Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/255

Rh CHAP. before recovering Eros, the Greek was as well content to listen to the story of the same tasks as they are performed by Eros before he can recover Psyche. Thus the part of the latter in the legend of Appu- leius is played by the former in the German stories of the White Snake and the Golden Bird, the Queen Bee, Strong Hans, the Drum- mer, and many others.^

The common element of all these stories is the separation of two The spell lovers by the intervention of a third person, who is represented sometimes as the mother, more often as another lover of the youth whose heart is given to the maiden from whom he is to be parted. In the latter case, her great object is to prolong the separation for her own benefit ; and we have at once the framework of the tales which relate the sojourn of Odysseus in the abodes of Kirke and Kalypsd Pene- lope, like Psyche, is far away, and though Odysseus has not forgotten her and longs to be with her, still he cannot escape from his irksome bondage. While the time of slumber lasts, he must tarry with the beautiful women who seek to wean him from his early love. The myth is but the fruit of phrases which spoke of the sun as sojourning in the land of sleep, freed from all woes and cares,^ and but dimly remembering the beautiful hues of morning under the magic charm of night Thus in Kirke and Kalypso alike we have the moon- goddess beneath whose spell the sun may be said to slumber, and in the palace of the one and the flashing cave of the other we see the wonderful home of Tara Bai, the Star-maiden, the Ursula or Selene of the modern Indian tale. Girt with her zone of stars, the beautiful being who can neither grow old nor die sings the lulling song whose witching power no mortal may withstand. If she seeks for sensuous [enjoyment, still her desire is not for the brutal pleasures which turn (men into swine, ^ but to see before her the wise chief whose glory is (in all lands is a happiness for which she is ready to sacrifice all her

' This myth reappears in a verj' thin voured, and the youngest goat in disguise in the ballad of Erlinton, Scott's Grimm's story of the Wolf and the Border Minstrehy. Here we have the Seven Little Goats escapes the fate of forest, the maiden and her lover, while the six others.

the robbers are a troop of knights * " tirv oSvvas dSoTji v-rrve 5' aXyeuv. headed by an old and grey-haired Soph. J'/ii/. S27. warrior, Winter himself. The knight, ' The turning of the companions of of course, fights with and slays all, ex- Odysseus into swine is only another cept the grey-haired chief, who is suf- form of the more common transforma fered to go home to tell the tale ; in tion into birds which the witches of other words, the mortal Medousa is Teutonic and Arabian folk-lore keep slain, but the power of cold itself (her hung up in cages round their walls, immortal sisters) cannot be destroyed. Compare the story of Jorinde and With this we may compare the deaths Joringel (Grimm) with that of Punchkin of Helle and Sarpedon, while Phrixos in the Deccan Tales, and of the Two and Glaukos live on. So, too, the Sisters in the Arabian Nights. youngest child of Kronos is not de-