Zoological Mythology Volume I Part 29

[742] In the _Pentamerone_, ii. I, we have a variation of the other aesopian fable of the lion who is afraid of the a.s.s. The old witch, in order to deliver herself from the lion which Petrosinella has caused to rise, flays an a.s.s and dresses herself in its skin; the lion, believing it to be really an a.s.s, runs off.--In the thirteenth of the Sicilian stories collected by Signora Laura Gonzenbach, and published at Leipzig by Brockhaus, the a.s.s and the lion dispute the spoil; the young hero divides it, giving to the a.s.s the hay that the lion has in its mouth, and to the lion the bones in the a.s.s's mouth. But probably the lion here represents the dog, according to the Greek proverb, "Kuni didos achura, onoi ta ostea," to express a thing done the wrong way.

[743] In the _Pentamerone_ again, in the island of the ogres, an old ogress feeds a number of a.s.ses, who afterwards jump on to the bank of a river and kick the swans; here the a.s.s is demoniacal, as it is in the _Ramaya?am_; the swans, as we shall see, are a form of the luminous Acvinau.--In obscene literature, the _mentula_ as a gardener, and the _v.u.l.v.a_ as a garden, are two frequent images; cfr., among others, the Italian poem, _La Menta_.

[744] Cfr. the first of the _Novelline di Santo Stefano di Calcinaia_, in which we also find the third brother, believed to be stupid, who makes his a.s.s throw gold from its tail; the foolish Pimpi, who kills his a.s.s whilst cutting wood; the son of the poor man, who amuses himself by sending the a.s.s before him tied to a string, and then making it return; the peasant who drags up the a.s.s which had fallen into the marsh, and who then marries the daughter of the king of Russia (the wintry, the gloomy, the nocturnal one), who never laughed and whom he causes to laugh; and the a.s.s who dies after eating a poisoned loaf.

[745] _Contes et Proverbes Populaires recueillis en Armagnac_, par J.

F. Blade, Paris, Franck.

[746] _Cuentos y Poesias Populares Andaluces_, collecionados por Fernan Caballero, Leipzig, Brockhaus, 1866.

CHAPTER IV.

THE SHEEP, THE RAM, AND THE GOAT.

SUMMARY.

The sun-shepherd, and the sun-lamb, ram, or goat.--The dark-coloured he-goat.--The goat-moon.--A?as; explanation given by Professor Breal; the Finnic aija.--Meshas; she-goat, ram, skin, sack.--The ram Indras.--The goats Acvinau.--The he-goat Veretraghna.--The lamb and the goat in the forest opposed to the wolf.--The apple-tree and the she-goat; the cloud and the apple-tree.--The goat, the nut-tree and the hazel-nuts.--The wolf a.s.sumes the goat's voice; the wolf in the fire.--The witch takes the voice of the little hero's mother; the child born of a tree.--The hero among the sheep, or in the spoils of the sheep, escapes from the witch.--Pushan a?acvas and his sister.--The brother who becomes a kid while drinking; the sister in the sea.--The husband-goat; the goat's skin burned; the monster appears once more a handsome youth; the funereal mantle of the young hero; when it is burned, the hero lives again handsome and splendid.--The children changed into kids.--The cunning Schmier-bock in the sack.--A?amukhi--Ilvalas and Watapis.--Indras mesha??as, sahasradharas and sahasradaras.--The rams of the wolf eaten.--The goat of expiation, the goat and the stupidity of the hero disappear at the same time.--The devil-ram; the putrid sheep that throws gold behind it.--The goat which deprives men of sight.--The young prince, riding on the goat, solves the riddle.--The spy of heaven; the eye of G.o.d.--The constellation of the she-goat and two kids.--The lame goat.--The heroine and the goat her guide and nurse.--The milky way and the she-goat.--The goat's blood, ma.n.u.s Dei; the stone bezoar.--The cunning goat.--The goat deceives the wolf; the goat eats the leaf.--The she-goat possessed of a devil.--The ram-vessel.--Ram and he-goat f?cundators.--The he-goat and the horned husband.--Zeus he-goat and the satyr Pan; Herakles the rival of a goat; the old powerless man called a he-goat.--h.e.l.lenic forms of the myth of the goat.--Phrixos and h.e.l.le; Jupiter Ammon; the altar of Apollo; the fleece of the Iberians; the golden ram of Atreus; Aigusthos; Diana and the white sheep; Neptune a ram; satyrs and fauns; Hermes krioforos; the sheep of Epimenis; lambs, rams, and he-goats sacrificed; aixourania and the cornucopia.--The mythical goat; its threefold form; black, white, and light-coloured lambs.--Pecus and pecunia.

