Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/527

Rh they appear as the monstrous Polyphemos, or as the three daughters chap. of Phorkos, who have but one tooth each and possess a single eye in common. These beings -^schylos especially calls swan-shaped, and here we have the germ of a large family of legends common to all the Aryan tribes and extending, it would seem, far beyond them. We have already seen the clouds, whether as lit up by the sun or as refreshing the earth with rain, spoken of as cows tended by nymphs, while the stormy vapours, their relentless enemies, are snakes, worms, or dragons, which throttle or strangle their prey. But the Sphinx, one of the most prominent of this repulsive tribe, is called particularly the winged hound,^ and the swan-shaped Phorkides answer to the black ravens who, as messengers of Wuotan, roam across the sky. These two classes of vapours are kept tolerably distinct. The one brings only famine and sickness ; the other recalls the dead earth to life, like the serpents with their snake-leaves in the stories of Glaukos, of Faithful John, and of Panch Phul Ranee. Sometimes, however, the vapours play an intermediate part, being neither wholly malignant nor kindly. Thus in the Arabian Nights the rushing vapour is the roc, " which broods over its great luminous egg, the sun, and which haunts the sparkling valley of diamonds, the starry sky.'' ^ Here the single eye in the forehead of Polyphemos becomes the golden egg which reappears in the story of Jack the Giant Killer as the egg which the red hen lays every morning. This monstrous bird appears as the kindly minister of the light-born prince in the Norse story of Farmer Weathersky. We are now more especially in the mythical domain of which strange animal shapes are the tenants ; and we may do well to note the vast multitude of beasts, birds, and fishes which figure in the mythology of the Aryan world. This strange throng, which exhibits innumerable shapes, beautiful or grotesque, graceful or repulsive, lovely or fearful, is most numerous in the Vedic and post-Vedic literature of India. But if we call to mind a few only of the old Greek myths, we shall see at once how large a part these creatures play in them. Thus we have the eagle of Zeus and the owl of Athene, the horses of Achilleus and Poseidon, the ass of Seilenos and the ass's ears of ISIidas ; we see Athene change herself at will into a bird, and 16 and Kallisto transmuted into a heifer and a bear ; we find the boar in the stories of Atys, Adonis, Meleagros, and Odysseus, the terrible Minotauros in the myth of Theseus, and the fire-breathing bulls in that of Medeia. In the Homeric Hymn Apollon throws himself into the sea in the form

• irTfjvhs Hvwv, yEsch. /y. 1024 ; ^ Goulfl, Cuiiuus Myths, second Agam. 13b. series, 140.