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cidedly German. Irmin was an old Saxon god, from whom probably both Arminius and the Herminones derived their names.

The chief interest of these German fables about Tuisco, Mannus, and his sons, is their religious character. They give utterance to the same sentiment which we find again and again among the Aryan nations, that man is conscious of his descent from heaven and from earth, that he claims kindred with a father in heaven, though he recognizes with equal clearness that he is made of the dust of the earth. The Hindus knew it when they called Dyu their father, and Prithivi their mother; Plato1 knew it when he said that the Earth, as the mother, brought forth men, but God was the shaper; and the Germans knew it, though Tacitus tells us confusedly, that they sang of Mannus as the son of Tuisco, and of Tuisco as sprung from the earth. This is what Grimm says of the religious elements hidden in German mythology:2

"In our own heathen mythology ideas which the human heart requires before all others, and in which it finds its chief support, stand forth in bold and pure relief. The highest god is there a father, oldfather, grandfather, who grants to the living blessing and victory, to the dying a welcome in his own mansions. Death is called 'going home,' Heimgang, return to our father. By the side of the god stands the highest goddess as mother, old-mother, grandmother, a wise and pure ancestress of the human

1 Polit. p. 414: καὶ ἡ γῆ αὐτοὺς μήτηρ οὖσα ἀνῆκε — ἀλλ ̓ ὁ θεὸς πλάττων. Welcker, Griechische Götterlehre, i. p. 182.

• Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, xl. 1.

race.

The god is majestic, the goddess beaming with beauty. Both hold their circuit on earth and are seen among men, he teaching war and weapons, she sewing, spinning, and weaving. He inspires the poem, she cherishes the tale."

Let me conclude with the eloquent words of a living poet:1

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"Then they looked round upon the earth, those simple-hearted forefathers of ours, and said within themselves, Where is the All-Father, if All-Father there be? Not in this earth; for it will perish. Nor in the sun, moon, or stars; for they will perish too. Where is He who abideth forever?' Then they lifted up their eyes, and saw, as they thought, beyond sun, and moon, and stars, and all which changes and will change, the clear blue sky, the boundless firmament of heaven.

"That never changed; that was always the same. The clouds and storms rolled far below it, and all the bustle of this noisy world; but there the sky was still, as bright and calm as ever. The AllFather must be there, unchangeable in the unchanging heaven; bright, and pure, and boundless like the heavens; and like the heavens, too, silent and far off.

"So they named him after the heaven, Tuisco — the God who lives in the clear heaven, the heavenly Father. He was the Father of gods and men; and man was the son of Tuisco and Hertha - heaven and earth."

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1 C. Kingsley, The Good News of God. 1859, p. 241.

LECTURE XI.

MYTHS OF THE DAWN.

AFTER having, in my last Lecture, gathered together the fragments of the most ancient and most exalted deity worshipped once by all the members of the Aryan stock, I shall, to-day, examine some of the minor deities, in order to find out whether they too can be referred to the earliest period of Aryan speech and Aryan thought, whether they too existed before the Aryans broke up in search of new homes, and whether their memory was preserved more or less distinctly in later days in the poems of Homer and the songs of the Veda. These researches must necessarily be of a more minute kind, and I have to ask for your indulgence if I here enter into details which are of little general interest, but which, nevertheless, are indispensable, in order to establish a safe basis for speculations very apt to mislead even the most cautious inquirer.

I begin with the myth of Hermes, whose name has been traced back to the Vedic Sarama. My learned friend Professor Kuhn, who was the first to analyze the meaning and character of Sarama, arrived at the conclusion that Sarama meant storm, and that the Sanskrit word was identical with the Teutonic 1 In Haupt's Zeitschrift für Deutsches Alterthum, vi. p. 119 seq.

storm, and with the Greek hormé. No doubt the root of Sarama is sar, to go, but its derivation is by no means clear, there being no other word in Sanskrit formed by ama, and with guna of the radical vowel.1 But admitting that Sarama meant originally the runner, how does it follow that the runner was meant for storm? It is true that Saranyu, masc., derived from the same root, is said to take in later Sanskrit the meaning of wind and cloud, but it has never been proved that Saranyû, fem., had these meanings. The wind, whether as váta, vâyu, marut, pavana, anila, &c., is always conceived as a masculine in Sanskrit, and the same applies generally to the other Aryan languages. This, however, would be no insurmountable objection, if there were clear traces in the Veda of Saramâ being endowed with any of the characteristic qualities of the wind. But if we compare the passages in which she is mentioned with others in which the power of the storm is described, we find no similarity whatever. It is said of Sarama that she espied the strong stable of the cows (i. 72, 8), that she discovered the cleft of the rock, that she went a long journey, that she was the first to hear the lowing of the cows, and perhaps that she led the cows out (iii. 31, 6). She did this at the instance of Indra and the Angiras (i. 62, 3); Brihaspati (i. 62, 3) or Indra (iv. 16, 8) split the rock, and recovered the cows, which cows are said to give food to the children of man (i. 62, 3; 72, 8); perhaps, to the offspring of Sarama herself (i. 62, 3). Saramâ ap

1 See Unâdi-Sûtras, ed. Aufrecht, iv. 48. Sármaḥ, as a substantive, running, occurs Rv. i. 80, 5. The Greek ópun corresponds with this word in the feminine, but not with sarama.

pears in time before Indra (iv. 16, 8), and she walks on the right path (iv. 45, 7 and 8).

This is about all that can be learnt from the RigVeda as to the character of Sarama, with the exception of a hymn in the last book, which contains a dialogue between her and the Panis, who had robbed the cows. The following is a translation of that hymn :

The Panis said: "With what intention did Sarama reach this place? for the way is far, and leads tortuously away. What was your wish with us? How was the night? How did you cross the waters

of the Rasa?" (1.)

Sarama said: "I come, sent as the messenger of Indra, desiring, O Panis, your great treasures; this preserved me from the fear of crossing, and thus I crossed the waters of the Rasa." (2.)

The Panis: "What kind of man is Indra, O Sarama, what is his look, he as whose messenger thou camest from afar? Let him come hither, and we will make friends with him, and then he may be the cowherd of our cows." (3.)

Sarama: "I do not know that he is to be subdued, for it is he himself that subdues, he as whose messenger I came hither from afar. Deep streams do not overwhelm him; you, Panis, will lie prostrate, killed by Indra." (4.)

The Panis: "Those cows, O Sarama, which thou desirest, fly about the ends of the sky, O darling.

1 Paritakmyâ is explained in the Dictionary of Boehtlingk and Roth in the sense of random travelling. It never has that sense in the Veda, and as Saramâ comes to the Panis in the morning, the question, how was the night, is perfectly natural.

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