K. (Page [155].)
Colour of the Sun.
The following is a literal translation of a passage in the Talmûd, which shows what speculations there were in a late age on the colour of the Sun, and how, even when the technical terms of language were far advanced towards settlement, people were by no means clear what idea of colour was to be attached to the Sun. The passage occurs in the tract Bâbhâ Bathrâ, fol. 84 a. of the Babylonian Talmûd. To enable the reader to understand it, I need only premise that it is a discussion on a word expressing colour, namely, shechamtîth. In the Mishnâ to which this extract of the Talmûd refers, the following words occur:
Shechamtîth we-nimṣâʾath lebhânâ, lebhânâ we-nimṣâʾath shechamtîth shenêhem yekhôlîn lachazôr bâhen, ‘When the buyer and the seller have come to terms about wheat, which is to have the colour shechamtîth, and the seller delivers white, or vice versa, then they can both annul the sale.’ Now in the Talmûd it is taken for granted that this colour-word is derived from chammâ ‘sun,’ and means ‘sun-coloured.’
Râbh Pâpâ says, ‘As it is said [that the seller delivers] white [as the opposite to what was required], it is manifest that the sun is red (sûmaḳtî); and in fact it is red at rising and setting; and it is only the fault of our vision, which is not powerful enough, that we do not see it the whole day long of this colour. Question: It is said [of one species of leprosy], A colour deeper than that of the skin (Lev. XIII. several times), that is the colour of the sun, which appears deeper than that of the shade, whereas the passage manifestly speaks of the white colour of leprosy? [so that the colour of the sun would be white.] Answer: Both is true of the colour of leprosy: it resembles the sun-colour insofar as this is deeper than the shade [and this passage speaks of a species of leprosy in which the colour is deeper than that of the skin]; but it fails to resemble the sun-colour insofar as the latter is red while it is itself white. But the putting of the question [which took for granted the white colour of the sun] assumed the idea that the [originally white] sun takes a red tint at rising and setting only because at rising it passes by the roses of the Garden of Eden, and at setting passes the gates of Gêhinnôm [Hell, and in each case the red tint of the object passed is reflected on the sun itself]. Some assume the inverse condition [and suppose that the colours which lie at the opposite side of the heaven—at rising that of Hell, and at setting that of the roses of Paradise—are reflected on the sun].’
L. (Page [189].)
Transformation of Foreign Stories in Mohammedan Legends.
The Mohammedan legends and popular traditions present instances of borrowing stories which in some foreign cycle of legends are connected with favourite heroes of that cycle, by substituting for the foreign heroes those who are well known in Mohammedan tradition. In this manner many Iranian local traditions and stories were changed and interpreted in a Mohammedan sense after the subjection of the mind of Îrân to the dominion of Islâm. This phenomenon meets us at every step in the history of the religions and stories of the East and West. I will here limit myself to the quotation of a single instance. The mountain Demâwend in the region of Reyy plays an important part in the old Iranian story of the war of the great king Ferîdûn with Zohak Buyurasp; to this mountain the conqueror of the demons chained the inhuman monster and made it powerless for evil. Now the Mohammedan cycle of legends borrowed Suleymân (Solomon) from the Jews, and invested him with the characteristics which the Agâdâ narrates of the great king of the Hebrews; which characteristics, by the way, themselves point strongly to the influence of the Iranian story of Ferîdûn. Among these is especially to be reckoned the subjection of the demons by the mysterious ring, which passed from the Agâdâ into the Ḳorân (Sûr. XXI. v. 82) and into Islamite tradition. When Demâwend had become Mohammedan ground, it had to divest itself of memories of the old fabled Iranian king. ‘The common people believe,’ it is said in Yâḳût, II. 607, ‘that Suleymân son of Dâʾûd chained to this mountain one of the rebellious Satans named Ṣachr, the Traitor; others believe that Ferîdûn chained Buyurasp to it, and that the smoke which is seen to issue from a cavern in it is his breath.’ We learn, moreover, from this note that the original story still possessed vitality alongside of the transformation. The preservation of old national memories was promoted partly by the intellectual movement excited in Îrân by the ‘King’s Book’ (Shâh-nâmeh), partly by national historians of a remarkable type, who were at the same time proficient in Arabic philology and interested in the preservation of old memories of their own nation.[[773]] Appropriation and transformation of Greek myths are probably rarer. The case quoted in the text is an instance of such appropriation, in which the place of the less-known personages of the Greek myth is occupied by the more familiar ones of Nimrod and his family. There are, however, also cases in which the name is changed, although the abandoned one is quite as familiar as that newly imported into the legend. An instance of this, from Yâḳût’s Geographical Dictionary, IV. 351. 16 sq., is as follows. The writer is speaking of a place called al-Lajûn west of the Jordan, and says: ‘In the middle of the village of al-Lajûn is a round rock with a dome (ḳubbâ) over it, which is believed to have been a place of prayer of Abraham. Beneath the rock is a well with abundant water. It is narrated that on his journey to Egypt Abraham came with his flocks to this place, where there was insufficient water, and the villagers begged him to go on farther, as there was too little water even for themselves; but Abraham struck his staff against the rock, and water flowed copiously from it. The rock exists to this day.’ No further examination is needed to show that this Mohammedan legend is only a transformation of the Biblical one of Moses striking the rock and providing water for his thirsty people. Yet Ibrâhim has been substituted for Mûsa, a name equally familiar to Mohammedan legends.
This miracle of making water gush out by striking a hard substance with a staff is, moreover, a very favourite one in legends, and is repeated on other occasions, notably in the legend of King Solomon. It is said that the well at Lînâ, a watering station in the land of Negd in Arabia, was dug by demons in the service of Suleymân. For he once, having left Jerusalem on a journey to Yemen, passed by Lînâ, when his company were seized with terrible thirst, and could find no water. Then one of the demons laughed. ‘What makes you laugh so?’ asked Suleymân. The demon replied, ‘I am laughing at your people being so thirsty, when they are standing over a whole sea of water.’ So Suleymân ordered them to strike with their sticks, and water immediately gushed out. (Yâḳût, ibid. p. 375. 22 sq.)
M. (Page [212].)
The Origins.
As an example of this, I may mention that, in opposition to the Biblical Myth of Civilisation, which brings the planting of the vine into connexion with Noah, the Rabbinical Agâdâ makes even Adam enjoy the fruit of the vine, which was the forbidden fruit of Paradise.[[774]] The Mohammedan legend names the Canaanitish king Daramshil, contemporary with Noah, as the first wine-drinker, saying that he was the first who pressed and drank wine: auwal man-iʿtaṣar-al-chamr washaribahâ.[[775]] I also observe in passing that a feature of the Noah-legend of the Arabs which is mentioned in my article quoted below, viz. longevity, seems to have a connexion with the old Solar myth. Long life distinguishes the posterity of Adam in Genesis, and reaches its maximum in Methuselah. The longevity which in the popular belief, especially in Italy, is ascribed to the Cuckoo (A. de Gubernatis, p. 519) is accounted for by its solar character in the myth. Noah’s longevity passed into a by-word in Arabic: ʿumr Nûḥ ‘the length of life of Noah.’ In the writings of the poet Ruʾbâ we find—
Faḳultu lau ʿummirtu ʿumra-l-ḥisli * au ʿumra Nûḥin zaman-al-fiṭaḥli,