When the girl aurora leads out of the stable in the morning her radiant flock, among them there are found to be white lambs, white kids, and luminous sheep; in the evening the same aurora leads the lambs, the kids, and the sheep back to the fold. In the early dawn all this flock is white, by and by their fleeces are golden fleeces; the white, and afterwards the golden heavens of the east (or the west) const.i.tuting this white and golden flock, and the sun's rays their fleeces. Then the sun himself, who steps forth from this flock, is now its young shepherd-king, and now the lamb, the ram, or he-goat. When the sun enters into the region of night, the he-goat or lamb goes back to the fold and becomes dark-coloured; the sun veiled by the night or the cloud is a dark-coloured ram, he-goat, or she-goat. In the night, says the proverb, all cows are black; and the same might be said of goats, except in the case of the goat, luminous and all-seeing, coming out of the nocturnal darkness in the form of the moon. We must, therefore, consider the sheep or goat under a triple aspect; the princ.i.p.al and most interesting aspect being that of the sun veiled by the gloom, or by the cloud, which wears often a demoniacal form, such as that of the a.s.s or of the hero in h.e.l.l; the second being that of the grey-white, and afterwards golden sky of morning, or of the golden and thereafter grey-white sky of evening which, as a luminous, is therefore generally a divine form of the goat; and the third aspect being that of the moon.

The richest myths refer to the sun enclosed in the cloud or the shades of night, or to the cloud or darkness of night closing round the sun.

The s.h.i.+fting shadow and the moving cloud on the one side, the damp night and the rainy cloud on the other, easily came to be represented as a goat and as a ram. In the Indian tongue, or even the Vedic, _a?as_ is a word which means, properly speaking, pus.h.i.+ng, drawing, moving (agens), and afterwards he-goat; the he-goat b.u.t.ts with its horns; the sun in the cloud b.u.t.ts with its rays until it opens the stable and its horns come out.[747] The ram is called _meshas_, or _mehas_, that is, the pourer or spreader, mingens (like the a.s.s ciramehin), which corresponds with the _meghas_, or cloud mingens.

Moreover, as in Greek from _aix_,[748] a goat, we have _aigis_, a skin (aegis), so in Sansk?it from _a?as_, a goat, we have _a?inas_, a skin; and from _meshas_, a ram, _meshas_, a fleece, a skin, and that which is formed from it; whence the Petropolitan Dictionary compares with it the Russian _mieh_ (Lithuanian, _maiszas_) skin and sack.

Let us now first of all see how these simple images developed themselves in the Hindoo myth.

Indras, the pluvial and thundering G.o.d, is represented in the first strophe of a Vedic hymn as a very celebrated heroic ram;[749] in the second strophe, as the one who pours out ambrosial honey (madacyutam); in the third strophe, as opening the stable or precinct of the cows to the Angirasas;[750] in the fourth strophe, as killing the serpent that covers or keeps back; in the fifth strophe, as expelling the enchanters with enchantments, and breaking the strong cities of the monster Piprus;[751] and in the sixth strophe, as crus.h.i.+ng under his foot the giant-like monster Arbudas[752] or monster serpent. Thus far we have two aspects of the myth, the ram which pours out ambrosial honey, and the ram which opens the gate and crushes with its foot. In another hymn the Acvinau are compared to two he-goats (a?eva), to two horns (c?ingeva), and to two swift dogs.[753] A third hymn informs us that Indras by means of a ram killed a leonine monster.[754]

Here we evidently have a heroic he-goat or ram.

Let us compare it with other traditions. In the _Khorda Avesta_[755]

we find Veretraghna (the Zend form of Indras, as V?itrahan) "with the body of a warrior he-goat, handsome, and with sharpened horns."

In the Russian tale given by _Afana.s.sieff_,[756] the lamb, companion of the bull in the wood, kills the wolf by b.u.t.ting against its sides, while the bull also wounds the ferocious beast with its horns. In another variation of the same story,[757] the cat is confederate with the lamb against the wolf; the lamb b.u.t.ts hard at the wolf, while the cat scratches it till blood flows. In yet another version, besides the lamb, the he-goat also appears; the cat twists some of the bark of the birch-tree round the horns of the he-goat, and bids the lamb rub against it to produce fire; sparks come from it, the cat fetches hay, and the three companions warm themselves. The wolves come up, and the cat makes them run, presenting them the goat as a scarecrow, and frightening them further by ominous hints as to the strength contained in its beard.

