Chapter V: Section III (1)

THE BULL AND THE COW IN IRANIAN AND TURANIAN TRADITION.

SUMMARY.

The bull the first created in Persian tradition.--The bull of
Mithra.--Mithra and Yamas.--The excrements of the celestial cow and
bull.--Exorcisms for chasing the evil one away from the beasts of
the stable.--The salutary herb, rue.--The heavenly cypress and the
mythical forest.--The mountain and the gem.--The mountain of the
heroes.--The defenceless soul of the bull recommends itself to the
mercy of the gods.--The moon, as a cow or bitch, guides the hero
over the funereal bridge.--The many-eyed god.--The golden-hoofed
bull.--The spinners of the sky.--Friendship between sun and
moon.--The Geusurva is the full moon.--The purifying
moon.--Ardhvî-Çûra-Anâhita, the Persian aurora, has all the
characteristics of the Vedic aurora, elevated, luminous, discomfiter
of the demons, deliverer of the hero Thraetaona from the water,
having golden shoes, swift, the first to arrive with her chariot,
guesser of riddles, revered at the break of day.--The aurora sung to
by her own name, the cow-aurora.--Mithra, the shepherd-god,--Mithra,
the hero who fights to recover his cows.--The bull
Veretraghna.--Thrita and Thraetaona.--The three brothers in the
Avesta.--The two brothers.--The three sisters.--The strength of the
solar hero consists in the wind.--The winds have golden shoes and an
especial foible for women, as the women have for them.--Indras
envious of the Marutas.--Kereçâçpa envious of the wind.--The wind,
with its whistling and wailing, makes everything tremble; the hero
presses him tightly and forces him to be silent.--The bound
hero.--The bow-cow, and the birds coming out of the cow in the
Avesta.--The darts, horns of the cow.--The rich brother and the poor
one.--The poor one, who has a lean ox and a lean horse, makes his
fortune.--Ashis Vaguhi, another equivalent of the aurora who also
frees the hero Thraetaona.--Other names of the three Persian
brothers.--Importance of the Avesta on account of its mythical
contents.--The hero exposed on the mountain.--The hero-shepherd, the
wonderful child, Cyrus.--Feridun.--The three brothers, sons of
Feridun; the third brother is the best, and is murdered by the two
elder ones.--Sal, with white hair, the hero exposed and nourished by
a bird, solves riddles, and receives in reward the daughter of the
king.--The hero Rustem, with the mace of a bull's head, with the
strong horse that vanquishes the lion, the strong hero, the Persian
Orlando, kills and binds demons, monsters, and giants, who fight
with rocks.--From black comes white.--The prince Kawus recovers his
sight after the death of the monster.--The demon in the mountain,
who keeps back the waters, is the same as the demon in the
mill.--The hero Rustem unites himself with the daughter of the
demoniacal and hostile king.--Sohrab is born of this union, with a
demoniacal nature.--Gurdaferid, the Persian amazon princess,
assailed in her white castle by the hero-demon Sohrab.--Rustem
fights, wins, and kills his son Sohrab; he then retires from
warfare.--Explanation of this myth.--The end of Rustem in an
ambuscade.--Sijavush persecuted by his stepmother, whose love he had
disdained; the young prince submits to the trial by fire, and comes
out safely: the cruel stepmother was to have undergone the same
trial, but Sijavush intercedes for her; she continues to persecute
him; Sijavush dies in the country of his demoniacal father-in-law,
and is avenged by Rustem, who kills the cruel stepmother.--The
child-hero Kai Khosru consigned to the care of shepherds; during his
childhood he performs prodigies of valour, and passes a river with
dry feet.--The strength of the hair of the hero Firud.--The two
hero-brothers again; one brother avenges the other.--The old hero
becomes a penitent, and disappears in a tempest upon a
mountain.--The seven heroic undertakings of Isfendiar.--The legend
of Iskander.--The Tuti-Name.--The hero who wishes to kill himself
for the king's sake; the deity prevents the sacrifice.--The story of
the poor man and the rich one again.--The beautiful woman persecuted
by her brother-in-law the seducer; the oriental Crescentia or
Geneviève.--The sea, invited to the wedding, brings pearls and
gold.--The maiden who discovers the thief by means of a riddle.--The
girl who gives his eyesight back to the blind man against her
will.--The lovers flee upon the bull's back.--The lover forsakes his
mistress on the shore after having despoiled her.--The three
brothers deliver the beautiful maiden and dispute for her; the
maiden takes refuge in a convent.--The wise child who distinguishes
false from true, honest from dishonest.--The money of the dead
man.--The adulterer condemned to death who bites off the nose of his
companion in guilt and dissoluteness.--The wife despoiled of her
riches by her husband and thrown into the water.--Romeo and Juliet
in the East.--The three brothers: the seer; the strong carrier, or
Christophoros; the victorious one.--The disputed bride again.--The
little pipkin of abundance; Perrette in the East.--The small
porringer of abundance, which the two brothers contend for.--The
shoes which take one in an instant wherever one wishes to go.--The
little purse which is filled as fast as it is emptied.--The sword
which makes a city rise.--The animals which contend for the division
of the prey, and the third comer who profits between two
disputers.--The four mines of the four brothers.--Why old men have
white hair.--Calmuc and Mongol tradition.--The six companions are
the same as three.--The bride torn in pieces.--A man unites himself
with a cow, which brings forth a Minotaur of a good nature, who
fights against the demons in favour of the gods.--The gem in the
cow's litter.--The bull lost.--The three sisters; the third sister
marries the monster bird; she loses him, because she has burned the
aviary.--The painter and the woodman in Paradise; the painter is
