Page:The Religion of the Veda.djvu/131

 1 666 The Prehistoric Gods Why didst thou thus desert the Sun, And wander in the night afar ? Why didst thou flirt with the morning-star? His heart was filled with grief and pain."¹ 115 Perkunas is the god of thunder. In the mythol- ogy of these peoples he has absorbed the character- istics of the old god of heaven and become the chief god, just as Zeus, conversely, has taken upon him- self the functions of the "Thunderer." This folk- story presents the materials of the Hindu Açvin legend in a new arrangement, not at all applicable to the Hindu myth. But the materials, Sun- Maiden, Moon, and "Sons of God," are there. In another folk-song, this time a Lettish one, the morning-star is represented as pursuing amorously Saule, the equivalent of Vedic Surya, the "Sun- Maiden "2 With all the rich and often perplexing modula- tions of this myth, we have the common kernel of a heavenly dual pair of divinities in intimate relation with a female divinity of the heavens. The quality of helpers in need and saviours in trouble is almost unquestionably begotten of the universal notion that This version of the daina, with slight alterations, is that of Pro- fessor Chase in Transactions of the American Philological Associa- tion, vol. xxxi., p. 191. See Oldenberg, Die Religion des Veda, p. 212 ff.