Zoological Mythology Volume Ii Part 6

and the Hungarian proverb, that the cat does not die in water. It is for this reason, perhaps, that it is said, in a watery autumn the cat is worth little--("The cat of autumn and the woman of spring are not worth much;" _Hung. prov._)

[102] Polier, _Mythologie des Indes_, ii. 571.

[103] Musho na cicna vy adanti madhya? stotara? te catakrato; _?igv._ i. 105, 8.--The commentator now interprets _cicna_ by _sutrani_, threads, and now calls the reader's attention to the legend of the mice that lick their tails after plunging them into a vase full of b.u.t.ter, or some other savoury substance; but here _vy adanti_ can only mean, they lacerate by biting, as in the preceding strophe we have the thought that tears by biting, as the wolf tears the thirsty wild beast (ma vyanti adhyo na t?ish?a?am m?igam).--The mouse in the jar of provisions also occurs in the fable of the mouse and the two penitents in the _Pancatantram_, in the h.e.l.lenic fable of the son of Minos and of Pasiphae, who, pursuing a mouse, falls into a jar of honey, in which he is suffocated, until recalled to life by a salutary herb.

[104] Den Mausen pfeifen, heisst den Seelen ein Zeichen geben, um von ihnen abgeholt zu werden; ebenso wie der Rattenfanger zu Hameln die Lockpfeife blast, auf deren Ton alle Mause und Kinder der Stadt mit ihm in den Berg hineinziehen, der sich hinter ihnen zuschliesst. Mause sind Seelen. Die Seele des auf der Jagd entschlafenen Konigs Guntram kommt schlangleinartig aus seinem Munde hervor, um so in einen nachsten Berg und wieder zuruckzulaufen. Der goethe'sche Faust weigert sich dem Tanz mit dem hubschen Hexenmadchen am Blocksberg fortzusetzen:--

"Den mitten im Gesange sprang Ein rothes Mauschen ihr aus dem Munde."

--Rochholtz, _Deut. Glaube u. Brauch_, i. 156, 157.

[105] i. 268.

[106] The mouse that pa.s.ses over the yarn occurs again in German tradition:--"Gertrudenbuchlein ab: Zwei Mauschen nagen an einer flachsumwundenen Spindel; eine Spinnerinn sitzt am St Gertrudentag, noch in der Zeit der Zwolften, wo die Geister in Gestalt von Mausen erscheinen, darf gesponnen werden;" Rochholtz, _ut supra_, i. 158.

[107] Cfr. _Pentamerone_, iii. 5.--In the story, iv. 1, the grateful mice a.s.sist Minec Aniello to find the lost ring by gnawing the finger on which the magician wears it.

[108] Alayyasya paracur nanaca tam a pavasya (pavasva according to Aufrecht's text, and according to the commentator--cfr. Bollensen, Zur Herstellung des Veda, in the _Orient und Occident_ of Benfey, ii. 484) deva soma; akhu? cid eva deva soma; _?igv._ ix. 67, 30.

[109] Cfr. the _Antigone_ of Sophocles, v. 973, _et seq._

[110] This _da.s.s no_ of the Piedmontese means "if not," and is evidently of Germanic origin. The Piedmontese dialect has also taken from the Germanic languages the final negative.--In Germany, children sing to the snails--

"Schneckhus, peckhus, Stak din ver horner rut, Sust schmit ick di in'n graven Da freten di de raven."

--Cfr. Kuhn und Schwartz, _N. d. S. M. u. G._, p. 453.

[111] In _Rabelais_, i. 38, when Gargantua has eaten five pilgrims in his salad, another still remains hidden under a leaf of lettuce. His father says to him--"Je crois que c'est la une corne de lima.s.son, ne le mangez point. Pourquoy? dist Gargantua, ilz sont bons tout se moys."

[112] Simrock, _Handbuch der Deutschen Mythologie_, 2te Aufl., p. 516.

CHAPTER VIII.

HARE, RABBIT, ERMINE, AND BEAVER.

SUMMARY.

