CHAPTER XIII.

"Little cock, little cock,With the golden crest,With the buttered head,With the forehead of curdled milk!Show yourself at the window;I will give you some gruelIn a red spoon."[214]

The cock, when caught by the fox, invokes the cat's assistance, crying, "Me the fox has carried away; he carried away me, the cock, into the gloomy forest, into distant lands, into foreign lands, into the three times ninth (twenty-seventh) earth, into the thirtieth kingdom; cat CatonaieviÄ‡, deliver me!"

The knavish actions of the fox, however, are far more celebrated in the West than in the East. A proverb says that, to write all the perfidious knaveries of the fox, all the cloth manufactured at Ghent, turned into parchment, would not be sufficient. This proverb justifies me in saying but little of it, as I am unable to say as much as I should wish. Greeks and Latins are unanimous in celebrating the sagacity and perfidy of the fox. The cynic Macchiavelli, in the eighteenth chapter of thePrincipe, asserts that a good prince must imitate two animals, the fox and the lion, (must, that is to say, have deceit and strength), but especially the fox; and this answers to the sentence attributed by Plutarch (in theMemorable Sayings of the Greeks) to Lysander, "Where the lion's skin does not suffice, put on that of the fox." Aristotle, in the ninth book of theHistory of Animals, also considers the fox as the serpent's friend, probably because of the analogy existing between them in respect of perfidiousness, according to another Greek saying, viz., "He who hopes to triumph, must arm himself with the strength of the lion and the prudence of the serpent." A proverbial Latin verse saysâ€”

"Vulpes amat fraudem, lupus agnam, fÃ¦mina laudem."

There is scarcely an animal which is not deceived by the fox in Greek and Latin fable; the fox alone does not succeed in deceiving the fox. In Ã†sop, the fox who has lost his tail in a trap endeavours to persuade the other foxes of the uselessness of that appendage; but the latter answer that he would not have given them such advice were he not aware that a tail is a useful member. The fox deceives the ass, giving it up as prey to the lion (as in thePaÅ„Ä‡atantram); it deceives the hare by offering it as a prey to the dog, who, pursuing the hare, losesboth hare and fox;[215]it deceives the goat, by cozening it into the well that it may escape out of it, and then leaving it there to its fate; it cheats in several ways now the cock, now the wolf; and it imposes upon even the powerful king of beasts, whom, however, he sometimes cannot deceive. A graceful apologue of Thomas Morus shows us the counterpart of the Hellenic fable of the fox and the sick lion, that is to say, the sick fox visited by the lion:â€”

"Dum jacet angusta vulpes Ã¦grota cavernaAnte fores blando constitit ore leo.Etquid, amica, vale. Cito, me lambente, valebis,Nescis in lingua vis mihi quanta mea.Lingua tibi medica est, vulpes ait, at nocet illudVicinos, quod habet, tam bona lingua, malos."

But when we come down to the Middle Ages, the fable of the fox develops into such manifoldness, that the study of all the phases in which it unfolds itself ought to be the subject of a special work.[216]Suffice it to notice here that, to popularise in Flanders, and subsequently in France and Germany, the idea of the fox as the type of every species of malice and imposture, it is the priest who, for the most part, is the human impersonation of the masculine Reinart. TheProcession du Renartisfamous; it was a farce conceived in 1313 by Philippe le Bel, on account of his quarrel with Pope Boniface VIII., and acted by the scholars of Paris. The principal personage was a man disguised in the skin of a fox, and wearing over all a priest's surplice, whose chief industry it was to give chase to chickens. This form of satire, however, directed against the Church, is certainly much older than those times, and goes back to the epoch of the first differences between the Church and the Empire in the eleventh century, at which time two mediÃ¦val Latin poems appeared,Reinardus VulpesandYsengrimus; with the schism of England and the Reformation of the sixteenth century, however,Reinardus Vulpesdecisively became a Romish fox. The finesse and perfection of the satirical poem which S. Naylor, its English translator, calls "the unholy bible of the world," also increased the fox's popularity, and made it yet more proverbial. The principal subjects of the poem existed previously, not only in oral, but also in literary tradition; they were grouped together and put in order, and a more human, more malicious nature was given to the fox, a nature more hypocritical even than before, and more priestly, whence it now more than everâ€”

"Urbibus et castris regnat et ecclesiis."

Macchiavelli, St Ignazio di Loyola, and St Vincenzo de' Paoli took upon themselves the charge of propagating its type over the whole world.

The wolf is better, when he is a wolf, for then we know at least what he wants; we know that he is our enemy, and are accordingly on our guard; but he, too, sometimes disguises himself, by imposture or magic, as a sheep, a shepherd, a monk, or a penitent, like Ysengrin; and from this point of view resembles not a little hisperfidious god-mother the fox; it is well known that amongst the exploits of Reinart there is that of his extra-matrimonial union with the she-wolf.

In theá¹šigvedaswe already find several interesting mythical data concerning the wolf; he is in it entirely demoniacal, as the exhausted Vá¹›ikas, to which, in a hymn, the AÃ§vinÃ¢u give back its strength,[217]seems, as it appears to me, not to be the wolf, but the messenger crow which, during the night, must carry the solar hero.

As in the ZendicVendidad,[218]the souls of good men, when on the way to heaven, are afraid of meeting the wolf, so in theá¹šigvedas, the devotee says that once the reddish wolf (which seems to be confounded here with the jackal or the fox) saw him coming on the way, and fled in terror;[219]he invokes the (luminous) night to send the wolf, the robber far away,[220]and the god PÃ»shan (the sun) to remove the evil wolf, the malignant spirit, from the path of the devotees, the wolf that besieges the roads, thieving, fraudulent, double-dealing.[221]The poet, after having called the enemy Vá¹›ikas, prays, with imprecations, that he may lacerate his own body;[222]and the wild beast, full of witchcraft,[223]which Indras kills, is probablya wolf. But, besides this, I think I can find in theá¹šigvedasthelupus piscatorof Russian and Western tradition; (according to Ã†lianos there were wolves friendly to fishermen near the Palus MÅ“otis.) In the fifty-sixth hymn of the eighth book, Matsyas (the fish) invokes the Ã‚dityas (that is, the luminous gods) to free him and his from the jaws of the wolf. So in another strophe of the same hymn, we must in reason suppose that it is a fish that speaks when she who has a terrible son (i.e., the mother of the sun) is invoked as protectress from him who in the shallow waters endeavours to kill him.[224]We also find a fish lying in shallow water explicitly mentioned in another hymn;[225]which proves to us the image of the fish without water, which was widely developed in later Hindoo tradition, to have been in the Vedic age already a familiar one. We find the dog as the enemy of the wolf in the Hindoo wordsvá¹›ikÃ¢ris vá¹›ikÃ¢rÃ¢tis, andvá¹›ikadanÃ§as. (In the thirteenth story of the fourth book ofAfanassieff, the wolf wishes to eat the dog; the latter, who feels himself too weak to resist, begs the wolf to bring him something to eat, in order that he may become larger, and be more tender for the wolf's teeth; but when he is in good condition, he acquires strength and makes the wolf run. The enmity of the dog and the wolf was also made popular in the Ã†sopian fables.)

