The bow of Mithra is formed of a thousand bows, prepared from the tough hide of a cow; these bows, in the _Avesta_, also hurl a thousand darts, which fly with winged vultures' feathers.[298] This carries us back again to the Vedic myth of the birds which come out of the cow.

The bow being considered a cow, this cow sharpens its horns; whence the _Khorda Avesta_ celebrates the horned darts of the bow of Mithra, _i.e._, the horns of the cow, which have become weapons[299] or the thunderbolts.

The legend of the two brothers is connected more with the myth of the horse than with that of the cow or the ox. But inasmuch as it presents the two brothers to us as the one poor and the other rich, the riches are symbolised by the ox. However, if I am not mistaken, there are two heroes, celebrated in the _Avesta_ one after the other (and whom I therefore suppose to be brothers), who derive their origin from this legend; one is called criraokhsan (or who has a fine ox), the other Kerecaokhsan (or who has a lean ox). As the _Avesta_ does not go on to develop this subject more in detail, I dare not insist upon it; nevertheless it is gratifying to me to remark that, of the two brothers, Kerecaokhsan was the most valiant, as of the two brothers Urvaksha (a word which may perhaps signify the one who has the fat horse, and which is perhaps synonymous with Urvacpa[300]) and Kerecacpa (he of the lean horse), it is the second who is the glorious hero; as in the Russian popular tales, we shall find the third brother, though thought to be an idiot, despised by the others, and riding the worst jade of the stable, yet becoming afterwards the most fortunate hero. Kerecacpa avenges his brother Urvaksha against Hitacpa, whom Professor Spiegel[301] interprets to mean the bound horse, but which can also be rendered he who keeps the horse bound, which would bring us back again to the story of the bridle and of the hero-horse, whom the demon keeps bound to himself, which we have already noticed above in the story of the sacrifice of cuna?cepas, delivered by the aurora.

It is uncertain whether we must recognise the aurora or the moon, in the _Avesta_, in the so-called Ashis Vag~uhi, the elevated (like Ardvi cura Anahita), who appears upon the high mountain, rich, beautiful, splendid, golden-eyed, beneficent, giver of cattle, posterity, and abundance, who discomfits the demons, guides chariots, and is invoked by the son of the watery one, Thraetaona, in the _Ashi Yast_,[302] in order that she may help him to vanquish the three-headed monster-serpent Dahaka. Now, Thraetaona, the victorious and rich in oxen,[303] being a well-known form of the solar hero Mithra, it is interesting to learn how the heroine, the so-called Ashis Vag~uhi (the aurora, or the moon, as the three words Ardvi cura Anahita are simple names of the aurora), having the same supreme G.o.d for her father, has three brothers, of whom the first is craosha, the pious; the second, Rashnus, the strong; and the third, Mithra, the victorious.

She is, moreover, herself represented as being pursued by enemies on horseback; and it is now a bull, now a sheep, now a child, anon a virgin who hides her from her pursuers. Not knowing where to go, whether to ascend into heaven, or creep along the earth, she applies to Ahura Mazda, who answers that she must neither ascend into heaven nor creep along the earth, but betake herself to the middle of a beautiful king's habitation.[304] How is it possible not to recognise in her the moon, or the aurora, who follows the path of the sun her husband, the moon, or the aurora, who appears on the summit of the high mountains?

Other facts not devoid of mythological interest might perhaps be found in the _Avesta_, which, on account of the uncertainty attending the translation of the original texts, has. .h.i.therto been, it seems to me, utterly neglected by mythologists. And yet, though Anquetil, Burnouf, Benfey, Spiegel, Haugh, Kossowicz, and all who have turned their talents and science to the interpretation of the Zendic texts, disagree in the more abstruse pa.s.sages, there are many of which the interpretation is certain, in which the learned translators agree, which offer interesting mythological data, and permit us, in any case, to extract from the _Avesta_ an embryo of mythology, in the same way as an embryo of grammar has already been extracted from it. The brief references which I have now made to the myth of the cow and the bull in the _Avesta_, anyhow appear to me sufficient to warrant the conclusion I draw, that the cow and the bull presented the same aspects, and generated the same myths and the same beliefs in Persia as in India, albeit in a form far more feeble and indeterminate.

