Zoological Mythology Volume I Part 21

In the _Ramaya?am_, the two brothers Ramas and Lakshma?as are compared to the Acvinau, to the sun and moon, as similar the one to the other; and their reciprocal love reminds us of that of the Acvinau.[601] Ramas and Lakshma?as are always at peace with each other; there is, however, a pa.s.sage which may serve as a link to connect the myth of the two friendly brothers and that of the two hostile ones. When Ramas combats alone in the forest thousands of monsters, Lakshma?as stays with Sita, hidden in a cavern.

But the _Ramaya?am_ itself shows us the two brothers in open strife in the legend of the two brothers Balin and Sugrivas, children of the sun, beauteous as the two Acvinau, so perfectly like one another that it is impossible to distinguish one from the other; and so that when Ramas, to please Sugrivas, wishes to kill Balin, he does not know which to strike, until Sugrivas puts a garland on his head as a sign of recognition.[602]

Once Balin and Sugrivas were intimate friends, but, on account of a woman, they became mortal enemies. Sugrivas complains that Balin, his elder brother, has deprived him of his wife Ruma;[603] but it is not certain that Sugrivas did not rather steal Balin's wife. Balin seems especially to represent the evening sun; the _Ramaya?am_[604] says of him that, while the sun is not risen (_i.e._, in the night), he is unweariedly pa.s.sing from the western to the eastern ocean; by this is described the supposed voyage of the sun in the ocean of night, in the grotto or the darkness. When Balin is in the grotto, he is betrayed by his brother Sugrivas. The two brothers, Balin and Sugrivas, while still friends, set out together to follow the monster Mayavin (the brother of Dundubhis, who, in the _Ramaya?am_ itself,[605] fights in the shape of a demoniacal buffalo against Balin, near the entrance of the cave). The moon rises to show them the way. The monster escapes into the cavern, upon which Balin enters and follows him, whilst Sugrivas remains without, awaiting his return. After waiting a long time, Sugrivas sees blood flow out of the cave (in a.n.a.logous legends, instead of blood, it is a treasure, or else a princess or a beautiful maiden comes out in s.h.i.+ning garments). This is the blood of the monster, killed by Balin; but Sugrivas believes it to be that of his brother Balin. He returns home, and showing his sorrow in public, declares that Balin is dead, and allows himself to be consecrated king in his stead (probably also enjoying with the crown the wife of his brother). Meanwhile Balin, after having killed the monster Mayavin, endeavours to come out of the cavern, but he finds the entrance closed. Attributing at once this wicked action to the brother Sugrivas, he succeeds, after great efforts, in effecting an opening; he comes out, returns to the palace, and expels Sugrivas from it, whom he persecutes ever after.[606] Even Angadas, Balin's son, irritated one day with Sugrivas, accuses him of having once shut up his brother Balin in the cave, in order to possess himself of the latter's wife.

In the _Avesta_, the name and the myth of Kerecacpa seems to me to be of special interest. To the Zend word _kerecacpa_ corresponds the Sansk?it _k?icacvas_ (the name of a warlike ?is.h.i.+s and hero), that is, he of the lean horse. The hero Kerecacpa has, in the _Avesta_, a brother called Urvaksha (a word which is perhaps the same as _urvacpa_, and, if this equivalence is admitted, _urvaksha_ would mean him of the fat or great horse, of the heroic horse.[607] We have already noticed that the Vedic and Slavonic hero begins his fortune with an ugly and bad horse; the hero Kerecacpa, too, of the two brothers of the Zend myth, is the good, the heroic, and truly glorious one. His brother, Urvaksha, according to a Pa.r.s.ee tradition,[608] was banished to h.e.l.l because he had struck the fire which did not obey his commands (the evening sun which descends into the infernal night); Kerecacpa avenges him. This is evidently a Persian form of the myth of the Dioscuri, who, as it seems to me, reappear once more in the two Zend brothers, Gustacp and Acpayaodha (he who fights with the horse).

In the epic poem of Firdusi, the two brothers Piran and Pilsem, who fight together against the Turanians, and of whom the former and elder delivers the latter and younger from the dangers that he is exposed to among the enemies, seem to me re-embodiments of the same myth.

We find the cloudy or tenebrous sky of night represented in the _?igvedas_ and in the _Avesta_ as acman, or mountain of stone. When the evening sun falls upon the mountain, it turns to stone, and the whole sky a.s.sumes the colour of this mountain. When the hero of the popular story follows the monster, the latter hides under a rock; the hero lifts up the rock and descends into the grotto, that is, hides himself in the mountain of stone, or is turned to stone, and if he has a horse, it undergoes the same transformation.

In the story of Merhuma, who is stoned (the aurora lost in the mountain of stone), in the _Tuti-Name_,[609] we have the brother possessed by a demon, who seduces the wife of his brother, who is travelling abroad. In that of Mansur, in the same _Tuti-Name_,[610] the monstrous Fari a.s.sumes the very shape of the absent husband, and succeeds in seducing his wife.

In another story in the _Tuti-Name_,[611] two brothers, finding themselves deceived in their expectations, set out together, each, for love of the other, wandering about the world in search of a better fate.

