to run a race from the summit of a mountain. The first who comes to
the winning-post is honoured as a king by his companions for that day,
and acts and judges on the spot where the race takes place as a real
king; indeed, he judges and decides as a court of final appeal on
cases which have not been well examined by the great king of the
country. He unmasks and convicts robbers and false witnesses acquitted
by the king as innocent, and sends a missive to the king, recommending
him to be more cautious in future in his judgments, or else to resign
his royal dignity. The great king wonders at the extraordinary wisdom
of the king of the children, and ascribes his preternatural sagacity
to the magical influence of the mountain where the children who guard
the cows play their games. On another occasion, the king of the
children, by his craftiness, detects a demon in one whom the king had
thought to be the legitimate son of his minister. The discovery is
made by means of a challenge to the minister's real son and his
demoniacal counterfeit to get into a small jug at hand. The real son
cannot; but the supposititious makes himself small and enters the jug,
in which the king of the children shuts him up with a diamond, and
administers thereupon fresh reproof to the great king for his
carelessness. The great king then visits the mountain of the children,
and sees a golden throne with thirty-two steps emerge from the ground;
upon each step there is a wooden puppet (the moon). The great king has
the throne carried into his palace, and endeavours to ascend it; the
puppets arrest him, and one of them tells him that this was once the
throne of the god Indras, and afterwards of King Vikramâdityas. The
great king inclines himself in reverence, and one of the puppets
begins to narrate the history of Vikramâdityas.
The history of Vikramâdityas, narrated by the puppets, refers to a wise
child, born of the wife of the king, after she had eaten a cake made of
earth mixed with oil, and dissolved in water in a porcelain vase (of
which cake the servant-maid eats the remainder). The young Vikramâdityas
passes his infancy in the forests, where he learns all the arts, not
excluding the art of thieving, taught him by the most experienced
robbers, as well as every kind of mercantile fraud; by cheating, he
becomes possessed of an enchanted gem which was in the hip of a dead
man, and of a child who has the faculty of understanding the language of
the wolves, and who calls himself son of the wolves, but was, in fact,
born by the roadside of the maid who had eaten the rest of the cake;
this child is nursed by his mother, and although at first ill-favoured,
becomes in the long run very handsome. Vikramâdityas afterwards kills
the king of the demons in battle, in which it is remarkable that as many
new demons arise to combat him as there are pieces into which the hero
cuts the demon, until the hero multiplies himself in his turn, and to
every demon opposes a lion sprung from his own body. Vikramâdityas
mounts upon a throne where those who had sat before him had all
perished, each after a reign of twenty-four hours, because they had
omitted to offer up funeral sacrifices to the dead during the night;
Vikramâdityas, with his companion, the son of the wolf, fulfils the
sacred duty, and escapes death.
In the same story, which reminds us of the _Ribhavas_ and the four cups
and the cow, four young shepherds, one after another, work at the same
piece of wood; one gives it the general shape of a woman, the second
colours it, the third imparts the features peculiar to the feminine
form, and the fourth gives it life; they then dispute for her person.
The case is referred to the king; a wise man pronounces that the two
first who worked the wood are the father and mother, the third is the
priest, the fourth, who gave it life, is the legitimate husband. Thus
the four become three, by making a group of the first two.
Next comes the legend of the wife who, taking her husband by the feet,
makes him fall into a fountain, because she hears a melodious voice,
perhaps an echo of her own, which charms her; she sees a monster
instead, and bewails her lost husband. In zoological mythology, the
fable of the dog who, at the sight of his own shadow, lets the meat
drop into the river, is analogous to this legend, which, however, we
introduce here, only because of its relation to the similar stories of
the wife who kills her husband, and of the husband who kills his wife
by throwing her into the water, already vaguely hinted at in the Vedic
hymns.
The last of the tales contained in the history of _Ardshi Bordshi_
shows us, on the other hand, a far too complaisant wife. A king has a
daughter, named Light of the sun, who is to be seen by no one. The
daughter asks to be allowed to go out into the city to walk on the
15th of the month (at full moon); this granted, the king orders every
one to stay that day in his house, and all the doors and windows to be
shut; and capital punishment is the penalty of disobeying the king's
command. (The like occurs again in the British legend of Godiva, the
Countess of Mercia, in the eleventh century.) A minister, Ssaran by
name (moon), cannot repress his curiosity, and observes her from a
balcony; the girl makes signs to him, inviting him to join her; the
wife of the inquisitive minister interprets the signs to him, and
urges him to overtake the beautiful girl, giving him, at parting, a
pearl of recognition. Light of the sun and Light of the moon meet at
the foot of a tree, and spend the night until sunrise in amorous
dalliance. One of the persons employed to guard the princess discovers
this intrigue, and denounces it before the king; the wife of the
minister Ssaran ascertains, by means of the pearl, that her husband is
in danger; she rejoins him, disguises and disfigures him, suggesting a
formula of oath by which Light of the sun swears that it was the
monster, and the monster only she embraced; which seeming impossible
to the king and courtiers, the minister Ssaran and Light of the sun
are acquitted. (The aurora, or the sun, hides during the night, and no
one sees, no one is allowed to see her; the god Lunus shows himself;
he remains during the night with the sun, or with the solar aurora,
whom no one can see during the night; the god Lunus then transforms
and disfigures himself, so that he becomes unrecognisable, invisible;
the guilty one glides away, and escapes; it then seems impossible that
the god Lunus, who is no longer seen, can have been with the light of
the sun; their loves having come to an end, the adulterers being
separated, their guilt is no longer believed, their innocence is
recognised, and the morality of the myth is left to take care of
itself as best it can.)
But the Calmuc and Mongol stories _Siddhi-kûr_, and the history of
_Ardshi Bordshi_, being, as they are, only paraphrases of Hindoo
tales, would not alone suffice to prove the derivation from the
zoological legends of Aryan mythology of the oral Turco-Finnic
tradition, properly speaking. We must, therefore, search for the
proofs of their influence in other quarters as well.
A Turanian story of the south of Siberia[334] combines together
several of the mythical subjects which we are already acquainted with.
A poor old man and woman have three sons; the three sons go upon the
mountain to dream; the two eldest dream of riches, and the third dreams
that his father and mother are lean camels, his brothers two hungry
wolves running towards the mountains, while he himself, between the sun
and the moon, wears the morning star upon his forehead. The father
orders the brothers to kill him; they dare not do so; they only expel
him from the house, and kill the dog instead, the blood of which they
take to their father, who, thinking it is his son's, says they have done
well. The young man wanders about till he comes to a hut where a lame
old man and a blind old woman are eating out of a golden cup, which of
itself fills with meat as they empty it (the moon). The hungry youth
helps himself to some of this meat, but the old man finds, as he
continues to eat the food, that some one has put his teeth into it; with
a hook, which he whirls around him, he clutches hold of the young man,
who begs for his life, pledging himself to be the eye of her who has no
eyes, and the foot of him who has no feet. This proposal pleases the old
couple, and they adopt him as their son; he makes himself a bow and a
wooden arrow, and goes to hunt wildfowl for their support. The old man
lends him his iron-grey horse, one day old, but advises him to ride him
only by day; the young man, thinking that by night he conceals
treasures, cattle, and people, disobeys, and rides by night. What the
horse then does we shall see in the next chapter. The youth fights and
vanquishes the demon, by fastening one of his lips to the heavens, and
the other to the earth; the defeated demon advises him to rub himself
with the fat of his stomach; inside his stomach he will find a casket of
silver, inside that a casket of gold, and inside that another casket of
silver; he is to take it and throw it into the sea of milk. From the
monster's stomach, cut open, come forth innumerable animals, men,
treasures, and other objects. Some of the men say, "What noble man has
delivered us from the black night? what noble man has shown us the clear
day?" The youth finds in the caskets money and a white handkerchief,
which he puts into his pocket; from the last casket come forth more men,
animals, and valuables of every kind; he drives the white cattle before
him and returns home, where the old couple are asleep. He opens the
handkerchief, and finds in it the old woman's eyes; whilst he is smoking
near the fire, the old people waken, see him, and embrace him. The old
man then endows him with the power of transforming himself into a fox, a
wolf, a lion, a vulture, and other shapes, at will. He goes, to find for
himself a wife, to the residence of the prince Ai-Kan; the latter
promises to give his daughter to whoever will bring him the necessary
amount of gold. It is in the shape of a vulture[335] that the young man
sets out to search for it; he then wins the young maiden who has the
gold, and she, who is herself the daughter of Ai-Kan, says to him, "Thou
art my husband." After various other transformations, in one of which
the two lean camels reappear, _i.e._, his two parents, of whom he had
dreamt, whom he loads with a sack, he ends by taking to himself another
wife, the daughter of Kün-Kan, and he lives now with one, now with the
other, to whom he gives the flesh of his own infanticide father to eat.
