Zoological Mythology; or, The Legends of Animals, Volume 1 (of 2)

by Angelo De Gubernatis

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 mediæval 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'âne.—The onokentauros.—Urvaçî and Purûravas 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.—Kṛiçâçvas dancing-master.—Kṛiçânus and Kereçâni.—Hybrid nature of the mythical ass and of the gandharvas.—The Açvinâu ride asses, and give youth to Ćyavanas; 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 Vedâs; 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 piçâćas; 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.—Gandharvâs 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 Pańćatantram, 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 mediæval 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 Ṛigvedas, 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 Ṛigvedas, the ass has the names of gardabhas and râsabhas; in Sanskṛit, also those of kharas, ćakrîvant, ćiramehin, and bâleyas.

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.

Bâleyas may mean the childish one (from bâlas = child, and stupid[690]), as well as the demoniacal (from balis; and indeed, besides being a name given to the ass, bâleyas is also a name for a demon).

Ćiramehin is the ass as longe mingens (a quality which can apply to the ass, but still more so to the rainy cloud).

Ćakrîvant 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). Râsabhas is derived from the double root ras, whence rasa = humour, juice, water, savour, sperm, and râsa = 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 ṛivas,[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 râsabhas, 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 Ṛigvedas,[693] the guardian of the ambrosial plant.[694] The mythical ass and the Vedic gandharvas have the same qualities and the same instincts. The gandharvâs, for instance, are represented in the Âitareya 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 Urvaçî how jealous they are of their nymphs, the apsarâs, or them who flow by on the waters (the clouds), and from the story of Hanumant, in the Râmâyaṇam, 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 râsas 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 priapœan mysteries, whence the expression of Aristophanes in the Frogs, "The ass which carries mysteries" (onos agôn müstêria), 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 gandharvâs 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 Purûravas and Urvaçî, united with the story of the Gandharvâs. Peau d'âne, Psyche, and Urvaçî 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 gandharvâs, 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 gandharvâs 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 Açvinâu are often found in connection with the worthless horse, which afterwards becomes handsome by means of the ambrosia itself that the horse produces; the gandharvâs, 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 Açvinâu themselves, the two horsemen who have given youth to the old Ćyavanas, rode upon asses before they rode upon horses. The myth of the gandharvâs and that of the Açvinâu, the myth of the horse and that of the ass, are intimately connected: from the gandharvâs the açvin 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 Açvinâu is swift; the devotees ask the Açvinâu when they are to yoke it, that they may be carried by it to the sacrifice.[702] In another hymn, as the Açvinâu are two, so are their asses two (râsabhâv açvinoḥ). 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 Ṛigvedas 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 Âitareya 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 Kâtyâyanas, 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 Ṛigvedas itself. And in the Ṛigvedas, 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 Yaǵurvedas.[711]

In the Râmâyaṇam,[712] the slowness of the ass has already become proverbial. The modest Bharatas excuses himself from not being able to equal his brother Râmas 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 Daçarathas, 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 Râvaṇas. Râvaṇas himself is drawn by asses upon a chariot adorned with gold and gems. These asses have the faces of the monster Piçâćâs,[714] that is, faces of parrots, as Hanumant afterwards informs us when he speaks of the monsters which he has seen in Lañkâ, which he also says are as swift as thought.[715] We know that the coursers of Râvaṇas were asses, and therefore the asses with the faces of the Piçâćâs, and the horses of the monsters with the faces of parrots, are the same. The monster Piçâćâs, 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 piçâćas is derived, like piçañgas, which means golden and red, from the root piç, to adorn; whence also the Vedic feminine piç, ornament, and the Vedic neuter, peças, coloured tissue. The ass piçâćas, 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 kharâṇçus or khararaçmiḥ, he of the burning ray, as Sanskṛit names of the sun. Kharaketus, he who has a burning ray, is also the name of one of the monsters in the Râmâyaṇam.[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 Dadhyańć we perceive only his head in connection with the ambrosia. Thus of the nocturnal ass, of the demoniacal ass, of the demon himself, the piçâćas (the piçâćâs are called carnivorous[717]), only the face is seen, in the same way as of the piçâćâs, 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 piçâćas 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; harî are the two horses of Indras and of the Açvinâu, 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 Pańćatantram, 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 Pańćatantram 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 Pańćatantram, 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 Æsopian 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 Yaçna,[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 kṛiçânus of the Vedâs, and the Zend kereçâni who guards over the hom in the Vôuru-Kasha, have been identified. But the same office is fulfilled in the Yaçna 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 Dundubhî is the proper name of the wife of a gandharvas, or of a gandharvî. 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 Græco-Latin tradition. I say Græco-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 fœcundator, the mythical ass, in its capacity of a rain-giving cloud or ćiramehin, 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 Æneid, 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 pœnas auctor clamoris, et hæc 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: terræque immurmurat haustæ.
Indiciumque suæ vocis tellure regesta
Obruit, et scrobibus tacitus discedit opertis.
Creber arundinibus tremulis ibi surgere lucus
Cœpit; 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 gandharvâs, 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 Æsopian 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 proselênoi, 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 Hêraklês 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.) Ælianos, 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 Ṛigvedas merits being especially compared with this. In it, immediately after having represented the Açvinâu as drawn by winged asses, the poet celebrates the Açvinâu 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 Ælianos (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 Ṛigvedas. 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 Aphroditê, the same humour out of which, by the loves of Dionysos (or of Pan, of a satyr, or of the ass itself) and Aphroditê, 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 zêteis"), 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 mediæval 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 Hêraklês 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. Diogenês 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. Ælianos, 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 Ælianos, 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 troisièmo 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 tuèc 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 præditus 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 âçrutkarṇas), 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.

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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.—Aǵas; explanation given by Professor Bréal; the Finnic aija.—Meshas; she-goat, ram, skin, sack.—The ram Indras.—The goats Açvinâu.—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.—Pûshan aǵâçvas 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.—Aǵamukhî—Ilvalas and Wâtâpis.—Indras meshâṇḍas, sahasradhâras and sahasradâras.—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 fœcundators.—The he-goat and the horned husband.—Zeus he-goat and the satyr Pan; Hêraklês 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; Hermês 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, aǵas 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 ćiramehin), which corresponds with the meghas, or cloud mingens. Moreover, as in Greek from aix,[748] a goat, we have aigis, a skin (Ægis), so in Sanskṛit from aǵas, a goat, we have aǵinas, 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 (madaćyutam); in the third strophe, as opening the stable or precinct of the cows to the Añgirasas;[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 Açvinâu are compared to two he-goats (aǵeva), to two horns (çṛiñgeva), 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 Vṛitrahan) "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, mêlon 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 ablaká, the clouds, and iablony, apple-tree, plural jáblogna, 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 (ćudesnoi 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 Tereshićko's mother, and thus attracts him to her. Tereshićha 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 Pûshan, 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 Pûshan 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 Yamî, 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 Vishṇus), 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 Açvinâu). 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 Râmâyaṇam,[767] Aǵamukhî, or goat's face, is called a witch, who wishes Sîtâ to be torn to pieces. In the legend of Ilvalas and Vâtâpis,[768] the two wizard brothers who conspire to harm the Brâhmaṇâs, Vâtâpis transforms himself into a wether, and lets himself be sacrificed in the funeral rites by the Brâhmaṇâs. The unsuspecting Brâhmaṇâs eat its flesh; then Ilvalas cries out to his brother, "Come forth, O Vâtâpis!" and his brother, Vâtâpis, comes out of the bodies of the Brâhmaṇâs, lacerating them, until the ṛishis Agastyas eats of himself the whole of Vâtâpis, and burns Ilvalas to ashes. The Râmâyaṇam itself explains to us why, in these sacrifices, a wether, and not a ram, is spoken of,[769] when it narrates the legend of Ahalyâ. It is said in this passage that the god Indras was one day condemned to lose his testicles by the malediction of the ṛishis Gâutamas, with whose wife, Ahalyâ, he had committed adultery. The gods, moved to pity, took the testicles of a ram and gave them to Indras, who was therefore called Meshâṇḍas; on this account, says the Râmâyaṇam, the Pitaras feed on wethers, and not on rams, in funeral oblations. This legend is evidently of brâhmanic origin. The Brâhmaṇâs, being interested in discrediting the god of the warriors, Indras, and finding him called in the Vedâs by the name of Meshas or ram, invented the story of the ram's testicles, in the same way as, finding Indras in the Vedâs called by the name of Sahasrâkshas (i.e., he of the thousand eyes), they malignantly connected this appellation with the same scandalous story of the seduction of Ahalyâ, 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 sahasradhâras, the sun (as carrying, now a thousand stars, now a thousand rays), or sahasrânçus, and sahasradâras, which has a very different meaning.

In the important 116th hymn of the first book of the Ṛigvedas, Ṛiǵrâçvas (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 Açvinâu, 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 Ṛiǵrâçvas, 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 Ṛigvedas itself is sacrificed instead of the horse. We are told in a hymn, that in the sacrifice of the horse the omniform he-goat (aǵo viçvarûpaḥ) has preceded the horse;[771] and the Âitareya 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, Gesù, 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.

Ṛiǵrâçvas, 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 Ṛiǵrâçvas, 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 Ṛiǵrâçvas 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 aǵakâvas, conjured with in the Ṛigvedas,[775] as durdṛiçikas, or making to see badly, damaging the eyesight, and the name of aǵakâ, given to an illness in the eyes by the Hindoo physician Suçrutas. However, we must not forget the connection between the idea of skin and that of goat, by which the aǵakâ 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 aǵakâvas.

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 sahasrâkshas, 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 (panoptês) 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 Panoptês, the Vedic Viçvavedas, 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 Æneid,[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 capræ 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 (ekapâd aǵaḥ), 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 Açvinâu 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 ekapâd aǵaḥ); 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 capræ 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 mediæval 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'à mangià 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 fœcundator, 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 brâhmanic 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 Ælianos, 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 Hermês, or Zeus, assuming the form of a he-goat, united himself with Penelope, whence was born the great goat-footed satyr, Pan; that Hêraklês (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 Ælianos, 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 Nephêlê (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 Râmâyaṇam, 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 fœtu;"

Hermês, 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 Laertês; 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 Græco-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.

