Page:Folk-lore - A Quarterly Review. Volume 15, 1904.djvu/419

 The European Sky-god. 389

steal honey from the cave where Zeus was born, were named Laius, Celeus, Cerberus, and Aegolius, and were transformed by Zeus into a blue thrush {\di,o<i), a green wood-pecker (/ceXeo?), an unknown species of bird {K€f}/3€po<;), and an owl (alycoXto';).^^ Two of these names occur else- where as those of kings. Laius was king of Thebes and perhaps passed for a human Zeus.^^ Celeus was the first king at Eleusis.^^ Another source used by Antoninus Liberalis was Nicander's '^repoiovfieva, a didactic epic on changes into animal and plant forms.^^ From it he bor- rowed the following tale.^^ Munichus, son of Dryas, was king and seer of the Molossi. He had by his wife Lelante a son Alcander, who was a better seer than himself, besides two other sons, Megaletor and Philaeus, and a daughter Hyperippe. When robbers attacked them by night and burnt their house, Zeus in pity changed them all into birds. Munichus became a buzzard (rpcopxT^)) Lelante a wood- pecker of the sort that chops at an oak for insects {ttcttco), their sons Alcander, Megaletor, and Philaeus, a wren {6px^^o<;) ,^^ and two small birds {I'^veviJbwv and kvcov), their daughter Hyperippe a large gull (aWvca).

Taking into account these numerous transformations of the king into a bird, and especially that of Periphas, who, when turned into an eagle, was allowed " to guard the sacred sceptre," I would conjecture that the soul of the

^* Ant. Lib., 19, after Boios omith., 2.

^ The rape of Chrysippus, son of Pelops, which was commonly attributed to Laius (Roscher Lex. i. 903, ii. 1800), was described by the Sicyonian poetess Praxilla as the work of Zeus {ap. Athen., 603 a). Similarly the rape of Ganymedes, usually ascribed to Zeus in the guise of an eagle, was some- times laid to the charge of King Minos (Echemenes ap. Athen., 601 e).

^ Hymn. Horn., 2. 105 ff., alib. See further Class. Rev., xviii., 84.

" W. A. Greenhill in Smith Diet. Biog. and Myth., ii., 11 75.

^ Ant. Lib., 14, after Nicander heter., 2.

"' Note that the wren was also called /SaaikivQ and (3a<n\iffKog by the Greeks (D'Arcy W. Thompson, A Glossary of Greek Birds, p. 39), and the gold-crested wren TvpavvoQ (ib-, p. 174)-