BABYLON AND PERSIA

44 MEDIA, BABYLON, AND PERSIA.tible imagination of the Aryas filled it with a varietyof incidents replete with gorgeous or delicate poetry,creating that fund of Sun-myths to which fully onehalf of the stories and poetry of the world are trace¬able.This, however, is not the place to enter into astudy of them, for we are now in search of thesources of Eranian religion and epos, and the Sunmythsomehow never much caught the fancy of thatparticularly stern and practical race, and so is butfeebly reflected in its spiritual life.12. Far more complicated is the Storm-myth, thestory of the struggle for the waters of heaven ;farmore varied and exciting too, because, through itsmany stages and incidents to its culmination in thefinal battle-scene, the thunder-storm, the success oftenseems doubtful, the advantage frequently remains fora long time with the hostile powers, even though thevictory can never be theirs in the end.Numberlessare the wiles of the fiends to gain and keep posses¬sion of the waters, and desperate their acts of vio¬lence and resistance ; numberless also the shapesthey assumeand no wonder, since they are chieflythe personifications of different kinds of clouds.Forthere are clouds and clouds, and not all by any fneansbode or bring rain.If some generously pour downthe precious, pure liquid that is life and drink to theparched pining earth, others keep it back, wickedlyhide it, swell and spread with the treasure theycover and enclose, and will not give it up, untilpierced and torn asunder by the lightning spear ofthe angry thunder-god.This difference in clouds,which does not strike us except on reflection, su-