Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/571

Rh HAP, ing Lykaon into a wolf laid the foundations of the horrible supersti- C tions of lykanthropy.^

The Hellenic tribes carried away from their common Aryan home The Block- not merely the phrases which told of a battle between the god of the Foumains. heaven and his cloud-enemy, but those also which described the nature of the struggle. If the name Vritra remains only in that of the Hellenic hound Orthros, his evil work, as imprisoning the waters, reappears in almost every western myth of monsters slain by solar heroes. When Phoibos smites the Python at Delphoi, a stream of water gushes out from the earth ; the dragon slain by the Theban Kadmos blocks all access to a fountain ; and the defeat of the Sphinx can alone bring rain to refresh the parched Boiotian soil.^ This warm and fertilising rain becomes from mere necessities of climate the hidden treasure guarded, in the Teutonic legend, by the dragon whom Sigurd slays on the snow-clad or glistening heath.

A later stage in the developement of the Hindu myth is seen in The stolen the few passages which speak of the victims of Vritra not as clouds but as women. As sailing along in the bright heavens (dyu), the clouds were naturally called devi, the brilliant, and the conversion of the word deva into a general name for the gods transformed them into Gnas, yvvatKcs, or Nymphs, in whom we see the fair Helen whom Paris stole from Menelaos, and Sita, the bride of Rama, who is carried off by the giant Ravana.' But here also, as in its earlier form, the myth remains purely physical ; and we have to turn to the Iranian land to see the full growth of the idea which the old Hindu worshippers faintly shadowed in the prayer that Vritra might not be suffered to reign over them.

In the later Hindu mythology the power of darkness is known by Ravana the names Bali, Ravana, or Graha. The first of these is in the Rama- yana the conqueror of Indra himself, and after his victory over the sun or the rain-god he enjoys the empire of the three worlds, intoxi- cated with the increase of his power. But the darkness which has ended the brief career of Achilleus must in turn be subdued by one who is but Achilleus in another form ; and Bali, the son of Viro- chana, meets his match in Vishnu, who confronts him in his dwarf incarnation as Hara.* In the readiness with which Bali yields to the request of the dwarf, who asks only for leave to step three paces, we see the germ of that short-sightedness to their o^^Tl interests which

' Br^al, Hercule et Cams, 115. Ralston, Songs of the Russian People, ' The deluge, which is poured into 233.

the trenches cut by Sigurd, when he ' Rre'al, Hernile et Cacus, 117, 118. slays the dragon Fafnir, appears in the * Muir, Sanskrit Texts, iv. 117. Slavonic story of Gregory the Brave. —