Chapter II: The Horse (1)

SUMMARY.

The horse, favourite animal of the solar hero.--Attributes of the
Vedic solar hero.--Animals which draw the Vedic gods.--The Açvinâu
sons of a mare.--The mule, the ass, and the horse in relation to
each other.--The hero's horse, prior to being noble and handsome, is
vile and ill-favoured; proofs.--The teeth of the horse.--The figs
that make tails grow.--The excrement of the horse.--Three colours of
the heroic horse.--Pluto's horses abhor the light.--Pêgasos an
imperfect horse.--The black horse generally demoniacal.--The
hippomanes.--The monster that makes horses perspire and grow lean;
the fire in stables.--To dream of black horses.--The horse of the
third brother is small, humpbacked, and lame.--The hero transforms
himself into a horse.--The grey horse differs from the black
one.--The red horse frees the hero.--The three steps, the three
races, the three leaps, the three castles, the three days, the three
brothers, and the three horses correspond to each other.--Two
horsemen change the hero's bad horse into a heroic steed.--The
horse's ears; the hero in the horse's ears.--The horse's head
blesses the good maiden, and devours the wicked one.--The black
horseman, the white horseman, and the red one.--The horse-monster
that devastates the field surprised by the hero, and destroyed by
fire, in the _Rigvedas_.--The Dioscuri washing the sweat off their
horses.--Salt on the horse's back.--The hero-horse covered by the
waters.--The Açvinâu and Agnis give a good horse to the hero who has
a bad one.--The three steps of Vishnus are made by the horses of
Indras.--Vishnus as horse.--Indras and the Açvinâu find the bride on
horseback.--Râmas as horse.--Dadhyanc and his ambrosial horse's
head, which discomfits the hostile monsters.--The bones of the
horse.--The exchange of heads.--The two brother horses Pêgasos and
Chrüsaor in opposition to one another.--Castor and
Pollux.--Discussion upon the nature of the Açvinâu.--The two
brothers at discord; Sundas and Upasundas.--Nakulas and
Vasudevas.--Râmas and Lakshmanas.--The brothers who resemble each
other; Bâlin and Sugrîvas; the brother betrays his brother and
steals his wife.--Kereçâçpa and Urvâksha.--Piran and Pilsem.--The
sky a mountain of stone; heroes, heroines, and horses of stone.--The
brother seducer in the _Tuti-Name_.--Sunlight and moonlight, two
brothers.--The minister's son and the king's son.--Horse and
cat.--The two brothers on a journey; one becomes a king, the other
spits gold; the candle of one of the two brothers lights of its own
accord, and he therefore obtains the kingdom; the other brother's
treasure.--Digression concerning the interpretation of the
myth.--Agamêdês and Trophonios; Piedmontese story of the skilful
thief.--The two brothers who resemble each other; mistaken one for
the other by the wife of one of them; the brother sleeps with his
sister-in-law without touching her; the legend of the pilgrim who
comes from Rome; the head fastened on again.--The horse led away out
of hell.--The solar horse destined for sacrifice carried off by
Kapilas; that is, the solar horse escapes, like the solar bull, from
the sacrifice.--The stallion destined for the sacrifice touched, and
the horse's fat smelted by Kâuçalyâ as an augury of
fruitfulness.--The horse's head as the mouth of hell.--The robber of
the horse and of the treasure.--The horns of the stag, the horns or
mane of the horse, and the hair of the hero, which catch and fasten
themselves to the trees of the forest.--The thief now protects
thieves, and now protects men from thieves.--The Miles gloriosus;
hero, horse, and tree, united together, discomfit the enemies.--The
heroic horse.--The tail of Indras's horse, and the Hindoo
war-horse.--The war-horses of Rustem, of Alexander, of Bellerophon,
and of Cæsar; the winged horse.--The horse goes through water and
fire.--The horse and the apple.--The chains of the heroic horse, and
the difficulty of riding him.--The horse that speaks; the
horse-spy.--The chariot that speaks.--The solar horse bound that it
may not come back again.--The hero who flees in the shape of a
horse, and the horse sold with the bridle; transformations of the
horse.--The sun without a horse and without a bridle.--The horses of
the sun, arrested or wounded, precipitate the solar hero into the
waters.--The eternal hunter.--Etaças, Phaethôn, Hippolytos.--The
horse that delivers the hero.--The neighing of Indras's horse; the
horse of Darius which neighs at the sight of the sun on account of
the smell of a mare.--Number of the solar horses.--The hero born of
a mare.--The mare's egg.--The hare born of a mare devours the
mare.--Spanish mares made pregnant by the wind.--Horses sons of the
wind.--The hero Açvatthâman neighs immediately after birth.--The
horses that weep; mythical signification of these tears.--Vedic
riddle and play of words upon the letter _r_, and the root _varsh_
relative to the horse.--The foam from the horse's mouth destroys
enemies and cures the cough.--The Açvinâu, the Dioscuri, Asklêpios
and his two sons as physicians.--Caballus.--Ambrosia from the hoof
of the Vedic horse.--Hippokrênê; the horse's hoof in relation with
water.--Exchanges between moon and sun and between bull and
horse.--Horses sacred to the gods and to saints.--Holy horsemen who
help the heroes _mercede pacta_.

The myth of the horse is perhaps not so rich in legends as that of the bull and the cow, but certainly no less interesting. As the horseman is the finest type of the hero, so the horse which carries him is in mythology the noblest of animals.