burned.--The two brothers, the rich one and the poor one; the rich
brother ends badly.--The husband who despoils his wife and hides her
in a chest in the sand of the desert.--The gem of the prince falls
to the ground; his nose bleeds and he dies; explanation of this
myth.--The wonderful hammer, which, when used, brings one whatever
is wished for.--The rich and poor brothers; the poor one becomes
rich.--The lengthened nose and the corresponding Italian
proverb.--The wife kills her husband with the hammer, wishing to
knock a protuberance off his nose.--The old man who eats his last
cow; his wife continues, even after its death, to nourish and
protect him until the wild beasts in the cavern devour him.--The
woman disguised as a solar hero.--The lion and the bull friends, or
foster-brothers; their friendship is put an end to by the fox.--The
projects of Perrette again.--The horns of the dead buffalo.--The
grateful animals.--The laughing princess.--The wise
herd-children.--The wise puppets.--The prince born of a cake.--The
boy learns in the forest every art, even devilish ones.--The son of
the wolves who understands their language.--Heroes and demons cut
in pieces multiply themselves.--The hero has good luck, because he
has performed funeral services to the dead.--Four young shepherds, a
new form of the Ribhavas, make a beautiful maiden of wood, and then
dispute for her.--The wife throws her husband into the fountain out
of jealousy, having heard another voice, perhaps the echo of her
own.--The princess Light of the sun, who must be seen by no one, and
who is visited by the minister Moon.--Turanian tradition in
Siberia.--The three brothers dream upon the mountain; the third
brother is persecuted on account of his dream; he finds the blind
woman and lame man, and induces them to adopt him; he hunts, fights
against the devil, and vanquishes him; from the body of the demon
come forth animals, men, and treasures; he fishes up in the sea of
milk the casket which contains the eyes of the blind woman; receives
extraordinary gifts, and above all the faculty of transforming
himself; wins his predestined bride, and kills his own cruel
father.--The hero who solves enigmas.--Ancient and modern
riddles.--The cow devours the wolf, and the wolf devours the
cow.--The bow of horn.--The wolves fastened to the calf's tail.--The
soul of the black bull in the rainbow, the bridge of souls, wounded
by the young hero, who then espouses the daughter of the sky, after
attaining the third heaven, and accomplishing heroic undertakings to
merit her.--The sleeper in the cup, the gem in the fish.--The
Argonauts and Medea in Turan.--The Finnish Diana.--The Finnish
thundering God, Kave Ukko.--The little sun, the Finnish
dwarf-hero.--The second of the three brothers.--The strong
bear.--The monster giant darkness or cloud.--The Orpheus and the
lyre of the Finns; grief the inspirer of song.--Finnish and Aryan
myths.--The Sampo.--Esthonian tradition.--The three sisters; the
third is the most beautiful, and is persecuted by her stepmother,
and delivered by the prince.--The bird of light.--The maiden
transformed into a pond-rose, and delivered by her husband in the
shape of a shrimp.--The witch is burned in the form of a cat.--The
gold of the witch.--Explanation of several myths.--The third brother
is the swiftest.--The wise maiden.--The golden fairy.--The
puppet.--The magical rod makes the cock come out of the
mountain.--The fairy is good towards the good, and punishes the
wicked.--The cow lost.--The old hospitable dwarf.--The leaf which
carries the hero across the waters.--Heroic undertakings against the
serpent and the tortoise.--The third brother, expelled from home,
travels and solves riddles on the way.--The rod which makes a
bridge.--In heaven and in hell time passes quickly.--The hero
under-cook.--The golden birds and the voyages to hell.--The brothers
punished, and the bride won by the magical sword.--The son of
thunder.--The weapon carried off from the god of thunder.--The
weapon recovered.--The fisherman-god.--The marvellous musical
instrument; the magical flute.--The three dwarfs.--The hat that
makes its owner invisible, made of men's nails; the shoes which
carry one where-ever one wishes, and the stick which fights of
itself.--The proverb of the third who profits between two disputers
again.--The third brother is the son of a king, exposed when a
child; he awakens the princess who sleeps in the glass mountain;
_non est mortua puella, sed dormit_.--Passage from the dawn of the
day to the dawn of the year.--The child sold by his father without
the latter's knowledge.--The boy exchanged.--The boy sets out to
deliver the maiden from the demon.--The pea, the kidney-bean, the
cabbage, and the pumpkin of funerals accompany the solar hero in his
nocturnal voyage.--The symbol of abundance, of generation, of
stupidity.--The nuptial beans.--Meaning of the myth concerning
vegetables.--The region of silence.--The region of noise.--The wise
girl helps the hero.--The cow milked and the calf bound.--The
luminous ball comes out of the calf.--The antithesis of white and of
black.--Hungarian proverbs.--The luminous ball comes out of the
stone.--The luminous ball and the ring.--The fearless hero frees the
castle from spirits.--The Esthonian story of Blue Beard.--The
charivari in the nuptials of widowers.--The widow who burns
herself.--The hero exposed, and then brought up among cowherds,
feels himself predestined to reign, and learns the art by guiding
herds.--The German (or Western) witch endeavours to take the red
strawberries from the Esthonian hero.--The boy avenges this injury
by causing her to be devoured by wolves, who will not touch her
heart.--The gardener's daughter.--The broken ring; the two parts of
the ring unite again; the husband and wife find each other once
more.--The maiden born of the egg in the shape of a puppet.--The
casket which brings good luck disappears when the young couple are
married.