Finally, we have in the Russian stories two singular variations of the fable of the goat, the kids, and the wolf.[758] The goat is about to give birth to her young ones under an apple-tree. (We have seen in Chapter I. the apple-tree, the fruit of which, when eaten, causes horns to sprout. It is well-known that in Greek, _melon_ means a goat and an apple-tree, as the Hindoo masculine noun _petvas_, which means a ram, is in the neuter _petvam_ = ambrosia. The mythical apple-tree is ambrosial, like the cornucopia of the goat of mythology; and it seems to me that here, too, I can find an a.n.a.logy in the Slavonic field itself between the Russian words _oblaka_, clouds, in the plural _ablaka_, the clouds, and _iablony_, apple-tree, plural _jablogna_, the apple-trees, _jablok_, the apple.) The apple-tree advises the goat to betake itself to some other place, as the apples might fall upon its new-born kids and kill them. The goat then goes to give birth to her young ones under an equally shady walnut-tree; the walnut-tree also advises her to go away, as the nuts might fall and do serious harm to her little ones;[759] upon which the goat goes to a deserted tent in the forest, another form of the cloud of night. When the kids are brought forth, the goat issues forth out of the tent to procure food, and cautions her children not to open to any one (the fable is well known in the West, but the Slavonic variations are particularly interesting). The wolf comes and p.r.o.nounces the same pa.s.sword as the goat to induce the kids to open, but they perceive by the rough voice of the wolf that it is not their mother, and refuse to admit him. The wolf then goes to the blacksmith, and has a voice made for him resembling that of the goat; the deceived kids open, and the wolf devours them all except the smallest, who hides under the stove (the favourite place where the little Slavonic hero, the third brother, the ill-favoured fool, who afterwards becomes handsome and wise, is accustomed to squat). The goat returns, and learns from the kid which has escaped the ma.s.sacre of its brothers. She thinks how to avenge herself, and invites her friend and gossip the fox with the wolf to dinner; the unsuspecting wolf arrives along with the fox. After dinner, the goat, to divert her guests, invites them to amuse themselves by leaping over an opening made in the floor; the goat leaps first, then the fox leaps, and then the wolf, but falls down on the burning ashes and is burnt to death, like the witch in some other stories, as the night is burned by the morning aurora; and the goat chaunts a marvellous _Te Deum_ (cudesnoi pamin) in the wolf's honour. The other Russian version adds some new and curious details. The goat goes to find food, and leaves the kids alone; they shut the door after her. She returns and says, "Open, my sons, my little fathers; your mother is come; she has brought some milk, half a side full of milk, half a horn full of fresh cheese, half a little horn full of clear water (the cornucopia)."[760] The kids open immediately. The second day the goat goes out again; the wolf, who had heard the song, tries to sing it to the kids; but the latter perceive that it is not their mother's voice, and do not open. Next day the wolf again imitates the mother's voice; the kids open the door, and are all devoured except one which hides itself in the stove, and afterwards narrates to the mother-goat all that has happened. The goat avenges herself as follows: She goes into the forest with the wolf, and comes to a ditch where some workmen had cooked some gruel, and left the fire still burning. The goat challenges the wolf to leap the ditch; the wolf tries and falls into it, where the fire makes his belly split open, from which the kids, still alive, skip out and run to their mother.

Another story, however,[761] affords us still more aid in the interpretation of the myth; that is, in leading us to see in the goat and her kids the sun horned or furnished with rays, as it issues radiant out of the cloud, or darkness, or ocean of night, and in the wolf, or in the wolf's skin, split open or burned, out of which the kids come, the dark, cloudy, watery nocturnal sky. Instead of the wolf we have a witch, instead of the goat a woman, and instead of the kids the young Vaniushka (Little John); the witch has a voice made by the blacksmith like that of Vaniushka's or Teres.h.i.+cko's mother, and thus attracts him to her.

Teres.h.i.+cha says that he was originally the stump of a tree, which his father and mother, being childless, had picked up in the forest, and wrapped up and rocked in a cradle till he was born.

