“The wondrous one-night-seeding Ferne.”

All Hail!

It was once a belief among the English that Midsummer-Eve was the time for gathering the fern-seed which seeded only on this night, hence William Browne in his Britannia's Pastorals, 1613:

“The wondrous one-night-seeding Ferne.”

Why?

It is often said that this was done as it was thought to bestow upon the lucky finder the might to walk unseen, thus William Shakespeare  Henry IV., part 1, sc. 1:.

We have the receipt of fern-seed, we walk invisible.

And Ben Jonson, New Inn:

.. I had

No medicine, sir, to go invisible.

No fern-seed in my pocket.

Further afield we will find it hinted at that fern-seed, or even fern as a whole, might bestow other things to be wished for, beside the might to walk unseen.  Thus John Leyden, The Edinburgh Magazine: Or Literary Miscellany (1798), Volume 11, lf.303.

But on St. John’s mysterious night,

Sacred to many a wizard spell,

The time, when first to human sight

Confest, the mystic fern-seed fell;

Beside the sloe’s black knotted thorn,

What hour the Baptist stern was born –

The hour when heaven’s breath is still.

I’ll seek the shaggy fern-clad hill,

Where Time has delv‘d  a dreary dell,

Befitting best a Hermit’s cell

And watch ‘mid murmurs muttering stern,

The seed disparting from the fern,

Ere wakeful dæmons can convey 

The wonder-working charm away,

And tempt the blows from arm unseen,

Should thoughts unholy intervene.

The well-named W. T. Fernie in his Herbal Simples (1895) lf.186:

  “It was customary to "watch the Fern" on Midsummer eve, when the plant put forth at dusk a blue flower, and a wonderful seed at midnight, which was carefully collected, and known as "wish seed." This gave the power to discover hidden treasures, whilst to drink the sap conferred perpetual youth.”

And the Dutch writer Levinus Lemnius (1505 - 1568) tells us in his Exhortatio ad vitam optime chap.58 set to his four books of Occulta naturae miracula:

“Sic filicem solstitio aestivo, intempesta nocte erutam, rutam trifolium, verbenam Magicis imposturis accomodant.” (lf. 619 of the 1583 edition)

Which was Englished in 1658 thus:

 “They prepare Fern gathered in the Summer Solstice, pulled up in a tempestuous night, Rue, Trifoly, Vervain, against magical impostures." (English Translat. fol. Lond. 1658, p. 392).

And we will find that the Germans have long known of this as well, for in Der jüngere Titurel by Albrecht (von Scharfenberg?) written shortly before 1300, we find in strophe 4221 the half line:

“wünschel-sâme des varmen”

“wish-seed of the fern”.

So that we can at least begin to see that it is is a folk-belief shared by the English, Dutch and the Germans.   And nigh akin to it is that belief to be found in eastern Europe, among the Balts and Slavs where we find talk of the “fern-blossom” which is to be sought on Midsummer-Eve.   Jacob Grimm marks in his Teutonic Mythology (1883) Vol.3, chap. 37, lf. 1211:

“Woycicki [that is, Karol Woycicki Polnische Volkssagen Und Marchen (1839)] 1, 94 also says it blossoms exactly at midnight of St John’s eve, and it is a hard matter to get hold of the flower (kwiat paproci), for the picking is attended by storm and thunder; but whoever gets possession of it becomes rich, and can prophesy.”

And I find that a byword from Lithuania is:

gudri kaip paparčio žiedą suradusi / turinti

- "as clever as someone who has found a fern blossom". 

Before going any further, it will be well here to also mark the following odd bits of lore about ferns.  The first  is to be found in Erasmus’ Ye Pylgremage of pure Devotyon (1551):

“Menedemus:. Perauenture they ymagyne ye symylytude of a tode to be there, euyn as we suppose whan we cutte ye fearne stalke there to be an egle, and euyn as chyldren (whiche they see nat indede) in ye clowdes, thynke they see dragones spyttynge fyre, & hylles flammynge with fyre, & armyd mê encownterynge.”

This is about the common fern, Carl Linnaeus' Pteris Aquilina, thus David Booth An Analytical Dictionary of the English Language (1836):

“It has the specific name Aquilina, because the section of the root, cut obliquely, presents the figure of a spread eagle, Latin Aquila.”

And W. T. Fernie again  (lvs.184 to 185) who reminds us here of the fern's other name of Brake or Bracken:

“Bracken is also named botanically, Pteris aquilina, because the figure which appears in its succulent stem when cut obliquely across at the base, has been thought to resemble a spread eagle; and, therefore, Linnaeus termed the Fern Aquilina. Some call it, for the same reason, "King Charles in the oak tree"; and in Scotland the symbol is said to be an impression of the Devil's foot. Again, witches are reputed to detest this Fern, since it bears on its cut root the Greek letter X, which is the initial of Christos.  In Ireland it is called the Fern of God, because of the belief that if the stem be cut into three sections, on the first of these will be seen the letter G; on the second O; and on the third D.”

But there was also an odd link between burning ferns and rain, thus  Fernie again  (lf. 185) :

“During the Seventeenth Century it was customary to set growing Brakes on fire with the belief that this would produce rain. A like custom of "firing the Bracken" still prevails to-day on the Devonshire moors. By an official letter the Earl of Pembroke admonished the High Sheriff of Stafford to forbear the burning of Ferns during a visit of Charles I., as "His Majesty desired that the country and himself may enjoy fair weather as long as he should remain in those parts."...”.

Nebelkappe …

Now I had long guessed that ferns, from their links to Midsummer, must have had something to do with Thunor or Thur, the Northern Thor, and so on, whose share in the Midsummer holiday was becoming ever harder for me to overlook (see my last post [here]), but still something was missing...    And then by the will of the gods I happened upon Walter Keating Kelly’s Curiosities of Indo-European Tradition and Folk-lore (1863) and in chap. Vii, lf.196 of this book I read:

“No mythical gift can be less ambiguous in its origin than is that of the power of becoming invisible at will. The thing that confers it is always to be understood as pertaining to the mists or clouds.  The poets of Greece and Rome constantly represent the gods as concealing themselves and their attendants from mortal eyes in a cloud. The northern nations turned this cloud into a mantle or cap of darkness, the latter commonly called a mist-cap (nebelkappe)."

For those not familiar with "the poets of Greece and Rome" I give Homer Iliad, Book 20, lines 443 to 444 (awend. A. T. Murray):

… τὸν δ᾽ ἐξήρπαξεν Ἀπόλλων

ῥεῖα μάλ᾽ ὥς τε θεός, ἐκάλυψε δ᾽ ἄρ᾽ ἠέρι πολλῇ.

But Apollo snatched up Hector full easily,

as a god may, and shrouded him in thick mist.

And by "northern nations" Kelly truly means here Germans where the nebelkappe “mist-cap” or “mist-cape” is indeed something to be found in their folklore [here].  But the English also once knew of something akin to it.  For it seems to me that the words of the scop who made “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”  are maybe a little more knowing than they might seem at first:

Vch hille hade a hatte, a myst-hakel huge. 

Each hill had a hat, a mist-cloak huge. 

Hakel, or hackle, being an old word for a cloak.  

But if that is too far fetched, then I would lead the reader toward our old chapbook tales which, although dating from about 1700 at the earliest, are often the first time old folk tales, hithertofore unmarked, made it into print.  And above all I have in mind here the chapbook tale of "Jack the Giant Killler" (the earliest known being The  History  of   Jack  and  the  Giants (1711), now sadly  lost, but printed in J. O. Halliwell, Popular Rhymes and Nursery Tales of  England (London: John Russell Smith, 1849), lvs. 57 -  69 ).  In this Jack wins what is there called an “invisible coat” (the fore-runner of Harry Potter’s “invisibility cloak”?!), and a name which we can well understand today.  But we also find in the same work the much more traditional looking name of  “coat of darkness” for the selfsame thing.  How many readers will overlook it?  How many might stop to consider it an odd way of speaking?  And how many will truly see it for what it is: the English evenling of your German nebelkappe?  And look who wears it: a "Giant Killler"!  And if Jack does not seem much like Thunor to you, then you need to broaden your knowledge, for in Gylfaginning of Thor it is written:

Gekk hann út of Miðgarð svá sem ungr drengr ok kom einn aftan at kveldi til jötuns nökkurs.

He went out over Midgard in the guise of a young lad (ungr drengr), and came one evening at twilight to a certain giant's,...

Here we see "Jack" showing the shortest way to quell ettins. Dig a pit, and when they have fallen in, hit them on the head with your thunder-weapon "pick-axe"!

 
And we can see in all this something also of the sharp wits of our forebears to whom the might to walk unseen was, not to defy any of the laws of physics, but was no more than to be hidden as if by darkness, or a mist, or in a cloud.  Thus Shakespeare:

  “Nay, by my faith, I think you are more beholding to the night than to fern seed for your walking invisible.”

And the German nebelkappe is a word that helps us on our way here alot, for it is literally to say a mist/cloud (nebel) cap/cape (kappe); the German nebel being akin to the Latin nebula and the Greek nephele (νεφέλη).  