In theRÃ¢mÃ¢yaá¹‡am,[226]we already meet with the proverbialexpression of the sheep who do not increase when guarded by the wolf or jackal (rakshayamÃ¢á¹‡Ã¢ na vardhante meshÃ¢ gomÃ¢yunÃ¢).

In theMahÃ¢bhÃ¢ratam, the second of the three sons of KuntÃ®, the strong, terrible, and voracious BhÃ®mas, is called Wolf's-belly (Vá¹›ikodaras, the solar hero enclosed in the nocturnal or winter darkness). Here the wolf has a heroic and sympathetic form, as in theTuti-Name[227]he, although famished, shows compassion upon a maiden who travels to fulfil a promise; as in the sameTuti-Name[228]he helps the lion against the mice, and in the story of Ardschi Bordschi, the boy, son of a wolf, understands the language of wolves, and teaches it to the merchants with whom he lives; like the Russian she-wolf that gives her milk to Ivan KarolieviÄ‡, in order that he may take it to the witch, his wife, who induced him to fetch it in the hope that he would thereby meet with his death;[229]and like the she-wolf of the fifteenth Esthonian story, who comes up on hearing the cry of a child, and gives its milk to nourish it. The story tells us that the shape of a wolf was assumed by the mother of the child herself, and that when she was alone, she placed her wolf-disguise upon a rock, and appeared as a naked woman to give milk to her child. The husband, informed of this, orders that the rock be heated, so that when the wolf's skin is again placed upon it, it may be burnt, and he may thus be able to recognise and take back to himself his wife. The she-wolf that gives her milk to the twin-brothers, Romulus and Remus, in Latin epic tradition, was no less a woman than the nurse-wolf of the Esthonian story.[230]The Germanhero Wolfdieterich, the wolves who hunt for the hero in Russian stories, sacred to Mars and to Thor as their hunting dogs, have the same benignant nature. (The evening aurora disguises herself in the night with a wolf's skin, nourishes as a she-wolf the new-born solar hero, and in the morning puts down her wolf's skin upon the fiery rock of the East, and finds her husband again.) What Solinus tells us of the Neuri, viz., that they transformed themselves into wolves at stated periods; and what used to be narrated of the Arcadians, to the effect that when they crossed a certain marsh, they became wolves for eight years,â€”suggests us a new idea of the zoological transformations of the solar hero.[231]In La Fontaine,[232]the shadow of the wolf makes the sheep flee in the evening. As a hero transformed, the wolf has a benignant aspect in legends. According to Baronius, in the year 617, a number of wolves presented themselvesat a monastery, and tore in pieces several friars who entertained heretical opinions. The wolves sent by God tore the sacrilegious thieves of the army of Francesco Maria, Duke of Urbino, who had come to sack the treasure of the holy house of Loreto. A wolf guarded and defended from the wild beasts the head of St Edmund the Martyr, King of England. St Oddo, Abbot of Cluny, assailed in a pilgrimage by foxes, was delivered and escorted by a wolf; thus a wolf showed the way to the beatified Adam, in the same way as, inHerodotos, the wolves served as guides to the priests of Ceres. A wolf, having devoured two mares which drew a cart, was forced by St Eustorgius to draw the cart in their stead, and obeyed his orders. St Norbert compelled a wolf, first to let a sheep go after having clutched it, and then to guard the sheep all day without touching them. We read of the youth of the ancient Syracusan hero Hielon that, being at school, a wolf carried off his tablets in order to make him pursue it; no sooner was Hielon out, than the wolf re-entered the school, and massacred the master and the other scholars.

And even after his death the wolf is useful. The ancients believed that a wolf's hide, when put on by one who had been bitten by a mad dog, was a charm against hydrophobia. According to Pliny, wolf's teeth rubbed on the gums of children during teething relieves the pain (which is quite credible, but any other sharp tooth would serve the same purpose, by making the teeth cut sooner). In Sicily it is believed that a wolf's head increases the courage of whoever puts it on. In the province of Girgenti shoes are made of wolf's skin for children whom their parents wish to grow up strong, brave, and pugnacious. The animals themselves that are ridden by persons who wear these shoes are cured of their pain.The animalallupatu(that is, which has once been bitten by a wolf) becomes invulnerable, and never feels any other kind of pain. It is also believed in Sicily that when a wolf's skin is exposed in the open air, it causes drums to break when they are beaten. This superstition reminds us of the fable of the fox that kills itself by breaking the drum or biting the string of a bow; the mythical drum (that is, the cloud) is destroyed when the wolf's skin is taken off. In Ã†sop's fable, the wolf's skin is recommended by the fox as a cure for the sick lion.

