Page:Segnius Irritant or Eight Primitive Folk-lore Stories.pdf/99

 sun. It is drawn up and disappears just as the disc of the sun disappears below the horizon. The simile, in fact, is an extremely happy one. When halved by the horizon, the disc of the sun does in fact form a one-arched bridge; the instant it has sunk, the hero and his companions are plunged in the kingdom of night. They remain there three days. Again, in three lengthening days at the beginning of the Arctic spring (if it can be called so), the course of the sun will form three arches of a bridge, each arch a little wider and higher than the one before, just as they are drawn in the illustration of the second half of the Sun-horse.

As I have already said, in Right remains Right Charon has become three accursed spirits; after their appearance, the hero visits the two cities of Ramuli and Sarahawsky, in the kingdom of darkness. That Charon and the Three Spirits represent one and the same element is shown by the fate of the king and the stranger man (tcuzy muzmuž [sic]) in Father Know-All and Right remains Right respectively. The sun has dropt out of the latter story, and with it the final three days’ struggle between the light and the darkness. The dumplings in the Three Citrons, and the bridge in the Sun-horse, are closely incorporated with the final struggle between the light and the dark, the heat and the cold. Comparing Father Know-All, The Three Citrons, the Sun-horse, and Right remains Right, the four stories in which the time previous to the final struggle is sharply divided, we find:

In (1) the hero passes through two ruined cities.

In (8) named Sarahawsky and Ramuli.

In (57 [sic]) the seer in search of the Sun-horse passes through seven kingdoms.

In (36 [sic]) the hero visits two castles, first one of lead and then one of silver.

This last form of the legend gives a clue to its general solution. As we know, in primitive ages time was reckoned, not by lunar months, but by dark and light moons, of fourteen days each. In the castles of lead and silver, therefore, and the journeyings to reach them, and stay in them, it is impossible not to recognise periods of dark moons and light moons. If there were any doubt about the matter, it would be set at rest by the Sun-horse legend. The seven kingdoms, if taken as weeks, exactly tally with the time in the Three Citrons (see the diagrams). It is worth noting that the Three Citrons and the Sun-horse are both Slovenian, and have travelled south, while the Magyars are related to the Turanian races of the extreme north. I suppose, though my astronomical imagination is too poorly cultivated to feel quite sure of it, that in a latitude where the sun disappeared for a time permanently below the horizon, the dark moon period would be less marked than with us, the waxing moon appearing for the same length of time each diurnal revolution in the constant darkness. This would quite agree with the details of the legend where it is stated that the giant of the castle of lead was considerably shorter than he of the castle of silver, and this