it; and when they are slain, the dry land is refreshed with water. But in some passages in the Rig Veda the victims of Vritra are spoken of not as cows or clouds, but as women; and thus Sita, the bride of Rama, who is carried off by the giant Ravana, answers closely to Helen, who is borne away by Paris from Sparta. The story of the Odyssey does little more than reproduce that of Saramâ, the only difference between the Vedic goddess and Penelope being that the latter, unlike the former, is absolutely unswerving in her fidelity. Saramâ is tempted by an offer of a share in the Pani's booty. Penelope is told, also, that she shall share the treasures if she will become the wife of any one of the suitors for her hand. These men bring about their own ruin; and the issue in both cases is the same. 'I do not know that Indra is to be subdued,' says Saramâ, 'for it is he himself that subdues; you Panis will lie prostrate, killed by Indra.' In like manner Penelope points to a weapon which will bring. the suitors to death if ever her lord returns home; and they are at length smitten down by the arrows of Odysseus as certainly as the Vritras are slain by the spear of Indra.

Typhoeus.

In the West, Vritra and his peers are represented by a host as numerous as are their followers in the hymns of the Rig Veda. Among the most prominent of Typhon and these creations of the Western mind are Typhon and Typhoeus, the beings who, like the Vritra, vomit out smoke and flames-in other words, the lightnings which precede the fall of the pent-up rain. In the Hesiodic Theogony, Typhon is the father of those winds which bring ruin and havoc to mortals. By this devastating hurricane Echidna becomes the mother of Kerberos, of the Lernaian Hydra, of the Chimera, the Sphinx, and the Nemean lion, all of these being representatives of the dark powers who fight with and are overcome by the lord of day.

One of the most noteworthy versions of the myth of Indra and the Panis is found in the story of Hercules and

CACUS AND GARANUS.

Cacus.

251

Cacus, localised in Italy. The Latin god Hercules was connected, we cannot doubt, with boundaries and fences. He was, in fact, Jupiter Terminus, the Zeus Horios Hercules and of the Greeks; and as such his name was Herclus or Herculus, as is shown by the popular exclamations Mehercule, Mehercle. But the similarity of the name furnished to the literary Romans an irresistible temptation to identify their Herculus or Hercules with the Greek Herakles. They were further strengthened in their conclusion by the fact that a hero named Garanus, or Recaranus,. was said to have slain a great robber named Cacus, and that this hero closely resembled not only Herakles, but Perseus, Theseus, and all other destroyers of monsters and evil-doers. This story of Cacus is told in many ways; but the most popular version says that when Hercules reached the banks of the Tiber, Cacus, the three-headed son of Vulcan, stole some of his cattle, and, to avoid detection, dragged them backwards into his cave. But their lowing reached the ears of Hercules, who, forcing his way into the robber's den, recovered not only his cattle, but all the stolen treasures. which he had stored within it. In vain Cacus vomited forth smoke and flame upon his enemy, who soon slew him with his unerring darts. This myth is only another form of the many tales which recount the conflict of the sun-god with the powers of night or darkness. Garanus, or Recaranus, who is called by Aurelius Victor the slayer of Cacus,' is, like Sancus, whose name was also inscribed on the Ara Maxima, or great altar, of Hercules, simply JupiterGaranus being so named as the maker or creator of things." Recaranus must, therefore, be the god who makes again, or who, like Ushas, renders all things young. Recaranus would thus denote the Re-creator, and so the Recuperator or recoverer of the cattle stolen by Cacus or Vritra, for Cacus in the Latin story is a three-headed monster, answer

1 Myth. of Ar. Nat. ii. 340.

2 The word contains the same root with Kreon, Lat. creo, &c.

ing to the Greek Geryon and Kerberos, the Indian Çarvara. As stealing the cows of Hercules, he is Vritra, who shuts up the rain in the thunder-cloud, and who is pierced by the lance of Indra. The flames which he sends forth from his cave are the lightning flashes preceding that downfall of the rain which is signified by the recovery of the cows from When then the Roman, becoming acquainted with the Greek myths, found the word Alexikakos (as keeping off evil and mischief) among the epithets of Herakles, he naturally came to regard Recaranus as only another name for that hero. But the quantity of the name Cacus leaves no room for this explanation. The first syllable is long, and the word given by Diodorus under the form Kakios and reappearing in the Prænestine Cæculus seems to warrant the conclusion that the true Latin form was Cæcius, as Saturnus answers to Saturnus. What then is Cæcius? The idea of the being who bears this name is clearly that of the Vedic Vritra, the being who steals the rain-clouds and blots out the light from the sky. Now, in a proverb cited by Aulus Gellius from Aristotle, a being of this name is mentioned as possessing the power of drawing the clouds towards him;1 and thus we have the explanation of an incident which, translated into the conditions of human life, becomes a clumsy stratagem. In storms, when contrary currents are blowing at different elevations, the clouds may often appear from the earth to be going against or right towards the wind. Then it is that Cacus, Cæcius, is drawing the cattle of Herakles by their tails towards his

cave.