The solar hero of Persia occurs again in the costume of historical legend in the Cyrus (?????) of Herodotus and Ktesias, the first of which represents to us the child exposed by his parents, saved and educated during his infancy (like the Hindoo Kar?as, child of the sun, and K?ish?as) among the shepherds, where for some time he gives extraordinary proofs of his valour; the second shows us the young hero who wins his own bride, Amytis, daughter of Astyages.

Finally, the same hero appears in several splendid and glorious forms in the _Shahname_.

As in the _?igvedas_, Tritas or Traitanas, and in the _Avesta_, Thraetaona (of whom Thritas is a corresponding form), accomplish the great exploit of killing the monster, and more especially the serpent, so Feridun, the Persian synonym (by means of the intermediate form Phreduna) for the Zendic Thraetaona is, in subsequent Persian tradition, the most distinguished hero in the struggle against the monster. I shall not insist upon the deeds of Feridun and his mythical valour, after the learned paper written upon the subject by Professor R. Roth, which appears in the Transactions of the Oriental Society of Leipzig, and the able and highly-valued essay by Professor Michael Breal on the myth of Hercules and Cacus. I shall therefore content myself with quoting from the legend of Feridun the episode of his old age, which reminds us of the Vedic myth of the three brothers.

The great king Feridun has three sons, Selm, Tur, and Ire? (Selm, Tur, and Er are also the sons of Thraetaona); he divides the world into three parts and gives the west to the first-born, and the north to the second, whilst he keeps Iran for the youngest. The two eldest are jealous, and announce to their father their intention of declaring war against him, unless he expels their younger brother Ire? from the palace. Feridun replies to their impious threat with haughty reproofs, and meanwhile warns the young Ire? of the danger he is in. The youth proposes to go in person to his brothers, and induce them to make peace; his father is unwilling to let him go, but finally consents, and gives him a letter for the two brothers, in which he commends him as his best-loved son to their care. Ire? arrives at his brothers'

dwelling; their soldiers see him, and cannot take their eyes off him, as though they already recognised him for their lord. Then Selm, the eldest, advises Tur, the second, the strong one, to kill Ire?; Tur thereupon a.s.saults the defenceless Ire?, and transfixes his breast with a dagger. Ire? is afterwards avenged by the son of his daughter (born after his death of a maid whom he had left pregnant), the hero Minucehr, who kills Selm and Tur.

The hero who succeeds Minucehr is Sal, the son of Sam, whom, because born with white hair, his father had exposed upon Mount Alburs, where the bird Simurg nourished and saved him. Sal proves his wisdom before Minucehr by solving six astronomical riddles which King Minucehr proposes to him. The king, satisfied, orders him to be dressed in festive clothes; he then, to prove his strength, challenges him to run a tilt with the hors.e.m.e.n; Sal is victorious, and obtains another robe of honour and innumerable royal gifts; after which he espouses Rudabe, daughter of King Mihrab.

Sal distinguishes himself, like Minucehr, in his wars against the perverse Turanians, the dragons and the monsters, in which he takes along with him as his chief helper the mighty hero Rustem, whose weapon is a club surmounted with the head of a bull[305] or a horned mace (the hero is the bull, the thunderbolts are his horns), and whose horse is so powerful as by itself to fight and vanquish a lion while Rustem is asleep. The hero himself kills a dragon, and a witch transformed into a beautiful woman, but who resumes her monstrous shape as soon as the hero p.r.o.nounces the name of a G.o.d. He thunders like a cloud, is dark, and describes himself as a thunder-cloud which hurls the thunderbolt.[306] He binds the warrior Aulad, and obliges him to reveal where the demons detain in prison King Kawus, who is become blind in their kingdom of darkness. Kawus then informs Rustem that to recover his sight his eyes must be anointed with three drops of blood from the slain demon Sefid; upon which Rustem sets out to kill the demon. The demons can be vanquished only by day; when it is light, they sleep, and then they can be conquered, says Aulad to Rustem; for this reason, Rustem does not begin the enterprise till the sun is in mid-heaven;[307] then he thunders and lightens at the demons. Like a sun, he sets out towards the mountain (no doubt, towards sunset), where the demon Sefid sits, and arrives at the mouth of a deep and gloomy cavern, from which Sefid sallies forth in the form of a black giant just awakened from his sleep. The giant himself, like an enormous mountain a.s.saulting the earth, hurls a rock like a millstone at Rustem; Rustem strikes the monster on the feet, and lops away one of them; the lame giant continuing the fight, Rustem at last wrestles with him, lifts him into the air, then beats him several times furiously against the ground, and so takes his life. He throws the body of Sefid into the mountain cavern, whilst his blood saturates the earth, and gives back to the prince Kawus his eyesight and his splendour. The myth is a beautiful and an expressive one. As from the black venomous serpent comes white healthy milk, so from the black monster, at his death, comes blood, which gives back his eyesight to the blinded prince; the red aurora is here represented as the blood of the nocturnal monster, discomfited by the solar hero.

