Zoological Mythology Volume I Part 22

It is a custom on St John's Day, in Germany,[653] for hunters to fire at the sun, believing that they will thereby become infallible hunters. According to another popular German belief, he who, on St John's Day, fires towards the sun is condemned ever after to hunt for ever, like Odin, the eternal hunter; and both superst.i.tions have their reason. In the night, as well as in the period during which the splendour of the sun diminishes, and especially in autumn, the gloomy forest of heaven is filled with every kind of ferocious animal; the sun enters this forest, becomes moon, and hunts the wild beasts in it during the whole of the night, or of the year that is, until he is born again. In the _?igvedas_, where we have seven sister-mares yoked to the sun-chariot,[654] Indras, to please his favourite, Etacas, after having drunk the ambrosia, pushes the clouds that had fallen behind before the flying steeds of the sun,[655] that is to say, he prevents the solar hero, drawn by horses, either by the cloud in a tempest, or by the darkness of night, from going on; and he even strikes the wheels themselves of the solar chariot to arrest its incendiary course. From these Vedic data it is easy to pa.s.s to the h.e.l.lenic Phaethon, who is precipitated into the waters on account of the horses. The hero killed on account of his horses is a frequent subject of mythology, and the Greek name Hippolytos refers to this kind of death. Hippolytos, the son of Theseus, fleeing from his father, who supposes him guilty of incest with his step-mother Phedra, is thrown from the chariot broken to pieces, when the horses that draw it approach the sea and are terrified by marine monsters. This is a variation of the legend of the young hero, persecuted by his step-mother, who is thrown into the sea, with the novel and remarkable accompaniment that it is his horses themselves which are the cause of his death. The Christian legend of St Hippolytos has appropriated this particular trait, representing the holy martyr, who was prefect under the emperors Decius and Valerian, as dying, having been condemned to be torn in pieces by horses. The poet Prudentius comments upon the story in these two curious distichs, on the occasion of the Roman judge p.r.o.nouncing capital punishment against St Hippolytos--

"Ille supinata residens cervice, quis inquit Dicitur? affirmant dicier Hippolytum.

Ergo sit Hippolytus; quatiat turbetque jugales Intereatque feris dilaceratus equis."

But the horses which draw the hero into the water are the same as those that save him by carrying him over the deep, drawing the chariot or s.h.i.+p on the sea towards the sh.o.r.e. The Acvinau do the same in the _?igvedas_, where they save from the waves both themselves and other heroes upon their chariot, which is compared to a s.h.i.+p.[656] Hero and horse always have the same fate.

When the hero approaches, or when some fortunate incident is about to happen to the hero, his horse neighs for joy.

In the _?igvedas_,[657] on the arrival of the G.o.d Indras, the horse neighs, the cow lows, like a messenger between heaven and earth. The neighing of this horse, and the lowing of this cow, are the thundering of the sun in the cloud. By this neighing or lowing, man is informed that the hero-G.o.d Indras is beginning his battles in heaven. Another hymn, which calls the two horses of Indras two rays of the sun (suryasya ketu), celebrates them as neighing and pouring out ambrosia,[658] _i.e._, the sun makes rain fall from the clouds; when he shows himself in the east at morn, his horse neighs and drops the dew on the ground.

