Cox, George - Aryan Mythology Vol 2.pdf

124 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.
BOOK
II.
Gradual]
refinement
of the
myth.
by his enemy Pertinax, and Perceval alone can make it
sound, as Theseus only can recover the sword and sandals
of his father Aigeus. The title of the Fisher-king suggests
a comparison with that of Bheki in the Hindu legend and
the Frog-prince of the German story. The latter denotes the
and as Bheki cannot reappear
sun as it rests upon the water ;
in her former beauty until the night is spent, so the Fisher-
king cannot regain his health until Pertinax has been slain.
He is avenged by Perceval, who bears away the holy vessel
and the bleeding lance as the reward of his prowess. An
earlier heathen version of this story is found in the legend
of Pheredur, in which the boat-shaped vessel appears with
the head of a man swimming in blood—a form which carries
us to the repulsive Maha Kali of later Hindu mythology.
In the myth of Erichthonios we have a crucial instance
of a coarse and unseemly story produced by translating into
the language of human life phrases which described most
innocently and most vividly some phenomena of nature. In
the myth of the Sangreal we see in the fullest degree the
working of the opposite principle. For those who first
sought to frame for themselves some idea of the great
mystery of their existence, and who thought that they had
found it in the visible media of reproduction, there was
doubtless far less of a degrading influence in the cultus of
the signs of the male and female powers and the exhibition
of their symbols than we might be disposed to imagine. But
that the developement of the idea might lead to the most
wretched results, there could be no question. No degradation
could well be greater than that of the throngs who
hurried to the temples of the Babylonian Mylitta. .But we
have seen the myth, starting from its crude and undisguised
forms, assume the more harmless shape of goblets or horns
of plenty and fertility, of rings and crosses, of rods and
spears, of mirrors and lamps. It has brought before us the
mysterious ships endowed with the powers of thought and
speech, beautiful cups in which the wearied sun sinks to
rest, the staff of wealth and plent} r with which Hermes
guides the cattle of Helios across the blue pastures of heaven,
the cup of Demeter into which the ripe fruit casts itself by