But the wolf of tradition usually has a perverse or diabolical signification; and as the demon is represented now as a master of every species of perfidy and wickedness, and now as a fool, so is the wolf. In the Hellenic myth, Lycaon, King of Arcadia, became a wolf because he had fed upon human flesh. According to Servius, the wolves among the people, called for this reason Hirpini (the Sabine wordhirpusmeaning a wolf), carried off the entrails of the victim sacrificed to Pluto, and therefore brought down a pestilence upon the land. Wolves tore the hero MilÃ´n to pieces in the forest. Wolves are an omen of death; the loup garou of popular French tradition is a diabolical form.[233]In theEdda, the two wolves SkÃ¶ll and Hati wish to take, one the sun and the other the moon; the wolf devours the sun, father of the world, and gives birth to a daughter. He is then killed by Vidarr. Hati precedes the luminous betrothed of the sky; the wolf Fenris, son of the demoniacal Lokis,chained by the Ases, bites off the hand that the hero Tyr, as an earnest of the good faith of the Ases, had put into his mouth,[234]when chained to the western gate. Nanna, of thePentamerone, after having travelled over the world, is disguised in the shape of a wolf, and changes in character and in colour, becoming malicious; the three sons of the Finns go to inhabit the Valley of the Wolf, near the Wolf's Lake, and find there three women spinning, who can transform themselves into swans. On Christmas Eve, the King Helgi meets a witch who rides upon a wolf, having eagles for bridles.[235]Wolves eat each other; the wolf SinfiÃ¶lti becomes a eunuch; the wolf who flees before the hero is an omen of victory, as well as the wolf who howls under the branches of an ash-tree. (The howling of the wolf, the braying of the ass, the hissing of the serpent, announce the death of the demoniacal monster; this howling must necessarily take place in the morning, or the spring, when the hero has recovered his strength, as theEddasays that "a hero must never fight towards sunset)." If Gunnar (the solar hero) loses his life, the wolf becomes the master of the treasure, and of the heritage of Nifl; the heroes roast thewolf. All these legendary particulars relating to the wolf in theEddaconcur in showing us the wolf as a gloomy and diabolical monster. The night and the winter is the time of the wolf spoken of in theVoluspa; the gods who enter, according to the German tradition, into wolves' skins, represent the sun as hiding himself in the night, or the snowy season of winter (whence the demoniacal white wolf of a Russian story,[236]in the midst of seven black wolves). Inasmuch as the solar hero becomes a wolf, he has a divine nature; inasmuch, on the contrary, as the wolf is the proper form of the devil, his nature is entirely malignant. The condemned man, the proscribed criminal, the bandit, theutlagatusor outlaw, were said in the Middle Ages to wear acaput lupinum(in England,wulfesheofod; in France,teste lÅ“ue). The wolf Ysengrin, descended partly from the Ã†sopian wolf, and partly from Scandinavian myths, which were propagated in Germany, Flanders, and France, possesses much of the diabolical craftiness of the fox; he usually adopts against sheep the same stratagems which the fox makes use of to entrap chickens. The French proverb makes the fox preach to the fowls; the Italian proverb makes the wolf sing psalms when he wishes to ensnare the sheep. As we have seen the jackal and the fox confounded in the East, so Reinart and Ysengrin are sometimes identified by their cunning in Western tradition. A recent French writer, who had observed the habits of the wolf, says that he is "effrayant de sagacitÃ© et de calcul."[237]In the second story of the second book ofAfanassieff, the same wizard-wolf who knew how to imitate the goat's voice to deceive the kids, goes to the house of an old man and an old woman, who have five sheep, a horse, and a calf. The wolf comes and begins to sing. The old woman admires the song, and gives him one sheep, then the others, then the horse, next the calf, and finally herself. The old man, left alone, at last succeeds in hunting the wolf away. In the preceding story, where the animals accuse each other, the demoniacal wolf, when his turn comes, accuses God. We have already spoken of the wolf who, by the order of St Eustorgius, draws the cart instead of the mares which he had eaten. In the twenty-fifth story of the third book ofAfanassieff, the wolf comes up to the sleeping workman, and smells him; the workman awakes, takes the wolf by the tail,[238]and kills him. Another time the same workman, when he goes with his father to the chase, after having enriched himself with money which he had taken from three brigands who had hidden it in a deserted mill, meets again with two wolves who eat the horses, but, entangling themselves in the reins, they are compelled to draw the car home again themselves; here, therefore, we have the miracle of St Eustorgius reduced to its natural mythical proportions. Here, evidently, the wolf begins to show himself as a stupid animal; thedemon teaches his art to the little solar hero in the evening, and is betrayed by the hero himself in the morning; the fox cheats the solar cock in the evening, and is deceived by it in the morning; the wolf succeeds by his wickedness in the evening, and is ruined in the morning. We have already mentioned the Norwegian story of the little Schmierbock, who, put into a sack by the witch, twice makes a hole in the sack and escapes, and the third time makes the witch eat her own daughter. Schmierbock is the ram; the witch or night puts him into the sack. In the Piedmontese story,[239]and in the Russian one, instead of Schmierbock, we have Piccolino (the very little one), and the Small Little Finger (malÄ‡ik-s palÄ‡ik, that is, the little finger, which is the wise one, according to popular superstition). The Russian story is as follows: An old woman, while baking a cake (the moon), cuts off her little finger and throws it into the fire. From the little finger in the fire, a dwarf, but very strong son, is born, who afterwards does many wonderful things. One day he was eating the tripe of an ox in the forest; the wolf passes by, and eats dwarf and tripe together. After this,the wolf approaches a flock of sheep, but the dwarf cries out from within the wolf, "Shepherd, shepherd, thou sleepest and the wolf carries off a sheep." The shepherd then chases the wolf away, who endeavours to get rid of his troublesome guest; the dwarf requests the wolf to carry him home to his parents; no sooner have they arrived there than the dwarf comes out behind and catches hold of the wolf's tail, shouting, "Kill the wolf, kill the grey one." The old people come out and kill it.[240]The mythical wolf dies now after only one night, now after only one winter of life. To the mythical wolf, however, bastard sons were born, who, changing only their skin, succeeded in living for a long period among mortals in the midst of civil society, preserving, nevertheless, their wolf-like habits. The French proverb says, "Le loup alla Ã Rome; il y laissa de son poil et rien de ses coutumes." The pagan she-wolf gave milk to the Roman heroes; the Catholic wolf, thunderstruck by Dante,[241]on the contrary, feeds upon themâ€”

"Ed ha natura sÃ¬ malvagia e ria,Che mai non empie la bramosa voglia,E dopo il pasto ha piÃ¹ fame che pria.Molti son gli animali a cui s'ammoglia."

SUMMARY.

Lion and tiger symbols of royal majesty.â€”Tvashá¹ar as a lion.â€”The hair of Tvashá¹ar in the fire.â€”Winds that roar like lions.â€”The lion-seducer.â€”The lion and the honey; the lion and riches.â€”Nobility of the lion.â€”The lion's part.â€”The monster lioness.â€”The old and sick lion; the lion with a thorn in its foot.â€”Monster and demoniacal lions.â€”The lion is afraid of the cock.â€”Sterility of the lion.â€”The story of Atalanta.â€”The sun in the sign Leo.â€”The virgin and the lion.â€”Ã‡ivas, Dionysos, and the tiger.â€”A hair from the tiger's tail; the Mantikora.â€”The chameleon; the god chameleon.

The tiger and the lion have in India the same dignity, and are both supreme symbols of royal strength and majesty.[242]The tiger of men and the lion of men are two expressions equivalent to prince, as the prince is supposed to be the best man. It is strength that gives victory and superiority in natural relations; therefore the tiger and the lion, called kings of beasts, representthe king in the civic social relations among men. The narasinhas of India was called, in the Middle Ages, the kingpar excellence; thus in Greece the king was also called leÃ´n.

The myth of the lion and the tiger is essentially an Asiatic one; notwithstanding this, a great part of it was developed in Greece, where lion and tiger were at one time not unknown, and must have, as in India, inspired something like that religious terror caused by oriental kings.

We have already mentioned the Vedic monster lion of the West, in which we recognise the expiring sun. The strong Indras, killer of the monster, Vá¹›itras, is also represented as a lion. In the same way as the Jewish Samson is found in connection with the lion, and this lion with honey, and as the strength of the lion and that of Samson is said to be centred in the hair (the sun, when he loses his rays or mane, loses all his strength), so in the parallel myth of Indras we find analogous circumstances. Tvasá¸¥á¹ar, the Hindoo celestial blacksmith, who makes weapons now for the gods and now for the demons (the reddish sky of morning and of evening is likened to a burning forge; the solar hero or the sun in this forge, is a blacksmith), is also represented in a Vedic hymn[243]as a lion, turned towards which, towards the west, heaven and earth rejoice, although (on account of the din made by him when coming into the world) they are, before all, terrified. The form of a lion is one of the favourite shapes created by the mythical and legendary blacksmith.