Herodotus, and, after him, Oppianos and Valerius Maximus, relate the mythical story of Darius Hystaspes, who unexpectedly succeeded to the empire from having persuaded his colleagues to decree that he should obtain the crown whose horse happened first to neigh at the sight of the sun. It is narrated that when he came to the place, Darius, in order to a.s.sure himself of success, made his horse smell the odour of a mare.[659] Neighing is the laughter of the horse. We have seen, in the preceding chapter, how the bull speaks and the fish laughs at sight of coition; and so we have here, in the story of Darius, the horse who neighs on account of the mare.--To return to the horse of mythology; the solar horse neighs within the thundering-cloud which, as a cow, the bull makes pregnant, and as a mare, the stallion, and neighs at the approach of the aurora, who appears now as the driver of a hundred chariots[660] (a round number, like the hundred thousand horses which, in another hymn,[661] the G.o.d Indras drives; a favourite number, like seven, which is applied to the same solar horses, solar rays and Angirasas[662])--on which account it can be compared with the h.e.l.lenic Aphrodite Hippodameia--now even as a real mare. The sun is now a driver of horses, and now himself a horse; in the same way, the aurora is now an Amazon horsewoman, now a driver of chariots, now acvavati, and now a mare. When the sun approaches the aurora, or when the horse approaches the mare, the horse neighs. We know how the Acvinau considered themselves sons of the wife of the sun, Sara?yu, daughter of Tvash?ar, who united herself to the sun in the form of a mare. Whether this Sara?yu be the cloud or the aurora, we have in her, anyhow, a mare with which the sun, solar hero, or solar horse, unites himself to produce the twin heroes, who are, for this reason, also called the two sons of the mare.[663] We have already seen, in the preceding chapter, a hero and a heroine who are hatched from eggs; of the Dioscuri, we know that they were born of the egg of Leda; and the mare's egg is the subject of a story in the _Ukermark_.[664] Greek writers have handed down several cases of coition between men and mares, and between horses and women, with corresponding births of monstrous conformation. Now, unnatural as such births must appear to us, they are, in mythology, in strict accordance with nature. In the preceding chapter we saw the cow which leaps over the hare, and explained this phenomenon by the cloud or darkness covering the moon, and also by the earth covering the moon in eclipses. In Herodotus and Valerius Maximus, a mare, in the time of Xerxes, gives birth to a hare; and we must here understand the hare to be the moon, coming out of the darkness or clouds; and when we read that the hare suffocated the mare, we must understand it to mean the moon as dispersing the darkness or clouds (perhaps also the sun or evening aurora). We must have recourse in this way to the myth to comprehend the examples of parturition without coition found in some Hindoo legends, and applied to heroes, as well as the curious discussions and information which we find in the ancients, from Aristotle, Varro, Pliny, Columella, Solinus, and St Augustin, to Albertus Magnus and Aldrovandi, concerning mares, and especially Spanish and Portuguese mares, made pregnant by the wind (called by Oppianos[665] of the windy feet), and which are also spoken of in the _Pentamerone_,[666] with less decency, in reference to the myth of the maiden born of the tree.

The horse of Ariosto, too, has a similar nature--

"Questo e il destrier che fu dell' Argalia Che di fiamma e di vento era concetto E senza fieno e biada si nutria De l'aria pura e Rabican fu detto."

The horse of Ciolle, in a Tuscan proverb, also feeds upon wind alone.

The horse of Dardanos, son of Zeus, was also said to be born of the wind, which brings us back to the Vedic Marutas, whose chariots have horses for wings, and to the _volucer currus_ of the Diespiter of Horace.[667] In the Sansk?it tongue, the expression _vatacvas_, or wind-horse, is very common, to indicate a very swift-footed horse.

No sooner is the horse Uccai?cravas born than he neighs; and like him, in the _Mahabharatam_, the hero Acvatthaman laughs, the son of Dro?as, properly he who has strength in his horse, which is the same as the hero-horse.

Moreover, as the horse exults by neighing over the good fortune of the hero who rides him, so he not only becomes sad, but sheds real tears when his rider is about to meet with misfortune.

When Rava?as, in the _Ramaya?am_, comes forth in his chariot, to join in final combat with Ramas, his coursers shed tears,[668] as a sinister omen, Ravanas is the monster of darkness and clouds; when the cloud begins to disperse, drops of rain fall, that is, the horses of the monster weep. The treacherous sister who is confederate with the monster against her brother, in Russian stories, is condemned by her brother, who kills the monster, to fill a whole basin with her tears.[669] These tears are also a legendary symbol of the rain which falls when the solar hero has torn the cloud in two.