END OF VOL. I.

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Footnotes

[1] Mâ gâm anâgâm aditiṁ vadhishṭa; Ṛigv. viii. 90, 15.

[2] Gomâtaraḥ; Ṛigv. i. 8, 1, 3.—Aditis, called "mâtâ rudrâṇâm;" Ṛigv. viii. 90, 15.

[3] Tubhyaṁ (to Vâyus, to the wind), dhenuḥ sabardughâ viçvâ vasûni dohate aǵanayo maruto vakshaṇâbhyaḥ; Ṛigv. i. 134, 4.

[4] Imâs ta indra pṛiçnayo ghṛitaṁ duhata âçiram; Ṛigv. viii. 6, 19.—Trir asmâi sapta dhenavo duduhre satyâm âçiram pûrvye vyomani; Ṛigv. ix. 70, 1.—Trîṇi sarâṅsi pṛiçnayo duduhre vaǵriṇe madhu; Ṛigv. viii. 7, 10.—In the Râmâyaṇan, i. 48, the Marutas also appear in the number of 7.

[5] Pra çaṅsâ goshv aghnyaṁ krîḷaṁ yać ćhardho mârutam ǵambhe rasasya vâvṛidhe; Ṛigv. i. 37, 5.

[6] Ime ye te su vâyo bâhvoǵaso 'ntar nadî te patayanty ukshaṇo mahi vrâdhanta ukshaṇaḥ dhanvań ćid ye anâçavo ǵirâç, ćid aǵirâukasaḥ sûryasyeva raçmayo durniyantavo hastayor durniyantavaḥ; Ṛigv. i. 135, 9.

[7] Ṛiksho na vo marutaḥ çimîvâṇ amo dudhro gâur iva bhîmayuḥ; Ṛigv. v. 56, 3.

[8] Te syandrâso nokshaṇo 'ṭi shkandanti çarvarîḥ; Ṛigv. v. 52, 3.

[9] Tvam vâtâir aruṇâir yâsi; Tâittiriya Yaǵurvedas, i. 3, 14.—Ańǵibhir vy ânaǵre ke cid usrâ iva stṛibhiḥ; Ṛigv. i. 87, 1.

[10] Vṛishâ vṛishabhih; Ṛigv. i. 100, 4.—Gṛishṭiḥ sasûva sthaviraṃ tavâgâm anâdhṛishyaṃ vṛishabhaṁ tumram indram; Ṛigv. iv. 18, 10.—Sa mâtarâ na dadṛiçâna usriyo nânadad eti marutâm iva svanaḥ; Ṛigv. ix. 70, 6.

[11] Vṛishâyamâṇo vṛiṇita somam; Ṛigv. i. 32, 3.—Pituṁ nu stosham maho dharmâṇam tavishîm yasya trito (Tritas, as we shall see, is an alter ego of the god Indras) vy oǵasâ vṛitram viparvam ardayat; Ṛigv. i. 187, 1.

[12] Pibâ vardhasva; Ṛigv. iii. 36, 3.

[13] Indro madhu sambhṛitam usriyâyâm padvad viveda çaphavan name goḥ; Ṛigv. iii. 39, 6.

[14] Trî yać ćhatâ mahishâṇâm agho mâs trî sarâṇsi maghavâ somyâpâḥ kâraṁ na viçve ahvanta devâ bharam indrâya yad ahim ǵaghâna; Ṛigv. v. 29, 8.

[15] Vasoḥ kabandhamṛishabho bibharti; Atharvavedas, ix. 4, 3.

[16] Sruvati bhîmo vṛisḥabhas tavishyayâ çṛiñge çiçâno hariṇî vićakshaṇaḥ; Ṛigv. ix. 70, 7.

[17] Yas tigmaçṛiñgo vṛishabho na bhîma ekaḥ kṛishṭîç ćyâvayati pra viçvâḥ; Ṛigv. vii. 19, 1.—Idaṁ namo vṛishabhâya svarâǵe satyaçushmâya tavase 'vâći; Ṛigv. i. 51, 15.

[18] Çiçîte vaǵraṁ teǵase na vaṅsagaḥ; Ṛigv. i. 55, 1.

[19] Abhy enaṁ vaǵra âyasaḥ sahasrabhṛishṭir âyatârćano; Ṛigv. i. 80, 12.

[20] Sahasraçṛiñgo vṛishabho yaḥ samudrâd udâćarat; Ṛigv. vii. 55, 7.

[21] Vi tigmena vṛishabheṇa puro 'bhet; Ṛigv. i. 33, 13.

[22] Priyâ indrasya dhenavo vagraṁ hinvanti sâyakaṁ vasvîḥ; Ṛigv. 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] Yuǵaṁ vaǵraṁ vṛishabhaç ćakra indro nir ǵyotishâ tamaso gâ adukshat; Ṛigv. i. 33, 10.

[24] Çiçîte çṛiñge rakshase vinikshe; Ṛigv. v. 2, 9.—Ćatvâri çṛiñgâ trayo asya pâdâ dve çîrshe sapta hastâso asya; Ṛigv. iv. 58, 3.—Tapurǵambho vana â vâtaćodito yûthe na sâhvân ava vâti vaṅsagaḥ abhi vraǵann akshitam pâǵasâ raǵaḥ sthâtuç ćaratham bhayate patatriṇaḥ; Ṛigv. i. 58, 5. In this stanza, however, Vaṅsagaḥ 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 pṛishṭham prushitasya roćate).

[25] Adris and parvatas properly mean mountain, but, in the Vedâs, 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 Râmas in the Râmâyaṇam, ii. 122, that the Himâlayas 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. Râmâyaṇam, iii. 3, 5, and the chapters of this work which treat of the Horse, the Bear, and the Monkey.

[26] Vraǵam gaćha gosthânam; Tâittir. Yaǵúr. i. 1, 9; cfr. Çatapathabrâhmaṇam, i. 2, 3, 4.

[27] Kṛishṇo nonâva vṛishabhaḥ; Ṛigv. i. 79, 2.—Vâçreva vidyun mimâti vatsaṁ na mâtâ sishakti; Ṛigv. i. 38, 8.

[28] Açmânaṁ ćit svaryam parvataṁ girim pra ćyâvayanti yâmabhiḥ; Ṛigv. v. 96, 4.

[29] Pavyâ rathânâm adrim bhindanty oǵasâ; Ṛigv. 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] Vîraḥ karmaṇyaḥ sudaksho yuktagrâvâ ǵâyate devakâmaḥ; Ṛigv. iii. 4, 9.

[31] Ayaṁ çṛiṇve adha ǵayann uta ghnann ayam uta pra kṛiṇute yudhâ gâḥ; Ṛigv. iv. 17, 10.—Viḷu ćid âruǵatnubhir guhâ ćid indra vahnibhiḥ avinda usriyâ anu; Ṛigv. i. 6, 5.—Tvaṁ valasya gomato 'pavar adrivo bilam; Ṛigv. i. 11, 5.—Vi gobhir adrim âirayat; Ṛigv. i. 7, 3.—Ukshâ mimâti prati yanti dhenavaḥ; Ṛigv. ix. 69, 4.—Yad anyâsu vṛishabho roravîti so anyasmin yûthe ni dadhâti retaḥ; Ṛigv. iii. 55, 17.—Pûshaṅvân vaǵrint sam u patnyâmadaḥ; Ṛigv. i. 82, 6.

[32] Indrâgnî navatim puro dâsapatnîr adhûnutam sâkam ekena karmaṇâ; Ṛigv. iii. 12, 6; Tâitt. Yaǵurv. i. 1, 14. Cfr. chap. on Serpent.

[33] Devâsa âyan paraçûṅr abibhran vanâ vṛiçćanto abhi viḍbhir âyan ni sudrvaṁ dadhato vakshaṇâsu yatrâ kṛipîṭam anu tad dahanti; Ṛigv. x. 28, 8.

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

[35] Vṛikshe-vṛikshe niyatâ mîmayad gâus tato vayaḥ pra patân pûrushâdaḥ viçvam bhuvanam bhayâte; Ṛigv. x. 27, 22.—Tvam âyasam prati vartayo gor divo açmânam; Ṛigv. i. 121, 9.

[36] Brihaspatir govapusho valasya nir maǵǵânaṁ na parvaṇo ǵabhâra; Ṛigv. x. 68, 9.

[37] Gâurîr mimâya salilâni takshaty ekapadî dvipadî sâ ćatushpadî—ashṭâpadî navapadî babhûvushî sahasrâksharâ parame vyoman; Ṛigv. i. 164, 41.

[38] Utâdaḥ parushe gavi sûraç ćakraṁ hiraṇyayam; Ṛigv. vi. 56, 3.

[39] Dâsapatnîr ahigopâ atishṭhan niruddhâ âpah paṇineva gâvaḥ; Ṛigv. i. 32, 11.

[40] Vishaṁ gavâṁ yâtudhânaḥ pibantu; Ṛigv. x. 87, 18. The same passage can, however, be also translated: "The demons of the cows may drink the poison."

[41] Ṛigv. iii. 12, 6; x. 27, 22.

[42] Ṛigv. ix. 70, 1.

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

[44] Vi raçmibhiḥ sasṛiǵe sûryo gâḥ; Ṛigv. vii. 36, 1.

[45] Ta vâm (the gods Vishṇus and Indras) vâstûny uçmasi gama-dhyâi yatra gâvo bhûriçṛiñgâ ayâsaḥ; Ṛigv. 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 Ekaçṛiñgâs 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] Kanyâ vâr avâyatî somam api srutâvidat astam bharanty abravîd indrâya sunavâi tvâ çakrâya sunavâi tvâ.—Indrâyendo pari srava; Ṛigv. viii. 80, 1, 3.

[47] Indrâsomâ tapataṁ raksha ubǵataṁ ny arpayataṁ vṛishaṇâ tamovṛidhaḥ; Ṛigv. vii, 104, 1.—The following stanzas reproduce and develop the same argument.

[48] Pańćokshaṇo madhye tasthur maho divaḥ—Te sedhanti patho vṛikaṁ tarantaṁ yahvatîr apaḥ; Ṛigv. i. 105, 10, 11.

