Page:The Mythology of All Races Vol 3 (Celtic and Slavic).djvu/489

Rh thunder, and three lighten; or, in other poems, he has only five; but in any case they all live in Germany, in other words, in the darkening west, whither (or across the sea) he himself goes to seek a bride. He smites the demonic lohdi; he strikes the sea in which the sun is drowned at evening; but, on the other hand, where he goes with his gentle, smoke-grey horses (the clouds), the meadows flourish; the sun rises through the saddle of his steed, and the moon through the bit, while at the end of the rein is the morning star; he gives the moon a hundred sons (the stars)—in a word, he is the sky-god in process of elevation to all-god.$34$

In the dáinos, however, as we should expect from their theme, the sun is the important figure. We cannot enter here into all the rich details elaborated by Mannhardt, nor can we repeat the wealth of description and allusion in the folk-songs themselves. One example must suffice to show how delicate the shading is. We think of the sun as golden, and rightly so. Yet in the dáinos we read that, wearing silver shoes, she dances on the silver mount, or sails over a silver sea, or scatters gifts of silver, or sows silver, or is herself a silver apple, or a boat of silver, bronze, and gold, or one half of gold and half of silver—all referring to the various shadings caused by her different positions in the sky.$35$ Her hundred brown horses are her rays,$36$or she has two golden horses;$37$ "God's" horse and the waggon of Mary (the planet Venus .^) stand before her door while her daughter (the evening twilight) is being wooed; and in the east, where she rises, lives a gold and diamond steed.$38$ She even quarrels with "God" because his sons (the evening and morning stars) stole the rings from her daughters (twilight and dawn).$39$ The red berries in the forest are the dried tears of the sun (the red clouds of sunset?), and the glow on the green tips of the wood at sunset is her silken garment hung out to air; when she sets, she gives a golden crown to the linden, a silver coronet to the oak, and a golden ring to each little willow.$40$ She weeps