every day I shall be (properly speaking, I am) like the little woolly sheep of the gandhāri (sarvāham asmi romaēā gandhārīnām ivāvikā);" _Rigv._ i. 126. As there is an etymological analogy, so there may be a mythical analogy between the gandhāri and the gandharvās.

[795] Book x.

[796] Ovid calls the goat "hędorum mater formosa duorum," and sings that the goat herself broke one of her horns against a tree, which horn the nymph Amalthea wrapped--

                       "decentibus herbis
     Et plenum pomis ad Jovis ora tulit;"

and Jupiter, when lord of heaven, in reward--

     "Sidera nutricem, nutricis fertile cornu
      Fecit, quod dominę nunc quoque nomen habet."

END OF VOL. I.

PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND COMPANY EDINBURGH AND LONDON

Transcriber's Notes:

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   the text (i.e. cowmaid and cow-maid). Words were left to match the
   text.

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   character. (i.e. "[h.]" replaced with "h")

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Full text of volume 2[2]

ZOOLOGICAL MYTHOLOGY OR

THE LEGENDS OF ANIMALS BY ANGELO DE GUBERNATIS PROFESSOR OF SANSKRIT AND COMPARATIVE LITERATURE IN THE ISTITUTO DI STUDII

SUPERIORI E DI PERFEZIONAMENTO, AT FLORENCE

FOREIGN MEMBER OF THE ROYAL INSTITUTE OF PHILOLOGY AND ETHNOGRAPHY

OF THE DUTCH INDIES

IN TWO VOLUMES VOL. II. LONDON TRÜBNER & CO., 60 PATERNOSTER ROW 1872

[All rights reserved]

CONTENTS. Part First. THE ANIMALS OF THE EARTH. (Continued.)

CHAPTER V. The Hog, the Wild Boar, and the Hedgehog, 1

CHAPTER VI. The Dog, 17

CHAPTER VII. The Cat, the Weasel, the Mouse, the Mole, the Snail, the Ichneumon, the Scorpion, the Ant, the Locust, and the Grasshopper, 41

CHAPTER VIII. The Hare, the Rabbit, the Ermine, and the Beaver, 76

CHAPTER IX. The Antelope, the Stag, the Deer, and the Gazelle, 83

CHAPTER X. The Elephant, 91

CHAPTER XI. The Monkey and the Bear, 96

CHAPTER XII. The Fox, the Jackal, and the Wolf, 121

CHAPTER XIII. The Lion, the Tiger, the Leopard, the Panther, and the Chameleon, 153

CHAPTER XIV. The Spider, 162 Part Second. THE ANIMALS OF THE AIR. CHAPTER I. Birds, 167

CHAPTER II. The Hawk, the Eagle, the Vulture, the Phœnix, the Harpy, the Strix, the Bat, the Griffon, and the Siren, 180

CHAPTER III. The Wren, the Beetle, and the Firefly, 207

CHAPTER IV. The Bee, the Wasp, the Fly, the Gnat, the Mosquito, the Horsefly, and the Cicada, 215

CHAPTER V. The Cuckoo, the Heron, the Heathcock, the Partridge, the Nightingale, the Swallow, the Sparrow, and the Hoopoe, 225

CHAPTER VI. The Owl, the Crow, the Magpie, and the Stork, 243

CHAPTER VII. The Woodpecker and the Martin, 264

CHAPTER VIII. The Lark and the Quail, 273

CHAPTER IX. The Cock and the Hen, 279

CHAPTER X. The Dove, the Duck, the Goose, and the Swan, 294

CHAPTER XI. The Parrot, 320

CHAPTER XII. The Peacock, 323 Part Third. THE ANIMALS OF THE WATER. CHAPTER I. Fishes, and particularly the Pike, the Sacred Fish or Fish of St Peter, the Carp, the Melwel, the Herring, the Eel, the Little Goldfish, the Sea-Urchin, the Little Perch, the Bream, the Dolphin, and the Whale, 329

CHAPTER II. The Crab, 354

CHAPTER III. The Tortoise, 360

CHAPTER IV. The Frog, the Lacerta Viridis, and the Toad, 371

CHAPTER V. The Serpent and the Aquatic Monster, 388 Conclusion, 421

[Pg 1]

ZOOLOGICAL MYTHOLOGY; OR

THE LEGENDS OF ANIMALS. First Part. THE ANIMALS OF THE EARTH. CHAPTER V. THE HOG, THE WILD BOAR, AND THE HEDGEHOG. SUMMARY.

The hog as a hero disguise.—The disguises of the hero and of the heroine.—Ghoshâ, the leprous maiden.—The moon in the well.—Apâlâ cured by Indras.—Apâlâ has the dress of a hog.—Godhâ, the persecuted maiden in a hog's dress.—The hogs eat the apples in the maiden's stead.—The meretricious Circe and the hogs.—Porcus and upodaras.—The wild boar god in India and in Persia.—Tydœus, the wild boar.—The wild boar of Erymanthos.—The wild boar of Meleagros.—The Vedic monster wild boar.—The dog and the pig.—Puloman, the wild boar, burned.—The hog in the fire.—The hog cheats the wolf.—The astute hedgehog.—The hedgehog, the wild boar, and the hog are presages of water.—The porcupine and its quills; the comb and the dense forest.—The ears and the heart of the wild boar.—The wild boar and the hog at Christmas.—The devil a wild boar.—The heroes killed by the wild boar.—The tusk of the wild boar now life-giving, now deadly; the dead man's tooth.—The hero asleep; the hero becomes a eunuch; the lettuce-eunuch eaten by Adonis, prior to his being killed by the wild boar.

[Pg 2]

The hog, as well as the wild boar, is another disguise of the solar hero in the night—another of the forms very often assumed by the sun, as a mythical hero, in the darkness or clouds. He adopts this form in order sometimes to hide himself from his persecutors, sometimes to exterminate them, and sometimes on account of a divine or demoniacal malediction. This form is sometimes a dark and demoniacal guise assumed by the hero; on which account the poem of Hyndla, in the Edda calls the hog a hero's animal. Often, however, it represents the demon himself. When the solar hero enters the domain of evening, the form he had of a handsome youth or splendid prince disappears; but he himself, as a general rule, does not die along with it; he only passes into another, an uglier, and a monstrous form. The black bull, the black horse, the grey horse, the hump-backed horse, the ass, and the goat, are all forms of the same disguise with which we are already acquainted. The thousand-bellied Indras, who has lost his testicles; Arǵunas, who disguises himself as a eunuch; Indras, Vishṇus, Zeus, Achilleüs, Odin, Thor, Helgi, and many other mythical heroes, who disguise themselves as women; and the numerous beautiful heroines who, in mythology and tradition, disguise themselves as bearded men, are all ancient forms under which was represented the passage of either the sun or the aurora of evening into the darkness, cloud, ocean, forest, grotto, or hell of night. The hero lamed, blinded, bound, drowned, or buried in a wood, can be understood when referred respectively to the sun which is thrown down the mountain-side, which is lost in the darkness, which is held fast by the fetters of the darkness, which plunges into the ocean of night, or which hides itself from our sight in the nocturnal forest. The illumined and illuminating sun, when it ceases to shine[Pg 3] in the dark night, becomes devoid of sight, devoid of intelligence, and stupid. The handsome solar hero becomes ugly when, with the night, his splendour ceases; the strong, red, healthy, solar hero, who pales and grows dark in the night, becomes ill. We still say in Italy that the sun is ill when we see it lose its brightness, and, as it were, grow pale.

In the 117th hymn of the first book of the Ṛigvedas, the Açvinâu cure the leprous daughter of Kakshîvant, Ghoshâ, who is growing old without a husband in her father's house, and find her a husband; the Açvinâu deliver the aurora from the darkness of night, and marry her.[1]

In the eightieth hymn of the eighth book of the Ṛigvedas, the same myth occurs again with relation to Indras, and in a more complete form. We have already remarked, in the first book of the Ṛigvedas, the maiden Apâlâ who descends from the mountain to draw water, and draws up the somas (ambrosia, or else the moon, whence, as it seems to me, the origin of the double Italian proverb, "Pescare, or mostrare la luna nel pozzo," to fish up, or show the moon in the well, which was afterwards corrupted to indicate one who says, or narrates, what is untrue or impossible), and takes it to Indras, the well-known drinker of ambrosia (here identified with the moon, or somas). Indras, contented with the maiden, consents, as she is ugly and deformed, to pass over the three heavenly stations, that is, to pass over his father's head, her vast breast and her bosom.[2] In the last strophe of the hymn quoted above, Indras makes a luminous robe,[Pg 4] a skin of the sun, for Apâlâ, who has been thrice purified, by the wheel, by the chariot itself, and by the rudder of Indras's chariot.[3] And the same myth occurs once more in a clearer and more complete form in a legend of the Bṛihaddevatâ. Apâlâ beseeches Indras, loved by her, to make for her a beautiful and perfect (faultless, unimpeachable) skin. Indras, hearing her voice, passes over her with wheel, chariot, and rudder; by three efforts, he takes off her ugly skin. Apâlâ then appears in a beautiful one. In the skin thus stript off there was a bristle (çalyakaḥ); above, it had a hirsute appearance; below, it resembled the skin of a lizard.[4] The bristle or thorn upon the skin of Apâlâ is naturally suggestive of the hedgehog, the porcupine, the wild boar, and the bristly hog. The aurora, as the Vedic hymn sings, shines only at the sight of her husband; thus Apâlâ, of the ugly or[Pg 5] the hog's skin, and Ghoshâ, the leprous maiden, become splendid and healthy by the grace of their husband. Thus Cinderella, or she who has a dress of the colour of ashes, or of a grey or dark colour, like the sky of night (in Russian stories Cinderella is called Cernushka, which means little black one, as well as little dirty one), appears exceedingly beautiful only when she finds herself in the prince's ball-room, or in church, in candlelight, and near the prince: the aurora is beautiful only when the sun is near.

In the twenty-eighth story of the sixth book of Afanassieff, the maiden persecuted by her father and would-be seducer, who wishes to marry her, because he thinks her as beautiful as her mother (the evening aurora is as beautiful as the morning aurora), covers herself with a hog's skin, which she takes off only when she marries a young prince.[5] In another story of White Russia,[6] we have, instead, the son of a king persecuted by his father, who is constrained to quit his father's house with a cloak made of a pig's skin. In an unpublished story of the Monferrato, the contents of which Dr Ferraro has communicated to me, the girl persecuted by her step-mother is condemned to eat in one night an interminable number of apples; by means of two hog's bristles, she calls up a whole legion of pigs, who eat the apples in her stead.

As to the rudder of Indras's chariot in the lower bosom of Apâlâ, it would seem to me to have a phallic signification. Indras may have cured Apâlâ by marrying her, as the Açvinâu, by means of a husband, cured the leprous Ghoshâ, who was growing old in her father's house. In the tenth story of the Pentamerone, the king[Pg 6] of Roccaforte marries an old woman, believing he is espousing a young one. He throws her out of the window, but she is arrested in her fall by a tree, to which she clings; the fairies pass by, and make her young again, as well as beautiful and rich, and tie up her hair with a golden ribbon. The aged sister of the old woman who has grown young again (the night) goes to the barber, thinking that the same result may be attained simply by having her skin removed, and is flayed alive. For the myth of the two sisters, night and aurora, the black maiden and she who disguises herself in black, in grey, or the colour of ashes, consult also the Pentamerone, ii. 2. According to the Italian belief, the hog is dedicated to St Anthony, and a St Anthony is also celebrated as the protector of weddings, like the Scandinavian Thor, to whom the hog is sacred. The hog symbolises fat; and therefore, in the sixteenth Esthonian story, the hog is eaten at weddings.

The companions of Odysseus, transformed by the meretricious enchantress Circe, with the help of poisonous herbs, into filthy hogs, care only to gratify their bodily appetites, whence Horace, in the second of the first book of the Epistolæ—

"Sirenum voces, et Circes pocula nosti, Quæ si cum sociis stultus cupidusque bibisset Sub domina meretrice fuisset turpis et excors Vixisset canis immundus, vel amica luto Sus." The hog, as one of the most libidinous of animals, is sacred to Venus; for this reason, according to the Pythagorian doctrines, lustful men are transformed into hogs, and the expression "pig" is applied to a man given over to every species of lust. In Varro[7] we read:—"Nuptiarum initio, antiqui reges ac sublimes viri in Hetruria in[Pg 7] conjuctione nuptiali nova nupta et novus maritus primum porcum immolant; prisci quoque Latini et etiam Græci in Italia idem fecisse videntur, nam et nostræ mulieres, maximæ nutrices naturam, qua fœminæ sunt, in virginibus appellant porcum, et græce choiron, significantes esse dignum insigni nuptiarum." The rudder of Indras, which passes over the upodaras (or lower bosom) of Apâlâ, is illustrated by this passage in Varro.

As to the wild boar, its character is generally demoniacal; but the reason why the Hindoo gods were invested with this form was in a great degree due to equivocation in language. The word vishṇus means he who penetrates; on account of its sharp tusks, in a Vedic hymn,[8] the wild boar is called vishṇus, or the penetrator. Hence, probably, by the same analogy, in another hymn, Rudras, the father of the Marutas, the winds, is invoked as a red, hirsute, horrid, celestial wild boar,[9] and the Marutas are invoked when the thunderbolts are seen in the form of wild boars running out from the iron teeth and golden wheels;[10] that is, carried by the chariot of the Marutas, the winds, who also are said to have tongues of fire, and eyes like the sun.[11] Vishṇus himself, in the Ṛigvedas, at the instigation of Indras, brings a hundred oxen, the[Pg 8] milky gruel, and the destroying wild boar.[12] Therefore Indras himself loves the shape of a wild boar, which, in the Avesta, is his alter ego. Verethraghnas assumes the same form. We know that the sun (sometimes the moon), in the form of a ram or he-goat, thrusts and pushes against the cloud, or the darkness, until he pierces it with his golden horns; and so Vishṇus, the penetrator, with his sharp golden tusks (thunderbolts, lunar horns, and solar rays), puts forth such great strength in the darkness and the cloud that he bursts through both, and comes forth luminous and victorious. According to the Pâuranic traditions, Vishṇus, in his third incarnation, when killing the demon Hiraṇyâkshas (or him of the golden eye), drew forth or delivered the earth from the waters (or from the ocean of the damp and gloomy night of the winter).[13] According to the Râmâyaṇam,[Pg 9][14] Indras took the form of a wild boar immediately after his birth.

The Arcadian wild boar of Mount Erymanthüs is familiar to the reader. Hêraklês killed it in his third labour, in the same way as Vishṇus in the third of his incarnations became a wild boar; Ovid describes him very elegantly in the eighth book of the Metamorphoses—

"Sanguine et igne micant oculi, riget horrida cervix; Et setæ densis similes hastilibus horrent. Stantque velut vallum; velut alta hastilia setæ, Fervida cum rauco latos stridore per armos Spuma fluit, dentes æquantur dentibus Indis, Fulmen ab ore venit frondes afflatibus ardent." The wild boar of Meleagros is a variety of this very monster; it is, therefore, not without reason that when Hêraklês goes to the infernal regions, all the shades flee before him, except those of Meleagros and Medusa. Meleagros and Hêraklês resemble each other, are identified with each other; as to Medusa, we must not forget that the head of the Gorgon was represented upon the ægis of Zeus, that Gorgon is one of the names given to Pallas, and that the Gorgons, and especially Medusa, are connected with the garden of the Hesperîdes, where the golden apples grow which Hêraklês loves.

In the sixty-first hymn of the first book of the Ṛigvedas, the god, after having eaten and drunk well, kills, with the weapon stolen from the celestial blacksmith Tvashṭar, the monster wild boar, who steals that which is destined for the gods.[15] In the ninety-ninth hymn of the tenth book of the Ṛigvedas, Tritas (the third brother), by the strength which he has received from[Pg 10] Indras, kills the monster wild boar.[16] In the Tâittiriya Brâhmaṇam, we find another very interesting passage. The wild boar keeps guard over the treasure of the demons, which is enclosed within seven mountains. Indras, with the sacred herb, succeeds in opening the seven mountains, kills the wild boar, and, in consequence, discovers the treasure.[17] In the fifty-fifth hymn of the seventh book of the Ṛigvedas, the hog and the dog lacerate and tear each other to pieces in turns;[18] the dog and the pig are found in strife again in the Æsopian fable.

In the Mahâbhâratam,[19] Puloman assumes the form of a wild boar to carry off the wife of Bhṛigus; she prematurely gives birth to Ćyavanas, who, to avenge his mother, burns the wild boar to ashes. The thunderbolt tears through the cloud, the sun's ray (or the lunar horn) breaks through the darkness. In the popular Tuscan story, the stupid Pimpi kills the hog, by teasing and tormenting it with the tongs, which he has made red-hot in the fire. In the ninth of the Sicilian stories collected by Laura Gonzenbach, the girl Zafarana, throwing three hog's bristles upon the burning embers, causes the old prince, her husband, to become young and handsome again; it is ever the same lucid myth (a variety of Apâlâ). Thus, in the first Esthonian story, the prince, by eating pork (or in the night forest), acquires the faculty of understanding[Pg 11] the language of birds; the hero acquires malice, if he has it not already; he becomes cunning, if he was previously stupid; we therefore also find in a story of Afanassieff,[20] the wolf cheated, first by the dog, then by the goat, and finally by the hog, who nearly drowns him. The wolf wishes to eat the hog's little ones; the hog requests him to wait under a bridge, where there is no water, whilst he goes, as he promises, in the meantime to wash the young porkers; the wolf waits, and the hog goes to let off the water, which, as it passes under the bridge, puts the wolf's life in danger. Hence the belief noticed by Aristotle, that the hog is a match for the wolf, and the corresponding Greek fables. This prudence is found carried to the highest degree in the hedgehog. The Arabs are accustomed to say that the champion of truth must have the courage of the cock, the scrutiny of the hen, the heart of the lion, the rush of the wild boar, the cunning of the fox, the prudence of the hedgehog, the swiftness of the wolf, the resignation of the dog, and the complexion of the naguir.[21] A verse attributed to Archilokos says:—

"Poll' oid' alôpêx, all' echinos en mega," which passed into the proverb: "One knavery of the hedgehog is worth more than many of the fox." In the Âitarey. Br.,[22] the hedgehog is said to be born of the talon of the rapacious hawk. In the Æsopian fables, the wolf comes upon a hedgehog, and congratulates himself upon his good luck; but the hedgehog defends itself. The wolf flatters it and beseeches it to lay down its arms, but it answers that it is imprudent to do so[Pg 12] while the danger of fighting remains. Hence the common belief that the wolf is afraid of the hedgehog; hence the proverb, "It is very easy to find the hedgehog, but very difficult to hold it." In a fable of Abstemius, the hedgehog appears as an enemy, not only of the wolf, but also of the serpent; it pricks the viper which has taken refuge in its den. Then the viper begs it to go out, but it answers, "Let him go out who cannot stay." The hedgehog has the appearance of a little wild boar; and as an enemy of the wolf and of the serpent, it appears to me to combine in one the dwarf Vishṇus and the wild boar Vishṇus, the exterminator of monsters, who, as we know, almost always assume, in Hindoo mythology, the form of a wolf or a serpent. And inasmuch as Vishṇus, like Indras, is a thundering and rain-giving god, in his character of sun in the cloud, or nightly and autumnal moon, the hedgehog, too, is believed to presage wind and rain. The wild boar, when dreamed of, is, according to Artemidoros, quoted by Aldrovandi,[23] an omen of tempest and rain deluge. To this, refers also the fable spoken of by Ælianos and Pliny concerning the hogs carried off by the pirates, which make the ship sink. The cloud-hogs are evidently represented by this myth.

The porcupine seems to be an intermediate form between the hedgehog and the wild boar. According to the popular belief, the ashes of a dead porcupine are, when scattered on the head, an excellent remedy against baldness, and a hair-restorative. And inasmuch as it is difficult to make the porcupine's quills fall, I read in Aldrovandi,[24] that women "Ad discriminandos capillos, ut illos conservent illæsos, aculeis potius hystricum, quam acubus utuntur." This information derived from[Pg 13] Aldrovandi is interesting, as enabling us to understand a not uncommon circumstance in Russian stories. The hero and heroine who flee from the monster that pursues them have received from a good magician or a good fairy the gift of a comb, of such a nature that when thrown on the ground it makes a dense thicket or impenetrable forest arise, which arrests the pursuer's progress.[25] This is a reminiscence of the porcupine with the thick-set quills, of the bristly wild boar, of the gloomy night or cloud itself, of the horned moon, which hides the fugitive solar hero and heroine from the sight of the pursuer.

Notwithstanding this, the hog and the wild boar generally play in Indo-European tradition a part resembling that of the scape-goat and of the ass souffre-douleur. In the Pańćatantram, the ears and the heart of the credulous ass, torn by the lion, are eaten. In Babrios, the rôle of the ass is sustained by the stag (which is often in myths a variation of the foolish hero). In the Gesta Romanorum,[26] the wild boar loses, by his silliness, first one ear, then the other, then his tail; at last he is killed, and his heart eaten by the cook. In Germany, it is the custom, as it formerly was in England, to serve up at dinner on Christmas Day an ornamented boar's head, no doubt as a symbol of the gloomy monster of lunar winter killed at the winter solstice, after which the days grow always longer and brighter. For the same reason, the common people in Germany often go to sleep[Pg 14] on Christmas Day in the pig-sty, hoping to dream there; this dream is a presage of good luck. The new sun is born in the sty of the winter hog; even the Christian Redeemer was born in a stable, but instead of the hog it was the ass, its mythical equivalent, that occupied it. For this reason, too, the devil often assumes in German superstition the form of a monstrous boar, which the hero kills.[27] The wild boar is also described as an aversier (or demon) in the romance of Gavin le Loherain[28]—

"Voiés quel aversier, Grant a le dent fors de la gueule un piet Mult fu hardis qui a cop l'atendié." The author of Loci Communes says that Ferquhar II., king of Scotland, was killed by a wild boar; other writers tell us, on the contrary, that his death was caused by a wolf; but we already know how, in the myth, wolf and wild boar are sometimes equivalent the one to the other.

In the same way as Vishṇus changed himself into a wild boar, and the hog was sacred to the Scandinavian Mars, so was the wild boar sacred to the Roman and Hellenic Mars; and even Mars himself assumed the shape of a monstrous lunar wild boar in order to kill the young Adonis, beloved of Venus. There is no god or saint so perfect but has once in his life committed a fault, as there is not a demon so wicked as not to have done good at least once. The adversaries exchange parts. In Servius, it is with a wild boar's tusk that the bark is cut off the tree in which Myrrha, pregnant with[Pg 15] Adonis after her incest with her father, shuts herself up (we have above seen, on the contrary, Indras who opens with an herb the hiding-place of the wild boar, in order to kill it). We here have again the incestuous father, the girl in the wooden dress, the forest, the penetrating tusk of the wild boar which bursts through the forest of night, and enables the young hero to come forth, whom he kills in the evening out of jealousy. In the ancient popular belief of Sweden, too, the wild boar kills the sun whilst he is asleep in a cavern and his horses grazing. Notice, moreover, the double character of the tusk of the nocturnal lunar wild boar; in the morning it is a life-giving tusk, which enables the solar hero to be born; in the evening it is a death-dealing one; the wild boar is alive during the night, and the darkness is split open by the white tooth of the living wild boar. The lunar wild boar or hog is sacrificed,—it is killed at morn, in the nuptials of the solar hero. The tooth of this dead wild boar, in the evening, causes the death of the young hero or heroine, or else transforms them into wild beasts. In popular fairy tales the witch, feigning a wish to comb the head of the hero or the heroine, thrusts into his or her head now a large pin, now a dead man's tooth, and thus deprives them of life or human form. This is a reminiscence of the tusk of the cloudy, nocturnal, or wintry wild boar who kills the sun, or metamorphoses him, or puts him to sleep.

To represent the evening sun asleep, a curious particular is offered us in the myth of Adonis. It is well-known that doctors attribute to the lettuce a soporific virtue, not dissimilar to that of the poppy. Now, it is interesting to read in Nikandros Kolophonios, quoted by Aldrovandi, that Adonis was struck by the wild boar after having eaten a lettuce. Ibykos, a Pythagorean poet,[Pg 16] calls the lettuce by the name of eunuch, as it is that which puts to sleep, which renders stupid and impotent; Adonis who has eaten the lettuce is therefore taken from Venus by the lunar wild boar, being eunuch and incapable. The solar hero falls asleep in the night, and becomes a eunuch, like the Hindoo Arǵunas, when he is hidden; and otherwise, the sun becomes the moon.

[Pg 17]

CHAPTER VI. THE DOG. SUMMARY.

Why the myth of the dog is difficult of interpretation.—Entre chien et loup.—The dog and the moon.—The bitch Saramâ; her double aspect in the Vedâs and in the Râmâyaṇam; messenger, consoler, and infernal being.—The dog and the purple; the dog and the meat; the dog and its shadow; the fearless hero and his shadow; the black monster; the fear of Indras.—The two Vedic dogs; Sârameyas and Hermês.—The favourite dog of Saramâ; the dog that steals during the sacrifice; the form of a dog to expiate crimes committed in former states of existence; relative Hindoo, Pythagorean and Christian beliefs.—The dog Yamas.—The dog demon that barks, with the long bitter tongue.—The red bitch towards morning a beautiful maiden during the night.—The intestines of the dog eaten.—The hawk that carries honey and the sterile woman.—Dog and woodpecker.—The dog carries the bones of the witch's daughter.—The dog-messenger brings news of the hero.—The nurse-bitch.—The dog and his collar; the dog tied up; the hero becomes a dog.—The dog helps the hero.—The branch of the apple-tree opens the door.—The dog tears the devil in pieces.—The two sons of Ivan think themselves dog's sons.—The intestines of the fish given to be eaten by the bitch.—Ivan the son of the bitch, the very strong hero, goes to the infernal regions.—Dioscuri, Kerberos, funereal purifying dogs of the Persians; the penitent dog; the two dogs equivalent to the two Açvinâu.—The luminous children transformed into puppies; relative legends; the maiden whose hands have been cut off obtains golden hands; branches of trees, hands, sons born of a tree; the myth compared and explained in the Vedic hymns, with the example of Hiraṇyahastas; the word vadhrimatî.—The demoniacal dog.—The strength of the mythical dog.—Monstrous[Pg 18] dogs.—The dog Sirius.—To swear by the dog or by the wolf.—A dog is always born among wolves.—The dog dreamed of.—Double appearance of the dog; the stories of the king of the assassins and of the magician with seven heads.—St Vitus invoked in Sicily whilst a dog is being tied up.—The dog of the shepherd behaves like a wolf among the sheep.—The dog as an instrument of chastisement; the expressions to lead the dog and the ignominious punishment of carrying the dog.—The dogs that tear in pieces; the death caused by the dog prognosticated; the dogs Sirius and Kerberos igneous and pestilential; the incendiary dog of St Dominic, the inventor of pyres for burning heretics, and the dog of the infected San Rocco.

The myth of the dog is one of those of which the interpretation is more delicate. As the common dog stays upon the doorstep of the house, so is the mythical dog generally found at the gate of the sky, morning and evening, in connection with the two Açvinâu. It was a fugitive phenomenon of but an instant's duration which determined the formation of the principal myth of the dog. When this moment is past, the myth changes its nature. I have already referred to the French expression, "entre chien et loup," as used to denote the twilight;[29] the dog precedes by one instant the evening twilight, and follows by one instant that of morning: it is, in a word, the twilight at its most luminous moment. Inasmuch as it watches at the gates of night, it is usually a funereal, infernal, and formidable animal; inasmuch as it guards the gates of day, it is generally represented as a propitious one; and as we[Pg 19] have seen that, of the two Açvinâu, one is in especial relation with the moon, and the other with the sun, so, of the two dogs of mythology, one is especially lunar, and the other especially solar. Between these two dogs we find the bitch their mother, who, if I am not mistaken, represents now the wandering moon of heaven, the guiding moon that illumines the path of the hero and heroine, now the thunderbolt that tears the cloud, and opens up the hiding-place of the cows or waters. We have, therefore, thus far three mythical dogs. One; menacing, is found by the solar hero in the evening at the western gates of heaven; the second, the more active, helps him in the forest of night, where he is hunting, guides him in danger, and shows him the lurking-places of his enemies whilst he is in the cloud or darkness; the third, in the morning, is quiet, and found by the hero when he comes out of the gloomy region, towards the eastern sky.

Let us now examine briefly these three forms in Hindoo mythology. I have said that the mythical bitch appears to me sometimes to represent the moon, and sometimes the thunderbolt. In India, this bitch is named Saramâ, properly she who walks, who runs or flows. We are accustomed to say of the dog that it barks at the moon, which the popular proverb connects with robbers. The dog that barks at the moon,[30] is perhaps the same dog that barks to show that robbers are near. In the 108th hymn of the tenth book of the Ṛigvedas, we have a dramatic scene between the misers or thieves (the Paṇayas) and the bitch Saramâ, the messenger of Indras, who wishes for their treasures.[31] In order to come to[Pg 20] them, she traverses the waters of the Rasâ (a river of hell); the treasure that is hidden in the mountain consists of cows, horses, and various riches; the Paṇayas wish Saramâ to stay with them as their sister, and to enjoy the cows along with them; Saramâ answers that she does not recognise their brotherhood, inasmuch as she is already the sister of Indras, and the terrible Añgirasas.[32] In the sixty-second hymn of the first book, the bitch Saramâ discovers the cows hidden in the rock, and receives in recompense from Indras and the Añgirasas nourishment for her offspring; then men cry out, and the cows bellow.[33] Going towards the sun, in the path of the sun, Saramâ finds the cows.[34] When Indras splits the mountain open, Saramâ shows him first the waters.[35] Having previously seen the fissure in the mountain, she showed the way. The first she guided rapidly, the band of the noisy ones having previously heard the noise.[36] This noise may refer either to the waters, the sounding rivers (nadâs, nadîs), or the lowing cows (gavas). Now, this bitch that discovers the hiding-places, inasmuch as she breaks through the darkness of night, seems to be the moon; inasmuch as she breaks through the cloud, she seems to be the thunderbolt. The secret of this[Pg 21] equivoque lies in the root sar. In the Ṛigvedas, we have seen Saramâ disdaining to pass for the sister of the thieves or the monsters; in the Râmâyaṇam,[37] the wife of one of the monsters, of the very brother of Râvaṇas the robber, is called Saramâ, and takes, instead of the monster's part, that of Râmas and Sîtâ the ravished wife. We have already several times seen the moon as a beneficent cow, as a good fairy, or as the Madonna. Saramâ (of which Suramâ, another benignant rakshasî, is probably only an incorrect form[38]), the consoler of Sîtâ, who announces prophetically her approaching deliverance by her husband Râmas, appears to me in the light of another impersonation of the moon. It is on this account that Sîtâ[39] praises Saramâ as a twin-sister of hers (sahodarâ), affectionate, and capable of traversing the heavens, and penetrating into the watery infernal regions (rasâtalam).[40] The benignant sister of Sîtâ can only be another luminous being; she is the good sister whom the maiden of the Russian story, persecuted by her incestuous father, in Afanassieff, finds in the subterranean world, where she is consoled and assisted in escaping from the power of the witch; she is the moon. The moon is the luminous form of the gloomy sky of night, or of the funereal and infernal region; whilst its two luminous barriers in that sky, in the east and in the west, are morning and evening aurora; the luminous forms of the cloudy sky are lightning and thunderbolts. And it is from one of these luminous mythical forms that the Greeks, according to Pollux, quoted by Aldrovandi, made of the dog the inventor of purple, which the dog of Hêraklês was the first to bite.[Pg 22] The dog of the Æsopian fable,[41] with meat in its mouth, is a variation of this myth. The red sky of evening appears purple in the morning, and in the evening as the meat that the dog lets fall into the waters of the ocean of night. In the Pańćatantram, we have instead the lion of evening (the evening sun), who, seeing in the fountain (or in the ocean of night) another lion (now the moon, now his own shadow, the night, or the cloud), throws himself into the water to tear him to pieces, and perishes in it. The hare (the moon) is the animal which allures the famished lion of evening to perish in the waters.

The two sons of the bitch Saramâ preserve several of their mother's characteristics. Now they are spoken of together as Sârameyâu; now they are mentioned together, but distinct from one another; now one alone of them, the most legitimate, by the name of Sârameyas, whose identity with the Greek Hermês or Hermeias has already been proved by Professor Kuhn. Saramâ in connection with the Paṇayas, merchants or thieves, and Saramâ as the[Pg 23] divine messenger, gives us the key to the legend of Mercury, god of thieves and merchants, and messenger of the gods.

In a Vedic hymn we find described with great clearness the two dogs that guard the gates of hell, the monsters' dwelling, or the kingdom of the dead. It prays for one departed, "that he may be able to pass safely beyond the two dogs, sons of Saramâ, having four eyes, spotted, who occupy the right path, and to come to the benignant Manes" (for there are also the malignant ones, or Durvidatrâḥ); these dogs are called "the very fierce guardians, who watch the road, observing men, have vast nostrils, are long-winded, and very strong, the messengers of Yamas;" they are invoked "that they may cause to enjoy the sight of the sun, and give a happy life."[42] But the Ṛigvedas itself already shows us the two sons of the bitch Saramâ, as the two who look in turns (one after the other), whom Indras must put to sleep.[43] One, however, of the two sons of Saramâ is especially invoked and feared, the Sârameyas par excellence. The Vedic hymn speaks of him as he who returns (punaḥsaras), and represents him as "luminous, with reddish teeth, that shine like spears, in the well-rooted gums," and implores him to sleep, or "to bark only at the robber, or at the thief, not at the singers of hymns in honour of Indras."[44] The bitch Saramâ is passionately fond of her[Pg 24] son; in recompense for her discovery of the cows of Indras, she demands nourishment for her son, which nourishment the commentator explains to be the milk of the liberated cows; the first rays of the morning sun and the last rays of the evening sun drink the milk of the dawn or silvery twilight. In the Mahâbhâratam,[45] the bitch Saramâ curses King Ǵanameǵayas, because his three brothers, when attending the sacrifice, maltreated and flogged the dog Sârameyas, who had also gone there, although he had neither touched with his tongue nor desired with his eyes the oblations destined to the gods (as, on the contrary, the white dog did, who, in the sacrifice of Dion, near Athens, stole part of the victim, whence the name of Künosargês was given to that place). The same legend occurs again, slightly modified, in the seventh book of the Râmâyaṇam.[46] Râmas sends Lakshmaṇas, his brother, to see whether there are any disputes to be settled in the kingdom; Lakshmaṇas returns, saying that the whole kingdom is at peace. Râmas sends him again; he sees a dog erect on the doorstep of the palace, barking. The name of this dog is Sârameyas. Râmas enables him to enter the palace. The dog complains that he has been beaten without just cause by a Brâhman. The Brâhman is called, appears, confesses his fault, and awaits his punishment. The dog Sârameyas proposes as his punishment that the Brâhman should take a wife (the usual proverbial satire against wives), and become head of a family in the very place where he himself had supported the same dignity prior to assuming the shape of a dog. After this the dog Sârameyas, who remembers his previous states of existence, returns to do penitence at Benares, whence he had come.

[Pg 25]

Therefore the dog and the Kerberos are also a form into which the hero of the myth passes. The Hindoo and Pythagorean religious beliefs both teach that metempsychosis is a means of expiation; the curse of the offended deity is now a vengeance now a chastisement for an error that the hero or some one of his relations has committed, and which has provoked the deity's indignation.[47]

Sometimes the deity himself assumes the form of a dog in order to put the hero's virtue to the proof, as in the last book of the Mahâbhâratam, where the god Yamas becomes a dog, and follows Yudhishṭhiras (the son of Yamas), who regards him with such affection, that when invited to mount into the chariot of the gods, he refuses to do so, unless his faithful dog is allowed to accompany him.

Sometimes, however, the shape of a dog or bitch (as it is easy to pass from Yamas, the god of hell in the form of a dog, to the dog-fiend) is a real and specific form of a demon. The Ṛigvedas speaks of the dog-demons bent upon tormenting Indras, who is requested to kill the monster in the form of an owl, a bat, a dog, a wolf, a great bird, a vulture;[48] it invokes the Açvinâu to destroy on every side the barking dogs;[49] it solicits[Pg 26] the friends to destroy the long-tongued and avaricious dog (in the old Italian chronicle of Giov. Morelli, misers are called Cani del danaro, dogs of money), as the Bhrigavas have killed the monster Makhas.[50] And the skin of the red bitch is another monstrous form in which is dressed every morning (as the aurora in the morning sky), in the twenty-third Mongol story, the beautiful maiden who is in the power of the prince of the dragons; she (as moon) is a beautiful maiden only at night; towards day she becomes a red bitch (the moon gives up her place to the aurora); the youth who has married her wishes to burn this bitch's skin, but the maiden disappears; the sun overtakes the aurora, and he disappears with the moon. We have already seen this myth.

In the eighteenth hymn of the fourth book of the Ṛigvedas, the thirteenth strophe seems to me to contain an interesting particular. A devotee complains as follows:—"In my misery I had the intestines of the dog cooked; I found among the gods no consoler; I saw my wife sterile; the hawk brought honey to me."[51] Here we find the dog in connection with a bird.[52] In the twenty-fifth[Pg 27] story of the fourth book of Afanassieff, we find the woodpecker that brings food and drink to its friend the dog, and avenges him after his death. In the forty-first story of the fourth book, the dog is killed by the old witch, because he carries in a sack the bones of her wicked daughter, who has been devoured by the head of a mare. In the twentieth story of the fifth book, we have the dog in the capacity of a messenger employed by the beautiful girl whom the serpent has married; he carries to her father a letter that she has written, and brings his answer back to her. In the legend of St Peter, the dog serves as a messenger between Peter and Simon the magician; in the legend of San Rocco, the dog of our Lord takes bread to the saint, alone and ill under a tree. The name of Cyrus's nurse, according to Textor, was Küna, whence Cyrus might have been nourished, like Asklêpios, with the milk of a dog. I have already said that the story of the dog is connected with the myth of the Açvinâu, or, what is the same thing, with that of the horse; horse and dog are considered in the light of coursers: the horse bears the hero, and the dog usually takes news of the hero to his friends, as the bitch Saramâ, the messenger of the gods, does in the Ṛigvedas.[53] The hero who assumes the shape of a horse cautions his father, when he sells him to the devil, not to give up the bridle to the buyer. In the twenty-second story of the fifth book of Afanassieff, the young man transforms himself into a dog, and lets his father sell him to a great lord, who is the devil in disguise, but tells him not to give up the collar.[54] The[Pg 28] gentleman buys the dog for two hundred roubles, but insists upon having the collar too, calling the old man a thief upon the latter refusing to consign it into his hands. The old man, in his distraction, gives it up; the dog is thus in the power of the lord, that is, of the devil. But on the road, a hare (the moon) passes by; the gentleman lets the dog pursue it, and loses sight of it; the dog again assumes the shape of a hero, and rejoins his father. In the same story, the young man adopts, the second time, the form of a bird (we shall see the Açvinâu as swans and doves in the chapter on the swan, the goose, and the dove), and the third time that of a horse. In the twenty-eighth story of the fifth book, a horse, a dog, and an apple-tree are born of the dead bull who protects Ivan and Mary fleeing in the forest from the bear. Riding on the horse, and accompanied by the dog, Ivan goes to the chase. The first day he captures a wolf's whelp alive, and carries it home; the second day he takes a young bear; the third day he returns to the chase, and forgets the dog; then the six-headed serpent, in the shape of a handsome youth, carries off his sister, and shuts the dog up under lock and key, throwing the key into the lake. Ivan returns, and, by the advice of a fairy, he breaks a twig off the apple-tree, and strikes with it the bolt of the door which encloses the dog; the dog is thus set at liberty, and Ivan lets dog, wolf, and bear loose upon the serpent, who is torn in pieces by them, and recovers his sister. In the fiftieth story of the fifth book, the dog of a warrior-hero tears the devil, who presents himself first in the form of a bull, and then in that of a bear, to prevent the wedding of the hero taking place. In the fifty-second story of the sixth book, the dogs which Ivan Tzarević has received from two fairies, together with a wolf's whelp, a bear's, and a lion's cub, tear the monster[Pg 29] serpent to pieces. The two dogs carry us back to the myth of the Açvinâu. In the fifty-third story of the sixth book, the monster cuts Ivan's head off. Ivan has two sons, who believe themselves to be of canine descent; they ask their mother to be permitted to go and resuscitate their father. An old man gives them a root, which, when rubbed on Ivan's body, will bring him to life again; they take it, and use it as directed. Ivan is resuscitated, and the monster dies. Finally, in the fifty-fourth story of the fifth book of Afanassieff, we learn how the sons of the dog are born, and their mode of birth is analogous to that mentioned in the Vedic hymn. A king who has no sons has a fish with golden fins; he orders it to be cooked, and to be given to the queen to eat. The intestines of the fish (the phallos) are thrown to the bitch, the bones are gnawed by the cook, and the meat is eaten by the queen. To the bitch, the cook, and the queen a son is born at the same time. The three sons are all called Ivan, and are regarded as three brothers; but the strongest (he who accomplishes the most difficult enterprises) is Ivan the son of the bitch, who goes under ground into the kingdom of the monsters (as of the two Dioscuri, one descends into hell, like the two funereal dogs, light-coloured and white, of the Avesta, which are in perfect accordance with the Vedic Sârameyâu[55]). In[Pg 30] the same story, besides the three brother-heroes, three heroic horses are brought forth by the three mares that have drunk the water in which the fish was washed before being cooked; in other European variations, and in the Russian stories themselves, therefore, we sometimes have, instead of the bitch's son, the son of the mare (or the cow). The two Açvinâu are now two horses, now two dogs, now a dog and a horse (now a bull and a lion).[56] Ivan Tzarević, whom the horse and the dog save from danger, is the same as the Vedic hero, the sun, whom the Açvinâu save from many dangers.

In the Russian stories, as well as in the Italian ones, the witch substitutes for one, two, or three sons of the prince, who have stars on their forehead, and were born of the princess in her husband's absence, one, two, or three puppies. In these same stories, the hand of the persecuted princess is cut off. In the thirteenth story of the third book of Afanassieff,[57] the witch sister-in-law accuses her husband's sister of imaginary crimes in his presence. The brother cuts her hands off; she wanders into the forest; she comes out again only after the lapse of several years; a young merchant becomes enamoured of her, and marries her. During her husband's absence,[Pg 31] she gives birth to a child whose body is all of gold, effigies of stars, moon, and sun covering it. His parents write to their son, telling him the news; but the witch sister-in-law abstracts the letter (as in the myth of Bellerophôn), and forges another, which announces, on the contrary, that a monster, half dog and half bear, is born. The husband writes back, bidding them wait until he returns to see with his own eyes his new-born son. The witch intercepts this letter also, and changes it for another, in which he orders his young wife to be sent away. The young woman, without hands, wanders about with her boy. The boy falls into a fountain; she weeps; an old man tells her to throw the stumps of her arms into the fountain; she obeys, her hands return, and she recovers her boy again. She finds her husband; and no sooner does she uncover the child in his sight, than all the room shines with light (asviatilo).

In a Servian story,[58] the father of the maiden whose hands had been cut off by the witch, her mother-in-law, causes, by means of the ashes of three burned hairs from the tail of the black stallion and that of the white mare, golden hands to grow on the maiden's arms. The apple-tree, with golden branches, which we have already mentioned, is the same as this girl who comes out of the forest (or wooden chest) with golden hands. From the branches it is easy to pass to the hands of gold, to the fair-haired son who comes out of the trunk.[59] The idea of a youth as the branch of a tree has been rendered poetical by Shakspeare, who makes the Duchess of Gloster say of the seven sons of Edward—

[Pg 32]

"Edward's seven sons, whereof thyself art one, Were as seven phials of his sacred blood, Or seven fair branches springing from one root."[60] In Hindoo myths, the hand of Savitar having been cut off, one of gold is given to him, whence the epithet he enjoys of Hiraṇyahastas, or he who has a golden hand. But in the 116th and 117th hymns of the first book we find a more interesting datum. The branch is the hand of the tree; the branch is the son who detaches himself from the maternal trunk of the tree; the golden son is the same as the golden branch, the golden hand of the tree. The mother who obtains a golden hand is the same as the mother who has Hiraṇyahastas—i.e., Golden-hand—for her son. The Vedic hymn says that the Açvinâu gave Golden-hand as a son to the Vadhrimatî.[61] The word vadhrimatî is equivocal. The Petropolitan Dictionary interprets it only as she who has a eunuch, or one who is castrated, for her husband, but the proper sense of the word is she who has something cut off, she who has, that is, the maimed arm, as in the fairy tale, for which reason she is given a golden hand. As the wife of a eunuch, the Vedic woman, therefore, receives from the Açvinâu a son with a golden hand; as having an imperfect arm, she receives only a golden hand, as in the 116th hymn of the first book, the same Açvinâu give to Viçpalâ, who had lost his own in battle, an iron leg.[Pg 33][62] The Ṛigvedas, therefore, already contains in its germ the very popular subject of the man or woman without hands, in same way as we have already found in it, in embryo, the legends of the lame man, the blind man or woman, the ugly and the disguised woman.

But to return to the dog. Besides his agility[63] in running, his strength holds a prominent place in the myth. The Kerberos shows an extraordinary strength in rending his enemies. In the Russian stories the dog is the hero's strength, and is associated with the wolf, the bear, and the lion. In popular stories, now terrible lions and now dreadful dogs are found guarding the gate of the monster's dwelling. The monk of San Gallo, in Du Cange, says that the "canes germanici" are so agile and ferocious, that they suffice alone to hunt tigers and lions; the same fable is repeated in Du Cange of the dogs of Albania, which are so great and fierce, "ut tauros premant et leones perimant." The enormous chained dog, painted on the left side of the entrance of Roman houses, near the porter's room; the motto cave canem; the expiations made in Greece and at Rome (whence the names "Canaria Hospitia" and "Porta Catularia," where a dog was immolated to appease the fury of the Canicula, and whence the verse of Ovid—

"Pro cane sidereo canis hic imponitur aræ,") at the time of the Canicula or of the Canis Sirius, to[Pg 34] conjure away the evils which he brings along with the summer heat, in connection with the sol leo, and the corresponding festival of the killing of the dog (künophontis), besides the barking dogs that appear in the groin of Scylla,[64] are all records of the mythical dog of hell. The dog, as a domestic animal, has been confounded with the savage brute which generally represents the monster. The dog is scarcely distinguishable from the wolf in the twilight. In Du Cange we read that in the Middle Ages it was the custom to swear now by the dog now by the wolf.[65] In the country round Arezzo, in Tuscany, it is believed that when a she-wolf brings forth her young ones, a dog is always found among them, which, if it were allowed to live, would exterminate all the wolves. But the she-wolf, knowing this, no sooner perceives the dog-wolf than she drowns it when she takes the wolves to drink.[66] In the district of[Pg 35] Florence, it is believed that the wolf, as well as the dog, when it happens to be the subject of a dream, is (as[Pg 36] in Terence) a prognostic of sickness or death, especially if the dog is dreamt of as running after or trying to bite[Pg 37] one. In Horace (Ad Galatheam) it is an evil omen to meet with a pregnant bitch—

"Impios parræ præcinentis omen Ducat et prœgnans canis." In Sicily, St Vitus is prayed to that he may keep the dogs chained—

"Santu Vitu, Santu Vitu, Io tri voti vi lu dicu: Va', chiamativi a lu cani Ca mi voli muzzicari." And when tying the dog up, they say—

"Santu Vitu, Beddu e pulitu, Anghi di cira E di ferru filatu; Pi lu nuomu di Maria Ligu stu cani Ch' aju avanti a mia."[Pg 38] When the dog is tied up, they add—

"Fermati, cani Ca t' aju ligatu."[67] In Italy and Russia, when the dog howls like a wolf, that is, plays the wolf, it forebodes misfortune and death. It is also narrated,[68] that after the alliance between Cæsar, Lepidus, and Antony, dogs howled like wolves.

When one is bitten by a dog[69] in Sicily, a tuft of hair is cut off the dog and plunged into wine with a burning cinder; this wine is given to be drunk by the man who has been bitten. In Aldrovandi,[70] I read, on the other hand, that to cure the bite of a mad dog, it is useful to cover the wound with wolf's skin.

The dog is a medium of chastisement. Our Italian expressions, "Menare il cane per l'aia" (to lead the dog about the barn-floor), and "Dare il cane a menare" (to give the dog to be led about), are probably a reminiscence of the ignominious mediæval punishment of Germany of carrying the dog, inflicted upon a noble criminal, and which sometimes preceded his final execution.[71] The[Pg 39] punishment of laceration by dogs, which has actually been carried out more than once by the order of earthly tyrants, has its prototype in the well-known myth of Kerberos and the avenging dogs of hell. Thus Pirithoos, who attempts to carry off Persephônê from the infernal king of the Molossians, is torn to pieces by the dog Trikerberos. Euripides, according to the popular tradition, was lacerated in the forest by the avenging dogs of Archelaos. It is told of Domitian, that when an astrologer on one occasion predicted his approaching death, he asked him whether he knew in what way he himself would die; the astrologer answered that he would be devoured by dogs (death by dogs is also predicted in a story of the Pentamerone); Domitian, to make the oracle false, ordered him to be killed and burned; but the wind put the flames out, and the dogs approached and devoured the corpse. Boleslaus II., king of Poland, in the legend of St Stanislaus, is torn by his own dogs while wandering in the forest, for having ordered the saint's death. The Vedic monster Çushnas, the pestilential dog Sirius of the summer skies, and the dog Kerberos of the nocturnal hell, vomit flames; they chastise the world, too, with pestilential flames; and the pagan world tries all arts, praying and conjuring, to rid itself of their baleful influences. But this dog is[Pg 40] immortal, or rather it generates children, and returns to fill men with terror in a new, a more direct, and a more earthly form in the Christian world. It is narrated, in fact, that before the birth of St Dominic, the famous inventor of the tortures of the Holy Inquisition (a truly satanic Lucifer), his mother, being pregnant of him, dreamed that she saw a dog carrying a lighted brand about, setting the world on fire. St Dominic truly realised his mother's dream; he was really this incendiary dog; and, therefore, in the pictures that represent him, the dog is always close to him with its lighted brand. Christ is the Prometheus enlarged, purified, and idealised; and St Dominic, the monstrous Vulcan, deteriorated, diminished, and fanaticised, of the Christian Olympus. The dog, sacred in pagan antiquity to the infernal deities, was consecrated to St Dominic the incendiary, and to Rocco, the saint who protects the sick of the plague. The Roman feasts in honour of Vulcan (Volcanalia) fell in the month of August; and the Roman Catholic Church fêtes in the month of August the two saints of the dogs of the fire and the plague, St Dominic and St Rocco.

[Pg 41]

CHAPTER VII. THE CAT, THE WEASEL, THE MOUSE, THE MOLE, THE SNAIL, THE ICHNEUMON, THE SCORPION, THE ANT, THE LOCUST, AND THE GRASSHOPPER. SUMMARY.

Mârǵâras, mârgaras, mṛigas, mṛigâris, mṛigarâǵas.—Nakulas.—Mûsh.—Vamras, vamrî, vaprî, valmîkam, formica.—The serpent and the ants.—Indras as an ant; the serpent eaten by the ants.—Vamras drinking, assisted by the Açvinâu.—The grateful ant; the hermit-dwarfs.—Ants' milk.—Ants' legs.—The ant dies when its wings grow; the ants and the treasure.—The ants separate the grains.—The locust and the ant; çarabhas as the moon.—Grasshopper and ant.—Avere il grillo, aver la luna; indovinala, grillo.—Wedding between ant and grasshopper.—Locusts destroyed by fire.—Hippomürmêkes.—The Indian locust that guards honey again.—The scorpion, and its poison absorbed.—The ichneumon, enemy of the serpent.—The weasel.—Galanthis.—The cat with ears of butter.—The cat as a judge.—The lynx.—The penitent cat.—The beneficent cat.—The cat with a golden tail.—Cat and dog as friends; the dog carries the cat; they find the lost ring again.—The new-born son changed for a cat.—The cat that sings and tells tales.—The cat created by the moon; Diana as a cat.—The sacred cat.—The funereal and diabolical cat.—Cat and fox.—The cat hangman.—Le chat botté.—Chatte blanche; the cat that spins and weaves.—The cat becomes a girl.—The enchanted palace of the cats.—The cats of February; the black cat; the cat dreamed-of.—The cat becomes a witch at seven years of age.—The cat in the sack.—The mewing of the cat.—The cats dispute for souls.—Battle of cats.—The mice that bite their tails or that gnaw the threads of the net.—The mouse in the honey.—The mouse that becomes a maiden; the mouse and the mountain.—The mouse that becomes a tiger.—The souls of the dead pass into mice;[Pg 42] funereal and diabolical mice; superstitions relating to this belief.—The mouse that releases the lion and the elephant from the trap.—Ganeças crushes the mouse; Apollo Smyntheus.—When the cat's away the mice can dance.—The mouse plays blind-man's-buff with the bear.—The grateful mouse.—The mouse that foresees the future.—Mouse and sparrow, first friends and then enemies.—The batrachomyomachia.—The mouse, the tooth, and the coin.—Hiraṇyakas; the squirrel.—The monster mole; the mole as a gravedigger; the blind mole.—The snail in the popular song; the snail and the serpent; the snail as a funereal animal.

I unite in one series several mythical nocturnal animals, which, although really of very different natures, enter into only one order of myths.

They are thieving and hunting animals, and are therefore very aptly placed in the darkness of night (naktaćârin is an epithet applied in Sanskṛit both to the cat and the thief), in the nocturnal forest, in connection now with Diana the huntress, or the good fairy the moon, and now with the ugly witch; now appearing as the helpers of the hero, and now as his persecutors.

The etymologies of several Hindoo words may be of some interest to the reader, and may with propriety be adduced here. Mârǵâras, the cat, means the cleanser (as the animal that, in fact, cleans itself). Referring to the myth, we know already that one of the principal exactions of the witch is that her step-daughter should comb her hair, or else clean the corn, during the night; and that the good fairy, the Madonna, while she too has her hair combed, scatters gems about, spins, and cleans the corn for the good maiden. The witch of night forces the maiden aurora to separate the luminous wheat of evening from the dark tares of night; the moon with its silvery splendour disperses the shades of night. The mârǵâras, or cleanser of the night, the white cat, is the moon. Araṇyamârǵâras, or cat of the forest, is the[Pg 43] name given to the wild cat, with which the lynx, too, is identified. As a white cat, as the moon, it protects innocent animals; as a black cat, as the dark night, it persecutes them. The cat is a skilful hunter; moreover, it is easy to confound the word mârǵâras (the cleanser) with the word mârgaras, the proper meaning of which is hunter, investigator, he who follows the track, the mârgas, or else the enemy of the mṛigas (as mṛigâris); the road is the clean part of the land, as the margin is the white or clean part of a book. The hunter may be he that goes on the margin or on the track, or else he that hunts and kills the mṛigas or forest animal. The moon (the huntress Diana) is also called in Sanskṛit mṛigarâǵas, or king of the forest animals; and, as kings are wont, it sometimes defends its subjects and sometimes eats them. The cat-moon eats the grey mice of the night.

Nakulas is the name given in Sanskṛit to the ichneumon, the enemy of mice, scorpions, and snakes. The word seems to be derived from the root naç, nak = necare, whence nakulas would appear to be the destroyer (of nocturnal mice).

The mouse, mûsh, mûshas, mûshakas, is the thief, the ravisher, whence also its name rat (a rapiendo).

The Hindoo names of the ant are vamras and vamrî (besides pipîlakas). Vamrî is connected with vapâ, vapram, vaprî, ant-hole, and, by metathesis, valmîkam (i.e., appertaining to ants), which has the same meaning. The Latin formica unites together the two forms vamrî and valmîkam. The roots are vap, in the sense of to throw, and vam, to erupt or to throw out, as the ants do when they erect little mounds of earth.

In the Mahâbhâratam, the hole of a serpent is also called by the name of valmîkam; from this we can explain the fable of the third book of the Pańćatantram,[Pg 44] where we have a serpent fighting against ants. He kills many of them, but their number is so interminable that he is at last forced to succumb. Thus, in the mythical Vedic heavens, it is in the shape of a vamras or ant that Indras fights victoriously against the old monster that invades the sky.[72] Nay, more, in the Pańćatantram, the ants sting and bite the serpent and kill it; thus Indras (who, as we have just said, is an ant in the cloud or the night) gives to the ants the avaricious serpent, the son of Agrus, dragging it out of its hiding-place.[73] Indras is therefore a variety of the Captain Formicola of the Tuscan fairy tale. Finally, the Ṛigvedas offers us yet another curious particular. The two Açvinâu come to assist Vamras (or Indras in his form of an ant, i.e., they come to assist the ant) whilst it is drinking (vamraṁ vipipânam). The ant throws or lifts up little hillocks of earth by biting the ground. The root vap, which means to throw, to scatter, has also the sense of to cut, and perhaps to make a hole in. The convex presupposes the concave; and vam is related to vap (as somnus is related to hüpnos, to svapnas, and to sopor). Indras, as an ant, is the wounder, the biter of the serpent. He makes it come out of its den, or vomits it forth (eructat); the two etymological senses are found again in the myth. The weapons with which Indras wounds the serpent are doubtless now the solar rays, and now the thunderbolts. Indras, in the cloud, drinks the somas. The ant drinks, and the Açvinâu, whilst it drinks, come to its help, for no doubt the ant when drinking is in danger of being[Pg 45] drowned. And this brings us to the story of the grateful animals, in which the young hero finds an ant about to be drowned.

In the twenty-fourth of the Tuscan fairy tales published by me, when the shepherd's son, by a good advice which he has received, determines to do good to every one he meets, he sees on the path an ant-hill, which is about to be destroyed by water; he then makes a bank round it, and thus saves the ants;[74] in their turn the ants pay back the debt. The king of the land demands of the young man, as a condition of receiving his daughter in marriage, that he should separate and sort the different kinds of grain in a granary; up marches Captain Formicola with his army, and accomplishes the stipulated task. In other varieties of the same story, instead of the embankment, we have the leaf that the hero puts under the ant to float it out of the water contained in the footprint of a horse, which again recalls the lotus-leaf on which the Hindoo deity navigates the ocean. This water in which the ant is drowning was afterwards changed into the proverbial ants' milk,[75] which is now used to express an impossibility, but which, when referred to Indras, to the mythical ant, represents the ambrosial and pluvial moisture. In the sixth Sicilian story of Signora Gonzenbach, the boy Giuseppe, having given crumbs of bread to the hungry ants, receives from the king of the ants the present of an ant's leg, in order that he may[Pg 46] use it when required. When he wishes to become an ant, in order to penetrate into the giant's palace, he has only to let the ant's leg fall to the ground, with the words, "I am a Christian, and am becoming an ant," which immediately comes to pass. In the same story Giuseppe procures sheep, in order to attract the serpent by their smell, and induce it to come out of its lurking-place. Here we evidently return to the Vedic subject of the ant Indras, who tempts the serpent to come out in order to give it to the ants. In the eighth story of the fourth book of the Pentamerone, the ant shows the third part of the way to the girl Cianna, who is going to search for the mother of time; on the door of her dwelling Cianna will find a serpent biting its tail (the well-known symbol of the cyclical day or year, and of time, in antiquity), and she is to ask the mother of time, on the ant's part, advice as to how the ants can live a hundred years. The mother of time answers to Cianna that the ants will live a hundred years when they can dispense with flying, inasmuch as "quanno la formica vo morire, mette l'ascelle" (i.e., the wings). The ant, grateful for this good advice, shows Cianna and her brothers the place underground where the thieves have deposited their treasure. We also remember the story of the ants who bring grains of barley into the mouth of the royal child Midas, to announce his future wealth. In Herodotus (iii.), and in the twelfth book of the stories of Tzetza,[Pg 47][76] I find the curious information that there are in India ants as large as foxes, that keep golden treasures in their holes; the grains of wheat are this gold. The morning and evening heavens are sometimes compared to granaries of gold; the ants separate the grain during the night, carrying it from west to east, and purifying it of all that is unclean, or cleansing the sky of the nocturnal shadows. The work assigned every night by the witch to the maiden aurora of evening is done in one night by the black ants of the sky of night. Sometimes the girl meets on the way the good fairy (the moon), who comes to her help; the maiden, assisted by the ants, meets the madonna-moon. But the moon is called also the leaper or hopper, a nocturnal locust; the darkness, the cloud and the dark-coloured earth (in lunar eclipses) are at the same time ant-hills and black ants, that pass over or before the moon; and, therefore, in the race between the ant and the locust, it is said in the fable that the ant won the race. The locust, or çarabhas, or çalabhas, is presented to us as an improvident animal in two sentences of the first and fourth books of the Pańćatantram. The green grasshopper or locust leaps; the fair-haired moon leaps. (I have already noticed in the chapter on the ass how the words haris and harit mean both green and fair, or yellow; in the second canto of the sixth book of the Râmâyaṇam, the monkey Çarabhas is said to inhabit the mountain Ćandras or Mount Moon; Çarabhas, therefore, appears as the moon.) Locust and grasshopper jump (cfr. the Chap. on the hare); hence the ant is not only in connection with the locust, but also with the grasshopper: the Hindoo expression çarabhas means both grasshopper (in Sanskṛit, also named varshakarî) and locust. In one of the popular songs of the Monferrato collected by Signor Ferraro, we have the wedding of the grasshopper[Pg 48] and the ant; the magpie, the mouse, the ortolan, the crow, and the goldfinch bring to the wedding a little cut straw, a cushion, bread, cheese, and wine. In the popular Tuscan songs published by Giuseppe Tigri, I find the word grilli (grasshoppers) used in the sense of lovers. In Italian, grillo also means caprice, and especially amorous caprice; and medico grillo is applied to a foolish doctor.[77] And yet the grasshopper ought to be the diviner par excellence. In Italy, when we propose a riddle, we are accustomed to end it with the words "indovinala, grillo" (guess it, grasshopper); this expression perhaps refers to the supposed fool of the popular story, who almost always ends by showing himself wise. The sun enclosed in the cloud and in the gloom of night is generally the fool, but he is at the same time the fool who, in the kingdom of the dead, sees, hears, and learns everything; and the moon, too, personified as a grasshopper or locust, is the supposed fool who, on the contrary, knows, sees, understands, and teaches everything; from the moon are taken prognostics; hence riddles may be proposed to the capricious moon, or the celestial cricket. In Italian, the expressions "aver la luna" (to have the moon), and "avere il grillo" (to have the grasshopper), are equivalent, and mean to suffer from a nervous attack, or the spleen. I also find the wedding between ant and grasshopper in a very popular, but as yet unpublished Tuscan song. The ant asks the grasshopper whether he desires her for his wife, and recommends him, if he does not, to look after his own affairs, that is, to leave her alone. And then the narrative[Pg 49] begins. The grasshopper goes into a field of linen; the ant begs for a thread to make herself aprons and shirts for the wedding; then the grasshopper says he wishes to marry her. The grasshopper goes into a field of vetches; the ant asks for ten vetches, to cook four in a stew, and to put six upon the spit for the wedding-dinner. After the wedding, the grasshopper follows the trade of a greengrocer, then that of an innkeeper; but his affairs succeed so badly, that he first puts his own trousers in pawn, and then becomes bankrupt, and beats his wife the ant; at last he dies in misery. Then the ant faints away, throws herself upon the bed, and beats her breast for sorrow with her heel (as ants do when they die).[78] The nuptials of the black ant, the gloom of night,[Pg 50] with the moon, locust, or grasshopper, take place in the evening; the grasshopper dies, the moon pales, and the black ant, the night, also disappears. In the Pańćatantram, the locusts are destroyed by fire. In the so-called letter of Alexander the Great to Olympias,[79] I find the ants scared away by means of fire, whilst they are endeavouring to keep horses and heroes at a distance. These extraordinary ants recall to us the hippomürmêkes of the Greeks, or ants of horses. The ants, the insects of the forest of night, molest the hero and solar horse that traverse it; the black ants of night are dispersed by the solar fire of the morning: this we can understand all the better when Tzetza, quoted before, speaking of the Indian ants, calls them as large as foxes; when Pliny, in the eleventh book of his History, says they are of the colour of a cat, and the size of Egyptian wolves; and when Solinus tells us that they have the shape of a large dog, with lion's feet, with which they dig gold up. Ælianos calls them guardians of gold (tôn chrüsôn[Pg 51] phülattontes). Evidently the ants have already taken here a monstrous and demoniacal aspect. Several other ancient authors have written concerning these Indian ants, including Herodotus, Strabo, Philostratos, and Lucian. I shall only mention here, as bearing on our subject, that, according to Lucian, it is by night that they dig up the gold, and that, according to Pliny, the ants dig up gold in winter (night and winter are often equivalent in mythology). "The Indians, moreover, steal it during summer, whilst the ants stay hidden in their subterranean lurking-places on account of the vapours; however, tempted forth by the smell, they run out, and often cut the Indians in pieces, although they flee away on very swift camels, they are so rapid, ferocious, and desirous of gold."[80] This monster ant, with lion's claws, which Pliny also describes as horned, approaches very closely to the mythical black scorpion of the clouds and the night, the Vedic Vṛiçćikas, which, now a very little bird (iyattikâ çakuntikâ), now a very small ichneumon (kushumbhakas, properly the little golden one, perhaps the young morning sun), destroys with its tooth (açmanâ, properly with the biter), absorbing or taking away the poison, as jars take off the water, i.e., the sun's rays dissipate the vapours of the sun enclosed in the cloud or the gloom.[81] Here the ichneumon (viverra ichneumon) appears as the benefactor of the scorpion rather than as its enemy; it takes its poison away, that is, it frees the sun from the sign of Scorpio, from the vapours which envelope it. The ichneumon is in Sanskṛit called nakulas. In the twelfth story of the first book of the Pańćatantram, we see it, on the contrary, as the[Pg 52] declared enemy of the black serpent, which it kills in its den. But inasmuch as the weasel-ichneumon bites venomous animals, it is itself obliged to deliver itself from the venom it has in consequence imbibed. Therefore, in the Atharvavedas, mention is already made of the salutary herb with which the nakulas (which is also the name of one of the two sons of the Açvinâu, in the Mahâbhâratam) cures himself of the bite of venomous animals, that is, of serpents, scorpions, and monstrous mice, his enemies. The weasel (mustela), which differs but little from the ichneumon, is almost the same in the myths. The weasel, too, as we learn from the ninth book of Aristotle's History of Animals, fights against serpents, after having eaten the famous herb called rue, the smell of which is said to be insupportable to serpents. But, as its Latin name tells us, it is no less skilful as a hunter of mice.[82] The reader is doubtless familiar with the Æsopian fable of the weasel which petitions the man for its liberty for the service which it has rendered him by freeing his house from rats; and with that of Phædrus, of the old weasel which catches mice in the flour-trough by rolling itself in the flour, so that the mice approach, under the impression that it is a solid mass. Plautus's parasite reckons upon a good dinner for himself from having met with a weasel carrying away the whole of a mouse except its feet (auspicio hodie optumo exivi foras; mustela murem abstulit præter pedes); but the expected dinner never appearing, he declares that the presage is false, and pronounces the weasel a prophet only of evil, inasmuch as in one and the same day it changes its place ten times. According to the ninth book of Ovid's Metamorphoses, the maid Galanthis was[Pg 53] changed by the goddess Lucina (the moon) into a weasel, for having told a lie, announcing the birth of Hêraklês before it had taken place:—

"Strenuitas antiqua manet, nec terga colorem Amisêre suum, forma est diversa priori; Quæ, quia mendaci parientem juverat ore, Ore parit." The popular superstition which makes the weasel bring forth its young by its mouth, probably had its origin in this fable. From the mouth intemperate words are brought forth. Simonides, in Stobeus, quoted already by Aldrovandi,[83] compares wicked women to weasels. The moon that changes the chattering Galanthis into a weasel appears to be the same as the white moon itself transformed into a white weasel, the moon that explores the nocturnal heaven and discovers all its secrets.

Ants, mice, moles (like serpents), love, on the contrary, to stay hidden, and to keep their secrets concealed. The ichneumon, the weasel, and the cat generally come out of their hiding-places, and chase away whoever is concealed, carrying away from the hiding-places whatever they can. They are both themselves thieves, and hunt other thieves.

It is easy now to pass from the Latin mustela to the Sanskṛit cat mûshakârâtis, or mûshikântakṛit.

In the Pańćatantram, the cat Butter-ears (dadhikarṇas), or he of the white ears, who feigns to repent of his crimes, is called upon to act as judge in a dispute pending between the sparrow, kapińǵalas and the hare Quick-walker (sîghragas), who had taken up his quarters in the dwelling of the absent sparrow. Butter-ears solves the question by feigning deafness, and requesting the two[Pg 54] disputants to come nearer, to confide their arguments in his ears; the hare and the sparrow rely on his good faith, and approach, when the cat clutches and devours them both. In the Hitopadeças,[84] we have, instead of the sparrow, the vulture ćaradgavas, which meets with its death in consequence of having shown hospitality to the cat, "of which it knew neither the disposition nor the strength" (aǵńâtakulaçîlasya). In the Tuti-Name,[85] we have, instead of the cat, the lynx,[86] that wishes to possess itself of the lion's house, which is guarded by the monkey; it terrifies the lion, and drives it to flight. In the Anvari-Suhaili,[87] instead of the cat or lynx, we find represented the leopard. In the Mahâbhâratam,[88] we find again the fable of the penitent cat. The cat, by the austerity which it practises on the banks of the Ganges, inspires confidence in the birds, which gather round it to do it honour. After some time, the mice imitate the example of the birds, and put themselves under the cat's protection, that it may defend them. The cat makes its meals upon them every day, by inducing one or two to accompany it[Pg 55] to the river, and fattens exceedingly fast, whilst the mice diminish every day. Then a wise mouse determines to follow the cat one day when it goes to the river; the cat eats both the mouse that accompanies it and the spy. Upon this the mice discover the trick, and evacuate altogether the post of danger. The penitent cat is already proverbial in the Code of Manus.[89] In the Reineke Fuchs of Goethe,[90] the cat goes to steal in the priest's house, by the wicked advice of the fox, when every one falls upon him—

"Sprang er wüthend entschlossen Zwischen die Schenkel des Pfaffen und biss und kratzte gefährlich." The Roman du Renard,[91] when the priest is mutilated by the cat, makes his wife exclaim—

"C'en est fait de nos amours! Je suis veuve sans recours!" In the same Roman, when the cat Tibert, the ambassador of King Lion, arrives at Mantpertuis, where the fox reigns, we read—

"Tibert lui présenta la patte; Il fait le saint, il fait la chatte! Mais à bon chat, bon rat! Renard aussi le flatte! Il s'entend à dorer ses paroles de miel! Si l'un est saint, l'autre est hermite; Si l'un est chatte, l'autre est mite."[Pg 56] In the romance of the fox, the fox endeavours to destroy the cat by inducing it to catch the mice that are in the priest's house. In an unpublished Tuscan story,[92] we have, on the contrary, the fox that invites the mouse to the shop of a butcher who has recently killed a pig. The mouse promises to gnaw the wood till the hole is large enough for the fox to pass through it; the fox eats till it is able to pass, and then goes away; the mouse eats and fattens so much that it can no longer pass; the cat then comes and eats it.

In the thirty-fourth story of the second book of Afanassieff, the cat occurs again, as in India, in connection with the sparrow, but not to eat it; on the contrary, they are friends, and twice deliver the young hero from the witch. This is a form of the Açvinâu. In the sixty-seventh story of the sixth book, the two Açvinâu return in the shape respectively of a dog and a cat (now enemies one of the other, as the two mythical brothers often show themselves, and now friends for life and death). A young man buys for a hundred roubles a dog with hanging ears, and for another hundred roubles a cat with a golden tail,[93] both of which he nourishes well. With a hundred roubles more, he acquires the ring of a dead princess, from which thirty boys and a hundred and seventy heroes, who perform every kind of marvel, can come forth at the possessor's will. By means of these wonders, the young[Pg 57] man is enabled to wed the king's daughter; but as the latter wishes to ruin him, she makes him drunk, steals his ring, and departs into a far distant kingdom. The Tzar then shuts the youth up in prison; the dog and the cat go to recover the lost ring. When they pass the river, the dog swims and carries the cat upon his back (the blind and the lame, St Christopher and Christ). They come to the place where the princess lives, and enter into her dwelling. They then engage themselves in the service of the cook and the housemaid; the cat, following its natural instinct, gives chase to a mouse, upon which the mouse begs for its life, promising to bring the ring to the cat. The princess sleeps with the ring in her mouth; the mouse puts its tail into her mouth; she spits, the ring comes out, and is taken by the dog and the cat, who deliver the young man, and force the fugitive Tzar's daughter to return to her first abode.

In the following story of Afanassieff, when the youngest of the three sisters bears three sons to Ivan Tzarević, her envious elder sisters make the prince believe that she has brought forth a cat, a dog, and a vulgar child. The three real sons are carried off; the princess is blinded and enclosed with her supposed child in a cask, which is thrown into the sea. The cask, however, comes to shore and opens;[94] the supposititious son immediately bathes the princess's eyes with hot water, and she recovers her sight, after which he finds her three luminous sons again, who light up whatever is near them with their splendour, and is again united to her husband. In a Russian variation of the same story, the three sons are changed by the witch into three doves; the princess,[Pg 58] with her supposed son, is saved from the sea, and takes refuge upon an island, where, perched upon a gold pillar, a wise cat sings ballads and tells stories. The three doves are transformed into handsome youths, whose legs are of silver up to the knee, their chests of gold, their foreheads like the moon, and their sides formed of stars, and recover their father and mother.

Thus far we have seen the cat with white ears, who hunts the hare (or moon), the morning twilight, and the penitent cat who eats mice at the river's side, and which is mythically the same. We have observed that, of the two Açvinâu, one represents especially the sun, and the other the moon; the thieving cat, who is the friend of some thieves and the enemy of others (whence the Hungarian and Tuscan superstition, to the effect that for a good cat to be a skilful thief, it must itself have been stolen; then it is sure to catch mice well), is now the morning twilight, now the moon who gives chase to the mice of the night. According to the Hellenic cosmogony, the sun and the moon created the animals; the sun creating the lion, and the moon the cat. In the fifth book of Ovid's Metamorphoses, when the gods fled from the giants, Diana took the form of a cat.[95] In Sicily the cat is sacred to St Martha, and is respected in order not to irritate her: he who kills a cat will be unhappy for seven years. In the ancient German belief, the goddess[Pg 59] Freya was drawn by two cats. At present, the cat and the mouse are sacred to the funereal St Gertrude. In the sixty-second story of the sixth book of Afanassieff, we have the chattering cat, which the hero Baldak must kill in the territory of the hostile Sultan (that is, in the wintry night). In the eighth story of the fourth book of the Pentamerone, we also find a she-cat that plays the part of the ogre's spy; in the tenth story of the Pentamerone, and in the first of the Novelline di Santo Stefano di Calcinaia, on the contrary, the cat reveals the witch's treachery to the prince. In the twenty-third story of the fourth book of Afanassieff, the cat Katofiei appears as the husband of the fox, who passes him off as a burgomaster. United together, they terrify the wolf and the bear,[96] the cat climbing up a tree. In the Æsopian fables, on the contrary, the cat and the fox dispute as to which is the superior animal; the cat makes the dog catch the fox, whilst it itself climbs up a tree. In the third story of the second book of Afanassieff, the cat associates with the cock in the search for the bark of trees; it delivers its comrade three times from the fox that had run off with it; the third time, the cat not only liberates the cock, but also eats the four young foxes. In the thirtieth story of the fourth book, the cat Catonaiević, the son of Cato (this name is derived from the equivoque between the words catus and caton; in French, besides chat, we have chaton, chatonique, &c.), delivers the cock twice from the fox, but the third time the fox eats the poor bird. In a Russian variety of this story, the cat kills the five little foxes and then the fox, after having sung as follows:—

[Pg 60]

"The cat walks upon its feet In red boots; It wears a sword by its side, And a stick by its thigh; It wishes to kill the fox, And to make its soul perish."[97] In another variety, the cat and the lamb go to deliver the cock from the fox. The latter has seven daughters. The cat and the lamb allure them by songs to come out, and they kill them one after the other, wounding them in their foreheads; they then kill the fox itself, and so deliver the cock. In the romance of the fox, the cat is the hangman, and ties the fox to the gibbet.

In the third story of the first book, the witch's cat, grateful to the good girl who has given her some ham to eat, teaches her how to escape, and gives her the usual towel which, when thrown on the ground, makes a river appear, and the usual comb which, in like manner, causes an impenetrable forest to arise before the witch who runs after the girl to devour her.

We have already seen the Vedic moon who sews the wedding-robe with a thread that does not break. In the Russian story we have already remarked how the little puppet, to oblige the good maiden, makes a shirt destined for the Tzar, which is so fine that no one else can make the like. In the celebrated tale of the witty Madame d'Aulnoy, La Chatte Blanche, we have the white cat[Pg 61] Blanchette, veiled in black, who inhabits the enchanted palace, rides upon a monkey, speaks, and gives to the young prince, who rides upon a wooden horse (the forest of night), inside an acorn, the most beautiful little dog that ever existed in the world, that he may take it to the king his father—a little dog, "plus beau que la canicule" (evidently the sun itself, which comes out of the golden egg or acorn), which can pass through a ring (the disc of the sun), and then a marvellously painted cloth, which is so fine that it can pass through the eye of a small needle, and is enclosed in a grain of millet, although of the length of "quatre cents aunes" (the eye of the needle, the acorn, the grain of millet, and the ring are equivalent forms to represent the solar disc). This wonderful cat finally herself becomes a beautiful maiden, "Parut comme le soleil qui a été quelque temps enveloppé dans une nue; ses cheveux blonds étaient épars sur ses épaules; ils tombaient par grosses boucles jusqu'à ses pieds. Sa tête était ceinte de fleurs, sa robe, d'une légère gaze blanche, doublée de taffetas couleur de rose." The white cat of night, the white moon, resigns her place in the morning to the rosy aurora; the two phenomena that succeed each other appear to be metamorphoses of the same being. The white cat, with its attendant cats, before becoming a beautiful maiden, invites the prince to assist in a battle which he engages in with the mice. To this we can compare the Æsopian fable of the young man who, in love with a cat, beseeches Venus to transform her into a woman. Venus gratifies him; the youth marries her; but when the bride is in bed (i.e., in the night, when the evening aurora again gives up its place to the moon, or when it meets with the grey mice of night), a mouse passes by, and the woman, who still retains her feline nature, runs after it.

[Pg 62]

When the sun enters into the night, it finds in the starry heavens an enchanted palace, where either there is not a living soul to be found, or where only the cat-moon moves about. Hence, in my opinion, the origin of the expression that we make use of in Italy to indicate an empty house—"Non vi era neanche un gatto" (there was not even a cat there). The cat is considered the familiar genie of the house. The enchanted palace is always situated either at the summit of a mountain, or in a gloomy forest (like the moon). This palace is the dwelling either of a good fairy, or a good magician, or of a witch, or a serpent-demon, or at least cats. The visit to the house of the cats is the subject of a story which I have heard told, with few variations, in Piedmont and in Tuscany.[98]

We have hitherto seen only the luminous or white cat, the cat-moon and twilight, under a generally benignant aspect. But when the night is without a moon, we have only the black cat in the dense gloom. This black cat then assumes a demoniacal character.

In the Monferrato it is believed that all the cats that wander about the roofs in the month of February are not[Pg 63] really cats, but witches, which one must shoot. For this reason, black cats are kept away from the cradles of children. The same superstition exists in Germany.[99] In Tuscany, it is believed that when a man desires death, the devil passes before his bed in the form of any animal except the lamb, but especially in that of a he-goat, a cock, a hen, or a cat. In the German superstition,[100] the black cat that places itself upon the bed of a sick man announces his approaching death; if it is seen upon a grave, it signifies that the departed is in the devil's power. If one dreams of a black cat at Christmas, it is an omen of some alarming illness during the following year. Aldrovandi, speaking of Stefano Cardano, narrates that, being old and seriously ill, or rather dying, a cat appeared unexpectedly before him, emitted a loud cry, and disappeared. The same Aldrovandi tells us of a cat which scratched the breast of a woman, who, recognising in it a supernatural being, died after the lapse of a few days. In Hungary it is believed that the cat generally becomes a witch from the age of seven years to that of twelve, and that witches ride upon tom-cats, especially black ones; it is, moreover, believed that to deliver the cat from the witch, it is necessary to make upon its skin an incision in the form of a cross. The cat in the bag of proverbs has probably a diabolical allusion. In the tenth story of the Pentamerone, when the King of Roccaforte, thinking that he is marrying a beautiful maiden, finds that, on the contrary, he has espoused a hideous veiled old hag (the night), he says, "Questo è peo nce vole a chi accatta la gatta dinto lo sacco." In[Pg 64] Sicily, when the Rosary is recited for navigators, the mewing of the cat presages a tedious voyage.[101] When the witches in Macbeth prepare their evil enchantments against the king, the first witch commences with the words—

"Thrice the brinded cat hath mewed." In a German belief noticed by Professor Rochholtz, two cats that fight against each other are to a sick man an omen of approaching death. These two cats are probably another form of the children's game in Piedmont and Tuscany, called the game of souls, in which the devil and the angel come to dispute for the soul. Of the two cats, one is probably benignant and the other malignant; they represent perhaps night and twilight. An Irish legend tells us of a combat between cats, in which all the combatants perished, leaving only their tails upon the battlefield. (A similar tradition also exists in Piedmont, but is there, if I am not mistaken, referred to wolves.) Two cats that fight for a mouse, and allow it to escape, are also mentioned in Hindoo tradition.[102]

In the 105th hymn of the first book of the Ṛigvedas, and in the thirty-third of the tenth book, a poet says to Indras, "The thought rends me, thy praiser, as mice tear[Pg 65] their tails by gnawing at them."[103] But according to another interpretation, instead of "tails," we should read "threads;" in this case, the mice that rend the threads would refer to the fable of the mouse that delivers from the net now the elephant, and now the lion (of which fable I shall endeavour to prove the Vedic antiquity in the next chapter).

The twelfth story of the third book of the Pańćatantram is of great mythological interest. From the beak of a hawk (in another Hindoo legend, from two cats that are disputing for it) a mouse takes refuge in the hands of a penitent, whilst he is bathing in the river. The penitent transforms the mouse into a beautiful maiden, and wishes to marry her to the sun; the maiden declines—he is too hot. The penitent next wishes to marry her to the cloud which defeats the sun; the maiden declares it is too dark and cold. He then proposes to give her to the wind which defeats the cloud (in the white Yaǵurvedas, the mouse is sacred to the god Rudras, the wind that howls and lightens in the cloud); the maiden refuses—it is too changeful. The penitent now proposes that she should wed the mountain, against which the wind cannot prevail, but the girl says it is too hard; and[Pg 66] finally the penitent asks if she would be willing to part with her affections to the mouse, who alone can make a hole in the mountain; the maiden is satisfied with this last proposal, and is again transformed into a female mouse, in order to be able to wed the male mouse. In this beautiful myth (which is a variation of the other one which we have already mentioned of the cat-maiden that, though transfigured, still retains its instinct as a huntress of mice), the whole revolution of the twenty-four hours of the day is described. The mouse of night appears first; the twilight tries to make it its prey; the night becomes the aurora; the sun presents itself for her husband; the sun is covered by the cloud, and the cloud is scattered by the wind; meanwhile the evening aurora, the girl, appears upon the mountain; the mouse of night again appears, and with her the maiden is confounded. The Hîtopadeças contains an interesting variety of the same myth. The mouse falls from the vulture's beak, and is received by a wise man, who changes it into a cat, then, to save it from the dog, into a dog, and finally into a tiger. When the mouse is become a tiger, it thinks of killing the wise man, who, reading its thoughts, transforms it again into a mouse. Here we find described the same circle of daily celestial phenomena. The succession of these phenomena sometimes causes transformations in the myths.

The well-known proverb of the mountain that gives birth to the mouse, refers to the myth contained in the story of the Pańćatantram. We already know that the solar hero enters in the evening with the solar horse into the mountain and becomes stone, and that all the heavens assume the colour of this mountain. From the mountain come forth the mice of night, the shadows of night, to which the cat-moon and the cat-twilight give chase; the[Pg 67] thieving propensities of the mice display themselves in the night. In German superstition the souls of the dead assume the forms of mice, and when the head of a house dies, it is said that even the mice of the house abandon it.[104] In general, every apparition of mice is considered a funereal presage; it is on this account that the funereal St Gertrude was represented surrounded by mice. The first witch in Macbeth, when she wishes to persecute the merchant who is sailing towards Aleppo, and shipwreck him, that she may avenge herself upon his wife, who had refused to give her some chestnuts, threatens to become like a rat without a tail. In the Historia Sarmatiæ, quoted by Aldrovandi, the uncles of King Popelus II., whom, with his wife for accomplice, he murders in secret, and throws into the lake, become mice, and gnaw the king and queen to death. The same death is said to have been the doom of Miçćislaus, the son of the Duke Conrad of Poland, for having wrongfully appropriated the property of widows and orphans; and of Otto, Archbishop of Mainz, for having burned the granary during a famine. Mice are said to have presaged at Rome the first civil war, by gnawing the gold in the temple; and it was, moreover, alleged that a[Pg 68] female mouse had given birth in a trap to five male mice, of which she had devoured two. Other prodigies, in which mice were implicated, are mentioned as having taken place at Rome, even in the times of Cato, who was accustomed to make them the butt of his indignant scorn. To a person who told him, for instance, how the mice had gnawed the boots, he answered that this was no miracle; it would have been a miracle if the boots (caligæ) had eaten the mice.

The mouse in the fable is sometimes in connection with the elephant and the lion, whom it sometimes insults and despises (as in the Tuti-Name),[105] and sometimes comes to help and deliver from their fetters. The meaning of the myth is evident: the elephant and the lion represent here the sun in the darkness; in the evening the mouse of night leaps upon the two heroic animals, which are then old or infirm; in the morning the sun is delivered out of the fetters of the night, and it is supposed that it was the mouse which gnawed the ropes and set at liberty now the elephant, as in the Pańćatantram, now the lion, as in the Æsopian fable.

The Hindoo god Gaṇeças, the god of poets, eloquence, and wisdom, is represented with an elephant's head, and his foot crushing a mouse. Thus, among the Greeks, Apollo Smintheus, so called because he had shot the mice that stole the yearly provisions from Krinos, the priest of Apollo himself, was represented with a mouse under him. As the Christian Virgin crushes the serpent of night under her foot, so does the pagan sun-god crush under his feet the mouse of night.

When the cat's away, the mice may play; the shadows of night dance when the moon is absent.

[Pg 69]

In the fifteenth story of the fifth book of Afanassieff, the witch step-mother desires her old husband to lead away his daughter to spin in the forest[106] in a deserted hut. The girl finds a little mouse there, and gives it something to eat. At night the bear comes, and wishes to play with the girl at the game of blind-man's-buff (this very popular game has evidently a mythical origin and meaning; every evening in the sky the sun amuses itself by playing blind-man's-buff; it blinds itself, and runs blind into the night, where it must find again its predestined bride or lost wife, the aurora). The little mouse approaches the maiden, and whispers in her ear, "Maiden, be not afraid; say to him, 'Let us play;' then put out the fire and hide under the stove; I will run and make the little bells ring." (Mice seem to have an especial predilection for the sound of bells. It is well-known how, in the Hellenic fable, the council of mice resolve, to deliver themselves from the cat, to put a bell round its neck; no one, however, undertakes to perform the arduous enterprise.) The bear thinks he is running after the maiden, and runs, on the contrary, after the mouse, which he cannot catch. The bear tires himself out, and congratulating the maiden, says to her, "Thou art my mistress, maiden, in playing at blind-man's-buff; to-morrow morning I will send you a herd of horses and a chariot of goods." (The morning aurora comes out of the forest, delivers herself from the clutches of the bear, from the witch of the night, and appears drawn by horses upon a chariot full of treasure. The myth is a lucid one.)

[Pg 70]

In other numerous legends we have the grateful mouse that helps the hero or heroine. In the thirteenth Calmuc story, the mouse, the monkey, and the bear, grateful for having been delivered, from the rogues that tormented them, by the son of the Brahman, come to his help by gnawing and breaking open the chest in which the young man had been enclosed by order of the king; afterwards, with the assistance of the fishes, they help him to recover a lost talisman.

In the fifty-eighth story of the sixth book of Afanassieff,[107] the mouse, the war-horse, and the fish silurus, out of gratitude assist the honest workman who has fallen into a marsh, and cleanse him; upon seeing which the princess, that has never laughed, laughs, and thereafter marries the workman. (The young morning sun comes out of the marsh or swamp of night; the aurora, who was at first a dark, wicked, and ugly girl, marries the young sun whom the mouse has delivered out of the mud, as it delivered the lion out of the toils.)

In the fifty-seventh story of the sixth book of Afanassieff, it is the mouse that warns Ivan Tzarević to flee from the serpent-witch (the black night) his sister, who is sharpening her teeth to eat him.

In the third story of the first book of Afanassieff, the mice help the good maiden, who had given them something to eat, to do what the witch, her step-mother, had commanded.

In the twenty-third story of the fifth book of Afanassieff, the mouse and the sparrow appear at first as friends and associates. But one day the sparrow, having found a poppy-seed, thinks it so small that he eats it up[Pg 71] without offering a share to his partner. The mouse hears of it, and is indignant; he breaks the alliance, and declares war against the sparrow. The latter assembles all the birds of the air, and the mouse all the animals of the earth, and a sanguinary battle commences. In a Russian variety of the same story, instead of the sparrow, it is the mouse that breaks the compact. They collect together the provisions against winter, but when, towards the end of the season, they are all but finished, the mouse expels the sparrow, and the sparrow goes to complain to the king of the birds. The king of the birds visits the king of the beasts, and sets forth the complaint of the sparrow; the king of the beasts then calls the mouse to account, who defends himself with such humility and cunning, that he ends by convincing his monarch that the sparrow is in the wrong. Then the two kings declare war against each other, and engage in a formidable struggle, attended with terrible bloodshed on both sides, and which ends in the king of the birds being wounded. (The nocturnal or wintry mouse expels the solar bird of evening or of autumn.)

In the Batrachomyomachia, attributed to Homer, the royal mouse Psicharpax (properly ravisher of crumbs), the third son of Troxartes (eat-bread), boasts to Phüsignathos (he who inflates his cheeks), the lord of the frogs, that he does not fear the man, the point of whose finger (akron daktülôn) he has bitten while he was asleep; whilst, on the other hand, he has for his enemies the falcon (which we have already, in the Hindoo story, seen let the mouse fall from its beak) and the cat. The frog, who wishes to entertain the mouse, invites it to get upon his back, to be carried to his royal mansion; at first the mouse is amused with its ride, but when the frog makes it feel the icy water, the poor mouse's heart begins[Pg 72] to fail; finally, at the sight of a serpent, the frog forgets its rider and runs away, throwing the mouse head-over-heels into the water to be the prey of the serpent. Then, before expiring, remembering that the gods have an avenging eye, it threatens the frogs with the vengeance of the army of the mice. War is prepared. The mice make themselves good boots with the shells of beans; they cover their cuirasses of bulrushes with the skin of a flayed cat; their shield is the centre knob of the lamps (lüchnôn to mesomphalon, i.e., if I am not mistaken, a fragment of a little lamp of terra-cotta, and, properly speaking, the lower and central part); for a lance they have a needle, and for a helmet a nutshell. The gods are present at the battle as neutrals,—Pallas having declared her unwillingness to help the mice, because they stole the oil from the lamps burning in her honour, and because they had gnawed her peplum, and being equally indifferent to the frogs, because they had once wakened her when returning from war, and when, being tired and weary, she wished to rest. The battle is fiercely fought, and is about to have an unfavourable result for the frogs, when Zeus takes pity upon them; he lightens and hurls his thunderbolts. At last, seeing that the mice do not desist, the gods send a host of crabs, who, biting the tails, the hands, and the feet of the mice, force them to flee. This is undoubtedly the representation of a mythical battle. The frogs, as we shall see, are the clouds; the night meets the cloud; the mouse fights with the frog. Zeus, the thunder-god, to put an end to the struggle, thunders and lightens; at last the retrograde crab makes its appearance; the combatants, frogs and mice, naturally disappear.

The mouse is never conceived otherwise than in connection with the nocturnal darkness, and hence, by[Pg 73] extending the myth, in connection also with the darkness of winter, from which light and riches subsequently come forth. In Sicily it is believed that when a child's tooth is taken out, if it be hidden in a hole, the mouse will take it away and bring a coin for the child in compensation. The mouse is dark-coloured, but its teeth and fore-parts are white and luminous. The mouse Hiraṇyakas, or the golden one, in the Pańćatantram, is the black or grey mouse of night. It is the red squirrel that, in an Æsopian fable, answers to the query of the fox why it sharpens its teeth when it has nothing to eat, that it does so to be always prepared against its enemies. In the Edda, the squirrel runs upon the tree Yggdrasil, and sets the eagle and Nidhögg at discord.

The mole and the snail are of the same nature as the grey mouse. The Hindoo word âkhus, or the mole (already spoken of as a demon killed by Indras, in the Ṛigvedas[108]), properly signifies the excavator.

