Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/266

234 BOOK II. Saranyfi. Erinys.

the hound which served as the messenger of the gods, and which in the story of Prokris reappears at the feet of Artemis.^ Another name from the same root which has furnished those of Sarama, Helen, Hermes, and Sarpedon, is found in Saranyu (a femi- nine of Saranyu), in whom some discern the dark and impetuous storm-cloud.^ The phrases employed when the poet addresses her all seem to point in another direction. Like Ushas, she is spoken of as the mare, and as the mother of a twin. The male Saranyu is in like manner called a horse, and the goddess herself is the mother of the twins Yama and Yami, and again of Nasatya and Basra, the twin Asvins or steeds,^ who represent the Dioskouroi. The persons with whom this dualism connects her indicate at once her real nature, and with Saranyu she takes her place by the side of the two Ahans or Dawns, of Indra, the two Indras, of Dyava, the double Dyaus, of Ushasau, the two mornings, of Agni, the two Agnis, of Varuna, the two Varunas.

But as Sarama is Helen, so Saranyu is Erinys ; and here too the seed, which in the East sprang up only to wither away, shot up in the West to a portentous growth. It was certainly no euphemism which spoke of the Erinyes as the gentle beings or Eumenides, and there was no incongruity in giving the name to the Dawn-mother Demeter.* Hence in spite of all the failure of memory, and of the fearful

thus conceived are brought out with sufficient clearness in the following verses : " When thou, bright Sarameya, openest thy teeth, O red one, spears seem to glisten on thy jaws as thou swallowest. Sleep, sleep. " Bark at the thief, Sarameya, or at the robber, O restless one. Now thou barkest at the worshippers of Indra. Why dost thou distress us ? Sleep, sleep." — Lectures on Language^ second series, 473. ' This dog of the morning is promi- nent in the Norse tale of Bushy Bride. While the hero lies in a pit full of snakes (Helios in the land of the throttling serpent), a lovely lady (Ushas or Sarama) comes into the palace kitchen — the connexion, as with Boots or Cinderella among the ashes, lying in the fire of the earth or oven — and asks the kitchen-maid for a brush. "Then she brushed her hair, and as she brushed down dropped gold. A little dog was at her heel, and to him she said, ' Run out, little Flo, and sec if it will soon he day.' This she said three times, and the third time that she sent the dog it was just about the time the dawn begins to peep. " The old myth could not be retained with greater fidelity.

- Roth, quoted by Professor Max M idler, ib. 404. The name itself, as in Ilermcs, Sarama, and 6pjU7j, may express any motion, slow or rapid.

^ The Vedic hymn-makers tell us dis- tinctly that the horses of these Asvins are the rays of the sun. When they do this, it seems as difficult to deny that they made this comparison as to call in question the interpretation which the witch herself gives in one of the Russian stories of Afanasieff. The girl in this tale sees, as night comes on, a black horseman who disappears underground, at dawn a white horseman on a white horse, and, as the sun rises, a red horse- man on a red horse. She is told by no less an authority than the witch that the black horseman is the dark night, the white horseman the clear dawn-light, and the red horseman the young red sun. Professor Max Miiller seems to see in Demeter, not the earth, but the dawn-mother, Djava Malar, correspond- ing to Dyauspitar. — Ib. 517.