Page:Fairy Tales Their Origin and Meaning.djvu/37

I.] and she sank out of his sight; in other words, the sun disappears when it touches the water.

This imagery of the Aryans was applied by them to all they saw in the sky. Sometimes, as we have said, the clouds were cows; they were also dragons, which sought to slay the sun; or great ships floating across the sky, and casting anchor upon earth; or rocks, or mountains, or deep caverns, in which evil deities hid the golden light. Then, also, they were shaped by fancy into animals of various kinds—the bear, the wolf, the dog, the ox; and into giant birds, and into monsters which were both bird and beast.

The Winds, again, in their fancy, were the companions or the ministers of Indra, the sky-god. The Maruts, or spirits of the winds, gathered into their host the souls of the dead—thus giving birth to the Scandinavian and Teutonic legend of the Wild Horseman, who rides at midnight through the stormy sky, with his long train of dead behind him, and his weird hounds before. The Ribhus, or Arbhus, again, were the sunbeams or the lightning, who forged the armour of the Gods, and made their thunder-bolts, and turned old people young, and restored