Moving now from India westwards, we find on one side the Iranian, and on the other the Turanian traditions. We cannot pass into Europe without at least indicating the general character of each.

In the Persian cosmogony, the bull (_gâus aevo dâto_) is one of the first of created existences, being as old as the elements. It is, moreover, well known how much importance was ascribed to the bull among the Persians in the mysteries of the solar god Mithra, who is represented as a beautiful youth, holding the horns of a bull in his left hand, and having the knife of sacrifice in his right. Mithra sacrificing the bull is just the solar hero sacrificing himself in the evening. Indeed, in the Persian tradition, Mithra, like the Hindoo Yamas, holds the office of god of the dead, and as such, like Yamas, is of a monstrous aspect, and is found in the _Yaçna_ represented with a thousand ears and ten thousand eyes.

As in India, so in Persia, the urine of the cow is used in ceremonies of purification, during which it is drunk.[267] We have already seen in the story of Utañkas how the excrement of the bull, upon which Utañkas fed, was ambrosia itself; and, indeed, all is beneficial which is given by the cow of abundance (the moon, the cloud, and the aurora), and by the divine bull (the moon and the sun). The mythical belief was natural, however disgusting when we insist on literal interpretation.

And even in the Persian tradition itself, a distinction already exists between common bulls or oxen and sacred or privileged ones. This distinction appears in the legend of Gemshid, whose bulls were all devoured by the devil, as long as they were protected by no magical rites; whilst, when he was given a red ox (or bull) cooked in old, that is strong, vinegar, to which was added garlic and rue (famous for its potency in exorcism), he disappeared and was never seen again.[268] The rue is probably the fabulous plant which the Zend tradition surmises to have sprung from the sea _Vôuru-Kasha_, whence Ahura Mazda draws the clouds, from which all healthful water is derived, and which corresponds to the sea of milk of Hindoo tradition, in which the ambrosia is agitated.

Thus the funereal cypress of Kishmar (planted by Zarathustra, with a branch from the tree of Paradise), under which more than two thousand cows and sheep could pasture, and the innumerable birds of which darkened the air, obscuring the light of the sun, reminds us of the celestial forest of the Vedâs, in which the shepherd-hero and the hunter-hero wander and are lost.

The idea of the funereal tree recalls to us that of the Persian mountain Arezûra or Demâvend, where the demons met together to plot evil, and where was the gate of hell.[269]

The Zend word _açma_, which signifies stone and heaven, yields us, in its double meaning, the key to the interpretation of the myth. This stone, inasmuch as it is dark, is of evil omen; inasmuch as it shines, it is a gem, or gives the gem (the moon or the sun); whence, according to the _Minokhired_, the sky is the progeny of a precious stone.[270]

Thus to the mountain of the demons (where the sun goes down), is opposed in Persian tradition the glorious mountain, out of which are born the heroes and the kings (or from which the sun rises and the moon); because Haoma is born there (the Hindoo Somas), the ambrosial, golden, and health-bringing god, who gives them the divine nourishment, and because the sacred bird, which stays on that mountain, feeds them with ambrosia, whence the _Yaçna_[271] invites Haoma to grow on the road of the birds.

In a rather obscure passage of the _Gâthâ Ahunavaiti_, confirmed by the _Bundehesh_, the soul of the bull (or of the cow, as the case may be), despoiled of his body by the evil one, complains to the Supreme Creator that he is without defence against the assaults of his enemies, and that he has no invincible protector. Ahura Mazda seems to wish only to give him spiritual help, but the bull continues to declare himself unsatisfied, until Zarathustra, the defender, accords it, and he receives the gift of efficacious favours which Ahura Mazda alone possesses.[272] Zarathustra is himself also born upon a mountain;[273] while his son Çaoshyanç, the deliverer, comes out of the waters.

A sacred cow, or at least a bitch which guards the cows (_paçuvaiti_), seems, besides a good fairy, to be, in the _Vendiad_ itself,[274] the conductor of the souls across the bridge Cinvat, created by Ahura Mazda, to the kingdom of the blessed. The cow, as the guide of the souls[275] lost in the kingdom of the dead, and placed upon the bridge, is probably the moon; the bitch (also the moon) reminds us of the Hindoo Saramâ, the bitch which aids the heroes who have lost themselves in the nocturnal forest, grotto, or darkness. In the same chapter, after accounts of the bridge, we read the praise of the good Çaoka, who has many eyes (like the brâhmanic Indras, disguised as a woman, having a thousand eyes, and, after the adventure of Ahalyâ, a thousand wombs--the god hidden in the night, who looks at the world through a thousand stars); after Çaoka, of the splendid Veretraghna (who corresponds to Vritrahan, properly the discomfiter of the all-covering darkness); and after him, of the luminous star Tistar, which seems a bull with golden hoofs,[276] which again must refer to the moon; as the Gâhs, who, according to Anquetil, "sont occupées à filer des robes pour les justes dans le ciel," like the cows and Madonnas in our popular tales, cannot be very different from the fairy, or at least from the stars which form her crown. The _Khorda Avesta_, in its hymns in praise of Mithra, celebrates the perfect friendship which reigns between the sun and the moon, and sings of the moon immediately after singing of the sun Mithra, and the splendid Tistar immediately after the moon, whose light is said to come from the constellation Tistrya.

We can thus divine the meaning of Geusurva (the soul of the bull or the cow), of which, besides the soul, the body also is invoked in the _Yaçna_.[277] The Geusurva appears in the _Yaçna_ itself[278] as the protectress of the fourteenth day of the month, or of the full-moon, viewed as a full cow. And when it is said in the _Khorda Avesta_[279] that one must not sacrifice to the Geusurva at the time when the Daevas, or demons, are practising their evil-doings, it seems to me to indicate clearly enough that the sacrifice was to take place while the moon was increasing, and not while it was diminishing. Thus Asha Vahista, who reminds us of the Hindoo Vasishthas and his marvellous cow, has the power of conjuring away illness, north winds--in a word, evil of every kind--only when Agro-mainyus appears without help.[280]

We have seen in the legend of Utankas how, as the youth is on his way to take the queen's earrings, he meets a bull, upon the excrement of which he feeds, as upon ambrosia; that this ambrosial bull stays near Indras, as Indras and Somas are invoked together; and we noticed that from this mythical belief was derived the superstitious Hindoo custom of purifying one's self by means of the excrement of a cow. The same custom passed into Persia; and the _Khorda Avesta_[281] has preserved the formula to be recited by the devotee, whilst he holds in his hands the urine of an ox or cow, preparatory to washing his face with it:--"Destroyed, destroyed be the demon Ahriman, whose actions and works are cursed. His actions and works do not come to us. May the thirty-three Amshaspands (the immortal saints, who correspond to the thirty-three Vedic devâs), and Ormazd, be victorious and pure!" It is said this remedial formula was used for the first time by Yima, when, from having touched Ahriman, in order to extricate from his body, by fraud, Takh mo Urupa, whom the demon had devoured, he had an eruption on his hand. Finally, it is interesting to learn that one of the Zend names of the moon is _gaocithra_, which means he that contains the seed of the bull, since, according to the _Bundehesh_, the seed of the primitive bull passed into the moon, who, having purified it, used it to procreate other cattle (_pôuru çaredho_).