Let us recapitulate the moments of this significant legend:--1st, We
have the presage, the dream of the mountain-peak; 2d, The three
brothers, the third of whom, predestined to good fortune, the others
wish to sacrifice; 3d, The lame and the blind in the forest; 4th, The
hero's hunt; 5th, The struggle with the monster of night; 6th, The
treasures, spiritual and material, which come out of the monster; 7th,
The cattle in conjunction with the sea of milk; 8th, The passage of the
hero from the milky sea to the fireside, from the alba to the aurora,
from the whitish sky to the reddish one; 9th, The awakening of the
sleepers, and restoration of sight to the blind, whilst he sits by the
fire, whilst the sun is united to the aurora; 10th, The transformation
of the hero himself; 11th, Winning his bride, by procuring the necessary
amount of gold; 12th, His marriage of two wives; 13th, His revenge on
his persecuting father. The legend is in itself an epic poem, and we can
only regret that the Altaic story-tellers did not give it a more
artistic form than that in which it appears in the excellent collection
of Radloff.
Another interesting Turanian story, in the same collection, which
preserves several traces of the primitive myth, is another version of
the story of the hero who solves the riddle proposed by his
father-in-law, and thus wins his wife. A father has three sons; the
first-born dreams that their cow has devoured a wolf; he goes to see,
and finds it is true (the aurora destroys the night). We have already
seen that, as the third brother is the wise child, so the first-born
of the three is often the one who possesses the secret of solving
riddles. The father of the three brothers wishes to obtain a wife for
his first-born son, and the bride's father, to give her up, demands
that the bridegroom's father should come to take her, arriving, the
first time, with a fur-coat and without one (in the morning the old
man, by the advice of the eldest son, departs wearing a coat of fur
which seems to be one, but is not, being in reality a coat of mail),
and coming, the second time, without touching the road, yet not off
the road, on horseback, yet without horses (the old man, by the advice
again of his first-born son, arrives at the father-in-law's abode,
going on the side of the road, and riding on a stick; thus he obtains
permission to take the bride away for his son).
Professor Schiefner gives a Finnic variation of the same story. A king
orders the son of a peasant to come neither by day nor by night,
neither by the road nor by the road-side, neither on horseback nor on
foot, neither dressed nor naked, neither inside nor outside. The
intelligent boy makes a robe of goat's skin, goes to the city lying
in the bottom of a coffin, during the morning twilight, having a sieve
fastened to one foot, and a brush to the other, and stops on the
doorstep of the antechamber, with one leg out and the other in.
Such was the humour, and such the wisdom of our fathers; ingenuity was
measured by skill in solving astronomical riddles. Now the riddles have
taken another form; they are strokes of diplomacy, amorous hieroglyphs,
ethical ambiguities, metaphysical nebulosities, which we, the men of
progress, must solve; but not wishing to acknowledge our inferiority in
acuteness to the children of the legends, we are fain to persuade
ourselves that the new riddles are more obscure than the ancient.
In the Vedic riddles proposed to one another by the aurora and the sun,
we have seen how they were solved in the morning by the nuptials of the
guesser and the guessee. Thus in the two riddles which we have just
described, the son of the old man and the child solve the riddle in the
morning. As to the sieve, the brush, and the coffin, they are mythical
furniture of great interest and obvious import. The nocturnal sky is the
great coffin; to sweep the sky of night, we must have a brush; to sunder
the good grain from the bad during the night, as the cruel mother-in-law
commands, we must have a sieve; the child-sun arrives, in the twilight,
in the bottom of the coffin, at the doorstep of the royal palace, and
presents to the maiden aurora (the Vedic cleaner or purifier) the brush
and the sieve. The sun, at twilight, is neither in nor out. In the
second Scottish story of Mr J. F. Campbell, the giant commands the hero,
among other things, to cleanse, in one day, the stables which had not
been cleansed for seven years (Heraklés and Augeias).
But let us continue our subject, for the path is a long one.
A Mongol tradition, contained in the _Mongol Crestomathy_ of
Papoff,[336] speaks of the boy who comes riding upon a black ox,
instead of in a coffin.
We have seen above the cow who eats the wolf; in another Altaic legend
we find an old woman who gives up her seven azure (dark-coloured) cows
to be eaten by the seven wolves, in order that the latter may spare the
child Kan Püdai, whom she had found at the foot of a tree; meanwhile the
child, who has fed upon two hundred hares,[337] has become strong, and
breaks his iron cradle (the iron sky of night is the cradle of the young
sun); from the horns of six roebucks he makes himself a bow; from the
skin of a colossal marine animal (the cloud, the gloomy one), he makes a
string for the bow (the string of the Hindoo bow is also called _go_,
_i.e._, cow, as a cloud in the sky, and as being formed from the hide of
a cow); he rides upon the azure calf (the dark calf, which recalls our
attention to the black ox, and leads us to conclude the colossal animal
to have been a cow), and subdues and tames it; he then comes to a field
of snow, upon which he breathes a black and numbing wind, and where he
finds the seven wolves; he ties them to the tail of his calf, and drags
them along the ground till they die. The boy continues his wild beast
hunt; he kills the black and fat ones, and leaves the yellow and lean
ones alone. He goes into a black sea, and erects there a black castle,
into which he receives both the old woman who had sustained him, and his
azure (_i.e._, dark-coloured) calf. Thereafter the young Kan Püdai,
applying himself to warfare, forsakes or exchanges his calf for a horse.
We shall see in the next chapter what he does with his horse;--suffice
it to notice here, that, in the end, he meets the black bull, who will
one day be the king of the Altaï. The soul of the black bull takes
refuge in a red thread in the middle of the rainbow (in the popular
belief of the East the rainbow was supposed to be a bridge, a road
traversed by the souls of mortals); the young Kan Püdai transfixes it
with his arrows. He wins the white cattle, kills the monstrous Kara
Kula, and, taking the latter's wife and daughter with him, returns home;
and for seven days there is eating, drinking, and festivity in the house
of Kan Püdai. But up to this point it is not said that he has espoused
the daughter and the wife of Kara Kula. Kan Püdai is, on the contrary,
passionately enamoured of Tämän Ökö, the daughter of the sky (duhitar
divas, or daughter of the sky, is the name usually given to the aurora
in the Vedic hymns), and ascends, in order to secure her and make her
his wife, to the third heaven (it is the third step of Vishnus; it is
the third brother, the sun of the third night-watch, who carries off the
palm against the gloomy monster). In order to become worthy of the
daughter of the sky, Kan Püdai has to kill two monsters; to scatter
ashes on the field of victory, and lead away from it the white cattle;
to catch the three bears; to take the three black bulls and make them
swallow three hills; to take the tiger and give it the grass of the
three mountains to eat; to kill the whale in the azure sea (all
different forms of one and the same mythical and heroic battle); and,
finally, to play upon the mountain-peak with the golden-haired monster
Andalma. He then obtains his bride, and returns with her to his own
country, where he hunts, and makes war, and vanquishes all his enemies,
until he grows old; he then renounces all except his old companion (the
old sun and the old aurora meet again in the evening).
Here evidently the mythology is really zoological.
In the complicated legend of Ai-Kan, we have in the brother Altyn
Ayak, who sleeps in the form of a golden cup, and who awakens to help
Ai-Kan, a figure which, though not the same as, is similar to, that of
the sleeping brother Kumbhakarnas (conch-ear) in the _Râmâyanam_, who
awakens to help Râvanas. We have the inebriating liquor which gives
strength to the hero, who is resuscitated three times from death,
after having been the food of dogs; the wolves who devour Sary-Kan, or
the fair-haired prince; the hero (the sun) who beats the wife (the
aurora) given him by the two brothers (the Açvinâu); the friendly dog
and cat; the golden cup in which the brother of Ai-Kan is shut up
asleep, and which falls into the sea; the grateful animals which
search for the cup; the gem found in the stomach of a fish (from the
whale of the nocturnal ocean the gem comes forth); and the consequent
awakening of the sleeping Altyn Ayak.