In theMÃ¢rkaá¹‡deya-P.,[244]this same Tvashá¹ar (which theá¹šigvedasrepresents as a lion), wishing to avengehimself upon the god Indras, who had (perhaps at morn) killed one of his sons, creates another, son, Vá¹›itras (the coverer), by tearing a lock of hair off his head and throwing it into the fire (the sun burns every evening in the western forge, his rays or mane, and the gloomy monster of night is born). Indras makes a truce with Vá¹›itras (in Russian stories, heroes and monsters nearly always challenge each other to say before fighting whether they will have peace or war), and subsequently violates the treaty; for this perfidy he loses his strength, which passes into MÃ¢rutas, the son of the wind (the Hanumant of theRÃ¢mÃ¢yaá¹‡am. In a Vedic hymn, the voice of the MÃ¢rutas is compared to the roar of lions),[245]and into the three brothers PÃ¢á¹‡á¸avas, sons of Kunti (the passage of the legend from the Vedas to the two principal Hindoo epic poems is thus indicated). Thus, in the sameMÃ¢rkaá¹‡deya-P., Indras, having violated AhalyÃ¢, the wife of GÃ¢utamas, loses his beauty (in other Puranic legends he becomes a eunuch or has a thousand wombs. Indras is powerful as the sun; he is powerful, too, in the cloud, by means of the thunderbolt; but when he hides himself in the serene and starry sky, he is powerless), which passes to the two AÃ§vinÃ¢u, who afterwards renew themselves in the two PÃ¢á¹‡á¸avÃ¢u sons of MÃ¢drÃ®, as the sons of the demons were personified in the sons of Dhá¹›itarÃ¢shá¹ras.

Tvashá¹ar, the creator, now of divine, now of monstrous forms, Tvashá¹ar the lion, must necessarily create leonine forms. In a Tuscan story, the blacksmith makes a lion by means of which Argentofo penetrates by night intothe room of a young princess, with whom he unites himself. In the third story of the fourth book of thePentamerone, the three prince brothers, when the fairy's curse is over, return home with their brides, drawn by six lions. This lion-seducer reminds us of Indras, who was also a lion and a seducer of women. A hymn tells us that Indras fights like a terrible lion;[246]in another hymn, the same lion is considered, as in the legend of Samson, in connection with honey.[247]In the twenty-second night of theTuti-Name, the lion presents himself in connection with riches; flattered by a man who calls him a king, he lets him collect the riches scattered on the ground by a caravan which the lion had destroyed.[248]His royal nature is also shown in theRÃ¢mÃ¢yaá¹‡am,[249]in which King DaÃ§arathas says that his son RÃ¢mas, the lion of men, after his exile, will disdain to occupy the kingdom previously enjoyed by Bharatas, in the same way as the lion disdains to feed upon flesh which has been licked by other animals. It is perhaps for this reason that, in the fable, the lion's part means all the prey. The proud one becomes the violent one, the tyrant, and hence the monster. In theÃ‚itareya Br.,[250]the earth, full of giftsmade by the right handâ€”that is, by the eastern partâ€”presented by the Ã‚dityÃ¢s (or luminous gods) to the AÃ±girasas (the seven solar rays, the seven wise men, and hence the priests), attacks, in the evening, the nations with its mouth wide open, having become a lioness (sinhÃ®bhÃ»tvÃ¢). In theRÃ¢mÃ¢yaá¹‡am,[251]the car that carries the monster IndraÇµit is impetuously drawn by four lions. In theTuti-Name,[252]we have the fable of the lion, instead of the wolf, that accuses the lamb, and the lion who is afraid of the ass, of the bull (as in the introduction to thePaÅ„Ä‡atantram), and of the lynx. The Western lion-sun is now monstrous, now aged, now ill, now has a thorn in his foot,[253]is now blind, and now foolish. The monstrous lion who guards the monster's dwelling, the infernal abode, is found in a great number of popular stories. In Hellenic tradition the monstrous lion occurs more than once; such is the lion that ravages the country of the King of Megara, who promises his daughter to wife to the hero that will kill it; such is the lioness who, with her bloody jaws (the purple in the dog's mouth and the meat in the dog's mouth of the myths are of equivalent import) makes Thysbe's veil bloody, so that when Pyramos sees it he believes Thysbe to be dead, and kills himself;when Thysbe sees this, she too kills herself in despair (an ancient form of the death of Romeo and Juliet); such is the NemÃ¦an lion strangled by HÃªraklÃªs; such the lion of Mount Olympos which the young Polydamos kills without weapons; such were the leonine monsters with human faces which, according to Solinus, inhabited the Caspian; such was the ChimÃ¦ra, part lion, part goat, and part dragon, and several other mythical figures of the passage of the evening sun into the gloom of night.

And it is under the conception of the lion as monstrous that the ancients were unanimous in believing that he fears above all animals the cock, and especially its fiery comb. The solar cock of morning entirely destroys the monsters. In a fable of Achilles Statius, the lion complains that Prometheus had allowed a cock to frighten him, but soon after consoles himself, upon learning that the elephant is tormented by the little mosquito that buzzes in its ears. Lucretius, too, in the fourth bookDe Rerum NaturÃ¢represents the cock as throwing seeds:â€”

"Nimirum quia sunt Gallorum in corpore quÃ¦damSemina, quÃ¦ cum sint oculis immissa LeonumPupillas interfodiunt acremque dolorem[254]PrÃ¦bent, ut nequeant contra durare feroces."