Suetonius, in the Life of Caesar, writes that the horses consecrated by Caesar to Mars, and then set at liberty after the pa.s.sage of the Rubicon, refused to eat, and wept abundantly.[670] Note that this legend of the horses that weep is connected with the pa.s.sage of water, of the Rubicon (a river which no geographer has been able to identify with certainty, probably because the legend of Caesar relating to it is a fable of mythical origin. We know how mythical beliefs incline to a.s.sume a human form, and are especially p.r.o.ne to group themselves round the great personages of history--Cyrus, Alexander, Romulus, Caesar, Augustus, Vespasian, Attila, Theodoric, and Charlemagne are proofs of this; and perhaps a day will come in which Napoleon I. or Garibaldi will offer a new _mannequin_ to some popular tradition, which is now uncertain and wandering). Thus it is said that Caesar's horse itself shed tears for three days before the hero's death. In the _Iliad_,[671] the horses of Achilleus weep for the death of Patroklos, whom Hektor has thrown from his chariot into the dust; in the _Paraleipomenoi_ of Quintus Smyrneus,[672] the horses of Achilleus weep bitterly for the death of their hero. This is a variety of the legend of the horses which throw the solar hero down into the waters, the ocean of night or the clouds, and of that of the horses of Poseidon. The mists which after sunset in the evening impregnate the air, and the diurnal or nocturnal rains, as well as the autumnal ones, cause tears to fall upon the ground, or weep over the (apparent) death of the solar hero.

The dew of the morning, on the contrary, which comes from the mouth of the solar horse like foam, or from its hoof as ambrosia and salutary water, is fraught with every species of healthful influence.

The horse and the bull of mythology are pourers out _par excellence_. In a Vedic strophe--which seems in my eyes to be one of those riddles which are recited in order to loosen the thread of the tongue--relative to the two outpouring or fertilising horses of Indras, there is a continual play kept up upon the root _varsh_ or _v?ish_, which means at once to pour out and to make fruitful,[673] and upon the letter _r_ which enters into almost every word of the verse. Not only do the horses of Indras pour out and make fruitful; the same virtue is attributed to the chariot which they draw.[674] We have seen already that the horse of the Acvinau is the killer of the monster serpent, and that the horse's head Dadhyanc, he who goes in the milk or in the liquefied b.u.t.ter, and who is found in a sea of milk, discomfits the enemies of Indras. A Vedic hymn sings that, with the foam of the waters, Indras beats down the head of the monster serpent.[675] In Tuscany, the whooping-cough is called the horse-cough or asinine-cough,[676] and it is thought that the cough is cured by giving the children to drink the foam from the horse's mouth, or causing them to drink in the water where a horse has been drinking.

This is a remedy founded upon the principle _similia similibus_, the foam being used against the convulsive cough, which, like all convulsions in general, brings much saliva or foam to the mouth. The credit, however, of this marvellous medicine is slightly compromised when we read that the same foam is also very efficacious for ear-ache.

Pliny, s.e.xtus Empiricus, and Marcellus, quoted by Aldrovandi,[677] also recommend the saliva of a horse as a cure for cough, particularly in the case of consumptive patients, adding that the sick person is cured in three days, but that the horse dies; a superst.i.tion which must have had its origin in the mythical horse who feeds on ambrosia, and who loses his strength, and expires when his saliva, foam, ambrosia, or dew is taken from him. It is well known that the Acvinau, besides being luminous hors.e.m.e.n, were, as friends of men, also exceedingly skilful physicians; nor could they be otherwise, having in their power the head of Dadhyanc which is in the ambrosia, that is, whose foam is ambrosia.

The Dioscuri also frequently appear, in European legends, as unexpected and miraculous deliverers. With this mythical belief of the horse that produces ambrosia, is also connected the transformation, described by Ovid in the second book of the _Metamorphoses_, of Ocyroe into a mare, because she had predicted that aesculapius would save men from death by the medical art. It is a well-known fact that aesculapius was revered near fountains whose waters were supposed to have salutary effects, and that he was protected by the sun-G.o.d Apollo; and the two physicians, sons of Asklepios or aesculapius, seem to be nothing more than a specific form of the Dioscuri.