The following is from an Altaic saga, in the collection of
Radloff:--Beyond the sea, on a rock surrounded with treasures, a dwarf
girl is brought up, against whom aggressive warriors can prevail
nothing. She sends all enemies away, after loading them with gold and
silver, and placing on their heads part of the hair of her forehead,
which proves to be sufficient to cover seven men. In this marvellous
hair, in this enchanted maiden, and in the warriors who come by sea,
who does not recognise the veil of the maiden aurora of the Vedâs, who
uncovers her bosom before the sun her husband, and the sea which the
warrior-sun crosses, and from which he emerges to come to the
aurora?--who does not recognise the golden fleece, Jason, Medea, the
Argonauts of Hellenic tradition?
In the Finnic mythology of the _Kalevala_[338] also, we have upon the
mountain a good and pure hostess, a generous giver, from the golden
windows of whose house are observed the women who give the wildfowl;
but in this Finnic representation, it is not the heroic girl-aurora,
it seems to me, we recognise, but the moon, Diana the huntress (the
German _Helljäger_), who also appears on the mountain-peak, surrounded
by the stars of the nocturnal forest, where the wildfowl is found,
which she can therefore lavish upon the hero.
The Finns worship a thundering god, united with the clouds, who has
the thunderbolt for his sword, and who is called Ukko,[339] father of
Väinämöinen, the valorous and wise hero, who speaks in the womb of his
mother, who performs prodigies when yet a child, and who produces the
sun and the moon.
This child-hero occurs again in their dwarf-god (_pikku mies_), who,
although, like the Hindoo Vishnus, he is but a span long, wields in his
hand an axe the length of a man, with which he cuts down an oak-tree
that no one had yet been able to bring to the ground. The sun-hero is
little; but his ray, his thunderbolt, his weapon, his hand, lengthen
themselves, extend themselves as far as the dwarf-hero can desire, in
order to destroy the enemy, who wears here the well-known aspect of the
trunk of a tree, or of a dark forest. The woodcutter is therefore a
favourite figure in popular tradition. And the fact that Väinämöinen,
having grown old and truthful in speech, cuts down in the
_Kalevala_,[340] by the help of the little god, the prodigious oak,
shows us that this little god is a new and junior form, a younger and
victorious brother, or self-reproduction of the erewhile child-hero
Väinämöinen, who has lived his life of a day. The valiant child-sun of
morning has become the experienced old sun of evening; but as this old
sun is not strong enough to cut down the oak-tree, under whose shadow he
loses himself, he is obliged to become a child again to develope the
requisite amount of strength; he needs a younger brother, a hero or
dwarf-god, to free him from the evil shades of the forest of night. To
this end he also invokes the sun and the moon to illumine the forest,
and also the bear (the middle brother)--(in the _Kalevala_, of the three
heroes it is the bear Ilmarinen who shows the greatest strength, and who
wins the virgin for his bride)--in order that by his strength he may
root up the tree. But to root up the tree is all that bears can do,
while Väinämöinen wishes it to be cut down; and so this victorious
enterprise is intrusted to the dwarf-god. Thus, without explicit mention
of their names, we find the three brothers described in the entirely
mythical epopee of the Finns.
Alongside of the dwarf, by force of antithesis, there arises, even in
the Finnic mythology, the idea of a giant, a Titan who amuses himself
with uplifting and hurling rocks and mountains. The cloud, the monster
of darkness, being represented as a mountain, the monster inhabiting
this country must fight by means of the mountain itself. The cloudy
mountain moves; it is a giant monster that moves it; it is the second
brother, the strong brother, the son of the cow, the bear, who amuses
himself with it, who shakes, carries, and throws it like a weapon. And
such mythical battles must have seemed so much the more natural in the
age in which the greater number of the myths were conceived and
produced, as we know it to have been the age which archæologists call
the age of stone. The sun, as a dwarf, destroys the vast cloud, the
vast darkness, viewed as a giant.
But battles are not always going on in the heavens; even the wild
animals of the gloomy forest become tame and rest themselves; music
fills the soul with calm sentiments. Therefore even the warrior
Gandharvâs of the Hindoo Olympus are transformed into expert
musicians, who entrance the very gods with wonder. The song of the
Sirens attracts and seduces the traveller; the lyre of Orpheus draws
after it mountains, trees, and animals; the harp of Väinämöinen, in
the _Kalevala_, makes the wolf forget his ferocity, the bear his
wildness, the fish his coldness. And it is grief which is the first
inspirer of song; the first stanza of the poet Vâlmîkis had its origin
in the sorrow he felt upon seeing a bird bereft of its companion.
Orpheus (the Thracian sun) sings and plays for grief, when the serpent
(the shade of night) has bitten and thrown into the gloomy regions his
sweet bride Eurydice (the aurora), and moves the demons to pity; the
harp of Väinämöinen is also born of sorrow.[341]
The epopee of the Finns contains, moreover, several other myths cognate
with those of Aryan mythical tradition;--such as the resuscitated hero;
the winning of the maiden by display of heroism; the bride heroically
won and afterwards cut in pieces; the cup of abundance, or the
cornucopia (the Sampo); the golden cradle; the marvellous vessel in
which the hero crosses the sea; the three sisters, of whom one gives
black milk, one white, and one red (night, the alba or moon, and
aurora); the invulnerable shirt; the magician who makes children of gold
and silver; and others of secondary importance,[342] but all tending to
prove that formerly the Turanian and Aryan races, in their neighbouring
abodes, were originally much more similar to each other than they now
appear, on account of partly diversity of language, and partly their
different degrees of civilisation.
I have just named the Finnish Sampo as a cup of abundance or
cornucopia; it does, in fact, yield marvellous abundance to whoever
possesses it, and wherever it falls. It is made of the feather of a
swan, or of a duck (the swan and the duck are, as we shall see,
confounded together in tradition, and the duck, like the hen, is a
symbol of abundance), of a tuft of wool, of a grain of corn, and of
chips from a spindle, all evident symbols of abundance; and it becomes
so large that it has to be carried by a hundred-horned ox (reminding
us of the horns of the cow which spin). The ox bears abundance upon
its horns, it yields abundance from its horns. The cornucopia is, in
my mind, unmistakably implied in these mythical data.
The same mythical correspondence which we have found to exist between
the Finnic epos and the various legendary Aryan traditions is observable
between the latter and the Esthonian popular tales. In the collection of
Frederic Kreuzwald[343] we find numerous proofs of this correspondence.
In the first story we have, in a hut in the forest, three sisters, of
whom the youngest is the most beautiful. The old witch, her
step-mother, persecutes her, and always gives her filaments of gold to
spin, hiding from time to time the gold she has spun in a secret room.
During the summer the old woman goes out of the house, no one knows
where, after having apportioned their respective tasks to the three
sisters. While the old woman is out, a young prince, having lost
himself in the forest, finds his way to the hut, and becomes enamoured
of the youngest of the three sisters. The young couple speak to each
other of love in the light of the moon and of the stars; while the old
king, impatient at the absence of his son, falls into grief, and sends
everywhere to look for him. After three days he is found; before going
back to the palace, he secretly promises to the youngest sister that
he will return. Meanwhile the old woman comes back, finds the work
badly done, curses, threatens, and maltreats the girl. Early in the
morning, while the old woman and the two elder sisters are slumbering,
the maiden slips out, and leaves the house. During her childhood she
had learned the language of birds; accordingly, when she meets a crow,
she salutes him by the name of "bird of light," and sends him as a
messenger to the young prince, to warn him not to come back to see
her, on account of the fury of the old woman. The prince then names
her another trysting-place, and the young couple meet under a tree,
between the second and third crowing of the cock; and when the sun
rises, they flee away together. The old witch causes them to be
followed by a ball made of nine evil herbs, and carried by malignant
winds. The fugitives are overtaken on the banks of a river, where the
ball strikes the prince's horse; it rears up on its hind legs, and the
girl falls off into the river, into the hands of a marine monster;
upon which the prince is struck by a disease which no one can cure. By
eating the flesh of a hog, the prince acquires a knowledge of the
language of birds; he sends the swallows as messengers to the magician
of Finland, that he may teach him the way to free a girl who has been
transformed into a pond-rose (lotus-flower). The answer, instead of
being brought by the swallows, is brought by an eagle. The prince must
become a shrimp, in order to enter the water without being drowned; he
must detach the lotus by its root, draw it along the surface of the
water to the bank, near a stone, and pronounce these words, "From the
pond-rose, a maiden--from the shrimp, a man." The crow confirms the
eagle's words. The prince hears a song issue from the rose; he then
determines to deliver the girl. The two young people emerge together
from the water. The maiden is ashamed of being naked, and the prince
goes to procure nuptial robes for her; after which he conducts her to
the palace in a beautiful chariot, where a joyous and gorgeous
wedding-festival is celebrated. Soon afterwards the old witch dies, to
appear again in the form of a cat, which is taken by the tail and
flung into the fire. In the witch's house are found mountains of spun
gold, which serve for the dowry of the three sisters. We have already
said that the three sisters correspond to the three brothers, and the
youngest sister to the youngest brother. The epithet of _young_ is
often given to the Vedic aurora, whom the sun marries. Here the prince
marries the youngest of the three sisters; the morning aurora is
united to the sun. Towards night she falls into the water; it is the
witch (night) who throws her in; the hog which the prince (the sun)
eats we shall see to be a figurative representation of the nocturnal
monster, or the moon. Eating the hog, staying in the forest of night,
the prince learns the language of birds. The prince frees the maiden
from the waters; the sun delivers the aurora from the gloomy ocean of
night, and robes her in his splendour, causing the witch of night to
be burned in the flames of the aurora, and taking from the witch's
abode the spun gold or golden fleece.