In the Reineke Fuchs the mole appears as a gravedigger, as the animal that heaves the earth up, and makes ditches underground; it is, in fact, the most skilful of gravediggers, and its black colour and supposed blindness are in perfect accordance with the funereal character assigned to it by mythology. In an apologue of Laurentius, the ass complains to the mole of having no horns, and the monkey of having a short tail; the mole answers them—

"Quid potestis hanc meam Miseram intuentes cœcitatem, hæc conqueri?" [Pg 74]

According to the Hellenic myth, Phineus became a mole because he had, following the advice of his second wife, Idaia, allowed his two sons by his first wife, Cleopatra, to be blinded, and also because he had revealed the secret thoughts of Zeus.[109]

In Du Cange I find that even in the Middle Ages it was the custom on Christmas Eve for children to meet with poles, having straw wrapped round the ends, which they set fire to, and to go round the gardens, near the trees, shouting—

"Taupes et mulots Sortez de nos clos Sinon je vous brulerai la barbe et les os." We find a similar invocation in the seventh story of the second book of the Pentamerone. The beautiful girl goes to find maruzze, and threatens the snail to make her mother cut off its horns—

"Iesce, iesce, corna Ca mammata te scorna, Te scorna 'ncoppa l'astreco Che fa lo figlio mascolo." In Piedmont, to induce the snail to put its horns out, children are accustomed to sing to it—

"Lümassa, lümassora, Tira fora i to corn, Dass no,[110] i vad dal barbé E it tje fass taié!" [Pg 75]

Sicilian children terrify the snail by informing it that their mother is coming to burn its horns with a candle—

"Nesci li corna ch 'a mamma veni E t' adduma lu cannileri." In Tuscany they threaten the white snail (la marinella), telling it to thrust out its little horns to save itself from kicks and blows—

"Chióćciola marinella, Tira fuori le tue cornella, E se tu non le tirerai Calci e pugni tu buscherai." In Tuscany it is believed, moreover, that in the month of April the snail makes love with the serpents, and is therefore venomous; hence they sing—

"Chi vuol presto morire Mangi la chiocciola d' aprile."[111] The snail of popular superstition is demoniacal; hence it is also invoked by children in Germany by the name of the funereal St Gertrude—

"Kuckuck, kuckuck Gerderut Stäk dîne vêr Horns herut."[112] [Pg 76]

CHAPTER VIII. HARE, RABBIT, ERMINE, AND BEAVER. SUMMARY.

The hare is the moon; çaças and çaçin.—The hares at the lake of the moon; the king of the hares in the moon.—The hare and the elephant.—The hare and the lion.—The hare devours the western monster; the hare devours his mother the mare.—Mortuo leoni lepores insultant.—The hare and the eagle.—The hare that guards the cavern of the beasts.—The hare comes out on the 15th of the month and terrifies the wolf.—The hare transformed into the moon by Indras.—Ermine and beaver.—Hare's-foot.—Hare and moon fruitful.—Hare and moon that guide the hero.—Somnus leporinus.—The hare and the bear.—The hare and the nuptial procession.—The hare that contains a duck.—The girl riding upon the hare.

The mythical hare is undoubtedly the moon. In Sanskṛit, the çaças means properly the leaping one, as well as the hare, the rabbit, and the spots on the moon (the saltans), which suggest the figure of a hare. Hence the names of çaçin, or furnished with hares, and of çaçadharas, çaçabhṛit, or he who carries the hare given to the moon. In the first story of the third book of the Pańćatantram, the hares dwell upon the shore of the Lake Ćandrasaras, or lake of the moon; and their king, Viǵayadattas (the funereal god, the god of death), has for his palace the lunar disc. When the hare speaks to the king of the[Pg 77] elephants who crushed the hares (in the same way as we have seen the cow do in Chapter I.), he speaks in the moon's name. The hare makes the elephant believe that the moon is in anger against the elephants because they crush the hares under their feet; then the elephant demands to see the moon, and the hare conducts him to the lake of the moon, where he shows him the moon in the water. Wishing to approach the moon and ask forgiveness, the elephant thrusts his proboscis into the water; the water is agitated, and the reflection of the moon is disturbed, and multiplied a thousand-fold. The hare makes the elephant believe that the moon is still more angry because he has disturbed the water; then the king of the elephants begs for pardon, and goes far away with his subjects; from that day the hares live tranquilly on the shores of the moon-lake, and are no longer crushed under the ponderous feet of their huge companions. The moon rules the night (and the winter), the sun rules the day (and the summer). The moon is cold, the sun is hot. The solar elephant, lion, or bull, goes down at even to drink at the river, at the lake of the nocturnal moon; the hare warns the elephant that if he does not retire, if he continues to crush the hares on the shores of the lake, the moon will take back her cold beams, and then the elephants will die of thirst and excessive heat. The other story of the Pańćatantram is a variety of the myth, which we mentioned in the chapter of the dog, of the hare who conducts to his ruin the hungry lion who wishes to eat her, by making him throw himself into a fountain or well. This myth, which is analogous to that of the mouse as the enemy of now the elephant, now the lion, and now the hawk, is already very clearly indicated in the Vedic hymns. In the twenty-eighth hymn of the tenth book of the Ṛigvedas,[Pg 78] in which the fox comes to visit the western lion (the sick lion[113]), in which we have the lion who falls into the trap[114] (and whom the mouse insults in the evening, and delivers in the morning by gnawing at the ropes which bind it: in the Hellenic proverb it is the hare that draws the lion into the golden net—"elkei lagôs lionta chrüsinô brochô," in the same way as in the Pańćatantram, it allures him into the well), and in which the hare devours the western monster[115] (a variety of the Hellenic tradition of the hare brought forth by a mare, and which immediately thereafter devours its mother)—in this hymn we find the germ of several fables of animals of the same cycle. The inferior animal vanquishes the superior one, and upon this peculiarity the whole hymn turns; for this reason, too, in the same hymn, the dog or jackal (canis aureus) assails the wild boar,[116] and the calf defeats the bull.[117] The hare occurs again as the proverbial enemy of the lion (whence the Latin proverb, "Mortuo leoni lepores insultant," or saltant; the moon jumps up when the sun dies), in the last book of the Râmâyaṇam, where the great king of the monkeys, Bâlin, regards the king of the monsters, Râvaṇas, as a lion does a hare, or as the bird Garuḍasa serpent.[118]

In Æsop we find the hare that laughs at its enemy, the dying eagle, because the hunter killed it with an arrow furnished with eagle's feathers. In another Æsopian fable, the rabbit avenges itself upon the eagle which has eaten its young ones,[Pg 79] by rooting up and throwing down the tree upon which the eagle has its nest, so that the eaglets are killed.

In the seventeenth Mongol story, the hare is the guardian of the cavern of the wild beasts (or the moon, the mrigarâǵas and guardian of the forest of night); in the same story an old woman (the old fairy or old Madonna) is substituted for the hare. In the twenty-first Mongol story, the hare sets out on a journey with the lamb, on the fifteenth day of the month, when the moon comes forth, and defends the lamb from the wolf of night, terrifying the latter by telling it that it has received a writing from the god Indras, in which the hare is ordered to bring to Indras a thousand wolves' skins.

In a Buddhist legend, the hare is transfigured by Indras into the moon, because it had freely given him its flesh to eat, when, disguised as a pilgrim, he came up begging for bread. The hare, having nothing else to offer him, threw itself upon the fire, that Indras might appease his hunger.[119]

In the Avesta we find the ermine as the king of the animals, and the beaver as the sacred and inviolable animal, in whose skin the pure Ardvîçûra is invested (white and silvery as the white dawn, rosy and golden as the aurora; unless Ardvîçûra, whose diadem is made of a hundred stars, should also be interpreted as denoting the moon, which is now silvery, and now fair and golden). Moreover, for the beaver to represent the moon (the chaste Diana) is in perfect accordance with the reputation it has as a eunuch (castor a castrando) in popular[Pg 80] superstition; whence the words of Cicero concerning beavers,[120] and the verses of Juvenal—

"Imitatus castora qui se Eunuchum ipse facit cupiens evadere damnum Testiculorum, adeo medicatum intelliget unguen."[121] In the twenty-first Esthonian story, a silly husband is called by the name of Hare's-foot. In Aldrovandi, on the other hand, Philostratos narrates the case of a woman who had miscarried seven times in the act of child-birth, but who the eighth time brought forth a child, when her husband unexpectedly drew a hare out of his bosom. Although the moon is herself the timid and chaste goddess (or eunuch), she is, as pluvial, the fæcundatrix, and famous as presiding over and protecting child-birth; this is why, when the hare-moon, or Lucina, assisted at parturition, it was sure to issue happily. The mythical hare and the moon are constantly identified. It is on this account that in Pausanias, the moon-goddess instructs the exiles who are searching for a propitious place to found a city, to build it in a myrtle-grove into which they should see a hare flee for refuge. The moon is the watcher of the sky, that is to say, she sleeps with her eyes open; so also does the hare, whence the somnus leporinus became a proverb. In the ninth Esthonian story, the thunder-god is compared to the hare that sleeps with its eyes open; Indras, who transforms the hare into the moon, has already been mentioned; Indras becomes a eunuch in the form of sahasrâkshas, or of the thousand-eyed god[Pg 81] (the starry sky in the night, or the sun in this starry sky); the thousand eyes become one, the milloculus becomes monoculus, when the moon shines in the evening sky; hence we say now the hundred eyes of Argos, and now simply the eye of Argos—the eye of God.

In a Slavonic tale,[122] the hare laughs at the bear's cubs, and spits upon them; the bear runs after the hare, and in the hunt is decoyed into an intricate jungle, where it is caught. As the lion is unknown in Russia, the bear is substituted for it; the Russian hare allures the bear into the trap, as the Hindoo and Greek one causes the lion to fall into it. This hare which does harm to the solar hero or animal of evening is the same as that which, in the fiftieth story of the fifth book of Afanassieff, and in Russian popular tradition, meeting the nuptial car, bodes evil to the wedding, and is of evil omen to the bride and bridegroom. The hare-moon, the chaste protectress of marriages and births, the benefactress of mankind, must not meet the car; if she opposes the wedding (perhaps at evening and in the autumn), or if the hare is crushed or overtaken by the car (as the proverb says), it is a bad presage, not only for the wedded couple, but for all mankind; solar as well as lunar eclipses were always considered sinister omens in popular superstition. In the Russian popular tales we frequently find mention of the hare under a tree, or on a rock in the midst of the sea, where there is a duck, which contains an egg; the yoke of this egg (the solar disc) is a precious stone; when it falls into the hands of the young hero, the monster dies, and he is able to espouse the young princess.[123] The girl of seven years of age,[Pg 82] who, to solve in action the riddle proposed by the Tzar, who offers to marry her, rides upon a hare, is a variety of this myth. By the help of the moon, the sun and evening aurora arrive at the region of the morning, find each other, and are married; the moon is the mediatrix of the mythical nuptials; the hare which represents it must therefore not only not oppose them, but help them materially; at evening the moon separates the sun from the aurora; at morning she unites them again.

[Pg 83]

CHAPTER IX. THE ANTELOPE, THE STAG, THE DEER, AND THE GAZELLE. SUMMARY.

Luminous stag and black stag.—The Marutas drawn by antelopes, and dressed in antelopes' skins.—The stag, the gazelle, and the antelope as forms assumed or created by the demon to ruin several heroes whilst they hunt.—Marîćas.—Indras kills the mṛigas.—The solar hero or heroine transformed into a stag, a gazelle, or an antelope.—Aktaion.—Artemis and the stag.—The stags of the Yggdrasill.—The stag Eikthyrner.—The hind as a nurse.—The hind and the old woman on the 1st of January.—The hind and the snow; the white hind.

The stag represents the luminous forms that appear in the cloudy or the nocturnal forest; these, therefore, are now lightning and thunderbolts, now the cloud itself from which the lightning and thunderbolts are discharged, now the moon in the gloom of night. The mythical stag is nearly always either entirely luminous or else spotted; when it is black it is of a diabolical nature, and represents the whole sky of night. Sometimes the luminous stag is a form assumed by the demon of the forest to compass the ruin of the hero.

The Ṛigvedas represents to us the Marutas, or winds that lighten and thunder in the clouds, as drawn by antelopes. The Marutas "are born shining of themselves, with antelopes, with lances, amid thunder-peals[Pg 84] and flashes of lightning."[124] "They have yoked, with a red yoke, the antelopes.[125] The young battalion of the Marutas goes of itself, and has an antelope for its horse."[126] The horses of the Marutas, which we already know to be antelopes, are called winged,[127] and are said to have golden fore-feet.[128] The antelopes of the Marutas are splendid.[129] Nor are the Marutas only carried by antelopes; they also wear upon their shoulders antelopes' skins.[130]

But the antelope, the gazelle, and the stag generally, instead of helping the hero, involve him rather in perplexity and peril. This mythical subject is amplified in numerous Hindoo legends.

In the first scene of Kâlidâsas' Çakuntalâ, a black-spotted (kṛishṇasâras) gazelle misleads King Dushyantas.

In the Mahâbhâratam,[131] King Parîkshit pursues a gazelle and wounds it (as the god Çivas one day wounded the gazelle of the sacrifice); he then follows its track, but the gazelle flees at sight of him, inasmuch as it has taken the path of heaven in its primitive (i.e., celestial) form. The king loses the track of his prey, and in trying to find it again, brings death upon his head.

In the same Mahâbhâratam,[132] King Pandus dies at the[Pg 85] moment when he is uniting himself with his wife Mâdrî, because he had one day in the chase transfixed a male gazelle at the instant when it was about to have fruit of its union with a female gazelle.

In the Vishṇu P.,[133] King Bharatas, who has abandoned his throne to give himself up entirely to penitence, loses the fruit of his ascetic life, by becoming passionately enamoured of a fawn.

In the Râmâyaṇam,[134] Marîćas, who is possessed by a demon, becomes, by order of Râvaṇas, the king of the monsters, a golden stag spotted with silver, having four golden horns adorned with pearls, and a tongue as red as the sun, and tempts Râmas to pursue him in order to procure his silver-spotted skin, for which Sîtâ has expressed a desire, that she might lie down upon it and rest herself. In this way the stag (here an equivalent of the hare) succeeds in separating Râmas from Sîtâ. It then emits a lamentable cry, imitating the voice of Râmas, so as to induce Lakshmaṇas, his brother, to come to his assistance, and leave Sîtâ alone, that Râvaṇas may then be able to carry her off with impunity. Lakshmaṇas leaves her unwillingly, because, perceiving that the stag shines like the constellation of the head of the stag (or gazelle, Mṛigaçiras), he suspects it to be an apparition of Marîćas, who, as a stag, has already caused the ruin of many other princes who have hunted him. The moon, in Sanskṛit, besides the name of Çaçadharas, or who carries the hare, has also that of Mṛigadharas, or who carries the gazelle (or stag). The solar hero loses himself in the forest of night while pursuing the gazelle-moon. A demoniacal gazelle seems to appear even in the Ṛigvedas, where Indras fights and[Pg 86] kills a monster called Mṛigas. In Germanic tradition there are numerous legends in which the hero who hunts the stag meets with his death or is dragged into hell.[135]

As the moon is a stag or gazelle, and comes after the sun, so it was also sometimes imagined that the solar hero or heroine was transformed into a stag or hind.

In the Tuti-Name,[136] a king goes to the chase, kills an antelope, doffs the human form, and disguises himself as an antelope. This mythical disguise can be understood in two ways. The evening sun reflects its rays in the ocean of night, the sun-stag sees its horns reflected in the fountain or lake of night, and admires them. At this fountain sits a beautiful and bewitching siren, the moon; this fountain is the dwelling of the moon; she allures the hero-stag that admires itself in the fountain, and ruins it, or else the stag attracts the hero to the fountain, where it causes him to meet with his death.[137] The stag of the fable, after admiring itself in the fountain, is torn to pieces by the dogs who overtake it in the forest because its horns become entangled in the branches; the solar rays are enveloped in the branches of the nocturnal forest. Aktaion, who, for having seen Artemis (the moon) naked in the bath, is changed into a stag and torn by dogs, is a variety of the same fable. In Stesichoros, quoted by Pausanias, Artemis puts a stag's skin round Aktaion and incites the dogs to devour him in order that he may not be able to wed the moon. Sun and moon are brother and sister; the brother, wishing to[Pg 87] seduce his sister, meets with his death. A Lithuanian song describes the moon Menas (the Hindoo Manu-s) as the unfaithful husband of the sun (who is a female), being enamoured of Aushrine (the Vedic Usrâ, the morning aurora). The god Perkuns, to avenge the sun, kills the moon. In a Servian song, the moon reproaches his mistress or wife, the morning aurora, on account of her absence. The aurora answers that she travels upon the heights of Belgrade, that is, of the white or the luminous city, in the sky, upon the lofty mountains.

The king in the Tuti-Name who assumes the guise of an antelope, appears to be a variety of the solar hero at the moment of the approach of night, or of the ass that invests itself in the lion's skin. But inasmuch as the Indian moon is Mṛigarâǵas, or king of the wild animals, no less than the lion, inasmuch as the moon succeeds the sun, one mṛigas another, one lion another, or one stag another, when the solar hero or heroine enters into the night, he or she appears in the form of a luminous stag or hind, no longer as the sun, but as the moon, which, although luminous, penetrates into hell, and is in relation with demons and itself demoniacal.

Artemis (the moon) is represented as a hunting goddess in the act of wounding, with her left hand, an antelope between the horns. To this goddess is also attributed the merit of having overtaken the stags without the help of dogs, perhaps because, sometimes, she is herself a dog, surprising the solar stag of evening. The four stags of Artemis connect themselves in my mind with the four stags that stay round the tree Yggdrasill in the Edda, and which come out of the river Häeffing. The stag Eikthyrner which, eating the leaves of the tree Lerad, causes all its waters to flow out, seems, on the other hand, to refer to[Pg 88] the sun as it merges and loses its rays in the cloud (the solar stag is also referred to in the Edda).

Artemis, who substitutes a hind for Iphigeneia, who was to have been sacrificed, seems to point to the moon-hind as taking the place of the evening aurora. We also recognise the moon in the hind which, according to Ælianos and Diodoros, nourished Telephos, son of Hêraklês (Hêraklês in his fourth labour overtakes the stag with golden horns), who had been exposed in the forest by the order of his grandfather; as well as in that which, according to Justinus, fed with its milk in the forest the nephew of the king of the Tartessians, and afterwards, according to the "Lives of the Saints," the blessed Ægidius, the hermit who lived in the forest. There are numerous mediæval legends which reproduce this circumstance of the young hero abandoned in the forest and nourished now by a goat, now by a hind, the same which afterwards serves as a guide to the royal father in recovering the prince his son, or to the prince-husband in recovering the abandoned princess his bride. It was probably by some such reminiscence of the mythical nourishing hind that, as I read in Du Cange,[138] silver images of stags (cervi argentei) were placed in ancient Christian baptistries.

Among the customs of the primitive Christians condemned by St Augustine, St Maximus of Turin, and other sacred writers, was that of disguising one's self on the 1st of January as a hind or an old woman. The old woman and the hind here evidently represent the witch or ugly woman of winter; and inasmuch as the winter is, like the night, under the moon's influence,[Pg 89] the disguise of a hind was another way of representing the moon. When the moon or the sun shines, the hind is luminous and generally propitious, the wild goat is beneficent (the wild goat, the deer, and the stag are the same in the myths; the same word, mṛigas, serves in India to express the constellation of the gazelle and that of the capricorn or wild goat), and hunts the wolves away from the sleeping hero in the forest.[139] When the sky is dark, the hind, from being luminous, has become black, and, as such, is the most sinister of omens; sometimes, in the midst of the night or of the winter, the beautiful luminous hind, or moon, or sun, disappears, and the black monster of night or of winter remains alone. In the ninth story of the Pentamerone, the Huorco (the rakshas or monster) transforms himself into a beautiful hind to allure the young Canneloro, who pursues it in the hope of securing it. But it decoys him into the midst of the forest (of winter), where it causes so much snow to fall, "che pareva che lo cielo cadesse" (the white hind into which the witch transforms the beautiful maiden, in the story of Madame d'Aulnoy, would seem to have the same meaning); then the hind becomes a monster again in order to devour the hero. The period in which the moon is hidden or on the wane, in which the night is dark, was considered ill-omend by the ancient Hindoos, who held, on the other hand, that the time of full moon, or at least of the crescent moon, was propitious. Our country-people have preserved several superstitions relative to a similar belief. In a Rutenian legend, published by Novosielski, the evening star (Lithuanian, vakerinne; Slavonic, većernitza, the evening aurora) prays its friend[Pg 90] Lunus (the moon is masculine in Slavonic as in Sanskṛit) to wait a little before rising, that they may rise together, and adds, "We shall illumine together sky and earth: the animals will be glad in the fields, and the traveller will bless us on his way."

[Pg 91]

CHAPTER X. THE ELEPHANT. SUMMARY.

The myth of the elephant is entirely Indian.—The Marutas as elephants; Indras as an elephant.—The elephant ridden by Indras and Agnis.—The four elephants that support the world.—Âiravanas and Âiravatas.—The elephant becomes diabolical.—Nâgas and nagas; çṛiñgṁ.—The monkeys fight against the elephants.—The elephant in the marsh.—The elephant and the tortoise; war between them.—The eagle, the elephant, and the tortoise.—The bird, the fly, and the frog lure the elephant to his death.—Hermit dwarfs.—Indras and his elephant fall together.

The whole mythical history of the elephant is confined to India. The strength of his proboscis and tusks, his extraordinary size, the ease with which he carries heavy burdens, his great fecundity in the season of loves, all contributed to his mythical importance, and to his fame as a great ravager of the celestial gloomy or cloudy forest, as an Atlas, a supporter of worlds, and the steed of the pluvial god.

The elephant has a place even in the Vedic heavens.

The Marutas, drawn by antelopes, are compared to wild elephants that level forests;[140] the horns of the antelopes, the tusks of the wild boar, the trunk and tusks of[Pg 92] the elephant, are of equivalent significance, and are seen in the solar rays, in lightnings and thunderbolts. The pluvial and thundering god Indras is compared to a wild elephant that expends his strength[141]—to a wild elephant that, in the season of loves, is, on all hands, in a constant state of feverish agitation.[142] The god Agnis is invoked to come forth like a formidable king upon an elephant.[143]

The elephant generally represents the sun as it shuts itself up in the cloud or the darkness, or comes out of it, shooting forth rays of light or flashes of lightning (which were also supposed to be caused by the friction on the axle of the wheel of the sun's chariot). The sun, in the four seasons, visits the four quarters of the earth, east and west, south and north; hence, perhaps, the Hindoo conception of four elephants that support the four corners of the earth.[144] Indras, the pluvial god, rides upon an enormous elephant, Âiravatas or Âiravaṇas, the cloud or darkness itself, with its luminous eruptions; âiravatam and âiravatî are also appellations of the lightning. The elephant Âiravaṇas or Âiravatas is one of the first of the progeny of the heavens, begotten of the agitation of the celestial ocean.

It plays a prominent part in the battles of Indras against the monsters; hence Râvaṇas, the monster king of Lañkâ, still bears the scars of the wounds given him by the elephant Airavatas, in the war between the gods and the demons,[145] although this same Râvaṇas boasts of having one day defeated Indras, who rode upon the elephant Âiravaṇas.[146]

But the mythical elephant did not always preserve the character of an animal beloved of the gods; after[Pg 93] other animals were admitted into special favour, it too assumed, in time, a monstrous aspect. The sun hides itself in the cloud, in the cloudy or nocturnal mountain, in the ocean of night, in the autumn or the snowy winter. Hence we have the white elephant (Dhavalas), the malignant killer of wise men (ṛishayas, the solar rays); the wind, father of Hanumant, in the form of a monkey, lacerates him with his claws, and tears out his tusks; the elephant falls like a mountain[147] (the mountain of snow, or white cloud, dissolve themselves; this white elephant and the white mountain, or Dhavalagiris, are the same; the equivoque easily arose between nâgas, elephant, and nagas, mountain and tree; the word cṛiñgin, properly horned, means tree, mountain, and elephant; the wind breaks through and disperses the cloud, and pushes forward the avalanches of snow). Thus it is said that the monkey Sannâdanas was one day victorious over the elephant Âiravatas.[148] (The northern path of the moon is called âiravatapathâ.)

We have already seen the elephant that crushes the hares under his feet on the shores of the moon-lake, and disturbs with his trunk the waters of this lake. In the Râmâyaṇam,[149] Bharatas considers it as of a sinister omen his having dreamed of a great elephant fallen into marshy ground. The sun plunges into the ocean of night, and of the autumnal rains.

The elephant near or in the waters is mythically equivalent to the lunar and solar tortoise that dwells on the shores of the lake and sea, or at the bottom of the sea. In the Hindoo cosmogony, it is now the elephant and now the tortoise that supports the weight of the world. For this reason there is rivalry between these two mythical animals. . [Pg 94]Therefore the eagle, or king of birds, or the bird Garuḍas, the solar bird, is represented as a mortal enemy now of the serpent, now of the elephant (the word nâgas means equally serpent and elephant; Âiravatas is also the name of a monstrous serpent), and now of the tortoise. In the Râmâyaṇam,[150] the bird Garuḍas carries into the air an elephant and a tortoise (the relative occidental fables are evidently of Hindoo origin), in order to eat them. The same legend is developed in the Mahâbhâratam,[151] where two brothers dispute with each other about the division of their goods, each curses the other, and they become, the one a colossal elephant, and the other a colossal tortoise, and, as such, continue to fight fiercely against each other in a lake, until the gigantic bird Garuḍas (the new sun), takes them both and carries them to the summit of a mountain.

In the fifteenth story of the first book of the Pańćatantram, we find birds represented as enemies of the elephant, on account of the ravages it commits, where the bird, the fly, and the frog work the ruin of the elephant; the fly enters into one of the elephant's ears; the bird pecks at its eyes, and blinds it; the frog croaks on the banks of a deep pool; the elephant, impelled by thirst, comes to the pool and is drowned.

The Vedic elephant has a divine nature, being connected with the pluvial Indras; but when Indras fell, to give place to Brahman, Vishṇus, and Çivas, his elephant was also fated to become the prey of the bird of Vishṇus, of the bird Garuḍas (or the sun). In the fable of the Pańćatantram quoted above, the elephant brings upon its head the vengeance of the sparrow, because it had rooted up a tree upon which the sparrow had made its nest[Pg 95] and laid its eggs, which were broken in consequence. The Vishṇuitic legend of the Mahâbhâratam relating to the bird Garuḍas, which carries the elephant into the air, offers several other analogous and interesting particulars. The bird Garuḍas flies away with the elephant and the tortoise; on the way, being tired, it rests upon the huge bough of a tree; the bough breaks under the enormous weight. From this bough are suspended, with their heads down, in penitence, several dwarf hermits, born of the hairs of Brahman; then the bird Garuḍas takes in its beak the whole bough, with the little hermits, and carries them up in the air till they succeed in escaping. These hermit dwarfs upon the branch (who remind us of the ants), had one day cursed Indras. Kaçyapas Praǵâpatis, wishing one day to make a sacrifice in order to obtain the favour of a son, orders the gods to provide him with wood. Indras, like the four elephants who support the world, places upon his shoulders a whole mountain of wood. Laden with this weight, he meets on the way the hermit dwarfs, who were carrying a leaf in a car, and were in danger of being drowned in a pool of water, the size of the foot-print of a cow. Indras, instead of coming to their assistance, smiles and passes by; the hermit dwarfs, in indignation, pray for the birth of a new Indras; on this account the Indras of birds was born—the bird of Garuḍas, the steed of Vishṇus, which naturally makes war against the steed of Indras, the elephant.

[Pg 96]

CHAPTER XI. THE MONKEY AND THE BEAR. SUMMARY.

Monkey and bear are already associated together in India; Ǵambavant is a great monkey and the king of the bears.—Haris, kapis, kapilâ, kapidhvaǵas; ṛikshas, arkas, ursus, arktos, rakshas; the Great Bear; ṛishayas, harayas.—The Marutas as rivals of Indras; Vishṇus as Indras' rival; the monkeys allied to Vishṇus; the Vedic monster monkey killed by Indras; Haris or Vishṇus.—Harî mother of monkeys and horses.—Bâlin, king of the monkeys, son of Indras, defeated by his brother Sugrîvas, son of the sun.—Hanumant in opposition to Indras; Hanumant son of the wind; Hanumant as the brother of Sugrîvas; Hanumant is the strong brother or companion.—Hanumant flies; he presses the mountain and makes the waters come out of it; he draws the clouds after himself.—The epic monkeys and the Marutas.—The monkey and the water.—The monkeys and the salutary herbs.—The sea-monster draws to itself the shadow of Hanumant and swallows him; Hanumant comes out of the monster's body safe and sound; the mountain Hiraṇyanabhas.—Hanumant makes himself as small as a cat in order to search for Sîtâ; Hanumant proves his power to Sîtâ by making himself as large as a cloud or a mountain; he massacres the monsters with a pillar; Dadhyańć, Hanumant, Samson; Hanumant bound; he sets fire to Lañkâ with his tail.—The monkey sacrificed to cure the burns of horses.—Sîtâ has a weakness for Hanumant.—Dvividas a monster monkey.—The monkey destroys the sparrow's nest.—The monkey draws a king into the jaws of an aquatic monster.—The demoniacal monkey; monkey and fox.—The monkey deceiver.—Sinister omens of the monkey.—The monkey envies the fox's tail.—The stupid monkey.—The bear of the Marutas.—Triçañkus with the skin of a bear; the seven ṛishayas.—Ṛiksharâǵas; the moon as a reputed father.—Bears[Pg 97] and monkeys in the forest of honey; Balarâmas; medvjed; the bear and the honey; Italian proverbs; the bear and the peasant; the deceived bear; the vengeance of the bear; the bear in the sack; the demoniacal bear; the bear and the fox; the monkey and the woodcutter; the bear and the trunk of a tree; the peasant and the gentleman; the death of the athlete Milôn; the bear entangled in the waggon that had fallen into the cistern.—The king bear, monster of the fountain; sons sacrificed to the bear by their father; the young men flee from the bear; the sleep of the bear.—The bear's cub.—The bear and women.—The hero-bear; the heroine she-bear.—The virgin she-bears.—Ursula, ṛikshikâ.—Ivanko Medviedko.—Kalistos.—The bear as a musician.—The quartette of animals.—Bear and monkey.—Bear and ass.—The monkey as a messenger, an intermediate form.

I here unite under one heading two animals of very diverse nature and race, but which, from some gross resemblances, probably helped by an equivoque in the language, are closely affiliated in the Hindoo myth. I say Hindoo in particular, because the monkey, which is so common in India, was long unknown to many of the Indo-European nations in their scattered abodes, so that if they had some dim reminiscence of it as connected with that part of Asia where the Âryan mythology took its rise, they soon forgot it when they no longer had under their eyes the animal itself which had suggested the primitive mythical form. But as they held tenaciously by the substance of the myth, they by and by substituted for the original mythical animal, called monkey, in the south the ass, and in the north often the bear. Even in India, where the pre-eminent quality of the monkey was cunning, we already find monkeys and bears associated together. A reddish colour of the skin, want of symmetry and ungainliness of form, strength in hugging with the fore paws or arms, the faculty of climbing, shortness of tail, sensuality, capacity for instruction in dancing and in music, are all characteristics[Pg 98] which more or less distinguish and meet in bears as well as in monkeys.

In the Râmâyaṇam, the wise Gâmbavant, the Odysseus of the expedition of Lañkâ, is called now king of the bears (ṛikshapârthivaḥ),[152] now great monkey (mahâkapiḥ).[153]

The word haris means fair, golden, reddish, sun, and monkey; the word kapis (probably, the changeful one) means monkey and sun. In Sanskṛit, the vidyut or thunderbolt, the reddish thunderbolt, of the colour of a monkey, is also called kapilâ. Arǵunas, the son of Indras, has for insignia the sun or a monkey, whence his name of Kapidhvaǵas.

Professor Kuhn also supposes that the word ṛikshas, which means bear and star, is derived from the root arć in the sense of to shine (arkas is the sun), on account of the reddish colour of the bear's skin.[154] But ṛikshas (like ursus and arktos) may also be derived from rakshas, the monster (perhaps as a keeper back, a constrictor, arctor); so that the very word which names it supplies the point of transition from the idea of the divine bear to that of the monster bear.

In the Ṛigvedas, the Marutas are represented as the most powerful assistants of Indras; but a Vedic hymn[Pg 99] already shows them in the light of Indras' rivals. The god Vishṇus in the Ṛigvedas is usually a sympathetic form of Indras; but in some hymns he already appears as his antagonist. In the preceding chapter we spoke of the Vishṇuitic bird, of the wind, father of Hanumant, and of a monkey, as enemies of Indras' elephant. In Hindoo epic tradition, Vishṇus, personified in Râmas, has the monkeys for his allies. The most luminous and effulgent form of the god is very distinct from his occult and mysterious appearances. Vishṇus, the sun, the solar rays, the moon and the winds that lighten, are an army of golden monkeys to fight the monster. For the same reason the monkey, on the contrary, has in the Ṛigvedas a monstrous form; that which was diabolical becomes divine in the lapse of time, and similarly that which was divine, diabolical. In the eighty-sixth hymn of the tenth book of the Ṛigvedas, Vishṇus, personified in Kapis (monkey), or Vṛishâkapis (monkey that pours out, pluvial monkey), comes to destroy the sacrificial offerings loved by Indras. Indras, being superior to all, cuts off his head, as he wishes not to be indulgent to an evil-doer.[155] This monkey is probably the pluvial, reddish lightning cloud carried by the wind, which Indras pierces through with his thunderbolt, although these same lightning and thundering clouds, carried by the winds or Marutas (i.e., the Marutas themselves), are usually represented in the Ṛigvedas as assisting the supreme deity. A difference having arisen between Vishṇus and Indras, and between the Marutas and Indras, the Marutas took Vishṇus' part, and became monkeys like Vishṇus,—the word haris, which is a[Pg 100] favourite name of Vishṇus (now moon, now sun), meaning also monkey. Vishṇus surrounds himself with fair, reddish, or golden monkeys, or with harayas (solar rays or lightning, thunder-striking and thundering clouds), in the same way as the Vedic Indras was drawn by harayas. Râmas kapirathas is simply an incarnation of Vishṇus, who usurps the rights of Indras, which last, as we have seen, had lent his harayas to Vishṇus, in order that he might take his three famous steps. Evidently Vishṇus forgot to return the fair-haired ones to his friend; hence from this time the strength of Indras passes almost entirely into Vishṇus, who, in the form of Râmas, helped by the harayas or red-haired ones, i.e., by the monkeys, moves across the Dekhan (a region densely inhabited by monkeys) to the conquest of the isle of Lañkâ. The Mahâbhâratam informs us that monkeys and horses had Harî for their mother.[156] The splendid Marutas form the army of Indras, the red-haired monkeys and bears that of Râmas; and the mythical and solar nature of the monkeys and bears of the Râmâyaṇam manifests itself several times. The king of the monkeys is a sun-god. The ancient king was named Bâlin, and was the son of Indras (Çakrasûnus). His young brother, Sugrîvas, he who changes his shape at pleasure (kâmarûpas), who, helped by Râmas, usurped his throne, is said to be own child of the sun (bhâskarasyâurasaḥ putraḥsûryanandanah).[157] Here it is evident that the Vedic antagonism between Indras and Vishṇus is reproduced in a zoological and entirely apish form. The old Zeus must give way to the new, the moon to the sun, the evening to the morning sun, the sun of winter to that of spring; the young sun betrays and overthrows the old one. We[Pg 101] have already seen that the legend of the two brothers, Bâlin and Sugrîvas, is one of the forms which the myth of the Açvinâu assumes. Râmas, who treacherously kills the old king of the monkeys, Bâlin, is the equivalent of Vishṇus, who hurls his predecessor, Indras, from his throne; and Sugrîvas, the new king of the monkeys, resembles Indras when he promises to find the ravished Sîtâ, in the same way as Vishṇus, in one of his incarnations, finds again the lost Vedâs. And there are other indications in the Râmâyaṇam[158] of opposition between Indras and the monkeys who assist Râmas. The great monkey Hanumant, of the reddish colour of gold (hemapiñgalah), has his jaw broken, Indras having struck him with his thunderbolt, and caused him to fall upon a mountain, because, while yet a child, he threw himself off a mountain into the air in order to arrest the course of the sun, whose rays had no effect upon him.[159] (The cloud rises from the mountain and hides the sun, which is unable of itself to disperse it; the tempest comes, and brings flashes of lightning and thunderbolts, which tear the cloud in pieces.)

The whole legend of the monkey Hanumant represents the sun entering into the cloud or darkness, and coming out of it. His father is said to be now the wind, now the elephant of the monkeys[160] (kapikuńǵaras), now keçarin, the long-haired sun, the sun with a mane, the lion sun (whence his name of keçariṇaḥ putraḥ). From this point of view, Hanumant would seem to be the brother of Sugrîvas, who is also the offspring of the sun, the strong brother in the legend of the two brothers connected with that of the three; that is to say, we should have now Bâlin, Hanumant, and Sugrîvas[Pg 102] brothers, now Râmas, Hanumant, and Lakshamaṇas. The strong brother is between the other two; the sun in the cloud, in the darkness or in the winter, is placed between the evening sun and that of morning, or between the dying sun of autumn and the new one of spring.

Hanumant flies (like the ass); his powers of flight are seated in his sides and his hips, which serve him for wings. Hanumant ascends to the summit of Mount Mahendras, in order to throw himself into the air; whilst he presses the mountain (a real vrishâkapis), he makes the waters gush out of it; when he moves, the trees of the mountain-forest are torn up by their roots, and follow him in the current made by him as he cuts his way through the air (here we meet once more with the mythical forest, the mythical tree that moves of itself like a cloud). The wind in his armpits roars like a cloud (ǵîmûta iva garǵati), and the shadow that he leaves behind him in the air resembles a line of clouds (megharâǵîva vâyuputrânugâminî);[161] he draws the clouds after him.[162] Thus all the epic monkeys of the Râmâyaṇam are described in the twentieth canto of the first book by expressions which very closely resemble those applied in the Vedic hymns to the Marutas, as swift as the tempestuous wind (vâyuvegasamâs), changing their shape at pleasure (kâmarûpiṇas), making a noise like clouds, sounding like thunder, battling, hurling mountain-peaks, shaking great uprooted trees, armed with claws and teeth, shaking the mountains, uprooting trees, stirring up the deep waters, crushing the earth with their arms, lifting themselves into the air, making the clouds fall. Thus Bâlin, the king of the monkeys,[Pg 103] comes out of the cavern, as the sun out of the cloud (toyadâdiva bhâskaraḥ).[163]

In the same way as we have seen the harayas, or horses of Indras, the gandharvâs, and the mythical ass in connection with the salutary waters, with the herbs, and with the perfumes, so in the Râmâyaṇam it is the monkeys that carry the herbs and the salutary roots of the mountain, that is, of the cloud-mountain or of the mountain of perfumes.

The cloud in which the sun Hanumant travels through the air throws a shadow upon the sea; a sea-monster perceives this shadow, and by it attracts Hanumant to himself. (We have already seen the fearless hero who is misled by his own shadow and lost.) Hanumant is kâmarûpas, like Sugrîvas, and like all the other monkeys, his companions. When he sees that the monster is about to swallow him, he distends and expands his figure out of all measure; the ogress assumes the same gigantic proportions; when she does so, Hanumant (repeating the miracle of his type Haris, or the dwarf Vishṇus), becomes as small as a man's thumb, enters into the vast body of the monster, and comes out on the other side. Hanumant continues to fly across the ocean, in order to arrive[Pg 104] at the island of Lañkâ. The ocean takes pity upon him, and, to help him, raises up Mount Hiraṇyanabhas, i.e., of the golden navel, the mountain whence the sun comes out; indeed, Hanumant says[164] that he struck the mountain with his tail, and broke its summit, that shone like the sun, in order to rest upon it. Hanumant then recommences his flight, and finds a new obstacle in the marine monster Siṅhikâ (the mother of Râhus, the eclipse with a serpent's tail, which devours now the sun, now the moon). She also draws to herself the shadow of Hanumant; Hanumant, resorting once more to his former stratagem, becomes small, and enters into her body; but he is no sooner inside than he increases in bulk, swells out, tears her, kills her, and escapes, a feat for which he receives the homage of the birds, who will thenceforth be able to cross the ocean with impunity.[165] When he arrives in Lañkâ, Hanumant, that he may search for and find Sîtâ by moonlight, becomes as small as a cat (vṛishadaṅçapramâṇas); when he finds her, and offers to carry her away from Lañkâ, she cannot believe that so small an animal is able to accomplish so great an enterprise; then Hanumant makes himself as tall as a black cloud, as a high mountain; he breaks down the whole forest of açokâs, mounts upon a temple that stands on a thousand columns, claps his hands, and fills all Lañkâ with the din; he tears from the temple a pillar adorned with gold, and, swinging it around, devotes the monsters to wholesale slaughter.[166] The mythical monkey and the mythical ass resemble each other; hence the analogy between the legend of Dadhyańć (quoted in the second chapter), that of Samson, and that of Hanumant. But the legend of the monkey Hanumant presents another curious resemblance[Pg 105] to that of Samson. Hanumant is bound with cords by Indraǵit, son of Ravaṇas;[167] he could easily free himself, but does not wish to do so. Ravaṇas, to put him to shame, orders his tail to be burned, because the tail is the part most prized by monkeys (kapînâṁ kila lâñgulam ishṭam, whence the fable of the monkey who complains of having no tail). Hanumant's tail is greased and set on fire, and himself thereafter marched in this plight ignominiously through the streets of Lañkâ. But Sîtâ having invoked the favour of the god Agnis, the fire, though it plays round the tail of Hanumant, does not burn it, and Hanumant by this means is able to avenge himself for the insult, by setting fire to and burning to ashes the city of Lañka.[168] (The tail of Hanumant, which sets fire to the city of the monsters, is probably a personification of the rays of the morning or spring sun, which sets fire to the eastern heavens, and destroys the abode of the nocturnal or winter monsters.) The enterprise of the Marutas in the Ṛigvedas, and that of the monkey Hanumant in the Râmâyaṇam, assume such dimensions that they obscure the fame of both Indras and Râmas; the former without the Marutas, the latter without Hanumant, would be unable to defeat the monsters. Sîtâ perceives this so clearly, that, at the end of the poem, she makes Hanumant such a present that Râmas might well become jealous. Hanumant, however, is an honest and pious cavalier; it suffices him to have[Pg 106] defended justice in the service of his master, nor does he ask to be recompensed for the hard achievement that he has accomplished. For the rest, a popular Hindoo sentence says that monkeys are not accustomed to weep for themselves;[169] they weep (rodanti) for others. The same is true of the Rudrâs, or winds, that weep in the cloud; they do not lament for themselves; their tears fall upon the ground in beneficent rain that fertilises our fields and tempers the heat of our summers; nevertheless, they themselves afterwards feel, as solar rays, the benefit of weeping, that is, of rain. In the Râmâyaṇam, monkeys who die in battle are resuscitated by rain; when the cloud dissolves itself in rain, the fair-haired, the golden ones, the harayas, the sunbeams or monkeys, show themselves again in all their vigour.

We have seen thus far the cloud-monkey, from which the sun emerges, and into which he re-enters. But we have already said more than once that the sun often assumes a monstrous form, when enclosed in the cloud or the darkness. It is thus we explain the divine hero Balarâmas, who, in the Vishṇu P.,[170] destroys the demon Dvividas, who had taken the form of a monkey. In the eighteenth story of the first book of the Pańćatantram, a monkey, whilst the wind blows and the rain falls, shakes a tree upon which a sparrow has made its nest, and breaks the eggs in pieces. In the tenth story of the fifth book, the king of the monkeys, by means of a crown of pearls, attracts a king of men who had killed monkeys to cure his horses (to which the fire had been communicated by the wool of a ram which the cook had chased away from the kitchen with a burning brand) to a[Pg 107] fountain guarded by a monster who devours the king and his suite. In the eleventh story of the same book, a monkey upon a tree is the friend of one of the two crepuscular monsters, and this monster invites it to eat the man; the man, however, retaliates, and fiercely bites its long tail; the monkey then believes this man to be stronger than the monster, and the latter believes the man who holds the monkey by the tail with his teeth to be the monster of the other twilight, i.e., the morning twilight. Here the monkey is confounded with the fox, which is a mythical animal of a specially crepuscular nature, and which also comes to ruin on account of its tail. The reader has already observed how the incendiary monkey-tail of Hanumant corresponds to the tails of the foxes in the legend of Samson. The Hellenic and Latin proverbs generally regard the monkey as a very cunning animal, so much so that Hercules and the monkey represented the combination of strength and deceit. According to Cardano, a monkey seen in dreams is a presage of deceit. According to Lucian, it was an augury of an unlucky day to meet with a monkey in the early morning. The Spartans considered it an omen of most sinister import that the monkey of the king of the Molossians had upset their urn while they were going to consult the oracle. According to Suetonius, when Nero thought he saw his horse flee, having the shape of a monkey in his hind parts, he believed it to prognosticate death. The monkey, accordingly, was usually conceived of in Greece and at Rome as a cunning and demoniacal animal. The hero in the cloud, in the dark, or in hell, on the other hand, learns wisdom; and just as before this he is only a poor fool, so the monkey, too, is also sometimes represented in the ancient fables of Southern Europe as an animal full of simplicity. In Italy we have a proverb[Pg 108] which says that every monkey thinks her young ones beautiful; this refers to the apologue of the monkey that believes her young ones to be the most beautiful animals in the world, because Jove, seeing them one day leaping about, could not refrain from laughing. The fox, in an epigram, laughs at the monkey who craves from him the half of his tail, on the plea that it would disencumber himself of just so much useless appendage, and supply his suitor with the very covering required to protect his all too naked buttocks:—

"Malo verrat humum quam sit tibi causa decoris, Quam tegat immundas res bene munda nates." In India the analogy between the monkey and the ass, as a stupid animal, is of still more frequent occurrence. In the Pańćatantram we have the monkeys who try to warm themselves by the light of the glowworm; a monkey presuming to correct the handiwork of a carpenter, meets with its death by putting its hands into the cleft of a tree trunk, and heedlessly withdrawing the wedge that caused it. In the Tuti-Name,[171] we find a variety of the story of the ass and the lyre, i.e., the wise Sâz-Perdâz, who learns from the monkey, assisted by the wind, the way to form musical instruments. (The thundering cloud is the mythical musical instrument par excellence; it is the wind that moves it, it is the wind that makes it sound: the hero in the cloud, gandharvas, ass or monkey, is a musician.)

The strong, powerful, and terrible bear of the Marutas,[172] or winds, in the stormy, lightning and thundering cloud, is already mentioned in the Vedic hymn. So the constellation[Pg 109] of the she-bear[173] seems also to be referred to in them. In the Râmâyaṇam,[174] we find in connection with it the legend of King Triçañkus, who, cursed by the sons of Vasishṭhas, becomes a ćandalas, covered with the skin of a bear (ṛikshaćarmanivâsî). Viçvâmitras, the rival of Vasishṭhas, promises to introduce it into heaven, under cover of his own body; but Indras scorns to admit it, and indignantly spurns it, hurling it down heels over head. Viçvâmitras arrests it in its descent as it falls with its head downmost, within the constellation of the seven ṛishayas or wise men, that is to say, in the constellation of the Great Bear. And as the bear is in relation with the polar constellation, with the north, the frigid regions, the winter and the stars, so the moon, who rules particularly over the cold night in the icy season, is called in Sanskṛit ṛiksharâǵas and ṛiksheças, or king of the luminous ones, king of the stars, king of the bears. The king of the bears also takes part in the expedition to Lañka. The king of the bears (here in relation to the moon) is the eunuch, the reputed, father, the St Joseph, of the king of the monkeys, Sugrîvas, who was, on the contrary, really generated in the bosom of the wife of the bear-king, by the magnanimous sun.[175] Led on by the bear or monkey Gâmbavant, the king of the bears (ṛikshapârthivas), the monkeys enter into the forest of the honey (madhuvanam), guarded by the monkey Dadhimukhas (mouth of butter, generated by Somas, the ambrosial god Lunus),[176] and devastate and ransack the forest in order to suck its honey.[177] In the Vishṇu P.,[178] even Balarâmas, brother of the god Kṛishnas, makes[Pg 110] himself drunk with the spirituous liquor contained in the fissure of a tree.

The bear-eater of honey is an extremely popular subject of Russian tradition; the very name of the bear, medv-jed, means in Russian, "he who eats honey" (miod is honey, and iest to eat; but the form medv [medu] is more perfectly equivalent to the Hindoo madhu = the sweet honey ambrosia; the bear in the madhuvanam corresponds entirely to the medvjed or bear who eats honey of the Russians). In a Slavonic story referred to by Afanassieff in the observations to the first book of the Russian stories, the bear, deceived by the hare, is left shut up in the trunk of a tree. A peasant passes by; the bear begs him to deliver it from this trunk, promising to show him a bee-hive, and beseeching him not to tell any one that a hare had deceived it. The peasant frees the bear; the bear shows the bee-hive, the peasant takes the honey and goes home.[179] The bear goes and[Pg 111] listens at the door to overhear the conversation. The peasant narrates how he had procured the honey by means of a bear who, following a hare, had been caught in a tree. The bear determines to have its revenge. One day it finds the peasant in the field, and is about to fall upon and rend him,[180] when the fox makes its appearance, shakes its tail, and says to the peasant, "Man, thou hast ingenuity in thy head, and a stick in thy hand." The peasant immediately understands the stratagem. He begs the bear to let him perform his devotions first; and offers, as a devotion, instead of doing penance, to carry the bear, shut up in a sack, three times round the field, after which the bear is to do with him whatever it likes.[Pg 112] The bear, proud of being carried by the man,[181] enters into the sack; the man binds it strongly, and then beats it so with his stick that it dies.

The bear, representing usually the luminous one in the darkness, has frequently in Slavonic tradition a demoniacal character,[182] or else that of a fool, like the ass. In the first of the Russian stories, the fox terrifies the bear, and then delivers the peasant from it. (The peasant in popular rustic narratives is almost always a heroic personage, who becomes a wiseacre and a prince.) The peasant cheats his companion, the bear, twice: when they sow turnips together, the peasant reserves for himself whatever grows underground, and leaves to the bear whatever comes out of the earth and appears above; when they sow wheat, the bear, thinking to be very knowing, takes for his own part what grows under, and gives to the peasant what grows above the ground. The peasant is about to be devoured by the bear, when[Pg 113] the fox comes to the rescue.[183] In the first story of the fourth book of Afanassieff, the fox goes to pass the winter in the bear's den, and devours all the provision of hens that the bear had laid up. The bear asks what it is eating, and the fox makes him believe that it is taking meat from its own forehead. The bear asks whether it is good, upon which the fox gives him some to taste; the bear then tries also to take meat from his forehead, and dies; thus the fox has enough to eat for a year.

The romance of the fox also presents to us the fox in opposition to the bear, whom he induces to put his paws into the cleft of the trunk of a tree, as happened to the Hindoo monkey of the Pańćatantram. In the Russian story,[184] instead of the fox, we have the peasant, and instead of the monkey and the bear, we have the gentleman (who in the poor man's eyes is often a personification of the demon) who is caught by his hands in the fissure of a tree. The peasant revenges himself in this way upon the gentleman who had, after having bought from others a little canary for fifteen roubles, refused to buy from him a large goose for a hundred roubles. The very strong athlete Milôn of Kroton, who in one day used to eat an ox four years old, a legendary hero, is torn to pieces by wild beasts, having been caught by the hands in the crevice of a log which he was splitting. Animal and hero continually alternate in myths. In the fourth story of the fifth book of Afanassieff, the peasant meets with his death on account of the funereal and demoniacal storks and the bear. The peasant binds himself to his waggon in order not to fall off; the horse wishes to[Pg 114] drink, and drags the waggon into a well. The bear, being pursued, passes by, falls unexpectedly into the well, becomes involved with the waggon, and, in order to extricate himself, is constrained to drag out waggon, peasant, and all. Soon afterwards the bear, in search of honey, climbs up a tree; another peasant passes, sees the bear upon the tree, and wishing to secure the animal, cuts down the tree; bear and waggon fall down, and the peasant is killed, whilst the bear releases itself and escapes. The bear which is looking for honey and the bear in the well remind us of the asinus in unguento, and of the ass in the roses: the ass who is the friend of the gardener or of the priest of Flora and Pomona, in the fable of La Fontaine,[185] has the same signification. In the twenty-eighth story of the fifth book of Afanassieff, King Bear lies hidden in a fountain (we have already seen the Hindoo monkey that draws a king into a fountain, into the monster's jaws); a king goes to hunt; feeling thirsty, he wishes to drink at this fountain; the bear clutches him by the beard, and only releases him on condition that he will give up in his stead whatever he has at home without knowing it (this is a variation of the story of Hariçćandras). The king consents, and returning home, learns that twins, named Ivan and Maria, are born to him. To save them from the bear, their father has them lowered into a subterranean cavern, well furnished and very deep, which he supplies with abundant provisions. The twins grow up healthy and strong; the king and queen die, and the bear comes to search for the twins. He finds in the royal palace a pair of scissors, and asks them where the king's sons are; the scissors answer, "Throw me upon the ground in the courtyard;[Pg 115] where I fall, there search." The scissors fall over the very place under which Ivan and Maria are concealed. The bear opens the ground with his paws, and is about to devour the young brother and sister; they beg for their lives, and the bear spares them, at sight of the abundance of hens and geese provided for them. The bear then resolves to take them into his service; they twice attempt in vain to escape, the first time with the help of a hawk, the second with that of an eagle: at last a bull succeeds in releasing them. Pursued by the bear, they throw down a comb, and an impenetrable forest springs up; the bear lacerates and wounds himself all over in passing through. Ivan then spreads out a towel which makes a lake of fire; at this sight the bear, who is afraid of being burned, who does not like heat, but, on the contrary, prefers cold, goes back.

In the twenty-seventh story of the fifth book of Afanassieff, a demoniacal bear with iron hairs, devastates a whole kingdom, devouring all the inhabitants; Ivan Tzarević and Helena Prekrasnaia alone remain; but the king has them placed with provisions upon a high pillar (a new form of Mount Hiraṇyanabhas, whence the sun issues forth, which comes up from the bottom of the sea, and upon which the great monkey Hanumant places himself. The bear is also found in connection with a gem in the Vishnu P.[186]) In the Tuti-Name,[187] the carpenter teaches two bears to take their food upon a statue which is a perfect image of his companion the miserly goldsmith, who had defrauded him of some money. By means of the bears, whom he represents as the two sons of the goldsmith who had run away from him, he terrifies him. The goldsmith, perceiving the carpenter's[Pg 116] craftiness, gives him back his money. The famished bear approaches the pillar. Ivan throws him down some food; the bear, after having eaten, goes to sleep.[188] While he sleeps, Ivan and Helena flee away upon a horse; the bear awakes, overtakes them, brings them back to the pillar, and makes them throw him down some food, after which he again goes to sleep. The young brother and sister then try to escape upon the backs of geese; the bear again wakens, overtakes them, burns the geese, and takes Ivan and Helena back to the pillar. Having a third time supplied the bear with food, it is again overcome by sleep; this time the deliverer comes in the shape of a bull, who blinds the bear with his horns, and throws him into a stream, where he is drowned. In the same story, the demon, wishing to expose Ivan to certain death, sends him to search for the milk of a she-bear.[189] The demon appears again in the form of a bear in the fiftieth story of the fifth book of Afanassieff, where the dog of a soldier rends him to pieces. But although the bear is demoniacal, the bear's cub, on the other hand, helps the hero.[190] In the eleventh story of the sixth book[Pg 117] of Afanassieff, a woman who is gathering mushrooms loses herself and enters into the bear's den—the bear takes her to himself. We have already seen the bear that plays at blind-man's-buff with the mouse, thinking that he is playing with the beautiful maiden. The wind Rudras and Æolus, king of the winds, we have already seen, in the first chapter of this book, to be passionately fond of beautiful nymphs. In a Norwegian story (a variation of that of the White Cat), in Asbiörnsen, the hero is disguised as a bear, and becomes a beautiful young man by night. His wife, by her indiscreet curiosity, i.e., because she had wished to see him by lamplight, loses him, and her place is taken by the long-nosed princess, until, with the help of a golden apple and a horse, she is able to find her husband again. In the sixth story of the second book of the Pentamerone, it is, on the other hand, the girl Pretiosa who, to escape the embraces of her father, goes into the forest disguised as a she-bear. A young prince, the son of the king of the water, becomes enamoured of her, and takes her to the palace. The prince becomes ill for love of the she-bear; she assists him and cures him. While he is kissing her, she becomes a beautiful girl ("la chiù bella cosa de lo Munno"). We learn from two mediæval writings quoted by Du Cange (s. v. Ursus), that it was already the custom in the Middle Ages to lead the bear round to make him play indecent games ("Nec turpia joca cum urso vel tornatricibus ante se facere permittat"), and that hairs of a bear stained in some ointment used to be sold, "Tamquam philacteria, ad depellendos morbos, atque, adeo oculorum fascinos amoliendos." The Athenians called she-bears the virgins sacred to the chaste Artemis, the friend of closed places; and to this, it would appear, must also be referred the interesting[Pg 118] Christian legend of the virgin St Ursula,[191] whom Karl Simrock identifies with the demoniacal, funereal, somniferous, death-bringing Holda. Were this identification accepted, Ursula would be, moreover, in close ideal and etymological relation with the Vedic monster Ṛikshikâ.

But to return to the Russian story, the woman who enters into the bear's den unites herself with him, and subsequently gives birth to a son, who is a man down to the waist, and a bear from the waist downwards. His mother, therefore, names him Ivanko-Medviedko (Little John, the son of the bear). This half-man half-bear becomes a cunning animal, and cheats the devil, making him fight with the bear, and persuading him to think that the bear is his middle brother (that is, the strong brother). In a Danish tradition we read of a girl violated by a bear, who gives birth afterwards to a monster. According to the Hellenic myth, the nymph Kalistos, daughter of King Lykaon, violated by Zeus, is changed by Juno or by Artemis into a she-bear, gives birth to Arkas, and, being killed with her son by shepherds, is converted into a star.

The cunning bear appears again as a musician (like the ass) in the seventeenth story of the third book of Afanassieff, where he sings so well that he deceives the old shepherdess, and succeeds in carrying off her sheep. In a note to the ninth Esthonian story of Kreutzwald, Herr Löwe observes, that in the Northern languages, the god of thunder and the bear are synonymous. The bear, the monkey, the ass, and the bull (all of which are personifications of the cloud), form a musical quartette in a[Pg 119] fine fable of Kriloff. The bear is made to dance like the monkey,[192] the ass, and the gandharvas, his mythical equivalent. In the same way as the ass's skin chases away fear, the eye of a bear dried and hung upon a child's neck preserves from fear.[193] In the legends of the saints, especially of the hermits, to whom the bear, inspired by God, often gives up his den in obedience to their commands, we read of St Maximin that he transformed a bear into an ass because he had eaten an ass that carried a load.

In the nineteenth fable of the twelfth book of La Fontaine, the monkey appears as a messenger of Jove, with the caduceus, to

"Partager un brin d'herbe entre quelques fourmis;" while two enormous animals, the elephant and the rhinoceros, are contending for the superiority. The monkey, as Mercury, as an intermediate and mediating form between two heroic similar animals, comes near to the knowing fox, the reddish colour of which (as well as of the bear) it partakes of. It is no longer the pure fair sun of day, and it is not yet the black monster of night; it is too black to be red, and too red to be black; it has[Pg 120] all the cunning of the devils, and is acquainted with all the habits of the saints. The monkey, the imitator of man (a Darwinist would say his progenitor), partakes, like man, of the nature of the brutish demon and of the intelligent god.

[Pg 121]

CHAPTER XII. THE FOX, THE JACKAL, AND THE WOLF. SUMMARY.

Lopâças, lopâçikâ.—The jackal takes in Hindoo tradition the place of the fox.—What the fox represents in mythology, and why the jackal is his mythical equivalent.—Double aspect of the mythical fox, in connection with the cock and in connection with the wolf, turned towards the day and towards the night, now friendly, now hostile to the hero.—The fox deceives all the other animals, in order to have all the prey to itself.—The fox is the monster's enemy.—The blue jackal.—The inquisitive jackal.—The avenging jackal.—The astute fox; the woman more cunning than the fox.—The fox's skin.—The buttered tail of the jackal.—The fox eats the honey, the butter, or the cake belonging to the wolf, and then accuses him.—The fox sends the wolf to fish.—The fox eats the woman whom he had promised to bring to life.—The fox as a mourner.—The peasant ungrateful to the fox.—"Cauda de vulpe testatur."—The fox eats the bear; the bird feeds the fox, and afterwards draws it in among the dogs.—Former hospitality is to be forgotten.—The fox as the cat's wife.—The round cheese of the myth is the moon.—The fox steals the fishes.—The fox is of every profession.—The grateful fox enriches the poor hero.—King Fire and Queen Loszna.—The house of the fox and that of the hare.—The fox deceives the cock; the cock deceives the fox.—The fox's tail in the beaks of the chickens.—The fox's malice; the ideal of a prince according to Macchiavelli; fox and serpent.—The fox cheats almost all the animals; it does not, however, succeed in cheating the other foxes, and sometimes not even the lion.—The Catholic Church furnishes new types for the legend of the fox.—Union of the fox with the wolf.—Diverse nature of the wolf.—The red wolf.—The thieving wolf.—The wolf (or the devil) and the fishes; the fish in shallow water.—The dog and the wolf.—The[Pg 122] wolf as a shepherd.—Wolf's belly.—The good wolf and the good maiden.—The son of the wolf understands the language of birds.—The she-wolf as a nurse; she-wolves and strumpets.—Disguises in a wolf's skin.—Wolf-hunter.—The wolf's shadow.—Wolves that chastise in the name of God; sanctified wolves.—The dead wolf; the wolf's skin.—Diabolical wolves.—The white wolf.—Wulfesheofod.—Ysengrin.—The wolf sings psalms.—The cunning of the wolf.—The wolf's tail.—The dwarf in the wolf's body; the dwarf in the wolf's sack.—The she-wolf at Rome.—Dante's she-wolf.

The fox is scarcely spoken of once in the Ṛigvedas by the name of lopâças (alôpêx), as penetrating to the old Western lion; this word (like lopâkas, which is interpreted in the Petropolitan Dictionary as "a kind of jackal") seems to mean properly "the destroyer" (according to Professor Weber, Aasfresser). The Sanskṛit language also gives us the diminutive lopâçikâ, which is interpreted as the female of a jackal and as the fox (vulpecula). The legendary fox, however, is generally represented in Hindoo tradition by the jackal, or canis aureus (sṛigâlas, kroshṭar, gomâyus, as a shouter). The fox is the reddish mediatrix between the luminous day and the gloomy night: the crepuscular phenomenon of the heavens taking an animal form, no form seemed more adapted to the purpose than that of the fox or the jackal, on account of their colour and some of their cunning habits: the hour of twilight is the time of uncertainties and of deceits. Professor Weber[194] supposes that all the cunning actions attributed to the jackal in Hindoo fables were taken on loan from the fox of Hellenic fables. We must certainly assign no undue importance to the expressions vańćakas and mṛigadhûrtakas (the cheater of[Pg 123] animals), given in Hindoo lexicons to the jackal, inasmuch as these lexicons are not of very remote antiquity; but at the same time we must confess, that the cunning of the fox has been exaggerated by popular superstition as much as the stupidity of the ass, for a mythical reason, and from tradition, far more than by the observation of exceptional habits in these animals, which could easily be identified in mythology, in which, as I have already observed, some few gross and accidental similarities are enough to cause the same phenomena to be represented by animals of a very different genus. Thus the hairy reddish bodies of the bear and the monkey, and certain postures which they assume in common, are enough to make us understand how they are sometimes substituted for each other in legends; for the same reason, to the monkey and to the bear are attributed some of the enterprises for which the legendary fox is celebrated. How much greater, therefore, must have been the confusion which arose between the canis vulpes (the reddish fox) and the canis aureus (or jackal), animals which agree in showing themselves towards night, in feeding upon little animals, in having skins of the same colour, who have very bright eyes, and several other zoological characteristics in common?

The legendary fox (or the jackal, which is its mythical equivalent) has, like nearly all mythical figures, a double aspect. As it represents the evening, and as the sun is represented as a bird (the cock), the fox, the proverbial enemy of chickens, is, in the sky too, the robber and devourer of the cock, and as such the natural enemy of the man or hero, who ends by showing himself to be more cunning than it is, and by effecting its ruin. The fox cheats the cock in the evening, and is cheated by the cock in the morning. It is therefore an animal of demoniacal[Pg 124] nature, when considered as the devourer or betrayer of the sun (cock, lion, or man), in the form of the red western sky, or of the evening aurora, and as being killed or put to flight by the sun itself (cock, lion, or man), in the form of the red eastern sky, or the morning aurora.[195] We have already seen, in the first chapter of this work, the aurora both as a wise girl and a perverse one; in its animal metamorphosis, the fox reproduces this aspect. But the aurora has not this mythical aspect alone. If, as she is turned towards or against the sun, she is supposed to be the killer of the luminous day in the evening, and to be chased away by the luminous day in the morning, she also, when considered as turning towards or against the night, assumes a heroic and sympathetic aspect, and becomes the friend and assister of the solar hero or animal against the wolf of the darkness of night. In these two mythical aspects is contained and explained all the essential legendary story of the fox, to narrate which, as far as it concerns Western tradition, volumes have already been written. I shall limit myself to culling and summarising from Oriental and Slavonic tradition their chief characteristics, in order to compare them briefly with the most generally known particulars of Western legendary lore; as it seems to me that when I shall have shown the double nature of the fox in mythology, as representing the two auroras, when I shall have proved that the sun is personified now as a hero, now as a cock, and now as a lion, and the night as a wolf, it will be easy to refer to this interpretation the[Pg 125] immense variety of legendary subjects to which, on account of the smaller proportions to which I have been obliged to reduce this work, I shall be unable to allude.

In the Mahâbhâratam,[196] a learned jackal, who has finished his studies, associates with the ichneumon, the mouse, the wolf, and the tiger, but only in order to cheat them all. He makes the tiger kill a gazelle, and then sends all the animals to bathe before eating it. Then, when the tiger returns, he makes him run after the mouse, by representing it as having boasted that it had killed the tiger; he makes the mouse flee, persuading it that the ichneumon has bitten the gazelle, and that its flesh is therefore poisonous; he makes the wolf take to its heels, by informing it that the tiger is coming to devour it; he makes the ichneumon glad to escape, by boasting that he has vanquished the other three animals; then the jackal eats the whole gazelle himself. In the Pańćatantram,[197] the jackal cheats, in a similar manner, the lion and the wolf out of their part of a camel; we have already seen how it cheated the lion out of the ass. In the twentieth Mongol story, the fox stirs up discord between the two brothers, bull and lion, who kill each other in consequence.

In the Râmâyaṇam,[198] the jackal appears as the hero's friend, inasmuch as by howling, and vomiting fire, he is of sinister omen to the monster Kharas, who prepares to attack Râmas. In the Khorda-Avesta, a hero devoured[Pg 126] by Agra-Mainyu, the god of the monsters, is named Takhmo-urupis, or Takhma-urupa, which means strong fox.

One of the most interesting fables, in a mythological point of view, is that of the jackal who, falling among pigments, comes out blue, or of opaline lustre, and passes himself off as a peacock of the sky. The animals make him their king, but he betrays himself by his voice: hearing other jackals howling, he howls also; upon which the lion, the real king of the beasts, tears him to pieces.[199] This is a variety of the ass dressed in the lion's skin, but yet more so of the crow that takes up and decks itself in the peacock's feathers; the black night shines as an azure sky, as sahasrâkshas (an appellation of Indras and of the peacock, as having a thousand eyes or stars). The evening aurora, the fox, transforms itself into the azure sky of night, until at morn, the deceit being exposed, the lion (i.e., the sun) rends the fox, and disperses the night and the aurora.

The Pańćatantram contains two other narratives relating to the legendary jackal—viz., the inquisitive and silly jackal, who, in an attempt to break the skin of a drum to see what is inside, breaks one of his teeth, and who, wishing to eat the string of a bow, has his mouth lacerated and dies;[200] and the vile jackal who, brought up among the lion's cubs, reveals his vulpine nature when he should have thrown himself with the two lions, his adoptive brothers, upon the elephant, but, instead of that,[Pg 127] took to flight.[201] In the Tuti-Name,[202] the jackal desires to revenge himself upon the parrots, whom he judges indirectly implicated in the death of his young ones; up comes the lynx, who is astounded that the jackal, celebrated for its craftiness, is unable to devise a way of ruining the parrots. At last the lynx advises him to pretend being lame, and let himself be followed by a hunter as far as the abode of the parrots, at which place he will be able to skulk away, and the hunter, seeing the parrots, will set his nets and catch them.

In the Tuti-Name we also find several other particulars relating to the jackal, which will pass into the Russian stories of the fox.

The jackal makes the wolf come out of his den, which the latter had taken possession of, by calling the shepherd.[203] In another place, the cunning fox laughs at the stolid tiger, but the woman proves herself to be more cunning than the fox.[204] It is also in the Tuti-Name[205] that we read of a companion of the poor Abdul Meǵid, enamoured of the king's daughter, who teaches him how to enrich himself, or rather to appear rich, in order to wed her. In a much more scientific and interesting variety of this legend, in the Russian stories, it is, on the contrary, the fox who enriches the poor hero. The nineteenth Mongol story, in which the false hero makes his fortune by means of the spoils of a certain designated[Pg 128] fox, is another intermediate form between the two traditions, the Hindoo and the Russian.

The name of a jackal in the Pańćatantram is Dadhi-puććhas, which means tail of butter, buttered tail (the aurora is ambrosial).

In the first of the stories of Afanassieff, the fox eats the honey belonging to the wolf (which reminds one of the sentence of Plautus, "Sæpe condita luporum fiunt rapinæ vulpium"[206]), and then accuses the wolf of having eaten it himself; the wolf proposes a sort of judgment of God; they are to go together to the sun, and he who pours out honey will be accounted guilty: they go and lie down; the wolf falls asleep, and when the honey comes out of the fox, he pours it upon the wolf, who, when he awakes, confesses his fault. In the first story of the fourth book of Afanassieff, the cock and the hen bring ears of corn to the old man and poppies to the old woman; the old couple make a cake of them and put it out to dry.[207] Up come the fox and the wolf and take the cake, but finding that it is not yet dry, the fox proposes going to sleep whilst it is drying. While the wolf sleeps, the fox eats the honey that is in the cake, and puts dung in its place. The wolf awakens, and after him the fox too pretends to waken, and accuses the wolf of having touched the cake; the wolf protests his innocence, and the fox proposes, as a judgment of God, that they shall go to sleep in the sunshine; the wax will come out of[Pg 129] him who has eaten the honey.[208] The wolf really goes to sleep, and the fox goes meanwhile to a neighbouring beehive, eats the honey, and throws the honeycombs upon the wolf, who, wakening from his slumbers, confesses his fault, and promises in reparation to give his share of the prey to the fox as soon as he procures any. In the continuation of the story, the fox sends the wolf to fish with his tail (the same as the bone of the dog) in the lake, and, after having made his tail freeze, feigns to be himself ill, and makes the wolf carry him, murmuring on the way the proverb, "He who is beaten carries him who is not beaten." In a variety of the same story, the fox eats the wolf's butter and flour; in another, the fox pretends to be called during the night to act as the rabbit's midwife, and eats the wolf's butter, accusing him afterwards of having eaten it himself; in order to discover the guilty one, they resolve upon trying the judgment by fire, before which the two animals are to go to sleep, and the one from whose skin the butter shall come out, is to be accounted guilty; whilst the wolf is asleep and snoring, the fox upsets the rest of the butter over him. In the seventh story of the fourth book of Afanassieff, the fox promises to an old man to bring his wife to life again; he requests him to warm a bath, to bring flour and honey, and then to stand at the door without ever turning round to look at the bath; the old man does so, and the fox washes the old woman and then eats her, leaving nothing but the bones; he then makes a cake of the flour and honey, and eats that too, after which he cries out to the old man to throw the door wide open,[Pg 130] and escapes. In the first story of the first book, the old man whose wife is dead goes to look for mourners; he finds the bear, who offers to do the weeping, but the old man thinks that he has not a sufficiently good voice; going on, he meets the fox, who also offers to perform the same service, and gives a good proof of his skill in singing (this particular would appear to be more applicable to the crying jackal than to the fox). The old man declares himself perfectly satisfied, and places the cunning beast at the foot of the corpse to sing a lament, whilst he himself goes to make the grave; during the old man's absence, the fox eats everything he finds in the house, and the old woman too. In the ninth story of the fourth book the fable ends otherwise; the fox does his duty as a weeper, and the old man rewards him by the gift of some chickens; the fox, however, demanding more, the old man puts into a sack two dogs and a chicken, and gives it to the fox, who goes out and opens the sack. The dogs run out and pursue him; he takes refuge in his den, but neglects to draw in his tail, which betrays him. "Cauda de vulpe testatur," said also the Latin proverb. In a variety of the first story of the first book, it is as a reward for having released the peasant from the bear that the fox receives a sack containing two hens and a dog. The dog pursues the fox, who takes to his hole, and then asks his feet what they have done; they answer that they ran away; he then asks his eyes and ears, which answer that they saw and heard; finally he asks his tail (here identified with the phallos), which, confused, answers that it put itself between his legs to make him fall. Then the fox, wishing to chastise his tail, puts it out of the hole; the dog, by means of it, drags out the whole fox, and tears him to pieces. In the fourth story of the third book, the fox delivers the peasant from, not the bear, but[Pg 131] the wolf; the peasant then cheats him in the same way, by putting dogs into the sack; the fox escapes, and to punish his tail for impeding his flight, leaves it in the dog's mouth, and runs off; afterwards the fox is drowned by falling into a barrel which is being filled with water (the deed of the phallos; cfr. the chapter on the Fishes), and the peasant takes his skin. In another Russian story, recorded by Afanassieff in the observations to the first book of his stories, the fox, having delivered the peasant from the bear, asks for his nose in way of recompense, but the peasant terrifies him and puts him to flight. In a Slavonic story referred to in the same observations, the bird makes its nest, of which the fox covets the eggs; the bird informs the dog, who pursues the fox; the latter, betrayed by his tail, holds his usual monologue with his feet, eyes, ears, and tail. In the twenty-second story of the third book, the fox falls with the bear, the wolf, and the hare, into a ditch where there is no water. The four animals are oppressed by hunger, and the fox proposes that each should raise his voice in succession and shout his utmost; he who shouts feeblest will be eaten by the others. The hare's turn comes first, then that of the wolf; bear and fox alone remain. The fox advises the bear to put his paws upon his sides; attempting to sing thus, he dies, and the fox eats him. Being again hungry, and seeing a bird feeding its young, he threatens to kill the young birds unless the parent brings him some food; the bird brings him a hen from the village. The fox afterwards renews his threats, desiring the bird to bring him something to drink; the bird immediately brings him water from the village. Again the fox threatens to kill the young ones if the old bird does not deliver him out of the ditch; the bird throws in billets of wood, and thus succeeds in helping him out. Then[Pg 132] the fox desires the bird to make him laugh; the bird invites him to run after it; it then goes towards the village, where it cries out, "Woman, woman, bring me a piece of tallow" (babka, babka, priniessi mnié sala kussók); the dogs hear the cry, come out, and rend the fox. In the twenty-fourth story of the third book, the fox again delivers the peasant from the wolf, whom he had shut up in a sack to save him from the persecution of the hunters. The wolf is no sooner out of danger than he wishes to eat the peasant, saying that "old hospitality is forgotten."[209] The peasant beseeches him to await the judgment of the first passer-by; the first whom they meet is an old mare who has been expelled from the stables on account of her age, after having long served her masters; she finds that the wolf's sentence is just. The peasant begs the wolf to wait for a second passer-by; this is an old black dog who has been expelled from the house after long services, because he can no longer bark; he also approves the wolf's decision. The peasant again begs them to wait for a third and decisive judgment; they meet the fox, who resorts to a well-known stratagem; he affects to doubt that so large an animal as the wolf could get into so small a sack. The wolf, mortified at so unjust a suspicion, wishes to prove that he has told the truth, re-enters into the sack, and is beaten by the peasant till he dies. But the peasant himself then proves ungrateful to the fox, saying, too, that old hospitality is to be forgotten (properly the hospitality of bread and salt, hlieb-sol). In the eighth story of the fourth book, the fox brings upon his back to her father and mother a girl who,[Pg 133] having lost herself in the forest, was weeping upon a tree. The old man and woman, however, are not grateful to the fox; for on the latter asking for a hen in reward, they put him into a sack with a dog; the rest of the story is already known to the reader. In the twenty-third story of the fourth book, the fox marries the cat and puts the bear and the wolf to flight. We have already mentioned the fox of the Russian story who sends the wolf to catch fish in the river with his tail, by which means the tail is frozen off. In a popular Norwegian story, instead of the wolf, it is the bear who is thus cheated by the fox. In a Servian story, we hear of a fox who steals three cheeses off a waggon, and afterwards meets the wolf, who asks where he had found them. The fox answers, in the water (the sky of night). The wolf wishing to fish for cheeses, the fox conducts him to a fountain where the moon is reflected in the water, and points to it as a cheese; he must lap up the water in order to get at it. The wolf laps and laps till the water comes out of his mouth, nose, and ears (probably because he was drowned in the fountain. The wolf, the black monster of night, takes the place of the crow in connection with the cheese (the moon) and the fox; the Servian story itself tells us what the cheese represents[210]). In a Russian story, published in the year 1860, by the Podsniesznik, and quoted in the observations to the first book of the stories of Afanassieff, the fox is killed by a peasant whose fish he had stolen; the peasant takes his skin and goes off. Up comes the wolf, and seeing his god-father without a skin, weeps over him[Pg 134] according to the prescribed ceremony, and then eats him. We have already seen the fox as a mourner and as a midwife. In the twentieth story of the third book of Afanassieff, the fox wishes to work as a blacksmith. In other Russian stories we have the fox-confessor and the fox-physician; finally, the fox as a god-mother is a very popular subject of Russian stories. In a Russian story, published in the fourth number of the Russian Historical and Juridical Archives of Kalassoff, the fox appears as a go-between for the marriage of two young men with two princesses. But, above all, the fox is famous for having brought about the wedding of the poor Buhtan Buhtanović and of his alter ego, Koszma Skorobagatoi (Cosimo the swiftly-enriched) with the daughter of the Tzar. Buhtan had only five kapeika (twopence in all). The fox has them changed, and asks the Tzar to lend him some bushels to measure the money with. These bushels are each time found too small, and larger ones are demanded, using which, the cunning fox always takes care to leave some small coin at the bottom. The Tzar marvels at the riches of Buhtan, and the fox then asks for Buhtan the Tzar's daughter to wife. The Tzar wishes first to see the bridegroom. How dress him? The fox then makes Buhtan fall into the mud near the king's palace whilst they are passing over a little bridge. He then goes to the Tzar, relates the misfortune, and begs him to lend him a dress for Buhtan. Buhtan puts it on, and never ceases regarding his changed appearance. The Tzar being astonished at this, the fox hastens to say that Buhtan was never so badly dressed before, and takes the first opportunity of warning him in private against conduct so suspicious. Then, withdrawn from himself, he does nothing but stare at the golden table, which again astonishes the Tzar; this is accounted for by the fox,[Pg 135] who explains that in Buhtan's palace similar tables are to be found in the bath-room; meanwhile the fox hints to Buhtan to look more about him. The wedding ceremony is performed and the bride led away. The fox runs on before; but instead of leading them into Buhtan's miserable hut, he takes them to an enchanted palace, after having, by a trick, chased out of it the serpent, the crow, and the cock that inhabited it.[211]—Poor Kuszinka has only one cock and five hens remaining. He takes the fox by surprise whilst he is attempting to eat his hens, but moved by the fox's prayers, releases him. Then the grateful fox promises to transform him into Cosimo the swiftly-enriched. The fox goes into the Tzar's park and meets the wolf, who asks him how he is become so fat; he answers that he has been banqueting at the Tzar's palace. The wolf expresses a desire to go there too, and the fox advises him to invite forty times forty more wolves (that is 1600 wolves). The wolf follows his advice, and brings them all to the Tzar's palace, upon which the fox tells the Tzar that Cosimo the swiftly-enriched sends them to him as a gift. The Tzar marvels at the great riches of Cosimo; the fox uses the same stratagem twice again with the bears and the martens. After this, he asks the Tzar to lend him a silver bushel, pretending that all Cosimo's golden bushels are full of money. The Tzar gives it, and when the fox sends it back, he leaves a few small coins at the bottom, returning it with the request that the Tzar would give his daughter to Cosimo in marriage. The Tzar answers that he must first see the pretender to her hand. The fox then makes Cosimo fall into the water, and arrays him in robes lent by the Tzar, who receives him with[Pg 136] every honour. After some time, the Tzar signifies his desire of visiting Cosimo's dwelling. The fox goes on before, and finds on the way flocks of sheep, and herds of hogs, cows, horses, and camels. He asks of all the shepherds to whom they belong, and is uniformly answered, "To the serpent-uhlan." The fox orders them to say that they belong to Cosimo the swiftly-enriched, or else they will see King Fire and Queen Loszna,[212] who will burn everything to ashes. He comes to the palace of white stone, where the king serpent-uhlan lives. He terrifies him in the same way, and compels him to take refuge in the trunk of an oak-tree, where he is burnt to death. Cosimo, the swiftly-enriched, becomes Tzar of all the possessions of the uhlan-serpent and enjoys them with his bride.[213] (I need not dwell upon the mythological importance of this story; the serpent consumed by fire is found in the most primitive myths; here the canis-vulpes, the red bitch, the fox seems to play part of the rôle of the Vedic messenger-bitch.)

In the first story of Afanassieff, the fox chases the hare, instead of the serpent, out of its home. The fox has a house of ice and the hare one of wood. At the arrival of spring, the fox's house melts; then the fox, under the pretext of warming itself, enters the hare's house and sends its occupant away. The hare weeps, and the dogs come to chase the fox away, but it cries[Pg 137] out from its seat by the stove, that when it leaps out, whoever is caught will be torn into a thousand pieces; hearing which, the dogs run away in terror. The bear comes, and then the bull, but the fox terrifies them too. At last the cock comes up with a scythe, and loudly summons it to come out or be cut to pieces. The terrified fox jumps out and the cock cuts it to pieces with the scythe. In another story of Little Russia, mentioned by Afanassieff in the observations to the first book of his stories, the fox, on the contrary, is the victim which the hairy goat wishes to expel from its home. Several animals, wolf, lion, and bear, present themselves to help it, but the cock alone succeeds in expelling the intruder. Here the cock appears as the friend of the fox and the enemy of the goat. In the twenty-third story of the third book of Afanassieff, the fox defends the sheep against the wolf, who accuses it of having dressed itself in his skin, and brings about the ruin of the wolf by its craftiness. In the third story of the fourth book, the cat and the lamb release the cock from the fox; these contradictions are explained by the double mythical significance which we have attributed above to the fox, and by its double appearance as aurora in the evening and in the morning. In the evening, it generally cheats the hero; in the morning it cheats the monster. In the second story of the fourth book of Afanassieff, the fox requests the cock to come down from a tree to confess itself to him. The cock does so, and is about to be eaten by the fox, but it flatters him so much that he lets it escape again. (The solar cock, supposed to be in the fox's power at night, escapes from it and comes forth again in the morning.) The third story of the fourth book gives us the interesting text of the words sung by the fox to deceive the cock:

[Pg 138]

"Little cock, little cock, With the golden crest, With the buttered head, With the forehead of curdled milk! Show yourself at the window; I will give you some gruel In a red spoon."[214] The cock, when caught by the fox, invokes the cat's assistance, crying, "Me the fox has carried away; he carried away me, the cock, into the gloomy forest, into distant lands, into foreign lands, into the three times ninth (twenty-seventh) earth, into the thirtieth kingdom; cat Catonaiević, deliver me!"

[Pg 139]

The knavish actions of the fox, however, are far more celebrated in the West than in the East. A proverb says that, to write all the perfidious knaveries of the fox, all the cloth manufactured at Ghent, turned into parchment, would not be sufficient. This proverb justifies me in saying but little of it, as I am unable to say as much as I should wish. Greeks and Latins are unanimous in celebrating the sagacity and perfidy of the fox. The cynic Macchiavelli, in the eighteenth chapter of the Principe, asserts that a good prince must imitate two animals, the fox and the lion, (must, that is to say, have deceit and strength), but especially the fox; and this answers to the sentence attributed by Plutarch (in the Memorable Sayings of the Greeks) to Lysander, "Where the lion's skin does not suffice, put on that of the fox." Aristotle, in the ninth book of the History of Animals, also considers the fox as the serpent's friend, probably because of the analogy existing between them in respect of perfidiousness, according to another Greek saying, viz., "He who hopes to triumph, must arm himself with the strength of the lion and the prudence of the serpent." A proverbial Latin verse says—

"Vulpes amat fraudem, lupus agnam, fæmina laudem." There is scarcely an animal which is not deceived by the fox in Greek and Latin fable; the fox alone does not succeed in deceiving the fox. In Æsop, the fox who has lost his tail in a trap endeavours to persuade the other foxes of the uselessness of that appendage; but the latter answer that he would not have given them such advice were he not aware that a tail is a useful member. The fox deceives the ass, giving it up as prey to the lion (as in the Pańćatantram); it deceives the hare by offering it as a prey to the dog, who, pursuing the hare, loses[Pg 140] both hare and fox;[215] it deceives the goat, by cozening it into the well that it may escape out of it, and then leaving it there to its fate; it cheats in several ways now the cock, now the wolf; and it imposes upon even the powerful king of beasts, whom, however, he sometimes cannot deceive. A graceful apologue of Thomas Morus shows us the counterpart of the Hellenic fable of the fox and the sick lion, that is to say, the sick fox visited by the lion:—

"Dum jacet angusta vulpes ægrota caverna Ante fores blando constitit ore leo. Etquid, amica, vale. Cito, me lambente, valebis, Nescis in lingua vis mihi quanta mea. Lingua tibi medica est, vulpes ait, at nocet illud Vicinos, quod habet, tam bona lingua, malos." But when we come down to the Middle Ages, the fable of the fox develops into such manifoldness, that the study of all the phases in which it unfolds itself ought to be the subject of a special work.[216] Suffice it to notice here that, to popularise in Flanders, and subsequently in France and Germany, the idea of the fox as the type of every species of malice and imposture, it is the priest who, for the most part, is the human impersonation of the masculine Reinart. The Procession du Renart is[Pg 141] famous; it was a farce conceived in 1313 by Philippe le Bel, on account of his quarrel with Pope Boniface VIII., and acted by the scholars of Paris. The principal personage was a man disguised in the skin of a fox, and wearing over all a priest's surplice, whose chief industry it was to give chase to chickens. This form of satire, however, directed against the Church, is certainly much older than those times, and goes back to the epoch of the first differences between the Church and the Empire in the eleventh century, at which time two mediæval Latin poems appeared, Reinardus Vulpes and Ysengrimus; with the schism of England and the Reformation of the sixteenth century, however, Reinardus Vulpes decisively became a Romish fox. The finesse and perfection of the satirical poem which S. Naylor, its English translator, calls "the unholy bible of the world," also increased the fox's popularity, and made it yet more proverbial. The principal subjects of the poem existed previously, not only in oral, but also in literary tradition; they were grouped together and put in order, and a more human, more malicious nature was given to the fox, a nature more hypocritical even than before, and more priestly, whence it now more than ever—

"Urbibus et castris regnat et ecclesiis." Macchiavelli, St Ignazio di Loyola, and St Vincenzo de' Paoli took upon themselves the charge of propagating its type over the whole world.

The wolf is better, when he is a wolf, for then we know at least what he wants; we know that he is our enemy, and are accordingly on our guard; but he, too, sometimes disguises himself, by imposture or magic, as a sheep, a shepherd, a monk, or a penitent, like Ysengrin; and from this point of view resembles not a little his[Pg 142] perfidious god-mother the fox; it is well known that amongst the exploits of Reinart there is that of his extra-matrimonial union with the she-wolf.

In the Ṛigvedas we already find several interesting mythical data concerning the wolf; he is in it entirely demoniacal, as the exhausted Vṛikas, to which, in a hymn, the Açvinâu give back its strength,[217] seems, as it appears to me, not to be the wolf, but the messenger crow which, during the night, must carry the solar hero.

As in the Zendic Vendidad,[218] the souls of good men, when on the way to heaven, are afraid of meeting the wolf, so in the Ṛigvedas, the devotee says that once the reddish wolf (which seems to be confounded here with the jackal or the fox) saw him coming on the way, and fled in terror;[219] he invokes the (luminous) night to send the wolf, the robber far away,[220] and the god Pûshan (the sun) to remove the evil wolf, the malignant spirit, from the path of the devotees, the wolf that besieges the roads, thieving, fraudulent, double-dealing.[221] The poet, after having called the enemy Vṛikas, prays, with imprecations, that he may lacerate his own body;[222] and the wild beast, full of witchcraft,[223] which Indras kills, is probably[Pg 143] a wolf. But, besides this, I think I can find in the Ṛigvedas the lupus piscator of Russian and Western tradition; (according to Ælianos there were wolves friendly to fishermen near the Palus Mœotis.) In the fifty-sixth hymn of the eighth book, Matsyas (the fish) invokes the Âdityas (that is, the luminous gods) to free him and his from the jaws of the wolf. So in another strophe of the same hymn, we must in reason suppose that it is a fish that speaks when she who has a terrible son (i.e., the mother of the sun) is invoked as protectress from him who in the shallow waters endeavours to kill him.[224] We also find a fish lying in shallow water explicitly mentioned in another hymn;[225] which proves to us the image of the fish without water, which was widely developed in later Hindoo tradition, to have been in the Vedic age already a familiar one. We find the dog as the enemy of the wolf in the Hindoo words vṛikâris vṛikârâtis, and vṛikadanças. (In the thirteenth story of the fourth book of Afanassieff, the wolf wishes to eat the dog; the latter, who feels himself too weak to resist, begs the wolf to bring him something to eat, in order that he may become larger, and be more tender for the wolf's teeth; but when he is in good condition, he acquires strength and makes the wolf run. The enmity of the dog and the wolf was also made popular in the Æsopian fables.)

In the Râmâyaṇam,[226] we already meet with the proverbial[Pg 144] expression of the sheep who do not increase when guarded by the wolf or jackal (rakshayamâṇâ na vardhante meshâ gomâyunâ).

In the Mahâbhâratam, the second of the three sons of Kuntî, the strong, terrible, and voracious Bhîmas, is called Wolf's-belly (Vṛikodaras, the solar hero enclosed in the nocturnal or winter darkness). Here the wolf has a heroic and sympathetic form, as in the Tuti-Name[227] he, although famished, shows compassion upon a maiden who travels to fulfil a promise; as in the same Tuti-Name[228] he helps the lion against the mice, and in the story of Ardschi Bordschi, the boy, son of a wolf, understands the language of wolves, and teaches it to the merchants with whom he lives; like the Russian she-wolf that gives her milk to Ivan Karoliević, in order that he may take it to the witch, his wife, who induced him to fetch it in the hope that he would thereby meet with his death;[229] and like the she-wolf of the fifteenth Esthonian story, who comes up on hearing the cry of a child, and gives its milk to nourish it. The story tells us that the shape of a wolf was assumed by the mother of the child herself, and that when she was alone, she placed her wolf-disguise upon a rock, and appeared as a naked woman to give milk to her child. The husband, informed of this, orders that the rock be heated, so that when the wolf's skin is again placed upon it, it may be burnt, and he may thus be able to recognise and take back to himself his wife. The she-wolf that gives her milk to the twin-brothers, Romulus and Remus, in Latin epic tradition, was no less a woman than the nurse-wolf of the Esthonian story.[230] The German[Pg 145] hero Wolfdieterich, the wolves who hunt for the hero in Russian stories, sacred to Mars and to Thor as their hunting dogs, have the same benignant nature. (The evening aurora disguises herself in the night with a wolf's skin, nourishes as a she-wolf the new-born solar hero, and in the morning puts down her wolf's skin upon the fiery rock of the East, and finds her husband again.) What Solinus tells us of the Neuri, viz., that they transformed themselves into wolves at stated periods; and what used to be narrated of the Arcadians, to the effect that when they crossed a certain marsh, they became wolves for eight years,—suggests us a new idea of the zoological transformations of the solar hero.[231] In La Fontaine,[232] the shadow of the wolf makes the sheep flee in the evening. As a hero transformed, the wolf has a benignant aspect in legends. According to Baronius, in the year 617, a number of wolves presented themselves[Pg 146] at a monastery, and tore in pieces several friars who entertained heretical opinions. The wolves sent by God tore the sacrilegious thieves of the army of Francesco Maria, Duke of Urbino, who had come to sack the treasure of the holy house of Loreto. A wolf guarded and defended from the wild beasts the head of St Edmund the Martyr, King of England. St Oddo, Abbot of Cluny, assailed in a pilgrimage by foxes, was delivered and escorted by a wolf; thus a wolf showed the way to the beatified Adam, in the same way as, in Herodotos, the wolves served as guides to the priests of Ceres. A wolf, having devoured two mares which drew a cart, was forced by St Eustorgius to draw the cart in their stead, and obeyed his orders. St Norbert compelled a wolf, first to let a sheep go after having clutched it, and then to guard the sheep all day without touching them. We read of the youth of the ancient Syracusan hero Hielon that, being at school, a wolf carried off his tablets in order to make him pursue it; no sooner was Hielon out, than the wolf re-entered the school, and massacred the master and the other scholars.

And even after his death the wolf is useful. The ancients believed that a wolf's hide, when put on by one who had been bitten by a mad dog, was a charm against hydrophobia. According to Pliny, wolf's teeth rubbed on the gums of children during teething relieves the pain (which is quite credible, but any other sharp tooth would serve the same purpose, by making the teeth cut sooner). In Sicily it is believed that a wolf's head increases the courage of whoever puts it on. In the province of Girgenti shoes are made of wolf's skin for children whom their parents wish to grow up strong, brave, and pugnacious. The animals themselves that are ridden by persons who wear these shoes are cured of their pain.[Pg 147] The animal allupatu (that is, which has once been bitten by a wolf) becomes invulnerable, and never feels any other kind of pain. It is also believed in Sicily that when a wolf's skin is exposed in the open air, it causes drums to break when they are beaten. This superstition reminds us of the fable of the fox that kills itself by breaking the drum or biting the string of a bow; the mythical drum (that is, the cloud) is destroyed when the wolf's skin is taken off. In Æsop's fable, the wolf's skin is recommended by the fox as a cure for the sick lion.