And not to leave anything unsaid, if you want to know what a god of thunder might have to do with clouds, Master Adam of Bremen reminds us that the god of thunder was also a god of the weather.  Thus in his Descriptio insularum aquilonis (A description of the northern ilands) put as a fourth book to his Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum and written in about 1000:

'Thor', inquiunt, 'praesidet in aere, qui tonitrus et fulmina, ventos ymbresque, serena et fruges gubernat.

Thor, it is said, rules the air – thunder, lightnings, winds, rain, fair weather, and the fruits (of the earth).

And bearing in mind:

Thor autem cum sceptro Iovem simulare videtur.

...  Thor indeed with a sceptre is seen to be like Jove.

And Jove or Jupiter is the Greeks' Zeus, who we find called in the Iliad 1.511 "νεφεληγερέτα Ζεύς," "cloud (νεφέλη nephele)-gatherer Zeus". And I mark here the Odyssey 9, 67 to 69 (awend. A. T. Murray):

νηυσὶ δ᾽ ἐπῶρσ᾽ ἄνεμον Βορέην νεφεληγερέτα Ζεὺς
λαίλαπι θεσπεσίῃ, σὺν δὲ νεφέεσσι κάλυψε
γαῖαν ὁμοῦ καὶ πόντον: ὀρώρει δ᾽ οὐρανόθεν νύξ.

But against our ships Zeus, the cloud-gatherer, roused the North Wind
with a wondrous tempest, and hid with clouds
the land and the sea alike, and night rushed down from heaven.

“plants of the lightning tribe”

Going back to Kelly’s book then, on lvs. 171 and 191 to 193 we will find him outfolding the fern as belonging to what he calls “plants of the lightning tribe”, that is to say, they have somehow gathered to themselves things that rightly belong either to the lightning or thunder weapon and/or to its "registered owner":

“Germany is inexhaustible in legends of the luckflower and the springwort, before either of which hidden doors and rocks fly open, and give admission to vast treasures concealed in the hearts of mountains. Rock, mountain, and cloud are synonymous in all Indo-European mythologies; the luckflower or keyflower is the lightning that opens the clouds, and the treasures it discloses are that primal wealth of the pastoral Aryan, the rain that refreshes the thirsty earth and the sunshine that comes after the tempest.

*                                *                                     *

  The summer solstice is a favourite season for gathering plants of the lightning tribe, and particularly the springwort and fern. It is believed in the Oberpfalz that the springwort, or St. John's wort (johanniswurzel) as some call it, can only be found among the fern on St. John's night. It is said to be of a yellow colour, and to shine in the night like a candle; which is just what is said of the mandrake in an Anglo-Saxon manuscript of the tenth or eleventh century. Moreover, it never stands still, but hops about continually, to avoid the grasp of men. Here then, in the luminosity and the power of nimble movement attributed to the springwort, we have another remarkable tradition signifying the transformation of the lightning into the plant. It is also a highly significant fact that the marvellous root is said to be connected with fern; for the johnsroot, or John's hand, is the root of a species of fern (Polypodium Filix mas, Lin.) which is applied to many superstitious uses. …

As to another large fern (Pteris aquilina), eagle fern, a wide-spread belief prevails, that its cut stalk presents the figure of an eagle, some say a double headed eagle; and, in fact, such a figure may generally be made out with more or less distinctness in the section. The plant itself, with its two great feathered fronds, has the look of a bird with its wings spread; and, as if to confirm the likeness, the young shoots, just rising out of the ground with their downy covering, may be aptly compared to unfledged nestlings. Pteris, the Greek name of this fern, is an old feminine form of pteron, a wing, and it seems to have been given to the plant with reference to more than its general appearance. The scholiast on Theocritus says that this fern was used for rustic beds, not only for its softness, but also because its smell drove away serpents. …

The luck-bringing power of the fern is not confined to one species, but belongs to the tribe in general. It resides in the fullest perfection in the seed, the possessor of which may wish what he will, and the devil must bring it him.”

As well as the scholiast of Theocritus, the misliking of snakes for ferns is also to be found in Pliny’s Natural History Book 28, chap. 55 or §80 (“folia …serpentem non recipient”), as also the belief that the smell of burning fern drives snakes away (“usta etiam fugant nidore”).  Though I should think that the flames were a more likely cause of this.  Yet, this aside, it is wonderful to me to see how little of our later lore is in Pliny's work.  So whilst the Greeks and Romans knew something of it too, it is nevertheless clear that a good deal of our lore about ferns didn’t come northward from Greece and Rome. And here we should add a few things from what Jacob Grimm marks about the fern in his Teutonic Mythology (1883)  Vol.3, chap. 37,  lf. 1209  which should not be overlooked:

“Hildegard’s Phys. [that is, Hildegard von Bingen’s Physica] 2, 91 : ‘in loco illo ubi crescit, diabolus illusiones suas raro exercet; et domum et locum in quo est, diabolus evitat et abhorret,  et fulgura et tonitrua et grando ibi raro cadunt’ [‘in the stead where it grows, the devil seldom exercises his  illusions, and the house which is in this stead, the devil shuns and loathes, and lightning and thunder and hail seldom fall there’]. A Herbal says : ‘farnkraut is hard to destroy, without ye stub it up on the day of John’s beheading, then doth farn perish.”  …”.

Thus maybe the wont of settling among ferns which gave rise to names like like Farnborough in Kent, Farnham in Surrey and Fernhurst in Sussex.  On saint John the Baptist and his links to the thunder god see my earlier post [here]. And bear in mind that notwithstanding that Jack is short for James, that is Jacobus/Jacomus, it was also thought of at one time as a shortening of John.

And in keeping to both the words of the scholiast of Theocritus and Pliny, I mark that Grimm has lf.1210:

“In the Thüringer-wald fern is called… by some atter-kreutich (adder-herb)…”.

Once again, so as to leave nothing unsaid, if it seems odd to you that a stead hallowed to the thunder god might nevertheless be a stead where “lightning and thunder and hail seldom fall” it is worth reading Chr. Blinkenberg,  The Thunderweapon In Religion and Folklore (1911) Lvs. 1 to 2: 

“The substance of the Danish thunderstone belief is as follows:

The thunderstone falls down from the sky in thunderstorms or, more accurately, whenever the lightning strikes. The stroke of the lightning, according to this view, consists in the descent of the stone; the flash and the thunder-clap are mere after effects or secondary phenomena. The stone protects the house in which it is kept against strokes of lightning; "where it has once struck it is not worth coming again".

 ...

The thunderstone keeps trolls and other pernicious creatures away, from the house, and as most of the evils which befall man and his property are due, according to the old popular belief, to witchcraft and evil beings, the thunderstone in general becomes a protection for house and cattle; it draws luck to the house,can be used as a healing power, and so on.”

Well, you can knock me down with a ...

To make all our dots  meet up then, we now need to find some reason why a fern might have gathered to itself attributes that rightly belong either to the lightning or thunder weapon and/or to the god who wielded it.   At first glance there seems little to be said for why such lore should have been bestowed upon the fern.  Fernie tells us (lvs. 185 to 186):

 “… The Bracken grows almost exclusively on waste places and uncultivated ground; or, as Horace testified in Roman days, Neglectis urenda filix innascitur agris. It contains much potash; and its ashes were formerly employed in the manufacture of soap. The young tops of the plant are boiled in Hampshire for hogs' food, and the peculiar flavour of Hampshire bacon has been attributed to this custom. …    

  Its ashes when burnt contain much vegetable alkali which has been used freely in making glass.  …”.

So little to go on there.  

To look at, you can't say much more about ferns than that they are “pinnate” (Pliny has 'pinnata') meaning “feather-like” from the Latin pinna “feather”.    It is little to wonder at then, that our word fern, earlier fearn, (as also Dutch varen and German Farn) goes back, so the word-lore masters say, to a “Proto-Indo-European” *pornóm which means... “feather”! Thus Lithuanians in their old way of speaking ("The Lithuanian language is more ancient than Greek, Latin, German, Celtic and the Slav tongues. ... and the nearest idiom to Sanskrit.") call a  “feather” spar̃nas, whilst in the Avesta  this is parəna and  in Sanskrit parṇaḥ (पर्ण).   So our word fern turns out to be the rightful old word, if I may make so bold, for “feather”, or why else call this plant by such a name to begin with?  

Where eagles dare...

Now amazingly, the tales our forefathers told about ferns have their echo, and seemingly also their outfolding, in a tale told in India of a plant called there by the name of parṇaḥ! So a plant with a name with the same meaning at least. Thus Kelly in his chap. Vi, lvs. 158 to 159 tells us:

    “Of the many ways in which the Vedas recount the descent of the heavenly soma to earth, one is to the following effect. When gods and men were pining for the precious beverage, the falcon undertook to steal it from the demons who kept it shut up in the rock (cloud). The attempt was successful, but as the falcon was flying off with its prize, it was grazed by an arrow shot after it by one of the demons, and lost a claw and a feather. They fell to the earth and struck root there, the claw becoming a species of thorn, and the feather a palasa tree, otherwise called parna [parṇaḥ], which has a red sap and scarlet blossoms. Trees owning such an origin could not fail to possess many supernatural properties, the more so as the bird from which the claw and the feather had dropped was a transformed god—some hymnists say Indra, others say Agni. Sprung from a god of the lightning, the trees were themselves divine, and they were incorporations not only of the heavenly fire, but also of the soma with which the claw and the feather were impregnated.”