As to the aurora, there seems to be no doubt but that she was represented in ancient Persia by Ardvî Çûra Anâhita, the elevated, the strong, the innocent or pure, according to the interpretation of Professor Spiegel; she also drives a chariot drawn by four white horses, which she guides herself; she has a veil, a diadem, and bracelets of gold, beautiful earrings (the Vedic Açvinâu), a dress of beavers' skin, and prominent breasts; she is beautiful, and she is a good young girl who protects men and women. She is often invoked in the _Khorda Avesta_, like the Vedic aurora, to exorcise the demons, and to help the heroes who combat them; she herself has the strength of a thousand men, and is a marvellous heroine, like the Vedic amazon whom Indras fought with; her body is girt round with a girdle. The probability of this comparison seems to pass into certainty after reading a hymn of the _Khorda Avesta_,[282] even in the version of Professor Spiegel, who perhaps would have introduced some little variation if he had recognised the aurora in Ardvî Çûra Anâhita. In this hymn, the victorious and mighty Thraetaona, in the form of a bird, flies for three days and three nights, which reminds us of the fugitive Indras of the _Rigvedas_, who wades across the rivers after his victory; at the end of the third night he arrives near the aurora, and beseeches Ardvî Çûra Anâhita (that is, as it seems to us, the aurora herself, elevated, mighty, and innocent) to come and help him, that he may pass the waters and touch the ground at her habitation. Then Ardvî Çûra Anâhita appears in the shape of a beautiful, strong, and splendid girl, having a golden diadem and wearing shoes of gold (cfr. the _Yast_, xxi. 19) on her feet (this is perhaps another feeble foreshadow of Cinderella's slippers); the beautiful girl takes him by one arm (the bird has, it seems, become a hero), and gives him back health and strength. But the certainty increases still more when, as the Vedic aurora is the first of those who arrive, winning the race in her chariot, the so-called Ardhvî Çûra Anâhita appears in the _Khorda Avesta_ as "the first who guides the chariot;"[283] and we are recommended to offer up sacrifices to her at break of day, before the sun rises.[284] We have seen the Vedic aurora and the sun propose and solve riddles; we have seen the Hindoo solar hero free himself from the monster by proposing or solving insoluble enigmas; in the same way, in the _Avesta_, the hero Yaçto Fryanananm asks Ardvî Çûra Anâhita to help him to solve ninety-nine enigmas, in order that he may free himself from the monster Akhtya.

Add to this that Ardvî Çûra Anâhita, like the Vedic aurora, is a giver of cows and horses, and that these animals are offered to her by her devotees. The aurora herself, in the invocation made to her in the sixth prayer of the _Khorda Avesta_, is also called "elevated," and furnished with swift and splendid horses.[285] The fact of finding the Anâhita drawn by four white horses, like the sun Mithra, enhances the evidence of this identity. And if the aurora is not explicitly represented in the _Avesta_ as a cow, we infer that it was so conceived of, from the worship of Mithra, who was adored from the first streak of daylight till midday. Mithra often receives the epithet of "he who possesses vast pasture-lands;" the morning sun is therefore a pastoral god; and if so, we are constrained to think of the Persian aurora too as, if not a cow, at least a female cowherd.

But Mithra is not a god of mere idyllic exploits, he is also a hero; the _Vendidad_[286] salutes him as "the most victorious of the victors." The booty of his victory [essentially due to his immediate predecessors Veretraghna (Vritrahan) and Çraosha][287] must have been the cows of the aurora, without which his immense pasture-lands would have been of no use to him. Indeed it is said that Mithra enables owners of herds to recover their lost oxen.[288]

But Mithra is not the only prominent hero of the _Avesta_. Besides him, the above-cited Veretraghna, with all his secondary and tertiary reflections, plays an important part in it. Now, this Veretraghna, who offers numerous analogies to the Vedic Indras, killer of Vritras, is, like Indras, now a hero, now a horse, now a bird, now a sheep, now a wild boar, and now a bull.[289] As the bull Indras assists Tritas, Trâitanas, and Kavya Ucanas[290] in the _Rigvedas_, so the bull Veretraghna in the _Avesta_, partaking of the nature of one Thrita[291] who is rich, splendid, and strong, and who, like Indras, cures maladies by the help of the guardian of the metals (the usual co-relation between the hero and the magic pearl), assists Thraetaona, the killer of the serpent Duhâka (Azhi Dahâka) and the hero Kava Uça, of which Kava Haoçrava is another name rather than another form. The Thrita and Thraetaona of the _Zend_ are peculiarly interesting, because they remind us, though vaguely, of the Vedic myth of the three brothers. Only the _Avesta_ names Thrita and Thraetaona as two distinct divine heroes; it attributes to Thraetaona the second place among the three brothers; and as in the _Mahâbhâratam_, it is the second brother, the strong Bhîmas, who falls into the waters, whilst the third brother, Argunas, delivers others from the marine monster by his valour, so in the _Avesta_ it is Thraetaona who comes out of the waters, or who is the son of Athvya (-Âptya). But every one can see the point of contact, connection, or identification between the two hero-brothers. It is Bhîmas who comes out of the waters, and Argunas who extricates him, that is, who extricates his own strength, expressed in Bhîmas (the subject, and his virtue, become the object, being inclosed in one person). They are confounded together, inasmuch as Thraetaona, son of him who stays in the waters, or of the watery one, or he who comes out of the waters, and kills the demon, must be the same as Thrita, the third one, who has the virtue of curing demoniacal diseases. Thraetaona, the killer of the serpent, and Thrita, who destroys the evil-doing ones, are found again, with a different splendour, in the same heroic adventure. Scarcely an instant transpires between the time when the hero was a victim and that in which Veretraghna, or Thraetaona, or Thrita, the hero, triumphs in his own liberation.