But the wolf of tradition usually has a perverse or diabolical signification; and as the demon is represented now as a master of every species of perfidy and wickedness, and now as a fool, so is the wolf. In the Hellenic myth, Lycaon, King of Arcadia, became a wolf because he had fed upon human flesh. According to Servius, the wolves among the people, called for this reason Hirpini (the Sabine word hirpus meaning a wolf), carried off the entrails of the victim sacrificed to Pluto, and therefore brought down a pestilence upon the land. Wolves tore the hero Milôn to pieces in the forest. Wolves are an omen of death; the loup garou of popular French tradition is a diabolical form.[233] In the Edda, the two wolves Sköll and Hati wish to take, one the sun and the other the moon; the wolf devours the sun, father of the world, and gives birth to a daughter. He is then killed by Vidarr. Hati precedes the luminous betrothed of the sky; the wolf Fenris, son of the demoniacal Lokis,[Pg 148] chained by the Ases, bites off the hand that the hero Tyr, as an earnest of the good faith of the Ases, had put into his mouth,[234] when chained to the western gate. Nanna, of the Pentamerone, after having travelled over the world, is disguised in the shape of a wolf, and changes in character and in colour, becoming malicious; the three sons of the Finns go to inhabit the Valley of the Wolf, near the Wolf's Lake, and find there three women spinning, who can transform themselves into swans. On Christmas Eve, the King Helgi meets a witch who rides upon a wolf, having eagles for bridles.[235] Wolves eat each other; the wolf Sinfiölti becomes a eunuch; the wolf who flees before the hero is an omen of victory, as well as the wolf who howls under the branches of an ash-tree. (The howling of the wolf, the braying of the ass, the hissing of the serpent, announce the death of the demoniacal monster; this howling must necessarily take place in the morning, or the spring, when the hero has recovered his strength, as the Edda says that "a hero must never fight towards sunset)." If Gunnar (the solar hero) loses his life, the wolf becomes the master of the treasure, and of the heritage of Nifl; the heroes roast the[Pg 149] wolf. All these legendary particulars relating to the wolf in the Edda concur in showing us the wolf as a gloomy and diabolical monster. The night and the winter is the time of the wolf spoken of in the Voluspa; the gods who enter, according to the German tradition, into wolves' skins, represent the sun as hiding himself in the night, or the snowy season of winter (whence the demoniacal white wolf of a Russian story,[236] in the midst of seven black wolves). Inasmuch as the solar hero becomes a wolf, he has a divine nature; inasmuch, on the contrary, as the wolf is the proper form of the devil, his nature is entirely malignant. The condemned man, the proscribed criminal, the bandit, the utlagatus or outlaw, were said in the Middle Ages to wear a caput lupinum (in England, wulfesheofod; in France, teste lœue). The wolf Ysengrin, descended partly from the Æsopian wolf, and partly from Scandinavian myths, which were propagated in Germany, Flanders, and France, possesses much of the diabolical craftiness of the fox; he usually adopts against sheep the same stratagems which the fox makes use of to entrap chickens. The French proverb makes the fox preach to the fowls; the Italian proverb makes the wolf sing psalms when he wishes to ensnare the sheep. As we have seen the jackal and the fox confounded in the East, so Reinart and Ysengrin are sometimes identified by their cunning in Western tradition. A recent French writer, who had observed the habits of the wolf, says that he is "effrayant de sagacité et de calcul."[237] In the second story of the second book of[Pg 150] Afanassieff, the same wizard-wolf who knew how to imitate the goat's voice to deceive the kids, goes to the house of an old man and an old woman, who have five sheep, a horse, and a calf. The wolf comes and begins to sing. The old woman admires the song, and gives him one sheep, then the others, then the horse, next the calf, and finally herself. The old man, left alone, at last succeeds in hunting the wolf away. In the preceding story, where the animals accuse each other, the demoniacal wolf, when his turn comes, accuses God. We have already spoken of the wolf who, by the order of St Eustorgius, draws the cart instead of the mares which he had eaten. In the twenty-fifth story of the third book of Afanassieff, the wolf comes up to the sleeping workman, and smells him; the workman awakes, takes the wolf by the tail,[238] and kills him. Another time the same workman, when he goes with his father to the chase, after having enriched himself with money which he had taken from three brigands who had hidden it in a deserted mill, meets again with two wolves who eat the horses, but, entangling themselves in the reins, they are compelled to draw the car home again themselves; here, therefore, we have the miracle of St Eustorgius reduced to its natural mythical proportions. Here, evidently, the wolf begins to show himself as a stupid animal; the[Pg 151] demon teaches his art to the little solar hero in the evening, and is betrayed by the hero himself in the morning; the fox cheats the solar cock in the evening, and is deceived by it in the morning; the wolf succeeds by his wickedness in the evening, and is ruined in the morning. We have already mentioned the Norwegian story of the little Schmierbock, who, put into a sack by the witch, twice makes a hole in the sack and escapes, and the third time makes the witch eat her own daughter. Schmierbock is the ram; the witch or night puts him into the sack. In the Piedmontese story,[239] and in the Russian one, instead of Schmierbock, we have Piccolino (the very little one), and the Small Little Finger (malćik-s palćik, that is, the little finger, which is the wise one, according to popular superstition). The Russian story is as follows: An old woman, while baking a cake (the moon), cuts off her little finger and throws it into the fire. From the little finger in the fire, a dwarf, but very strong son, is born, who afterwards does many wonderful things. One day he was eating the tripe of an ox in the forest; the wolf passes by, and eats dwarf and tripe together. After this,[Pg 152] the wolf approaches a flock of sheep, but the dwarf cries out from within the wolf, "Shepherd, shepherd, thou sleepest and the wolf carries off a sheep." The shepherd then chases the wolf away, who endeavours to get rid of his troublesome guest; the dwarf requests the wolf to carry him home to his parents; no sooner have they arrived there than the dwarf comes out behind and catches hold of the wolf's tail, shouting, "Kill the wolf, kill the grey one." The old people come out and kill it.[240] The mythical wolf dies now after only one night, now after only one winter of life. To the mythical wolf, however, bastard sons were born, who, changing only their skin, succeeded in living for a long period among mortals in the midst of civil society, preserving, nevertheless, their wolf-like habits. The French proverb says, "Le loup alla à Rome; il y laissa de son poil et rien de ses coutumes." The pagan she-wolf gave milk to the Roman heroes; the Catholic wolf, thunderstruck by Dante,[241] on the contrary, feeds upon them—

"Ed ha natura sì malvagia e ria, Che mai non empie la bramosa voglia, E dopo il pasto ha più fame che pria. Molti son gli animali a cui s'ammoglia." [Pg 153]

CHAPTER XIII. THE LION, THE TIGER, THE LEOPARD, THE PANTHER, AND THE CHAMELEON. SUMMARY.

Lion and tiger symbols of royal majesty.—Tvashṭar as a lion.—The hair of Tvashṭar in the fire.—Winds that roar like lions.—The lion-seducer.—The lion and the honey; the lion and riches.—Nobility of the lion.—The lion's part.—The monster lioness.—The old and sick lion; the lion with a thorn in its foot.—Monster and demoniacal lions.—The lion is afraid of the cock.—Sterility of the lion.—The story of Atalanta.—The sun in the sign Leo.—The virgin and the lion.—Çivas, Dionysos, and the tiger.—A hair from the tiger's tail; the Mantikora.—The chameleon; the god chameleon.

The tiger and the lion have in India the same dignity, and are both supreme symbols of royal strength and majesty.[242] The tiger of men and the lion of men are two expressions equivalent to prince, as the prince is supposed to be the best man. It is strength that gives victory and superiority in natural relations; therefore the tiger and the lion, called kings of beasts, represent[Pg 154] the king in the civic social relations among men. The narasinhas of India was called, in the Middle Ages, the king par excellence; thus in Greece the king was also called leôn.

The myth of the lion and the tiger is essentially an Asiatic one; notwithstanding this, a great part of it was developed in Greece, where lion and tiger were at one time not unknown, and must have, as in India, inspired something like that religious terror caused by oriental kings.

We have already mentioned the Vedic monster lion of the West, in which we recognise the expiring sun. The strong Indras, killer of the monster, Vṛitras, is also represented as a lion. In the same way as the Jewish Samson is found in connection with the lion, and this lion with honey, and as the strength of the lion and that of Samson is said to be centred in the hair (the sun, when he loses his rays or mane, loses all his strength), so in the parallel myth of Indras we find analogous circumstances. Tvasḥṭar, the Hindoo celestial blacksmith, who makes weapons now for the gods and now for the demons (the reddish sky of morning and of evening is likened to a burning forge; the solar hero or the sun in this forge, is a blacksmith), is also represented in a Vedic hymn[243] as a lion, turned towards which, towards the west, heaven and earth rejoice, although (on account of the din made by him when coming into the world) they are, before all, terrified. The form of a lion is one of the favourite shapes created by the mythical and legendary blacksmith.

In the Mârkaṇdeya-P.,[244] this same Tvashṭar (which the Ṛigvedas represents as a lion), wishing to avenge[Pg 155] himself upon the god Indras, who had (perhaps at morn) killed one of his sons, creates another, son, Vṛitras (the coverer), by tearing a lock of hair off his head and throwing it into the fire (the sun burns every evening in the western forge, his rays or mane, and the gloomy monster of night is born). Indras makes a truce with Vṛitras (in Russian stories, heroes and monsters nearly always challenge each other to say before fighting whether they will have peace or war), and subsequently violates the treaty; for this perfidy he loses his strength, which passes into Mârutas, the son of the wind (the Hanumant of the Râmâyaṇam. In a Vedic hymn, the voice of the Mârutas is compared to the roar of lions),[245] and into the three brothers Pâṇḍavas, sons of Kunti (the passage of the legend from the Vedas to the two principal Hindoo epic poems is thus indicated). Thus, in the same Mârkaṇdeya-P., Indras, having violated Ahalyâ, the wife of Gâutamas, loses his beauty (in other Puranic legends he becomes a eunuch or has a thousand wombs. Indras is powerful as the sun; he is powerful, too, in the cloud, by means of the thunderbolt; but when he hides himself in the serene and starry sky, he is powerless), which passes to the two Açvinâu, who afterwards renew themselves in the two Pâṇḍavâu sons of Mâdrî, as the sons of the demons were personified in the sons of Dhṛitarâshṭras.

Tvashṭar, the creator, now of divine, now of monstrous forms, Tvashṭar the lion, must necessarily create leonine forms. In a Tuscan story, the blacksmith makes a lion by means of which Argentofo penetrates by night into[Pg 156] the room of a young princess, with whom he unites himself. In the third story of the fourth book of the Pentamerone, the three prince brothers, when the fairy's curse is over, return home with their brides, drawn by six lions. This lion-seducer reminds us of Indras, who was also a lion and a seducer of women. A hymn tells us that Indras fights like a terrible lion;[246] in another hymn, the same lion is considered, as in the legend of Samson, in connection with honey.[247] In the twenty-second night of the Tuti-Name, the lion presents himself in connection with riches; flattered by a man who calls him a king, he lets him collect the riches scattered on the ground by a caravan which the lion had destroyed.[248] His royal nature is also shown in the Râmâyaṇam,[249] in which King Daçarathas says that his son Râmas, the lion of men, after his exile, will disdain to occupy the kingdom previously enjoyed by Bharatas, in the same way as the lion disdains to feed upon flesh which has been licked by other animals. It is perhaps for this reason that, in the fable, the lion's part means all the prey. The proud one becomes the violent one, the tyrant, and hence the monster. In the Âitareya Br.,[250] the earth, full of gifts[Pg 157] made by the right hand—that is, by the eastern part—presented by the Âdityâs (or luminous gods) to the Añgirasas (the seven solar rays, the seven wise men, and hence the priests), attacks, in the evening, the nations with its mouth wide open, having become a lioness (sinhîbhûtvâ). In the Râmâyaṇam,[251] the car that carries the monster Indraǵit is impetuously drawn by four lions. In the Tuti-Name,[252] we have the fable of the lion, instead of the wolf, that accuses the lamb, and the lion who is afraid of the ass, of the bull (as in the introduction to the Pańćatantram), and of the lynx. The Western lion-sun is now monstrous, now aged, now ill, now has a thorn in his foot,[253] is now blind, and now foolish. The monstrous lion who guards the monster's dwelling, the infernal abode, is found in a great number of popular stories. In Hellenic tradition the monstrous lion occurs more than once; such is the lion that ravages the country of the King of Megara, who promises his daughter to wife to the hero that will kill it; such is the lioness who, with her bloody jaws (the purple in the dog's mouth and the meat in the dog's mouth of the myths are of equivalent import) makes Thysbe's veil bloody, so that when Pyramos sees it he believes Thysbe to be dead, and kills himself;[Pg 158] when Thysbe sees this, she too kills herself in despair (an ancient form of the death of Romeo and Juliet); such is the Nemæan lion strangled by Hêraklês; such the lion of Mount Olympos which the young Polydamos kills without weapons; such were the leonine monsters with human faces which, according to Solinus, inhabited the Caspian; such was the Chimæra, part lion, part goat, and part dragon, and several other mythical figures of the passage of the evening sun into the gloom of night.

And it is under the conception of the lion as monstrous that the ancients were unanimous in believing that he fears above all animals the cock, and especially its fiery comb. The solar cock of morning entirely destroys the monsters. In a fable of Achilles Statius, the lion complains that Prometheus had allowed a cock to frighten him, but soon after consoles himself, upon learning that the elephant is tormented by the little mosquito that buzzes in its ears. Lucretius, too, in the fourth book De Rerum Naturâ represents the cock as throwing seeds:—

"Nimirum quia sunt Gallorum in corpore quædam Semina, quæ cum sint oculis immissa Leonum Pupillas interfodiunt acremque dolorem[254] Præbent, ut nequeant contra durare feroces." Sometimes the hero or god passes into the form of a lion to vanquish the monsters, like Dionysos, Apollon, Hêraklês, in Greece, and Indras and Visḥnus in India.[Pg 159] In the legend of St Marcellus, a lion having appeared to the saint in a vision as killing a serpent, this appearance was considered as a presage of good fortune to the enterprise of the Emperor Leo in Africa. Sometimes, on the other hand, hero and heroine become lion and lioness by the vengeance of deities or monsters. Atalanta defies the pretenders to her hand to outstrip her in running, and kills those who lose. Hippomenes, by the favour of the goddess of love, having received three apples from the garden of the Hesperides, provokes Atalanta to the race; on the way, he throws the apples down; Atalanta cannot resist the impulse to gather them up, and Hippomenes overtakes her, and unites himself with her in the wood sacred to the mother of the gods; the offended goddess transforms the young couple into a lion and a lioness. In the Gesta Romanorum, a girl, daughter of the Emperor Vespasian, kills the claimant of her hand in a garden, in the form of a ferocious lion. Empedokles, however, considered the transformation into a lion as the best of all human metamorphoses. When the sun enters into the sign of the lion, he arrives at his greatest height of power; and the golden crown which the Florentines placed upon their lion in the public square, on the day of St John, was a symbol of the approach of the season which they call by one word alone, sollione. This lion is enraged, and makes, as it is said, plants and animals rage. The pagan legend says of Prometheus—

"Insani leonis Vim stomacho apposuisse nostro."[255] But the mythical lion, the sun, does not inspire the man with rage alone, but strength also.[256]

[Pg 160]

The tiger, the panther, and the leopard possess several of the mythical characteristics of the lion as a hidden sun, with which they are, moreover, sometimes confounded in their character of omniform animals. The leopard was sacred to the god Pan, whose nature we already know, and the panther to Protheus and Dionysos, because it is said to have a liking for wine (we have seen the Vedic lion Indras in connection with honey, and Indras himself in connection with the somas), and because the nurses of Dionysos were transformed into panthers. Dionysos appears now surrounded by panthers, by means of which he terrifies pirates and puts them to flight, and now drawn by tigers. Dionysos is at the same time a phallical and an ambrosial god, and hence the god of wine; thus in India, Çivas, the phallical god, par excellence, and who is omniform like Tvashṭar and Yamas, his almost equivalent forms, has the tiger for his ensign, and is covered with a tiger's skin. It is a singular fact that in Hindoo tradition a murderous strength is attributed to the tiger's tail. A Hindoo proverb says that a hair of the tiger's tail may be the cause of losing one's life,[257] which naturally suggests to our minds the tiger Mantikora,[258] which has[Pg 161] in its tail hairs which are darts thrown by it to defend itself, and are spoken of by Ktesias, in Pausanias.

Finally, having considered the tiger, the panther, and the leopard, variegated and omniform animals, and compared them with the lion, whose combat with the serpent we have also mentioned, it is natural to add a few more words concerning the chameleon, of whose enmity to the serpent and medicinal virtues Greek and Latin authors have written at such length. The kṛikalâças or kṛikalâsas, or chameleon, is already spoken of in a Vedic Brâhmaṇam. In the fifty-fifth canto of the last book of the Râmâyaṇam, we read that King Nṛigas was condemned to remain invisible to all creatures in the form of a chameleon during many hundreds and thousands of years, until the god Vishṇus, humanised in the form of Vasudevas, will come to release him from this curse, incurred for having delayed to judge a controversy pending between two Brâhmans concerning the ownership of a cow and a calf. In the stories of grateful animals, as is well-known, the hero often earns their gratitude by intervening to divide their prey into just portions, while they are disputing over it themselves. From the last book of the Râmâyaṇam, we learn also that the form of the chameleon is that assumed by Kuveras, the god of riches, when the gods flee terrified from the sight of the monster Râvaṇas. As Yamas and Çivas are almost equivalent forms, so between Yamas and Kuveras there is the same relation as between Pluto and Plutus. To the tiger Çivas corresponds the chameleon Kuveras; and the chameleon god of wealth, enemy of the serpent, is closely connected in mythology with the lion Indras, with the lion that kills the monster serpent, and with the lion that covets the treasure.

[Pg 162]

CHAPTER XIV. THE SPIDER. SUMMARY.

Tuscan superstition relating to the spider; the red sky of evening.—The night, the moon, and the aurora as weavers.—Arachnê.—Âurṇavabhas.—Dhatâ and Vidhatâ.—Golden cloths.—The spider and his prey.—The golden veil.—The lake of fire and the witch burnt.—The eagle and the spider.—The sack made of a spider's web.

There is in Tuscany a very interesting superstition relating to the spider: it is believed that if a spider be seen in the evening it must not be burnt, as it is destined to bring good fortune; but when seen in the morning, it must be burnt without being touched. The evening and morning aurora are compared to the spider and the spider's web; the evening aurora must prepare the morning aurora during the night. We have quoted on a previous occasion the Piedmontese proverb, "Rosso di sera, buon tempo si spera" (red at night, we hope for fine weather). If the sun dies in the west without clouds, if the luminous spider shows itself in the western sky, it augurs for the morrow a fine morning and a fine day. In the Ṛigvedas we have on this subject several interesting data; the aurora weaved during the night (and is therefore called vayantî;[259] sometimes she is helped by[Pg 163] Râkâ, the full moon[260]) the robe for her husband. But, in another hymn, she is entreated to shine soon, and not to stretch out or weave her work too long, in order that the sun with his rays may not fall upon it and burn it like a thief.[261] In the legend of Odysseus, Penelopê undoes in the night the work of the day; this is another aspect of the same myth: Penelopê, as aurora, undoes her web at even, to weave it again at morn. The myth of Arachnê (the name of the spider, and of the celebrated Lydian virgin whom Athenê, the aurora, according to Professor Max Müller, taught to spin, and whose father was Idmon, a colourer in purple), whom Athenê, jealous of the skill she had acquired in weaving in purple colours, strikes on the forehead and transforms into a spider, is a variety of the same myth of the weaving aurora. When the spider becomes dark, and when its web is gloomy, then the spider, or son of the spider, or Âurṇavabhas, assumes a monstrous form. Âurṇavabhas (ûrṇavâbhis, ûrṇanâbhis, ûrṇanabhas, as spider, are already spoken of in the Vedic writings) is the name of the gloomy monster Vṛitras, killed by the god Indras, the terrible monster which Indras, immediately after his birth, is obliged to kill[262] at[Pg 164] the instigation of his mother. In the Mahâbhâratam[263] we find two women that spin and weave, Dhatâ and Vidhatâ; they weave upon the loom of the year with black and white threads, i.e., they spin the days and the nights. We, therefore, have a beneficent spider and a malignant one.

In the fourth story of the fifth book of the Pentamerone, the young Parmetella marries a black slave, who gives her as servants swans, "Vestute de tela d'oro, che, subeto 'ncignannola da capo a pede, la mesero 'n forma de ragno, che pareva propio na Regina." (The black man becomes a handsome youth during the night, perhaps as the moon; she wishes to see his features, and he disappears; this is a variety of the popular story of the wife's indiscretion.) In the fifth story of the second book of Afanassieff, the spider sets its web to catch flies, mosquitoes, and wasps; a wasp, being caught in the web, begs to be released in consideration of the many children that she will leave behind her (the same stratagem that is used by the hen against the fox in the Tuscan story previously mentioned.) The credulous spider lets her go; she then warns wasps, flies, and mosquitoes to keep hidden. The spider then asks help from the grasshopper, the moth, and the bug (nocturnal animals), who announce that the spider is dead, having given up the ghost upon the gibbet, which gibbet was afterwards destroyed (the evening aurora has disappeared into the night). The flies, mosquitoes, and wasps again come out, and fell into the spider's web (into the morning aurora). In the eighteenth story of the sixth book of Afanassieff, the beautiful girl who flees from the house of the witch that persecutes her, stretches out a veil, which, by the help of a beautiful young maiden (the[Pg 165] moon), she has embroidered with gold; immediately a great sea of fire springs up, into which the old witch falls and is burned; and here we come back to the popular Italian superstition that the spider must be burned in the morning.

The spider is an animal of the earth, but it weaves its web in the air; and as such—as intermediary between the animals of the earth and those of the air—supplies us with a bridge by which we may pass naturally from the first to the second part of the present work.[264] I hope that this bridge will prove as sufficient as the sack in which the young Esthonian hero carries the treasure away from hell, a sack composed of the threads of a spider, so strong that it is impossible to tear them. I wish I had, in the first book, some of the skill of the spider, and that I could weave with a few threads from the labyrinth of Âryan legendary tradition concerning animals a web which, if it be not as luminous as that of Arachnê, may be more durable than that of Penelopê.

[Pg 166]

[Pg 167]

Second Part. THE ANIMALS OF THE AIR. CHAPTER I. BIRDS. SUMMARY.

The sky-atmosphere and the sky-tree.—The sun, the Açvinâu, Indras, the Marutas, and Agnis as birds.—Indras cuts off the wings of the mountains.—Indras and Somas as two birds hovering round the same tree of honey.—The wisdom of birds.—The birds requested to sacrifice themselves to fulfil the duties of hospitality, refuse.—The dviǵas bird and brâhman.—Penitent birds.—Consolatory birds.—Presages of birds in India.—Verethraghna as a bird.—The bird's feather.—The red bird.—Grateful and prophetic birds.—The hero that understands the language of birds.—The bird and the two cypresses.—The hero becomes a bird by acquiring Solomon's ring.—The blue bird.—The bird caught by putting salt upon its tail.—The excrement of birds is propitious.—The demoniacal bird.—The bird that feeds the heroes.—Birds and poets; singers and prophets.—Auguries and auspices.—The auguries were laughed at in Greece.—Flight to right and to left.

The sky, especially by night, is conceived now as a road on which one can walk, and where sometimes the traveller may be lost, or make others lose their way; now as the air itself, in which one flies or is carried in flight, with the risk sometimes of falling; now as a tree, in which one speaks or builds nests, with the risk of the words[Pg 168] being sometimes sinister, or the nests falling; and now as a sea in which one navigates in peril of shipwreck.

The sky-atmosphere and the sky-tree are the world of the mythical flying birds and insects. The god, the demon, the hero, and the monster, when traversing this field, either take the forms of winged animals, or make use of them to ascend to the celestial paths, or else are conducted by them to their ruin.

The sun and the moon, the sunbeams, the thunderbolts, flashes of lightning, auroras, clouds that move and thunder, and the very shadows that move, often take in myths the forms of flying animals.

In the Ṛigvedas, the sun is called a bird (viḥ);[265] the Açvinâu come with the wheels of the car like a bird with feathers;[266] Indras is the well-winged red one;[267] the Marutas perch like birds upon the culm of buttered grass;[268] Agnis accomplishes the wish of the bird;[269] the well-winged ones of Agnis (i.e., the thunderbolts) appear as destroyers when the black bull has bellowed (that is, when the black cloud has thundered);[270] Savitar must not destroy the woods of the birds;[271] from the house of the aurora the birds come forth;[272] the goddesses and the[Pg 169] brides of the heroes are requested to come to the assistance of men with unclipt wings.[273] Finally, an interesting Vedic hymn shows us the sun and the moon, Indras and Somas, as two well-winged birds united in friendship, that continually fly round the same tree (i.e., the sky); of these, one eats the sweet pippalas, the other shines without eating. Both, well-winged, sing as they safely guard the treasure of ambrosia. The honey of this tree is called pippalas: of this tree all the birds eat the honey, and on it they build their nests.[274]

The wisdom of birds is much celebrated in popular Aryan tradition. On this subject the Mârkaṇdeya-P.[275] narrates a long and instructive legend.

The wise Gâiminis wishes some episodes of the great legend of the Mahâbhâratam, which seem obscure, to be explained to him. He has recourse to the learned Mârkaṇḍeyas; but the latter says he does not know how to enlighten him, and advises him to interrogate the birds, the best of the birds, sons of Droṇas, who know the essence of things, who meditate upon the sacred treatises, the birds Piñgâkshas, Vibodhas, Supattras, and Sumukhas, who will disperse his doubts. They live in a[Pg 170] cave in the middle of the Vindhyâs; let him go to them and ask them. Gâiminis wonders how simple birds can possess so much wisdom. Mârkaṇḍeyas then relates to him their genealogy. A nymph, who had seduced by her song the penitent Durvâsas, was condemned to be born again in the family of the bird Garuḍas, and to spend sixteen years in the form of a bird, until, after giving birth to four sons, she should be wounded by an arrow and regain once more her primitive form in heaven. As a bird she is named Târkshî, and is married to the bird Droṇas, who is wise and instructed in the Vedâs and Vedâñgâs. Târkshî is present at the battle between the Kâuravâs and the Pâṇḍavâs; a dart strikes her in the belly, from which four eggs that shine like the moon fall to the ground. After the battle, the ascetic Çamîkas approaches the place where the four eggs lie, and hears the young birds chirping ćićíkućí. The wise man marvels at seeing that they have escaped such carnage, concludes they must be Brâhmans, and thinks this a circumstance of most favourable augury and a presage of great fortune (mahâbhâgyapradarçinî). He carries the birds to his house, and places them where they run no risk of being harmed by cats, mice, hawks, or weasels. The birds are taken care of and nourished by the wise man, and grow up strong and learned, listening to the lessons that the wise man gives in school, and, being grateful to him as their deliverer, expressing their gratitude by means of words which, by exercise, they articulate clearly. Interrogated as to their previous existence, they remember that there was once a sage named Vipulâçvan, father of two children, Sukṛishas and Tumburus; these four were sons of Tumburus. Whilst they lived in the woods with their father, Indras, the king of the gods, comes to them in the form[Pg 171] of a gigantic old bird, and demands human flesh from the hospitable sage. The wise man wonders that a bird, so old, that is, at an age in which every desire should be extinguished, should be so cruel as to wish for human flesh. Nevertheless he requests (like Viçvâmitras in the legend of Çunaḥcepas previously mentioned) his own sons to sacrifice themselves in fulfilment of this duty. They do not at first refuse this act of hospitality, but when they hear that they are to be eaten by the bird, they decisively refuse, pleading, among other arguments, the physiological, or rather, materialistic one, that if they are virtuous, their virtue too will perish with their bodies, whilst, on the other hand, in order to preserve their virtue long, they think themselves bound to prolong their existence as much as possible (we have already seen the cat adopting a similar argument to justify his fatness). Their father, indignant at this refusal after giving their promise, curses them, condemning them to be born again as animals, and then magnanimously offers himself to the famished bird. Upon which Indras reveals himself in his proper divine form, and then disappears after blessing the sage. The sons beseech their father to release them from the malediction; he takes pity upon them, but is unable to revoke his words; it is only in his power to temper the severity of the punishment. They are condemned to retain the animal form; but in that form they are to be recompensed with the gift of insight into the mysteries of being. It is for this reason that, when Çamîkas finds them, he salutes them by the name of Brâhmans. For the rest, the equivoque is easily comprehensible, when we reflect that the word dviǵas, or twice born, means bird (that is, born first as an egg, and afterwards as an animal), as well as Brâhman (who, by taking the sacred cord, the prætexta, and the sacrament[Pg 172] of the holy oil, is born again). Etymology here assists our comprehension of the legend. In the same way as the Brâhman is the wisest of men, so are the dviǵâs or birds the wisest of animals. The birds, cursed by the hermit their father, go therefore to Mount Vindhyas, which is watered by many blessed streams, where they live as austere penitents. Gâiminis goes to consult them; when he approaches their abode, he hears them speaking distinctly to each other. He then comes up and sees them perched on the top of a rock. Gâiminis addresses them with amiable words; the birds answer him that, since so great a sage is come to visit them, their wish is accomplished and their curse come to an end. Then follow the questions of Gâiminis relating to Ǵanârdanas, Drâupadî, Baladevas, and the five sons of Drâupadî. The birds, before answering, sing a kind of hymn to Vishṇus, and expound his principal incarnations. In the Mahâbhâratam,[276] the ascetic Brâhmans go in the forms of birds to console the ṛishis Mândavyas, impaled by order of the king, for having given hospitality to the robbers of the royal booty.

Birds know everything, and hence presages are taken especially from them, whence the name auspicium or augurium, applied specifically to a presage. In the last book of the Râmâyaṇam,[277] the monsters are terrified by such omens as the following:—"Thousands of vultures and ducks with mouths that throw flames, which form a circle like that of the god of death upon the battalions of the monsters; the doves, the red-feet, the sârikâs (turdus salicæ) were dispersed."

In the Avesta, Verethraghna often appears as a bird, and as understanding the language of birds. A bird's feather, in the Avesta, assists Verethraghna, as in Firdusi,[Pg 173] a feather of the bird Simurg, burnt by Zal, calls up to his assistance the bird Simurg in person.[278] According to a legend of the Khorda-Avesta, the splendour of the old Yima, who had become proud and false-tongued (thus, in India, the celestial Yamas and the happy Çivas become infernal destroying deities), fled away in the form of a bird. According to the popular superstition of White Russia, the little bird diedka (the little one), is the guardian of treasures and has eyes of fire and a fiery beard (this is doubtless a representation of the demoniacal sun of evening, of Kuveras or of Plutos.[Pg 174][279]) In the Contes Merveilleux of Porchat, the red bird appears as a messenger.

In the legend of Sal, in Firdusi, there is a riddle about two cypresses, one withered and the other verdant, upon first the one and then the other of which a bird regularly builds his nest. The hero Sal, who solves the riddle, says that the two cypresses are the two opposite seasons[Pg 175] of the year or the two sides of the sky, and that the bird is the sun.[280]

In the eighteenth Esthonian story, two birds, speaking to each other, signify where the famous enchanted ring of Solomon is to be found, which the young hero is looking for. When the hero finds the ring, he is able to transform himself at will into a bird; but the daughter of hell, in the shape of an eagle, carries it off from him. In the fourth Esthonian story, the girl of seven years of age becomes, by beneficent magic, a bird, when she is obliged to travel far. In the thirty-fifth of the stories of Santo Stefano di Calcinaia, the wife of the bird-catcher terrifies the devil in the form of an enormous and monstrous bird. In the fifth story of the fourth book of the Pentamerone, a fairy in the form of a bird arrests the arm of the king of Alta-Marina whilst he is about to kill his own wife Portiella. The fairy was grateful to the young woman, because, when she was asleep in a wood, Portiella had awakened her to deliver her from a satyr who was attempting to violate her.[281] The king shuts Portiella up in a tower without light; the bird makes a hole in it and brings food to her, stealing the fowls from the kitchen during the cook's absence. Portiella gives birth to a son, who is also nourished by the bird. The oiseau bleu, couleur du temps, of the story of Madame d'Aulnoy, who flies at night from the cypress to the window of the beautiful imprisoned Florine, is a beautiful[Pg 176] variety of this same story. Several Russian stories end with the following refrain of an azure bird (sinićka, little azure one): "little azure one flies and says, Azure, but beautiful."[282] Inasmuch as the sun of morning, or spring, comes out of the dark-blue bird of night, or of winter, we can understand the popular Italian and German superstition, that when the excrement of a bird falls upon a man it is an omen of good luck. The excrement of the mythical bird of night, or of winter, is the sun. Considered in connection with morning or spring, the dark-coloured bird of night, or winter, is propitious; considered by itself, or in relation to the evening sun or the dying summer, it is a funereal and diabolical animal. Such is the bird Kâmek of the Avesta, which stretches its wings over all mankind, which carries off and hides the sun, creates darkness, keeps back the waters and devours all creatures, until after seven years and seven nights, the hero Kereçâçpa strikes it and makes it fall.

Moreover, the bird that brings food is a subject which is very popular in almost all the traditions of the Indo-European nations. Every one has heard of the bird which nourished Semiramis, abandoned by her mother in a desert and stony place, with curdled milk and cheese[Pg 177] (the moonlight), stolen from the neighbouring flocks of sheep, according to the narrative of Diodorus Siculus; and the same Persian bird nourishes, according to the legend, several other children, future heroes of Iran, who had been similarly exposed; in the legend of Romulus and Remus, the woodpecker assumes the same place and office as the nurse she-wolf. In the watery night and the watery winter, the solar child-hero, abandoned to himself, is nourished by birds. The nightingale or singer of the night sends forth his melodious notes from the nocturnal tree, predicting thus the renewal of daylight; in the tree-cloud, the thunder rumbles, the oracle speaks, and the bird prophesies. Theokritos calls poets the birds of the Muses (mousôn ornithas). The kokilas is the bird of the Hindoo poets and teaches them melody; to this bird corresponds the Hindoo Kyknos of the Tuti-Name, of which it is said that it has innumerable holes in its beak, from each of which a melodious sound comes forth.

The Hindoo kavis, the Latin vates, and the Hellenic mantis represent at once both the singer and the sage; thus the singers of the woods are at the same time omniscient prophets. They began with prophecies about the weather, as the thunder announces the storm, and finished by prophesying everything. The peasantry of Tuscany endeavour to this day to guess what weather it will be on the morrow from the songs of the birds.[283] The augures, the auguremens, the aucelli, and the aruspices were preserved even in the Middle Ages, according[Pg 178] to the testimony of Du Cange.[284] As to the auguries and auspices of the ancient Greeks and Romans, I refer the reader to the numerous erudite works which treat of them in a particular manner. I must observe, however, that whilst among the Latins augury was deemed such a solemn thing that Publius Claudius and Lucius Junius were judged worthy of death for having set out on a voyage against the will of the auguries, and that whilst ave, that is to say, good augury, was still the solemn formula of Roman salutation, the Greeks had already turned auguries and auspices into derision. The reader remembers, no doubt, how in the Iliad the hero Hektor declares that he cares not whether the birds go to the right, towards the aurora and the sun, or to the left, towards the sunset. In Eusebius[285] we read that a bird was presented to Alexander, the Macedonian, when on the point of setting out for the Red Sea, in order that he might read the auguries by it according to custom; Alexander, in answer, killed the bird with an arrow; the bystanders being offended by this breach of the rules, the Macedonian hero added, "What folly is this? In what way could this bird, which could not foresee its death by this arrow, predict the fortunes of our journey?" Auguries and auspices were also taken in India. According to the Râmâyaṇam,[286] birds seen at a wedding to go to the left, are a sinister omen;[287] birds that fly, crying, to[Pg 179] the left of Râmas, announce to him a serious disaster, viz., the carrying off of Sîtâ.[288]

[Pg 180]

CHAPTER II. THE HAWK, THE EAGLE, THE VULTURE, THE PHŒNIX, THE HARPY, THE STRIX, THE BAT, THE GRIFFON, AND THE SIREN. SUMMARY.

The bird of prey the most heroic of birds.—Indras as a hawk.—The hawk and the ambrosia; the ambrosia as sperm.—The bird of prey and the serpent.—Agnis, the Açvinâu, and the Marutas as hawks.—The place of sacrifice has the form of an eagle.—The two sons of Vinaṭâ.—Garuḍas, the bird of Vishṇus; he fights against the monsters.—Genealogy of the vultures.—Ǵâtâyus and Sampatis.—The king or the young hero who offers himself up to be devoured by the hawk or the eagle.—The grateful hawk or eagle.—Çyena and Çaena; Simurg; the feather of the bird of prey.—The birds as clouds.—The eagles as winds; Aquila and Aquilo.—The hawks as luminous birds; the eagles as demoniacal ones.—Accipiter.—The hawk as an emblem of nobility.—The hawk as the ensign of Attila.—The hawk in Hellenic antiquity.—The kite among the stars; it discharges its body upon the image of the god.—The beetle, the eagle, and Zeus.—The eagle as the thunderbolt or sceptre of Zeus.—The eagle presages supreme power and fertility; the eagle and the laurel.—The eagle carries off the robes of Aphroditê.—The eagle takes away the slippers of Rhodopê.—The eagle kills Æschilos.—Nisos and Scylla.—The vulture in ancient classical authors.—The vultures in hell.—The learned vulture.—Voracity of the vulture.—Imaginary birds.—The sun as a phoenix.—The demoniacal harpies or Furiæ, canes Jovis.—Strix and striges; they suck blood.—Proca and Crane.—Bats and vampires.—The Stymphalian birds.—The birds of Seleucia.—The Gryphes and the Arimaspi.—The griffons sacred to Nemesis; the hypogriff, gryphos, logogriph, griffonage.—The Siren now as a bird, now as a fish.—Circe; a lunar myth.

[Pg 181]

The most heroic of birds is the bird of prey; the strength of its beak, wings, and claws, its size and swiftness, caused it to be regarded as a swift celestial messenger, carrier, and warrior.

The hawk, the eagle, and the vulture, three powerful birds of prey, generally play the same part in myths and legends; the creators of myths having from the first observed their general resemblance, without paying any regard to their specific differences.

The bird of prey, in mythology, is the sun, which now shines in its splendour, and now shows itself in the cloud or darkness by sending forth flashes of lightning, thunderbolts, and sunbeams. The flash, the thunderbolt, and the sunbeam are now the beak, now the claw of the bird of prey, and now, the part being sometimes taken for the whole, even the entire bird.

In the Ṛigvedas, the god Indras often appears in the form of a hawk or çyenas. Indras is like a hawk that flies swiftly over the other hawks, and, being well-winged, carries to men the food tasted by the gods.[289] He is enclosed in a hundred iron fortresses; nevertheless, with swiftness, he succeeds in coming out of them;[290] while flying away, he carries in his claw the beautiful, virgin, luminous ambrosia, by means of which life is prolonged and the dead brought to life again[291] (the rain, which is also confounded with the ambrosial humour of the moon.[Pg 182] In the first strophe of the same hymn, Indus is also called ambrosia).[292] The hawk with iron claws kills the hostile demons,[293] has great power of breathing, and draws from afar the chariot with a hundred wheels.[294] However, while the hawk carries the ambrosia through the air, he trembles for fear of the archer Kṛiçânus,[295] who, in fact, shot off one of his claws (of which the hedgehog was born, according to the Âiṭareya Br.,[296] and according to the Vedic hymn,[297] one of his feathers which, falling on the earth, afterwards became a tree). After the victory gained over Ahis, the serpent-demon, Indras flees like a terrified hawk.[298] This is the first trace of the legendary and proverbial enmity between the bird of prey and the serpent. In the third book of the Râmâyaṇam, Râvaṇas says that he will carry off Sîtâ as the well-winged one (carries off) the serpent (suparṇaḥ pannaǵamiva).

Nor is Indras alone a hawk in the Ṛigvedas, but Agnis[Pg 183] too. Mâtariçvân and the hawk agitate, the one the heavenly fire, the other the ambrosia of the mountain.[299] The chariot of the Açvinâu is also sometimes drawn by hawks, as swift as heavenly vultures.[300] They are themselves compared to two vultures that hover round the tree where the treasure is[301] (we have seen in the preceding chapter that the tree is the sky). The Marutas are also called Gṛidhrâs or vultures (falcons according to Max Müller.[302]) In the Ṛigvedas, again, when the sun goes to the sea, he looks with a vulture's eye.[303] On account of this form of a bird of prey, often assumed by the solar god in the Vedic myths, we read in the Âitareya Br., that the place destined for the sacrifice had the same shape. In the Râmâyaṇam we find, in the sacrifice of a horse, that the place of sacrifice has the form of the bird Garuḍas, the powerful mythical eagle of the Hindoos. In the 149th hymn of the tenth book of the Ṛigvedas, the ancient well-winged son of the sun Savitar is already named Garutman. The mythical bird is the equivalent of the winged solar horse, or hippogriff; indeed, the 118th hymn of the first book of the Ṛigvedas, soon after celebrating the hawks that draw the chariot of the Açvinâu, calls them beautiful flying horses (açvâ vapushaḥ pataṁgâḥ). We have observed that of the two twins, or the two brothers, one prevails over the other. Thus[Pg 184] of the two mythical vultures, of the two sons of Vinatâ, in the legend of the Mahâbhâratam,[304] their mother having broken the egg before the proper time, one, Aruṇas, is born imperfect, and curses his mother, condemning her to be the slave of her rival Kadrû for five thousand years, until her other son, the luminous, perfect, and powerful solar bird Garuḍas, comes to release her. Aruṇas becomes the charioteer of the sun; Garuḍas is, instead, the steed of the god Vishṇus, the solar horse, the sun itself, victorious in all its splendour. No sooner are the two birds born, than the horse Uććâiḥçravas also appears, which again signifies that solar bird and solar horse are identical. Like the hawk Indras, or the hawk of Indras, Garuḍas, the bird of Vishṇus, or Vishṇus himself, is thirsty, drinks many rivers,[305] carries off from the serpents the ambrosia, protected (as in the Ṛigvedas) by a circle of iron. Like Vishṇus, Garuḍas, from being very tall, makes himself very little, penetrates among the serpents, covers them with dust and blinds them; it is, indeed, on account of this feat that Vishṇus adopts him for his celestial steed.[306] The god Vishṇus goes on the back of the well-winged one to fight against the monsters;[307] indignant with them, he throws them to the ground with the flapping of his wings; the monsters aim their darts at him as another form of the hero, and he fights on his own account and for the hero.[308] When the bird Garuḍas appears, the fetters of the monsters, which compress like serpents the two brothers Râmas and Lakshmaṇas, are loosed, and the two young heroes rise more handsome and stronger than before.[309] The Nishâdâs come from their damp abodes, enter into the gaping jaws of Garuḍas[Pg 185] in thousands, enveloped by the wind and the dust.[310] (The sun of morning and that of spring devour the black monsters of night and of winter.)

Hitherto we have seen the hawk, the eagle (as Garuḍas), and the vulture exchanged for each other; even the Hindoo mythical genealogy confirms this exchange. According to the Râmâyaṇam,[311] of Tâmrâ (properly the reddish one; she also gave birth to Krâuńći, the mother of the herons) was born Çyenî (that is, the female hawk); of Çyenî was born Vinaṭâ. Vinaṭâ (properly the bent one) laid the egg whence Aruṇas and Garuḍas came forth (the two Dioskuroi also came, as is well known, out of the egg of Léda, united with the swan); Garuḍas was in his turn father of two immense vultures, Gâtâyus and Sampatis. In this genealogy the ascending movement of the sun appears to be described to us, like the myth of the sun Vishṇus, who, from a dwarf, becomes a giant. The vulture Gâtâyus knows everything that has happened in the past, and everything that will come to pass in the future, inasmuch as, like the Vedic sun, he is viçvavedas, all-seeing, omniscient, and has traversed the whole earth. In the Râmâyaṇam we read of the last fierce battle of the aged vulture Gâtâyus with the terrible monster Râvaṇas, who carries off the beautiful Sîtâ during the absence of her husband Râmas. Gâtâyus, although old in years, rises into the air to prevent the carrying off of Sîtâ by Râvaṇas in a chariot drawn by asses; the vulture breaks with his strong claws the bow and arrow of Râvaṇas, strikes and kills the asses, splits the chariot in two, throws the charioteer down, forces Râvaṇas to leap to the ground, and wounds him in a thousand ways; but at last the king of the monsters succeeds with his sword[Pg 186] in cutting off the wings, feet, and sides of the faithful bird, who expires in pain and grief, whilst the demon carries the ravished woman into Lañkâ.

Thus far, therefore, we always find in the bird of prey a friend of the hero and the god. Such is also, in the Râmâyaṇam,[312] the immense vulture that comes to place itself, and to vomit blood upon the standard of the monster Kharas, to predict his misfortunes to him; and such is the elder brother of Gâtâyus, the vulture Sampatis, who, coming out of a cavern, informs the great monkey Hanumant where Sîtâ may be found. Sampatis, after having seen Hanumant, recovers his own wings, which had been burnt by the sun's rays, once when he had wished to defend his younger brother from them whilst they were flying together too high up in the regions of the sun[313] (a variety of the Hellenic legend of Dedalus and Icarus, of that of Hanumant who wished to fly after the sun in order to catch it, and of that of the two Açvinâu).

When, in the very popular Hindoo legend of the Buddhist king who sacrifices himself instead of the dove that had looked for hospitality from him, the hawk appears as the persecutor of the dove, this apparent persecution is only a trial that Indras, the hawk, and Agnis, the dove, wish to make of the king's virtue. No sooner does the hawk see that the king offers himself up to be devoured by the hawk, who complains that the king has taken his prey, the dove, from him, than both hawk and dove reassume their divine form, and cover the holy king with benedictions.[314] Indras and Agnis, united together, are[Pg 187] also themselves a form of the two Açvinâu, like the two faithful doves that sacrifice themselves in the third book of Pańćatantram.

The wise çaena of the Avesta has a character nearly resembling the Vedic bird çyenas. According to the Bundehesh, two çaenas stay at the gates of hell, which correspond to the two crepuscular hawks or vultures of[Pg 188] the Vedâs. The bird with wings that strike, into which the hero Thraetaona is transformed in the Khorda Avesta, whilst it reminds us of the Hindoo warrior vulture, can serve as a link to join together the Zendic çaena and the Persian Simurg. The bird Simurg has its marvellous nest upon Mount Alburs, upon a peak that touches the sky, and which no man has ever yet seen. The child Sal is exposed upon this mountain; he is hungry and cold,[Pg 189] and cries out; the bird Simurg passes by, hears his cry, takes pity upon him, and carries the child to its solitary peak. A mysterious voice blesses the glorious bird, who nourishes the boy, instructs, protects, and strengthens him, and, when he lets him go, gives him one of his own feathers, saying that when he is in danger he must throw this feather into the fire, and he will come at once to assist him,[315] and take him back into the kingdom. He[Pg 190] only asks him never to forget his faithful and loving preserver. He then carries the young hero to his father's palace. The king praises the divine bird in the following words:—"O king of birds! Heaven has given thee strength and wisdom; thou art the assister of the needy, propitious to the good and the consoler of the afflicted; may evil be dispersed before thee, and may thy greatness last for ever." In the fifth adventure of Isfendiar, in Firdusi, the gigantic bird Simurg appears, on the contrary, as demoniacal as he that dims the sunbeams with his wings (in the Birds of Aristophanes, when a great number of birds appear, the spectators cry out, "O Apollo, the clouds!") Isfendiar fights with him, and cuts him to pieces.

In Scandinavian and German mythology, while the hawk is generally a luminous shape, preferred by the heroes, and by Freya, the eagle is a gloomy form preferred by demons, or at least by the hero or god (like Odin)[Pg 191][316] hidden in the gloomy night or in the windy cloud. The Edda tells us that the winds are produced by the shaking of the wings of a giant, who sits in the form of an eagle at the extremity of the sky; the aquila and the wind called aquilo by the Latins, as they correspond etymologically, seem also to be mythically identical. I have observed on a previous occasion that in the Edda the witch rides upon a wolf, using eagles as reins. In the Nibelungen, Krimhilt sees in a dream his beloved hawk strangled by two eagles.

On the other hand, the swallows sing to Sigurd in the Edda, predicting to him his meeting with the beautiful warrior maiden who, coming forth from the battles, rides upon an eagle. But this warlike girl was, however, destined to cause the death of Sigurd.

In the chapter on the elephant, we saw how the bird Garuḍas transported into the air an elephant, a tortoise, a bough of a tree, and hermits. In the Greek variety of the same myth, we have the eagle instead of Garuḍas. In the Edda, three Ases (Odin, Loki, and Hönir) are cooking an ox under a tree; but from the summit of the tree, an eagle interrupts the cooking of the meat, because it wishes to have a share. The Ases consent; the eagle carries off nearly every thing, upon which Loki, indignant, wounds the eagle with a stake; but whilst one end of the stake remains attached to the eagle, the other is fastened to Loki's hand, and the eagle carries him up into the air. Loki feels his arms break, and implores the eagle to have compassion upon him; the gigantic bird lets him go, on condition of obtaining, instead of him, Iduna and her apples.[317] In the twenty-third story of the[Pg 192] fifth book of Afanassieff, the eagle, after having been benefited by a peasant, eats up his sheep. The name of eagles was given during the Middle Ages to certain demons which were said to appear in the form of an eagle, especially on account of their rapacious expression, and aquiline nose.[318]

The hawk, on the other hand, I repeat, usually appears as divine, in opposition to all that is diabolical. In the twenty-second story of the fifth and the forty-sixth of the sixth book of Afanassieff, the hero transforms himself into a hawk, in order to strangle the cock into which the devil has metamorphosed himself (a Russian proverb, however, says of the devil that he is more pleasing than the luminous hawk).[319] When they wished, in[Pg 193] popular Russian phraseology, to express something that it is impossible to overtake, it was said, "Like the hurricane in the field, and the luminous hawk in the sky." We know that the Latin accipiter and the Greek ôküpteros mean the swift-winged. In the seventh story of the first book of Afanassieff, the hawk appears in opposition to the black crow. When the young girl, disguised as a man, succeeds in deceiving the Tzar three times, she says to him, "Ah! thou crow, crow; thou hast not known, O crow, how to catch the hawk in a cage."

The hawk was one of the distinctive badges of the mediæval cavalier; even ladies kept them. Krimhilt brings up a wild hawk; Brunhilt, when she throws herself upon the funeral pyre, that she may not survive Sigurd, has two dogs and two hawks immolated along with her. On the sepulchres of mediæval cavaliers and ladies, a hawk was not unfrequently found, as an emblem of their nobility. According to a law of the year 818, the sword and hawk belonging to the losing cavalier were to be respected by his conqueror, and left unappropriated; the hawk to hunt, and the sword to fight with. In Du Cange, we read that in 1642 Monsieur De Sassay claimed as his feudal right, "ut nimirum accipitrem suum ponere possit super altare majus ecclesiæ Ebraicensis (of Evreux), dum sacra in eo peragit ocreatus, calcaribusque instructus presbyter parochus d'Ezy, pulsantibus tympanis, organorum loco." According to the law of the Burgundians, he who attempted to steal another man's hawk was, before all, obliged to conciliate the hawk itself by giving it to eat (sex uncias carnis acceptor ipse super testones comedat); or if the hawk refused to eat, the robber had to pay an indemnity to the proprietor, besides a fine (sex solidos illi cujus acceptor est, cogatur exsolvere;[Pg 194] mulctæ autem nomine solidos duos). According to information supplied me by my learned friend Count Geza Kuun, the hawk (turul) was the military ensign of Attila. According to a tradition preserved in the chronicle of Keza and of Buda, Emesu, mother of Attila, saw in a dream a hawk which predicted a happy future to her, after which dream she became pregnant.

Nor was the hawk less honoured in Hellenic antiquity; according to Homer, it was the rapid messenger of Apollo; the spy of Apollo, sacred to Zeus, according to Ælianos; having after death the faculty of vaticination, according to Porphyrios (who even recommends the heart of a hawk, a stag, or a mole to any one about to practise divination). In the Iliad, Apollo coming down from Mount Ida, is compared to the swift hawk, the killer of doves, the swiftest of all birds. Many are the superstitious beliefs concerning the hawk collected by Ælianos; such as, for instance, that it does not eat the hearts of animals; that it weeps over a dead man; that it buries unburied bodies, or at least puts earth upon their eyes, in which it thinks it sees the sun again, upon which, as its most beloved star, it always fixes its gaze; that it loves gold; that it lives for seven hundred years; not to mention the extraordinary medical virtues which are always attributed to every sacred animal, and which are particularly considered as essential to the sacred hawk. Several of the qualities of the sacred hawk passed also into other falcons of inferior quality, the kite (milvius),[320] for instance, of which it is said that it was placed among the stars for having carried to Zeus the entrails of the monster bull-serpent, and, according to the third book of Ovid's Fasti, for[Pg 195] having brought back to Zeus the lost ring (an ancient form of the mediæval ring of Solomon, i.e., the solar disc):—

"Jupiter alitibus rapere imperat, attulit illi, Milvius, et meritis venit in astra suis." With regard to the kite, we find an apologue,[321] according to which the kite, at the point of death, asks its mother to beg grace from the neighbouring statue of the god, and especially forgiveness, for the sacrilege which it had frequently committed, discharging its body upon the image of the god (the sun upon the sky).

A richer variety of this story is found in another apologue, which illustrates a Greek proverb ("æton kantaros maieusomai"); but instead of the hawk, we have the beetle, and instead of the statue, the god himself, Zeus, with eagle's eggs in his lap. The beetle (the hostess-moon), wishing to punish the eagle, which had violated the laws of hospitality with regard to the hare (also the moon), attempts to destroy its eggs; the eagle goes and places them in the lap of Zeus; the beetle, who knows that Zeus hates everything that is unclean, lets some dung fall upon him; Zeus forgets the eggs, shakes himself, and breaks them. Here the eagle is identified with Zeus, as in the Vedic hymns the hawk with Indras. In the first of Pindar's Pythic odes, the poet speaks of the eagle as sleeping on the sceptre of Zeus (as a thunderbolt, which is the real sceptre of Zeus). The eagle of Zeus is also represented as holding the thunderbolt in its claws, which is in accordance with[Pg 196] the sentence, "Fulmina sub Jove sunt." When Zeus is equipping himself to fight against the Titans, the eagle brings his dart to him, for which reason Zeus adopted the eagle as his ensign of war. In Dion Cassius, the eagles let the golden thunderbolts drop out of their talons into the camp of the Pompeians, and fly towards the camp of Cæsar to announce his victory. We find very numerous examples in the ancient classics of eagles that presage now victory, now supreme power to the heroes, that now nourish, now save them, and now sacrifice themselves for them.[322] The eagle of Zeus, the royal eagle, does not feed upon flesh, but upon herbs, properly upon the moisture of these herbs, by means of which we can comprehend the rape of Ganymede, the cup-bearer of Zeus, carried off by the eagle in the same way as the hawk of Indras carries off the somas in the Ṛigvedas. The Hellenic eagle is generally, like Zeus, a bringer of light, fertility, and happiness. Pliny narrates of an eagle, that immediately after the wedding of Augustus it let fall, as an omen of fecundity in the family of Augustus, into the lap of Livia Drusilla a white hen, having a branch of laurel in its beak; this branch was planted, and grew into a dense laurel-grove; the hen had so many descendants, that afterwards the villa where this happened was called the Villa of the Hens. Suetonius adds that in the last year of the life of Nero all the hens died, and all the laurel plants were dried up. We also find the eagle in connection with the laurel in the myth of Amphiaraos, whose spear, carried off by the eagle and plunged into the ground, grew into a laurel plant.

[Pg 197]

In the first chapter of the first book, when speaking of the myth of the aurora, we mentioned the young hero who disrobes the beautiful princess on the bank of the river and carries her apparel away. In the Hellenic myth we find a zoological variety of this myth. Aphroditê (here the evening aurora) bathes in the Acheloos (the river of night); Hermês (the extreme western light, and perhaps even the moon) becomes enamoured of her, and makes the eagle (the bird of night) carry off her garments, to obtain which, Aphroditê satisfies the desire of Hermês. In Strabo we find a variation of the same story which reminds us of the fairy-tale of Cinderella. Whilst Rhodopê is bathing, the eagle snatches one of her slippers out of her maid's hands and carries it off to the king of Memphis, who, seeing the slipper, falls in love with the foot that wore it, gives orders to search everywhere for the girl to whom the slipper belongs, and, when Rhodopê is found, marries her. Ælianos says that this king was Psammetichos. But the Hellenic eagle is divine as long as the god Zeus, whom it represents, is propitious; when Zeus becomes the tyrant of heaven, and condemns Prometheus to be bound upon a rock, the eagle goes to gnaw at his heart. And because the poet Æschilos glorified Prometheus, making him curse the tyranny of Zeus, hence, doubtless, arose the legend that Æschilos was, when old and bald, killed by a tortoise, which the eagle, mistaking the head of Æschilos for a white rock, had let fall from the sky in order to break it and feed upon it. The eagle which, according to Theophrastos, announced death to the cutters of black hellebore, was also a funereal and demoniacal bird. In the eighth book of Ovid's Metamorphoses, King Nisos, the golden-haired (the sun of evening), is transformed into a marine eagle (the night or winter), when his[Pg 198] daughter Scylla (the night, or winter), in order to give him up to his enemies, destroys his strength by cutting his hair (an evident variation of the solar legend of Delilah and Samson).

The vulture, too, is a sacred bird in the legends of ancient classical authors; Herodotos says that it is very dear to Hêraklês (the killer of the eagle that gnaws at the heart of Prometheus, who had made for the hero the cup in which he had been enabled to cross the sea); it announces sovereign dominion to Romulus, Cæsar, and Augustus. Pliny writes that burnt vulture's feathers make serpents flee; the same feathers, according to Pliny, have the property of facilitating parturition, inasmuch as, as St Jerome writes (adversus Jovinianum ii.), "Si medicorum volumina legeris, videbis tot curationes esse in vulture, quot sunt membra."[323] Two vultures (a form of the Açvinâu) eat every day, in hell, the liver that continually grows again (the immortale jecur of Virgil) of the giant Tityo, the offender of Latona (the moon), dear to Jupiter. (The monster of night is killed every day and rises again every night). The two youths Ægipios and Nephrôn are another form of the Açvinâu, who, hating each other on account of the love which each has for the other's mother, are changed by Zeus into two vultures, after that Ægipios, by a stratagem of Nephrôn, united himself with his own mother. Iphiklos consults the birds to have children, from the vulture downwards, who alone knew how to assign the reason why Iphiklos had no children and indicate the means of obtaining them. Philakos had tried to kill Iphiklos; not having succeeded, he fastened his sword[Pg 199] on a wild pear-tree; around the sword a covering of bark grew, which hid it from the sight of men. The vulture shows the place where this tree grows, and advises Iphiklos to take the bark off, to clean the rust off the sword, and after ten days to drink the rust in a toast; Iphiklos thus obtains offspring.

The vulture, therefore, generally preserves in Græco-Latin tradition the heroic and divine character which it has in Indian tradition, although its voracity became proverbial in ancient popular phraseology. Lucian calls a great eater the greatest of all the vultures. Moreover, the special faculty of distinguishing the smell of a dead body, even before death, is attributed to him; whence Seneca, in an epistle against the man who covets the inheritance of a living person, says "Vultur es, cadaver expecta," and Plautus in the Truculentus says of certain parasitical servants: "Jam quasi vulturii triduo prius prædivinabant, quo die esituri sient."

Besides these royal birds of prey that become mythical, there are several mythical birds of prey that never existed, still to be noticed, such as the phœnix, the harpy, the griffon, the strix, the Seleucide birds, the Stymphalian birds, and the sirens. Popular imagination believed in their terrestrial existence for a long time, but it can be said of them all as of the Arabian Phœnix:—

"All affirm that it exists; Where it is no one can tell."[324] In point of fact, no man has ever seen them; a few deities or heroes alone approached them; their seat is in the sky, where, according to their several natures and[Pg 200] the different places occupied by the sun or the moon in the sky, they attract, ravish, seduce, enchant, or destroy.

The phœnix is, beyond all doubt, the eastern and western sun; hence Petrarch was able to say with reason,

"Nè 'n ciel nè 'n terra è più d'una Fenice," as there is not more than one sun; and we, like the ancient Greeks, say of a rare man or object, that he or it is a phœnix. Tacitus, who narrates, in the fourteenth book, the fable of the phœnix, calls it animal sacrum soli; Lactantius says that it alone knows the secrets of the sun—

"Et sola arcanis conscia Phœbe tuis," and represents it as rendering funereal honours to its father in the temple of the sun; Claudian calls it solis avem and describes its whole life in a beautiful little poem.

It is born in the East, in the wood of the sun, and until it has assumed its whole splendid shape it feeds upon dew and perfumes, whence Lactantius—

"Ambrosios libat cœlesti nectare rores Stellifero teneri qui cecidere polo. Hos legit, his mediis alitur in odoribus ales, Donec maturam proferat effigiem." It then feeds upon all that it sees. When it is about to die it thinks only of its new birth—

"Componit bustumque sibi, partumque futurum" (Claudian); inasmuch as it is said to deposit a little worm, the colour of milk, in its nest, which becomes a funeral pyre,

"Fertur vermis lacteus esse color" (Lactantius). Before dying, it invokes the sun:

"Hic sedet, et solem blando clangore salutat Debilior, miscetque preces, et supplice cantu Præstatura novas vires incendia poscit; Quem procul abductis vidit cum Phœbus habenis, Stat subito, dictisque pium solatur alumnum" (Claudian).[Pg 201] The sun extinguishes the conflagration, which consumes the phœnix, and out of which it has to arise once more. At last the phœnix is born again with the dawn—

"Atque ubi sol pepulit fulgentis lumina portæ, Et primi emicuit luminis aura levis, Incipit illa sacri modulamina fundere cantus, Et mira lucem voce ciere novam" (Lactantius). In my opinion, no more proofs are required to demonstrate the identity of the phœnix with the sun of morning and of evening, and, by extension, with that of autumn and of spring. That which was fabled concerning it in antiquity, and by reflection, in the Middle Ages, agrees perfectly with the twofold luminous phenomenon of the sun that dies and is born again every day and every year out of its ashes, and of the hero or heroine who traverses the flames of the burning pyre intact.

The nature of the phœnix is the same as that of the burning bird (szar-ptitza) of Russian fairy tales, which swallows the dwarf who goes to steal its eggs (the evening aurora swallows the sun).[325]

The solar bird of evening is a bird of prey; it draws to itself with its damp claw; it draws into the darkness of night; it has night behind it; its appearance is charming and its countenance alluring, but the rest of its body is as horrid as its nature.

Virgil and Dante ascribe women's faces to the Harpies—

"Ali hanno late e colli e visi umani Piè con artigli e pennuto il gran ventre." Rutilius[326] says that their claws are glutinous—

"Quæ pede glutineo, quod tetigere trahunt."[Pg 202] Others give them vultures' bodies, bears' ears, arms and feet of men, and the white breasts of women. Servius, speaking of the name they bear of canes Jovis, notes that this epithet was given them because they are the Furies in person, "Unde etiam epulas apud Virgilium abripiunt, quod Furiarum est." Ministers of the vengeance of Zeus, they contaminate the harvests of the king-seer Phineus, inspired by Apollo, whom some consider to be a form of Prometheus, the revealer of the secret of Zeus to mankind, and others, the blinder of his own sons.

The bird of prey, the evening solar bird, becomes a strix, or witch, during the night. We have already noticed the popular belief that the cat, at seven years of age, becomes a witch. An ancient superstition given by Aldrovandi also recognises witches in cats, and adds that, in this form, they suck the blood of children. The same is done by the witches of popular stories,[327] and by the striges. During the night they suck the blood of children; that is to say, the night takes away the colour, the red, the blood of the sun. Ovid, in the sixth book of the Fasti, represents the maleficent striges as follows:

"Nocte volant, puerosque petunt nutricis egentes, Et vitiant cunis corpora rapta suis. Carpere dicuntur lactentia viscera rostris, Et plenum poto sanguine guttur habent." Festus derives the word strix à stringendo, from the[Pg 203] received opinion that they strangle children. The striges, in the book of the Fasti, previously quoted, attack the child Proca, who is only five days old—

"Pectoraque exhorbent avidis infantia linguis." The nurse invokes the help of Crane, the friend of Janus, who has the faculty of hunting good and evil away from the doorsteps of houses. Crane hunts the witches away with a magical rod, and cures the child thus—

"Protinus arbutea postes ter in ordine tangit Fronde ter arbutea limina fronde notat. Spargit aquis aditus, et aquæ medicamen habebant, Extaque de porca cruda bimestre tenet." The usual conjurings are added, and the incident ends thus—

"Post illud, nec aves cunas violasse feruntur, Et rediit puero qui fuit ante color." Quintus Serenus, when the strix atra presses the child, recommends as an amulet, garlic, of which we have seen that the strong odour puts the monstrous lion to flight.

The same maleficent and demoniacal nature is shared in by the bats and the vampires, which I recognise in the "two winged ones entreated not to suck" of a Vedic hymn.[328]

Of analogous nature were the Stymphalian birds, which[Pg 204] obscure the sun's rays with their wings, use their feathers as darts, devour men and lions, and are formidable on account of their claws—

"Unguibus Arcadiæ volucres Stymphala colentes" (Lucretius); which Hêraklês, and afterwards the Argonauts, by the advice of the wise Phineos, put to flight with the noise of a musical instrument, and by striking their shields and spears against each other. The bird of Seleucia which Galenus describes as "of an insatiable appetite, malignant, astute, a devourer of locusts," also has the same diabolical nature. If our identification of the locust with the moon be accepted, to kill the locust, its shadow alone sufficed. But inasmuch as the locusts are considered destroyers of corn, the birds of Seleucia, which come to devour them, are held to be beneficent, and the ministers of Zeus.

The gryphes are represented as of double nature, now propitious, now malignant. Solinus calls them, "Alites ferocissimæ et ultra rabiem sævientes." Ktesias declares that India possesses gold in mountains inhabited by griffins, quadrupeds, as large as wolves, which have the legs and claws of a lion, red feathers on their breasts and in their other parts, eyes of fire and golden nests. For the sake of the gold, the Arimaspi, one-eyed men, fight with the griffins. As the latter have long ears, they easily hear the robbers of the gold; and if they capture them, they invariably kill them. In Hellenic antiquity, the griffins were sacred to Nemesis, the goddess of vengeance, and were represented in sepulchres in the act of pressing down a bull's head; but they were far more celebrated as sacred to the golden sun, Apollo, whose chariot they drew (the hippogriff, which, in mediæval chevaleresque poems, carries the hero, is their[Pg 205] exact equivalent). And as Apollo is the prophetical and divining deity, whose oracle, when consulted, delivers itself in enigmas, the word griffin, too, meant enigma, logogriph being an enigmatical speech, and griffonnage an entangled, confused, and embarrassing handwriting.

Finally, the siren, or mermaid, who had a woman's face, and ended now as a bird, now as a fish; and who, according to Greek grammarians, had the form of a sparrow in its upper parts and of a woman in the lower, seems to be a lunar rather than a solar animal. The sirens allure navigators in particular, and fly after the ship of the cunning Odysseus, who stuffs his ears; for which reason they throw themselves in despair into the sea. The sirens are fairies like Circe; hence Horace[329] names them together—

"Sirenum voces et Circes pocula nosti." Pliny, who believed that they existed in India, attributed to them the faculty of lulling men to sleep by their songs, in order to tear them to pieces afterwards; they calmed the winds of the sea by their voices, they knew and could reveal every secret (like the fairy or Madonna moon). Some say that the sirens were born of the blood of Acheloos, defeated by Hêraklês; others, of Acheloos and one of the Muses; others, again, narrate that they were once girls, and that Aphroditê transformed them into sirens because they wished to remain virgins. In the sixteenth Esthonian story, the beautiful maiden of[Pg 206] the waters, daughter of the mother of the waters, falls in love with a young hero with whom she stays six days of the week; the seventh day, Thursday, she leaves him, to go and plunge into the water, forbidding the youth to come and see her: the young man is unable to repress his curiosity, surprises the maiden when bathing, and discovers that she is a woman in her upper and a fish in her lower parts—

"Desinit in piscem mulier formosa superne;" the maiden of the waters is conscious of being looked at, and disappears sorrowfully from the young man's sight.[330]

[Pg 207]

CHAPTER III. THE WREN, THE BEETLE, AND THE FIREFLY. SUMMARY.

Rex and regulus.—Iyattikâ çakuntikâ.—The wren's testament.—Vasiliskos; kunigli.—The wren and the eagle.—The wren and the beetle.—The death of Cæsar predicted by a wren.—Equus lunæ.—Indragopas.—The red-mantled beetle.—The little cow of God in Russia.—The chicken of St Michael in Piedmont.—The cow-lady.—The Lucía and St Lucia.—The little pig of St Anthony; the butterfly as a phallical symbol.—The cockchafer.—St Nicholas.—Other popular names of the coccinella septempunctata.—The ladycow tells children how many years they have to live.—The firefly and the refulgent glowworm.—The firefly flogged; it gives light to the wheat; the shepherd's candle.

From the largest of birds we now pass to the smallest, from the rex to the regulus (in Italian, capo d'oro, golden head), and to the red, golden, and green beetles (yellow and green are confounded with one another, as we showed on a previous occasion, in the equivocal words, haris and harit), which are equivalent to it, and which are substituted for it in mythology. I recognise the wren in the very little bird (iyattikâ çakuntikâ) of the Ṛigvedas, which devours the poison of the sun.[331] In a popular German song, the wren bewails the evils of winter, which, for the rest, it represents (in its character of the moon, it[Pg 208] absorbs the solar vapours). A popular song of Scotch children celebrates the wren's testament—

"The wren, she lies in care's nest, Wi' meikle dole and pyne." The wren (Greek, basiliskos; old German, kunigli), like the beetle, appears as the rival of the eagle. It flies higher than the latter. In a story of the Monferrato,[332] the wren and the eagle challenge each other to a trial of their powers of flight. All the birds are present. While the proud eagle rises in the air, despising the wren, and flies so high that it is soon wearied, the wren has placed itself under one of the eagle's wings, and when it sees the latter exhausted, comes out, and, singing victory, rises higher still. Pliny says that the eagle is the enemy of the wren: "Quoniam rex appellatur avium." Aristotle, too, relates that the eagle and the wren fight against each other. The fable of the challenge between the eagle and the wren was already known in antiquity; the challenge was said to have been given when the birds wished to procure for themselves a king. The eagle, which had flown higher than all the other birds, was about to be proclaimed king, when the wren, hidden under one of the eagle's wings, flew upon the latter's head, and proclaimed itself victorious. The wren and the beetle seem generally to represent the moon, known to be the protectress of weddings; for this reason, according to Aratos, weddings were not to take place whilst the wren was[Pg 209] hidden in the earth. We know how the full moon (a phallical symbol) was considered the most propitious season for weddings). According to Suetonius, the death of Cæsar was predicted to happen on the Ides of March by a wren, which was torn in pieces by several other birds in the Pompeian temple, as it was carrying a laurel branch away (as the eagle does; out of the wintry darkness, ruled over by the moon in particular, spring comes forth; the dark eagle represents sometimes the darkness, as the wren the moon, which wanders in the darkness).

We saw the beetle that flies upon the eagle in the preceding chapter. Pliny says of the Persian Magi that they charmed away hail, locusts, and every similar evil from the country, when "aquilæ scalperentur aut scarabei," with an emerald. According to Telesius, the Calabrians, in the Cosentino, call the gold-green beetle by the name of the horse of the moon (equus lunæ). This is the sacred beetle, which is so often represented in ancient cameos and obelisks, and in the Isiac peplums of the mummies. But there is another beetle which is yet more familiar to Indo-European tradition—viz., the little and nearly round one, with a red mantle and black spots (ladybird or cow-lady). It was already known in India, where the name of indragopas (protected by Indras) is given to a red beetle. In a Hindoo verse we read that the mantled red beetle falls down because it has flown too high[333] (in this myth the rising and setting both of the moon and of the sun are represented; cfr. the legends of Icaros, Hanumant, and Sampatis). In Germany the red beetle is advised to flee because its[Pg 210] house is on fire.[334] In Russia the same red beetle with black spots is called the little cow of God (we have already seen the cow-moon), and children say to it—

"Little cow of God, Fly to the sky, God will give you bread."[335] In Piedmont the same beetle is called the chicken of St Michael, and children say to it—

"Chicken of St Michael, Put on your wings and fly to heaven."[336] In Tuscany it is called lucía,[337] and children cry out to it—

"Lucía, lucía Metti l'ali e vola via."[Pg 211] (Put out your wings and fly away.) The red beetle with black spots is also called St Nicholas (Santu Nicola), or even little dove (palumedda). When one of their teeth falls, children expect a gift from the beetle; they hide the tooth in a hole, and then invoke the little animal;[338] returning to the place, they usually find a coin there, deposited by their father or mother. The red beetle, the ladycow of the English (coccinella septempunctata), has several names in Germany, which have been collected by Mannhardt in his German Mythology; among others, we find those of little bird of God, little horse of God, little cock of Mary, little cock of gold, little animal of heaven, little bird of the sun, little cock of the sun, little calf of the sun, little sun, little cow of women (it is therefore also invoked for milk and butter), and little cock of women. German maidens, in fact, in Upland, send it to their lovers as a messenger of love, with the following verses:—

"Jungfrau Marias, Schlüsselmagd, Flieg nach Osten, Flieg nach Westen, Flieg dahin wo mein Liebster wohnt."[339] The ladycow shows the Swedish maidens their bridal gloves; Swiss children interrogate it (in the same way as the cuckoo is interrogated) to know how many years they will live.[340]

The worship which is given to the red beetle is[Pg 212] analogous to that reserved for the firefly (cicindela); the firefly, however, like the German Feuerkäfer, which German children, in spring, strike in a hole and carry home[341] the luminous glowworm that hides in hedges, like the wren, called also in Italian forasiepe, pierce-hedge, round which glowworm the stupid monkeys of the Pańćatantram sit in winter to warm themselves), is not treated so well. In Tuscany the poor firefly, which appears in late spring (in Germany it appears somewhat later, whence its name of Johanniswürmchen), is menaced with a flogging, and children sing to it after catching it:—

"Lucciola, lucciola, vien da me, Ti darò un pan del re,[342] Con dell' ova affritellate, Carne secca e bastonate." (Firefly, firefly, come to me; I will give you a king's loaf of bread, with fried eggs, bacon, and a flogging.) It is said in Tuscany that the firefly gives light to the wheat when the corn begins to grow in the ear; when it has grown, the firefly disappears.[343] Children are accustomed to catch the firefly and put it under a glass, hoping in the morning they will find a coin instead of the firefly. In Sicily, the firefly is called the little candle of the shepherd (cannilicchia di picuraru; the shepherd, or celestial pastor, the sun; the moon gives[Pg 213] light to the sun and shows him the way to traverse from autumn to spring, from evening to day), and is sought for and carried home to secure good luck. And inasmuch as the firefly shines by night, it is more probable that it represented the moon than the sun in popular mythical beliefs. The firefly disappears as soon as the ears are ripe, i.e., with the summer; we have already seen that the winter, or cold season of the year (like the night or cold season of the day) is under the especial influence of the moon. The red beetle must flee when summer comes, in order not to be burnt; the firefly, the glowworm, or worm of fire, is flogged, and the summer sun triumphs.

I suppose that the same mythical nature belongs to the butterfly (perhaps the black little butterfly with red spots), which is called in Sicily the little bird of good news (occidduzzu bona nova), or little pig of St Anthony (purcidduzzu di S. Antoni), and which is believed to bring good luck when it enters a house. It is entreated to come into the house, which is then immediately shut, so that the good luck may not go out. When the insect is in the house, they sing to it:—

"In your mouth, milk and honey; In my house, health and wealth."[344] The butterfly was in antiquity both a phallical symbol (and therefore Eros held it in his hand) and a funereal one, with promises of resurrection and transformation; the souls of the departed were represented in the forms of butterflies carried towards Elysium by a dolphin. The butterfly was also often represented upon the seven strings of the lyre, and upon a burning torch. It dies to be born[Pg 214] again. The phases of the moon seem to correspond in the sky to the zoological transformations of the butterfly.

Other beetles—the green beetle and the cockchafer—have also extraordinary virtues in fairy tales. In the fifth story of the third book of the Pentamerone, the cockchafer (scarafone; in Toscana, it is called also indovirello) can play on the guitar, saves the hero, Nardiello, and makes the princess laugh that had never laughed before. In the fifty-eighth story of the sixth book of Afanassieff, the green beetle cleans the hero who had fallen into the marsh, and makes the princess laugh who had never laughed before (the beetle, which appears in spring, like the phallical cuckoo, releases the sun from the marsh of winter).

[Pg 215]

CHAPTER IV. THE BEE, THE WASP, THE FLY, THE GNAT, THE MOSQUITO, THE HORSEFLY, AND THE CICADA. SUMMARY.

The bees and the Açvinâu.—Madhumakshas.—Indras, Kṛishṇas, and Vishṇus as Mâdhavas.—The bees and Madhuhan.—Beowulf.—The god of thunder and the bees.—Vishṇus as a bee.—The ocymum nigrum.—The bees as nurses.—Melissai.—Selênê as Melissa.—Souls as bees.—The bees born in the bull's dead body.—The bee according to Finnish mythology.—The bees descended from paradise as part of the mind of God.—Bee's-wax causes light.—The Bienenstock.—The madhumati kaçâ.—The bees as winds.—Apis and avis.—The mother of the bees.—The young hero as a bee.—The fairy moon as a gnat.—The fly's palace.—The flies bartered for good cattle.—Intelligence of the bee.—The wasp as a judge.—The fly, the gnat, and the mosquito.—The louse and the flea.—The ant and the fly.—The ant and the cicada.—The cicadæ and the muses.—Tithon as a cicada.—The sparrow and the cicada.—The cicada and the cuckoo.

I find the bee in the Vedic mythology, where the Açvinâu "carry to the bees the sweet honey,"[345] where the horses of the Açvinâu, compared to "ambrosial swans, innocent, with golden wings, which waken with the dawn, swim in the water, and enjoy themselves, cheerful," are invoked to come, "like the fly of honey,"[Pg 216] i.e., the bee, "to the juices."[346] The gods Indras, Kṛishṇas, and Vishṇus, on account of their name Mâdhavas (that is, born of madhus, belonging to or in connection with it), were also compared in India to bees; the bee, as making and carrying honey (madhukaras), is especially the moon; as sucking it, it is especially the sun. The name of bhramaras or wanderer given in India to the bee, is as applicable to the sun as to the moon. In the Mahâbhâratam[347] it is said that the bees kill the destroyer of honey (madhuhan). In the chapter on the bear, we saw how the bear was killed by the bees (cfr. the name Beowulf, explained as the wolf of bees), and how in India it personified Vishṇus. Now it is not uninteresting to learn how Madhuhan, originally the destroyer of the madhu, became a name of Kṛishṇas or Vishṇus in the Mahâbhâratam and in the Bhâgavata P.; of madhu (honey) was made a demon, killed by the god (sun and moon, sun and cloud, are rivals; the solar bear destroys the beehive of the moon and the clouds).[Pg 217][348] Vishṇus (as Haris, the sun and the moon) is sometimes represented as a bee upon a lotus-leaf, and Kṛishṇas with an azure bee on his forehead. When the Hindoos take honey out of a hive with a rod, they always hold in one hand the plant toolsy (ocymum nigrum), sacred to Kṛishṇas (properly the black one), because one of the girls beloved of Kṛishṇas was transformed into it.[349]

In the legend of Ibrâhîm Ibn Edhem, in the Tuti-Name[350] we read of a bee that carries crumbs of bread away from the king's table to take them to a blind sparrow. Melíai and Mélissai, or bees, were the names of the nymphs who nursed Zeus; the priestesses of the nurse-goddess Dêmêtêr were also called Mélissai.

According to Porphyrios[351] the moon (Selênê) was also called a bee (Melissa). Selênê was represented drawn by two white horses or two cows; the horn of these cows seems to correspond to the sting of the bee. The souls of the dead were supposed to come down from the moon upon the earth in the forms of bees. Porphyrios adds that, as the moon is the culminating point of the constellation of the bull (as a bull herself), it is believed that bees are born in the bull's carcase. Hence the name of bougeneis given by the ancients to bees. Dionysos (the moon), after having been torn to pieces in the form of a bull, was born again, according to those who were initiated in the Dionysian mysteries, in the form of a bee; hence the name of Bougenês also given to Dionysos, according to Plutarch. Three hundred golden bees were represented, in conjunction with a bull's head, in the tomb of Childeric, the king of the Franks. Sometimes, instead of the lunar bull we find[Pg 218] the solar lion; and the lion in connection with bees occurred in the mysteries of Mithras (and in the legend of Samson).

According to the Finnish mythology of Tomasson, quoted by Menzel,[352] the bee is implored to fly far away over the moon, over the sun, near to the axis of the constellation of the waggon, into the dwelling of the Creator god, and carry upon its wings and in its mouth health and honey to the good, and wounds of fire and iron to the wicked.

According to a popular belief (which is in accordance with the legend of the Ćerkessians), the bees alone of all animals descended from paradise.[353] Virgil, too, in the fourth book of the Georgics, celebrates the divine[Pg 219] nature of the bee, which is a part of the mind of God, never dies, and alone among animals ascends alive into heaven (in popular Hellenic, Latin, and German tradition, the bee personifies the soul, and this being considered immortal, the bee, too, is supposed to escape death):—

"Esse apibus partem divinæ mentis et haustus Æthereos dixere: Deumque namque ire per omnes Terrasque, tractusque maris cœlumque profundum. Hinc pecudes, armenta, viros, genus omne ferarum, Quemque sibi tenues nascentem arcessere vitas; Scilicet huc reddi deinde ac resoluta referri Omnia; nec morti esse locum; sed viva volare Sideris in numerum atque alto succedere cœlo." The wax of bees, because it produces light, and is, moreover, used in churches,[354] must also have had its part in increasing the divine prestige of bees, and the belief in their immortality, as being those that feed the fire. According to a writing of 1482, cited by Du Cange, the sacred disease or ignis sacer (pestilential erysipelas) was cured by wax dissolved in water.

In Germany the death of their master is announced to the bees in the little stick round which the honey is made in the hive. The hive or the Bienenstock, participates in the divine nature of the bees, and calls my attention to the madhumatî kaçâ or madhoh kaçâ of the Ṛigvedas, and of the Atharvavedas, attributed to the Açvinâu, and destined to soften the sacrificial butter, which is of a nature similar to the caduceus of Mercury, and to the magical rod, born of all the various elements and of none in particular, daughter of the wind, and sometimes perhaps[Pg 220] itself the wind; the anima, the soul (the bee), is a breath, a breeze, a wind (anemos, anilas), which changes its place, but never dies; it collects and scatters honey and perfumes, and passes away, changeful as the American flybird that sucks honey, the continual beating of whose wings resembles the buzzing of a bee; the apis and avis are assimilated. In Du Cange,[355] I find an oration to the mother of the bees, to call back the dispersed ones of her family, conceived thus:—"Adjuro te, Mater aviorum per Deum regem cœlorum et per ilium Redemptorem Filium Dei te adjuro, ut non te altum levare, nec longe volare, sed quam plus cito potest ad arborem venire; ibi te allocas cum omni tua genera, vel cum socia tua, ibi habeo bono vaso parato, ut vos ibi, in Dei nomine, laboretis," &c.

In the twenty-second story of the fifth book of Afanassieff, a bee transforms itself into a young hero, in order to prove to the old man that he is able to fetch back his son, who has remained three years under the instruction of the devil (the moon enables the old sun to find the young one; it helps the sun to cheat the devil of night). In the same story it is in the form of a gnat that the guardian-fairy perches herself upon the young hero, whom his father has to recognise amongst twelve heroes that bear the greatest resemblance to one another. In the forty-eighth story of the fifth book, the gnat distinguishes, among the twelve maidens that resemble each other extremely, the one whom the young hero loves, that is, the daughter of the priest, whom the devil had taken possession of, because her father had once said to her, "The devil take you." This indicatory gnat occurs in numerous fairy tales, and discharges the office of the fairy moon;[Pg 221] this is the guide and messenger of the hero. We have already seen the moon as a hostess. In the thirty-first story of the fourth book of Afanassieff, we have the fly that entertains in its palace (according to the sixteenth story of the third book, a horse's head) the louse, the flea, the mosquito, the little mouse, the lizard, the fox, the hare, and the wolf, until the bear comes up and crushes with one paw the whole palace of the fly, and all the mythical nocturnal animals that it contains. We have also seen the hero who barters his bull for a vegetable which brings him fortune, and we have seen above the bee that is born of the dead bull. In the seventh story of the third book of Afanassieff, the third brother, supposed to be foolish, collects, on the contrary, flies and mosquitoes in two sacks, which he suspends upon a lofty oak-tree, where he barters them for good cattle (the moon is the pea of good fortune, the giver of abundance). We know that the moon was represented as the judge of the departed in the kingdom of the dead, and as an omniscient fairy. The industrious bees have a singular reputation for superior intelligence.[356] In the thirteenth fable of the third book of Phædrus, proof of the same wisdom is given by the wasp, who sits in the tribunal as a conscientious judge between the drones and the working bees in regard to the honey which the bees had collected and stored up on a lofty oak-tree, and to which the drones had pretensions.

The fly, the gnat, and the mosquito, though small, annoy, and sometimes cause the death of, the most terrible animals; the beetle gets upon the eagle to escape the hare; the hare allures the elephant and the lion into[Pg 222] the water;[357] the moon allures the sun into the night and the winter; the moon overcomes the sun, devoid of rays; the sun is deprived of its rays, the hero loses his strength with his hair; the fly alights upon the bald head of the old man, and annoys him in every way; the old man, wishing to strike the fly, only slaps himself. In Phædrus, again, we find the fly quarrelling with the rustic ant; the fly boasts of partaking of the offerings given to the gods, of dwelling amidst the altars, of flying through every temple, of sitting upon the heads of kings, of the kisses of beautiful women, and that without the necessity of submitting to any labour. The ant answers the fly by referring to the certain approach of winter, during which the ant, who had worked hard, has abundant provisions, and lives, whilst the fly dies of cold and starvation. Moreover, the ant says to it in one expressive verse—

"Æstate me lacessis; cum bruma est, siles." This same discussion is reported, with more semblance of[Pg 223] truth, by other fabulists, as having happened between the shrill and inert cicada and the silent and laborious ant.

In the preceding chapter we saw the musical beetle. We are tempted to figure the bee as a musician, from the form of the bee being sometimes attributed to the Hellenic Muses and Apollo, and the name "bee of Delphi" being given to the Pythoness (as a cloud). But according to Plato, the Muses transformed into cicadæ the men who amused themselves by singing, and were so absorbed in that occupation they forgot to eat and to drink. If this myth be not a satirical invention of Plato's against poets, the bees as Muses, and those who became cicadæ on account of the Muses, should enter into the same mythical family. According to Isidorus, the cicadæ are born of the saliva of the cuckoo; this belief figuratively expresses the passage from spring to the summer season, to the season of the harvest, to the season of abundance, in which, according to a Tuscan proverb among thieves, he is a fool who cannot make his own fortune.[358] According to Hesüchios, the ass was called at Cyprus by the name of a mature cicada (tettix prôinos); the cicada (as the sun) dies, and the ass (as the night or winter) appears. According to Philê,[359] the cicadæ feed upon the eastern dew, perhaps in reminiscence of the Hellenic myth which makes the sun Tithon the lover of the aurora. The sun feeds upon the ambrosia, and is therefore immortal; but he has not the gift of eternal youth; his members dry up; after having sung all through the laborious noisy day, through the laborious[Pg 224] noisy summer, he expires; for this reason the Hellenic myth represented the aged Tithon as transformed into a cicada.[360] The cicada is born again in spring of the cuckoo's saliva, and in the morning of the dew of the aurora; the two accounts correspond with one another. The cicada of summer appears, and the cuckoo of spring disappears; hence the popular belief that the cicadæ wage war to the death with the cuckoo, attacking it under its wings; hence it is supposed that the cuckoo devours its own nurse; the aurora devours the night, the spring devours the winter.

[Pg 225]

CHAPTER V. THE CUCKOO, THE HERON, THE HEATHCOCK, THE PARTRIDGE, THE NIGHTINGALE, THE SWALLOW, THE SPARROW, AND THE HOOPOE. SUMMARY.

The kokilas, the nightingale of the Hindoo poets.—The heron.—Kokas.—Kapińǵalas.—The partridges.—The Vedas instead of the enchanted ring.—The partridge as a devil.—The heathcock.—The partridge and the peasant.—The pigmies ride on partridges.—Talaus becomes a partridge.—The kapińǵalas as a cuckoo; Indras as a kapińǵalas; Indras as a cuckoo.—Rambhâ becomes a stone.—Zeus as a cuckoo.—The laughing nightingale instead of the cuckoo.—The myth of Tereus.—The whoop, or hoopoe, announces, it divines secrets; the blind whoop and its young ones.—It buries its parents.—The cuckoo and the hawk.—The cuckoo anyapushṭas.—The phallical cuckoo.—The cuckoo as a good omen for matrimony.—The cuckoo is deceitful and a derider.—The cuckoo as the messenger of spring, and as the bringer of summer.—The death of the cuckoo.—Cocu, coucoul, couquiol, cucuault, kokküges.—The cuckoo announces rain; the cuckoo as a funereal bird.—The years of the cuckoo.—The cuckoo, the nightingale, and the ass.—The learned nightingales.—The nightingales predict the future.—The monster as a nightingale.—The wind as a whistler.—The nightingale as the messenger of Zeus.—Paidoletôr.—The phallical nightingale.—The nightingale as the singer of the night.—The nightingale as the messenger of lovers; he now helps them, and now compels them to separate.—The sun dries the nightingale up; a wedding custom.—The swallow; the chicken of the Lord.—The seven swallows of the Edda.—The swallow blinds the witch.—The birds of the Madonna; San Francesco and the swallows.—It is a mortal sin to kill them.—The swallows as guests; sacred birds.—The swallow beautiful only in spring.—The swans and the[Pg 226] swallows sing.—The swallows as babblers.—It is a bad omen to dream of swallows.—Chelidôn, the pudendum muliebre.—The sparrow as a phallical bird.—The swallow as a diabolical form.

The kokilas or Indian cuckoo is for the Hindoo poets what the nightingale is for ours. The choicest epithets are employed to describe its singing, and the one most frequently applied to it in this reference is that of ravisher of the heart (hṛidayagrahin). While I write, I have not under my eyes, nor can I have, Schlegel's edition of the Râmâyaṇam; but if my memory does not deceive me, in the introduction, the poet Vâlmîkis makes the first çlokas, when he hears the lamentation of a kokilas whose beloved companion has been killed. In the edition of Gorresio, instead of the kokilas, we have the krâuńćas, which is the heron according to Gorresio, and the bustard (Brachvogel) according to the Petropolitan Dictionary. Kokas, a synonym of kokilas, is also mentioned in a Vedic hymn.[361] The Hindoo commentator explains it as ćakravâkas, which must be the equivalent of heron, although the dictionaries interpret it particularly as the anas casarca. In the forty-second and forty-third hymns of the Ṛigvedas, a bird occurs which partakes of the nature of both the cuckoo and the heron, or bustard. Here the bird "proclaims the future, predicts, launches its voice as the boatman his boat:" it is invoked "that it be of good augury," that "the hawk may not strike it," nor "the vulture," nor "the archer armed with darts;" in order that, "having called towards the funereal western region, it may speak propitiously with good-omened words," that it may "shout to the eastern side of the houses, propitious, with good-omened words."[Pg 227][362] In this prophetic bird, explained by the Bṛihaddevatâ as kapińǵalas, the Petropolitan Dictionary recognises the heathcock (Haselhuhn), of which tittiris or partridge is also a rendering. A Hindoo brahmanic tradition transforms into partridges the scholars of Vâiçampayanas to peck at the Vedas of Yâǵnavalkyas. The scholars of Vâiçampayanas are the compilers of the Tâittiriya-Veda, or Veda of the partridges, or else black Veda. The Vedas sometimes occupies in Eastern tradition the place of the enchanted ring. In Western tradition, the devil, or black monster, becomes a cock in order to peck at the pearl or ring of the young hero who has become wise. In St Jerome's and St Augustine's writings, we also read that the devil often assumes the form of a partridge.[363] The Indian tittiris occurs again in the Russian tieteriev (the heathcock). In a story of the second book of Afanassieff, the Tzar gives to a peasant a golden heathcock for a dish of kissél, made of a grain of oats found in a dunghill (a variety of the well-known fable of the chicken and the pearl). The heathcock finds the grain. In another story of the fifth book of Afanassieff, a heathcock sits upon the oak-tree that is to carry the peasant-hero into heaven; it falls down, struck by the bullet of a gun that goes off of itself, because a spark, coming out of the tree, fell upon the powder of the gun and made the charge explode. The partridge and the peasant often occur in connection[Pg 228] with each other in popular traditions. The shoes that the peasant took for partridges are proverbial. Odoricus Forojuliensis speaks in his Itinerarium of a man at Trebizonde who conducted four thousand partridges; as he walked on the ground, the partridges flew through the air; when he stopped to sleep, the partridges also came down. According to the Ornithologus, the pigmies, in the war against the cranes, rode upon partridges. An extraordinary degree of intelligence and prophetic virtue is ascribed to these birds. Aldrovandi asserts, in his Ornithology, that tame partridges cry out loudly when poison is being prepared in the house. The partridge was also called dædala in antiquity, both because of its intelligence, and because of the fable in which Talaus, the nephew of Dædalus, the inventor of rhyme, thrown from the citadel of Athênê, by the envoy of Dædalus, was changed into a partridge by the pitying gods.

But to return to the point we started from, that is, to the Hindoo kapińǵalas, we must notice that Professor Kuhn,[364] has recognised in it the cuckoo rather than the heathcock. A legend of the Bṛihaddevatâ informs us that Indras, desirous of being sung to, and having become kapińǵalas, placed himself at the right hand of the wise man that desired (by the merit of his praises) to rise into heaven; then the wise man having, with the eye of a sage, recognised the god in the bird, sang for psalms those two Vedic hymns of which one begins with the word kanikradat."[365] The god Indras is found again in[Pg 229] the form of a cuckoo (kokilas) in the Râmâyaṇam,[366] where Indras sends the nymph Rambhâ to seduce the ascetic Viçvâmitras, and in order to increase her attractions, he places himself near her in the form of a cuckoo that sings sweetly. But Viçvâmitras, with the eye of asceticism, perceives that this is a seduction of Indras, and curses the nymph, condemning her to become a stone in the forest for ten thousand years.