The monster wolf, or the witch, having the faculty of simulating the voice of the goat,[762] and an especial predilection for both sheep and goats,--so much so that the witch Liho (properly Evil) keeps some in her house, and those which come out (of the dark sky) in the morning, and which re-enter (the dark sky) in the evening, are considered her peculiar property,[763]--often transforms the hero (the evening sun) into a kid (into the darkness or cloud of night). Of course, as the dark and cloudy monster is often represented as a wolf, it is easy to understand his wish that everything should be transformed into a lamb in order to eat it. But the mythical lamb or kid, the young solar hero, generally escapes out of the jaws of the wolf, out of the hands of the witch, or out of the darkness, the waters, or the cloud of night.

A Vedic hymn celebrates the strong Pushan, who has a he-goat for his horse (or who is a goat-horse), and is called the lover of his sister.

Perhaps these words contain the germ of the Russian story of Little John, brother of Little Helen, who is changed by witchcraft into a kid. I have already observed in Chapter I. how Helen, who at the commencement of the story shows affection for her brother John, ends by betraying him. The Vedic hymn would appear to contain the notion of the brother Pushan transformed into a he-goat (the sun which enters into the cloud or darkness of night), because he has loved his sister.

In another Vedic hymn we have the sister Yami, who seduces her brother Yamas. In European fairy tales, the sister loves her brother, who is metamorphosed by the art of a witch, now into a young hog, and now into a kid. In the forty-fifth story of the fourth book of _Afana.s.sieff_, Iva.n.u.shka (Little John) becomes a kid after drinking out of a goat's hoof. In the twenty-ninth story of the second book of _Afana.s.sieff_, Iva.n.u.shka and Little Helen, the children of a Tzar, wander alone about the world. Iva.n.u.shka wishes to drink where cows, horses, sheep, and hogs feed and drink; his sister Little Helen advises him not to do so, lest he should turn into a calf, a colt, a lamb, or a young pig; but at last John is overcome by thirst, and, against the advice of his sister, he drinks where goats drink, and becomes a kid. A young Tzar marries the sister, and gives every honour to the kid, but a witch throws the young queen into the sea (Phrixos and h.e.l.le; in other European stories, into a cistern), and usurps her place, inducing the people to believe that she is Helen, and commanding the kid to be put to death. The kid runs to the sh.o.r.e and invokes his sister, who answers from the bottom of the sea that she can do nothing. The young Tzar, to whom the affair is referred, hastens to deliver Helen out of the sea; the kid can again skip about in safety, and everything is green again, and flourishes as much as it withered before; the witch is burnt alive.[764]

According to the fiftieth story of the sixth book of _Afana.s.sieff_, a merchant has three daughters. He builds a new house, and sends his three daughters by turns to pa.s.s the night there, in order to see what they dream about. (The belief that the man dreamed of by a maiden during the night of St John's Day, Christmas Day, or the Epiphany, is her predestined husband, still exists in the popular superst.i.tions of Europe.) The eldest daughter dreams that she marries a merchant's son, the second a n.o.ble, and the third a he-goat. The father commands his youngest daughter never to go out of the house; she disobeys; a he-goat appears and carries her off upon his horns towards a rocky place. Saliva and mucous matter fall from the goat's mouth and nostrils; the good maiden is not disgusted, but patiently wipes the goat's mouth. This pleases the animal, who tells her that if she had shown horror towards him, she would have had the same fate as his former wives, whose heads were impaled on a stake. The geese bring to the girl news of her father and sisters; they announce that the eldest sister is about to be married; she wishes to be present at the wedding, and is permitted by the goat to go, who orders for her use three horses as black as a crow, who arrive at their destination in three leaps (the three steps of Vish?us), whilst he himself sits upon a flying carpet, and is transported to the wedding in the form of a handsome and young stranger. The same happens on the occasion of the second sister's marriage, when the third sister guesses that this handsome youth is her own husband. She departs before the rest, comes home, finds the skin of the goat and burns it; then her husband always preserves the form of a handsome youth, inasmuch as the enchantment of the witch has come to an end.[765]

The lamb, the he-goat, and the sheep are favourite forms of the witch. In the European story, when the beautiful princess, in the absence of the prince, her husband, gives birth to two beautiful sons, the witch induces the absent prince to believe that, instead of real sons, his young wife has given birth to pups. In the seventh story of the third book of _Afana.s.sieff_, the young queen gives birth, during the king's absence, to two sons, of whom one has the moon on his forehead, and the other a star on the nape of his neck (the Acvinau).