[49] Vasavo gâuryaṁ ćit padi shitâm amuńćatâ yaǵtrâh; Ṛigv. iv. 12, 6.

[50] Takshan dhenuṁ sabardugham; Ṛigv. i. 20, 3.—Niç ćarmaṇo gâm ariṇîta dhîtibhiḥ; Ṛigv. 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 ṛibhavaḥ sarvavîram â takshata vṛishaṇo mandasânâḥ; Ṛigv. iv. 35, 6.

[53] Rayim ṛibhavas takshatâ vayaḥ; Ṛigv. iv. 36, 8.—Here again we have the cow in relation to the birds, since the riches given by the Ṛibhavas consist above all in cows. (Ye gomantaṁ vâǵavantaṁ suvîraṁ rayiṁ dhattha vasumantam purukshuṁ te agrepâ ṛibhavo mandasânâ asme dhatta ye ća râṭiṁ gṛiṇanti; Ṛigv. iv. 34, 10.)

[54] Çayave ćin nâsâtyâ çaćibhir ǵasuraye staryam pipyathur gâm; Ṛigv. i. 116. 22.—Yâ ǵarantâ yuvaçâ tâkṛiṇotana; Ṛigv. i. 161, 7.

[55] Ǵyeshṭha âha ćamasâ dvâ kareti kanîyân trîn kriṇavâmety âha kanishṭha âha ćaturas kareti tvashṭa ṛibhavas tat panayad vaćo vaḥ; Ṛigv. iv. 33, 5.

[56] Vâǵo devânâm abhavat sukarmendrasya ṛibhukshâ varuṇasya vibhvâ; Ṛigv. iv. 33, 9.

[57] Te vâǵo vibhvân ṛibhur indravantaḥ; Ṛigv. iv. 33, 3.

[58] Ṛibhur vibhvâ vâǵa indro no aćhemaṁ yaǵńaṁ ratnadheyopa yâta; Ṛigv. iv. 34, 1.—Pibata vâǵâ ṛibhavo; Ṛigv. iv. 34, 4.

[59] Dvâdaça dyûn yad agohyasyâtithye raṇann ṛibhavaḥ sasantaḥ sukshetrâkṛiṇvann anayanta sindhûn dhanvâtishṭhann oshadhîr nimnam âpaḥ; Ṛigv. iv. 33, 7.—Cfr. Ṛigv. i. 161, 11-13.

[60] Yamena dattaṁ trita enam âyunag indra eṇam prathamo adhy atishṭhat; Ṛigv. i. 163, 2.—Asi yamo asy âdityo arvann asi trito guhyena vratena asi somena samayâ vipṛikta âhus te trîṇi divi bandhanâni trîṇi ta âhur divi bandhanâni trîṇy apsu trîṇy antaḥ samudre; Ṛigv. i. 163, 3, 4.

[61] Vishṇus the three-faced is already spoken of in the Ṛigvedas and in the Yaǵurvedas. The third step of Vishṇus is taken among the cows with the great or many horns: Gamadhye gâvo yatra bhûri-çṛiñgâ ayâsaḥ atrâ 'ha tad urugâyasya vishṇoḥ paramam padam ava bhâti bhûreḥ; Tâittiriya Yaǵurv. i. 3, 6.

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

[63] Na mâ garan nadyo mâtṛitamâ dâsâ yad îm susamubdham avâdhuḥ çiro yaḍ asya trâitano vitakshat; Ṛigv. i. 158, 5. We shall have occasion to return more than once to an analogous myth referring to Indras.

[64] Tritas tad vedâptyaḥ sa ǵâmitvâya rebhati; Ṛigv. i. 105, 9.—Gâmitvâ 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 âptyas.

[65] Rebham nivṛitaṁ sitam adbhyaḥ; Ṛigv. i. 112, 5.

[66] Tritaḥ kûpe 'vahito devân havata ûtaye tać ćhuçrâva bṛihaspatiḥ kṛiṇvann aṅhûraṇâd uru; Ṛigv. i. 105, 17.

[67] Nîtimańǵarî, quoted by Wilson, Ṛigvedas-Saṁhitâ, vol. i.

[68] Â gâ âǵad uçanâ kâvyaḥ saćâ; Ṛigv. i. 83, 5.

[69] Patir gavâm abhavad eka indraḥ; Ṛigv. iii. 31, 4.

[70] Ǵaǵâna sûryam ushâsam; Ṛigv. iii. 32, 8.

[71] Sasânâtyâṅ uta sûryaṁ sasânendraḥ sasâna purubhoǵasam gâm; Ṛigv. iii. 34, 9.

[72] Mahi ǵyotir nihitaṁ vakshaṇâsu âmâ pakvaṁ ćarati bibhratî gâuḥ viçvaṁ svâdma sambhṛitam usriyâyâm; Ṛigv. iii. 30, 14.

[73] Indraḥ sîtâm ni gṛihṇâtu tâm pûshânu yaćhatu sâ naḥ payasvatî duhâm uttarâm-uttarâṁ samâm; Ṛigv. iv. 57, 7.

[74] Mṛidha ushṭro na; Ṛigv. i. 138, 2.

[75] Yat saṁvatsam ṛibhavo gâm arakshan yat saṁvatsam ṛibhavo mâ apiṅçan; Ṛigv. iv. 33, 4.

[76] Ushâ nâ râmîr aruṇâir aporṇute maho ǵyotishâ çućatâ goarṇasâ; Ṛigv. ii. 34, 12.

[77] Dhenuḥ pratnasya kâmyaṁ duhânântaḥ putraç ćarati dakshiṇâyâḥâ dyotaniṁ vahati çubhrayâmoshasaḥ stomo açvinâv aǵigaḥ; Ṛigv. iii. 58, 1.

[78] Ṛitâya dhenû parame duhâte; Ṛigv. iv. 23, 10.

[79] Gavâm mâtâ; Ṛigv. v. 45, 2.

[80] Areṇâvas tuǵa â sadman dhenavaḥ svaranti tâ uparatâti sûryam; Ṛigv. i. 151, 5.

[81] Ud apaptann aruṇâ bhânavo vṛithâ svâyuǵo arushîr gâ ayukshata; Ṛigv. i. 92, 2

[82] Yenâ navagve añgire daçagve saptâsye revatî revad ûsha; Ṛigv. iv. 51, 4.—The sun is also said to be drawn by seven fair horses; Ṛigv. i. 50, 9.—Cfr. the following chapter.

[83] Ta usho adrisâno gotrâ gavâm añgiraso gṛiṇanti; Ṛigv. vi. 65, 5.

[84] Ṛiteṇâdriṁ vy asan bhidantaḥ sam añgiraso navanta gobhiḥ çûnaṁ naraḥ pari shadann ushâsam; Ṛigv. iv. 3, 11.

[85] Praty u adarçy âyaty ućhantî duhitâ divaḥ—Ud usriyâḥ sṛiǵate sûryaḥ saćâ; Ṛigv. vii. 81, 1, 2.

[86] Vahanti sîm aruṇâso ruçanto gâvaḥ subhagâm urviyâ prathânâm apeǵate çûro asteva çatrûn bâdhate; Ṛigv. vi. 64, 3.

[87] Ruǵad dṛiḷhâni dadad usriyâṇâm prati gâva ushasaṁ vâvaçanta; Ṛigv. vii. 75, 7.

[88] Gâvo na vraǵaṁ vy ushâ avar tamaḥ; Ṛigv. i. 92, 4.

[89] Yo açvânâṁ yo gavâṁ gopatiḥ; Ṛigv. i. 101, 4.

[90] Yuñkte gavâm aruṇânâm anîkam; Ṛigv. i. 124, 11.—Esha gobhir aruṇebhir yuǵânâ; Ṛigv. v. 80, 3.

[91] Avishk Kṛinvânâ tanvam purastat ṛitasya panthâm anv eti; Ṛigv. v. 80, 4.

[92] Apaçyam gopâm anipadyamânam â ća parâ ća pathibhiç ćarantaṁ sa sadhrîćîḥ sa vishûćir vasâna â varîvarti bhuvaneshv antaḥ; Ṛigv. x. 177, 3.

[93] Apâd eti prathamâ padvatînâṁ kas tad vâm ćiketa; Ṛigv. i. 152, 3.

[94] Ratham ye ćakruḥ suvṛitam; Ṛigv. iv. 33, 8.—Takshan nâsatyâbhyâm pariǵmânaṁ sukhaṁ ratham; Ṛigv. i. 20, 3.

[95] Yuvo rathaṁ duhitâ sûryasya saha çriyâ nâsatyâvṛiṇîta; Ṛigv. i. 117, 13.—Â vâm rathaṁ duhitâ sûryasya kârshmevâtishṭhad arvatâ ǵayantî viçve devâ anv amanyanta hṛidbhih; Ṛigv. i. 116, 17.

[96] Yuktvâ ratham upa devân ayâtana; Ṛigv. i. 161, 7.—Pṛithû ratho dakshinâyâ ayogy âenam devâso amṛitâso asthuḥ; Ṛigv. i. 123, 1.—Devî ǵirâ rathânâm; Ṛigv. i. 48, 3.—Çataṁ rathebhiḥ subhagoshâ iyaṁ vi yâty abhi mânushân; Ṛigv. i. 48, 7.

[97] Ǵânaty ahnaḥ prathamasya; Ṛigv. i. 123, 9.

[98] Anu dvâ ǵahitâ nayo 'ndhaṁ çroṇaṁ ća vṛitrahan; Ṛigv. iv. 30, 19.

[99] Sakhâbhûd açvinor ushâḥ; Ṛigv. iv. 52, 2.—Parâvṛiǵam prandhaṁ çroṇaṁ ćakshasa etave kṛithaḥ; Ṛigv. 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 Ṛigvedas," pp. 22 and 24, to the effect that the hero Pâravṛiǵ 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 vidvâṅ apagohaṁ kanînâm âvir bhavann udatishṭhat parâvṛik prati çronaḥ sthâd vy anag aćashṭa; Ṛigv. ii. 15, 7.

[101] Ṛigv. v. 48, 1.

