Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/250

218 BOOK II.

The search of the Dawn for the Sun.

The idea which underlies these tales runs through a large class of legends, which carry us into almost every Aryan land and make the hypothesis of conscious borrowing or importation as perilous as we have seen it to be in the story of the Master Thief In almost all these legends the youngest and most beautiful of three (sometimes of twelve) daughters is married or given up to some unsightly being or monster, or to some one whom she is led to suppose hideous or repulsive. In some instances, as in the common English nursery tale, the enchantment is ended when the maiden confesses her love for the disguised being in his unsightly shape : ^ in the version which Appuleius followed, the maiden has a lover who is marvellously beautiful, but whose beauty she has never seen. In all cases, how- ever, there are jealous sisters or a jealous mother who insist that the lover- is hideous, and incite her to look upon him while he is asleep. Thus goaded on, she disregards the warnings in each case given that such curiosity cannot be indulged without causing grievous disaster, and in each case the sleeping lover is awakened by a drop of oil or tallow from the torch or lamp in the maiden's hand, and instantly vanishes or is transformed, generally into a bird which tells her that she must wander in search of him through many weary years, and do the bidding of some harsh mistress into whose power her fatal curi- osity has brought her. In some versions, as in that of Appuleius, this mistress is the mother of the lost lover." Then follow the years of wandering and toil, which can be brought to an end only by the achievement of tasks, generally three in number, each utterly beyond human powers. In these tasks the maiden is aided by brute creatures whom she has befriended in their moment of need, and who perform for her that which she could not possibly accomplish herself. The completion of the ordeal is followed by the happy union of the maiden with her lover.

The Search It is scarcely necessary to say that there is perhaps no one feature foVthe^ these stories which does not reappear in the tales told of Boots, or Dawn. the youngest son, in his search for the enchanted princess who has

' The converse of this inrident is found in the legend oftlie Loathly Lady. See also Fouque's Sin/ram.

^ In Griinm'.s Story of the Twelve Brothers she is the mother of the king who marries the dawn-maiden, i.e. she is Venus. She reappears as his second wife in the tales of The Little Brother and .Sister, of the Si. Swans, who fly away like the children of Ncphele, and of Little Snow White. The Little Brother and Sister (Phrixos and Ilelle) are seen again in the story of Hansel and Grethcl. These two come in the end to a pond (Hellesjiontos) ; but the maiden who represents Helle is more fortunate than the daughter of Athamas. In the Gaelic story of The Chest, Camp- bell, ii 4, she disguises herself as a gillie in order to search for her lost lover. This story contains also the myth of the judgment of I'ortia in the Merchant of Venue, ib. 6, 13.