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

by Angelo De Gubernatis

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

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

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

Were I to follow the story of the two brothers in its Western versions, I could compose an entire volume on the subject, which is indeed of such interest that a student, by connecting it with that of the three brothers, might profitably address himself to the work. But to resume the account of the horse. I must here limit myself to recording only one other interesting variety of this legend, offered us in the seventh story of Basile's Pentamerone.[622] There were once two brothers, named respectively Cienzo and Meo (Vincenzo and Meo). When they were born two enchanted horses and two enchanted dogs also came into the world. Cienzo goes about the world in search of fortune; he comes to a place where there is a dragon with seven heads, from whom a beautiful princess must be delivered. As long as he does not cut all the heads off, the dragon goes and rubs itself against a herb which possesses the virtue of fastening on to the body again the head which had been cut off. Cienzo cuts off all the dragon's heads, "pe gratia de lo sole Lione" (by the grace of the Lion sun, i.e., when the sun is in the sign of Leo, which corresponds to the tiger of the Indo-Turanian story recorded above, or when the solar hero possesses all his strength; the lion and the tiger are equivalent in Hindoo symbolism as heroic types, and are therefore all the same in the zodiac). Cienzo marries the beautiful princess delivered by him; but a beautiful fairy who lives in the opposite house fascinates him by her beauty, attracts him, and binds him with her hair. Meanwhile Meo, who by signs settled upon beforehand learns that his brother Cienzo is in danger, comes to the house where the latter's wife lives, accompanied by his enchanted horse and dog. The wife believes him to be Cienzo (the story of the Menechmi, of the two brothers who resemble each other in everything, was no doubt taken by the Greek poet, and afterwards by Plautus, from popular tradition), fêtes him on his arrival, and receives him into her bed; but the faithful brother, in order not to touch her, divides the sheets between them so that they have one each, and refuses to touch his sister-in-law. Thus Sifrît, as well as his Scandinavian alter ego Sigurd, places a sword between himself and Brünhilt, the destined bride of the king, in order not to touch her when she lies beside him; and when Brünhilt throws herself upon the funeral pyre, she also places a sword between herself and Sigurd's corpse.[623] In the royal or heroic weddings by proxy of the Middle Ages a similar custom was observed. In the popular Piedmontese, Bergamasc, and Venetian song[624] of the pilgrim who comes from Rome, the pilgrim is separated from the woman only by a wisp of straw. Towards morning Meo also sees the beautiful fairy in the house over the way; he guesses that Cienzo has been drawn into her snare, and goes to deliver him. He makes his enchanted dog devour her, and frees his brother, awakening him out of his sleep. Cienzo learning that Meo had slept with his wife, cuts off his head; but when he learns from his wife how Meo had divided the sheets when he lay beside her, he bewails his rashness, has recourse to the herb with which the dragon rubbed itself when one of its heads had been cut off, and by this means fastens Meo's head on to his body again.

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

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

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

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

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