 This tale which Kelly is writing about here, is often referred to in the Rigveda (ऋग्वेदः) in little snatches, with hymns 4.26 and 4.27 maybe being the fulsomest setting out it gets there. Verse 4.27.4 is alone however in marking that there was a feather (parṇam) that fell down. And I mark that in verse 1.93.6 the soma is being fetched from a rock, adriḥ (अद्रिः), ablative adreḥ (अद्रेः), rather than from the loftiest heaven (divo … uttarād (दिवो … उत्तराद) 4.26.4) or heaven (divaḥ (दिवः) 9.48.3) which is the more often met with.  We don't however find the tale of the bird’s feather and claw becoming a tree or a wort in the Rigveda. This is in slightly later works like the Shatapatha Brahmana.  From Julius Eggeling’s awending of the Shatapatha Brahmana [of Madhyandina School] (1882) 11.7.2.8:

“8. Madhuka Paiṅgya once said, 'Some perform the animal sacrifice without Soma, and others do so with Soma. Now, Soma was in the heavens, and Gâyatrî, having become a bird, fetched him; and inasmuch as one of his leaves (parna) was cut off,  that was how the Parna-tree arose:' such, indeed, is (the passage in) the Brâhmana that is told. And some, it is true, perform the animal sacrifice without Soma, and others with Soma; for he who makes the sacrificial stake other than of Palâsa wood, performs the animal sacrifice without Soma; and he who makes the sacrificial stake of Palâsa performs the animal sacrifice with Soma: therefore let him make his sacrificial stake of Palâsa wood.”

And 1.7.1.1:

“1. He (the Adhvaryu) drives the calves away (from the cows) with a parna branch. The reason why he drives the calves away with a parna branch is this. When the Gâyatrî flew towards Soma (the moon), a footless archer aiming at her while she was carrying him off, severed one of the feathers (parna) either of the Gâyatrî or of king Soma; and on falling down it became a parna (palâsa) tree; whence its name parna. May that which then was of the Soma nature be here with us now!' so he thinks, and for this reason he drives away the calves with a parna branch.”

And Aitareya Brahmanam of the Rigveda(1922) awending by Martin Haug, Book 3, Ch.3 §§25 to 26, (lvs.136 to 137)(see SB 3.2.4.1-7 ):

“The king Soma lived (once) in the other world (in heaven). The Gods and Risis deliberated: how might the king Soma (be induced) to come to us ? They said, " Ye metres must bring back to us this king Soma." They consented. They transformed themselves into birds. That they transformed themselves into birds (suparṇa) and flew up, is called [202] by the knowers of stories sauparṇam (i.e., this very story is called so). The metres went to fetch the king Soma. They consisted (at that time) of four syllables only; for (at that time) there were only such metres as consisted of four syllables. The Jagati, with her four syllables, flew first up. In flying up, she became tired, after having completed only half the way. She lost three syllables, and being reduced to one syllable, she took (from heaven) with her (only) the Dikṣâ and Tapas, and flew back (to the earth). He who has cattle is possessed of Dikṣâ and possessed of Tapas. For cattle belong to Jagati. Jagati took them. Then the Triṣṭubh flew up. After having completed more than half the way, she became fatigued, and throwing off one syllable, became reduced to three syllables, and taking (with her) the Dakṣiṇâ, flew back (to the earth). Thence the Dakṣiṇâ gifts (sacrificial rewards) are carried away (by the priests) at the midday libation (which is) the place of the Triṣṭubh; for Triṣṭubh alone had taken them' (the Dakṣiṇâ gifts.)

   The gods said to the Gayatri, "Fetch thou the king Soma." She consented, but said, "During the whole of my journey (up to the celestial world), you must repeat the formula for wishing a safe passage for me."  The gods consented. She flew up. The gods [203] repeated throughout her passage the formula for wishing a safe passage, viz., "pra châ châ, go, and come back. For the words, pra châ châ, signify, that the whole journey will be made in safety. He who has a friend (who sets out on a journey) ought to repeat this formula; he then makes his passage in safety, and returns in safety.

  The Gayatri, when flying up, frightened the guardians of Soma, and seized him with her feet and bill, and (along -with him) she also seized the syllables which the two other metres (Jagati and Triṣṭubh) had lost. Kṛiśânu, (one of) the guardians of the Soma, discharged an arrow after her, which cut off the nail of her left leg. This became a porcupine. (The porcupine, having thus sprung from the nail which was cut off), the Vaśâ (a kind of goat) sprang from the marrow (vaśa) which dripped from the nail (cut off). Thence this goat is a (suitable) offering. The shaft of the arrow with the point (discharged by Kṛiśânu) became a serpent which does not bite (dundubha by name). From the vehemence with which the arrow was discharged, the snake svaja was produced ; from the feathers, the shaking branches which hang down (the airy roots of the Aśvattha); from the sinews (with which the feathers were fastened on the shaft) the worms called (gandupada, from the fulmination (of the steel) the serpent andhâhi. Into such objects was the arrow (of Kṛiśânu) transformed.”

Here we have a fulsome telling, although it leaves out the plant/tree called parṇaḥ for the Aśvattha.  And the outlines of this tale strike me as being not too far off those of the tale of “The Red Etin” (see Andrew Lang Blue Fairy Book (1889)[Here]) which must be as old as The Complaynt Of Scotland (1549)  where we find it listed as one of the tales the shepherds’ told as “the taiyl of the reyde eyttyn vitht the thre heydis”.  In  “The Red Etin” we have three sons of two widows who go to the Ettins to win back “King Malcolm's daughter” who is in the stead of the god Soma.

Maurice Bloomfield in his Contributions to the Interpretation of the Veda The Legend of Soma and the Eagle. (Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 16 (1896), lf.8 gives the one and only time Indra is said to do his own soma-fetching:

“To our knowledge there is in fact in the Brahmanas but one attempt-secondary on the very face of it-to substitute another personage for the eagle. It is the version of Kath. [Kāṭhaka-saṃhitā] xxxvii. 14, reported by Weber, Ind. Stud. viii. 466: 'The gods and the Asuras were engaged in strife; the amṛta was at that time with the Asuras, with the demon Çusna. Çusna, namely, carried it in his mouth. Those of the gods who died, they remained just so; those of the Asuras (who died) Çusna  breathed upon with the amṛta; they revived. Indra perceived: "With the Asuras, with the demon Çusna, is the amṛta." He, having changed himself into a lump of honey, lay upon the way; this Çusna swallowed, and Indra, changing into an eagle, snatched the amṛta from his mouth. Hence this one is the strongest of birds, for he is one form of Indra.'”

amṛta is only another name for Soma.  Asuras are our Ettins, the foes of the gods.

 

Indra?

 So Kelly has outlined this myth rather well then, but it must be stressed that the soma—fetching bird is in the Rigveda mostly said to be doing this for Indra, the thunder god with them, although once it is true (in Rigveda 4.27.4), the bird would seem to have been ridden by Indra. And Indra himself is indeed once (10.99.8) called śyenaḥ in an odd way “when the hawk (śyeno) comes in body to the soma”, but these last words are not about our soma-fetching myth.  

In the Rigveda moreover,  the soma-fetching bird itself has a selfhood all of his own. He is Suparṇaḥ (सुपर्णः) “Good (Su-)+feather (parṇaḥ)” (सुपर्णः see 8.89.8, 9.48.3 and 10.144.4 where he is “suparṇaḥ … śyenasya putra” “Suparṇaḥ … son of Śyenaḥ”!) or Suparṇaḥ Garutmān (सुपर्णो गरुत्मान thus RV 1.164.46 “divyaḥ sa suparṇo gharutmān” “heavenly nobly-winged Garutmān” ), although more often than not he is only an unnamed śyenaḥ (श्येनः). This word śyenaḥ meaning “falcon” or “hawk” or “eagle”. Later Hindu tradition understands śyenaḥ as Garuḍaḥ (गरुडः), the winged minister of Vishnu. But for Vishnu here read Indra. In the Mahabharat (see Adi Parva chap. 23 to 24), we learn that Suparṇaḥ and Indra have pledged friendship, and Indra granted him the great might to kill snakes. And this seems to be at the root of all our tales of how snakes don't like ferns...

The śyenaḥ is in Avestan the mərəγō Saēnō "the bird Saēna" but is marked only twice. In Bahram/Warharan Yasht verse 41 it (merekhô saênô) is brooked only as a similie when something big is wanted, and in Rashnu Yasht verse 17 we learn it (saênahe) roosts on a mythical tree of "all-seeds" (vîspô-bish).  Later among the Parsees it becomes the simurgh, [see also here] the archetypal mythical bird  with them being somewhat akin to our Western thoughts about the phoenix and the griffin.

  

Agni?

