TEUTONIC MYTHOLOGY. - Centrostudirpinia.it

392 HEROES.
have been especially prevalent among the Franks ? Lampr. Alex.
5368 also has : sin hut was ime bevangen al mit swtnes bursten (see
Suppl.).
One principal mark to know heroes by, is their possessing
intelligent horses, and conversing with them. A succeeding chapter
will shew more fully, how heathendom saw something sacred and
divine in horses, and often endowed them with consciousness and
sympathy with the destiny of men. But to heroes they were indis
pensable for riding or driving, and a necessary intimacy sprang up
between the two, as appears by the mere fact of the horses having
proper names given them. The touching conversation of Achilles
with his Xanthos and Balios (II. 19, 400421) finds a complete
parallel in the beautiful Karling legend of Bayard ; compare also
Wilhelm s dialogue with Puzzdt (58, 2159, 8), in the French
original with Baucent (Garin 2, 230-1), and Begon s with the same
Baucent (p. 230). In the Edda we have Skirnir talking with his
b horse >82
(Sasm. ) and ; GoSrun, after SigurS s murder, with Grani
(231 b
) :
hnipnaCi Grani )m, drap i gras hofcSi.
Well might Grani mourn, for the hero had bestridden him ever
since he led him out of Hialprek s stable (180), had ridden him
through the flames (202 a
), and carried off the great treasure.
Swedish and Danish folk-songs bring in a sagacious steed Black,
with whom conversation is carried on (Sv. vis. 2, 194. Sv, forns.
2, 257. Danske vis. 1, 323). In the poems on Artus the horses
are less attractively painted ; but how naively in the Servian,
when Mila shoes the steed (Vuk 1, 5), or Marko before his death
talks with his faithful Sharats (2, 243 seq. Danitza 1, 109). In
Mod. Greek songs there is a dialogue of Liakos with his horse
(Fauriel 1, 138), and similar ones in the Lithuanian dainos (Khesa
p. 224). The Persian Eastern s fairy steed is well-known (see
Suppl.). 1
If many heroes are carried off in the bloom of life, like Achilles
or Siegfried, others attain a great age, beyond the limit of the
human. Our native legend allows Hildebrand the years of Nestor
L Mongolian warriors dying song has :
My poor cream-coloured trotter, you will get home alive.
Then tell my : mother, pray full riiteen wounds had he .
And tell my father, pray : shot through the back was he, &c.