In the _Yaçna_,[292] we find three men who, by their piety, win the favour of the god Haoma (Soma, the lunar god, the moon, the good magician, the good fairy). The first is Vivaghâo, the second Âthvya, and the third Thrita; from which we are led to conclude that Vivaghâo is the eldest brother, Âthvya the second, and Thrita the youngest. On account of their piety, they obtain sons; the son of Vivaghâo is Yima (the Vedic Yamas), the wise, the happy, the heavenly; the son of Âthvya is Thraetaona, the warrior who discomfits the monster; the third, Thrita, called the most useful, has two sons, Urvâksha and Kereçâçpa, who remind us of the Açvinâu. Âthvya's son and Thrita being confounded in one person, Thraetaona, or Thrita, forms a new triumvirate with Urvâksha and Kereçâçpa, as the Vedic Indras with the two Açvinâu. The story of the three brothers and that of the two brothers seem to be interwoven even in the myth, as they certainly are afterwards in the legend. To the three brothers, moreover, correspond, in the _Avesta_, the three sisters, the three daughters of Zarathustra and of Hvôvi: Freni, Thriti, and Pouruciçsta.[293] The first seems to correspond to Yamas, the second to Âptya and his son Thraetaona (or Thrita), the third, the luminous, the beautiful (as being the aurora), to the two handsome brother horsemen, Urvâksha and Kereçâçpa (the Açvinâu).

The solar hero comes out of his difficulties, and triumphs over his enemies, not only by force of arms, but by his innate strength and prowess. This extraordinary strength, by which he moves and is borne along, and which renders him irresistible, is the wind, invoked by the heroes in the _Avesta_ under the name of Râman. The wind, according to the _Avesta_, is not only the swiftest of the swift, but the strongest of the strong (like the Marutas, Hanumant, or Bhîmas, Hindoo winds, or sons of the wind). Even in the _Avesta_, he fights and assures the heroes of victory, and is dear to woman and girls. (In the same way, Sîtâ has a leaning for Hanumant, and Hidimbâ, of all the Pândavas, gives the preference to Bhîmas.) Moreover, in the _Avesta_, girls invoke the wind in order to obtain a husband.[294]

A hymn of the _Rigvedas_, however, celebrates a kind of quarrel between the winds Marutas and the god Indras, prompted by rivalry; a quarrel which ends in Indras having the advantage. It is interesting to find in the Persian tradition[295] the same rivalry between the wind (vâta) and the son of Thrita, the hero Kereçâçpa. An evil genie informs the wind that Kereçâçpa boasts of being superior to him in strength. Thereupon the wind begins to howl and rage in such a terrifying manner that nothing can resist him, and the very trees are cleft in two or torn up, till Kereçâçpa comes and squeezes him so tightly in his arms that he is obliged to cease. This interesting mythical incident is a prefigurement of the loud whistle of the heroes and the monsters in fairy tales, which is brought to an end in a summary fashion, similar to that of the Persian legend; which also leads us to suppose that Thraetaona vanquished the serpent Dahâka, merely by tying him to the demoniacal mountain Demâvend.[296] This style of vanquishing the enemy by binding him occurs often enough in the Persian legends and in the _Avesta_ itself;[297] and is also mentioned in the Hindoo traditions. The arrows of the monsters hurled against the heroes of the _Râmâyanam_ bind them; the god Yamas and the god Varunas bind their victims; the first draws tight, tightens the reins (_i.e._, the evening sun shortens his rays); the second envelops, covers and binds with the darkness that which Yamas reined in. The solar ray which shortens itself, the shadow which advances, are images of the ensnarer of heroes; whereas the solar ray which lengthens itself, the thunderbolt which traverses all the heavens, surrounded by clouds and darkness, represents the hero who grasps around, presses tightly, and strangles the monster.

The bow of Mithra is formed of a thousand bows, prepared from the tough hide of a cow; these bows, in the _Avesta_, also hurl a thousand darts, which fly with winged vultures' feathers.[298] This carries us back again to the Vedic myth of the birds which come out of the cow.

The bow being considered a cow, this cow sharpens its horns; whence the _Khorda Avesta_ celebrates the horned darts of the bow of Mithra, _i.e._, the horns of the cow, which have become weapons[299] or the thunderbolts.

The legend of the two brothers is connected more with the myth of the horse than with that of the cow or the ox. But inasmuch as it presents the two brothers to us as the one poor and the other rich, the riches are symbolised by the ox. However, if I am not mistaken, there are two heroes, celebrated in the _Avesta_ one after the other (and whom I therefore suppose to be brothers), who derive their origin from this legend; one is called Çrîraokhsan (or who has a fine ox), the other Kereçaokhsan (or who has a lean ox). As the _Avesta_ does not go on to develop this subject more in detail, I dare not insist upon it; nevertheless it is gratifying to me to remark that, of the two brothers, Kereçaokhsan was the most valiant, as of the two brothers Urvâksha (a word which may perhaps signify the one who has the fat horse, and which is perhaps synonymous with Urvâçpa[300]) and Kereçâçpa (he of the lean horse), it is the second who is the glorious hero; as in the Russian popular tales, we shall find the third brother, though thought to be an idiot, despised by the others, and riding the worst jade of the stable, yet becoming afterwards the most fortunate hero. Kereçâçpa avenges his brother Urvâksha against Hitâçpa, whom Professor Spiegel[301] interprets to mean the bound horse, but which can also be rendered he who keeps the horse bound, which would bring us back again to the story of the bridle and of the hero-horse, whom the demon keeps bound to himself, which we have already noticed above in the story of the sacrifice of Çunahçepas, delivered by the aurora.

