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010 - Chapter X Mythological Origin Of The Were-wolf Myth · Book of Werewolves

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Speaker 1: Chapter ten of the Book of Werewolves. This is the
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Speaker 1: LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain.
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Speaker 1: For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org.
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Speaker 1: Recording by Amy Graymore The Book of Werewolves by Sabine
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Speaker 1: Bearing Gould. Chapter ten. Mythological origin of the werewolf, myth metempsychosis,
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Speaker 1: sympathy between men and beasts, Finnbog and the bear, Osage
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Speaker 1: and the beaver. The connection of soul and body, Buddhism
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Speaker 1: case of mister Holloway. Popular ideas concerning the body, The
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Speaker 1: derivation of the German likenam feather dresses, transmigration of souls,
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Speaker 1: a Basque story story from the Pantcha Tantra, Savage ideas
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Speaker 1: regarding natural phenomena, thunder, lightning and cloud the origin of
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Speaker 1: the dragon, John of Brompton's Dragon, a waterspout, the legend
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Speaker 1: of Toephus, Allegoriza of the effects of a hurricane. Anthropomorphis,
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Speaker 1: the cirrus cloud, a heavenly swan Ervasi, the storm cloud,
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Speaker 1: a daemon, Berytra and Rakshassis story of a Brahmin and
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Speaker 1: a Rakshasis. Transformation into beasts forms an integral portion of
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Speaker 1: all mythological systems. The gods of Greece were wont to
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Speaker 1: change themselves into animals in order to carry out their
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Speaker 1: designs with greater speed, security, and secrecy than in human forms.
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Speaker 1: In Scandinavian mythology, Odin changed himself into the shape of
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Speaker 1: an eagle, Loki into that of a salmon. Eastern religions
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Speaker 1: abound in stories of transformation. The line of demarcation between
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Speaker 1: this and the translation of a beast's soul into man,
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Speaker 1: or a man's soul into a beast's modem psychosis is
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Speaker 1: very narrow. The doctrine of matempsychosis is found on the
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Speaker 1: consciousness of gradation between beasts and men. The belief in
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Speaker 1: a soul endowed animal world was present among the ancients,
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Speaker 1: and the laws of intelligence and instinct were misconstrued or
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Speaker 1: were regarded as a puzzle which no man might solve.
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Speaker 1: The human soul, with its consciousness, seems to be something
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Speaker 1: already perfected in a pre existing state, and in the
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Speaker 1: myth of metempsychosis, we traced the yearnings and gropings of
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Speaker 1: the soul after the source, whence its own consciousness was derived,
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Speaker 1: counting its dreams and hallucinations as gleams of memory, recording
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Speaker 1: acts which had taken place in a former state of existence.
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Speaker 1: Modern philosophy has resumed the same threat of conjecture and
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Speaker 1: thinks to see in man the perfected development of lower organisms.
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Speaker 1: After death, the translation of the soul was supposed to continue.
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Speaker 1: It became either absorbed into the noose, into brahma, into
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Speaker 1: the deity, or it sank in the scale of creation
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Speaker 1: and was degraded to animate a brute. Thus the doctrine
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Speaker 1: of metempsychosis was emphatically one of rewards and punishment, for
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Speaker 1: the condition of the soul after death depended on its
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Speaker 1: training during life. A savage and bloodthirsty man was exiled,
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Speaker 1: as in the case of ly Chaon, into the body
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Speaker 1: of a wild beast. The soul of a timorous man
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Speaker 1: entered a hare, and drunkards or gluttons became swine. The
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Speaker 1: intelligence which was manifest in the beasts bore such a
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Speaker 1: close resemblance to that of man in the childhood and
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Speaker 1: youth of the world that it is not to be
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Speaker 1: wondered at if our forefathers failed to detect the line
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Speaker 1: of demarcation drawn between instinct and reason and Failing to
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Speaker 1: distinguish this, they naturally fell into the belief and madame psychosis.
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Speaker 1: It was not merely a fancied external resemblance between the
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Speaker 1: beast and man, but it was the perception of skill, pursuits, desires, sufferings,
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Speaker 1: and griefs like his own in the animal creation, which
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Speaker 1: led man to detect within the beast something analogous to
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Speaker 1: the soul within himself. And this, notwithstanding the points of
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Speaker 1: contrast existing between them, elicited in his mind so strong
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Speaker 1: a sympathy that, without a great stretch of imagination, he
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Speaker 1: invested the beast with his own attributes and with the
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Speaker 1: full powers of his own understanding. He regarded it as
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Speaker 1: actuated by the same motives, as subject to the same
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Speaker 1: laws of honor, as moved by the same prejudices. And
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Speaker 1: the higher the beast was in the scale, the more
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Speaker 1: he regarded it as an equal. A singular illustration of
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Speaker 1: this will be found in the finbog A Saga, chapter eleven.