The hare is the moon; _cacas_ and _cacin_.--The hares at the lake of the moon; the king of the hares in the moon.--The hare and the elephant.--The hare and the lion.--The hare devours the western monster; the hare devours his mother the mare.--_Mortuo leoni lepores insultant_.--The hare and the eagle.--The hare that guards the cavern of the beasts.--The hare comes out on the 15th of the month and terrifies the wolf.--The hare transformed into the moon by Indras.--Ermine and beaver.--Hare's-foot.--Hare and moon fruitful.--Hare and moon that guide the hero.--_Somnus leporinus_.--The hare and the bear.--The hare and the nuptial procession.--The hare that contains a duck.--The girl riding upon the hare.

The mythical hare is undoubtedly the moon. In Sansk?it, the _cacas_ means properly the leaping one, as well as the hare, the rabbit, and the spots on the moon (the _saltans_), which suggest the figure of a hare.

Hence the names of _cacin_, or furnished with hares, and of _cacadharas_, _cacabh?it_, or he who carries the hare given to the moon.

In the first story of the third book of the _Pancatantram_, the hares dwell upon the sh.o.r.e of the Lake Candrasaras, or lake of the moon; and their king, Vi?ayadattas (the funereal G.o.d, the G.o.d of death), has for his palace the lunar disc. When the hare speaks to the king of the elephants who crushed the hares (in the same way as we have seen the cow do in Chapter I.), he speaks in the moon's name. The hare makes the elephant believe that the moon is in anger against the elephants because they crush the hares under their feet; then the elephant demands to see the moon, and the hare conducts him to the lake of the moon, where he shows him the moon in the water. Wis.h.i.+ng to approach the moon and ask forgiveness, the elephant thrusts his proboscis into the water; the water is agitated, and the reflection of the moon is disturbed, and multiplied a thousand-fold. The hare makes the elephant believe that the moon is still more angry because he has disturbed the water; then the king of the elephants begs for pardon, and goes far away with his subjects; from that day the hares live tranquilly on the sh.o.r.es of the moon-lake, and are no longer crushed under the ponderous feet of their huge companions. The moon rules the night (and the winter), the sun rules the day (and the summer). The moon is cold, the sun is hot. The solar elephant, lion, or bull, goes down at even to drink at the river, at the lake of the nocturnal moon; the hare warns the elephant that if he does not retire, if he continues to crush the hares on the sh.o.r.es of the lake, the moon will take back her cold beams, and then the elephants will die of thirst and excessive heat. The other story of the _Pancatantram_ is a variety of the myth, which we mentioned in the chapter of the dog, of the hare who conducts to his ruin the hungry lion who wishes to eat her, by making him throw himself into a fountain or well. This myth, which is a.n.a.logous to that of the mouse as the enemy of now the elephant, now the lion, and now the hawk, is already very clearly indicated in the Vedic hymns. In the twenty-eighth hymn of the tenth book of the _?igvedas_, in which the fox comes to visit the western lion (the sick lion[113]), in which we have the lion who falls into the trap[114] (and whom the mouse insults in the evening, and delivers in the morning by gnawing at the ropes which bind it: in the h.e.l.lenic proverb it is the hare that draws the lion into the golden net--"elkei lagos lionta chrusino brocho," in the same way as in the _Pancatantram_, it allures him into the well), and in which the hare devours the western monster[115] (a variety of the h.e.l.lenic tradition of the hare brought forth by a mare, and which immediately thereafter devours its mother)--in this hymn we find the germ of several fables of animals of the same cycle. The inferior animal vanquishes the superior one, and upon this peculiarity the whole hymn turns; for this reason, too, in the same hymn, the dog or jackal (canis aureus) a.s.sails the wild boar,[116] and the calf defeats the bull.[117] The hare occurs again as the proverbial enemy of the lion (whence the Latin proverb, "Mortuo leoni lepores insultant," or _saltant_; the moon jumps up when the sun dies), in the last book of the _Ramaya?am_, where the great king of the monkeys, Balin, regards the king of the monsters, Rava?as, as a lion does a hare, or as the bird Garu?asa serpent.[118]

In _aesop_ we find the hare that laughs at its enemy, the dying eagle, because the hunter killed it with an arrow furnished with eagle's feathers. In another aesopian fable, the rabbit avenges itself upon the eagle which has eaten its young ones, by rooting up and throwing down the tree upon which the eagle has its nest, so that the eaglets are killed.

