Cox, George - Aryan Mythology Vol 2.pdf

THE DYING YEAR.
' Close not thy lips yet, I will ask further, CHAP.
Till I know all things. And this will I know: II.
The name of the woman who refuses to weep,
And cast to the heavens the veil from her head.'
*
1 Thou art not Wegtam as erst I deemed thee,
But thou art Odin the all-creator.'
' And thou art not Vola, no wise woman thou,
Nay, thou art the mother of giants in Hel.'
'Ride home, Odin, and make thy boast,
That never again shall a man visit me,
Till Loki hath broken his fetters and chains,
And the twilight of gods brings the end of all things.'
Some features in this legend obviously reproduce incidents The death
in Greek mythology. The hound of hell who confronts the
Father of Song is the dog of Yanien, the Kerberos who bars
the way to Orpheus until he is lulled to sleep by his harp-
ing ; while the errand of Odin which has for its object the
saving of Baldur answers to the mission of Orpheus to recover
Eurydike. Odin, again, coming as Wegtam the wan-
derer reminds us at once of Odysseus the far-journeying
and long-enduring. The ride of Odin is as ineffectual as
the pilgrimage of Orpheus. All created things have been
made to take an oath that they will not hurt the beautiful
Baldur : but the mistletoe has been forgotten, and of this
plant Loki puts a twig into the hand of Baldur's blind
brother Hodr, who uses it as an arrow and unwittingly slays
Baldur while the gods are practising archery with his body
as a mark. Soon, however, Ali (or Wali) is born, a brother
to Baldur, who avenges his death, but who can do so only by
slaying the unlucky Hodr.
The mode in which this catastrophe is brought about can- The
not fail to suggest a comparison with the myth which offers *f Baldur.
Sarpedon as a mark for the arrows of his uncles, and with
the stories of golden apples shot from the heads of blooming
youths, whether by William Tell, or William of Cloudeslee, or
any others. In short, the gods are here in conclave, aiming
their weapons at the sun, who is drawing near to his doom,
as the summer approaches its end. They have no wish to
slay him ; rather, it is the wish of all that he should not
die ; but he must be killed by his blind brother, the autumn
sun, when the nights begin to be longer than the day. The
younger brother born to avenge him is the new sun-child,
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