In the Brahmanas as we have seen,  the bird is called Gâyatrî, a personification of the Gayatri metre, which was sometimes said to be holy to Agni the fire god   (see Shatapatha Brahmana 9.1.2.35 “He first sings the Gâyatra hymn, for the Gâyatrî metre is Agni….”) and in Rigveda 7.15.4 we find that Agni is called divaḥ śyenāya “Eagle of heaven” or “falcon of the sky”.  But Agni is often likened to a bird and the heap of kindling to a bird's nest.  Yet again in the Mahabharat (see Adi Parva chap. 23), we learn  that Suparṇaḥ was even mistaken for Agni at his birth.    

And then in Rigveda 9. 97.33 the “heavenly eagle” “divyaḥ suparṇo” is a name for Soma. And we have already quoted Shatapatha Brahmana 1.7.1.1 which has:

“... severed one of the feathers (parna) either of the Gâyatrî or of king Soma...”

So that Suparṇaḥ would seem to be Soma!  But unless Soma fetched himself, this last must be true only in the transferred sense, that is, Agni as an eagle, while holding the soma stalk is, as if possessed by soma so to speak, and therefore might be said to have lost his own selfhood for a while, and thereby and to have taken on that of the god he bears.  But, as I have already marked,  the bird is truly his own master so to speak, Suparṇaḥ or Garuḍaḥ, as the Hindus think, then we might well see that Agni too, was only possessing Suparṇaḥ as well, and Suparṇaḥ is no more Agni than he is Soma.

Emmeline Plunket in her Ancient Calendars and Constellations (1903) lvs. 115 to 129 outfolds the myth thus:

“... Indra is primarily and essentially a personification of the summer solstice.  ...  translating into myth the very meaning of the word solstice or "the sun being made to stand," we read that Indra "tore off the wheel of the chariot of the sun," and "stopped his tawny coursers."  ... And if this should be the case, what then may Vritra be ? .... The astronomic interpretation of the myth I would propose is that — a snake-like constellation, not a snake-like cloud, is the representation of the demon Vritra.

 On the celestial sphere many serpents and dragons are represented, but the far reaching constellation Hydra exceeds all the others in its enormous length from head to tail.
 ...

But if Indra is to be considered as representing the summer solstice, and Vritra as representing the constellation Hydra, we must surely expect some astronomic interpretation for Soma—Soma by which the mighty Indra is invigorated and enabled to triumph gloriously over the demon.   ...

...  That Soma in the Rig Veda is primarily the moon, and that the moon is symbolized and always more or less directly referred to in the Vedic hymns to Soma, fits in, as must be evident to the readers of this paper, with the astronomic theories advocated in it. If we consider that Indra's conquest over Vritra represents the god of the summer solstice, with his bright weapons, conquering, and driving from heaven and earth the constellation Hydra, we can easily understand how in this contest Indra might be strengthened by copious draughts of Soma, i.e. by the bright light of the full moon flooding the heavens with radiance and enfeebling all but the brightest stars.

... Agni is the personification of fire, but his chief personification is as the fire of the sun. " Agni in the waters " is especially the fire of the sun in the celestial waters of Aquarius. ...”.

For Aquarius read Aquila and Aquarius.

 But be this as it may be, it is also possible to see that Suparṇaḥ, when possessed of Agni and Soma, is little more than a token for the thunder-weapon of Indra.   Thus Bloomfield again, who understands Agni in this myth as fire in its heavenly manifestation, that is as lightning (lf.10):

“But it fits the case of Agni also, if we conceive of him as the lightning, agnir vāidyutah (TB. iii. 10. 5. 1), which shoots down from the cloud: cf. RV. vi. 16. 35, garbhe mātuh pitus pita vididyutāno' aksare.”

Would outfold the myth thus (lf.3):

“The legend contains the description of the flight forth of the lightning from the womb of the cloud; as the lightning shoots from the cloud, the heavenly fluid, the Soma, streams down upon the earth.”

 
And A. A. Macdonell Vedic Mythology infolding this says:

“  … the term eagle is connected with Agni Vaidyuta or lightning (TB. 3, 10, 5. 1.  Cp. 12. 1,2.) and Agni is often called a bird in the RV. On this evidence BLOOMFIELD, who subjects his predecessors interpretations of RV. 4, 27 to a searching criticism, with much plausibility explains the carrying off of Soma by the eagle as a mythological account of the simple phenomenon of the descent of lightning, darting from the cloud (i. e. the iron castle [4.27.1]) and causing the fall of the ambrosial fluid Soma (i. e. the water of the cloud). At the same time he refers to a passage of the RV. (1, 93.6) in which the descent of fire and of Soma are mentioned together.”

All of which reminds me wonderfully of what the physici among the Romans understood by Vulcan being thrown down from Olympus by Jupiter, and which Servius in his commentary on Vergil's Æneid 8.414 sets down for us thus:

“ IGNIPOTENS Vulcanus, ut diximus, ignis est, et dictus Vulcanus quasi Volicanus, quod per aerem volet; ignis enim e nubibus nascitur. unde etiam Homerus dicit eum de aere praecipitatum in terras, quod omne fulmen de aere cadit. quod quia crebro in Lemnum insulam iacitur, ideo in eam dicitur cecidisse Vulcanus. claudus autem dicitur, quia per naturam numquam rectus est ignis.”

“Fire-mighty.  Vulcan as we  have said, is fire, and the said Vulcan is seemingly Volicanus, for that he flies (volet) through the air; for  fire is born from the clouds.  Hence Homer says he was thrown from the air onto the ground,  for that every thunder-bolt falls from the air. And also for that he was thrown again and again onto the island of Lemnos, and so it is said he fell there.  He is also said to be lame, for that fire by nature is never  upright/straight.” 

But I think this is all to take things a little too far, to muddle the bearer with the thing he bears, and it is best to leave  Suparṇaḥ as pretty much what we would understand in the West as an angel, even an archangel or "The Angel of the Lord" if we understand this as referring to only one such, and not as a generic name.

Garuḍaḥ, this one is now brooked as a token of Thailand ᛋ

 

The Greater Wappen of the Borough of Nuremberg.

The true Western Parṇaḥ

Now, we have read that a number of plants and trees and animals are meant to have arisen from lopped off bits of Suparṇaḥ, and it may well be that our Western fern is one of many such plants and trees also.  And indeed Kelly's "plants of the lightning tribe" would already seem to have brought into the fold St.John's Wort, if indeed for the mythic spring wort, and the mandrake. And I think we must go through many trees and plants before we would be through  here.  It may well be that the reason so many trees and worts have become infolded into the myth is that kingship always draws to it many claims to the title, and to be the Parṇaḥ is to be the king of trees.  For what else but the king of trees could have grown from Suparṇaḥ's fallen feather, seeing as Suparṇaḥ himself is the king of birds?   In Hymns of the Atharva-Veda (1897) (awend. Maurice Bloomfield) under V. Charms Pertaining to Royalty (Râgakarmâni) we find III, 5. Praise of an amulet derived from the parna-tree, designed to strengthen royal power:

“1. Hither hath come this amulet of parna-wood, with its might mightily crushing the enemy. (It is) the strength of the gods, the sap of the waters: may it assiduously enliven me with energy!

2. The power to rule thou shalt hold fast in me, O amulet of parna-wood; wealth (thou shalt hold fast) in me! May I, rooted in the domain of royalty, become the chief!

3. Their very own amulet which the gods deposited secretly in the tree, that the gods shall give us to wear, together with life!

4. The parna has come hither as the mighty strength of the soma, given by Indra, instructed by Varuna. May I, shining brilliantly, wear it, unto long life, during a hundred autumns!

5. The amulet of parna-wood has ascended upon me unto complete exemption from injury, that I may rise superior (even) to friends and alliances!

6. The skilful builders of chariots, and the ingenious workers of metal, the folk about me all, do thou, O parna, make my aids!

7. The kings who (themselves) make kings, the charioteers, and leaders of hosts, the folk about me all, do thou, O parna, make my aids!

8. Thou art the body-protecting parna, a 'liero, brother of me, the hero. Along with the brilliancy of the year do I fasten thee on, O amulet!”

  
Some of us might have met with this amulet before.

Der Nibelunge nôt (St. Galler Handschrift) strophe 1121 (awend. G. H. Needler)

Der w[v]nhs der lach dar vnder     von golde ein rvetelin
der daz het erchvnnet     der mohte meister sin
wol in aller werld     veber einn ietslichen man 

The wish-rod lay among them, of gold a little wand.
Whosoe'er its powers full might understand,
The same might make him master o'er all the race of men.

That it is gold of course is a bit of poetic license.

