[478] Indras, as a warlike god, does not know fear, or rather, he kills fear (the hymn says, "Aher yâtâraṁ kam apaçya indra hṛidi yat te ǵaghnuso bhîr agaććhat"; _Ṛigv._ i. 32, 14), and lets himself be terrified by a trifle, which may be either a nightly shadow (the dark man of fairy tales), or the terror caused to him by some fish (the moon) which leaps upon him in the waters which he himself has set free.--In the twenty-second of the Tuscan stories published by me, the young hero who passed through all the dangers of hell without being afraid, dies at the sight of his own shadow. (We have also referred to this when treating of the dog and the lion who meet with their death, allured by their own shadow.)--In the forty-sixth story of the fifth book of _Afanassieff_, the merchant's son, who did not know fear, who feared neither darkness nor brigands nor death, is terrified and dies when he falls into the water, because the little perch entered into his bosom whilst he was sleeping in his fishing-boat.--It is also easy to pass from the idea of Indras, who inebriates himself in the _soma_ to that of the fish, when we consider that the Hindoo word _matsyas_, the fish, properly means the inebriated, from the root _mad_, to inebriate and to make cheerful.
[479] Açnâpinaddham madhu pary apaçyam matsyaṁ na dîna udani kshiyantam; _Ṛigv._ x. 68, 8.
[481] _Mbh._ i. 5078-5086.--In another variety of the same myth, the semen of the wise Bharadvâǵas comes out at the sight of a nymph; the sage receives it in a cup, out of which comes Droṇas, the armourer and archer _par excellence_; i. 5103-5106.
[484] Cfr. Böhtlingk, _Indische Sprüche_, i. 59.
[485] Revad uvâha saćano ratho vâṁ vṛishabhaç ça çiṅçumâraç ća yuktâ.
[486] Our readers will not be astonished at seeing the dolphin, the whale, and the sea-urchin classed here with fishes. We are not treating of natural history according to the classifications of science, but of the gross classifications made by impressionable popular imaginations. Thus, amongst the animals of the water we shall find the serpent described, although it be amphibious, because popular belief makes the dragon watch over the waters.
[487] The pike becomes in spring of an azure or bluish or greenish-blue colour; hence the name of _golubbi_--_però_ (that is, of the azure or bluish fins; in German, the bluish colour is called _echt-grau_--that is, grey of pike; in the nineteenth of the Russian stories of _Erlenwein_, golden fins are ascribed to the pike), which is also given to it in Russia. _Golub_, or brown, violet and azure, is a name given in Russia to the dove; so in Italy we say, that the dove is _pavonazzo_ (properly the colour of the peacock, which is generally blue and green). But in Sanskṛit, amongst the names of the peacock there is that of _haris_, a word which represents both the moon and the sun. By the same analogy, the bluish or greenish pike may represent the moon. But another analogy, caused by a similar conception, is found again in the word _çyâmas_, which means black, azure, and also silvery; whence it serves to represent the _convolvolus argenteus_ (we must remember that the Latin name of the pike is _lucius_; the Greek, _lükios_--that is, the luminous one). The pike takes the colour of the water in which it lives, and the waters are dark, black, azure, greenish, silvery; as being azure, or greenish, or silvery, the pike represents the moon; as being dark, the tenebrific night, the cloud, the wintry season.--In the thirty-second story of the fourth book of _Afanassieff_, the little perch relates that the pike was once luminous (that is, in spring), and that it became black after the conflagration which took place in the Lake of Rastoff from the day of St Peter (June 29) to the day of St Elias (July 20), or in the beginning of summer. As we learn in the _Pseudo-Callisthenes_, near the black stone, which makes black whoever touches it, there are fishes which are cooked in cold water, and not at the fire, I recollect here also that the _Hecht-könig_, or king of pikes, is described as yellow and black-spotted.