The powers of drought and darkness have been brought before us already in many myths; and on some of these it Belleros and is unnecessary to dwell longer now. We have traced the monster Belleros, slain by the Corinthian Hippoönos, to the far East; and of the Theban Sphinx

the Sphinx.

· κάκ' ἐφ ̓ αὑτὸν ἕλκων, ὡς ὁ Καικίας νέφος. See further Myth. of Ar. Nat. ii. 341.

THE SPHINX AND FAFNIR.

253

we need only say that some versions of the story made her a daughter of Laios. But Laios represents the Sanskrit dasas or enemies of the gods, and their slayer is Dasyuhan, which transliterated into Greek becomes Leophontes, a name by which Hipponoös is almost as much known as he is by that of Bellerophon. The coming of the Sphinx is ascribed in some stories to the wrath of Hêrê for the offence of Laios in carrying off Chrysippos from Pisa; in others to Arês, who wished to avenge himself on Cadmus for killing his offspring the dragon. The death of the Sphinx, like that of the dragon, is followed by the letting loose of the waters; and in the tradition of Northern Europe the same result follows the death of the dragon Fafnir, although the rain is here spoken of as his blood. Sigurd knows that the slaying of the monster will be followed by a deluge, and he is bidden to dig a pit in the dragon's pathway, and then getting into the pit to smite him to the heart. But his fears are not allayed; and Odin tells him therefore to dig many pits which may catch the (blood or) rain, and thus the streams are made to fertilise the earth, and the victory of the sungod is accomplished. A character approaching to the more modern ghost or goblin stories is imparted to the legend related by Pausanias of the hero of Temessa, who is the demon of one of the companions of Odysseus slain for wrong done to a maiden of that city. The ravages of this demon, we are told, could be stayed only by the building of a temple in his honour, and by the yearly sacrifice of a maiden at his shrine. The demon, encountered by the wrestler Euthymos (the valiant-hearted), who is resolved to win the victim as his bride, sinks into the sea, this being the fate also of the demon Grendel, who ravages the country of king Hrothgar, and who is slain by Beowulf, the wolftamer. It may be well to notice, further, how accurately the mythical genealogies register the phenomena of the outward world. As the daughter of Laios, the Sphinx is the sister of Edipus. The cloud in which the rain is imprisoned, and

the clouds from which the refreshing waters are poured fourth, are alike produced in the air; and hence Phoebus Chrysaor and the beautiful nymph Kallirhoê are said to be the parents of the frightful Geryon. All these monsters, again, lurk in secret places, the access to which is difficult, if not impossible. Thus the Panis tell Saramâ that the way to their abode 'is far and leads tortuously away,' a phrase which points perhaps to the more fully developed myth of the Cretan labyrinth.

Persian dualism.

In all these myths the conflict between the light and the darkness has chiefly, if not wholly, a physical significance. It is the battle of the sun with the powers of the night or with the demons of drought; but the importation of a moral meaning into this struggle would convert the myth into a philosophy or a religion, and this conversion was brought about on Iranian soil. In the Rig Veda we have no clearer sign of the change which might pass over the spirit of the tale than the prayer that the wicked Vritra may not be suffered to reign or tyrannise over the worshippers of Indra. But in Persian mythology the antagonism between Indra and Vritra became the spiritual struggle between moral good and moral evil; and thus phrases suggested by a very common sight in the outward world became the foundation of a philosophical system known as Dualism-in other words, the conflict between two gods, one good, the other evil.

III. Ormuzd

In not a few instances the myths thus spiritualised retained the old names. Thus Trita or Traitana1 becomes the Persian Thraetana, while Verethragna, or the and Ahri- slayer of Verethra, the Feridun of later epic man. poetry, is the Vedic Vritrahan, the bane or slayer of Vritra. Feridun, again, is the slayer of Zohak (a name which was at first written Azidahaka, the choking or biting serpent), or Ahi, which carries us, as we have seen, to the Greek Echidna. This battle, dimly foreshadowed in the hymns of the Rig Veda,

1 See p. 72.