Let me ask the reader to notice the Persian comparison of the rock thrown by the demon to a millstone, as it is important to explain a superst.i.tion still extant in the West, to the effect that the devil goes under the millstone to carry out his evil designs. The stone or mountain fractured by the waters was naturally compared to a millstone moved by the waters; the demons inhabit the cavernous mountain to guard the waters; thus the devil, the evil one, the hobgoblins, prefer mills as their dwellings.

Rustem fights, in the _Shahname_, many other victoriously successful battles against Afrasiab the Turanian, and other demoniacal beings, in the service of sundry heroic kings, with epic incidents to boot, which are nearly all uniform. His struggle against his son Sohrab, however, is of an entirely different character.

Rustem goes to the chase. In the forest, Turkish bandits rob him of his invaluable horse while he sleeps; he then sets out, alone and sad, towards the city of s.e.m.e.ngam, following the track left by his horse.

When he appears, emerging from the wood, the king of s.e.m.e.ngam and his courtiers note the phenomenon as though it were the sun coming out of the clouds of morning.[308] The king receives Rustem with great hospitality, and, as if to fill to the full the measure of his courtesy, he sends at night to the room where he sleeps his exceedingly beautiful daughter Tehmime. The hero and the beauty separate in the morning; but Rustem, before parting from Tehmime, leaves her a pearl of recognition. If a daughter is born to their loves, she is to wear it as an amulet in her hair; if a son, he is to wear it on his arm, and he will become an invincible hero. After nine months, Tehmime gives birth to Sohrab; at the age of one month he seems a year old, at three years of age he amuses himself with arms, at five he gives proof of a lion's courage, and at ten he vanquishes all his companions, and asks his mother to inform him of his father, threatening to kill her if she does not tell him. Scarcely does Sohrab learn that he is the son of Rustem, than he conceives the desire of becoming king of Iran and supplanting Kawus; he then commences his persecution of the Iranian heroes by a.s.saulting the white castle (the white morning sky, the alba), defended by a beautiful warrior princess, Gurdaferid, dear to the Iranian warriors. Sohrab conquers and destroys the white castle, but in the moment of triumph, the warrior maiden disappears. The old hero Rustem then moves against his own son Sohrab; the latter throws him down, but Rustem, in his turn, mortally wounds Sohrab. In the old Rustem thrown down on the mountain it is not difficult to recognise the setting sun; in Sohrab mortally wounded by Rustem, the sun itself, which dies; and in fact, the dying sun has a different appearance from the new sun which rises and triumphs in the heavens: these two appearances might give rise to the idea of a struggle between the old and the young sun, in which both are sacrificed. Indeed, Rustem feels, when he mortally wounds Sohrab, that he is wounding himself; he curses his work and immediately sends for a healing balsam; but in the meantime Sohrab dies. The only one who could destroy the young sun was the old sun; the sun grows old and dies; Rustem alone could kill Sohrab. With the death of Sohrab the glory of Rustem is also eclipsed; he retires unto solitude, and the most grandiose period of his epic life comes to an end. After this he only reappears in episodic battles or enterprises; as, for instance, in his setting fire to Turan, in which he resembles Hanumant, burner of Lanka; in the liberation of the young hero Bishen, who had been taken prisoner and incarcerated by the Turanians; in the killing of the powerful and perverse Turanian Afrasiab; and in his own death in an ambuscade set by young rivals of the old lion, who dies taking vengeance on his enemies.

