Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/337

 The European Sky -god. 313

dvOpcoTToSal/jbcov, " a man-god," whose fate was to dwell as a prophet " concealed in the caverns" of Mount Pangaeus. His tale is variously told, the most instructive version being perhaps that of Apollodorus,^-^ who says : " When the land remained barren, the god delivered an oracle that it would be fruitful, if Lycurgus were put to death. Here- upon the Edoni took him to Mount Pangaeus and bound him. There he perished according to the will of Dionysus, destroyed by horses." Dr. Frazer/-'' rightly interprets this as an example of a king punished by death because he had failed to supply his people with the crops in their season. Somewhat similar is the opening scene of Sophocles' master- piece, the Oedipus Tyranniis. A blight had fallen upon the land of Thebes, withering the buds, and making the live-stock barren. The common folk repair to the king's palace with the branches and wreaths of suppliants. They are headed by the priest of Zeus, who implores Oedipus to help them. Sophocles is indeed careful to make the priest say : " It is not as deeming thee equal to the gods that I and these children are seated at thy hearth." ^-^ But that is a concession to later piety. More primitive is the word- ing of his appeal : " Find for us some succour, whether thou canst hear it from the voice of some god, or haply knowest it as a man."^-^ Flutarch's'^^^ account of the Delphic ceremony called Char'ila, is worth quoting in this connexion : " A famine once fell upon the Delphians in consequence of a drought ; so they crowded to the doors of their king as suppliants along with their wives and children. He, since he had not enough for all, distributed barley and vegetables to those of them who were known to him. But, when a young orphan girl came and besought him,


 * -* Apollod., 3. 5. I.

^® Frazer, Golden Bough," i., 158 f.

^ Soph., Oed. Tyr., 31 f.

^8 lb., 42 f.

^ Plut. quasi. Gr., 12.