In the first chapter of the first book we already saw the cuckoo in connection with the thundering Zeus, and as the indiscreet observer of and agent in celestial loves. In the Tuti-Name,[367] instead of the cuckoo, we have the nightingale. The nightingale holds the betrayed king up to ridicule, laughing at him. The king wishes to know what this laugh of the nightingale means, and Gûlfishân explains the enigma to him, not so much because he is able, as is supposed, to understand the language of birds, but because from the tower where he was imprisoned he had been the spectator of the amours of the queen with her secret lover.

In the Greek myth of Tereus we find united several of the birds hitherto named, and the swallow besides; the pheasant takes the place of the partridge, and the whoop or hoopoe that of the cuckoo. Itüs eaten by his father Tereus, without the latter's knowledge, becomes a pheasant; Tereus, who follows Prognê, becomes a whoop; Prognê, who flees from him, is transformed into a swallow; Philomela, the sister of Prognê, whose tongue had been cut out by Zeus to prevent her from speaking, took the form of a nightingale, whence Martial—

"Flet Philomela nefas incesti Tereos, et quæ Muta puella fuit, garrula fertur avis."[Pg 230] With regard to the hoopoe, several beliefs are current analogous to those known concerning the cuckoo and the swallow. In several parts of Italy it is called (on account of its crest and appearance in these months) the little cock of March or the little cock of May. It announces the spring. By the ancients, its song before the vines ripened was looked upon as a prediction of a plentiful vintage and good wine. It has the virtue of divining secrets; when it cackles, it announces that foxes are hidden in the grass; when it groans, it is a prognostication of rain; by means of a certain herb, it opens secret places.[368] According to Cardanus, if a man anoints his temples with the blood of a whoop he sees marvellous things in his dreams. Albertus Magnus tells us that when an old whoop becomes blind, its young ones anoint its eyes with the herb that opens shut places, and they recover their sight. This is in perfect conformity with a Hindoo story (a variation of the legend of Lear) narrated by Ælianos, according to which a king of India had several sons; the youngest was maltreated by his brothers, who ended by maltreating and expelling their father. The youngest brother alone remained faithful to his parents, and followed them; but while they were travelling, they died of weariness; the son opened his own head with his sword and buried his parents in it; the sun, moved to pity by this sight, changed the youth into a beautiful bird with a crest. But this crested bird, instead of the whoop, may also be the lark, concerning which the Greeks had also a similar legend.

[Pg 231]

The cuckoo is the bird of spring; when it appears, the first claps of thunder are heard in the sky, announcing the season of heat. According to Isidorus it is the kite that brings the lazy cuckoo from distant regions. In the time of Pliny, the cuckoo was supposed to be born of the sparrow-hawk, and Albertus Magnus, in the Middle Ages, asserted, "Cuculus quidam componitur ex Columba et Niso sive Sparverio; alius, ex Columba et Asture, mores etiam habet ex utroque compositos." There is nothing falser, zoologically speaking; but inasmuch as the lightning carries the thunder, the mythical hawk may well carry or produce the mythical cuckoo. Moreover, the habits of the cuckoo are very singular, and have not anything in common with those of the falcon and the dove, or indeed any other animal. It is well-known that, among the Hindoo names of the cuckoo we find anyapushṭas and anyabhṛitas, which mean nourished by another (the crow is called anyabhṛit, or nourisher of others, because it nurses the eggs of the cuckoo, which, for the rest, deposits them even in the nests of much smaller animals[369]). From this singular habit of the cuckoo, it was natural to conclude that the male cuckoo united itself in adultery with the strange female bird to which it afterwards confided the eggs, which would thus be bastard eggs of the female itself that sits on them. We have just seen Indras as a cuckoo and as a seducer of Rambhâ; Indras as an adulterer is also very popular in the legend of Ahalyâ, in which the cock (the morning sun) appears, instead, as the indiscreet betrayer of the secret amours of Indras[Pg 232] (the hidden sun). In a popular song of Bretagne, the perfidious mother-in-law insinuates to her son the suspicion that his young wife betrays him, saying, "préservez votre nid du coucou."[370]

The cuckoo is the sun or solar ray in the darkness, or still oftener the thunderbolt hidden in the cloud. Dâtyuhas is one of the Indian names of the cuckoo, and also of the cloud, out of which alone the cuckoo is said to drink. As a hidden sun, the cuckoo is now an absent husband, a travelling husband, a husband in the forests, and now an adulterer in secret amorous intercourse with the wife of another. In any case, it is often a phallical symbol, and therefore delights in mysteries. Meanwhile, it sits on the sceptre of Hêrê, the protectress of marriages and childbirths, whilst Zeus himself, the thunder-striker, the thunderer, her adulterous brother, is called kokkük or cuckoo, because he had hidden himself in Hêrê's lap in the shape of a cuckoo, in order not to be recognised. Hence the song of the cuckoo was considered a good omen to whoever intended to marry. In the popular song of the Monferrato sung for the Easter eggs, the landlord is cunningly advised that it is time to marry his daughters. In Swedish and Danish songs, the cuckoo carries the wedding-nut to the nuptials. Nor was this because of its reputation as an adulterer, but because it has a phallical meaning, because it loves mysteries, and because it appears only in spring, in the season of loves. For the rest, as an adulterer, it would have been a bad omen for marriages; in the Asinaria of Plautus, indeed, a woman calls her husband cuculus, because he sleeps with other women. The cuckoo is therefore, properly, the deceitful husband, the adulterer,[Pg 233] the hidden lover. The cuckoo is the derider; when children play at hide and seek, they are accustomed in Germany and in Italy, as well as in England, to cry out cuckoo to him who is to seek them in vain, as is hoped. The Latin word cucu, with which the pruners of vines who came late were held up to derision, the corresponding Piedmontese motto and gesture, mentioned in the first chapter of this work, and the Italian expression cuculiare for to ridicule, show the cuckoo as a cunning animal. It is the first, as is said, of the migratory birds to appear, and the first to disappear. In Germany it is believed that the grapes ripen with difficulty if the cuckoo continues to sing after St John's Day. It is the welcome messenger of spring[371] in the country, where it calls the[Pg 234] peasants to their work. Hesiod says that when the cuckoo sings among the oak-trees, it is time to plough.

But inasmuch as the cuckoo seldom shows itself, inasmuch as it represents essentially the sun hidden in the clouds, and as we know that the sun hidden in the clouds has several contradictory aspects, as a wise hero that penetrates everything, as an intrepid hero that defies every danger, as a betrayed hero, as a deceived husband, a traitor, a monster or a demon, so the cuckoo also has an ungrateful and sinister aspect. The adulterer who visits in secret the wife of another, becomes the absent husband that is travelling, the husband in the forest, whilst his wife entertains guests at home; or else the husband that sleeps whilst his wife is only too watchful; whence the verse of Plautus—

"At etiam cubat cuculus, surge, Amator, i domum," and the French word cocu, and those registered by Du Cange,[372] coucoul, couquiol, cucuault, to express the husband of an adulterous woman. In Aristophanes, inept and inexperienced men are called kokküges. According to Pliny, a cuckoo bound with a hare's skin induces sleep[Pg 235] (that is to say, the sun hides itself, the moon appears, and the world falls asleep). When the cuckoo approaches a city, and especially if it enters it, it bodes rain (that is, the sun hidden in clouds brings rain). In Plutarch (Life of Aratos), the cuckoo asks the other birds why they flee from his sight, inasmuch as he is not ferocious; the birds answer that they fear in him the future sparrow-hawk. The cuckoo that placed itself upon the spear of Luitprand, king of the Longobards, was considered by them as a sinister omen, as if the cuckoo were a funereal bird. In Italy we say "the years of the cuckoo," and in Piedmont "as old as a cuckoo," to indicate great age. A mediæval eclogue ascribes to the cuckoo the years of the sun, "Phœbo comes annus in ævum." As no one sees how the cuckoo disappears (the belief that it is killed by the cicadæ not being generally received), it is supposed that it never dies, that it is always the same cuckoo that sings year after year in the same wood. And, inasmuch as it is immortal, it must have seen everything and must know everything. The subalpine people, the Germans and the Slaves, ask the cuckoo how many years they still have to live. The asker judges how many years of life he may count upon from the number of times that the cuckoo sings; in Sanskrit the varsha or pluvial season determines the new year.

We said at the commencement of this chapter that the kokilas is the nightingale of Hindoo poets and its equivalent; and we have just noticed that the cuckoo also represents the phallos. In the chapter on the ass, we saw that the same rôle is sometimes taken by it. These three animals are found in conjunction in the well-known apologue of the cuckoo that disputes for superiority in singing with the nightingale; the ass, supposed to be the best judge in music on account of his[Pg 236] long ears, being called to decide the question, declares for the cuckoo. (In the wonderful fable of Kriloff, instead of the cuckoo, the bird preferred by the ass is the cock; the nightingale is said in it to be the lover and singer of the aurora.) Then the nightingale appeals from the unjust sentence to man, singing melodiously.[373]

A German song of the sixteenth century[374] places the nightingale in opposition to the cuckoo: "it sings, it leaps, it is always gay when the other little birds are silent."

According to Pliny, the nightingales of the young Cæsars, sons of Claudius, spoke Greek and Latin, and meditated every day to learn something new. Thus, the Ornithologus speaks of two nightingales which, in 1546, at Ratisbon, disputed as to which spoke German best; in one of these discussions of the nightingale, the war between Charles V. and the Protestants was predicted. In the forty-sixth story of the sixth book of Afanassieff, a nightingale in a cage sings dolorously; the old man who possesses it says to his son Basil, that he would give half his substance to know what the nightingale is predicting by this woful song. The boy, who understands the language of the bird, announces to his parents a prophecy of the nightingale that they will one day serve him. The father is indignant; one day when the boy is asleep, he carries him to a boat and launches it on the sea. The nightingale immediately leaves the house, and flying away, perches upon the boy's shoulder. A shipmaster finds the boy and the nightingale, and takes them; the nightingale predicts tempests and the approach of pirates. At last they[Pg 237] arrive in a city where the royal palace is assailed by three crows, which no one who attempts it succeeds in chasing away; the king promises half the kingdom and his youngest daughter to whoever can expel them, threatening death to whoever essays the enterprise in vain. The boy, advised by the nightingale, presents himself, and tells the king that the crow, his mate, and his young one are there to be judged by him (we have seen a similar legend in the chapter on the dog); they wish to have it determined whether the young crow belongs to his father or to his mother. The king says, "To his father;" then the young crow flies away with his father, while the female crow moves off in another direction. The boy marries the princess, becomes a great lord, obtains half the kingdom, travels, and is one night the guest, without their knowledge, of his own parents, who bring him water to wash himself. Thus the prediction of the nightingale is accomplished. In the popular Russian legend of Ilia Muromietz (Elias of Murom), the monster brigand killed by the hero's dart is called Nightingale (Salavéi). He has placed his nest upon twelve oak-trees, and kills as many as come in his way by simply whistling.[375] In the Edda of Sömund, the dwarf Alwis says of the wind, that it is called wind by men, vagabond by the gods, the noisy one by the powerful, the weeper by the giants, the bellowing traveller by the Alfes, and the whistler in the abode of Hel, that is, in the infernal regions; the Russian demoniacal monster-nightingale would therefore appear to be the wind in the darkness.

The nightingale, like the cuckoo, is called by Sappho, in Suidas, by the name of messenger of Zeus (now the[Pg 238] moon, now the wind, now the thunder which announces rain). It also assumes a sinister aspect, under the name of killer of sons (paidoletôr), given it by Euripides. In a popular song of Bretagne,[376] the nightingale laments that the month of May has passed by with its flowers. In another song of Bretagne, the nightingale seems to have the same phallical signification which it has in the Tuti-Name. During the night, a wife is agitated on account of the nightingale (the moon); her husband has it caught with a net, and laughs when he has it.[377] The nightingale, as its name shows in the Germanic tongues, is the singer of the night, and a nocturnal bird. Hence Shakspeare, in Romeo and Juliet,[378] names it, in contrast to the lark, the announcer of morning:—

"Jul. Wilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day; It was the nightingale, and not the lark, That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear; Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate tree: Believe me, love, it was the nightingale. Rom. It was the lark, the herald of the morn, No nightingale." And it is as a nocturnal animal, and as a bird that sings concealed, that the nightingale (as the moon does) pleases lovers, who make it their mysterious and secret messenger in popular superstition and popular songs in Germany, as in France. In the third story of the fifth book of the Pentamerone, the girl Betta makes a cake which has the form of a handsome youth with golden hair; by the grace of the goddess of love, the cake-youth speaks and[Pg 239] walks, and Betta marries him; but a queen robs her of him. Betta goes to seek him; an old woman gives to her three marvellous things, by means of which Betta obtains from the queen the permission of sleeping during the night with her youth, who has become the queen's husband; one of these three marvels is a golden cage containing a bird made of precious stones and gold, which sings like a nightingale. In popular German songs, lovers seek to propitiate the nightingale by means of gold, but it answers that it knows not what to do with it; the nightingale (like the cuckoo, which is propitious to weddings, although an adulterer) now helps lovers, and now compels them to separate. In a popular English song,[379] two lovers go together into the shadowy forest, where the nightingale sings; the maiden is terrified by the nightingale; but when she has married her young lover, she no longer fears either the gloomy wood or the nightingale's warbling. However much poetic imagination may have adorned similar legends, their phallical origin can always be traced. A popular German song says that the sun dries the nightingale up. According to popular wedding customs, it is a great shame if the young pair let themselves be surprised in bed by the sun after the first night of their union; hence the practical joke often played upon the husband by his friends, who shut the outer shutters of the windows, in order that the rays of the morning sun may not enter the nuptial chamber. But our subject presses; let us continue.

The swallow has the same mythical meaning as the cuckoo; it is the joyful herald of spring, emerging from[Pg 240] the tenebrific winter. In the winter season, the swallow is of sinister omen; in the spring-time, on the contrary, it is propitious.

In Piedmont, the swallow is called the chicken of the Lord. In the Edda, the seven swallows, one after another, advise Sigurd, who is still undecided, to kill the monster that guards the treasures. Sigurd follows the advice of the swallows, finds and obtains the hidden gold, and recovers his wife (the sun marries the spring, the flowery and verdant earth, when the swallows arrive and begin to sing). In the fifth story of the fourth book of the Pentamerone, the swallow blinds the witch who had expelled it from its nest (the wintry season obliges the swallows to depart; the hot and luminous season disperses the wintry darkness). In Germany the swallows are called the birds of the Madonna; San Francesco called the swallows his sisters; and in the Oberinnthal it is believed that they helped the Lord God in building the sky. In Germany, as well as in Italy, the swallows are considered to be birds of the best augury; it is a mortal sin to kill them, or to destroy their nests. In Germany and in Hungary, if a man destroys a swallow's nest, his cow no longer gives milk, or else gives it mixed with blood. Hence it is advisable always to have a window open, because if a swallow enters the house it brings every kind of happiness with it; in the same way, it is believed that guests bring luck into a house, and this is a beautiful belief, which is honourable to mankind, and one of the most signal evidences of man's sociable nature. In the Ornithes of Aristophanes, the swallows are intrusted with the building of the city of the birds. Solinus writes that even birds of prey dare not touch the swallow, which is a sacred bird. According to Arrianos, a swallow which chirped round the head of Alexander[Pg 241] the Great, whilst he was asleep, wakened him to warn him of the machinations in his family that were being plotted against him. In an apologue the swallow warns the hen not to sit upon the eggs of the serpent. Swallows were anciently used in time of war as messengers. According to Pliny, again, the head of a swallow that fed in the morning, was, when cut off at full moon, and tied in linen and hung up, an excellent remedy for headache.

But in an apologue where the swallow boasts to the crow of its beauty, the crow answers that he is always equally beautiful, whilst the swallow is only beautiful in spring. In another apologue, which is found in the Epistle of St Gregory of Nazianzen to Prince Seleusius, the swallows boast to the swans of their twittering for the benefit of the public, whilst the swans sing only for themselves, and that little, and in solitary places. The swans answer that it is better to sing little and well to a chosen few than much and badly to all. The Greeks, in a proverb, advise men not to keep swallows under their roofs, by which they meant to put them on their guard against babblers. The swallow here evidently begins to assume, as in the mythical tragedy of Tereus, a sinister aspect, for which, reason Horace calls it—

"Infelix avis et Cecropiæ domus Æternum opprobrium." The swallow, beautiful and propitious in spring, becomes ugly and almost diabolical in the other seasons. Hence the ancients believed that it was a bad omen to dream of swallows. According to Xenophon, the appearance of the swallows preceded the expedition of Cyrus against the Scythians, and announced it to be unlucky. The same presage is made by the swallows to Darius when he moves against the Scythians, and to Antiochus, who[Pg 242] is at war with the Parthians. It is also said that Pythagoras would have no swallows in his house, because they were insectivorous. In Suidas, the pudendum muliebre is called chelidôn; and it is perhaps as such that the swallow is represented in opposition to the sparrow, which is a well-known phallical symbol, sacred (like the doves) to Venus, whom it accompanied, according to Apuleius,[380] and to Asklepios. The sparrow destroys the swallow's nest, as it is said in a popular German song of Michaelstein:—

"Als ich auszog, auszog, Hatt' ich Kisten und Kasten voll, Als ich wiederkam, wiederkam, Hatt' der Sperling, Der Dickkopf, der Dickkopf Alles verzehrt." The swallow, moreover, is a diabolical, dark form which, by the witch's enchantment, the beautiful maiden assumes when she finds herself near the fountain (i.e., near the ocean of night, or of winter).[381]

[Pg 243]

CHAPTER VI. THE OWL, THE CROW, THE MAGPIE, AND THE STORK. SUMMARY.

The funereal owl.—The owl and the vulture.—The owl and the crow.—The owls as friends of the swans and enemies of the crows.—The wise owl.—The Eulenspiegel.—The owl as the daughter of Nükteos.—The enemy of Nükteos.—An ill-omened bird.—Prophetic virtue of the owl.—The horned owl.—The owl as a weaver.—The owl and the coins.—The crow and the peacock.—The crow and the nightingale.—The crow and the swan.—Gracculus ad fides.—The prophetic crow.—The crow and the cheese.—The crow as the son of Indras; the Athenians swore by the crow and by Zeus.—The crow and Sîtâ.—The cunning crow.—The crow, the parrot, and the bird of prey.—The crow as the shadow of a dead man.—Yamas as a crow.—The white crow.—Go to the crows.—The rooks.—The crow as a devil.—It helps an old man to pick grains of corn up.—The crow and the cuckoo.—The crow and the waters.—The crow and the figs.—The crow and the hydromel.—The crow and the water of life and death.—The crow as the bird of light.—The crow on a mountain covered with diamonds.—The crows as brothers and sisters of the heroine and of the hero.—The crow as the messenger of St Oswald.—The crow, the maiden, and the crab.—The corvus pica.—The blue magpie.—The two magpies.—Huginn and Muninn.—The magpie as the bringer of the balsam herb.—The magpie sacred to Bacchus.—The magpie and the nightingale.—The daughters of Euippes as magpies.—The rook and the magpie as friends of gold.—The magpie as an infernal bird.—The malice of the magpie.—The white and black magpie.—The magpie and the guests.—The stork.—The stork and the heron.—The stork as the bringer of children.—Funereal presage of the stork.—The stork and the old[Pg 244] man.—Paternal and filial affection of the stork.—The presents of the stork.—The stork brother of the woodcock.—The inebriated storks.—The storks in the other world.

The owl, the crow, the magpie, and the stork are in intimate mythical relation with each other. To give an idea of the monster that wanders in the night, the Ṛigvedas compares him to a khargalâ[382], which is probably an owl (also called naktaćaras); it also directs the devotee to curse death and the god of the dead (to conjure them away), when the owl emits her painful cry, and when the kapotas or dark dove touches the fire[383] (thus we read in the fragments of Menander, "if the owl should cry, we have reason to be afraid"); in the Pańćatantram,[384] the king of the crows also compares the hostile owl that arrives towards night to the god of the dead (the god Yamas). In Hungary the owl is called the bird of death. In the Mahâbhâratam,[385] the mind of the wicked which sees clearly, fishes in turbid waters, and is dexterous in foul actions, is compared to the owl, who (probably as moon) distinguishes every shape in the night. In the Mahâbhâratam, again,[386] the owl kills the crows by night whilst they are sleeping. In the Râmâyaṇam,[387] the owl (as the moon) contends with the vulture (the sun), who had usurped its nest; the two disputants appeal to Râmas, who asks each how long the nest had belonged to it; the vulture answers, "Since the earth was peopled with men," and the owl, "Since the earth was covered with[Pg 245] trees." Râmas, with justice, decides in favour of the owl, observing that his claim is the more ancient, since there were trees before there were men, and is for punishing the vulture, but desists upon learning that the latter was once King Brahmadattas, condemned to become a vulture by the wise Gâutamas, because he had once offered meat and fish to that penitent to eat. Râmas touches the vulture, which, the malediction having come to an end, immediately resumes its human form. The third book of the Pańćatantram treats of the war between the owls and the crows. The birds are weary of having a useless king like Garuḍas, who thinks of no one but the god Vishṇus, and does not trouble himself to protect the nests of the little birds his subjects; they meditate electing a king, and are about to choose the owl,[388] when the crow (the dark night) comes to give its veto, of which the Pańćatantram says, that it is the most cunning amongst birds, as the barber among men, the fox among animals, and the mendicant friars among religious orders. The war between the owl and the crow (the moon and the dark night) is popular in Hindoo tradition; kâkâris, or enemy of the crow, is one of the Sanskṛit names of the owl, and the kâkolûkikâ or owl-like crow, as has already several times been observed by the learned men who have studied Hindoo literary chronology, is already mentioned in the Grammar of Pâṇinis.

[Pg 246]

In the thirtieth story of the fourth book of Afanassieff, the crow eats the eggs of the geese and the swans. The owl, out of hatred to the crow, accuses him to the eagle; the lying crow denies, but is nevertheless condemned to be imprisoned.

In the ninth book of Aristotle's History of Animals, I also find that the crow fights with the owl, whose eggs it destroys at midday, whilst the owl, on the other hand, eats the crow's eggs during the night. In Italian, the expression "the owl amongst the crows," is used to indicate a serious danger. In John Tzetza, we also find an apologue, according to which the crow was about to be elected king of the birds, having arrayed itself in the feathers that had fallen from the other birds, when the owl comes up (in Babrios, instead of the owl, it is the swallow that does the same), recognises one of its own feathers, and plucks it out, setting thus an example to the other birds, who in a short time despoil the crow entirely. (This is a variety of the well-known fable of the crow in the peacock's feathers, and of the same fable, in an opposite sense, contained in the Pańćatantram, where the crow is the wise bird, and the owl the simple one.) There are other instances of cunning ascribed to the owl in fables; for instance, it predicted to the birds that an archer would kill them with their own feathers, and advised them not to let the oak-trees grow, because on them the mistletoe grows, and birds are caught by means of it. The German Eulenspiegel, the legendary malicious buffoon, who wears a great hat, is probably of the same mythical family. The Greeks considered the owl to be a form of the daughter of Nükteus of Lesbio (according to others, of the king of the Ethiopians. Nükteus and the black Ethiopian, both being the night, correspond to each other), who, having become enamoured of her father, lay[Pg 247] with him without his knowledge; her father wished to kill her, but Athênê took pity upon her, and transformed her into an owl, which, remembering its crime, always flees from the light (it is far from the day, like the moon). The owl was sacred to Athênê, the goddess of wisdom, inasmuch as she sees in darkness; the flight of the bird of night was, therefore, for the Athenians a sign that the goddess who protected their city was propitious; hence the owls of Athens passed into a proverb. The owl, otherwise (according to the superstition of the ancient Greeks, recorded by Pliny among the Latin writers), was the enemy of Dionysos (who loves the mysteries, which the moon and the aurora disperse); hence the prescription of ancient medicine, that the eggs of the owl, drunk for three days in wine, make drunkards abstemious. Philostratos, in the Life of Apollonius, goes so far as to say that when one eats an owl's egg, one takes a dislike to wine before having tasted it. But, even in antiquity, the owl was generally looked upon as the ignoble and ill-omened bird that it really is. It is said of Demosthenes, that before going into exile, he declared that Athênê delighted in three fear-inspiring beasts—the owl, the dragon, and the Athenian people. In Ælianos and Apuleius, the owls are spoken of as birds of ill omen. But the male owl was and is still especially considered as a bird of the worst and most funereal character in Italy, Russia, Germany, and Hungary.[389] In the[Pg 248] fourth book of Virgil's Æneid, the song of the male owl is fatal—

"Seraque culminibus ferali carmine Bubo Visa queri et longas in fletum ducere voces." The Romans purified the city with water and sulphur when a male owl or a wolf happened to enter into the temple of Jupiter, or into the Capitol. According to Silius Italicus, the defeat of Cannes was also prognosticated by the male owl—

"Obseditque frequens castrorum limina Bubo." And Ovid, in the tenth book of the Metamorphoses—

"Ignavus Bubo dirum mortalibus omen; Nam diræ mortis nuntius esse solet." According to the fifth book of the same Metamorphoses, Ascalaphos was transformed by Ceres into a male owl, and condemned to predict evil, because he had accused her to Jove of having eaten a pomegranate in secret, against the prohibition.

The prophetic faculty of the owl, according to popular belief, is so great, that Albertus Magnus could seriously[Pg 249] write in his times—"Si cor ejus cum dextro pede super dormientem ponatur, statim tibi dicit quidquid fecerit, et quidquid ab eo interrogaveris. Et hoc a fratribus nostris expertum est moderno tempore." When the witches in Macbeth make the horrid mixture in the great caldron, in order to obtain from it the virtue of sinister presages, they put into it, amongst other maleficent ingredients—

"Eye of newt, and toe of frog, Wool of bat, and tongue of dog, Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting, Lizard's leg, and owlet's wing." In Sicily, the owl that moans, the crow that caws, and the dog that howls by night near the house of a sick man, announce approaching death to him; but among owls, the horned owl (the horned moon), jacobu, or chiovu, or chiò, is especially feared. The horned owl sings near the house of a sick man three days before his death; if there are no sick people in the house, it announces to one at least of its inhabitants that he or she will be struck with squinancy of the tonsil. The peasants in Sicily, when in spring they hear the lamentation of the horned owl for the first time, go to their master to give notice of their intention of leaving his service; whence the Sicilian proverb—

"Quannu canta lu chiò Cu 'avi patruni, tinta canciar lu pò." The Sicilian poet Giovani Meli, in the little poem, Pianto di Palemone, refers to the sinister presage of the horned owl in the following verses—

"Ah! miu patri lu predissi, E trimava 'ntra li robbi, Ch'eu nascivi 'ntra l'ecclissi E chiancìanu li jacobbi."[Pg 250] In the popular Sicilian legend, entitled La Principessa di Carini, when the friar goes to act as a spy, the moon envelops itself in clouds, the horned owl flies round, screeching—

"Lu jacobbu chiancennu svulazzau." In several German popular songs, the horned owl and the common owl complain that they are alone and deserted in the forest. The owl (as the moon) is also represented in German tradition as a nocturnal weaver.[390] In the same tradition, the funereal owl is found mentioned in connection with the funereal crow.[391]

I have already mentioned, in the chapter on the Wolf, that vṛikas, in the Vedic hymns, may mean both wolf and crow. The crow, like the wolf, represents the dark night. The owl with yellow eyes (whence in Athens certain coins bearing the effigies of an owl were called owls, and in Italy golden coins are vulgarly called owls'-eyes) seems to represent the crepuscular bird in particular (from which we can understand why it was especially sacred to Athênê), and much oftener still the night with the yellow eye of the moon. The crow, on the other hand, seems to be the representative of the gloomy night or cloud. The owl which destroys the crow's nest, and discovers the deceit of the crow when disguised in the feathers of other birds, seems to be the same as the moon that disperses the darkness,[Pg 251] or the sahasrâkshas (the heavenly peacock), that shuts the thousand eyes of the starry sky, and makes the thousand stars of the heaven grow pale. The owl, as the king of birds (we know also the Indras-moon as Mṛigarâǵas, or king of beasts) seems generally to be the same as the moon, the mistress of the night. Indras is often the peacock-god, the azure starry sky of night; but blue and black, as we have said, are two equivalent colours (the azure god Indras becomes the azure or dark Kṛishṇas, and, on the contrary, the crow becomes a peacock), and are expressed by one and the same word; hence the black bird and the blue one are substituted for one another. According to Festus, the crow was, before the peacock, sacred to Juno. The crow-peacock has already become proverbial in the Pańćatantram,[392] where we read that the hasty fool takes a crow for a peacock. The voice of the peacock is as shrill as that of the crow; in the Râmâyaṇam,[393] the water-cock (ǵalakukkubhas, the heron, the halcyon, the duck, the swan) laughs at the peacock when striving to answer the cuckoo. Thus, the Greek proverb laughs at the crows which are more honoured than the nightingales (korakes aêdonôn aîdesimôteroi). Martial places them in contrast with the swans—

"Inter Lædæos ridetur corvus Olores;" and the Greek proverb turns into ridicule the rook amongst the Muses (koloios en tais mousais), and the Latin one, the "Gracculus ad fides." In a variety of the forty-sixth story of the sixth book of Afanassieff, the crow occupies the place of the prophetic nightingale. The fox (the spring aurora) takes the cheese (the moon) from the crow (the winter night), by making it sing. In the Mahâbhâratam,[394] the monster Râhus disguises himself as a god,[Pg 252] that he may go and drink the ambrosia of the gods; the sun and the moon denounce the imposture; Râhus is recognised, and Vishṇus cuts off his head with his disc; this is an ancient variety of the fable of the crow among the peacocks. This disguise of the crow, however, will appear quite natural when we reflect that Indras is a peacock, and that in the Râmâyaṇam[395] a certain learned crow (pâṇḍitas) is called by Hanumant the son of Indras (putraḥ kila sa çakrasya; in the Ornithes of Aristophanes, I read that at Athens men swore by the crow and by Zeus). I have observed, on a previous occasion, that the Vedic Indras assumes in the Hindoo poems a sinister, and sometimes even a diabolical aspect. In the Râmâyaṇam,[396] a crow attacks Sîtâ with wings, beak, and claws; Râmas hurls an enchanted dart at it; the bird, by divine grace, does not die, but as it flies rapidly, between drop and drop, whilst it rains from the cloud, it sees nothing but darts and shadows of darts in the air. Then it returns to Râmas to beseech him to deliver it from this enchantment; Râmas says that the enchantment must run its full course, but that he can make it take effect in one part of the body alone; let the crow choose the part that Râmas must aim at. The cunning bird, hoping that Râmas will miss his aim, says one of its eyes; Râmas aims at it and strikes it, to the great wonder of Sîtâ, against whom the crow had begun to make war, after that Râmas had marked her forehead in red (probably after the evening aurora; the legendary husband and wife exchange the ring of recognition, now the sun and now the moon, in the evening or the autumn, in order to find themselves together again, by its means, in the morning or the spring). I have cited in the preceding chapter,[Pg 253] from the Pańćatantram, the popular Hindoo belief that the crow is the most cunning of birds, as the fox is the most cunning of animals. Aristotle says that the crow is the fox's friend; in the Râmâyaṇam, the stratagem adopted by the fox in the Western fable to make the cheese fall out of the crow's beak, obliging it to open its beak and let the booty fall, is advised by the rook or crow (sârikâ or gracula religiosa). A bird of prey holds a parrot in its claws, and a sârikâ in its beak; the rook says, "Parrot, bite the foot of the enemy whilst he is alone and in the air, and whilst his beak presses me; and as his beak is occupied and cannot bite thee, bite thou him, in order that he may let you go;" the rook thus hoped that, by opening its beak, which it did with pain, the bird of prey would let it too go. In Plautus a crafty servant is compared to a crow. The crow also personifies in Hindoo tradition the shadow of a dead man; to give food to the crows is for the Hindoos the same as to give food to the souls of the dead; hence part of their meals was always, and is still, according to all travellers in India, left for the crows. Even in the Râmâyaṇam,[397] Râmas orders Sîtâ to preserve the rest of the food for the crows. In the flight of the gods before the demons, described in the last book of the Râmâyaṇam, the god Indras hides himself in the form of a peacock, and Yamas, the god of the dead, in that of a crow (in Hellenic mythology, during the war against the giants, it is Apollo that transforms himself into a crow, but probably[Pg 254] into a white one, as white crows were, according to the Greek belief, dedicated to the sun. It is said that the crow was once white, but that Apollo made it black, indignant at that animal for bringing to him the unwelcome news of having surprised in adultery his mistress, the Princess Korônis; here the crow occupies the place of the mythical cuckoo. In another Hellenic myth, the crow loses the favour of Pallas for having brought the intelligence that Erichtonios, born to Pallas by the seed of the celestial blacksmith, which had fallen upon the earth, had been found by the three daughters of Kekrops. In reward for the services of the crow, Yamas conceded to it the right of eating the funereal food, for which reason the shades of the dead, when this food is given to the crow, are enabled to pass into a better world. In the Clouds of Aristophanes, the Greek proverb, "Go to the crows" (ball' es korakas), means "die." Hence in India as in Persia, in Russia as in Germany, in Greece as in Italy, the crow is pre-eminently a funereal bird of sinister omen. According to Ælianos, the Venetians of ancient Hadria were accustomed to appease the rooks, in order that they should not devastate the fields, by solemnly sending to meet them two ambassadors, who presented to them a mixture of oil and flour. If the rooks accepted the offering, it was a good sign. In Lambert of Aschaffenburg, a pilgrim sees in a dream a horrid crow which caws and flies round Cologne, and which is hunted away by a splendid horseman; the pilgrim explains that the crow is the devil, and the horseman St George. In the Chronicles of the Beatified Anthony, we find described fetid and black pools "in regione Puteolorum in Apulia," whence the souls arise in the forms of monstrous birds in the evening hours of the Sabbath, which neither eat nor let themselves be caught,[Pg 255] but wander till in the morning an enormous crow compels them to submerge themselves in the waters. In Germany, according to Rochholtz, when a crow places itself upon the roof of a house where there is a dead body, it means that the dead man's soul is damned. At Brusasco, in Piedmont, children sing to the crow this funereal verse, counterfeiting in the chorus the crow's cry—

"Curnaiáss, Porta 'l sćiass (the colander); Me mari l'è morta Sut la porta. Qué!" In a popular Swedish song, in the collection translated into German by Warrens, I read this verse, where the crow assumes an entirely monstrous form; men spit at it, as they do at the devil—

"Es flog ein Rabe über das Dach, Hatt' Menschenfleisch in den Krallen, Drei Tropfen Blutes träuften herab, Ich spülte, wo sie gefallen." In the thirty-ninth story of the fourth book of Afanassieff, an old man, having let some grain fall to the ground, says that if the sun warmed him, the moon gave him light, and the crow helped him to pick the corn up, he would give each one of his three daughters. Sun, moon, and crow listen to him, and marry the three maidens. Some time after, the old man goes to visit his son-in-law the crow, who makes him mount a never-ending ladder, carrying him in his beak; but when they are high up, the crow lets the old man drop, and he dies.

Inasmuch as Indras, or Zeus, that is, the pluvial god, takes now the shape of a cuckoo, now that of a crow, the crow, in the fifteenth story of Siddhikür, announces the proximity of water to the thirsty prince. Tommaso Badino[Pg 256] of Piacenza[398] narrates an apologue which reminds us of the biblical legend of the Deluge. Phœbos sends the crow to find the lustral water for the sacrifice of Zeus;[399] but the crow, when it arrives at the fountain, sees some figs near it; instead of doing its errand, it waits till the (phallical) figs ripen. Hence the crow passed into a proverb as a procrastinator (the legend of St Athanasius, moreover, recognises the procrastinator in the crow, because it says "cras" with its voice). Nor can we accept the biblical derivation of the belief of the procrastinating crow, when we find it explicitly mentioned and illustrated in Ovid by the story of the figs and that of the corn, whose maturity the crow waits for before carrying the water. The meaning of the myth appears to me evident; the thundering and rainy clouds yield water towards the end of June, when the first figs and the grain are ripe (in Plutarch's Life of Nicias, instead of these we have the golden dates); the crow represents the pluvial god; as the cuckoo brings the rains of spring, the crow brings those of summer, and afterwards, when the later figs ripen, those of autumn, which announce the winter, dear to the crows.[400]

"Imbrium divina vis imminentum."[401] [Pg 257]

In a popular Swedish song, hydromel is offered to the messenger crow; instead of this, it solicits small grains for its young. In the fifty-second story of the sixth book of Afanassieff, the crow is sent to seek for the water of life and death, and to make experiments with it upon itself before bringing it.

But out of darkness comes forth light, the sun; from the black night, the clear day; from the black crow, the white one; hence, in the first of the Esthonian stories, we find the crow represented as the bird of light, in the same way as in the Hellenic myth it was sacred to Apollo. In the sixth of the Sicilian stories of Signora Gonzenbach, crows carry the boy Giuseppe, shut up in a sack made of a horse's skin dried in the sun, to a mountain covered with diamonds, and the egg of a crow thrown on the head of the monster giant kills him. In the ninth story of the fourth book of the Pentamerone, a king sees the blood of a crow, which had been killed, upon some white marble, and wishes for a bride who shall be white like the marble and red like the blood, and have hair as black as the crow's feathers. The foolish hero Ivan, in Afanassieff's story (vi. 9), calls the crows his little sisters, and pours out for them the food contained in the small pipkins which he was carrying to sell. In popular German and Scandinavian songs, where the crow often appears as the succourer of the beautiful maiden (the sun; die Sonne is feminine in German, as is well known), it is said to be the heroine's brother. The crow is the well-known messenger of Saint Oswald, king in Engelland (the land of the Angles). The crow often brings[Pg 258] good luck to the heroes, even by sacrificing itself; the death of night and of winter brings round again day and spring; hence the two celebrated verses of Horace—

"Oscinem corvum prece suscitabo Solis ab ortu."[402] Several of the mythical characteristics of the crow, indeed, the principal ones, are also ascribed to the magpie (corvus pica). The blue magpie seems to be spoken of as a bird of evil omen, even in a Vedic hymn, in connection with the disease of consumption.[403] In the forty-sixth story of Afanassieff, the magpies are in relation with the mythical water; one magpie is sent for the water of life, and another for the water of speech, to resuscitate the two sons of a prince and princess, whom a witch had touched with the hand of death as they slept. These two magpies seem to correspond to the two crows, Huginn and Muninn, which the Scandinavian god Odin sent every day into the world to learn all the news there current, which they afterwards brought back and whispered in one of his ears. In a German legend given by Grimm, the magpie appears as the bringer of the balsam herb (Springwurzel). The Greeks and the Latins considered the magpie to be sacred to Bacchus, because it is in connection with the ambrosial drink; and, as drunkards are garrulous, so the magpie is famous for its garrulity. We have seen the rook amongst the Muses; in Theocritus the magpie defies the nightingale in singing; in Galenus it is proverbially emulous of the Siren; the nine daughters of Euippes were changed into magpies, because they had presumed to emulate the nine[Pg 259] Muses in singing, whence Dante, invoking Calliope, wishes to continue his song—

"Con quel suono Di cui le Piche misere sentiro, Lo colpo tal che disperâr perdono." The reader knows, no doubt, the fable of Arnê, as given in Ovid, who, in her thirst for gold, betrayed her country to the enemy, and was changed into a rook (monedula), the friend of gold. In the tenth book of his History, Livy narrates the fable of a crow that ate the gold in the Capitol. In a popular Danish ballad, gold is offered to the messenger crow, who (like the cuckoo) answers that it knows not what to do with it, and desires rather nourishment fit for crows. The magpie, too, became proverbial as a robber of gold and silver, which it goes to hide, not so much because it likes shining metals, as because it hates too great light. The crow and the magpie hide the sun and the golden ears of corn in the rainy and wintry season. In German mythology, the magpie is an infernal bird, into which witches often transform themselves, or which is ridden by them. Hence it is also believed in Germany that the magpie must be killed during the twelve days between Christmas and Epiphany (when the days begin to lengthen again). But, inasmuch as every species of malice is learned in hell, the malice of the magpie became even more proverbial than that of the crow. The magpie makes use of this knowledge now to do evil, as a malignant fairy, now to do good to men, as a benignant fairy: the colour of the blue magpie appears now luminous, now tenebrific; the colours of white and black in the magpie (as in the swallow) represent its two mythical contradictory characters. In German superstition the magpie tells of the approach of the wolf; hence it is still believed that it is unlucky to kill a[Pg 260] magpie. In the Russian popular song, the magpie is the punisher of the lazy little finger which would not go to the well to find water:—

"The magpie, the magpie, Had cooked the gruel, It leaped upon the threshold, It invited the guests."[404] It invites all the guests, except the little finger, which is the smallest of the fingers on account of its laziness;—we have already mentioned the lazy little brother who refuses to go to take water, in the first chapter of the first book. In Russia, it is believed that when a magpie comes to perch upon the threshold of a house, it announces the arrival of guests; this belief reminds me of the magpie of Petronius: "Super limen autem cavea pendebat aurea, in quâ pica varia intrantes salutabat."[405]

As the crow and the magpie are thought of, in mythology, in connection with the water, and with the funereal and infernal winter, so the stork represents especially the rainy and wintry season. The heron, already mentioned in the chapter on the Cuckoo, presents several of the mythical characteristics of the stork. In the twenty-ninth[Pg 261] story of the fourth book of Afanassieff, the stork, tired of living alone, goes to the heron and proposes marriage to her. The heron sends him away in contempt. No sooner is the stork gone, than the heron repents, and goes in her turn to propose to the stork, who refuses out of sulkiness. He then repents of his refusal, and returns to the heron, who, sulky in her turn, rejects him. The story ends by saying that the heron and the stork continue to visit one another, but that they are not married yet. This fable, although it has a satirical meaning, also implies the intimate mythical relationship between the heron and the stork. The heron and the stork are two birds which equally love the water, and therefore serve to represent the cloudy, rainy, wintry, or gloomy sky, which, as we have already said, is often represented as a black sea. From the night, the cloud, or the winter, comes forth the young sun, the new sun, the little child-hero who had been exposed in the waters; hence the popular German belief of children that the storks carry children from the fountain.[406] However, properly speaking, as long as the stork holds the child-hero in its beak, the latter is not considered born; it is only born at the moment in which, opening its beak, it puts the child down in its mother's lap. The stork personifies the funereal sky, the sky when the celestial hero, the sun, is dead. Hence it is believed in Germany that when storks fly round, or over a group of persons, some one of them is about to die; the clouds and the shadows that collect together presage the disappearance or death of the sun.

[Pg 262]

In Russian stories we have a double aspect of the stork (besides the fable, probably imported, of the stork and the fox as cousins, who invite each other to supper). In the seventeenth story of the second book of Afanassieff, an old man begs the stork to be as his son (the reputation of the storks for their paternal and filial affection is of ancient date[407]). The stork gives to the old man a sack out of which come two young men, who cover the table with a silk tablecloth, furnished with every good thing. A godmother who has three daughters changes the old man's sack whilst he is returning home. The old man, laughed at and beaten by his wife, returns to the stork, who gives him another sack, out of which also come two young men, who flog people vigorously. By means of this sack the old man recovers the former one, and reduces his wife to obedience. In a variety of the same story, the stork makes to the foolish hero three presents—a horse which, when it is told to stop, is transformed into a heap of money, and, when it is told to go on, resumes its former shape; a tablecloth which both spreads itself and takes itself off; and a horn out of which come the two young floggers. In the thirty-seventh story of the fourth book of Afanassieff, the stork is said to be the brother of the woodcock, and they cut hay together, but do nothing else. We mentioned, in the chapter on the Bear, the storks that eat the harvests of a peasant who threatens to cut off their feet. They upset a barrel of wine in order to drink its contents; the indignant peasant takes and binds them to his waggon, but the inebriated storks are so strong, that they carry peasant, waggon, and horse up into the air. Here the stork assumes a[Pg 263] diabolical aspect, as the representative of the wintry season; the chariot of the peasant is that of the sun. In the fifth story of the sixth book of Afanassieff, the soldier-impostor tells an old woman that he is going back to the other world, where he found her son leading storks to the pasturage. Here the storks have the funereal and infernal nature of the crows, which we have observed to be, in Âryan beliefs, one of the forms assumed by the souls of the dead.

[Pg 264]

CHAPTER VII. THE WOODPECKER AND THE MARTIN. SUMMARY.

The picus in the work of Professor Kuhn.—Picus, corvus pica, and picumnus; the Vedic word vṛikas.—The she-wolf and the woodpecker as the nurses of the Latin twin heroes.—Picus as the phallos; picus, picumnus, pilumnus, pilum, pistor; piciu, pinco, pincio, pinson, pincone.—The sacred herb of Indras which cleaves the mountains.—Jupiter as a picus; the picus presages rain; the herb of the woodpecker has the virtue of opening every shut place.—The woodpecker and the honey.—Beowulf and the woodpecker.—The woodpecker and the gold.—The green woodpecker.—The woodpecker as the devil.—The woodpecker in opposition to the fox.—The vengeance of the woodpecker.—The halcyon.—The martin or bird of St Martin.—Martin piciu.—The yünx in love with Zeus; it attracts lovers.—Alküoneioi hêmerai; the halcyon.—Robin Redbreast and its "charitable bill."—The bird of St Gertrude; the incendiaria avis; Jean rouge-gorge.—Sea-birds with white and black plumage and a little spot of blood on their heads.

The woodpecker has already had the honour of being studied with great learning by Professor Adalbert Kuhn, in his excellent work upon the celestial fire and water, to which I refer the cultivated reader for the principal myths relating to the subject; that is to say, for the comparison of the Vedic hawk and the Vedic fire-bhuraṇyus with the Hellenic Phoroneus, the Latin picus Feronius, the incendiaria avis, the picus that carries thunder, and[Pg 265] that which carries food to the twins Romulus and Remus,[408] and which itself enjoys wine, with King Picus, progenitor of a race, and with the corresponding German traditions. I shall only observe here the mythological relationship between picus and the corvus pica (picumnus was applied both to the woodpecker and the magpie), in order to return to the equivocal Vedic word vṛikas, which means wolf and crow, whence also arose and fostered itself the confusion between the she-wolf that nurses the Latin twin heroes, and the woodpecker which, in the same legend, offers itself as their nourisher. The woodpecker, the magpie, and the wolf, personify equally the god in the darkness, the devil, the cloud, the sky of night, the rainy season, the wintry season; from the night, and from the winter, the new sun, fed by the she-wolf, or by the funereal bird, arises; the penetrating beak of the woodpecker in the cloud is the thunderbolt; in the night, and in the wintry season, it is now the moon that disperses the darkness, now the sunbeam that comes out of the darkness. The thunderbolt, the moon, and the sun's ray, moreover, sometimes assume in myths the form of the phallos; the woodpecker as a phallos and the King Picus, progenitor of a race, seem to me to be the same. The Latin legend puts picus in connection with picumnus, pilumnus, the pilum, and the pistor, in the same way as a Norwegian story puts in relation with flour the cuckoo, which we already know to be a phallical symbol, properly the presser down. In the Piedmontese dialect, the common name of the phallos is piciu; in Italian, pinco and pincio have the same meaning;[Pg 266] pincione is the chaffinch (in French pinson); and pincone means a fool, for the same reason that the ass, as a phallical symbol, personified folly. We already know Indras as a cuckoo, as a peacock, and as a hawk. To find Indras again in the woodpecker, the Tâittiriya-Brahmaṇam offers us a notable analogy. In it Indras kills the wild boar, hidden in the seven mountains (the shadows of the night, or the clouds), cleaving them by the touch of the stem of a sacred luminous and golden herb (sa darbhapińǵûlam uddhṛitya sapta girîn bhittvâ[409]), which may be the moon in the night, or else the thunderbolt in the cloud; the thunderbolt is also not seldom represented in Âryan traditions as a magic rod. It is with a golden rod that, in the seventh book of the Æneid, the enchantress Circe transforms the wise King Picus, son of Saturn (as Jupiter-Indras; Suidas also speaks of a Pêkos Zeus, buried in Crete) into a bird, into the picus, sacred to the god of warriors (Mars-Indras), whence his name of picus martius, the woodpecker, which is supposed to presage rain (like Zeus and Indras)—

"Picus equûm domitor, quem capta cupidine conjux, Aurea percussum virga, versumque venenis, Fecit avem Circe, sparsitque coloribus alas." Pliny relates that the woodpecker has the virtue of opening every shut place, touching it with a certain herb, which increases and decreases with the moon;[410] this herb[Pg 267] may be the moon itself, which opens the hiding-places of the night, or the thunderbolt which opens the hiding-places of the cloud. It is well known that in the Vedic hymns, Indras, who is generally the pluvial and thundering god, is frequently associated with the soma (ambrosia and moon), and even identified with it. Pliny adds, moreover, that whoever takes honey out of the hive with the beak of a woodpecker is not liable to be stung by the bees; this honey may be the rain in the cloud as well as the lunar ambrosia or the dew of the morning aurora; hence the woodpecker's beak may be the thunderbolt as well as the moonbeam, or the sunbeam. Beowulf (the wolf of the bees) is spoken of in connection with the woodpecker as well as with the bear: the Bienenfresser of German legends, or the pica merops, explains the Latin superstition and the Beowulf. Like the crow, the woodpecker, too, stays in darkness, but brings water, seeks for honey, and finds the light. In the Aulularia, Plautus makes woodpeckers live upon golden mountains (picos, qui aureos monies incolunt). Inasmuch as the woodpeckers announced the approach of winter, or were seen on the left, according to the well-known verse of Horace[411]—

"Teque nec lævus vetet ire picus, they were considered birds of evil omen. In the Ornithologus,[Pg 268] it is said that the green woodpecker (the moon, by the previously mentioned equivocalness of haris) presages winter (the moon, as we have said, rules over the winter). For this reason, St Ephiphanios could compare the woodpecker with the devil. According to Pliny, the woodpecker that perched upon the head of the prætor Lucius Tubero, whilst he was administering justice, announced approaching ruin to the empire if it were allowed to go free, and approaching death to the prætor if killed; Lucius Tubero, moved by love of his country, seized the woodpecker, killed it, and died soon afterwards. Hence Pliny could say with reason that woodpeckers were "in auspiciis magni."

In the twentieth story of the third book of Afanassieff, the woodpecker, which usually appears as a very knowing bird, lets itself be deceived by the fox, who eats its young ones, under the pretext of teaching them an art. In the twenty-fifth story of the fourth book, on the other hand, the woodpecker assumes a heroic and formidable aspect. It makes friends with an old dog, which has been expelled from its kennel, and offers its services as purveyor. A woman, is carrying some dinner to her husband, who is working in the fields. The woodpecker flies before her and feigns to let itself be taken; the woman, to run after it, puts the dinner down, and the dog feeds upon it (in a variety of the same story, the woodpecker also offers to the dog a means of getting something to drink). Afterwards the dog meets the fox; then, in order to please the woodpecker (who, perhaps, remembered the treachery of the fox who ate its little ones), it runs upon the fox and maltreats it. A peasant passes by and thrashes the poor dog, who dies. Then the woodpecker becomes furious in its desire of vengeance, and begins to[Pg 269] peck now at the peasant, and now at his horses; the peasant tries to flog the woodpecker, instead of which he flogs the horses to death. Nor does the woodpecker's vengeance stop here; it goes to the peasant's wife and pecks at her; she endeavours to beat it, but instead of doing so, she beats her own sons (these are two varieties of the story of the mother who beats her son, thinking to beat the ass, which, as a phallical symbol, we have already said corresponds to the woodpecker. The myth of Seilenos, which we saw in connection with the ass, has also been quoted by Professor Kuhn in relation with the woodpecker. In the third book of the Pańćatantram, we have a bird that throws gold from behind, a characteristic of the mythical ass in fairy tales). Here the woodpecker has the same office which in another Russian story, already recorded, is attributed to the wintry, funereal, and ill-omened stork, the sun hidden in the darkness, or the cloud.

The halcyon, which announces tempests, and the bird of St Martin, the fisher martin, are of the same wintry and phallical nature as the woodpecker. In Piedmont, a fool is insultingly called by the name of Martin-Piciu (the podex and the phallos, and also the phallos martin, which reminds us of the picus pistor, and the picus martius), and the above-quoted Italian expression pincone is equivalent to it. The sun that hides itself in darkness or clouds loses its power. The phallical symbol is evident. Here remark the Hellenic fable of the bird Yünx tetraknamon, of the four rays, of the long tongue, always changeful (the Trench call it paille en cul). Pan is said to have been the father of a girl called Yünx, who, having attempted to seduce Zeus, was changed by the vengeance of Hêrê into a bird of the same name. In Pindar, Jason made use[Pg 270] of this bird, the gift of Aphroditê, to gain the favour of Medea. In Theocritos, this bird is invoked by girls in love to attract their lovers into the house; women made use of this bird in their mischief-working love-mysteries.

According to the fifth book of Aristotle's History of Animals, the halcyon sits on its eggs in the serene days of winter, called therefore alküoneiai hêmerai; and the author cites a sentence of Simonides concerning this bird: "When Zeus, in the wintry season, creates twice seven warm days, mortals say, 'This tepid weather is nourishing the variously-painted halcyons.'" Ovid relates that Alcyon was transformed into the bird of this name while weeping for her husband, who had been drowned in the sea, whence Ariosto wrote—

"E s'udîr le Alcione alla marina Dell' antico infortunio lamentarse." This bird, the kingfisher, several kinds of woodpeckers, the wren, the crow, and the redbreast, the Scotch Robin Redbreast, also called in English ruddock and Robin-ruddock, which, "with charitable bill," according to the expression of Shakspeare in Cymbeline,[412] throws funereal flowers upon unburied bodies,[413] are all birds sacred to St[Pg 271] Martin, the holy gravedigger, the bringer of winter, who, according to the Celtic and German traditions, divides his own cloak with poor men, and covers them. German legends are full of incidents relating to this funereal and wintry bird, with which now the funereal Norwegian bird of St Gertrude, now the cuckoo, now the incendiaria avis, are assimilated. Hence the same redbreast which in German tradition is sacred to St Martin is called Jean rouge-gorge in the popular songs of Brittany, published by Villemarqué, and is sacred to St John; but this John may be the St John of winter, whose festival is celebrated on the 27th of December, that is, two days after the Nativity of Christ, or in the days in which the sun, the Saviour, is born again, and the light increases. Birds of the same funereal nature as that of St Martin appear in the Breton song Bran (or the prisoner of war):—"At Kerloan, upon the battlefield, there is an oak-tree which spreads its branches over the shore; there is an oak-tree at the place where the Saxons took to flight before the face of Evan the Great. On this oak, when the moon shines at night, birds come to meet one another, sea-birds with white and black plumage, and a little spot of blood on their heads; with them there comes an old grey crow, and with it a young crow. Both are very weary, and their wings are wet; they come from beyond the seas, they come from afar; and the birds sing such a beautiful song that the great sea is hushed and listens; this song they sing with one voice, except the old crow and the young one; now the[Pg 272] crow has said—'Sing, little birds; sing, sing, little birds of the land; you do not die far away from Bretagne.'" The same funereal birds which have pity for the dead, like the stork, also take care of new-born infants, and bring the light forth. The cloudy nocturnal or wintry monster discovers his treasures; the funereal bird buries the dead, and brings them to life again; its beak pierces through the mountain, finds the water and the fire, and tears the veil of death; its luminous head disperses the gloomy shadows.

[Pg 273]

CHAPTER VIII. THE LARK AND THE QUAIL. SUMMARY.

The lark the first of animals.—It existed before the earth.—It buries its father in its own head.—The lark sings the praises of God.—Praǵâpatis creates the stomas first.—The crested sun.—Christos and crista; the crested lark and St Christophoros.—Alauda the lauder.—The lark upon the father's tomb.—The mother-lark.—The lark announces morning and summer.—Bharadvâǵas, the bringer of food, the bringer of good things and of sound.—Bharadvâǵas as a mythical singer or poet, nourished by a lark; the son of Bṛihaspatis.—The old Bharadvâǵas ascends into heaven in union with the sun.—The quail.—Vartikâ, vartakas, wachtel, perepiolka.—The quail and the wolf in the Ṛigvedas.—The wise girl upon a hare, with a quail tied to her hand.—Jove as a quail.—The quail sacred to Hercules.—The moon and the quail.—The quail becomes a stone.—The quail believed to eat poisonous hellebore.—The quail as a sacred bird.—The game of the quail.—The quail and the cock.—The quail as a prophetic bird.—The quail puts a price upon corn.

To the crested lark, in the Ornithes of Aristophanes, the name of king is given, and the same virtue of funereal charity is attributed to it which we have already seen in the redbreast of winter, in the stork, and in the crested whoop. According to Aristophanes the lark was not only the first of animals, but it existed before the earth and before the gods Zeus and Kronos and the[Pg 274] Titans. Hence, when the lark's father died, there was no earth to bury him in; then the lark buried its father in its own head (or in its pyramidal crest). Goropius explains the belief that the lark existed before the earth, by observing that the lark sings seven times a day the praises of God in the high air, and that prayer was the first thing which existed in the world. In Hindoo cosmogony, when Praǵâpatis, the creator, wishes to multiply himself, he begins by creating the stomas or hymn.[414] The father of the lark is therefore the god himself. The crested lark is the same as the crested sun, the sun with his rays. In the legend of St Christopher, I see an equivoque between the word Christos and the word crista, and, either way, I see the sun personified. St Christopher, in the legend, carries Christ, and is associated with the lark. Goropius, when a child, on seeing a picture representing St Christopher, marvelled that the lark did not flee from the tree-staff of St Christopher, whilst the sparrows, instead, fled before him as soon as he approached; he was answered that the lark is not afraid of St Christopher, because it sees on the saint's shoulders its own creator, God. Christ, the father of the lark, dies, and the lark buries him in its crista. In the same way an equivoque in speech made of the lark (alauda) the lauder (laudatrix) of God; thus it seems to me that the equivoque between crista and Christos passed into the legend of St Christopher. In the nineteenth Mongol story, the poor young man makes his fortune when he hears a lark upon his father's tomb, which has come and placed itself upon the loom. The lark is a form of the young man himself, the young sun who from poor becomes rich; the loom upon which the[Pg 275] lark perches is the sky. The Greek name of the crested lark (korüdalos) corresponds to the Latin galerita. The lark with the crest or with the tuft explains the custom of the Gauls, recorded by Suetonius in the Life of Julius Cæsar, of representing a crested lark upon their helmets. The Æsopian fables of the mother-lark with its young ones, and of the lark with the birdcatcher, show us this bird full of cunning and wisdom. As the larks sing the praises of God only when the sky is serene, and as they announce the morning[415] and the summer, they represent the crested sun which illumines all, which is all-luminous, all-seeing, (the Vedic viçvavedas), the golden sun. In the thirteenth Esthonian story, the maiden that sleeps will waken when she hears again the summer song of the larks. (Here the maiden is the earth, which wakens in the spring.)

The Hindoo name of the lark is no less interesting than the Latin alauda. Bharadvâǵas, or the lark, may mean the bringer of food or of goods (as the sun), as well as the bringer of sound (the singer of hymns) and the sacrificer. In this triple interpretation which can be given to the word bharadvâǵas, nearly all the myth of the lark seems to be contained. Bharadvâǵas, afterwards, also becomes the name of a celebrated poet, and of one of the seven mythical sages, who, according to the legend, was nourished by a lark, and who is said to be the son of Bṛihaspatis, the god of sacrifice, Fire, identified with Divodâsas, one of the favourites of the god Indras, who destroys for him the strong celestial cities of Çambaras. The Tâittiriya-brâhmaṇam also shows us the wise Bharadvâǵas in connection with Indras.[Pg 276] Bharadvâǵas has become old whilst travelling three degrees of the life of a studious penitent; Indras approaches the aged sage, and asks him, how, if he still had many years to live, he would employ his lifetime? The sage answers that he would continue to live in penitence and in study. In the three first degrees of his life, Bharadvâǵas has studied the three Vedâs (the Atharva-veda having come afterwards, or not being as yet recognised as a sacred book). In the fourth period, Bharadvâǵas learns universal science (çarvavidyâ), becomes immortal, and ascends into heaven in union with the sun (âdityasya sâyuǵyam).

The quail is also in intimate relation with the summer sun, but especially with the moon.

Vartikâ and vartakas are its Indian names, which may mean both she who is turned towards, the animated one, the ready, the swift, the watchful (cfr. the German Wachtel), and the pilgrim (cfr. the Russian perepiolka). In the Ṛigvedas, the Açvinâu deliver the quail from torments; they release the quail from the rage of the wolf; they liberate it from the jaws of the wolf that is devouring it.[416] In the forty-first story of the sixth book of Afanassieff, the wise girl comes upon a hare with a quail tied to her hand, and presents herself before the Tzar, whose riddle she must solve in order to marry him. This quail is the symbol of the Tzar himself, or the sun; the wise girl is the aurora (or the spring), who arrives near the sun upon the hare, that is, upon the moon, traversing the shadows of night (or winter). The Greeks and Latins, observing, perhaps, that the moon takes sleep[Pg 277] away from the quail, believed that the quail was sacred to Latona, and relate that Jove became a quail to lie with Latona, of which union Diana and Apollo (moon and sun) were born.[417] Others also affirm that the quail was sacred to Hercules, who, by the scent of a quail, recovered his life, which had been taken from him by Tüphon. It is believed that when the moon rises, the quail cries out and is excited to agitation against it, and that the quail's head increases or diminishes according to the moon's influence. As the quail seems to represent the sun, and loves heat, it fears the cold moon. From these mythical relations of the quail was doubtless derived the fear which the ancients had for the quail, which they believed to eat poisonous hellebore during the night, and to be therefore poisonous and subject to epilepsy. Plutarch, in the Apophtegmata, relates that Augustus punished with death a president of Egypt who had eaten a quail which had carried off the prize in the fight; for it was long the custom to make quails fight with one another, in the same way as at Athens the game of the quail was a favourite diversion, in which several quails were placed in a circle, and he who hit one carried off all the others. According to Artemidoros, quails announced to their feeders the evils by which they would be visited from the side of the sea. The quail which agitates itself[Pg 278] against the moon (thus Ælianos writes that the cock excites himself and exults when the moon rises[418]) presages the bad season, the pluvial or wintry season, and makes use of its own presage to migrate to warmer regions. The quail watches, travels, and cries out during the night; from the number of times that it cries out in succession in the fields, the peasants of Tuscany infer the price of corn; as the quail generally renews its cry three, four or more times, when it cries three times they say that corn will be cheap, and that, when it cries out four or more times, it will be dear; and so they say that the quail puts a price upon corn.[419] The quail arrives with the sun in our fields in spring, and goes away with the sun in September. In the Mahâbhâratam,[420] when the hero Bhîmas is squeezed by an enormous serpent, a quail appears near the sun, dark (pratyâdityamabhâsvarâ), with only one wing, one eye, and one foot, horrible to the sight, vomiting blood (raktaṁ vamantî). This quail may represent either the red sky of evening, in the west, or the red heavens at the conclusion of summer.

[Pg 279]

CHAPTER IX. THE COCK AND THE HEN. SUMMARY.

Alektrüon, a satellite of Mars, the lover of Venus, becomes a cock.—Indras, the lover of Ahalyâ as a cock; Ahalyâ turned to stone.—Indras as a eunuch or as a ram.—Praǵâpatis loves his daughter the aurora, and becomes a goat.—Ahalyâ in the ashes, like Cinderella.—The thunder and the eggs; the iron nail and the laurel in the nest.—To be made of stucco, to be turned to stone by the thunder which astonishes.—It is a sacrilege to kill cocks and hens.—The cock Parodars in the Avesta.—The cock chases the demons away.—The cock wakens the aurora and arouses mankind.—Christus and the cock as cristiger, cristatus, cristeus.—The cock sacred to St James, to St Christopher and Donar.—St James as a cock.—The hen crows like a cock.—Men turned to stone, and the cock who calls them to life again.—The cock as a devil.—The enchanted hut stands upon a hen's little feet.—Cocks killed as a form of witches.—The lapillus alectorius; the same enclosed in a ring.—To dream of brood-hens with chickens.—The egg is more cunning than the hen.—The golden cock on the rock; marvels come out of the rock.—The egg which becomes a girl.—The cock on the top of high buildings, to indicate the winds, and also the hours.—The black cock and the red one.—The black hen.—The cock sacrificed.—The cock, son of Mars.—Cockfights.—Auguries taken from cocks and hens; these auguries held up to derision.—The hen's egg; "Gallus in sterquilinio suo plurimum potest."—The pearl is an egg; the hen's egg in the sky is the sun.—The white hen.—Easter eggs.—The golden egg.—The cosmic egg.—It is an excellent augury to begin with the egg; "Ab ovo ad malum."—To begin ab ovo.

[Pg 280]

Alektrüon (the Greek name of the cock) was the companion and satellite of Mars. When Mars wished to spend the night with Venus during the absence of Vulcan, he placed Alektrüon to watch at the door. Alektrüon, however, fell asleep; and Mars, surprised by the returning husband, and full of indignation, transformed Alektrüon into a cock, in order that it might learn to be watchful; whence Ausonius—

"Ter clara instantis Eoi Signa canit serus, deprenso Marte, satelles." According to a Pâuranic legend, Indras, the Indian Mars, enamoured of Ahalyâ, the wife of Gâutamas, and accompanied by Ćandras (the moon), assumed the form of a kṛikavâkas (cock or peacock), and went to sing at midnight near the dwelling of Ahalyâ, whilst her husband was absent. Then, divesting himself of the form of a cock (or peacock), he left Ćandras at the door to watch, and united himself with Ahalyâ (the hen). Meanwhile Gâutamas returns; Ćandras not having warned the lovers of his approach, the saint turns Ahalyâ to stone, and scatters over the body of Indras a thousand wombs; which, being submerged in the waters, the pitying gods subsequently changed into a thousand eyes (sahasrâkshas is one of the Hindoo names of Indras and of the peacock). According to a variety of this legend,—which is analogous to the fable of the Zeus as a quail, the seducer of the sister of Latona, or of Latona herself, changed into a stone and submerged in the waters,—Indras becomes a eunuch, and obtains, as we have already seen, in compensation, two ram's testicles. In the Âitareya Br., the god Brahman Praǵâpatis becomes a goat or a roebuck (ṛiçyas), in order to lie with his own daughter Aurora. In the thirty-second and thirty-third hymn of the eighth book of the[Pg 281] Ṛigvedas, the god Indras and the god Brahman change places. Indras is at first beautiful (çiprin); he afterwards becomes a woman (strî hi brahmâ babhûvitha). In the Râmâyaṇam,[421] Gâutamas condemns Indras to become powerless, and Ahalyâ to remain hidden in the forest, lying in the ashes (bhasmaçâyinî), until Ramas comes to deliver her. The ashy sky, the stony sky, the watery sky, are identical; Ahalyâ (the evening aurora) in the ashes is the germ of the story of Cinderella, and of the daughter of the King of Dacia, persecuted by her lover, her father himself.

A popular Italian belief, which has been mentioned by Pliny and Columella, says that when it thunders while the hen is sitting on her eggs, they are spoiled. To remedy this evil, Pliny advises to put under the fodder of the eggs an iron nail, or else some earth taken up by a ploughshare. Columella says that many put little branches of laurel and roots of garlic, with iron nails. These are all symbols of the sulphureous thunderbolts (because of their strong smell), and of the thunderbolt conceived of as an iron weapon; the remedy recommended is according to the principle of similia similibus, for the same reason as the devil is prayed to in order to keep him away. In Sicily, when a hen is setting on her eggs, they put at the bottom of the nest a nail, which has the property of attracting and absorbing every kind of noise that may be noxious to the chickens. Now it seems interesting to me to find an analogous belief in Vedic antiquity. A strophe, where the word aṇdâ may be rendered eggs as well as testicles, which therefore leads us to think of oviparous birds and chickens no less than men, invokes Indras, the thunder-god, as follows:—"Do not[Pg 282] harm us, Indras; do not destroy us; do not take from us our beloved enjoyments; do not break, O great one, O strong one, our eggs (or testicles); do not ruin the fruits of our bowels."[422] Indras can not only become a eunuch himself, but he can make others become eunuchs; thunder makes us astonished, and as we also say, by an analogous expression, in Italy, makes us of stucco or turn to stone.

The cock and the oviparous hen, as birds which are as egg-yielding symbols of abundance, and which personify the sun, were and are sacred in India and in Persia, where it is considered a sacrilege to kill them. Cicero, in his Oratio pro Murena, writes that among the ancients he who ultroneously killed a cock did not sin less than he who suffocated his own father. In Du Cange we read that Geoffrey I., Duke of Brittany, whilst he was on a journey to Rome, was slain with a stone by a woman, one of whose hens had been killed by the Duke's sparrowhawk. The same superstition about hens is still observed in Italy by a great number of housewives.

In the Avesta the crow of the cock accompanies the flight of the demons, wakens the aurora, and arouses mankind.[Pg 283][423] Even the Christian poet Prudentius, who still sees a solar symbol in the Christus, compares him to the cock, also called cristiger, cristatus, cristeus,[424] prays to Christ to chase away sleep, to break the fetters of night, to undo the old sin, and to bring the new light, after having said of the cock—

"Ferunt vagantes dæmones, Lætos tenebris noctium Gallo canente exterritos Sparsim timere et cedere. ... omnes credimus Illo quietis tempore Quo gallus exsultans canit Christum redisse ex inferis." We have seen in the preceding chapter, the crested lark in connection with St Christopher. In Germany, on the 25th of July, sacred to St James[425] (the saint who[Pg 284] empties the bottle, as they say in Piedmont), to St Christopher, and the ancient god of thunder, Donar, cocks were made to dance, and then sacrificed. Donar carries Oerwandil on his shoulders across rivers, as the giant Christopher carries Christ.

There is a superstition which is widely diffused in Italy, Germany, and Russia, according to which a hen that begins to crow like a cock is of the worst omen; and it is the universal persuasion that it ought to be killed immediately, in order not to die before it. As the same belief exists in Persia, the discussion of Sadder with regard to it is interesting, to prove that the hen which crows like a cock must not be killed, because, if it become a cock, that means that it will be able to kill the demon, (therefore at Persian tombs they were accustomed to set a cock free). Having regard to the superstitious Eastern and European beliefs, the worthy Professor Spiegel will now find, I hope, the following passage, which appeared rather obscure to him, a little clearer:—"Qui religione sinceri sunt ludificationes expertes, quando percipiunt ex gallina vociferationem galli non debent illam[Pg 285] gallinam interficere ominis causa, quia eam interficiendi jus nullum habent.... Nam in Persia si gallina fit gallus, ipsa infaustum diabolum franget. Si autem alium gallum adhibueris in auxilium, ut cum gallina consortium habeat, non erit incommodum ut tunc ille diabolus sit interfectus." According to a Sicilian proverb, the hen that crows like a cock must neither be sold nor given away, but eaten by its mistress.[426]

In the forty-fifth story of the fifth book of Afanassieff, the cocks crow, and the devil's smoke disappears. In the fortieth story of the same book, the cock crows, and the devil disappears from the kingdom in which he made every man and every thing turn to stone. The son of a peasant, staying to pray all through the night with lighted candles, alone escapes from the devil's evil works; after three nights of similar penitence, all the men who were turned to stone come to life again, and the young and pious peasant espouses the king's beautiful daughter.

In the thirtieth story of the fifth book of Afanassieff, when the cock begins to crow, the old man becomes of a sudden at once rigid and silent. Here, perhaps, there is an allusion to the old sun of evening, and to the cock's crowing in the evening. The cock of night, therefore, assumes sometimes a diabolical form. In the twenty-second story of the fifth book of Afanassieff, the devil becomes a cock in order to eat the corn into which the young man who was first turned into a gold ring, has been at length transformed. But this cock of night, being demoniacal, although his crest (the sun) is always red, is of a black colour. The cock is red in the morning and in the evening; in the night it is black, with its red[Pg 286] crest turned now to the east, now to the west; it is upon the little feet of a hen,[427] that the little movable enchanted Russian hut stands, which the young heroes and young heroines on a journey meet with in the forest, and cause to turn in the direction they came from.

In the ninth story of the second book of the Pentamerone, a queen gives orders to kill the cocks in the town, so that the crowing may cease, because as long as the cocks crow, she will, by a witch's enchantment, be unable to recognise and embrace her son. The witch herself evidently assumes here the form of the diabolical cock that crows in the night.[428]

[Pg 287]

In the first story of the fourth book of the Pentamerone, the old Minec' Aniello feeds a cock well, but being afterwards in want of money, sells it to two magicians, who, when walking back, say to each other that the cock is precious for the stone that it contains, which, enclosed in a ring, will enable one to obtain all that he wishes (the lapillus alectorius, which is said to be as large as a bean, to be like crystal, to be good for pregnant women, and for inspiring courage; it is alleged that the hero Milon owed all his strength to it). Minec' Aniello hears this, steals the cock, kills it, takes the stone, and by its means becomes young again, in a beautiful palace of gold and silver. When the magicians defraud him of this stone, enclosed in a ring, the young man becomes old again, and goes to seek his lost ring in the kingdom of the deep hole (de Pertuso cupo) inhabited by the rat; the rats gnaw the finger of the magician who has the ring; Minec' Aniello recovers his ring, and changes the two magicians into asses; he rides upon one ass, and then throws it down the mountains; the other ass is loaded with lard, and sent in gratitude to the rats. Here the cock appears as a nocturnal animal; the stone which, when enclosed in a ring, performs miracles, is the sun which comes out when invoked by the cock of night. According to the Sicilian belief, when one dreams[Pg 288] of brood-hens with chickens in uninhabited and deserted houses, it is a sign that there are treasures hidden in these houses, and one must go to dig them up.

In the first of the Esthonian stories, the cock that crows is a spy over the old woman.[429] In the third Esthonian story, a woman gives her husband three eggs of a black hen to eat in order to obtain three dwarf heroes. In the twenty-second Esthonian story, the shepherds that watch over the son of the persecuted king, seeing the knowingness of the boy, recognise the truth of the proverb that "the egg is more cunning than the hen." In the ninth Esthonian story, a young man, after having made a compact with the devil, cheats him, giving him the blood of a cock instead of his own. In the fourth Esthonian story, when three strokes are given with a golden rod upon a rock, a large golden cock comes out and perches upon the top of it; it beats its wings and crows; at each crowing a marvel comes out of the stone, a tablecloth that spreads itself and a porringer that fills itself. In the twenty-fourth Esthonian story, an old fairy gives to the queen a little basket with a bird's egg inside; the queen must hatch it for three months, like a pearl, in her bosom; first a little living doll will be born, which, when warmed in a basket covered with wool, will become a real girl; at the same time that the doll becomes a real girl, the queen will give birth to a beautiful male child. Linda, the wife of Kalew, in Finnish mythology, is also born of the egg of a woodcock or a heathcock.

In Hungry (where a dyed tin cock is placed upon the top of high buildings to indicate the direction of the[Pg 289] wind—this is the English and Italian weathercock; we have all heard of the cock of the tower of St Mark at Venice which makes the hours strike), it is believed that, to appease the devil, one must sacrifice a black cock to him. The red cock, on the contrary, signifies fire.[430]

In the Monferrato it is believed that a black hen split open alive in the middle, and placed where one feels the pain of the mal di punta, will take away the disease and the pain, on condition that when this strange plaster is taken off, the feathers be burned in the house.

The cock or fowl which, in the festive customs of Essex and of Norfolk (of which traces are preserved in the striking of the porringer by a man blindfolded at the feast of Mid-Lent in several parts of France and in Piedmont), a man blind-folded wins, if he succeeds in striking it upon the shoulders of another man (or else sometimes shut up in a porringer at the height of twelve or fourteen feet from the ground, at which projectiles[Pg 290] are thrown[431]) is a personification of the funereal cock out of which, when struck, the daily fire is made to come. The sacrifice of a cock was a custom in India, Greece, and Germany.

In the same way as the ancients used to make quails fight against each other, so they made cocks; hence the cock was called son of Mars (Areôs neottos). We already know that the cock's crest terrifies the maned lion; the crest and the mane are equivalent; and we have also seen what heroic virtue was attributed to the lapillus alectorius. Plutarch writes that the Lacedæmonians sacrificed the cock to Mars to obtain victory in the battles which they fought in the open air. Pallas wore the cock upon her helmet, Idomeneus upon his shield. Plutarch says, moreover, that the inhabitants of Caria used to carry a cock on the end of their lances, and refers the origin of this custom to Artaxerxes; but it appears to be much more ancient, for the Carians wore crested helmets as far back as the time of Herodotus, for which reason the Persians gave the Carians the name of cocks. Cockfights, which became so popular in England, are also common in India. Philon, the Hebrew, relates of Miltiades, that before the battle of Marathon he inflamed the ardour of his soldiers by exhibiting cockfights; the same, according to Ælianos, was done by Themistocles. John Goropius (who gives the extravagant etymologies of danen and alanen from de hahnen and all hahnen) relates that the Danes were accustomed to carry two cocks to war, one to tell the hours and the other to excite the soldiers to battle. Du Cange informs[Pg 291] us that duels between cocks were also the custom in France in the seventeenth century, and gives some fragments of mediæval writings in which these are prohibited as a superstitious custom and one which was objectionable.

It is well known that the ancient Romans, before engaging in battle, took auguries from cocks and fowls, although this custom sometimes gave occasion to derision. Of Publius Claudius, for instance, it is said that, being about to engage in a naval battle in the first Punic war, he consulted the auguries in order not to offend against the customs of his country; but that when the augurs announced that the fowls would not eat, he ordered them to be taken and thrown into the sea, saying, "If they will not eat, then let them drink."

Part of the worship which was offered to the cock and to the hen was also rendered to the egg: the Latin proverb, "Gallus in sterquilinio suo plurimum potest," shows the great value of the egg. The pearl which the fowl searches for in the dunghill is nought else but its own egg; and the egg of the hen in the sky is the sun itself. During the night the celestial hen is black, but it becomes white in the morning; and being white, on account of the snow, it is the hen of winter. The white hen is propitious on account of the golden chickens hatched by it. In the Monferrato it is believed that the eggs of a white hen laid on Ascension Day, in a new nest, are a good remedy for pains in the stomach, head, and ears, and that, when taken into a cornfield, they prevent the blight, or black evil, from entering amongst the crops, or when taken into a vineyard, they save it from hail. The eggs which are eaten at Easter and concerning which, accompanied sometimes by songs and proverbs, so many popular customs, mythologically in[Pg 292] accordance, are current in the various countries of Europe, celebrate the resurrection of the celestial egg, a symbol of abundance,[432] the sun of spring. The hen of the fable and the fairy tales, which lays golden eggs, is the mythical hen (the earth or the sky) which gives birth every day to the sun. The golden egg is the beginning of life in Orphic and Hindoo cosmogony; by the golden egg the world begins to move, and movement is the principle of good. The golden egg brings forth the luminous, laborious, and beneficent day. Hence it is an excellent augury to begin with the egg, which represents the principle of good, whence the equivocal Latin proverb, "Ab ovo ad malum," which signified "from good to evil," but which properly meant, "from the egg to the apple," the Latins being accustomed to begin their dinners with hard-boiled eggs and to end them with apples (a custom which is still preserved among numerous Italian families).[433]

But to begin ab ovo also means to begin at the beginning. Horace says that he does not begin from the twin eggs the description of the Trojan war—

"Nec gemino bellum Trojanum orditur ab ovo,"[Pg 293] alluding to the egg of Lêda, to which the Greek proverb, "Come out of the egg" (ex ôou exêlthen), also alludes, said of a very handsome man, and referring to fair Helen and her two luminous brothers the Dioskuroi. But here the white cock has became a white swan, of which we shall speak in the following chapter.

[Pg 294]

CHAPTER X. THE DOVE, THE DUCK, THE GOOSE, AND THE SWAN. SUMMARY.

White, red, and dark-coloured doves, ducks, geese, and swans.—The funereal dove; it is united with the owl; kapotas.—The doves flee from unhappy persons.—The dove and the hawk.—Two doves sacrifice themselves, one for the other; a form of the Açviṇâu.—The dove and the ant.—Transformation of the hero and heroine into doves.—The two prophetic doves upon the cross-trees of the mast.—Among funereal games, that of shooting arrows at a dove which hangs from the mast of a ship.—The doves of Dodona.—The dove and the water.—St Radegonda as a dove preserves sailors from shipwreck.—A dove guides the Argonauts.—The soul of Semiramis becomes a dove.—It is sacrilege to eat a dove.—Hero and heroine become doves, in order to escape.—The dove as the bringer of joy, of light, of good; it is a symbol of the winter that ends, and of the spring which is beginning.—The daughters of Anius become white doves.—Two doves separate the barley for the girl.—The fireworks, the stove, and the car of Indras, perform the same miracles, i.e., they make beautiful the girl with the ugly skin.—Zezolla benefited by the dove of the fairies.—The doves on the rosebush.—The nymph Peristera helps Aphroditê to pluck flowers.—The phallical dove.—The word haṅsas; the guç-lebedi of Russian tales.—Agnis as a haṅsas.—The Marutas as haṅsâs.—The horses of the two Açvinâu as haṅsâs.—The duck makes its nest upon the thief's head.—Bṛibus on the thieves' head; Bṛibus as Indras, and as a bird.—Brahman upon the haṅsâs.—The sun as a golden duck.—The betrothed wife as a duck.—The arrows of Râmas as haṅsâs.—Kabandhas drawn by haṅsâs.—The haṅsâs as love messengers.—The geese-swans and the young hero in Russian tales.—The serpent-witch and the[Pg 295] princess as a white duck.—The golden and silver eggs of the duck.—The golden egg of the duck causes the death of the horse.—The geese of the Capitol.—The goose which, after having been cooked, rises again alive.—Geese as discoverers of deceits.—The Valkiries as swans.—Berta the Reine pédauque.—The wild goose on the bush.—The goose eaten on St Michael's Day.—The hero and the swan.—The kingdom of the San Graal.—The legend of Lohengrin; a variety of the myth of the Açvinâu; Lohengrin and Elsa's brother, the sun and the moon.—The legend of the Dioskuroi; Zeus as a swan; the Dioskuroi deliver Helen, as Lohengrin delivers Elsa.

Inasmuch as there is the white dove and the dove-coloured one,[434] the white duck and goose, the duck and the dark-coloured or fire-coloured goose, the white swan and the flamingo, the red swan and the black, these birds, dove, goose, duck, and swan, from the diversity of colour which they assume upon the earth, also assumed mythical aspects which are sometimes contradictory when translated to the sky to represent celestial phenomena. While the white ones served for the more poetical images of mythology, the red and the dark ones offered aspects now benignant, now malignant, alluring the hero now to his ruin, and now, instead, to good fortune. The red hues, for example, of the western sky appear as flames into which the witch wishes to precipitate the young hero; the roseate tints of the eastern heavens, on the contrary, are generally the pyre or furnace in which the hero burns the ill-favoured witch who endeavours to ruin him; from the dawn of morning, from the white sky, from the snow of winter, from the white earth or white swan, the golden egg (the sun) comes forth; now the beautiful maiden, now the young hero emerges from[Pg 296] it—the aurora and the sun, or else the spring and the sun. The evening sun and aurora in the night, the sun and the verdant earth, which divests itself of its varicoloured attire in autumn, veil, cover, and lose themselves; their most vivid hues become obscure in the gloom of night, or are covered by the snow of winter; the hero becomes a dark-coloured dove, or a gloomy swan which crosses the waters. I have noted more than once how the night of the year corresponds to those of the day; the sun which hides itself in the night of evening, and the sun which veils itself in the night of winter, are often represented by the same mythical images.

Let us now see under what mythical aspects the dove, the duck, and the swan appear in the East, in order to compare them with Western traditions.

The Ṛigvedas presents us with the funereal dove, the grey or dark-coloured dove, the messenger of the nocturnal or wintry darkness. Seeing it is joined in the Vedic hymn with the owl, it was supposed that it represented some other bird than the dove, and interpreters were fain to recognise in the Vedic kapotas the turdus macrourus rather than the dove; but this interpretation seems to me inadmissible, since the Vedic kapotas appears as a domestic bird, and one which approaches the dwellings of men, habits which thrushes have not, and which doves have. In the 165th hymn of the tenth book of the Ṛigvedas, the kapotas is exorcised as a messenger of the funereal Nirṛitis, of death, and of Yamas the god of the dead, in order that it may do no evil: "Be propitious to us," cries the poet, "be propitious to us, rapid (or messenger) kapotas; inoffensive may the bird be unto us, O gods, in the houses. When the owl emits that painful cry, when the kapotas touches the fire, honour be to[Pg 297] Mṛityus, to Yamas, whose messenger it is."[435] As birds of evil omen also must the doves be recognised, which flee from the unhappy in the Pańćatantram.[436] In the dove pursued by the hawk (the hawk has also in Sanskṛit the name of kapotâris, or enemy of doves) of the Buddhist legend concerning the king who sacrifices himself to keep his word, which has been recorded in the chapter on the hawk, the hawk is the form taken by Indras, and the dove the form of Agnis, the fire. The same legend is found again in the Tuti-Name, with this variation that the vulture takes the place of the falcon, and Moses that of the Buddhist king. In order to fulfil the duties of hospitality, he cuts off as much of his own flesh as the dove weighs, to give it to the vulture, who takes in jest the same part of the hero which the hatred of races and religious fanaticism make the Jew of Venice, immortalised by the genius of Shakspeare, demand with seriousness. In other Hindoo varieties of the same legend of the hero who sacrifices himself, we find two doves (in the Pańćatantram) which sacrifice themselves one for the other; two doves that love one another (in the Tuti-Name,[437] they are two turtle-doves). Here we have a form of the two Açvinâu, of the two brothers of whom one sacrifices himself for the other; the well-known fable of La Fontaine, Les Deux Pigeons, is a reminiscence of this Eastern legend. In the same way, a variety of the legend of the two brothers is contained in the fable of Æsop, and of La Fontaine, of the dove that throws a blade of grass into the water to the ant that is about to drown, and thus saves it, for which reason the grateful[Pg 298] ant soon after bites the foot of the hunter who has caught the dove, so that he is compelled to let it go. In the chapter which treats of the swallow, we saw the beautiful maiden upon the tree at the fountain changed into a swallow by the witch's enchantment; numerous other legends, instead of the transformation into a swallow, give us that into a dove.[438] The stories of the maiden Filadoro and of the Island of the Ogres, in the Pentamerone;[439] a Piedmontese story communicated by me in 1866 to my friend Professor Alexander Wesselofski, who published it in his essay upon the poet Pucci; the thirteenth Sicilian story of Signora Gonzenbach (of which the twelfth story is a variation); the forty-ninth story of the sixth book of Afanassieff (a variety of which occurs at the end of the fifth of the stories of Santo Stefano di Calcinaia), and a great number of analogous European stories, reproduce this subject of the maiden transformed into a dove by the witch's enchantment: as the swallow is white and black, so does the dove into which the beautiful maiden is transformed appear now white and now black. No less numerous are the stories in which, instead of the young princess, we read of young princes transformed into doves; I publish here two unpublished Tuscan stories which refer to this subject, and which (particularly the second) are of great interest.[440]

[Pg 299]

Hitherto the dove has appeared as a mournful and diabolical form assumed by the hero or heroine, on compulsion[Pg 300] of external magic. Of funereal character, too, are the two doves which place themselves upon the cross-trees of the ship in which Gennariello is carrying a hawk, a horse, and a white and red bride with black hair to his brother Milluccio (a variation of the legend of the Açvinâu, and of that of the youth who sacrifices himself[Pg 301] for his brother). The two doves speak to each other; one says that Gennariello is taking to his brother Milluccio a hawk which immediately after its arrival will tear out his eyes, and that he who should warn Milluccio of it, or not take the hawk to him, would turn to marble; then that Gennariello is taking to his brother Milluccio a[Pg 302] horse which, as soon as it is ridden, will break his neck, and that he who should warn Milluccio of this, or not take the horse to him, would turn, to marble; and finally, it says that Gennariello is taking to his brother a wife on whose account a dragon will devour the bride and bridegroom during the first night of their union, and that he who should warn Milluccio of this, or not take the bride to him, would turn to marble. The cunning Gennariello takes hawk, horse, and bride to Milluccio; but before he takes the hawk in his hand, Gennariello cuts off its head; before he rides the horse, Gennariello cuts its legs off; and before the dragon comes up to devour the bride and bridegroom, Gennariello shears off its head. Milluccio, who has not seen the dragon, sees his brother with a knife in his hand, and thinks that he has come to kill him; he has him bound and condemned to death. In order not to escape this fate, Gennariello reveals everything and turns to marble. Milluccio learns that by anointing the marble with the blood of his two little sons, his brother can be recalled to life; he slaughters his children; the mother, in despair, goes to the window to kill herself by throwing herself down, but she sees her father coming towards her, and shouting, "Drinto na nugola." He resuscitates her children, saying that it was to avenge himself, he had caused such bitter pain to all; on Gennariello, because he had carried off his daughter; on Milluccio, who was the cause of her being carried off; on his daughter, because she had eloped from her home. The two doves that perched upon the crosstrees of the mast were therefore messengers of death to the hero and to the heroine, as sometimes, on the other hand, they are their own funereal form. The reader will doubtless remember how, in the funeral of Patroclus in the Iliad, amongst the funereal games, there is that of shooting arrows at a[Pg 303] dove hung upon the mast of a ship. (He will also remember the two prophetic doves which gave responses upon two oak-trees or beeches at Dodona, and which cried, "Zeus was, Zeus is, Zeus will be, O Zeus, the greatest of the gods!") The dove here appears in connection with funereal waters; the fable is well known of the dove that meets with its death by beating its head against a wall upon which water is painted.[441] In the legend of Queen Radegonda, the holy queen, in the form of a dove, delivers sailors from shipwreck. According to Apollonios, a dove was the guide of the Argonauts. It is said that Semiramis was transformed into one after her death. The dove also appears as a funereal symbol in Christian monuments; hence, and from its use as the symbol of the St Esprit, the superstition cherished by a great portion of the people in Italy, Germany, Holland, and Russia, to the effect that it is a sin to eat a dove. It is well-known what reverence was shown to it in antiquity, particularly in Syria and in Palestine.

Sometimes the form of a dove is voluntarily assumed by the two young lovers, to flee from the persecution of the monster; as, for instance, in the sixth of the Novelline di Santo Stefano. Sometimes the funereal dove (like the funereal crow) is the bringer of joy and good things to men and gods. The popular custom of the artificial dove, commonly called the dove of the Pazzi (from the name[Pg 304] of the noble Florentine family which possessed the privilege), which, at Florence, on Holy Saturday, that is to say, Easter Eve, starts from the altar of the Cathedral, and flies at midday to light the fireworks upon the little square between Santa Maria del Fiore and the Baptistery of St John, to announce that Christ has risen to a crowd of peasants, who have flocked in from the country to augur from the dove's flight whether they will have a good harvest in the following year,—is a symbol of the end of winter, and of the commencement of spring. In the Metamorphoses of Ovid, the daughters of Anius, by the grace of Bacchus, change into corn, wine, and oil, whatever they touch, according to the words of the same Anius—

"Tactu natarum cuncta mearum In segetem, laticemque meri, baccamque Minervæ Transformabantur." Agamemnon wishes to have them with him to provision the army; the daughters of Anius refuse; Agamemnon then purposes compelling them by main force; but Bacchus takes pity upon them, and transforms them into white doves. In the thirtieth story of the sixth book of Afanassieff, two doves (a form of the Açvinâu) come to separate the barley for Masha or Little Mary, the black (ćornushka) or ugly or dirty little girl, the persecuted Cinderella, and then making her mount upon the stove, transform her into an exceedingly beautiful maiden, renewing thus the miracle of Indras (and of the Açvinâu), who restores to beauty the maiden of the ugly skin. The fireworks of the popular Tuscan custom, the stove, and the car of Indras perform the same miracle. In the sixth story of the first book of the Pentamerone, the maiden Zezolla, called at home "a cat, a cinder-girl," because she was always watching the fire, ill-treated at home by her[Pg 305] step-mother, is benefited by the dove of the fairies of the island of Sardinia, which sends her a plant that yields golden dates, a golden spade, a little golden bucket, and a silk tablecloth. The girl must cultivate the plant, and simply remember, when she wishes for some favour, to say—

"Dattolo mio 'naurato, Co la zappatella d'oro t'haggio zappato, Co lo secchietello d'oro t'haggio adacquato, Co la tovaglia de seta t'haggio asciuttato; Spoglia a te, e vieste a me." The date-tree yields some of its riches to adorn the maiden. Thus, when the young king proclaims a festival, she goes disguised in regal attire, and dances with an effect that outdazzles like a sun. When she is followed by the prince the first time, she throws gold behind her; the second time, pearls; the third, her slipper; and by means of it she is recognised and espoused. In the twenty-second Esthonian story, when the young prince-lover arrives, two doves perch upon the rose-bush, in which the beautiful daughter of the gardener is enclosed by enchantment; the beautiful maiden comes out of the rose-bush, and, showing the half of her ring, weds the prince who has preserved the other half. In the Hellenic myth, Aphroditê and Love play at seeing who will pluck most flowers; winged Love is winning, but the nymph Peristera helps Aphroditê; Love indignant, changes her into the peristera or dove, which Aphroditê, to console her, takes under her protection. The doves now draw the chariot of Venus, and now (like the sparrows) accompany it. In the Odyssey the doves bring the ambrosia to Zeus,[442] and it is in the form of a dove that Zeus (well[Pg 306] known to be an alter ego of Indras) visits the virgin Phthia. Catullus, speaking of Cæsar's salacitas, makes mention of the columbulum albulum, or little dove of Venus.[443] In this passage the dove becomes a phallical symbol; and we are reminded of the well-known mythical episode of the animal, bird, or fish which laughs, by the equivocal Italian proverb, "The dove that laughs wants the bean" (said of a woman when she smiles upon her lover[444]). It is narrated of Aphroditê, that she cured Aspasia of a tumour by the help of a dove; here the dove does to Aspasia the same service as the rudder of Indras's chariot to Apalâ in the Vedic legend.

But in mythical tradition the place of the doves is sometimes taken by ducks, which are exchanged for swans.

The Hindoo word haṅsas means now swan, now duck (anas, anser), now goose, now phænicopterus. No[Pg 307] wonder then that the myths exchanged, one for another, animals which were confounded together under one and the same appellation. Russian stories call the birds goose-swans (guçlebedi) which now carry off, and now save the young hero.