In the very palace of Kawus (he who was protected by Rustem), a notable legendary drama takes place. Sijavush, son of King Kawus, is seduced by the queen-mother Sudabe, who burns with love for him. The youth spurns this love, upon which she accuses him to King Kawus as her seducer. The father, after hearing his son's defence in proof of his innocence, cannot believe the queen; and thereupon she devises another method for destroying the young Sijavush. She concerts with a slave she has, who is a sorceress, and persuades her to create two little venomous monsters, which she straightway proclaims aloud are the children of Sijavush. Then Sijavush, to prove his innocence, submits willingly to the trial by fire; he enters the flames upon his black horse, after having embraced his trembling father; both horse and horseman come out of the immense fire, amid the plaudits of all the spectators. Then the king gives orders to strangle the unnatural queen; but his son Sijavush intercedes in her favour, and Sudabe is allowed to live by grace of the young prince, whom, however, she continues to persecute, till, on the death of Sijavush, Rustem, who bewailed him as his own son, or as his other self, avenges him first by killing Sudabe, on account of whom Sijavush had been obliged to repair to Turan, and afterwards by carrying the war into Turan, where, after a very agitated life, Sijavush had fallen into the power of his father-in-law, Afrasiab, and been put to death.

The wife of Sijavush, Ferengis by name, being pregnant, is hospitably entertained by Piran, and gives birth to the hero Kai Khosru; and no sooner is he born than he is consigned to the shepherds of the mountain. As early as seven years of age, his favourite amus.e.m.e.nt is that of drawing the bow; at ten, he confronts wild boars, bears, lions, and tigers with only his shepherd's staff. When Afrasiab sees the young shepherd, he inquires at him about his sheep and the peaceful pursuits of shepherds; the boy replies with stories of lions having sharp teeth, and of other wild animals, of which he is not afraid. As soon as he comes to manhood, he flees from Turan, followed by the Turanians; he arrives at the banks of a river, where the ferryman asks impossible conditions to take him over; upon which, like Feri?un, he crosses the river safely, but without a boat, and on dry feet (it is the sun traversing the cloudy and gloomy ocean without wetting himself);[309] arrived at length in Iran, he is feasted and feted as the future king. His reign begins; he then a.s.signs different tasks to different heroes, among whom is his brother Firud, born of another mother, of whom it is said that a single hair of his head has more strength in it than many warriors (one ray of the sun is enough to break the darkness). One evening, however, at sunset, Firud is killed in his castle upon the mountain, being surrounded by a crowd of enemies, after having lost his horse, and after his mother Cerire had dreamt that a fire had consumed both mountain and castle. His mother Cerire (the evening aurora) throws herself among the flames with her maids, and dies also. Kai Khosru bewails the loss of his brother Firud all the night through, till the c.o.c.k crows; when morning comes he thinks of avenging him.

After this, the life of Kai Khosru is consumed in battles fought by his heroes against the Turanians. Only towards the end of his days does he become a penitent king; he will no longer allow his subjects to fight, and his only occupation is prayer; he takes leave of his people and his daughters in peace, ascends a mountain, and disappears in a tempest, leaving no trace of himself. In a similar manner the heroes Yudhish?hiras, Cyrus, and Romulus disappear (not to speak of the biblical Moses, still less of Christ, as we do not wish to complicate a comparison of which the materials are already so extensive, by mixing up the Aryan elements with those of Semitic origin; although the legends of the serpent, of Noah, of Abraham and his regained wife, of Abraham and his son Isaac, of Joseph and his brethren, of Joshua, of Job, and other and more recent biblical heroes, by their mythical or astronomical import, present numerous a.n.a.logies with the Indo-European legends); in a similar manner, the old sun, weary of reigning in the heavens and fighting for his life, becomes invisible every evening on the mountain-peaks.

The _Shahname_ contains numerous other legends besides those which we have thus far briefly described; and one of the most notable is, beyond a doubt, that of Isfendiar, who goes with his brother Bishutem to deliver his two sisters, imprisoned in a fortress by the Turanian king Ardshasp. The seven adventures of Isfendiar, _i.e._, his meeting with the wolf, the lion, the dragon, the witch (who makes herself beautiful, but who is no sooner bound with the enchanted necklace of Isfendiar [the solar disc] than she becomes old and ugly again), the gigantic bird, the tempest and the river, all of which dangers he victoriously overcomes, are reproductions, in an a.n.a.logous form too, of the seven adventures of Rustem.