Sometimes the hero or god passes into the form of a lion to vanquish the monsters, like Dionysos, Apollon, HÃªraklÃªs, in Greece, and Indras and Visá¸¥nus in India.In the legend of St Marcellus, a lion having appeared to the saint in a vision as killing a serpent, this appearance was considered as a presage of good fortune to the enterprise of the Emperor Leo in Africa. Sometimes, on the other hand, hero and heroine become lion and lioness by the vengeance of deities or monsters. Atalanta defies the pretenders to her hand to outstrip her in running, and kills those who lose. Hippomenes, by the favour of the goddess of love, having received three apples from the garden of the Hesperides, provokes Atalanta to the race; on the way, he throws the apples down; Atalanta cannot resist the impulse to gather them up, and Hippomenes overtakes her, and unites himself with her in the wood sacred to the mother of the gods; the offended goddess transforms the young couple into a lion and a lioness. In theGesta Romanorum, a girl, daughter of the Emperor Vespasian, kills the claimant of her hand in a garden, in the form of a ferocious lion. Empedokles, however, considered the transformation into a lion as the best of all human metamorphoses. When the sun enters into the sign of the lion, he arrives at his greatest height of power; and the golden crown which the Florentines placed upon their lion in the public square, on the day of St John, was a symbol of the approach of the season which they call by one word alone,sollione. This lion is enraged, and makes, as it is said, plants and animals rage. The pagan legend says of Prometheusâ€”

"Insani leonisVim stomacho apposuisse nostro."[255]

But the mythical lion, the sun, does not inspire the man with rage alone, but strength also.[256]

The tiger, the panther, and the leopard possess several of the mythical characteristics of the lion as a hidden sun, with which they are, moreover, sometimes confounded in their character of omniform animals. The leopard was sacred to the god Pan, whose nature we already know, and the panther to Protheus and Dionysos, because it is said to have a liking for wine (we have seen the Vedic lion Indras in connection with honey, and Indras himself in connection with the somas), and because the nurses of Dionysos were transformed into panthers. Dionysos appears now surrounded by panthers, by means of which he terrifies pirates and puts them to flight, and now drawn by tigers. Dionysos is at the same time a phallical and an ambrosial god, and hence the god of wine; thus in India, Ã‡ivas, the phallical god,par excellence, and who is omniform like Tvashá¹ar and Yamas, his almost equivalent forms, has the tiger for his ensign, and is covered with a tiger's skin. It is a singular fact that in Hindoo tradition a murderous strength is attributed to the tiger's tail. A Hindoo proverb says that a hair of the tiger's tail may be the cause of losing one's life,[257]which naturally suggests to our minds the tiger Mantikora,[258]which hasin its tail hairs which are darts thrown by it to defend itself, and are spoken of by Ktesias, inPausanias.

Finally, having considered the tiger, the panther, and the leopard, variegated and omniform animals, and compared them with the lion, whose combat with the serpent we have also mentioned, it is natural to add a few more words concerning the chameleon, of whose enmity to the serpent and medicinal virtues Greek and Latin authors have written at such length. Theká¹›ikalÃ¢Ã§asorká¹›ikalÃ¢sas, or chameleon, is already spoken of in a VedicBrÃ¢hmaá¹‡am. In the fifty-fifth canto of the last book of theRÃ¢mÃ¢yaá¹‡am, we read that King Ná¹›igas was condemned to remain invisible to all creatures in the form of a chameleon during many hundreds and thousands of years, until the god Vishá¹‡us, humanised in the form of Vasudevas, will come to release him from this curse, incurred for having delayed to judge a controversy pending between two BrÃ¢hmans concerning the ownership of a cow and a calf. In the stories of grateful animals, as is well-known, the hero often earns their gratitude by intervening to divide their prey into just portions, while they are disputing over it themselves. From the last book of theRÃ¢mÃ¢yaá¹‡am, we learn also that the form of the chameleon is that assumed by Kuveras, the god of riches, when the gods flee terrified from the sight of the monster RÃ¢vaá¹‡as. As Yamas and Ã‡ivas are almost equivalent forms, so between Yamas and Kuveras there is the same relation as between Pluto and Plutus. To the tiger Ã‡ivas corresponds the chameleon Kuveras; and the chameleon god of wealth, enemy of the serpent, is closely connected in mythology with the lion Indras, with the lion that kills the monster serpent, and with the lion that covets the treasure.

SUMMARY.

Tuscan superstition relating to the spider; the red sky of evening.â€”The night, the moon, and the aurora as weavers.â€”ArachnÃª.â€”Ã‚urá¹‡avabhas.â€”DhatÃ¢ and VidhatÃ¢.â€”Golden cloths.â€”The spider and his prey.â€”The golden veil.â€”The lake of fire and the witch burnt.â€”The eagle and the spider.â€”The sack made of a spider's web.

There is in Tuscany a very interesting superstition relating to the spider: it is believed that if a spider be seen in the evening it must not be burnt, as it is destined to bring good fortune; but when seen in the morning, it must be burnt without being touched. The evening and morning aurora are compared to the spider and the spider's web; the evening aurora must prepare the morning aurora during the night. We have quoted on a previous occasion the Piedmontese proverb, "Rosso di sera, buon tempo si spera" (red at night, we hope for fine weather). If the sun dies in the west without clouds, if the luminous spider shows itself in the western sky, it augurs for the morrow a fine morning and a fine day. In theá¹šigvedaswe have on this subject several interesting data; the aurora weaved during the night (and is therefore called vayantÃ®;[259]sometimes she is helped byRÃ¢kÃ¢, the full moon[260]) the robe for her husband. But, in another hymn, she is entreated to shine soon, and not to stretch out or weave her work too long, in order that the sun with his rays may not fall upon it and burn it like a thief.[261]In the legend of Odysseus, PenelopÃª undoes in the night the work of the day; this is another aspect of the same myth: PenelopÃª, as aurora, undoes her web at even, to weave it again at morn. The myth of ArachnÃª (the name of the spider, and of the celebrated Lydian virgin whom AthenÃª, the aurora, according to Professor Max MÃ¼ller, taught to spin, and whose father was Idmon, a colourer in purple), whom AthenÃª, jealous of the skill she had acquired in weaving in purple colours, strikes on the forehead and transforms into a spider, is a variety of the same myth of the weaving aurora. When the spider becomes dark, and when its web is gloomy, then the spider, or son of the spider, or Ã‚urá¹‡avabhas, assumes a monstrous form. Ã‚urá¹‡avabhas (Ã»rá¹‡avÃ¢bhis, Ã»rá¹‡anÃ¢bhis, Ã»rá¹‡anabhas, as spider, are already spoken of in the Vedic writings) is the name of the gloomy monster Vá¹›itras, killed by the god Indras, the terrible monster which Indras, immediately after his birth, is obliged to kill[262]atthe instigation of his mother. In theMahÃ¢bhÃ¢ratam[263]we find two women that spin and weave, DhatÃ¢ and VidhatÃ¢; they weave upon the loom of the year with black and white threads,i.e., they spin the days and the nights. We, therefore, have a beneficent spider and a malignant one.