In the third Esthonian story, a woman, called mother-of-gold, bears,
by the favour of a dwarf, three dwarf-sons at the same time, who
become three heroes. The first is the seer (the wise brother), the
second has a ready arm (the strong brother), the third runs swiftly in
the race (a quality distinctive of the third brother, Argunas, in the
_Mahâbhâratam_, and which is applicable to the victorious sun of
morning, who wins the race, together with the aurora).
A variation of the story relating to the youngest sister and the dwarf
is that of the girl seven years old, the wise girl (the aurora), in the
fourth Esthonian tale, who, being persecuted by her step-mother, retires
into the forest (the night). While there, it seems to her that she is in
heaven, where, in a house of crystal and pearls, she is received by a
well-dressed woman of gold (the fair-haired moon). The girl asks the
golden woman to be allowed to take care of the cattle, like the cowmaid
aurora. In the history of _Ardshi Bordshi_ we have seen the wise
puppet. This form of the wise girl, the dressed girl of wood, occurs
again in the Esthonian story; in which she is made of wood from the
forest, of three anchovies, of bread, of a black serpent, and of the
blood of the girl herself, to whom the image has a great likeness, and
which may be beaten by the old step-mother without being hurt. From the
forest-tree, wood, or wooden box of the night, with the juice of the
black serpent of night and the blood of the girl aurora of evening,
comes forth the maiden aurora of morning, the wise, the speaking puppet,
the puppet who guesses the riddles. The girl who comes out of wood is
represented as a wooden puppet; more frequently the puppet is the moon,
the wise fairy who comes out of the forest. In the same story we have
the magic rod which produces a cock upon the mountain, beside which a
tablecloth spreads itself out, while the chairs range themselves in
their places, and the dishes are filled of their own accord. The story
ends with the usual marriage between the beautiful maiden, and a king's
son returning from the chase (or the son who comes out of the forest of
night, viewed as infested by ferocious animals).
In the sixth Esthonian tale, the poor girl finds a woman in a white
robe (the moon), adorned with gold, upon a rock near a fountain, who
announces her approaching marriage with a youth as poor as herself;
but the good fairy godmother--for in the legends the godmother is
represented as good, as the stepmother is wicked--promises to make
them both rich and happy. She calls herself the lady of the waters,
secret wife of the wind, and she judges the criminals who present
themselves at her tribunal (Proserpina or Persephonê).
In the seventh tale, a boy nine years of age, the third son of two
poor people, goes out to be a cowherd; his master treats him well, but
his mistress gives him more floggings than bread. One day the young
cowherd is unfortunate enough to lose a cow; he searches for it all
through the forest, but in vain. He re-enters the house with the
cattle, after the sun has set some time. The observant eye of his
mistress perceives at once that there is a cow missing; she beats the
boy without pity, and sends him out to look for it, threatening to
kill him if he returns without it. He wanders through the forest; but
when the sun arises from out the bosom of the dawn, he resolves to
stay out of the house, and not to return to his persecutor (the young
morning sun flees from the old and perverse night). In the evening,
the boy finds an old dwarf, who is his host during the night (the
moon), and who says to him, "When the sun rises to-morrow, carefully
observe the spot in which he rises. Thou must go in that direction, so
that every morning thou may'st have the sun before thee, and every
evening the sun behind thee. Thus thy strength will increase more and
more every day." How can one indicate better the apparent course of
the solar hero, or of the sun in the night? The hero, in order to go
towards the morning sun, must necessarily have the sun of evening
behind him. The old dwarf also gives him a sack and a little barrel,
in which he will always find the food and drink he requires; but he
recommends him never to eat or drink more than is necessary, that he
may have to give to a hungry bird or a thirsty wild beast. He also
leaves him a rolled-up leaf of burdock, upon which, by rolling it out,
he will always be able to cross water (a new form of the cup). We know
how the Hindoos represented their god as floating upon a lotus-leaf in
the midst of the waters, and how Padmagas (born of the lotus-flower,
or the rose of the waters, which shuts during the night) was one of
the names of Brâhman; here we have the god or hero shutting himself up
in the flower, from which he afterwards comes out. In the chapters on
the Serpent and the Frog we shall again see how the god sometimes
shuts himself up in a monstrous form in this flower, the rose, on
account of a curse from which he is to be freed by a beautiful maiden.
We have seen how the Esthonian girl, who was by the curse of the old
woman thrown into the water, was transformed into a water-rose or
lotus-flower, and delivered by the young prince. The Esthonian boy
finds himself before a small lake; he throws the leaf in, and it
becomes a magical boat, which carries him over. Meanwhile he has
become strong. Upon the mountain he sees a serpent, a tortoise, and an
eagle, all three of enormous dimensions, approaching to attack him,
with a man upon a black horse, which has wings on its feet, in the
rear of them. He kills the serpent and the tortoise, but the eagle
flies away. The man with the black horse takes the boy into his house,
and appoints him to look after the dogs, that they may not get loose
from their chains, a danger against which the man provides by making
twelve colossal oxen fetch rocks upon rocks, to repair the damage done
by the dogs. The rocks, touched by a magical rod, arrange themselves
upon the car drawn by the oxen. At last, by the advice of the eagle,
he steals his master's horse, and departs to sojourn among mankind,
taking a wife with him.
In the eighth Esthonian story too, the third brother is the cunning one.
His two elder brothers, after the death of their father, despoil him of
his share of the inheritance, and he is reduced to wander alone and
impoverished about the world in quest of good fortune. He falls in with
a woman who complains to him that her husband regularly beats her when
she is unable to procure for him the things he wants, which he asks for
in the form of a riddle. The third brother solves the enigma for the
woman (the moon), who, in gratitude, gives him provisions for his
travels. He then comes to a palace, where the king is engaged in
celebrating a summer festival, and he undertakes to provide and prepare
the feast. A magician presents himself at the festival in the shape of
an old man, and asks to taste the food. The young man suspects him, but,
seeing a ring upon his finger, he consents to allow him if he gives him
a pledge. The magician vows that he has nothing to give. The youth asks
for his ring, and the old man in his gluttony at once gives it up; upon
which the youth, who, along with the ring, has taken all the magician's
strength away, first binds and derides him, and then has him beaten by
seven strong men. The old man breaks the ropes and disappears; however,
the young man, having the ring in his hands, possesses the means of
tracking his footsteps and making him his. (This is the usual disc,
lasso, or bridle which is now in the hands of the hero, now in those of
the monster.) The youth follows the magician underground. The latter, it
appears, is served by three maidens, who, when they perceive that the
sorcerer has lost his ring, and that they have a young man for
companion, enjoy themselves with him while the magician is asleep. The
youth learns from them that the old wizard also possesses a sword which
can destroy armies, and a magical rod which can create a bridge to span
the sea; these, therefore, he steals, and departs, returning by a
wonderful bridge thrown over the sea to the palace whence he had
started. It seems to him as if his journey had lasted only two nights,
instead of which a year has passed.[344] He finds on his arrival his
two brothers in the king's service, one as coachman and the other as a
valet, both enriched because they have received the pay due to their
younger brother for having prepared the great feast. The young man now
engages himself in another capacity, in a species of service especially
dear to the young hero, next to those of stable-boy and cowherd; that is
to say, he becomes under-cook of the king. (In the _Vîrâta-Parvam_ of
the _Mahâbhâratam_, it is the second of the brothers who disguises
himself as a cook, in order to prepare good sauces and substantial food
for the king whose guest he is; the elder brother is disguised as a
Brâhmanas, a wise adviser; the third brother, Argunas, the agile, the
swift one, pretends to be a eunuch, is given in exchange for a woman,
and teaches dancing, music, and singing in the gynecium. Of the two sons
of the Açvinâu, one becomes a groom, the other a cowherd.) His brothers
continue to dislike him, and because he boasts to them that he had seen
in hell golden birds, they induce the king to send him to hell in order
to procure them. He accomplishes this undertaking with great difficulty,
and brings the birds in a sack made of spiders' webs, which is so strong
that the birds enclosed in it cannot extricate themselves. In the same
sack, during another expedition, the young man brings from hell many
precious objects of gold and silver. In compensation, he only asks of
the king to send the princess, his daughter, to listen for one evening
to the conversation of his two brothers the coachman and the valet. Both
boast of having enjoyed to satiety the favours of the princess. The
latter, indignant and full of shame, runs to tell the king everything,
upon which he arraigns them before him and has them judged. The third
brother is named Counsellor; with his enchanted sword he destroys an
entire army of enemies, and obtains in reward for his services and his
valour the king's daughter to wife.