These are three forms of the myth of the Acvinau. With them is connected the story of the maiden who comes out of the wood, of whom as many men, when she appears, become enamoured.[612]

The fifth Calmuck story (of Hindoo origin) is unmistakably a reproduction of the myth of the Acvinau, even to the very mythical names themselves. The king, Kun-snang (he who illumines all, like the Vedic Vicvavedas and the Slavonic Vsievedas, the all-seer), has by two different mothers two sons--Sunlight (born in the year of the tiger; perhaps in the sol-leo, in July, in summer, under the solar influence) and Moonlight. The second wife does not love her step-son Sunlight, and persecutes him, but the two brothers are devoted to each other, and when Sunlight goes into exile (like Ramas), Moonlight follows him (as Lakshma?as follows Ramas, as the white lunar twilight follows the sun in the forest of night). On the way, Moonlight is thirsty; Sunlight goes to find water for him, but in the meantime Moonlight dies.[613] Sunlight returns, and is in despair at the sight of his dead brother; however, a hermit has pity upon him, and, having resuscitated Moonlight, adopts the two brothers as his own sons. Near his abode there is a kingdom where the dragons keep back the waters, unless they are given a young man born in the year of the tiger. It oozes out that Sunlight is such a young man, and he is led away to the king of that country. The daughter of the king falls in love with him, and begs Sunlight not to be given to the dragons. The king is furious against his daughter, and has her thrown with Sunlight into the swamp where the dragons are.[614] The young couple break out into such piteous lamentations, that the dragons are touched, and let Sunlight and the young princess go free. When free, they find Moonlight, who also becomes the husband of the beautiful princess, the two brothers being inseparable, like the Vedic Acvinau.

The three personages (white twilight, or white moonlight, aurora, and sun) return together into the kingdom of their birth, where, upon seeing them arrive, Sunlight's step-mother (Night) dies of terror. Here the legend has all its mythical splendour.

In the sixteenth Mongol story, on the contrary, the friends.h.i.+p of the two companions cannot last, because of the perfidy of one of them; while they are travelling in the forest, the minister's son kills the king's son.

In the history of _Ards.h.i.+-Bords.h.i.+_, the two men born in the palace are so like each other in everything, in shape, complexion, dress, and horses, that they cannot be distinguished one from the other; hence they dispute between themselves for the possession of everything, of wife and sons. One is made like the other by witchcraft; he is the son of a demon; and it is the marvellous king of the children who discovers the secret.[615]

This exchange of husbands, or heroes, by means of demoniacal craft, often occurs in European fairy-tales, like the exchange of wives. The demon is now a water-carrier, now a washerman, now a woodcutter, now a charcoal-burner, now a gipsy, now a Saracen, and now the devil _in propria persona_.

The Russian fairy-tales show us the two forms of the two brothers or companions, _i.e._, the two that remain friends _usque ad mortem_, and the friend betrayed by his perfidious companion.

We find a zoological form of the legend of the two friends in one of Afana.s.sieff's stories. The horse delivers the child of one of his masters from the bear, upon which his grateful masters feed him better, whereas before they had almost let him die of starvation. The horse (the sun) remembers in prosperity his companion in misfortune, the cat (the moon), who is also allowed to starve, and gives it a part of what he receives from his masters. The latter perceive this, and again ill-treat the horse, who then forms the resolution of killing himself, in order that the cat may eat him; but the cat refuses to eat his friend the horse,[616] and is also determined to die.

The two brothers who, because they have eaten one the head and the other the heart of a duck, are predestined, in _Afana.s.sieff_,[617]

one to be king and the other to spit gold, flee from their perfidious mother (probably step-mother), who persecutes them in their father's absence. They meet with a cowherd taking his cows to the pasturage, and are hospitably entertained by him. Then, continuing their journey, they come to a place where two roads meet, where, upon a pillar, this is written, "He who goes to the right (to the east) will become a king; he who goes to the left (to the west, into the kingdom of Kuveras, the western sun, the G.o.d of riches; when the sun rises in the east the moon goes down in the west) will become rich." One goes to the right; when it is morning, he rises, washes, and dresses himself.

He learns that the old king is dead (the old sun), and that funeral honours are being paid to him in church. A decree says that he whose candle lights of itself will be the new Tzar.[618] The Vedic G.o.d also has the distinctive attribute of this wonderful candle, that of being lighted by himself, of s.h.i.+ning of himself, _i.e._, he is svabha.n.u.s.

The candle, therefore, of our youth predestined to be king lights of its own accord, and he is immediately proclaimed the new king. The daughter of the old king (the aurora) marries him, recognising in him her predestined husband, and makes with her golden ring (the solar disc) a mark upon his forehead (as Ramas does with Sita). The young man (the sun), after having remained some time with his bride (the aurora), wishes to go towards the part where his brother went (that is, to the left, to the west). He traverses for a long time different countries (_i.e._, the sun describes the whole arc of heaven which arches over the earth), and finds at last (in the western sky, towards the setting sun) his brother, who lives in great wealth. In his rooms whole mountains of gold arise; when he spits, all is gold; there is no place to put it,[619] (the evening sky is one ma.s.s of gold). The two brothers then set out together to find their poor old father (the sun during the night). The younger brother goes to find for himself a bride (probably the silvery moon), and the wicked mother (the step-mother, night) is forsaken. Here, too, the legend is entirely of a mythical character. In the two brothers we see now twilight and sun, now the two twilights, now the spring and autumnal lights, now the sun and the moon, but always the Acvinau, always two deities, two heavenly beings closely connected with the phenomena of the lunar and solar light.