[102] Etad ghed uta vîryam indra ćakartha pâuṅsyam striyaṁ yad durhaṇâ yuvaṁ vadhîr duhitaram divaḥ divaç ćid ghâ duhitaram mahân mahîyamânâm ushâsam indra sam piṇak aposhâ anasaḥ sarat sampishṭâd aha bibhyushî ni yat sîm çiçnathad vṛishâ; Ṛigv. iv. 30, 8-11.

[103] The two arms of Indras are said to vanquish the cow (or the cows); Goǵitâ bahû; Ṛigv. i. 102, 6.

[104] Vy ućhâ duhitar divo mâ ćiraṁ tanuthâ apaḥ net tvâ stenaṁ yathâ ripuṁ tapâti sûro arćishâ; Ṛigv. v. 79, 9.—Cfr. the chapter which treats of the Spider.

[105] Bhadro bhadrayâ saćamâna âgât svasâraṁ ǵâro abhy eti paçćat; Ṛigv. x. 3, 3.

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

[107] Kanyeva tanvâ çâçadânâṅ (arepasâ tanvâ çâçadânâ; Ṛigv. i. 124, 6), eshi devi devam iyakshamâṇam saṁsmayamânâ yuvatiḥ purastâd âvir vakshâṅsi kṛiṇushe vibhâtî; Ṛigv. i. 123, 10.

[108] Ṛigv. i. 30, 20-22.

[109] Vy û vraǵasya tamaso dvâroćhantîr avran ćhućayaḥ pâvakâḥ; Ṛigv. iv. 51, 2.—Apa dvesho bâdhamânâ tamâṅsy ushâ divo duhitâ ǵyotishâgât; Ṛigv. v. 80, 5.—Spârhâ vasûni tamasâpagûḷhâ âvish, kṛiṇvanty ushaso vibhâtîḥ; Ṛigv. i. 123, 6.—Sasato bodhayantî; Ṛigv. i. 124, 4.—Viçvaṁ ǵivaṁ ćarase bodhayantî; Ṛigv. i. 92, 9.—Martyatrâ; Ṛigv. i. 123, 3.

[110] Viçvâni devî bhuvanâbhićakshyâ; Ṛigv. i. 92, 6.—Praǵânatî; Ṛigv. i. 124, 3.

[111] Arbhâd îshate na maho vibhâtî; Ṛigv. i. 124, 6.

[112] As to Ghoshâ, cured by the Açvinâu (Ṛigv. i. 117, 7), and Apalâ, cured by Indras (Ṛigv. viii. 80), see the same subject discussed more in detail in the chapter which treats of the Hog.

[113] Çukrâ kṛishṇâd aǵanishṭa çvitîćî; Ṛigv. i. 123, 9.

[114] Yasyânakshâ duhitâ ǵâtvâsa kas tâṁ vidvâṅ abhi manyâte andhâm kataro menim prati tam mućâte ya îm vahâte ya îm vâ vareyât; Ṛigv. x. 27, 11.—Vṛitrasya kanînikâ 'si ćakshushpâ asi; Tâittir. Yagurv. i. 2, 1.

[115] Apânyad ety abhy anyad eti vishurûpe ahanî saṁ ćarete; Ṛigv. i. 123, 7.

[116] Ruçadvatsâ ruçatî çvetyâgâd ârâig u kṛishṇâ sadanâny asyâḥ samânabandhû amṛite anûćî dyâvâ varṇaṁ ćarata âminâne samâno adhvâ svasror anantas tam anyânyâ ćarato devaçishṭe na methete na tasthatuḥ sumeke naktoshâsa samanasâ virûpe; Ṛigv. i. 113, 2, 3.

[117] Naktoshâsâ varṇam âmemyâne dhâpayete çiçum ekaṁ samîćî; Ṛigv. i. 96, 5.

[118] Nâǵâmiṁ na pari vṛiṇakti ǵâmim; Ṛigv. i. 124, 6.

[119] Vyûrṇvatî divo antân abodhy apa svasâraṁ sanutar yuyoti praminatî manushyâ yugâni yoshâ ǵarasya ćakshasâ vi bhâti; Ṛigv. i. 92, 11.

[120] Svasâ svasre ǵyâyasyâi yonim ârâik; Ṛigv. i. 124, 8.

[121] Nârîr apasaḥ; Ṛigv. i. 92, 3.

[122] Çućayaḥ pâvakâh; Ṛigv. iv. 51, 2.

[123] Yoshâ ǵârasya ćakshasâ vibhâti; Ṛigv. quoted above, i. 92, 11.

[124] Yatamânâ raçmibhiḥ sûryasya; Ṛigv. i. 123, 12.—Vyućhantî raçmibhiḥ sûryasya; Ṛigv. i. 124, 8.

[125] Ritasya yoshâ na minâti dhâma; Ṛigv. i. 123, 9.

[126] Susaṁkâçâ mâtṛimṛishṭeva yoshâvis tanvaṁ kriṇushe dṛiçe kam; Ṛigv. i. 123, 11.

[127] Eshâ çubhrâ na tanvo vidânordhveva snâtî dṛiçaye no asthât; Ṛigv. v. 80, 5.

[128] Adhi peçâṅsi vapate nṛitûr ivâporṇute vaksha usreva barǵaham; Ṛigv. i. 92, 4.

[129] Bhadrâ vastrâ tanvate; Ṛigv. i. 134, 4.

[130] Smayate vibhâtî supratîkâ; Ṛigv. i. 92, 6.

[131] Prâkramisham ushasâm agriyeva; Ṛigv. x. 95, 2.

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

[133] Ṛigv. i. 123, 8.

[134] Vidique saepe, sed cumprimis anno 1785 in Malabaria ad flumen templo celebri Ambalapushe proximum, extra oppidum Callureàta in silvula, sententia regis Travancoridis Ráma Varmer, quinque viros arbori appensos et morti traditos, quod, contra regni leges et religionis præscripta, voluntarie unicam vaccam occiderint; Systema Brahmanicum, illustr. Fr. Paullinus a S. Bartholomæo, Romæ, 179.—Cfr. Mânava-Dharmaçâstram, xi. 60, and Yâgńavalkya-Dharmaçâstram, iii. 234.

[135] ii. 1, 8.

[136] Pańćagavyaṁ piban goghno mâsam âsîta saṁyataḥ goshṭreçayo go 'nugâmî gopradânena çudhyati; Dharm. iii. 263.

[137] Dharm. xi. 166.

[138] Ibid. iii. 271.

[139] Ka imaṁ daçabhir mamendraṁ krîṇâti dhenubhiḥ; Ṛigv. iv. 24, 10.

[140] Dharm. iii. 27.

[141] Gṛihyasûtrâṇi, i. 8, 9.—It was, moreover, on the occasion of a marriage, the custom to give cows to the Brâhmans; in the Râmâyaṇam, i. 74, the King Daçarathas, at the nuptials of his four sons, gives 400,000 cows.

[142] Â naḥ praǵâṁ ǵanayatu praǵâpatiḥ; Ṛigv. x. 85, 43.

[143] Goćarmavasano hariḥ; xiii. 1228.

[144] Cfr. Böhtlingk u. Roth's, Sanskrit Wörterbuch s. v. goćarman.

[145] Âçvalây. Gṛihyasû. iv. 3.

[146] Gṛihyasû. i. 13.—The commentator Nârâyaṇas, quoted by Professor Stenzler, in his version of Âçvalâyanas, explains how the two beans and grain of barley express by their form the male organs of generation.

[147] Gṛihyasû. i. 14.

[148] Gṛihyasû. 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, Âçvalây. iv. 8.

[149] Yać ća goshu dushvapnyaṁ yać ćâsme duhitar divaḥ tritâya tad vibhâvary âptyâya parâ vahânehaso va ûtayaḥ suûtayo va ûtayaḥ; Ṛigv. viii. 47, 14.

[150] Payaḥ kṛishṇâsu ruçad rohiṇîshu; Ṛigv. i. 62, 9.—Cfr. Ṛigv. i. 123, 9.

[151] Gṛihyasû. iv. 3.

[152] Âçvalây; Gṛihyasû.

[153] v. 4, 23.

[154] Indro vâi vṛitraṁ hatvâ viçvakarmâbhavat; iv. 3, 22.

[155] iii. 2, 37.

[156] Ushase ćaṛuṁ yoshâḥ sâ râkâ so eva trishṭup gave ćarum ya gáuḥ sâ sinîvâlî (the new moon) so eva ǵagati; iii. 2, 48.

[157] Abhûd ushâ ruçatpaçur ityushaso rûpam; i. 2, 18.—Gobhiraruṇâir ushâ âǵimadhâvat tasmâd ushasyagatâyâm aruṇam ivaeva pra-bhátyusḥasorûpam; iv. 2, 9.—Abhûd ushâ ruçatpaçur ityushaso rûpam; i. 2, 18.

[158] Âit.-brâhm. vi. 4, 24.

[159] Âit.-brâhm. iv. 3, 17.

[160] iii. 8080.

[161] Cfr. Weber's Über die Kṛishṇaǵamâshtamî, Berlin, 1868; L'Inde Française, par Eugène Burnouf, Paris, 1828; The Hindoos, London, 1834, vol. i.

[162] iv. 3, 20.

[163] i. 3. 22.

[164] Mahînâm payo 'sy oshadhînáṁ rasaḥ; Taittir. Yagurv. i. 1, 10.—Kshîrodaṁ sâgaraṁ sarve mathnîmaḥ sahitâ vayaṁ nâuâushadhîḥ samâhṛitya prakshipya ća tatastataḥ; Râmây. i. 46.—Cfr. Kuhn's Die Herabkunft des Feuers und des Göttertranks, Berlin, 1859.

[165] The Gandhamâdanas is especially defended by the Gandharvâs, 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 ṛiv; 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. Râmây. vi. 82, 83.

[167] Böhtlingk's Indische Sprüche, 122, erster Theil; 2^te Aufl. S. Petersburg, 1870.—Cfr. Mahâbhâratam, i. 1143-1145.

[168] Abhi tyaṁ devaṁ savitâram ûṇyoḥ kavikratum arćâmi satyasavasam ratnadhâm abhi priyam matiṃ; Tâittir. Yagurv. i. 2, 6.

[169] i. 46.

[170] xiii. 7034.

[171] Hariv., 12,367.