The ninth Esthonian story presents to us the son of the thunder, who
sells his soul to the devil, on condition that the latter serves him
for seven years. The time agreed upon is nearly come to an end, and
the son of the thunder wishes to escape from him, and profits by an
opportunity which has chanced. The devil sees a black cloud, which is
a sign of an approaching tempest; he is afraid, hides himself under a
stone, and asks the son of the thunder to keep him company. The latter
consents; but seeing that the devil is afraid, at each thunderclap he
presses his ears and eyes in such a manner as to make him perspire and
shiver all over. The devil, believing this to be the effect of the
thunder, promises the son of the thunder that he will not only leave
him his soul, but give him three other souls, if he will deliver him
from the evils which he suffers on account of the thunder, by taking
from the thundering god, the father of the clouds, his weapon (which
is also a musical instrument). This weapon, having been ravished from
the god, is taken by the devil into hell, into a chamber of iron, shut
up within seven castles. A great drought coming upon the earth, the
son of the thunder repents of having rendered such a service to the
devil; he finds means, however, of informing the thunder-god where his
weapon is concealed. The thunder-god then becomes a child, and engages
himself in the service of a fisherman, near a lake which the devil is
accustomed to visit to steal the fishes. He surprises him in the act
of robbery, and by the help of a magician takes him prisoner, and has
him beaten without pity, until he promises to pay a heavy ransom in
money to be let free, the fisherman and his child to accompany him to
hell itself to receive the sum of money. Arrived in hell, the devil
entertains them like a gentleman. The child tells the fisherman to ask
the devil to show them the musical instrument which he keeps enclosed
in the iron room. The devil kindly consents, but cannot draw from the
instrument anything more musical than the mewing of a cat or the
grunting of a pig. The fisherman then laughs at the devil, and says
that his boy can play better. The devil does not believe it, and
laughingly gives the instrument, which he calls bagpipes, to the boy.
The latter blows into them and makes such a noise that all hell
resounds with it, and the devils fall to the earth as if dead. The
child then becomes the god of thunder again, and returns to heaven,
where by the noise of his instrument he opens the celestial reservoirs
and lets out the beneficent rain. The description of the tempest which
occurs in many Vedic hymns is the germ of this interesting myth. The
drum or kettledrum thunder is a familiar image in Hindoo poetry, and
the Gandharvâs, the musician-warriors of the Hindoo Olympus, have no
other instrument than the thunder. The conch of the warrior Pândavâs
in the _Mahâbhâratam_, and the famous horn of Orlando (which comes
from the golden horn of Odin), are epical reminiscences of thunder.
Orpheus, who in hell plays on his lyre and tames the animals, is a
more lucid and more perfect form of this Esthonian thunder-god who
plays the bagpipes in hell. It is also remarkable how, in harmony with
the pastoral bagpipes, in the tenth Esthonian story, which is a
variation of the preceding one, the god transformed into a powerful
boy is called a little shepherd or cowherd--another interesting fact,
which completes his identification with Orpheus.[345] The magic flute
is a variation of the same celestial musical instrument. The magic
flute, the bagpipes or wonderful pipe, occurs again in the
twenty-third Esthonian story, in which the good Tiidu, by means of it
and of his virtue, obtains riches. The magical harp of Gunnar in the
Edda has the same marvellous effects.
Evidently the monster-dwarf is a favourite subject of Esthonian
tradition, and it often occurs in the Hindoo and in the German
traditions, as well as in the Franco-Latin tradition of Charlemagne.
The eleventh story introduces us to three dwarf-brothers who contend
for the inheritance left by their father, consisting of a miraculous
hat, which enables its wearer to see everything, whilst he can himself
be visible or invisible at pleasure (this hat is made of pieces of
men's nails cut up);[346] of a pair of slippers which transport the
owner in an instant wherever he wishes (we must not forget that
Cinderella, when she loses the slipper, is overtaken by the prince
bridegroom); and of a stick which strikes of itself, and destroys
everything, even stronger than the thunderbolt (the thunderbolt
itself). The three brothers maintain that these three articles, to be
really useful, must be the property of one; but who is to enjoy this
privilege? A man comes up to put an end to the dispute, and feigns
disbelief in the virtue of these three things, unless he proves it
himself. The three simpletons give them to him that he may prove them.
The man takes them off, and the three dwarfs are left to meditate upon
the truth of the above-quoted proverb, "Between two disputers the
third profits," or at least that variation of it which their own case
suggests "Between three that dispute, the fourth profits."
In the thirteenth Esthonian story, the privileged character of the
third brother is explained, as we are told that he is the son of a
king, but was exchanged by a witch during his infancy for the child of
a peasant. The latter died in the palace, whilst the king's son grew
in the hut, showing in every action his royal pedigree. Here we have
the story of the hero who is exposed on the mountains intimately
connected with that of the third brother. To this third brother, who
alone shows himself to be devoted to his father, and who alone makes a
vow to watch by his grave, is also attributed the merit of having
delivered, upon a high mountain of crystal, from a seven years' sleep,
a princess, who then becomes his wife. We have seen the
aurora-awakener in the Vedic hymns--the sun and the aurora arouse each
other: the sun sends forth the aurora; the aurora draws out the sun.
The myth reproduces itself every day, and expresses in its entirety a
daily phenomenon of light in the heavens. In Northern countries, where
the contrast is great between winter and spring, and therefore the
impression is striking which is caused by the cessation of vegetation
in autumn, the earth also assumed the aspect of a dead young princess;
but an omniscient magician having said, _Non est mortua puella, sed
dormit_, the third brother, predestined to the enterprise, lays down
his poor robes, and dresses himself, on the first occasion, in the
colour of bronze; on the second, the colour of silver; on the third,
the colour of gold, and ascends the mountain of crystal, or ice,
whence he brings forth the beautiful spring. The sky, grey in autumn,
snowy in winter, and golden in spring, corresponds to the grey sky of
evening, the silver one of night, and the golden one of morning.
Spring is the dawn of the year; the primitive myth is but amplified;
the last hour of the day awakens the aurora; the last month of the
solar year awakens the spring. The application of the myth of the day
to the year is one of the greatest simplicity.
