in a mortar, but who revived, and ascended to the skies. In the tale of George there is another indication of the absorption into it of a foreign myth. George revives the dead cow of the peasant Glycerius; the same story is told of Abbot William of Villiers, of S. Germanus, of S. Garmon, and of S. Mochua. Thor also brought to life goats which had been killed and eaten. The same is told in the Rigveda of the Ribhus: “O sons of Sudharvān, out of the hide have you made the cow to arise; by your songs the old have you made young, and from one horse have you made another horse[1].”
The numbers in the legend of the soldier-saint have a solar look about them. The torments of S. George last seven years, or, according to the Greek acts, seven days; the tyrant reigns over the four quarters of heaven, and seven kings; in the Nabathæan story, Tammūz preaches the worship of the seven planets, and the twelve signs of the Zodiac. Osiris is sought seven days. The seven winter months are features in all mythologies.
The manner in which S. George dies repeatedly represents the different ways in which the sun dies
- ↑ See my note in Appendix to “The Folklore of the N. Counties of England,” London, 1866. pp. 321-4.