[172] Âruhya tasya çikhare so 'paçyat paramâushadîṁ dṛishṭvâ ćotpâtayâmâsa viçalyakaraṇîṁ çubhâm.—Viçalyo niruǵaḥ çîghramudatishṭhanmahîtalât; vi. 83.

[173] Sa nighṛishâñgulim râmo dhâute manaḥçilâgirâu ćakara tilakaṁ patnyâ lalâṭe rućiraṁ tadâ bâlârkasamavarṇena tena sâ giridhâtunâ lalâṭe vinivishṭhe na sasaṁdheva niçâbhavat; Râmây. ii. 105.

[174] Sîvyatu apaḥ sûćyâćhidyamânayâ dadâtu vîraṁ çatadâyam ukthyam; Ṛigv. ii. 32, 4.

[175] Tataḥ çubhaṁ sâ taruṇârkasaṁnibhaṁ gataklamâ vasrayugaṁ sadâ malaṁ sraǵo 'ñgarâgaṁ ća vibhûshaṇâni ća prasannaćetâ ǵagṛihe tu mâithilî; Râmây. iii. 5.

[176] Râmây. iv. 50-53.

[177] Pîtâirnivâsitâ vastrâiḥ krîdanto gomaye hrade; Râmây. v. 27.—Cfr. vi. 23.

[178] Sîtâmuvâća ha dîpyamânâm svayâ lakshmyâ saṅdhyâmâutpâtikîmiva; Râmây. v. 52.

[179] Samarthâ gatanaṁ gantumapivâ tvaṁ rasâtalam—Aćirammokshyase sîte; Râmây. vi. 9, 10.

[180] Sâumyaḥ somâtmagáḥ; Râmây. vi. 6.

[181] Sitaḥ kakudvâniva tîkshṇaçṛiñgo rarâǵa ćandraḥ paripûrṇaçṛiñgaḥ; Râmây. v. 11.—Cfr. v. 20.

[182] Babhâu nashṭaprabhaḥ sûryo raǵanî ćâbhyavartata; Râmây. ii. 92.

[183] Nishâdarâǵo guhaḥ sanîlâmbudatulyavarṇaḥ; Râmây. ii. 48.

[184] Sadâ vanagoćaraḥ; Râmây. ii. 98.

[185] iii. 63.

[186] Râmây. iv. 1.

[187] Sahasrâkshadhanushmadbhis toyadâiriva mârutaḥ; Râmây. v. 40.

[188] Râmây. v. 73.—In the Râmâyaṇam itself, Râmas, overpowered with grief, is compared now to a bull (v. 34), now to an elephant tormented by a lion (v. 37).

[189] Râmây. vi. 105.

[190] Râmây. vi. 102.

[191] Çâradaṁ sthûlapṛishataṁ çṛiñgâbhyâm govṛisho yathâ; Râmây. iii. 32.

[192] Râmây. v. 28.—The monster Kabandhas salutes them both with the name of Vṛishabhaskandhâu, or they who have bulls' shoulders; Râmây. iii. 74.

[193] Râmây. vii. 36-38.

[194] Râmây. v. 93.

[195] Çrantâṅstu na tapet sûryaḥ kathańćidvânarânapi abhrâṇi ǵaǵnire digbhyas ćhâdayitvâ raveḥ prabhâṁ pravavarsha ća parǵanyo mârutaçća çivo vavâu; Râmây. v. 95.

[196] Râmây. iii. 77.

[197] Râmây. iii. 23.

[198] Râmây. vi. 37.

[199] Paçya lakshmaṇa mârîćaṁ mahâçanisamasvanam sapadânugamâyântaṁ subâhuṁ ća niçâćaraṁ etâvadya mayâ paçya nîlâńćanaćayopamâu asmin kshaṇe samâdhûtâvanilenâmbudâviva; Râmây. i. 33.

[200] Çakreṇeva vinirmukto vaǵrastaruvaropari; Râmây. iii. 35.

[201] Mâyâmâçritya vipulâṁ vâtadurdinasaṁkulâm; Râmây. iii. 73.

[202] Te nikṛittabhuǵaskandhâs kavandhâkṛiti ekadarçanâḥ nadanto bhâiravânnâdânnâpatanti sma dânavâs; Mbh. iii. 806.

[203] Atha tatra mahâghoraṁ vikṛitaṁ tam mahoććhrayaṁ vivṛiddhamaçirogrîvaṁ kabandhamudare mukham romabhirnićitaṁ tikshṇâirmahâgirimivoććhritam nîlameghanibhaṁ ghoraṁ meghastanitanisvanam mahatâ ćâtipiñgena vipulenâyatenaća ekenorasi dîrgheṇa nayanenâtidarçinâ; Râmây. iii. 74.—The one yellowish eye of Kabandhas reminds us of Vâiçravaṇas with only one yellowish eye (ekapinghekshaṇas), his other eye having been burnt out by the goddess Parvatî; Râmây. vii. 13.

[204] i. 49; ii. 7, et passim.

[205] Cfr. the chapter on the Wolf.

[206] iii. 40, et seq.

[207] Taruṇâdityasaṁkâçâm taptakâńćanabhûshitâṁ raktâmbaradharâm bâlâm; Râmây. vi. 103.—Of the dress of Sîtâ we read in another place that it shines "like the light of the sun upon the summit of a mountain" (Sûryaprabheva çâilâgre tasyâḥ kâusheyamuttamaṁ; iv. 58).

[208] Râmây. vi. 99.

[209] Cfr. Weber's Ueber das Râmâyaṇa, Berlin, 1870, p. 9.

[210] Ibid. p. 1.

[211] Vîryaçulkâ ća me kanyâ divyarûpâ guṇânvitâ bhûtalâdutthitâ pûrvaṁ nâmnâ sîtetyayoniǵâ; Râmây. i. 68.

[212] Râmây. vii. 104, 105.

[213] Kathâ sarit sâgaras, iii. 17.

[214] i. 3888-3965.

[215] "Apriyańća na kartavyaṁ kṛite ćâinâm tyaǵâmyaham," says Ǵaratkarus; 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] Varuṇas, 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 Râmâyaṇam (canto 27), in which the solar hero, having entered the celestial city of Varuṇas, finds the cow which always yields milk (payaḥ ksharantâm satataṁ tatra gâṁ ća dadarça saḥ), whence the white-rayed moon emerges, whence also the ambrosia and the nectar (yataçćandraḥ prabhavati çîtaraçmiḥ—yasmâdamṛitaṃutpannaṁ sudhâ ćâpi).

[220] Cfr. the chapter on the Horse.

[221] In the Râmâyaṇam, i. 63, the deliverer is Indras, who, even in the Âitareya, does much for Çunaḥçepas.

[222] Teǵasâ gharmadah sadâ—Prâsâdaçatasambâdhaṁ nirmitaṁ viçvakarmanâ çobhitaṁ padminîbhiçća kâńćanâiçća mahâdrumâiḥ nilayaḥ pâçahastasya varuṇasya mahâtmanaḥ; Râmây. iv. 43.

[223] i. 64.

[224] The Puranic-legend gives an instance of such another father in Hiraṇyakaçipus, who, persecuting his own son Prahlâdas, tries to destroy him in several ways, and finally throws him into the sea; Prahlâdas praises Vishṇus, and is delivered.—Cfr. The Vishṇu Purâṇa, 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 ǵivitam; Râmây. 1. c.

[228] Nanâda vividhân nâdân yathâ prâvṛishi toyadaḥ; Râmây. iii. 24.

[229] Dhârayan mâhishaṁ rupaṁ tîkshṇaçriñgo bhayâvahaḥ; Râmây. 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 (balaṁ nâgasahasrasya dhârayan) or elephants, for the word nâgas is equivocal.

[230] Çṛiñgâbhyâmâlikhan darpat taddvâram; Râmây, iv. 9.—Cfr. the two chapters which treat of the Horse and the Monkey.

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

[232] Viçvarûpo vâi tvâshṭraḥ purohito devânâm âsît svasriyo 'surâṇâm tasya trîṇi çirshâny asant—Indras tasya vaǵram âdâya çîrshâny aćhinad yat somapânam—Brahma-hatyam upâ 'griḥṇat—Tam bhûtâny abhy akroçan brahmahann iti; Tâittirîya Saṁhitâ, ed. Weber. ii. 5, 1-6.

[233] vii. 5, 28.

[234] Sa tasya khañgena mahâçirâṅsi kapiḥ samas tâṁ sukuṇḍalâṁ kruddhaḥ praćiććheda tadâ hanûmâns ṭvâshṭrâtmaǵasyeva çirânsi çakrah; Râmây. vii. 50.

[235] Râmây. vii. 10.

[236] Mbh. i. 4990.—Cfr. also the three phallical and solar brothers of the story of Çunaḥçepas (him with the luminous tail or phallus).

[237] i. 4775.

[238] Balaṁ nâgasahasrasya yasmin kuṇḍe pratishṭhitaṁ yâvatpivati bâlo 'yaṁ tâvad asmâi pradîyataṁ—ekoććhvâsâttataḥ kuṇḍaṁ danaḥ; Mbh. i. 5030, 5032.—A similar legend is found again in the third book of the Mahâbhâratam, under the form of an impenetrable forest, in which the king of the serpents envelops Bhîmas.

[239] Mbh. i. 4777.

[240] i. 5300-5304.

[241] i. 680-828.

[242] Tam kliçyamânamindro 'paçyatsa vaǵraṁ presḥayâmâsa—gaććhâsya brâhmaṇasya sâhâyyaṁ kurusveti—atha vaǵram daṇḍakâshṭhamanupraviçya tadvilamadârayat; 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 Gṛidhrakûṭa (the vulture's peak), strive, in presence of their master, to lift the vaǵram (that is, the arm in the form of a wedge, the lever-rod, the thunderbolt of Indras), but in vain; Vaǵrapâṇis alone succeeds in lifting the vaǵram with his right hand. Râmas makes a similar trial of strength in the Râmâyaṇam, 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 Açvinâu, as that of the bull to Indras. In the Puranic legends, Kṛishṇas 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 Vishṇu Purâṇa, 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 anipadyamânas.

[249] Ahaṁ ǵalaṁ kimuńćâmi praǵânâm hitakâmyayâ; Mbh. i. 3317.