The wicked sister of the young queen buries the children. Where they were buried a golden sprout and a silver one spring up. A sheep feeds upon these plants, and gives birth to two lambs, having, the one the moon on its head, the other a star on its neck. The wicked sister, who has meanwhile been married to the king, orders them to be torn in pieces, and their intestines to be thrown out into the road. The good lawful queen has them cooked, eats them, and again gives birth to her two sons, who grow up hardy and strong, and who, when interrogated by the king, narrate to him the story of their origin; their mother is recognised, and becomes once more the king's wife; the wicked sister is put to death.[766]

The witch is sometimes herself (as a wolf-cloud or wolf-darkness) a devourer of young luminous kids or lambs, such as the Schmierbock in the Norwegian story. The witch carries Schmierbock three times away in a sack; the first and second time Schmierbock escapes by making a hole in the sack; but the third time the witch succeeds in carrying him to her house, where she prepares to eat him. The cunning Schmierbock, however, smuggles the witch's own daughter into his place, and, climbing up, conceals himself in the chimney (a variation of the stove, the place where the young Russian hero usually hides himself, in the same way as in the Tuscan story the foolish Pimpi conceals himself in the oven). From this post of security he laughs at the witch, who endeavours to recapture him; he throws a stone down the chimney and kills her, upon which he descends, rifles her treasure-stores, and carries off all her gold. Here the young hero is called a he-goat; in the chapter on the wolf, we shall find the witch of the Norwegian story actually bears the name of wolf. These two data complete the myth; the wolf which wishes to devour the little hero, and the witch who endeavours to eat the little lamb, are completed by the fable which represents the wolf as, at the rivulet, eating the lamb, which, in the mythical heavens, means the cloudy and gloomy monster which devours the sun.

We have seen above the witch who imitates the voice of the mother of the little hero, in order to be able to eat him, and the wolf who mimics the voice of the goat and eats the kids; but the wolf does more than a.s.sume the goat's voice; he sometimes even takes her form.

In the _Ramaya?am_,[767] A?amukhi, or goat's face, is called a witch, who wishes Sita to be torn to pieces. In the legend of Ilvalas and Vatapis,[768] the two wizard brothers who conspire to harm the Brahma?as, Vatapis transforms himself into a wether, and lets himself be sacrificed in the funeral rites by the Brahma?as. The unsuspecting Brahma?as eat its flesh; then Ilvalas cries out to his brother, "Come forth, O Vatapis!" and his brother, Vatapis, comes out of the bodies of the Brahma?as, lacerating them, until the ?is.h.i.+s Agastyas eats of himself the whole of Vatapis, and burns Ilvalas to ashes. The _Ramaya?am_ itself explains to us why, in these sacrifices, a wether, and not a ram, is spoken of,[769] when it narrates the legend of Ahalya. It is said in this pa.s.sage that the G.o.d Indras was one day condemned to lose his t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es by the malediction of the ?is.h.i.+s Gautamas, with whose wife, Ahalya, he had committed adultery. The G.o.ds, moved to pity, took the t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es of a ram and gave them to Indras, who was therefore called Mesha??as; on this account, says the _Ramaya?am_, the Pitaras feed on wethers, and not on rams, in funeral oblations. This legend is evidently of brahmanic origin. The Brahma?as, being interested in discrediting the G.o.d of the warriors, Indras, and finding him called in the Vedas by the name of Meshas or ram, invented the story of the ram's t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es, in the same way as, finding Indras in the Vedas called by the name of Sahasrakshas (_i.e._, he of the thousand eyes), they malignantly connected this appellation with the same scandalous story of the seduction of Ahalya, and degraded the honourable epithet into an infamous one, he of the thousand wombs, probably by the confusion arising out of the equivoque between the words _sahasradharas_, the sun (as carrying, now a thousand stars, now a thousand rays), or _sahasrancus_, and _sahasradaras_, which has a very different meaning.