Finally, the legend of Iskander or Iskender (the name of Alexander of Macedon), full of extraordinary adventures, became exceedingly popular in Persia, and thence, no doubt, pa.s.sed with all its charms into Europe.

The audacity and good fortune, the glory and the power of the great conqueror were the reasons why there grouped round his name so many extraordinary stories, which wandered dispersedly through the world without epic unity. To make up one glorious and never-to-be-forgotten hero, were combined together the achievements of many anonymous or nearly forgotten ones. The Persian _Iskendername_ of Nishami, is, as its name denotes, entirely taken up with the celebration of the deeds of the Macedonian hero, of which the most ill.u.s.trious are the liberation of the princess Nushabe (taken prisoner by the Russians), and the voyage in search of the fountain of life and immortality, which, however, Iskander cannot find. From Persia the same legend afterwards pa.s.sed, with new disguises, into Egypt, Armenia, and Greece, whence it was diffused during the middle ages over almost the whole of Western Europe.[310]

As a bridge of transition between the Hindoo and Persian, and the Turk or Tartar traditions, we shall make use of three works: the Turkish version[311] of the Persian _Tuti-Name_, itself a translation and in part a paraphrase of the Hindoo _cuka-Saptati_, _i.e._, the seventy (stories) of the parrot; the Mongol stories of _Siddhi-kur_, and the Mongol history of _Ardshi-Bordshi Khan_,[312] the first being a paraphrase of the Hindoo _Vetala-Pancavincati_, _i.e._, the twenty-five of the Vetala (a kind of demon), and the second of the Hindoo _Vikrama-caritram_ (the heroic action).

We have seen in the _aitareya Brahmanam_ the father who prepares to offer up his son, and in the _Mahabharatam_, the son who forfeits youth that his father may live. In the _Tuti-Name_,[313] the faithful Merdi Ganbaz prepares to sacrifice his wife and sons, and afterwards himself, to prolong the life of the king; but his devotion and fidelity being proved, he is arrested by G.o.d before he can accomplish the cruel sacrifice, and receives numberless benefits from the king.

In the story of the goldsmith and the woodcutter, the _Tuti-Name_[314]

reproduces the two brothers or friends, of whom one is wicked, rich, and avaricious, while the other is defrauded of the money due to him, because, though, in reality intelligent, he is supposed to be an idiot.

The woodcutter avenges himself upon the goldsmith by a plan which we shall find described in the legend of the bear, and recovers, thanks to his craftiness, the gold which his brother or friend had kept from him.

In the interesting story of Merhuma,[315] we read of the wife who is persecuted by the seducer her brother-in-law. To avenge her refusal, he causes her to be stoned during the absence of his brother; being innocent, she rises again from under the stones; being sheltered by a Bedouin, a monster of a slave seduces her; being repulsed, he accuses her of the death of the Bedouin's little son, whom he had himself killed; the beautiful girl flees away; she frees a youth who was condemned to death, and who in his turn seduces her. She then embarks in a ship; while she is at sea all the sailors become enamoured of her and wish to possess her; she invokes the G.o.d who caused Pharaoh to be drowned and who saved Noah from the waters. The waves begin to move; a thunderbolt descends and burns to ashes all who are in the ship, with the exception of the beautiful girl, who lands safe and sound upon the sh.o.r.e (it is the aurora coming out of the gloomy ocean of night, and the monsters who persecute her are burned to ashes by the thunderbolts and the sun's rays); she thence escapes into a convent, in which she ministers to the unfortunate, cures the lame, and gives eyesight to the blind. Among the latter is her persecutor, the brother of her husband; she pardons him and gives him back his eyesight; in the same way she cures all her other persecutors. It is scarcely necessary for me to remind the reader how this oriental tale, which developed itself from the myth of the persecuted and delivering aurora which we have seen in the Vedic hymns, reappears in numerous very popular western legends, of which Crescentia and Genevieve are the most brilliant types.

