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

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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 trees— the 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.

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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

towards the under-world. From beneath each root springs a sacred fountain, the Urdhrbrunnr, the Mimirbrunnr, and the Hvergelmir. The first has its name from Urdhr, the Norn or Fate, and beside it the gods and the Norns had their judgment-seat. Every morning the Norns draw water from their fountain and pour it on the branches of the ash; it falls from them into the valleys as honey-dew, and the bees feed upon it. The precious water in the second fountain-Mimir's-is so charged with wisdom and understanding, that only for one draught of it Odin pledged his eye, and laid it as a pawn in the well. An eagle sits on the tree, and a hawk between the eagle's eyes. Four stags roam about the forestlike ash. Through the branches and the roots creep many serpents, chief among which is Nidhöggr. That deadly serpent or dragon lies in Hvergelmir, the infernal fountain, and gnaws at the roots; whilst the squirrel Ratatöskr runs up and down, and tries to stir up strife between Nidhöggr and the eagle. The water of Mimir's well is mead; that of the Urdhrbrunnr falls as honey-dew from the ash; honey is the chief ingredient in mead, and a main one in soma. Soma, mead, and honey are mythically one; and each and all of them are identical with the precious rain that drops from the cloud-tree, and

THE WORLD-TREE OF THE GREEKS.

*

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fills the fountains or lakes in which its roots are

dipped.

Yggdrasil, this cloud-tree of the Norseman, was an ash (Norse, askr), the tree out of which the gods formed the first man,† who was thence called Askr. The ash was also among the Greeks an image of the clouds, and the mother of men.

Phoroneus (p. 83), in whom in the Peloponnesian legend recognised the fire-bringer and the first man, was the son of the river-god Inachos and the nymph Melia, i. e., the ash. There were many Grecian nymphs of this name, and all of them were daughters either of Oceanos or of Poseidon, sea-gods whose domain was originally the cloud-sea, and whose daughters, one and all, were originally cloud-goddesses. One of these Melian nymphs was carried off by the summer-god Apollo, who killed her brother Kaanthos with his arrows, when the latter, failing to recover his sister, set fire to the sacred grove of the ravisher. The tomb of Kaanthos was to be seen near the fountain of Ismenios, sacred to Ares, who placed a dragon there to keep guard over it. Now,

*The fountain of the Norns is called a lake in the Völuspa; on the other hand, the water in which the white haoma grows is sometimes called the well Ardvisura.

+ D. M. p. 527.