DWARFS AND PITRIS.

135

Neuhof, where each of them was to drop his toll into a vessel placed for that purpose, but no human inhabitant of the land was to be present. Some inquisitive persons, however, stationed themselves under the bridge, and heard the light tramp of their feet for hours, as if a flock of sheep were passing over.* Grimm has compared this with the words of the keeper of the Gjallar bridge to Hermôdr, when he went down to Niflheimr to see if he could bring back Baldr from the dead: "My bridge sounds more under you alone than under five troops of dead men that rode over it yesterday." In the passage over the river by bridge or ferry Grimm sees a very clear proof of the relationship between this class of elves and the souls of men. Other facts confirm the same view. Some of the many names by which the Zwergs are known in North Germany mean the "ancients" or the "ancestors," and mark the analogy between the beings so designated and the Hindu Pitris or Fathers (p. 19); whilst other names—Holden (i. e., good, kind) in Germany; good people, good neighbours, in Ireland and Scotland—

* D. M. p. 794.

+ Uellerken, ülleken, ölken, aulken, alken, ôlken. Kuhn und Schwartz, Ndd. p. 485. In East Friesland and Westphalia, countries in which these names are current, old burial mounds are called Aulkengräben, and the urns found in them are called ôlken-pött.

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ELVES AND MANES.

connect the same elves with the Manes of the Romans.*

We shall meet again with the spirits of the dead when we come to speak of the Wild Hunt and the Furious Host.

* Kuhn, Ndd. p. 485.

The meaning of the obsolete adjective manis (of which manes is the plural, as holden is of hold) is seen in its opposite immanis.

CHAPTER V.

THE DRINK OF THE GODS-THE UNIVERSE A TREE-THE ASH-THE BIRTH OF MAN FROM TREES CREEPING THROUGH HOLES IN TREES, ROCKS, &c.

THE primeval drink of immortality is called soma by the Hindus and haoma by the Zend branch of the Aryans. These names are identical; the plants which yield the juices so called are different, but resemble each other in both having knotty stems. The haoma plant grows like the vine, but its leaves are like those of the jessamine; the Indian soma is now extracted from the Asclepias acida. The Iranians, or West Aryans, describe two kinds of haoma, the white and the yellow. The former is a fabulous plant, believed to be the same as the gaokerena of the Zendavesta; the latter, which is used in religious rites, and is extolled for its yellow colour, as soma is in India, grows on mountains, and was known to Plutarch. The Parsees of India send one of their priests from time to time to Kirmân to procure supplies of the plant for sacred uses. The

138

THE IRANIAN WORLD-TREE.

The

fabulous white haoma, or gaokerena, grows in heaven, near another tree called the "impassive" or "inviolable," which bears the seeds of every kind of vegetable life. Both grow in the Vouru Kasha lake, in which ten fish keep incessant watch upon a lizard,* sent by the evil power Agramainyus (Ahriman) for the destruction of the haoma. "inviolable" tree is called also the eagle's, or, according to some, the owl's tree. A bird of one kind or the other, but most probably an eagle, sits on its top. When he rises from it, a thousand branches shoot forth; when he perches again, he breaks a thousand branches and makes their seed fall. Another bird, that is constantly beside him, picks them up, and carries them to where Tistar draws water, which he then rains down upon the earth with the seeds it contains. The two treesthe eagle's and the white haoma-appear to have been originally one. The hostile lizard is the serpent or dragon of India, already known to us as the ravisher of the Âpas, and the harvest-spoiler.

Besides the earthly soma the Hindus recognise a heavenly soma or amrita (ambrosia) that drops from

Lest the reader should think disparagingly of the powers of Ahriman's lizard, we may remind him that "alligator" is a corruption of the Spanish el lagarto, the lizard.

HINDOO AND NORSE WORLD-TREES.

139

the imperishable asvattha or peepul (Ficus religiosa), out of which the immortals shaped the heavens and the earth (p. 74). Beneath this mighty tree, which spreads its branches over the third heaven, dwell Yama and the Pitris, and quaff the drink of immortality with the gods. At its foot grow plants of all healing virtue, incorporations of the soma. Two birds sit on its top, one of them eating figs, whilst the other looks on without eating, and others again press out the soma juice from its branches. These details are from the Vedas; later writings have preserved the ancient tradition that the somadropping tree bears fruit and seed of every kind in the world. They call the tree Ilpa, and say it grows in Brahma's world, surrounded by lake Ara, beyond the ageless stream, which renews the youth of those who but behold it, or at least of those who bathe in it (p. 33).

The parallelism between the Indian and the Iranian world-tree on the one hand, and the Ash Yggdrasil on the other, is very striking. The latter extends its branches over the whole world, and they reach higher than heaven; beneath them the gods have their chief and holiest abode. The tree has three roots, one striking upwards to heaven, one towards the home of the frost giants, and one