KEPHALOS AND PROKRIS.

135

turned in disguise (as Sigurd in the Volsung tale returns to Brynhild),' and having won her love, again in his altered form revealed himself to her as her husband. In an agony of grief and shame, Prokris fled away to Crete, and there dwelt in deep sorrow, until at length she was visited by . Artemis, who gave her the spear which never missed its mark, and the dog who never failed to track his prey. So with the hound and the spear Prokris came back to Athens, and was there always the first in the chase. Filled with envy at her success, Kephalos begged for the spear and dog, but Prokris refused to give them except in return for his love. This Kephalos gave, and immediately discovered that it was his wife, Prokris, who stood before him. Fearing still the jealousy of Eos, Prokris kept near Kephalos, until his spear smote her as she lay hidden in the thicket. Bitterly grieving at her death, Kephalos left Athens, and aided Amphitryon in ridding his land of noxious beasts. Then journeying westwards, he reached the Leukadian cape, where his strength failed him and he fell into the sea. Such is the simple tale which relates the loves of the sun and the dew, loves marred by the rivalry of Eos, the ever youthful bride of the immortal but decrepit Tithonos, from whose couch, drawn by the gleaming steeds Lampos and Phaethon, she rises into heaven to announce to the gods and to mortal men the coming of the sun. We have seen that in the very phrase which speaks of the love of Eos for the sun we have the groundwork for her envy of Prokris; and so again, when we are told that though Prokris breaks her faith, yet her love is still given to the same Kephalos, and only given to him, we have a myth which could not fail to spring up from phrases telling how the dew seems to reflect many suns which are yet the same sun. That this myth might take a form which, interpreted by the conditions of human life, would state a mere impossibility, is strikingly shown by the legend, already noticed, of Krishna and the

› See p. 7.

dark giant Naraka. But the very extravagance of the tale exhibits only the more strikingly its marvellous truthfulness to the outward world of phenomena.

The great work of Grimm has placed beyond all doubt the close connexion of Greek, and indeed every other Vitality of the form of Aryan, tradition with that of the TeuAryan gods. tonic and Scandinavian nations. None probably will be found to question now the close affinity of Teutonic or German with Norse mythology; but the tests which Grimm applied to the subject nearly fifty years ago are precisely those which have been applied by comparative mythologists with such wonderful results to the traditions of the Greeks and the Hindus. The first of these is the affinity of the dialects spoken by all Teutonic and Scandinavian tribes; the second is their joint possession of terms relating to religious worship; the third is found in the identity of mythical notions and nomenclature, which can be traced in a comparison of their popular traditions. But Grimm saw further the greater prominence of certain characteristics in one system as contrasted with another, and he drew the conclusion that where these characteristics had faded into the background, this had not been their condition from the first. Thus the gods of the whole Aryan world eat, drink, and sleep; but beings who eat, drink, and sleep must die. The Northern mythologies kept this notion before the people with startling clearness; the Southern disguised it, and practically put it out of sight, but it was there nevertheless. The Olympian gods feast on ambrosia, and are refreshed by nectar, the Soma of the Hindu ;' but they can be wounded and suffer pain, they may hunger and thirst; and to the Norse mind the inference was oppressively plain. The beautiful Balder has his yearly death and resurrection; but the time will come when the great enemy of the gods will be let loose, and Asgard shall be desolate. This enemy is Loki, the fire-god, who, in punish1 See p. 81.

THE TWILIGHT OF THE GODS.

137

ment of his misdeeds, is put in chains like Prometheus, and whose release just before the coming on of the twilight of the gods is in close agreement with the release of the chained Prometheus, by whom the empire of Zeus is to be brought to an end. It is true that the Northern Odin or Woden is the All-Father, from whom men may expect substantial justice; in the Promethean tradition Zeus is an arbitrary tyrant, with a special hatred for mankind. But it would, perhaps, be difficult to determine how far the purely spiritual colouring thrown over the myth is due to the mighty genius of Eschylus; nor is it a hard task to imagine a Prometheus in whom we should see simply a counterpart of the malignant and mischievous Northern firegod. On the other hand, even in the case of Loki himself, there linger to this day among the common people many conceptions in which he is taken by turns for a beneficent and for a hurtful being-for sun, fire, giant, or devil.

XXXVI.

Balder.

