Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/109

Rh CHAP. the enchanted raja's jackal-skin, the lion-skin of Herakles, to trans- form him permanently into the most splendid prince ever seen on earth. ^

The independent growth of these tales from a common framework The Lad is still more conclusively proved by the fact that the agreement of the to the Norse with the Hindu legend is far more close and striking than the likeness which it bears to the German story. In the Norse version we have not three brothers, but one lad, who represents the Brahman; and in the Norse and Hindu stories alike, the being who does the wrong is the one who bestows the three mysterious gifts. The goat in the German version is simply mischievous: in the Norse tale, the North Wind, which blows away the poor woman's meal, bestows on her son the banquet-making cloth, the money-coining ram, and the magic stick.^ The jackal and the cloth are thus alike endowed with the mysterious power of the Teutonic Wish.^ This power is ex- hibited under a thousand fomis, among which cups, horns, jars, and basins hold the most conspicuous place, and point to the earliest symbol used for the expression of the idea.

The points of likeness and difference between the Hindu story of -j-he storv Punchkin and the Norse tale of the " Giant who had no Heart in his P^ Punch-km. Body" are perhaps still more striking. In the former a rajah has seven daughters, whose mother dies while they are still children, and a stepmother so persecutes them that they make their escape. In the jungle they are found by the seven sons of a neighbouring king, who are hunting ; and each takes one of the princesses as a wife, the handsomest of course marrying the youngest After a brief time of happiness, the eldest prince sets off on a journey, and does not return.

His six brothers follow him, and are seen no more. After this, as Balna, the youngest princess, rocks her babe in his cradle, a fakeer makes his appearance, and having vainly asked her to marry him, transforms her into a dog, and leads her away. As he grows older, Balna's son learns how his parents and uncles have disappeared, and resolves to go in search of them. His aunts beseech him not to do

' In the mythology of Northern Europe the lion-skin becomes a bear- sack, and thus, according to the story of Porphyry, Zalmoxis, the mythical legislator of the Getai, was a Berserk, as having been clothed in a bearskin as soon as he was born. Probably the explanation is about as trustworthy as that which traces the name Tritogencia to a Cretan word trito, meaning head. The other form of the name, Zamolxis, has been supposed (Nork, Real-VVor- terbuch, s. v. ) to point to mulgeo, mulceo, and thus to denote the wizard or the sorcerer. The story of his remaining hidden for years in a cave, and then reappearing among the Getai, is a variant of the myths of Persephone, Adonis, Baldur, Osiris, and other deities of the waxing and waning year.

cxli. 266.
 * Dasent, Talcs from the Norse, xciv.

' Tylor, Primitive Culture, i. 327.