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Speaker 1: Now we must relate about Finbogg. Afterward, in the evening,
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Speaker 1: when men slept, he rose, took his weapons and went forth,
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Speaker 1: following the tracks which led to the dairy farm. As
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Speaker 1: he was wont He stepped out briskly along the spore
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Speaker 1: till he came to the dairy. There he found the
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Speaker 1: bear lying down, and he had slain the sheep, and
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Speaker 1: he was lying on them lapping their blood. Then said Finnbog,
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Speaker 1: stand up, Bruin, make ready against me. That becomes you
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Speaker 1: more than crouching over those sheep's caucases. The bear sat up,
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Speaker 1: looked at him, and lay down again. Finbog said, if
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Speaker 1: you think I am too fully armed to match with you,
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Speaker 1: I will do this, and he took off his helmet
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Speaker 1: and laid aside his shield. Then he said stand up
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Speaker 1: now if you dare. The bear sat up, shook his head,
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Speaker 1: and then cast himself down again. Finbock exclaimed, I see
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Speaker 1: you want us both to be worn alike. So he
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Speaker 1: flung aside his sword and said, be it as you will.
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Speaker 1: Now stand up if you have the heart that I
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Speaker 1: believe you have, rather than one such as was possessed
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Speaker 1: by these wrench sheep. Then Bruin stood up and prepared
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Speaker 1: to fight. The following story taken from the mouth of
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Speaker 1: an Osage Indian by J. A. Jones and published in
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Speaker 1: his Traditions of the North American Indians shows how thoroughly
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Speaker 1: the savage mind misses the line of demarcation between instinct
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Speaker 1: and reason, and how the man of the woods looks
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Speaker 1: upon beasts as standing on an equality with himself. An
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Speaker 1: Osage warrior is in search of a wife. He admires
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Speaker 1: the tidy and shrewd habits of the beaver. He accordingly
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Speaker 1: goes to a beaver hut to obtain one of that
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Speaker 1: race for a bride. In one corner of the room
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Speaker 1: sat a beaver woman combing the heads of some little beavers,
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Speaker 1: whose ears she boxed very soundly, when they would not
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Speaker 1: lie still. The warrior i e. The beaver chief whispered
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Speaker 1: the Osage that she was his second wife, and was
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Speaker 1: very apt to be cross when there was work to
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Speaker 1: be done, which prevented her from going to see her neighbors.
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Speaker 1: Those whose heads she was combing were her children, he said,
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Speaker 1: And she who had made them rub their noses against
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Speaker 1: each other and be friends, was his eldest daughter. Then,
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Speaker 1: calling aloud, wife said he, what have you to eat?
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Speaker 1: The stranger is undoubtedly hungry. See he is pale, his
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Speaker 1: eye has no fire, and his step is like that
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Speaker 1: of a moose. Without replying, to him, for it was
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Speaker 1: a sulky day with her. She called aloud, and a
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Speaker 1: dirty looking beaver entered. Go, said she, and fetch the
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Speaker 1: stranger something to eat. With that, the beaver girl passed
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Speaker 1: through a small door into another room, from which she
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Speaker 1: soon returned, bringing some large pieces of willow bark, which
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Speaker 1: she laid at the feet of the warrior and his guest.
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Speaker 1: While the warrior beaver was chewing the willow and the
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Speaker 1: o sage was pretending to do so, they fell to
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Speaker 1: talking over many matters, particularly the wars of the beavers
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Speaker 1: with the otters and their frequent victories over them. He
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Speaker 1: told our father by what means the beavers felled large
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Speaker 1: trees and moved them to the places where they wished
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Speaker 1: to make dams, How they raised to an erect position
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Speaker 1: the poles for their lodges, and how they plastered them
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Speaker 1: so as to keep out rain. Then he spoke of
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Speaker 1: their employments when they had buried the hatchet, of the
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Speaker 1: peace and happiness and tranquility they enjoyed when gathered into companies.
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Speaker 1: They rested from their labors and passed their time in
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Speaker 1: talking and feasting and bathing and playing the game of
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Speaker 1: bones and making love all the while the young beaver
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Speaker 1: maiden sat with her eyes fixed upon the o sage,
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Speaker 1: at every paws, moving a little nearer, till at length
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Speaker 1: she was at his side, with her fore paw upon
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Speaker 1: his arm. A minute more and she had placed it
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Speaker 1: around his neck and was rubbing her soft furry cheek
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Speaker 1: against his. Our ancestor, on his part, betrayed no disinclination
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Speaker 1: to receive her caresses, but returned them with equal ardor.
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Speaker 1: The old beaver, seeing what was going on, turned his
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Speaker 1: back upon them and suffered them to be as kind
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Speaker 1: to each other as they pleased. At last, turning quickly round,
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Speaker 1: while the maiden, suspecting what was coming, and pretending to
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Speaker 1: be abashed, ran behind her mother, He said, to end
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Speaker 1: this foolery, What say you to marrying my daughter? She
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Speaker 1: is well brought up and is the most industrious girl
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Speaker 1: in the village. She will flap more wall with her
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Speaker 1: tail in a day than any maiden in the nation.
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Speaker 1: She will gnaw down a large tree betwixt the rising
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Speaker 1: of the sun and the coming of the shadows than
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Speaker 1: many a smart beaver of the other sex. As for
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Speaker 1: her wit, try her at the game of the dish
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Speaker 1: and see who gets up master, and for cleanliness, look
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Speaker 1: at her petticoat. Our father answered that he did not
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Speaker 1: doubt that she was industrious and cleanly, able to gnaw
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Speaker 1: down a very large tree, and to use her tale
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Speaker 1: to very good purpose. That he loved her much and
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Speaker 1: wished to make her the mother of his children. And
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Speaker 1: thereupon the bargain was concluded. These two stories, the one
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Speaker 1: taken from Icelandic saga, the other from American Indian tradition,
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Speaker 1: show clearly the oneness which the uncultivated mind believes to
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Speaker 1: exist between the soul of man and the soul of beast.
