Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/497

465 CHAP. as in the classic myth Orpheus went down to Hades to bring thence Eiirydice. When in the realm of gloom perpetual, the Finn demigod struck his kantele and sent all the inhabitants of Pohjola to sleep, as Hermes when about to steal 16 made the eyes of Argos Panoptes close at the sound of his lyre. Then he ran off with the Sampo, and had nearly got it to the land of light when the dwellers in Pohjola awoke, and pursued and fought him for the ravished treasure, which, in the struggle, fell into the sea and was lost ; again reminding us of the classic tale of Orpheus." ^

Wuotan again in the Teutonic mythology is Galdner the singer : Galdner and in the Gudrunlied the time which it would take one to ride a thousand miles passed in a moment while any one listened to the singing of HjarrandL The christianised form of this myth, as the Legend of the Monk and the Bird, is well known to the readers of Longfellow and Archbishop Trench, and is noteworthy chiefly as inverting the parts, and making the bird charm the wearied and doubting man.

Still more remarkable is the connexion of this mystic harp in The Sibyl, the legend of Gunadhya with a myth which reproduces that of the Sibylline books offered in diminished quantities, but always at the same price, to the Roman king Tarquin. In the Eastern tale the part of Tarquin is played by King Satavahana to whom Gunadhya sends a poem of seven hundred thousand slokas written in his own blood. This poem the king rejects as being wTitten in the Pisacha dialect. Gunadhya then burns a portion of the poem on the top of a mountain ; but while it is being consumed, his song brings together all the beasts of the forest who weep for joy at the beauty of his tale. The king falls ill, and is told that he must eat game : but none is to be had, for all the beasts are listening to Gunadhya. On hearing this news, the king hastens to the spot and buys the poem, or rather the seventh portion which now alone remained of the whole.^ It is scarcely necessary to add that in this tale, as in that of Wainiimoinen, we have two stories which must be traced to a common source with the myths of Hermes, Orpheus, and the Sibyl, — in other words, to a story the framework of which had been put together before the separation of the Aryan tribes.^

' Curious Myths, ii. 177. Curious Myths, ii. 172.
 * Katha Sarit Sa^uju, i. S ; Gould, * bet p. 05, ft sty.