Page:Segnius Irritant or Eight Primitive Folk-lore Stories.pdf/102

 In Reason and Happiness—

In Golden Locks we have—

Now, Broad in the first story, and the fish in Golden Locks, have both the same task, viz., to recover the heroine’s golden ring from the bottom of the black sea. The recovery of the golden ring is the return of the sun after the sunless Arctic winter, and this return occurs towards the end of January or the beginning of February, under the constellation of the Pisces. The fish, then, is the constellation of the Pisces, and Broad can be no less. In George and his Goat the man with his finger in the mouth of the bottle is certainly Aquarius, and Sharp-Eyes is always Sagittarius. It follows, therefore, that in Long, Broad, and Sharp-Eyes, Long is Aquarius, and in George and his Goat, Pisces. The idea, perhaps, is the gigantic stride the Arctic winter makes from darkness to light with the re-appearance of the sun.

Turning to the story of Golden Locks, we shall soon identify the ants and the ravens. In Long, Broad, and Sharp-Eyes, when the last task has been completed, the heroine freed from the spell, the frozen warriors recalled to life, and the third hoop has snapped off the body of the Black Prince, he flies out of the window as a raven. That is, the long winter night, when the thaw comes, flies off as a thunder-cloud. In the Three Citrons the hero is given his father’s sword. Every time in his journey that he throws himself down to rest, the sword clanks and disturbs the ravens above, who fly into the air. The prince, following them, arrives at the different castles of lead, silver and gold. Now the stick and sword represent the lightning in these myths; here again, therefore, the ravens represent the cloud-wrack drifting eastward. In Golden Locks, therefore, the ravens bearing frozen and fluid water are the thunder-clouds showering hail or rain, and correspond to Aquarius, hence of necessity the quick-eyed ants to Sagittarius. According to a Vedic legend, Indra as an ant passed into a cavern where was a great serpent. He bit this serpent and, distracting its attention for a moment, caused it to allow the waters to escape and usher in the spring. In this form, therefore, Indra, the ants and Sagittarius identify and may be compared to Hermes Psychopompos, the usherer of the souls to the under-world, just as Sagittarius ushers the sun into his Arctic winter tomb. Lastly, the fly which recognizes which of the twelve