In the important 116th hymn of the first book of the _?igvedas_, ?i?racvas (_i.e._, the red horse, or the hero of the red horse) eats a hundred rams belonging to the she-wolf (in the following hymn, a hundred and one); his father blinds him on this account; the two marvellous physicians, the Acvinau, give him back his two eyes.[770]

Evidently the father of the solar hero is here the gloomy monster of night himself; the sun, at evening, becomes the devourer of the rams who come out of the she-wolf, or who belong to the she-wolf; it is for this reason that the monster wolf blinds him when evening comes. The red horse ?i?racvas, or the hero of the red horse, who eats the rams of the she-wolf, affords a further key to enable us to understand the expiatory goat, which in the _?igvedas_ itself is sacrificed instead of the horse. We are told in a hymn, that in the sacrifice of the horse the omniform he-goat (a?o vicvarupa?) has preceded the horse;[771] and the _aitareya Br._, commenting on this exchange of animals, also speaks of the he-goat as the last animal destined for the sacrifice. In the Russian stories, too, the goat has to pay the price of the follies or rogueries done by the man, and is sacrificed.[772] This sacrificed he-goat appears to be the same as the a.s.s which undergoes punishment for all the animals in the celebrated fable of Lafontaine (which becomes a bull in the hands of the Russian fabulist Kriloff, who could not introduce the a.s.s, an animal almost unknown in Russia); and we already know that the a.s.s represents the sun in the cloud or the sun in the darkness; and we have also said that the a.s.s and the fool die together in the legend. The she-goat dies in the Russian story to deliver the fool, who, after her death, is a fool no longer, his folly having died with her.[773] The popular story offers us another proof of the ident.i.ty of the mythical a.s.s and the mythical goat. We have also seen above, in the Norwegian story, how the witch possesses a treasure which is carried off by the Schmierbock, who kills her; the magician, or the devil, is always rich. The a.s.s which the devil gives to Little Johnny throws gold from its tail; the a.s.s personifies the devil. But the devil, as we have observed, also has a predilection to embody himself in a ram, a lamb, or a he-goat. I remember the puppets who every day improvised popular representations in the little wooden theatre on the Piazza Castello, at Turin, when I was a boy; the final doom of the personage who represented the tyrant was generally to die under the bastinadoes of Arlecchino, or to be carried to h.e.l.l by the devil in the form of a bleating lamb, which came upon the scene expressly to carry him away with him, this disappearance being accompanied by much throbbing of the spectators' hearts, to whom the manager preached a salutary sermon.[774] In the twenty-first of the Tuscan stories published by me, it is not the devil, but the little old man, Gesu, who gives to the third brother, instead of the usual a.s.s, a putrid sheep, which, however, has the virtue of throwing louis-d'or behind it. This putrid, or wet, or damp sheep represents still better the damp night.

?i?racvas, as we have said, eats the ram and becomes blind, his father having blinded him to avenge the she-wolf to whom the rams belonged; but the mother of the rams being the sheep, it is probable that the she-wolf who possessed the rams had a.s.sumed the form of a putrid sheep, in the same way as we have seen her above transformed into a she-goat; the father of ?i?racvas, who avenges the she-wolf on account of the hundred rams, may perhaps himself have been a horned wolf transformed into a he-goat, and have blinded ?i?racvas with his horns. In the popular story, the she-goat, when she is in the forest, takes a special pleasure in wounding people's eyes with her horns; hence is probably derived the name of the reptile a?akavas, conjured with in the _?igvedas_,[775] as durd?icikas, or making to see badly, damaging the eyesight, and the name of a?aka, given to an illness in the eyes by the Hindoo physician Sucrutas. However, we must not forget the connection between the idea of skin and that of goat, by which the a?aka might mean simply the thin membrane that sometimes harms the pupil of the eye, and produces blindness. This thin membrane, stretched over the eye of the solar hero, blinds him. We shall see in the chapter on the frog and the toad, which very often represent, in the myths, the cloud and the damp night, that the toad[776] causes blindness only by means of the venom which it is fabled to exude, like the reptile a?akavas.

But, as the hero in h.e.l.l learns and sees everything, the goat, which deprives others of sight, has itself the property of seeing everything; this is the case, because the goat, being the sun enclosed in the cloud or gloomy night, sees the secrets of h.e.l.l, and also because, being the horned moon or starry sky, it is the spy of the heavens. We have already observed in the first chapter how the marvellous girl of seven years of age, to answer the acted riddle proposed by the Tzar, arrives upon a hare, which, in mythology, represents the moon. In a variation of the same story given by _Afana.s.sieff_,[777] instead of riding upon a hare, the royal boy comes upon a goat, and is recognised by his father; the goat, in its capacity of steed of the lost hero, seems here to represent the moon, as the hare does.