Furthermore, it might well be that there are many false claims, and it may be that the fern is one of these, as it is only the "pinnate" or feather-like shape that fits the fern to be the Western evenling of the Parṇaḥ of the East, that is, to the Butea Frondosa.  I therefore don't share Kelly's enthusiasm (or rather the enthusiasm of his master, Adalbert Kuhn) for the fern (lf. 192):

“This fern has large pinnate fronds, and is thus related to the mountain ash and the mimoseæ. In fact, says Kuhn, it were hardly possible to find in our climate a plant which more accurately corresponds in its whole appearance to the original signification of the Sanscrit name parna, as leaf and feather. Nor does the relationship between them end here, for fern, Anglo-Saxon fearn, Old German faram, farn, and Sanscrit parna, are one and the same word. …”

Indeed, a swift withmeting of the Western fern with the Eastern Parṇaḥ will show us that the fern lacks all the more outstanding marks of the Eastern tree.  Maj. Gen. J. G. R. Forlong in his Faiths of Man: A Cyclopædia of Religions (1906) vol.iii, lf.57 under Palāsa gives us a few  interesting details of the Eastern lore of the Parṇaḥ :

“The Pulas, Parna, or Dhāk tree (Butea Frondosa), which yields a ruddy brown sap used as an astringent. In full flower the Dhāk presents a mass of flame, the deep orange petals having a calyx of jet black, like velvet. Palasa and Parna mean “ leaf ” : the tree is sacred, and the wood is used for consecrated vessels, and forms the sceptre of Brāhma. The red powder used at festivals (see Holi) comes from the flowers, and Buddhists say that when their master died the Palāsa ran blood. Many of the Bhikshus dye their garments from the blossoms. The Vedik legend relates how Indra or Agni, flying as a falcon to earth, bearing the Soma (or Ambrosia), dropped a feather and a claw. From the feather sprang the Palāsa tree, and from the claw the thorny Mimosa Catechu, which has red flowers like the Palāsa, and red berries like the [mountain] ash. The Palāsa furnishes wands to be set round cattle pens and corn stacks to avert evil; and holy men strike the flocks with these to make them breed. ...”

Left: the Parṇaḥ of the East, that is the Butea Frondosa ᛋ Author     Dinesh Valke from Thane, India
                              Right: A Quickbeam or Rowan from Wicklow ᛋ

So  at length we have to acknowledge that the  Eastern Parṇaḥ is truly represented in the West, not by the fern, but by .... the tree it has much  more of an overall likeness to, and namely our rowan tree, also called a mountain-ash, although its true English name is Quickbeam! (Here and there Quickbeam is worn down  to Quicken and Wicken (misheard/missaid as Wiggon). Whitty or Whitten would seem to be mistakes for the foregoing rather than from an Old English hwitingtreow as is sometimes said.  The Old English glosses that have cwicbeam as cariscus on the one hand and juniperum on the other can best be desceibed as "corrupt".[here]

 

  Considering the myth that underlies lore and name, we might have to understand the Quick-  as the Quick- in quicksilver (mercury) and quickfire (sulphur), "ever-living", although a quickbourne is seemingly only a "bubbling spring" (see Jacob Grimm  Teutonic Mythology vol.2, chap. 20, lf.588, footnote and supplement note and Archer Taylor's article "OHG. Quecbrunno" in Modern Language Notes, Volume 32, lvs. 48 to 50). In Old English a "cwicwelle" is recorded.  Bestiary (British Library, Arundel 292):

 Ðanne we ðus brennen, bihoueð us to rennen to cristes quike welle.

Now Kelly also writes of the quickbeam in his book, for he has it down,  like Forlong, as a Western match for that other tree which grew from the mythic eagle's feather, namely the Mimosa (lvs. 166 to 167):

“Near Boitpoor, in Upper India," says Bishop Heber, "I passed a fine tree of the mimosa, with leaves at a little distance so much resembling those of the mountain ash, that I was for a moment deceived, and asked if it did not bring fruit? They answered no; but that it was a very noble tree, being called the imperial tree, for its excellent properties; that it slept all night, and awakened and was alive all day, withdrawing its leaves if any one attempted to touch them. Above all, however, it was useful as a preservative against magic. A sprig worn in the turban, or suspended over the bed, was a perfect security against all spells, evil eye, &c.; insomuch that the most formidable wizard would not, if he could help it, approach' its shade. One indeed, they said, who was very renowned for his power (like Lorinite, in the Kehama) of killing plants and drying up their sap with a look, had come to this very tree and gazed on it intently; but, said the old man, who told me this with an air of triumph, look as he might, he could do the tree no harm. I was amazed and surprised to find the superstition which in England and Scotland attaches to the rowan tree, here applied to a tree of nearly similar form. What nation has in this case been the imitator?  Or from what common centre are these common notions derived ?"”

Left: A mimosa.ᛋ                                                  Right: A Quickbeam or Rowan (Sorbus aucuparia
                                                            Author: (c) Krzysztof P. Jasiutowicz) ᛋ

Now the Quickbeam would be a worthy tree wherever it is found, and twyfoldly so for that in the Edda, Skáldskaparmál 26, there is the well-known marking by Snorri Sturluson:

 “at reynir er björg Þórs”

 “that the rowan-tree is Thor’s salvation” 

and a myth is given there which may outfold this byword.   But the point is Thor, our Thunor or Thur, is being linked to the Quickbeam, the tree that may truly be said to be the Western evenling of the Eastern Parṇaḥ which sprung from a feather of Indra's minister. Indra being in the East what Thunor is in the West.

An hint of immortality?

Bearing in mind that the Parṇaḥ tree grows from Suparṇaḥ's feather.  And that before Suparṇaḥ's feather was shot off, he was fetching Soma which is both a god and the drink of the gods conferring immortality.  You have belike forgotten by now Fernie's markworthy words given above, albeit said of the fern:

  “... to drink the sap conferred perpetual youth.”

We might then expect to see some hint of immortality in the lore of the quickbeam in the West. I myself am tempted to understand the björg in the Northern byword given by Snorri in that way.  But it is worthwhile here to mark the soma-like powers of the quickbeam, or quicken tree, of Dubros in Uí Fiachrach (southern Galway) found in The Pursuit of Diarmuid and Gráinne (Tóraigheacht Dhiarmada agus Ghráinne) §§53 to 55 (awend O'Grady):

“Do fhreagradar fianna Eirionn agus Tuatha dé danann an choinne sin,   ...

Is é lón tugadar tuatha dé Danann leo a tir tairngire .i. cnódha corca, agus ubhla caitne, agus caora cubhartha: agus ag gabháil triucha ceud O bh-Fiachrach láimh ris an Muaidh do thuit  caor do na chaoraibh uatha, agus d'fhás caorthann as g-caor sin,  agus  atáid buadha iomdha  ag an g-caorthann sin agus agá chaoraibh; óir ní ghabhann galar iná easláinte aon  duine dá n-itheann trí caorha dhíobh, agus  bíonnn meisge fíona agus sásamh seinmhídh ionnnta; agus dá m-badh an ceud bliadhan dá  n-aois do rachfadh a n-aois a dheich m-bliadhan fidhchead an té do bhlaisfeadh iad.
55.   Mar do chualadar tuatha dé danann na buadha sin do bheith ag an g-caorthann, ro chuireadar cóimheud uatha féin air .i. an Searbhán Lochlannach, óglach dá muintir féin, .i. fathach cnáimhreamhar, mórshrónach, caim-fhiaclach, deargshúileach, corp-bhuidhe, (do chloinn Chaim chollaigh mhic Naoi;) agus ní dheargann arm air, agus ní loisgeann teine é, agus ní bháthann uisge é se méid a dhraoidheachta.  Ní  fhuil acht aon t-súil amháin a g-ceart-lár a dhuibh-eudain, agus igh imreamhar iarrainn fá chorp an fhathaigh sin, agus ní fhuil a n-dán do bás d'fhághail nó go m-buailtear trí buillidhe don luirg fhearrrsaid iarrainn atá aige air. A m-bárr an chaorthainn sin do chodlannn sé san oidhche, agus agá bhun bíonn sé san ló dá chóimheud; agus, a chlanna Mhoirne, is iad sin na caora iarrus Fionn orruibhse," ar Oisín. "Acht cheana ní furussa dhíbh bain leo ar aon chor, oír do righne a Searbhán Lochlannach sin fásach do na triuchaibh ceud ina thimchioll, go nach lámhann Fionn iná  Fianna Eirionn sealg iná fiadhach do dheunamh ann ar eagla an díolamhnaigh sin. ”  ...”
 

“The Fenians of Erin and the Tuatha Da Danann answered that tryste, … The provision that the Tuatha De Danann had brought with them from Tir Tairngire was this ; crimson nuts (cnódha corca), and catkin apples (ubhla caitne), and fragrant berries(caora cubhartha); and as they passed through the cantred of Ui Fhiachrach by the Muaidh, one of the berries fell from them, and a quicken-tree (caorthann) grew out of that berry, and that quicken-tree and its berries have many virtues ;  for no disease or sickness seizes any one that eats three berries of them, and they [who eat] feel the exhilaration of wine and the satisfying of old mead; and were it at the age of a century, he that tasted them would return again to be thirty years old.   When the Tuatha De Danann heard that those virtues belonged to the quickentree (ag an g-caorthann), they sent from them a guard over it, that is, the Searbhan Lochlannach, a youth of their own people, that is, a thick-boned, large-nosed, crooked-tusked, red-eyed, swart-bodied giant of the children of wicked Cam, the son of Naoi;  whom neither weapon wounds, nor fire burns, nor water drowns, so great is his magic (dhraoidheachta). He has but one eye only in the fair middle of his black forehead, and [there is] a thick collar of iron round that giant's body, and he is fated not to die until there be struck upon him three strokes of the iron club that he has.  He sleeps in the top of that quicken-tree by night, and he remains at its foot by day to watch it; and those, O children of Moirne, are the berries which Fionn asks of you," said Oisin."  “Howbeit, it is not easy for you to meddle with them by any means ; for that Searbhan Lochlannach has made a wilderness of the cantreds around him, so that Fionn and the Fenians dare not chase or hunt there for the dread of that terrible one."..”

