Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/547

Rh phone is the maiden who eats a golden apple (the narkissos), and CHAP. thereupon sinks a hundred fathoms deep into the earth, where the prince (Herakles) finds her with the nine-headed dragon resting on her lap. The return of Persephone is strangely set forth in the story of the House in the Wood, which in other stories is the house or case of ice in which the seemingly dead princess is laid. This house breaks up, like the ice, at the return of spring. The sides crack. " The doors were slammed back against the walls ; the beams groaned as if they were being riven away from their fastenings ; the stairs fell down, and at last it seemed as if the whole roof fell in." ^ On waking from her sleep the maiden finds herself in a splendid palace, surrounded by regal luxuries. Persephone has returned from the dreary abode of Hades to the green couch of the life-giving mother.

The gradual lengthening of the days after the winter solstice is The leno^then- singularly seen m Gnmm's story of the Nix of the Mill Pond. In ing°days. this tale, the dawn-bride, severed from her husband, betakes herself to an old woman, who comforts her and bids her comb her long hair by the water-side and see w^hat would happen. As she plies her golden comb, a wave rolling to the bank carries it away. Presently the waters began to bubble and the head of the huntsman (Alpheios) appears. " He did not speak, but looked at his wife sorrowfully, and at the same moment another Avave rolled on and covered his head." A second time she goes to the old woman, who gives her a flute, and this time there " appeared not only the head, but half the body of the man, who stretched out his arms towards his wife ; but at the same moment a wave came and covering his head drew him down again." The third time she comes with a spinning-wheel of gold (the wheel of Ixion), and the huntsman leaping out of the waters hurries away with his wife from the demons who seek to seize them. In the story of Jungfrau Maleen (Kore), the princess and her maid are shut up in a dark tower, and are constrained to scrape a hole through the wall in order to let in thp light. WTien they are able to peep out they see a blue sky, but everything on the earth is desolate as at the close of a northern winter, and like Cinderella, the maiden is obliged to take the cook's place in the king's palace, where at length, as in other stories,

Slavonic account of the transition from causes them to pour forth rain." — winter into spring. " In the spring, Ralston, Sottas of the Russian People, according to a WTiite-Russian tradition, 93. As these phrases scarcely describe Perun goes forth in his fiery car, and the phenomena of a Russian spring in crushes with his blazing darts the demons Europe, Mr. Ralston regards them as from whose wounds the blood is some- pointing to the time when Slaves, times described as streaming forth. Teutons, and Hindus were still an un- That is to say, the lightning pierces the divided people.
 * With this may be compared the clouds at that season of the year and