We have already spoken of Indras sahasrakshas, _i.e._, of the thousand eyes; Hindoo painters represent him with these thousand eyes, that is, as an azure sky bespangled with stars. Indras as the nocturnal sun hides himself, transformed, in the starry heavens; the stars are his eyes. The hundred-eyed or all-seeing (panoptes) Argos placed as a spy over the actions of the cow beloved of Zeus, is the h.e.l.lenic equivalent of this form of Indras. In Chapter I. we also saw the witch's daughter of the Russian fairy tale who has three eyes, and with her third eye plays the spy over the cow, which protects the good maiden. In the second story of the sixth book of _Afana.s.sieff_, when the peasant ascends into heaven upon the pea-plant, and enters into a room where geese, hogs, and pastry are being cooked, he sees a goat on guard; he only discovers six eyes, as the goat has its seventh eye in its back; the peasant puts the six eyes to sleep, but the goat, by means of its seventh eye, sees that the peasant eats and drinks as much as he likes, and informs the lord of the sky of the fact. In another variation of the story, given by _Afana.s.sieff_,[778] the old man finds in heaven a little house guarded in turns by twelve goats, of which one has one eye, another two, a third three, and so on up to twelve. The old man says to one after the other, "One eye, two eyes, three eyes, &c., sleep." On the twelfth day, instead of saying "twelve eyes," he makes a mistake and says "eleven;" the goat with twelve eyes then sees and secures him. The eye of G.o.d which sees everything, in the popular faith, is a variation of Argos Panoptes, the Vedic Vicvavedas, and the Slavonic Vsievedas, the eye of the goat which sees what is being done in heaven. When the moon s.h.i.+nes in the sky, the stars grow pale, the eyes of the witch of heaven fall asleep, but some few eyes still stay open, some few stars continue to s.h.i.+ne to observe the movements of the cow-moon, the fairy-moon, the Madonna-moon, who protects the young hero and the beautiful solar maiden lost in the darkness of night.

This spying goat's eye is perhaps connected with the constellation of the goat and two kids. Columella writes that the kids appear in the sky towards the end of September, when the west, and sometimes the south, wind blows and brings rain. According to Servius, the goat united with the two kids in the constellation of Aquarius is the same goat which was the nurse of Zeus; he says that it appears in October, with the sign of Scorpio. Ovid, in _De Arte Amandi_, and in the first book _Tristium_, and Virgil in the ninth book of the _aeneid_,[779]

also celebrate the goat and the kids of heaven as bringers of rain.

Horace, in the seventh ode, elegantly calls the goat's stars insane:--

"Ille nothis actus ad Oric.u.m Post insana caprae sidera, frigidas Noctes non sine multis Insomnis lachrymis agit."

We have already seen Indras as a ram or pluvial cloud; and the goat with only one foot (ekapad a?a?), or he who has but one goat's foot, who supports the heavens, who lightens and thunders,[780] is a form of the same pluvial Indras who supports the heavens in the rainy season.

We have seen the Acvinau compared to two goats, two horns, two hoofs; each, therefore, would seem to have but one horn, but one goat's foot (which might perhaps explain the ekapad a?a?); hence on one side the cornucopia, and on the other the lame goat.[781] The nymph Galathea (the milky one), who loves a faun (or one who has goat's feet), seems to be a h.e.l.lenic form of the loves of Esmeralda and the goat with Quasimodo. The goat loves him who has goat's feet; the solar hero (or heroine) in the night has goat's feet; he is a satyr, a faun, a he-goat, an a.s.s; he is deformed and foolish, but he interests the good fairy, who, in the form of a she-goat (as the moon and as the milky way), guides him in the night, and, as the dawn (white aurora) in the morning, saves him and makes him happy. In the German legend, the poor princess who, with her son, is persecuted in the forest, is a.s.sisted now by a she-goat, now by a doe, which gives milk to the child; by means of this animal, which serves as his guide, the prince finds his lost bride. This guiding she-goat, or doe, the nurse of the child-hero, which Servius recognised in the constellation of the goat (with respect to Zeus, who is essentially pluvial, as the Vedic Indras has the clouds himself for his nurses), must have generally represented the moon. But even the milky way of the sky (the bridge of souls) is the milk spilt by the she-goat of heaven; the white morning sky is also the milk of this same she-goat. The horned moon,[782] the milky way, and the white dawn are represented in the form of a beneficent she-goat which a.s.sists the hero and the heroine in the forest, in the darkness; whilst, on the contrary, the sun enclosed in the cloud, the darkness, or the starry sky of night (with the insana caprae sidera), is now a good and wise he-goat or ram, full of good advice, like the ram who advises the king of India in the _Tuti-Name_,[783] and now a malignant monster, a demoniacal being.