In the Vedic hymns, the haṅsas (duck-swan or goose-swan) is represented more than once. Agnis, the fire, when entreated to arouse himself in houses with the aurora, is compared to a swan in the waters (or to the light in the darkness, to white upon black, or the sun in the azure sky[445]). The god Agnis is himself called haṅsas, the companion (as a thunderbolt) of the movable (waves or clouds), going in company with the celestial waters.[446] The song of the companions of Bṛihaspatis, singing hymns to the cows or auroræ of the morn, resembles the song of the haṅsâs.[447] The Marutas, with the splendid bodies (the winds that lighten, howl, and thunder) are compared to haṅsâs with black backs[448] (which reminds us of the swallows with black backs and with white ones, of black crows and white crows, black swans and white ones). The horses of the two Açvinâu are compared to haṅsâs, ambrosial, innocent, with golden wings, which waken with the aurora (being sunbeams), which swim in the waters, joyful and merry.[449] In the Russian stories of Afanassieff,[450] a duck comes to make its nest upon the head of the thief who has fallen into the waters out of[Pg 308] the sky. The duck lays a golden egg (the sun) in its nest at morn, and a silver egg (the moon) at even. In the Ṛigvedas, I read that upon the head of the thieves (Paṇayas), similar to the vast forest of the Ganges, at its higher part, Bṛibuḥ went to place himself, scattering thousands of gifts.[451] I think I can recognise in Bṛibus a bird and a personification of Indras. Bṛibus is, in Çâñkhâyanas, represented as a takshan, which is explained as a constructor, an artificer, a carpenter; hence Bṛibus is supposed to be the carpenter of the Paṇayas. But this seems improbable, besides being in contradiction to the Vedic strophe. The proper primitive sense of the word takshan is the cutter, he who breaks in pieces; in Bṛibus, therefore, I recognise not the carpenter of the Paṇayas, but their destroyer. As we also find, in another Vedic hymn,[452] Bṛibus in connection with two other birds, viz., the bharadvaǵas (the lark) and the stokas (the cuckoo), I am induced to suppose that Bṛibus too is a bird. Finally, as I find Bṛibus in connection with Indras, I see in this bird that perches upon the head of the Paṇayas, a form of the god Indras himself. The duck, in Russian stories, deposits its egg upon the robber's head; thus Indras takes their treasures off the head of the Paṇayas. We already know of the pearls which fall from the head of the good fairy, combed by the virtuous maiden; we also know that the mythical waters are in relation with the treasures. We must record here the legend of the Râmâyaṇam concerning the origin of the Ganges, which, before pouring its waters upon the earth, let them wander for a long time upon the hairy head of[Pg 309] the god Çivas, who is a more elevated form of Kuveras, the god of riches.[453] We know also that the pearl and the egg are the same in the myths.

The god Brahman is represented in Hindoo mythology riding upon a white haṅsas.

In the Râmâyaṇam, the sky is compared to a lake of which the resplendent sun is the golden duck.[454] Râmas (a form of the sun Vishṇus), whose speech has the accent of the haṅsas drunk with love,[455] hurls with his divine bow an arrow which penetrates through seven palm-trees, the mountain, and the earth, out of which it afterwards comes, and returns to Râmas in the form of a haṅsas.[456] Kabandhas, who, when traversing the fire, is released by his monstrous form, is drawn by haṅsâs whilst ascending into heaven.[457] Finally, the haṅsâs are well known which served as love-messengers between the prince Nalas and the Princess Damayantî in the celebrated episode of the Mahâbhâratam.

In the fourth story of the first book of Afanassieff, little Johnny (Ivasco) is upon an oak-tree, which the witch is gnawing, to possess herself of him; three flights of geese-swans pass one after the other; Johnny begs for[Pg 310] their assistance; the first flight refuse; as also the second; those of the third take Johnny upon their wings and carry him home.[458] In the nineteenth story of the sixth book, the geese-swans assume, on the contrary, a malignant aspect, carrying the little brother on their wings away from his negligent sister. The story says that these animals have had for a long time the evil reputation of carrying little children off. The geese-swans carry the boy into a fairy's house, where he plays with golden apples. The sister follows upon his track; she inquires at a stove, an apple-tree, and a brook of milk, where the goose-swans have carried the boy to, but learns nothing; at last the malicious little iosz (the sea-urchin) reveals to her the secret. The sister takes her brother and carries him home, having been followed by the geese-swans and having had to hide herself during her flight by the brook, by the apple-tree and then by the stove.

But if geese, ducks, and swans sometimes do evil, or are sometimes diabolical forms assumed by the witch's deceit, they generally produce good and conduct to good. In a variation of the forty-sixth story of the sixth book of Afanassieff, the geese predict the future to Ivan the merchant's son, who, having been to school under the devil, learns there, amongst other things, the language of birds. In the sixtieth story of the sixth book of Afanassieff, the swan, a beautiful maiden, helps the unhappy Danilo, whom the prince has ordered to sew a pelisse which must have golden lions for buttons and birds from beyond the seas for button-holes; the same swan performs other miracles for the youth whom she loves. In the forty-sixth story of the fourth book of[Pg 311] Afanassieff, the old serpent-witch makes the princess become a white duck during the prince's absence. The duck lays three eggs, out of which she has three sons, two handsome, and one ill-favoured, but cunning. The witch kills, during their sleep, the two handsome sons and turns them to ducks; the third escapes by means of his cunning; the white duck, anxious about her sons, flies to the prince's palace and begins to sing—

"Krià, krià, my little sons! Krià, krià, little pigeons! The old witch has extinguished you; The old witch, the malignant serpent, The deceitful malignant serpent! Your own father has carried you off, Your own father, my husband! She drowned us in the rapid stream, She transformed us into little white ducks, And she herself lives in regal pomp!" The prince has the duck caught by the wings, and says, "White birch-tree, put thyself behind; beautiful maiden, before." At this magical formula, the tree rises behind him and he finds his beautiful princess before him. He then compels the witch to bring the little children to life again.

The death of the duck sometimes makes the fortune of the hero or the heroine, on account of the egg which it produces (the sun in the morning and the moon in the evening). In the fifty-third story of the fifth book of Afanassieff, the young hero, by the advice of an unknown young man, goes to seek under the roots of a birch-tree a duck which lays one day (in the morning) a golden egg, and next day (in the evening) a silver one; upon its breast, the following words are written in golden letters:—"He who eats its head will become king; he who eats the heart will spit gold." He carries it to his[Pg 312] mother when his father is absent and his mother has an intrigue with another gentleman. The gentleman reads the golden letters and advises the woman to have the duck cooked; but the two sons are before him; and whilst their mother is at mass, one eats the head and the other the heart of the duck, and meet with the adventures which are related in the chapter on the Horse.[459] The golden egg of the duck causes the death of the witch and the monster in numerous Slavonic stories. In the thirty-third story of the fifth book of Afanassieff, a marvellous goose, of the same nature as those that in the Capitol warned the Romans of the ambuscade of the Gauls, discovers the traitors. The wife of a rich merchant asks her husband to procure for her the marvel of marvels. Her husband buys, in the twenty-seventh world and in the thirtieth kingdom (which is the kingdom of the other night-world), from an old man,[460] a goose which, after having been cooked and eaten, all except the bones, rises again alive. The goose performs the same miracle in the merchant's house; on the morrow, when the husband is absent, his wife invites a lover of hers into the house and wishes to cook the goose to welcome him. She says to it, "Come here;" the goose obeys; she commands it to get into the frying-pan, but it refuses. The woman puts it in by force, but remains fastened to the frying-pan;[461] the lover tries to release[Pg 313] her, but sticks fast also; the servants come to the rescue, and stick one to the other and all to the frying-pan, until the husband appears, hears his wife's confession, thrashes the lover and releases the woman from the goose.

In the Pentamerone, too, geese appear as discoverers of deceits. Marziella, when she combs her hair, scatters pearls and flower-buds about her; when she walks, lilies and violets grow up under her feet;[462] her brother Ciommo is to conduct her to the king as his wife; but the old aunt changes the bride, putting her own ugly daughter in the place of her beautiful niece. The indignant king sends Ciommo to pasture the geese; he neglects them, but Marziella, who had been carried off by a siren, comes from the bottom of the sea to feed them, "de pasta riale," and to give them "rose-water" to drink. The geese grow fat, and begin to sing near the king's palace—

"Pire, pire, pire; Assai bello è lo sole co la luna; Assai chiù bella è chi coverna a nuie." The king sends a servant after the geese, and thus discovers everything; he wishes to marry the beautiful maiden, but the siren keeps her tied with a golden chain; the king, with a noiseless file, files with his own hands the chain which keeps the maiden's foot fast, and thereafter marries her.[463] It is a gooseherd who, in the[Pg 314] twentieth Esthonian story, releases the beautiful girl from the monster husband, the killer of his wives (a form of Barbebleu).

[Pg 315]

In the Russian story, the fairy maidens (in German traditions, the Virgin Mary too) sometimes take, in order to cross the waters, the form of geese-swans; thus in the Eddas, three Valkyries spin on the shores of the lake, with their swan forms close behind them. "The maidens," sings the poem of Völund, "flew from the south across Mörkved, in order that the young Allhvit might be able to accomplish his destiny. The daughters of the South sat down upon the shore to spin the precious cloth. One of them, the most beautiful maiden of the world, was clasped to the white bosom of Egil; Svanhvit, the second, wore swan's feathers; the third embraced the white neck of Völund."[464] To the Bertha of popular German tradition, only the foot of the white goose or of the swan of the Valkyries has remained; hence her name of Foot-of-goose and of Reine pédauque, in the same way as the swan's foot alone has remained to the goddess Freya.

When the form of a duck, a goose, or a swan is destroyed, the young hero or the young heroine alone remain. In a German tradition, quoted by Simrock in his German Mythology, we find an enchanted hunter who strikes a wild goose on the flight, and which falls into a bush; he comes up to take it, and instead of it (in the same way as we saw above, the rosebush on which the doves perch) a naked woman rises before him. The custom of eating a goose in England on St Michael's Day, is referred by tradition to the times of Queen Elizabeth, who, on St Michael's Day, received the news of the defeat of the Invincible Armada, when she had[Pg 316] just eaten a goose. But inasmuch as, according to Baron von Reinsberg-Düringsfield, the custom of eating a goose on St Michael's Day dates from the times of Edward IV., we must admit that Queen Elizabeth conformed to a popular custom which already existed in England.[465] St Michael's goose announces the winter like the halcyon. It is eaten as an augury of the termination of the rainy and wintry season, inasmuch as when the aquatic bird, the halcyon, the goose, the duck, or the swan, finds no more water, when the sea of night, or the snow of winter dries up, when the aquatic bird is wounded, or is eaten, or dies, the golden egg is found, the sun comes out, the aurora returns, the winter appears again, the young hero and the beautiful maiden come forth. When the hero or heroine becomes an aquatic bird,[466] when he becomes a swan, is drawn by a swan, or rides upon it, it means that he is traversing the sea of death, and that he is returning to the kingdom of the San Graal. When he comes on the swan to meet the beautiful maiden, no one must ask him whence he came. The swan awaits him and will draw him once more under its magic power, and into its gloomy kingdom, as soon as this kingdom is remembered by the living. The imagination of the Celtic and Germanic nations has, in a cycle of numerous and fascinating legends, invested with solemn[Pg 317] mystery this myth, to which the inspired and classical music of Richard Wagner has, in Lohengrin, imparted a new attractive magic. Lohengrin, the recens natus, the hero born of himself, arrives in a boat drawn by a swan, into which a sorceress has transformed Elsa's young brother: he comes to deliver the Princess Elsa, and is about to marry her, but he does not forget that as long as he remains with her, so much the longer will the torment of her brother endure, so much the longer will he suffer in the shape of a swan; woe to him if any one asks who he is, whence he came, or what that swan is, for he would then be obliged to remember that the swan waits for him to deliver it. Lohengrin must either renounce his love for Elsa, or betray his cavalier's faith to the swan, of whose mysterious nature he is cognisant; he bids a funereal farewell to Elsa, reunites her with her young brother, and mournfully disappears on the gloomy waters, over whose moonlit depths he had come. This is the legend of the two brothers, raised to its utmost poetic and ideal power by Northern genius. The sun and the moon appear in turns before the dawn and the spring. They are separated, and one delivers the other in the legends inspired by the good genie of man, as in others inspired by his evil genie, one persecutes and deceives the other. We have, even in the Vedic hymns, the Açvinâu, the divine twins, identified now with the twilights, now with the sun and the moon, drawn by swans; Lohengrin is the sun; Elsa's brother is the moon. When the evening aurora, when the autumnal earth, loses the sun, it finds the moon; when the morning aurora or the vernal earth loses the moon, the sun takes its place; the lovers change places. One swan causes the birth of the other, carries the other, dies for the other, like one dove for the other, and as the Dioskuroi lay down their[Pg 318] lives for each other. And, in truth, the legend of the Dioskuroi is, in some points, in marvellous accordance with the Northern legends of the rider of the swan. Zeus becomes a swan and unites himself with Leda, wife of Tyndareos, and generates by her the sun and the moon, Polüdeukes and Helen; according to Homer Helen alone is Zeus's daughter, and Polüdeukes and Kastor are sons of Tyndareos; according to Herodotos, Helen, on the contrary, is the daughter of Tyndareos, and this is in accordance with Euripides, who tells us that the Dioskuroi are sons of Zeus. In the Heroides of Ovid, where the primitive tradition has already been altered, Leda, after having united herself to the swan Zeus, gives birth to two eggs; Helen comes out of one, Kastor and Polüdeukes out of the other. Evidently tot capita tot sententiæ; but these contradictions, far from excluding the myth of the sun, the moon, and the aurora (or of the spring) confirm it. It is always difficult to determine the paternity of a child who is born in an irregular manner, and the birth of Helen and her two brothers was certainly extraordinary. What is important here is that we have the swan which generates sons in Leda; these sons, who are partly of the nature of the bird, and partly of that of the woman, must assume a double form, and now become swans like their father, now shine in their mother's beauty; when, moreover, we think that only one of the brothers was, with Helen, born of the swan, it becomes natural to think of the other brother who may love Helen without being guilty of incest.[467] Before becoming famous by the varied fortunes of Troy,[Pg 319] Helen, as a girl, had her adventures; Theseus seduced her and carried her off. The Dioskuroi come to deliver her in the same way as Lohengrin comes upon the swan to deliver Elsa, whilst her seducer is about to effect her ruin. Finally, the adventures of the two Dioskuroi, of whom one sacrifices himself for the other, correspond to the legend of the Schwanritter, the brother, or brother-in-law, who, on account of the swan offers up his own life. Thus India, Greece, and Germany united, in various forms, the figure of the swan with the story of the two brothers, or of the two companions; India created the myth, Greece coloured it, Germany has imbued it with passionate energy and pathos.

[Pg 320]

CHAPTER XI. THE PARROT. SUMMARY.

Haris and harit; harayas and harî; green and yellow called by a common name.—The moon as a green tree and as a green parrot; the parrot and the tree assimilated.—The wise moon and the wise parrot; the phallical moon and the phallical parrot, in numerous love stories.—The god of love mounted on the parrot—The parrot and the wolf pasture together.

The myth of the parrot originated in the East, and developed itself almost exclusively among the Oriental nations.

I mentioned in the chapter on the Ass, that the words haris and harit signify green no less than fair-haired, and hence gave rise to the epic myth of the monsters with parrot's faces, or drawn by parrots. The solar horses are called harayas; harî are the two horses of Indras; Haris is a name of Indras himself, but especially of the god Vishṇus; but there are more fair-haired figures in the sky then these; the golden thunderbolt which shoots through the cloud, and the golden moon, the traveller of the night, are such. Moreover, because green and yellow are called by this common name, all these fair ones, and the moon in particular, assumed the form, now of a green tree, now of a green parrot. A very interesting Vedic strophe offers us an evident proof[Pg 321] of this. The solar horses (or the sun himself, Haris) say that they have imparted the colour haris to the parrots, to the pheasants (or peacocks.[468] Benfey and the Petropolitan Dictionary, however, explain ropaṇâkâ by drossel or thrush), and to the trees, which are therefore called hârayas. As the trees are green, so are the parrots generally green (sometimes also yellow and red, whence the appellation haris is always applicable to them).[469] The moon, on account of its colour, is now a tree (a green one), now an apple-tree with golden branches and apples, now a parrot (golden or green, and luminous). The moon in the night is the wise fairy who knows all, and can teach all. In the introduction to the Mahâbhâratam, the name Çukas or parrot is given to the son of Kṛishṇas, i.e., of the black one, who reads (as moon) the Mahâbhâratam to the monsters. In the chapter on the Ass, we saw the ass and the monster of the Râmâyaṇam with parrots' faces. But inasmuch as the ass is a phallical symbol, the parrot is also ridden by the Hindoo god Kâmas, or the god of love (hence also called Çukavâhas). The moon (masculine in India) has already been mentioned, in the first chapter of the first book, as a symbol of the phallos; in the same way as the thunderbolt pierces the cloud, the moon pierces the gloom of the night, penetrates and reveals the secrets of the night. Therefore, the parrot[Pg 322] being identified with the night in the Çukasaptatî, and in other books of Hindoo stories, we see the parrot often appearing in love-stories, and revealing amorous secrets.

Some of the stories concerning the parrot passed into the West; no doubt, by means of literary transmission, that is to say, of the mediæval Arabic and Latin versions of the Hindoo stories.[470]

Some of the Hindoo beliefs concerning the parrot had already passed into ancient Greece, and Ælianos shows himself to be very well acquainted with the sacred worship which the Brâhmans of India professed for it. Oppianos, moreover, tells us of a superstition which confirms what we have said concerning the essentially lunar character of the mythical parrot; he says that the parrot and the wolf pasture together, because the wolves love this green bird; this is the same as saying that the gloomy night loves the moon. One of the Hindoo epithets applied to the moon, moreover, is raǵanîkaras, or he who makes the night.

[Pg 323]

CHAPTER XII. THE PEACOCK. SUMMARY.

The starry sky and the rayed sun.—The peacock becomes a crow; the crow becomes a peacock.—Peacock and swan; the dove and the peacock.—The kokilas and the peacock.—Indras now a peacock, now a cuckoo.—The peacock's feather.—Indras's horses have peacock's feathers and peacock's tails.—Skandas rides upon the peacock.—Argus becomes a peacock.—The peacock as the avis Junonia; Jove is the bird of Juno.

We end our mythical journey in the kingdom of winged animals with the bird of all the colours.

The serene and starry sky and the shining sun are peacocks. The calm, azure heavens, bespangled with a thousand stars, a thousand brilliant eyes, and the sun rich with the colours of the rainbow, offer the appearance of a peacock in all the splendour of its eye-besprinkled feathers. When the sky or the thousand-rayed sun (sahasrânçus) is hidden in the clouds, or veiled by the autumnal waters, it again resembles the peacock, which, in the dark part of the year, like a great number of vividly-coloured birds, sheds its beautiful plumage, and becomes dark and unadorned; the crow which had put the peacock's feathers on then returns to caw amongst the funereal crows. In winter the peacock-crow has nothing remaining to it except its[Pg 324] disagreeable and shrill cry, not dissimilar to that of the crows. It is commonly said of the peacock that it has an angel's feathers, a devil's voice, and a thief's walk. The crow-peacock is proverbial.[471]

The peacock hides itself when it becomes ugly; so does the sky, and so does the sun when the autumnal clouds cover it; but in the summer clouds the thunder rumbles, and thunder made upon the primeval races of men the impression of an irresistible, much-loved, and wished-for music, resembling the song of the melodious kokilas (the cuckoo), or of the watercock (the heron, the halcyon, the duck, or the swan).[472] In the Râmâyaṇam, as we observed in the chapter on the Cuckoo, the peacock and the kokilas appear as rivals in singing; although the watercock laughs at the peacock for its pretentiousness, this rivalry is no slender proof upon which to admit the mythical identity of two rival birds.[Pg 325][473] The Hindoo myth, in fact, shows us the god Indras (now sky, now sun) as a peacock and as a cuckoo (like Zeus). When the sky is blue, serene, and starry, or when the sun shines with its thousand rays, and in the colours of the rainbow, the sahasrâkshas, or thousand-eyed Indras, is found as a peacock; when the sky or the sun in the cloud thunders and lightens, Indras becomes a kokilas that sings. In the twentieth of the stories of Santo Stefano di Calcinaia, two brothers steal a peacock's feather from their younger brother, and kill him (that is, they kill the peacock, in the same way as in the Russian story the red little boots are stolen from the little brother, and he is killed). Where the little brother of the peacock's feather is killed and buried, a sapling grows up; a stick is made out of the sapling, and out of the stick a pipe, which, when played upon, sings the dirge of the little brother who was killed for a peacock's feather. When the luminous sky or the sun is hidden in the clouds, when the luminous feathers of the peacock are torn off,[474] when the peacock is buried, the tree which is its tomb (the cloud) speaks, at the return of spring, like the cornel-tree of Polidorus in Virgil, and the trunk of Pier delle Vigne in Dante's Inferno; the tree becomes a cane, a magic flute, a melodious kokilas. Indras-kokilas remembers Indras-peacock, Indras whose horses, even in the Vedic hymns, have "peacocks' feathers,"[475] and "tail (or phallos) of peacocks."[476] We have already seen that the[Pg 326] body of Indras was, after intercourse (as sun) with Ahalyâ in adultery, covered with a thousand wombs (waves or clouds; cfr. the equivoque sahasradhâras, given to the solar disc, properly because it has a thousand darts that wound), which were already a thousand eyes (stars or sunbeams), whence his names of Sahasradṛiç, Sahasranayanas, Sahasranetras, and Sahasrâkshas, which are equivalent. The long refulgent tail of the peacock took a phallical form. According to the Petropolitan Dictionary, mayûreçvaras (or Çivas-peacock), is the proper name of a liñgam or phallos, the well-known emblem of Çivas, which also calls our attention to Mayûrarathas, Mayûraketus, Cikhivâhanas, and Çikidhvaǵas, names of Skandas, the god of war, who is also a phallical god, like Mars, the lover of Venus, and like the Hindoo Kâmadevas, or god of love, who rides upon the parrot, and which therefore brings us back to the lunar phallical symbol.[477] The sky with the sun, as well as with the moon, is superseded by the sterile sky with the stars of the night or the clouds of autumn; the phallos falls; the impotent sky remains—Indras the eunuch, Indras with a thousand wombs, Indras plunged into the waves of the spotted clouds, Indras a ram, the pluvial or autumnal Indras, Indras lost in the sea of winter, Indras the fish, Indras without rays, without lightning, and[Pg 327] without thunder, Indras cursed, he who had been beautiful and resplendent like a crested peacock (çikhin), Indras as the peacock enemy of the serpent (ahidvish, ahiripus), into which form he returns by the pity of the gods. According to the Tuti-Name, when a woman dreams of a peacock, it presages the birth of a handsome son.

The Greeks were also acquainted with the myth of the peacock, and amplified it. In the first book of Ovid's Metamorphoses, Argus, with the hundred eyes, who sees everything (Panoptês and son of Zeus), by the order of the goddess Juno, the splendid and proud wife of Jove, to whom the peacock is sacred (and therefore called avis Junonia, ales Junonia; the peacock of Juno is Jove himself, as we have already seen that Jove's cuckoo is himself; Argos the son of Zeus is Zeus himself), whilst two eyes rest (perhaps the sun and the moon), watches with the others (the stars) Io (the daughter of Argus himself, priestess of Juno, identified with Isis the moon, loved by Jove). Mercury, by means of music, puts Argus to sleep, and kills him as he slumbers. The eyes of the dead Argus pass into the tail of the peacock (that is, the dead peacock rises again). The peacock, which annually loses and renews its various colours and splendours, and is fruitful in progeny, served, like the phœnix, as a symbol of immortality, and a personification of the fact that the sky is obscured and becomes serene again, that the sun dies and is born again, that the moon rises, is obscured, goes down, is concealed, and rises once more. It is said of Pythagoras that he believed himself to have once been a peacock, that the peacock's soul passed into Euphorbos, that of Euphorbos into Homer, and that of Homer into him. It was also alleged that out of him the soul of the ancient peacock passed into the poet Ennius, whence Persius[Pg 328]—

"Postquam destituit esse Mæonides quintus pavone ex Pythagoræo." If the peacock be Zeus, if Zeus be Dyâus, if Dyâus be the luminous and splendid sky, the divine light, which of my readers would disclaim the Pythagorean belief? The dream of being the sons of the divine light, and destined to return to the heavenly fatherland, certainly is much more consoling than the dreary conclusion of modern science, which reduces us, in our origin and final lapse, into unconscious vegetables upon the surface of the earth. The only drawback is, that this same heretical mythology, which often, even in its grossest forms, such as the animal ones, opens up to our incredulous reason a ray of hope in the immortality of the soul, that this mythology which resuscitates and transfigures into new living forms all its dead, does not permit us to believe in an eternity of joy in heaven; heaven, like earth, is in perpetual revolution, and the gods of Olympus are no more secure on their divine throne than our royal automata that sit upon their earthly ones. The metempsychosis does not end when the soul goes to heaven; on the contrary, it is in heaven that it is fated to undergo the strangest and most diverse transformations; from the heroic form we have seen it pass into that of a quadruped and a biped. Nor is its curse yet come to an end; the deity or the hero must humble himself yet more, and assume in the zoological scale the most imperfect of organisms; the animal god will lose his speech in the form of a stupid fish; he will creep like a serpent or hop grotesquely like a filthy toad.

[Pg 329]

Third Part. THE ANIMALS OF THE WATER. CHAPTER I. FISHES, AND PARTICULARLY THE PIKE, THE SACRED FISH OR FISH OF ST PETER, THE CARP, THE MELWEL, THE HERRING, THE EEL, THE LITTLE GOLDFISH, THE SEA-URCHIN, THE LITTLE PERCH, THE BREAM, THE DOLPHIN, AND THE WHALE. SUMMARY.

Why Indras, the fearless hero, flees after having defeated the serpent; the fish causes the death of the fearless hero.—Çakrâvatâras and the fisher.—The stone and the fish.—Adrikâ, Girikâ, the mother of fishes.—The matsyâs as a nation.—Çaradvat.—Pradyumnas.—Guhas.—The fishes laugh.—The fish guards the white haoma.—The water of the fish drunk by the cook.—The devil steals the fishes.—The dwarf Andvarri and the pike as the guardian of gold and of a ring.—The goldfish and the pike.—The dwarf Vishṇus as a little goldfish.—The legend of the Deluge.—Vishṇus as a horned fish draws the ship of Manus; the sea-urchin or hedgehog of the Ganges, the little destroyer.—The dolphin with the horned bull draws the chariot or vessel of the Açvinâu.—The little turbulent perch.—The thorns of the sea-urchin compared to a hundred oars.—The whale as a bridge or island; the whale devours a fleet.—The pike.—The bream.—The phallical fishes; the phallos and the simpleton.—Why fishes are eaten in Lent, that is, spring; and on Friday, the day of Freya or Venus.—The poisson d'avril.—The herring.—The eel.—The bream cleans the workman.—The phallical and demoniacal eel; anguilla and anguis.—The eel and the cane; ikshus and Iskshvâkus.—Diabolical fishes.—The red mullet.—The bream and the ring.—Cimedia.—The whale vomits out the vessels; the whale as an[Pg 330] island.—The little perch finds the ring and draws the casket by the help of the dolphins.—The war of the little perch with the other fishes.—The eel pout.—The perch.—The sturgeon.—The little perch is the fox of fishes.—The words matsyas, matto, mad, matt, mattas, madidus.—The drunken pike.—The three fishes.—Çakuntalâ, the pearl and the fish.—The genera cyprinus and perca; lucius, lucioperca sandra; the lunar horn.—The dolphin.—The carp.—The fish Zeus Chalkeus, the fish faber, the fish of St Peter; the fish of St Christopher; the equivoque of crista and christus again in conjunction with the legend of St Christopher.

The god Indras, in the Ṛigvedas, after having killed the monster, flees in terror across the ninety-nine navigable rivers; the pluvial god, after having lightened, thunder-stricken and thundered, is terrified by his own work; the Vedic poet asks him what he has seen, but the god passes on and answers not; killing the monster, he has unchained the waters; the pluvial god has wounded himself while wounding his enemy; the monster's shadow or his own shadow pursues him; the waters increase and threaten to drown him. The god Indras fears the very waters he has caused to flow. The god Indras was condemned to remain hidden in the waters (of night and winter) during the period of his malediction, for defiling in adultery the nuptial bed of Ahalyâ. The god shut up in the waters, the wet god, is his most infamous and accursed form.[478] The celestial metamorphosis[Pg 331] into a fish is perhaps the vilest transmutations of animal, and therefore the most feared; the fish lives especially in order to reproduce itself; to represent, therefore, the decadence of the god after a phallical crime of his, he is condemned to lie down in the waters. We know that the fisher, in the Çakuntalâ, lives at Çakrâvatâras (that is, the fall of Indras). We have seen the sister of Latona, and Rambhâ and Ahalyâ, after having transgressed, the one with Jupiter and the others with Indras, become stones in the waters. The fish, rendered powerless and stupid, becomes inert and motionless like a stone (sun and moon pass into sky or cloud). We already find the image of the stone with the honey brought, in the Ṛigvedas,[479] into close affinity to that of the fish which lies in shallow water, or of the fish made powerless and deprived of its vital qualities.

The legend of the nymph Adrikâ (from the word adris, which means a stone, a rock, a mountain, or a cloud) presents the same analogy between the stone-cloud, that is, the stone in the waters, and the fish. By a divine malediction, Adrikâ is transformed into a fish, and lives in the Yamunâ. Being in these waters, she picks up a leaf upon which had fallen the sperm of King Uparićaras, enamoured of Girikâ (or of Adrikâ herself, the two words adrikâ and girikâ being equivalent); this[Pg 332] leaf had been let fall into the waves of the Yamunâ by the bird çyenas, that is, by the hawk. Having fed upon this sperm, the nymph fish is caught by fishermen, and taken to King Uparićaras; the fish is opened, and the nymph resumes her heavenly form; of her a son and a daughter are born, Matsyas the male fish, and Matsyâ the female one.[480] The male afterwards becomes king of the matsyâs or fishes, which some authorities have, in vain, as I think, endeavoured to identify with a historical nation; for it is not enough to find them named as a people in the Mahâbhâratam, to prove their real historical existence, when we know that the whole basis of the Mahâbhâratam is mythological. Moreover, when we find the Matsyâs in the Vedic hymns, it is one more argument from which to infer the mythical nature of the peoples named in the Ṛigvedas in connection with the waters. In another legend of the Mahâbhâratam, the semen of the penitent Çaradvat (properly the autumnal or the pluvial one), provoked by the sight of a beautiful nymph, falls upon the wood of an arrow; the wood of the arrow splits in two, and two sons are born of it, who are given to the king; a variety of this legend will be found further on in the Western traditions connected with the story of the fish.[481]

To the ninety-nine or hundred cities of Çambaras (the clouds) destroyed by Indras, correspond the ninety-nine rivers which Indras crosses. In the Vishṇu P.,[482] a fish receives the hero Pradyumnas (an appellation of the god[Pg 333] of love), thrown into the sea by Çambaras, and enables him to recover and wed Mâyâdevî.

King Guhas (the hidden one? the dark one?) the king of the black Nishâdâs, the king of Çriñgaveras (in which we have already recognised the moon), who, during the night, receives Râmas on the banks of the Ganges, hospitably entertains him, offering him beverages, meat, and fishes.[483]

In the Çukasaptatî, and in the Tuti-Name, the fishes laugh at the prudery of an adulterous servant-girl; we have already shown, in the first chapter of the first book, the phallical signification of the fish that laughs.

In the Khorda Avesta, we find a fish with acute eyesight (Karo-maçyo, the posterior Khar-mâhî), which guards the white haoma, that is, the ambrosia (with which sperm was also identified).

In the Pseudo-Callisthenes, Alexander, having arrived at the luminous fountain which scatters perfumes, asks his cook for something to eat; the cook prepares to wash the fish in the refulgent water; the fish returns to life, and disappears from his sight; but the cook drinks some of the water of the fish, and gives some to Alexander's daughter Une, who becomes, by the curse of Alexander himself, a nereïd or marine nymph, whilst he fastens a stone to the cook's neck, and orders him to be thrown to the bottom of the sea. It is unnecessary for me to demonstrate the analogy between this legend and the myth of Indras, or to insist upon the phallical meaning of the myth.

We already know that phallical images and demoniacal ones sometimes correspond; hence, in the ninth Esthonian story, the devil steals the fishes from the fishermen; hence, in the Eddas, the brigand Loki now assumes the[Pg 334] form of a salmon, and now catches the pike, into which the dwarf Andvarri has transformed himself. The pike is the guardian of gold and of a ring which is taken from him; the fish enters into the stone, and predicts that gold will be the cause of the death of the two brothers. The ambrosial rain which comes out of the cloud, and the ambrosial dew, are the water in which the fish is washed, and the ambrosial dew is the water or seed of the fish; the fair-haired and silvery moon in the ocean of night is the little gold fish, and the little silver fish which announces the rainy season, the autumn, the deluge. Out of the cloudy, nocturnal, or wintry ocean, comes forth the sun, the pearl lost in the sea, which the gold or silver fish brings out.

The little goldfish of our aquariums, the cyprinus chrysoparius, the cyprinus auratus, the cyprinus sophore (the Hindoo çapharas, in the feminine çapharî), and the luminous pike, like the moon, can expand and contract. We are already acquainted with the sea-monster which, in the Râmâyaṇam (like the siren fish), allures from the sea the shadow of Hanumant, and can make itself now small, now large; we have seen the dwarf Andvarri of the Eddas, who hides himself in the form of a pike; we are familiar with the god Vishṇus or Haris, who, from being a dwarf, becomes a giant (Haris means fair-haired or golden, and refers now to the sun, now to the moon); Vishṇus, in his incarnation as a fish, first takes the form of the little golden fish, the çapharî; and, in this form, the god Vishṇus is especially identified with the moon, the ruler of the rainy season. As the moon (which we have already seen as a little learned puppet) grows by quarters, and from being exceedingly small, becomes large, so, in the Hindoo legend of the Deluge, narrated in the Vedic commentaries, in the Mahâbhâratam, and[Pg 335] in the Pâuranic legends, the god Vishṇus or Haris begins by being an exceedingly small fish, a çapharî, which beseeches the penitent Manus to be taken out of the great river, the Ganges, where it is afraid of being devoured by the aquatic monsters. Manus receives the little fish in the vase of water in which he performs his ablutions (a Hindoo proverb says that the çapharî is agitated from petulance in water an inch deep, whilst the rohitas, a kind of carp, does not become proud even in bottomless depths[484]); in one night (evidently in its character as the moon) the fish grows so much that it can no longer remain in the vase; Manus carries it into a pool, afterwards into the Ganges; finally, the fish increases so much in size that Manus, recognising Vishṇus in it, is obliged to give it entire liberty in the sea. Then the grateful fish announces that in seven days the waters will inundate the world, and all the wicked will perish; he orders him (as the biblical God does Noah) to build a ship: "Thou shalt enter into it," says Vishṇus to him, "with seven sages, a couple of every kind of animal, and the seeds of every plant. Thou shalt wait in it the end of the night of Brahman; and when the vessel is agitated by the waves, thou shalt attach it by a long serpent to the horn of an enormous fish, which will come near thee, and will guide thee over the waves of the abyss." On the appointed day, the waters of the sea came up over the surface of the earth; the fish made its appearance to draw the ship in order to save Manus. The ship stopped upon the horn, that is, upon the peak of a mountain. Now this little goldfish, in which Vishṇus is incarnate, when it becomes horned to draw the ship of Manus, assimilates itself to another interesting[Pg 336] sea animal, the sea-urchin or hedgehog of the Ganges, (çiṅçumâras, which is also one of the names of the dwarf Vishṇus (we have already seen Vishṇus as a wild-boar), and which means properly the little destroyer. The eighteenth strophe of the precious 116th hymn of the first book of the Ṛigvedas, shows us the çiṅçumâras or sea-urchin, which, together with another horned animal, the bull (we have already seen the moon as a horned bull) draws the chariot of the Açvinâu, full of riches;[485] we know that the chariot of the Açvinâu is often a vessel. Çiṅçumâras also means in Sanskṛit the dolphin;[486] and the dolphins and the fish called jorsh (the little perch), with its little horns, thorns, and thin shape, sharpened at one end like a pole ending in a point, called in Russian stories the turbulent one (kropaćishko), are in relation with each other, as they draw the casket away; the jorsh takes the place of the "little destroyer," of the çiṅçumâras, of the sea-urchin, concerning which there is a very interesting Sicilian verse, which compares the stings of the sea-urchin to a hundred oars, with which it must row, carrying its little invokers; after having caught it, Sicilian children scatter a little salt over it, and sing—

"Vócami, vócami, centu rimi, Vócami, vócami, centu rimi."[Pg 337] (Row for me, row for me, hundred oars). Then it moves, and the children are delighted. In the Russian little poem, Kaniok Garbunok, of Jershoff, already mentioned by us in the chapter on the Horse, Ivan must seek, for the sultan, a ring shut up in a casket which has fallen into the sea (the evening or the autumnal sun). Ivan upon his crook-backed horse arrives in the middle of the sea, where there is a whale which cannot move because it has swallowed a fleet, that is to say, the solar vessel. The part played here by the whale is the same as that of the sea-monster who swallows Hanumant in the Râmâyaṇam, to vomit him out again, as in the case of the biblical Jonah (the night devours the sun, or carries it into its body). Hanumant enters into the fish by its mouth, and comes out at its tail; however, in the narrative given of it in the fifty-sixth canto of the fifth book by Hanumant himself, he says that the sea-monster having shut its mouth, he came out of it by the right ear. When the night is with the moon, instead of swallowing the hero, the bull-moon or fish-moon carries him or serves as a bridge for him. In Russian fairy tales the brown pike (which, on account of its colour, is called the chaste widow)[487] is now a form assumed by the[Pg 338] devil in order to eat the young hero, who has become a little perch,[488] and now an enormous fish with great teeth, which slaughters the little fishes.[489] Now, instead, it serves as a bridge for Ivan Tzarević, who is seeking for the egg of the duck which is inside the hare under the oak-tree in the midst of the sea;[490] now it is caught in the fountain (as the moon, soma, in the well) by the foolish and lazy Emilius, and because Emilius saves its life, it makes him rich by performing several miracles for him, such as that of the barrels full of water, of the trees of the forest, of the waggons or the stoves which move off by themselves, and finally that of the cask thrown into the sea, into which Emilius is shut with the beautiful daughter of the Tzar, and which comes to shore and breaks open.[491] Now the phallical pike with the golden[Pg 339] fins[492] is caught, washed, quartered, and roasted; the dirty water is thrown away and drunk by the cow (in Afanassieff) or by the mare (in Erlenwein); a portion of the fish is eaten by the black slave, whilst she is carrying it to table, the rest by the queen; hence three young heroes, considered as brothers, are born at the same time to the cow (or mare), to the black maiden, and to the queen. Now the pike (as in the satirical fable of Kriloff) draws the car in company with the crab and the heron; and here, it would appear, these two animals are rather stupid than intelligent, inasmuch as, whilst the pike draws the car into the water, the crab draws it back on the earth and the heron essays to mount with it into the air. Here we have the usual correspondence between the phallical figure and that of the simpleton. Thus, in the Piedmontese dialect, the phallos and the stupid man is called merlu (blackbird). From the word merlo (Lat. merula) was derived the name of the fish called merluccio or merluzzo (gadus merlucius, the melwel or haddock), called asellus by the Latins and onos by the Greeks. The ass is a well-known phallical symbol, and Bacchus being also a phallical[Pg 340] god, we read in Pliny, "Asellorum duo genera, Callariæ minores, et Bacchi, qui non nisi in alto (in the deep) capiuntur." The Italian name baccalà, given to the cod-fish, seems to me to be derived from the union of the two names Bacchus and Callaria. In the Piedmontese dialect, a stupid man is also called by the name of baccalà. There is also a fish called merula, of which the ancients describe the extraordinary salacity, by indulging which it literally consumes itself away and perishes.[493] In Italy we find the following phallical proverbs: "The blackbird has passed the Po," and "The blackbird has passed the river;" to denote a woman or a man exhausted, to impotence. The ancients wrote of the fish called chrüsofrüs by the Greeks, and aurata by the Latins, that it would let itself be taken in children's and women's hands, and (according to Athenaios) it was sacred to Aphroditê. Aphroditê, Venus, goddess of love, especially, represented in myths the aurora and the spring (hence in Lent and on Friday, the day of Freya, dies Veneris, we eat fishes); therefore the gemini pisces, the two fishes joined in one, were sacred to her, and the joke of the poisson d'Avril, as I have already mentioned in the first chapter of the first book, is a jest of phallical origin, which should be abandoned.[494] Aphroditê and Eros, pursued by Typhon, transformed themselves into fishes and plunged into the Euphrates. The Hellenic Eros was also represented riding (instead of the phallical butterfly) on a dolphin; according to other accounts, he rides upon a swan with dolphins before him. In an epigram of the Anthologia Græca, the dolphin, moreover,[Pg 341] carries a weary nightingale. In several parts of Alsace, on the evening of St Andrew's Day, girls eat herrings to dream during the night of the husband who is to quench their thirst.[495] The fish julis of Pliny, or Julia, is called donzella (damsel) in Italian, and menchia di re (king's phallos) at Naples and in Venetia, and other fishes also take their name from the organs of generation.[496] The phallos is called u pesce at Naples, and, in Italian, nuovo pesce (a new fish) signifies a stupid man. An essentially phallical character, moreover, is possessed by the eel, which, according to Agatharchides, quoted by Hippolitus Salvianus, the Bœotians crowned as a victim and sacrificed solemnly to the gods, which, according to Herodotos, the Egyptians venerated as a divine fish, and which Athenaios pompously calls the Helen of dinners. The eel became proverbial; the Italian proverbial expressions, "To take the eel," "To hold the eel by its tail," "When the eel has taken the hook it must go where it is drawn," are all equivocal. The Germans also have a proverb concerning the eel, which reminds us of the story of the cook who steals the fish from Alexander, and, together with Alexander's daughter, drinks its water.[497] The phallos[Pg 342] discovers secrets, and therefore, in a German legend,[498] the faculty of seeing everything which is under the water is ascribed to a woman who had eaten an eel (a variety of the story of the fish that laughs, which, in the ninth story of the third book of Afanassieff, enriches whoever possesses it, and the fish silurus (the bream), so called from the Greek words sillô and oura, because it shakes its tail, which, in the fifty-eighth story of the sixth book of Afanassieff, cleans the workman who had fallen into the mud, and makes the princess laugh who had never laughed before). In the eighteenth story of Santo Stefano di Calcinaia, a fisherman catches an eel with two tails and two heads, which is so large that he has to be assisted in carrying it. The eel speaks, and commands that its two tails be planted in the garden, that its intestines be given to the bitch, and its two heads to the fisherman's wife. Two swords are born of the tails in the garden (in the Hindoo legend we saw two sons born of the wood of Çaradvat's arrow), two dogs are born of the intestines to the bitch, and two beautiful young men of the heads to the wife (the two Açvinâu, drawn, as we have seen in the Vedic hymn, by the sea-urchin). In the chapter on the Dove, we saw the two young lovers, when pursued, take the form of doves. In the fourteenth Sicilian story of Signora Gonzenbach, the young man and the maiden pursued by the witch transform themselves first into church and sacristan, then into garden and gardener, then into rose[Pg 343] and rosebush, and finally into fountain and eel. In the first volume of the Cabinet des Fées, the fairy Aiguillette is taken in the form of an eel. In the fourth of the stories of Santo Stefano di Calcinaia, the beautiful maiden is asked by the servant-maid of the priest (that is, by the servant-maid of the black man, by the black woman or the night), who went to wash clothes at the fountain, to come down from the tree. The maiden descends, is thrown into the fountain and devoured by an enormous eel. The fishermen catch the eel and take it to the prince; the witch has it killed and thrown into a cane-brake. The eel is then transformed into a large and beautiful cane, which is also carried to the prince, who, cutting it gently with a penknife, makes his beautiful girl come out (this legend is a variety of that of the wooden girl).[499] This form of a diabolical eel has a close relationship with the monster-serpent; the anguilla reminds one of the anguis; hence, in the ninth story of the first book of the Pentamerone, instead of the eel as a fœcundator, as in the eighteenth Tuscan story, we find the fish called draco marinus (in Italian, trascina), of which it is curious to read, what Volaterranus writes, that—"Si manu dextra adripias eum contumacem renitentemque experieris, si læva subsequentem,"—as if he meant to imply that the left hand is the hand of the devil. Thus Oppianos describes the wedding of the muraina eel (the murana) with the serpent (the viper according to Ælianos and Pliny). Other fishes have assumed an essentially diabolical character, such as the[Pg 344] fish called alôpêx (Lat. vulpes, vulpecula), of which Ælianos relates that it swallows the hook and then vomits it out with its own intestines; the rana piscatrix, also called the marine devil; the trügôn (Lat. pastinaca, It. bruco), which, according to Oppianos, kills men with its dart (fame reports that Ulysses was killed with the bone of a trügôn) and dries up trees (although it is strange that to cure one's self from such a fatal wound, as it was supposed by the ancients to be venomous, Dioscoris only recommends a decoction of sage). The sea-scorpion (whose wounds, according to the ancients, were cured by means of the trigla, the red mullet—Lat. mullus—sacred according to Athenaios and Apollodorus to Artemis, or to Diana Trivia, the moon; Plutarch writes that it was sacred to Diana as a hunting fish, because it kills the marine hare, noxious to man; but we have seen that the mythical hare is the moon itself), the bream, or silurus, glanis, or piscis barbatus, which, in Hungary, according to Mannhardt (Manardus, quoted in the sixteenth century by Ippolito Salviano), had the reputation of attacking men, so much so, that it is said that one of these fishes, which are, in fact, very voracious, was once found with a man's hand, covered with rings, in its intestines. But these rings in the fish's body (like the gem called cimedia,[500] which, according to the popular belief, is found in the brain of a great number of fishes) recall us to the interrupted poem of Jershoff, to the little perch, the dolphins, the whale, and the ring fallen into the water and found again by the fish, which is perhaps the most interesting subject of legends in the mythical cycle of the fishes, and, if I may say so, their epic exploit.

[Pg 345]

Ivan, therefore, has come with his hump-backed little horse into the midst of the sea near the whale which has swallowed a fleet;[501] upon the whale a forest has grown; women go to seek for mushrooms in its moustaches. Ivan communicates his wish, and the whale calls all the fishes together, but no one can give information except one little fish, the little jorsh, or little perch, which, however, is at the time engaged in chasing one of its adversaries. The whale sends ambassadors to the jorsh, which unwillingly desists for an instant from the fight, in order to search for the casket; it finds it, but is not strong enough to lift it up. The numerous army of the herrings come and try, but in vain; at last two dolphins come and raise the casket. Ivan receives the wished-for ring; the whale's malediction comes to an end; it vomits the fleet forth again, and is once more able to move about, whilst the little perch returns to pursue its enemies. This war of the little perch with its adversaries has had in popular Russian tradition its Herodotuses and its Homers, who[Pg 346] have celebrated its praises both in prose and verse. Afanassieff gives in the third book of his stories, from a manuscript of the last century, the description of the judgment of the little perch (jorsh) before the tribunal of the fishes. The bream (leçć) accuses the little jorsh, the wicked warrior (as the sea-urchin is the little destroyer; the confounding of the sea-urchin with the little perch is all the easier in Russian legends, inasmuch as the former is called josz, and the latter jorsh), who has wounded all the other fishes with its rough bristles, and compelled them to forsake the Lake of Rastoff. The jorsh defends itself by saying that it is strong in virtue of its inherent vigour; that it is not a brigand, but a good subject, who is known everywhere, highly prized and cooked by great lords, who eat it with satisfaction. The bream appeals to the testimony of other fishes, who give witness against the little perch, who thereupon complains that the other fishes, in their overweening importance, wish, by means of the tribunals, to ruin him and his companions, taking advantage of their smallness. The judges call the perch, the eel-pout, and the herring to give witness. The perch sends the eel-pout, and the eel-pout excuses itself for not appearing, pleading that its belly is fat, and it cannot move; that its eyes are small, and its vision imperfect; that its lips are thick, and it does not know how to speak before persons of distinction. The herring gives witness in favour of the bream, and against the little perch. Among the witnesses against the jorsh, the sturgeon also appears; it maligns the jorsh, alleging that when he attempts to eat it he must spit more out than he can swallow, and complains that when it was one day going by the Volga to Lake Rastoff, the little perch called him his brother and deceived him, saying, in order to induce him to retire from the lake, that he had once[Pg 347] also been a fish of such size that his tail resembled the sail of a ship, and that he had become so small after having entered Lake Rastoff. The sturgeon goes on to say that he was afraid, but remained in the river, where his sons and companions died of hunger, and he himself was reduced to the last extremities. He adduces, moreover, another grave accusation against the jorsh, who had made him go in front, in order that he might fall into the fishermen's hands, cunningly hinting that the elder brothers should go before the younger ones. The sturgeon confesses that he gave way to this graceful flattery, and entered into a weir made to catch fish, which he found to be similar to the gates of great lords' houses—large when one goes in, and small when one goes out; he fell into the net, in which the jorsh saw him, and cried out, deriding him, "Suffer for the love of Christ." The deposition of the sturgeon makes a great impression upon the minds of the judges, who give orders to inflict the knout upon the little jorsh, to impale it in the great heat, as a punishment for its cheating; the sentence is sealed by the crayfish with one of his claws. But the jorsh, who has heard the sentence, declares it to be unjust, spits in the eyes of the judges, jumps into the briar brake, and disappears from the sight of the fishes, who remain lost in shame and mortification.

In the thirty-second story of the fourth book of Afanassieff, we find two varieties of this zoological legend.

The turbulent jorsh enters into Lake Rastoff, and possesses himself of it. Called to judgment by the bream, it answers that from the day of St Peter to that of St Elias, the whole lake was on fire; and cites in proof of this assertion that the roach's eyes are still red from its effects, that the perch's fins are also still red, that the[Pg 348] pike became dark coloured, and that the eel-pout is black in consequence. These fishes, called to give witness, either do not appear, or else deny the truth of these assertions. The jorsh is arrested and bound, but it begins to rain, and the place of judgment becomes muddy; the jorsh escapes, and, from one rivulet to another, arrives at the river Kama, where the pike and the sturgeon find him, and take him back to be executed.

The jorsh, arrested and brought to judgment, demands permission to take a walk for only one hour in Lake Rastoff; but after the expiration of the appointed time, it neglects to come out of the lake, and annoys the other fishes in every way, stinging and provoking them. The fishes have recourse for justice to the sturgeon, who sends the pike to look for the jorsh; the little perch is found amongst the stones; it excuses itself by saying that it is Saturday, and that there is a festival in his father's house, and advises him to take a constitutional in the meanwhile, and enjoy himself; on the morrow, although it be Sunday, he promises to present himself before the judges (the analogy between the actions of the jorsh and those of Reineke Fuchs is very remarkable). Meanwhile, the jorsh makes his companion drunk. The Sanskṛit name of the fish, matsyas, from the root mad, we know to mean drunk and joyous, properly damp (Lat., madidus); in Italian, briaco and folle are sometimes equivalent; in the Piedmontese dialect, bagnà (wet) and imbecil (idiot) are expressions of the same meaning. Drunkenness is of two forms: there is a drunkenness which makes impotent and stupid; it is a question of quantity and of quality of beverages, as well as constitution. Thus, there are two kinds of madness; that which makes a man infuriated, to cope with whom the strait-waistcoat is necessary, and that which ends by exhausting all a[Pg 349] man's strength in prostration and debility. Indras, when drunk, becomes a hero; the pike when drunk is a fool (cfr. the Italian matto, English mad, which means insane, crazy, with the German matt, which means cast down, exhausted[502]). When the jorsh has made the pike drunk, it shuts it in a rick of straw, where the inebriated fish is to die. Then the bream comes to take the little perch from among the stones, and to bring him before the judge. The jorsh demands a judgment of God. He tells his judges to put him in a net; if he stays in the net, he is wrong; if he comes out, he is right; the jorsh jerks about in the net so much that he gets out. The judge acquits him, and gives him entire liberty in the lake; then the jorsh begins his numerous revenges upon the little fishes, proving his astuteness in continual efforts to ruin them.

As the drunkard and the fool now intensify their strength and now lose it, so they now double and now lose their intelligence. Hence, among mythical fishes we find very wise ones and very stupid ones. The story is very popular of the three fishes of different intelligence, of which the lazy and improvident one allows himself to be caught by the fishermen, whilst his two companions escape; it is found in the first book of the Pańćatantram. In the fifth book of the Pańćatantram, a variety occurs: we read of a fish which has the intelligence of a hundred (Çatabuddhis), of one which has the intelligence of a thousand (Sahasrabuddhis), and of the frog which has the intelligence of one (Ekabuddhis); but that of the two fishes is not intelligence, but presumption;[Pg 350] the one intelligence of the frog is better than the hundred and the thousand of the fishes. The frog escapes, but the two fishes fall into the hands of the fishermen.

The little sea-urchin (and the dwarf Vishṇus and the dolphin are equivalent to it, the word çiṅçumâras being equivocal in Sanskṛit) in the Ṛigvedas draws the chariot of riches; in the Eddas, a dwarf in the form of a pike (in Greek lükios, in Latin lucius) watches over gold, and guards the ring; in Russian legends, the little jorsh (formidable, like the josz, by its sharp quills), united with the dolphins, draws out of the sea the casket containing the sultan's ring. The horn of the moon, which appears in the sea of night, belongs now to the bull which carries the fugitive hero, now to the fish çapharî, which, having become large, takes in tow the ship of Manus, and saves it from the waters, that it may not be wrecked. Now it is the solar hero or heroine that takes the form of a fish to save himself or herself; now the fish helps the solar hero or heroine in their escape; now the little golden or luminous fish plunges into the sea, or into the river, to seek the pearl or ring for the hero or heroine who had let it fall, the ring without which King Dushyantas cannot recognise his bride Çakuntalâ; now it vomits out from its mouth or its tail that which it has swallowed—the hero, the pearl, the ring (the solar disc).

In the sixth act of Çakuntalâ, the fisherman finds in the stomach of a fish (the cyprinus dentatus), the pearl enchased in the ring which King Dushyantas had given to Çakuntalâ, in order to be able to recognise her when they should come together again. The genera cyprinus and perca, as the thorny or wounding ones in the order of fishes, have supplied the greatest number of heroes to[Pg 351] mythology; the sea-urchin is identified to them on account of its darts; the names hecht, brochet, pike, given to the lucius in Germany, France, and England, express its faculty of stinging, or cleaving with its flat and cutting mouth (the fish lucioperca sandra is an intermediate form between the perch and the pike). The lunar horn, the thunderbolt, the sunbeam, have the same prerogative as these fishes; the dolphin, on account of the two scythe-shaped fins which it has on its anterior extremity, or of its fat and curved dorsal fin, as well as on account of its black and silvery colour, might well serve to represent the two lunar horns and the moon's phases. Thus the pike and the bream, dark or bluish on their backs, are white underneath. The dolphin also has a flat mouth and sharp teeth, like the pike.[503] The lunar horn announces rain; thus the scythe-shaped fin of the dolphin, appearing on the waves of the sea, announces a tempest to navigators, warns them, and saves them from shipwreck; hence, as a çiṅçumaras, it may, like the sea-urchin, have saved or drawn the chariot, that is, the vessel of the Açvinâu, laden with riches. The dolphin which watches over Amphitritê, by order of Poseidon, in the Hellenic myth, is the same as the dolphin, the spy of the sea, or the moon, the spy of the nocturnal and wintry sky. Inasmuch as the sky of night or winter was compared to the kingdom of the dead, both the dolphin and the moon, according to the Hellenic belief, carried the souls of the dead.

The cyprinus, par excellence, the carp (Lat. carpus),[Pg 352] is celebrated, in connection with gold, in an elegant little Latin poem of Hieronimus Fracastorus. Carpus was the name of a ferryman of the Lake of Garda, who, seeing Saturn fleeing, took him for a robber who was carrying gold away, and endeavoured to despoil him of this gold; then Saturn cursed him and his companions in the following manner:—

"Gens inimica Deum dabitur quod poscitis aurum: Hoc imo sub fonte aurum pascetis avari. Dixerat: ast illis veniam poscentibus et vox Deficit, et jam se cernunt mutescere et ora In rictum late patulum producta dehiscunt, In pinnas abiere manus; vestisque rigescit In squamas, caudamque pedes sinuantur in imam; Qui fuerat subita obductus formidine mansit Pallidus ore color, quamquam livoris iniqui Indicium suffusa nigris sunt corpora guttis; Carpus aquas, primus numen qui læsit, in amplas Se primus dedit et fundo se condidit imo." From the comparisons which we have made hitherto, it is impossible not to admit that the enterprise of the fish who seeks the gold or the pearl, who finds it, or who contains it in himself, is a very ancient Âryan tradition. In the Vedic hymns we see now Indras, now the Açvinâu, saving the heroes from shipwreck, and bringing riches to mankind; we have also seen the çiṅçumâras (sea-urchin, dolphin, or Vishṇus) draw the chariot of the Açvinâu, who are bringing riches. The Greeks called a fish of a strange shape by the name now of Zeus, now of chalkeüs (the name given to Hêphaistos, or Mulciber, or Vulcanus, the worker in metals), or blacksmith, whence the name of Zeus faber, by which it was known to the Latins. This fish is of a really monstrous shape. Its back is brownish, with yellow stripes; the rest of its body is of a silvery-grey colour; on its sides it has two spots of the[Pg 353] deepest black. Its dorsal fin opens like a fan, with rays going out on all sides, and furnished with strong quills, which make this prominence resemble a crest. We remember that the cock and the lark were compared to Christ and to Christophoros, on account of their crest; the same happened in the case of the Zeus faber.[504] The Italian legend says that those two black spots (which make the fish's body resemble a forge, whence its name of blacksmith) were caused by the marks left upon it one day by St Christopher, while carrying Christ upon his shoulders across the river. The fish which wears the crest and Christopher are here identified with each other. But this is not all; at Rome, at Genoa, and at Naples, this same fish is called the fish of St Peter, because it is said to be the same fish which was caught by St Peter in the Gospels, in the mouth of which (as a blacksmith or chalkeüs, it must have known well how to coin money), by a miracle of Christ's, St Peter found the coin which was to serve for the tribute. Is it probable that the legend of the fish with gold in its mouth, so common in Âryan legends, was current in Judea? I do not think so; inasmuch as petrus and the petra, upon which Christ makes a bad Græco-Latin pun, in connection with the fish, is another mythical incident which calls me back to the Âryan world, and tears me away from the Semitic world, and from childish faith in the Judaic authenticity of the evangelical story, though without prejudice to my belief in the holiness of the doctrine.

[Pg 354]

CHAPTER II. THE CRAB. SUMMARY

The riddle, how it is a fish, and not a fish.—The crab appears and the sun goes back; the crab-moon draws the solar hero back.—The crane and the crab.—The crab kills the serpent and releases the solar hero.—The crab draws the chariot.—Palinurus.—The crabs prick and waken the hero.—The race between the crab and the fox.—The prince becomes a crab to release his beloved from the waters.—The nightingale, the stag, and the crab as awakeners.—The crab as an antidote for the venom of the toad, and as a remedy for the stone.

In the eighth Esthonian story, a husband beats his wife because she is unable to solve the riddle which he proposes, to provide him a fish to eat, which is not a fish, and which has eyes, but not in its head. The third brother, the cunning one, recommends his mother to cook the crab, which lives in the water like a fish, and which has eyes, but not in its head.

When the sun seems to enter, in the month of June, into the tropic which bears the sign of the crab (Lat. cancer; Gr. karkinos; Sanskṛit, karkaṭas, karkas, karkaṭakas; the Hindoo constellation of the crab is called karkin, or furnished with the crab, in the same way as the leaping moon, furnished with the hare, is called çaçin), it is said to come back again; on the first day of summer the days begin to shorten, as on the first of winter they[Pg 355] begin to lengthen; the sun in the month of June was therefore compared to a crab, which retraces its steps, or was represented as drawn by a crab, which, in this case, is particularly the moon. We all know the myth of Hêraklês, who, when combatting the hydra of Lerne, was caught and drawn back by the crab, which Hêra, therefore, transformed into the celestial constellation of the crab. In the Pseudo-Callisthenes, Alexander returns in terror from his journey to the fountain of immortality, when he sees that the crabs draw his ships back into the sea. In the same work, we find a crab caught which contains seven precious pearls; Alexander has it shut up in a vase, which is enclosed in a large cage, fastened by an iron chain; a fish draws the cage a mile out to sea; Alexander, half dead with terror, thanks the gods for the warning, and so saving his life, persuading himself that it is not fit to attempt impossible undertakings. In the seventh story of the first book of the Pańćatantram, the old crane, on the other hand, terrifies the crab and the fishes by threatening them with a visitation of the gods in the chariot of Rohinî, the red wife of the Lunus, that is, in the constellation of the Wain or the Bulls (the fourth lunation of the moon), in consequence of which the rain will cease to fall, the pond will be dried up, and the crabs and fishes will die; the fishes allow themselves to be deceived by the crane, who eats them on the way; but the crab, on the contrary, when it has got half way, perceives the deceit of the crane, kills it, and returns back again. Professor Benfey has found a variation of this story in the Buddhist sacred and historical books of Ceylon. In the Æsopian fables, the crab kills the serpent. In the twentieth story of the first book of the Pańćatantram, the crab causes, at the same time, the death of the serpent and the crane, by means of the[Pg 356] ichneumon; the crab, which walks a little backwards and a little forwards, when transported into the sky, causes now the death of the solar hero and now that of the monster, now delivers the solar hero from the monster and now drags it into the waters. In the fifteenth and last story of the fifth book of the Pańćatantram, the young hero Brahmadattas takes, for his companion in his journey, the crab, who, whilst he sleeps in the shade of a tree, kills the serpent which comes to kill him. This mythical crab, this red animal which kills the serpent, is sometimes the sun, but, perhaps, oftener it may be compared to the horned moon, which increases and diminishes, and releases the solar hero, asleep in the shadow of the night and of the winter, from the black serpent who endeavours to turn his sleep into death; Brahmadattas, when he wakens, recognises the crab as his deliverer. Thus we have already seen the moon considered more than once, in several forms, as the saviour of the solar hero and heroine. When the sun falls in the evening, in the west, it must necessarily go back like the crab, to reappear in the morning on the same eastern side from whence it came; when the sun goes back and the days grow shorter, after the summer solstice, the crab, in the Zodiacal cycle, retraces its steps. When the sun goes back, the moon either rules the darkness of the frigid night, or in autumn brings on the autumnal rains; the horns of the moon, and those of the crab, serve now to draw the hero into the waters (in the evening, and after solstice of June), now to draw him out of the waters (towards dawn and towards spring). The sun is now represented as having transformed himself into the moon, and now as having been deceived or saved by the moon. The sun which retraces its steps is a crab; the moon which draws back, or draws out, is also a crab, and, in this[Pg 357] respect, seems to hold the same place as the sea-urchin with the hundred oars, or of the dolphin with the scythe-shaped fin, which draws the chariot of the solar hero, or the solar hero himself. In the fable of Kriloff, the crab draws the chariot with the pike and the heron (the latter taking the place here of the crane, which we have seen above in connection with the crab, and which is also called in Sanskṛit by the same name as the crab, that is, karkaṭas). It is well known that the sea-crab, Palinurus vulgaris, took its name from the pilot Palinurus, who fell into the sea. In the fourteenth story of the first book of Afanassieff, the crabs prick and waken the young hero Theodore (gift of God, an equivalent of Brahmadattas, given by the god Brahman), put to sleep by the witch; they are grateful to the hero, because he divided the caviare into equal parts among the crabs who were disputing for it.

We have seen the challenge to a race with the hare and the locust, the hare and locust both seem to lose the race. Afterwards we saw the challenge to a trial of flight of the beetle and the wren with the eagle, in which the animal that symbolises the moon, on the other hand, wins the race. Thus, in the same way, as to spring succeeds June or the month of the crab, we find represented in the fifth story of the fourth book of Afanassieff a race between the fox (which, as it symbolises the twilights of the day, represents also the equinoxes in the year) and the crab (it is well known that the crab, Palinurus vulgaris, was called by the Latins by the name of locusta). The crab fastens itself to the fox's tail; the latter arrives at the winning-post without knowing of the crab's presence; the fox then turns round to see whether his opponent is far off, upon which the crab, letting go the fox's brush and dropping quietly on the[Pg 358] ground, looks up and placidly remarks that it has been waiting for some time.

In the first of the Esthonian stories, the young prince, in order to release from the waters his beloved, who had become a water-rose, by the eagle's advice takes off his clothes, covers himself with mud, and holding his nose between his fingers, snivels out, "From a man, a crab;" then he instantly becomes a crab, and goes to draw the water-rose out of the water, to bring it to shore near a stone, at which, when arrived, he says, "From the water-rose, the maiden; from the crab, the man." (This myth appears to represent the amours of the sun as a female, with the moon as a male.) I observe that among the Sanskṛit meanings of the word karkaṭas, which means a crab, there is that of a heap of water-roses, or a heap of lotuses.

We have already seen the nightingale and the stag as images representing the moon; here we also find a crab as a lunar figure. The moon is the watcher of night; either it sleeps with its eyes open like the hare, or it is watchful like the stag, or, as a nightingale, it justifies the Greek proverb of the watchers who sleep less than the nightingales (oud' hoson Aêdones üpnôousin), or, as crab, it wakens up with its claws those who are asleep and menaced by any danger.[505] In Pliny we find the nightingale, the stag, and the crab in concord; he informs[Pg 359] us that crab's eyes, with the nightingale's flesh, tied up in a stag's skin, are useful to keep a man awake. The moon, in fact, not only herself watches, but makes men watch, or prolong their vigils; we know, moreover, of the excitement with which her presence agitates the quail, which cannot sleep when the moon shines in the sky. Pliny also recommends the river-crab, cut in pieces and drunk, as a remedy against any poison, but especially against the venom projected by the toad. In the Heisterbac. Hist. Miracul., we read of a man named Theodoric, and surnamed Cancer, that the devil persecuted him in the form of a toad; he kills the diabolical toad more than once, but it always rises again; then Cancer, recognising the devil in this form, forms a heroic resolution, uncovers one of his thighs, and lets himself be bitten; the thigh inflames, but he is cured at last, and from that day forward he is and continues a holy man. German superstition, therefore, combines with Græco-Latin to consider the crab as an enemy of the monster; but as in Græco-Latin beliefs, besides the crab which awakens, there is also, as we have seen, the crab which seeks to ruin the solar hero, so in Germanic mythical tradition, the death of the solar and diurnal hero Baldur takes place, when the sun enters the Zodiacal sign of Cancer.

[Pg 360]

CHAPTER III. THE TORTOISE. SUMMARY.

Equivoque between the words kaććhapas and kaçyapas (by the intermediate form, kaçapas).—Explanation of the myth of the production of the ambrosia, by means of the mandaras.—Mantharas as a tortoise.—Kûrmas.—Kaććhapas the lord of the shores.—The tortoise and the elephant.—Kaçyapas as Praǵâpatis.—Somas and Savitar.—Kaçyapas and the thirteen daughters of Dakshas; Dakshaǵâ.—The funereal tortoise and the frog.—The tortoise and the lyre; the Schild-kröte; the shields of the Kureti; kaććhâs, kaććhapî; kûrmas as a poet and as a wind.—The tortoise and the warriors.—The shields fallen from the sky.—The demoniacal tortoise.—The tortoise as an island.—The hare and the tortoise.—The tortoise defeats the eagle.

Of the three principal Hindoo names of the tortoise, kûrmas, kaććhapas, and kaçyapas, the third alone, in connection with the second, seems to have any importance in the history of myths. The expression kûrmas is the word usually employed to designate the real tortoise, whilst the expression kaçyapas gave rise to mythical equivoques, which deserve to be observed.

We know of the famous incarnation of Vishṇus as a tortoise, treated of in the Kûrma P. The problem was to stir up the ocean of milk to make ambrosia; the sea had no bottom, inasmuch as the earth had as yet no existence; to stir up the waters of the ocean, something[Pg 361] of colossal size was needed; the gods had recourse to the mandaras, which was made to serve for the purpose, as the king of the rods, kaçapas; the gods and the demons shook the rod, and the ambrosia came forth; no sooner was the ambrosia produced, than the world of animated beings began to be created. The character of this cosmogony is preternaturally phallical; the white froth of the sea (born of the genital organs of Ouranos, castrated by his son Kronos), whence Aphroditê rises, and the cosmic ambrosia, being nothing else than the genital sperm. At a later period a mountain was seen in the mandaras, and the words kaçapas and kaććhapas (subsequently changed into kaçyapas) being confused, the king of the rods or phallos, par excellence, was converted into a tortoise. The mandaras (from the root mand-mad, to inebriate, to make joyful), however, might mean the agitator, that which makes joyful; but as from mad is derived the word matsyas, the fish now drunken, now stupid, so the word mandaras also has, for its proper meanings, slow and large, and is closely connected with mandas, which, besides slow, lazy, soft, also means drunken; with mandakas, foolish; and with mandanas, merry; and, as such, we can understand how there was in the celestial Paradise, in the mandanas or making joyful, the tree mandaras, the inebriating. Finally, it is connected with manthanas, the agitator, and identified with mantharas, which also means the agitator, the slow, and the lazy. But there is also another analogy which offers us the means of understanding how the equivoque of kaçapas, confused with kaććhapas, and which afterwards became kaçyapas or tortoise, became popular, just through the word kûrmas, which, as we have said, means a tortoise. When the mandaras or mantharas was conceived of as a producer of ambrosia, they soon identified[Pg 362] the mantharas itself (the slow, the late, the curved) with the tortoise; in fact, mantharas is the name given to a tortoise in the Hitopadeças, and the name mantharakas is applied to another in Somadevas and in the Pańćatantram. Considered simply as the slow and the curved, the thought of the tortoise, which answers this description, naturally arose in connection with the name; the primitive myth became complicated, and the mandaras and the kaçapas, which were originally one and same, were at length distinguished from each other, the kaçapas, at first a kaçyapas or kaććhapas or tortoise, and, vice versa, the mandaras or mantharas also; the words in course of time lost their primitive meaning, the mandaras (as the slow one) became a mountain (which does not move), and the kaçapas a tortoise, supporting the mountain, at once vast, ponderous, and inert. As it often happens in mythology that two distinct personalities spring out of two names at first applied to the same mythical object or being, and both being names which indicate something heavy, it was surmised that the one heavy thing carried the other, and that the heavy tortoise, into which the god Vishṇus transformed himself, sustained the weight of the heavy mountain placed upon it by his alter ego Indras. The ideas of weighty and curved being united in both the mandaras and the kaçapas, the tortoise, as kûrmas, serves well for this office of a carrier, an assertion I venture to make, inasmuch as in kûr-mas I think I can recognise the same root which appears in the Sanskṛit gur-u-s, fem. gur-v-î, superlat. gar-ishṭh-a-s (Lat. gra-v-is, from garvis), and in the Latin curvus.[506]

As for the name of kaććhapas, to which the equivocal[Pg 363] Hindoo epithet of kaçyapas, applied to the tortoise, should be referred, it properly means the lord, the guardian of the shores, he who occupies the shores, and is a perfectly apt designation for the tortoise, and an expression à propos to what is related of it in the legend quoted by us in the chapter on the elephant. Both animals (sun and moon) frequent the banks of the same lake, and have conceived a mortal dislike one for the other, continuing in their brutal forms the quarrel which existed between them when they were not only two men but two brothers. As the elephant and the tortoise both frequent the shores of the same lake, they mutually annoy each other, renewing and maintaining in mythical zoology the strife which subsists between the two mythical brothers, who fight with each other for the kingdom of heaven, either in the form of twilights, or of equinoxes, or of sun and moon, or of twilight and sun, or of twilight and moon, in any of the various interpretations which can, all with same basis of truth, be given to the myth of the Açvinâu, according to their appearance among celestial phenomena, which, although distinct, have nevertheless a great resemblance. In this particular mythical struggle between the tortoise and the elephant, terminated by the bird garuḍas, who carries them both up into the air in order to devour them, the tortoise and the elephant seem, however, especially to personify the two twilights of the day and the two twilights of the year—that is, the equinoxes, or the sun and the moon in the crepuscular hour, the sun and the moon in the equinoctial day, upon the banks of the great heavenly lake.

But, in the legend contained in the Mahâbhâratam[507] of the tortoise and the elephant carried into the air by[Pg 364] the Vishṇuitic bird, there is still another interesting circumstance or variation, which corroborates the cosmic interpretation of the myth of the tortoise now proposed by me. The divine Kaçyapas is mentioned in it; he desires to have a son, and therefore has himself served by the gods (since it is the gods who make the mandaras, the producer of ambrosia, turn round) in the sacrifice adapted to produce children. The phallical Indras carries on his shoulders a mountain of wood, which evidently corresponds to the mandaras or kaça-pas, and, on the way, offends the dwarf hermits born of the hairs of the body of Brahman, that is, the hairs themselves; to this Kaçyapas, the name of Praǵâpatis or lord of generation is given. We here again meet with the monstrous phallos which produces the ambrosia (or the Somas to which corresponds Savitar, the generator and the lord of the creatures[508]) and generates living beings in the world. Kaçyapas being considered as the generator, he was therefore placed in relation with the movements of the moon and the sun, who are also generators (as Somas and Savitar); and it is in this respect that Kaçyapas also appears as the fœcundator of the thirteen daughters of Dakshas, who correspond to the thirteen months of the lunar year (Dakshaǵâ is the name of a lunar asterism and of the wife of a phallical Çivas, and dakshaǵâpatis one of the Hindoo names given to the moon; Dakshas is also identified with Praǵâpatis; whence Kaçyapas must have united himself, probably as the phallical moon, with his own daughters, or with his thirteen lunations). Of the thirteen wives made fruitful by Kaçyapas, everything that lives was born,—gods, demons, men, and beasts,—so[Pg 365] that in the cosmogony of the mandaras, of the Kaçapas, and hence of the tortoise, the mandaras, when shaken, produced the phallical ambrosia, of which all animated things were spontaneously generated.

But the tortoise, taken in connection with the moon, sometimes also had a funereal signification. The souls of the dead go into the world of the moon, into the sky of night, and the souls of the living descend from the world of the moon, that is, from the night; Çivas, the god of Paradise, becomes the destroying god; Plutus and Pluto are identified. Thus, in a note of Professor Haugh to the Âitareya Br., I think I can recognise the tortoise, as representing in particular the dying moon, the burnt-up moon, which has the fire of spring for its tomb, round whose corpse the moon also moves in the here equivalent form of a frog (being haris, which means both yellow and green), and who is herself afterwards turned out. We know how Haris or Vishṇus now represents the sun and now the moon (the sun and the moon, as Indras and Somas, were called together rakshohanâu or monster-killers), is identified now with the tortoise, now with the bird garuḍas, the enemy of the tortoise. Here is, however, the note of Professor Haugh: "At each Atirâtra of the Gavâm ayanam the so-called Chayana ceremony takes place. This consists in the construction of the Uttarâ Vedi (the northern altar) in the shape of an eagle. About 1440 bricks are required for this structure, each being consecrated with a separate Yaǵusmantra. This altar represents the universe. A tortoise is buried alive in it, and a living frog carried round it and afterwards turned out." According to Pliny, the blood of a tortoise is an antidote to the venom of a toad (in the same way as the hare and a stag's horn is also recommended as of similar efficacy on the old principle of similia[Pg 366] similibus; the hare is the moon, the stag's horn the moon's horn; the blood of the killed tortoise would appear to represent the moon itself as in a manner chasing the gloom of night away). The tortoise is also found in connection with frogs in a fable of Abstemius; the tortoise envies the frogs, who can move rapidly, but ceases to complain when it sees them become the prey of the eel.

One of the ten stars of the constellation of the tortoise, situated in the northern heavens—that is, in the cloudy and gloomy autumnal sky, and therefore especially ruled by the moon—was called the lyre by the Greeks, and it was fabled that the tortoise of which Hermês had made the lyre, had been transfigured into it. I may remark here that the German name for the tortoise is Schild-kröte (toad with shields), that the Koribantes[509] produced their noisy music, and accompanied their Pyrrhic dances with kettledrums and the sound of arms, and that the Kureti, in order to conceal from Kronos the birth of Zeus, struck their shields with their lances. It is interesting to observe, that in Sanskṛit also, kaććhâs is the name given to the little shields of the tortoise or kaććhapas; that kaććhapî is the term applied to the noise of the thundering Sarasvatî, or the thunder; that several Vedic poets are called Kaçyapas; that Kûrmas (another designation of the tortoise) is also the name of the Vedic poet, the son of Gṛitsamadas, and also an epithet applied to the flatus ventris, which is compared to a clap of thunder (Cfr. the roots kar, kur, gar, gur). In the[Pg 367] chapter on the ass, we saw this flatus compared to the noise of a trumpet or a kettle-drum; here we have the thunderbolts that strike upon the shields, the spots of the celestial tortoise, of the rainy moon, upon the clouds, attracted by or formed from the moon's spots, that is, which produce the thunder. According to the Hellenic myth, the tortoise obtained from Zeus himself—that is, from the pluvial god, from the god of the clouds, the god in connection with the shield-clouds which concealed his birth, and we may add, from the god tortoise,—the power of concealing itself under shields, and of carrying its house along with it. The Romans were accustomed to bathe new-born babes in the concavity of a tortoise, as if in a shield. It was predicted that Clodius Albinus would one day attain to sovereign power, because, when he was born, an enormous tortoise was brought to his father by some fishermen. The tortoise protects Zeus, the new-born warrior-god; the tortoise, on account of its shields, makes the new-born child a warrior, and predicts dominion to him; my well-informed readers will remember how a shield, fallen from the sky, presaged to the Romans the glories they should achieve as a warlike people, according to Ovid's verses—

"... Totum jam sol emerserat orbem: Et gravis ætherio venit ab axe fragor. Ter tonuit sine nube Deus, tria fulgura misit. Credite dicenti: mira sed acta loquor. A media cœlum regione dehiscere cœpit: Submisere oculos cum duce turba suo. Ecce levi scutum versatum leniter aura Decidit: a populo clamor ad astra venit." Under this aspect the tortoise becomes the dark moon, in opposition to the luminous one, the slow moon, in opposition to the jumping one. Being slow or tardigrade,[Pg 368] in the myths the tortoise is the moon, but the winter one; and sometimes it becomes also now the cloud, now the earth, now even the darkness (as such it appears demoniacal in a German legend, where two devils who have assumed the forms of monstrous tortoises, prevent the foundations of the cathedral church of Merseburg from being laid; the tortoises are exorcised, and their bodies slain, in memory of which circumstance it is said that the cups of these tortoises are preserved, hung up in the church; in the fourteenth fargard of the Vendidad, too, the tortoises are, as demoniacal, to be killed). We have seen in the first chapter of the first book, the hare-moon passed over and crushed by the cow's waggon, suggesting to us the cloud (as the moon, now a bridge, now an island of the sky, as sea), which passes over the moon, but he perhaps, again, of the eclipse of the moon by the means of the earth, which is also called a cow in Sanskṛit. In Sanskṛit, the earth, which comes out of waters—an island[510] (as the moon and the cloud)—is also called by the name of kûrmas, i.e., a tortoise (properly the[Pg 369] curved, the humped, the eminent, the prominent; mantharas is a name given to the tortoise, and Mantharâ is the name of the humpbacked woman who causes the ruin of Râmas in the Râmâyaṇam). Hence we also have in the West, besides the fables of the leaping hare (the moon) and the cow, of the leaping locust (the moon) and the ant, the apologue of the hare and the tortoise who run together; the hare, relying on its swiftness, falls asleep and loses, while the tortoise by steady perseverance wins the race.

We have already seen the tortoise in the Hindoo legends as the rival of the eagle or the Vishṇuitic bird Garuḍas. The two are now identified and now fight against each other (we must remember that it was by the advice of Kaçyapas that the bird Garuḍas ravished the ambrosia from the serpents). In Greece, the proverb of the tortoise which vanquishes the eagle, was already diffused; now it is the eagle which carries the tortoise into the air, or rather makes it fly, now it is, on the other hand, the tortoise which defies the eagle to arrive first. It is interesting to compare with this the Siamese apologue published by A. Bastian in the Orient und Occident, of evidently Hindoo origin. The bird Khruth, no doubt a limited and particular form of Garuḍas, wishes to eat a tortoise (here perhaps the moon) which lies upon the shore of a lake. The tortoise consents to be eaten, under the condition that the Khruth accepts a challenge to a trial of speed, and arrives soonest on the other side of the lake, the bird to go through the air, and the tortoise through the water. The bird Khruth accepts the wager;[Pg 370] then the tortoise calls together millions and millions of tortoises, and places them all in such a way that they surround the lake, each distant a few steps from the water. Then it gives the signal to the bird to commence the race. The Khruth rises into the air, and flees to the opposite bank; wherever he essays to alight, he finds the tortoise has been there before him. (This myth represents, perhaps, the relation of the sun to the lunations).

[Pg 371]

CHAPTER IV. THE FROG, THE LACERTA VIRIDIS, AND THE TOAD. SUMMARY.

The mâṇḍukâs or frogs as clouds in the Ṛigvedas.—Bhekas.—The frog announces the summer; the canta-rana announces Christ.—The serpent, the hero, and the frog.—The frog and the ox.—Dionysos and the frogs.—Indras and the frogs.—The dumb frogs.—Proserpina and the frog.—Rana cum gryllo.—The frog finds the sultan's ring.—The frog and the rook.—The frog as the serpent's daughter.—The demoniacal frog.—The yellow and the green frog.—The beautiful maiden as a frog.—The demoniacal toad.—The sacred toad.—The beautiful maiden as a toad.—The toad in Tuscany, in Sicily, and in Germany.—The handsome youth as a toad.—Women who gave birth to toads.—The venomous and the alexipharmic toad.—Kröte and Schildkröte.—The toad swallows the dew.—The stone of the frog.—The horned lizard.—Eidechse, hagedisse.—Apollo as sauroktanos.—The lizard on St Agnes's Day.—The little lizards must not be killed in Sicily, being intercessors before the Lord.—The amphisbhæna.—The lacerta viridis.—The couleuvre as a good fairy.

I am sorry to be unable to concur entirely in the opinion of the illustrious Professor Max Müller, when, in translating a hymn of the Ṛigvedas, in his History of Ancient Sanskṛit Literature, he remarks, "The 103d hymn, in the seventh Maṇḍalam, which is called a panegyric of the frogs, is clearly a satire on the priests." It is possible that at a later period, in deriding a brâhmanic school similar to that of the mâṇḍûkâs, a satirical sense would[Pg 372] have been ascribed to this hymn, but it does not seem to me that the intention of the author of the Vedic hymn was such. Professor Max Müller has shown well in his History how the Vedic hymns have suffered in the hands of the Brâhmans, by means of their arbitrary interpretations; the interesting story of the hypothetical god Kas is a very convincing proof of it; it is, therefore, possible, and even probable, that attempts were made to use this Vedic hymn as an arrow for satire; but if I am not mistaken, no trace of a satirical meaning can be found in the hymn itself. Above all, I must observe that the Anukramaṇikâ of the Ṛigvedas properly calls the hymn only parǵanyastutis, or hymn in honour of Parǵanyas, the hymn of the tempest; secondly, it scarcely seems possible that a satirical hymn, intended to caricature the priests, should be inserted in the seventh book, which is attributed to Vasishṭas, the most religious of all the legendary Brâhmans, and he who, for the glory of Brâhmanism and the rights of the sacerdotal caste, maintained such a protracted and disastrous war against Viçvâmitras, the champion of the warrior race; hence, if a satirical hymn against priests had been found in the third book of the Ṛigvedas, ascribed to the wise Viçvâmitras, I should not have thought it so strange, whilst it would be misplaced in the hymns said to be written by Vasishṭas. To me it seems rather that, when speaking of frogs, the hymn does not allude to the frogs of the earth, but to the clouds, the cloud-frogs, attracted by the pluvial moon, whilst the tempest is at its height. We know that in the Ṛigvedas, the wives of the gods weave hymns in honour of the lightning and thundering god Indras, who has killed the monster serpent which kept back the waters of the heavenly cloud; we have also, in the first chapter of the first book, heard the cows lowing and exulting joyfully[Pg 373] before their deliverer Indras, who lets his seed drop in the midst of them as soon as they are released from the cave where they were imprisoned. In the seventh book, the hymns 101 and 102 are sung in honour of Indras as Parǵanyas; the hymn 103 is also sung in his honour, but by the clouds of the sky themselves, by the celestial frogs, inasmuch as the frog which croaks, when transported into the sky, is nought else then the thundering cloud; in fact, in Sanskṛit the word bhekas, which means frog, has also the meaning of cloud. We have seen that the cuckoo who sings in spring, and admonishes the tillers of the soil to begin their work, personifies the thunder in the sky: the frog has the same office; it, like the thunder, announces the approaching tempest. And because, when the first claps of thunder are heard, it is the summer which announces its coming, so the frog that croaks and the frog that sings served specially to announce the summer. I remember that, a few years ago, there still existed at Turin, among children, the custom of sounding in the Holy Week (in order to greet the approaching festival of the resurrection of Christ, who died amongst flashes of lightning and peals of thunder) a wooden instrument, which emitted a sharp squeak resembling the croaking of a frog, and which was therefore called canta-rana (the frog sings). It was also the custom on Easter Eve to strike all the doors violently with sticks, as if to reproduce under another form the sound of the canta-rana. According to Pliny, the frogs die in winter, and are born again in spring; when the frogs ask for a king, and obtain, in the Greek fable[511] a serpent, and in the Russian[Pg 374] fable of Kriloff a heron, the serpent and the heron symbolise the autumnal and wintry seasons. Indras, Zeus, and Christ are born and born again amid the noise of musical instruments, shields, arms, winds and thunder, among the lowing of cows, the bleating of goats, the braying of asses, and the croaking of frogs, called by Aristophanes philôdon genos. In the 103d hymn of the seventh book of the Ṛigvedas, one maṇḍûkas (frog or cloud) lows like a cow (gomâyus); another like a goat (aǵamâyus); one is pṛiçnis, or variegated; another haritas, or fair-haired, golden, red (the cloud born by the lightning and the violence of the wind), and, as a frog, green or grey; the maṇḍûkas or frog being transported into the sky, or identified, as a ǵomâyus, with the cow, it is no wonder that, in the fable, the frog has the presumption of thinking it can inflate itself to the size of an ox; but when the little cloud has become a large one, it ends by bursting, and so does the frog in his attempt to distend himself and become as large as the ox. (In the eighteenth Esthonian story, we find a monster who has a body like that of an ox, and feet like those of a frog.) When Indras and Zeus have accomplished their work in the celestial cloud, when the cloud has passed away and dispersed, when the frogs are drunk with water, they cease their croaking; thus, in the Frogs of Aristophanes, when Dionüsos (nüseios Dios) has passed the Stygian marsh, they stop croaking; whilst Zeus, on the other hand, floods the earth with water, they (Dios pheugontes ombron) retire into the depths of the waters to dance in chorus (as the ap-sarâs). On the other hand, before the pluvial god satisfies their desires, before it rains, they croak incessantly; the thunder always makes itself heard before the rain, and at the outbreak of the tempest; hence, in the Ṛigvedas itself, Indus (the moon), as a[Pg 375] bringer of rain (or the rain itself), is implored to run and plead with Indras, the pluvial god, to satisfy the desire of the frog.[512] Here, therefore, it is especially Indus who satisfies the frogs' desire for rain. Indus, as the moon, brings or announces the somas, or the rain; the frog, croaking, announces or brings the rain; and at this point the frog, which we have seen identified at first with the cloud, is also identified with the pluvial moon. Another characteristic of the frog made this identification all the more natural, and that was, its green colour (harit). By the word harit (which, as we, several times, have remarked, means yellow and green in Sanskṛit) not only the moon, but the green parrot was designated, and also the frog. The identification having been effected, the Greeks could then relate fables concerning the frog of the Island of Seriphos (batrachos ek Seriphou), which was dumb; so in the Lives of St Regulus and St Benno, we read that when these two saints, as they preached the Christian faith, were annoyed by the croaking of the frogs, they ordered the frogs to be silent, and they became dumb for ever. In truth, the frogs are silent (and even die, according to Pliny) in winter, which is under the especial dominion of the silent moon; the frog and the moon are exchanged one for the other. In Ovid, the metamorphosis of the frog is made to enter into the lunar myth, that is, into the myth of Proserpina; it was the form of the frog which certain peasants of Lycia assumed who dirtied the water of which Ceres and Proserpina wished to drink; their croaking (coax) is the punishment to which the goddesses condemned them, because in those waters they had emitted a vile sound from[Pg 376] their mouths.[513] Another proof of the identity of the frog with the moon is the Latin proverb, "Rana cum gryllo," which afterwards served to represent two opposite things, but which, in fact, are the same, on account of their shrill voice, their way of hopping, and their common mythical connection with the leaping moon. We are reminded of the moon and the cloud in the war waged between the frogs and the mice, who are mutually destroying each other until the falcon comes with impartiality to annihilate both. We are, moreover, reminded of the little goldfish, the fair-haired moon, and the pike, in the frog which, in the Tuti-Name, finds the sultan's ring, which had fallen into the river, for the young hero, in gratitude to him for having saved it from the serpent who was about to devour it; it is said that both the frog and the serpent were two fairies who, freed from their curse, united themselves to protect the young hero (the new sun). In the twenty-third Mongol story, the golden frog (the moon) is dancing; the rook (the night) carries it off to eat it; the frog recommends it to wash it in water; the rook is taken in, and the frog, like the jorsh of Russian stories, succeeds in escaping; this frog is said to be the daughter of the prince of the dragons, who watches over the pearl. As the daughter of a serpent, the golden frog (the moon), when it is darkened, itself appears as a diabolical serpent or pythoness, and is more like a toad than a frog; then it becomes, according to Sadder, a meritorious service to kill the frogs: "Ranas si interfecerit aliquis quicunque fortis eorum adversarius, ejus quidem merita propterea erunt mille et ducenta. Aquam eximat eamque removeat et locum siccum faciat[Pg 377] et tum eas necabit a capite ad calcem. Hinc Diaboli damnum percipientes maximum flebunt et ploratum edent copiosissimum."

In the second Calmuc story of Siddhikür, two dragons who keep back the river which irrigates the earth and makes it fruitful, and who eat a man every year, assume the form of frogs (one yellow and the other green), and speak to one another of the way in which they can be killed. The king's son understands their language, and kills them, helped by a poor friend of his, with whom he enriches himself, but only to encounter (like the two mythical brothers) the most dangerous adventures afterwards.

But the diabolical form of a frog is sometimes assumed by the beautiful maiden (or else by the handsome youth) as the effect of a malediction or an enchantment. Thus it is in the interesting twenty-third story of the second book of Afanassieff. There is a Tzar who has three sons; each son must shoot an arrow; where the arrow falls, each brother will find his predestined wife. The two eldest brothers marry in this way two beautiful women; the arrow of the youngest brother Ivan, however, is taken up by a frog, whom he is obliged to marry. The Tzar wishes to see which of the three brides makes the handsomest present to her husband. All three give their husbands a shirt, but that of the frog is the most beautiful; for whilst Ivan sleeps (that is, in the night), she casts her skin, becomes the beautiful Helen (generally the aurora, but here, it would seem, the same transformed into the good fairy moon), and orders her attendants to prepare the finest shirt possible; she then again becomes a frog. The Tzar (a truly patriarchal Tzar) then wishes to see which of his three daughters-in-law bakes bread best; the first two brides know not what to do, and send secretly to see what the frog does; the frog, who sees all,[Pg 378] understands the trick, and bakes the bread badly on purpose; afterwards, when she is alone and Ivan asleep, she again becomes the beautiful Helen, and orders her attendants to bake a loaf such as those which her father ate only on feast-days. The loaf of the frog is pronounced the best. Lastly, the Tzar wishes to see which of his daughters-in-law dances best. Ivan is sorrowful, thinking that his bride is a frog; but Helen consoles him, sending him to the ball, where she will join him; Ivan rejoices to think that his wife has the gift of speech, and goes to the ball; the frog takes her robes off, becomes the beautiful Helen once more, dresses herself splendidly, comes to the ball, and all exclaim as they pass by her (as to the Homeric Helen), "How beautiful!" They first sit down to table to eat; Helen takes bones in one hand, and water in the other; her sisters-in-law do the same. Then the ball begins. Helen throws water from one hand, and groves and fountains spring up; and bones (we remember a similar virtue in the bones of the cow) from the other, from which birds flutter upward (the same is narrated in a story I heard in Piedmont when a child). Meanwhile, Ivan runs home to burn the frog's skin. Helen returns home, can no longer become a frog, and is sorrowful; she goes with Ivan to bed, and awakening at morn, says to him, "Ivan Tzarević, thou hast not been patient enough; I would have been thine; now, as God wills it, Farewell! Seek me in the twenty-seventh earth, in the thirtieth kingdom" (i.e., in my opinion, in hell, in the night into which the moon and the aurora descend, and whence the moon comes out again and renews itself after twenty-seven days; the Russian story is evidently a variety of the fable of Cupid and Psyche).[514] She then disappears. Ivan goes[Pg 379] to seek his bride at the dwelling of the frog's mother, who is a witch; he takes from her the spindle which spins gold, throws part of it before him, and the rest behind. Helen appears once more, and the pair flee away upon the carpet which flies by itself. Here the helped aurora and the helping moon are assimilated.