And here allow me to say that I deem it enough for me to collect in one body legends which betray a common origin; as to explaining all mythology in the legends, this is beyond my power, and therefore outside my pretensions. I only point out, as I proceed, interpretations which I think come near the truth; but the objects embodied in mythology are so mobile and multiform, that, if grasped too tightly, they easily evaporate and disappear. Their richness consists in their very mobility and uncertainty. If the sun and moon were always seen in the same place, there would be no myths. The myths which originated the greatest number of legends are those which are founded upon the most fleeting phenomena of the sky.[620] The myth of the Acvinau cannot be solved by mathematical demonstrations, precisely on account of the uncertainty presented by the crepuscular light which probably gave rise to it. This continuous succession of shadows, penumbrae, chiaroscuri, and shades of light, from the black darkness to the silver moon, from the silver moon to the grey twilight of morning, which gradually melts into, and confounds itself with the dawn, from the dawn to the aurora, from the aurora to the sun; the same variations recurring, but inversely, in the evening, from the dying sun to the reddish and blood-coloured sky or evening aurora, from the evening aurora to the grey twilight, from the grey twilight to the silver moon, from the silver moon to the gloomy night,--this continual change of colours, which meet, unite with, and pa.s.s into each other, originated the idea of celestial companions, friends, or relations, who are now in unison and now separate, who now approach to love each other, to move together and affectionately follow each other, now rush upon each other to fight, despoil, betray, and destroy each other turn by turn, who now attract and are now attracted, are now seduced and now seducers, now cheated and now deceivers, now victims, now sacrificers. Where there is a family, there is love, hence come exemplary brothers, husbands, wives, sons, daughters, fathers, and mothers, full of tenderness; that is the obverse of the medal: where there are relations, there are disputes, hence contentions between brothers, out of jealousy in love, or envy of riches; perverse mothers-in-law, step-mothers, and sisters-in-law, tyrannous fathers, perfidious wives; that is the reverse. This contradiction of feelings is difficult to explain psychologically even in man; how much more, therefore, is it so when it has to be a.n.a.lysed in a mythical image, which a.s.sumes an animal form in one rapid flash of imagination, and then disappears? On this account, in the case of some myths, we must content ourselves with a general demonstration, at least until new and positive data appear, on which it may be possible to base, in a solid foundation, the real nature of the details of mythology. In the absence of these data, we can only offer probabilities, and not rules to the reader. As to the Vedic Acvinau, this much is certain: they are found in unison with their wife, the aurora, after having pa.s.sed through the dangers of night, or after having enabled the heroes protected by them--that is to say, their own heroic forms--to pa.s.s through them; they are two splendid brother-hors.e.m.e.n; and they are especially invoked in the first hours of morning. The myth in this Vedic form would not appear to be of dubious interpretation. The white moon and the sun take the aurora between them, that is, marry her; or else they present her in marriage to Somas (with whom one of the Acvinau, the white light or twilight, is in particular relation), in the quality of paranymphs. The aurora, in the morning, as well as in the evening, taken between the sun and the moon, disappears. One would think that the twilight and the sun present her together at the same time to the king or G.o.d Somas, or Lunus, for whom the daughter of the sun has affection. One would also think that she was especially united with the twilight, which is in especial relation with Somas, observing how in the morning the aurora immediately succeeds the twilight, and disappears when the sun shows himself, that is, rejoins the twilight and forsakes the sun; and how in the evening, when the sun hides himself, or when her husband is absent, she again unites herself with the twilight, with whom she again flees and disappears, to reappear once more with him in the morning. To continue; the absence of the sun during the night tormented the popular phantasy in several ways. As much as the aspect of the sky was negative with regard to the mythical hero--that is to say, as much as the hero or G.o.d hides himself from the view--just so much the more does popular imagination invest him with positive qualities and exalt his greatness. The greatest of all deities is that which is seen the least;--would that Roman Catholic priests understood this mythological truth! Indras and Zeus are great when within the thundering and lightning cloud. The sun becomes a hero when he loses himself in the darkness of night and in the cloud. But it is just at this very point that the demonstration of mythical particulars becomes more difficult, because the myths are now founded, not merely upon an external appearance or image, but often upon a simple subjective hypothesis; and while the ancient image, possessing an objectivity irrespective of the subject, can always be reconciled with the observation of the new celestial phenomena which reproduce it, the subjective hypothesis, being an individual phantasy, is lost. The demonstration is therefore possible only in the essential parts. When the sun was seen to disappear in the nocturnal sky, this sky appeared in the various aspects of an ocean, a mountain, a forest, a cavern, or a voracious monster which devoured the hero. But has the sun lost himself by accident, or has he been precipitated into the night by the aurora and her crepuscular lover, perfidiously united together, in order that they may have more freedom in their loves? This is a dilemma of which the two solutions originate a double series of legends,--the brother betrayed by the brother, and the hero who goes to succour his unfortunate brother fallen into the power of the monsters. The hour of day which the French indicate by the expressive phrase _entre chien et loup_, is the great epical hour of the fox, which partakes of the nature of the domestic dog and the savage wolf.

It is the hour of betrayals, of perfidies, of doubts, and mythical uncertainties. Who can tell whether the aurora is a widow by an accident which happens to her husband the sun, or whether she herself has betrayed him?--whether she has been a chaste and faithful Genevieve, or a perfidious and luxurious Helen? It is these very mythical doubts which have made the fortune and the charm of tradition, as they are the despair of mythologists. When, moreover, the sun is within the night, what can he do? According to the different aspect a.s.sumed by the night, the acts of the solar hero lost in it are modified, and these modifications can be explained without too great an effort of imagination; but, sometimes, the relations between the hero and his companions or brothers in the world of the dead, can only be conceived by means of poetical dreams. When the sun is seen to enter the obscure night in the evening, and to come out of it safe and sound in the morning, after having dispersed the darkness, it is natural to think that throughout the night he is singly intent upon killing the monster. The action of the princ.i.p.al hero is well defined, and therefore evident; and the reference is equally clear when the aurora is represented as experiencing the same fate as the sun, her husband or brother. They descend together into the night, which makes them invisible, and together emerge from it happily.