Inasmuch as the goat gives light and milk, it is divine; inasmuch as it conceals the beauty of the young hero or heroine and opposes them, it may be considered demoniacal.

The connection between the she-goat and the milky way can also be proved from the name St James's Way, given by the common people to the galaxy, or galathea, or way of milk;[784] and it is interesting to learn from Baron Reinsberg,[785] how, in several parts of Bohemia, it is the custom on St James's Day to throw a he-goat out of the window, and to preserve its blood, which is said to be of potent avail against several diseases, such, for instance, as the spitting of blood. In the _Lezioni di Materia Medica_ of Professor Targioni-Tozzetti,[786] we also read that the he-goat's blood was known by no less a name than _ma.n.u.s Dei_, and believed to be especially useful against contusions of the back, pleurisy, and the stone. But the disease of the stone was supposed to be cured by the stone called _capra_ (goat), which was said to be found in the bodies of some Indian goats. Targioni-Tozzetti himself seriously describes the goat-stones as follows:--"These stones are usually clear on their surface, and dark-coloured; they have an odour of musk when rubbed and heated by the hands. In them (the stone Bezoar[787]) a.n.a.leptic and alexipharmic virtues were supposed to exist, which were able to resist the evil effects of poison and contagious diseases, the plague not excepted, and to save the patient by causing an abundant and healthy perspiration to break out on his skin. For this reason these stones were sold very dear. The same virtues are attributed to those found in the West, but in a much less degree." When the heavenly goat dissolves in rain or in dew, when moisture comes from the goat-cloud, the mountain-cloud, or the stone-cloud, these humours are salutary. When St James, who is joined with the goat and the rain, pours out his bottle, as the Piedmontese people say, the vapour which falls from the sky on these days is considered by the peasants, as in fact it is for the country, and especially for the vines, a real blessing. In the fable of _Babrios_, the vine, whose leaves are eaten by the he-goat, threatens it, saying that it will nevertheless produce wine, and that when the wine is made (_i.e._, at the Dionysian mysteries), the goat will be sacrificed to the G.o.ds. In the spring, on the other hand, or on the Easter of the resurrection, it was the custom to sacrifice in effigy the _Agnus Dei_, in the belief that it would serve to defend the fields and vineyards against demoniacal wiles, thunderbolts and thunder, facilitate parturition, and deliver from s.h.i.+pwreck, fire, and sudden death.[788] In the Witches' Sabbath in Germany, it was said that the witches burned a he-goat, and divided its ashes among themselves.[789]

The cunning she-goat is an intermediate form between the good wise fairy and the witch who is an expert in every kind of malice. In the same way as the hero, at first foolish, learns malice from the devil, to use it afterwards against the devil himself, it may be presumed that the hero, in his form of a goat, has learned from the monsters all that cunning by which he afterwards distinguishes himself. The Vedic ram, Indras, also uses magic against the monster magicians.

In the second of the Esthonian stories, we read that the king of the serpents has a golden cup containing the milk of a heavenly goat; if bread is dipped into this milk, and put into the mouth, one can discover every secret thing that has happened in the night, without any one perceiving how.

In the French mediaeval poem of _Ysengrin_,[790] the she-goat deceives the wolf in a way similar to that in which, in the first number of _Afana.s.sieff's_ stories, the peasant cheats the bear, and in the Italian stories the same peasant defrauds the devil. The she-goat shows a fox-like cunning, keeping for itself the leaf of the corn, and leaving the root for the wolf. Hence, in my eyes, the origin of the Piedmontese proverbial expression, "La crava a l'a mangia la foja"

(the goat ate the leaf), and even the simple one of "Mange la foja"

(to eat the leaf), meaning to understand cunning.[791] I heard from a certain Uliva Selvi, at Antignano (near Leghorn), the narrative of a witch who sent a boy every day to take the she-goat to the pasturage, ordering him to pay attention that it should eat well, but leave the corn alone. When the goat returned, the witch asked it--

"Capra, mia capra Mergolla, Come se' ben satolla?"

(Goat, my goat Mergolla, Are you quite satiated?)

To which the goat answered--

"Son satolla e cavalcata, Tutto il giorno digiunata."

(I am satiated, and have been ridden; I have fasted all day.)

Then the boy was put to death by the witch. It happened thus to twelve boys, until the thirteenth, more cunning, caressed the goat and gave it the corn to eat; then the goat answered to the witch's question--