We have already observed that the best of the three brothers, the third, the victorious one, the morning sun, is, in tradition, distinguished from the other brothers by his swiftness; and that the morning dawn or aurora, which is the third sister, the good one, the best of the three sisters, is she who wins the race. It is, therefore, natural that the favourite animal of the hero should be his horse. The two Hindoo Dioscuri, that is, the Açvinâu, the two horsemen, derive their name from the açvas or horse, as being the swift one;[526] and they are very probably identical with the two fair-haired, amiable, splendid, and ardent coursers of Indras, of Savitar (the sun), and proper and worthy to bear heroes,[527] who yoke themselves at a word,[528] are maned, adapted to make fruitful, full of life,[529] having eyes like the sun,[530] made by the Ribhavas,[531] who, as they made the cow out of a cow, also made a horse out of the horse,[532] black, with white feet, drawing the chariot with the golden yoke, revealing the beings;[533] the two rapid ones; the two most rapid ones;[534] plunging into the inebriating drink before Indras yokes them;[535] beautiful, by means of which the chariot of the Açvinâu is as swift as thought;[536] who carry Indras, as every day they carry the sun;[537] are the two rays of the sun;[538] who neigh, dropping ambrosia;[539] the very pure horses of the bull Indras, inebriated, who illumine the sky,[540] with manes the colour of a peacock,[541] bridled sixty times (properly six times twice five);[542] beneficent, winged, indefatigable, resolute destroyers (of the enemies).[543] The _Âitareya Brâhmanam_, when giving the characteristics of the race of each god, whilst it tells us that Agnis, at the marriage of Somas and Sûryâ, is drawn by mules, and the aurora by red cows (or bulls), teaches us that Indras is drawn by horses, and the Açvinâu by asses; the Açvinâu carried off the prize.[544] In the _Mahâbhâratam_,[545] we find another important circumstance, _i.e._, the Açvinâu represented as sons of a mare, or of Tvashtrî, wife of the sun Savitar, who took the form of a mare. Therefore we have here the sons of the mare, who may be horses or mules, according as the mare united herself with a horse or with an ass. Here, then, we have already an evident proof of the identification of the heroes Açvinâu with the animals, horses or asses, which draw them. The _Rigvedas_ does not as yet know the word _açvatara_, or mule, but in representing the Açvinâu drawn now by horses and now by asses, it shows us the intermediate character of the real animal that draws the Açvinâu, a grey beast, dark-coloured, and white only in its fore parts. Night is the mule that carries the Açvinâu or twilights, in the same way as, in the above-quoted _Âitareya_, it carries or awakens Agnis, fire or light. In the _Iliad_,[546] mules are sung of as being better adapted than oxen to draw the plough.

The hero's horse, like the hero himself, begins by being ugly, deformed, and inept, and ends by becoming beautiful, luminous, heroic, and victorious.

The mythical horse of the Hungarians, the horse Tátos, or Tátos lo, when born, is of an ugly aspect, defective and lean; it is therefore said in Hungarian, that "the Tátos comes out of a defective horse." It is, however, always born with teeth,[547] although its chin is sometimes wanting; its bursts out of a black pentagonal egg on an Ash Wednesday, after the hero has carried it for seven summers and seven winters under his arm. In the _Mahâbhâratam_,[548] the first created horse Uccâihçravas, the king of the horses (and therefore the horse of Indras), which is as swift as thought, follows the path of the sun, and is luminous and white, has, however, a black tail, made so by the magic of the serpents, who have covered it with black hairs. This is probably the black ass's or horse's tail which remains upon the ugly or wicked sister's forehead, in the popular European story of the two sisters.[549] It must also be remarked that, as the word _Uccâihçravas_ means, properly, him of the high ears, it indicates the ass better than the horse.

In the same way, therefore, as the hero of popular tales before becoming a wise man is generally an ass, the animal ridden by the solar hero, prior to being a real and noble horse, is usually a worthless jade, or a dark-coloured ass. The sun, in the beginning of the night, rides a black horse, and afterwards a grey one, or else an ass or a mule, but in the morning, on the contrary, a white and luminous horse, which has a black tail; or else the dark horse of night has a white head, or white legs, or anterior parts of the body, with golden ears, and the nape of the neck formed of pearls.[550] The monstrous Trojan horse too, of Epeios, a figure which represents the horse of mythology, in Tryphiodôros the Egyptian,[551] has a golden mane, red eyes, and silver teeth.

In the Turkish stories of Siberia,[552] it is upon an iron-coloured horse that the third brother, hated by his father and his two elder brothers, advances against the demon Ker Iutpa. The hero becomes the excrement of a horse, and the horse a crow; the former glues the monster's lower lip to the earth, the latter suspends his upper lip to the sky. In order better to understand this strange myth, we must remember that the name of one of the Valkiries is "Mist," a word which means excrement and fog. The fog, or frost, or rain, or dew, falls to the ground; the solar horse, or the sun, rises in the sky; the monster of night or of clouds is dispersed.

In the thirteenth Esthonian story of _Kreutzwald_, the third brother comes three times to deliver the princess from the mountain of glass (or ice), where she sleeps. The first time he is dressed the colour of bronze, upon a bronze-coloured horse; the second time dressed in silver, upon a horse the colour of silver; and the third time upon a gold-coloured horse, dressed in gold.

In an unpublished Piedmontese story, the young prince, whose beloved princess has been ravished beyond seas, is borne over the waves by an eagle, which he feeds with his own flesh. Arrived beyond the sea, he hears that the princess is destined to be the wife of the hero who wins the race three times; the first time he appears dressed in black, upon a black horse; the second time dressed in white, upon a white horse; and the third time dressed in red, upon a red horse. Each time he wins the race, and thereafter receives the beautiful princess in marriage.