But in popular stories the hero and heroine assume by witchcraft, instead of the form of a dark frog, that of a toad, and sometimes that of a horned lizard,[515] whence the verse of Mehun—

"Boteraulx et couleuvres, visions de deables." Inasmuch as the toad is a form proper to the demon, it is feared and hunted; inasmuch as, on the contrary, it is considered as a diabolical form imposed by force upon a divine or princely being, it is respected and venerated as a sacred animal. In Tuscany it is considered by the peasants a sacrilege to kill a toad. A low Tuscan song heard by me at Santo Stefano di Calcinaia records the transformation of the beautiful maiden into a toad; the mother toad speaks to her daughter to console her, inspiring her with the hope of being soon married to the king's son—

"Botta, gragna,[516] Il figlio del re che poco ti ama Se non t'ama, t'amerà, Quando per isposa lui t'avrà." [Pg 380]

(Wretched toad! the king's son, who little loves thee, if he love thee not, will love thee when he has thee for his wife.) The prince weds the toad, which is immediately transformed into a beautiful maiden. With regard to the superstitions concerning the toad current in Sicily, it is interesting to note what my friend Giuseppe Pitrè writes to me—"The toad brings fortune; he who is not fortunate must provide himself with a toad and feed it in his house[517] upon bread and wine, a consecrated nourishment, inasmuch as it is alleged toads are either 'lords' or 'women from without,' or 'uncomprehended genii,' or 'powerful fairies,' who have fallen under some malediction. Hence they are not killed, nor even molested, lest when offended they should come at night to spit water upon the offender's eyes which never[Pg 381] heal, not even if he recommend himself to the regard of Santa Lucia." Hence the poet Meli, in his Fata Galanti, writes that he prevented a peasant from killing a toad—

"Jeu ch'avia 'ntisu da li miei maggiuri Che li buffi 'un si divinu ammazzari, Fici in modu chi l'ira e lu rancuri A ddu viddanu cci fici passari." As a recompense for having saved its life, the toad soon afterwards appears to him in the shape of a very beautiful woman, and promises to assist him all the days of his life—

"Oh picciotti furtunatu! Eu ti prutiggirò d'ora nn' avanti, Jeu su' dda buffa, chi tu, gratu e umanu Sarvasti antura da l'impiu viddanu." In Piedmont, I have heard a popular story[518] related[Pg 382] in which the toad is, on the other hand, the diabolical form assumed by a handsome youth; in Aldrovandi,[Pg 383] several things are narrated of women who gave birth to toads.[519]

[Pg 384]

From the double and contradictory aspect in which the toad was regarded, popular medicine, although believing that the humour which the toad, when provoked, ejects from behind, is fatal, and that the toad not only poisoned men, but even all the plants over which it passed, still recommends the wearing of dried toads under the armpits as amulets against plague and poison. The same alexipharmic virtue was also ascribed to the stone called and believed to be toad's-stone (or bufonite), which was said to change colour when its wearer was poisoned. The bufonite was supposed to be taken out of a toad's head, but science has demonstrated that the bufonite, sold by quacks is made of the tooth of a fossil fish.[520] Out of the toad, the dark animal of the night, the gloom or winter, the solar pearl comes; thus popular German stories regard the Schild-kröte (or toad with the shield) as sacred, on account of the pearl supposed to be contained in its head. In Hungary it is said that the toad swallows the dew in the dry season; it is believed, moreover, that the frog, like the serpent, vomits forth, in spring, a precious stone called the stone of the serpent or the stone of the frog. According to what Count Geza Kuun writes to me, in the testament of a citizen of Kaisa three golden rings are mentioned, one of which contained a "frog's stone."

I have observed above that the toad's place is sometimes taken in popular tales by the horned lizard; the lizard also represents the demoniacal shape, the shape of a witch. On this subject there was an interesting discussion[Pg 385] by Karl Simrock upon the word Eidechse (the lizard in German), derived from the ancient form Hagedisse which is the same as Hexe or witch. It is as a witch that the lizard is killed, in the Greek myth, by Apollines, whence its name of sauroktanos.[521] But, inasmuch as the lizards appear in spring and announce the fine season, they are considered (according to Porphyrios) sacred to the sun, and therefore of good augury. A Bolognese proverb says, "Sant' Agnes, la luserta cor pr' al paes," to indicate that the season is beginning to improve, inasmuch as with the appearance of the lizards on the Day of St Agnes, which is in the beginning of March, spring begins to make itself felt. In Sicily it is believed that the little lizards called San Giuvanni must not be killed, because they are in the presence of the Lord in heaven, and light the little lamp to the Lord (as we have already seen the firefly give light to the grain). And when they are killed, in order that they may not curse one, one must say to the tail which is shaking, that it was not the real killer, but the dog of St Matthew who committed the crime,

"Nun fu' ieu, nun fu' ieu: Fu lu cani di San Matteu." They are believed to be powerful intercessors before the Lord, for which reason Sicilian children warm them in[Pg 386] their bosoms, and feed them on crumbs of bread soaked in water.

But an especially sacred character is ascribed to the lacerta viridis (It. ramarro; Sicilian, vanuzzu, a diminutive of Giovanni) and to the amphisbhœna, of which the ancients believed that it had two heads (like the Hindoo ahîraṇis), its tail being taken for one. The amphisbhœna is still held sacred and revered in India.[522] The green lizard of popular superstition is partly solar and partly lunar; the firefly and the quail, as summer animals, are sacred to the sun; as watchers by night, to the moon. Thus the green lizard, as a summer animal which hunts away the serpent of winter, appears particularly in relation with the sun; but inasmuch as there is also the serpent of night, the green lizard or green ramarro takes the place of the crab-moon, that is, it wakens the young solar hero who sleeps in the night, and wakens the sleeping man lest the serpent should bite him. The moon of winter wakens the sun of spring, the moon of night wakens the sun of day; the moon-lizard, like the moon crab, hunts the serpent or black monster away. In Piedmont, Tuscany, and Sicily, the green lizard is believed to be the friend of mankind; indeed, it is called guarda omu in Sicily, where it is believed to cure from[Pg 387] incantations, perhaps on account of the yellow cross which the people think they can see upon its head. At Santo Stefano of Calcinaia it is said that the green lizard hisses in the ears of Christians like a Christian when the serpent approaches a man; they even relate several cases of shepherds or peasants who, being asleep, were saved by the green lizard passing over them (Aldrovandi speaks of a similar superstition). It is, moreover, believed that the green lizard, if caught and put in a vase full of oil, will produce the oil of a ramarro, which is said to be good against wounds and poisons. In the Contes Merveilleux de Porchat, a fairy protects the poor Laric and brings fortune to him in the shape of a grateful couleuvre, which he, in winter, found frozen and warmed in his bosom. The couleuvre makes radiant coins fall to Laric from the beaks of certain partridges, enables him to find whatever he is in need of, and puts a golden chain round the neck of his wife. Thus the myths of the golden (or green) fish, the golden (or green) frog and the golden (or green) lizard, correspond to each other in the beautiful myth of the good moon-fairy, who protects the solar hero or heroine in the nights both of the day and the year.

[Pg 388]

CHAPTER V. THE SERPENT AND THE AQUATIC MONSTER. SUMMARY.

The feet and the tail; the serpent is the favourite form of the demon; the devil is betrayed by his tail.—The serpent and the waters; the dragon as the keeper back of the waters, and as the guardian of the treasures; the devil evoked from the waters.—The otter.—The chief enterprise of Indras is the killing of the serpent.—The names of the Vedic serpent; arbuda and reptilis.—Description of the Vedic serpent.—The wives of the demons and the wives of the gods; Indras wounds the wife of the demon in the yonis, and the demon himself in the eggs; the serpent's death consists in the broken egg; broken eggs, skins, vases, boxes, and testicles.—The god as a serpent; the python.—Gods and demons, birds and serpents dispute the possession of the ambrosia.—The phallical Anantas of cosmogony; the two phalloi.—Nâgalatâ; the game of the serpents, nâgas, nâgapadas, nâgapaças.—The caduceus.—Kaçyapas Praǵâpatis, father of the birds and of the serpents.—Kumbhakarnas.—The hero dies as soon as he touches the serpent.—The funereal rope of Yamas is a serpent; the collar of Hêphaistos.—The serpents carry Sîtâ on their heads.—The city of Bhogavatî.—The hero becomes an aquatic monster in consequence of a curse.—The serpent released from the fire.—The wisdom of the serpent passes into the hero.—The three-headed serpent.—The serpent sacred in India and in Germany.—The stone of the serpent.—The serpent and the tree.—The tree and the phallos.—The cypress.—The tree, the maiden, and the serpent at the fountain.—The tree of the cross.—The serpent is wholly diabolical in Persian tradition.—The serpent is a mythical animal, both physically and morally amphibious.—The hero, the frog, and the serpent.—The grateful serpent.—Dialogue between[Pg 389] two little serpents in a variety of the legend of Lear.—The serpent burnt.—Serpents and worms.—The serpent as the beautiful maiden's husband.—The heads of the serpent.—The serpent of the Black Sea.—The serpent-fairy gives eyes back to the blind woman.—The avenging serpent.—When the serpent is asleep.—The serpent in the garden of the Hesperides.—The serpent-wizard.—The serpent's kiss.—The serpent that whistles.—The wings of the serpent wet; the Vedic myth once more.

The mythical animal with which I conclude the study of traditional zoology is perhaps the most popular of the whole series. The omniform demon makes the god or hero who falls under his power assume the most diverse zoological forms, the power of transforming into which he holds in possession, of which he holds the secret; but he almost always reserves for himself as his most favourite and privileged form that of the serpent. The devil, says the popular proverb, is known by his tail; and to show that women know more than the devil, it adds that they also know where the devil secretes his tail, or where he keeps his poison, for his poison and power to harm are in his tail. A devil without a tail would not be a real devil; it is his tail which betrays him; and this tail is the serpent's tail.[523] In the forty-fifth story of the fifth book of Afanassieff, the devil-serpent comes every night to visit the young widow in the form of her deceased husband, eats with her and sleeps with her till morning; she grows thinner every night, like a candle before the fire; but her mother counsels her to let a spoon drop when she is sitting at table, that, in lifting it, she may scrutinise the guest's feet; instead of his feet, she only sees his tail. Then the widow goes to the church to be[Pg 390] purified.[524] In the Eddas, too, the serpent Lokis, who has taken the form of a horse, betrays himself by his feet.

The serpent-devil appears in special connection with the infernal waters (darkness of night and of winter, and cloudy sky), which conceal treasures, the pearl, the solar hero or heroine with the waters of youth and life. The serpent-devil draws to himself every beautiful thing, now to swallow them, now to preserve and guard them like a miser. The dragon became the symbol of the keeper back of the waters, of the guardian of the treasures, who devours or attracts to himself everything that shines. In Du Cange, the name of dracus is given to "species dæmonum qui circa Rhodanum fluvium in Provincia visuntur forma hominis, et in cavernis mansionem habent." In ancient Latin manuscript comments given by the same Du Cange, the devil is called by the name of hydros or aquatic serpent. Hincmarus Remensis believes that the devil is evoked from the waters,[525] and according to St Augustine, it was from the waters and from the illusions created in the water by demons that Numa derived his inspirations.[526] Hence the custom, so[Pg 391] frequent in German and Slavonic countries,[527] of blessing the water to chase the monsters away from it; hence, also, the custom which I have observed in several parts of Russia, where the children, before they bathe in the rivers, and as soon as they put their feet in the water, make profound inclinations and the sign of the cross; hence, according to Du Cange, the god of the waters, Neptunus, in the Middle Ages, becomes under the name of Aquatiquus, a personification of the devil;[528] hence, also, the otter (enüdris) assumes a diabolical character in the Edda, where the Ases take its skin off and fill it with the gold taken from the dwarf-pike Andvarri, and in the sixth story of the first book of Afanassieff, where it destroys the beasts of the menagerie of a Tzar, and finally drags the third son of the Tzar Ivan under an enormous white stone (the snowy winter) in the lower world, where there are palaces of gold and silver and three beautiful girls, sisters of the monster otter, who sleeps in the sea, and snores so that he pushes the waves to a distance of seven versts, until Ivan, after having drunk the water of strength, cuts the monster's head off at a blow, after which it falls into the sea.

But to proceed in the order which we have hitherto generally followed, let us examine before all the tradition of the aquatic monster, the dragon or serpent, in Hindoo mythology.

[Pg 392]

The most important of the heroic undertakings accomplished by the Vedic god Indras is, as already remarked, that of killing the monster; and the enterprise of Indras against the monster is the theme of all the great popular Indo-Persian, Græco-Latin, Turko-Slavonic, Franco-Germanic, and Franco-Celtic epic poems, as also of the greatest number of the popular stories which are the real epic material of the new epopees. Indras, Vishṇus, Ahura-Mazda, Feridun, Apollo, Hêraklês, Kadmos, Jason, Odin, Sigurd, and several other gods and heroes, are celebrated for the undertaking of killing the serpent. Now, in the Vedic hymns the black monster (kṛishṇas), the growing monster (râuhin),[529] the full-grown monster (piprus), the monster coverer (vṛitras), the monster that dries up (çushṇas), the monster that keeps back (namućis), generally appears with the name and shape of a serpent, or if it has not always the form of a serpent, it is assimilated to it, and certainly inclines to become so from its office of a constrictor, its black colour, and other characteristics which it possesses in common with the serpent (Ahis).[530]

The monster killed by Indras, the monster with the horrid voice which Indras strikes upon the head with a thunderbolt, is, like the serpent, deprived of feet, deprived both of hands and shoulders.[531] But the serpent is also[Pg 393] often explicitly named in the Ṛigvedas as a monster which keeps back the waters, and which is killed by Indras. The serpent, the first-born of the serpents, was lying in the mountain;[532] he was lying under his mother,[533] he was keeping the waters, his wives, shut up, as a miser his treasure, or a robber the stolen cows;[534] a miser or rich robber[535] resembling a magician, he staid enclosed in a cavern, and kept the waters in it;[536] he lay down and perhaps slept;[537] he lay near the seven torrents;[538] Indras arouses him;[539] in another hymn, however, the serpent, making a loud noise, provokes Indras, and comes against him.[540] When Indras kills the serpent with the thunderbolt, or else crushes it under his foot, or burns it, he opens the torrent of the waters and causes it to flow out[Pg 394] towards the sea; he makes the sun be born, and finds the cows;[541] he destroys the machinations of the sorcerer, generates the sun, the day, and the dawn, removes every enemy to a distance,[542] makes the serpent's trunk fall to the earth, like a tree cut down by axes, or torn up by the roots,[543] and (as in Russian stories the hero, after having cut the monster's head off, throws his trunk into the sea) over the killed monster, now fallen, the waters which make joyful pass;[544] the gods, who have given Indras three hundred oxen to eat (according to another hymn, only one hundred), and three lakes of ambrosia to drink, that he might be able to vanquish Ahis, are joyful at the victory gained by Indras over the serpent, with their wives and with the birds; not only this, but the women, the wives of the gods, compose on this occasion a hymn to Indras.[545]

We have already seen several times in the course of this work how, by killing his monstrous form, the hero or heroine enclosed in this is set at liberty; the waters, or rainy clouds, which are the monster wives of the demons, as long as the monster keeps them in the[Pg 395] darkness, become the radiant wives of the gods when they are released; the same may be said of the aurora, kept in ward by the gloomy or watery monster of night, or of the spring detained in the dreary realm of winter; as long as they are in the power of the black demon, they are black and monstrous, and live with him in the infernal kingdom; when delivered from this kingdom, however, they become beautiful maidens, or princesses of dazzling splendour. When the monster fights with the god or solar hero of the thunderbolt, he arms his women too, and makes use of them as powerful helpers;[546] hence Indras also aims at them and lacerates the black-wombed witches,[547] being afterwards himself condemned to become Sahasrayonis. In popular Âryan tradition, however, it is often the daughter, wife, or sister of the monster that reveals to the hero the way of killing the monster. In Russian stories, one of the ways oftenest recommended to ensure the death of the monster, is to take the egg contained in the duck which is under the tree in the midst of the sea, and crush it upon the monster's forehead, who immediately dies; with the monster's death the two young lovers,—the daughter, wife, or sister of the monster, and the young hero,—marry each other. We have just seen that when Indras has killed the monster serpent, the waters pour out, and the sun appears.[Pg 396] In another Vedic hymn we also find the interesting accompaniment of the egg, which reminds us, on the one hand, of the subject of Russian popular stories, and on the other of the belief described by us in the chapter on the Hen, to the effect that the thunderbolt breaks its eggs: Indras, with his strength, breaks the eggs of the monster that dries up the waters, and wins the luminous waters;[548] crushing the eggs, or wounding the testicles of the gloomy monster, he makes the sun come out of them, and thereupon the monster dies.[549] The symbolical representation of the solar year in the form of a serpent biting his tail is equivalent to the myth of the monster-serpent who dies when his eggs are broken, that is, when the light comes out of its tenebrous envelope.

Inasmuch, moreover, as from the monster serpent, the cloud and the darkness, come forth flashes of lightning, thunder-bolts, sunbeams, tongues of fire, even serpents sometimes assume a divine nature in the Vedic hymns. The[Pg 397] Vedic god of fire, Agnis, the born of the waters (napâtam apâm), called Ahir-budhnyas, has already been compared to the Greek püthôn ophis, the python. Agnis is also compared to a serpent with a golden mane,[550] which reminds us of the horned monster that dries up, spoken of in another hymn as killed by Indras.[551] Indras himself is called he who has the strength of the serpent.[552] The Marutas have the serpent's anger;[553] and as the Marutas are resplendent with golden attire and ornaments, so the monsters appear adorned with gold and pearls.[554] In the Âitareya Br.,[555] the serpent Arbudas has even become a ṛishis, a wise poet, as the python becomes the oracle of wisdom in Greece; and the serpents oppose a Vedas of their own (the Sarpavedas) to the Vedâs of the gods. In the same Âitareya Br.,[556] we have the description of a struggle between the gods and a venomous serpent, whose greedy eye gazes at the somas, of which he desires to be possessed. The gods bandage his eyes; the serpent sings a verse in praise of the somas; the gods, as an antidote, sing several verses, and counteract the effect of the serpent's verse. And the witch (âsurî) of the long tongue (Dîrghaǵihvî) is no doubt a serpent, who in the Âitareya Br.,[Pg 398][557] again, licks the morning libation of the gods, and makes it inebriating. In the Râmâyaṇam it is recorded that the long-tongued witch (Dîrghaǵihvâ), the devourer, is killed by Indras. The struggle between the gods and the serpents for the possession of the ambrosia is the subject of a long episode of the first book of the Mahâbhâratam.[558] The serpent loves dampness, water, ambrosia, and rain. When Bhîmas, the son of the wind, is thrown into the waters of the Ganges, he falls into the kingdom of the serpents, who give him the water of strength to drink.[559] In the Mahâbhâratam, the mother of the serpents, who have been burned by the sun, invokes the rain to bring them to life again; Indras, to please her, veils the sky with clouds.[560] In the Râmâyaṇam, instead of the serpents, the monkeys are resuscitated by means of the rain. The rains of spring also waken the earth, which is in the Âitareya Br.[561] called by the name of Sarparaǵnî, and was at first, like the serpents, bald, that is, devoid of vegetation; invoking the heavenly cow, it became covered with trees. In the Hindoo cosmogony, which we described in the chapter on the Tortoise, a very interesting account is given of the way the great stick or phallos, the generator of the world, is made to turn round. The serpent Anantas (the infinite) or Vasukis,[562] who makes the mountain revolve, is twined round it;[Pg 399] the mountain and the serpent are synonymous;[563] they are two phalloi, which rub each other, and produce the seed (nâgalatâ or climbing serpent, serpent-creeper, is one of the Hindoo names of the phallos; in Piedmont it is said of a man in the venereal act, that he "climbs upon the woman;" and in Sanskṛit nâgas, nâgapadas, nâgapaças, nâgapâçakas, denotes union in the manner of serpents, who apply their bodies to each other in their entire length,[564] in the same way as fire is produced by the friction of two pieces of wood—the araṇî. Anantas, or Vâsukis, and Mandaras, or Kaçapas, and hence Kaçyapas, are identified with one another;) and this is all the more probable as Kaçyapas is also called by the name of Vasukas, and as Kaçyapas himself, in another cosmogonic legend of the Mahâbhâratam, appears as having made fruitful two wives, Kadrû, properly the dark one, and Vinatâ,[565] properly the concave, the curved or swollen one[Pg 400] (two appellatives by which the yonis appears to be equally represented), from one of which is produced the egg from which serpents are hatched, and especially the nâgâs serpents, with human faces, like the devils, and from the other, that which generates Aruṇas and Garuḍas (a form of the Açvinâu). Whilst, in the Mahâbhâratam, the serpent Vasukis rubs itself against the Mandaras and makes it turn round, it keeps blowing wind, smoke, and flames out of its mouth, which form clouds, with the water of which the creator gods are afterwards refreshed. Although this last particular shows the serpents intent upon the welfare of the gods, they hold in Hindoo tradition the same place as Anhṛomainyu, or Ahrimanes, in Persian; whilst one phallos gives birth to luminous phenomena and good beings, the other produces gloomy phenomena and wicked beings.

Among the productions of the phallical and serpentine genie of darkness are the clouds. In the Râmâyaṇam,[566] the monster Kumbhakarṇas sleeps for sixth months; no number of drums, trumpets, nor any noise is able to awaken him; he is struck with hammers, but feels nothing; elephants pass over him, but he does not move: at last the tinkling of the golden ornaments of beautiful women suffice to rouse him. He rises; his arms resemble two great serpents, and his mouth the mouth of hell. He yawns, and that yawn alone sends forth a wind which resembles a rushing wind that shall usher in the end of the world. The aspect of Kumbhakarṇas when he rises is like that of an immense cloud swelled out with[Pg 401] rain towards the end of summer; he is horned like a mountain, and bellows like a thunder-cloud. No sooner is he born, than, inasmuch as by the curse of Brahman he can waken but one day in the year (that is in the autumn), he asks for food, and devours buffaloes, wild boars, men and women; he once swallowed even the ten nymphs, or Apsarasas (the clouds that blow over the waters), of the god Indras; he finds that the world is not provided with animals enough to satiate his hunger. When Kumbhakarṇas moves to battle against the monkeys of Râmas, he draws his enemies to himself to devour them, he draws and receives the shock of whole mountains, but is not shaken. Râmas cuts one of his arms off, and the arm cut off (or the serpent, or the cloud cut off, like the stick of fairy tales which beats of itself) continues to massacre the monkeys. Râmas cuts Kumbhakarṇas's other arm off, which supports with its hand the whole trunk of a robust shorea; but arm and trunk continue to slaughter the enemies on their own account.[567] At last Râmas shoots him in the mouth and heart; the monster falls, and crushes as he falls two thousand monkeys under his immense body. Here, therefore, we again see the monster and the serpent in relation with the clouds and waters. To touch the serpent, that is, the rainy season or the night, is for the solar hero or heroine the same as to die. In the Mahâbhâratam[568] the girl Pramadvarâ falls dead to the ground, having inadvertently pressed a serpent with her foot on the way; Rurus brings her to life again by renouncing half of his own life. In this legend the year or the day personifies life; summer sacrifices itself to winter, winter to summer, day to night,[Pg 402] night to day, the sun to the moon, and the moon to the sun. In the beautiful legend of Savitrî, the wife sacrifices herself and offers herself to Yamas, the god of the dead, in order to be faithful to her husband. In the same Mahâbhâratam,[569] the King Parîkshit falls into the power of Takshakas, the king of the serpents, a form of Yamas the god of the dead (also called Anantas), because he had thrown a dead serpent on the shoulders of a Brâhman. In the Râmâyaṇam,[570] it is said that a man who has, when asleep, fallen into the hands of the god of the dead, Yamas, is bitten by a venomous serpent. The very rope with which Yamas the god of the dead binds men is a serpent. To the rope-serpent of Yamas we must refer the fatal collar with seven serpents and seven pearls (a symbol of the year, half luminous, half gloomy) which Hephaistos gave to Harmonia and Kadmos on the occasion of their wedding. Kadmos and Harmonia become serpents, and are taken into heaven by the gods. The daughters of Kadmos all come to an unhappy end. The collar is afterwards possessed by Erüphilê, for which reason evils befalls Amphiaraos, and subsequently also Alkmeôn. When Sîtâ,[571] in order to escape from the unjust suspicions of her husband and the perverse evil-speakings of the vulgar, wishes to disappear from the sight of men and to descend under ground, the serpents (pannagâs, who go not with feet) carry her upon their heads (as in Christian tradition the Virgin crushes the head of the serpent-seducer), and from the depths of the earth a voice is heard saying: "Difficult to be acquired is the sight of this woman, who resides in the three worlds; staying down here, she is honoured by[Pg 403] the serpents (pûǵyate nâgâiḥ), and, in the world of the mortals, by mankind; nectar of the higher blessed ones, she is the satiator of the immortals." The kingdom of the nâgâs, or the city of Bhogavatî (an equivocal word, which means both furnished with serpents and furnished with riches), is full of treasures, like the hell of Western tradition. This infernal world went definitively under ground when the gods, having fallen, took humbler forms upon the earth and upon the waters of the earth; the lower world became the kingdom of the serpents and of the devils of the Vedic cloudy and gloomy heavens (devils and serpents, which Jewish tradition therefore represents with great justice as fallen angels). The riches of heaven, concealed by the cloudy or gloomy monster of night or winter, passed into the earth; the observation of heavenly phenomena helped this conception. The true mythical treasures are the sun and the moon in their splendour; when they go down they seem to hide themselves underground; the solar hero goes underground, he goes to hell, after having lost all his treasures and all his riches; he undertakes in poverty his infernal journey; when the sun rises from the mountain, it seems to come out from underground; the solar hero returns from his journey through hell, he returns resplendent and wealthy; the infernal demon gives back to him part of the treasures which he possesses, having carried them off from him, or else the young hero recovers them by his valour. But this hell was once the watery, wintry, nocturnal heaven itself, from which now the sun, now the moon emerges; the hero or the god was obscured or eclipsed, and assumed a gloomy form in the sky itself, and, as we have already said,[Pg 404][572] he who destroys, lacerates, or kills this form, does a service to the poor and cursed wandering Jew who wears it. We are reminded of the aquatic monster, in the Râmâyaṇam,[573] by the gandharvas[574] Tumburus, who assumed, under a curse, the form of the monster Virâdhas who carries Sîtâ off from Râmas, with the sole design that Râmas may kill him and deliver him from the malediction, so that he may be able to reascend in happiness to heaven. In a similar manner, Hanumant delivers from her curse the ogress of the lake, the seizer (grâhî) and devourer, who was once a nymph.[575] The body of the old ṛishis Çarabhañgas also gives us the idea of a serpent's body. Çarabhañgas desires to deliver himself from it, as a serpent casts off its old skin. He then enters the fire; the fire burns him; Çarabhañgas, arising from the conflagration, comes forth young, splendid, and as brilliant as fire.[576] In the celebrated episode of Nalas in the Mahâbhâratam,[577] the serpent Karkoṭakas, surrounded by the flames, asks Nalas, on the other hand, to deliver him from the flames; the serpent makes himself small in order that Nalas may be able to carry him away; Nalas does so, and the serpent bites him; he then[Pg 405] loses his shape, which passes into that of the serpent. In this new diabolical form Nalas becomes invulnerable and invisible. The diverse action taken by fire in legends can be comprehended by reference to the solar hero, now in the morning, now in the evening, now in spring, now in autumn: in the morning and in the spring the serpent of night enters the flames and becomes a handsome youth again; in the evening and in the autumn the serpent comes out of the flames of the evening aurora, or of the summer, and becomes the moon, after having made the sun disappear, or rendered it invisible or invulnerable. In the forty-seventh story of the sixth book Afanassieff, a hunter (the hunting solar hero) is about to heat the stove; a serpent is lying in it, and promises, if he will draw it out of the fire, to render him happy, and teach him the language of all animals. He tells the hunter to put the end of his stick into the fire, by which means it will be enabled to make its escape; the hunter complies, but is warned that he will die himself should he reveal that secret to any one.

The serpent, therefore, is not only monstrous and maleficent in Hindoo tradition, but also at once the learned one, and he who imparts learning; it sacrifices itself to let the hero carry away the water of life, the water of strength, the health-giving herb or the treasure; it not only often spares, but it favours the predestined hero; it destroys individuals, but preserves the species; it devours nations, but preserves the regenerative kings; it poisons plants, and throws men into deep sleep, but it gives new strength in its occult domain to the sun, who gives new life to the world every morning and every spring. In the Vedic heavens the serpent is a magician expert in every kind of magic; in the kingdom of the serpents the young lost hero recovers his splendour,[Pg 406] wisdom, and victorious power. Hence the worship in India of the serpent, who is revered as a symbol of every species of learning. We have, on a previous occasion, found the horned or crested serpent who personifies, in the Ṛigvedas, fire or the god Agnis, and by this we must understand the crest or mane of the sun, which comes out of the darkness; thus the god Haris or Vishṇus lies upon a crested serpent or a many-headed serpent. Three-headed serpents or dragons, such as are famous in fairy tales, occur in the Harivaṅças,[578] and correspond to the Vedic monster Triçiras, that is, three-headed. The crest of the serpent is the god Vishṇus himself, as a solar deity who comes out of the serpent's body. Hence the hooded-serpent, called Nalla Pâmba in the Malabar,[579] is especially revered in India. "The sudden appearance of one of these serpents," wrote Lazzaro Papi from India, "is considered to presage some future good or evil. It is the divinity himself in this form, or at least his messenger, and the bringer of rewards or chastisement. Although it is exceedingly venomous, it is neither killed, molested, nor crushed in the house which it enters, but respected, and even caressed and adored by the more superstitious. They give it milk to drink, and the accommodation to which it is accustomed; they construct little huts for it, and prepare receptacles and nests for it under large trees. This reminds me of the ancient inhabitants of Prussia, who nourished several serpents with milk in honour of Patriumpho or Patrimpos, their deity. The family in which one of these serpents takes up its abode esteems itself fortunate and secure from[Pg 407] poverty and other misfortunes; and if some one, as it not seldom happens, is bitten by them and dies, the victim of his own credulity, it is, they say, a punishment of God that has overtaken him for some crime." It is nearly the same belief as that which we found in the preceding chapter concerning the toad and the amphisbhæna. In Hungary, as Count Geza Kunn informs me, some fairies are said to be born with a serpent's skin, and to resume their form after this serpent's skin has been shed. It is said that a precious stone can be found under a serpent's tongue. When the serpents warm themselves in the sun of spring, they blow out the stone (or the sun itself), and subsequently conceal it under the tongue of a still larger serpent, the king of the serpents.

The serpent is supposed to protect and preserve the lost riches, and to guard the soul of the dead hero; hence serpents, like crows amongst birds, are revered in India as embodied souls of the dead. In Germany,[580] the white serpent (that is, the snowy winter), according to the popular legend, gives to whoever eats of it (or who is licked by it in the ears) the gift of understanding the language of birds, and of universal knowledge (it is in the night of Christmas, that is, in the midst of the snow, that those who are predestined to see marvels can comprehend, in the stables, the language of the cattle, and, in the woods, the language of the birds; according to the legend, Charles le Gros, in the night of Christmas, saw heaven and hell open, and was able to recognise his forefathers). Thus in Greece, Melampos, Cassandra, and Tiresias became seers by their contact with the[Pg 408] serpent, symbolised at a later period in the python and the pythoness, as the depositaries of all the oracles of wisdom. In Scandinavian mythology, Odin also assumes the form of a serpent (ormr), and the name of Ofnir, in the same way as Zeus becomes a serpent in Greek mythology when he wishes to create Zagreus, the bull-headed, another Zeus or another Dionüsos. In Rochholtz and Simrock, we find indications of the same worship as that given to the serpent in India, where it is regarded as a good domestic genie. Milk is given to certain domestic little snakes to drink; they are put to watch over little children in their cradles, with whom they divide their food; they bring good luck to the children near which they stay; it is therefore considered a fatal sacrilege to kill them. It is fabled, moreover, that a serpent is sometimes born with a child entwined round its neck, and that it and the child are thenceforth inseparable (an image of the year and of the day, half luminous and half tenebrous, inseparable the one from the other). It guards the cattle in the stables, and procures for good and beautiful maidens husbands worthy of them. According to a popular legend, two serpents are found in every house (a male and a female), which only appear when they announce the death of the master and mistress of the house; when these die, the snakes also cease to live. To kill one of these serpents is to kill the head of the family. Under this aspect, as a protector of children, as a giver of husbands to girls, and identified with the head or progenitor of the family, the serpent is again a phallical form. From the gloomy serpent of night, the tenebrous serpent of winter, even the nocturnal and wintry heavens illumined by the moon, and from the white moon, emerges the diurnal sun, the sun of spring, the day and the warm and luminous season. The ogre,[Pg 409] dragon, or serpent keeps back the waters in the cloud and the waters in the rivers, occupies the fountains, lies at the roots of the tree which yields honey, of the ambrosial tree, of the tree in the midst of the lake of milk; the tree and the phallos are again identified. The Phrygian Attis, loved by Cybele, is deprived of his phallos, and expires; Cybele transforms him into a pine tree (which is cone-bearing and evergreen, which resists, like the moon, even the rigours of winter), in which the funereal and regeneratory phallos is personified; the cypress (cone-bearing and evergreen), which the three brothers of the fairy tales must watch during the night, and which only the youngest brother succeeds in delivering from the dragon or serpent which carries it away, is also represented in Persian tradition as in the middle of a lake of ambrosia. The serpent steals this tree, as in the Hindoo myth it steals the ambrosia from the gods; it knows well that in it consists the regeneratory strength of the hero, whom the serpent has bitten; sometimes it steals the tree from him, and sometimes guards over it. Out of the golden apple, or out of the orange of the tree guarded by the dragon, in popular tales, the beautiful maiden comes; the dragon keeps her back a second time on the way, making her mount upon a tree, or throwing her into the fountain, near which the beautiful maiden becomes a dark fish or a dark bird (a swallow or a dove), in order to come out again from the fish or the bird in the form of a beautiful girl. The love of the young princess for the young hero, in Russian stories, comes out of the duck's egg taken under the tree, and the death of the serpent-dragon is caused by it. Here the gloomy monster of the night and winter, the monster serpent, appears, in guardianship of the moon, the protectress of marriages, as an ambrosial and evergreen tree, and, like[Pg 410] the cypress, a funereal tree, which is at the same time symbolical of immortality. From the moon of winter and of night, the solar hero of spring and the day, the maiden spring and the maiden aurora come forth. The serpent, like the toad, the frog, the fish, and the bird, now desires the moon of winter and of night for itself, and now presents it to the young hero, whom it protects. The moon appears when the diurnal sun goes down in the west; hence the garden of the Hesperides, as the word denotes, was supposed to be situated in the west; the moon rules the northern heavenly region, the cold season of the year; for this reason Apollodorus placed this same garden of the Hesperides in the north, amongst the Hyperboreans, where the tree of oblivion also grew according to Ælianos. In India, the ambrosial tree, the tree of immortality, the tree of Brahman's paradise, like the moon and Çivas (the god of paradise and of hell, the phallical and destroying god), was also placed in the north, on Mount Merus, the phallical and primeval mountain, near the sea of oblivion, guarded by a dragon; but because the dragon or serpent represents evil oftener than good, because Çivas, the moon, and the cypress, have a double aspect, phallical and funereal, paradisiacal and infernal, because Kaçyapas, the great primitive phallos, created opposite things in the form of a bird and in that of a serpent, two trees are also represented upon Mount Merus, one of good and one of evil, one of life and one of death, which reminds us of the Jewish and Mahometan traditions. The legends concerning the tree of the golden apples or figs, which yields honey or ambrosia, guarded by dragons, in which the life, the fortune, the glory, the strength, and the riches of the hero have their beginning, are numerous among every people of Âryan origin; in India and in Persia, in Russia and in Poland,[Pg 411] in Sweden and in Germany, in Greece and in Italy, popular myths, poems, songs, and fairy tales amplify with a great variety of incidents, partly unconscious of their primitive signification, this strange subject of phallical cosmogony.[581]

[Pg 412]

The Persian cosmogony is of a less material character than the Hindoo, but its principle is the same. Ahuramazda and Anhromainyu, who occupy the first place as the creators of the world, are also two males in opposition to one another. From Ahuramazda descends Thrætaona or Feridun, the killer of the serpent (azhi) Dahâka, or Dahak, or Zohak, the three-headed dragon which Anhromainyu created to destroy the beautiful in the world, as the strongest of monsters.[582] In Hindoo tradition we find the bird Garuḍas on the side of the gods, and the Nâgas or serpent on that of the demons; so, in Persian tradition, the bird Simurg is on the side of the gods, and the serpent or sea-monster on that of the demons. It is in the midst of the waters that the hero Kereçâçpa finds the great serpent Çruvara, who devours men and horses, and who ejects a venom as large as a man's thumb. Taking him probably for an island,[583] he has food cooked[Pg 413] upon it; the serpent feels the heat, and begins to move; it then throws Kereçâçpa, the courageous Kereçâçpa, over backwards. There seems to be some analogy between this myth of the Yaçna of the Avesta and the story of the fearless hero of the Russian story, who, being asleep in a boat, falls into the river when terrified by the little fish which had jumped upon him. (The serpent appears also as the enemy of fire in the Khorda-Avesta.)[584] The serpent causes the diseases which Thrætaona is requested to cure; it poisons whatever it sees and touches; and, according to the Khorda-Avesta,[585] the wicked are condemned to feed upon poison after death. In the Shah-Name the sun disappears, devoured by a sea-monster or crocodile. In the third adventure of Isfendiar, the hero is almost inebriated by the venomous smoke and the pestilential breath of the dragon which he has victoriously combated; and, after having won, he falls to the ground as if dead; thus Indras, after having defeated the monstrous serpent, flees in terror over the rivers, like a madman attacked by hydrophobia, terrified by the shadow, the smoke, or the water of the dead serpent, because this shadow, which is perhaps his own, and not his enemy's, menaces to submerge him in those poisoned waves, and to transform him into a sea-monster, assimilating him thus to his enemy; inasmuch as the god sends to make man like himself, so also does the demon. In Persia, therefore, the serpent is generally considered as a demoniacal and monstrous animal, the personification of evil. If it is prayed to, it is to conjure it away, to induce it to go far distant, as the Arabs and the Tatars particularly do to expel the devil. The Persian genius has[Pg 414] not the mobility, the plasticity, and elasticity of the Hindoo; its mythical images are more severe and less multiform; hence the serpent remained in Persian tradition the demoniacal animal par excellence. In the Tuti-Name, on the contrary, which is of Hindoo origin, the serpent has a double aspect. The serpent wishes to eat the frog. (In the fifteenth story of the third book of the Pańćatantram, the frogs ride upon the serpent, and leap upon it in delight, like Phædrus's frogs upon King Log, which was sent to them in derision by Jove; the serpent and the rod are assimilated.) The hero saves the frog, upon which the serpent reproves him, because he thus takes its food from it; the hero then cuts off some of his own flesh to give it to the serpent;[586] the serpent protects the hero ever afterwards, and cures with an ointment the king's daughter, who had been bitten by another serpent; the king gives his daughter, on her recovery, to the hero who had satisfied the serpent's hunger. In the tenth story of the third book of the Pańćatantram, two little serpents, who talk to each other, both work their own ruin and make the fortune of the hero and of the heroine. A king's son has a serpent in his body without knowing[Pg 415] it, and becomes ill; he abandons in despair his father's palace, and goes begging; he is given, in contempt, the second daughter of another king to wife, who had never said amiable things to her father, like her eldest sister (a variation of the legend of Cordelia and Lear); whilst one day the young prince has fallen asleep with his head upon an ant-hill, the little serpent which is in his body puts out its head to breathe a little fresh air, and sees another serpent coming out of the ant-hill;[587] the two little serpents begin to dispute and call each other names; one accuses the other of tormenting the young prince by inhabiting his body, and the accused responds by charging it with hiding two jars full of gold under the ant-hill.[588] Continuing their quarrel, one says how easy it would be to kill the other; a little mustard would suffice to settle the first, and a little hot oil the second (the serpent is killed by being burned; the rich uhlan-serpent of the Russian story is burned in the trunk of an oak-tree, in which it had taken refuge out of fear for the fire and the lightning); the hidden wife listens to everything, delivers her husband from the little serpent in his body, and kills the other serpent to take out the treasure which it keeps hidden.[589] In the fourteenth of the stories of Santo[Pg 416] Stefano di Calcinaia, the third of the young daughters, in order to save her father from certain death, consents to marry the serpent, who carries her upon his tail to his palace, where he becomes a handsome man called Sor Fiorante, of the red and white stockings. But she must reveal the secret to no one. The maiden (as in the fable of Cupid and Psyche) does not resist the temptation of speaking of it to her sisters, on which her husband disappears; she finds him again after having filled seven flasks with her tears; breaking first a walnut, then a hazel-nut, and finally an almond, of which each contains a magnificent robe, she recovers her husband, and is recognised by him.[590] In a variety of the same story in my[Pg 417] little collection, a good serpent fairy advises the blind princess, and gives her the hazel-nut, the almond, and the walnut; each of the three gifts contains a marvel; by means of the first marvel the young princess regains one eye from the false wife; by means of the second marvel, the other eye, which the serpent puts in its place;[591] and by means of the third, which is a golden hen with forty-four golden chickens (perhaps forty-four stands for forty times four, or a hundred and sixty, which might represent the luminous and warm days of the year, from the first of April to the end of August), she finds her lost husband again. In an unpublished Sicilian story communicated to me by Dr Ferraro, a serpent presses the neck of King Moharta to avenge a beautiful girl whom the king had forsaken, after having violated her; in order to release himself from the serpent, the king is compelled to marry the beautiful girl whom he had betrayed. In the sixteenth of the Tuscan stories published by me, the three sons of the king go to get the water which jumps and dances, and which is guarded by a dragon who devours as many as approach it; the dragon sleeps from twelve to two o'clock, and sleeps with its eyes open, which signifies, if we interpret twelve o'clock as twelve o'clock of the day, that the dragon is asleep when the sun watches, and if, on the contrary, as twelve o'clock at night, that it sleeps when the moon, compared to the hare which sleeps with its eyes open, shines in the sky.[592] In an ancient Neapolitan vase explained[Pg 418] by Gerhard and Panofka, we find a tree and a fountain, a serpent (the same as that which gnaws at the roots of the tree Yggdrasill in the Eddas), three Hesperides, and Hêraklês. One Hesperis is giving the wounded serpent some beverage in a cup, the second is plucking an apple, the third is about to pluck one, and Hêraklês has also an apple in his hand. The myth and the story of the ogre and the three oranges correspond perfectly to one another.[593] The maiden was at first identified with the serpent, as the daughter of the dragon, and as a female serpent; she lays aside her disguise on the approach of the young hero, and recovers all her splendour. In an unpublished story of the Monferrato, communicated to me by Dr Ferraro, a beautiful girl, when plucking up a cabbage (a lunar image), sees under its roots a large room, goes down into it, and finds a serpent there, who promises to make her fortune if she will kiss him and sleep with him; the girl consents. After three months, the serpent begins to assume the legs of a man, then a man's body, and finally the face of a handsome youth, the son of a king, and marries his young deliverer. In popular tradition, we also have the contrary[Pg 419] form of the same myth, that is, the beautiful maiden who becomes a serpent again. In a German legend,[594] the young hero hopes to deliver the beautiful maiden by three kisses:[595] the first time he kisses her as a beautiful girl; the second time as a monster, half woman half serpent; the third time he refuses to kiss her, because she has become entirely a serpent.

When the day or the summer dies, the mythical serpent shows himself (in absolute contradiction to what we are taught by Natural History, one would almost say that when the serpent ceases to creep along the ground and to devour the animals of the earth, it goes to creep and to devour the animals of the sky); then the north winds begin to whistle,—and the serpent, particularly the mythical serpent, is a famous whistler. Isidorus[596] even identifies the basilisk and the serpent, called a regulus with the whistle itself: "Sibilus idem est qui et Regulus: sibilo enim occidit antequam mordeat vel exurat." In the twenty-fifth story of the fifth book of Afanassieff, the gipsy and the serpent challenge one another to see who will whistle loudest. When the serpent whistles or hisses (that is, in autumn) all the trees lose their leaves. The gipsy defeats the serpent by a cheat; he makes it believe that it will be unable to resist the effects of his whistle if it does not cover its head, and then beats it without pity, so that the serpent is convinced of the gipsy's superiority, and says that it reveres him as its elder brother.[597] I cited in the first chapter of the first[Pg 420] book the Russian story of Alexin the son of the priest, or the divine Alexin, who fights against Tugarin, the son of the serpent, or the demon-serpent, and begs the Virgin to bathe the monster's wings with the rain of the black cloud: the monster's wings being heavy with water, force it to fall to the ground. Here we return again to the simple yet grandiose Vedic myth, the most remote of all, from which we started; we return to lyrical poetry, inspired, spontaneous, ingenuous, full of agreeable or fearful surprises, of naïve enthusiasms, of creative impulses, the unconscious originator of a new civilisation and a new faith, as yet undefiled with phallical cosmogonies, as yet unruptured and unimpoverished by the sterile dreams of eunuch-like metaphysics.

[Pg 421]

CONCLUSION. "E come quei che con lena affannata Uscito fuor del pelago a la riva Si volge all 'onda perigliosa e guata, Cosi l'animo mio che ancor fuggiva Si volse indietro a rimirar ..." and the shadows of the mythological monsters rise again before me, and occupy my fearful thoughts. During these months of my solitary sojourn on Olympus, have I only been the victim of a horrible nightmare, or have I apprehended aright the reality of the changeful figures of the sky in their animal forms? The ancient mythology, which used to be taught to us at school, was filled with the incests of Jove, of Mars, and of Venus; but they were classical myths, and the adulterers were called gods; and our good fathers, in the vain search for symbolical meanings, tortured their ingenious brains to extract from each scandal of Olympus a moral lesson for the instruction of youth. Hence it was permitted to art to represent Jove as a bull, an eagle, a swan, a seducer in an animal form, without offending decency or violating the sanctity of the schools; and the young scholars were encouraged to write their rhetorical exercises in Italian or Latin verse upon the favourite themes of classical mythology, inasmuch as with symbols and moral allegories the vile matter could all be made divine. Platonic or[Pg 422] metaphysical love not requiring the vehicles of sense to communicate itself, the animal forms of the god were for our old masters nothing else than symbols and allegories, conceived and intended to veil an elevated educational wisdom. But we have rocked ourselves long enough in the cradle of this infantile fantasy, and must now discard from this and kindred themes all such idle dreams. It is at last necessary to summon up the courage to front the problems of history with the same frankness and ardour with which naturalists approach the mysteries of Nature, and pierce the veil; nor is this attempt so hazardous, since, in order to demonstrate entirely our historical theses, we have certain and positive data provided for us in speech and in legend by comparative oral and written tradition. We do not invent; we simply accumulate, and then put in order the facts relating to the common history of popular thought and sentiment in our privileged race. The difficulty consists only in classifying the facts; the facts themselves are many and evident. It is very possible to be deceived in their arrangement, and hence also in their minute interpretation; and I am, for my part, not without apprehension that I may have here and there made an unlucky venture in interpreting some particular myths; but if this may, in some degree, reflect discredit on my intelligence, which is perhaps imperfectly armed, and without sufficient penetration, this can in nowise prejudice the fundamental truths which permit comparative mythology to constitute and install itself as a positive science, that may henceforth, like every science, instruct and edify with profit. The principal error into which the students of the new science are apt to fall, and into which I may myself have sometimes been betrayed in the course of this work, is that of confining their observations to one special favourite mythical point or[Pg 423] moment, and referring almost every myth to it, and not taking sufficient account of their mobility and their separate history, that is, of the various periods of their manifestation. One sees in the myth only the sun, another only the moon in its several revolutions, and their amours with the verdant and resplendent earth; one sees the darkness of night in opposition to the light of day, another the same light in opposition to the gloomy cloud; one the loves of the sun with the moon, another those of the sun with the aurora. These diverse, special, and too exclusive points of view, from which the myths have hitherto been generally studied by learned men, have afforded ill-disposed adversaries an opportunity of ridiculing the science of Comparative Mythology as a science which is little serious, and which changes its nature according to the student who occupies himself with it. But this opposition is disarmed by its own weapons. For what does the concord of all learned men and scholars in this department prove? It proves, in my opinion, but one thing, and that is, the reproduction and confirmation of the same natural myths under multiplex forms, the representation by analogous myths of analogous phenomena, and that the variations met with in fairy tales are also found in myths. The sun chases away the darkness in the day, the moon the darkness in the night; both are called haris, or fairhaired, golden, luminous. Indras is haris; as haris, he is now in relation with the sun that thunders in the cloud (Jupiter Tonans), now with the ambrosial moon which attracts rain (Jupiter Pluvius); Zeus gives up the field to his son Dionüsos, and, be it as the sun, be it as the moon, he is always Zeus the refulgent one, Diespiter or the father of light; in the first case, he pierces through the cloud, and in the second through the darkness. Even when the[Pg 424] moon or the sun is hidden, when Zeus or Dionüsos lives in his august mystery, they prepare new luminous phenomena. Thus Vishṇus is haris, and as haris he is identified now with the sun, now with the moon; or, to speak with more precision, the sun haris and the moon haris are confounded in one sole mythical personage, in one god, who represents them both in various moments, that is to say, in Vishṇus. It is desirable that the entirety of the myths should be studied with full comprehension of the whole field which the myth may have enriched, and of the whole period in which the myth may have been developed; but this does not prevent, in special studies, a learned man from addressing himself (as Professors Kuhn, Müller, and Bréal have done) to one special point to prove one special mythological thesis. To this point he applies his lever; he might, perhaps, use it somewhere else; but this causes no prejudice to the essential truth, by bringing his demonstrations to the highest degree of clearness in one point alone. The excess of demonstration can easily be corrected, and meanwhile from these special studies, in which investigation becomes every day more profound, the myths come out in brighter colours. It would be an exaggeration to ascribe to all the myths one unvaried manner of formation, as also to think absolutely that all myths began by a simple confusion of words. Equivocalness, no doubt, played a principal part in the formation of myths; but this same equivocalness would not always have been possible without the pre-existence, so to speak, of pictorial analogies. The child who even now, gazing on the sky, takes a white cloud for a mountain of snow, certainly does not yet know that parvatas meant both cloud and mountain in the Vedic language; he continues, however, to elaborate his elementary myth by means of[Pg 425] simple analogies of images. The equivoque of words usually succeeded to the analogy of external figures as they appeared to primitive man. He had not yet named the cloud as a mountain, and yet he already saw it. When the confusion of images took place, that of words became almost inevitable, and only served to determine it, to give it in the external sound a more consistent form, to manifest it more artistically, and to constitute it into a sort of trunk upon which, with the help of new particular observations, of new images, and of new equivoques, an entire tree of mythical genealogies was to sprout out.

It has fallen to me to study the least elevated department of mythology. In the primitive man, who created the myths, the same twofold tendency shows itself which we observe in ourselves—the instinct by which we are allied to the brutes, and the instinct which lifts us to the comprehension and sentiment of the divine or the ideal. The ideal was the portion of few; material instinct that of many: the ideal was the promise of human progress; material instinct represented that inert resisting matter which still acts in opposition to progress. Hence images full of elevated poesy by the side of others, vulgar and gross, which remind us of the relation of man to that petulant and lascivious brute from which it is supposed that he descends. The god who becomes a brute cannot preserve always intact his divinity; the animal form is that of his avatâras or of his decadence, of his fall; it is usually the form assumed by the god or the hero in consequence of a curse or a crime. The Hindoo and the Pythagorean beliefs considered the disguise of the animal as the purgatory of a guilty man. And the god-beast, the hero-beast, the man-beast cannot restrain themselves from brutish acts. The proud and ferocious King Viçvâmitras,[Pg 426] the Indian Nebuchadnezzar, when he wanders through the forest in the form of a monster, takes the nature of the forest-rakshasas, the devourer; the beautiful celestial nymphs become sea-monsters, devour the heroes who approach their fountain. Only when the animal form is killed, when the matter is shaken off, does the god or hero assume his divine goodness, beauty, and excellence. Here mythology is not in contradiction to physiology; the character of the mythical personages is the result of their corporeal forms, of their organism, until the natural destiny changes, and a new physical transformation taking place in the species, even its moral characteristics are modified; light is good, darkness is evil, or good only inasmuch as it is supposed to enclose light in its body. From the dark wood rubbed and shaken, from the dark stone struck and dilated, comes forth the spark which causes conflagrations; from the body when exercised and made agile comes forth the splendour of look, of speech, of affection, of thought; the god breaks forth. Substance is dark, but when it is agitated it produces light; as long as it is inert, it is evil, and it is still evil as long as it attracts to itself, as if to a centre of gravity, everything that lives. In as far as the monster swallows beautiful things, it is evil; in as far as it lets them radiate and go forth, it is good. Disperse the cloud, disperse the darkness, dilate and expand the matter which tends to grow narrow and to become inert, to absorb life, and the divine light will come out of it, the splendid intelligent life will appear; the fallen hero, the hero turned to stone, who has become inert substance, will ascend again, agile and refulgent, into the divine heavens.

Certainly, I am far from believing that this was the intention of the myth. Morals have often been an appendix of fables, but they never enter into the primitive fable itself.[Pg 427] The elementary myth is a spontaneous production of imagination, and not of reflection. When the myth exists, art and religion may make use of it as an allegory for their æsthetic and moral ends; but the myth itself is devoid of moral conscience; the myth shows, as I have said, only more or less elevated instincts. And if I have sought to compare several physiological laws with the myths, it is not because I attribute to the myth a wisdom greater than that which it contains in reality, but only to indicate that, much better than metaphysics, the science of nature, with the criteria of positive philosophy, can help us to study the original production of myths and their successive development in tradition. I have had to prove in mythology its most humble aspect, that is to say, the god enclosed in the animal; and inasmuch as amongst the various mythical animals which I have endeavoured to describe, several preserve the propitious character and resplendent form of the god, they are generally considered as the form which the deity assumes either to feed secretly upon the forbidden fruit or to fulfil a term of punishment for some former fault of his; in any case, these forms never serve to give us a superlative idea of the divine excellence and perfection. Instead of ascribing to the god all the attributes of beauty, goodness, and strength at once, instead of associating in one all the gods, or all the sympathic forces and figures of Nature, a new divine form was created for each attribute. And because the primitive man was not so much inclined to make abstractions as comparisons (to represent strength, for instance, he had recourse to the image of the bull, the lion, or the tiger; to represent goodness, he figured it in the lamb, the dog, or the dove; to represent beauty, he chose the gazelle, the stag, the peacock, and so on), in[Pg 428] the primitive speech of mankind no conjunctions existed by means of which to unite the two terms of a comparison: hence a strong king became the lion, a faithful friend the dog, an agile girl the gazelle, and so on. We sometimes hear our women, in their moments of tenderness for a distant person, or in their impatience to go where their heart calls them, or in their curiosity to know what is going on at such a moment in such a place, say, "I wish I could become a bird to go there." In reality they envy only the bird's wings, in order to fly, to arrive there sooner, and for this desire alone they would renounce all the precious privileges which distinguish them as women. The same sacrifice of their own luminous forms to obtain some determinate end happens in the mythical sky. The god humbles himself in order to make use of some quality which he needs to manifest especially. Thus Indras, to put the generosity of King Çivis to the proof, finds it necessary to follow, in the shape of a hawk, the god Agnis, who had become a dove, and taken refuge with the king. Primitive man does not ascribe to the god any other form than those which he sees round him, and which he knows: the god cannot have wings of his own, divine wings; he must become a bird in order to be winged. Thus, to draw a chariot, or to carry a hero through the air, he must become a hippogriff, that is, horse and bird; and when he falls into the sea, he must enter a fish's body to escape drowning.

The god can therefore exercise his divine power only on the condition of entering into the forms of those animals which are supposed to have the privilege of the qualities which the god is in need of in a special mythical occurrence. But in this animal form in which the god displays in a transcendent manner some particular quality,[Pg 429] he dims at the same time a great part of his divine splendour. Having, therefore, surprised the deity in this strange and unlucky moment, the reader will not, I hope, impute to me the poor figure which the deity has had to make in many pages of this work; nor will he think evil of me if I have deprived him, perchance, of some illusion in compensation for some imperfect, but perhaps not useless revelation.

[Pg 430] [Pg 431]

INDEX. (This Index is compiled at the instance of the Publisher, and is not by the Author.)

Absalom and his hair, i. 334.

Achilleus, horses of, i. 351.

Acheloos, horn of, i. 266.

Açvinâu, the, i. 18, 19; friendship for Tritas, 25; awakening of, 27; and the aurora, 30; eyes to the blind, feet to the lame, 32, 36; and Kabandhas, 63; the sons of, 78; as the two ears of Vishnus, 81, 285-287, 300-302, 304, 306-308, 310, 315, 319, 321, 327, 370; ass of, 371.

Adam and Eve, legend of, ii. 411.

Aditis and the cow, in Vedic literature, i. 5, 6, 23, 70, 74.

Adonis, ii. 14-16.

Adrikâ, the nymph-fish, ii. 331; son and daughter of, 332.

Æschylos, fabled death of, ii. 197.

Æsculapius, i. 353.

Afrasiab, i. 114, 116, 117.

Agas and synonyms, i. 402.

Agnis, as the fire-god, i. 10; adjutant to Indras, 13, 299, 301.

Agnus Dei, sacrifice of the, i. 423.

Ahalyâ, legend of, i. 414.

Ahura Mazda, i. 97, 109.

Aiêtas, bulls of, i. 267.

Ai-Kan, story of, i. 146.

Alexander the Great, i. 119; and augury, ii. 178; and the fish, 333; and the crab, 355.

Allwis, the dwarf, i. 207, 225, 260, 261.

Amalthea, i. 430.

Amazons, the, i. 211, 212.

Ambrosia, i. 5; giver of, 18; the milk which forms, 52, 54; contest for, 53; the demons and, 53; Gandharvas, guardians of, 53, 81; of the cow, 275, 276; the origin of, ii. 361; the phallical reference of, 361, 365.

Ampelos, i. 267.

Amphisbhæna, the, ii. 386.

Anantas, the serpent, ii. 398, 399.

Angadas, i. 337.

Animals, gradation of, for sacrifice, i. 44; substitutes for, in sacrifice, 44; battles of tame and savage, 186; inviolability of the mysteries of, 246; mythical identification of, ii. 123; colours of, in mythology, 295, 296.

Ansumant, i. 332.

Antony, St, the Vedic, i. 47; and the hog, ii. 6.

Antelopes and the Marutas, ii. 83, 84; king disguised as an, 86.

Ants, the, and the serpent, ii. 44; and the shepherd's son, 45; and the grain, 47; and the horses, 50; Indian, 50, 51; that dig up gold, 51; the monster, 51.

Apâlâ, Indras, and the somas, ii. 3; and her ugly skin, 5.

Aphroditê, i. 394; and Hermes, ii. 197.

Apollo, and Laomedon, i. 279; Smintheus, ii. 68; and the crow, 254.

Apple-tree, the legend of, i. 251; the mythical, 405; and the goat, 405.

Aquila and Aquilo, ii. 191, 192.

Arabs, the, saying of, ii. 11.

Arachnê, ii. 163.

Arcadia, i. 387, 390.

Ardshi-Bordshi Khan, the history of, i. 120; stories from, 134, 139.

Ardvî Çûra Anâhita, the Persian, i. 99, 100.

Argos panoptes, i. 418.

Argus, ii. 327.

Arǵunas, i. 79, 104.

Ariadne, i. 212.

Arkas, ii. 118.

Arnê, ii. 259.

Artemis and Aktaion, ii. 86; the huntress, 87; and hind, 88.

Arunas, i. 292.

Ases, the three, and the eagle, ii. 191.

Ashis Vaguhi, i. 108, 109.

Ass, the, among the Greeks and Romans, i. 259, 260; in the East, 360; in the West, 360; mistakes about, 361; Christianity powerless to redeem, 361, 362; hymn in honour of, 361, 362; treatment of, by the Church, 363; downtrodden condition of, 363; in the Rigvedas, 364; names of, 364, 365; of Apuleius, 366; which carries mysteries, 367; and flight into Egypt, 367; of the Açvinâu, 371; of Indras, 371; phallic nature of, 372, 373; chastisement of, for phallic offences, 372, 373; fall of, in the Rigvedas, 372, 374; the demoniacal, 374, 376; slowness, 374; the golden, 375, 376; the Hindoo, 377; and the jackal, 377, 378; [Pg 432]-lion, 378, 379; -musician, 378, 379; three-legged, braying, 379; and lion, 380; braying of, and the merchants, 380; and Vesta, 384; and the Trojans, 386; ears of, 386; skin of, 388; that throws gold from its tail, 388; and the waters of Styx, 390; horned, of India, 390, 391; horn of the Scythian, 390, 391; and Silenos, 391, 392, 394; and Bacchus, 392; and the talisman, 393; skin of, 394; proverbs about, 394; the combed, 395; shadow and nose, 395; golden, of Apuleius, 395; uncontainedness, 396; that brays, 397, 398; in hell, 398; knowledge of, 398.

Assassins, story of the king of the, ii. 35.

Atavism in mythology, i. 199.

Atli, i. 226.

Attis, the Phrygian, ii. 409.

Audhumla, the cow, i. 224.

Aulad, the warrior, i. 112, 113.

Aurora, the cow, process of re-creating, i. 20; cow of abundance, 26; relations to Indras, 27; the milk of, 27; and her cows, 25, 29; the girl, the swift one without feet, 30, 31; the evening, perfidy of, 32; as a sorceress, 33; persecutions of, 34; the saviour, 35; once blind, now seeing and sight-giving, 36; and the night, 36-38; the sisters, 38; the younger, 38, 39; nuptials of, and its conditions, 39; fruit of the nuptials of, 39, 40; and Rakâ, 50; characteristic form of, 50; as a cow, 51; mother of the sun, 51; rich in pearls, 56; and the moon, 56, 65; the Persian, 100-102, 121-125, 146; awakener of, 163, 170; amours of, 324; the two, and the fox, ii. 124.

Avesta, the, i. 109, 110.

Bacchus and the asses, i. 392.

Bâlin and Sugrîvas, i. 312, 313; ii. 100, 101.

Barrel, the mythical, i. 197.

Basiliça, story of, i. 298, 299.

Batrachomyomachia, the, ii. 71.

Battos the shepherd, i. 279.

Bear, at blind-man's-buff with the maiden, ii. 69; and Vicvâmitras, 109; king of the bears, 109; in the forest of honey, 109; eater of honey, 110; and peasant, 110-112; duped by the peasant, 112; and the fox, 113; king and the twins, 114, 115; the demoniacal, and the two children, 115, 116; disguises of, 117; woman in the den of, 117, 118; half bear half man, 118; as musician, 118, 119.

Beaver, the, ii. 79, 80.

Bees and the Açvinâu, ii. 215; Vedic gods as, 216; as moon, 217; from the bull's carcase, 217; in Finnish mythology, 218; spiritual and immortal, 218-220; wax of, 219; and young hero, 220; as musician, 223.

Beetle, the, and eagle, ii. 209; the sacred, 209; red, 209, 210; names of the red, 210, 211; and first teeth of children, 211; worship of the red, 211, 212; green, 214.

Bellerophontes, i. 305, 338.

Berta, i. 85; the Russian Queen, 218; Queen, legend of, 251-257; large-footed, 253.

Betta and the cake-youth, ii. 238, 239.

Bharatas, King, ii. 85.

Bharadvâǵas, ii. 275, 276.

Bhîmas the terrible, i. 77-79, 104.

Bhogavatî, city of, ii. 403.

Bhrigus and Cyavanas, ii. 10.

Binding, vanquishing by, i. 106, 107.

Birds, language of, i. 151, 152; the mythical impersonations of, ii. 168, 169; the wise, story of, 169-172; virtue of feathers of, 172; the language of, 174; story of, and the queen, 175; excrement of, 176; the blue, 176; Semiramis and, 176; as diviners, 177; auguries from, 178; the, of Bretagne, 271, 272.

Bitch, the mythical, ii. 19-25; as spy, 35.

Blind lame one, the, i. 31, 32.

Blue Beard, the Esthonian, i. 168.

Boar, the, of Erymanthus, ii. 9; of Meleagros, 9; the monster wild, in the Rigvedas, 9, 10; Indo-European tradition of, 13; tusks of, 15.

Brahmadattas and the crab, ii. 356.

Brahmanâs, the, i. 414.

Bréal, M., i. 263.

Bribus, ii. 308.

Bridge, the mythical, i. 228.

Brian, the Celtic hero, i. 239, 240.

Brother, the third, i. 79, 83; the Turanian, and his dream, 139-142; the riddle-solving eldest Turanian, 142; the third, in quest of the lost cow, 155, 156; journey to hell, 157; as counsellor, 156, 159; royal, as peasant, 162; awakener of the princess of the seven years' slumber, 162, 163; who mounts to heaven, 176; and the tree-purchaser, 176; endeavour of, to milk the bull, 177; who snaps his fingers, 184; ascent into and descent from heaven of, 189, 190; who steals from the other two, 194; and the flying-ship, 205; in bronze, silver, and gold, 291.

Brothers, the three, i. 77, 80, 82, 104; the Persian, 105; the two, 107, 108, 120; the three, 109, 111, 125, 128; the four, and the pearls, 127; the six, Calmuc story of, 128, 129; the two, Calmuc story of, 130; the two Calmuc, rich and poor, 131, 132; the two (lion and bull), and the fox, 134; the three, 148, 153, 156, 161; the three dwarf, story of, 161, 162; the two rich and poor, and magic stone, 177; the three, of the purse, whistle, and mantle, 288, 289; the two, who go one to the right and the other to the left, 317, 319, 327.

Brünhilt, i. 212.

[Pg 433]Brutus, the first, i. 199.

Bufonite, ii. 384.

Buhtan and the fox, ii. 134, 135.

Bull, the sun a, i. 4; the, fecundator of the cow, 5; the great bellowing, 7-10; the horns of, 9; a symbol of royalty, 44; of the Persians, 95; the excrement of, 80, 95; disembodied soul of, 97; ambrosial, 99; capacity of, for drinking, 175; in the council of animals, 185; which comes out of the sea, 222, 223; which carries the maiden, 223; about to be sacrificed, 270; without entrails, 270, 271.

Buri, i. 224.

Butterfly, the mythical, ii. 213, 214.

Butter-ears, the cat, ii. 53, 54.

Bucephalus, i. 338.

Cabala, i. 73.

Cacus, i. 280, 281.

Caduceus of Mercury, ii. 219, 220.

Çakuntalâ, i. 219.

Calf, the, as marriage-priest, i. 257.

Çambaras, cities of, i. 13.

Çantanus, myth of, i. 67, 68.

Canicula, the, ii. 33.

Çaoka, i. 98.

Çaradvat, ii. 332.

Çarmishthâ, the witch, i. 83, 84.

Carp, the, ii. 351, 352.

Carpus, ii. 352.

Cat, the white, ii. 42; penitent, 54; fox, and fattened mouse, 56; and sparrow, 56; dog, and ring, 56, 57; and dog and supposititious child, 57; and moon, 58; and Diana, 58; and St Martha, 58; and Freya, 59; and St Gertrude, 59; the chattering, 59; and fox, 59; and cock, 59; and lamb, 60; the grateful, 60; the white, Blanchette, 61; and the house, 62.

Cats, the enchanted, ii. 62; the black, 62, 63; ill-omened apparitions of, 63; and witches, 63, 64; the two, 64.

Çavarî, i. 64, 66, 69.

Cerberi, the, i. 49.

Cerire, i. 117.

Chameleon, the, ii. 161.

Charlemagne, tradition of, i. 161; and Orlando, 256.

Children, king of, story of, i. 135, 136.

Chimæra, the, ii. 158.

Chinese, the, and Little Tom, i. 336.

Christ and Prometheus, ii. 40.

Christopher, St, and Christ, ii. 57; and lark, 274; and the cocks, 284.

Chrysaor, i. 305.

Cianna and the grateful ant, ii. 46.

Cicada, the, ii. 223, 224.

Cienzo and Meo, story of, i. 329, 330.

Cinderella, origin of the legend of, i. 31, 101, 126, 161; the Russian, 196, 197; ii. 5, 197, 281, 304.

Circe and the ass's head, i. 366; and the companions of Odysseus, ii. 6.

Çivas, the deus phallicus, i. 44, 59; ii. 160.

Claudius, Publius, and the auguries, ii. 291.

Clodoveus and St Martin, i. 356.

Clouds, the, i. 6-9; mythical conceptions of, 11, 12; sky with, as a forest, 14; as mountains, 61; battles in, 62; as barrels, 63.

Cock, the mythical functions of, ii. 278; and Mars, 280; Indras, the paramour of Ahalyâ, as a, 280; and hen in India and Persia, and sacredness of the, 282, 284; crowing of, 282, 285, 286; Christus invoked as a, 283; in the Gospels, 283; the miraculous, 284; of night, 285; and Minec' Aniello, 287; Esthonian legends of, 288; hitting the, 289; as a symbol, 290; -fights, 290; the Danes and, 290; auguries from, 291.

Coition, mythical, i. 348.

Cornucopia, Scandinavian, i. 225.

Cosmogony, the Persian, ii. 412.

Cosimo and the fox, ii. 135, 136.

Cow and the Bull, the, origin and meaning of the myth, i. 3, 4; respect paid to, in the family, 46.

Cow, the infinite, celestial, i. 5, 6; son of the, 5; -child, the spotted, 6, 14; as monster, 15; -moon, 19; -aurora, 19, 20; of abundance, 26, 95; hide of, as symbol of fecundity, 46, 47; sour milk of, as favourable to generation, 47; milk-yielding, of night, 48; invocation of the spotted, 50; the sacred, of the Persians, 97; purification by the excrement, 99; pearl excrement of, 129; the black, 167; and the weather, 174; Vedic, double aspect, 175; filled with straw and sparrows, 187; of abundance, Scandinavian, 224; red, 228; German proverbs relating to, 229; and dwarf Allwis, 260; testicles of, and the jackal, 233; the, that spins, 250; the Sabine, 268; the sacrificed, 269; the ashes of, 276.

Cow-cloud, the, i. 14, 15, 74.

Cow-moon, the, i. 274, 275.

Cows, the, of night, i. 17; the two, 27; that do not cover themselves with dust, 28, 31; seen in dreams, 47, 48; coming forth of, 50.

Cowherd, the hero disguised as, i. 168, 169.

Cox, Mr, i. 262, 263.

Crab, the, in the riddle, ii. 354; celestial, in June, 354; in the myth of Herakles, 355; and Alexander, 355; and the deceiving crane, 355; and the serpent, 356; sun and moon as, 356; and fox, 357; "from a man, a," 358; as a charm, 359; Cancer, the, 359.

Crescentia, the Persian, i. 121.

Cross, the, ii. 411; of paradise, 411.

Crow, the, in borrowed feathers, ii. 246; mythical significance, 250, 251; and cheese, 251; disguised, 251, 252; the enchanted, and Râmas, 252; cunning of, 253; [Pg 434]Râmas and Apollo as, 253; and Pallas and Yamas, 254; of evil omen, 254; the giant, 255; and the dead, 255; and the old man, 255; the procrastinating, and Phœbus, 256; as messenger, 257; the egg, 257; brood, 257.

Cuckoo, the, and Zeus, i. 248; its mythical congeners, ii. 226; Indras as a, 228, 229, 231; birth of the, 231; a phallical symbol, 232; and Hêra and Zeus, 232; and marriage, 232; as mocker, 233; harbinger of spring, 233; sinister aspect of, 234; as cuckold, 234; as a bird of omen, 234, 235; immortal and omniscient, 235; and nightingale, 235.

Çunahçepas, i. 35; story of, 69-72, 74.

Cupid and Psyche, i. 368, 369; ii. 378.

Cypresses, riddle of the two, ii. 174.

Cyrus, legend of, i. 110, 118

Cyzicene, the, i. 275.

Dædalus and Icarus, ii. 186.

Dadhyanć, the head of, i. 303, 304.

Dadhikrâ, the solar horse, i. 337.

Dakshas, ii. 364.

Danaidæ, the, i. 265.

Daphnê, i. 170, 273.

Darius Hystaspes, myth of, i. 346.

Daughter, the third, and the toad, i. 381; and the magician, 382, 383.

Dawns, the two, i. 27.

Dejanira, i. 212.

Delilah, counter-types of, i. 212.

Deluge, the Vedic, ii. 335.

Demons, mountain of, i. 96.

Demosthenes on Athênê, ii. 247.

Devayânî, the nymph, i. 83, 84.

Devil, the, as a bull, i. 184; and the waters, ii. 390, 391.

Dhâumyas, three disciples of, i. 79.

Diana (Hindoo), ii. 43.

Dead, the, good luck brought by, i. 198.

Dionysos, ii. 217; and the panther, 160.

Dioskuroi, i. 304, 305; the legend of, 318.

Dîrghatamas, i. 84, 85.

Dog, the, and cat, ii. 56, 57.

Dolphin, the, ii. 351.

Dominic, St, and the dog, ii. 40.

Domitian and the astrologer, ii. 39.

Dove, in the Rigvedas, ii. 297; Agnis as, 297; Moses and the flesh of, 297; self-sacrificing, 297; and the ant, 298; stories of the maiden (and prince) transformed into, 298; story of the twelve sons changed into, 298, 299; of the prince and servants changed into, 299-301; the two, and Gennariello, 300-302; the funereal, 303; as announcer of the resurrection, 304; the daughters of Anius changed into, 304; the two, and Little Mary, 304; and Zezolla, 305; doves and the rosebush-maiden, 305; Peristera changed into, 305; and Venus, 305; the laughing, 306; and Aspasia, 306; infidelity of, 306.

Drinking, trial of, i. 206.

Drusilla, Livia, and the white hen, ii. 196.

Duck, swan, or goose, the, Agnis as, ii. 307; the Marutas, and the horses of the Açvinâu as, 307; and golden egg, 308; the sun as, 309; in the lake, 309; the white, and her three sons, 311; death of, 311; that lays a golden and a silver egg, 311, 312.

Drunkenness, and madness, ii. 348, 349.

Dundus, i. 75, 76.

Dundubhis, the cloud-monster, i. 75.

Eagle, the, and Zeus, ii. 195-197; and the classic heroes, 196; the Hellenic, 196; and Aphroditê, 197.

Earrings, theft and recovery of the, of Karnas, i. 80, 81.

Eel, the, as phallical, sacrificial, and divine, ii. 341; proverbs about, 341; eating, 342; with two heads and two tails, 342; transformation into a fountain and an, 343; the maiden changed into an, 343; and monster-serpent, 343; diabolical, 344; the epic exploit, 344.

Eggs, hatching of, and thunder, ii. 281; worship of, 291; the golden, 292; beginning with, 292, 293.

Elephant and the hare, ii. 77; mythical qualities of, 91; general mythical significance, 92; Airavanas, 92; the white, overcome by the monkey, 93; in the lake, 93; that supports the world, 92, 93, 95; and the tortoise, 93-95; the Vedic, 94.

Emilius, the lazy, and the grateful pike, i. 195-198.

Empusa, i. 367.

Endymion, i. 429.

Epics, the, killing of the serpent the theme of all, ii. 392.

Eros as a fish, ii. 340.

Esmeralda and Quasimodo, loves of, i. 421.

Eulenspiegel, ii. 246.

Eurôpê, i. 264, 265, 272.

Exchanges, tales of unfortunate, i. 176.

Farquhar II., death of, ii. 14.

Fecundity, symbols of, i. 49.

Feridun, episode of old age of, i. 111.

Finger, the knowing little, i. 166; Small Little, story of, ii. 151, 152.

Finns, the, the epopee of, i. 150.

Firefly, the, ii. 212, 213.

Firud, i. 117.

Fish, the laughing, i. 249; symbolic meaning of, 249; the April, 250; and the man's seed, 250; celestial metamorphosis into, ii. 331; become a stone, 331; laughing, 333; Alexander and the, 333; the little gold, 334; Vishnus as a, 334, 335; [Pg 435]and Aphroditê, 340; phallical, 341; wise and stupid, 349; and the ring, 350; the heroic, 350, 351; and pearl, 352; sacred, 353.

Fly, the, and bear, ii. 221; and ant, 222.

Flies, ii. 221.

Fleece, the golden, i. 146, 429.

Flute, the magic, i. 161, 195.

Fool, the fortunate, i. 195; the would-be, fortune-making, i. 240.

Fox, the, and the bear, ii. 113; mythical significance, 122; and jackal, 123; double aspect of legendary, 123, 124; the wolf and honey, 128, 129; and the old man whose wife is dead, 129, 130; as weeper, 130; and tail, 131; and four hungry animals, 131; the hungry, and bird, 131; and wolf, 132, 133; and lost girl, 133; and the cheese, 133; as go-between, 134; and Buhtan, 134, 135; and Cosimo, 135; and hare, 136, 137; and cock, 137, 138; knaveries and cunning, 139; and other animals, 139, 140; the sick, and lion, 140; human antitype, 140; Lycaon, 147.

Formicola, Captain, and the shepherd's son, ii. 45.

Freya, i. 212; the foot of, 253.

Frog, the, and mouse, ii. 71, 72.

Frogs, the, in the sky, ii. 373; imitating the sounds of, 373; and the serpent or heron, 374; in the 103d hymn of the Rigvedas, 374; and Indras and Zeus, 374; and the moon, 375-377; the dumb, 375; and Proserpina, 375; and serpent, 376; and rook, 376; the diabolical, 376, 377; two dragons in the form of, 377; the maiden changed into, 377-379.

Gahs, the, i. 98.

Galanthis, ii. 53.

Galathea, i. 421, 422.

Gandhamâdanas mountains, i. 52, 55.

Gandharvas, the, i. 52, 53, 149, 160, 311; appetites of, 365, 367, 369, 370, 379.

Ganeças, ii. 68.

Gangâ, the nymph, i. 68.

Ganges, the, ii. 308.

Ganymede, rape of, ii. 196.

Garatkarus, the wise, i. 68, 69.

Gardabhas, i. 365, 369.

Gargantua, at birth, i. 259.

Garudas, the bird, and elephant, ii. 94, 95; and the monsters, 184; and the birds, 245, 363.

Gâtâyus, the omniscient vulture, ii. 185.

Gazelle, the misleading, ii. 84.

Gefion, voyage of, i. 222.

Gemshid, legend of, i. 95.

Geneviève, the Persian, i. 121, 219.

Gennariello and Milluccio, ii. 300-302.

Geusurva, the, i. 98, 99.

Gerion, the oxen of, i. 273, 277.

Ghoshâ, the leprous, ii. 3, 5.

Giant-monster, the, and dwarf, i. 148, 149.

Giovannino, the fearless, i. 202, 388.

Girl, the, persecuted, i. 121; affianced to three, 123; in the chest, Calmuc story of, 131; seven years old, Esthonian story of, 153; wise, of the wood, 154; the poor, and the lady of the waters (Esth.), 154; the beautiful, and the witch, 218.

Giuseppe, the boy, and the ant's leg, ii. 45, 46.

Gnat, the, ii. 221.

Goat, the, triple aspect of, i. 401; the cloud as, 402; the he-, 402, 403; Açvinâu as, 403; and apple-tree, 405; and walnut-tree, 405; kids of, and wolf, 406, 407; revenge of the goat, 406, 407; mythical meaning, 407; he-, and merchant's daughter, 410; the sacrificed he-, 415, 416; as all-seeing, 418; with seven eyes, 419; with twelve eyes, 419; constellation of the, 421; as rain-bringing, 421; milk of the, 421, 424; blood of the he-, 422; stones, 422; sacrifice of he-, 423; cunning of the she-, 424; the witch and the boy goatherds, 425; and the peasants of Sicily, 426; and the goatherd of Val di Formazza, 426; and the god Thor, 426; in the Scandinavian mythology, 427; the horned, 427, 428; lust of, 427, 428; in Greek mythology, 428.

Gods, the cheating of, i. 44, 45.

Gold, hand of, ii. 32.

Goose, the, and pearl, ii. 309; the miraculous, 312; foot of, 315; the disenchanted, 315; eating of, on St Michael's Day, 316.

Gorgons, the, ii. 9.

Godiva, the Mongol, i. 138.

Grasshopper, the, the wedding of, with the ant, ii. 48, 49; as diviner, 48; song of the wedding, 49.

Griffins, the, ii. 204, 205.

Gudrun, i. 226.

Guhas, i. 58.

Guhas, King, ii. 333.

Halcyon, the, phallical nature of, ii. 269; the Greek, 270.

Hansas, the, ii. 306, 307, 309.

Hanumant in quest of the herb of health, i. 52, 57-59, 61, 64, 78, 89; the monkey, ii. 101, 106.

Haoma, the ambrosial god, i. 97, 104.

Harayas and Haritas, i. 376.

Hare, the mythical, ii. 76; habitat and king, 76; and the elephant, 77; and hungry lion, 77; and the lion, 78; and dying eagle, 78; and cave of the wild beasts, 79; and lamb, 79; transfigured by Indras, 79; and parturition, 80; that sleeps with eyes open, 80; and bear, 81; and a wedding procession, 81; and the girl that rides on it, 82.

Hariçcandras, i. 69-72.

Haris and hari, meanings of, i. 376; ii. 99, 320.

[Pg 436]Harpies, the, ii. 201, 202.

Hawk, mythical meaning of, ii. 192, 193; as a badge of knighthood, 193; sacredness of, 193; and Attila, 194; and the Greek gods, 194; superstitious beliefs about, 194.

Heads, exchange of, i. 303, 304.

Health, herb of, i. 52-54; Gandharvas, guardians of, 53.

Heaven, cup of, i. 8; battle in, 10, 11.

Hedgehog and wolf, ii. 11, 12.

Helen, the Argive, i. 170, 212; ii. 318.

Hen, the crowing, ii. 284, 285; dreaming of the brood of the, 288.

Herakles and Augeias, i. 143; and Cacus, 232, 235, 266, 267; and the golden cup, 273; and the oxen of Gerion, 277; competes with the he-goat, 428; and the boar, ii. 9.

Hermes and Admetos, i. 279; and Sârameyas, ii. 22.

Hermits, the dwarf, ii. 364.

Hero, the solar, riddle of, as a wonderful cowherd, i. 29; maiden helper, 209; concealed, 237; in the night, 326; saved by a tree, 334, 335.

Heroes, the, hunger and thirst of, i. 8; chief arena of, 15; weapons of, 62; mountain of, 97; biblical, 118; disguise of, ii. 2; noises at the birth of, 373.

Heroines, perverted, i. 211, 212.

Hesperides, garden of the, i. 274; ii. 410, 418.

Hippolytos, the legend of, i. 345.

Hippomenes and Atalanta, ii. 159.

Hog, as guise of the hero, ii. 2; the skin of, 5; bristles of, 5; dedicated to St Anthony, 6; lust of, 6; as Vishnus, 7, 8; and wolf, 11.

Holda, the dark, i. 251, 252.

Hoopoe, the, ii. 230.

Horse, the, of the sun, i. 290, 291; black, 291, 292, 295; the three, 291, 296; tail and mane, 295; and the cat, 317; the myth of, 330, 331; fat of, 332; the strength of Indras, 336; the symbolic meaning of head of, 339; the hero's, 340; binding of, 341; the neighing of, 346, 347; tears of, 349, 350; mythical, 349; the foam of, 352; the hoofs of, 353, 354; and the gods, 355.

Husband, the wicked, i. 124.

Husbands, exchange of, i. 317.

Idol, the wooden, Æsop's fable of, i. 177.

Ichneumon, the, ii. 51-53.

Iliad, the, most solemn moment of, i. 16.

Ilvalas and Vâtâpis, legend of, i. 414.

Indras, the rôle of, i. 7, 15; appetite and food, 8; horns of the bull, 9; as the fire-god Agnis, 10; his fields of battle, 12, 15; great exploits of, 12; threefold victory, 13, 14; weapons of, 14; companion of Somas, 18, 19; the triple, 20; moments of, 20, 23; special function, 27; relations to the aurora, 27; and the blind lame one, 32; destroyer of the witch Aurora, 33; lover of the aurora, 35; personified in Râmas, 59-61; slays Viçvarûpas, 76; fall of, 76; protector of Utankas, 80, 81; transformation, 89; quarrel of, with the Marutas, 106; horses of, 351; as a ram, 403; with the thousand eyes, 418; the rudder of, ii. 7; as a wild boar, 8; and the dwarf hermits, 95; and Vishnus, 99, 100; and the monkeys, 101; and Vritras, 154, 155; deprived of strength and beauty, 155; as a hawk, 181; and Ahalyâ, 280, 281, 330; impotent, 326; unchaining the waters, 330; drunk, 349; and the monster, 393, 394; killing the monster, 394, 395.

Indus, i. 18.

Io, i. 264, 265, 271, 272.

Iphiklos, ii. 198, 199.

Isfendiar, seven adventures of, i. 118.

Iskander, legend of, i. 119.

Ivan, three essays of, i. 301, 302; (and Mary), with horse, dog, and apple-tree, ii. 28; resuscitated, 29; the three, sons respectively of the bitch, the cook, and the queen, 29; and the ring, 345; and his frog-bride, story of, 377-379.

Ivan Tzarević and the serpent, i. 177; and Helen and the bear, 178; and Princess Mary, 179-182; and the demoniacal cow, 181; and the magic apples, 182; and the witch in the balance, 183; and the hero Nikanore, 184; and the theft of the black bull, 186; son of the black girl, 188; and his brothers, killing the serpents, 191; and the rescue of the three sisters, 194; of the dog, 194; the drinker, 194; and the dead body of his mother, 198, 199; courage of, 201; variations of, 202-204; horse of, 340.

Ivan Durak and the humpbacked horse, i. 293, 294; and the fire-breathing grey horse, 296; who, mounted, three times kisses the princess through twelve glasses, 297.

Ivanushka and little Helen, i. 409.

Jack and the beanstalk, i. 244.

Jackal and the ass, i. 378; the perfidious, ii. 125; friend of the hero, 125; in borrowed feathers, 126; the, inquisitive and vile, 126; and the parrots, 127.

Joan lou Pec, i. 397.

John, little, and his red shoes, i. 195, 196.

Johnny and the goose-swans, ii. 309, 310.

Jonah (the Hindoo), ii. 337.

Jorsh, the, ii. 336-345; trial by the fishes of, 346-349; and Reinecke Fuchs, 348.

Julius Cæsar, horse of, i. 338, 350.

Jupiter Ammon, i. 429.

Kabandhas, the monster, i. 62-64.

Kaçapas, the, ii. 362.

Kaçyapas, the fecundator, ii. 364.

Kadmos, i. 265, 272.

Kai Khosru, the hero, i. 117, 118.

[Pg 437]Kan Pudai, Altaic story of, i. 144, 145.

Kapilas, ravisher of the sacrificial horse, i. 331.

Kapis, ii. 98, 99.

Katoma and the hero's horse, i. 340, 341.

Kâuçalyâ, i. 332.

Kawus, King, i. 112, 113, 115, 116.

Kentaurs, the, i. 367-369.

Ker Iupta and the third brother, i. 290.

Kereçâçpa, the Persian hero, i. 106, 108; myth of, 313, 314, 335.

King's son, the, and the peasant girl, i. 163-166.

Kishmar, cypress of, i. 96.

Krimhilt, i. 212.

Krishnas, celebration of birth of, i. 51; father of, 75.

Kruth, the bird, and tortoise, ii. 369, 370.

Kuhn, A., i. 263.

Kumbhakarnas, the monster, ii. 400, 401.

Lakshmanas, i. 55; and Râmas, 62, 63, 66, 77; ii. 85.

Lame, the, and the blind, i. 217.

Lapillus Alectorius, ii. 287.

Lanka, three brothers of, i. 77.

Lark, the, in cosmogony, ii. 273, 274; and St Christopher, 274; the crested, 275; Bharadvâǵas, 275.

Leaf, the magic, i. 155, 156.

Lear, King, in embryo, i. 85; ii. 230.

Lêda, ii. 185.

Lion, the, and the bull, i. 278; (and tiger) symbol of strength and majesty, ii. 153; Indras as a, 154; virtue of hair of, 155; lion's share, 156; -sun, the western, 157; sign of, 159; Androcles and, 157; the Nemæan, 158; afraid of the cock, 159.

Lizard, the, as witch, ii. 385; as omen, 385; the little, 385; the green, 386, 387; and poor Laric, 387.

Locust, the nocturnal, ii. 47.

Lohengrin and Elsa, the legend of, ii. 317-319.

Loki, i. 226, 227; and the pike, ii. 333, 334.

Louse, the, stories of, ii. 222.

Lucìa, St, the Vedic, i. 36, 254; feast of, ii. 210.

Lucius, of Apuleius, i. 366.

Lunus, i. 58; the god, 139, 324.

Lynx, the, ii. 54.

Madonna the old, and the maiden who combs her head, i. 180.

Magician, the, of the seven heads, ii. 36.

Magpie, the, in mythology, ii. 258, 259; as a robber, 259; knowledge and malice of, 259; bird of omen, 260.

Mahâbhâratam, the, most solemn moments of, i. 16.

Mahrusa, i. 125.

Maiden, the enchanted, and her hair, i. 146; Esthonian story of the prince and persecuted, 151-153; and the golden slipper, 208; that by a puppet weaves a shirt for a prince, 208; the, and the apple-tree, 251; the fairies' favourite, and the enchanted prince, ii. 286, 287.

Man and woman, the old, with the nine cows, i. 132, 133; the old, who essays heaven in vain with his wife, 190; and the cabbage, beanstalk, &c., 190, 191; the old, and the beanstalk, 243.

Man-bull, Calmuc tale of, i. 129.

Mandaras, the, ii. 361, 362.

Manus, ii. 248; and Vishnus as a fish, 335.

Mansûr, i. 315.

Marcellus, St, the legend of, ii. 159.

Mare's head and the two girls, i. 298.

Mârǵâras, ii. 42, 43.

Marîças, the stag, i. 64; ii. 85.

Mars and the wild boar, ii. 14.

Martin, St, and birds of, ii. 270.

Marutas, or winds, i. 5-7, 10, 12; kindred of, 17, 59; ii. 7; horses of, 83, 84; as monkeys, 99.

Marziella and the geese, ii. 313.

Mary and the cow's ear, and the step-mother with three daughters, i. 179-182; little, and the slipper, 196, 197.

Matsyâs, the, ii. 332.

Mâyâvin, the monster, i. 313.

Max Müller, i. 262, 263; and the panegyric of the frogs, ii. 371, 372.

Medea, of the Vedas, i. 33, 35.

Medea, i. 212.

Medusa, i. 305.

Menas, ii. 87.

Merchant, synonymous with miser, i. 184; son of the, who transforms himself into a horse, 342; the, and his three daughters, 410.

Mercury, i. 335; legend of, ii. 23.

Merdi Gânbâz, the faithful, i. 120.

Merhuma, the story of, i. 120, 121, 315.

Merula, the fish, ii. 340.

Metempsychosis, ii. 328.

Mice and the dead, ii. 67; apparitions of, 67; men transformed into, 67; presages from, 67, 68; and lion and elephant, 68; war of, with the frogs, 72.

Michael, St, i. 183.

Midas, myth of (the Mongolian), i. 381; (the Phrygian), 382, 383; as musical critic, 385; ears of, 386; as a miser, 389; the progenitor and judge, 390.

Milky-sea, the, i. 52; -way, the, 228.

Millstone, the devil under the, i. 114.

Milôn of Kroton, ii. 113, 147.

Minotaurus, the Calmuc, i. 129, 265.

Minućehr, the hero, i. 112.

Mithra, the solar god, i. 95, 102, 103; bow of, 107.

Mitras, the sun, a witch at a riddle, i. 30, 31, 52.

Mole, the, ii. 73, 74.

Monkey, original home of myth of, ii. 97; equivalents, 97, 98; and Vishnus, 99; mythical significations, 99; king of, 100, 101; Hanumant, 101-106; mistaken for a man, 103; [Pg 438]tail of, 107; divination from, 107; and Jove, 108; as stupid, 108; musician, 119.

Monster, the celestial, i. 10, 12; subdued by Indras, 12-14; that keeps back the waters, ii. 393; killing of, 394, 395; and the egg of the duck, 395; the eggs of, 396; the aquatic, 404.

Moon, the mythical nature and office of, i. 18; as a pearl, 54; as a good fairy, 56, 57; as a bull, 58; Indian, ii. 87.

Mother of gold and her three dwarf sons, i. 153; story of the, who recovers her hands and son by throwing her arms into a fountain, ii. 31; and the hands of gold, 31.

Mouse, transformed by the penitent into a beautiful maiden, ii. 65, 66; and the mountain, 66; and maiden, 69; the grateful, 70; and sparrow, 70, 71; the, Psicharpax, 71.

Muses, the, and the bee, ii. 223.

Mûsh (mûshas, &c.), ii. 43.

Music in the heavens, sorrow-inspired, i. 149.

Mythology, the Greek, i. 262; mobile nature of the objects of, 319, 320; allegorical treatment of, 421; a Semitic, ii. 412; the science of, 422; principal error in the scientific study of, 422, 423; concord of the learned in, 423; way to study, 424; animal, 425; product of imagination, 427.

Myths, the central interest and most splendid moments of, i. 15, 16; development of objects in the, into personalities with relationships, 320, 321; the negative as a factor in the formation of, 322; the uncertain subjective in, 323; entrance of variety into, 324; interpretation of, 323-326.

Nakulas, i. 311; ii. 43, 51, 52.

Nalas, ii. 404.

Neptune, i. 430.

Netherworld, the, ii. 403.

Nibelungen, the, most solemn moments of, i. 16, 257.

Night and the aurora, i. 36, 37.

Nightingale, as prognosticator, ii. 236; whistling of, 237; propitious to lovers, 239.

Nisos and Scylla, ii. 197.

Noah, the Vedic, ii. 335.

Nose, the bleeding, Calmuc story of, i. 131.

Nükteus, ii. 246, 247.

Numbers, sacred, i. 6, 76, 77; ii. 416.

Odin, i. 224, 226, 227.

Odysseus, i. 266.

Oidin-oidon, i. 398, 399.

Okeanos, the bull-headed, i. 267.

Onokentaurs, i. 367-369.

Orpheus, i. 149, 160.

Otter, the monster, ii. 391.

Owl, the, as the bird of death, ii. 244; as an evil genius, 244; and vulture, 244, 245; and the crows, 245, 246; cunning, 246; and Athênê, 247; eggs of, 247; the male, 247, 248; prophetic faculty of, 249; horned, 249, 250.

Ox, the speaking, i. 247; and Zeus, 248; as priest, 258.

Pallas and the war of the frogs and mice, ii. 72; and the crow, 254.

Pan and Midas, i. 385; and the ass, 387, 391; god of shepherds, 387; at Marathon, 389, 428, 429.

Panayas, the, ii. 19, 20.

Pândavas, the five brothers, i. 77-79.