The aurora comes out of the gloomy ocean and is espoused by the sun; these heavenly nuptials in proximity to the sea gave rise to the popular tale[316] of the king who wishes the sea with its pearls to be present at his nuptials; the pearls of the bride-aurora are supposed to come out of the sea of night. The sea sends as gifts to the king a casket of pearls, a chest of precious dresses, a horse that goes like the morning wind, and a chest full of gold.

The wise aurora figures again in the story of the ingenious princess[317] who discovers, by means of a story-riddle, the robbers who, during the night, stole the precious gem destined for the king.

The aurora imparts splendour and eyesight to the blinded sun. The story of the three-breasted princess who, while she meditates poisoning the blind man, in order that she may enjoy unrestrained the affections of her young and handsome lover, relents and gives him back his sight, reappears in a rather incomplete form in the _Tuti-Name_.[318]

The girl who has been married to a monster, whom she flees from to follow a handsome young lover, who, arriving at the banks of a river, despoils her of her riches, leaves her naked and pa.s.ses over to the other side, after which she resigns herself to her fate and resolves to return to her husband the monster,[319] represents the evening aurora, who flees before the monster of night to follow her lover the sun, who, in the morning, after adorning himself with her splendour, leaves her on the sh.o.r.e of the gloomy ocean and runs away, the aurora being thereupon obliged in the evening to re-unite herself to her husband the monster.

It is interesting, moreover, as bearing upon our subject, to note the expression of which the youth who flees with the beautiful woman makes use to express his fear of discovery. He says that the monster-husband will follow them, and that should he sit upon the horns of the bull (the moon) he would be sure to recognise him. The story of two young people fleeing upon a bull, and followed by the monster, occurs again in the Russian popular tales. By the horns of the bull, the youth means the most prominent and visible situation; and he knows, moreover, that if the monster overtakes them, he will be sure to demonstrate the truth of the brave proverb which advises us in arduous undertakings to take the bull by the horns.

It is also the aurora who is represented by the beautiful maiden[320]

whom her father, mother, and brother have, without each other's knowledge, severally affianced to three youths of different professions. The three young men contend for her person, but while the quarrel is undecided, the girl dies. The three then go to visit her tomb; one discovers her body, the second finds that there is still some life in her, and the third strikes her and raises her up alive, upon which the quarrel is resumed. She flees from them, and withdraws into another living tomb, a convent. In the most popular form of this legend the three companions, or three brothers, fighting for the bride, divide her; the aurora is torn into pieces as soon as the sun, her true lover and rightful suitor, appears.

From darkness comes forth light; from the old, the young; from death, life; from the dust of a dead man's skull, tasted by a virgin, is born a wonderful child, who knows how to distinguish false pearls from real, dishonest women from honest ones[321] (the morning sun can distinguish between light and darkness); the wise boy (the young sun) is the brother of the wise girl (the young aurora). The flesh of a killed Brahman is turned into gold in another story of the _Tuti-Name_.[322]

We have seen that the aurora and the sun are mother and son, brother and sister, or lover and mistress. The sun in the evening dies ignominiously, is sacrificed and hanged upon a gibbet, and with himself sacrifices his mother or his mistress. The legend is popular and ancient which speaks of the robber son, when about to end his life upon a gibbet,[323] biting the nose off his mother, who gave birth to him and brought him up badly. In the _Tuti-Name_,[324] it is the young adulterer (and robber too) who, condemned to death for his adultery, asks to see his mistress once more before his death and kiss her, and who, as she does so, gratifies his revenge by inflicting upon her a like indignity. It is remarkable how, even in the Hindoo popular tale, the story of the adulterer is confounded with that of a thief; the adulterer ends by being thrown into the water (the sun and the aurora fall into the gloomy ocean of night).

In the next story it is the wicked husband who, travelling with his rich wife for change of dwelling-place, despoils her of her clothes, and then throws her into a well in order to ensure possession of her jewels and wardrobe. These riches, however, do not last long; he becomes poor and goes begging alms, dressed as a mendicant, until he finds his wife again, who had been saved by divine intervention from the well, and provided anew with clothes and jewels of equal gorgeousness. The husband pa.s.ses some time with his wife, and then sets out again on a voyage with her; he arrives at the same well, and throws her in as before to enjoy alone her stripped-off garnitures and riches. (The meaning of the myth is evident; it is the sun throwing the splendid aurora into the gloomy waters of the night.)