[250] iii. 23, 24.

[251] Dadarça râǵâ tâm tatra kanyâmagniçikhâmiva; 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] Sâudâminîva ćâbhreshu tatrâevântaradhîyata; Mbh. i. 6557.

[263] Tasminnṛipatiçârdûle pravishṭe nagaraṁ punaḥ pravavarsha sahasrâkshaḥ çasyâni ǵanayanprabhuḥ; Mbh. 6629, 6630.

[264] i. 6651-6772.

[265] The hundred daughters of King Kuçanabhas, and of the nymph Ghṛitâći, who walks in curdled milk, recalling to us the mythical cow.—Cfr. Râmây. i. 35.

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

[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 rutâ, superadditis; et in nomine Dei ex olla effundito: deinde coram eo adpone ut comedat. Cumque portiunculam panis in íllud 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 Vasishṭhas, which yields every good thing, and which then fights in the clouds against Viçvâmitras, 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 Ag̃ro-maiṇyus.

[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-navâza, als ihn aufrief der siegreiche, starke Thraetaona, in der Gestalt eines Vogels, eines Kahrkâça. 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 Ardvî Çûra, der fleckenlosen; Ardvî Çûra, 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 Ardvî Çûra, 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 Bahrâm 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 Uçanâ, with the added denomination of kavis; Ahaṁ kaviruçanâ: Ṛigv. 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 Râm 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 Ardvî Çûra Anâhita, 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] Urvâksha 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 Athvyânischen (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 Kâvya Uçanâ, or even Uçanâ 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.

[348] These last have already been translated into English, and illustrated, by W. R. S. Ralston, M.A. The Narodnija Skaski sabrannija selskimi ućiteliami, 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 Æsop'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, à monter sur cette montagne, et qu'il y monta effectivement, l'ayant fait connoître par le feu qu'il alluma; mais qu'il n'en descendit point, et que l'on ne sçait 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 serdienká vkrai!
Ti-sz mini szradila
Sza krasni yagodki, sza ćorvonni ćobotki!

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 mère sotte has become proverbial in France, where, in the sixteenth century, Pierre Gringore wrote a satirical comedy with the title of Le Jeu de Mère Sotte, in which the Mère 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 Arǵunas, in the Mahâbhâratam, 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] Çadis v nievó, i leti kuda nadobno; da po daroghie zabirái k sebié vsiákavo vstriećnavo.

[401] Na karablié niet ni adnavó pána, 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 Bhîmas, 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 cæco graditur pede claudus utroque,
Quo caret alteruter, sumit ab alterutro.
Cæcus namque pedes claudo gressumque ministrat,
At claudus cæco 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 Pâtres Slaves; Teza, Itre Capelli d'oro del Nonno Satutto, a Bohemian story; Miçkiević, Canti Popolari Illirici.

[423] Les Eddas, traduites de l'ancien idiome Scandinave par Mdlle. du Puget, 2ème 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, quæ marito fidem non servat (a variety of the Mongol Sûrya Bagatur).

[426] Recorded by Cox, Mythology of the Aryan Nations, vol. i. p. 438, when speaking of the Hellenic myth of Zeus and Eurôpâ.

[427] Cfr. Kuhn, Die Herabkunft des Feuers und des Göttertranks, p. 181 and following.—In Du Cange, Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ 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 Bîfröst, 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 quærentem dominum eo deductura erant, aversos boves eximium quemque pulchritudine caudis in speluncam traxit."

[437] Facetiæ, Krakau, 1592, quoted by Benfey in his introduction to the Pańćatantram, 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 cæteris 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 Sanskṛit, 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] Phalânâm phalam açnoti tadâ dattvâ; Mahâbhâratam, 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] Ṛigvedas, v. 46, 8; v. 43, 6; i. 61, 8.

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

[463] In a mediæval paper in Du Cange, s. v. Abocellus, we read: "De quodam cæco 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 Sîfrit.

[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 Sîfrit to divide it; Sîfrit 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, poème 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, sixième 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 Phædrus'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.

[483] According to Eustatius, "Iô gar hê selênê katà tên tôn Argetôn dialekton."

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

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

[486] Metamorphoseôn, 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 Pitrè.) 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] Taúrous pammélanai, in the Odyssey; the commentator explains that the bulls are black because they resemble the colour of water.

[489] Kelainefès-nefelêgeréta Zeús; Odyssey, xiii. 147 and 153.

[490]

Signatus tenui media inter cornua nigro
Una fuit labes; cœtera 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] Argonantikôn, iii. 410, 1277.

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

[494] Orestês, 1380.

[495] Ergazoménous Bóas.—In the twelfth book of his History of Animals, Ælianos writes: "Among the Phrygians, if any one kills a working ox, he atones for it with his life." And Varro, De Re Rusticâ: "Bos socius hominum in rustico opere et Cereris minister. Ab hoc antiqui ita manus abstineri voluerunt ut capite sanxerint si quis occidisset."

[496] Scriptores Historiæ Augustæ, 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 táuros 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 Pańćatantram.—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] Kadmeiôn Basilêas 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 Æsopian 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] Philê, Stichoi peri zôôn idiotêtos, 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 Phædrus, as we have already observed, the ox and the ass are yoked together.

[522] Ippolitos, Ôs fonê Diòs, 1200-1229.

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

[524] Ovidius, Fasti, v. 615.

[525] Ib. v. 620.

[526] The word atyas has the same meaning.

[527] Yunǵantv asya kâmyâ harî vipakshasâ rathe çonâ dhṛishṇû ṇṛivâhasâ; Ṛigv. i. 6, 2.

[528] Vaćoyuǵâu; Ṛigv. i. 7, 2.

[529] Yukshvâ hi keçinâ harî vṛishaṇâ kakshyaprâ; Ṛigv. i. 10, 3.

[530] Sûraćakshasaḥ; Ṛigv. i. 16, 1.

[531] Indrâya vaćoyuǵâ tatakshur manasâ harî; Ṛigv. i. 20, 2.

[532] Saudhanvanâ açvâd açvam atakshata; Ṛigv. i. 161, 7.

[533] Vi ǵanâń ćhyâvaḥ çitipâdo akhyan rathaṁ hiraṇyaprâugaṁ vahantaḥ; Ṛigv. i. 33, 5.

[534] Indro vañkû vañkutarâdhi tishṭhati; Ṛigv. i. 5, 11.

[535] Yukshvâ madaćyutâ harî; Ṛigv. i. 81, 3.

[536] Vâm açvinâ manaso ǵaviyân rathaḥ svaçvah; Ṛigv. i. 117, 2.

[537] Â tvâ yaćhantu harito na sûryam ahâ viçveva sûryam; Ṛigv. i. 130, 2.

[538] Harî sûryasya ketû; Ṛigv. ii. 11, 6.

[539] Ghṛitaçćutaṁ svâram asvârshṭâm; Ṛigv. ii. 11, 7.

[540] Pra ye dvitâ diva ṛińǵanty âtâḥ susammṛishṭâso vṛishabhasya mûraḥ; Ṛigv. iii. 43, 6.

[541] Indra haribhir yâhi mayûraromabhiḥ; Ṛigv. iii. 45. 1.

[542] Shoḷhâ yuktâh pańća-pańćâ vahanti; Ṛigv. iii. 55, 18.

[543] Patatribhir açramâir avyatibhir daṅsanâbhiḥ; Ṛigv. vii. 69, 7. The Açvinâu also are called dravatpânî (swift-hoofed); Ṛigv. i. 3, 1.

[544] Açvatarî—rathenâgnir âǵimadhâvattâsâṁ prâǵamâno yonimakûlayattásmâttâ na viǵâyaṅte. Gobhiraruṇâirushâ âǵimadhâvattasmâdushasyagatâyâmaruṇamivaeva prabhâtyushasorûpamaçvarathenendra âǵimadhâvattasmâtsa uććâirghosha upabdimânkshatrasya rûpamâindro hi sa gadarbharathenâçvinâ udaǵayatâmaçvinâvâçnuvâtâm; Ait. Br. iv. 2, 9.

[545] Tvâshtrî tu savitur bhâryâ vadavârupadhâriṇî asûyata mahâbhâgâ sâ 'ntarîkshe 'çvinâvubhâu; 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] Hiraṇyakarṇam maṇigrîvam arṇas; Ṛigv. i. 122, 14.

[551] Ilíou Halôsis, 65-72.

[552] In the before-quoted collection of Radloff, Täktäbäi Märgän.

[553]

Longa solitos caligine pasci
Terruit orbis equos; pressis hæsere lupatis
Attoniti meliore polo; rursusque verendum
In chaos obliquo pugnant temone reverti.
Claudianus, De Raptu Proserpinæ, 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 più 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 Infermità, composti da Maestro Agostino Columbre; Prologo. 6, Vinegia, 1547.

[557]

Hippomanes phüton esti par Arkasi tôi d'epi pasai
Kai pôloi mainontai an ôrea, 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 melaínas ou kalon pantôs blepein
Hippôn de leukôn opsis, aggelôn 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 apiát vsadnik: sam ćornoi, adiet va vsiem ćornom; na ćornom kanié; padskakál k varótam babijaghí i is-ćesz, kak skvosz szemliń pravalílsia; nastála noć."

[569] Idiót aná i draszít. Vdrúg skaćet mimo iejá vsadnik sam bieloi, adiet v bielom, kon pod nim bieloi, i sbruja na kanié biélaja; na dvarié stalo raszvietát. Idiót aná dalshe, kak skaćet drugoi vsadnik; sam krasnoi, adiét v krasnom i na krasnom kanie; stalo vshódit solntze.

[570] Yaḥ pâurusheyeṇa kravishâ samañkte yo açvyena paçunâ yâtudhânaḥ yo aghnyâyâ bharati kshîram agne teshâin çîrshâṇi harasâpi vṛiçća; Ṛigv. x. 87, 16.—Cfr. the dragon that torments the horses in the Tuti-Name of Rosen, ii. 300.

[571] Tad agne ćakshuḥ prati dhehi rebhe çaphâruǵam yena paçyasi yâtudhânam; Ṛigv. x. 87, 12.—The demon Hayagrîvas killed by Vishṇus, which is the same as horse's neck, and Hayaçiras, or horse's head, another monster giant in the Râmâyaṇam, iv. 43, 44, always refer to the Vedic açva-yâtudhânas. 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 Iuturnæ (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 Pitrè 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 penumbræ of the solar hero, or of the sun in the darkness.

