Page:Curious myths of the Middle Ages (1876).djvu/456



the sweet strains of the charmer” (Kalewala, Rune xxii.).

In one of the heroic ballads of the Minussinchen Tartars, the wind, which is represented as a foal which courses round the world, finds that its master’s two children, Aidôlei Mirgan and Alten Kuruptju, which I take to be the morning and evening stars, are dead and buried and watched by seven warriors. The foal changes himself into a maiden, and comes singing to the tomb such bewitching strains that “All the creatures of the forest, All the wing’d fowl of the air, Come and breathless to her listen;” and the watchers are charmed into letting her steal away the children, as Hermes stole lo from Argus, and she revives them with the water of life, which is the dew.

In Scandinavian mythology, Odin was famous for his Rune chanting; and the power of bewitching creation with these Runes obtained for him the name of Galdner, from gala, to sing, a root retained in our nightingale, the night-songster; in gale, a name applied to the wind from its singing powers; a