The myth becomes richer when the aurora throws herself into the arms of a rival of her husband, because the character of this rival is various.

Now he is a handsome youth who resembles the legitimate husband, either as the twilight or as Lunus; now he is a real demoniacal monster, the demon himself, the black night. In proportion to the variety of aspects and relations which the hero's rival a.s.sumes, does the myth become more complicated, and its interpretation more difficult; hence the story-tellers are often in the habit of interrupting their narrative by saying, "Now, let us leave this or that hero, and return to such or such another." These interruptions of the stories have their mythological reason. We can understand, for instance, how the aurora, or daughter of the sun, should be conceived of as, in a moment of feminine weakness, falling in love with the moon, which she sees on the other side of the heavens, and desirous of being conducted to him as his bride. We can understand how Lunus, reciprocating the love-glance of the aurora at the other extremity of the sky, should appear to be drawing her to himself, and wis.h.i.+ng to seduce her. We can also understand how now the moon, now the sun, appears to seduce the aurora and carry her off from her legitimate husband. In these cases the infidelity of the hero or the heroine is evident; but woe to him who attempts to carry the demonstration or the proof of this interpretation too far, for when the seducer and seduced, be the seducer male or female, are thought of as enjoying together the fruits of their perfidy, the myth must come to an end, as no one can conceive the possibility of the moon and the aurora living or doing anything together; no one can tell what the aurora and the twilight, phenomena appertaining exclusively to the morning and evening, and which only appear when the sun rises from the mountain, do together in the night. The phenomenon ceases, the mythical personages vanish too, and the story-teller breaks off his narrative, because he possesses no data upon which to continue it. And so with all the myths; they can only be explained on the condition that we do not insist upon explaining too much. We must therefore be contented to see the girl aurora carried off in the evening and the hero sun recover her in the morning, or to conceive of the aurora and the sun fleeing away together into the night, but we must not be too inquisitive as to the manner in which they do so. The moon, or good fairy, sometimes teaches them the way; but their nocturnal actions are but little seen into; those which are spoken of as performed by them at night refer either to the moment in which night begins, or to that in which it comes to an end. During the night they wander about until they see a light (the guiding moon or delivering light of day); they remain in the chest or cask thrown into the water until it is carried to the other sh.o.r.e beyond the sea, or on the eastern coast. In their nocturnal journey the moon plays the part now of the good old man, or the good fairy; now of the good cow, or the bull; now of the grey horse, the steed of night, who, in three stations, bears them to their goal; now of the bird who, nourished upon their flesh, carries them to their destination; and now we have, on the contrary, the monster itself, or the step-mother who threatens, tortures, and persecutes them. The hero shows his greatest strength when hidden, but it is used now to send out the cows, now to recover the ravished bride, now to unchain the rivers kept back by the dragons, now to make the water of health gush forth, and now to destroy the monster and deliver himself. The hero displays his greatest powers when contending with the monster; but it is in order to his own deliverance.

In the earliest epochs of the legend he is foolish, ill, drunken, unhappy, and stony; one can only speak of him by what is seen of him externally. The cloud-barrel moves; it is the barrel full of water which moves of its own accord in order to please the hero: the cloud-barrel drops rain upon the earth; it is the foolish one who lets the wine run out of the cask: the cloud-forest moves; it is the trunk of a tree which attaches itself to the horse ridden by the hero, and ma.s.sacres his enemies--_i.e._, the cloud or darkness disappears, and the hero comes out victorious. The part performed by the solar hero in the night or in the cloud seems to me, therefore, almost always of a nearly certain interpretation, but only so long as he is alone, or with but one companion; when the one hero is transformed into three, or five, or six, who accompany each other, or when he meets other mythical personages of a nature akin to his own, and when he speaks and acts in unison with them, the legend confuses the myth, in order to explain which, we are often obliged to stretch the sense of the adverb _together_ to the signification, now of a whole night, and now of an entire year. When we find, for instance, in tradition, the twelve months of the year a.s.sociated with twelve old men round the fire, we know that the fire is the sun, round which the twelve months turn in the sky in the s.p.a.ce of a year. Here _together_ is amplified to denote, therefore, the period of a year and the entire width of the sky.

I have been led into this long, but, I trust, not idle digression, in order to explain the Russian story of the two brothers, of whom it is said that they go together, one to the right and the other to the left. In whatever way the Acvinau are to be understood, whether as twilight and sun, as spring and autumn, or as sun and moon, it is impossible to comprehend how they can travel in the same direction; the ways they take must therefore be separate. The sun and the evening twilight do not advance in opposite directions; the morning sun and that of evening occupy opposite positions, but not at the same time; the sun and moon advance at the same time in the sky, but not conjointly and upon the same path, like two travelling companions. It is therefore necessary to suppose that the journey of the two brothers either happens at different periods, although it may be in the same night or the same day, or else takes its start from different places, although always in the sky; in the evening the moon is seen advancing from east to west, whilst the hidden sun travels from west to east; when the sun has arrived in the east, the moon goes down in the west.