In the fourteenth story, the king of the golden country loses himself in
the forest full of ferocious animals, and cannot find his way out. A
stranger (no doubt the devil) conducts him out, on condition that he
will give him whatever first comes to meet him. The king promises. The
first thing he sees on his return is his royal child, who, carried by
his nurse, stretches out his arms to his father. The king exchanges him
for a peasant's girl, whom he gives up to the stranger, allowing his own
son to be brought up among the peasant's herds. The king's son, having
grown to manhood, determines to go and deliver the poor girl. He
disguises himself as a poor man, puts a sack of peas on his shoulders,
and goes into the forest where his father was lost eighteen years
before. He also loses himself, and meets the stranger, who promises to
direct him if he will give him the peas which are in the sack, as they
will serve, he alleges, to recompense the assistants at the funeral of
his aunt, who died in poverty during the night.--This pulse in funeral
ceremonies refers to a very ancient custom. The Vedic ceremonials
already mention them in connection with funerals; and in the Greek
belief, the dead carried vegetables with them to hell, either for the
right of passage or as provisions for travelling. In Piedmont, it is
still the custom on the second of November (All Soul's Day) to make a
great distribution of kidney-beans to the poor, who pray for the souls
of the dead. Vegetables, peas, vetches, and kidney-beans are symbols of
abundance, and to this belief may be traced the numerous Indo-European
stories in which mention is made of beans which multiply themselves in
the pipkin, or of peas which grow up to the sky, and up the stalk of
which the hero climbs to heaven. The vegetables necessary for being
introduced into the kingdom of the dead, and the pea by means of which
the hero enters heaven, are variations of the same mythical subject. In
Hindoo tradition, besides the pea or kidney-bean, we have the pumpkin as
a symbol of abundance, which is multiplied infinitely, or which mounts
up to heaven. The wife of the hero Sagaras gives birth to a pumpkin,
from which afterwards come forth sixty thousand sons. The kidney-bean,
the pea, the vetch, the common bean, and the pumpkin are also symbols of
generation, not only on account of the facility with which they
multiply, but also on account of their form. We have seen in the Vedic
ceremonials what organs are represented by the two kidney-beans; we
shall also see, in the chapter on the Ass, how the names given to the
organs of generation are also used to designate fools. Now, it is worthy
of notice that the Sanskrit word _mâshas_ (or kidney-bean) also
signified the foolish, the stolid one, in the same way as in Piedmont a
_bonus vir_ is called a kidney-bean. Thus, too, the pumpkin, which
expresses fecundity, also means, in Italian, idiocy or stupidity. As to
beans, I have already remarked, in my work upon "Nuptial Usages," upon
their symbolical meaning, and cited the Russian and Piedmontese custom
of putting a black and a white bean into the cake eaten at Epiphany, one
of which represents the male and the other the female, one the king and
the other the queen. The two who find the beans kiss each other with
joyful auguries. As all these vegetables personify the moon, which we
know to be considered as a giver of abundance, and which, by its form of
a turning ball, can well be represented by the turning pea, in this
personification we must search for the solution of the principal myths
relating to vegetables.--The young prince of the Esthonian story, having
obtained the stranger's favour in the gloomy forest by means of the
peas, engages himself in his service, with intent to deliver the girl
who had freed him by taking his place with the stranger during eighteen
years. He therefore follows him; but on the way he lets a pea fall to
the ground from time to time, in order to know the way back. He is
conducted by a strange and wild subterranean passage, where silence as
of the tomb reigns--it is, in fact, the kingdom of the dead--where birds
have the appearance of wishing to sing, dogs to bark, and oxen to low,
but cannot, and where the water flows without a murmur. The young prince
feels in his heart a kind of anguish; the universal stillness in the
midst of animated beings oppresses him. Having passed the region of
silence, they come to that of deafening noise. The young prince thinks
he hears the excruciating din of twenty-four saws at work; but the old
stranger tells him that it is only his grandmother who has fallen
asleep, and is snoring. At last they come to the stranger's dwelling,
where the prince finds the beautiful maiden, but the old stranger will
not let him speak. He sees in the stable a white horse and a black cow,
with a white or luminous-headed calf. This cow the young prince is
ordered to milk until there is not a drop of milk in its breast; instead
of milking it with his fingers, he, by the advice of the girl, uses for
that purpose red-hot pincers. Another time the youth is told to lead
away the enchanted calf with the white or luminous head. In order that
it may not escape, the girl gives him a magic thread, of which one end
is to be tied to the left leg of the calf, and the other to the little
toe of the prince's left foot.--The little finger, although the
smallest, is the most privileged of the five. It is the one that knows
everything; and in Piedmont, when the mothers wish to make their
children believe that they are in communication with a mysterious spy,
who sees everything that they do, they are accustomed to awe them by the
words, "My little finger tells me everything."--At last the two young
people resolve to flee. Before starting, the prince splits open the
forehead of the white-headed calf; from its skull comes forth an
enchanted little red ball, which shines like a small sun. He wraps it
up, leaving part of it uncovered to light the way, and flees away with
the girl. Being followed by malignant spirits, who are sent by the old
man to follow them, the two fugitives, by means of the enchanted little
ball (or pearl), turned round three times, become, first the one a pond
and the other a fish, then the one a rose-bush and the other a rose,
then again the one a breeze and the other a gnat, until the stone which
covers the entrance to the subterranean world having been lifted up,
they arrive again safe and happy upon the earth; and by means of the
little red ball, they show themselves to mankind in splendid and
princely robes. I scarcely think it necessary to explain to the reader
the sense of this lucid mythical story. The black cow which produces the
calf with the white or luminous head is a Vedic antithesis which we have
already seen;[347] the cow (night) produces the calf (the moon). The
prince takes the little red ball out of the calf; by means of this ball,
the girl is delivered from the regions of gloom. The little ball moves
the stone; the sun and the aurora come out together from the mountain,
after having travelled together in the kingdom of shadows; the sun
delivers the aurora. This story unites together and puts in order
several myths of an analogous character, but born separately.
The three next stories describe other voyages made by the solar hero to
heaven, or in hell, and end by meaning the same thing. In the eighteenth
story we again find the enchanted ring, called Solomon's ring, which the
young hero goes to search for; when he finds it, by taking it from the
daughter of hell, and puts it on his finger, he is of a sudden endowed
with such strength that he can split a rock with one blow of his fist.
The little red ball of the story just described, which lifts up the
rock, and this ring which splits the stone, represent the same mythical
object, _i.e._, the sun, the sun's ball or disc.
The twenty-first story shows us the fearless hero who frees a castle
from the presence of the demons, and who thus gains a treasure; riches
are the reward of valour.
The twentieth Esthonian story is a variation of the exceedingly
popular tale of Blue Beard, the killer of his wives. The Esthonian
monster-husband has already killed eleven, and is about to murder the
twelfth, by way of punishing her for having, against his express
prohibition, visited the secret room opened by the golden key (perhaps
the moon), when a youth who takes care of the goslings, the friend of
her childhood, comes to deliver her. From the subject itself, and the
expressions used in this story, we can discover the origin of the
terrible charivari in the nuptials of widowers or widows. This savage
custom is intended not only to deride the lust of the old man or woman
who marries again, but to warn the girl who marries the one, or the
youth who marries the other, of the possibility of a fate similar to
the first wife or husband. When, therefore, the wife _apatighnî_ (who
does not kill her husband) is praised to the Vedic husband, we must
understand that the _patighnî_ (or killer of her husband) is a widow,
whom no one must marry, as being suspected of murder. Hence, to free
herself from this suspicion, an honest Hindoo wife (like Gudrun in the
Edda) was to throw herself into the fire after the death of her
husband; the evening aurora, after the death of the sun, dies too.
In the twenty-second story we have once more the myth of the young
pastoral hero; he is the son of a king. By the order of his
step-mother, a witch, who carries off shepherds, steals him from the
palace during his infancy, and abandons him in a solitary place, where
he is brought up by cowherds, and becomes himself an excellent
cowherd. An old man finds him and says, looking at him and at the
cattle, "Thou dost not seem to me born to remain a cowherd." The boy
answers that he knows he was born to command, and adds, "Here I learn
the duties of a commander by anticipation. If things go well with the
quadrupeds, I shall also prosper with bipeds." The shepherd is
therefore a little king; a good shepherd will become a good king. The
boy goes through several adventures, in which he displays his valour.
A wicked German lady wishes to take from him the strawberries which he
has plucked. He defends himself bravely; his mistress persecutes him;
and he takes twelve wolves, shuts them up in a cavern, and each day
gives them a lamb to eat, in order to avenge himself upon his wicked
mistress, to whom he simply says that the wolves have devoured them.
At last he causes her to be devoured herself by the wolves, who eat
her all up, leaving only the heart (the sun) and the tongue, which are
too full of venom for the wolves of the night, because they burn their
mouths. At the age of eighteen, the youth has several other
adventures. He becomes enamoured of a gardener's daughter, and is
found again by the king his father, who, before allowing him to marry
the beautiful gardener's daughter, wishes to prove that they are
predestined to each other. He cuts a ring in two with his sword, and
gives one part to the young prince and the other to the maiden; the
two halves must be preserved by both, and one day they will meet of
themselves and form again the whole ring, in such a manner that it
will be impossible to find the place where it was broken.--In a Tuscan
story, the beautiful maiden gives half her necklace to the third
brother. The young couple lose each other; their meeting again and
mutual recognition take place when the two parts of the necklace join
each other. The use of the wedding-ring has a mythical origin. The
solar (and sometimes the lunar disc) is the ring which unites the
heavenly husband and wife.--When, after other adventures, the two
young people of the Esthonian story join together the two halves of
their ring, their misfortunes come to an end; they marry and live
together happily, whilst the cruel step-mother, who meanwhile has
become a widow, is expelled from the kingdom.