It is uncertain whether we must recognise the aurora or the moon, in the _Avesta_, in the so-called Ashis Vaguhi, the elevated (like Ardvî Çûra Anâhita), who appears upon the high mountain, rich, beautiful, splendid, golden-eyed, beneficent, giver of cattle, posterity, and abundance, who discomfits the demons, guides chariots, and is invoked by the son of the watery one, Thraetaona, in the _Ashi Yast_,[302] in order that she may help him to vanquish the three-headed monster-serpent Dahâka. Now, Thraetaona, the victorious and rich in oxen,[303] being a well-known form of the solar hero Mithra, it is interesting to learn how the heroine, the so-called Ashis Vaguhi (the aurora, or the moon, as the three words Ardvî Çûra Anâhita are simple names of the aurora), having the same supreme god for her father, has three brothers, of whom the first is Çraosha, the pious; the second, Rashnus, the strong; and the third, Mithra, the victorious.

She is, moreover, herself represented as being pursued by enemies on horseback; and it is now a bull, now a sheep, now a child, anon a virgin who hides her from her pursuers. Not knowing where to go, whether to ascend into heaven, or creep along the earth, she applies to Ahura Mazda, who answers that she must neither ascend into heaven nor creep along the earth, but betake herself to the middle of a beautiful king's habitation.[304] How is it possible not to recognise in her the moon, or the aurora, who follows the path of the sun her husband, the moon, or the aurora, who appears on the summit of the high mountains?

Other facts not devoid of mythological interest might perhaps be found in the _Avesta_, which, on account of the uncertainty attending the translation of the original texts, has hitherto been, it seems to me, utterly neglected by mythologists. And yet, though Anquetil, Burnouf, Benfey, Spiegel, Haugh, Kossowicz, and all who have turned their talents and science to the interpretation of the Zendic texts, disagree in the more abstruse passages, there are many of which the interpretation is certain, in which the learned translators agree, which offer interesting mythological data, and permit us, in any case, to extract from the _Avesta_ an embryo of mythology, in the same way as an embryo of grammar has already been extracted from it. The brief references which I have now made to the myth of the cow and the bull in the _Avesta_, anyhow appear to me sufficient to warrant the conclusion I draw, that the cow and the bull presented the same aspects, and generated the same myths and the same beliefs in Persia as in India, albeit in a form far more feeble and indeterminate.

The solar hero of Persia occurs again in the costume of historical legend in the Cyrus ([Greek: Kyros]) of Herodotus and Ktesias, the first of which represents to us the child exposed by his parents, saved and educated during his infancy (like the Hindoo Karnas, child of the sun, and Krishnas) among the shepherds, where for some time he gives extraordinary proofs of his valour; the second shows us the young hero who wins his own bride, Amytis, daughter of Astyages.

Finally, the same hero appears in several splendid and glorious forms in the _Shahname_.

As in the _Rigvedas_, Tritas or Trâitanas, and in the _Avesta_, Thraetaona (of whom Thritas is a corresponding form), accomplish the great exploit of killing the monster, and more especially the serpent, so Feridun, the Persian synonym (by means of the intermediate form Phreduna) for the Zendic Thraetaona is, in subsequent Persian tradition, the most distinguished hero in the struggle against the monster. I shall not insist upon the deeds of Feridun and his mythical valour, after the learned paper written upon the subject by Professor R. Roth, which appears in the Transactions of the Oriental Society of Leipzig, and the able and highly-valued essay by Professor Michael Bréal on the myth of Hercules and Cacus. I shall therefore content myself with quoting from the legend of Feridun the episode of his old age, which reminds us of the Vedic myth of the three brothers.

The great king Feridun has three sons, Selm, Tûr, and Ireg (Selm, Tûr, and Er are also the sons of Thraetaona); he divides the world into three parts and gives the west to the first-born, and the north to the second, whilst he keeps Iran for the youngest. The two eldest are jealous, and announce to their father their intention of declaring war against him, unless he expels their younger brother Ireg from the palace. Feridun replies to their impious threat with haughty reproofs, and meanwhile warns the young Ireg of the danger he is in. The youth proposes to go in person to his brothers, and induce them to make peace; his father is unwilling to let him go, but finally consents, and gives him a letter for the two brothers, in which he commends him as his best-loved son to their care. Ireg arrives at his brothers' dwelling; their soldiers see him, and cannot take their eyes off him, as though they already recognised him for their lord. Then Selm, the eldest, advises Tûr, the second, the strong one, to kill Ireg; Tûr thereupon assaults the defenceless Ireg, and transfixes his breast with a dagger. Ireg is afterwards avenged by the son of his daughter (born after his death of a maid whom he had left pregnant), the hero Minucehr, who kills Selm and Tûr.

The hero who succeeds Minucehr is Sal, the son of Sam, whom, because born with white hair, his father had exposed upon Mount Alburs, where the bird Simurg nourished and saved him. Sal proves his wisdom before Minucehr by solving six astronomical riddles which King Minucehr proposes to him. The king, satisfied, orders him to be dressed in festive clothes; he then, to prove his strength, challenges him to run a tilt with the horsemen; Sal is victorious, and obtains another robe of honour and innumerable royal gifts; after which he espouses Rudabe, daughter of King Mihrab.

