The legend of Vahakn, king and god of Armenians, is very clearly
attributable to the Greek period, which followed the Persian conquest
under Xerxes. Vahakn was deified because of his great valor and made
the fire-god of the Armenian people. [22] He was called "Vishapakagh,"
uprooter of dragons, since he cleared Armenia of monsters and saved
it from evil influences. His exploits were known in the abode of the
gods as well as in Armenia. The most famous of them was the theft of
corn from the barns of King Barsham of Assyria, from whom he ran away
and tried to hide in heaven. Because of the ears he dropped in his
rapid flight, there arose the Milky Way which is called in Armenian
the "track of the corn stealer." [23]
Moses of Khorene writes as follows:
Concerning the birth of this king the legends say,
"Heaven and earth were in travail,
And the crimson waters were in travail,
And in the water, the crimson reed
Was also in travail.
From the mouth of the reed issued smoke,
From the mouth of the reed issued flame,
And out of the flame sprang the young child,
His hair was of fire, a beard had he of flame,
And his eyes were suns." [24]
With our own ears did we hear these words sung to the accompaniment
of the harp. They sing moreover that he did fight with the dragons,
and overcame them; and some say that his valiant deeds were like
unto Hercules. Others declare that he was a god, and that a great
image of him stood in the land of Georgia, where it was worshipped,
with sacrifices. [25]
The wife of Vahakn was Astghik, the goddess of beauty, a
personification of the moon, corresponding to the Phoenician and
Sidonian Astarte. This is suggestive of Greek influence, for Venus, the
Greek goddess of beauty, was also the wife of a fire-god, Vulcan. [26]
The flight of Vahakn before the Assyrian king is certainly more
suggestive of the fear in which the Assyrians must have been regarded
than of the valor of their god. The originators of the legend were
good psychologists, however, in regarding the instincts of fear and
of pugnacity as compatible. For even the slayer of demons must some
day face his superiors in strength, and when he does, will he not be
afraid? In fact he would be more afraid than another, for he could
not well impute more mercy to his superior than he himself had shown
to his inferiors.
The vein of humor is too rich to be left unnoted. If the Greeks could
laugh at their gods, and even mock them, the Armenians could also
make sport of them. For what could be more delightfully humorous than
the picture of a bearded god, a slayer of dragons, whose hair was
of flame and whose eyes like suns, stealing corn from the Assyrian
king and dropping the ears from his shoulders in his hasty flight
across heaven? The character thus brought out, together with the
richness of imaginative quality, especially in the song of his birth,
the wholesome and unveiled anthropomorphism (wholesome because it is
unveiled), and the correspondence between the Greek fire-god Vulcan
whose wife was Venus, the goddess of beauty, with the fire-god Vahakn
whose wife Astghik was also goddess of beauty, stamp the legend with
its unmistakable origin in Greek mythology.