Thus we see the first horse of the hero is always dark-coloured, like the devil's horse, like the horses of Pluto, which, accustomed to darkness, are terrified by light;[553] it then becomes the grey horse of the giantess, the grey horse which smells the dead hero Sigurd in the _Edda_. Pêgasos himself, the _hieros hippos_ of Aratos, is born semi-perfect (êmitelês),[554] an expression which reminds me of the _equus dimidius_ of an Alsatian paper of 1336, in Du Cange, by which the mule is meant. The Hindoo Arunas, charioteer of the sun (or even the brother of the sun himself, inasmuch as he is the brother of Garudas, the solar bird), is said to be born with an imperfect body;[555] he can be luminous and divine only in part. The black horse, on the contrary, has generally an evil and demoniacal nature; the black horse corresponds to the black devil; the colour black itself is, according to popular superstition, the product of bad humours.[556] Every horse, when born, has, according to Maestro Agostino, a piece of black flesh upon its lips, called hippomanes by the Greeks: "La quale carne dici lo vulgo essere molto sospettosa a li maleficii." Maestro Agostino adds, moreover, that the mother refuses to give suck to the colt as long as it carries this piece of flesh upon its lips, and some say that the mother herself eats it. In an idyll of Theokritos, we read that the Hippomanes is born among the Arcadians, and maddens colts and swift mares.[557] In the first chapter we mentioned the Russian _damavoi_, the demon who, during the night, rides upon cows, oxen, and horses, and makes them perspire. This superstition was already combated in Italy in the sixteenth century by Maestro Agostino;[558] and to it can probably be traced the custom, still observed by many grooms, of leaving a lamp lighted in the stable during the night. The devil, as is well known, is afraid of the light (Agnis is called rakshohan, or monster-killer), and his black horse likewise. It is therefore a sinister omen, according to two verses in _Suidas_,[559] to dream of black horses, whilst, on the contrary, it is a good omen to dream of white ones. In the Norman legend of the priest Walchelm, a black horse presents itself to him in the first days of January of the year 1091, and tempts him to mount upon its back; scarcely has Walchelm done so, than the black horse sets off for hell.[560] The dead, too, according to the popular belief, often ride upon black or demoniacal horses.[561]

A well-known Russian story in verse, the _Kaniok Garbunok_, or _Little Hump-backed Horse_, of Jershoff, commences thus:--An old man has three sons, the youngest of which is the usual Ivan Durák, or Ivan the fool. The old man finds his corn-field devastated every morning; he wishes to find out who the devastator is, and sends his first-born son to watch the first night. The first-born has drunk too much, and falls asleep, and so does the second son, and from the same cause, on the second night. On the third night it is Ivan's turn to watch; he does not fall asleep. At midnight he sees a mare which breathes flames coming. Ivan ties her by a rope, leaps upon her, seizes her by the mane, torments and subdues her, until the mare, to be let free, promises to give Ivan one of her young ones, and carries him to the stable where her three young ones are. She gives Ivan a little hump-backed horse with long ears (the Hindoo Uccâihsravas), that flies. By means of this little hump-backed horse, Ivan will make his fortune; when he leads it away, the mare and the two other colts follow it. Ivan's two brothers steal the mare and two colts, and go to sell them to the Sultan. Ivan rejoins them, and the three brothers stay in the Sultan's service as grooms; sometime afterwards, Ivan saves himself from drowning by means of his horse.

In the third of _Erlenwein's_ Russian stories, a stallion is born to the Tzar's mare, that had drunk the water in which a certain fish (a pike, in the nineteenth story) had been washed, at the same time as the Tzar's daughter and her maid give birth to two heroes, Ivan Tzarevic and Ivan Dievic--_i.e._, John of the Tzar and John of the girl, a form representing the Açvinâu. Ivan Tzarevic rides upon the stallion. In the nineteenth story, the son of the mare is called Demetrius of the Tzar (Dmitri Tzarevic); hero and horse being identified. In the fifth story of _Erlenwein_, a Cossack goes into the forest, where he is betrayed into the enemy's hands, who gives orders that he be cut in pieces, put into a sack, and attached to his horse. The horse starts, and carries him to the house of silver and gold, where he is resuscitated. During the following night, an old man and woman, whose guest the Cossack is, drag him, in order to waken him, by the cross which hangs on his neck, and he is thus transformed into a horse of gold and silver. Towards evening, the horse, by the Tzar's order, is killed, and (like the bull and the cow) becomes an apple-tree of silver and gold. The apple-tree is cut down, and becomes a golden duck. The golden duck is the same as the golden horse, or as the hero resuscitated, _i.e._, the morning sun. The sack and the horse which carry the hero cut in pieces represent the voyage of the sun in the gloom of night, or the voyage of the grey horse, the imperfect horse, the bastard mule, or the ass.

In the Russian tales, moreover, a distinction is made between the grey and the black horse; the grey horse helps the hero in the night very effectively, and the black one, on the contrary, is the herald of death. When, in the ninth story of _Erlenwein_, the horse of Ivan the merchant's son goes to search for the horses of the princess from beyond the sea, Ivan waits for him upon the shore. If he sees grey horses come forth, it is to be a sign that his own steed is alive; but if, on the other hand, black horses appear, he is to conclude that his own horse is dead. Grey is the colour of sadness, black is the colour of death.

In _Afanassieff_, we find new interesting data. Ivan the fool watches during the night to surprise the horse which devastates his father's crops, and succeeds in binding it with rods from a linden-tree, after it has smelt the odour of tobacco. Then, by the help of the sister of the hero Nikanore, it acquires the faculty, when running after cows and horses, of turning their tails into gold, as well as their horns or manes, and their flanks into stars. What better image could there be of the starry sky of night, the golden tail of which is the red evening, and the front parts, also of gold, the morning aurora?[562]

In another story,[563] we have Ivan the son of the bitch occupying the place and playing the part of Ivan the son of the mare. Ivan of the bitch, after having delivered the three princesses from the deep cistern, is himself thrown into it. The black horse comes to deliver him, and cannot; the grey horse comes, and cannot either; the red horse comes, and succeeds in dragging the hero out. The black horse represents the dark night, the grey horse the night beginning to clear, and the red horse the roseate morning, which delivers the sun or solar hero.

