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but it appears that the quaint old writer, after all, is but relating that which was believed to be true in his own age, and which after-gained knowledge enables us to distinguish as a remnant of the old Aryan superstition or myth, in a mediæval dress. These rolling fiery wheels, burning brands, bonfires, and processions round fields, &c., are common to both the Keltic and Teutonic branches of the Aryan race, and have evidently a similar origin. Kemble quotes an ancient Latin MS., which he found among the Harleian collection, which gives a precisely similar description of the St. John's fires. It is not improbable that it may have been written by the
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to whom the writer of the homily refers. Walter Kelly, speaking of it says,
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Here we have again the primitive Aryan dragon Ahi, at his old work in the sultry midsummer weather. He contends that all the details referred to, as attendant on the St. John's fires, have been demonstrated by Dr. Kuhn to be
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(and Keltic)
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One name given to a combatant on the dragon's side is Kuyava, which is interpreted the
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The following passage in the Rig Veda is uttered by Indra, when he resolves to destroy the monster,--
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Friend Vishnu, stride vastly; sky give room for the thunderbolt to strike; let us slay Vritra and let loose the waters. His worshippers likewise exclaim,--
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When, thunderer, thou didst by thy might slay Vritra, who stopped up the streams, then thy dear steeds grew.
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The Nemean lion is the offspring of Typhon, Orthros, or Echidna; in other words it is sprung from Vritra, the dark thief, and Ahi, the throttling snake of darkness, and it is as surely slain by Heracles as the snakes which had assaulted him in his cradle. Another child of the same horrid parents is the Lernaian Hydra, its very name denoting a monster who, like the Sphinx or the Panis, shuts up the waters and causes drought. It has many heads, one being immortal, as the storm must constantly supply new clouds, while the vapours are driven off by the sun into space. Hence the story went that although Heracles could burn away its mortal heads, as the sun burns up the clouds, still he can but hide away the mist or vapour itself, which at its appointed time must again darken the sky.
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But I go still further, and I believe that _Kuyava_ was also regarded as the spoiler of vegetation in general, who parched up the plants used in making the fermented liquor, soma, and amongst these plants the Hindus included _yava_, which, in this case, meant barley or rice. It will be seen in the sequel that the demon possesses himself also of the heavenly soma (the moisture of the clouds), that he is robbed of it by Indra, and that the like conception is found also among the Greeks and the Germans. This, then, sufficiently explains the hope of a good wine year, which was associated with the victory in the above-described German customs.
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Nature of Things,