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Speaker 1: The same sentiments actuate both man and brute, and if
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Speaker 1: their actions are unlike, it is because of the difference
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Speaker 1: in their formation. The soul within is identical, but the
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Speaker 1: external accidents of body are unlike. Among many rude as
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Speaker 1: well as cultivated people, the body is regarded as a
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Speaker 1: mere garment wrapped around the soul. The Buddhist looks upon
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Speaker 1: identity as existing in the soul alone, and the body
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Speaker 1: as no more constituting identicity then the clothes he puts
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Speaker 1: on or takes off. He exists as a spirit for convenience.
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Speaker 1: He vests himself in a body. Sometimes that body is human,
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Speaker 1: sometimes it is bestial. As his soul rises on the
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Speaker 1: spiritual scale, the nobler is the animal form which it tenants.
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Speaker 1: Buddha himself passed through various stages of existence, and one
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Speaker 1: he was a hare, and his soul, being noble, led
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Speaker 1: him to emulate himself in order that he might offer
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Speaker 1: hospitality to Indra, who, in the form of an old man,
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Speaker 1: craved of him food and shelter. The Buddhist regards animals
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Speaker 1: with reverence. An ancestor may be tenanting the body of
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Speaker 1: the ox he is driving, or a descendant may be
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Speaker 1: running at his side, barking and wagging his tail. When
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Speaker 1: he falls into an ecstasy, the soul is leaving his
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Speaker 1: body for a little while. It is laying aside its
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Speaker 1: raiment of flesh and blood and bone, to return to
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Speaker 1: it once more when the trance is over. But this
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Speaker 1: idea is not confined to Buddhists. It is common everywhere.
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Speaker 1: The spirit soul is supposed to be imprisoned in the body.
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Speaker 1: The body is but the lantern through which the spirit shines.
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Speaker 1: The corruptible body is believed to press down the soul,
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Speaker 1: and the soul is unable to attain to perfect happiness
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Speaker 1: till it has shuffled off this earthly coil. Butler regards
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Speaker 1: the members of the body as so many instruments used
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Speaker 1: by the soul for the purpose of seeing, hearing, feeling,
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Speaker 1: et cetera, just as we use telescopes or crutches, and
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Speaker 1: which may be rejected without injury to our individuality. The
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Speaker 1: late mister J. Holloway of the Bank of England, brother
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Speaker 1: to the engraver of that name, related of himself that,
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Speaker 1: being one night in bed and unable to sleep, he
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Speaker 1: had fixed his eyes and thoughts with uncommon intensity on
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Speaker 1: a beautiful star that was shining in at the window,
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Speaker 1: when he suddenly found his spirit released from his body
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Speaker 1: and soaring into space. But instantly seized with anxiety for
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Speaker 1: the anguish of his wife if she discovered his body
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Speaker 1: apparently dead beside her, He returned and re entered it
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Speaker 1: with difficulty. He described that returning as a returning from
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Speaker 1: light into darkness, and that whilst the spirit was free,
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Speaker 1: he was alternately in the light or the dark, according
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Speaker 1: as his thoughts were with his wife or with the star.
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Speaker 1: Popular mythology in most lands regards the soul as oppressed
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Speaker 1: by the body, and its liberation is considered a deliverance
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Speaker 1: from the burden of the flesh. Whether the soul is
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Speaker 1: at all able to act or express itself without a body,
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Speaker 1: any more than a fire is able to make cloth
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Speaker 1: without the apparatus of boiler and machinery, is a question
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Speaker 1: which has not commended itself to the popular mind. But
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Speaker 1: it may be remarked that the Christian religion alone is
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Speaker 1: that which raises the body to a dignity equal to
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Speaker 1: that of the soul, and gives it a hope of
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Speaker 1: ennoblement and resurrection never dreamed of in any mythological system.
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Speaker 1: But the popular creed, in spite of the most emphatic
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Speaker 1: testimony of scripture, is that the soul is in bondage
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Speaker 1: as long as it is united to a body, a
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Speaker 1: creed entirely in accordance with that of Buddhism. If the
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Speaker 1: body be but the cage, as a poet of our
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Speaker 1: own Vaughan Silac Scintillance has been pleased to call it
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Speaker 1: in which dwells the imprisoned soul, it is quite possible
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Speaker 1: for the soul to change its cage. If the body
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Speaker 1: be but a vesture clothing the soul, as the Buddhist asserts,
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Speaker 1: it is not improbable that it may occasionally change its vesture.
