Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/330

 3o6 The European Sky-god.

fitness for the throne ; and Thyestes was driven into banishment.-^'' Perdiccas, the first king of the Temenid dynasty in Macedonia, acquired the kingdom in the follow- ing way. On reaching the country he and his two elder brothers took service with the king of Lebaea as herdsmen. The king, alarmed by an omen, dismissed them ; and when they demanded their pay offered them, in a fit of infatua- tion, the sunlight that was streaming into the house through the chimney. The two elder brothers stood and gaped : but Perdiccas with a knife traced the contour of the sun on the floor, and having thrice drawn the sunshine into his bosom departed. Ultimately he won the kingdom to which he had thus established his claim.-^^

Not only was the sun-king, as these myths show, thought to possess and control the solar orb, but he was also bound to feed its flames. In Crete Talos renewed his heat by leaping into a fire ; -^^ and the oak-Zeus was served else- where by enormous bonfires kindled from time to time on the hill-tops. Appian -^*^ has preserved an interesting account of a sacrifice to Zeus SrpdrLo^. " Mithradates," he says, " offered sacrifice to Zeus Stratius on a lofty pile of wood on a high hill according to the fashion of his country, which is as follows. First, the kings themselves carry wood to the heap. Then they make a smaller pile encircling the other one, on which they pour milk, honey, wine, oil, and various kinds of incense. A banquet is spread on the ground for those present . . . and then they set fire to the wood. The height of the flame is such that it can be seen at a distance of i,ooo stades (125 miles) from the sea, and they say that nobody can come near it for several days on account of the heat." This description

28' Schol. //., 2. 106.

283 Hdt., 8. 137 f.

2® Semonid. ap. Suid. s.v. ^apSaviog yiXwc, Eustath., 1893, 7.

^ App. 6e/l. Mithr., 66, White.