The third brother Ivan, mounted on a marvellous horse, comes first to the bronze castle, then to the silver one, and lastly to that of gold.[564] This is a variety of the same myth, and represents similarly the solar voyage from evening to morning. The next mythical legend, however, probably alludes rather to the three days of the winter solstice, which the sun takes to return. The hero, Theodore, finds a horse that has been just brought forth, which the wolves have driven towards him; he makes it pasture upon the dew for three dawns (like the Hungarian Tátos, who feeds upon the golden oats in a silver field, that is to say, who, during the silvery night, or else during the white dawn, or the snowy winter, absorbs the dewy humours of the spring, or the morning aurora). The first day, the young horse becomes as high as half a tree; the second, higher than the tree; the third day it is as high as the heavens, and bears the hero Theodore and his wife Anastasia on its back.

Ivan Durák watches three nights at his father's tomb.[565] His father tells him that if at any time of need he calls with a hero's whistle, a wonderful grey horse will appear to help him, whose eyes shoot flames, and from whose nostrils issues smoke. Ivan does so, and is answered; he gets into his right ear, and comes out of the left. By means of this horse, Ivan succeeds in taking down the portrait of the Tzar's daughter three times, though hung high up on the wall of the palace, and thus obtains the beautiful princess to wife.

According to another variety of this story,[566] Ivan, the third and foolish brother, goes with the most worthless jade in the stable into the open air, and calls up the grey horse with a loud shout; he enters into him by one ear, and comes out at the other. Two young horsemen (the Açvinâu) appear to him, and make a horse with golden mane and tail come forth; upon this horse Ivan succeeds in three times kissing, through twelve glasses (the glass mountain of the Esthonian story), the daughter of the Tzar, who therefore becomes his wife. Here, therefore, we find the ugly horse which is made beautiful by the two horsemen, represented by the two ears of the grey horse out of which they come. These two horsemen give the hero a better steed. Be it understood that their own heroic steed (that is, the sun's horse), from being ugly or asinine during the night, became beautiful and noble; in the Küllaros of the Dioscuri, too, we ought probably to recognise a courser that has been transformed from an ass to a heroic horse.

Sometimes, instead of the horse, we have only its head. The step-mother persecutes the old man's daughter;[567] the persecuted maiden finds a mare's head, which beseeches her to relieve and cover it; at last it invites her to enter the right ear and come out of the left one. The persecuted girl comes out in the form of an exceedingly beautiful maiden. The step-mother sends her own daughter to try the same means of becoming beautiful; but she maltreats the mare's head, and the mare's head devours her.

There is also a singularly clear allusion to the Açvinâu in the forty-fourth story of the fifth book of _Afanassieff_, which seems to me to be a full confirmation of these interpretations. When Basiliça, the girl persecuted by her step-mother, approaches the house of the old witch (the baba-jegá), she sees galloping towards the great door of it a black horseman, dressed all in black, upon a black horse, who disappears underground, upon which night begins.[568] When the day begins to appear, Basiliça sees before her a white horseman, dressed all in white, upon a white horse, caparisoned in white. The maiden goes on; when the sun begins to rise, she sees a red horseman, dressed in red, upon a red horse.[569] The myth does not require comment; but it happens to be given to us in the story itself by the witch, who, to appease the curiosity of the girl Basiliça, reveals to her that the black horseman represents the dark night (noc tiómnaja), the white horseman the clear day (dien jasnoi), and the red horseman the little red sun (solnishko krasnoje).

Returning from Slavonic to Asiatic tradition, we meet with the same myths.

Let us begin with the demoniacal horse, or demon of horses. The _Rigvedas_ already knows it; the yâtudhanas, or monster, feeds now upon human flesh (like the Bucephalus of the legend of Alexander), now upon horse flesh, and now milk from cows. We have said it seems probable that the custom of keeping a lamp lighted in the stables is a form of exorcism against the demon; the _Rigvedas_, indeed, tells us that Agnis (that is, Fire, with his flame) cuts off the heads of such monsters.[570] But this is not enough; the _Rigvedas_ offers us in the same hymn the proof of another identification. We have seen in the last chapter how Rebhas, the invoker, is the third brother, whom his envious and perfidious brothers threw into the well; and we have seen above how Ivan, who is also the third brother, invokes with a sonorous voice the grey horse which is to help him, and how the same Ivan is the one that discovers the monstrous horse which ravages the seed or the crops in his father's field. In the same Vedic hymn where the flame of Agnis beats down the heads of the monster that torments horses, Agnis (that is, fire) is invoked in order that the hero Rebhas may see the monster which devastates with its claws.[571] Rebhas and Bhugyus are two names of the hero who falls into the cistern in the _Rigvedas_. We have seen, not long ago, in the Russian story, that Ivan, the third brother, who is thrown down into the cistern, is delivered by the red horse. The Açvinâu, in the _Rigvedas_, deliver Bhugyus out of the sea by means of red-winged horses.[572] Here the grey and imperfect horse of night is become a red horse. In the same Vedic hymn, Rebhas, overwhelmed in the waters, is identified with his own horse (Ivan is son of the bitch, or the cow, or the mare), he being compared to a horse hidden by wicked ones.[573]