In the myth of Balder he appears in his most malignant aspect. The golden-haired Balder is the most beautiful of all the dwellers in Valhalla ; but, like Sarpêdôn and Memnon, he is doomed to an early death, a death which takes place yearly at the winter solstice. In the oldest English traditions Balder appears as Bäldäg, Beldeg, a form which would lead us to look for an old High German Paltac. Paltac is not found, but we have Paltar. It is possible, therefore, that the two parts of the word may be separated, and thus the name Balder may be connected with that of the Slavonic Bjelbog, Balbog, the pale or white shining god, the bringer of the days, the benignant Phoibos. This conclusion is strengthened by the fact that the old English Theogony gives him a son, Brond, the torch of day, and that Balder himself was also known as Phol. The being by whom he is slain is Hödr, a blind god of enormous strength, whose name may be traced in the forms Hadupracht, Hadufians, and many more, to the Chatumerus of Tacitus, and which may perhaps be connected with that

of the Greek Hades. He is simply the demon of darkness triumphing over the lord of light. As in the case of Sarpêdôn and Memnon, we have two forms of the myth. The one ends with his death; the other brings him back from the under-world. The former agrees strictly with the primitive notion that the heavenly bodies were created afresh every day. The cause of his death is related in a poem of the older Edda, called Balder's Dream. In this poem Odin goes as Wegtam, or the Wanderer, to the house of the Völa, or wise woman, whose knowledge exceeds even his own: but his efforts to save Balder from his doom are vain. · All created things are called upon to swear that they will do Balder no harm: but the mistletoe is forgotten, and of this plant Loki puts a twig into the hand of Balder's blind brother Hödr, who, using it as an arrow, unwittingly slays the bright hero, while the gods are practising archery with his body as a mark. Soon, however, another brother of Balder avenges his death by slaying his involuntary murderer.3

and Tell.

The shooting of arrows at beings pre-eminent for their brightness and their beauty is an incident common to a Cloudeslee vast number of myths, and cannot in fact be considered as peculiar to the Aryan tribes. When Isandros and Hippolochos were disputing for the Lykian throne, it is determined that the kingdom shall belong to the man who could shoot a ring from the breast of a child without hurting him. Laodameia, the mother of Sarpêdôn, offers her son for the venture. This is the foundation of the story of William Tell, which is now on all hands acknowledged to have no historical basis whatever; and it is enough to say of it, that the hat set upon a pole before which all passers-by were to do obeisance is another form of the golden image set up to be worshipped on the plain 1 Grimm (Deutsche Mythologie), Teutonic Mythology, i. 246. English translation by J. S. Stallybrass.

2 See p. 72.

Balder belongs to the class of murdered and risen gods. On these, see Bunsen, God in History, ii. 458. See also Myth, of Ar. Nat, ii, 96.

DWARF INCARNATIONS.

139

of Dura; and that, as in the story of the Three Children, so here the men who achieve the work of Swiss independence are three in number. The story was familiar to English hearers in the ballad of Clym of the Clough, in which William Cloudeslee, whose name attests his birth in the cloud-land, is compelled, under penalty of death, to hit an apple on the head of his son, a child of seven years old, at a distance of six paces. In the Swiss tale the tyrant who gives this sentence is slain: in the English story the king expresses his hope that he himself may not serve as a mark for Cloudeslee's arrows. But Cloudeslee with Adam Bell and Clym of the Clough form another group of three, answering to the Swiss trio. We may thus look on Tell as the last reflexion in Europe of the sun-god, whether we call him Indra, or Apollo, or Ulysses.2

1

Vishnu.

Incarnation.

We have seen in the myth of Phoebus Apollo how the newly-born god reaches his full strength and majesty as soon as the golden sword, from which he has his XXXVII. title Chrysâôr, is girded to his side. This mighty The Dwarf bound from helplessness to power is exhibited, as we might expect, still more strikingly in the expressions applied to the Vedic Vishnu.3 Regarded strictly, Vishnu is nothing but a name for the supreme and all-powerful god, and as such it is manifestly used in many passages of the Rig Veda. Thus he is both Indra and Agni. He is a son of Prajapati, the lord of light; and he is also Prajâpati himself. So interchangeable, indeed, are the names of all the gods, that we are left in no doubt as to the real monotheism of the Aryan conquerors of India. But this monotheistic conviction never interfered with the use of language

1 Grimm remarks that Cloudeslee's Christian name and Bell's surname together give us the two names of the Swiss hero. Deutsche Mythologie, 355. For other forms of the legend see Myth. of Ar. Nat. ii. ioo.

2 Max Müller, Chips from a German Workshop, ii. 233.

Mr. Dowson, in his Classical Dictionary of Hindu Mythology, assigns the name to a root ish, to pervade. It may be compared with the Greek is, Bia, Bíos, and the Lat, vis, vita.

Myth. of Ar, Nat. vol. ii. p. 102,