The eastern sun is bent, in the daytime, upon following and finding his brother who has gone to the west; and when he arrives there he sees, besides his brother, his brother's immense treasures also. With this is connected the other version of the myth of the Acvinau, the poor brother and the rich one. This is probably the weary, thirsty, and hungry sun, who, having during the day given all his wealth away, demands hospitality from, and offers his services to, his rich brother; the latter drives him away, and the poor brother wanders alone, poorer and sadder than before, into the forest, where he makes his fortune by digging up a treasure which enriches him, whilst his rich brother in the west becomes poor. The story of the treasure, in connection with the two brothers and the skilful thief, was familiar to the Greeks in the vicissitudes of Agamedes and Trophonios (in _Pausanias_[621]), who stole King Hurieus's treasure, on which account one of the two brothers was to lose his head.

Were I to follow the story of the two brothers in its Western versions, I could compose an entire volume on the subject, which is indeed of such interest that a student, by connecting it with that of the three brothers, might profitably address himself to the work. But to resume the account of the horse. I must here limit myself to recording only one other interesting variety of this legend, offered us in the seventh story of Basile's _Pentamerone_.[622]

There were once two brothers, named respectively Cienzo and Meo (Vincenzo and Meo). When they were born two enchanted horses and two enchanted dogs also came into the world. Cienzo goes about the world in search of fortune; he comes to a place where there is a dragon with seven heads, from whom a beautiful princess must be delivered. As long as he does not cut all the heads off, the dragon goes and rubs itself against a herb which possesses the virtue of fastening on to the body again the head which had been cut off. Cienzo cuts off all the dragon's heads, "pe gratia de lo sole Lione" (by the grace of the Lion sun, _i.e._, when the sun is in the sign of Leo, which corresponds to the tiger of the Indo-Turanian story recorded above, or when the solar hero possesses all his strength; the lion and the tiger are equivalent in Hindoo symbolism as heroic types, and are therefore all the same in the zodiac). Cienzo marries the beautiful princess delivered by him; but a beautiful fairy who lives in the opposite house fascinates him by her beauty, attracts him, and binds him with her hair. Meanwhile Meo, who by signs settled upon beforehand learns that his brother Cienzo is in danger, comes to the house where the latter's wife lives, accompanied by his enchanted horse and dog. The wife believes him to be Cienzo (the story of the Menechmi, of the two brothers who resemble each other in everything, was no doubt taken by the Greek poet, and afterwards by Plautus, from popular tradition), fetes him on his arrival, and receives him into her bed; but the faithful brother, in order not to touch her, divides the sheets between them so that they have one each, and refuses to touch his sister-in-law. Thus Sifrit, as well as his Scandinavian _alter ego_ Sigurd, places a sword between himself and Brunhilt, the destined bride of the king, in order not to touch her when she lies beside him; and when Brunhilt throws herself upon the funeral pyre, she also places a sword between herself and Sigurd's corpse.[623] In the royal or heroic weddings by proxy of the Middle Ages a similar custom was observed. In the popular Piedmontese, Bergamasc, and Venetian song[624] of the pilgrim who comes from Rome, the pilgrim is separated from the woman only by a wisp of straw.

Towards morning Meo also sees the beautiful fairy in the house over the way; he guesses that Cienzo has been drawn into her snare, and goes to deliver him. He makes his enchanted dog devour her, and frees his brother, awakening him out of his sleep. Cienzo learning that Meo had slept with his wife, cuts off his head; but when he learns from his wife how Meo had divided the sheets when he lay beside her, he bewails his rashness, has recourse to the herb with which the dragon rubbed itself when one of its heads had been cut off, and by this means fastens Meo's head on to his body again.

The princ.i.p.al auxiliary, however, to one in particular of the two brothers, as of the third in the legend of the three brothers, is his horse.

When the hero devotes himself to the trade of thieving, his most glorious achievement is robbing the king's horse.

When the young hero has been educated by the devil, it is in the shape of a horse that he succeeds in escaping from him.

When the solar hero fights, his greatest strength is in his horse.

When the hero dies, his horse, too, is sacrificed.

Let us now ill.u.s.trate, by some examples, these four circ.u.mstances relative to the myth of the horse.

In the _Mahabharatam_,[625] the G.o.d Indras appears in the form now of a horseman, now of a horse. It is, moreover, upon such a heroic horse that the young Utankas flees from the king of the serpents, after having recovered from him the queen's earrings, which the king of the serpents had stolen. In this legend reference is made to several myths; to that of the hero in the infernal regions, to that of the hero-thief, and to the legend of the horse which saves the fugitive hero, the same as the hero who leads away the horse.

In the _Vish?u P._,[626] we have Kapilas, a form of Vish?us, or of the solar hero (inasmuch as he is of a reddish colour, or else of the evening sun), who carries off the horse destined for the acvamedhas, that is to be sacrificed. (In other words, the solar horse, the horse which was meant for the sacrifice, escapes from it, in the same way as, in the preceding chapter, we have seen the bull escape into the forests.) In the _Ramaya?am_,[627] the horse destined for the sacrifice is, on the contrary, carried off by a serpent (_i.e._, the monster of night ravishes the evening sun, whilst, in the western sky, the fire is being prepared for his immolation). The sons of Sagaras (the clouds of the heavenly ocean, the word _sagaras_ meaning sea), make a noise like thunder, searching for the horse that had been carried off from them.

