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While the mouse is the night, according to M. de Gubernatis, in Grohmann's opinion the mouse is the lightning. He argues that the lightning was originally regarded by the Aryan race as the 'flashing tooth of a beast, especially of a mouse. Afterwards men came to identify the beast with his teeth, and, behold, the lightning and the mouse are convertible mythical terms!
And De Gubernatis, pointing out the phallic meaning of these stories, says "the legends concerning the tree of golden apples or figs which yields honey or ambrosia, guarded by dragons, in which the life, the fortune, the glory, the strength and the riches of the hero have their beginning, are numerous among every people of Aryan origin: in India, Persia, Russia, Poland, Sweden, Germany, Greece and Italy."
The names of Kuhn, Weber, Sonne, Benfey, Grimm, Schwartz, Hanusch, Maury, Bréal, Pictet, l'Ascoli, De Gubernatis, and many others, are well known for their marvellous discoveries in this new and arduous field.
He binds himself to one of the feet of a rukh, i.e. condor, or bearded vulture. In another adventure he attaches himself to the carcass of a slaughtered animal, and is borne aloft by a vulture. Compare also Gubernatis, Zool. Myth, ii, 94. The fabulous anka was banished as punishment for carrying off a bride.
"Natural History and Antiquities of Surrey," ii. 34. Kelly's "Indo-European Folk-lore," p. 176; Grimm's "Teutonic Mythology," 1884, chap, xxxii.; Gubernatis' "Zoological Mythology," ii. 266-7. See Albertus Magnus, "De Mirab. Mundi," 1601, p. 225. Gubernatis' "Zoological Mythology," ii. 230. "Myths and Mythmakers," p. 58. See Baring-Gould's "Curious Myths of the Middle Ages," 1877, pp. 386-416.
Miss Busk gives a free adaptation rather than a translation of the German version, "Sagas," p. 315. Prof. De Gubernatis, "Zool. Von Hahn, vol. ii. p. 225; "Tour du Monde," vol. xxi. p. 342, quoted by Liebrecht, p. 105. "Panjab N. and Q." vol. iii. pp. 41, 115; "Journal Ethnol. Soc. London," N. S., vol. i. p. 98. The information relating to the Bona Dea has been collected by Preller, "Röm.
This, too, it may be added, is the case in other countries as well as our own. Furthermore, as M. de Gubernatis observes, "there exist a great number of books which pretend to explain the language of flowers, wherein one may occasionally find a popular or traditional symbol; but, as a rule, these expressions are generally the wild fancies of the author himself."
While some scholars, like De Gubernatis, seek an explanation in supposed myths about clouds and stars, it is enough for our purpose to observe that herbs really have medicinal properties, and that untutored people invariably confound medicine with magic. A plant or root is thought to possess virtue, not only when swallowed in powder or decoction, but when carried in the hand. St.
Professor Gubernatis, referring to the symbolical nature of this tradition, remarks that, "this herb may be the moon itself, which opens the hiding-place of the night, or the thunderbolt, which opens the hiding-places of the cloud."
There are some subterranean vaults, through which the water was conducted to this bath, still extant in the garden of the count de Gubernatis.
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