Page 553 - Lokmanya Tilak Samagra (khand 2)

334 SAMAGRA TILAK- 2 • THE ARCI'IC HOME

many other legends. But we have no space to narrate all of them,
and shall, therefore, only quote here the conclusion, which
Prof. Rhys has been forced to adopt, regarding the meaning of
these myths after a critical examination of the different Celtic
and Teutonic legends. Speaking of Gods, Demons and Heroes,
in the last lecture of his learned work he thus sums up his views
regarding the myths describing the encounters between Gods
or Sun-heroes and the powers of darkness:-
" All that we have thus far found with regard to the con-
test of the gods and their allies against the powers of evil and
theirs, would seem to indicate that they were originally regard-
ed as yearly struggles. This appears to be the meaning of the
fore-knowledge as to the final battle of Moytura, and as to
the exact date of the engagement on the Plain of Fidga in
which Cuchulainn assists Labraid of the Swift Hand on the
sword, a king of Celtic Zeus, or Mars-Jupiter, as the ruler of
an Elysium in the other world. It was for a similar reason that
the northern Sibyl could predict that, after the Anses had been
slain by Swart, aided by the evil brood, Balder would come to
reign, when all would be healed, and the Anses would meet again
in the Field of lth. Nor can the case have been materially diffe-
rent with the Greek gods, as proved by the allusion to the
prophecy about the issue of the war with the giants. And this
was not all; for we are told that the Cretans represented Zeus
as born and bred and also buried in their island, a view some-
times formally regarded as confirming the character ascribed
to them for lying; but that deserves no serious consideration,
and the Cretans in their mysteries are supposed to have repre-
sented the god going through the stages of his history every
year. A little beyond the limits of the Greek world a similar
idea assumed a still more remarkable form, namely, among the
Phrygians, who are said by Plutarch to have believed their god
( like the Pura¢c Vi!htiu ), to sleep during the winter and
resume his activity during summer. The same author also states
that the Paphlagonians were of opinion that the gods were
shut up in a prison during winter and let loose in summer.
Of these peoples, the Phrygians at least appear to have been
Aryan, and related by no means distantly to the Greeks; but
nothing could resemble the Irish couvade of the Ultonion heroes
more closely than the notion of the Phrygiau god hibernating.