[572] Vibhir ûhathur ṛigrebhir açvâiḥ; Ṛigv. i. 117, 14.—Cfr. vii. 69, 7.

[573] Açvain na gûḷham açvinâ durevâir ṛishiṁ narâ vṛisḥaṇâ rebham apsu; Ṛigv. i. 117, 4.—The Açvinâu pass the sea upon a chariot, which resembles a ship; this chariot is said to have the sun for a covering—rathena sûryatvaćâ; Ṛigv. i. 47, 9.

[574] Yam açvinâ dadathuḥ çvetam açvam aghâçvâya çaçvad it svasti; Ṛigv. i. 116, 6.

[575] Agnis tuviçravastamain tuvibrahmâṇam uttamam atûrtaṁ çrâvayatpatim putram dadâti dâçushe—Agnir dadâti satpatiṁ sâsâha yo yudhâ nṛibhiḥ agnir atyaṁ raghushyadaṁ ǵetâram aparâǵitam; Ṛigv. v. 25, 5, 6.

[576] Ṛigv. i. 155, 6.

[577] i. 154, 4.

[578] Vishṇor nu kaṁ vîryaṇi pra voćam yaḥ pârthivâni vimame raǵâṅsi yo askabhâyad uttaraṁ sadhasthaṁ vićakramâṇas tredhorugâyah; Ṛigv. i. 154, 1.

[579] Yadâ te vishṇur oǵasâ trîṇi padâ vićakram âd it te haryatâ harî vavakshatuḥ; Ṛigv. viii. 12, 27.

[580] Râmây. iv. 40.

[581] Yuktas te astu dakshiṇa uta savyaḥ çatakrato tena ǵâyâm upa priyâm mandâno yâhy andhaso yoǵâ; Ṛigv. i. 82, 5.

[582] Tad û shu vâm aǵiraṁ ćeti yânain yena patî bhavathaḥ sûryâyâh; Ṛigv. iv. 43, 6.—In the following hymn, strophe 1st, the aurora is called now daughter of the sun, now cow: Tam vâṁ rathaṁ vayam adyâ huvema pṛithuǵrayam açvinâ saṁgatiṁ goḥ—Taḥ sûryâṁ vahati.

[583] Rathasya naptyaḥ; Ṛigv. i. 50. 9.

[584] Ṛigv. i. 116, 10.

[585] vi. 9.

[586] The lake of Brâhman, visited by Hanumant in the Râmâyaṇam, vi. 53, has the form of a horse's snout (hayânanam).

[587] Indro dadhîćo asthabhir vṛitrâṇy apratishkutaḥ ǵaghâna navatîr nava; Ṛigv. i. 84, 13, 14, i. 117, 22, and the corresponding commentary of Sâyaṇas.—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 napâtâ; Ṛigv. i. 182, 1.

[590] As to the Vedic passage, v. 76, 3, where it would seem that the Açvinâu are invoked in the morning, at midday, and in the evening, there seems to me to be room for discussion. The text says: Utâ yâtam sañgave prâtar 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), uditâ sûryasya (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 Açvinâu.

[591] Sushupvâṅsaṁ na nirṛiter upasthe sûryaṁ na dasrâ tamasi kshiyantam çubhe rukmaṁ na darçataṁ nikhâtam ud ûpathur açvinâ vandanâya; Ṛigv. i. 117, 5.

[592] Madhupṛishṭhaṁ ghoram ayâsam açvam; Ṛigv. ix. 89, 4.

[593] Ṛigv. viii. 104, 15-25.

[594] Quoted in Muir's Sanskṛit Texts, v. 264.—Somas united with Agnis in the Ṛigvedas, 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 Sanskṛit Texts, v. 224.

[596] In the Edda we find the Açvinâu 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] Â vâm patitvaṁ sakhyâya ǵagmushî yoshâvṛiṇîta ǵenyâ yuvâm patî; Ṛigv. i. 119, 5.

[598] Cfr. the legends relating to Ćyavanas cured by the Açvinâu in the Çatapatha Brâhmaṇam and in the Mahâbhâratam, referred to by Muir in the above-quoted fifth volume of the Sanskṛit Texts, p. 250, and those following.

[599] In the Ṛigv. i. 8, 2, also, the invokers of Indras desire to fight the enemies, the monsters Mushṭihatyayâ and Arvatâ, by fist and by horses.

[600] Mbh. i. 6484-6504.

[601] Râmây. i. 49, ii. 7.

[602] iv. 12.

[603] iv. 7, 17.

[604] iv. 8.

[605] iv. 10.

[606] Râmây. iv. 8.

[607] The Persian hero often takes his name from his horse or his horses; hence Kereçâçpa, Vîstâçpa, Arǵâçp, Gustâçp, Yapâçp, Pûrushâçpa, Açpâyaodha, &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 sviećâ sama saboi zagaritsia, tot tzar budiet.

[619] Tzelijá kući zolotá v anbarah nasipani; ćto ni pluniet on, to vsié zólotom; dievat niekudá!

[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 Çunaḥçepas 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 Pańćatantram, 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] Râmây. 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] Vâǵino devaǵâtasya sapteḥ pravakshyâmo vidathe vîryâṇi; Ṛigv. i. 162, 1.—Sûrâd açvaṁ vasavo nir atashṭa; Ṛigv. i. 163, 2.

[632] Sâdhur na gṛidhnuḥ; Ṛigv. i. 70, 11.

[633] Vikroçatâm nâdo bhûtânâm salilâukasâm çrûyate bhṛiçâmârttânâṁ viçatâm vaḍavâmukham; Râmây. 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] Hiraṇyaçṛiñgo yo asya pâdâ manoǵavâ; Ṛigv. i. 163, 9.—Tava çṛiñgâṇi vishṭhitâ purutr âraṇyeshu ǵarbhurâṇâ ćaranti. 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] Vṛiksho nishṭhito madhye arṇaso yaṁ tâugryo nâdhitaḥ paryashasvaǵat; Ṛigv. i. 182, 7.

[636] Afanassieff, v. 11.

[637] Apa yor indraḥ pâpaǵa â marto na çaçramâṇo bibhîvân çubhe yad yuyuǵe tavishîvân; Ṛigv. x. 105, 3.

[638] Iasya saṁsthe na vṛiṇvate harî samatsu çatravaḥ; Ṛigv. i. 5, 4.

[639] Açvyo vâro abhavas tad indra; Ṛigv. 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] Ṛigv., the hymn quoted before, i. 84, 13, 14; Agnis, too, is honoured as a tailed horse (vâravantam açvam), Ṛigv. i. 27, 1.

[641] Ṛiǵipyaṁ çyenam prushitapsum âçum ćarkṛityam aryo nṛipatiṁ na çûram—vâtam iva dhraǵantam—uta smâsya tanyator iva dyor ṛighâyato abhiyuǵo bhayante yadâ sahasram abhi shîm ayodhîd durvartuḥ smâ bhavati bhîma ṛińǵan; Ṛigv. iv. 38, 2, 3, 8.

[642] Avakrâmantaḥ prapadâir amitrân; Ṛigv. 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] Povíshe liessú stajáćavo, ponísze ablaká hadiáćavo.

[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 Râmâyaṇam, 44, the chariot Pushpakam speaks to Râmas, 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] Anaçvo ǵâto anabhîçur arvâ; Ṛigv. i. 152, 5.

[653] Cfr. Menzel, Die Vorchristliche Unsterblichkeits-Lehre.

[654] Sapta svasâraḥ suvitâya sûryaṁ vahanti harito rathe; Ṛigv. vii. 66, 15.

[655] Adha kratvâ maghavan tubhyaṁ devâ anu viçve adaduḥ somapeyam yat sûryasya haritaḥ patantîḥ purah satîr uparâ etaçe kaḥ; Ṛigv. v. 29, 5.

[656] Â no nâvâ matînâṁ yâtam parâya gantave, yuńǵâthâm açvinâ ratham; Ṛigv. i. 46, 7.

[657] Krandad açvo nayamâno ruvad gâur antar dûto na rodasî ćarad vâk; Ṛigv. i. 173, 3.

[658] Ghṛitaçćutaṁ svâram asvârshṭâm; Ṛigv. ii. 11, 7.

[659] ... in equæ genitalem partem demissam manum, cum ad eum locum ventum esset, naribus equi admovit, quo odore irritatus ante omnes hinnitum edidit, auditoque eo sex reliqui summæ 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] Devî ǵîrâ rathânâm; Ṛigv. i. 48, 3.—Çataṁ rathebhiḥ subhagoshâ iyaṁ vi yâty abhi mânushân; i. 48, 7.

[661] Upa tmani dadhâno dhury âçûnt sahasrâṇi çatâni vaǵrabâhuḥ; Ṛigv. iv. 29, 4.

[662] Cfr. Ṛigv. iv. 3, 11; iv. 13, 3.

[663] Cfr. Böhtling u. Roth, Sanskṛit Wörterbuch, s. v. açvin.

[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] Künêgetikôn, i. 284.

[666] ii. 3.—"Allecordatose d'haver 'ntiso na vota da certe stodiante, che le cavalle de Spagna se'mpreñano 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 fætura res incredibilis est in Hispania, sed est vera, quod in Lusitania ad Oceanum in ea regione, ubi est oppidum Olyssipo monte Tagro, quædam e vento concipiunt equæ, ut hic gallinæ solent, quarum ova hypanemia appellant, sed ex his equis qui nati pulli, non plus triennium vivunt."

[667] Rathebhir açvaparṇâiḥ; Ṛigv. i. 88, 1.—In Horace, Carm. i. 14—

"Namque Diespiter,
Igni corusco nubila dividens,
Plerumque per purum tonantes
Egit equos, volucremque currum."

[668] Açrûṇi ćâsya mumucurvâǵinaḥ; Râmây. 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] Vṛishâ tvâ vṛishaṇaṁ vardhatu dyâur vṛishâ vṛishabhyâm vahase haribhyâm sa no vṛisha vṛisharathaḥ suçipra vṛishakrato vṛishâ vaǵrin bhare dhâh; Ṛigv. 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] Vṛishâyam indra te ratha uto te vṛishaṇâ harî; Ṛigv. viii. 13, 31.