In the fourth story of the fifth book of thePentamerone, the young Parmetella marries a black slave, who gives her as servants swans, "Vestute de tela d'oro, che, subeto 'ncignannola da capo a pede, la mesero 'n forma de ragno, che pareva propio na Regina." (The black man becomes a handsome youth during the night, perhaps as the moon; she wishes to see his features, and he disappears; this is a variety of the popular story of the wife's indiscretion.) In the fifth story of the second book ofAfanassieff, the spider sets its web to catch flies, mosquitoes, and wasps; a wasp, being caught in the web, begs to be released in consideration of the many children that she will leave behind her (the same stratagem that is used by the hen against the fox in the Tuscan story previously mentioned.) The credulous spider lets her go; she then warns wasps, flies, and mosquitoes to keep hidden. The spider then asks help from the grasshopper, the moth, and the bug (nocturnal animals), who announce that the spider is dead, having given up the ghost upon the gibbet, which gibbet was afterwards destroyed (the evening aurora has disappeared into the night). The flies, mosquitoes, and wasps again come out, and fell into the spider's web (into the morning aurora). In the eighteenth story of the sixth book ofAfanassieff, the beautiful girl who flees from the house of the witch that persecutes her, stretches out a veil, which, by the help of a beautiful young maiden (themoon), she has embroidered with gold; immediately a great sea of fire springs up, into which the old witch falls and is burned; and here we come back to the popular Italian superstition that the spider must be burned in the morning.

The spider is an animal of the earth, but it weaves its web in the air; and as suchâ€”as intermediary between the animals of the earth and those of the airâ€”supplies us with a bridge by which we may pass naturally from the first to the second part of the present work.[264]I hope that this bridge will prove as sufficient as the sack in which the young Esthonian hero carries the treasure away from hell, a sack composed of the threads of a spider, so strong that it is impossible to tear them. I wish I had, in the first book, some of the skill of the spider, and that I could weave with a few threads from the labyrinth of Ã‚ryan legendary tradition concerning animals a web which, if it be not as luminous as that of ArachnÃª, may be more durable than that of PenelopÃª.

SUMMARY.

The sky-atmosphere and the sky-tree.â€”The sun, the AÃ§vinÃ¢u, Indras, the Marutas, and Agnis as birds.â€”Indras cuts off the wings of the mountains.â€”Indras and Somas as two birds hovering round the same tree of honey.â€”The wisdom of birds.â€”The birds requested to sacrifice themselves to fulfil the duties of hospitality, refuse.â€”The dviÇµas bird and brÃ¢hman.â€”Penitent birds.â€”Consolatory birds.â€”Presages of birds in India.â€”Verethraghna as a bird.â€”The bird's feather.â€”The red bird.â€”Grateful and prophetic birds.â€”The hero that understands the language of birds.â€”The bird and the two cypresses.â€”The hero becomes a bird by acquiring Solomon's ring.â€”The blue bird.â€”The bird caught by putting salt upon its tail.â€”The excrement of birds is propitious.â€”The demoniacal bird.â€”The bird that feeds the heroes.â€”Birds and poets; singers and prophets.â€”Auguries and auspices.â€”The auguries were laughed at in Greece.â€”Flight to right and to left.

The sky, especially by night, is conceived now as a road on which one can walk, and where sometimes the traveller may be lost, or make others lose their way; now as the air itself, in which one flies or is carried in flight, with the risk sometimes of falling; now as a tree, in which one speaks or builds nests, with the risk of the wordsbeing sometimes sinister, or the nests falling; and now as a sea in which one navigates in peril of shipwreck.

The sky-atmosphere and the sky-tree are the world of the mythical flying birds and insects. The god, the demon, the hero, and the monster, when traversing this field, either take the forms of winged animals, or make use of them to ascend to the celestial paths, or else are conducted by them to their ruin.

The sun and the moon, the sunbeams, the thunderbolts, flashes of lightning, auroras, clouds that move and thunder, and the very shadows that move, often take in myths the forms of flying animals.

In theá¹šigvedas, the sun is called a bird (viá¸¥);[265]the AÃ§vinÃ¢u come with the wheels of the car like a bird with feathers;[266]Indras is the well-winged red one;[267]the Marutas perch like birds upon the culm of buttered grass;[268]Agnis accomplishes the wish of the bird;[269]the well-winged ones of Agnis (i.e., the thunderbolts) appear as destroyers when the black bull has bellowed (that is, when the black cloud has thundered);[270]Savitar must not destroy the woods of the birds;[271]from the house of the aurora the birds come forth;[272]the goddesses and thebrides of the heroes are requested to come to the assistance of men with unclipt wings.[273]Finally, an interesting Vedic hymn shows us the sun and the moon, Indras and Somas, as two well-winged birds united in friendship, that continually fly round the same tree (i.e., the sky); of these, one eats the sweet pippalas, the other shines without eating. Both, well-winged, sing as they safely guard the treasure of ambrosia. The honey of this tree is called pippalas: of this tree all the birds eat the honey, and on it they build their nests.[274]

The wisdom of birds is much celebrated in popular Aryan tradition. On this subject theMÃ¢rkaá¹‡deya-P.[275]narrates a long and instructive legend.

