Cox, George - Aryan Mythology Vol 2.pdf

BOOK
II.
MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.
In the Vedic hymns, the cloud myths are inextricably
intermingled with those of the dawn and the light. The
very enemy of Indra hiding the stolen herds in his horrid
den is but the storm-cloud which shuts up the rain-clouds
ready to refresh the parched earth. He is Cacus who drags
the cattle of Geryon into his cave, and the Sphinx which
plagues the Kadmeians with drought. Of the beautiful
cattle of Indra thus stolen by the Panis Sarama is the
guardian; each morning she comes forth to lead them to
their pastures, 1 each evening she reappears to drive them
home. The same scenes are repeated daily in the Homeric
Thrinakia, when the cattle of the sun are tended by the
nymphs Phaethousa and Lampetie, the fair-haired children
whom Neaira, the early morning, bare to Helios Hyperion.
But although the companions of Odysseus are made actually
to slay some of these cows, and although strange signs
follow their crime, yet the story itself points to another
origin for these particular herds. The Thrinaldan cattle are
not the clouds, but the days of the year. The herds are
seven in number, and in each herd are fifty cows, never less,
and representing in all the three hundred and fifty days of
the lunar year. 2 Thus in the story that the comrades of
Odysseus did not return home with him because they slew
the cattle of the sun, we may ' recognize an old proverbial
or mythological expression, too literally interpreted even by
Homer, and therefore turned into mythology.' If, then, as
Professor Mtiller adds, the original phrase ran that Odysseus
reached his home because he persevered in his task, while
his companions ' wasted their time, killed the days, i.e., the
cattle of Helios, and were therefore punished, nothing would
be more natural than that after a time their punishment
should have been ascribed to their actually devouring the
oxen in the island of Thrinakia.' 3
1 In many popular talcs these blue
pastures with the white flocks feeding
on them are reflected in the water, and
the sheep feeding far down in the depths
are made the means by which I3oots or
Dummling (the beggar Odysseus) luros
Ids stupid brothers to their death. See
the story of ' Big Peter and Little Peter,'
in Dasent's Norse Talcs ; tho Gaelic
story of the Three Widows, Campbell,
ii. 224, 228, 237 ; and the German tale
of the Little Farmer, Grimm.
- Sir G. C. Lewis, Astronomy of the
Ancients, 21.
:
3
Chi$si $c. ii. 166.