Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/507

Rh constantly more and more superstitious ; and superstition, although CHAP. its nature remains unchanged, is stripped of half its horrors when its objects are beings whose nature is wholly genial. This comparatively wholesome influence the idea of nymphs inhabiting every portion of the world exercised on the Hellenic mind. Each fountain and lake, each river and marsh, each well, tree, hill, and vale had its guardian, whose presence was a blessing, not a curse. As dwelling in the deep running waters, the nymphs who in name answer precisely to the Vedic Apsaras, or movers in the waters, have in some measure the wisdom of Nereus, Glaukos, and of Proteus ; hence the soothsayer, as he uttered the oracles of the god, was sometimes said to be filled with their spirit. They guarded the flocks and fostered the sacred- ness of home, while on the sick they exercised the beneficent art and skill of Asklepios.

These kindly beings must, however, be distinguished from the Swan- Swan-maidens and other creatures of Aryan mythology, whose nature an^''^^"^ is more akin to the clouds and vapours. The lakes on which these Apsaras. maidens are seen to swim are the blue seas of heaven, in which may be seen beautiful or repulsive forms, the daughters of Phorkys, Gorgons, Harpies, Kentaurs, Titans, Graiai, Phaiakians. Nor can it be said that Thetis, though called a Nereid, is in all points like the companions among whom she dwells. She lives, indeed, in the sea ; but she has been brought up by Here the queen of the high heaven, and like the Telchines and Kouretes, like Proteus and Glaukos, she can change her form at will, and Peleus obtains her as his bride only when he has treated her as Aristaios treats the guardian of the ocean herds. She belongs thus partly to the sea, and in part to the upper air, and thus the story of her life runs through not a Httle of the mythical history of the Greeks. When Dionysos flies from Lykourgos, and Hephaistos is hurled down from Olympos, it is Thetis who gives them a refuge ; and if she is married to a mortal man, it is only be- cause at the suggestion, it is said, of Here, she refuses to become the bride of Zeus, or as others would have it, because it was fated that her child should be mightier than his father — a myth which can be only solar in its character. In yet another version she plays the part of Aphrodite to Anchises in the Homeric Hymn, and wins Peleus as her husband by promising that his son shall be the most renowned of all the heroes. The story of her wedding carries us far away from her native element, and when, as in the Iliad, she preserves the body of Patroklos from decay, she appears rather in the character of the daATi-goddess who keeps off all unseemly things from the slain Hektor. Nor is she seen in her true character as a Nereid, before