We saw above, in the Russian story, how the two horsemen who come out of the grey horse's ear give to the foolish Ivan, who has an ugly and worthless horse, a handsome hero's palfrey, by means of which he accomplishes the arduous undertakings which entitle him to the hand of the king's daughter. It is remarkable how completely the Vedic myth agrees with this European legend. The Açvinâu have given, for his eternal happiness, a luminous horse to him who has a bad one.[574] In another hymn, the god Agnis gives to his worshipper a pious, truthful, invincible, and very glorious son, who vanquishes heroes, and a swift, victorious, and unconquered horse.[575]

We have seen, moreover, how Ivan, the most popular type of the Russian hero, has always to make three essays before he accomplishes his undertaking upon the wonderful horse which he has obtained from the two horsemen. The _Rigvedas_, which celebrates the famous mythical enterprise of the three steps of Vishnus, of the great body (brihaccharîrah),[576] of the very vast step (urukramishtah),[577] who, in three steps, measured or traversed the whole span of the heavens,[578] betrays in another hymn the secret of Vishnus's success in this divine enterprise, since it says that when, with the strength of Indras, he made his three steps, he was drawn by the two fair-haired horses of Indras[579] (that is, the two Açvinâu lent him the swift and strong horse which was to bear him on to victory). The three steps of Vishnus correspond, therefore, to the three stations of Ivan, to the three races of the young hero to win the beautiful princess. Vishnus also appears in the _Râmâyanam_,[580] in the midst of the sea of liquified butter, attractive to all beings, in the form of a horse's head. Hero and the solar or lunar horse are identified.

Indras is requested to yoke his right and his left (horses), to approach, inebriated, his dear wife.[581] By means of the horse obtained from the two horsemen, the Russian Ivan acquires his wife; in the _Rigvedas_, the two Açvinâu themselves, by means of their rapid chariot, became husbands of the daughter of the sun.[582] The horses of the sun are so fully identified with the chariot drawn by them, that they are said to be dependent on it, united with it, and almost born of it.[583] The Açvinâu, therefore, by means of the horse now enable the wife to be found by the solar hero, by the old Cyavanas made young again (Tithôn),[584] now by the sun, and now find her themselves (perhaps drawing the chariot like horses). Râmas, too, who is represented in the _Râmâyanam_[585] as the deliverer of Sîtâ, is compared to the solar horse, to the sun born upon the mountain.

We have seen in the Russian stories how the horse's head possesses the same magic power as the marvellous horse which the two horsemen give to the hero Ivan. Thus, in the Vedic myth, and in the corresponding brâhmanic tradition, the horse's head Dadhyanc stands in direct relation with the myth of the Açvinâu. The wise Dadhyanc shows himself pious towards the Açvinâu, to whom, although he knows that he will pay with his head for the revelation he makes, he communicates what he knows concerning the ambrosia or the Madhuvidyâ. For this, accordingly, Dadhyanc forfeits his head; but the Açvinâu present him with a horse's head (his own), which heroically achieves wonders. With the bones of Dadhyanc, or with the head of the horse Dadhyanc (he who walks in butter or ambrosia), fished up in the ambrosial lake Çaryanâvat (the head of the horse Vishnus in the sea of butter),[586] Indras discomfits the ninety-nine hostile monsters (as Samson the Philistines with the jawbone of an ass).[587] This exchange of heads seems to be common to the traditions which are founded upon the myth of the Açvinâu, that is, to the legends of the two brother or companion heroes. In the _Tuti-Name_,[588] the heads of the prince and of the Brâhman, who are exceedingly like each other, are cut off and then fastened on again; but, by some mistake, the head of the one is attached to the body of the other, so that the prince's wife is embarrassed between them. This exchange of the husband (which corresponds to the exchange of the wife in the legend of Berta, referred to in the first chapter) is very frequent in the legend of the two brothers, and often ends in the rupture of the perfect concord reigning between them. The two brothers or companions who dispute about the wife, is a variety of the legend of the three brothers who, having delivered the beautiful princess, wish to divide her between them.

The _Rigvedas_ does not seem as yet explicitly to exhibit the two Açvinâu at discord--they generally are united in doing good; but as we already know the Vedic blind man and lame man who are cured by the grace of Indras, or of the Açvinâu themselves; as we know that the Açvinâu, in the _Rigvedas_, make Dadhyanc, who has a horse's head, conduct them to the ambrosia, or indicate where it is, probably in order that they may procure health and strength for themselves; as in the ninth strophe of the 117th hymn of the first book of the _Rigvedas_, the marvellous horse of the Açvinâu, which kills the monster-serpent (ahihan), is but one; as we know that the Açvinâu run to gain the bride for themselves; and as we cannot ignore the fact that in the story of the blind and lame man, when a woman comes upon the scene, they endeavour to do harm to each other; as we know that of the two Hellenic brothers, the Dioscuri, one alone had from the gods the gift of immortality; as, finally, it is known to us that of the two brothers, he alone is the true hero who, by means of his horse, gains the victory over the monster,--it is clear that if we have not as yet in the _Rigvedas_ the myth of the two brothers at discord, we have, at least, in the ambrosia, and in the bride won by them the origin of the myth already indicated; and from the idea of the privileged brother that of the envious one would naturally arise.

In Hesiod's _Theogony_ we have the two brothers Chrysäor and Pêgasos, that come out of the Medusa (the evening aurora), who is made pregnant by Poseidôn, after Perseus has cut off her head. Pêgasos, the younger brother, becomes the heroic horse. In Hesiod himself, and in the _Metamorphoses_ of Ovid, he carries the thunder and the thunderbolts for Zeus. The hero Bellerophontes rides him, and vanquishes, by his help, the Chimaira and the Amazons; he becomes the horse of the aurora, the horse of the Muses, the ambrosial steed. The monstrous Chimaira appears, in the _Theogony_ of Hesiod, as the daughter of Typhaon and the Echidna, the monstrous daughter of Chrysäor. Therefore in the conflict which Bellerophontes maintains against the Chimaira, we have a form of the battle which goes on between the twin horses Pêgasos and Chrysäor, the one divine, the other demoniacal.

