In the Edda, Skirner receives from Frey a horse which carried its rider through fogs (waters) and flames, and the sword which strikes of itself when the wearer of it happens to be a hero. The horse of Sigurd or Sîfrit exhibits the same bravery in bearing the hero intact through the flames. This happens in the morning, when the sun emerges safe and sound from the flames of the aurora; in the evening, on the contrary, when the sun loses itself in the flames of the aurora, or when the solar hero dies, his horse, too, like the horse of Balder in the Edda, is burned upon the pyre or sacrificed; the resurrection of the dead horse and that of the dead hero happen at the same time. The horse's head which protrudes out of the window, represented in ancient Hellenic tombs, and preserved in Germanic customs,[644] is, for man, a symbol of resurrection. The head of Vishṇus, that of Uććâiḥçravas, and that of Dadhyańć, in Hindoo tradition, have the same meaning. He who enters into this head finds death and hell; he who comes out of it rises again to new life. The pious Christian belief in the resurrection that is to come, and the numerous mediæval legends of Europe concerning dead heroes or maidens who are resuscitated, had their origin and ground in the contemplation of the annual and daily resurrection of the sun.
In the thirty-eighth story of the fifth book of Afanassieff, the young prince receives from an enchanted bird the present of a war-charger, and of an apple the colour of the sun. (The youth gives the golden apple to a beautiful princess for the pleasure of passing the night with her; remark here, again, the relation of the horse and the apple, and probably of the horse and the bull, the sun and moon). In other Russian stories, the horse of the hero, Ivan Tzarević, is at first bound underground by twelve iron chains; when Ivan rides him, he breaks them all.[645] The horse which Ivan the thief is told to carry off from his master[646] is shut up within three gates made fast by six bolts; if he steals it, he is to receive a reward of 200 roubles; and if he does not, 200 bastinadoes will be his punishment. Ivan takes his master's clothes, disguises himself as a gentleman, and, imitating his voice, orders the grooms to bring him his favourite horse. The grooms are deceived, and obey, and thus Ivan carries the horse off. Finally, in a third Russian story,[647] Ivan Tzarević must ride a hero's horse on the occasion of his nuptials with the beautiful but wicked Anna. He has recourse to his preceptor Katoma, surnamed Hat of Oak (here we find again the hero in relation with the tree and the horse), who orders the blacksmith to prepare a hero's horse; twelve young blacksmiths (the twelve hours of the night, or else the twelve months of the year) draw twelve bolts, open twelve doors, and lead out an enchanted horse, bound with twelve iron chains. Scarcely has the preceptor mounted on its back when it flies higher than the forest which stays still, and lower than the cloud which moves.[648] The preceptor subdues it by taking hold of its mane with one hand, and striking it with the other between the ears with four pieces, one after another, of an enchanted iron pillar. The horse then begs, with a man's voice, for its life, the power of speech being a distinctive attribute of the hero's horse (a power of which it often makes use, as Rustem's horse does, for instance, to warn the hero of the dangers which surround him, and to give him good advice; sometimes, on the contrary, when it is in the monster's power, it plays the part of a spy upon the hero's actions, and reports them to the monster);[649] it promises also to do the will of the preceptor. Katoma, calling the horse dog's flesh, orders it to stay still the next day, which is the day fixed for the wedding, and, when the bridegroom Ivan is to ride it, to seem as though it were oppressed by a great weight.
In the seventh Esthonian story, the young hero steals the horse from the master (the devil, or the black monster of night) in whose service he had engaged himself. When he comes to the place where the sun sets, he bethinks himself of binding the horse with iron chains (the rope of Yamas, or Varuṇas, the nocturnal coverer or binder, which binds the Vedic hero Çunaḥçepas, the sun, he of the golden rod), in order that it may not escape and go back again. This particular is very interesting, as rendering the meaning of the myth more manifest. Seeing that the sun, in the evening, does not return, it was supposed that the solar horse had been bound by the hero himself, who had stolen it.
In the European popular tales we sometimes have, instead of the hero who carries off his master's horse, the hero himself, who escapes from his master in the form of a horse, helped in his flight by the daughter of his master, by the magician's or demon's daughter or black maiden (who afterwards becomes beautiful and luminous). In the Hungarian belief, the youngest of the witch's daughters (the aurora) often assumes the form of the heroic horse of the Tatos. She becomes Tatos when the hero, meeting her, strikes her on the forehead with the bridle; then she carries him, in the shape of a horse, into the air. In the Russian story,[650] the son of a merchant goes to be instructed by a wise magician, who teaches him every kind of knowledge, and, among the rest, what sheep say when they bleat, birds when they sing, and horses when they neigh. At last the young man, having learned every species of mischief, returns home and transforms himself into a horse, in order that his father may sell him at the market and make money; but he warns his father not to give up the bridle, that he may not fall again into the hands of the magician. The father forgets, and sells horse and bridle together. The magician attaches the horse by a ring to an oak-tree; the black maiden (dievki ćernavke), the sister of the devil, gives the horse millet and hydromel; the horse thus gains strength enough to break the chain which binds him to the tree, and escapes. The devil follows him; the horse becomes a fish, and from a fish a ring; the king's daughter buys the ring and puts it on her finger; during the day it is a ring (the solar disc), and during the night a handsome youth, who lies in the bed of the queen's daughter (the hidden sun, or the moon, in the darkness of night). One day the princess lets the ring fall on the ground, and it breaks into a thousand pieces (the evening sun which falls upon the mountain); then the devil becomes a cock, to pick up the pieces of the broken ring; but a little piece falls under the princess's foot; this piece is transformed into a falcon, which strangles and devours the cock.
