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hymns or legal and canonical texts in the form of explanations and comments. Avesta shows thus
a rather "recent" type of mythtelling. The myth has never in Avesta‐even in the case of myths
having a naturalistic origin‐the freshness of the Vedic myth; it is always in a phase of rational or
theological explanation, and is used as a hint or example in texts that remain fundamentally
theological.
We have just mentioned "myths having an ancient naturalistic origin." A sufficiently clear instance
of a Mazdaic myth of this type is that of the killed dragon. In the Aban Yasht [2] a hymn to the
angel of Waters, Ardvi Sura Anahita, containing a list of all those who in ancient times made
sacrifices to that angel‐goddess, we read among other stories this passage, clearly explaining and
confirming the efficacy of prayer and sacrifice to that angel: "To her did Thraetaona, the heir of
the valiant Athwya clan, offer up a sacrifice in the four‐cornered Varena, with a hundred male
horses, a thousand oxen, ten thousand lambs. He begged of her a boon; saying: `Grant me this, O
Good, most beneficent Ardvi Sura Anahita! that I may overcome Azhi Dahaka, the three‐mouthed,
the three‐headed, the six‐eyed one who has a thousand senses, that most powerful, fiendish Druj,
that demon, baleful to the world, the strongest Druj that Angra Mainyu created against the
material world, to destroy the world of the good principle; and that I may deliver his two wives,
Savanghavach and Erenavach, who are the fairest of body amongst women, and the most
wonderful creatures in the world.' Ardi Sura Anahita granted him that boon, as he was offering
libations, giving gifts, sacrificing, and entreating that she would grant him that boon."
Comparison with other cultures allows us to reconstruct an ancient myth originally connected
with the New Year Feast and with the rites aiming at defeating drought. A divine, Thraetaona (the
Faridun of Firdausi's Shahnameh), conquers the fortress of the Dragon and defeats and kills him.
The Waters that were prisoners in his castle are now freed and so are the women held by the
monster as slaves in his harem. Now rain falls fertilizing the earth and the young hero‐liberator
celebrates the hieres gamos with the liberated women. But this is simply a reconstruction and the
readers or hearers of the Avesta probably had no idea of the original, authentically mythico‐ritual,
meaning of this tale; it probably sounded to them simply as a nice example of pietas towards the
angel and of national heroism by Thraetaona.
But there are also other myths, utilized exactly like this and in similar contexts, of a purely
theologico‐symbolical origin. For instance, there is the myth of Vishtaspa who frees the enchained
Daena, told always with the same emblematical conciseness in the Farvardin Yasht. [3] This Yasht
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