A king becomes enamoured of the beauteous Mahrusa;[325] his councillors tear him from his love, upon which he pines away in solitude and dies. The beautiful girl unites herself to him in the grave (Romeo and Juliet, the evening aurora and the sun die together).

The story of the three brothers, the ?ibhavas, occurs again in the _Tuti-Name_,[326] with other particulars which we already know. The first brother is the wise one; the second is a maker of talismans (amongst other things he can make a horse which will run in one day over a s.p.a.ce of ground that would take other horses thirty); the third and youngest brother is the victorious archer. They set out to search for the beautiful maiden who has fled by night from the house of her father. The first brother discovers, by his wisdom, that the maiden was carried off by the fairies into an island-mountain which men cannot reach. The second creates a wonderful animal upon which to traverse the intervening waters (Christophoros or Bhimas). Having arrived at the island-mountain, the third and youngest brother fights the demon, the lord of the fairies, vanquishes him, and frees the beautiful girl, who thereupon is conducted back to her father. Then there arises the usual quarrel between the three brothers as to who is to possess the bride.

In the Vedas, we have the sky and the moon represented as a cup. From the little cup of abundance (the moon) it is easy to pa.s.s to the miraculous little pipkin (the moon), in which the kind-hearted but poor housekeeper of the Pa??avas, in the _Mahabharatam_, still finds abundance of vegetables, after her powers of hospitality had been exhausted on the G.o.d K?ish?as disguised as a beggar--to the pipkin from which can be taken whatever is wished for. In the _Tuti-Name_,[327] a woodcutter finds ten magicians round a pipkin, and eating out of it as much and whatever they want; they are pleased with the woodcutter, and, at his request, give him the pipkin. He invites his acquaintances to a banquet at his house, but not able to contain himself for joy, he places the pipkin upon his head, and begins to dance. The pipkin falls to the ground and is broken to pieces, and with it his fortune vanishes (the story of Perrette).

A variation of the small cup is the wooden porringer (the moon), which two brothers (the Acvinau) dispute for, in the history of the king of China,[328] and from which can be taken whatever drink and food is wished for; as, in the same story, we find the enchanted shoes which carry us in an instant wherever we wish to go;--which brings us back to the fugitive Vedic aurora, the swiftest in the race, and to the popular tales relating to Cinderella, who is overtaken and found again by the prince only when she has lost her enchanted slipper. With the porringer and the enchanted shoes we find, in the popular tales, the little purse full of money which fills again as fast as it is emptied (another form of the cup of abundance), and a sword which, when unsheathed, causes a fine, rich, and great city to arise in a desert, which city disappears when the sword is put back into the sheath (the solar ray is the drawn sword, which makes the luminous city of the rich aurora arise; scarcely does the sun's ray vanish, or scarcely is the sword sheathed, than the marvellous city vanishes). The rest of the story is also interesting, because it applies to three men a double and well-known fable of the animals which contend for the prey (as the three brothers contend for the beautiful maiden whom they have found again). The animals cannot divide it equally; they refer to the judgment of a man pa.s.sing by; he divides it so well that the animals are ever after grateful to him, and help him in every danger. The story of the _Tuti-Name_ touches upon this form of the myth, but soon abandons it for another equally zoological, and a more familiar one, that of the third who comes in between two that quarrel, and enjoys the prey. The young adventurer undertakes to put an end to the dispute of the two brothers as to the division of the purse, the porringer, the sword and the wonderful shoes; he does so by putting the shoes on his feet and fleeing away with the other three articles contended for (the two brothers Acvinau, the two twilights, contend for the moon and also for the aurora, as we shall see better in the next chapter; the sun puts an end to their quarrel by espousing her himself).

We are already familiar with the Vedic ?ibhavas who out of one cup make four. Probably upon this legend depends that of the four brothers of the _Tuti-Name_,[329] who, as they let each a pearl fall from their forehead upon the ground, see four mines open, one of copper, the second of silver, the third of gold (the third brother is here again the favourite), the fourth only of iron. The gem appears to be the sun itself. The four mines seem to me to represent respectively the coppery sky in the evening, the silver sky in the moonlight night, the sky in the morning, golden with the dawn, and the iron sky, the grey or azure, of the day. The word _nilas_ in Sanskrit means azure, as well as black, and between azure and black is grey, the colour of iron.