But the solar horse does not produce ambrosia with his mouth alone.

He has great strength in his hoofs (whence Isidorus and other mediaeval etymologists derived the name _caballus_, thus, "Quod ungula terram cavet"[678]), and makes use of them in the myth, and in the legend, not only to combat the enemies, but also to break open the earth, and cause ambrosial fountains to spring out of it. Sometimes ambrosia pours out of the hoof of the horse itself. In the _?igvedas_,[679] the horses of Agnis are said to have hands (_i.e._, hoofs of the fore-feet) that pour out; and the horse given by the Acvinau to the hero protected by them (that is, to the solar horse, to the morning sun), with his strong hoof fills a hundred jars with inebriating liquor.[680] It is not necessary for me to instance here the famous fountain of the horse, or Hippokrene, which Bellerophon's horse Pegasos caused to spring out of the earth by breaking the soil with his hoof (called also for this reason _Pegasia krene_). In Latin tradition, the horse's hoof was wors.h.i.+pped on a spot near Lake Regillus, where it is said that the Dioscuri had appeared.[681] In a Russian story,[682] when Johnny (Iva.n.u.shka) sees a horse's hoof, he is sorely tempted to drink out of it, but is dissuaded by his sister. He experiences the same temptation upon seeing a bull's hoof, and afterwards that of a kid. At last he gives way, drinks from the kid's hoof, and is himself transformed into a kid. In the footprint of a horse's hoof, in other stories, the ant is in danger of being drowned; saved by a man, it is ever afterwards grateful to him.[683]

Several myths which we have already noticed in the preceding chapter as applied to the bull, occur again in connection with the horse; as, for instance, the birds which come out of the horse; the hero who takes the horse's skin off, seizing it by the tail in order to make a sack of it; the swift horse of Adrastus, which runs after the tortoise (a Greek proverb);[684] the lunar horse, and the solar one. These exchanges between moon and sun, and between bull and horse, are happily indicated by the Latin poet, Fulgentius:--

"Jam Ph?bus disjungit equos, jam Cynthia jungit, Quasque soror liquit, frater pede temperat undas: Tum nox stellato c?lum circ.u.mlita peplo C?rula rorigenis pigrescere jusserat alis Astrigeroque nitens diademate luna bicornis Bullarum bijugis conscenderat aequora tauris."

The G.o.ds had often a liking to transform themselves into horses; so much so, that the sacrifice of the G.o.d, that is, the G.o.d's death, is represented by the death of the horse. Every one knows that G.o.ds and heroes delighted in showing themselves good hors.e.m.e.n, or, at least, good charioteers. On this account, it would be difficult to say to which G.o.d in particular the horse is sacred. The Vedic Acvinau, the Vedic aurora, who wins the race in her chariot, Agnis, Savitar, Indras, victorious and splendid by means of their steeds, the hippios Poseidon, the hippeia Athene, the hippodameia Aphrodite, the hors.e.m.e.n Dioscuri, Mars, Apollo, Zeus, Pluto, and the German Wuotan (like his _alter ego_, St Zacchaeus), never show themselves otherwise than on horseback; hence the horse was naturally sacred to all of them. In the Christian faith, the innumerable G.o.ds of the ancients having become innumerable saints (when they were not so unfortunate as to degenerate into devils), the horse is now recommended in its stable to the protection of several saints, from the obscure Sicilian St Aloi to the no less modest Russians St Froh and St Laver, who take the horse, as well as the mule and the a.s.s, under their especial protection, not to speak of the glorious hors.e.m.e.n St George, St Michael, St James, St Maurice, St Stephen, St Vladimir, and St Martin, especially revered by warriors, and in whose honour the princ.i.p.al orders of knighthood in Europe were founded. But religions being, from one point of view, the caricature of mythologies, there is now some difference between the mythical old deities and the legendary new ones, inasmuch as the former would at times ingenuously accept the homage of the animal in effigy, as we have observed in the preceding chapter; while the latter, and they who purvey to them upon earth, not being quite so simple, never leave their devotee in peace until they have received, at sight and without discount, the full value of their favours. In the Life of San Gallo, we read that, in the times of King Pepin (we already know what these times mean), a certain Willimar, being ill, promised, if cured, to offer a horse to the Church of San Gallo.