The last Esthonian story tells of the extraordinary births, in the same
day, of a handsome prince and a beautiful princess. The princess is born
in a bird's egg, laid like a pearl in the bosom of the queen; she has at
first the form of a living puppet, and afterwards, when warmed in wool,
she becomes a real girl. Whilst she undergoes this transformation, the
queen also gives birth to a beautiful boy. The two children are
considered as twins, and baptized together. To the baptism of the girl
there comes as godmother, in a splendid chariot drawn by six horses, a
young woman dressed in rose-coloured and golden robes, who shines like
the sun, and who, as she lets her veil drop, like the beautiful Argive
Helen, fills the bystanders with admiration. [The aurora, who, before
appearing in the form of a beautiful girl, is enclosed in the wood of
the forest, is a wooden puppet, and becomes a wooden puppet once more
when, fleeing from the sun, she hides herself in a creeping-plant, like
the Hindoo Urvaçî (the first of the dawns), or in a laurel-plant, like
the Hellenic Daphne (the Vedic Dahanâ-aurora). The aurora is born
together with the sun; the beautiful doll-maiden is born with the little
prince. The mother and the beneficent godmother seem to be the moon, or
a more ancient aurora.] The mother, dying, leaves her daughter, putting
it upon her breast, a gem which is to bring her happiness; that is, the
little basket which contained the bird's egg, with the eggshell itself.
By means of the magical little basket, and by pronouncing some magic
words, the maiden can find all that she searches or wishes for. The
young man and woman end by marrying each other, having discovered that,
although both born of a king, they are children of different fathers;
they marry, and the little basket of happiness mysteriously disappears.
FOOTNOTES:
[267] _Anquetil du Perron, Zendavesta_, ii. p. 545.
[268] Misit itaque Deus justissimus citissime Angelum Behman quasi
esset fumus (jubendo): Ito et bovem rubrum accipiens mactato in nomine
Dei qui prudentiam dat; eumque coquito in aceto veteri, et cave
accurate facias, allio ac rutâ, superadditis; et in nomine Dei ex olla
effundito: deinde coram eo adpone ut comedat. Cumque portiunculam
panis in íllud friasset, Diabolus ille maledictus inde aufugit, abiit,
evanuit et disparuit, nec deinde, illum aliquis postea vidit;
_Sadder_, p. 94.--The Russian peasants still believe that a household
devil, the damavoi, enters into the stable, who, during the night,
mounts on horses and oxen and makes them sweat and grow lean.--Cfr.
also, on the _Damavoi_, Ralston's _Songs of the Russian people_,
London, 1872, pp. 119-139.
[269] Cfr. Spiegel's _Avesta_, vol. ii.; _Einleitung_, vii.
[270] Cfr. Spiegel's _Avesta_, vol. ii. 21.
[271] x. 11.
[272] xxix.
[273] Cfr. Spiegel's _Avesta_, vol. ii. p. 8.
[274] xix. 99-101. Professor Spiegel translates "Mit dem Hunde, mit
Entscheidung, mit Vieh, mit Stärke, mit Tugend, diese bringt die
Seelen der Reinen über den Harabezaiti hinweg: über die Brücke Chinvat
bringt sie das Heer der himmlischen Yazatas."
[275] Cows and calves, as a funeral gift, are spoken of in the _Khorda
Avesta_, li. 15, Spiegel's version.
[276] Cfr. also the Tistrya with a whole eye of the _Khorda Avesta_ of
Spiegel, p. 9, and all the _Tistar Yast_ in the _Khorda Avesta_, xxiv.
If Tistar is the moon, Tistrya would appear to perform the same duties
as the good fairy--that is, of showing, by means of her good eyes, her
good eyesight, and her splendour, the way to the lost heroes. The
Hindoo cow of Vasishthas, which yields every good thing, and which
then fights in the clouds against Viçvâmitras, would sometimes appear
to be the moon veiled by the rainy cloud; thus we can explain the
rain-giving character of the star Tistrya, which, according to the
_Bundehesh_, by raining ten days and ten nights, destroyed the
monsters of dryness created by the demon Agro-mainyus.
[277] xxxix. 1.
[278] xvii. 25.
[279] Spiegel's version, p. 149.--Cfr. the three litanies for the body
and soul of the cow, in the fragments of the same vol. p. 254.
[280] _Khorda Avesta_, Spiegel's version, _Einl._ x.
[281] Spiegel's version, p. 4.
[282] These are the exact terms used by Spiegel:--"Dieser opferte der
frühere Vifra-navâza, als ihn aufrief der siegreiche, starke
Thraetaona, in der Gestalt eines Vogels, eines Kahrkâça. Dieser flog
dort während dreier Tage und dreier Nächte hin zu seiner eigenen
Wohnung, nicht abwärts, nicht abwärts gelangte er genährt. Er ging
hervor gegen die Morgenröthe der dritten Nacht, der starken, beim
Zerfliessen der Morgenröthe und betete zur Ardvî Çûra, der
fleckenlosen; Ardvî Çûra, fleckenlose! eile mir schnell zu Hülfe,
bringe nun mir Beistand, ich will dir tausend Opfer mit Haoma und
Fleisch versehene, gereinigte, wohl ausgesuchte, bringen hin zu dem
Wasser Ragha, wenn ich lebend hinkomme zu der von Ahura geschaffenen
Erde, hin zu meiner Wohnung. Es lief herbei Ardvî Çûra, die
fleckenlose, in Gestalt eines schönen Mädchens, eines sehr kräftigen,
wohlgewachsenen, aufgeschürzten, reinen, mit glänzendem Gesichte,
edlen, unten am Fusse mit Schuhen bekleidet, mit goldnem Diadem auf
dem Scheitel. Diese ergriff ihm am Arme, bald war das, nicht lange
dauerte es, dass er hinstrebte kräftig zu von Ahura geschaffenen Erde,
gesund, so unverletzt als wie vorher, zu seiner eignen Wohnung;"
_Khorda Avesta_, pp. 51, 52.
[283] Welche zuerst den Wagen fährt; _Khorda Avesta_, Spiegel's
version, p. 45.
[284] Professor Spiegel says, however, "Vom Aufgang der Sonne bis
Tagesanbruch," which in a note he explains, "Vom Sonnenaufgang bis
Mitternacht," which it appears to us cannot stand scrutiny, any more
than the conclusion inferred from this, that the sacrifice was to be
made "den ganzen Tag hindurch." Zarathustra would not have been obliged
to ask the precise time at which to sacrifice to the goddess, if she was
to answer him in such a general way. What occasion is there to pray in
midday, in full daylight, that the darkness may be dispersed?--If there
be any equivoque, it can only be, in my opinion, in the rather frequent
exchange of the maiden Aurora and the fairy Moon.
[285] Cfr. _Khorda Avesta_, Spiegel's version, pp. 7, 27.
[286] xix. 52.
[287] Cfr. the chapter which treats of the Cock.
[288] Cfr. _Khorda Avesta_, Spiegel's version, _Einl._ xxv., and all
the important _Mirh Yast_, or collection of hymns in honour of Mithra,
in the _Khorda Avesta_, xxvi.
[289] Cfr. _Khorda Avesta_, Spiegel's version, _Einl._ xxxiii., and the
_Bahrâm Yast_ in the _Khorda Avesta_, xxx. 7, Spiegel's version. It is
then that he says of himself, "As to strength, I am the strongest."
Further on it is said that strength belongs to the bull (or the cow).
[290] In a hymn, Indras even calls himself Uçanâ, with the added
denomination of kavis; Aham kaviruçanâ: _Rigv._ iv. 26, 1.
[291] _Vendidad_, xxii. 11.
[292] Chap. ix.
[293] Cfr. _Farvardin Yast_ in the _Khorda Avesta_, xxix. 30,
Spiegel's version.