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Speaker 1: This is self evident, and thus has arisen the countless
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Speaker 1: tales of transformation and transmigration which are found all over
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Speaker 1: the world. That the same view of the body as
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Speaker 1: a mere clothing of the soul was taken by our
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Speaker 1: Teutonic and Scandinavian ancestors is evident even from the entomology
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Speaker 1: of the words like nam the Kama used to express
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Speaker 1: the soul as body. I have already spoken of the
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Speaker 1: Norse word hammer. I wish now to make some further
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Speaker 1: remarks upon it. Hammer is represented an Anglo saxon by
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Speaker 1: Hama Homa and saxon by Hamo in Old High German
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Speaker 1: by Hamo in Old French by Homa Hama, to which
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Speaker 1: are related the Gothic gahamon ufar, hamon anahamman in Jewishtai Ependeuishtai,
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Speaker 1: and Hamon af haman Epektian Ekdewistai. Thence also the High
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Speaker 1: German hamide and the modern hemdi garment. In composition, we
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Speaker 1: find this word as likhammer in Old Norse, in Old
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Speaker 1: High German licamo, Anglo Saxon likhama in floskamma Old Saxon licamo,
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Speaker 1: modern German leichnam. A body i e. A garment of flesh,
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Speaker 1: precisely as the bodies of birds are called an old
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Speaker 1: Norse fjorhamer in Anglo Saxon fiverroma in Old Saxon feather
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Speaker 1: hamu or feather dresser, and the bodies of wolves are
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Speaker 1: called an old Norse wolfsharmer and seal's bodies and pherous koppohammer.
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Speaker 1: The significance of the old verb a yohamas is now evident.
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Speaker 1: It is to migrate from one body to another, and
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Speaker 1: hamaskipti is a transmigration of the soul. The method of
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Speaker 1: this transmigration consists in simply investing the body with the
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Speaker 1: skin of the animal into which the soul was to migrate.
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Speaker 1: When Loki, the Northern god of Evil, went in quest
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Speaker 1: of the stolen Iden, he borrowed a freya her falcon dress,
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Speaker 1: and at once became, to all intents and purposes a
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Speaker 1: falcon thas he pursued him as he left Thrimhammer, having
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Speaker 1: first taken upon him an eagle's dress, and thereby become
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Speaker 1: an eagle in order to seek Thor's lost hammer. Loki
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Speaker 1: borrowed again of Freya her feather dress, and as he
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Speaker 1: flew away in it, the feathers sounded as they winnowed
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Speaker 1: the breeze. Few hammer don nure. In like manner, Chidon
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Speaker 1: speaks of an evil spirit flying away in feather dress.
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Speaker 1: Yet he mid fieromen fleigenmihat winden on walkney, and of
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Speaker 1: an angel pure parsuegenquam anglopes loden obama fun regiferen un fierhaman,
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Speaker 1: the very expression made use of when speaking of a
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Speaker 1: bird fired on Fierhamen. The soul, in certain cases is
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Speaker 1: able to free itself from the body and to enter
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Speaker 1: that of beast or man. In this form stood the
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Speaker 1: myth in various theological systems. Among the Finns and Laps.
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Speaker 1: It is not uncommon for a magician to fall into
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Speaker 1: a cataleptic condition, and during the period his soul is
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Speaker 1: believed to travel very frequently in bodily form. Having assumed
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Speaker 1: that of any animal most suitable for its purpose, I
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Speaker 1: have given instances in a former chapter. The same doctrine
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Speaker 1: is evident in most cases of lycanthropy. The patient is
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Speaker 1: in a state of trance. His body is watched and
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Speaker 1: it remains motionless, but his soul has migrated into the
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Speaker 1: carcass of a wolf, which it vivifies and in which
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Speaker 1: it runs its course. A curious Basque story shows that
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Speaker 1: among the strange Tyrannian people, cut off by such a
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Speaker 1: flood of Aryan nations from any other members of its family,
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Speaker 1: the same superstition remains. A huntsman was once engaged in
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Speaker 1: the chase of a bear among the Pyrenean peaks when
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Speaker 1: bruin turned suddenly on him and hugged him to death,
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Speaker 1: but not before he had dealt the brute its mortal wound.
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Speaker 1: As the huntsman expired, he breathed his soul into the
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Speaker 1: body of the bear, and thenceforward ranged the mountains as
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Speaker 1: a beast. One of the tales of the Sanskrit Book
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Speaker 1: of Fables, the pants Chatantra, affords such a remarkable testimony
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Speaker 1: to the Indian belief in Madame san Kosis that I
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Speaker 1: am tempted to give it an abstract. A king was
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Speaker 1: one day passing through the market place of his city
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Speaker 1: when he observed a hunchbacked merry andrew, whose contortions in
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Speaker 1: jokes kept the bystander in a roar of laughter. Amused
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Speaker 1: with the fellow, the king brought him to his palace.
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Speaker 1: Shortly after, in the hearing of the clown, a neck
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Speaker 1: romancer taught the monarch the art of sending his soul
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Speaker 1: into a body not his own. Some little while after this,
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Speaker 1: the monarch, anxious to put in practice his newly acquired knowledge,
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Speaker 1: rode into the forest, accompanied by the fool, who he
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Speaker 1: believed had not heard or at all events comprehended the lesson.
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Speaker 1: They came upon the corpse of a Bramin lying in
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Speaker 1: the depth of the jungle, where he had died of thirst.
