Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/325

Rh CHAP. words, Herakles is mightier than Agamemnon. He is the sun-god demanding his own recompense: and the Achaians among whom Achilleus fights are the sun-children seeking to recover the beautiful light of evening and the treasures which have been stolen with her from the west.

Of the other exploits of Herakles, the greater number explain Orthros themselves. The Nemean lion is the offspring of Typhon, Orthros, Hydra. or Echidna ; in other words, it is sprung from Vritra, the dark thief, and Ahi, the throttling snake of darkness, and it is as surely slain by Herakles as the snakes which had assaulted him in the cradle. Another child of the same horrid parents is the Lernaian Hydra, its very name denoting a monster who, like the Sphinx or the Panis, shuts up the waters and causes drought. It has many heads, one being immortal, as the storm must constantly supply new clouds while the vapours are driven off by the sun into space. Hence the story went that although Herakles could burn away its mortal heads, as the sun burns up the clouds, still he can but hide away the mist or vapour itself, which at its appointed time must again darken the sky. In this fight he is aided by lolaos, the son of Iphikles, a name recalling, like that of lole, the violet-tinted clouds which can be seen only when the face of the heaven is clear of the murky vapours. Hence it is that Eurystheus is slain when lolaos rises from the under world to punish him for demanding from the children of the dawn- goddess Athene the surrender of the Herakleids, who had found among them a congenial home. The stag of Keryneia is, according to some versions, slain, in others only seized by Herakles, who bears it with its golden antlers and brazen feet to Artemis and Phoibos. The story of the Erymanthian boar is in some accounts transferred from Argos to Thessaly or Phrygia, the monster itself, which Herakles chases through deep snow, being closely akin to the Chimaira slain by Bellerophon. In the myth of the Augeian stables Herakles plays the part of Indra, when he lets loose the waters imprisoned by the Pani.^ In this case the plague of drought is regarded not so much in its effects on the health of man as in its influence on nature

daughter of Kephciis. Herakles, of the i;;rowth of the heads of the Lernaian course, plays the part of Perseus, and Hydra. This myth is repeated in the is aided by Athene and the Trojans, tale of the Two Stepsisters, and in the who build him a tower to help him in Gaelic story of the Battle of the Birds, the fight. of which Rlr. Cami^bell (Tales of the

' This exploit, in the Norse story of West Highlands, i. 61) says that "it the Mastermaid, is performed by the might have been taken from classical prince, who finds that, unless he guides mythology if it stood alone, but Norwe- the pitchfork aright, ten pitchforks full gian peasants and West Highlanders of filth come in for every one that he could not so twist the story of Hercules tosses out, an incident which recalls into the same shape."