[675] Apâm phenena namućeḥ çira indrod avartayaḥ; Ṛigv. 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. Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis, s. v. caballus.

[679] Vṛshapâṇayo 'çvâḥ; Ṛigv. vi. 75, 7.

[680] Kârotarâć ćhaphâd açvasya vṛishṇaḥ çataṁ kumbhâṅ asińćataṁ surâyaḥ; Ṛigv. 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 Græco-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 Phædrus, 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 Phædrus 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.

[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 à 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 mediæval 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 Sanskṛit 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, ṛiph, riph, riv, ṛinv.

[693] x. 10, 5.

[694] Gandharva itthâ padam asya rakshati.; Ṛigv. ix. 83, 4.

[695] Strîkâmâḥ vâi gandharvâḥ; i. 27.

[696] Professor Kuhn (Die Herabkunft, d. f. &c.) has already compared to this the Zend Gandhrawa, who, in the Lake Vôuru-Kasha, keeps guard over the tree hom (the Vedic Somas). Kuhn and Weber, moreover, have identified the Vedic gandharvas, Kṛiçânus, who wounds the ravisher of the Somas, with the Zend Kereçâni, who endeavours to destroy riches; here the gandharvas would appear to be a monstrous and demoniacal being.

[697] ... ut omittam eos, quos libidinis ac fœdæ 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 quærit 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 cariá 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 Pańćatantram, 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 memoriæ 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. Quæ vero de Onocentauro fama accepi, hæc 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 præstare; nam celeritate ubi sit opus eæ manus præcurrunt ante posteriores pedes; ex quo fit, ut non cæterorum 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. Hæc 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 ægri, 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 Sanskṛit Texts, v. 309.—We have the monkey-gandharvas and the warrior-gandharvas in the Vedic hymns, the warrior-monkey in the Râmâyaṇam, 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 Kṛiçâçvas: kṛiçâçvas 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 Kṛiçânus 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 Çushṇas, or the destroyer of riches, like the Zend Kereçâni.—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] Kadâ yogo vâǵino râsabhasya yena yaǵńaṁ nâsatyopayâthaḥ; Ṛigv. i. 34, 9.

[703] Viḷupatmabhir âçuhemabhir vâ devânâṁ vâ ǵûtibhiḥ çâçadânâ tad râsabho nâsatyâ sahasram âǵâ yamasya pradhane ǵigâya.

[704] Yatrâ rathasya bṛihato nidhânaṁ vimoćanaṁ vâǵino râsabhasya; Ṛigv. iii. 53, 5.

[705] Nâvâǵinaṁ vâǵinâ hâsayanti na gardabham puro açvân nayanti; Ṛigv. iii. 53, 23.

[706] Gardabharathenâçvinâ udaǵayatâmaçvinâvâçnuvâtâṁ yadaçvinâ udaǵayatâmaçvinâvâçnuvâtâṁ tasmâtsasṛitaǵavo dugdhadohaḥ sarveshâmetarhi vâhanânâmanâçishṭo retasastvasya vîryaṁ nâharatâm tasmâtsa dviretâ vâǵî; Âit. 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 æstus 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.,—pœna seu mulcta, quæ reis irrogari solebat, ut colligitur ex decreto Nepesini populi ann. 1134.—Iis et maxime maritis, qui a suis vapulabant mulieribus; quod eo usque insaniæ deventum erat, ut si maritus aufugisset, proximior vicinus eam ipse pœnam 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 præditus 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 Ælianus inter causas cur Ægyptii asinos odere, et hanc quoque accedere putari, quod eum populi prædicti omnes fœcundos animantes colant, asinus minime fœcundans nullus in honore sit.

[710] Sam, indra, gardabham mṛiṇa nuvantam pâpayâmuyâ; Ṛigv. 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 Ç. xii. 7, 1, 5, nebst Ross und Maulthier, aus dem Ruhm (yaças, which, however, may perhaps here also simply mean splendour), welcher dem Ohr des getödteten Viçvarûpa Tvâshṭra 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 âçrutkarṇas, or the ear which listens, given to Indras (Ṛigv. i. 10, 9), the long-eared Indras may possibly be a form representing the long-eared Midas, or the ass with long ears.

[712] Gatiṁ khara ivâçvasya suparṇasyeva pakshiṇaḥ anâgantuṁ na çakto 'smi râǵyam tava mahîpate.

[713] Râmây. ii. 71.

[714] Râmây. iii. 38, 48.

[715] Ib. v. 12.

[716] vi. 74.

[717] Kravyâdaḥ piçâćâḥ, 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; vacuæ conticuere molæ.
—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 chicchiricù; 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 "Quí 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" (ê klêsis onou ôta), 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 onôn 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 mystæ."
—Seneca, Œdipus.

[736] Tam ûhathur nâubhir âtmanvatîbhir antarikshaprudbhir apodakâbhiḥ; 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 fætas 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 Æsopian 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 didôs achüra, onôi 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 Râmâyaṇam; the swans, as we shall see, are a form of the luminous Açvinâu.—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.

[747] The Petropolitan Dictionary sees in the he-goat aǵas, 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 aïssô, qui signifie s'élancer, a fait d'une part le substantif aix, chèvre (à cause de la nature bondissante de l'animal), et de l'autre les mots kataïx, kataigis, tempête (as it seems to me, that which shakes, which causes to move or tremble, inasmuch as I maintain that aǵas does not mean the movable, or him that rushes, so much as him that pushes, that butts, or causes to move). De là une nouvelle série d'images et de fables où la chèvre joue le rôle principal. L'égide, avant d'être un bouclier fait en peau de chèvre, était le ciel au moment de l'orage; Jupiter aigiochos était le dieu qui envoie la tempête; plus tard, on traduisit le dieu qui porte l'égide. Homère semble se souvenir de la première 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 nephelêgeretes. In the Ṛigv. i. 10, 8, it is said similarly to Indras: ǵeshaḥ svarvatîr apaḥ saṁ gâ asmabhyaṁ dhûnuhi.

[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 puruhûtam; Ṛigv. i. 51, 1.—Tad indro arthaṁ ćetati yûthena vṛishṇir eǵati; Ṛigv. i. 10, 2.

[750] Tvaṁ gotram añigirobhyo 'vṛiṇor; Ṛigv. i. 51, 3.

[751] Tvaṁ mâyâbhir apa mâyino 'dhamaḥ—tvam pipror nṛimaṇaḥ prâruǵaḥ puraḥ; Ṛigv. i. 51, 5.

[752] Mahantaṁ ćid arbudaṁ ni kramîḥ padâ; Ṛigv. i. 51, 6.—Arbudas is also in Sanskṛit 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] Çaphâv iva ǵarbhurâṇâ tarobhiḥ; Ṛigv. ii. 39, 3.

[754] Siṅhyaṁ ćit petvenâ ǵaghâna; Ṛigv. 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 (níet 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
Ataprìtessia
Atamknítessia;
Vasha mat prishlá
Malaká prinieslá
Polni baká malaká,
Polni ragá tvaragá
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] Çatam meshân vṛikye ćakshadânam ṛiǵrâçvam tam pitândhaṁ ćakâra tasma akshî nâsatyâ vićaksha âdhattam dasrâ bhishaǵâv anarvan; Ṛigv. i. 116, 16.—Cfr. 117, 18.

[771] Esha ćhâgaḥ puro açvena vâǵinâ; Ṛigv. 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 Verità (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 æquorea mergitur hædus aqua.
Sæpe ego nimbosis dubius jactabar ab hædis.
Nascitur Oleneæ signum pluviale capellæ.
—Ovid.

Quantus ab occasu veniens pluvialibus hædis
Verberat imber humum.
—Virgil.

[780] Pâvîravî tanyatur ekapâd aǵo divo dhartâ; Ṛigv. x. 65, 13.—Cfr. the aǵa ekapâd invoked after Ahirbudhnya and before Tritas, in the Ṛigv. ii. 31, 6, and the aǵâikapâd, a name given to Vishṇus, 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 mediæval 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 Apôllonios, 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 Ṛigvedas, who, leaning towards the relations of Kakshîvant, says: "Every day I shall be (properly speaking, I am) like the little woolly sheep of the gandhâri (sarvâham asmi romaçâ gandhârîṇâm ivâvikâ);" Ṛigv. i. 126. As there is an etymological analogy, so there may be a mythical analogy between the gandhâri and the gandharvâs.

[795] Book x.

[796] Ovid calls the goat "hædorum 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 dominæ nunc quoque nomen habet."

---

[Transcriber's Notes]

• Corrected misspellings throughout the text.
• There are multiple spellings of many names throughout, all of which appear valid, left per the text.
• There are many words that are both hyphenated and unhyphenated in the text (i.e. cowmaid and cow-maid). Words were left to match the text.
• Pg [1]: Added a missing — separator (... for cows.—Cavern where ...)
• Pg [24]: Removed the second "the" (... it is the third sun ...)
• Pg [178]: Added missing period. (... him from danger. These were ...)
• Pg [196]: There is an unmatched round bracket starting on this page (... carried off. (This is the ...)
• Pg [211]: There is an unmatched round bracket starting on this page (... perfidious persecutor. (The evening ...)
• Pg [313]: There is an unmatched round bracket starting on this page (... called Urvâksha (a word ...)
• Pg [335]: Removed an extra "the" (... seizes the branch of ...)
• Footnotes [59] and [433]: Have no anchor in the text.
• Footnotes [395] and [436]: Added closing quotes to the end of the footnote.
• Footnote [518]: There is an unmatched round bracket in this footnote (... attonito (or, properly ...)
• Footnote [558]: There is an unmatched quote in this footnote (... cavalli stregari;" Prologo. 10 ...)
• Footnote [579]: Replaced the final comma with a period.
• Footnote [612]: Replaced comma with period after "i" (Tuti-Name, i. 151.)
• Footnote [659]: Changed "lightned" to "lightninged" (... day it lightninged and thundered.)
• Footnote [715]: Added second period after "v" (... Ib. v. 12. ...)