They find it near the G.o.d Vish?us or Kapilas (here the sun himself, the solar horse itself, carried off into the cloudy ocean of night); believing him to be the ravisher, they a.s.sail him; Kapilas (or the solar horse), full of indignation, burns them to ashes. Their nephew, A?sumant (he who is furnished with rays, the radiant sun of morning), on the contrary, delivers the horse out of the forest. In the evening he is reconducted back to the place of sacrifice, on the golden pavement, after having made the journey round the world.[628] In the same way as we have seen, in the preceding chapter, that the bull or the cow is touched or struck as an augury of fruitfulness and abundance, in the _Ramaya?am_,[629] Kaucalya touches the horse (a stallion) in order to be fruitful, as he desires to have sons (_putrakamyaya_), and the king and queen smell the odour of the burnt marrow or fat of the horse, as a talisman which may work for them the gratification of a like wish.[630]

Of course we must always refer the legend to the myth of the solar horse, which, even when sacrificed, makes itself fruitful, so that it may rise again in the morning in a new and young form. And we can easily prove that the horse of the acvamedhas was a mythical horse, since the acvamedhas was originally a celestial ceremony, seeing we read in the _?igvedas_ how the swift heroic horse destined to be sacrificed was born of the G.o.ds, and how the Vasavas had adorned it with the colours of the sun.[631] We saw a short time ago how in the _?igvedas_ itself it is now the Acvinau, and now Agnis who give the heroic steed to the predestined youth. Agnis, moreover, who gives a horse to the hero, is himself now a handsome red horse, and now an excellent gh?idhnus,[632] a word which means the ravisher, as well as the vulture (as a bird of prey). The thief plays a princ.i.p.al part, even in the Vedic myths. In the war between the demons and the G.o.ds, described at length in the first book of the _Mahabharatam_, there is a continual strife between the two sides as to who will show himself the most skilful in stealing the cup which contains the ambrosia. And the horse's head which, according to Hindoo cosmogony, is born in the very production of the ambrosia with the mythical gem, the horse's heads of Dadhyanc and of Vish?us, which are found in the ambrosia [through the mouth of which (Va?avamukhas) it is necessary to pa.s.s in order to enter h.e.l.l, where one hears the cries and howls of the tormented, who inhabit the water[633]], shows us how already in the myth the legend of the theft of the earrings (the Acvinau), or of the queen's gem (the sun), or of the treasure, must be united with the theft of the horse (the sun itself), as it seems to be united in the legend of Utankas, before quoted, in which Utankas flees upon the divine horse as he carries away from h.e.l.l the earrings of the queen, which another skilful thief, the king of the serpents, had, in his turn, stolen from him. (Herodotos already knew the story of the skilful thief who robs the king's treasure and obtains the king's daughter to wife; he applies it to the king of Egypt, Rampsinitos.)

When the stag, in the fable, flees in the forest, his high horns betray him; when the bull flees, he fears that his horns may betray the fugitives; even the mane of the solar hero takes the name of horns. The Vedic hymn describing the horse destined for the sacrifice, represents it as having golden horns, and feet as rapid as thought (like the stag), whose horns (or whose mane, like the hair of the biblical Absalom, who revives again in the legendary tradition of Mediaeval Europe under an a.n.a.logous form), stretching here and there, are caught in the trees of the forest.[634] Here, therefore, we have the swift-footed animal, whose mane and horns are entangled to the trees. Another Vedic hymn presents to us the hero Tugras lost in the sea, who embraces a tree, and is saved by means of it.[635] In popular stories, the hero is often saved upon a tree, either because the thieves or the bear cannot see him, or because he is thus able to see the horizon; the tree brings good luck to him, now because by letting something drop or making a noise, he terrifies the thieves, now because he cheats the cowherds, whose cattle he wishes to possess himself of, by appearing now upon one tree, and now upon another; whereupon the cowherds begin to dispute about his ident.i.ty, one affirming that it is the same person, another that it cannot be; they therefore hastily go back to inspect the first tree, and leave the cattle unguarded, upon which the hero-thief descends from the tree, and drives them away before him (this occurs in _Afana.s.sieff_; the enemy of robbers is generally himself an exceedingly skilful thief; Kerecacpa was no less a cunning thief than Mercury, the G.o.d of robbers, who discovers the deceit of others, because he is himself so expert a deceiver). In the nineteenth Mongol story, which is of Hindoo origin, the young hero, after having discharged his pious filial duties at the tomb of his father, mounts a fiery horse, while he seizes the branch of a tree. The tree is uprooted, and with it the horse and the hero ma.s.sacre the army of the king, whose daughter the hero wishes to marry. In the Russian story[636] which narrates the adventures of Little Thomas Berennikoff, blind of an eye, the _miles gloriosus_, Little Tom, after killing an army of flies, begins to boast of the heroism he had shown in overthrowing, by himself, a whole army of light cavalry. He meets with two real heroes, Elias of Murom and Alexin Papovic (son of the priest), who, on hearing him narrate his achievements, immediately own and honour him as their elder brother. The valour of the three is soon put to the proof; Elias and Alexin show themselves to be true heroes; at last it comes to Little Tom's turn to make proof of his valour; he kills a hostile hero whilst his eyes are shut, and then endeavours to ride his horse, but cannot. It is a hero's horse, and can be ridden only by a hero. At length he fastens the horse to an oak-tree, and climbs up the tree in order to leap from it upon the horse's back. The horse feels the man on his back, and plunges so much that he roots up the whole tree, and drags it after him, carrying Tom away into the heart of the Chinese army. The Chinese are struck down by the oak-tree and trodden under foot by the furious charger, and those who are not killed are put to flight. (The mythical wooden horse which proved so fatal to the Trojans appears to be a mythical variety of this horse with the tree so fatal to the Chinese.) The Emperor of China declares that he will never make war again with a hero of Little Tom's strength. Then the King of Prussia, an enemy of the Chinese, gives, in grat.i.tude to Tom, and as a reward for his valour, his own daughter to wife. It is remarkable that, in the course of the story, Alexin once observes to Elias that the horse which Little Tom had brought from his house showed none of the characteristic qualities of a hero's horse. Alexin, as the priest's son, is the wise hero; Elias, the strong one, who had conceived a high opinion of his new colleague, Little Tom, seriously answers that a hero's strength consists in himself, and not in his horse. However, the development of the story shows that Alexin was right; without the fiery horse of the dead hero, Tom would not have dispersed the Chinese.