Sal distinguishes himself, like Minucehr, in his wars against the perverse Turanians, the dragons and the monsters, in which he takes along with him as his chief helper the mighty hero Rustem, whose weapon is a club surmounted with the head of a bull[305] or a horned mace (the hero is the bull, the thunderbolts are his horns), and whose horse is so powerful as by itself to fight and vanquish a lion while Rustem is asleep. The hero himself kills a dragon, and a witch transformed into a beautiful woman, but who resumes her monstrous shape as soon as the hero pronounces the name of a god. He thunders like a cloud, is dark, and describes himself as a thunder-cloud which hurls the thunderbolt.[306] He binds the warrior Aulad, and obliges him to reveal where the demons detain in prison King Kawus, who is become blind in their kingdom of darkness. Kawus then informs Rustem that to recover his sight his eyes must be anointed with three drops of blood from the slain demon Sefid; upon which Rustem sets out to kill the demon. The demons can be vanquished only by day; when it is light, they sleep, and then they can be conquered, says Aulad to Rustem; for this reason, Rustem does not begin the enterprise till the sun is in mid-heaven;[307] then he thunders and lightens at the demons. Like a sun, he sets out towards the mountain (no doubt, towards sunset), where the demon Sefid sits, and arrives at the mouth of a deep and gloomy cavern, from which Sefid sallies forth in the form of a black giant just awakened from his sleep. The giant himself, like an enormous mountain assaulting the earth, hurls a rock like a millstone at Rustem; Rustem strikes the monster on the feet, and lops away one of them; the lame giant continuing the fight, Rustem at last wrestles with him, lifts him into the air, then beats him several times furiously against the ground, and so takes his life. He throws the body of Sefid into the mountain cavern, whilst his blood saturates the earth, and gives back to the prince Kawus his eyesight and his splendour. The myth is a beautiful and an expressive one. As from the black venomous serpent comes white healthy milk, so from the black monster, at his death, comes blood, which gives back his eyesight to the blinded prince; the red aurora is here represented as the blood of the nocturnal monster, discomfited by the solar hero.

Let me ask the reader to notice the Persian comparison of the rock thrown by the demon to a millstone, as it is important to explain a superstition still extant in the West, to the effect that the devil goes under the millstone to carry out his evil designs. The stone or mountain fractured by the waters was naturally compared to a millstone moved by the waters; the demons inhabit the cavernous mountain to guard the waters; thus the devil, the evil one, the hobgoblins, prefer mills as their dwellings.

Rustem fights, in the _Shahname_, many other victoriously successful battles against Afrasiab the Turanian, and other demoniacal beings, in the service of sundry heroic kings, with epic incidents to boot, which are nearly all uniform. His struggle against his son Sohrab, however, is of an entirely different character.

Rustem goes to the chase. In the forest, Turkish bandits rob him of his invaluable horse while he sleeps; he then sets out, alone and sad, towards the city of Semengam, following the track left by his horse. When he appears, emerging from the wood, the king of Semengam and his courtiers note the phenomenon as though it were the sun coming out of the clouds of morning.[308] The king receives Rustem with great hospitality, and, as if to fill to the full the measure of his courtesy, he sends at night to the room where he sleeps his exceedingly beautiful daughter Tehmime. The hero and the beauty separate in the morning; but Rustem, before parting from Tehmime, leaves her a pearl of recognition. If a daughter is born to their loves, she is to wear it as an amulet in her hair; if a son, he is to wear it on his arm, and he will become an invincible hero. After nine months, Tehmime gives birth to Sohrab; at the age of one month he seems a year old, at three years of age he amuses himself with arms, at five he gives proof of a lion's courage, and at ten he vanquishes all his companions, and asks his mother to inform him of his father, threatening to kill her if she does not tell him. Scarcely does Sohrab learn that he is the son of Rustem, than he conceives the desire of becoming king of Iran and supplanting Kawus; he then commences his persecution of the Iranian heroes by assaulting the white castle (the white morning sky, the alba), defended by a beautiful warrior princess, Gurdaferid, dear to the Iranian warriors. Sohrab conquers and destroys the white castle, but in the moment of triumph, the warrior maiden disappears. The old hero Rustem then moves against his own son Sohrab; the latter throws him down, but Rustem, in his turn, mortally wounds Sohrab. In the old Rustem thrown down on the mountain it is not difficult to recognise the setting sun; in Sohrab mortally wounded by Rustem, the sun itself, which dies; and in fact, the dying sun has a different appearance from the new sun which rises and triumphs in the heavens: these two appearances might give rise to the idea of a struggle between the old and the young sun, in which both are sacrificed. Indeed, Rustem feels, when he mortally wounds Sohrab, that he is wounding himself; he curses his work and immediately sends for a healing balsam; but in the meantime Sohrab dies. The only one who could destroy the young sun was the old sun; the sun grows old and dies; Rustem alone could kill Sohrab. With the death of Sohrab the glory of Rustem is also eclipsed; he retires unto solitude, and the most grandiose period of his epic life comes to an end. After this he only reappears in episodic battles or enterprises; as, for instance, in his setting fire to Turan, in which he resembles Hanumant, burner of Lañkâ; in the liberation of the young hero Bishen, who had been taken prisoner and incarcerated by the Turanians; in the killing of the powerful and perverse Turanian Afrasiab; and in his own death in an ambuscade set by young rivals of the old lion, who dies taking vengeance on his enemies.

In the very palace of Kawus (he who was protected by Rustem), a notable legendary drama takes place. Sijavush, son of King Kawus, is seduced by the queen-mother Sudabe, who burns with love for him. The youth spurns this love, upon which she accuses him to King Kawus as her seducer. The father, after hearing his son's defence in proof of his innocence, cannot believe the queen; and thereupon she devises another method for destroying the young Sijavush. She concerts with a slave she has, who is a sorceress, and persuades her to create two little venomous monsters, which she straightway proclaims aloud are the children of Sijavush. Then Sijavush, to prove his innocence, submits willingly to the trial by fire; he enters the flames upon his black horse, after having embraced his trembling father; both horse and horseman come out of the immense fire, amid the plaudits of all the spectators. Then the king gives orders to strangle the unnatural queen; but his son Sijavush intercedes in her favour, and Sudabe is allowed to live by grace of the young prince, whom, however, she continues to persecute, till, on the death of Sijavush, Rustem, who bewailed him as his own son, or as his other self, avenges him first by killing Sudabe, on account of whom Sijavush had been obliged to repair to Turan, and afterwards by carrying the war into Turan, where, after a very agitated life, Sijavush had fallen into the power of his father-in-law, Afrasiab, and been put to death.