In the analogous myth of the Hellenic Dioscuri (the sons of the luminous one, _i.e._, of Zeus, just as the Vedic Açvinâu are the sons of the luminous sky;[589] Zeus is united with the Dioscuri, as Indras is with the Açvinâu), we again find the twins who fight to recover a woman who had been carried off from them, _i.e._, their own sister Helen. One of the two brothers is mortal, and the other immortal; he who is immortal passes the night in hell with his mortal brother. The double aspect of the sun, which at evening enters and loses itself in the night, now black, now illumined by the moon, and which, in the morning, comes forth in a luminous form, has enriched the story of the two brothers of mythology. One of the two brothers, the red horseman, is in especial relation with the morning sun; the other, in intimate connection with the silvery moon, the white horseman, and when the latter is amissing, with the infernal gloom.

Several mythologists have interpreted the Açvinâu as only the two twilights; but it seems more exact, inasmuch as they are often found together, whilst the two twilights are always apart, to recognise in them two crepuscular lights, the lunar of evening and autumn, and the solar of morning and spring.[590] Of the twin-brothers, one is always imperfect; the lunar crepuscular light offers us a similar imperfection, with respect to the sun. Inasmuch as the Açvinâu are affiliated both to the sun and the moon, when they come out of the two ears of the horse of night, we should understand, it would appear, that on one side the moon goes down, while on the other the sun is born, or that the solar horse arises, upon which the young hero lost in the night mounts and wins the princess aurora. In the Russian stories referred to in the preceding chapter, we have seen how the maiden abandons her hero-husband, or brother, to give herself into the monster's hands; the evening aurora forsakes the sun to throw herself into the night, and the evening twilight stays for a long time with the evening aurora (the reddish sky of evening), when the sun is already gone. In the morning the two lovers, the twilight, or sun and moon, and the aurora, meet once more; when the sun, or solar hero, arrives, he surprises them _in flagrante delicto_, and punishes them. Sometimes, on the contrary, the twilight and the aurora stay together, preserving their chastity; in this case the brother twilight figures as the good and honest guardian of the rights of his brother the sun. This appears to me to have been the most ancient, as it is the most subtle, interpretation of the myth; afterwards, it is possible, and even probable, that in the two Açvinâu only the two gods of morning and of evening were seen, with their respective twilights, considered as two brothers, so like that they were easily mistaken for each other. But from the data of the Russian story, which gives us the lunar twilight as a white horseman and the rising sun as a red one, the aurora being found exactly between the white and the red horsemen, between the moon or the white dawn (alba) and the sunrise, and seeing that the _Rigvedas_, which makes the aurora mount upon the chariot of the Açvinâu, considers them in the celebrated nuptial hymn as the _paranymphoi_ of Sûryâ, the daughter of the sun or of the aurora herself, I venture to insist upon my interpretation as the most obvious, and perhaps the most logical one. The two brothers may very naturally be conceived of as contending for the possession of the bride when they have her between them, since the Açvinâu, considered as lunar light and sun, really take the aurora between them. The Vedic hymn cited above shows us how both the Açvinâu, arriving on the swift-running chariot, became the husbands of Sûryâ, the daughter of the sun. But this very Sûryâ, in the Vedic nuptial hymn, must be satisfied with one husband, who is called Somas, so that the Açvinâu can only occupy the place of paranymphs. The Açvinâu, therefore, would appear to be excluded from the wedding of Sûryâ as principal personages; they would seem to be nothing more than assistants, and, in fact, they often assume this part in the Vedic hymns, by enabling now the bride to find a husband, now the husband to recover his bride. We know already that by means of them Cyavanas, the old sun (a Vedic Tithôn), became young again, and was able to espouse the aurora. We know that they gave sight to Vandanas (properly, the Face), that they made the blind see,[591] the lame walk, and performed sundry other works of charity, which would, however, have been much more glorious if these acts did not, in fact, always issue in benefit to themselves, as blind, lame, or drowned. It is hence very probable that when they give a bride to the hero, they, being now lunar, now solar heroes, do only appropriate her to themselves. When, therefore, we read that the Açvinâu assist as paranymphs at the nuptials of Sûryâ and Somas, we are much inclined to think that under Somas in this case one of the Açvinâu is hidden. In Indras and Somas, often sung of together in the _Rigvedas_, it seems to me that we have just another form of the Açvinâu, the more so because I also find them both, like the Açvinâu, personified in one and the same horse, whose back is covered with honey, and who is terrible and swift,[592] and because they are invoked together against the yâtudhânas, which, by the grace of the Açvinâu, the hero Rebhas succeeds in discovering and then chasing away.[593] The _Tâittiriya_ _Brâhmanam_[594] represents to us the daughter of the sun (Sâvitrî) by the name of Sîtâ, as enamoured of Somas, who, on the contrary, loves another woman, the Çraddhâ (_i.e._, Faith), almost as if the daughter of the sun, the aurora, were, for him at least, a symbol of infidelity. Probably this embryo of a myth refers to the passage of the aurora, in the morning, from her amours with the white horseman (the white twilight), which, as we have said, was supposed to be in particular relation with the moon (Somas), to her amours with the red horseman (the sun), or, _vice versa_, to the aurora who, in the evening, abandons the red horseman, the sun (now her father, now her husband), to throw herself into the arms of the white horseman, the white twilight, the king Somas, or silver god Lunus. Moreover, Yâskas, in the _Niruktam_,[595] already notices that the Açvinâu were identified now with the day and the night,[596] now with the sun and the moon.

