Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/56

24 impressions which the phenomena left on their senses, and their truthfulness would impart to their language an undying beauty; but the most fruitful source of mythical phrases would be found undoubtedly in the daily or yearly course of the lord of day. In the thought of these early ages the sun was the child of night, or darkness; the dawn came before he was born, and died as he rose in the heavens. He strangled the serpents of the night; he went forth like a bridegroom out of his chamber, and like a giant to run his course. He had to do battle with clouds and storms. Sometimes his light grew dim under their gloomy veil, and the children of men shuddered at the wrath of the hidden sun. Sometimes his ray broke forth only, after brief splendour, to sink beneath a deeper darkness; sometimes he burst forth at the end of his course, trampling on the clouds which had dimmed his brilliancy and bathing his pathway with blood. Sometimes, beneath mountains of clouds and vapours, he plunged into the leaden sea. Sometimes he looked benignly on the face of his mother or his bride who came to greet him at his journey's end. Sometimes he was the lord of heaven and of light, irresistible in his divine strength; sometimes he toiled for others, not for himself, in a hard, unwilling servitude. His light and heat might give life or destroy it. His chariot might scorch the regions over which it passed; his flaming fire might burn up all who dared to look with prying eyes into his dazzling treasure-house. He might be the child destined to slay his parents, or to be united at the last in an unspeakable peace to the bright dawn who for brief space had gladdened his path in the morning. He might be the friend of the children of men, and the remorseless foe of those powers of darkness who had stolen away his bride. He might be a warrior whose eye strikes terror into his enemies, or a wise chieftain skilled in deep and hidden knowledge. Sometimes he might appear as a glorious being doomed to an early death, which no power could avert or delay. Sometimes grievous hardships and desperate conflicts might be followed by a longer season of serene repose. Wherever he went, men might welcome him in love, or shrink from him in fear and anguish. He would have many brides in many lands, and his off- spring would assume aspects beautiful, strange, or horrible. His course might be brilliant and beneficent, or gloomy, sullen, and capricious. As compelled to toil for others, he would be said to fight in quarrels not his own; or he might for a time withhold the aid of an arm which no enemy could withstand. He might be the destroyer of all whom he loved, he might slay the dawn with his kindling rays, he might scorch the fruits who were his children; he