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Speaker 1: The king, leaving his horse, performed the requisite ceremony, and
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Speaker 1: instantly his soul had migrated into the body of the Brahmin,
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Speaker 1: and his own lay as dead upon the ground. At
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Speaker 1: the same moment, however, the hunchback deserted his body and
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Speaker 1: possessed himself of that which had been the king's, and,
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Speaker 1: shouting farewell to the dismayed monarch, he rode back to
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Speaker 1: the palace, where he was received with royal honors. But
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Speaker 1: it was not long before for the Queen and one
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Speaker 1: of the ministers discovered that a screw was somewhere loose,
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Speaker 1: and when the Quandam king but now Brahmin, arrived and
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Speaker 1: told his tale, a plot was laid for the recovery
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Speaker 1: of his body. The queen asked her false husband whether
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Speaker 1: it were possible to make her parrot talk, and he,
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Speaker 1: in a moment of vuxorious weakness, promised to make it speak.
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Speaker 1: He laid his body aside and sent his soul into
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Speaker 1: the parrot. Immediately, the true king jumped out of his
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Speaker 1: Brahmin body and resumed that which was legitimately his own,
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Speaker 1: and then proceeded with the queen to wring the neck
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Speaker 1: of the parrot. But besides the doctrine of madame psychosis,
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Speaker 1: which proved such a fertile mother of fable, there was
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Speaker 1: another article of popular mythology which gave rise to stories
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Speaker 1: of transformation. Among the abundant superstitions existing relative to transformation,
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Speaker 1: three shapes seemed to have been preeminently affected. That of
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Speaker 1: the swan, that of the wolf, and that of the serpent.
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Speaker 1: In many of the stories of those transformed, it is
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Speaker 1: evident that the individual who changes shape is regarded with
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Speaker 1: superstitious reverence as a being of a higher order of
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Speaker 1: a divine nature. In Christian countries, everything relating to Heathen
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Speaker 1: mythology was regarded with a suspicious eye by the clergy,
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Speaker 1: and any miraculous powers not sanctioned by the Church were
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Speaker 1: attributed to the evil one. The Heathen gods became devils,
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Speaker 1: and the marvels related of them were supposed to be
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Speaker 1: effected by diabolic agency. A case of transformation, which had
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Speaker 1: shown the power of an ancient god, was, in Christian
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Speaker 1: times considered as an instance of witchcraft. Thus stories of
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Speaker 1: transformation fell into bad odor, and those who changed shapes
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Speaker 1: were no longer regarded as heavenly beings commanding reverence, but
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Speaker 1: as miserable witches, deserving the stake in the infancy of
20:54
Speaker 1: the world. When natural phenomena were ill understood, expressions which
20:59
Speaker 1: to us are poetic were of a real significance. When
21:03
Speaker 1: we speak of thunder rolling, we use an expression which
21:06
Speaker 1: conveys no further idea than a certain likeness observed between
21:10
Speaker 1: the detonations and the roll of a vehicle. But to
21:13
Speaker 1: the uninstructed mind, it was more the primeval savage knew
21:17
Speaker 1: not what caused thunder, and tracing the resemblance between it
21:21
Speaker 1: and the sound of wheels, he at once concluded that
21:24
Speaker 1: the chariots of the gods were going abroad, or that
21:26
Speaker 1: the celestial spirits were enjoying a game of bowls. We
21:30
Speaker 1: speak of fleecy clouds because they appear to us soft
21:34
Speaker 1: and light as wool. But the first men, tracing the
21:37
Speaker 1: same resemblance, believed the light vapors to be flocks of
21:40
Speaker 1: heavenly sheep. Or we may say that clouds are flying.
21:44
Speaker 1: The savage used the same expression as he looked up
21:48
Speaker 1: at the mackerel sky and saw in it flights of
21:51
Speaker 1: swans coursing over the heavenly lake. Once More, we creep
21:55
Speaker 1: nearer to the winter fire, shivering at the wind, which
21:58
Speaker 1: we remark as howling around the house. And yet we
22:01
Speaker 1: do not suppose that the wind has a voice. The
22:05
Speaker 1: wild primeval men thought that it had, And because dogs
22:08
Speaker 1: and wolves howl and the wind howled. Because they had
22:11
Speaker 1: seen dogs and wolves, they concluded that the storm wind
22:15
Speaker 1: was a night bound or a monstrous wolf, racing over
22:18
Speaker 1: the country in the darkness of the winter night, ravening
22:21
Speaker 1: for prey. Along with the rise of this system of
22:24
Speaker 1: explaining the operations of nature by analogies in the bestial world.
22:29
Speaker 1: Another conclusion forced itself on the untaught mind. The flocks
22:33
Speaker 1: which strayed in heaven were no earthly sheep, but were
22:37
Speaker 1: the property of spiritual beings, and were themselves perhaps spiritual.
22:42
Speaker 1: The swans which flew aloft far above the topmost peak
22:45
Speaker 1: of the Himalaya were no ordinary swans, but were divine
22:49
Speaker 1: and heavenly. The wolf which howled so wildly in the
22:52
Speaker 1: long winter night, the hounds whose bay sounded so dismally
22:56
Speaker 1: through the shaking black forest, were no mundane wolf and hounds,
23:01
Speaker 1: but issued from the home of the divine hunter, and
23:04
Speaker 1: were themselves wondrous, supernatural beings of godlike race. And so
23:09
Speaker 1: the clouds having become swans, the swan clouds were next
23:13
Speaker 1: believed to be divine beings valkyries, apsaras and the like,
23:18
Speaker 1: seen by mortals in their feather dresses, but appearing among
23:21
Speaker 1: the gods as damsels. The storm wind, having been supposed
23:25
Speaker 1: to be a wolf, next was taken to be a
23:28
Speaker 1: tempestuous god who delighted to hunt on earth and lupine form.
