Zoological Mythology Volume I Part 31

[778] iv. 7.

[779]

Differ opus, tunc tristis hiems, tunc pleiades instant Tunc et in aequorea mergitur haedus aqua.

Saepe ego nimbosis dubius jactabar ab haedis.

Nascitur Oleneae signum pluviale capellae.

--_Ovid._

Quantus ab occasu veniens pluvialibus haedis Verberat imber humum.

--_Virgil._

[780] Paviravi tanyatur ekapad a?o divo dharta; _?igv._ x. 65, 13.--Cfr.

the a?a ekapad invoked after Ahirbudhnya and before Tritas, in the _?igv._ ii. 31, 6, and the a?aikapad, a name given to Vish?us, in the _Hariv_; the reader remembers also the _goat-footed races_ of Herodotus.

[781] We also find the lame goat, or he-goat, in the legend of Thor.

The G.o.d kills his he-goats, takes off their skins, and keeps their bones, to be able to resuscitate them at pleasure. His son, Thialfi, steals the thigh-bone of one of the goats, in order to go and sell it; then one of the he-goats of Thor, being resuscitated, is lame.--Cfr.

for the a.n.a.logous traditions the notices given by Simrock, work quoted before, p. 260.

[782] In a Russian song we read: "Moon! moon! golden horns!"

[783] ii. 240.

[784] Cfr. Du Cange, _s. v._ galaxia.

[785] _Das festliche Jahr_, zweite Ausg., p. 216.

[786] Florence, Piatti, 1821.

[787] Concerning this stone, cfr. a whole chapter in Aldrovandi, _De Quadrupedibus Bisulcis_, i.

[788] Cfr. Du Cange, _s. v. Agnus Dei_, where we even find the verses with which Urban V. accompanied the gift of an _Agnus Dei_ to John Paleologus.--In the month of October, the Thuringians celebrate the festival of the race after the ram, which, when overtaken, is led to a large rock and there killed. For the race after the ram, cfr. also Villemarque, _Chants Populaires de la Bretagne_.--In a popular song, in which _England_ is transformed into _Engelland_ (or country of the angels), Mary, the nurse of G.o.d, appears with the white lamb:--

"Die Himmelsthur wird aufgehen; Maria Gottes Amme Kommt mit dem weissen Lamme."

[789] Menzel, the work quoted before.

[790] Professor Emilio Teza has published a mediaeval Italian version of this poem with notes.

[791] Cfr. the before-quoted fable of _Babrios_, in which the vine complains of the he-goat which eats its leaves.--In the Italian proverb, "Salvar la capra e i cavoli," the she-goat is again indicated as an eater of leaves.--The leaves of the sorb-apple, according to the Norwegian belief, cure sick goats, by which the G.o.d Thor is drawn.--Cfr. Kuhn, _Die H. d. F. u. d. G._

[792] From a narrative made to me by my friend Valentino Carrera, an intrepid Alp-climber and popular dramatist.

[793] Referred to by Martial's epigram:--

"Tam male Thais olet, quam non fullonis avari Tecta vetus media, sed modo fracta via.

Non ab amore recens hircus," &c.

[794] With this myth of the brother Phrixos and of the sister h.e.l.le, who pa.s.s the sea or fly through the air with the sheep, is connected the Russian story recorded above of Ivan and Helena; Ivan is changed into a little kid or lamb. In the Italian variety of the same story, the sister is thrown into the sea by the witch. Whilst the brother and sister pa.s.s the h.e.l.lespont upon the golden ram, h.e.l.le falls into the sea. We learn from Apollonios, in the second book of the _Argon._, that the fleece of the sheep became gold only when, on its arrival in Colchis, it was sacrificed and suspended upon an oak-tree. The cloud-ram becomes golden only in the morning and evening sky.--The luminous fleece can perhaps be recognised in the bride of the _?igvedas_, who, leaning towards the relations of Kakshivant, says: "Every day I shall be (properly speaking, I am) like the little woolly sheep of the gandhari (sarvaham asmi romaca gandhari?am ivavika);"

_?igv._ i. 126. As there is an etymological a.n.a.logy, so there may be a mythical a.n.a.logy between the gandhari and the gandharvas.

[795] Book x.

[796] Ovid calls the goat "haedorum mater formosa duorum," and sings that the goat herself broke one of her horns against a tree, which horn the nymph Amalthea wrapped--

"decentibus herbis Et plenum pomis ad Jovis ora tulit;"

and Jupiter, when lord of heaven, in reward--

"Sidera nutricem, nutricis fertile cornu Fecit, quod dominae nunc quoque nomen habet."

END OF VOL. I.