When, therefore, we read that the Açvinâu obtained for their wife the daughter of the sun, and when we learn that she chose both for husbands,[597] we must interpret the passage with discrimination, and conclude that one of them was sometimes preferred, inasmuch as the Vedic nuptial hymn speaks of only one husband of Sûryâ, with the name of Somas, with whom, as we have said, Yâskas identifies one of the Açvinâu. We read in _Pausanias_ that, among the Greek usages, when the bride was conducted to the bridegroom's house, she was accustomed to mount a chariot and sit down in the middle, having the bridegroom on one side, and on the other her nearest relation as paranymphos. The preference given to one of the two brothers over the other is naturally suggestive of a contention between them; however, as I say, the _Rigvedas_, which offers us already the myth of the third brother abandoned in the well by his relations, does not record any example of an open strife between the two brothers (_i.e._, the Açvinâu, the lunar and the solar light).

An evidently Hindoo variation of this myth is contained in the well-known episode of the _Mahâbhâratam_, which relates the adventures of Sundas and Upasundas, two inseparable brothers, who lived together in love and concord, each being ruled by the will of the other, and who had never all their lives either said or done anything to displease each other. The gods become envious of their virtue, and wish to prove it, and send to seduce them a nymph of enchanting beauty. The two brothers, on seeing her, desire each the exclusive possession of the divine maiden, and strive between themselves to carry her off. They fight so long and so desperately that they both die (the moon and the sun see the aurora in the morning, and dispute for her; they see her again in the evening, and fight so long that they both perish miserably, and die in the night). The gods who are envious of the virtue of the two brothers Sundas and Upasundas, are the same as those who, envying the good which the Açvinâu do to mankind, treat them as celestial Çudrâs, under the pretext that they pollute themselves by their contact with men, and refuse to admit them, being impure, to the sacrifices.[598]

In the twin brothers, Nakulas and Saladevas, sons of the Açvinâu, the Açvinâu themselves revive again, are made better, according to the expression of the first book of the _Mahâbhâratam_. The first-born, Nakulas, too, is perhaps the real Açvin who kills the monster. Nakulas is the name given to the _viverra ichneumon_, the mortal enemy of the serpents, which refers us back to the horse Ahihan (or killer of the serpent), as the horse of the Açvinâu, or perhaps rather of one of the Açvinâu, is called, in the _Rigvedas_. Of the two Dioscuri, moreover, one alone is especially the horseman; the other is the valiant in combat.[599] The mortal brother, he who has to remain in hell, and who has to fight the monsters of night, is Castor the horseman. Pollux, the strong-armed, is, on the contrary, the immortal one, the daily sun, he who profits from the victory obtained by his brother who has fought in the night, during which the Gandharvâs (the horses in the perfumes, they who walk in perfume) also ride upon war-horses, heroic, invulnerable, divine, exceedingly swift, who change colour at will--the Gandharvâs, whose strength increases during the night, as one of them informs Argunas in the _Mahâbhâratam_, when communicating to him Gandharvic knowledge.[600]

In the _Râmâyanam_, the two brothers Râmas and Lakshmanas are compared to the Açvinâu, to the sun and moon, as similar the one to the other; and their reciprocal love reminds us of that of the Açvinâu.[601] Râmas and Lakshmanas are always at peace with each other; there is, however, a passage which may serve as a link to connect the myth of the two friendly brothers and that of the two hostile ones. When Râmas combats alone in the forest thousands of monsters, Lakshmanas stays with Sîtâ, hidden in a cavern.

But the _Râmâyanam_ itself shows us the two brothers in open strife in the legend of the two brothers Bâlin and Sugrîvas, children of the sun, beauteous as the two Açvinâu, so perfectly like one another that it is impossible to distinguish one from the other; and so that when Râmas, to please Sugrîvas, wishes to kill Bâlin, he does not know which to strike, until Sugrîvas puts a garland on his head as a sign of recognition.[602] Once Bâlin and Sugrîvas were intimate friends, but, on account of a woman, they became mortal enemies. Sugrîvas complains that Bâlin, his elder brother, has deprived him of his wife Rumâ;[603] but it is not certain that Sugrîvas did not rather steal Bâlin's wife. Bâlin seems especially to represent the evening sun; the _Râmâyanam_[604] says of him that, while the sun is not risen (_i.e._, in the night), he is unweariedly passing from the western to the eastern ocean; by this is described the supposed voyage of the sun in the ocean of night, in the grotto or the darkness. When Bâlin is in the grotto, he is betrayed by his brother Sugrîvas. The two brothers, Bâlin and Sugrîvas, while still friends, set out together to follow the monster Mâyâvin (the brother of Dundubhis, who, in the _Râmâyanam_ itself,[605] fights in the shape of a demoniacal buffalo against Bâlin, near the entrance of the cave). The moon rises to show them the way. The monster escapes into the cavern, upon which Bâlin enters and follows him, whilst Sugrîvas remains without, awaiting his return. After waiting a long time, Sugrîvas sees blood flow out of the cave (in analogous legends, instead of blood, it is a treasure, or else a princess or a beautiful maiden comes out in shining garments). This is the blood of the monster, killed by Bâlin; but Sugrîvas believes it to be that of his brother Bâlin. He returns home, and showing his sorrow in public, declares that Bâlin is dead, and allows himself to be consecrated king in his stead (probably also enjoying with the crown the wife of his brother). Meanwhile Bâlin, after having killed the monster Mâyâvin, endeavours to come out of the cavern, but he finds the entrance closed. Attributing at once this wicked action to the brother Sugrîvas, he succeeds, after great efforts, in effecting an opening; he comes out, returns to the palace, and expels Sugrîvas from it, whom he persecutes ever after.[606] Even Añgadas, Bâlin's son, irritated one day with Sugrîvas, accuses him of having once shut up his brother Bâlin in the cave, in order to possess himself of the latter's wife.

