Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/569

Rh which is his bride. But the myth is yet in too early a state to allow chap. of the definite designations which are brought before us in the ^' conflicts of Zeus with Typhon and his monstrous progeny, of Apollon with the Python, of Bellerophon with Chimaira, of Oidipous with the Sphinx, of Hercules with Cacus, of Sigurd with the dragon Fafnir; and thus not only is Vritra kno^^^l by many names, but he is opposed sometimes by Indra, sometimes by Agni the fire-god, sometimes by Trita, Brihaspati, or other deities ; or rather these are all names for one and the same god.

Nay, although Indra is known pre-eminently as Vritrahan, the The great Vritra-slayer, yet Vritra, far from being petrified into a dead person- ality, became a name which might be applied to any enemy. The Vritra of the Vritras denoted the most malignant of adversaries.^ So again Vritra, the thief, is also called Ahi, the throttling snake, or dragon with three heads, like Geryon, the stealer of the cows of Herakles, or Kerberos, whose name reappears in Carvara, another epithet of the antagonist of Indra, He is also Vala, the enemy, a name which we trace through the Teutonic lands until we reach the cave of Wayland Smith in Berkshire.^ Other names of this hateful monster are ^ushna, ^ambara, Namuki;' but the most notable of all is Pani, which marks him as the seducer. Such he is, as enticing the cows of Indra to leave their pastures, and more especially as seeking to corrupt Sarama, when at Indra's bidding she comes to reclaim the plundered cattle.

The name Pani reappears in Paris, the seducer of Helen ; but as Pani and round this destroyer of his house and kinsfolk ideas are grouped ^^^' which are found in the conception of Phoibos and Helios, of Achil- leus, Theseus, and other solar heroes, so in its Hellenic form Vritra has sometimes a fair and sometimes a repulsive form. Orthros is the liound of Geryon, slain by Herakles ; but it is also a name for the first pale light of the dawn,* just as the night maybe regarded now as the evil power which kills the light, now as the sombre but benignant mother of the morning.^ This difference of view accounts precisely for the contrast between Varuna and Vritra.

Between the Vedic and the Hellenic myths there is this difference Greek and only, that in the latter the poets and mythographers who tell the mnhs! story recount without understanding it. They are no longer conscious that Geryon and Typhon, Echidna and Orthros, Python and Kerberos, are names for the same thing, and that the combats of

' Breal, Hercule et Cacus, 92, &c. ' Breal, Htrcule et Cacus, 93.
 * Grimm, Deutsche Mytholcgie, 943. * lb. 105, &c. ' vvi, i(ak