In the bridle which binds this hero who becomes a horse, I think I can recognise the lasso with which Varuṇas keeps Çunaḥçepas bound in the Âitareya Br. In the Ṛigvedas,[651] we have Sûryas, the sun, as Sâuvaçvyas, or son of Svaçvyas, that is, of him who has fine horses; but as, besides Svaçvyas, we find Svaçvas, he who has a fine horse, the sun itself would seem to be this horse. The legend narrates that Svaçvas, having no children, requested the sun to give him some, and that the sun, to please him, was himself born of him. Svaçvas, he who has a fine horse and has no sons, is perhaps the same as the old man who has lost his son by selling the horse; when the sun returns his son also comes back again. In the Vedic expressions, without a horse, born without a bridle, the sun (as a courser[652]), the hero would seem to be indicated who has not as yet that horse or that bridle, without which he is powerless; for the idea of the hero is rarely unaccompanied by that of the horseman.
For the horseman hero his horse is his all, and sometimes it even takes the bit in its mouth, then the hero punishes it. We have already noticed the well-known Hellenic myth of Phaethôn, who is, with both the chariot and the horses, precipitated into the waters, because the horses threatened to set the earth on fire. This happens every day towards evening, when the sun sets; the whole sky goes down, then the sun is thrown down into the ocean of night; the course of the solar steeds is interrupted, and the wheels of the chariot no longer turn. A similar catastrophe is repeated on St John's Day, at the summer solstice, in which the sun stops and begins to retire, for which reason the light of day, from this time to Christmas, grows less and less.
It is a custom on St John's Day, in Germany,[653] for hunters to fire at the sun, believing that they will thereby become infallible hunters. According to another popular German belief, he who, on St John's Day, fires towards the sun is condemned ever after to hunt for ever, like Odin, the eternal hunter; and both superstitions have their reason. In the night, as well as in the period during which the splendour of the sun diminishes, and especially in autumn, the gloomy forest of heaven is filled with every kind of ferocious animal; the sun enters this forest, becomes moon, and hunts the wild beasts in it during the whole of the night, or of the year that is, until he is born again. In the Ṛigvedas, where we have seven sister-mares yoked to the sun-chariot,[654] Indras, to please his favourite, Etaças, after having drunk the ambrosia, pushes the clouds that had fallen behind before the flying steeds of the sun,[655] that is to say, he prevents the solar hero, drawn by horses, either by the cloud in a tempest, or by the darkness of night, from going on; and he even strikes the wheels themselves of the solar chariot to arrest its incendiary course. From these Vedic data it is easy to pass to the Hellenic Phaethôn, who is precipitated into the waters on account of the horses. The hero killed on account of his horses is a frequent subject of mythology, and the Greek name Hippolytos refers to this kind of death. Hippolytos, the son of Theseus, fleeing from his father, who supposes him guilty of incest with his step-mother Phedra, is thrown from the chariot broken to pieces, when the horses that draw it approach the sea and are terrified by marine monsters. This is a variation of the legend of the young hero, persecuted by his step-mother, who is thrown into the sea, with the novel and remarkable accompaniment that it is his horses themselves which are the cause of his death. The Christian legend of St Hippolytos has appropriated this particular trait, representing the holy martyr, who was prefect under the emperors Decius and Valerian, as dying, having been condemned to be torn in pieces by horses. The poet Prudentius comments upon the story in these two curious distichs, on the occasion of the Roman judge pronouncing capital punishment against St Hippolytos—
"Ille supinata residens cervice, quis inquit
Dicitur? affirmant dicier Hippolytum.
Ergo sit Hippolytus; quatiat turbetque jugales
Intereatque feris dilaceratus equis."
But the horses which draw the hero into the water are the same as those that save him by carrying him over the deep, drawing the chariot or ship on the sea towards the shore. The Açvinâu do the same in the Ṛigvedas, where they save from the waves both themselves and other heroes upon their chariot, which is compared to a ship.[656] Hero and horse always have the same fate.