23:33
Speaker 1: I have mentioned also the serpent shape as being one
23:36
Speaker 1: very favorite in mythology. The ancient people saw the forked
23:41
Speaker 1: and writhing lightning, and supposed it to be a heavenly
23:44
Speaker 1: fiery serpent, a serpent which had godlike powers, which was
23:49
Speaker 1: in fact a divine being manifesting himself to mortals under
23:53
Speaker 1: that form. Among the North American Indians, the lightning is
23:57
Speaker 1: still regarded as the Great Serpent, and the thunder is
24:00
Speaker 1: supposed to be his hissing ah, exclaimed a Magdenburg peasant
24:05
Speaker 1: to a German professor during a thunderstorm, as a vivid,
24:09
Speaker 1: forked gleam shot to the earth. What a glorious snake
24:13
Speaker 1: was that? And this resemblance did not escape the Greeks.
24:17
Speaker 1: Helques de Comteussi Strepez sapidoi Eschelles Prometheus bound. One thousand
24:25
Speaker 1: and sixty four Dracuta personoton hos apliton empilichtos hele capruz
24:33
Speaker 1: Ketannon Euripides Heracles f. Three hundred ninety five. And according
24:40
Speaker 1: to Aristotle, helichie are the lightnings gramuay dos Heromanoi. It
24:47
Speaker 1: is so difficult for us to unlearn all we know
24:50
Speaker 1: of the nature of meteorological phenomena, so hard for us
24:54
Speaker 1: to look upon atmospheric changes as though we knew nothing
24:57
Speaker 1: of the laws that govern them, that we we are
25:00
Speaker 1: disposed to treat such explanations of popular myths as I
25:03
Speaker 1: have given above as fantastic and improbable. But among the
25:08
Speaker 1: ancients all solutions of natural problems were tentative. And it
25:12
Speaker 1: is only after the failure of every attempt made to
25:15
Speaker 1: exclaim these phenomena on supernatural grounds, that we have been
25:19
Speaker 1: driven to the discovery of the true interpretation. Yet among
25:23
Speaker 1: the vulgar a vast amount of mythology remains, and is
25:27
Speaker 1: used still to explain atmospheric mysteries. The other day, a
25:32
Speaker 1: Yorkshire girl, when asked why she was not afraid of thunder,
25:35
Speaker 1: replied because it was only her father's voice. What knew
25:39
Speaker 1: she of the rushing together of air to fill the
25:41
Speaker 1: vacuum caused by the transit of the electric fluid. To her,
25:46
Speaker 1: the thunderclap was the utterance of the almighty. Still in
25:49
Speaker 1: North Germany does the peasant say of thunder that the
25:53
Speaker 1: angels are playing skittles aloft, and of the snow that
25:57
Speaker 1: they are shaking up the feather beds in heaven. The
26:00
Speaker 1: myth of the dragon is one which admits, perhaps more
26:03
Speaker 1: than any other, of identification with a meteorological phenomenon and
26:08
Speaker 1: presents to us as well the phase of transition from
26:11
Speaker 1: theriomorphous to anthropomorphus. The dragon of popular mythology is nothing
26:17
Speaker 1: else than the thunder storm rising at the horizon, rushing
26:21
Speaker 1: with expanded winnowing black pennons across the sky, darting out
26:26
Speaker 1: its forked, fiery tongue, and belching fire. In a Slovakian legend,
26:31
Speaker 1: the dragon sleeps in a mountain cave through the winter months,
26:35
Speaker 1: but at the equinox bursts forth, and in a moment,
26:38
Speaker 1: the heaven was darkened and became black as pitch, only
26:42
Speaker 1: illumined by the fire which flashed from the dragon's jaws
26:44
Speaker 1: and eyes. The earth shuddered, the stones rattled down the
26:48
Speaker 1: mountain sides into the glens right and left. Left and
26:52
Speaker 1: right did the dragon lash his tail overthrowing pines and beeches,
26:57
Speaker 1: snapping them as rods. He evacuate such floods of water
27:01
Speaker 1: that the mountain torrents were full. But after a while
27:04
Speaker 1: his power was exhausted. He lashed no more with his tail,
27:08
Speaker 1: ejected no more water, and spat no more fire. I
27:12
Speaker 1: think it is impossible not to see in this description
27:15
Speaker 1: a spring tide thunder storm. But to make it more
27:18
Speaker 1: evident that the untaught mind did regard such a storm
27:21
Speaker 1: as a dragon, I think the following quotation from John
27:26
Speaker 1: of Brompton's chronicle will convince the most skeptical. Another remarkable
27:31
Speaker 1: thing is this that took place during a certain month
27:34
Speaker 1: in the Gulf of Citalia, on the coast of Pamphylia.
27:38
Speaker 1: There appeared a great and black dragon, which came in
27:40
Speaker 1: clouds and let down his head into the water, whilst
27:44
Speaker 1: his tail seemed turned to the sky. And the dragon
27:47
Speaker 1: drew the water to him by drinking with such avidity
27:50
Speaker 1: that if any ship, even though laden with men, or
27:53
Speaker 1: any other heavyoticles, had been near him when drinking, it
27:56
Speaker 1: would nevertheless have been sucked up and carried on high.