And if we allow, as Kelly does, the hazel as a tree of the “lightning tribe”  the hazels (cuill) about Connla’s Well in the Rennes prose Dindsenchas 59. Sinann/Shannon (awend Whitley Stokes) are not to be missed out here:

“Sinand, canas ro ainmniged?

Ni ansa. Sinend ingen Lodoin Luchairglain [meic Lir] a Tír Tairrngire dodechaid do Tiprait Connla fil fo muir dia forcsin.  Tipra sin fo ’tat cuill & imbois na heicsi .i. cuill crinmoind aiusa. [& a n-aen uair bruchtais a meas & a mblath & a nduilli,] & i n-oen frois dofuitet forsin tiprait, co tuarcaib rígbroind chorcarda fuirri, [co cocnaid ][na bradana in mes, conad he sug na cno cuirthear suas ina mbolcaib corcardaib,] & bruinnit secht srotha éicsi as, & imsoat and afrithisi.

Luid iarum Sinend do saigi[d] in imbois, ar ni testa ní fuirri acht soas tantum. Doluid lasin sruth co tice Linn Mna Feile [.i. Bri Ele & rethis i n-imthus roimpi], & traigis in topur, & rolen co hura na haband, Tarr-cáin. Imasrái[n] iar suide co tarla a tarr fæn fuirri, & ro blais bás iar tiachtain in tire centaraig.  Unde Sinann & Linn Mná Féile & Tarr-cain.”

“Sinend daughter of Lodan Lucharglan son of Ler, out of Tír Tairngire (“Land of Promise, Fairyland”) went to Connla’s Well which is under the sea, to behold it. That is a well at which are the hazels and inspirations (?) of wisdom, that is, the hazels of the science of poetry, and in the same hour their fruit, and their blossom and their foliage break forth, and these fall on the well in the same shower, which raises on the water a royal surge of purple. Then the salmon chew the fruit, and the juice of the nuts is apparent on their purple bellies.  And seven streams of wisdom spring forth and turn there again.

Now Sinend went to seek the inspiration, for she wanted nothing save only wisdom. She went with the stream till she reached Linn Mná Feile “the Pool of the Modest Woman”, that is, Brí Ele — and she went ahead on her journey, but the well left its place, and she followed it to the banks of the river Tarr-cáin “Fair-back”. After this it overwhelmed her, so that her back (tarr) went upwards, and when she had come to the land on this side (of the Shannon) she tasted death.  Whence Sinann and Linn Mná Féile and Tarr-cain..”

The "royal surge of purple" should be from the presence of a lightning/thunder weapon in the waters? Rigveda 8.89:

“samudre antaḥ śayata udnā vajro abhīvṛtaḥ |

bharantyasmaisaṃyataḥ puraḥprasravaṇā balim ||” 

“9 Deep in the ocean lies the bolt with waters compassed round about,

And in continuous onward flow the floods their tribute bring to it.” 

And in more than one stow in the Rigveda we meet  with heavenly waters thus 3.22.3:

“aghne divo arṇamachā jighāsyachā devānūciṣe dhiṣṇyāye |
yā rocane parastāt sūryasya yāścāvastādupatiṣṭhaṇta āpaḥ ||  

“O Agni, to the sea of heaven thou goest: thou hast called hither Gods beheld in spirit.
The waters, too, come hither, those up yonder in the Sun's realm of light, and those beneath it.”

And in 10.63.10 even a "daivīṃ nāvaṃ" "heavenly ship".

A lost myth?

In the West, albeit not in England as such, there are folktales about birds bringing fire from heaven or some far off stead, where fire would seem to have replaced Soma, assuming that they were ever distinct to begin with as Rigveda 1.93.6 could be read so that the two great fetchings, of fire and of water, otherwhere unmatched, happen together at the same time. Maurice Bloomfield in his monograph on the myth witterly thought so.   If there is indeed something in this, it is interesting to see what has happened to Suparṇaḥ in these tales, thus Rev. Charles Swainson  The Folklore and Provincial Names of British Birds (1886) lvs. 16 to 17:

“ There are two legends with which I am acquainted in which the descent of fire is directly attributed to this bird. One is derived from Guernsey, and is related by Mr. McCulloch in N. and Q., Ser. V., vol. iii., p. 492, who heard -it from an old woman, a native of the island. She declared that the robin was the first who brought fire to Guernsey, and that, in crossing the water, his feathers were singed, so his breast has remained red ever since. She added, "My mother had a great veneration for the robin, for what should we have done without fire ?" The second is a Breton version of "the Owl and the Wren " (see under Strigidae, p. 124 ), in which the redbreast takes the place of the latter bird.

   [from lf.124: In "L'Artiste," Ser. III., vol. ii., p. 300, the tale is presented in another form. "It was necessary for a messenger to fetch fire from heaven to earth; and the wren, weak and delicate though he was, cheerfully undertook to perform the perilous mission. The brave little bird nearly lost his life in the undertaking, for during his flight, the fire scorched away all his plumage, and penetrated to the down. Struck with such unselfish devotion, the other birds, with one accord, each presented the wren with one of their feathers, to cover his bare and shivering skin: The owl alone, in philosophic disdain, stood aloof, and refused to honour, even with such a trifling gift, an act of heroism of which he had not been the performer. But this cruel insensibility excited against him the anger of the other birds to such a pitch that they refused from that time to admit him into their society. And so he is compelled to keep aloof from them during the day, and only when night comes on does he dare to leave his melancholy hiding-place."]

 It is also believed by the Bretons that those redbreasts which have been to seek for the fire can speak Latin.  Moreover, that they sing -

  
  Cusse, cusse, cusse, cusse,

  Istine spiritum sanctum tuum,

  II y a dix bons dieux.

  In the two following traditions the redbreast appears closely connected with the same element. The first is from N. and Q., Ser. I., vol. viii., p. 328, and is contributed by a gentleman who says it was told to him when a child by his nurse, a Caermarthenshire woman. "Far, far away, is a land of woe, darkness, spirits of evil, and fire. Day by day does the little bird bear in his bill a drop of water to quench the flame. So near to the burning stream does he fly, that his dear little feathers are scorched, and hence he is named Bronrhuddyn (i.e. breast burned, or breast scorched). To serve little children the robin dares approach the infernal pit. No good child will hurt the devoted benefactor of man. The robin returns from the land of fire, and therefore he feels the cold of winter far more than his brother birds. He shivers in the brumal blast: hungry he chirps before your door. Oh ! my child, then in gratitude throw a few crumbs to poor redbreast !"

  The second is from Rolland, p. 264 :

  "When the wren brought down fire from heaven, and in consequence lost all her plumage owing to its being scorched away, the other birds with one accord gave her, each of them, one of their feathers. The robin, in his anxiety and trouble, came too close to the poor wren, who was in flames, and his plumage took fire also, traces of which are still visible on his breast."  

  Another curious superstition points conclusively in the same direction, given by M. Rolland as prevalent in the west of France. " On Candlemas day the country people kill a cock redbreast, run a spit of hazel wood through the body, and place it before the fire, when it at once begins to turn of itself." Now the hazel was a tree sacred to Donar. and "regarded as an actual embodiment of the lightning" (Mannhardt, "Die Gotterwelt der Deutschen," p. 193), so here the connection between the bird and the fire is self-evident.”

 

A footnote in Archer Taylor's article on "OHG. Quecbrunno" is also worth marking here:

 "Professor Hopkins distinguishes the rejuvenating fountain of the eagle (Psalms, 103: 5),  which was well known in Europe before the twelfth century, from the Fountain of Youth for men. That  the eagle's fountain could, however, rejuvenate men appears in the Imram curaig Mailduin, Revue celtique, x, 79, 30. " 

And this widespread bit of old lore might well be a muddling of the Suparṇaḥ (eagle) with the soma, here understood as a well-spring of immortality.  Swainson has these further details about this which might be of interest:

“There is an old legend that when the bird begins to feel advancing age it plunges into the sea or into a fountain, from which it rises with new life and strength. (Spenser,"Faerie Queene," Bk. I., cant, xi., st. 34). writes :

" At last she saw, where he upstarted brave

Out of the well wherein he drenched lay ;

As eagle, fresh out of the ocean wave,

Where he hath lefte his plumes all hory gray,

And deckt himselfe with fethers youthly gay ;

Like eyas-hauke up mounts unto the skies,

His newly budded pineons to assay,

And marvelles at himselfe, stil as he flies."

S. Damian (Epist. ii., 18, 19) adds that, before immersion, it so places itself in the focus of the sun's rays ("ad circulum solis "), as to set its wings on fire, and in this way to consume the old feathers. Rabbi David (" Comment. Esaiae," cap. xiv.) adds, that when it delays the operation too long it has not strength to rise from the water, and is frequently drowned. …”.

