head of Suttung.[1] If our opinion be correct, the elemental myths which abound in the Veda are not myths "in the making," as is usually held, but rather myths gradually dissolving into poetry and metaphor. As an example of the persistence in civilised myth of the old direct savage theory that animals of a semi-supernatural sort really cause the heavenly phenomena, we may quote Mr. Darmesteter's remark in the introduction to the Zendavesta:[2] "The storm floods that cleanse the sky of the dark fiends in it were described in a class of myths as the urine of a gigantic animal in the heavens." A more savage and theriomorphic hypothesis it would be hard to discover among Bushmen or Nootkas.[3] Probably the serpent Vritra is another beast out of the same menagerie.
If our theory of the evolution of gods is correct, we may expect to find in the myths of Indra traces of a theriomorphic character. As the point in the ear of man is thought or fabled to be a relic of his arboreal ancestry, so in the shape of Indra there should, if gods were developed out of divine beasts, be traces of fur and feather. They are not very numerous nor very distinct, but we give them for what they may be worth.
The myth of Yehl, the Thlinkeet raven-god, will not have been forgotten. In his raven gear Yehl stole the sacred water, as Odin, also in bird form, stole
- ↑ Rig-Veda, i. 32, 14, tells of a flight as headlong as that of Apollo after killing the Python. Mr. Perry explains the flight as the rapid journey of the thunderstorm.
- ↑ Sacred Books of the East, vol. iv. p. lxxxviii.
- ↑ The etymology of Vritra is usually derived from vri, to "cover," "hinder," "restrain," then "what is to be hindered," then "enemy," "fiend."