The wise GÃ¢iminis wishes some episodes of the great legend of theMahÃ¢bhÃ¢ratam, which seem obscure, to be explained to him. He has recourse to the learned MÃ¢rkaá¹‡á¸eyas; but the latter says he does not know how to enlighten him, and advises him to interrogate the birds, the best of the birds, sons of Droá¹‡as, who know the essence of things, who meditate upon the sacred treatises, the birds PiÃ±gÃ¢kshas, Vibodhas, Supattras, and Sumukhas, who will disperse his doubts. They live in acave in the middle of the VindhyÃ¢s; let him go to them and ask them. GÃ¢iminis wonders how simple birds can possess so much wisdom. MÃ¢rkaá¹‡á¸eyas then relates to him their genealogy. A nymph, who had seduced by her song the penitent DurvÃ¢sas, was condemned to be born again in the family of the bird Garuá¸as, and to spend sixteen years in the form of a bird, until, after giving birth to four sons, she should be wounded by an arrow and regain once more her primitive form in heaven. As a bird she is named TÃ¢rkshÃ®, and is married to the bird Droá¹‡as, who is wise and instructed in the VedÃ¢s and VedÃ¢Ã±gÃ¢s. TÃ¢rkshÃ® is present at the battle between the KÃ¢uravÃ¢s and the PÃ¢á¹‡á¸avÃ¢s; a dart strikes her in the belly, from which four eggs that shine like the moon fall to the ground. After the battle, the ascetic Ã‡amÃ®kas approaches the place where the four eggs lie, and hears the young birds chirping Ä‡iÄ‡ÃkuÄ‡Ã. The wise man marvels at seeing that they have escaped such carnage, concludes they must be BrÃ¢hmans, and thinks this a circumstance of most favourable augury and a presage of great fortune (mahÃ¢bhÃ¢gyapradarÃ§inÃ®). He carries the birds to his house, and places them where they run no risk of being harmed by cats, mice, hawks, or weasels. The birds are taken care of and nourished by the wise man, and grow up strong and learned, listening to the lessons that the wise man gives in school, and, being grateful to him as their deliverer, expressing their gratitude by means of words which, by exercise, they articulate clearly. Interrogated as to their previous existence, they remember that there was once a sage named VipulÃ¢Ã§van, father of two children, Suká¹›ishas and Tumburus; these four were sons of Tumburus. Whilst they lived in the woods with their father, Indras, the king of the gods, comes to them in the formof a gigantic old bird, and demands human flesh from the hospitable sage. The wise man wonders that a bird, so old, that is, at an age in which every desire should be extinguished, should be so cruel as to wish for human flesh. Nevertheless he requests (like ViÃ§vÃ¢mitras in the legend of Ã‡unaá¸¥cepas previously mentioned) his own sons to sacrifice themselves in fulfilment of this duty. They do not at first refuse this act of hospitality, but when they hear that they are to be eaten by the bird, they decisively refuse, pleading, among other arguments, the physiological, or rather, materialistic one, that if they are virtuous, their virtue too will perish with their bodies, whilst, on the other hand, in order to preserve their virtue long, they think themselves bound to prolong their existence as much as possible (we have already seen the cat adopting a similar argument to justify his fatness). Their father, indignant at this refusal after giving their promise, curses them, condemning them to be born again as animals, and then magnanimously offers himself to the famished bird. Upon which Indras reveals himself in his proper divine form, and then disappears after blessing the sage. The sons beseech their father to release them from the malediction; he takes pity upon them, but is unable to revoke his words; it is only in his power to temper the severity of the punishment. They are condemned to retain the animal form; but in that form they are to be recompensed with the gift of insight into the mysteries of being. It is for this reason that, when Ã‡amÃ®kas finds them, he salutes them by the name of BrÃ¢hmans. For the rest, the equivoque is easily comprehensible, when we reflect that the worddviÇµas, or twice born, means bird (that is, born first as an egg, and afterwards as an animal), as well as BrÃ¢hman (who, by taking the sacred cord, the prÃ¦texta, and the sacramentof the holy oil, is born again). Etymology here assists our comprehension of the legend. In the same way as the BrÃ¢hman is the wisest of men, so are the dviÇµÃ¢s or birds the wisest of animals. The birds, cursed by the hermit their father, go therefore to Mount Vindhyas, which is watered by many blessed streams, where they live as austere penitents. GÃ¢iminis goes to consult them; when he approaches their abode, he hears them speaking distinctly to each other. He then comes up and sees them perched on the top of a rock. GÃ¢iminis addresses them with amiable words; the birds answer him that, since so great a sage is come to visit them, their wish is accomplished and their curse come to an end. Then follow the questions of GÃ¢iminis relating to Ç´anÃ¢rdanas, DrÃ¢upadÃ®, Baladevas, and the five sons of DrÃ¢upadÃ®. The birds, before answering, sing a kind of hymn to Vishá¹‡us, and expound his principal incarnations. In theMahÃ¢bhÃ¢ratam,[276]the ascetic BrÃ¢hmans go in the forms of birds to console the á¹›ishis MÃ¢ndavyas, impaled by order of the king, for having given hospitality to the robbers of the royal booty.

Birds know everything, and hence presages are taken especially from them, whence the nameauspiciumoraugurium, applied specifically to a presage. In the last book of theRÃ¢mÃ¢yaá¹‡am,[277]the monsters are terrified by such omens as the following:â€”"Thousands of vultures and ducks with mouths that throw flames, which form a circle like that of the god of death upon the battalions of the monsters; the doves, the red-feet, the sÃ¢rikÃ¢s (turdus salicÃ¦) were dispersed."

In theAvesta, Verethraghna often appears as a bird, and as understanding the language of birds. A bird's feather, in theAvesta, assists Verethraghna, as in Firdusi,a feather of the bird Simurg, burnt by Zal, calls up to his assistance the bird Simurg in person.[278]According to a legend of theKhorda-Avesta, the splendour of the old Yima, who had become proud and false-tongued (thus, in India, the celestial Yamas and the happy Ã‡ivas become infernal destroying deities), fled away in the form of a bird. According to the popular superstition of White Russia, the little bird diedka (the little one), is the guardian of treasures and has eyes of fire and a fiery beard (this is doubtless a representation of the demoniacal sun of evening, of Kuveras or of Plutos.[279]) In theContes Merveilleuxof Porchat, the red bird appears as a messenger.

In the legend of Sal, in Firdusi, there is a riddle about two cypresses, one withered and the other verdant, upon first the one and then the other of which a bird regularly builds his nest. The hero Sal, who solves the riddle, says that the two cypresses are the two opposite seasonsof the year or the two sides of the sky, and that the bird is the sun.[280]

In the eighteenth Esthonian story, two birds, speaking to each other, signify where the famous enchanted ring of Solomon is to be found, which the young hero is looking for. When the hero finds the ring, he is able to transform himself at will into a bird; but the daughter of hell, in the shape of an eagle, carries it off from him. In the fourth Esthonian story, the girl of seven years of age becomes, by beneficent magic, a bird, when she is obliged to travel far. In the thirty-fifth of the stories of Santo Stefano di Calcinaia, the wife of the bird-catcher terrifies the devil in the form of an enormous and monstrous bird. In the fifth story of the fourth book of thePentamerone, a fairy in the form of a bird arrests the arm of the king of Alta-Marina whilst he is about to kill his own wife Portiella. The fairy was grateful to the young woman, because, when she was asleep in a wood, Portiella had awakened her to deliver her from a satyr who was attempting to violate her.[281]The king shuts Portiella up in a tower without light; the bird makes a hole in it and brings food to her, stealing the fowls from the kitchen during the cook's absence. Portiella gives birth to a son, who is also nourished by the bird. Theoiseau bleu,couleur du temps, of the story of Madame d'Aulnoy, who flies at night from the cypress to the window of the beautiful imprisoned Florine, is a beautifulvariety of this same story. Several Russian stories end with the following refrain of an azure bird (siniÄ‡ka, little azure one): "little azure one flies and says, Azure, but beautiful."[282]Inasmuch as the sun of morning, or spring, comes out of the dark-blue bird of night, or of winter, we can understand the popular Italian and German superstition, that when the excrement of a bird falls upon a man it is an omen of good luck. The excrement of the mythical bird of night, or of winter, is the sun. Considered in connection with morning or spring, the dark-coloured bird of night, or winter, is propitious; considered by itself, or in relation to the evening sun or the dying summer, it is a funereal and diabolical animal. Such is the bird KÃ¢mek of theAvesta, which stretches its wings over all mankind, which carries off and hides the sun, creates darkness, keeps back the waters and devours all creatures, until after seven years and seven nights, the hero KereÃ§Ã¢Ã§pa strikes it and makes it fall.