Of the three brothers, the most learned, he who solves the enigmas, is often the eldest; and in the story of the _Tuti-Name_,[330] the eldest of the three brothers explains why old men have white hair, saying that this whiteness is a symbol of the clearness of their thoughts.

Let us now pa.s.s to the Calmuc and Mongol stories of _Siddhi-kur_, which, as we have said above, are also of Hindoo origin.

In the first story, the three companions, forming at first three groups of two, have resolved into six. The night-time is divided into three, into six, into seven (six, _plus_ an extraordinary one, born afterwards), into nine (three groups of three), into twelve (three groups of four). Hence, near the monster with three, six, seven, nine, or twelve heads, we find sometimes three, sometimes six, seven, nine, twelve brother-heroes. The last head (or the last two, three, or four heads) of the monster, the decisive one, is the most difficult, and even dangerous, to cut off; the last of the brothers is he who, by cutting it off, is victorious. In the first Calmuc story of _Siddhi-kur_, six brothers or companions separate where six rivers take their rise, and go in search of fortune. The first-born perishes; the second, by means of his wisdom (he partakes of the wisdom of the first-born, with whom he is grouped), discovers the place where the dead one is buried; the third, the strong one, breaks the rock under which the eldest is hidden; the fourth resuscitates him by means of a health-bringing drink, as Bhimas, the strong hero of the _Mahabharatam_, arises again when he drinks the water of health and strength; the fifth brother creates a bird, which the sixth colours; this bird flies to the bride of the eldest brother, and brings her among his companions, who, finding her exceedingly beautiful, become, one and all, enamoured of her; they fight for her, and, that each may have a part, end by cutting her to pieces. We already know the mythical meaning of this legend.

The third and fourth Calmuc tales introduce explicitly the bull and the cow. In the third, a man who possesses but one cow unites himself to her, in order to make her fruitful. Of this union a tailed monster is born, having a man's body and a bull's head. The man-bull (Minotauros) goes into the forest, where he finds three companions--one black, one green, and one white--who accompany him.

The man-bull overcomes the enchantments of a dwarf witch; his three companions lower him into a well and leave him there, but he escapes.

He meets a beautiful maiden drawing water, at whose every footstep a flower arises; he follows her, and finally finds himself in heaven; he fights against the demons, in favour of the G.o.ds, and dies in this enterprise. This story, of Hindoo origin, where the bull and the cow take the place of the hero and the maiden, appears to me to justify the amplitude of the comparisons.

We have already seen the beneficial qualities of the excrement of the cow. In the fourth story, it is under the excrement of a cow that the enchanted gem, lost by the daughter of the king, is found. It is of the cow that the pearl is the secretion. The moon-cow and the aurora-cow are rich in pearls; they are pearls themselves, like the sun; the sun comes out of the aurora, the pearl comes out of the cow.

The subject of the seventh tale is the three sisters who, taking the cattle to pasture, lose a buffalo, or black bull. In their search for it, they came across an enchanted castle, tenanted by a white bird, who offers to marry them. The third sister consents, and marries him.

The bird turns out then to be a handsome cavalier (a form of Lohengrin). But having, by the advice of a witch, burned the aviary, she loses him, and cannot recover him till the aviary is restored. We shall see the sun as a bird in the Vedic hymns; the aurora is the aviary, made of flames, of this divine bird. When the aviary is burned at morn, the aurora and the sun separate; they meet again in the evening, when the aviary is reconstructed.

Another beautiful myth of a.n.a.logous import occurs again in the eighth story. A woodman and a painter envy each other; the painter makes the king believe that the woodman's father, who is in heaven, has written ordering his son to repair to paradise, in order to build him a temple, and to take the route that the painter shall indicate. The king orders the woodman to set out for paradise. The painter prepares a funeral pyre, by way of exit; from this the woodman succeeds in escaping, and, going back to the king, he tells him that he has been to paradise, and presents a letter which his father has given him, ordering the painter to come by the same road, and paint the temple. The king requires the summons to be obeyed, and the perfidious painter perishes in the flames.