"Although the triads in their actual form hardly date further than
the thirteenth or fourteenth century, some of them are undoubtedly
connected with very ancient traditions, and nothing here points to a
borrowing from Genesis.
"But it is not so, perhaps, with another triad[52] speaking of the
vessel Nefydd-naf-Neifion, which at the time of the overflow of
Llyn-llion, bore a pair of all living creatures, and rather too much
resembles the ark of Noah. The very name of the patriarch may have
suggested this triple epithet, obscure as to its meaning, but
evidently formed on the principle of Cymric alliteration. In the
same triad we have the enigmatic story of the horned oxen (_ychain
bannog_) of Hu the mighty, who drew out of Llyn-llion the _avanc_
(beaver or crocodile?) in order that the lake should not overflow.
The meaning of these enigmas could only be hoped from deciphering
the chaos of bardic monuments of the Welsh middle age; but meanwhile
we cannot doubt that the Cymri possessed an indigenous tradition of
the Deluge."
We also find a vestige of the same tradition in the Scandinavian
Ealda.[53] But here the story is combined with a cosmogonic myth. The
three sons of Borr, Othin, Wili, and We, grandsons of Buri, the first
man, slay Ymir, the father of the Hrimthursar or Ice giants, and his
body serves them for the construction of the world. Blood flows from his
wounds in such abundance that all the race of giants is drowned in it,
except Bergelmir, who saves himself, with his wife, in a boat, and
reproduces the race. "Thus," Pictet again observes, "the myth only
belongs to the general tradition through these last features, by which,
however, we trace it up to a common source."
Of all European peoples the Lithuanians were the last to embrace
Christianity, and their language remains nearest to the original Aryan.
They have a legend of the Deluge, the groundwork of which appears very
ancient, although it has assumed the simple character of a popular tale,
and some of its details may have been borrowed from Genesis at the time
of the first Christian missions. According to it[54] the god Pramzimras,
seeing the whole earth to be full of iniquity, sends two giants, Wandu
and Wejas (fire and wind), to lay it waste. These overthrew everything
in their fury, and only a few men saved themselves on a mountain.
Pramzimras, who was engaged in eating celestial walnuts, dropped a shell
near the mountain, and in it the men took refuge, the giants respecting
it. Having escaped from the calamity, they afterwards disperse, and only
one very aged couple remain in the country, greatly bewailing their
childless condition. Pramzimras, to console them, sends his rainbow and
bids them jump "on the bones of the earth," which curiously recalls the
oracle to Deucalion. The two old people jump nine times, and nine pairs
are the result, who became the ancestors of the nine Lithuanian tribes.