And I am tempted to see Indra's dragon slaying myth as having an echo above all others in that found under the heading A true Relation of the dreadful Combate between More of More-Hall, and the Dragon of Wantley, a broadside ballad of 1685.  More of More-Hall is characterised by his strength:

By the Tail and the Mane, with his Hands twain,
he swung a Horse...


He goes to slay the dragon only after having had a drink "to make him strong":

 To make him strong and mighty,
     He drank by the Tale,
       Six Pots of Ale, -
And a Quart of Aqua-vitae.

His armour makes him look like a "Porcu-Pig" or porcupine, and we should bear in mind here the Brahmana outdraught given above which makes the porcupine come from the claw of the Suparṇaḥ:

 This being done, he did engage
To hew this Dragon down;
But first he went New Armour to
Bespeak at Sheffield Town :
With Spikes all about,
Not within, but without,
Of Steel so sharp and strong;
Both behind and before,
Arms, Legs, all o'er,
Some five or six inches long.

Had you but seen him in this Dress,
How fierce he look'd and big;
You would have thought him for to be,
An Agyptian Porcu-Pig :
     He frighted all,
Cats, Dogs, and all,
Each Cow, each Horse, and each Hog
For fear did flee,
For they took him to be
Some strange outlandish Hedghog. 

And when he first sets upon the dragon he does so by coming out of a well, maybe so as to underline the link between our strongman knight and water:

It is not Strength that always wins,
for Wit does Strength excel:
Which made our cunning Champion
creep down into a Well:
Where he did think this Dragon would drink,
and so he did in Truth:
And as he stoopd low, he rose up and cryd Boh!
and he hit him on the Mouth.

But let us now turn to the greater lore-masters of the West...

 

 

Greeks, Romans and Northmen.

 Now it is most light-shedding to see what happened to the above myth found in India among the Greeks and Romans and Northmen,  assuming  the Indian tale to be the myth in its original shape.   Suparṇaḥ is Zeus'  eagle who is his armiger or  minister!   And see how  the eagle is described almost as a man might be in Æneid book 5 line 254 to 255  :

“praepes …  pedibus … Iouis armiger uncis”

“swift … armour-bearer of Jupiter with crooked feet”.

See also book 9, line 564.  And Horace Odes book 4, 4, line 1:

 “ministrum fulminis alitem”

“winged minister of the thunder-bolt”.

Manilius Astronomica book 5 (awend. G. P. Goold):

Nunc Aquilae sidus referam, quae parte sinistra
rorantis iuvenis, quem terris sustulit ipsa,
fertur et extentis praedam circumvolat alis.
fulmina missa refert et caelo militat ales
bis sextamque notat partem fluvialis Aquari. 490

  *             *              *

et, quia non tractat volucris sed suggerit arma 500
immissosque refert ignes et fulmina reddit,
regis erit magnive ducis per bella minister
ingentisque suis praestabit viribus usus.

Now I shall tell of the constellation of the Eagle: it rises on the left
of the youth who pours, whom once it carried off from earth,
and with wings outspread it hovers above its prey.
This bird brings back the thunderbolts which Jupiter has flung and fights in the service of heaven:
its appearance marks the twelfth degree of the river-pouring Waterman.

                        *             *              *

And, since the Eagle does not wield, but supplies weapons,

seeing that it brings back and restores to Jupiter the fires and bolts he has hurled,

 in time of war such a man will be the aide of a king or of some mighty general,

and his strength will render them important service.

 

And  Servius in his  commentary on Vergil's Æneid 1.394:

“IOVIS ALES aquila, quae in tutela Iovis est, quia dicitur dimicanti ei contra Gigantes fulmina ministrasse: quod ideo fingitur, quia per naturam nimii est caloris, adeo ut etiam ova quibus supersidet possit coquere, nisi admoveat gagaten lapidem frigidissimum, ut testatur Lucanus “feta tepefacta sub alite saxa” (6.676). aut quia nec aquila nec laurus dicitur fulminari, ideo Iovis ales aquila, Iovis coronam lauream accepimus, et qui triumphant lauro coronantur.”

“ Bird of Jove.  The eagle, which is in the keeping of Jove,  which is said to have served thunderbolts to him fighting against the giants: for which it is said, that by nature it is over-hot, so much so even that the eggs which she sits on can cook, unless she applies a very cold jet stone, as witnessed Lucan "stones that rattle when warmed beneath the great breeding bird".  Also neither the eagle nor the laurel-tree is said to be struck by lightning, and so the eagle is the bird of Jove, we understand Jove’s  laurel crown, as the triumphant are crowned with laurel.”

Suparṇaḥ's Soma-fetching  I think is also at the  root of the tale of Ganymede being taken up to heaven by an eagle to be cup-bearer to the gods (see Homer, Iliad, Book XX, lines 233-235) and/or to become the star-sign Aquarius (see Hyginus' Astronomica II.29).  Ganymede being for Soma.  But from a fragment of the poetess Moero in Athenaeus’ The Learned Banqueters book 9, 491b we also see our Eastern myth with a purer Western reflection, but it has gotten itself mixed up with the tale of Zeus’ nursing by the nymphs:

“Μοιρὼ καὶ αὐτὴ τὸν τρόπον τοῦτόν φησι·

Ζεὺς δ᾿ ἄρ᾿ ἐνὶ Κρήτῃ τρέφετο μέγας, οὐδ᾿ ἄρα τίς νιν

ἠείδει μακάρων· ὁ δ᾿ ἀέξετο πᾶσι μέλεσσι.

τὸν μὲν ἄρα τρήρωνες ὑπὸ ζαθέῳ τράφον ἄντρῳ

ἀμβροσίην φορέουσαι ἀπ᾿ Ὠκεανοῖο ῥοάων·

νέκταρ δ᾿ ἐκ πέτρης μέγας αἰετὸς αἰὲν ἀφύσσων

γαμφηλῇς φορέεσκε ποτὸν Διὶ μητιόεντι.

τῷ καὶ νικήσας πατέρα Κρόνον εὐρύοπα Ζεὺς

ἀθάνατον ποίησε καὶ οὐρανῷ ἐγκατένασσεν.

ὣς δ᾿ αὕτως τρήρωσι Πελειάσιν ὤπασε τιμήν, |

αἳ δή τοι θέρεος καὶ χείματος ἄγγελοί εἰσιν.

“Moero herself puts it as follows:

Zeus, then, grew up on Crete, and none of the blessed ones

knew about him; but all his limbs grew ever larger.

The timid ones, then, fed him within the sacred cave,

bringing ambrosia from Ocean’s streams;

and a great eagle always scooped up nectar from a Rock

and fetched it in its beak for wily Zeus to drink.

After he defeated his father Cronus, therefore, wide-voiced Zeus

made the eagle immortal and settled him in heaven.

So too he bestowed an honor on the timid Peleiades,

who bring news of summer and winter.”

[from  Athenaeus. The Learned Banqueters, Volume IV: Books 8-10.420e. Edited and translated by S. Douglas Olson. Loeb Classical Library 235. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008. Loeb Classical Library 235, lvs. 386 to 389]

Shortly thereafter Zeus will fight the ettins under Kronos/Saturnus, even as Indra fights Vritra.  Kronos/Saturnus=Vritra?  But outside of Moero, the Greeks only bring the eagle into the early days of Zeus to outfold why there is a star-sign called Aquila, Eagle.  Jupiter sees an eagle (while sacrificing (pouring a libation of soma?)) and takes it as a good omen of his future overthrow of the ettins (see Hyginus' Astronomica II.16; Servius Comm. on Verg. Æneid. 1.394). Manilius alludes to it in his Astronomica, book 5 (awend. G. P. Goold) when speaking of the star-sign of Ara, the altar:

 Quid regione Nepae vix partes octo trahentis

Ara ferens turis stellis imitantibus ignem,              340

in qua devoti quondam cecidere Gigantes,

nec prius armavit violento fulmine dextram

Iuppiter, ante deos quam constitit ipse sacerdos?

At the side of Scorpio risen hardly eight degrees

what of the Altar bearing incense-flame of which its stars are the image?

On this in ages past the Giants were vowed to destruction before they fell,

for Jupiter armed not his hand with the powerful thunderbolt

until he had stood as priest before the gods.

But this is all enough for us to see that the star-sign of Aquila, or in Greek αἰετὸς, when rightly understood, must have once betokened none other than the soma-fetching eagle or falcon. Whilst at the same time Soma was understood as Aquarius.  And the Sagitta, Telum or Arrow near these that the Greeks found hard to outfold (see Hyginus' Astronomica II.15) is, of course, much more readily understood from the Indian tale.  Thus Emmeline Plunket in her Ancient Calendars and Constellations (1903) lf. 125:
 

“In one hymn especially devoted to the legend of the Soma-bearing eagle (or hawk), allusion to the small but well-marked-out constellation Sagitta (the arrow) may be detected.”

And then there is the Northmen’s tale that belongs here, and not overlooked by Macdonell:

“The belief in an intoxicating divine beverage, the home of which was heaven, may be Indo-European. If so, it must have been regarded as a kind of honey-mead (Skt. mádhu, Gk. μέθυ, As. medu) brought down to earth from its guardian demon by an eagle (the Soma-bringing eagle of Indra agreeing with the nectar-bringing eagle of Zeus and with the eagle which, as a metamorphosis of Odhin, carried off the mead). This mádhu or honey-mead, if Indo-European, was replaced in the Indo-Iranian period by Soma; but may have survived into the Vedic period, by amalgamating with Soma.”