[294] Cfr. _Khorda Avesta_, Spiegel's version, _Einleit._ xxxiv., and
the _Râm Yast_ in the _Khorda Avesta_, xxxi. 40.--The 57th strophe
appears to be a real Vedic hymn to the Marutas; the wind is celebrated
as the strongest of the strong, the swiftest of the swift, having arms
and ornaments of gold, a golden wheel and a golden chariot; his golden
shoes and his girdle of gold besides show his sympathy and relation
with the Ardvî Çûra Anâhita, who, in the form of aurora, is referred
to in the 55th strophe.
[295] Cfr. _Khorda Avesta_, p. lxix.
[296] Cfr. ibid. p. lxi.
[297] Denn Verethraghna, der von Ahura geschaffene, hält die Hände
zurück der furchtbaren Kampfesreihen, der verbündeten Länder und der
mithratrügenden Menschen, er umhüllt ihr Gesicht, verhüllt ihre Ohren,
nicht lässt er ihre Füsse ausschreiten, nicht sind sie mächtig;
_Khorda Avesta._ xxx. 63, Spiegel's version.
[298] Cfr. the _Mihr Yast_ in the _Khorda Avesta_, xxvi. 128, 129.
[299] Cfr. ibid.
[300] Urvâksha is also called the accumulator; _Khorda Avesta_, xl. 3,
Spiegel's version.
[301] _Khorda Avesta_, p. 155.
[302] _Khorda Avesta_, xxxiii., Spiegel's version.
[303] Mögest du reich an Rindern sein wie (der Sohn) de Athvyânischen
(clanes); _Khorda Avesta_, xl. 4, Spiegel's version.
[304] Soll ich zum Himmel aufsteigen, soll ich in die Erde kriechen?
Darauf entgegnete Ahura Mazda: Schöne Ashi, vom Schöpfer geschaffene!
steige nicht zum Himmel auf, krieche nicht in die Erde; gehe du hieher
in die Mitte der Wohnung eines schönen Königs; _Khorda Avesta_,
xxxiii. 59, 60, Spiegel's version.--Cfr. xxxiv. 3, and following,
where are celebrated the handsome husband of the beautiful Ashis and
his rich kingdom.
[305] Die Stierkopfkeule in der Rechten schwingend; Schack,
_Heldensagen von Firdusi_, iv. 2.--Cfr. viii. 9.
[306] Die Donnerwolke bin ich, die Blitzeskeule schleudert; Schack,
_Heldensagen von Firdusi_, v. 5.
[307] Die Diwe (the demons) pflegen um Mittagszeit zur Ruhe sich zu
legen; das ist die Stunde sie zu besiegen. Nicht eher schreitet Rustem
zu der That, bis sich die Sonne hoch erhoben hat; _Schack, Heldensagen
von Firdusi_, v. 5.
[308] Ist's Rustem? ist es nicht die Sonne, die durch Morgenwolken
bricht? _Schack, Heldensagen von Firdusi_, vii. 2.
[309] Indeed, this undertaking seems to the ferryman himself so
supernatural, that he says these cannot be called men: "In Wahrheit,
Menschen kann man sie nicht heissen." _Schack, Heldensagen von
Firdusi_, x. 27.
[310] Cfr. Spiegel's _Die Alexandersage bei den Orientale_, Leipzig,
1851; and Zacher's _Pseudocallisthenes, Forschungen zur Kritik und
Geschichte der ältesten Aufzeichnung der Alexandersage_, Halle, 1867.
[311] Georg Rosen's version, Leipzig, Brockhaus, 1858, 2 vols.
[312] Bernhard Jülg's version, Innsbruck, 1867-1868.
[313] i. 5.
[314] i. 6.
[315] _Tuti-Name_, i. 7.
[316] _Tuti-Name_, i. 13.
[317] _Tuti-Name_, i. 14.--Cfr. Afanassieff, _Narodnija ruskija
skaski_, vi. 23.
[318] iii. 27.
[319] ii. 17.
[320] _Tuti-Name_, ii. 19.
[321] ii. 21.
[322] ii. 28.
[323] This story was current in Italy as early as the fifteenth
century, having been related to her son by the mother of the
philosopher and man of letters Pontano, as I find from his biography,
published last year by Professor Tallarigo (Sanseverino-Marche).
[324] ii. 21.
[325] _Tuti-Name_, ii. 25.
[326] ii. 24.
[327] ii. 26.
[328] ii. 28.
[329] ii. 29.
[330] ii. 29.
[331] Cfr. also the chapter on the Hog, where we shall expound the
myths and legends relating to disguises.
[332] Cfr. also the chapters on the Lion and the Fox.
[333] Cfr. on the story of Perrette, an interesting essay of Professor
Max Müller in the _Contemporary Review_, 1870.
[334] Radloff, _Proben der Volkslitteratur der Türkischen Stämme
süd-Sibiriens_.
[335] Professor Schiefner has already compared with this passage a story
published by Ahlquist in his _Versuch einer Mokscha-Mordwinischen
Grammatik_, p. 97.
[336] Kasan, 1836, quoted by Professor Schiefner in the introduction
to the _Proben_, &c., of Radloff.
[337] Cfr., for the meaning of this myth, the chapter which treats of
the Hare.
[338] _Rune_, 7.--Cfr. Castren's _Kleinere Schriften_, Petersburg,
1862, and the French translation of the _Kalevala_, published in 1867
by Leouzon le Duc.
[339] I find combined in the _Kleinere Schriften_ of Castren (p. 25)
the same _Ukko_ with the word _Kave_ (_Kave Ukko_). I would with
diffidence ask the learned Finnish philologists, whether, as _Ukko_ is
a Finnish form of the deity whom the Hindoos called Indras, and as the
hero protected by Indras, the hero in whom Indras is reproduced, is
called in the Vedic (and Iranian) tradition _Kâvya Uçanâ_, or even
_Uçanâ Kavis_, the words _Kave Ukko_ may not have some relation to the
name given to the Vedic and Iranian hero?
[340] Väinämöinen, alt und wahrhaft, konnt durch ihn die Eiche fällen;
_Kal._ 24, in Castren's _Kleinere Schriften_, p. 233.
[341] Nur aus Trauer ward die Harfe, nur aus Kummer sie geschaffen;
harten Tagen ist die Wölbung, ist das Stammholz zu verdanken, nur
Verdruss spannt ihre Saiten, andre Mühsal macht die Wirbel;
_Kanteletar_, i., quoted by Castren in the _Kleinere Schriften_, p. 277.
[342] The origin of the bad and poor mythical iron, described in the
_Kalevala_, is one of these: the mythical iron is the cloudy or
tenebrous sky. The description is original, but the myths to which it
refers are known to Indo-Europeans; as, for instance, the honey which
becomes poison.
[343] _Ehsthnische Märchen_ aufgezeichnet von Fried. Kreuzwald, aus
dem Ehsthnischen, übersetzt von F. Löwe, with notes by A. Schiefner
and R. Köhler, Halle, 1869.
[344] This is the phenomenon which occurs in the winter solstice on
Christmas Eve and that of New Year's Day, in which we pass from one
year to another; in one night we become older by a year.
[345] In a popular Swedish song, the maiden Gundela, who plays
marvellously upon the harp, and, in order to play it, demands the king
to marry her, is also a shepherdess.--Cfr. _Schwedische Volkslieder
der Vorzeit_, übertragen von Warrens, Leipzig, Brockhaus, 1857.
[346] Cfr. the note of F. Löwe, illustrating this passage, in his
version of the collection of Kreuzwald, pp. 144 and 145.--[This is
also a myth of easy interpretation, if I am not mistaken: at evening,
the sun loses his rays; the lion, the hero, loses his nails; these
nails are picked up by the demoniacal monster, who forms out of them a
hat (the gloom of night, or the clouds), by which the wearer has the
gift of seeing without being seen. The magician who sees with his eyes
shut is an interesting variation of this subject.]
[347] A similar antithesis is found in a Hungarian proverb,
communicated to me by my learned friend Count Geza Kunn, together with
other notices of Hungarian beliefs relating to animals. This proverb
is as follows: "Even the black cow's milk is white." The black cow is
spoken of in two other Hungarian proverbs; one says, "The black cow
has not trodden upon his heel," meaning that no misfortune has
happened to him; it is the usual vulnerable heel, the heel of
Achilles, the posterior part, for which is substituted sometimes, as
we shall see in the chapter on the Fox and the Serpent, the tail or
extreme hind part. Another proverb is, "In the dark all cows are
black;" but it does not seem to have any mythical importance.