Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/529

Rh CHAP. to US the feats of Hanuman took care also to tell us how he had the faculty of changing his form at will. It was, of course, natural and even inevitable that the ideas suggested by the conditions of primitive Aryan life should be transferred to the heavens. To the ancient Aryan the prosperity of his herds was of the first importance ; but the horse was also an animal whose splendid qualities he keenly appreciated. Hence he compared the sun climbing up the heavens to the invincible war-steed. The sun thus becomes both a horse and a bull. By a not less natural process he became also the rider or charioteer who guides both horses and bulls at his will ; and a starting-point was furnished for legions of myths which might pass into shapes strangely unlike those which they had worn at starting. We thus reach the graceful myths in which the forms of fair maidens and swans pass one into the other, like the shifting colours of a dream. In the Hymn to Apollon the clouds appear as the nymphs or The Muses goddesses who bathe the new-born Phoibos, and the white robe vaUi^La. which they wrap around him is the garment of morning mist, through which his orb may be seen ascending amidst zones of gold. Among these nymphs are the Charites, who attend on Aphrodite, the lovely clouds which dance in the morning sky, while in the hymn of Kalli- machos the clouds are plainly spoken of as the singing swans who hasten from Paktolos and fly seven times round Delos at the birth of Phoibos, who therefore in after years fixes on seven notes as the complement of the musical scale. These beautiful beings in their thousand forms all spring from -the water, whether it be Athene or Aphrodite, Melusina or Urvasi. All therefore are Apsaras or water-maidens, of whom the germs may be seen in Vedic hymns, while in later Hindu epics they appear with all the features of the Teutonic Valkyrien ; and the consolation addressed to the wannors of the Mahabharata is that by which Mahomet cheers the hearts of the faithful. *' A hero slain is not to be lamented, for he is exalted in heaven. Thousands of beautiful nymphs (apsaras) run quickly up to the hero who has been slain in battle, saying to him. Be my husband."^ Here then we have the groundwork of all those tales which speak of men as wedded to fairies, nymphs, nixies, mermaids, swan-maidens, or other supernatural beings. The details may vary indefinitely ; but the Aryan and Turanian myths alike point to the same phe- nomena. From the thought which regarded the cloud as an eagle or a swan, it was easy to pass to the idea that these birds were beautiful maidens, and hence that they could at will, or on the ending of the inchantment, assume their human form. This would, in fact, be


 * Muir, SAr. Texts, part iv, p. 235.