Pandora, i. 34.

Pandus, ii. 84.

Paravriǵ, the blind-lame, i. 32.

Parîkshit, King, ii. 84.

Parrot, the, myth of, ii. 320; and the colour haris, 321; as çukas, 321; lunar character of, 322; as counsellor, 322.

Partridge, the devil as, ii. 227; Talaus changed into, 228; and peasant, 228.

Pasiphaë, myth of, i. 237, 266.

Peacock, the mythical equivalents of, ii. 323; the hiding of, 324; as rival of the cuckoo, 324; and dove, 324; Indras as, 325, 326; feather of, and the younger brother, 325; tail of, 326, 327; as a symbol of immortality, 327.

Pearl, the ambrosial, i. 54.

Peasant, riddle-solving, i. 142.

Pêgasos, and Hippocrene, i. 176, 291, 305, 338.

Penelope, i. 428; and he-goat, ii. 163.

Pepin, the times of, i. 252; King, 255, 256.

Peirithoos and Trikerberos, ii. 39.

Perrault, story of, i. 367.

Perrette, the Calmuc, i. 134, 135.

Peter, St, and the dog, ii. 27.

Phaethôn, i. 277; the bull, 277, 343, 344.

Phalaris, the bull, i. 239.

Phineus, ii. 74.

Phrixos and Helle, the Russian, i. 409, 429.

Phœnix, the, mythical significance of, ii. 200, 201; death of, 200.

Piçâcâs, the ass, i. 375, 376.

Piccolino, ii. 151.

Picus, King, ii. 265, 266.

Pike, the luminous, ii. 334; the brown, 337, 338; and Emilius, 338; the phallical, 339; and crab and heron, 339; drunk, 349.

Pimpi, the stupid, and the hog, ii. 10.

Pipetta and the sackful of souls, i. 388.

Pipkin, the miraculous, i. 126; the stories of, 243-245.

Piran and Pilsem, i. 314.

Poem, an epic, i. 141.

Polyphêmos, i. 266.

Porcupine, the, ashes and quills of, ii. 12, 13.

Pork, virtues of, ii. 10, 11.

[Pg 439]Porringer, the enchanted, i. 126.

Portugal, third son of the King of, and the dragons, ii. 187-189.

Poseidôn, i. 266.

Praǵâpatis, i. 47.

Pretiosa, disguised as a bear, ii. 117.

Priapos, i. 394, 396; and Silenos, 384.

Priçnayas, the, i. 6, 16, 17.

Prince, the, and princess of the bird's egg, i. 170; who three times wins the race, 291; and enchanted mantle, 411.

Princess, three-breasted, i. 86, 122; in the chest, Celtic story of, 241; and the pups, 412.

Proserpina, the Teutonic, i. 252, 260.

Proverb, the, of shutting the stable after the cow is stolen, i. 231; of shutting Peppergate, 231; recovering the cow's tail, 232; of the cow's tail wagging but never falling, 234; of the egg-hatching cow, 238; of the cow and the hare, of the cow and the moon, 241, 242; of hunting by blowing a horn, 242; of the blind cow finding the pea, 243; of the laughing cow, 245; of the spinning cow, 250, 251; of the cow-maid that spins, 250.

Proverbs, German, relating to the cow, i. 229; mythical, 230, 231.

Puppets, the three, i. 207.

Purse, the enchanted, i. 126.

Purûravas, myth of, i. 67.

Pûrus, i. 84.

Pûshan, i. 409.

Pyramos and Thysbe, ii. 157.

Pythagoras once a peacock, ii. 327; the belief of, 328.

Quail, the, in Rigvedas, ii. 276; as symbol of the Tzar, 276; and Hercules and Latona, 277; and moon, 277; the game of, 277; as a bird of omen, 277, 278.

Queen, the blinded, and her servant, i. 218, 219.

Queen-mother, the, and her wicked sister, i. 412.

Rahus, ii. 252.

Râkâ, i. 50, 56.

Ram, the rain-cloud as a, i. 402; Indras, 403; Indras and testicles of, 414; devourer of, 415.

Râmas, the sun, i. 55, 57-59; alter ego of Indras, 59-62; and Lakshmanas, 63, 77, 311, 312, 315; ii. 24, 85; and Kabandhas, i. 64-66, 81, 86; and Bharatas, 374.

Râmâyanam, the, most solemn moments of, i. 16.

Râvanas, the monster, i. 76, 77; asses of, 375.

Rebhas, i. 299.

Reinardus Vulpes, ii. 141.

Renart, Procession du, ii. 140, 141.

Resurrection, offerings symbolic, of, i. 48, 49; faith in, 339.

Rhodopê and her slipper, ii. 197.

Ribhavas, the brothers, work and workmanship of, i. 20, 21, 46; names and relationships, 21, 22; identification with Indras as Agohyas, 22; the third of, 20-26; in Hindoo tradition, 25; protectors of the cow, 27; and the evening aurora, 33; the three, in search of the earrings, 79, 81, 125.

Riddles, propounding, i. 82, 102, 112; solving of, 143; identification by solving, 206, 207.

Riǵrâçvas, the red horse, i. 415, 417.

Rigvedas, the, i. 4, 40; 28th hymn of 10th book, ii. 77, 78; the 103d hymn of, 371-373.

Rikshas, ii. 98.

Ring of recognition, i. 55; of Dushyantas, ii. 350.

Rocco, San, and dog, ii. 27.

Rohitas, i. 69-72.

Romeo and Juliet, i. 125.

Romulus, i. 118; and Remus, ii. 177.

Round table, the, poems of, i. 257.

Rudras, i. 5, 47, 89; ii. 7.

Rustem, the myth of, i. 112-116; and the ass, 379; horse of, and the lion, 380.

Sack, the, the hero in, i. 237, 239, 240; the dwarf in, 238; and the hero cut in pieces, 295.

Sailors, the, saved in the buffalo's hide, i. 239.

Saints, i. 355, 356.

Sal, the hero, i. 112.

Salamander, the, ii. 380.

Sampo, the Finnish cup of abundance, i. 150.

Samson, i. 236; the Hindoo, ii. 104-107; and the lion, 154-156.

Samvaranas, i. 86, 87.

Saramâ, i. 57, 58, 97; and the Panayas, ii. 19-22; and the cows in the rock, 19; impersonation of the moon, 21; sons of, 22; and Sarameyas, 24.

Sarameyas, ii. 22-24.

Savitar, i. 54, 65.

Saranyû, i. 347.

Schmierbock, the cunning, i. 413, 416; ii. 151.

Schwanritter, the, ii. 319.

Scylla, ii. 34.

Sea-urchin, the, ii. 336, 350.

Sefid, the demon, i. 113.

Selênê, ii. 217.

Serpent, as the privileged demoniac form, ii. 389; tail of, as betraying the devil, 389; the devil, and the young widow, 389; -devil, and the waters, 390; the killing of, the theme of all epics, 392; in the Rigvedas, 393-396; that bites its tail, 396; Agnis as, 397; Indras, the Marutas, 397; the wisdom of, 397; and the Somas, 397, 398; the phallical, 399; Anantas, 399; Vasukis, 400; and the cloud-monster, 400, 401; the funereal, 401, 402; -rope, of Yamas, 402; collar of, 402; [Pg 440]and Sîtâ, 402; and riches, 403; and the lower world, 403; Karkotakas, and Nalas, 405; and hunter, 405; as a wise magician, 405; the crested, 406; three-headed, 406; skin and tongue of, 407; and lost riches and the dead, 407; the white, 407; worship of, 408; and children, 408; and the heads of the family, 408; and the tree, 409; and moon, 410; tree guarded by a, 410; symbol of, 411; the, in the Persian mythology, 412, 417; the Çruvara, 412, 413; the breath of, 413; and frog, 414; the two talking, 415, 416; the three headed, 416; fairy, and three gifts, 417; and king who has betrayed the maiden, 417; the sleeping, with eyes open, 417; and the king's daughter, 418; as whistler, 419.

Sheep, the, triple aspect of, i. 401.

Shepherd's son, ii. 45; and Giuseppe, 45.

Shepherdess, the, who proves herself a queen, i. 209-211.

Siddhi-Kûr, stories of, i. 120; Mongol and Calmuc stories of, 128-135.

Sîfrit, i. 213, 214; and Brünhilt, 329, 330; horse of, 339.

Sijavush, i. 116.

Simurg, the bird, and the child Sal, ii. 188, 189.

Sirens, the, i. 149, 205, 206.

Sister, triple, i. 85.

Sisters, the three, i. 105; Calmuc story of, 130.

Sîtâ, the dawn, i. 26, 55-60, 62, 65, 66; fire sacrifice of, 67, 69; and Saramâ, ii. 21; and the serpents, 403.

Sky, the glowing, a fire, i. 69; stone of, 96; by night, ii. 167; winged animals of, 168.

Slipper, the lost, i. 31; enchanted, 126; origin of throwing the, 196.

Snail, the, ii. 74, 75.

Sohrab, son of Rustem, i. 114, 115.

Solabella and her seven brothers, ii. 314.

Solomon, ring of, and the hero, i. 167; story of the ring of, ii. 175.

Somas, the, i. 8, 18; as a bull, and a stallion, 19, 104.

Son, the, who sacrifices his mother, i. 124.

Sons, three, rape and restoration of the, ii. 57; transformation of, into doves, 57.

Sperm as ambrosia, ii. 181.

Spider, the, and its web, ii. 161, 163, 165; and the wasp, 164.

Squirrel, the, and fox, ii. 73; in the Edda, 73.

St James's Way, i. 422; Day, 422, 423, 430.

Stag, the mythical, ii. 83; the golden, 85; the hero, 86; at the fountain, 86; Eikthyrner, 87; and Telephos, 88; as nourisher of heroes, 88; silver images of, in churches, 88; disguise of, 88, 89.

Stone, mountain of, i. 314; the man turned to, ii. 285.

Stork, the, and heron, ii. 261; and children, 261; mythical meaning of, 261; and the old man, 262; and the peasant, 262.

Strix, the, ii. 202, 203.

Stymphalian, the, birds, ii. 204.

Styx, the, i. 390.

Sudabe, i. 116.

Sudeshnâ, Queen, i. 85.

Sugrîvas, ii. 109.

Sun, the, as a god, i. 7; as a bull, 8; relations of, to aurora, 27; as a cowherd, 29; child of night and aurora, 37; the, in relation to the aurora, 27; as a lame hero, 31, 32; persecuted by, and persecutor of, the aurora, 33; as born of aurora, 51; the pearl, 54; and the aurora, 56, 65; and moon, 65; light of the, and Ssaran, intrigue of, 138; firing at, 344; the, in the cloud, 394.

Sundas and Upasundas, the inseparable, i. 310.

Sunlight and Moonlight, i. 315, 316.

Superlatif, i. 259.

Suramâ, i. 57, 58.

Sûryâ, i. 65; husband of, 307.

Svaçvas, i. 343.

Svetazor and his brothers, i. 192-194.

Swallows as birds of omen, ii. 240; the seven, and Sigurd, 240; and the Lord, 240; of good augury, 240; and the crow, 241; and swan, 241; as babblers, 241; dreaming of, 241.

Swan, the, and the prince, ii, 311; hero as or on, 316.

Swineherd, the, and the hogs' tails, i. 234.

Sword, the enchanted, i. 126.

Tail, the, value of recovering, i. 235, 237; the fox's, 236.

Takshakas, king of serpents, i. 80, 81.

Tapatî, legend of the loves of, i. 86, 87.

Tâtos, the Hungarian horse, i. 288, 296.

Tehmime and Rustem, i. 114.

Telephos and the stag, ii. 88.

Tereus, the myth of, ii. 229.

Theodore, the hero, i. 296.

Thief and the pigs, i. 200, 201; the, in the myths, 333.

Thomas, little, and the priest's horse, i. 234; the ass, 362.

Thor, and the serpent of Midgard, i. 225; his appetite, 226; and the goat, 426; the vessel of, 426; ii. 6.

Thraetaona, i. 101, 103-106.

Three, the number, ii. 416.

Thrita, i. 103-105.

Thunder, son of, thunder-god and devil, story of, i. 159, 160.

Thunderbolt, the, i. 9, 14; symbolic meaning, 250.

Tiger, tail of, ii. 160.

[Pg 441]Tistar, i. 98.

Toad, the, as demon and as a diabolic form, ii. 379; the maiden changed into, 379, 380; fortune-bringing, 380; sacredness of, 381; and the third daughter, 381; -births, 383; the dried, as an amulet, 384; the -stone, 384.

Tom, little, blind of an eye, and his brothers, i. 335, 336.

Tortoise and the elephant, ii. 93-95; the incarnation of Vishnus as a, 360-362; originally, 361; names of, 361, 362; and mountain, 362; and elephant, 363-364; the funereal, 365; buried, 365; blood of, 365; and frogs, 366; changed into the lyre, 366; the shields of, 366; and Zeus, 366, 367; and new-born children, 367; mythical meaning, 368; German legend of, 368; the island, 368; and the hare, 369; and the eagle, 369; and the bird Kruth, 369, 370.

Tree, the ambrosial, guarded by a dragon, ii. 410, 411.

Triçankus, i. 72-74.

Triçiras, i. 76, 77.

Trigatâ, i. 57.

Trinity, Indian, dispute for pre-eminence, ii. 8.

Tritas, i. 8; horse of, 23; character and relationships, 23; why called stupid, 23; in the well, 24, 25; and his brothers, 25.

Turn-little-Pea and his brothers, story of, i. 191, 192.

Tuti-Name, the, i. 119.

Tvashtar, i. 21, 34; the Hindoo Vulcan, ii. 154, 155.

Twilights, the two, i. 18, 27.

Tyrant, the, and the bleating lamb, i. 416, 417.

Tzarevic, Ivan, and his Medea sister Helen, i. 212-214; and his penitent sister, 214-216; and his perfidious mother, 216; and his perfidious wife, 216, 217; and his wife Anna, 217.

Uccaihçravas, the horse, i. 288, 289.

Uddâlakas, i. 80.

Ukko, the Finnic thunder-god, i. 147.

Upamanyus, i. 79.

Ursula, St, ii. 118.

Urvaçi, the myth of, i. 39, 67, 84, 170, 273, 365, 369.

Ushâ, i. 26.

Utankas, myth of, i. 80, 81, 95, 331, 333.

Vadhrimatî, ii. 32.

Väinämöinen, dwarf-god, i. 147, 148; harp of, 149.

Valkyries, the, and their swan forms, ii. 315.

Valmîkam, ii. 43.

Vamrî, ii. 43.

Vamras, ii. 44.

Varunas, i. 52, 69-72, 107.

Vasavas, the, i. 68.

Vasishtas, cow of, i. 72-74, 87, 88; vain attempt at self-destruction, 88, 99.

Valas, the grotto of, i. 13; as a cow, 15.

Vâyus, i. 5-7.

Vedas, i. 80.

Vegetables, as symbols of generation, i. 164.

Veretraghna, the bull, i. 103, 104.

Vespasian and the horse's dung, i. 389.

Vesta, i. 384.

Viçvamitras, myth of, i. 72-74, 88.

Viçvarûpas, with the three heads, i. 76.

Vikramâdityas, the history of, i. 136, 137.

Vishnus, i. 20, 24, 26, 54, 57; personified in Ramâs, 59; three steps of, 301, 302, 334; as a wild boar, ii. 8, 9; and Hiranyakshas, 8; and the monkeys, 99, 100; as haris, 424.

Vivasvant, i. 34.

Vouru-Kasha, sea of, i. 96.

Vulcan, the Vedic, i. 21; the Christian, ii. 40.

Vulnerability of the hero or monster, i. 82.

Vulture, the, in the classics, ii. 198; feathers of, 198; and the immortal liver, 198; voracity, 199.

Vultures, the twin, ii. 184.

Walchelm, the priest, i. 293.

Walnut-tree, and goat, i. 405.

Wasp, wisdom of, ii. 221.

Way, the Milky, i. 421; and she-goat, 422.

Weasel, the, ii. 52, 53.

Wedding-ring, the, i. 169.

Whale, the mythical, ii. 337; and the fleet, 345.

Wife, the, and the bewitching voice, i. 137.

Willimar and his vow, i. 356.

Wind, Persian god of, i. 105.

Winds, the, as bulls, i. 7, 12.

Wise men, the seven (Angirasas), i. 17, 28.

Wolf, the, and goat's kids, i. 406, 407; mythical meaning of, 408; the monster, 408; the, and the devotee, ii. 142; impersonations of, 142; and dog, 143; heroic forms of, 144; the she-wolf, 144; transformation into, 145; sent by God as instrument of vengeance, 146; hide and teeth of, 146, 147; the demoniacal, 147; as omen of death, 147; Sköll and Hati, 147; disguises of, 147-149.

Woman, made of wood, story of, i. 137; the old, and her older sister, ii. 6.

Women, knowledge of, i. 246, 247.

Woodman and painter, the, Calmuc story of, i. 130.

Woodpecker, the mythical meaning of, ii. 265; and King Picus, 265; beak of, 267; and Beowulf, 267; of evil omen, 267, 268; and dog, 268, 269.

Wren, the, in mythology, ii. 207; and the eagle, 208; and beetle, 208; [Pg 442]and death of Cæsar, 209.

Yamas, i. 23, 71, ii. 25; kingdom of, 48, 49; son of, 78, 95, 107.

Yayâtis and the girl in the well, i. 83, 84.

Yggdrasil and the four stags, ii. 87.

Ysengrin, the wolf, ii. 141, 149.

Yudhishthiras, i. 77-79, 82.

Yünx, the bird, ii. 269.

Zafarana, ii. 10.

Zeus and Hera, i. 247, 248; the beetle, and the eagle's eggs, ii. 195; eagle of, 195, 196; and Latona, 277, 280; and Lêda, 318; and Io, 327; Faber, 352, 353.

Zezolla, the maiden, and the dove, ii. 304, 305.

THE END.

PRINTED BY BALLANTYNE AND COMPANY

EDINBURGH AND LONDON

FOOTNOTES: [1] Cfr. the chapter on the Duck, the Goose, the Swan, and the Dove.

[2] Imâni trîṇi vishtapâ tânîndra vi rohaya çiras tatasyorvarâm âd idam ma upodare.

[3] Khe rathasya khe 'nasaḥ khe yugasya çatakrato apâlâm indra trish pûtvy akṛinoḥ sûryatvaćam.

[4]

Sulomâm anavadyâñgîṁ kuru mâṁ çakra sutvaćâm Tasyâs tad vaćanam çrutvâ prîtas tena purandaraḥ Rathaćhidreṇa tâm indraḥ çakaṭasya yugasya ća Prakshipya niçćakarsha tris tataḥ sâ sutvaćâ 'bhavat Tasyâṁ tvaći vyapetâyâm sarvasyâṁ çalyako 'bhavat Uttarâ tv abhavad godhâ krikalâças tvag uttamâ. Godhâ seems to signify he who has the form of a hair (go, among its other meanings, has that of hair). As an animal, the dictionaries also recognise in the godhâ a lizard. But perhaps we may also translate it by toad or frog; we could thus also understand the fable of the frog which aspires to equal the ox. I observe, moreover, to exemplify the ease with which we can pass from the ox to the frog, and from the frog to the lizard, how in the Russian story of Afanassieff, ii. 23, a beautiful princess is hidden in a frog; in Tuscan and Piedmontese stories and in Sicilian superstitions, in a toad. In the stories of the Pentamerone, the good fairy is a lacerta cornuta (a horned lizard). Ghoshâ, too, has for its equivalent in Sanskṛit, karkaṭaçṛiñgî, which means a horned shrimp. In other varieties the young prince is a he-goat or a dragon.

[5] For the persecuted maiden in connection with the hog or hogs, cfr. also the Pentamerone, iii. 10.

[6] Afanassieff, v. 38.

[7] De Re Rustica, ii. 4.

[8] Ṛigv. i. 61, 7.

[9] Divo varâham arusham kapardinaṁ tveshaṁ rûpaṁ namasâ ni hvayâmahe; Ṛigv. i. 114, 5.

[10] Paçyan hiraṇyaćakrân ayodaṅshṭrân vidhâvato varâhân; Ṛigv. i. 88, 5.

[11] Agniǵiḥvâ manavaḥ sûraćakshasaḥ; Ṛigv. i. 89, 7.—In the Edda, the chariot of Frey is drawn by a hog. The head of the mythical hog is luminous. In the twenty-eighth story of the second book of Afanassieff, Ivan Durák obtains from the two young heroes, who miraculously appear to him, three marvellous gifts, i.e., the hog with golden bristles, the buck with golden horns and tail, and the horse with mane and tail also of gold.

[12] Viçvet tâ vishṇur âbharad urukramas tveshitaḥ çatam mahishân kshîrapâkam odanaṁ varâham indra emusham; Ṛigv. viii. 66, 10.—In the Thebaid of Statius (v. 487), Tydœus, too, is dressed in the spoils of a wild boar—

"Terribiles contra setis, ac dente recurvo, Tydea per latos humeros ambire laborant Exuviæ, Calydonis honos." [13] According to other fables, the three persons of the Trinity at one time disputed as to who had the pre-eminence. Brahmân, who, from the summit of the lotus where he was seated, saw nothing in the universe, believed himself the first of creatures. He descended into the stem of the lotus, and finding at last Nârâyaṇas (Vishṇus) asleep, he asked him who he was. "I am the first-born," replied Vishṇus; Brahmân disputed this title and dared even to attack him. But during the struggle, Mahâdeva (Çiva) threw himself between them, crying, "It is I who am the first-born. Nevertheless I will recognise as my superior him who is able to see the summit of my head or the sole of my feet." Vishṇus (as hidden or infernal moon), transforming himself into a wild boar, pierced through the ground and penetrated to the infernal regions, where he saw the feet of Mahâdeva. The latter, on his return, saluted him as the first-born of the gods; Bournouf, L'Inde Française.

[14] ii. 119.

[15] Asyed u mâtuḥ savaneshu sadyo mahah pitum papivâń ćarv annâ mushâyad vishṇuḥ paćataṁ sahîyâm vidhyad varâhaṁ tiro adrim astâ; str. 7.

[16] Asya trito nv oǵasâ vṛidhâno vipâ varâham ayoagrayâ han; str. 6.

[17] Varahoyam vamamoshah saptanâm girîṇâm parastâd vittam vedyam asurânâm vibharti, sa darbhapińǵûlam (pińǵalam?) uddhṛitya, sapta girîn bhittvâ tam ahanniti, already quoted by Wilson, Ṛigv. San. i. 164.—Cfr. the chapter on the Woodpecker.

[18] Tvam sûkarasya dardṛihi tava dardartu sûkarah; str. 4.—The dog in relation with the hog occurs again in the two Latin proverbs: "Canis peccatum sus dependit," and "Aliter catuli longe olent, aliter sues."

[19] i. 893.

[20] iv. 13.

[21] Daumas, La Vie Arabe, xv.

[22] iii. 3, 26.

[23] Cfr. Aldrovandi, De Quadrup. Digit. Viv. ii.

[24] Ibid.

[25] Cfr. Afanassieff, v. 28.

[26] lxxxiii., quoted by Benfey in his Einleitung to the Pańćatantram.—The fable is taken from the thirtieth of Avianus, where the wild boar loses his two ears and is then eaten, but the cook (who represents in tradition the cunning hero) has taken its heart to eat it:—

"Sed cum consumpti dominus cor quæreret Apri Impatiens, fertur (cor) rapuisse coquus." [27] In Du Cange, too, "aper significat diabolum; Papias M. S. Bitur. Ex illo Scripturæ: 'Singularis aper egressus est de silva.'"—Cfr. also Uhland's Schriften zur Geschichte der Dichtung und Sage, iii. 141, et seq.

[28] ii. 220, et seq., quoted by Uhland.

[29] Leukophôs; a verse of Vilkelmus Brito defines it in a Latin strophe given in Du Cange—

"Tempore quo neque nox neque lux sed utrumque videtur;" and further on—

"Interque canem distare lupumque." According to Pliny and Solinus, the shadow of the hyena makes the dog dumb, i.e., the night disperses the twilight; the moon vanishes.

[30] The dog was sacred to the huntress Diana, whom we know to be the moon, hence the Latin proverb, "Delia nota canibus."

[31] Indrasya dûtir ishitâ ćarâmi maha ićhantî paṇayo nidhîn vaḥ; str. 2.

[32] Rasâyâ ataram payâṅsi; str. 2.—Ayaṁ nidhiḥ sarame adribudhno gobhir açvebhir vasubhir nyṛishṭaḥ; str. 7.—Svasâraṁ tvâ kṛiṇavâi mâ punar gâ apa te gavâṁ subhage bhaǵâma; str. 9.—Nâhaṁ veda bhrâtṛitvaṁ no svasṛitvam indro vidur añgirasaç ćaghorâḥ; str. 10.

[33] Indrasyâñgirasâm ćeshṭâu vidat saramâ tanayâya dhâsim bṛihaspatir bhinad adrim vidad gâḥ sam usriyâbhir vâvaçanta naraḥ; str. 3.

[34] Ṛitaṁ yatî saramâ gâ avindat.—Ṛitasya pathâ saramâ vidad gâh; Ṛigv. v. 45, 7, 8.

[35] Apo yad adrim puruhûta dardar âvir bhuvat saramâ pûrvyaṁ te; Ṛigv. iv. 16, 8.

[36] Vidad yadî saramâ rugṇam adrer mahi pâthaḥ pûrvyaṁ sadhryak kaḥ agraṁ nayat supady aksharâṇâm aćhâ ravam prathamâ ǵânatî gât; Ṛigv. iii. 31, 6.

[37] vi. 9.

[38] v. 62.

[39] vi. 10.

[40] Cfr. the Vedic text above quoted.

[41] In the Tuti-Name, instead of the dog with the bone or piece of meat, we have the fox. The dog who sees his shadow in the water; the fearless hero who, in Tuscan stories, dies when he sees his own shadow; the black monster (the shadow) who, in numerous stories, presents himself instead of the real hero to espouse the beautiful princess, carry our thoughts back to Indras, who, in the Ṛigvedas, after having defeated the monster, flees away over the rivers, upon seeing something which is probably the shadow of Vṛitras, killed by him, or his own shadow. In the Âitar. Brâhm. iii. 2, 15, 16, 20, this flight of Indras is also recorded, and it is added, that Indras hides himself, and that the Pitaras (i.e., the souls of the departed) find him again. Indras thinks that he has killed Vṛitras, but really has not killed him; then the gods abandon him; the Marutas alone (as dogs friendly to the bitch Saramâ) remain faithful to him. The monster killed by Indras in the morning rises again at eve. According to other Vedic accounts, Indras is obliged to flee, stung by remorse, having committed a brâhmanicide.

[42] Ati drava sârameyâu çvânâu ćatarakshâu çabalâu sâdhunâ pathâ athâ pitṛînt suvidatrâṇ upehi—Yâu te çvânâu yama rakshitârâu ćaturakshâu pathirakshî nṛićakshasâu—Urûṇasâv asutṛipâ udumbalâu yamasya dûtâu ćarato ǵanâṅ anu—Tâv asmabhyaṁ dṛiçaye sûryâya punar dâtâm asum adyeha bhadram; Ṛigv. x. 14, 10-12.

[43] Ni shvâpaya mithûdṛiçâu; Ṛigv. i. 29, 3.—The Petropolitan Dictionary explains the word mith. by "abwechselend sichtbar."

[44] Yad arǵuna sarameya dataḥ piçañga yaćhase vîva bhrâǵanta ṛishṭaya upa srakveshu bapsato ni shu svapa; stenaṁ râya sârameya taskaraṁ vâ punaḥsara stotrîn indrasya râyasi kim asmân dućhunâyase ni shu svapa; Ṛigv. vii. 55, 2, 3.

[45] i. 657, 666.

[46] Canto 62.

[47] Thus Hecuba, the wife of Priam, after having suffered cruel tribulation as a woman, in Ovid—

"Perdidit infelix hominis post omnia formam Externasque novo latratu terruit auras." In the Breviarium Romanum, too, in the offices of the dead, God is besought not to consign to the beasts (ne tradas bestiis, &c.) the souls of His servants.

[48] Eta u tye patayanti çvayâtava indram dipsanti dipsavo 'dâbhyam—Ulukayâtuṁ çuçulûkayâtuṁ ǵahi çvayâtum uta kokayâtum suparṇayâtum gridhrayâtuṁ dṛishadeva pra mṛiṇa raksha indra; Ṛigv. vii. 104, 20, 22.

[49] Ǵambhayatam abhito râyataḥ; Ṛigv. i. 182, 4.

[50] Apa çvânaṁ çnathishṭana sakhâyo dîrghaǵihvyam—Apa çvânam arâdhasam hatâ makhaṁ na bhṛigavaḥ; Ṛigv. ix. 101, 1, 13.

[51] Avartyâ çuna ântrâṇi peće na deveshu vivide marḍitâram apaçyaṁ ǵâyâm amaḥîyamânâm adhâ me çyeno madhv â ǵabhâra; Ṛigv. iv. 18, 13. The bird who brings honey has evidently here a phallical meaning, as also the intestine, the part that is inside of now the dog, now the fish, and now the ass (all of which are phallical symbols), desired as a delicacy by the women of fairy tales, must be equivalent to the madhu brought by the bird.

[52] In the fifth story of the fourth book of the Pentamerone, the bird does the same that a dog does in the third story of the third book; the bird brings a knife, the dog brings a bone, and the imprisoned princess, by means of this knife and bone, is enabled to make a hole in the prison, and to free herself.

[53] In the Pentamerone, i. 7, the enchanted bitch brings to the princess news of the young hero.

[54] In the seventh Esthonian story, the man with the black horse binds three dogs tightly; if they get loose, no one will be able to keep them back.—In the Edda, Thrymer, the prince of the giants, keeps the grey dogs bound with golden chains.

[55] Einen gelblichen Hund mit vier Augen oder einen weissen mit gelben Ohren; Vendidad, viii. 41, et seq., Spiegel's version. And Anquetil, describing the Baraschnon no schabé, represents the purifying dog as follows:—"Le Mobed prend le bâton à neuf nœuds, entre dans les Keischs et attache la cuillère de fer au neuvième nœud. L'impur entre aussi dans les Keischs. On y amène un chien; et si c'est une femme que l'on purifie, comme elle doit être nue, c'est aussi une femme qui tient le chien. L'impur ayant la main droite sur sa tête et la gauche sur le chien, passe successivement sur les six premières pierres et s'y lave avec l'urine que lui donne le Mobed."—In the Kâtyây. Sû. the question is seriously discussed whether a dog, who was seen to fast on the fourteenth day of the month, did so on account of religious penitence.—Cfr. Muir's Sanskṛit Texts, i. 365.

[56] Dog and horse, with bites and kicks, kill the monster doe and free the two brother-heroes in the Pentamerone, i. 9.

[57] Cfr. also the sixth of the third book.—In the second story of the third book of the Pentamerone, the sister herself cuts off her own hands, of which her brother, who wishes to marry her, is enamoured.—Cfr. the Mediæval Legends of Santa Uliva, annotated by Professor Alessandro d'Ancona, Pisa, Nistri, 1863; and the Figlia del Re di Dacia, illustrated by Professor Alessandro Wesselofski, Pisa, Nistri, 1866, besides the thirty-first of the stories of the Brothers Grimm.

[58] The thirty-third of the collection of Karadzik, quoted by Professor Wesselofsky in his introduction to the story of the Figlia del Re di Dacia.

[59] Cfr. my little essay on the Albero di Natale.

[60] King Richard II., act. i. scene 2.

[61] Çrutaṁ tać ćhâsur iva vadhrimat yâ hiraṇyahastam açvinâv adattam; Ṛigv. i. 116, 13.—Hiraṇyahastam açvinâ rarâṇâ putraṁ narâ vadhrimatyâ adattam; i. 117, 24.—The dog in connection with a man's hand is mentioned in the Latin works of Petrarch, when speaking of Vespasian, who considered as a good omen the incident of a dog bringing a man's hand into the refectory.

[62] Sadyo ǵañghâm âyasîm viçpalâyai dhane hite sartave praty adhattam; str. 15.

[63] It is perhaps for this reason that the Hungarians give to their dogs names of rivers, as being runners; but it is also said that they do so from their belief that a dog which bears the name of a river or piece of water never goes mad, especially if he be a white dog, inasmuch as the Hungarians consider the red dog and the black or spotted one as diabolical shapes. In Tuscany, when a Christian's tooth is taken out, it must be hidden carefully, that the dogs may not find it and eat it; here dog and devil are assimilated.

[64] Scylla laves her groin in a fountain, the waters of which the enchantress Circe has corrupted, upon which monstrous dogs appear in her body, whence Ovid—

"Scylla venit mediaque tenus descenderat alvo, Cum sua fœdari latrantibus inguina monstris Aspicit, ac primo non credens corporis illas Esse sui partes, refugitque, abiitque timetque Ora proterva canum." [65] Hæc lucem accipiunt ab Joinville in Hist. S. Ludovici, dum fœdera inter Imp. Joannem Vatatzem et Comanorum Principem inita recenset, eaque firmata ebibito alterius invicem sanguine, hacque adhibita ceremonia, quam sic enarrat: "Et ancore firent-ils autre chose. Car ils firent passer un chien entre nos gens et eux, et découpèrent tout le chien à leurs espées, disans que ainsy fussent-ils découpez s'ils failloient l'un à l'autre."—Cfr. in Du Cange the expression "cerebrare canem."

[66] In a fable of Abstemius, a shepherd's dog eats one of the sheep every day, instead of watching over the flock. The shepherd kills him, saying, that he prefers the wolf, a declared enemy, to the dog, a false friend. This uncertainty and confusion between the dog and the wolf explains the double nature of the dog; to prove which I shall refer to two unpublished Italian stories: the first, which I heard from the mouth of a peasant-woman of Fucecchio, shows the bitch in the capacity of the monster's spy; the second was narrated a few years ago by a Piedmontese bandit to a peasant-woman who had shown hospitality to him, at Capellanuova, near Cavour in Piedmont. The first story is called The King of the Assassins, and is as follows:—

There was once a widow with three daughters who worked as seamstresses. They sit upon a terrace; a handsome lord passes and marries the eldest; he takes her to his castle in the middle of a wood, after having told her that he is the chief of the assassins. He gives her a she-puppy and says, "This will be your companion; if you treat her well, it is as if you treated me well." Taking her into the palace, he shows her all the rooms, and gives her all the keys; of four rooms, however, which he indicates, there are two which she must not enter; if she does so, evil will befall her. The chief of the assassins spends one day at home and then three away. During his absence she maltreats the puppy, and gives her scarcely anything to eat; then she lets herself be overcome by curiosity, and goes to see what there is in the two rooms, followed by the puppy. She sees in one room heads of dead people, and in the other tongues, ears, &c., hung up. This sight fills her with terror. The chief of the assassins returns and asks the bitch whether she has been well treated; she makes signs to the contrary, and informs her master that his wife has been in the forbidden rooms. He cuts off her head, and goes to find the second sister, whom he induces to come to him by under invitation to visit his wife; she undergoes the same miserable fate. Then he goes to take the third sister, and tells her who he is; she answers, "It is better thus, for I shall no longer be afraid of thieves." She gives the bitch soup, caresses her, and makes herself loved by her; the king of the assassins is contented, and the puppy leads a happy life. After a month, while he is out and the puppy amusing itself in the garden, she enters the two rooms, finds her two sisters, and goes into the other rooms, where there are ointments to fasten on limbs that have been cut off, and ointments to bring the dead to life. Having resuscitated her sisters, and given them food, she hides them in two great jars, furnished with breathing holes, and asks her husband to take them as a present to her mother, warning him not to look into the jars, as she will see him. He takes them, and when he tries to look in, he hears, as he had been forewarned, not one voice, but two whispering from within them, "My love, I see you." Terrified at this, he gives up the two jars at once to the mother. Meanwhile his wife has killed the bitch in boiling oil; she then brings all the dead men and women to life, amongst whom there is Carlino, the son of a king of France, who marries her. Upon the return of the king of the assassins he perceives the treachery, and vows revenge; going to Paris, he has a golden pillar constructed in which a man can be concealed without any aperture being visible, and bribes an old woman of the palace to lay on the prince's pillow a leaf of paper which will put him and all his servants to sleep as soon as he reclines on it. Shutting himself up in the pillar, he has it carried before the palace; the queen wishes to possess it, and insists upon having it at the foot of her bed. Night comes; the prince puts his head upon the leaf, and he and his servants are at once thrown into a deep sleep. The assassin steps out of the pillar, threatens to put the princess to death, and goes into the kitchen to fill a copper with oil, in which to boil her. Meanwhile she calls her husband to help her, but in vain; she rings the bell, but no one answers; the king of the assassins returns and drags her out of bed; she catches hold of the prince's head, and thus draws it off the paper; the prince and his servants awake, and the enchanter is burnt alive.

The second story is called The Magician of the Seven Heads, and was narrated to me by the peasant-woman in the following terms:—

An old man and woman have two children, Giacomo and Carolina. Giacomo looks after three sheep. A hunter passes and asks for them; Giacomo gives them, and receives in reward three dogs, Throttle-iron, Run-like-the-wind, and Pass-everywhere, besides a whistle. The father refuses to keep Giacomo at home; he goes away with his three dogs, of which the first carries bread, the second viands, and the third wine. He comes to a magician's palace and is well received. Bringing his sister, the magician falls in love with her and wishes to marry her; but to this end the brother must be weakened by the abstraction of his dogs. His sister feigns illness and asks for flour; the miller demands a dog for the flour, and Giacomo yields it for love of his sister; in a similar manner the other two dogs are wheedled away from him. The magician tries to strangle Giacomo, but the latter blows his whistle, and the dogs appear and kill the magician and the sister. Giacomo goes away with the three dogs, and comes to a city which is in mourning because the king's daughter is to be devoured by the seven-headed magician. Giacomo, by means of the three dogs, kills the monster; the grateful princess puts the hem of her robe round Throttle-iron's neck and promises to marry Giacomo. The latter, who is in mourning for his sister, asks for a year and a day; but before going he cuts the seven tongues of the magician off and takes them with him. The maiden returns to the palace. The chimney-sweeper forces her to recognise him as her deliverer; the king, her father, consents to his marrying her; the princess, however, stipulates to be allowed to wait for a year and a day, which is accorded. At the expiration of the appointed time, Giacomo returns, and hears that the princess is going to be married. He sends Throttle-iron to strike the chimney-sweeper (the black man, the Saracen, the Turk, the gipsy, the monster) with his tail, in order that his collar may be remarked; he then presents himself as the real deliverer of the princess, and demands that the magician's heads be brought; as the tongues are wanting, the trick is discovered. The young couple are married, and the chimney-sweeper is burnt.

[67] Cfr. the Biblioteca delle Tradizioni Popolari Siciliane, edited by Gius. Pitrè, ii. canto 811.

[68] In Richardus Dinothus, quoted by Aldrovandi.

[69] From a letter of my friend Pitrè.

[70] De Quadrup. Dig. Viv. ii.

[71] Cfr. Du Cange, s. v. "canem ferre." The ignominy connected with this punishment has perhaps a phallic signification, the dog and the phallos appear in connection with each other in an unpublished legend maliciously narrated at Santo Stefano di Calcinaia, near Florence, and which asserts that woman was not born of a man, but of a dog. Adam was asleep; the dog carried off one of his ribs; Adam ran after the dog to recover it, but brought back nothing save the dog's tail, which came away in his hand. The tail of the ass, horse, or pig, which is left in the peasant's hand in other burlesque traditions, besides serving as an indication, as the most visible part, to find the lost or fallen animal again, or to return into itself, may perhaps have a meaning analogous to that of the tail of Adam's dog.—I hope the reader will pardon me these frequent repugnant allusions to indecent images; but being obliged to go back to an epoch in which idealism was still in its cradle, while physical life was in all its plenitude of vigour, images were taken in preference from the things of a more sensible nature, and which made a deeper and more abiding impression. It is well known that in the production of the Vedic fire by means of the friction of two sticks, the male and the female are alluded to, so that the grandiose and splendid poetical myth of Prometheus had its origin in the lowest of similitudes.

[72] Vṛiddhasya ćid vardhato dyâm inakshataḥ stavâno vamro vi ǵaghâna saṁdihaḥ; Ṛigv. i. 51, 9.

[73] Vamrîbhiḥ putram agruvo adânaṁ niveçanâd dhariva â ǵabhartha; Ṛigv. iv. 19, 9.—Another variation is the hedgehog, which, as we have seen in Chapter V., forces the viper out of its den.

[74] The dwarf-hermits, who transport a leaf upon a car, and are about to be drowned in the water contained in the foot-print of a cow, and who curse Indras, who passes smiling without assisting them, in the legend of the Mahâbhâratam, are a variety of these same ants.—Cfr. the chapters on the Elephant and on the Fishes, where we have Indras who fears to be submerged.

[75] Fa cunto ca no le mancava lo latto de la formica; Pentamerone, i. 8.

[76] Biblion Istorikon, xii. 404.—In the Epist. Presb. Johannis, we find also:—"In quadam provincia nostra sunt formicæ in magnitudine catulorum, habentes vii. pedes et alas iv. Istæ formicæ ab occasu solis ad ortum morantur sub terra et fodiunt purissimum aurum tota nocte—quærunt victum suum tota die. In nocte autem veniunt homines de cunctis civitatibus ad colligendum ipsum aurum et imponunt elephantibus. Quando formicæ sunt supra terram, nullus ibi audet accedere propter crudelitatem et ferocitatem ipsarum."—Cfr. infra.

[77] Of this expression a historical origin is given, referring it to a Bolognese doctor of the twelfth century, named Grillo.—Cfr. Fanfani, Vocabolario dell 'uso Toscano, s. v. "grillo."

[78] Here are the words of the song of this curious wedding, which I heard sung at Santo Stefano di Calcinaia, near Florence:—

"Grillo, mio grillo, Se tu vuoi moglie, dillo; Se tu n' la vuoi, Abbada a' fatti tuoi. Tinfillulilalera Linfillulilalà.

"Povero grillo, 'n un campo di lino, La formicuccia gne ne chiese un filo. D'un filo solo, cosa ne vuoi tu fare? Grembi e camicie; mi vuo' maritare. Disse lo grillo:—Ti piglierò io. La formicuccia:—Son contenta anch' io. Tinfillul., &c.

"Povero grillo, 'n un campo di ceci; La formicuccia gne ne chiese dieci Di dieci soli, cosa ne vuoi tu fare? Quattro di stufa, e sei li vuo' girare. Tinfillul., &c.

"Povero grillo facea l'ortolano L'andava a spasso col ravanello in mano; Povero grillo, andava a Pontedera, Con le vilancie pesava la miseria. Tinfillul., &c.

"Povero grillo, l'andiede a Monteboni, Dalla miseria l'impegnò i calzoni; Povero grillo facea l'oste a Colle, L'andò fallito e bastonò la moglie. Tinfillul., &c.

"La formicuccia andò alla festa a il Porto, Ebbe la nova che il suo grillo era morto La formicuccia, quando seppe la nova La cascò in terra, stette svenuta un 'ora. La formicuccia si buttò su il letto, Con le calcagna si batteva il petto. Tinfillul.," &c. [79] Cfr. Zacher, Pseudo-Callisthenes, Halle, 1867.

[80] Pliny, Hist. Nat. xi. 31.

[81] Iyattikâ çakuntikâ sakâ ǵaghâsa te visham; Ṛigv. i. 191, 11.

[82] iv. 1.

[83] De Quad. Dig. Viv. ii.

[84] i. 49.

[85] ii. 22.

[86] The forgetfulness of the lynx, as well as of the cat, is proverbial. St Jerome, in the Ep. ad Chrisog.—"Verum tu quod natura lynces insitum habent, ne post tergum respicientes meminerint priorum, et mens perdat quod oculi videre desierint, ita nostræ es necessitudinis penitus oblitus." Thus of the lynx it is said by Ælianos that it covers its urine with sand (like the cat), so that men may not find it, for in seven days the precious stone lyncurion is formed of this urine. The cat that sees by night, the lynx that sees through opaque bodies, the fable of Lynkeus, who, according to Pliny, saw in one day the first and the last moon in the sign of Aries, and the lynx that, according to Apollonios, saw through the earth what was going on in hell, recall to us the moon, the wise and all-seeing fairy of the sky, and the infernal moon.

[87] Quoted by Benfey in the Einleitung to the Pańćatantram.

[88] v. 5421-5448.

[89] "Let no man, apprised of this law, present even water to a priest who acts like a cat;" iv. 192, version of Jones and Graves' Chamney Haughton, edited by Percival, Madras, 1863.—In a Russian story quoted by Afanassieff in his observations to the first volume of his stories, the cat Eustachio feigns itself penitent or monk in order to eat the mouse when it passes. It being observed that the cat is too fat for a penitent, it answers that it eats from the duty of preserving its health.

[90] iii. 147, Stuttgart, Cotta, 1857.

[91] Translation by Ch. Potvin, Paris and Brussels, 1861.

[92] From the peasant-woman Uliva Selvi, who told it to me at Antignano, near Leghorn.

[93] Cfr. Afanassieff, v. 32, where a cat is bought by a virtuous workman for the price of a kapeika (a small coin), the only price that he had consented to take as a reward for his work; the same cat is bought by the king for three vessels. With another kapeika, earned by other work, the workman delivers the king's daughter from the devil, and subsequently marries her.

[94] Cfr. analogous subjects in Chapter I., e.g., Emilius the lazy and stupid youth, and the blind woman who recovers her sight.

[95]

Huc quoque terrigenam venisse Typhœa narrat, Et se mentitis superos celasse figuris; Duxque gregis, dixit, fit Jupiter; unde recurvis Nunc quoque formatus Lybis est cum cornibus Ammon Delius in corvo, proles Semeleia capro Fele soror Phœbi, nivea Saturnia vacca, Pisce Venus latuit, Cyllenius ibidis alis. —v. 325-332. [96] In the eighteenth story of the third book of Afanassieff it is in company with the lamb (in the nineteenth, with the he-goat) that the cat terrifies the wolf and the bear.

[97]

"Idiot kot na nagáh, V krasnih sapagáh; Nessiot sabliu na plessié; A paloćku pri bedrié, Hoćiet lissu parubít, Ieià dushu zagubít." Puss-in-boots (le chat botté), helps the third brother in the tale of Perrault.

[98] In Tuscany the previously mentioned story-teller, Uliva Selvi, at Antignano, near Leghorn, narrated it to me as follows:—A mother has a number of children and no money; a fairy tells her to go to the summit of the mountain, where she will find many enchanted cats in a beautiful palace, who give alms. The woman goes, and a kitten lets her in; she sweeps the rooms, lights the fire, washes the dishes, draws water, makes the beds, and bakes bread for the cats; at last she comes before the king of the cats, who is seated with a crown on his head, and asks for alms. The great cat rings the golden bell with a golden chain, and calls the cats. He learns that the woman has treated them well, and orders them to fill her apron with gold coins (rusponi). The wicked sister of the poor woman also goes to visit the cats, but she maltreats them, and returns home all scratched, and more dead than alive from pain and terror.

[99] Cfr. Rochholtz, Deutscher Glaube und Brauche, i. 161.

[100] Ib.—I find the same belief referred to in the twenty-first Esthonian story of Kreutzwald.

[101] It is almost universally believed that when the cat cleans itself behind its ears with its wet paw, it presages rain. And yet the Latin proverb says—

"Catus amat pisces, sed aquas intrare recusat;" and the Hungarian proverb, that the cat does not die in water. It is for this reason, perhaps, that it is said, in a watery autumn the cat is worth little—("The cat of autumn and the woman of spring are not worth much;" Hung. prov.)

[102] Polier, Mythologie des Indes, ii. 571.

[103] Mûsho na çiçnâ vy adanti mâdhyaḥ stotâraṁ te çatakrato; Ṛigv. i. 105, 8.—The commentator now interprets çiçnâ by sutrâni, threads, and now calls the reader's attention to the legend of the mice that lick their tails after plunging them into a vase full of butter, or some other savoury substance; but here vy adanti can only mean, they lacerate by biting, as in the preceding strophe we have the thought that tears by biting, as the wolf tears the thirsty wild beast (mâ vyanti âdhyo na tṛishṇaǵam mṛigam).—The mouse in the jar of provisions also occurs in the fable of the mouse and the two penitents in the Pańćatantram, in the Hellenic fable of the son of Minos and of Pasiphäe, who, pursuing a mouse, falls into a jar of honey, in which he is suffocated, until recalled to life by a salutary herb.

[104] Den Mäusen pfeifen, heisst den Seelen ein Zeichen geben, um von ihnen abgeholt zu werden; ebenso wie der Rattenfänger zu Hameln die Lockpfeife bläst, auf deren Ton alle Mäuse und Kinder der Stadt mit ihm in den Berg hineinziehen, der sich hinter ihnen zuschliesst. Mäuse sind Seelen. Die Seele des auf der Jagd entschlafenen Königs Guntram kommt schlängleinartig aus seinem Munde hervor, um so in einen nächsten Berg und wieder zurückzulaufen. Der goethe'sche Faust weigert sich dem Tanz mit dem hübschen Hexenmädchen am Blocksberg fortzusetzen:—

"Den mitten im Gesange sprang Ein rothes Mäuschen ihr aus dem Munde." —Rochholtz, Deut. Glaube u. Brauch, i. 156, 157. [105] i. 268.

[106] The mouse that passes over the yarn occurs again in German tradition:—"Gertrudenbuchlein ab: Zwei Mäuschen nagen an einer flachsumwundenen Spindel; eine Spinnerinn sitzt am St Gertrudentag, noch in der Zeit der Zwölften, wo die Geister in Gestalt von Mäusen erscheinen, darf gesponnen werden;" Rochholtz, ut supra, i. 158.

[107] Cfr. Pentamerone, iii. 5.—In the story, iv. 1, the grateful mice assist Mineć Aniello to find the lost ring by gnawing the finger on which the magician wears it.

[108] Alâyyasya paraçur nanâça tam â pavasya (pavasva according to Aufrecht's text, and according to the commentator—cfr. Bollensen, Zur Herstellung des Veda, in the Orient und Occident of Benfey, ii. 484) deva soma; âkhuṁ ćid eva deva soma; Ṛigv. ix. 67, 30.

[109] Cfr. the Antigonê of Sophocles, v. 973, et seq.

[110] This dass no of the Piedmontese means "if not," and is evidently of Germanic origin. The Piedmontese dialect has also taken from the Germanic languages the final negative.—In Germany, children sing to the snails—

"Schneckhûs, peckhûs, Stäk dîn vêr hörner rût, Süst schmît ick dî in'n graven Da frêten dî de raven." —Cfr. Kuhn und Schwartz, N. d. S. M. u. G., p. 453. [111] In Rabelais, i. 38, when Gargantua has eaten five pilgrims in his salad, another still remains hidden under a leaf of lettuce. His father says to him—"Je crois que c'est là une corne de limasson, ne le mangez point. Pourquoy? dist Gargantua, ilz sont bons tout se moys."

[112] Simrock, Handbuch der Deutschen Mythologie, 2te Aufl., p. 516.

[113] Lopâçaḥ siṅham pratyańćam atsâḥ; Ṛigv. x. 28, 4.

[114] Avaruddhaḥ paripadaṁ na sinhaḥ; x. 28, 10.

[115] Çaçah kshuram pratyańćam ǵagâra; x. 28, 9.

[116] Kroshṭâ varâhaṁ nir atakta kakshât; x. 28, 4.

[117] Vatso vṛishabhaṁ çûçuvânaḥ; x. 28, 9.

[118] Sinhaḥ çaçamivâlakshya garuḍo vâ bhuǵañgamam; Râmây. xxiii.

[119] Cfr. Mémoires sur les Contrées Occidentales, traduits du Sanscrit par Hiouen Thsang, et du Chinois par St Julien, i. 375.

[120] Redimunt ea parte corporis, propter quam maxime expetuntur; Pro Æmilio Scauro. It is said that when the beaver is pursued by hunters, it tears off its testicles, as the most precious part for which beavers are hunted, popular medical belief attributing marvellous virtues to beavers' testicles.

[121] xii. 35.

[122] Cited by Afanassieff in the observations on the first volume of the Russian stories.

[123] Cfr. Afanassieff, i. 14, ii. 24, v. 42.

[124] Ye pṛishatîbhir ṛishtibhiḥ sâkaṁ vâçîbhir ańǵibhiḥ—aǵâyanta svabhânavaḥ; Ṛigv. i. 37, 2.

[125] Upo ratheshu pṛishatîr ayugdhvam prashṭir vahati rohitaḥ; i. 39, 6.

[126] Sa hi svasṛit pṛishadaçvo yuvâ gaṇaḥ: i. 87, 4.

[127] Â vidyunmadbhir marutaḥ svarkâi rathebhir yâtha ṛishṭimadbhir açvaparnâiḥ; i. 88, 1.

[128] Açvâir hiraṇyapâṇibhiḥ; viii. 7, 27.

[129] Çubhe sammiçlâḥ pṛishatîr ayukshata; iii. 26, 4.

[130] Aṅseshu etâḥ; Ṛigv. i. 166, 10.—Concerning the use of similar skins for dress in India, cfr. the long and instructive note of Professor Max Müller, Ṛigveda-Sanhita Translated and Explained, i. 221-223.

[131] i. 1665.

[132] i. 3811, et seq.; i. 4585, et seq.

[133] ii. 13, translated by Wilson.

[134] iii. 40, 48, 49.

[135] Cfr. Simrock, the work quoted before, p. 354.

[136] ii. 258, Rosen's version.

[137] Oft führt der Hirsch nur zu einer schönen Frau am Brunnen; sie ist aber der Unterwelt verwandt und die Verbindung mit ihr an die Bedingung geknüpft, dass die ungleiche Natur des Verbundenen nicht an den Tag gezogen werde.

[138] Du Cange adds: "Quoad baptismam, quomodo cervus ad fontes aquarum, summo desiderium perveniendum esse monstraretur."

[139] Cfr. Porchat, Contes Merveilleux, xiii.

[140] Mṛigâ iva hastinaḥ khâdathâ vanâ yad ârunîshu tavishîr ayugdhvam; Ṛigv. i. 64, 7.

[141] Mṛigo na hastî tavishîm ushâṇaḥ; Ṛigv. iv. 16, 14.

[142] Dânâ mṛigo na vâraṇaḥ purutrâ ćarathaṁ dadhe; Ṛigv. viii. 33, 8.

[143] Yâhi râǵevâmavân ibhena; Ṛigv. iv. 4, 1.

[144] Râmây. i. 42.

[145] iii. 36.

[146] iii. 47.

[147] Râmây. v. 3

[148] vi. 3.

[149] ii. 71.

[150] iii. 39.

[151] i. 1353, seq.

[152] Râmây. iv. 63.

[153] v. 55.

[154] For the connection between the seven ṛikshas (ṛishayas, wise men, stars, or bears) of the Hindoos and the septemtriones, the seven stars of the she-bear (Arktos, Arkturus), and the Arctic regions, cfr. the interesting discussion of Professor Max Müller, in the second series of his Lectures.—The seven ṛishayas are the same as the seven Añgirasas, the seven harayas, and the Marutas, who are seven (multiplied by three, that is, twenty-one). In the Marutas, as harayas, we have the monkeys. Even the wife of the king of the monkeys is named Târâ, or, properly, the star. Thus there seems to exist between the monkey and the star the same relation as between the bear and the star, a new argument to vindicate the identity of the two animals in mythology.

[155] Priyâ tashṭâni me kapir vyaktâ vy adûdushat çiro nv asya râvishaṁ na sugaṁ dushkṛite bhuvaṁ viçvasmâd indra uttaraḥ; str. 5.

[156] i. 2628.

[157] iii. 75.

[158] iv. 5.

[159] v. 2, vii. 39.

[160] v. 3.

[161] Râmây. v. 4, v. 5.

[162] v. 55.

[163] Râmây. iv. 12, v. 6.—The monkey on the sea is also to be found in a Greek apologue, but the subject is somewhat different. A monkey, which during a tempest had been washed from a ship, and tossed about upon the stormy waves under the promontory of Attica, is mistaken by a dolphin for a man; the dolphin, having great affection for the race to which he presumed he belonged, takes him up and carries him towards the shore. But before letting him touch firm ground, he asks him whether he is an Athenian; the monkey answers that he is of illustrious birth; the dolphin asks if he knows the Piræus; the monkey, thinking that it is a man's name, answers that he is a great friend of his; upon which the dolphin, indignant at having been deceived, lets the monkey fall again into the sea.

[164] Râmây. v. 56.

[165] v. 8.

[166] v. 37.

[167] Râmây. v. 56.

[168] v. 50.—In the Pańćatantram, v. 10, it is said, on the contrary, that monkeys possess the virtue of healing the wounds of horses that have been scalded or burned, as the sun of morning chases the darkness away. According to a variety of this story contained in the Tuti-Name, i. 130, the bite of a monkey can be cured only by the blood of the very monkey who had inflicted it.

[169] Aǵńatakulaçîle 'pi prîtiṁ kurvanti vânarâḥ âtmârthe ća na rodanti; Böhtlingk, Indische Sprüche, 107.

[170] v. 36.

[171] i. 266.

[172] Ṛiksho na vo mârutaḥ çimîvâṅ amo dadhro gâuriva bhîmayuḥ Ṛigv. v. 56, 3.

[173] Amî ya ṛikshâ nihitâsa uććâ; Ṛigv. i. 24, 10.

[174] Râmây. i. 60-62.

[175] vi. 46.

[176] vi. 6.

[177] v. 59.

[178] v. 25.

[179] This story, with some variations, was already known in the sixteenth century: "Demetrius Moschovitarum legatus Romam missus, teste Paulo Jovio (quoted by Aldrovandi), narravit proximis annis viciniæ suæ agricolam quærendi mellis causa in prægrandem et cavam arborem superne desiliisse, eumque profundo mellis gurgite collo tenus fuisse immersum et biduo vitam solo melle sustinuisse, cum in illâ solitudine vox agricolæ opem implorantis ad viatorum aures non perveniret. Tandem hic, desperata salute, ursæ beneficio extractus evasit, nam hujus feræ ad mella edenda more humano in arboris civitatem se demittentis, pellem tergoris manibus comprehendit et inde ab ursa subito timore exterrita et retrocedente extractus fuit."—The bear is also celebrated in Kriloff's fables as an eater of honey.—In an apologue of Abstemius, the bear, when searching for honey, is stung by a bee; he avenges himself by destroying the honeycombs, but the swarms of bees fly upon him, and sting and torment him on every side; the bear then complains that by not having known how to support a small evil he had drawn upon himself a very grave one.—The pears of the Italian proverb in connection with the bear also refer to hydromel or to honey. The Italian proverbs are as follows: "Dar le pere in guardia all' orso" (to give the pears to be guarded by the bear); "Chi divide la pera (or il miele) all' orso ne ha sempre men che parte" (he who divides the pear (or the honey) with the bear, always has less than a part, that is, the bear eats it all), and "L'orso sogna pere" (the bear dreams of pears). To catch the bear is the same as to be inebriated; the bear, in fact, is, in the legends, often inebriated himself with honey, as the Vedic Indras with the ambrosia, and as Balarâmas in the spirituous liquor contained in the fissure of a tree (Vishṇu-P. v. 25). The sun in the cloud or in the rainy or wintry season drinks more than necessary. Cfr. also Ralston, Songs of the Russian People, p. 182.

[180] In the fifteenth story of Afanassieff, the bear revenges himself upon an old man who had cut off one of his paws with a hatchet; the bear makes himself a paw from the wood of a linden-tree, takes the old man and the old woman by surprise in their house and devours them. In the nineteenth story of the fourth book, the bear allies himself with the fox lamed by the peasant, and with the gadfly that the peasant had placed behind the straw, in order to revenge himself upon the peasant, who, promising to cover him with spots like the horse, had struck him here and there on the body with a red-hot axe, so that the bones were left bare. This fable is perhaps connected with the Hindoo superstition that the burns of a horse are cured by means of a monkey. As to the wooden paws, they are doubtless the branches of the cloudy or nocturnal forest. In the Edda of Sömund it is said that the Alfes are accustomed to call the trees the beautiful arms; we already know the meaning of the boy with the golden hand.

[181] In the tenth story of the third book of Afanassieff, Nadzei, the son of a virgin who is the daughter of a priest, makes himself formidable by cutting down the forest and drawing, without assistance, out of the forest the bear that destroyed the cats.

[182] In a description of the last Sunday of the Roman carnival of the thirteenth century, in Du Cange, s. v. Carnelevarium, we read: "Occidunt ursum, occiditur diabolus, id est, temptator nostræ carnis."—In Bohemia it is still the custom at the end of the carnival to bring the bear,—that is, a man disguised as a bear, with straw, who goes round to ask for beer (or hydromel, which takes the place of the mythical honey or ambrosia). The women take the straws to put them into the place where the hens lay their eggs, to make them lay better. In Suabia the straw bear is accused of having killed a blind cat, and therefore condemned, with all formality, to death, after having had, before his death, two priests to console him; on Ash-Wednesday the bear is solemnly buried.—Cfr. Reinsberg von Düringfeld, Das festliche Jahr.—The poet Hans Sachs, quoted by Simrock, covers with a bear's skin two old women who are to be presented to the devil.

[183] Cfr., moreover, Afanassieff, ii. 33.—In a popular Norwegian story, the fox makes the bear catch fish with his tail, which is frozen in the water.

[184] Afanassieff, v. 2.

[185] viii. 10.

[186] iv. 13.

[187] i. 6.

[188] Concerning the bear's sleep, it is interesting to read the curious information furnished by Aldrovandi (De Quadr. Dig. Viv. i.): "Devorant etiam ursi ineunte hyeme radices nomine nobis adhuc ignotas, quibus per longum temporis spatium cibi cupiditas expletur et somnus conciliatur. Nam in Alpibus Helveticis aiunt, referente Gesnero, vaccarum pastorem eminus vidisse ursum, qui radicem quemdam manibus propriis effossam edebat, et post ursi discessum, illuc se transtulisse; radicemque illam degustasse, qui postmodum tanto somni desiderio affectus est, ut se continere non potuerit, quin in viâ stratus somno frueretur." The bear, as a nocturnal and wintry animal, must of necessity conciliate sleep.

[189] Cfr. Afanassieff, vi. 5.—According to Hellenic tradition, Paris and Atalanta were nourished with the milk of a she-bear.

[190] Cfr. Afanassieff, v. 27, v. 28.—According to Cardano, to meet with a bear's cub just born indicated a change of fortune for the better.

[191] Cfr. the work of Schade, Die Sage von der Heiligen Ursula. She is also to be found among the Leggende del Secolo Decimoquarto, published at Florence by Signor Del Lungo (Barbera, publisher).

[192]

"... il parle, on l'entend, il sait danser, baller Faire des tours de toute sorte Passer en des cerceaux." —La Fontaine, Fables, ix. 3. In La Fontaine, the monkey is again identified with the ass, as a judge on the tribunal between the wolf and the fox, and afterwards as dressed in the skin of the dead lion. In the fourth fable of the eleventh book, La Fontaine makes the monkey M.A. narrate the story of the asinus asinum fricat; in the second fable of the twelfth book the monkey scatters the miser's treasure, as in Hindoo tradition it spoils the sacrificial offerings.

[193] Cfr. Aldrovandi, De Quadr. Dig. Viv.

[194] Cfr. Ueber den Zusammenhang indischer Fabeln mit griechischen, Berlin, Dümmler, 1855.

[195] In a German tradition referred to by Schmidt, Forschungen, s. 105, we have the deity who presents himself as a fox to the hunter voluntarily to be sacrificed; the hunter flays him, and the flies and ants eat his flesh. In a Russian story of which I shall give an abridgment, the wolf eats the fox when he sees it without its hairy covering.

[196] i. 5566, et seq.

[197] i. 16, iv. 2; cfr. also iv. 10, and the chapter on the Hare.—In the story, iii. 14, of the Pańćatantram, the jackal cheats the lion who has occupied his cave, by making him roar; and thus assuring himself that the lion is in the cave, he is able to escape.

[198] iii. 29.

[199] Cfr. Pańćatantram, i. 10; Tuti-Name, ii. 146.

[200] i. 2, ii. 3.—In the nineteenth Mongol story, the young man who passes himself off as a hero is ordered to bring to the queen the skin of a certain fox which is indicated to him; on the way the youth loses his bow; returning to look for it, he finds the fox dead close to the bow, which it had tried to bite, and which had struck and killed it.

[201] iv. 4.

[202] i. 134, 135.

[203] Tuti-Name, ii. 125.—In the stories of the same night (the twenty-second) of the Tuti-Name, we have the lynx (lupus cervarius) who wishes to take the house of the monkey who occupies the lion's house, and the jackal who runs after the camel's testicles, as in the Pańćatantram he runs after those of the bull. In the story, ii. 7, the fox lets his bone fall into the water in order to catch a fish (a variety of the well-known fable of the dog and of the wolf or devil as fisherman).

[204] Tuti-Name, ii. 142, 143.

[205] i. 168, et seq.

[206] Querolus, i. 2.

[207] In the eighteenth story of the fourth book of Afanassieff, an extraordinary cake escapes from the house of an old man and woman, and wanders about; it finds the hare, the wolf, and the bear, who all wish to eat it; it sings its story to them all, and is allowed to go; it sings it to the fox, too, but the latter praises the song, and eats the cake, after having made it get upon his back.

[208] In Afanassieff, i. 14, the hero, Theodore, finds some wolves fighting among themselves for a bone, some bees fighting for the honey, and some shrimps fighting for caviare; he makes a just division, and the grateful wolves, bees, and shrimps help him in need.

[209] Cfr. Lou loup penjat in the Contes de l'Armagnac, collected by Bladé, Paris, 1867, p. 9.

[210] Cfr. the English expression applied to the moon, "made of green cheese;" this is the connection between green and yellow previously mentioned.

[211] Afanassieff, iv. 10.

[212] It is here, perhaps, to be remarked that in the Piedmontese dialect lightning is called loszna.

[213] Afanassieff, iv. 11. In the fourth story of the second book of the Pentamerone, instead of a fox, it is the cat that enriches Pippo Gagliufo and runs before him. In the same way as in the Russian stories the man shows himself ungrateful towards the fox, so in the Pentamerone the cat ends by cursing the ungrateful Pippo Gagliufo whom she had done good to. In the following story the fox offers herself as companion to the young bride who is looking for her lost husband.

[214]

"Pietushók, pietushók, Zalatói grebeshók, Másliannaja galovka, Smiatanij lobók! Vighliani v oshko; Dam tebie kashki, Na krasnoi loszkie." In an unpublished Tuscan story which I heard related at Antignano near Leghorn, a chicken wishes to go with its father (the cock) into the Maremma to search for food. Its father advises it not to do so for fear of the fox, but the chicken insists upon going; on the way it meets the fox, who is about to eat it, when the chicken beseeches him to let it go into the Maremma, where it will fatten, lay eggs, bring up young chickens, and be able to provide the fox with a much more substantial meal than it now could. The fox consents. The chicken brings up a hundred young ones; when they are grown up, they set out to return home; every fowl carries in its mouth an ear of millet, except the youngest. On the way they meet the fox waiting for them; on seeing all these animals each with a straw in its beak, the astonished fox asks the mother-hen what it is they carry. "All fox's tails," she answers, upon which the fox takes to its heels.—We find the fox's tail in connection with ears of corn in the legend of Samson; the incendiary fox is also found in Ovid's Fasti, iv. 705; (from the malice with which the story-teller (a woman) relates the fable, it is probable that the fox's tail has here also a phallic meaning).—In Sextus Empiricus we read that a fox's tail hung on the arm of a weak husband is of great use to him.

[215] Thus, in the myth of Kephalos, his dog cannot, by a decree of fate, overtake the fox; but inasmuch as, on the other hand, no one also, by decree of fate, can escape from the dog of Kephalos, dog and fox are both, by the command of Zeus, changed into stone (the two auroras, or dying sun and dying moon).

[216] This work has, on the other hand, been already almost accomplished, as regards the Franco-Germanic part, in the erudite and interesting introduction (pp. 5-163) which Ch. Potvin has prefixed to his translation into verse of the Roman du Renard, Paris, Bohné; Bruxelles, Lacroix, 1861. I am told that Professor Schiefner read a discourse two years since at St Petersburg upon the story of the fox, but I do not know whether it has been published.

[217] Vṛikâya ćiǵ ǵasamânâya çaktam; Ṛigv. vii. 68, 8.—The grateful wolf and crow are found united to assist Ivan Tzarević in the twenty-fourth story of the second book of Afanassieff.

[218] xix. 108, 109.

[219] Aruṇo mâ sakṛid vṛikaḥ pathâ yantam dadarça hi uǵ ǵihîte nićâyya; Ṛigv. i. 105, 18.

[220] Yâvayâ vṛikyaṁ vṛikaṁ yavaya stenam ûrmya; Ṛigv. x. 127, 6.—A wolf seen in a dream, according to Cardano, announces a robber.

[221] Yo naḥ pûshann agho vṛiko duḥçeva âdideçati apa sma tvam patho ǵahi—Paripanthinam mashîvâṇaṁ huraçćitam—Dvayâvinaḥ; Ṛigv. i. 42, 2-4.

[222] Svayaṁ ripus tanvaṁ rîrishîshṭa; Ṛigv. vi. 51, 6, 7.

[223] Mâyinam mṛigaṁ; Ṛigv. i. 80, 7.

[224] Te na âsno vṛikâṇâm âdityâso mumoćata; Ṛigv. viii. 56, 14.—Parshi dîne gabhîra âṅ ugraputre ǵighâṅsataḥ; Ṛigv. viii. 56, 11.

[225] Matsyaṁ na dîna udani kshiyantam; Ṛigv. x. 68, 8.

[226] iii. 45.—In the twenty-second night of the Tuti-Name, the wolf enters, on the contrary, into the house of the jackal; here wolf and jackal are already distinguished in it from one another,—that is, as red wolf and black wolf.

[227] i. 253.

[228] i. 271.

[229] Cfr. Afanassieff, vi. 51, v. 27, and v. 28.

[230] It is also said that the nurse of the Latin twins was a strumpet, because lupæ or lupanæ fœminæ were names given to such women, whence also the name of lupanaria given to the houses to which they resorted: "Abscondunt spurcas hæc monumenta lupas." Olaus Magnus wrote, that wolves, attracted by smell, attack pregnant women, whence the custom that no pregnant woman should go out unless accompanied by an armed man. The ancients believed that the phallos of the wolf roasted and eaten weakened the Venus.

[231] In the Legendes et Croyances Superstitieuses de la Creuse, collected by Bonnafoux, Guéret, 1867, p. 27, we read concerning the loup garou, that the wolf thanks whoever wounds him. It is said that they who are disguised in the skin of the loup garou are condemned souls: "Chaque nuit, ils sont forcés d'aller chercher la maudite peau à un endroit convenu et ils courent ainsi jusqu'à ce qu'ils rencontrent une âme charitable et courageuse qui les délivre en les blessant."

[232]

"... devant qu'il fût nuit Il arriva nouvel encombre; Un loup parut, tout le troupeau s'enfuit Ce n'était pas un loup, ce n'en était que l'ombre." The sheep were right, however, to flee. In the Edda, the fourth swallow says, "When I see the wolf's ears, I think that the wolf is not far off." The twilight is the shadow or ear of the wolf.

[233] Lous loups-garous soun gens coumo nous autes; mès an heyt un countrat dab lou diable, e cado sé soun fourçatz de se cambia en bestios per ana au sabbat e courre touto la neyt. Y a per aco un mouyén de lous goari. Lous can tira sang pendent qu' an perdut la forme de l'home, e asta leu la reprengon per toutjour; Bladé, Contes et Proverbes Populaires recueillis en Armagnac, Paris, 1867, p. 51.

[234] We ought perhaps to add here the tradition cited by Cæsarius Heisterbacensis of a wolf who, biting the arm of a girl, drags her to a place where there is another wolf; the more she cries the more fiercely the wolf bites her. The other wolf has a bone in his throat, which the girl extracts; here the girl takes the place of the crane or stork of the fable; the bone may be now the moon, now the sun.

[235] In another passage in the Edda, the eagle sits upon the wolf. According to the Latin legend of the foundation of Lavinium, the Trojans saw a singular prodigy. A fire arises in the woods; the wolf brings dry twigs in his mouth to make it burn better, and the eagle helps him by fanning the flames with his wings. The fox, on the other hand, dips its brush in the river to put out the fire with it, but does not succeed.

[236] Cfr. Afanassieff, iii. 19.

[237] Les loups, qui ont très peu d'amis en France, et qui sont obligés d'apporter dans toutes leurs démarches une excessive prudence, chassent presque toujours à la muette. J'ai été plusieurs fois en position d'admirer la profondeur de leurs combinaisons stratégiques; c'est effrayant de sagacité et de calcul; Toussenel, L'Esprit des Bêtes, ch. i.—And Aldrovandi, De Quadrup. Dig. Viv. ii. "Lupi omnem vim ingenii naturalem in ovibus insidiando exercent; noctu enim ovili appropinquantes, pedes lambunt, ne strepitum in gradiendo edant, et foliis obstrepentibus pedes quasi reos mordent."

[238] In Piedmont it is also said in jest, that a man once met a wolf and thrust his hand down its throat, so far down that it reached its tail on the other side; he then pulled the tail inside the wolf's body and out through its throat, so that the wolf, turned inside out, expired.

[239] In an unpublished, though very popular Piedmontese story, Piccolino is upon a tree eating figs; the wolf passes by and asks him for some, threatening him thus: "Piculin, dame ün fig, dass no, i t mangiu." Piccolino throws him down two, which are crushed upon the wolf's nose. Then the wolf threatens to eat him if he does not bring him a fig down; Piccolino comes down, and the wolf puts him in a sack and carries him towards his house, where the mother-wolf is waiting for him. But on the way the wolf is pressed by a corporeal necessity, and is obliged to go on the roadside; meanwhile, Piccolino makes a hole in the sack, comes out and puts a stone in his place. The wolf returns, shoulders the sack, but thinks that Piccolino has become much heavier. He goes home and tells the she-wolf to be glad, and prepare the cauldron full of hot water; he then empties the sack into the cauldron; the stone makes the boiling water spurt out upon the wolf's head, and he is scalded to death.

[240] Cfr. the well-known English fairy-tales of Tom Thumb and Hop-o'-my-Thumb.

[241] Inferno, c. i.

[242] Hêraklês, Hektor, Achilles, among the Greek heroes; Wolfdieterich, and several other heroes of Germanic tradition, have these animals for their ensigns; the lion is the steed of the hero Hildebrand. Cfr. Die Deutsche Heldensage von Wilhelm Grimm, Berlin, Dümmler, 1867.—When Agarista and Philip dreamed of a lion, it was considered an augury, the one of the birth of Pericles, and the other of that of Alexander the Great.

[243] Ubhe tvashṭur bibhyatur ǵâyamânât pratîćî sinham prati ǵoshayete; Ṛigv. i. 95, 5.

[244] v.

[245] Te svânino rudriyâ varshanirṇiǵah siṅhâ na heshakratavaḥ sudânavaḥ; Ṛigv. iii. 26, 5.—In the Bohemian story of grandfather Vsievedas, the young hero is sent by the prince who wishes to ruin him to take the three golden hairs of this grandfather (the sun).

[246] Siṅho na bhîma âyudhâni bibhrat; Ṛigv. iv. 16, 14. Cfr. i. 174, 3.

[247] Siṅhaṁ nasanta madhvo ayâsaṁ harim aru haṁ divo asya patim; Ṛigv. ix. 89, 3.

[248] In the Greek apologue, Ptolemy, king of Egypt, wishes to send some money to Alexander in homage to him; the mule, the horse, the ass, and the camel offer themselves of their own accord to carry the sacks. On the way, they meet the lion, who wishes to join the party, saying that he too carries money; but not being accustomed to such work, he modestly begs the other four to divide his load among themselves. They consent; soon afterwards, passing through a country rich in herds, the lion feels inclined to stay, and demands his portion of the money, but as his money resembles that of the others, not to mistake, he takes by force both his own and theirs.

[249] ii. 62.

[250] vi. 5, 35.

[251] v. 43.

[252] i. 229.

[253] The anecdote of Androkles and the lion grateful for having a thorn extracted from his foot, is also related in almost the same words of Mentor the Syracusan, Helpis of Samos, the Abbot Gerasimos, St Jerome and (as to the blinded lion whose sight is given back to him) of Macharios, the confessor. The thorn in the lion's foot is a zoological form of the hero who is vulnerable in his feet. In the sixth of the Sicilian stories published by Signora Gonzenbach, the boy Giuseppe takes a thorn out of a lion's foot; the grateful lion gives him one of his hairs; by means of this hair, the young man can, in case of necessity, become a terrible lion, and as such, he bites off the head of the king of the dragons.

[254] Thus, the ancients attributed to the lion a particular antipathy to strong smells, such as garlic, and the pudenda of a woman. But this superstition must be classed with that which ascribes sterility to the lioness. The women of antiquity, when they met a lioness, considered it as an omen of sterility. In the Æsopian fable, the foxes boast of their fruitfulness before the lioness, whom they laugh at because she gives birth to only one cub. "Yes," she answers, "but it is a lion;" under the sign of the lion, the earth also becomes arid, and consequently unfruitful.

[255] Horace, Carm. i. 16.

[256] Sculpebant Ethnici auro vel argento leonis imaginem, et ferentes hujusmodi simulacra generosiores et audaciores evadere dicebantur; idcirco non est mirum si Aristoteles (in lib. de Secr. Secr.) scripserit annulum ex auro vel argento, in quo cœlata sit icon puellæ equitantis leonem die et hora solis vagantis in domicilio leonis gestantes, ab omnibus honorari; Aldrovandi, De Quadrup. Dig. Viv. i.—In the signs of the Zodiac, Virgo comes after upon Leo; Christians also celebrate the assumption of the Virgin into heaven towards the middle of August, when the sun passes from the sign of the lion into that of the virgin.

[257] Cfr. Böhtlingk, Indische Sprüche, 2te Auflage, i. 1.

[258] Ktesias explains this word as "devourer of men," but by means of Sanskṛit it can only be explained by substituting to the initial m one of the words that signify man, such as nara, ǵana, manava, mânusha, &c. Antikora would seem to be derived from the Sanskṛit antakara = destroyer, who puts an end to, killer.

[259] Ṛigv. ii. 38, 4.—In the fifty-fourth story of the fourth book of Afanassieff, the king who has no children makes the maiden seven years old manufacture a fisherman's net in the space of only one night.

[260] In the German legend we have the spinner in the moon. "Die Altmärkische Sage bei Temme 49, 'die Spinnerin im Monde,' wo ein Mädchen von seiner Mutter verwünscht wird, im Monde zu sitzen und zu spinnen, scheint entstellt, da jener Fluch sie nicht wegen Spinnens, sondern Tanzens im Mondschein trifft;" Simrock, Deutsche Mythologie, 2te Aufl. p. 23.—Cfr. also the first chapter of this work, and that on the bear, where we read of a girl dancing with the bear in the night.—Perhaps there is also some correspondence between the Vedic word râkâ and a-rachnê.

[261] Vy ućhâ duhitar divo mâ ćiraṁ tanutha apaḥ net tvâ stenaṁ yathâ ripuṁ tapâti sûro arćishâ; Ṛigv. v. 79, 9.

[262] Vritram avâbhinad dânum âurṇavâbham; Ṛigv. ii. 11, 18.—Ǵaǵńâno nu çatakratur vi pṛićhad iti mâtaram ka ugrâḥ ke ha çṛiṇvire âd îm çavasy abravîd âurṇavâbham ahîçuvam te putra santu nishṭuraḥ; Ṛigv. viii. 66, 1, 2.

[263] i. 802, 825.

[264] I observe, moreover, how in the Russian fables of Kriloff the same part is attributed to the spider as in the West to the wren (the regulus) and to the beetle. The eagle carries, without knowing it, a spider in its tail upon a tree; the spider then makes its web over it. Bird and spider therefore exchange places.

[265] Ṛigv. i. 72, 9.

[266] Vir na parṇâiḥ; Ib. i. 183, 1.

[267] Aruṇaḥ suparṇaḥ; Ib. x. 55, 6.

[268] Vayo na sîdann adhi barhishi priye; Ib. i. 85, 7.

[269] Manmasâdhano veḥ; Ib. i. 96, 6.

[270] Â te suparṇâ aminantaṅ evâiḥ kṛishṇo nonâva vṛishabho yadîdam; Ib. i. 79, 2.

[271] Vanâni vibhyo nakir asya tâni vratâ devasya savitar minanti; Ib. ii. 38, 7.

[272] Ut te vayaçćid vasater apaptan; Ib. i. 124, 12.—In the twenty-third story of the second book of Afanassieff, when the beautiful girl Helen, another form of the aurora, is at the king's ball, she throws bones with one hand, when birds spring up, and water with the other, when gardens and fountains spring up.

[273] Abhi no devîr avasâ mahaḥ çarmaṇâ nṛipatnîḥ aćhinnapatrâḥ saćantâm; Ṛigv. i. 22, 11.—If the goddesses are here the same as the nymphs, they may be the same as the clouds, and I should refer to this passage, the legend of the Râmâyaṇam (v. 56), according to which the lofty mountains were once winged (the clouds) and wandered about the earth at pleasure; Indras, with his thunderbolt, cut their wings, and they fell down.

[274] Dvâ suparṇâ sayuǵâ sakhâyâ samânaṁ vṛiksham pari shasvaǵâte tayor anyaḥ pippalaṁ svâdv atty anaçnann anyo abhi ćâkaçîtî—Yatrâ suparṇâ amṛitasya bhâgam animeshaṁ vidathâbhisvaranti; Ṛigv. i. 164, 20.—Perhaps we should compare to this legend the two birds Amru and Ćamru of the Khorda-Avesta, of which one makes the seeds of the three mythical trees fall, and the other scatters them about.

[275] Calcutta, 1851.

[276] i. 4305.

[277] Sixth canto.

[278] Professor Spiegel says in a note, Khorda-Avesta, p. 147: "Die Beschwörung vormittelst einer Feder ist gewiss eine alteranische Vorstellung."—In a story, hitherto unpublished, of the Monferrato, communicated to me by Signor Ferraro, a woman, who had gone to eat parsley in the garden of a sorceress, was obliged to give her daughter up to her as a penalty for the offence. The girl was afterwards subjected to three difficult trials; to sunder in one day a mountain of wheat and millet into the grains composing it, to eat in one day a mountain of apples, and to wash, dry, and iron in one hour all the linen of a year. In the first trial, by means of two bird's feathers, she calls up a thousand birds, who separate the grain from the millet.—In the fourth story of the fifth book of the Pentamerone, the birds strip themselves of their feathers to fill a mattress which the witch has ordered the young Permetella to make. In a Tuscan story, for the possession of a peacock's feather, the young brother is killed.

[279] In Afanassieff, v. 38, a similar little bird ravages during the night the field of a lord; the youngest of the three brothers, who is believed to be foolish, catches it and sells it to the king, who shuts it in a room under lock and key. The king's son releases the little bird, which in gratitude gives him a horse that wins battles, and a golden apple, by means of which he is able to wed a princess.—In the story v. 22, the young man who has been instructed by the devil transforms himself into a bird and tells his father to sell him, but not to give up the cage. The devil buys the bird, but does not obtain the cage; he puts the bird into a handkerchief to take it to his daughter, but when he comes home the bird has disappeared.—In the story v. 42, the king of birds releases Ivan from the witch who wishes to eat him, and takes him to his betrothed. The witch tears a few feathers off the king of birds, but does not succeed in stopping him.—In the story v. 46, the devil teaches the language of birds to the young hero.—In the story vi. 69, the wise maiden goes to take into the kingdom of darkness the bird that speaks, the tree that sings, and the water of life, with which she brings to life her two brothers, born before her, whom a witch had thrown into a fountain (the aurora delivers the Açvinâu).—In the fifth Sicilian story of Signora Gonzenbach, brother and sister go into the witch's castle to take the water that dances and the bird that speaks. The bird tells the water, in the king's presence, the story of the two young people.—In the fifth story of the second book of the Pentamerone, the fox teaches the young Grannonia what birds say.—In the seventh story of the fifth book of the Pentamerone, it is the youngest of the five brothers that acquires the faculty of understanding the language of birds.—In Pietro de Crescenzi (x. 1), we find a "rex Daucus (Dacus?) qui divino intellectu novit naturam accipitrum et falconum et eos domesticare ad prædam instruere, et ab ægritudinibus liberare."—In the legend of St Francis of Assisi, the great saint was able to make himself understood to birds, and to make the swallows be silent; the same saint made a wolf mild and tame; the miracle of Orpheus is repeated in numerous other legends.—In the sixteenth Mongol story of Siddhikür, a wise dwarf, who understands the language of birds, hears two birds, father and son, speak to each other on the summit of a tree about the king's son, who had been assassinated by the son of the minister.—In the Edda, Atli has a long dialogue with a bird whose language he understands.—Finally, the whole of the comedy of Aristophanes entitled The Birds (Ornithes) shows the wisdom and divining power of birds, and, as animals of presage, their intimate relation with the thunderbolts of Zeus.—According to the German belief, the fat of a serpent teaches how to understand the language of birds. Cfr. Simrock, the work previously quoted, p. 457.

[280]

"Die zwei Cypressen sind die Himmelsseiten, Die beiden, die uns Glück und Leid bereiten; Der Vogel, der drin nistet, ist die Sonne, Sie giebt beim Schneiden Schmerz, beim Kommen Wonne." —Schack, Heldensagen von Firdusi, p. 122. [281] A variety of the myth of Priapos, mentioned in the chapter on the Ass.

[282] Sinićka letat i gavarít: Sin da charosh.—The dark-blue bird is a symbol of the azure sky of night or winter, whilst, on the other hand, the wooden bird, at which the maidens of Westphalia throw sticks on St John's Day, seems to be a phallical symbol; she who hits the bird is queen. The bird is a well-known phallical symbol; and a phallical origin must be ascribed to the popular superstition that a bird may be rendered helpless by putting salt upon its tail. The salacitas of an animal, when given way to, takes every energy from it; the ûrdhvaretas alone is strong. It was perhaps for a similar reason that in the Middle Ages, when a city was destroyed to its foundations, it was the custom to throw salt upon it, in order that it might never rise again. Salt thrown away is like seed sown in the desert, where it is fruitless.

[283] It is a mountaineer of the province of Siena that speaks: "I perceived by the song of the birds that the weather was about to change; their voice told me, it was so merry;" Giuliani, Moralità e Poesia del Vivente Linguaggio della Toscana, p. 149.

[284] Cfr. among others, the words albanellus (haubereau) avis auguralis species, and aucellus.

[285] De Prœparat. Evang. lib. ix.

[286] i. 76.

[287] Amongst the Romans, on the contrary, the flight to the left was an excellent omen; thus Plautus in the Epidicus: "Tacete, habete animum bonum, liquido exeo foras auspicio, ave sinistra." (But this change from right to left may depend upon the various positions taken by the observer in placing himself.) In the mediæval legend of Alexander, a bird with a human face (a harpy) meets Alexander and advises him to turn to the right, when he will see marvellous things.—Cfr. Zacher, Pseudo-Callisthenes, Halle, 1867, p. 142.

[288] Râmây. iii. 64.

[289] Pra çyenaḥ çyenebhya âçupâtvâ—Aćakrayâ yat svadhayâ suparṇo havyam bharan manave devaǵushṭam; Ṛigv. iv. 26, 4.—The somaḥ çyenâbhṛitaḥ is also mentioned in the Ṛigv. i. 80, 2, iv. 27, ix. 77, and other passages.

[290] Çatam mâ pura âyasîr arakshann adha çyeno ǵavasâ nir adîyam; Ṛigv. iv. 27, 1.

[291] Yam te çyenaç ćârum avṛikaṁ padâbharad aruṇam mânam andhasaḥ—enâ vayo vi târy âyur ǵivasa enâ ǵagâra bandhutâ; Ṛigv. x. 144, 5.

[292] In the Mahâbhâratam (i. 2383), the ambrosia takes the shape of sperm. A king, far from his wife Girikâ, thinks of her; the sperm comes from him and falls upon a leaf. A hawk carries the leaf away; another hawk sees it and disputes with it for the possession of the leaf; they fight with one another and the leaf falls into the waters of the Yamunâ, where the nymph Adrikâ (equivalent to Girikâ), changed by a curse into a fish, sees the leaf, feeds upon the sperm, becomes fruitful, and is delivered; cfr. the chapter on the Fishes.

[293] Çyeno 'yopâshṭir hanti dasyûn; Ṛigv. x. 99, 8.—In the Russian stories the hawk and the dog are sometimes the most powerful helpers of the hero.

[294] Ghṛishuḥ çyenâya kṛitvana âsuḥ; Ṛigv. x. 144, 3.—Yam suparṇaḥ parâvataḥ çyenasya putra âbharat çataćakram; Ṛigv. x. 144, 1.

[295] Sa pûrvyaḥ pavate yaṁ divas pari çyeno mathâyad ishitas tiro raǵaḥ sa madhva â yuvate yeviǵâna it kṛiçânor astur manasâha bibhyushâ; Ṛigv. ix. 77, 2.

[296] iii. 3, 26.

[297] Antaḥ patat patatry asya parṇam; Ṛigv. iv. 27, 4.—Cfr. for this mythical episode the texts given by Prof. Kuhn and the relative discussions, Die Herabkunft d. F. u. d. S., pp. 138 seq. and 180 seq.

[298] Çyeno na bhîtaḥ; Ṛigv. i. 32, 14.

[299] Anyaṁ divo mâtariçvâ ǵabhârâmathnâd anyam pari çyeno adreḥ; Ṛigv. i. 93, 6.

[300] Â vâṁ çyenâso açvinâ vahantu—ye apturo divyâso na gṛidhrâh; Ṛigv. i. 118, 4.

[301] Gṛidhreva vṛikshaṁ nidhimantam aćha; Ṛigv. ii. 39, 1.

[302] Ṛigv. i. 88, 4.—In fact, in the hymn i. 165, 2, the Marutas are explicitly compared to hawks that fly through the air (çyenâṅ iva dhraǵato antarikshe).

[303] Drapsaḥ samudram abhi yaǵ ǵigâti paçyan gṛidhrasya ćakshasâ; Ṛigv. x. 123, 8.

[304] i. 1078, seq.

[305] Mbh. i. 1495.

[306] Ib. i. 1496, seq.

[307] Râmây. vii. 6.

[308] Ib. vii. 7.

[309] Ib. vi. 26.

[310] Mbh. i. 1337, seq.

[311] iii. 20.

[312] iii. 29.

[313] Râmây. iv. 58, 59.

[314] For the numerous Eastern varieties of this legend, cfr. the Einleitung to the Pańćatantram, of Prof. Benfey, p. 388, seq.—In the fifth story of the first book of Afanassieff (cfr. the sixth of the same book), Little John is carried back from the bottom of the earth into Russia upon the wings of an eagle. When the eagle is hungry it turns its head, and Johnny gives it food; when the provisions come to an end, Johnny feeds it with his own flesh.—In the twenty-seventh story of the second book, the two young people are carried from the world of darkness into that of light on the wings of the bird Kolpalitza; when the provisions come to an end, it is the girl that gives flesh, cut off her thigh, to the bird. But the youth, who has with him the water of life, heals the amorous maiden; cfr. also Afanassieff, v. 23, and v. 28, where, instead of the eagle, we find the hawk.—The same sacrifice of himself is made in a Piedmontese story, recorded by me in first number of the Rivista Orientale, by a young prince, who wishes to cross the sea in order to see the princess that he loves; the same is done by the young hero of the following unpublished Tuscan story, which I heard from a certain Martino Nardini of Prato:—"A three-headed dragon steals during the night the golden apples in the garden of the king of Portugal; the three sons of the king watch during the night: the first two fall asleep, but the third discovers the thief and wounds him. The day after, the three brothers follow the track caused by the robber's blood: they come to a beautiful palace, in which there is a cistern, into which the third brother is lowered down, taking a trumpet with him to sound when he wishes to be taken up. Following a dark path he comes to a fine meadow, where there are three splendid palaces, one of bronze, one of silver, and one of gold; following the trace of blood, he goes to the palace of bronze; a beautiful maiden opens the gate to him, and wonders why he has come down to the world underground; the young couple are pleased with each other, and promise to marry one another; the maiden has a crown of brilliants, of which she gives him half as a pledge. The dragon comes back home, and says:—

"Ucci, ucci O che puzzo di Cristianucci, O ce n' è, o ce n' è stati, O ce n' è di rimpiattati." The maiden, who has concealed the young hero, caresses the dragon and makes him fall asleep. When he is asleep, she brings the young man out of his concealment, gives him a sword and tells him to cut the three heads off at one blow. Helped by a second maiden, the young hero prepares to accomplish a second undertaking in the silver palace of the five-headed dragon. He must cut the five heads off at a blow, for if one remains, it is as if he had cut none off. After having killed the dragon, he promises to marry the second maiden too. Finally, he knocks at the gate of the golden palace, which is opened by a third maiden; she too asks, "What ever induced you to come to lose your life in the lower world? The seven-headed dragon lives here." He promises to marry her; the dragon does not wish to go to rest this night; but the maiden persuades him to do so, upon which the youth cuts off the seven heads in two strokes. The three girls, who were three princesses carried off by the dragons, are released, and take all the riches that they can find in order to carry them into the upper world. They come to the cistern, the hero sounds the trumpet, and the two brothers draw up all the riches, the three maidens, shutting up the entrance with a stone, and leaving their young brother alone in the subterranean world. The two elder brothers force the three princesses to declare that they had delivered them; they then go to the King of Portugal and boast of this feat, saying, that the third brother is lost. The three princesses are sad, at which the King of Portugal wonders. The elder brothers wish to marry the maiden who was in the bronze palace; but she declares that she will only marry him who brings to her the other half of the crown of brilliants. They send to all the goldsmiths and jewellers to find one who can make it. Meanwhile, the third brother, abandoned underground, cries out for aid; an eagle approaches the tomb, and promises to carry him into the world above, if he will allay its hunger. The young hero, by the eagle's advice, puts lizards and serpents into a sack, and calls the eagle after having made a plentiful provision of food. He fastens the sack round his neck in order to give an animal to the eagle each time that it asks for food. When they are a few arms' length distant from the upper world, the sack is empty; the youth cuts his flesh off with a knife and gives it to the eagle, which carries him into the world, when the young man asks him how he can return home. The bird directs him to follow the high road. A charcoal-seller passes by; the young man proposes himself as his assistant, on condition that he give him some food. The charcoal-seller takes him with himself for some time, and then recommends him to an old man, his friend, who is a silversmith. Meanwhile, the king's servants have been six months wandering towards the sunset, searching for a silversmith capable of making the other half of the crown, but in vain; they then wander for six months towards the sunrise till they come to the dwelling of the poor silversmith where the third brother serves as an assistant. The old man says he is not able to make the half crown; but the young man asks to see the other half, recognises it, and promises to give it back entire in eight days. At the expiration of this time, the king sends for the crown and the manufacturer, but the youth sends his master instead of himself. The princess, however, insists upon seeing the young assistant too; he is sent for and brought to the palace; the king does not recognise him, and asks what reward he wants; he answers that he wishes for what the crown cost to the princess. The latter recognises him, after which his father does so too. The young hero weds the princess to whom he had promised himself; and the two brothers are covered with inflammable gums, and used as lamps to light up the wedding.