In the seventeenth Mongol story, the hare is the guardian of the cavern of the wild beasts (or the moon, the mrigara?as and guardian of the forest of night); in the same story an old woman (the old fairy or old Madonna) is subst.i.tuted for the hare. In the twenty-first Mongol story, the hare sets out on a journey with the lamb, on the fifteenth day of the month, when the moon comes forth, and defends the lamb from the wolf of night, terrifying the latter by telling it that it has received a writing from the G.o.d Indras, in which the hare is ordered to bring to Indras a thousand wolves' skins.

In a Buddhist legend, the hare is transfigured by Indras into the moon, because it had freely given him its flesh to eat, when, disguised as a pilgrim, he came up begging for bread. The hare, having nothing else to offer him, threw itself upon the fire, that Indras might appease his hunger.[119]

In the _Avesta_ we find the ermine as the king of the animals, and the beaver as the sacred and inviolable animal, in whose skin the pure Ardvicura is invested (white and silvery as the white dawn, rosy and golden as the aurora; unless Ardvicura, whose diadem is made of a hundred stars, should also be interpreted as denoting the moon, which is now silvery, and now fair and golden). Moreover, for the beaver to represent the moon (the chaste Diana) is in perfect accordance with the reputation it has as a eunuch (castor _a castrando_) in popular superst.i.tion; whence the words of Cicero concerning beavers,[120] and the verses of Juvenal--

"Imitatus castora qui se Eunuchum ipse facit cupiens evadere d.a.m.num Testiculorum, adeo medicatum intelliget unguen."[121]

In the twenty-first Esthonian story, a silly husband is called by the name of Hare's-foot. In _Aldrovandi_, on the other hand, Philostratos narrates the case of a woman who had miscarried seven times in the act of child-birth, but who the eighth time brought forth a child, when her husband unexpectedly drew a hare out of his bosom. Although the moon is herself the timid and chaste G.o.ddess (or eunuch), she is, as pluvial, the _faecundatrix_, and famous as presiding over and protecting child-birth; this is why, when the hare-moon, or Lucina, a.s.sisted at parturition, it was sure to issue happily. The mythical hare and the moon are constantly identified. It is on this account that in _Pausanias_, the moon-G.o.ddess instructs the exiles who are searching for a propitious place to found a city, to build it in a myrtle-grove into which they should see a hare flee for refuge. The moon is the watcher of the sky, that is to say, she sleeps with her eyes open; so also does the hare, whence the _somnus leporinus_ became a proverb. In the ninth Esthonian story, the thunder-G.o.d is compared to the hare that sleeps with its eyes open; Indras, who transforms the hare into the moon, has already been mentioned; Indras becomes a eunuch in the form of sahasrakshas, or of the thousand-eyed G.o.d (the starry sky in the night, or the sun in this starry sky); the thousand eyes become one, the _milloculus_ becomes _monoculus_, when the moon s.h.i.+nes in the evening sky; hence we say now the hundred eyes of Argos, and now simply the eye of Argos--the eye of G.o.d.

