Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/336

 312 The European Sky -god.

have been done not by a prayer to Zeus but by mimetic means : nor would the operator have been content to be called the son of Zeus ; he would have passed for Zeus himself. The legend of Salmoneus, already related/'^~° is from this point of view highly interesting. It introduces us to the paraphernalia of a primitive king, who claimed that he could thunder aud lighten in propria persona. In his bronze caldrons and blazing torches subsequent ages saw only a grotesque imitation of the tempest. The study of comparative religion would teach us rather to recognise in the din and glare a genuine attempt to raise the storm by the ordinary methods ;of magic. Almost equally primi- tive are the means by which the representative of Zeus AvKalo<i made rain for the Arcadians. Pausanias,^-^ speak- ing of the spring Hagno on Mount Lycasus, says : " If there is a long drought, and the seeds in the earth and the trees are withering, the priest of Lycaean Zeus looks to the water and prays ; and having prayed and offered the sacrifices enjoined by custom, he lets down an oak-branch ^"'"^ to the surface of the spring, but not deep into it ; and the water being stirred there rises a mist-like vapour, and in a little the vapour becomes a cloud, and gathering other clouds to itself it causes rain to fall on the land of Arcadia." Here the rain-charm is used in conjunction with prayer; but otherwise the ritual might take rank with that of Salmoneus. ^""^

Finally, as an embodiment of the earth-god the king was responsible for the fruits of the earth. Lycurgus, king of the Thracian Edoni, is described by Euripides ^-^ as


 * -'" Stcpra, p. 300.


 * -' Paus., 8. 38. 4, Frazer.


 * " On Zeus AvkoIoq as connected with the oak see Class. Rev., xviii., 87 ff.

and rain-making among the Greeks in particular by Gruppe, pp. 818-834.
 * ^ Rain-making in general is discussed by Frazer, Golden Bongk,-i., 81-115,

As the son of one Apvag (the " Oak "-man) and the father of another, he appears to have been an oak-king of the usual type : see Class. A'ev., xviii.. 82.
 * -'* Eur. Rkes. 970 ff. avOpujTrocuifiujv .... (rtfivug rolaiv elcoaiv Geog.

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