Cox, George - Aryan Mythology Vol 2.pdf

62
MYTHOLOGY OF THE ARYAN NATIONS.
BOOK of Aigeus as a son not of Pandion bnt of Skyrios, we are still
_ IL
. in the same magic circle, for the island of Skyros seems tohave
. that
been noted especially for the worship of the Ionian Poseidon. 1
In some of its earlier incidents the myth carries ns to the story
of Sigurd and Brynhild. As he grows up his mother tells him
a great work lay before him so soon as he could lift the
great stone beneath which lay his father's sword and sandals,
the sword and sandals which Perseus had worn when he
went to the Gorgons' land. Thus gaining these prizes as
Sigmund obtained the good sword Gram, Theseus started on
that career of adventure and conquest which, with differences
of local colouring and detail, is the career of Oidipous, Meleagros,
Bellerophon, Odysseus, Sigurd, Grettir, and other my-
thical heroes, as well as of Herakles and Perseus. Like
these, he fights with and overcomes robbers, murderers,
dragons, and other monsters. Like some of them, also, he
is capricious and faithless. Like them, he is the terror not
only of evil men but of the gods of the underworld.
The six At his birth Poseidon gave to his son the three wishes
exploits of w}1ici1 appear again and again in Teutonic folk-lore, and
journey. sometimes in a ludicrous form. 2 The favour of the sea-
deities is also shown in the anecdote told by Pausanias 3 that
when Minos cast doubts on his being a son of Poseidon, and
bade him, if he were such, to bring up a ring thrown into the
sea, Theseus dived and reappeared not only with the ring
but with a golden crown, which Aphrodite herself had placed
upon his head. His journey from Troizen to Athens is sig-
nalised by exploits which later mythographers regarded as
six in number, as twelve were assigned to Herakles. They
are all, as we might expect, merely different forms of the
great fight waged by Indra and Oidipous against Vritra,
Ahi, or the Sphinx. Thus the robber Periphetes is the club-
bearing son of Hephaistos, who, being weak in the feet, uses
his weapon to smite down the passers by—an image of the
stormcloud which in a mountain pass seems to rest on the
hill-side, and to discharge its fiery bolts on defenceless
1 Preller, Gr. Myth. ii. 287. The Eur. Hipp. 46. Preller, Gr. Myth.
name Pandion is manifestly a maseu- ii. 288.
line form of Pandia, an epithet of Selene,
the moon, when at its full.
3
i. 16, 3 ; Preller, ib.