Moreover, the bird that brings food is a subject which is very popular in almost all the traditions of the Indo-European nations. Every one has heard of the bird which nourished Semiramis, abandoned by her mother in a desert and stony place, with curdled milk and cheese(the moonlight), stolen from the neighbouring flocks of sheep, according to the narrative of Diodorus Siculus; and the same Persian bird nourishes, according to the legend, several other children, future heroes of Iran, who had been similarly exposed; in the legend of Romulus and Remus, the woodpecker assumes the same place and office as the nurse she-wolf. In the watery night and the watery winter, the solar child-hero, abandoned to himself, is nourished by birds. The nightingale or singer of the night sends forth his melodious notes from the nocturnal tree, predicting thus the renewal of daylight; in the tree-cloud, the thunder rumbles, the oracle speaks, and the bird prophesies. Theokritos calls poets the birds of the Muses (mousÃ´n ornithas). The kokilas is the bird of the Hindoo poets and teaches them melody; to this bird corresponds the Hindoo Kyknos of theTuti-Name, of which it is said that it has innumerable holes in its beak, from each of which a melodious sound comes forth.

The Hindookavis, the Latinvates, and the Hellenicmantisrepresent at once both the singer and the sage; thus the singers of the woods are at the same time omniscient prophets. They began with prophecies about the weather, as the thunder announces the storm, and finished by prophesying everything. The peasantry of Tuscany endeavour to this day to guess what weather it will be on the morrow from the songs of the birds.[283]The augures, the auguremens, the aucelli, and the aruspices were preserved even in the Middle Ages, accordingto the testimony of Du Cange.[284]As to the auguries and auspices of the ancient Greeks and Romans, I refer the reader to the numerous erudite works which treat of them in a particular manner. I must observe, however, that whilst among the Latins augury was deemed such a solemn thing that Publius Claudius and Lucius Junius were judged worthy of death for having set out on a voyage against the will of the auguries, and that whilstave, that is to say, good augury, was still the solemn formula of Roman salutation, the Greeks had already turned auguries and auspices into derision. The reader remembers, no doubt, how in theIliadthe hero Hektor declares that he cares not whether the birds go to the right, towards the aurora and the sun, or to the left, towards the sunset. In Eusebius[285]we read that a bird was presented to Alexander, the Macedonian, when on the point of setting out for the Red Sea, in order that he might read the auguries by it according to custom; Alexander, in answer, killed the bird with an arrow; the bystanders being offended by this breach of the rules, the Macedonian hero added, "What folly is this? In what way could this bird, which could not foresee its death by this arrow, predict the fortunes of our journey?" Auguries and auspices were also taken in India. According to theRÃ¢mÃ¢yaá¹‡am,[286]birds seen at a wedding to go to the left, are a sinister omen;[287]birds that fly, crying, tothe left of RÃ¢mas, announce to him a serious disaster, viz., the carrying off of SÃ®tÃ¢.[288]

SUMMARY.

The bird of prey the most heroic of birds.â€”Indras as a hawk.â€”The hawk and the ambrosia; the ambrosia as sperm.â€”The bird of prey and the serpent.â€”Agnis, the AÃ§vinÃ¢u, and the Marutas as hawks.â€”The place of sacrifice has the form of an eagle.â€”The two sons of Vinaá¹Ã¢.â€”Garuá¸as, the bird of Vishá¹‡us; he fights against the monsters.â€”Genealogy of the vultures.â€”Ç´Ã¢tÃ¢yus and Sampatis.â€”The king or the young hero who offers himself up to be devoured by the hawk or the eagle.â€”The grateful hawk or eagle.â€”Ã‡yena and Ã‡aena; Simurg; the feather of the bird of prey.â€”The birds as clouds.â€”The eagles as winds; Aquila and Aquilo.â€”The hawks as luminous birds; the eagles as demoniacal ones.â€”Accipiter.â€”The hawk as an emblem of nobility.â€”The hawk as the ensign of Attila.â€”The hawk in Hellenic antiquity.â€”The kite among the stars; it discharges its body upon the image of the god.â€”The beetle, the eagle, and Zeus.â€”The eagle as the thunderbolt or sceptre of Zeus.â€”The eagle presages supreme power and fertility; the eagle and the laurel.â€”The eagle carries off the robes of AphroditÃª.â€”The eagle takes away the slippers of RhodopÃª.â€”The eagle kills Ã†schilos.â€”Nisos and Scylla.â€”The vulture in ancient classical authors.â€”The vultures in hell.â€”The learned vulture.â€”Voracity of the vulture.â€”Imaginary birds.â€”The sun as a phoenix.â€”The demoniacal harpies or FuriÃ¦, canes Jovis.â€”Strix and striges; they suck blood.â€”Proca and Crane.â€”Bats and vampires.â€”The Stymphalian birds.â€”The birds of Seleucia.â€”The Gryphes and the Arimaspi.â€”The griffons sacred to Nemesis; the hypogriff, gryphos, logogriph, griffonage.â€”The Siren now as a bird, now as a fish.â€”Circe; a lunar myth.

The most heroic of birds is the bird of prey; the strength of its beak, wings, and claws, its size and swiftness, caused it to be regarded as a swift celestial messenger, carrier, and warrior.

The hawk, the eagle, and the vulture, three powerful birds of prey, generally play the same part in myths and legends; the creators of myths having from the first observed their general resemblance, without paying any regard to their specific differences.

The bird of prey, in mythology, is the sun, which now shines in its splendour, and now shows itself in the cloud or darkness by sending forth flashes of lightning, thunderbolts, and sunbeams. The flash, the thunderbolt, and the sunbeam are now the beak, now the claw of the bird of prey, and now, the part being sometimes taken for the whole, even the entire bird.

In theá¹šigvedas, the god Indras often appears in the form of a hawk or Ã§yenas. Indras is like a hawk that flies swiftly over the other hawks, and, being well-winged, carries to men the food tasted by the gods.[289]He is enclosed in a hundred iron fortresses; nevertheless, with swiftness, he succeeds in coming out of them;[290]while flying away, he carries in his claw the beautiful, virgin, luminous ambrosia, by means of which life is prolonged and the dead brought to life again[291](the rain, which is also confounded with the ambrosial humour of the moon.In the first strophe of the same hymn, Indus is also called ambrosia).[292]The hawk with iron claws kills the hostile demons,[293]has great power of breathing, and draws from afar the chariot with a hundred wheels.[294]However, while the hawk carries the ambrosia through the air, he trembles for fear of the archer Ká¹›iÃ§Ã¢nus,[295]who, in fact, shot off one of his claws (of which the hedgehog was born, according to theÃ‚iá¹areya Br.,[296]and according to the Vedic hymn,[297]one of his feathers which, falling on the earth, afterwards became a tree). After the victory gained over Ahis, the serpent-demon, Indras flees like a terrified hawk.[298]This is the first trace of the legendary and proverbial enmity between the bird of prey and the serpent. In the third book of theRÃ¢mÃ¢yaá¹‡am, RÃ¢vaá¹‡as says that he will carry off SÃ®tÃ¢ as the well-winged one (carries off) the serpent (supará¹‡aá¸¥ pannaÇµamiva).

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