In the _Avesta_, the name and the myth of Kereçâçpa seems to me to be of special interest. To the Zend word _kereçâçpa_ corresponds the Sanskrit _kriçâçvas_ (the name of a warlike rishis and hero), that is, he of the lean horse. The hero Kereçâçpa has, in the _Avesta_, a brother called Urvâksha (a word which is perhaps the same as _urvâçpa_, and, if this equivalence is admitted, _urvâksha_ would mean him of the fat or great horse, of the heroic horse.[607] We have already noticed that the Vedic and Slavonic hero begins his fortune with an ugly and bad horse; the hero Kereçâçpa, too, of the two brothers of the Zend myth, is the good, the heroic, and truly glorious one. His brother, Urvâksha, according to a Parsee tradition,[608] was banished to hell because he had struck the fire which did not obey his commands (the evening sun which descends into the infernal night); Kereçâçpa avenges him. This is evidently a Persian form of the myth of the Dioscuri, who, as it seems to me, reappear once more in the two Zend brothers, Gustâçp and Açpâyaodha (he who fights with the horse).

In the epic poem of Firdusi, the two brothers Piran and Pilsem, who fight together against the Turanians, and of whom the former and elder delivers the latter and younger from the dangers that he is exposed to among the enemies, seem to me re-embodiments of the same myth.

We find the cloudy or tenebrous sky of night represented in the _Rigvedas_ and in the _Avesta_ as açman, or mountain of stone. When the evening sun falls upon the mountain, it turns to stone, and the whole sky assumes the colour of this mountain. When the hero of the popular story follows the monster, the latter hides under a rock; the hero lifts up the rock and descends into the grotto, that is, hides himself in the mountain of stone, or is turned to stone, and if he has a horse, it undergoes the same transformation.

In the story of Merhuma, who is stoned (the aurora lost in the mountain of stone), in the _Tuti-Name_,[609] we have the brother possessed by a demon, who seduces the wife of his brother, who is travelling abroad. In that of Mansûr, in the same _Tuti-Name_,[610] the monstrous Fari assumes the very shape of the absent husband, and succeeds in seducing his wife. In another story in the _Tuti-Name_,[611] two brothers, finding themselves deceived in their expectations, set out together, each, for love of the other, wandering about the world in search of a better fate. These are three forms of the myth of the Açvinâu. With them is connected the story of the maiden who comes out of the wood, of whom as many men, when she appears, become enamoured.[612]

The fifth Calmuck story (of Hindoo origin) is unmistakably a reproduction of the myth of the Açvinâu, even to the very mythical names themselves. The king, Kun-snang (he who illumines all, like the Vedic Viçvavedas and the Slavonic Vsievedas, the all-seer), has by two different mothers two sons--Sunlight (born in the year of the tiger; perhaps in the sol-leo, in July, in summer, under the solar influence) and Moonlight. The second wife does not love her step-son Sunlight, and persecutes him, but the two brothers are devoted to each other, and when Sunlight goes into exile (like Râmas), Moonlight follows him (as Lakshmanas follows Râmas, as the white lunar twilight follows the sun in the forest of night). On the way, Moonlight is thirsty; Sunlight goes to find water for him, but in the meantime Moonlight dies.[613] Sunlight returns, and is in despair at the sight of his dead brother; however, a hermit has pity upon him, and, having resuscitated Moonlight, adopts the two brothers as his own sons. Near his abode there is a kingdom where the dragons keep back the waters, unless they are given a young man born in the year of the tiger. It oozes out that Sunlight is such a young man, and he is led away to the king of that country. The daughter of the king falls in love with him, and begs Sunlight not to be given to the dragons. The king is furious against his daughter, and has her thrown with Sunlight into the swamp where the dragons are.[614] The young couple break out into such piteous lamentations, that the dragons are touched, and let Sunlight and the young princess go free. When free, they find Moonlight, who also becomes the husband of the beautiful princess, the two brothers being inseparable, like the Vedic Açvinâu. The three personages (white twilight, or white moonlight, aurora, and sun) return together into the kingdom of their birth, where, upon seeing them arrive, Sunlight's step-mother (Night) dies of terror. Here the legend has all its mythical splendour.

In the sixteenth Mongol story, on the contrary, the friendship of the two companions cannot last, because of the perfidy of one of them; while they are travelling in the forest, the minister's son kills the king's son.

In the history of _Ardshi-Bordshi_, the two men born in the palace are so like each other in everything, in shape, complexion, dress, and horses, that they cannot be distinguished one from the other; hence they dispute between themselves for the possession of everything, of wife and sons. One is made like the other by witchcraft; he is the son of a demon; and it is the marvellous king of the children who discovers the secret.[615]

This exchange of husbands, or heroes, by means of demoniacal craft, often occurs in European fairy-tales, like the exchange of wives. The demon is now a water-carrier, now a washerman, now a woodcutter, now a charcoal-burner, now a gipsy, now a Saracen, and now the devil _in propria persona_.

The Russian fairy-tales show us the two forms of the two brothers or companions, _i.e._, the two that remain friends _usque ad mortem_, and the friend betrayed by his perfidious companion.

We find a zoological form of the legend of the two friends in one of Afanassieff's stories. The horse delivers the child of one of his masters from the bear, upon which his grateful masters feed him better, whereas before they had almost let him die of starvation. The horse (the sun) remembers in prosperity his companion in misfortune, the cat (the moon), who is also allowed to starve, and gives it a part of what he receives from his masters. The latter perceive this, and again ill-treat the horse, who then forms the resolution of killing himself, in order that the cat may eat him; but the cat refuses to eat his friend the horse,[616] and is also determined to die.