Having recovered his health, he forgot his promise; but pa.s.sing one day before the church of the saint, his horse stopped before the gate, and by no possibility could it be induced to-move on, until Willimar had at last declared his intention of fulfilling his vow. In the Life of St Martin, there is a rather gayer variation of the same anecdote. King Clodoveus, after having become a Christian, when fighting against the Visigoths, promises his own horse to St Martin, if he grants the victory to him. Having obtained it, Clodoveus regrets being obliged to deprive himself of his good charger, and beseeches St Martin to be kind enough to take money instead, offering him a hundred pieces of gold. St Martin thinks the sum insufficient, and asks for double, which Clodoveus gives; but, inasmuch as a little heretic blood still runs in his veins, he cannot refrain from aiming a pointed witticism at him: "Martinus, quantum video, auxiliator est facilis, sed mercator difficilis!"[685]

FOOTNOTES:

[526] The word _atyas_ has the same meaning.

[527] Yun?antv asya kamya hari vipakshasa rathe cona dh?ish?u ??ivahasa; _?igv._ i. 6, 2.

[528] Vacoyu?au; _?igv._ i. 7, 2.

[529] Yukshva hi kecina hari v?isha?a kakshyapra; _?igv._ i. 10, 3.

[530] Suracakshasa?; _?igv._ i. 16, 1.

[531] Indraya vacoyu?a tatakshur manasa hari; _?igv._ i. 20, 2.

[532] Saudhanvana acvad acvam atakshata; _?igv._ i. 161, 7.

[533] Vi ?anan chyava? citipado akhyan ratha? hira?yaprauga? vahanta?; _?igv._ i. 33, 5.

[534] Indro vanku vankutaradhi tish?hati; _?igv._ i. 5, 11.

[535] Yukshva madacyuta hari; _?igv._ i. 81, 3.

[536] Vam acvina manaso ?aviyan ratha? svacvah; _?igv._ i. 117, 2.

[537] a tva yachantu harito na suryam aha vicveva suryam; _?igv._ i.

130, 2.

[538] Hari suryasya ketu; _?igv._ ii. 11, 6.

[539] Gh?itaccuta? svaram asvarsh?am; _?igv._ ii. 11, 7.

[540] Pra ye dvita diva ?in?anty ata? susamm?ish?aso v?ishabhasya mura?; _?igv._ iii. 43, 6.

[541] Indra haribhir yahi mayuraromabhi?; _?igv._ iii. 45. 1.

[542] Sho?ha yuktah panca-panca vahanti; _?igv._ iii. 55, 18.

[543] Patatribhir acramair avyatibhir da?sanabhi?; _?igv._ vii. 69, 7.

The Acvinau also are called dravatpani (swift-hoofed); _?igv._ i. 3, 1.

[544] Acvatari--rathenagnir a?imadhavattasa? pra?amano yonimakulayattasmatta na vi?aya?te. Gobhiraru?airusha a?imadhavattasmadushasyagatayamaru?amivaeva prabhatyushasorupamacvarathenendra a?imadhavattasmatsa uccairghosha upabdimankshatrasya rupamaindro hi sa gadarbharathenacvina uda?ayatamacvinavacnuvatam; _Ait. Br._ iv. 2, 9.

