Page:The Mythology of the Aryan Nations.djvu/590

558 BOOK II. Modification of the myth.

weakening of memoiy the same word was used to denote the mahgnant serpent and the beneficent dragon, the attributes of the one became in some myths more or less blended with those of the other. In the popular Hindu story of Vikram Maharaja, the cobra who curls himself up in his throat and will not be dislodged is clearly the snake of winter, who takes away the gladness and joy of summer; for this disaster is followed by the rajah's exile, and his people mourn his absence as Demeter grieves while her child Persephone is sojourning in Hades. It is in fact the story of Sigurd and Brynhild reversed; for here it is Vikram who is banished or sleeps, while the beautiful princess Buccoulee sees her destined husband in her dreams, and recognises him among a group of beggars as Eurykleia recognises Odysseus in his squalid raiment Him she follows, although he leads her to a hut in the jungle, where she has but a hard time of it while the cobra still remains coiled up in his throat. This woful state is brought to an end by an incident which occurs in the stories of Panch Phul Ranee and of Glaukos and Polyidos. Buccoulee hears two cobras conversing, and learns from them the way not merely to rid her husband of his tormentor, but to gain possession of the splendid treasure which these snakes guard like the dragon of the glistening heath or the monsters of the legend of Beowulf.^

Still more notably is the idea of the old myth softened dovn in the tale of Troy, for Ilion is the stronghold of Paris the deceiver, and Hektor is the stoutest warrior and the noblest man in all the hosts of Priam. To the treachery of Alexandros he opposes the most thorough truthfulness, to his indolent selfishness the most disin- terested generosity and the most active patriotism. But Hektor had had no share in the sin of Paris, and there was nothing even in the earliest form of the myth which would require that the kinsmen of Paris should not fight bravely for their hearths and homes. We have, however, seen already that the mythical instinct was satisfied when the legend as a whole conveyed the idea from which the myth sprung up. Ilion was indeed the fastness of the dark powers ; but each chief and warrior who fought on their side would have his own mythical history, and threads from very different looms might be woven together into a single skein. This has happened to a singular

the Fenris of the Edda. This is the evil beast who swallows up Little Red Cap or Red Riding Hood, the evening, with her scarlet robe of twilight. In one version of this story Little Red Cap escapes his malice, as Mcmnon rises again from Hades.

' In the story of Miichie Lai, the seven-headed cobra is the friend and defender of the dawn-maiden, and is, in fact, the snake who dwells in the shrine of Athene, the goddess of the morning. — Deccan Tales ^ 244, &c.