Cox, George - Aryan Mythology Vol 2.pdf

246 MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.
BOOK which chill all vegetation into the sleep of winter, until the
Gal drier
the Singer.
,J—. sun comes back to rouse it from slumber in the spring. It
comes before us again in the story of Jack the Giant-killer,
in which the Giant, who in the unchristianised myth was
Wuotan himself, possessed an inchanting harp, bags of gold
and diamonds, and a hen which daily laid a golden egg,
' The harp,' says Mr. Gould, ' is the wind, the bags are the
clouds dropping the sparkling rain, and the golden egg, laid
every morning by the red hen, is the dawn-produced Sun.' l
This magic lyre is further found where perhaps we should
little look for it, in the grotesque myths of the Quiches of
Guatemala. It is seen in its full might in the song of the
Finnish Wainaraoinen, and in the wonderful effects pro-
duced by the chanting of the sons of Kalew on the woods,
which burst instantly into flowers and fruit, before the song
is ended. The close parallelism between the myth of
Wainamoinen and the legends of Hermes and Orpheus can-
not be better given than in the words of Mr. Gould.
'Wainamoinen went to a waterfall and killed a pike
which swam below it. Of the bones of this fish he con-
structed a harp, just as Hermes made his lyre of the tor-
toiseshell. But he dropped this instrument into the sea,
and thus it fell into the power of the sea-gods, which
accounts for the music of the ocean on the beach. The
hero then made another from the forest wood, and with it
descended to Pohjola, the realm of darkness, in quest of the
mystic Sampo, just as in the classic myth Orpheus went
down to Hades to bring thence Eurydice. When in the
realm of gloom perpetual, the Finn demigod struck his
kantele and sent all the inhabitants of Pohjola to sleep, as
Hermes when about to steal 16 made the eyes of Argus close
at the sound of his lyre. Then he ran off with the Sampo,
and had nearly got it to the land of light when the dwellers
in Pohjola awoke, and pursued and fought him for the
ravished treasure which, in the struggle, fell into the sea
and was lost; again reminding us of the classic tale of
Orpheus.' 2
Wuotan again in the Teutonic mythology is Galdner the
1 Curiotcs Myths, ii. 160. 2 lb. ii. 177.