The full tale is in Skaldskaparmál 5 and 6 for those who don’t know.  With this myth we might call to mind that the eagle here bears away a mead that bestowed poetry/knowledge ("verðr skáld eða fræðamaðr"), and not immortality, but the two are at length understood to be the same thing.  As Macdonell marked of Soma:

“… Soma is called lord of speech văcas pati (9, 26 4; 101.5) or leader of speech, văco agriya or agre (9, 7.3; 62.25-6; 86.12; 106.10). … He is a leader of poets, a seer among priests (9, 96.6).”

But a myth about the drink, or rather food (apples), of immortality, being taken back by the gods from their foes by one of them in a falcon’s likeness is however also met with in the North.  For it is the tale of the rape of Iðunn and her apples of youth, having been stolen away by Þjazi, are then stolen back by … Loki! The tale is also to be found in Skaldskaparmál 2 to 4 right before that of the winning of the mead of poetry!   And we will recall here also that Óðinn and Loki are said to have been blood-brothers at one time (Lokasenna 9).  Whilst Jan de Fries Altnordisches Etymologisches Wörterbuch (1977) sits on the fence about Loki, he does have the name of Loki’s father Loptr from leyptra “blitzen” “to lightning”.  Moreover Loki is sometimes shown as friend of Thor and having a share in his forth farings and so on. Whatever else they may be, in these two myths, these two gods, Óðinn and Loki, are in the same stead as Suparṇaḥ is in the Rigveda. 

And although hardly in need of saying, the mead of poetry itself, starting off as the blood of Kvasir, as also Iðunn and her apples of youth, are both in the stead of Soma in the Rigveda. With Kvasir the link is straightforward enough, but Iðunn would seem to be a change of gender. Iðunn is Hebe, thus Philostratus the Elder, Imagines 2. 20 (awend. Fairbanks)

 

(3) Νῦν μὲν οὖν ἀναθήσεις ταῦτα, Ἡράκλεις, μετ᾿ οὐ πολὺ δὲ ξυμβιώσεις αὐτοῖς ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ πίνων καὶ περιβάλλων τὸ τῆς Ἥβης εἶδος· ἄξῃ γὰρ τὴν νεωτάτην καὶ πρεσβυτάτην τῶν θεῶν, δι᾿ αὐτὴν γὰρ κἀκεῖνοι νέοι.

You will uphold these heavenly bodies for the present, Heracles; but before long you will live with them in the sky, drinking, and embracing the beautiful Hebe; for you are to marry the youngest of the gods and the one most revered by them, since it is through her that they also are young.

We know Hebe was the cup-bearer of the gods until she wed Hercules (Homer, Odyssey 11. 601; Nonnus, Dionysiaca 25. 430), after which Ganymede took her place, although sometimes she might lend a hand (Homer Iliad Book 4, lines 1 to 4), or they share the work (Nonnus, Dionysiaca 14. 430). When we learn that Hebe is called Ganymeda at Phlius in the Argolid (see Pausanias Guide to Greece 2.13.2) however, it may be that, as we will often find with things linked with the moon (see Macrobius Saturnalia book 3, chap.8, § 3), that these two mythic characters have arisen from a shifting opinion as to the moon's gender, but both look to the one and the same divine reality nevertheless.

Iðun's apples are odd. We would hope to see some drink! Or maybe quickbeam berries should truly be understood. The belief that they are akin to the Greeks' apples of the Hesperides might be thought of here if we could only find it said that the gods eat them. The only thing I can find that hints at it is:

 “Ἑσπερίδων δὲ μῆλα οὕτως καλεῖσθαί τινά φησι Τιμαχίδας | ἐν τῷ τετάρτῳ Δείπνων. καὶ ἐν Λακεδαίμονι δὲ παρατίθεσθαι τοῖς θεοῖς φησι Πάμφιλος ταῦτα· εὔοσμα δὲ εἶναι καὶ ἄβρωτα, καλεῖσθαι δ᾿ Ἑσπερίδων μῆλα.” 

 “Timachidas says in Book IV of the Dinner Parties that certain apples are referred to as apples of the Hesperides. Pamphilus says that in Sparta these are served to the gods; they are sweet-smelling but inedible, and are referred to as apples of the Hesperides. ”

[Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae Book 3. 82d - e]

But this is truly about some earthly fruit being given by men to the gods as an offering.

Pindar's odd words in his Olympian Ode 6, lines 57 to 58 (awend. Diane Arnson Svarlien) might also be thought of:

" ... τερπνᾶς δ᾽ ἐπεὶ χρυσοστεφάνοιο λάβεν
καρπὸν Ἥβας, ..."

"And when he [Iamus] had attained the delightful fruit of golden-crowned Youth [Hebe], ..."

But this is truly saying no more than Iamus had grown up and reached the years of his youth.


It could have come from the Celts, or be something shared by the Celts and Germans.  The tale of the rape of  Iðunn moreover hangs on the detail that Loki found some apples like Iðun's outside Ásgarðr implying that it would not be an unlikelihood to find apple trees thereabouts. For the Celts call their isles of the blessed or Elysian Fields Emhain Abhlach "Appley Plain" or “in insulam Avallonis” in Historia regum britanniæ  book 11 ch. 2 which in Vita Merlini is “insula pomorum quæ fortunata vocatur” “island of apples which is called fortunate” or “nimpharum … ad aulam” “hall of the nymphs”(with “novem … sorores” the first of whom is “Morgen”).  The nearest things I have found to the theme under discussion I have already quoted above.  I mark in passing that the common place idea that hedgehogs bear apples on their spines (see Pliny Nat. Hist. Bk.8, ch.56, §133), and yet having no reality to it (see here), might well have to do with that creature's likeness to the porcupine which we have said already was thought of as sprung from the cut off claw of Suparṇaḥ. 

 And not to overlook the obvious, a Christian influence is also possible  so that Iðun's apples could be drawn from Christian tradition looking to the Book of Genesis.  The fruit of the trees is  understood in Western Europe  as apples seemingly from a word play in Latin, as malum can mean both apple and evil.  But there is nothing in the Bible to say what kind of fruit the trees bear, and in the East and among Jews other ideas to this will be found.   Might however, the Western European brooking of apples be from the strength of an already existing tradition in Europe?  Genesis 2:

8 And the LORD God planted a garden eastward in Eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed.
9 And out of the ground made the LORD God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

And Genesis 3:

4 And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:
5 For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.
* * *
22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:

If you can shut out what is happening to man in this, and mark the "ye shall be as gods" and "us", you will see that the gods are here said to eat the fruit of the "tree of life" and "live for ever". And it is markworthy to see what is made of this in works like The ancient, honorable, famous, and delighfull historie of Huon of Bourdeaux, … (1601), Chap. CXXXVI: 

“...after that I had fought with the Griffens, I came vnto a faire Fountaine, and there by was a Trée growing charged full of faire fruit, the Trée was called the Trée of youth, of the which I gathered three Apples, whereof you shall haue one and shall eate it, and as soone as you haue eaten thereof, thereby you shall be∣come as young and as strong and lusty, as you were when you were of the age of Thirty yeares. ...  …When the good Abbot had well heard and vnderstood his Nephew, he had great ioy, and tooke the Apple, and made thereon the signe of the Crosse, and did eat it vp euerie whit, whereby incontinent in the sight of all them that were there present, he became into his first youth, as he was when hee was but of the age of Thirtie yeares, his white beard fell away and a new beard came, his iawes that were leane and pale, the flesh grew againe new quicke flesh, so that he became a faire young man, and well fournished of bodie and members, a fairer man could no man sée, nor lighter, nor lustier, ...”.

But this is all belike borrowed from the Parsees.  Thus in the Zādspram's Anthology (Vizīdagīhā ī Zādspram) chap. 8 (awending E. W. West) we have “the tree of all seeds” (here “tree of all germs”) with its simurgh that we have already met, roughly answering to the Bible's “tree of knowledge” up to a point.  But look what tree grows beside it:

 “3. Afterwards, the seed was taken up from those hundred thousand species of plants, and from the collection of seed the tree of all germs, amid the wide-formed ocean, was produced, from which all species of plants continually grow. 4. And the griffin bird (simurgh) has his resting-place upon it; when he wanders forth from within it, he scatters the dry seed into the water, and it is rained back to the earth with the rain.

5. And in its vicinity the tree was produced which is the white Haoma, the counteractor of decrepitude, the reviver of the dead, and the immortalizer of the living.”

Haoma, is, of course, only the Parsees' spelling of Soma.

"... and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:"

Farewell.

P. S.  Found this in Benjamin Thorpe's  Northern Mythology, VOL. III.(1852) after the above had been sent out:

ST. JOHN'S, OR MIDSUMMER, DAY. Lf.140

“In the 'Jantjenacht' (St. John's eve) the witches hold their meeting, at which they eat the berries of the mountain-ash. Moorhausen and Nordmoor in E. Friesland.”