[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.