Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/271

Rh draw the chariot of Mcdeia, but reveal to lamos the knowledge of CHAP. things to come. These snakes who nurse the infant prophet on the violet beds are the flashing-eyed messengers of morning, not the devouring serpents of darkness who seek to slay tlie new-born Herakles in his cradle.

As possessing this gift of the dragon-chariot bestowed on her by Sorcery Helios, Medeia is emphatically the wise woman : and in this myth ^"^j- ^'^"^'^^" we have probably the groundwork of those notions which were finally developed mto the system of sorcery and witchcraft. The know- ledge of Medeia came to her from the same superhuman source with the inspiration of the Pythian priestess of Delphoi ; the Latin witch derived her power from a secret compact with Hekate. Christianity converted Phoibos and his sister into demons, and at once the Canidias of the empire were regarded as trafficking with devils for the acquisition of unlawful powers. In the transition from the idea of a wisdom which, although not naturally attainable, might be con- ferred on some by the bright being whose eye pierces all space, to the notion of compacts made between witches and the devil we have a developement or corruption in close analogy with that confusion between Leukos, bright, as a general epithet, and the same word Lukos, as a special name for the wolf, from which sprung first the myth of the transformation of Lykaon, and then probably the wide- spread superstition of Lykanthropy.

As the wise woman, Medeia is the child of the ocean nymph The story Idyia, or, in another version, of Hekate (the female correlative of °^ Medeia. Hekatos or Phoibos), who is herself the daughter of Asteria, the star- lit night. Her father is Aietes, the Kolchian king, but he is a son of Helios who leaves to him and his descendants the magic wreath and robe by which Medeia revenges herself on Glauke.^ This robe is, indeed, only another form of the golden fleece, the mande of burnished cloud seen at sunrise and sunset. As such, it eats into the flesh not only of Glauke, the fair daughter of the Corinthian Kreon, but of Herakles himself, when his toils come to an end on mount Oita, Of her share in the victory of lason at Aia, it is enough here to say that in the taming of the fire-breathing bulls, and in the discomfiture of the men sprung from the dragon's teeth, she plays the part of Ariadne and receives Ariadne's reward. Whether faith- ful or treacherous, the sun can never remain with his first love, and even Odysseus, whose one longing is to return to his home, is parted from Penelope during the weary hours which pass between sunset and sunset. But before the time of her great sorrow comes, Medeia

' Eurip. Med. 957.