Artic Home of the Aryans by Lokamanya Bal ... - Mandhata Global

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Cretans represented Zeus as born and bred and also buried in their
island, a view sometimes formally regarded as confirming the
character ascribed to them for lying; but that deserves no serious
consideration, and the Cretans in their mysteries are supposed to
have represented the god going through the stages of his history
every year. A little beyond the limits of the Greek world a similar idea
assumed a still more remarkable form, namely, among the Phrygians,
who are said by Plutarch to have believed their god (like the Purânic
Vishnu) to sleep during the winter and resume his activity during
summer. The same author also states that the Paphlagonians were of
opinion that the gods were shut up in a prison during winter and let
loose in summer. Of these peoples, the Phrygians at least appear to
have been Aryan, and related by no means distantly to the Greek; but
nothing could resemble the Irish couvade of the Ultonion heroes more
closely than the notion of the Phrygian god hibernating. This, in its
turn, is not to be severed from the drastic account of the Zeus of the
Greek Olympus reduced by Typho to a sinewless mass and thrown
for a time into a cave in a state of utter helplessness. Thus we seem
to be directed to the north as the original home of the Aryan nations;
and there are other indications to the same effect, such as Woden’s
gold ring Draupnir, which I have taken to be symbolic of the ancient
eight-day week: he places it on Balder’s pile, and with him it
disappears for a while into the nether world, which would seem to
mean the cessation for a time of the vicissitude of day and night, as
happens in midwinter within the Arctic Circle. This might be claimed
as exclusively Icelandic, but not if one can show traces, as I have
attempted, of the same myth in Ireland. Further, a sort of complement
to it is supplied by the fact that Cuchulainn, the Sun-hero, is made to
fight several days and nights without having any sleep, which though
fixed at the wrong season of the year in the epic tale in its present
form, may probably be regarded as originally referring to the sun
remaining above the horizon continuously for several days in
summer. Traces of the same idea betray themselves in