Thus, in a Vedic hymn,[637] we read that Indras, when he removes himself from his two horses, becomes like to a weak and wearied mortal; when he yokes them, he becomes strong. The enemies in the battles cannot resist the charge of the two fair-coloured horses of the G.o.d Indras;[638] and not only this, but one part alone of the divine horse is sometimes sufficient to give a.s.surance of victory to the hero-G.o.d. Another hymn[639] sings, "A horse's tail wert thou then, O Indras;" that is, when Indras vanquished the monster serpent. It is with the head of the horse Dadhyanc that Indras discomfits his enemies.[640] The horse of the Acvinau, which kills the monster serpent, has already been referred to in these pages. The solar horse Dadhikra, the same as Dadhyanc, in another hymn of the _?igvedas_,[641] is celebrated as a swift falcon, luminous, impetuous, who destroys his enemies like a hero-prince, who runs like the wind.

His enemies tremble, terrified by him, as by the thundering sky; he fights against a thousand enemies--invincible, formidable, and resplendent. Finally, the horses of the G.o.d Agnis are said to vanquish the enemies with their fore-feet.[642]

When Angadas wishes to fight with the monster Narantakas, in the _Ramaya?am_,[643] he strikes with his fist the head of his great and swift-footed horse, and then with another blow he smites the monster in the chest, and kills him.

In the seven adventures of Rustem, related by Firdusi, the hero's horse fights against the monster, and drives him away, while the hero sleeps.

It is said of Bucephalus, the horse which Alexander the Great alone was able to tame--so called because he had, it would seem, on his head protuberances similar to the horns of a bull (we saw not long since how the mane of the solar horse is spoken of as horns in the Vedic hymns)--that he several times saved Alexander in battle, and that, though mortally wounded, in an engagement in India, in the flank and head, he still summoned up strength enough to flee away with extraordinary swiftness and save his master, and then died. Pliny, quoting Philarcus, says that when Antiochus was slain, the warrior who had killed him endeavoured to ride his horse, but that the latter threw him on the ground, and he expired.

Of Pegasos, the winged horse which bore the hero Bellerophon over the waters, and by means of whom that hero won his glorious victories, we know that the warrior-G.o.ddess Pallas wore the effigy upon her helmet.

Suetonius writes of the horse of Julius Caesar that it had almost human feet, with toes ("pedibus prope humanis, et in modum digitorum ungulis fissis"), from which the aruspices prognosticated to Caesar the empire of the world; this horse, like Bucephalus, and every heroic courser, would bear no other rider than its master--the great conqueror.

The horse Baiardo, in _Ariosto_, fights the enemies with its feet. The hippogriff of Ariosto has, moreover, the privilege of being winged like Pegasos, and of walking on air, like the Tatos of the Hungarians.

The name of Falke, given to the horse of the Germanic and Scandinavian hero Dietrich or Thidrek (Theodoricus), induces us to believe that it too had the same winged nature.

In the _Edda_, Skirner receives from Frey a horse which carried its rider through fogs (waters) and flames, and the sword which strikes of itself when the wearer of it happens to be a hero. The horse of Sigurd or Sifrit exhibits the same bravery in bearing the hero intact through the flames. This happens in the morning, when the sun emerges safe and sound from the flames of the aurora; in the evening, on the contrary, when the sun loses itself in the flames of the aurora, or when the solar hero dies, his horse, too, like the horse of Balder in the _Edda_, is burned upon the pyre or sacrificed; the resurrection of the dead horse and that of the dead hero happen at the same time. The horse's head which protrudes out of the window, represented in ancient h.e.l.lenic tombs, and preserved in Germanic customs,[644] is, for man, a symbol of resurrection. The head of Vish?us, that of Uccai?cravas, and that of Dadhyanc, in Hindoo tradition, have the same meaning. He who enters into this head finds death and h.e.l.l; he who comes out of it rises again to new life. The pious Christian belief in the resurrection that is to come, and the numerous mediaeval legends of Europe concerning dead heroes or maidens who are resuscitated, had their origin and ground in the contemplation of the annual and daily resurrection of the sun.

In the thirty-eighth story of the fifth book of _Afana.s.sieff_, the young prince receives from an enchanted bird the present of a war-charger, and of an apple the colour of the sun. (The youth gives the golden apple to a beautiful princess for the pleasure of pa.s.sing the night with her; remark here, again, the relation of the horse and the apple, and probably of the horse and the bull, the sun and moon).

