The dew of the morning, on the contrary, which comes from the mouth of the solar horse like foam, or from its hoof as ambrosia and salutary water, is fraught with every species of healthful influence.
The horse and the bull of mythology are pourers out par excellence. In a Vedic strophe—which seems in my eyes to be one of those riddles which are recited in order to loosen the thread of the tongue—relative to the two outpouring or fertilising horses of Indras, there is a continual play kept up upon the root varsh or vṛish, which means at once to pour out and to make fruitful,[673] and upon the letter r which enters into almost every word of the verse. Not only do the horses of Indras pour out and make fruitful; the same virtue is attributed to the chariot which they draw.[674] We have seen already that the horse of the Açvinâu is the killer of the monster serpent, and that the horse's head Dadhyańć, he who goes in the milk or in the liquefied butter, and who is found in a sea of milk, discomfits the enemies of Indras. A Vedic hymn sings that, with the foam of the waters, Indras beats down the head of the monster serpent.[675] In Tuscany, the whooping-cough is called the horse-cough or asinine-cough,[676] and it is thought that the cough is cured by giving the children to drink the foam from the horse's mouth, or causing them to drink in the water where a horse has been drinking. This is a remedy founded upon the principle similia similibus, the foam being used against the convulsive cough, which, like all convulsions in general, brings much saliva or foam to the mouth. The credit, however, of this marvellous medicine is slightly compromised when we read that the same foam is also very efficacious for ear-ache. Pliny, Sextus Empiricus, and Marcellus, quoted by Aldrovandi,[677] also recommend the saliva of a horse as a cure for cough, particularly in the case of consumptive patients, adding that the sick person is cured in three days, but that the horse dies; a superstition which must have had its origin in the mythical horse who feeds on ambrosia, and who loses his strength, and expires when his saliva, foam, ambrosia, or dew is taken from him. It is well known that the Açvinâu, besides being luminous horsemen, were, as friends of men, also exceedingly skilful physicians; nor could they be otherwise, having in their power the head of Dadhyańć which is in the ambrosia, that is, whose foam is ambrosia. The Dioscuri also frequently appear, in European legends, as unexpected and miraculous deliverers. With this mythical belief of the horse that produces ambrosia, is also connected the transformation, described by Ovid in the second book of the Metamorphoses, of Ocyroe into a mare, because she had predicted that Æsculapius would save men from death by the medical art. It is a well-known fact that Æsculapius was revered near fountains whose waters were supposed to have salutary effects, and that he was protected by the sun-god Apollo; and the two physicians, sons of Asklêpios or Æsculapius, seem to be nothing more than a specific form of the Dioscuri.
But the solar horse does not produce ambrosia with his mouth alone.
He has great strength in his hoofs (whence Isidorus and other mediæval etymologists derived the name caballus, thus, "Quod ungula terram cavet"[678]), and makes use of them in the myth, and in the legend, not only to combat the enemies, but also to break open the earth, and cause ambrosial fountains to spring out of it. Sometimes ambrosia pours out of the hoof of the horse itself. In the Ṛigvedas,[679] the horses of Agnis are said to have hands (i.e., hoofs of the fore-feet) that pour out; and the horse given by the Açvinâu to the hero protected by them (that is, to the solar horse, to the morning sun), with his strong hoof fills a hundred jars with inebriating liquor.[680] It is not necessary for me to instance here the famous fountain of the horse, or Hippokrênê, which Bellerophon's horse Pêgasos caused to spring out of the earth by breaking the soil with his hoof (called also for this reason Pêgasía krênê). In Latin tradition, the horse's hoof was worshipped on a spot near Lake Regillus, where it is said that the Dioscuri had appeared.[681] In a Russian story,[682] when Johnny (Ivanushka) sees a horse's hoof, he is sorely tempted to drink out of it, but is dissuaded by his sister. He experiences the same temptation upon seeing a bull's hoof, and afterwards that of a kid. At last he gives way, drinks from the kid's hoof, and is himself transformed into a kid. In the footprint of a horse's hoof, in other stories, the ant is in danger of being drowned; saved by a man, it is ever afterwards grateful to him.[683]
Several myths which we have already noticed in the preceding chapter as applied to the bull, occur again in connection with the horse; as, for instance, the birds which come out of the horse; the hero who takes the horse's skin off, seizing it by the tail in order to make a sack of it; the swift horse of Adrastus, which runs after the tortoise (a Greek proverb);[684] the lunar horse, and the solar one. These exchanges between moon and sun, and between bull and horse, are happily indicated by the Latin poet, Fulgentius:—
"Jam Phœbus disjungit equos, jam Cynthia jungit,
Quasque soror liquit, frater pede temperat undas:
Tum nox stellato cœlum circumlita peplo
Cœrula rorigenis pigrescere jusserat alis
Astrigeroque nitens diademate luna bicornis
Bullarum bijugis conscenderat æquora tauris."
The gods had often a liking to transform themselves into horses; so much so, that the sacrifice of the god, that is, the god's death, is represented by the death of the horse. Every one knows that gods and heroes delighted in showing themselves good horsemen, or, at least, good charioteers. On this account, it would be difficult to say to which god in particular the horse is sacred. The Vedic Açvinâu, the Vedic aurora, who wins the race in her chariot, Agnis, Savitar, Indras, victorious and splendid by means of their steeds, the hippios Poseidôn, the hippeia Athênê, the hippodameia Aphroditê, the horsemen Dioscuri, Mars, Apollo, Zeus, Pluto, and the German Wuotan (like his alter ego, St Zacchæus), never show themselves otherwise than on horseback; hence the horse was naturally sacred to all of them. In the Christian faith, the innumerable gods of the ancients having become innumerable saints (when they were not so unfortunate as to degenerate into devils), the horse is now recommended in its stable to the protection of several saints, from the obscure Sicilian St Aloi to the no less modest Russians St Froh and St Laver, who take the horse, as well as the mule and the ass, under their especial protection, not to speak of the glorious horsemen St George, St Michael, St James, St Maurice, St Stephen, St Vladimir, and St Martin, especially revered by warriors, and in whose honour the principal orders of knighthood in Europe were founded. But religions being, from one point of view, the caricature of mythologies, there is now some difference between the mythical old deities and the legendary new ones, inasmuch as the former would at times ingenuously accept the homage of the animal in effigy, as we have observed in the preceding chapter; while the latter, and they who purvey to them upon earth, not being quite so simple, never leave their devotee in peace until they have received, at sight and without discount, the full value of their favours. In the Life of San Gallo, we read that, in the times of King Pepin (we already know what these times mean), a certain Willimar, being ill, promised, if cured, to offer a horse to the Church of San Gallo. Having recovered his health, he forgot his promise; but passing one day before the church of the saint, his horse stopped before the gate, and by no possibility could it be induced to-move on, until Willimar had at last declared his intention of fulfilling his vow. In the Life of St Martin, there is a rather gayer variation of the same anecdote. King Clodoveus, after having become a Christian, when fighting against the Visigoths, promises his own horse to St Martin, if he grants the victory to him. Having obtained it, Clodoveus regrets being obliged to deprive himself of his good charger, and beseeches St Martin to be kind enough to take money instead, offering him a hundred pieces of gold. St Martin thinks the sum insufficient, and asks for double, which Clodoveus gives; but, inasmuch as a little heretic blood still runs in his veins, he cannot refrain from aiming a pointed witticism at him: "Martinus, quantum video, auxiliator est facilis, sed mercator difficilis!"[685]