[315] In a hitherto unpublished story of the Monferrato, communicated to me by Signor Ferraro, a king with three sons is blind; he would be cured if he could bathe his eyes in oil with a feather of the griffon-bird, which lives upon a high mountain. The third brother succeeds in catching one, having been kind to an old woman; he brings the griffon-bird to his father, who recovers his sight and his youth.—Cfr. the third story of the fourth book of the Pentamerone, in which a hawk that is a princess transformed, also gives to the brother of his wife one of his feathers, which he is to throw to the ground in case of necessity; indeed, when young Tittone requires it, a battalion of hawks appear in order to free the imprisoned maiden loved by Tittone.—In the fifth story of the fifth book of the Pentamerone, the hawk serves as a guide to a young king to find a beautiful princess whom a witch has put to sleep, and who is believed to be dead. This princess becomes the mother of two sons, who are called Sun and Moon.—In the sixth Sicilian story of Signora Gonzenbach, a young man releases an eagle that was entangled in the branches of a tree; the grateful eagle gives him one of its feathers; letting it fall to the ground, the youth can become an eagle at pleasure.

[316] In the ninth Esthonian story it is the eagle that takes the message to the thunder-god to enable him to recover his weapon, which the devil had carried off.—In the first Esthonian story, the eagle also appears as the propitious messenger of the young prince.

[317] In the story of Santo Stefano, La Principessa che non ride, the eaglets have the same faculty of drawing after themselves everything that they touch; and, as forms of the winds (or the clouds), in which character they sometimes appear, we can understand this property of theirs; the wind, too, draws after itself everything that comes in its way, and especially the violent north wind (aquilo).—In Russian stories we have, instead, now the funereal storks, now the marvellous goose taking the place of the eagle that drags things behind it.

[318] In the tenth Sicilian story of Signora Gonzenbach, it is in the shape of a silver eagle that the king of the assassins penetrates into the room where the young wife of the king sleeps, upon whom he wishes to avenge himself.—Stephanus Stephanius, the interpreter of Saxo Grammaticus, writes, that among the English, the Danes, and other Northern nations, it was the custom when an enemy was defeated, to thrust a sword, as a greater mark of ignominy, into his back, in such a manner as to separate the backbone on both sides by a longitudinal wound; thence stripes of flesh having been cut off, they were fastened to the sides, so as to represent eagle's wings. (In Russian popular stories, when heroes and monsters fight, we find frequent reference to a similar custom.)

[319] Panravílas sataná lućshe yasnavo sakalá, Afanassieff, vi. 16.—The proverb, however, may have another sense, viz., better the devil in person than a beautiful but diabolical shape. The devil sometimes assumed the form of a hawk, as we learn from the legend of Endo, an English man-at-arms, who became enamoured of one into which the devil had transformed himself, in Guillelmus Neubrigensis, Hist. Angl. i. 19.

[320] In Plato's Phædon, rapacious men are transformed into wolves and kites.

[321] Cfr. Aldrovandi, Ornith. v.—And, moreover, in the same Aldrovandi:—"Narrant qui res Africanas literis mandarunt Aquilam marem aliquando cum Lupa coire ... producique ac edi Draconem, qui rostro et alis avis speciem referat, cauda serpentem, pede Lupum, cute esse versicolorem, nec supercilia posse attollere."

[322] I recommend, to whoever wishes to find all these circumstances united, the perusal of the first volume of the Ornithologia of Aldrovandi, who dedicated in it to birds of prey a long and detailed study.—Cfr. also Bachofen. Die Sage von Tanaquil, Heidelberg, 1870.

[323] Comparative popular medicine might be the subject of a special work which could not fail to be instructive and interesting.

[324]

"Come l'Araba Fenice; Che ci sia, ciascun lo dice; Dove sia, nessun lo sa." [325] Cfr. Afanassieff, v. 27.

[326] Itin. i.

[327] In the first chapter of the first book we saw how the witch sucked the breasts of the beautiful maiden.—In Du Cange, s. v. Amma, we read as follows: "Isidorus, lib. xii. cap. vii. bubo strix nocturna: 'Hæc avis, inquit ille, vulgo Amma dicitur ab amando parvulos, unde et lac præbere dicitur nascentibus.' Anilem hanc fabulam non habet Papias MS. Ecclesiæ Bituricensis. Sic enim ille: Amma avis nocturna ab amando dicta, hæc et strix dicitur a stridore."

[328] Mâ mâm ime patatriṇî vi dugdhâm; Ṛigv. i. 158, 4.—In Sicily, the bat called taddarita is considered as a form of the demon; to take and kill it, one sings to it—

"Taddarita, 'ncanna, 'ncanna, Lu dimonio ti 'ncanna E ti 'ncanna pri li peni Taddarita, veni, veni." When it is caught, it is conjured, because, when it shrieks, it blasphemes. Hence it is killed at the flame of a candle or at the fire, or else is crucified.

[329] According to a Sicilian story, as yet unpublished, communicated to me by Dr Ferraro, a siren once carried off a girl, and bore her out to sea with her; and, though she occasionally allowed her to come to the shore, she secured her against running away by means of a chain which was fastened to her own tail. The brother released his sister by throwing bread and meat to the siren to satiate her hunger, employing seven blacksmiths the while to cut the chain.

[330] Cfr. the Pentamerone, iv. 7; and the legend of Lohengrin, in the chapter on the Swan.

[331] Ǵaghâsa te visham; Ṛigv. i. 191, 11.

[332] Communicated to me by Dr Ferraro.—A similar story is still told in Pomerania, Brandenburg, and Ireland, with the variation of the stork as the eagle's rival in flying: when the stork falls down tired out, the wren, which was hidden under one of its wings, comes forth to measure itself with the eagle, and not being tired, is victorious.—In a popular story of Hesse, the wren puts all the animals, guided by the bear, to flight by means of a stratagem.

[333] Atyunnatiṁ prâpya naraḥ prâvâraḥ kîtako yatha sa vinaçyatyasaṁdeham; Böhtlingk, Indische Sprüche, 2te Aufl. Spr. 181.

[334] The same superstition exists in some parts of England, where the children address it thus:—

"Cow-lady, cow-lady, fly away home; Your house is all burnt, and your children are gone." The English names for this beetle are ladybird, ladycow, ladybug, and ladyfly (cfr. Webster's English Dictionary). The country-people also call it golden knop or knob (Cfr. Trench On the Study of Words).

[335]

"Boszia Karóvka Paletí na niebo. Bog dat tibié hleba." [336]

"La galiña d' San Michel Büta j ale e vola al ciel." [337] Sacred, no doubt, to St Lucia. In the Tyrol, according to the Festliche Jahr of Baron Reinsberg, St Lucia gives presents to girls, and St Nicholas to boys. The feast of St Lucia is celebrated on the 15th of September; that evening no one need stay up late, for whoever works that night finds all the work undone in the morning. The night of St Lucia is greatly feared (the saint loses her sight; the summer, the warm sunny season, comes to an end; the Madonna moon disappears, and then becomes queen of the sky, the guardian of light, as St Lucia), and conjurings are made against nightmare, devils, and witches. A cross is put into the bed that no witch may enter into it. That night, those who are under the influence of fate see, after eleven o'clock, upon the roofs of houses a light moving slowly and assuming different aspects; prognostications of good or evil are taken from this light, which is called Luzieschein.

[338]

"Santu Nicola, Santu Nicola Facitimi asciari ossa e chiova." (St Nicholas, St Nicholas, Make me find bone and coin.) [339] Cfr. Menzel, Die Vorchristliche Unsterblichkeits-Lehre.

[340] Cfr. Rochholtz, Deutscher Glaube und Brauch.

[341] Kuhn und Schwartz, N. d. S. M. u. G., p. 377.

[342] In another Tuscan variety, the song begins—

"Lucciola, Lucciola, bassa, bassa, Ti darò una materassa," &c. (Firefly, firefly, down so low, I will give you a mattrass.)

[343] Pliny, too, wrote in the eighteenth book of his Natural History: "Lucentes vespere cicindelas signum esse maturitatis panici et milii." G. Telesius of the Cosentino wrote an elegant Latin poem upon the firefly or cicindela, in the seventeenth century.

[344]

"'Ntr' à to vucca latti e meli, 'Ntr' à mè casa saluti e beni." [345] Madhu priyam bharatho yat saradbhyaḥ; Ṛigv. i. 112, 21.

[346] Haṅsâso ye vâm madhumanto asridho hiraṇyaparṇâ uhuva ushar-budhaḥ udapruto mandino mandinispṛiço madhvo na makshaḥ savanâni gaćhathah; Ṛigv. iv. 45, 4. Here makshas, in conjunction with madhvas, gives us the sense of madhumakshas and madhumakshika, which means bee, and not fly, as it was interpreted by other translators, and by the Petropolitan Dictionary, whose learned editors will be all the more induced to make this slight correction in the new Verbesserungen, as in this hymn, as well as in the hymn i. 112, the bees are considered in connection with the Açvinâu.

[347] iii. 1333.

[348] The god of thunder (or Indras), in opposition to the bees, is also found in a legend of the Ćerkessians quoted by Menzel. The god destroys them; but one of them hides under the shirt of the mother of God, and of this one all the other bees are born.—According to the popular superstition of Normandy, in De Nore, quoted by Menzel, the bees (the same is said of the wasps and the horseflies) are revengeful when maltreated, and carry happiness into a house when treated well. In Russia it is considered sacrilege to kill a bee.

[349] Cfr. Addison, Indian Reminiscences.

[350] ii. 112.

[351] Perì ton en Odüsseia tôn Nümphôn antron.

[352] Die Bienen gebeten werden: "Biene, du Weltvöglein, flieg in die Weite, über neun Seen, über den Mond, über die Sonne, hinter des Himmelssterne, neben der Achse des Wagengestirns; flieg in den Keller des Schöpfers, in des Allmächtigen Vorrathskammer, bring Arznei mit deinen Flügeln, Honig in deinem Schnabel, für böse Eisenwunden und Feuerwunden;" Die Vorchristliche Unsterblichkeits-Lehre. In this work, to which I refer the reader, Menzel treats at length of the worship of bees, and of honey.

[353] In the Engadine in Switzerland, too, it is believed that the souls of men emigrate from the world and return into it in the forms of bees. The bees are there considered messengers of death; cfr. Rochholtz, Deutscher Glaube und Brauch, i. 147, 148.—When some one dies, the bee is invoked as follows, almost as if requesting the soul of the departed to watch for ever over the living:—

"Bienchen, unser Herr ist todt, Verlass mich nicht in meiner Noth." In Germany, people are unwilling to buy the bees of a dead man, it being believed that they will die or disappear immediately after him:—"Stirbt der Hausherr, so muss sein Tod nicht bloss dem Vieh im Stall und den Bienen im Stocke angesagt werden;" Simrock, the work quoted before, p. 601.—In the East, as is well-known, it was the custom to bury great men in a tomb sprinkled over with honey or beeswax as a symbol of immortality.

[354] Der Adel der Bienen ist vom Paradies entsprossen und wegen der Sünde des Menschen kamen sie von da heraus und Gott schenkte ihnen seinen Segen, und deshalb ist die Messe nicht zu singen ohne Wachs; Leo, Malberg. Glossæ, 1842.

[355] Baluz. Capitulor. tom. ii. p. 663, in oratione ad revocandum examen apum dispersum ex Cod. MS. S. Gallï.

[356] In Du Cange: "Apis significat formam virginitatis, sive sapientiam, in malo, invasorem."—Papias M. S. Bitur; ex illo forsitan officii Ecclesiast. in festo S. Ceciliæ: "Cecilia famula tua, Domine, quasi Apis tibi argumentosa deservit," &c.

[357] Cfr. the chapters on the Hare, the Lion, and the Elephant. The louse and the flea have the same mythical nature as the mosquito and the fly.—In the ninth Esthonian story, the son of the thunder, by means of a louse, obliges the thunder-god to scratch his head for a moment, and thus to let fall the weapon of thunder, which is instantly carried off to hell. The lice that fall down from the head of the witch combed by the good maiden, or from that of the Madonna combed by the wicked maiden, have already been mentioned. The Madonna that combs the child is, moreover, a subject of traditional Christian painting.—In the fifth story of the first book of the Pentamerone, we read of a monstrous louse. The king of Altamonte fattens a louse so much that it grows to the size of a wether. He then has it flayed, orders the skin to be dirtied, and promises to give his daughter to wife to whoever guesses what skin this is. The ogre alone guesses, and carries the maiden off, whom seven heroes afterwards go to deliver towards the aurora "subito che l'Aucielle (the birds) gridaro: Viva lo Sole."

[358]

"Quando la cicala il c. batte L'ha del m. chi non si fa la parte." [359] Peri Zôôn idiotêtos, xxiv., with the additions of Joachim Camerarius.

[360] Plutarch, in the Life of Sylla, cites among the prognostics of the civil war between Marius and Sylla, the incident of a sparrow lacerating a cicada, of which it left part in the temple of Bellona, and carried part away.

[361] Ṛigv. vii. 104, 22.

[362] Kanikradaǵ ǵanusham prabruvâṇa iyarti vâćam ariteva nâvam sumañgalaç ća çakune bhavâsi mâ tvâ kâ ćid abhibhâ viçvyâvidat. Ma tvâ çyena ud vadhîn ma suparṇo mâ tvâ vidad ishumân vîro astâ; pitryâmanu pradiçaṁ kanikradat sumañgalo bhadrâvâdî vadeha. Ava kranda dakshiṇato gṛihâṇâm sumañgalo bhadravâdî çakunte; Ṛigv. ii. 42.

[363] St Anthony of Padua said of the partridge: "Avis est dolosa et immunda et hypocritas habentes, ut dicit Petrus, oculos plenos adulterii et incessabilis delicti signa."—Partridge's foot (perdikos pous) meant, in the Greek proverb, a deceitful foot.

[364] Indische Studien, i. 117, 118.

[365]

Stutiṁ tu punar evéćhanam indro bhûtvâ kapińǵalaḥ Risher ǵigamishor âçâm vavâçe prati dakshiṇâm Sa tam ârsheṇa saṁprekshya ćakshushâ pakshirûpiṇam Parâbhyâm api tushṭâva sûktâbhyâṁ tu kanikradat. [366] i. 66.

[367] ii. 79.

[368] Cfr. the chapter on the Woodpecker. A whoop, kept by me for some time with its young ones, had been taken with its nest from the trunk of a tree which had been cut down, and which it had scooped out in its higher part in order to build its nest in the lowest and deepest part of the trunk.

[369] I, for instance, kept for some time a young cuckoo which had been found in the nest of a little granivorous singing bird, which is very common in Tuscany, and is called scoperina or scopina.

[370] Villemarqué, Barzaz Breiz, sixième éd. p. 493.

[371] The old English popular song celebrates it as the bringer of summer—

"Sumer is icumen in, lhude sing cuccu." The old Anglo-Saxon song of St Guthlak makes the cuckoo the announcer of the year (geacas gear budon). The ancient song of May in Germany welcomes it with the words—

"The cuckoo with its song makes every one gay." The popular Scotch song caresses it thus—

"The cuckoo's a fine bird, he sings as he flies; He brings us good tidings, he tells us no lies. He sucks little bird's eggs to make his voice clear, And when he sings 'cuckoo,' the summer is near." In Shakspeare (Love's Labour Lost, v. 2), the owl represents winter, and the cuckoo spring—"This side is Hiems, winter, this Ver, the spring; the one maintained by the owl, the other by the cuckoo."

In a mediæval Latin eclogue recorded in the third volume of Uhland's Schriften (Abhandlung über die deutschen Volkslieder), the death of the cuckoo is wept over—

"Heu cuculus nobis fuerat cantare suetus, Quæ te nunc rapuit hora nefanda tuis? Omne genus hominum Cuculum complangat ubique! Perditus est cuculus, heu perit ecce meus.

Non pereat Cuculus, veniet sub tempore veris Et nobis veniens carmina læta ciet. Quis scit, si veniat? timeo est submersus in undis, Vorticibus raptus atque necatus aquis." A popular German song shows us the cuckoo first wet, and then dried by the sun—

"Der Kuckuck auf dem Zaune sass, Kuckuck, kuckuck! Es regnet sehr und ward nass. Darnach da kam der Sonnenschein, Kuckuck, kuckuck! Der kuckuck der ward hübsch und fein." —Cfr. also the "Entstehung des Kukuks" in Hahn's Albanesische Märchen, ii. 144, 316.

[372] s. v. cucullus.

[373] Cfr. the chapter on the Peacock.

[374] Cfr. Uhland's Schriften, iii. 25.

[375] Cfr. Afanassieff, i. 12.

[376] Villemarqué, Barzaz Breiz, sixième éd. p. 392.

[377] "Quand il le tint, se mit à rire de tout son cœur. E il l'étouffa, et le jeta dans le blanc giron de la pauvre dame. Tenez, tenez, ma jeune épouse, voici votre joli rossignol; c'est pour vous que je l'ai attrapé; je suppose, ma belle, qu'il vous fera plaisir;" Villemarqué, Barzaz Breiz, p. 154.

[378] iii. 5.

[379] Dixon, Ancient Poems, Ballads, and Songs of the Peasantry of England; cfr. also on the traditions relating to the cuckoo and the nightingale in Russia, Ralston, The Songs of the Russian People.

[380] Currum Deæ prosequentes, gannitu constrepenti lasciviunt Passeres; De Asino Aureo, vi.

[381] A woman of Antignano, near Leghorn, once told me the story of a beautiful princess who stayed upon a tree till her husband returned, who had gone in quest of robes for her. Whilst she is waiting, up comes a negress to wash clothes, and sees in the water the reflection of the beautiful princess. She induces her to come down by offering to comb her hair for her, and puts a pin into her head, so that she becomes a swallow. The negress then takes the maiden's place by her husband. The swallow, however, finds means of letting herself be caught by her husband, who, stroking her head, finds the pin, and draws it out; then the swallow becomes again a beautiful princess. The same story is narrated more at length in Piedmont, in other parts of Tuscany, in Calabria, and in other places; but instead of the swallow we have the dove, as in the Tuti-Name.

[382] Pra yâ ǵigâti khargaleva naktam apa druhâ tanvaṁ gûhamânâ; Ṛigv. vii. 104, 17.

[383] Yad ulûko vadati mogham etad yat kapotaḥ padam agnâu kṛiṇoti, yasya dûtaḥ prahita esha etat tasmâi yamâya namo astu mṛityave; Ṛigv. i. 165, 4.

[384] iii. 73.

[385] iii. 15, 128, and Hitopadeças, iv. 47.

[386] iii. 308, x. 38.

[387] vi. 64.

[388] In the articles against Bernard Saget in the year 1300, recorded by Du Cange, I read—"Aves elegerunt Regem quemdam avem vocatam Duc, et est avis pulchrior et major inter omnes aves, et accidit semel quod Pica conquesta fuerat de Accipitre dicto Domino Regi, et congregatis avibus, dictus Rex nihil dixit nisi quod flavit (flevit?). Vel (veluti) idem de rege nostro dicebat ipse Episcopus, qui ipse est pulchrior homo de mundo, et tamen nihil scit facere, nisi respicere homines."

[389] Among the Tartars, according to Aldrovandi, the feathers of the male owl are worn as an amulet, probably to conjure the owl himself away, in the same way as, in the Vedic hymns, Death is invoked in order that it may remain far off. In the Khorda Avesta (p. 147), translated by Spiegel, the hero Verethraghna derives his strength from the owl's feathers.—We are acquainted with the funereal moon in the form of Proserpine; the Hindoos considered Manus in relation with the moon, with which, moreover, it was also identified. Manus, as the first and the father of men, is also the first of the dead. Manus gives the somas to Indras. The dying sun is exchanged in the funereal kingdom for the moon; but of the moon's kingdom the souls come down, and to the moon's kingdom they return. With Manus the word Menerva is joined, a Latin form, as a goddess, of the Greek Athênê. The owl, the symbol of Minerva, may be equivalent to Manus as the moon. The intimate connection which exists in myths and legends between the maiden aurora and the maiden moon is well-known; they reciprocally do services to each other. Athênê may very well have represented equally the two wise maidens—the moon, who sees everything in the dark night; the aurora, who, coming out of the gloomy night, illumines everything. The head of Zeus, out of which Athênê comes, appears to be a form of the eastern sky.

[390] "Selbst in sternloser Nacht ist keine Verborgenheit, es lauert eine grämliche Alte, die Eule; sie sitzt in ihrem finstern Kämmerlein, spinnt mit silbernen Spindelchen und sieht übel dazu, was in der Dunkelheit vorgeht. Der Holzschnitt des alten Flugblattes zeigt die Eule auf einem Stühlchen am Spinnrocken sitzend."

[391]

"Wenn durch die dünne Luft ein schwarzer Rabe fleucht Und krähet sein Geschrei, und wenn des Eulen Fraue Ihr Wiggen-gwige heult: sind Losungen sehr rauhe." —Rochholtz, the work quoted before, i. p. 155. [392] i. 175.

[393] ii. 5.

[394] i. 1152.

[395] ii. 105, v. 3.

[396] Ib.

[397] ii. 105; cfr. also Du Cange, s. v. corbitor.—In the German legend of the Emperor Frederic Barbarossa, the emperor, buried under a mountain, wakens and asks, "Are the crows still flying round the mountain?" he is answered that they are still flying. The emperor sighs and lies down again, concluding that the hour of his resurrection has not yet arrived.

[398] In the Ornithologia of Aldrovandi. The messenger crow is of frequent occurrence in legends.

[399] In Plutarch, two crows guide Alexander the Great, when he goes to consult the oracle of Zeus Ammôn.

[400] Hence the name of Avis S. Martini also given to the crow, because it often comes about St Martin's day. In Du Cange and in the Roman du Renard we also find indicated the auspices to be taken from the crow's flight; for the same custom in Germany, cfr. Simrock, the work quoted before, p. 546.

[401] Horace, Carm. iii. 27.—In Afanassief, again (iv. 36), the rook is asked where it has flown to. It answers, "Into the meadows to write letters and sigh after the maiden;" and the maiden is advised to hurry towards the water. The maiden declares that she fears the crab. In this maiden, that is afraid of the crab, I think I can recognise the zodiacal sign of Virgo (attracted by the crab of the summer),—the virgin who approaches the water, the autumn and the autumnal rains; the virgin loved by the crow, who is the friend of the rains.

[402] Horace, Carm. iii. 27.

[403] Sâkaṁ yakshma pra pata ćâsheṇa kīkidîvinâ; Ṛigv. x. 97, 13.

[404]

Saróvka, saróvka, Kasha varlla Na parók skakála, Gastiei saszivála. [405] The magpie is proverbial as a babbler; hence, from its Italian name gazza, the name gazzetta given to newspapers, as divulging secrets.—In the Dialogus Creaturarum, dial. 80, it is written of the magpie, called Agazia: "Pica est avis callidissima.... Hæc apud quemdam venatorem et humane et latine loquebatur, propter quod venator ipsam plenaria fulciebat. Pica autem non immemor beneficii, volens remunerare eum, volavit ad Agazias, et cum eis familiariter sedebat et humane sermocinabatur. Agaziæ quoque in hoc plurimum lætabantur cupientes et ipsæ garrire humaneque loqui."

[406] Hence the request made in the popular song to the stork, to bring a little sister; cfr. the songs of the stork in Kuhn and Schwarz, N. S. M. u. G. p. 452. As the bringer of children, the stork is represented as the serpent's enemy; cfr. Tzetza, i. 945.

[407] Cfr. Phile, vi. 2; and Aristophanes in the Ornithes—

"Deî tous neotous t' patéra palin trephein." [408]

"Lacte quis infantes nescit crevisse ferino? Et picum expositis sæpe tulisse cibos?" —Ovid, Fasti, iii. [409] Compare pińǵûlas with pińǵalas and pińǵaras.—In the hymn, x. 28, 9, of the Ṛigvedas, we also have the mountain cleft from afar by a clod of earth: Adriṁ logena vy abhedam ârât. This analogy is so much the more remarkable, as in the same hymn, 4th strophe, the wild boar is also spoken of.

[410] The same virtue of opening the mountain by means of an herb I find attributed to the little martin, in connection with Venus, in Simrock, the work quoted before, p. 415: "Schon in einem Gedichte Meister Altschwerts, ed. Holland, s. 70, wird der Zugang zu dem Berge durch ein Kraut gefunden, das der Springwurzel oder blauen Schlüsselblume unserer Ortssagen gleicht. Kaum hat es der Dichter gebrochen, so kommt ein Martinsvögelchen geflogen, das guter Vorbedeutung zu sein pflegt; diesem folgt er und begegnet einem Zwerge, der ihn in den Berg zu Frau Venus führt."

[411] Carm. iii. 27.

[412]

"Thou shalt not lack The flower that's like thy face, pale primrose; nor The azured hare-bell, like thy veins; no, nor The leaf of eglantine, whom not to slander, Out-sweetened not thy breath; the ruddock would, With charitable bill (O bill, sore-shaming Those rich-left heirs, that let their fathers lie Without a monument!), bring thee all this." —iv. 2. [413] Cfr. what is said on the whoop, the stork, and the lark.—Concerning the bird gaulus, I find in Du Cange as follows: "Gaulus Merops avis apibus infensa, unde et Apiastra vocitatur. Papias: 'Meropes, Genus avium, idem et Gauli, qui parentes suos recondere, et alere dicuntur, sunt autem virides et vocantur Apiastræ.'"

[414] Tâittiriya Yaǵurv. vii. 1, 4.

[415] Hence Gregory of Tours relates, in Du Cange: "In Ecclesia Arverna, dum matutinæ celebrarentur Vigiliæ, in quadam civitate avis Corydalus, quam Alaudam vocamus, ingressa est."

[416] Vartikâṁ grasitâm amuńćatam; Ṛigv. i. 112, 8.—Amuńćataṁ vartikâm aṅhasaḥ; i. 118, 8.—Âsno vṛikasya vartikâm abhîke yuvaṁ narâ nâsatyâmumuktam; i. 116, 14.—Vṛikasya ćid vartikâm antar âsyâd yuvaṁ çaçîbhir grasitâm amuńćatam; x. 39, 13.

[417] The same fable is also related in a different way: Jove cohabits with Latona, and subsequently forces her sister, Asterien, who is, in pity, changed by the gods into a quail. Jove becomes an eagle to catch her; the gods change the quail into a stone—(cfr. the stories of Indras as a cuckoo and Rambhâ, of Indras as a cock and Ahalyâ. It is a popular superstition that quails, like the crane, when they travel, let little stones fall in order to recognise on their return the places by which they passed the first time)—which lies for a long time under water, till by the prayer of Latona it is taken out.

[418] Ælianos says that the cock is in the moon's favour, either because it assisted Latona in parturition, or because it is generally believed (as a symbol of fecundation) to be the facilitator of childbirth. As a watchful animal it was natural to consider it especially dear to the moon, the nocturnal watcher.—The cock, as an announcer of news, was sacred to Mercury; as the curer of many diseases, to Æsculapius; as a warrior, to Mars, Hercules, and Pallas, who, according to Pausanias, wore a hen upon her helmet; as an increaser of the family, to the Lares, &c. Even Roman Catholic priests will deign to receive with especial favour, ad majorem Dei gloriam, the homage of cocks, capons, and chickens.

[419] This year, my quails cried out six times; and the corn in Italy is very dear, the spring having been a very rainy one.

[420] iii. 12,437.

[421] i. 49.

[422] Mâ no vadhîr indra mâ parâ dâ mâ naḥ priyâ bhoǵanâni pra moshîḥ âṇḍâ mâ no maghavań ćhakra nir bhen mâ naḥ pâtrâ bhet sahaǵânushâṇi; Ṛigv. i. 104, 8.

[423] Der Vogel der den Namen Parodars führt, o heiliger Zarathustra, den die übelredenden Menschen mit den Namen Kahrkatâç belegen, dieser Vogel erhebt seine Stimme bei jeder göttlichen Morgenröthe: Stehet auf, ihr Menschen, preiset die beste Reinheit, vertreibet die Dâeva; Vendidad, xviii. 34-38, Spiegel's version.—The cock Parodars chases away with his cry especially the demon Bûshyaṅçta, who oppresses men with sleep, and he returns again in a fragment of the Khorda-Avesta (xxxix.): "'Da, vor dem Kommen der Morgenröthe, spricht dieser Vogel Parodars, der Vogel der mit Messern verwundet, Worte gegen das Feuers aus. Bei seinem Sprechen läuft Bushyaṅçta mit langen Händen herzu von der nördlichen Gegend, von den nördlichen Gegenden, also sprechen, also sagend: "Schlafet o Menschen, schlafet, sündlich Lebende, schlafet, die ihr ein sündiges Leben führt." As in the song of Prudentius, the idea of sleep and that of sin are associated together; the song of Prudentius suggests the idea that it was written by some one who was initiated in the solar mysteries of the worship of Mithras.

[424] Cfr. Du Cange, s. v.—And the same Du Cange, in the article gallina, quotes an old mediæval glossary in which gallina is said to mean Christ, wisdom, and soul.—The cock of the Gospel announces, reveals, betrays Christ three times, in the three watches of the night, to which sometimes correspond the three sons of the legends.

[425] According to a legend of St James, an old father and mother go with their young son on a pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella in Spain. On the way, in an inn at San Domingo de la Calzada, the innkeeper's daughter offers her favours to the young man, who rejects them; the girl avenges herself upon him by putting a silver plate in his sack, for which he is arrested and impaled as a thief. The old parents continue their journey to Santiago; St James has pity upon them, and works a miracle which is only known to be his afterwards. The old couple return to their country, passing by San Domingo; here they find their son alive, whom they had seen impaled, for which they there and then offer solemn thanks to St James. All are astonished. The prefect of the place is at dinner when the news is brought to him; he refuses to believe it, and says that the young man is no more alive than the roasted fowl which is being set upon the table; no sooner has he uttered the words, than the cock begins to crow, resumes its feathers, jumps out of the plate and flies away. The innkeeper's daughter is condemned; and in honour of the miracle, the cock is revered as a sacred animal, and at San Domingo the houses are ornamented with cock's feathers. A similar wonder is said, by Sigonio, to have taken place in the eleventh century in the Bolognese; but instead of St James, Christ and St Peter appear to perform miracles.—Cfr. also the relationship of St Elias (and of the Russian hero Ilya) feasted on the 21st of July, when the sun enters the sign of the lion, with Helios, the hellenic sun.

[426]

La gallina cantatura Nun si vinni, nè si duna, Si la mancia la patruna. [427] Cfr. Afanassieff, i. 3, ii. 30; sometimes, instead of the hen's feet we have the dog's paws; cfr. v. 28.

[428] Concerning this subject I can add an unpublished story which Signor S. M. Greco sends me from Cosenza in Calabria:—A poor girl is alone in the fields; she plucks a rampion, sees a stair, goes down, and comes to the palace of the fairies, who at sight of her are smitten with love. She asks to be allowed to go back to her mother, and obtains permission; she tells her mother that she hears a noise every night, without seeing anything, and is advised to light a candle and she will see. Next evening the girl does so, and sees a youth of great beauty with a looking-glass on his breast. The third evening she does the same, but a drop of wax falls upon the looking-glass and wakens the youth, who cries out lamentably, "Thou shalt go hence." The girl wishes to go away; the fairies give her a full clew of thread, with the advice that she must go to the top of the highest mountain and leave the clew to itself; where it goes, thither must she follow. She obeys, and arrives at a town which is in mourning on account of the absence of the prince; the queen sees the girl from the window and makes her come in. After some time she gives birth to a handsome son, and a shoemaker, who works by night, begins to sing—

"Sleep, sleep, my son; If your mother knew some day That you are my son, In a golden cradle she would put you to sleep, And in golden swaddling-clothes. Sleep, sleep, my son." The queen then learns from the girl, that he who sings thus is the prince, who is destined to stay far from the palace until the sun rises without him perceiving it. Orders are then given to kill all the fowls in the town, and to cover all the windows with a black veil scattered over with diamonds, in order that the prince may believe it is still night and may not perceive the rising of the sun. The prince is deceived, and marries the maiden who is the fairies' favourite, and they lived happy and contented,

Whilst I, if you will believe me, Found myself with a thorn in my foot. [429] Die schlaue Alte brachte bald heraus, was der Dorfhahn hinter ihrem Rücken der jungsten Tochter ins Ohr gekräht hatte; Kreutzwald u. Löwe, Ehstnische Märchen.

[430] In the annals of the city of Debreczen, in the year 1564, we read as follows: "Æterna et exitialis memoria de incendio trium ordinum in anno præsenti: feria secunda proxima ante fest. nat. Mariæ gloriosæ exorta est flamma et incendium periculosum in platea Burgondia; eadem similiter ebdomade exortum est incendium altera vice, de platea Csapo de domo inquilinari Stephani literati, multas domos ... in cinerem redegit, et quod majus inter cætera est, nobilissimi quoque templi divi Andreæ et turris tecturæ combustæ sunt, ex qua turri et ejus pinnaculo, gallus etiam æreus, a multis annis insomniter dies ac noctes jejuno stomacho stans et in omnes partes advigilans, flammam ignis sufferre non valens, invitus devolare, descendere et illam suam solitam stationem deserere coactus est, qui gallus tantæ cladis commiserescens ac nimio dolore obmutescens de pinnaculo desiliendio, collo confracto in terram coincidens et suæ vitæ propriæ quoque non parcens, fidele suum servitium invitus derelinquendo, misere expiravit et vitam suam finivit sic."

[431] Reinsberg von Düringsfeld observes (Das festliche Jahr), that sometimes, for jest, in North Walsham, instead of the cock an owl is put,—another funereal symbol with which we are already acquainted.

[432] Not only the egg of the hen is a symbol of abundance, but even the bones of fowls served in popular tradition to represent matrimonial faith and coition. In Russia, when two (probably husband and wife) eat a fowl together, they divide the bone of the neck, the English merrythought, between them; then each of them takes and keeps a part, promising to remember this rupture. When either of the two subsequently presents something to the other, the one who receives must immediately say, "I remember;" if not, the giver says to him, "Take and remember." The forgetful one loses the game. A similar game, called the verde or green, is played in Tuscany during Lent between lovers with a little twig of the box-tree.

[433] The sun is an egg at the beginning of day; he becomes, or finds, an apple-tree in the evening, in the western garden of the Hesperides.

[434] The Indian word kapotas, which means a dove, also indicates the grey colour of antimony, the colour of the commonest species of doves, and of those which are fed on St Mark's Place at Venice.

[435] Çivaḥ kapota ishito no astu anâgâ devâḥ çakuno gṛiheshu; str. 2.—For the fourth strophe, cfr. the chapter which treats of the Owl.

[436] ii. 9.

[437] ii. 239.—Cfr. the chapter on the Eagle.

[438] It appears to me that the same confusion arose between coluber and columba as between chelüdros, a kind of serpent, and chelidôn, a swallow. The beautiful maiden upon a tree occurs even in the Tuti-Name, i. 178, seq.

[439] ii. 7, and v. 9

[440] They were related to me at Antignano near Leghorn by the peasant woman Uliva Selvi:—

A gentleman had twelve sons and one daughter, who had, by enchantment, been metamorphosed into an eagle, and was kept in a cage. The father takes the twelve sons to mass every day; every day he meets an old beggar-woman and gives alms to her; one day, however, he has no money with him, and therefore gives her nothing; the old woman curses him, wishing that he may never see his sons again. No sooner said than done; the twelve sons become twelve doves and fly away. The despairing father and mother begin to weep; in their despair they forget to feed the eagle. Opposite the gentleman's house the king lived, who becomes enamoured of the eagle as though of a beautiful maiden; he has her stolen and replaced by another eagle. Not far thence there lived a washerwoman who had such a beautiful daughter that she never let her go out except at night. They wash at the fountain surrounded by poplar-trees; at midnight, as they wash, they hear a noise among the poplar-trees, and the maiden is afraid. One night they listen and hear the doves speaking and telling one another the incidents of the day, where they had been and what they had been doing. They then fly into a beautiful garden; the girl follows them; they enter into a beautiful palace, and the washerwoman relates what she has seen to the gentleman, who rejoices, and promises a great reward to the washerwoman if she will show him where his sons go to sleep. Both father and mother go to see; the pigeons speak, and say, "Were our mother to see us ..."; they then fly away. The gentleman then consults an astrologer, who advises him to allure the old witch into his house by the promise of alms, to shut her up in a room, and to compel her by main force to indicate the means of turning the pigeons into youths once more, or else to kill her. The old woman gives a powder which, when scattered on the highest mountain, will make the pigeons return home. The father goes to the mountain, scatters the powder and returns home, where he finds his sons, who are inquiring after the eagle. They go to see it and do not recognise it; they complain to their mother of this. Meanwhile, the young king is always near his eagle as if making love to it; and his mother is displeased at it. The twelve brothers meet a fairy who, for some alms, tells who has their eagle, and that it will soon return home a beautiful maiden. And the eagle becomes a beautiful girl and is married by the king.

There was once a king who had a handsome son, enamoured of a beautiful princess. He is carried off with two servants by the magicians and transformed into a pigeon; the servants undergo the same metamorphosis; one becomes green, one red, and the other greyish violet (pavonazzo). They take him into a beautiful palace where he must stay for seven years. Each has a large basin,—one is of gold, another of silver, and the third of bronze. When they plunge into them, they become three handsome youths. The princess, meanwhile, is dying to know where her lover is gone; she goes to have her hair combed on a terrace; the three pigeons carry away her looking-glass, then the ribbon of her hair, and then her comb. A great festival occurs in this town, to which the girls of the land go by night; on the way, one of them, near the break of day, turns aside for a few minutes; she sees a golden gate, finds a little gold key on the earth, opens the door and enters into a fine garden. At the end of the path there is a beautiful palace, into which she goes; she finds the three basins of gold, silver, and bronze, and sees the pigeons become young men. Meanwhile the king's daughter falls ill of grief, and is to all appearance dying; the king resolves to have her cured at any cost. The girl who had been in the place relates to the king's daughter all that she has seen; the latter is cured and goes with the girl to the palace; they find it, enter, and see a table laid for three persons; the two girls hide themselves. The prince and the princess meet with one another; but the prince, upon seeing her, is full of despair, saying that her impatience has prolonged the enchantment for seven years more, whilst it had at the time only three more days to run. He becomes a pigeon again; she must stay for seven years upon a tower exposed to all the inclemency of the seasons. Seven years pass by; the princess has become so ugly that she looks like a beast, with long hair all over her burned skin. The enchantment comes to an end for him after seven years; he goes to look for her; she says, "How much have I suffered for you!" The prince does not recognise her, and leaves her; she is left naked in a dense forest, and goes to seek her father. Night comes on, and the princess and her servant-maid do not know where to take refuge; they climb up a tree, whence they perceive a light. They walk towards it and find a beautiful little palace; a beautiful lady, a fairy, shows herself, and asks, "Is this you, Caroline?" This was the princess's name. But the fairy can give no news of the prince, and sends her on to another fairy, her sister, with the same result; she then goes to a third fairy, walking a double distance each time. The three fairies were three queens who had been betrayed by the same young prince. The third fairy gives to the princess a magical rod; she must go to the prince and do to him what he did to her—spit in his face, to wit. She is brought in a boat before the young king's palace, and there, following the fairy's instructions, she raises, by means of the rod, a beautiful palace, a palace more beautiful than that of the king, with a beautiful fountain. The young king wishes to go and see it; he sees a beautiful princess and kisses his hand to her, but she shuts the window in his face. He then invites her to dinner, but she refuses. He sends her a magnificent diamond, which she gives to her majordomo, saying that she has many more beautiful. He then sends her a splendid dress, which can be taken in the palm of the hand; she tears it into pieces and gives it to the cook to be used for kitchen purposes. The young king becomes passionately enamoured of her, and sends to her his best watch, which she gives also to her majordomo. He falls ill of a dreadful fever and wishes to marry her; he sends his mother. The princess laughs at the prince and refuses to come, saying, "Why does he not come himself?" His mother begs again that she will come. "Let him come," she answers; and at last she consents to come if they will make from her palace to that of the king a covered way so well and thickly made that not a ray of light can enter, and which she may be able to pass through with her equipage. Half way, the covering opens, and the sunbeams enter, upon which she disappears. (Cfr. the Indian myth of Urvaçî). The king being about to die, his mother returns to the princess, who demands that they bring him to her as if dead, in a bier. The king confesses that he has betrayed four maidens, and that it is on account of the fourth that he is coming to such a miserable end. The princess laughs at him and spits twice in his face; the third time he rises again, they are reconciled and married. (The spitting of the princess, which makes the dead prince rise again, is the dew of the ambrosia, or of spring, which brings the sun to life again.)—Cfr. the stories ii. 5, iv. 8, of the Pentamerone, and v. 22 of Afanassieff.

[441] It is said of the widowed turtle-dove that it will never drink again in any fountain of limpid water for fear of reviving the image of its lost companion by seeing its own in the water. The Christians pretend that the voice of the turtle-dove represents the cry, the sighing, and afterwards, for the resurrection of Christ, the joy of Mary Magdalen. Ælianos says that the turtle-dove is sacred not only to the goddess of love, and to the goddess of harvests, but also to the funereal Parcæ.

[442] In the legend of St Remy it is a dove that carries to the saint the flagon of water with which he must baptize King Clodoveus.

[443]

"Et ille nunc superbus et superfluens Perambulabit omnium cubilia, Ut albulus columbus, aut Adoneus? Cinæde Romule, hæc videbis et feres?" The chastity and the proverbial conjugal fidelity attributed to doves is here denied. Catullus had evidently closely observed the habits of these animals, which are sometimes, on the contrary, of a shameless infidelity. I have seen a white dove, who, in the presence of his wife, intent upon hatching her eggs, violated the nuptial bed of a gray dove, at a moment when the jealous husband was eating; the wife accepted the caresses of the husband and of the lover in the same passive attitude.

[444] We may also record here another Italian proverb, "To take two doves with one bean." In Italian anatomy a part of the phallos is called a bean (fava). The birds, and especially the thrushes and the doves, according to the popular belief, not only have the faculty of making other birds, but even plants fruitful. The words of Pliny, Hist. Nat. xvi. 44, have already been quoted by Prof. Kuhn: "Omnino autem satum nullo modo nascitur, nec nisi per alvum avium redditum, maxime palumbis ac turdis."

[445] Çvasity apsu haṅso na sîdan kratvâ ćetishṭho viçâm usharbhut; Ṛigv. i. 65, 9.

[446] Bîbhatsûnâṁ sayuǵam haṅsam âhur apâṁ divyânâṁ sakhye ćarantam; x. 124, 9.

[447] Haṅsâir iva sakhibhir vâvadadbhir açmanmayâni nahanâ vyasyan bṛihaspatir abhi kanikradad gâ; x. 67, 3.

[448] Sasvaç cid dhi tanvaḥ çumbhamânâ â haṅsâso nîlapṛishṭhâ apaptan; vii. 59, 7.

[449] Cfr. the chapter which treats of the Bee.

[450] vi. 2.

[451] Adhi bṛibuḥ paṇînâṁ varshishṭhe mûrdhann asthât uruḥ kaksho na gâñgyaḥ; Ṛigv. vi. 45, 31.—Bṛibuṁ sahasradâtamaṁ sûriṁ sahasrasâtamam; vi. 45, 33.—Cfr. also the 32d strophe.

[452] Ṛigv. vi. 46.

[453] The goose is found in connection with robbers in the twenty-third story of the sixth book of Afanassieff. Two servants stole a precious pearl from the king; being about to be found out, they give the pearl, by the advice of an old woman, to the grey goose in a piece of bread; the goose is then accused of having stolen the pearl. It is killed, the pearl is found, and the two robbers escape.

[454] v. 55.—In the forty-ninth story of the fifth book of Afanassieff, a riddle occurs where the betrothed wife is represented as a duck. A father sends his son to find the wife who is predestined for him, with the following enigmatical order: "Go to Moscow; there there is a lake; in the lake there is a net; if the duck has fallen into the net, take the duck; if not, withdraw the net." The son returns home with the duck—that is to say, with his betrothed wife.

[455] ii. 46.

[456] iv. 11.

[457] iii. 75.

[458] Cfr. Afanassieff, vi. 17, and a variety of the vi. 19.

[459] Cfr. an interesting variety of this story in the Griechische und Albanische Märchen of Hahn.

[460] Thus, in a Norwegian story, the dirty cinder-girl carries silver ducks away from the magicians.—In the eighth Esthonian story, the third brother is sent to hell for the ducks and geese with golden feathers.

[461] In a Scandinavian and Italian variety of this story, instead of the goose we have the eagle and eaglets; the goose returns, in the first story of the fifth book of the Pentamerone, to do the same duty as in the Russian story, but with some more vulgar and less decent incidents.

[462] The image of the legs which, when they move, make flowers grow up, is very ancient; students of Hindoo literature will remember the pushpiṇyâu ćarato ǵanghe of the Âitareya Br., in the story of Çunaḥçepas.

[463] The ninth of the Novelline di Santo Stefano di Calcinaia is an interesting variety of this; the beautiful maiden who feeds the geese is disguised in an old woman's skin; the geese, who see her naked, cry out: "Cocò, la bella padrona ch 'i' ho," until the prince, by means of a noiseless file, makes the cook enter the room and carry the old woman's skin away while she sleeps, and then weds her.—The following unpublished story, communicated to me by Signor Greco from Cosenza in Calabria, is a variation of that of the Pentamerone:—

Seven princes have a very beautiful sister. An emperor decides upon marrying her, but upon the condition that if he does not find her to his taste, he will decapitate her seven brothers. They set out altogether, and the mother-in-law with her daughter follow them. On the way, the sun is hot, and the elder brother cries out, "Solabella, defend me from the heat, for you must please the king." The step-mother advises her to take off her necklaces and to put them on her half-sister. The second brother next complains of the heat, and the step-mother advises her to take off her gold apparel and to put it on her half-sister. By such means the step-mother at last succeeds in making her naked; they come to the sea, and the step-mother pushes her in; she is taken by a siren, who holds her by her foot with a golden chain. The princes arrive with the ugly sister; the king weds the ugly wife and cuts off the heads of the seven brothers. When the maiden is wandering about in the sea, she asks the king's ducks for news of her brothers; the ducks answer that they have been executed. She weeps; the tears become pearls and the ducks feed upon them. This marvel comes to the ears of the king, who follows the ducks and asks the girl why she shuns the society of men; to which she answers: "Alas! how can I, who am fastened by a golden chain?" and then relates everything. Having recognised his bride, the king gives her this advice: she must ask how, after the siren's death, she would be able to free herself; and then he departs. Next day, Solabella tells the king that the siren will not die, because she lives in a little bird, enclosed in a silver cage which is shut up in a marble case, and seven iron ones, of which she has the keys, and that if the siren died, a horseman, a white horse, and a long sword would be necessary to cut the chain. The king brings her a certain water, which he advises her to give the siren to drink; she will then fall asleep, and the girl will be able to take the keys and kill the little bird. When it is killed, the white horse plunges into the sea, and the sword cuts the chain. Then the king takes his beautiful bride to his palace, and the old step-mother is burned in a shirt of pitch; the seven brothers are rubbed with an ointment which brings them to life again, each exclaiming, "Oh! what a beautiful dream I have had!"

[464] The old ogress of the ninth story of the fifth book of the Pentamerone, who keeps three beautiful maidens shut up in three citron-trees, and who feeds the asses which kick the swans upon the banks of the river, is a variety of the same myth.

[465] Instead of geese, swans were also solemnly eaten; a popular mediæval German song in Latin offers the lamentation of the roasted swan; cfr. Uhland's Schriften, iii. 71, 158.—In the Pańćatantram, we have the swan sacrificed by the owl. In order to allure the swan, the funereal owl, who wishes to kill it, invites it into a grove of lotus-flowers, only, however, to decoy it subsequently into a dark cavern, where the swan is killed by some travelling merchants, who believe it to be an owl.

[466] In the Eddas, when the hero Sigurd expires, the geese bewail his death.

[467] Cfr. also, with regard to this subject, the twenty-fourth Esthonian story of the princess born in the egg, of whom her brother, born in a more normal manner of the queen, becomes enamoured.

[468] The parrot is sung of by Statius in connection with the same birds in the second book of the Sylvæ—

"Lux volucrum plagæ, regnator Eoæ Quam non gemmata volucri Junonia cauda Vinceret, aspectu gelidi non phasidis ales." [469] A pathetic elegy in Sanskṛit distiches, of a Buddhist character, of which I do not now remember the source, presents us the çukas, or parrot, who wishes to die when the tree açokas, which has always been his refuge, is dried up.

[470] Such as, for instance, the following unpublished story, communicated to me by Dr Ferraro, which is related in the Monferrato, and of which I have also heard, in my childhood, a variation at Turin:—A king, going to the wars, and fearing that another king, who is his rival, will profit by his absence to seduce his wife, places by her side one of his friends transformed into a parrot; this friend warns her to remain faithful every time that the rival king sends to tempt the queen by means of a cunning old woman. The queen pays attention to the parrot's advice, and remains faithful till the husband's return. This is, in a few words, the contents of the seventy Hindoo tales of the parrot, of which the Tuti-Name is a Persian version.—In the story which I heard at Turin, the wife is, on the contrary, unfaithful and covers the parrot's cage that it may not see; she then fries some fishes in the guest's honour; the parrot thinks that it is raining. The fish and the rain remind us of the myth of the phallical and pluvial cuckoo.

[471] Cfr. the chapter on the Crow.

[472] "Wie wir den Hugschapler sogar auf den Pfauen schwören sehen, legten sie die Angelsachsen auf den Schwan ab (R. A. 900), den wir wohl nach den obigen Gesange Ngördhs, S. 343 als den ihm geheiligten Vogel (ales gratissima nautis, Myth. 1074) zu fassen haben, &c." Simrock, the work quoted before, p. 347.—A Hindoo proverb considers the dove in connection with the peacock; it says, "Better a pigeon to-day than a peacock to-morrow" (Varamadya kapoto na çvo mayûraḥ). According to the Ornithologia of Aldrovandi, the peacocks are the doves' friends, because they keep serpents and all venomous animals at a distance.

[473] The Russian fable of Kriloff presents to us the ass as a judge between the nightingale (the kokilas of Western poets) and the cock in a trial of singing; in Sanskṛit çikhin, or crested, means cock and peacock; besides mayûras, peacock, we have mayûraćaṭakas, the domestic cock. Mayûras is also the name of a Hindoo poet.—In the chapter on the Cuckoo we saw the cuckoo and the nightingale as rivals in singing; the kokilas and the peacock are the equivalents of the nightingale and the cuckoo; we have also identified the cuckoo with the swallow, and seen the swallows as rivals of the swans in singing; cfr. the chapter on the Crow.

[474] Hence Aldrovandi writes with reason, that the smoke of the burnt feathers of a peacock (that is, of the celestial peacock), when taken into the eyes, cures them of their redness.

[475] Â mandrâir indra haribhir yâhi mayûraromabhiḥ; Ṛigv. iii. 45, 1.

[476] Â tvâ rathe hiraṇyaye harî mayûraçepyâ; viii. 1, 25.—Klearchos relates in Athênaios, that a peacock in Leucas loved a maiden so much, that when she died it also immediately expired.

[477] According to the Pańćatantram (i. 175), in the very house of Çivas (the phallical god), the animals make war against each other; the serpent (the night) wishes to eat the mouse (which seems here to be the grey twilight); the peacock (here, perhaps, the moon), wishes to eat the serpent (cfr. the preceding notes; according to Ælianos, a certain man who wished to steal from the King of Egypt a peacock, supposed to be sacred, found an asp in its stead); the lion (the sun) wishes to eat the peacock. (The Hindoo name of mayûrâris, or enemy of the peacock, given to the chameleon, is remarkable; the animal which changes its colour is the rival of the bird which is of every colour; gods and demons are equally viçvarûpâs and kâmarûpas.)

[478] Indras, as a warlike god, does not know fear, or rather, he kills fear (the hymn says, "Aher yâtâraṁ kam apaçya indra hṛidi yat te ǵaghnuso bhîr agaććhat"; Ṛigv. i. 32, 14), and lets himself be terrified by a trifle, which may be either a nightly shadow (the dark man of fairy tales), or the terror caused to him by some fish (the moon) which leaps upon him in the waters which he himself has set free.—In the twenty-second of the Tuscan stories published by me, the young hero who passed through all the dangers of hell without being afraid, dies at the sight of his own shadow. (We have also referred to this when treating of the dog and the lion who meet with their death, allured by their own shadow.)—In the forty-sixth story of the fifth book of Afanassieff, the merchant's son, who did not know fear, who feared neither darkness nor brigands nor death, is terrified and dies when he falls into the water, because the little perch entered into his bosom whilst he was sleeping in his fishing-boat.—It is also easy to pass from the idea of Indras, who inebriates himself in the soma to that of the fish, when we consider that the Hindoo word matsyas, the fish, properly means the inebriated, from the root mad, to inebriate and to make cheerful.

[479] Açnâpinaddham madhu pary apaçyam matsyaṁ na dîna udani kshiyantam; Ṛigv. x. 68, 8.

[480] Mbh. 2371-2392.

[481] Mbh. i. 5078-5086.—In another variety of the same myth, the semen of the wise Bharadvâǵas comes out at the sight of a nymph; the sage receives it in a cup, out of which comes Droṇas, the armourer and archer par excellence; i. 5103-5106.

[482] v. 27.

[483] Râmây. ii. 92.

[484] Cfr. Böhtlingk, Indische Sprüche, i. 59.

[485] Revad uvâha saćano ratho vâṁ vṛishabhaç ça çiṅçumâraç ća yuktâ.

[486] Our readers will not be astonished at seeing the dolphin, the whale, and the sea-urchin classed here with fishes. We are not treating of natural history according to the classifications of science, but of the gross classifications made by impressionable popular imaginations. Thus, amongst the animals of the water we shall find the serpent described, although it be amphibious, because popular belief makes the dragon watch over the waters.

[487] The pike becomes in spring of an azure or bluish or greenish-blue colour; hence the name of golubbi—però (that is, of the azure or bluish fins; in German, the bluish colour is called echt-grau—that is, grey of pike; in the nineteenth of the Russian stories of Erlenwein, golden fins are ascribed to the pike), which is also given to it in Russia. Golub, or brown, violet and azure, is a name given in Russia to the dove; so in Italy we say, that the dove is pavonazzo (properly the colour of the peacock, which is generally blue and green). But in Sanskṛit, amongst the names of the peacock there is that of haris, a word which represents both the moon and the sun. By the same analogy, the bluish or greenish pike may represent the moon. But another analogy, caused by a similar conception, is found again in the word çyâmas, which means black, azure, and also silvery; whence it serves to represent the convolvolus argenteus (we must remember that the Latin name of the pike is lucius; the Greek, lükios—that is, the luminous one). The pike takes the colour of the water in which it lives, and the waters are dark, black, azure, greenish, silvery; as being azure, or greenish, or silvery, the pike represents the moon; as being dark, the tenebrific night, the cloud, the wintry season.—In the thirty-second story of the fourth book of Afanassieff, the little perch relates that the pike was once luminous (that is, in spring), and that it became black after the conflagration which took place in the Lake of Rastoff from the day of St Peter (June 29) to the day of St Elias (July 20), or in the beginning of summer. As we learn in the Pseudo-Callisthenes, near the black stone, which makes black whoever touches it, there are fishes which are cooked in cold water, and not at the fire, I recollect here also that the Hecht-könig, or king of pikes, is described as yellow and black-spotted.

[488] Afanassieff, v. 22.

[489] Afanassieff, i. 2.—Cfr. the eleventh of the Novelline di Santo Stefano di Calcinaia; a monstrous fish devours the princess; the fish is said to be a shark (pesce cane); and v. 8 of the Pentamerone.

[490] Cfr. Afanassieff, ii. 24.

[491] Cfr. Afanassieff, v. 55, vi. 32.—It is the same fish which, saved by the girl who is persecuted by her step-mother, comes to her assistance, separates the wheat from the barley for her (like the Madonna, the purifying moon-fairy, the nightly cleanser of the sky), and gives splendid robes to her, in vi. 29.—In the story v. 54, instead of the pike as a fœcundator we find the bream, which is also called "of the golden fins" (szlatopioravo), of which the colours are the same as those of the pike.

[492] In the nineteenth Russian story of Erlenwein, and in a variety of the same in the last book of Afanassieff's stories.—In an unpublished story of the Monferrato, communicated to me by Dr Ferraro, a fisherman catches a large fish which says to him, "Let me go, and you will always be fortunate." The wife of the fisherman opposes this, roasts and eats the fish, from whose bones are born to the fisherman three sons, three horses, and three dogs. Evidently the story has been corrupted.

[493] Cfr. Salvianus, Aquatilium Animalium Historiæ, Romæ, 1554.

[494] At Berlin, children sing on the first of April—

"April! April! April! Man kann den Narren schicken wohin man will." [495] Another custom concerning herrings is described by Baron von Reinsberg, relating to Ash-Wednesday, when people return from church in Limburg: "Begiebt man sich zuerst nach Hause, um nach gewohnter Weise den Häring abzubeissen. Sobald man nämlich aus der Kirche kommt, wird ein Häring, nun muss jeder mit geschlossenen Beinen, die Arme fest an den Leib gedrückt, in die Höhe springen und dabei suchen, ein Stück abzubeissen." And Karl Simrock, the work quoted before, p. 561, writes: "In der Mark muss man zu Neujahr Hirse oder Häringe essen, im Wittenbergischen Heringssalat, so hat man das ganze Jahr über Geld."

[496] Cfr. Salvianus, ut supra. The habit certain fishes have of ejecting froth from the mouth may have suggested a phallical image.

[497] Bei Hans Sachs, Nürnberger, Ausgabe von 1560, ii. 14, 96, Eine Frau und Magd essen den für den Herrn bestimmten Aal; eine Elster schwatzt es aus; ran sich zu rächen, rupfen die Weiber ihr den Kopf kahl. Daher man sprichwörtlich von einem kahlen Mönche sagt: der hat gewiss vom Aale ausgeschwatzt; Menzel, Die Vorchristliche Unsterblichkeits-Lehre.

[498] In the same: "So erzählt Gilbert bei Leibnitz Script. rer. Brunsw. i. 987. Ein Frauenzimmer, welches Aal gegessen, habe plötzlich Alles sehen können was unter Wasser war."

[499] It is well known that the word ikshvâkus has been referred to the word ikshus, the sugar-cane. In the fortieth canto of the first book of the Râmâyaṇam, one of the two wives of Sagaras gives birth to a son who continues his race; the other wife gives birth to an ikshvâkus (gourd or cane) containing 60,000 sons.

[500] Cfr, Du Cange, s. v., and Salvianus, the work quoted before.

[501] In the thirteenth story of the first book of Afanassieff (of which the Bohemian story of Grandfather Vsievedas is a well-known variety), the whale complains that all the footmen and horsemen pass over it and consume it to the bones. It begs the hero Basilius to ask the serpent how long it has still to undergo this fate; the serpent answers, when it has vomited forth the ten vessels of the rich Mark.—In the eighth story of the fourth book of the Pentamerone, the whale teaches Cianna the way to find the mother of time, requiring her, in recompense, to be informed of the way in which the whale may be able to swim freely to and fro in the sea without encountering rocks and sandbanks. Cianna brings back for answer, that it must make friends with the sea-mouse (lo sorece marino, perhaps the same as the sea-urchin), which will serve as its guide.—In the eighth story of the fifth book of the Pentamerone, the little girl is received in the sea by a large enchanted fish, in whose belly she finds beautiful companions, gardens, and a beautiful palace furnished with everything. The fish carries the girl to the shore.

[502] If I am not mistaken, the German words Narr, fool, and nass, wet, are in connection with each other by the same analogy which gives us the Sanskṛit mattas, drunk, and the Latin madidus, damp, from the root mad.

[503] A superstitious belief quoted by Pliny concerning the cramp-fish merits being recorded here: "Mirum quod de Torpedine invenio, si capta cum Luna in Libra fuerit, triduoque asservetur sub dio, faciles partus facere postea quoties inferatur."

[504] s. v. citula, Du Cange writes concerning the fish faber or Zeus: "Idem forte piscis, quem Galli doream vocant ab aureo laterum colore, nostri et Hispani Galli Baionenses jau, id est gallum, a dorsi pinnis surrectis veluti gallorum gallinaceorum cristis." The fish Zeus lives in solitude; hence it appears to me to be the same sacred fish, called anthias, of which Aristotle, in the ninth book of the History of Animals, says that it lives where no other animal is found.

[505] We know that lynx's eyes, or lynx-like eyes, mean very sharp-sighted ones; ancient physicians recommended against the stone or the disease of the gravel, now the lyncurium, the stone which was supposed to be made of the urine of the lynxes, given by India to Bacchus, according to Ovid's expression, and now crab's eyes. The moon destroys with its light the stone-sky, the sky of night; hence crab's eyes are recommended against the disease of the stone. When the moon is not in the sky of night, the stone is there.

[506] Cfr. the Sanskṛit roots, kar, kur, gur, gûr.

[507] i. 1353-1456.

[508] Savitâ vâi prasavânâmiço.—Âit. Br. The story of Cunaḥçepas; he appears evidently as a form of Praǵâpatis.

[509] The Koribantes remind us of the Salii of the Latins, to whom Numa gives the arms and the words, to be sung leaping. According to Ovid's distich—

"Jam dederat Salii (a saltu nomina ducunt) Armaque et ad certos verba canenda modos." —Fasti, iii. 389. [510] It is interesting in this connection to find in the translation of Lane a passage from the Aǵáïb-el-Makhlooḳát (Marvels of Creation), a work of the thirteenth century: "The tortoise is a sea and land animal. As to the sea tortoise it is very enormous, so that the people of the ship imagine it to be an island. One of the merchants relates as follows regarding it: 'We found in the sea an island elevated above the water, having upon it green plants, and we went forth to it, and dug [holes for fire] to cook; whereupon the island moved, and the sailors said, "Come ye to your place, for it is a tortoise, and the heat of the fire hath hurt it, lest it carry you away." By reason of the enormity of its body,' said he [i.e., the narrator above mentioned], 'it was as though it were an island, and earth collected upon its back in the length of time, so that it became like land, and produced plants.'" Evidently here the tortoise occupies the same place as, in popular tradition, the lunar whale recorded by us in the chapter on the Fishes. Cfr. Lane, The Thousand and One Nights, London, 1841, vol. iii. chap. xx. n. 1 and 8, p. 80 seq.—Grein, Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Poesie, Göttingen, 1857, 1, 235, the Celtic legend of St Brandan and the Pseudo-Callisthenes.

[511] Cfr. the first story of the fourth book of the Pańćatantram, where the king of the frogs invokes the help of a black serpent to avenge himself upon certain frogs who are his enemies, and, instead of this, draws down death upon all the frogs and upon his own son.

[512] Vâr in maṇḍûka ićhatîndrayendo pari srava; Ṛigv. ix. 112.

[513] A similar tradition was current concerning the tarantula (stellio). Ceres, being thirsty, wished to drink; the boy Stelles prevented her, and the goddess transformed him into a stellio. According to Ulpianus, from the stellio was derived the crimen stellionatus.

[514] Cfr. also Afanassieff, vi. 55; Masha (Mary), the wife of Ivan, at first appears as a goose, afterwards as a frog, a lizard, and a spindle.

[515] In the eighth story of the first book of the Pentamerone it is a lacerta cornuta (horned lizard, the moon) which watches over the destiny of the girl Renzolle (the aurora).

[516] It was thus that I heard it recited, but it should, as it appears to me, be corrected both in rhyme and sense, and gragna changed into grama, unless gragna is a verb and stands for grandina (hail); in Italy, there is a superstitious belief that the toads are generated of the first large drops of rain which fall into the dust at the beginning of a tempest.

[517] A similar superstition is current in Germany, as I find in Rochholtz, the work quoted before, i. 147: "Auch die Hauskröte, Unke, Muhme genannt, wohnt im Hauskeller und hält durch ihren Einfluss die hier verwahrten Lebensmittel in einem gedeihlichen Zustand. Dadurch kommt Wohlstand ins Haus, und das Thier heisst daher Schatzkröte. In Verwechslung mit dem braunschwarzen Kellermolch wird sie auch Gmöhl genannt und soll eben so oft ihre Farbe verändern, als der Familie eine Veränderung bevorsteht."—The various popular superstitions concerning the salamander are well known,—viz., that it resists the power of fire, that it lives in fire, that it becomes like fire: "immo ad ignem usque elementarem orbi lunari finitimum ascendere" (according to Aldrovandi), and that, devoid of hairs itself, it causes the hairs of others to fall out by means of its saliva, whence Martial, cursing the baldness of a woman's head—

"Hoc salamandra caput, aut sæva novacula nudet." Pliny therefore recommends against the poisonous venom which is ascribed to the salamander, the seeds of the hairy and stinging nettle, with broth of a tortoise (which it resembles by its yellow spots). The salamander of popular superstition seems to me to represent the moon which lights itself, which lives by its own fire, which has no rays or hairs of its own, and which makes the rays or hairs of the sun fall.

[518] It was narrated to me by a peasant woman who heard it at Cavour in Piedmont:—

A man who is paralytic has three daughters, Catherine, Clorinda, and Margaret; he sets out on a journey to consult a great doctor, and asks his daughters what they wish him to bring them when he returns; Margaret will be content if he bring her a flower. He arrives at his destination, a castle; everything is prepared to receive him, but the doctor is not to be found; he sets out to return home, but on the way he recollects the flower, which he had forgotten; he goes back to the garden of the castle and is about to pluck a daisy (margherita), when a toad warns him that he will die in three days if he does not give it one of his daughters to wife. The father informs his daughters of this, upon which the two eldest refuse; but the youngest, in order to save her father's life, consents. Her father is cured, and the wedding takes place; during the night the toad becomes a beautiful youth, but warns his bride never to tell any one, for if she does, he will always remain a toad, and he gives her a ring by means of which she will obtain whatever she wishes for. The sisters have an inkling of some mystery, and make her confess; the toad falls ill and disappears; she calls him with the ring, but in vain; seeing this, she throws the ring, as useless, into a pond, upon which the beautiful youth steps out, and never becomes a toad again; their happiness together thereafter is unbroken.

In an unpublished Tuscan story, related to me by Uliva Selvi at Antignano near Leghorn, instead of the toad we have a magician of frightful aspect. The father of the three daughters is a sailor; he promises to fetch a shawl to the first, a hat to the second, and a rose to the third. When the voyage is over, he is about to return, but, having forgotten the rose, the ship refuses to move; he is compelled to go back to look for the rose in a garden; a magician hands the rose with a little box to the father to give it to one of his daughters, whom the magician is to marry. At midnight, the father, having returned home, relates to his third daughter all that happened. The little box is opened; it carries off the third daughter to the magician, who happens to be king of Pietraverde, and is now a handsome young man. He shows her, in the palace, three rooms, of which one is red, one white, and another black. They live together happily. Meanwhile, the eldest sister is to be married; the magician conducts his wife into the red room; she wishes to go to the wedding, and the magician consents, but warns her not to say either who he is, or aught she knows of him, if she does not wish to lose him, as to recover him again she would have to wait till she should wear out as many shoes as there are in the world. He gives her a dress which, as she goes, is heard rustling a long way off; and he tells her, if her pin should drop, to let the bride pick it up and keep it; warning her, moreover, not to drink or to eat of anything they may offer her. All this she observes to the letter. The second sister is about to be married; the magician leads his wife into the white room and repeats the same instructions, only, instead of the pin, she is to let her ring of brilliants drop. The father dies; the magician then takes his wife into the black room, the chamber of melancholy. She wishes to go to the funeral, and is permitted, after the usual warnings; the magician, moreover, gives her a ring; if it become black, she will lose him; she forgets the warning and loses him. She wanders about for seven years, and no one can give her any news of the king of Pietraverde; she then disguises herself as a man, and arrives at a city where the king's hostler takes her into his service; no sooner does she touch the carriages than they become clean. The queen passes by and wonders at the personal appearance of the youth; she engages him to work in her kitchen, then to serve at table, and finally to be her valet de chambre. The queen falls in love with him, and wishes to have him at any cost; in vain; she then accuses him of designing to take her life. The king, although unwillingly, has him put in prison; soon he has pity upon him and lets him free. The fictitious youth continues to wander about; he arrives at the city, and asks for news of the king of Pietraverde; they tell her that he has long been dead, and point her to a room where his bier is supported by columns of wax, or candles; he will not awake until the candles are consumed. She goes up and weeps; the king takes three hairs from his beard and recommends her to preserve them carefully. She continues her wanderings, still dressed as a man, and is engaged by other hostlers of a king as assistant. The news of her bravery reach the king, who takes her into his kitchen. The queen sees him and falls in love with him; in vain; she accuses him to the king, who puts her in prison; she is condemned to death, and the guillotine is prepared. While going to execution, she remembers the three hairs, and burns one; an army of warriors appear, sent by the king of Pietraverde; they terrify all the king's people, whom they compel to postpone the execution till next day. The next day she does the same with the same result. The third day she brings out the third hair; the cavalry appear again, commanded this time by the king of Pietraverde in person, dressed so that he shone like a brilliant, that he appeared like a sun; he releases the youth from the execution; the king of Pietraverde has the young girl dressed as a princess; she is tried in a court of justice; her innocence is established; the queen's head is cut off.

[519] "Suessanus tradit, quod bufonem quempiam obviam fieri felicissimum augurium fuisse antiquitas existimavit.—Anno 1553, in villa quadam Thuringia ad Unstrum, a muliere bufo caudatus natus est, quemadmodum in libro de prodigiis et ostentis habetur. Nec mirum, quia Cœlius Aurelianus et Platearius scribunt mulieres aliquando cum fœto humano bufones et alia animalia hujus generis eniti. Sed hujus monstrosæ conceptionis causam non assignant. Tradit quidem Platearius illa præsidia, quæ ad provocandos menses commendantur, ducere; etiam bufonem fratrem Salernitanorum quemadmodum aliqui lacertum fratrem Longobardorum nominant. Quoniam mulieres Salernitanæ potissimum in principio conceptionis succum apii et porrorum potant, ut hoc animal interimant, antequam fœtus viviscat. Insuper mulier quædam ex Gesnero, recens nupta cum omnium opinione prægnans diceretur, quatuor animalia bufonibus similia peperit et optime valuit."—Aldrovandi also reads: "apud Heisterbacensem in historia miraculorum," that some monks found a living toad inside a hen in place of intestines. In the same author, a priest finds an immense toad at the bottom of a jar of wine; whilst he is wondering how such a large toad should have been able to enter by such a small orifice, the toad disappears.

[520] Cfr. Targioni Tozzetti, Lezioni di Materia Medica, Florence, 1821.

[521] Some extraordinary lizards of which Aldrovandi speaks are of a half sacred and half monstrous nature: "Præter illud memorabile, quod Mizaldus recitat accidisse anno Domini 1551, mense Julii in Hungaria prope pagum Zichsum juxta Theisum fluvium nimirum in multorum hominum alvo lacertas naturalibus similes ortas fuisse. Interdum contingit, ut animadvertit Schenchius, lacertam viridem in cæti magnitudinem excrescere, qualis aliquando Lutetiæ visa est. Sæpe etiam lacertæ duobus et tribus caudis refertæ nascuntur, quas vulgus ludentibus favorabiles esse nugatur."

[522] In the Mahâbhâratam, i. 981-1003, it is said that the serpents amphisbhænæ (duṇḍubhâs, duṇḍavas, nâgabhṛitas, the same, I think, as the mannuni of Malabar,) being good, must not be killed; an amphisbhæna relates that it had once been the wise Sahasrapâd (properly of the hundred feet; the amphisbhæna appears to be a lizard without feet, and with a tail the same size as its head, for which reason the belief arose that it had two heads; it seems to be another personification of the circular year, like the serpent), and that it became a serpent by a curse, because it had once frightened a Brâhman with a fictitious serpent made of grass; at the sight of the wise Kurus, the amphisbhæna is released from its malediction.

[523] St Augustine, Hom. 36, says of the devil: "Leo et draco est; Leo propter impetum, Draco propter insidias;" in Albania, the devil is called dreikj, and in Romania, dracu.

[524] A proverb of the Râmâyaṇam says, that "only a female serpent can distinguish the feet of a male serpent" (v. 38): Ahireva hyaheḥ pâdâu viǵâniyânna saṁçayaḥ). The feet of the serpent, like those of the devil, which is the tail (or the phallos of the male) can be perceived by a female alone; women know where the devil has his tail.

[525] Tom. i., "Sunt qui in aquæ inspectione umbras dæmonum evocant, et imagiones vel ludificationes ibi videre et ab iis aliqua audire se perhibent."

[526] In the seventh book De Civitate Dei, the saint writes: "Ipse Numas ad quem nullus Dei propheta, nullus Sanctus Angelus mittebatur, Hydromantiam facere compulsus est, ut in aqua videret imagines deorum vel potius ludificationes dæmonum, a quibus audiret, quid in sacris constituere atque observare deberet quod genus divinationis idem Varro a Persis dicit allatum."

[527] It also exists in Roumania, where the new solar year is celebrated by the benediction of the waters, as if to exorcise the demons that inhabit them.

[528] Codex Reg., 5600 ann. circ. 800, fol. 101, in Du Cange: "Sunt aliqui rustici homines, qui credunt aliquas mulieres, quod vulgum dicitur strias, esse debeant, et ad infantes vel pecora nocere possint, vel dusiolus, vel Aquatiquus, vel geniscus esse debeat." Neptunus, vel aliquis genius, quia quis præest designari videtur.

[529] The monsters which mount into heaven by magical deceits, killed by Indras, are said to creep like serpents: Mâyâbhir utsisṛipsata indra dyâm; Ṛigv. viii. 14, 14.

[530] The name of Arbudas, given to the monster which Indras, the ram (meshas), crushes (for ni-kram seems to me to have this meaning) under his foot while it is lying, is nothing else than a serpent; moreover, he, whose people is the sarpâs or serpents, is the king of the serpents. To arbud-as I would refer the Latin words rep-ere, rept-are, reptil-is.

[531] Apâd ahasto apṛitanyad indram âsya vaǵram adhi sânâu ǵaghana; Ṛigv. i. 32, 7.—Yo vyaṅsaṁ ǵahṛishâṇena manyunâ yaḥ çambaraṁ yo ahan piprum avratam; i. 101, 2.—Apâdam atram mahatâ vadhena ni duryoṇa âvṛiṇañ mṛidhravâćam; v. 32, 8.

[532] Ahann ahim parvate çiçṛiyâṅam; i. 32, 2.—Ahann enam prathamaǵâm ahînâm; i. 32, 3.

[533] Nîćâvayâ abhavad vṛitraputrendro asyâ ava vadhar ǵabhâra—uttarâ sûr adharaḥ putra âsîd dânuḥ çaye sahavatsâ na dhenuḥ; i. 32, 9. Properly speaking, the verse speaks here of Vṛitras, and not of Ahis; but the coverer and the constrictor being equivalent, it seems to me that there are not here two beings distinguished, in the same hymn, by two analogous appellations.

[534] Dâsapatnîr ahigopâ atishṭhan niruddhâ âpaḥ paṇineva gâvaḥ; i. 32, 11.—The reader will remember the discussion concerning the proverb of shutting the stable after the oxen are stolen, in the first chapter of the first book.

[535] Avâdaho diva â dasyum uććâ; i. 33, 7.

[536] Guhâhitam guhyaṁ gûḷham apsu apîvṛitam mâyinaṁ kshiyantam uto apo dyâm tastabhvâṅsam ahann ahiṁ çura vîryeṇa; ii. 11, 5.

[537] Âçayânam ahim vaǵreṇa maghavan vi vṛiçćaḥ; iv. 17, 7.

[538] Sapta prati pravata âçayânam ahiṁ vaǵreṇa vi rîṇâ aparvan; iv. 19, 3.

[539] Sasantaṁ vaǵreṇâbodhayo 'him; i. 103, 7.

[540] Navantam ahiṁ saṁ piṇag ṛiǵîshin; vi. 17, 10.

[541] Sa mâhina indro arṇo apâm prâirayad ahihâćhâ samudram aǵanayat sûryaṁ vidad gâh; ii. 19, 3.—Sṛiǵaḥ sindhûṅr ahinâ ǵagrasânân; Ṛigv. iv. 17, 1.—Ahann ahim anv apas tatarda pra vakshaṇâ abhinat parvatânâm; i. 32, 2.

[542] Yad indrâhan prathamaǵâm ahînâm ân mâyinâm aminâh prota mâyâḥ—ât sûryaṁ ǵanayan dyâm ushâsaṁ tâdîtnâ çatruṁ na kilâ vivitse; i. 32, 4.

[543] Ahan vṛitraṁ vṛitrataraṁ vyaṅsam indro vaǵrena mahatâ vadhena skandḥaṇsîva kuliçenâ vivṛiknâhiḥ çayata upapṛik pṛithivyâḥ; i. 32, 5.—Ud vṛiha rakshaḥ sahamûlam indra vriçća madhyam praty agraṁ çṛinîhi; iii. 30, 17.

[544] Çayânam mano ruhânâ ati yanty âpaḥ; i. 32, 8.

[545] Anu tvâ patnîr hṛishitaṁ vayaç ća viçve devâso amadann anu tvâ; i. 103, 7.—Asmâ id u gnâç ćid devapatnîr indrâyârkam ahihatya ûvuḥ; i. 61, 8.

[546] Striyo hi dâsa âyudhâni ćakre; Ṛigv. v. 30, 9.

[547] Sa vṛitrahendraḥ kṛishṇayonîḥ puraṃdaro dâsîr âirayad vi; ii. 20, 7.—Vṛitras the killer of Piprus, Indras puraṁ-daras, properly, who wounds the full one, who cleaves the full or the swollen one, and hence who wounds, the city, and Indras the lacerator of the witches with the black wombs are equivalent; cfr. what was said concerning the thunderbolt as a phallos, in the first chapter of the first book, where the cuckoo is spoken of, and in the chapter on the Cuckoo in the second book.—In the hymn, i. 32, 9, Indras also wounds underneath the mother of the monster: Indro asyâ ava vadhar ǵabhâra.

[548] Uto nu ćid ya oǵasâ çushṇasyâṇḍâni bhedati ǵeshat svarvatîr apaḥ; Ṛigv. viii. 40, 10.—In the hymn i. 54, 10, it is said that the cloud-mountain is found amongst the intestines of the coverer; one might say that the serpent binds the cloud in the form of bowels. The reader will recollect what we observed concerning the intestines, the heart, and the liver, of the sacrificed victim in the first chapter of the first book.

[549] In the twentieth story of the fifth book of Afanassieff we find a singular variety, which is of some importance in the history of mythology and language. A princess asks the serpent, her husband, by what his death can be caused. The serpent answers that his death can be brought about by the hero Nikita Kaszemiaka, who, in fact, comes up and kills the serpent by submerging him in the sea. Nikita is called, it is said, Kaszemiaka, because his occupation was that of tearing skins. The torn skins (cfr. here also the Jupiter Aegiocus) take here the place of the duck's egg broken upon the serpent, and of the eggs of the monster broken by Indras. In Italian, coccio, means a piece of a broken vase, and also, in botany, the skin of a seed; incocciarsi signifies to be angry. In Piedmont, it is said of one who annoys people, that he breaks the boxes, and, more vulgarly, that he breaks the testicles.

[550] Hiraṇyakeço 'hiḥ; Ṛigv. i. 79, 1.

[551] Vi çṛiñgiṇam abhinać ćhushṇam indraḥ; i. 33, 12.

[552] Ahiçushmasattvâ; v. 33, 5.

[553] Ahimanyavaḥ; i. 64, 9.

[554] Ćakrâṇâsaḥ parîṇaham pṛithivyâ hiraṇyena maṇinâ çumbhamânâḥ; i. 33, 8.

[555] vi. 1, 1.

[556] The passage cited before.

[557] i. 3, 22.—In Russian stories, we frequently find the incident of a serpent, or witch, who endeavours to file, or pierce through, with her tongue the iron doors which enclose the forge in which the pursued hero has taken refuge; he, from within, helped by divine blacksmiths, draws the witch's tongue in with red-hot pincers and causes her death; he then opens the gates of the forge, which represents now the red sky of evening, now the red sky of morning.

[558] i. 792, et seq.—Cfr. also the second Esthonian tale, where the young hero, in the kingdom of the serpents, drinks milk in the cup of the king of the serpents himself.

[559] Mbh. i. 5008, et seq.

[560] i. 1283-1295.

[561] v. 4, 23.

[562] Cfr. Râmâyaṇam, i. 46, and Mahâbhâratam, i. 1053, 1150.—In the Râmâyaṇam (vi. 26), the arrows of the monsters are said to bind like serpents; the bird Garuḍas appears and the serpents untie themselves, the fetters are loosed; Râmas and Lakshmaṇas, supposed to be dead, rise again stronger than before.

[563] As we have seen that mandaras is equivalent to mantharas, a name of the tortoise which, according to the cosmogonic legend, sustains the weight of the mountain, or enormous stick which produces the mountain, so Anantas, in another Hindoo legend (cfr. Mbh. i. 1587-1588) sustains the weight of the world.—The rod of pearls which when placed in fat enables the young prince to obtain whatever he wishes for, seems to have the same originally phallical meaning as the mandaras; it is the king of the serpents who presents it to the young prince. The fat may, in the mythical sky, be the milk of the morning dawn, or the rain of the cloud, or the snee, or the dew; as soon as the thunderbolt touches the fat of the clouds, or of the snee, or as soon as the sunbeam touches the milk of the dawn, the sun, riches, and fortune come forth.

[564] The coitus is also called a game of serpents in the Tuti-Name. Preller and Kuhn have already proved the phallical signification of the caduceus (tripetêlon) of Hermês, represented now with two wings, now with two serpents. The phallical serpent is the cause of the fall of the first man.

[565] Vinatâ is also the name of a disease of women; and, as far as we can judge from the passage of the Mahâbhâratam (iii. 14,480), which refers to it, it is the malignant genius who destroys the fœtus in the womb of the pregnant mother. He is defined as çakunigrâhî, properly the seizer of the bird. Kaçyapas, the universal phallos, the Praǵâpatis, certainly unites himself to Vinatâ in the form of a phallos-bird, as to Kadrû in that of a phallos-serpent.

[566] vi. 37-38, 46.

[567] Cfr. for this subject the first and second chapters of the first book.

[568] i. 949, 974.

[569] i. 1671, 1980, et seq.

[570] iv. 16.

[571] Râmây. vii. 104, 105.

[572] Cfr. concerning this subject in particular, the first chapter of the first book, the chapter on the Wolf and that on the Frog.

[573] iii. 8.

[574] Cfr. the discussion concerning the gandharvâs in the chapter on the Ass.

[575] Râmây. vi. 82.—This nymph becomes grâhî, because she had once struck a holy Brâhman with her chariot. The same reason is assigned for the malediction which falls upon King Nahushas, who became an enormous serpent; this serpent squeezed the hero Bhîmas in its mortal coils; his brother, Yudhishṭhiras, runs up, and answers in a highly satisfactory manner to the abstruse philosophical questions addressed to him by the serpent, which then releases Bhîmas, casts off its skin, and ascends in the form of Nahushas to heaven; Mbh. iii. 12, 356, et seq.

[576] Râmây. iii. 8.

[577] iii. 2609, et seq.

[578] Triçîrshâ iva nâgapotâs; 12, 744.

[579] Cfr. Papi, Lettere sulle Indie Orientali, Lucca, 1829; it is the cobra de capello of the Portuguese.

[580] Cfr. Simrock Deutsche Mythologie, pp. 478, 513, 514, and Rochholtz Deutscher Glaube und Brauch, i. 146.

[581] Cfr. again the legend of Adam and Eve, of the tree and the serpent, and the original sin. In the mediæval comedy La Sibila del Oriente, Adam when dying says to his son, "Mira en cima de mi sepulcro, que un arbol nace." In Russian stories the young hero will be fortunate, now because he watched at his father's tomb, now because he defended the paternal cypress from the demon who wished to carry it off. In the legend of the wood of the cross, according to a sermon of Hermann von Fristlar (cfr. Mussafia, Sulla Leggenda del legno della Croce), the tree upon the wood of which, made into a cross, Christ died, is said to have been a cypress. The same mediæval legend describes the terrestrial paradise whence Adam was expelled, and where Seth repairs to obtain for Adam the oil of pity. The tree rises up to heaven, and its root goes down to hell, where Seth sees the soul of his brother Abel. On the summit there is a child, the Son of God, the promised oil. The angel gives to Seth three grains which he is to put into Adam's mouth; three sprouts spring up which remain an arm's-length in height till the time of Moses, who converts them into miraculous rods, and replants them before his death; David finds them again, and performs miracles with them. The three sprouts become one plant which grows proudly into a tree. Solomon wishes to build the temple with this wood; the workmen cannot make use of it; he then has it carried into the temple; a sybil tries to sit upon it, and her clothes take fire; she cries out, "Jesus, God and my Lord," and prophesies that the Son of God will be hanged upon that wood. She is condemned to death, and the wood thrown into a fish-pond, which acquires thaumaturgic virtue; the wood comes out and they wish to make a bridge of it; the Queen of the East, Saba, refuses to pass over it, having a presentiment that Jesus will die upon that wood. Abia has the wood buried, and a fish-pond appears over it.—Now, this is what an author, unsuspected of heresy, writes concerning the symbol of the serpent (Martigny, Dictionnaire des Antiquités Chrétiennes): "Les ophites, suivant en cela les nicolaites et les premiers gnostiques, rendirent au serpent lui-même un culte direct d'adoration, et les manichéens le mirent aussi à la place de Jésus Christ (S. Augustin. De Hœres. cap. xvii. et xlvi.) Et nous devons regarder comme extrêmement probable que les talismans et les amulettes avec la figure du serpent qui sont arrivés jusqu' à nous, proviennent des hérétiques de la race de Basilide, et non pas des païens, comme on le suppose communément." To the continuers of the admirable studies of Strauss and Renan will be reserved the office of seeking the sense hidden in this myth, made poetical by the evangelical morals. When we shall be able to bring into Semitic studies the same liberty of scientific criticism which is conceded to Âryan studies, we shall have a Semitic mythology; for the present, faith, a natural sense of repugnance to abandon the beloved superstitions of our credulous childhood, and more than all, a less honourable sentiment of terror for the opinion of the world, have restrained men of study from examining Jewish history and tradition with entire impartiality and severity of judgment. We do not wish to appear Voltairians, and we prefer to shut our eyes not to see, and our ears not to hear what history, studied critically and positively, presents to us less agreeable to our pride as men, and to our vanity as Christians.

[582] Cfr. Yaçna, ix. 25-27; cfr. also Prof. Spiegel's introduction to the Khorda Avesta, pp. 59, 60.

[583] Cfr. the chapter concerning the Fishes and that on the Tortoise.

[584] Cfr. Prof. Spiegel's introduction to the Khorda-Avesta, p. 60.

[585] xxxviii. 36.

[586] A variety of the Hindoo legend of the hawk (Indras), of the dove (Agnis), and of King Çivis, who, to save the dove from the hawk, his guest, gives some of his own flesh to the hawk to eat. Here the serpent is identified with the hawk or eagle; in the Mongol story, however, the dragon is grateful to the man who delivered him from the bird Garuḍas; the king of the dragons keeps guard over the white pearls, arrives upon a white horse, dressed in white (probably the snow of winter, or the moon); the king of the dragons rewards the hero by giving him a red bitch, some fat, and a string of pearls.—In the sixth story of the Pańćatantram, we have the serpent and the crow, one at the foot of a tree, the other on the summit; the serpent eats the crow's eggs, and the crow avenges itself by stealing a golden necklace from the queen and throwing it into the snake's hole; the men go to seek the necklace, find the serpent and kill it.

[587] We have seen in the chapter on the Ant how the ants make serpents come out of their holes; in Bavaria, according to Baron Reinsberg von Düringsfeld, the work quoted before, p. 259, an asp (natter) taken in August must be shut well up in a vase in order that it may die of heat and of hunger; then it is placed upon an ants' nest, that the ants may eat all its flesh; of what remains, a sort of paternoster is made, which is supposed to be very useful against all kinds of eruptions upon the head.

[588] Cfr. the interminable riches of the uhlan-serpent in the story vi. 11, of Afanassieff.

[589] Here we have a serpent which expels and ruins another. In a similar manner, before the times of San Carlo Borromeo, a bronze serpent, which had been carried from Constantinople by the Archbishop Arnolfo in the year 1001, was revered in the basilica of St Ambrose at Milan; some said that it was the serpent of Æsculapius, others that of Moses, others that it was an image of Christ; for us it is enough to remark here that it was a mythical serpent, before which Milanese mothers brought their children when they suffered from worms, in order to relieve them, as we learn from the depositions of the visit of San Carlo to this basilica: "Est quædam superstitio de ibi mulierum pro infantibus morbo verminum laborantibus." San Carlo put down this superstition.

[590] These marvels are always three, as the apples are three, the beautiful girls three, the enchanted palaces in the kingdom of the serpents which they inhabit three (cfr. Afanassieff, i. 5). The heads of the dragon are in this story and generally three, but sometimes also five, six (cfr. Afanassieff, v. 28), seven (cfr. Pentamerone, i. 7, and Afanassieff, ii. 27; the serpent of the seven heads emits foul exhalations), nine (iii. 2, v. 24), or twelve (cfr. Afanassieff, ii. 30).—In the twenty-first story of the second book of Afanassieff, first the serpent with three heads appears, then that with six, then that with nine heads which throw out water and threaten to inundate the kingdom. Ivan Tzarević exterminates them. In the twenty-second story of the same book the serpent of the Black Sea, with wings of fire, flies into the Tzar's garden and carries off the three daughters; the first is obtained and shut up by the five-headed serpent, the second by the seven-headed one, and the third by the serpent with twelve heads; the young hero Frolka Sidien kills the three serpents and liberates the three daughters.

[591] Cfr. also, for the legend of the blind woman, the first chapter of the first book.

[592] When the mythical serpent refers to the year, the hours correspond to the months, and the months during which the mythical serpent sleeps seem to be those of summer, in contradiction to what is observed in nature.

[593] In the fifth story of the second book of the Pentamerone, a serpent has itself adopted, as their son, by a man and woman who have no children, and then asks for the king's daughter to wife; the king, who thinks to turn the serpent into ridicule, answers that he will consent when the serpent has made all the fruit-trees of the royal garden become golden, the soil of the same garden turn into precious stones, and his whole palace into a pile of gold. The serpent sows kernels of fruits and egg-shells in the garden; from the first, the required trees spring up; from the second, the pavement of precious stones; he then anoints the palace with a certain herb, and it turns to gold. The serpent comes to take his wife in a golden chariot, drawn by four golden elephants, lays aside his serpent's disguise, and becomes a handsome youth.

[594] Cfr. Mone, Anzeig. iii. 88.

[595] Cfr. on this subject the stories recorded in the first and second chapters of the first book.

[596] Origines, xiv. 4.

[597] Cfr. the same, Afanassieff, vi. 10, where the cunning workman, in reward for having vanquished the little devil in whistling, and for having made it believe that he could throw a stick upon the clouds, obtains the money which can remain in a hat which never fills.

Transcriber's Notes: Fixed spelling and punctuation errors throughout Non-Latin characters have been changed to their HTML equivalents (i.e. [h.] to ḥ) There are several words with the same letters but diacritical marks in different locations, these appear to all be valid, so were left per the text Shakespeare is spelled Shakspeare throughout, this is a spelling of his name used in the 19th century, so was left per the text Goose-swans and geese-swans appear to be used interchangeably, left to match the text There are several words that are spelled both with and without a hyphen (i.e. crosstrees and cross-trees), they have been left to match the text The name Wesselofsky is also spelled Wesselofski, it appears the name is spelled both ways. Page 102: Lakshamaṇas left per the text also spelled Lakshmaṇas elsewhere in the text, both appear correct Page 209: Extra closing parenthesis ("... for weddings). According to ...") Page 212: Extra closing parenthesis ("... warm themselves), is not ...") Page 228: there is an extra quote. (... word kanikradat."[2] The god ...) Page 254: Extra opening parenthesis ("... a crow (in Hellenic ...") Page 290: Added the word "to" in the following (... same, according to Ælianos, was ...) Page 336: Extra opening parenthesis ("... the Ganges, (çiṅçumâras, which ...") Page 421: Left the poetry to match the text. However, this is from Dante's Inferno Canto 1.22-26, accepted wording of the 3rd and 4th line should be "Si volge a l'acqua perigliosa e guata, Così l'animo mio, ch'ancor fuggiva," Footnote 314: There is an extra quote. (... Prato:—"A three-headed ...) Footnote 368: Removed the extra word "it" from the following (... and which it had scooped ...) Footnote 423: There is an extra quote. (... (xxxix.): "'Da, vor ...) Footnote 440: Added the word "a" in the following (... there is a beautiful palace ...) Footnote 478: Inserted closing quote. (... bhîr agaććhat"; Ṛigv. i. ...) Footnote 524: Extra closing parenthesis ("... viǵâniyânna saṁçayaḥ). The feet ...") Footnote 525: Inserted closing quote. (... male serpent" (v. 38): Ahireva ...) In the Index "Brothers" has 3 different entries for "the three", left them as is to match the text instead of combining In the Index many diacriticals are left out of the names, these were left out to match the text In the Index, added the volume number to the entry for "Agnis". {{GFDL}}