In a Slavonic tale,[122] the hare laughs at the bear's cubs, and spits upon them; the bear runs after the hare, and in the hunt is decoyed into an intricate jungle, where it is caught. As the lion is unknown in Russia, the bear is subst.i.tuted for it; the Russian hare allures the bear into the trap, as the Hindoo and Greek one causes the lion to fall into it. This hare which does harm to the solar hero or animal of evening is the same as that which, in the fiftieth story of the fifth book of _Afana.s.sieff_, and in Russian popular tradition, meeting the nuptial car, bodes evil to the wedding, and is of evil omen to the bride and bridegroom. The hare-moon, the chaste protectress of marriages and births, the benefactress of mankind, must not meet the car; if she opposes the wedding (perhaps at evening and in the autumn), or if the hare is crushed or overtaken by the car (as the proverb says), it is a bad presage, not only for the wedded couple, but for all mankind; solar as well as lunar eclipses were always considered sinister omens in popular superst.i.tion. In the Russian popular tales we frequently find mention of the hare under a tree, or on a rock in the midst of the sea, where there is a duck, which contains an egg; the yoke of this egg (the solar disc) is a precious stone; when it falls into the hands of the young hero, the monster dies, and he is able to espouse the young princess.[123] The girl of seven years of age, who, to solve in action the riddle proposed by the Tzar, who offers to marry her, rides upon a hare, is a variety of this myth. By the help of the moon, the sun and evening aurora arrive at the region of the morning, find each other, and are married; the moon is the mediatrix of the mythical nuptials; the hare which represents it must therefore not only not oppose them, but help them materially; at evening the moon separates the sun from the aurora; at morning she unites them again.

FOOTNOTES:

[113] Lopaca? si?ham pratyancam atsa?; _?igv._ x. 28, 4.

[114] Avaruddha? paripada? na sinha?; x. 28, 10.

[115] cacah kshuram pratyancam ?agara; x. 28, 9.

[116] Krosh?a varaha? nir atakta kakshat; x. 28, 4.

[117] Vatso v?ishabha? cucuvana?; x. 28, 9.

[118] Sinha? cacamivalakshya garu?o va bhu?angamam; _Ramay._ xxiii.

[119] Cfr. _Memoires sur les Contrees Occidentales_, traduits du Sanscrit par Hiouen Thsang, et du Chinois par St Julien, i. 375.

[120] Redimunt ea parte corporis, propter quam maxime expetuntur; _Pro aemilio Scauro_. It is said that when the beaver is pursued by hunters, it tears off its t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es, as the most precious part for which beavers are hunted, popular medical belief attributing marvellous virtues to beavers' t.e.s.t.i.c.l.es.

[121] xii. 35.

[122] Cited by Afana.s.sieff in the observations on the first volume of the Russian stories.

[123] Cfr. _Afana.s.sieff_, i. 14, ii. 24, v. 42.

CHAPTER IX.

THE ANTELOPE, THE STAG, THE DEER, AND THE GAZELLE.

SUMMARY.

Luminous stag and black stag.--The Marutas drawn by antelopes, and dressed in antelopes' skins.--The stag, the gazelle, and the antelope as forms a.s.sumed or created by the demon to ruin several heroes whilst they hunt.--Maricas.--Indras kills the m?igas.--The solar hero or heroine transformed into a stag, a gazelle, or an antelope.--Aktaion.--Artemis and the stag.--The stags of the Yggdrasill.--The stag Eikthyrner.--The hind as a nurse.--The hind and the old woman on the 1st of January.--The hind and the snow; the white hind.

The stag represents the luminous forms that appear in the cloudy or the nocturnal forest; these, therefore, are now lightning and thunderbolts, now the cloud itself from which the lightning and thunderbolts are discharged, now the moon in the gloom of night. The mythical stag is nearly always either entirely luminous or else spotted; when it is black it is of a diabolical nature, and represents the whole sky of night. Sometimes the luminous stag is a form a.s.sumed by the demon of the forest to compa.s.s the ruin of the hero.

The _?igvedas_ represents to us the Marutas, or winds that lighten and thunder in the clouds, as drawn by antelopes. The Marutas "are born s.h.i.+ning of themselves, with antelopes, with lances, amid thunder-peals and flashes of lightning."[124] "They have yoked, with a red yoke, the antelopes.[125] The young battalion of the Marutas goes of itself, and has an antelope for its horse."[126] The horses of the Marutas, which we already know to be antelopes, are called winged,[127] and are said to have golden fore-feet.[128] The antelopes of the Marutas are splendid.[129] Nor are the Marutas only carried by antelopes; they also wear upon their shoulders antelopes' skins.[130]