28:00
Speaker 1: In order, however, to avoid this danger, it is necessary,
28:04
Speaker 1: when people see it at once, to make a great
28:06
Speaker 1: uproar and to shout in hammer tables, so that the dragon,
28:10
Speaker 1: hearing the noise and the voices of those shouting, may
28:13
Speaker 1: withdraw himself far off. Some people, however, assert that this
28:17
Speaker 1: is not a dragon, but the sun drawing up the
28:20
Speaker 1: waters of the sea, which seems more probable. Such is
28:24
Speaker 1: John of Brompton's account of a water spout. In Greek mythology,
28:28
Speaker 1: the dragon of the storm has begun to undergo Anthropomorphis.
28:33
Speaker 1: Typhos is the sun of Tartarus and Terra. The storm
28:36
Speaker 1: rising from the horizon may well be supposed to issue
28:39
Speaker 1: from the Earth's womb, and its characteristics are sufficient to
28:43
Speaker 1: decide its paternity. Typhus, the whirlwind or typhoon, has a
28:48
Speaker 1: hundred dragon or serpent heads the long writhing strae of vapor,
28:53
Speaker 1: which runs before the hurricane cloud. He belches fire, that is,
28:57
Speaker 1: lightnings issue from the clouds, and his roaring is like
29:00
Speaker 1: the howling of wild dogs. Typhus ascends to heaven to
29:04
Speaker 1: make war on the gods who fly from him in
29:07
Speaker 1: various fantastic shapes, who cannot see in this ascent the
29:11
Speaker 1: hurricane climbing up the vault of sky, and in the
29:14
Speaker 1: flying gods the many fleeting fragments of white cloud which
29:17
Speaker 1: are seen drifting across the heavens before the gale. Typhus,
29:21
Speaker 1: according to Hesiod, is the father of all bad winds,
29:24
Speaker 1: which destroy with rain and tempest, all in fact, which
29:28
Speaker 1: went among the Greeks by the name of Lilips, bringing
29:32
Speaker 1: injury to the agriculturist and peril to the voyager egditi
29:37
Speaker 1: poios promenoi hegron ipton nosphiotubareote cai arguestio supiute huigimin in
29:48
Speaker 1: intopin guinea turnetois migranea hidalai mepsaura apipneusi talasan hydettoi piptusai
30:00
Speaker 1: it's araway dia ponton pima mega tinetoyisi cacuare tiusine a
30:07
Speaker 1: ele alote de laie ayeesi diaskidnasi teneas nautos tipteusi cacou
30:17
Speaker 1: dou gagnetai al kay andrasine bocanisi sinan toontai kata ponton
30:25
Speaker 1: i daochai cata gaeon apediton antemoya son eegereta pteedusi camaigeneon
30:34
Speaker 1: anthropon pimpleiusai coneos te chai agileu colosirtu hesiod. Theogony eight
30:44
Speaker 1: hundred seventy In both Greek and Lithuanian household mythology, the
30:50
Speaker 1: dragon or drake has become an ogre, a gigantic man
30:54
Speaker 1: with few of the Dragontine attributes remaining. Von Hahn. In
30:58
Speaker 1: his grechik und Albinesseic Mochen tells many tales of Drake's
31:04
Speaker 1: and in all the old characteristics have been lost, and
31:07
Speaker 1: the Drake is simply a gigantic man with magical and
31:09
Speaker 1: superhuman powers. It is the same among the Lithuanian peasantry.
31:14
Speaker 1: A dragon walks on two legs, talks, flirts with the lady,
31:18
Speaker 1: and marries her. He retains his evil disposition, but has
31:21
Speaker 1: sloughed off his scales and wings. Such is the change
31:25
Speaker 1: which has taken place in the popular conception of the dragon,
31:29
Speaker 1: which is the impersification of the thunder storm. A similar
31:32
Speaker 1: change has taken place in the swan, maiden and werewolf myths.
31:37
Speaker 1: In ancient Indian Daeic mythology, the apsires were heavenly damsels
31:42
Speaker 1: who dwelt in the ether between Earth and Sun. Their name,
31:46
Speaker 1: which signifies the shapeless, are those who go in the water.
31:49
Speaker 1: It is uncertain which is the correct derivation. Is expressive
31:53
Speaker 1: of the white cirrus, constantly changing form and apparently floating
31:57
Speaker 1: swanlike on the blue heaven sea. These apsiris, according to
32:02
Speaker 1: the Vidaic Creed, were fond of changing their shapes appearing
32:06
Speaker 1: generally as ducks or swans, occasionally as human beings. The
32:10
Speaker 1: souls of heroes were given to them for lovers and husbands.
32:14
Speaker 1: One of the most graceful of the Earli and Indian
32:17
Speaker 1: myths is the story of the Absaras or Vasi. Or
32:21
Speaker 1: Vasi loved Peravarus and became his wife on the condition
32:25
Speaker 1: that she was never to behold him in a state
32:27
Speaker 1: of nudity. They remained together for years till the heavenly
32:31
Speaker 1: companions of Hervasi determined to secure her return to them.