[545] Tvashtri tu savitur bharya vadavarupadhari?i asuyata mahabhaga sa 'ntarikshe 'cvinavubhau; _Mbh._ i. 2599.

[546] _Il._ x. 352.

[547] In the Monferrato, according to the information kindly given me, concerning the beliefs relative to animals current in this country, by Dr Giuseppe Ferraro, the young collector of the popular songs and stories of the Monferrato, it is believed that the horse's teeth hung upon the necks of infants at the breast cause them to cut their teeth, and that the two incisors of the horse, when worn, are a spell to charm away every evil.

[548] _Mbh._ i. 1093-1237.

[549] Cfr. the first of the Tuscan stories of _Santo Stefano di Calcinaia_.--In the preceding chapter, we have seen how the apples of a certain apple-tree cause horns to grow on whoever eats them. In an unpublished Italian story, instead of the apple-tree, we have the fig-tree, and instead of horns, the tail. It is narrated by an old man of Osimo, in the Marches:--Three poor brothers, having but little inclination for work, go in search of fortune round the world. Overtaken in the country by night, they fall asleep in the open air. A fairy, under the aspect of a hideous old woman, comes up and wakens them, offering herself as their wife. The three brothers excuse themselves, and declare that they wish for nothing except a little money with which to make merry. The fairy answers, "Tell me what you wish for, and you shall have it." The first asks for a purse, which shall always be full of money; the second for a whistle, by blowing into which a whole army of brave combatants would be summoned to his side; the third a mantle, which would make its wearer invisible. The fairy satisfies them, and then disappears in flames, like the devil. The eldest brother, Stephen, goes with his purse into Portugal, where he plays and loses, but still remains rich. This comes to the queen-dowager's ears, who wishes to see the stranger, hoping to possess herself of his secret; she feigns to love him, and the wedding-day is fixed; but before it comes she has already gained his confidence, and taking the purse from him, she orders him to be flogged. Stephen returns to his brothers, relates his grievance, and proposing to revenge himself upon the queen, induces them to lend him the whistle, which calls armies into existence. The queen softens towards him, protesting that she expected to the last that he would have appeared on the day appointed for the wedding, and that he had been flogged without her knowledge. Stephen gives way, and the whistle pa.s.ses out of his hands into those of the queen. He is flogged again, but twice as severely as before. Again he has recourse to his brothers; he implores, supplicates, and promises to get everything back by the miraculous mantle; but having obtained it, he allows himself to be deceived once more by the queen. Deprived of everything, he wanders about in despair, reduced to beggary. In the middle of January, he sees a tree covered with beautiful figs; desirous of them, he eats with avidity; but for every fig that he swallows, a span of tail as thick as a boa grows on to him. He goes on his way, still more desperate, till he finds more figs, of a smaller size; he eats them, and the tail disappears. Contented with this discovery, he fills a basket with the first figs, and disguised as a countryman, comes to the palace of the Queen of Portugal. Every one marvels on seeing such fine figs in January. The queen buys the basket, and every one eats; but tails immediately grow on their backs. Stephen then dresses himself as a doctor, and with the little figs, cures many persons. The queen has him called; he obliges her to confess to him first, and in the confession makes her say where the three marvellous gifts of the fairy are kept.

Having recovered them, he leaves the queen with ten spans of tail, and returns rich and happy to his brothers. In this story there must be some parts wanting; it is probable that the fairy warned the brothers not to discover their secret to any one. The last enterprise, moreover, is more likely to have been undertaken by the third brother, who always a.s.sumes in fairy tales the part of the cunning one, than by the first-born, who in this story represents the part of the fool.--Polydorus speaks of the horse's tail as a chastis.e.m.e.nt for an insult to Thomas Archbishop of Canterbury, in the thirteenth book of his _Hist. Angl._:--"Irridentes Archiepiscopum, caudam equi cui insidebat, amputarunt. At postea nutu Dei ita accidit, ut omnes ex eo hominum genere qui id facinus fecissent, nati sunt instar brutorum caudati."