The Mythology of the Devil. Moncure D. Conway
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over his shoulder to see if the danger was imminent, when the advancing tide immediately stopped, and the burgesses of Morpeth thus lost the chance of having the Wansbeck navigable between their town and the sea. It is also said that Michael intended to confer a similar favour on the inhabitants of Durham, by making the Wear navigable to their city; but his good intentions, which were to be carried into effect in the same manner, were also frustrated by the cowardice of the person who had to guide the tide.’
The gentle and just king Æolus, who taught his islanders navigation, in his mythologic transfiguration had to share the wayward dispositions of the winds he was said to rule; but though he wrecked the Trojan fleet and many a ship, his old human heart remained to be trusted on the appearance of Halcyon. His unhappy daughter of that name cast herself into the sea after the shipwreck of her husband (Cėyx), and the two were changed into birds. It was believed that for seven days before and seven after the shortest day of the year, when the halcyon is breeding, Æolus restrains his winds, and the sea is calm. The accent of this fable has been transmitted to some variants of the folklore of swans. In Russia the Tsar Morskoi or Water Demon’s beautiful daughters (swans) may naturally be supposed to influence the tides which the fair bathers of our time are reduced to obey. In various regions the tides are believed to have some relation to swans, and to respect them. I have met with a notion of this kind in England. On the day of Livingstone’s funeral there was an extraordinary tide in the Thames, which had been predicted and provided for. The crowds which had gathered at the Abbey on that occasion repaired after the funeral to Westminster Bridge to observe the tide, and among them was a venerable disbeliever in science, who announced to a group that there would be no high tide, ‘because the swans were nesting.’ This sceptic was speedily put to confusion by the result, and perhaps one superstition the less remained in the circle that seemed to regard him as an oracle.
The Russian peasantry live in much fear of the Rusalkas and Vodyanuie, water-spirits who, of course, have for their chief the surly Neptune Tsar Morskoi. In deprecation of this tribe, the peasant is careful not to bathe without a cross round the neck, nor to ford a stream on horseback without signing a cross on the water with a scythe or knife. In the Ukrain these water-demons are supposed to be the transformed souls of Pharaoh and his host when they were drowned, and they are increased by people who drown themselves. In Bohemia fishermen are known sometimes to refuse aid to one drowning, for fear the Vodyany will be offended and prevent the fish, over which he holds rule, from entering their nets. The wrath of such beings is indicated by the upheavals of water and foam; and they are supposed especially mischievous in the spring, when torrents and floods are pouring from melted snow. Those undefined monsters which Beowulf slew, Grendel and his mother, are interpreted by Simrock as personifications of the untamed sea and stormy floods invading the low flat shores, whose devastations so filled Faust with horror (II. iv.), and in combating which his own hitherto desolating powers found their task.
The Sea sweeps on in thousand quarters flowing,
Itself unfruitful, barrenness bestowing;
It breaks, and swells, and rolls, and overwhelms
The desert stretch of desolated realms....
Let that high joy be mine for evermore,
To shut the lordly Ocean from the shore,
The watery waste to limit and to bar,
And push it back upon itself afar!
In such brave work Faust had many forerunners, whose art and courage have their monument in the fairer fables of all these elemental powers in which fear saw demons. Pavana, in India, messenger of the gods, rides upon the winds, and in his forty-nine forms, corresponding with the points of the Hindu compass, guards the earth. Solomon, too, journeyed on a magic carpet woven of the winds, which still serves the purposes of the Wise. From the churned ocean rose Lakshmí (after the solar origin was lost to the myth), Hindu goddess of prosperity; and from the sea-foam rose Aphrodite, Beauty. These fair forms had their true worshipper in the Northman, who left on mastered wind and wave his song as Emerson found it—
The gale that wrecked you on the sand,
It helped my rowers to row;
The storm is my best galley hand,
And drives me where I go.
1. ‘Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland.’ Nimmo, 1876.
2. ‘Rig-Veda,’ ii. 33. Tr. by Professor Evans of Michigan.
3. ‘Rig-Veda,’ i. 114.
4. ‘Jour. Ceylon R. A. Soc.,’ 1865–66.
5. Welcker, ‘Griechische Götterlehre,’ vol. i. p. 661.
6. Moffat, p. 257.
7. Livingstone, p. 124.
8. Pöppig, ‘Reise in Chile,’ vol. ii. p. 358.
9. Eyre, vol. ii. p. 362.
10. Tylor, ‘Early Hist.,’ p. 359.
11. So confirming the conjecture of Wachsmuth, in ‘Das alte Griechenland im neuen,’ p. 23. Elias might also easily be associated with the name Æolus.
12. ‘Rig-Veda,’ x. (Muir).
13. John iii. 8.
14. ‘The Wheel of the Law,’ by Henry Alabaster, Trübner & Co.
15. ‘Rig-Veda,’ v. 83 (Wilson).
16. ‘Major’s Tr.,’ ii. 26.
17. Wierus’ ‘Pseudomonarchia Dæmon.’
18. ‘Songs of the Russian People,’ by W. R. S. Ralston, M.A.
19. Isa. xxii. 22. It is remarkable that (according to Callimachus) Ceres bore a key on her shoulder. She kept the granary of the earth.
20. Rev. i. 18.; Matt. xvi. 19.
21. ‘Journal N. C. B. R. A. S.,’ 1853.
22. ‘Folklore of China,’ p. 124. The drum held by the imp in Fig. 3 shows his relation to the thunder-god. In Japan the thunder-god is represented as having five drums strung together. The wind-god has a large bag of compressed air between his shoulders; and he has steel claws, representing the keen and piercing wind. The Tartars in Siberia