The wife of Sijavush, Ferengis by name, being pregnant, is hospitably entertained by Piran, and gives birth to the hero Kai Khosru; and no sooner is he born than he is consigned to the shepherds of the mountain. As early as seven years of age, his favourite amusement is that of drawing the bow; at ten, he confronts wild boars, bears, lions, and tigers with only his shepherd's staff. When Afrasiab sees the young shepherd, he inquires at him about his sheep and the peaceful pursuits of shepherds; the boy replies with stories of lions having sharp teeth, and of other wild animals, of which he is not afraid. As soon as he comes to manhood, he flees from Turan, followed by the Turanians; he arrives at the banks of a river, where the ferryman asks impossible conditions to take him over; upon which, like Feridun, he crosses the river safely, but without a boat, and on dry feet (it is the sun traversing the cloudy and gloomy ocean without wetting himself);[309] arrived at length in Iran, he is feasted and fêted as the future king. His reign begins; he then assigns different tasks to different heroes, among whom is his brother Firud, born of another mother, of whom it is said that a single hair of his head has more strength in it than many warriors (one ray of the sun is enough to break the darkness). One evening, however, at sunset, Firud is killed in his castle upon the mountain, being surrounded by a crowd of enemies, after having lost his horse, and after his mother Cerire had dreamt that a fire had consumed both mountain and castle. His mother Cerire (the evening aurora) throws herself among the flames with her maids, and dies also. Kai Khosru bewails the loss of his brother Firud all the night through, till the cock crows; when morning comes he thinks of avenging him.

After this, the life of Kai Khosru is consumed in battles fought by his heroes against the Turanians. Only towards the end of his days does he become a penitent king; he will no longer allow his subjects to fight, and his only occupation is prayer; he takes leave of his people and his daughters in peace, ascends a mountain, and disappears in a tempest, leaving no trace of himself. In a similar manner the heroes Yudhishthiras, Cyrus, and Romulus disappear (not to speak of the biblical Moses, still less of Christ, as we do not wish to complicate a comparison of which the materials are already so extensive, by mixing up the Aryan elements with those of Semitic origin; although the legends of the serpent, of Noah, of Abraham and his regained wife, of Abraham and his son Isaac, of Joseph and his brethren, of Joshua, of Job, and other and more recent biblical heroes, by their mythical or astronomical import, present numerous analogies with the Indo-European legends); in a similar manner, the old sun, weary of reigning in the heavens and fighting for his life, becomes invisible every evening on the mountain-peaks.

The _Shahname_ contains numerous other legends besides those which we have thus far briefly described; and one of the most notable is, beyond a doubt, that of Isfendiar, who goes with his brother Bishutem to deliver his two sisters, imprisoned in a fortress by the Turanian king Ardshasp. The seven adventures of Isfendiar, _i.e._, his meeting with the wolf, the lion, the dragon, the witch (who makes herself beautiful, but who is no sooner bound with the enchanted necklace of Isfendiar [the solar disc] than she becomes old and ugly again), the gigantic bird, the tempest and the river, all of which dangers he victoriously overcomes, are reproductions, in an analogous form too, of the seven adventures of Rustem.

Finally, the legend of Iskander or Iskender (the name of Alexander of Macedon), full of extraordinary adventures, became exceedingly popular in Persia, and thence, no doubt, passed with all its charms into Europe. The audacity and good fortune, the glory and the power of the great conqueror were the reasons why there grouped round his name so many extraordinary stories, which wandered dispersedly through the world without epic unity. To make up one glorious and never-to-be-forgotten hero, were combined together the achievements of many anonymous or nearly forgotten ones. The Persian _Iskendername_ of Nishâmi, is, as its name denotes, entirely taken up with the celebration of the deeds of the Macedonian hero, of which the most illustrious are the liberation of the princess Nushâbe (taken prisoner by the Russians), and the voyage in search of the fountain of life and immortality, which, however, Iskander cannot find. From Persia the same legend afterwards passed, with new disguises, into Egypt, Armenia, and Greece, whence it was diffused during the middle ages over almost the whole of Western Europe.[310]

As a bridge of transition between the Hindoo and Persian, and the Turk or Tartar traditions, we shall make use of three works: the Turkish version[311] of the Persian _Tuti-Name_, itself a translation and in part a paraphrase of the Hindoo _Çuka-Saptatî_, _i.e._, the seventy (stories) of the parrot; the Mongol stories of _Siddhi-kûr_, and the Mongol history of _Ardshi-Bordshi Khân_,[312] the first being a paraphrase of the Hindoo _Vetâla-Pancavinçatî_, _i.e._, the twenty-five of the Vetâla (a kind of demon), and the second of the Hindoo _Vikrama-caritram_ (the heroic action).

We have seen in the _Âitareya Brahmânam_ the father who prepares to offer up his son, and in the _Mahâbhâratam_, the son who forfeits youth that his father may live. In the _Tuti-Name_,[313] the faithful Merdi Gânbâz prepares to sacrifice his wife and sons, and afterwards himself, to prolong the life of the king; but his devotion and fidelity being proved, he is arrested by God before he can accomplish the cruel sacrifice, and receives numberless benefits from the king.

In the story of the goldsmith and the woodcutter, the _Tuti-Name_[314] reproduces the two brothers or friends, of whom one is wicked, rich, and avaricious, while the other is defrauded of the money due to him, because, though, in reality intelligent, he is supposed to be an idiot. The woodcutter avenges himself upon the goldsmith by a plan which we shall find described in the legend of the bear, and recovers, thanks to his craftiness, the gold which his brother or friend had kept from him.