32:35
Speaker 1: They accordingly beguiled Peravarus into leaving his bed in the
32:39
Speaker 1: darkness of night, and then with a lightning flash, they
32:42
Speaker 1: disclosed him in his nudity to his wife, who was
32:46
Speaker 1: thereupon constrained to leave him. He pursued her, full of
32:49
Speaker 1: sorrow at his loss, and found her at length swimming
32:53
Speaker 1: in a large lotus pond and swan's shape. That this
32:57
Speaker 1: story is not a mere invention, but rests on mythological
33:00
Speaker 1: explanation of natural phenomena, I think more than probable, as
33:05
Speaker 1: it is found all over the world with few variations,
33:08
Speaker 1: as every Aryan branch retains the story. Are traces of
33:12
Speaker 1: it there can be no doubt that the belief in
33:14
Speaker 1: swan maidens who swam in the heavenly sea, and who
33:18
Speaker 1: sometimes became the wives of those fortunate men who managed
33:22
Speaker 1: to steal from them their feather dresses formed an integral
33:25
Speaker 1: portion of the old mythological system of the Aryan family
33:29
Speaker 1: before it was broken up into Indian, Persian, Greek, Latin, Russian, Scandinavian,
33:36
Speaker 1: Teutonic and other races. But more as the same myth
33:41
Speaker 1: is found in tribes not Aryan and five removed from
33:44
Speaker 1: contact with European or Indian superstition, as for instance, among
33:49
Speaker 1: Samoyids and American Indians, it is even possible that this
33:52
Speaker 1: story may be a tradition of the first primeval stock
33:56
Speaker 1: of men. But it is time for me to leave
33:58
Speaker 1: the summer cirus and turn to the tempest born rain cloud.
34:02
Speaker 1: It is represented in ancient Indian mythology by the verbtra
34:07
Speaker 1: or rakshasis. At first, the form of these demons was
34:10
Speaker 1: uncertain and obscure. Vervirita is often used as an a
34:14
Speaker 1: palliative for a cloud, and Caphanda, an old name for
34:18
Speaker 1: a rain cloud, in later times, became the name of
34:21
Speaker 1: a devil of Verviricha who envelops the mountain with vapor.
34:26
Speaker 1: It is said the darkness stood retaining the water. The
34:29
Speaker 1: mountains lay in the belly of Vertra. By decrees, Vertra
34:34
Speaker 1: stood out more prominently as a demon, and he is
34:37
Speaker 1: described as a devourer of gigantic proportions. In the same
34:42
Speaker 1: way rakshasis obtained corporeal form and individuality. He is a
34:48
Speaker 1: misshapen giant like to a cloud, with a red beard
34:51
Speaker 1: and red hair, with pointed, protruding teeth, ready to lacerate
34:56
Speaker 1: and devour human flesh. His body is covered with co
35:00
Speaker 1: bristling hair. His huge mouth is open. He looks from
35:04
Speaker 1: side to side as he walks, lusting after the flesh
35:07
Speaker 1: and blood of men to satisfy his raging hunger and
35:11
Speaker 1: quench his consuming thirst. Towards nightfall, his strength increases manifold.
35:17
Speaker 1: He can change his shape at will. He haunts the
35:19
Speaker 1: woods and roams howling through the jungle. In short, he
35:24
Speaker 1: is to the Hindoo what the werewolf is to the European.
35:28
Speaker 1: A certain wood was haunted by Rakshassa. He one day
35:31
Speaker 1: came across a Brahmin and with a bound reached his
35:35
Speaker 1: shoulders and clung to him, exclaiming, hey, go on with you.
35:38
Speaker 1: And the Brahmin, quaking with fear, advanced with him. But
35:43
Speaker 1: when he observed that the feet of the Rakshassas were
35:46
Speaker 1: as delicate as the stamens of the lotus, he asked him,
35:49
Speaker 1: how is it that you have such weak and slender feet.
35:53
Speaker 1: The Rakshassa replied, I never walk nor touch the earth
35:56
Speaker 1: with my feet. I have made a vow not to
35:58
Speaker 1: do so. Presently they came to a large pond. Then
36:03
Speaker 1: the Rakshasha bade the Brahmin wait at the edge whilst
36:06
Speaker 1: he bathed and prayed to the gods. But the Brahmin thought,
36:10
Speaker 1: as soon as these prayers and abolutions are over, he
36:13
Speaker 1: will tear me to pieces with his fangs and eat me.
36:16
Speaker 1: He has vowed not to walk, I will be off
36:18
Speaker 1: post haste. So he ran away, and the Rakshasha dared
36:23
Speaker 1: not follow him for fear of breaking his vow. Pats Shitantra,
36:28
Speaker 1: volume thirteen. There is a similar story in the mahab
36:32
Speaker 1: Harata thirteen and in the Katha Saat Sagara volume forty
36:37
Speaker 1: nine through fifty three. I have said sufficient to show
36:40
Speaker 1: that natural phenomena gave rise to mythological stories, and that
36:45
Speaker 1: these stories have gradually deteriorated and have degraded into vulgar superstitions.
36:51
Speaker 1: And I have shown that both the doctrine of madame
36:53
Speaker 1: psychosis and the mythological explanations of meteorological changes have given
36:59
Speaker 1: rise to abundant fable and, among others, to the popular
37:03
Speaker 1: and widespread superstition of lycanthropy. I shall now pass from
37:07
Speaker 1: myth to history, and shall give instances of bloodthirstiness, cruelty,
37:12
Speaker 1: and cannibalism. End of Chapter ten