In other Russian stories, the horse of the hero, Ivan Tzarevic, is at first bound underground by twelve iron chains; when Ivan rides him, he breaks them all.[645] The horse which Ivan the thief is told to carry off from his master[646] is shut up within three gates made fast by six bolts; if he steals it, he is to receive a reward of 200 roubles; and if he does not, 200 bastinadoes will be his punishment. Ivan takes his master's clothes, disguises himself as a gentleman, and, imitating his voice, orders the grooms to bring him his favourite horse. The grooms are deceived, and obey, and thus Ivan carries the horse off.

Finally, in a third Russian story,[647] Ivan Tzarevic must ride a hero's horse on the occasion of his nuptials with the beautiful but wicked Anna. He has recourse to his preceptor Katoma, surnamed Hat of Oak (here we find again the hero in relation with the tree and the horse), who orders the blacksmith to prepare a hero's horse; twelve young blacksmiths (the twelve hours of the night, or else the twelve months of the year) draw twelve bolts, open twelve doors, and lead out an enchanted horse, bound with twelve iron chains. Scarcely has the preceptor mounted on its back when it flies higher than the forest which stays still, and lower than the cloud which moves.[648] The preceptor subdues it by taking hold of its mane with one hand, and striking it with the other between the ears with four pieces, one after another, of an enchanted iron pillar. The horse then begs, with a man's voice, for its life, the power of speech being a distinctive attribute of the hero's horse (a power of which it often makes use, as Rustem's horse does, for instance, to warn the hero of the dangers which surround him, and to give him good advice; sometimes, on the contrary, when it is in the monster's power, it plays the part of a spy upon the hero's actions, and reports them to the monster);[649] it promises also to do the will of the preceptor. Katoma, calling the horse dog's flesh, orders it to stay still the next day, which is the day fixed for the wedding, and, when the bridegroom Ivan is to ride it, to seem as though it were oppressed by a great weight.

In the seventh Esthonian story, the young hero steals the horse from the master (the devil, or the black monster of night) in whose service he had engaged himself. When he comes to the place where the sun sets, he bethinks himself of binding the horse with iron chains (the rope of Yamas, or Varu?as, the nocturnal coverer or binder, which binds the Vedic hero cuna?cepas, the sun, he of the golden rod), in order that it may not escape and go back again. This particular is very interesting, as rendering the meaning of the myth more manifest. Seeing that the sun, in the evening, does not return, it was supposed that the solar horse had been bound by the hero himself, who had stolen it.

In the European popular tales we sometimes have, instead of the hero who carries off his master's horse, the hero himself, who escapes from his master in the form of a horse, helped in his flight by the daughter of his master, by the magician's or demon's daughter or black maiden (who afterwards becomes beautiful and luminous). In the Hungarian belief, the youngest of the witch's daughters (the aurora) often a.s.sumes the form of the heroic horse of the Tatos. She becomes Tatos when the hero, meeting her, strikes her on the forehead with the bridle; then she carries him, in the shape of a horse, into the air.

In the Russian story,[650] the son of a merchant goes to be instructed by a wise magician, who teaches him every kind of knowledge, and, among the rest, what sheep say when they bleat, birds when they sing, and horses when they neigh. At last the young man, having learned every species of mischief, returns home and transforms himself into a horse, in order that his father may sell him at the market and make money; but he warns his father not to give up the bridle, that he may not fall again into the hands of the magician. The father forgets, and sells horse and bridle together. The magician attaches the horse by a ring to an oak-tree; the black maiden (dievki cernavke), the sister of the devil, gives the horse millet and hydromel; the horse thus gains strength enough to break the chain which binds him to the tree, and escapes. The devil follows him; the horse becomes a fish, and from a fish a ring; the king's daughter buys the ring and puts it on her finger; during the day it is a ring (the solar disc), and during the night a handsome youth, who lies in the bed of the queen's daughter (the hidden sun, or the moon, in the darkness of night). One day the princess lets the ring fall on the ground, and it breaks into a thousand pieces (the evening sun which falls upon the mountain); then the devil becomes a c.o.c.k, to pick up the pieces of the broken ring; but a little piece falls under the princess's foot; this piece is transformed into a falcon, which strangles and devours the c.o.c.k.

In the bridle which binds this hero who becomes a horse, I think I can recognise the la.s.so with which Varu?as keeps cuna?cepas bound in the _aitareya Br._ In the _?igvedas_,[651] we have Suryas, the sun, as Sauvacvyas, or son of Svacvyas, that is, of him who has fine horses; but as, besides Svacvyas, we find Svacvas, he who has a fine horse, the sun itself would seem to be this horse. The legend narrates that Svacvas, having no children, requested the sun to give him some, and that the sun, to please him, was himself born of him. Svacvas, he who has a fine horse and has no sons, is perhaps the same as the old man who has lost his son by selling the horse; when the sun returns his son also comes back again. In the Vedic expressions, _without a horse, born without a bridle, the sun_ (as a courser[652]), the hero would seem to be indicated who has not as yet that horse or that bridle, without which he is powerless; for the idea of the hero is rarely unaccompanied by that of the horseman.

For the horseman hero his horse is his all, and sometimes it even takes the bit in its mouth, then the hero punishes it. We have already noticed the well-known h.e.l.lenic myth of Phaethon, who is, with both the chariot and the horses, precipitated into the waters, because the horses threatened to set the earth on fire. This happens every day towards evening, when the sun sets; the whole sky goes down, then the sun is thrown down into the ocean of night; the course of the solar steeds is interrupted, and the wheels of the chariot no longer turn. A similar catastrophe is repeated on St John's Day, at the summer solstice, in which the sun stops and begins to retire, for which reason the light of day, from this time to Christmas, grows less and less.