[780] Pâvîravî tanyatur ekapâd aǵo divo dhartâ; Ṛigv. x. 65, 13.—Cfr. the aǵa ekapâd invoked after Ahirbudhnya and before Tritas, in the Ṛigv. ii. 31, 6, and the aǵâikapâd, a name given to Vishṇus, in the Hariv; the reader remembers also the goat-footed races of Herodotus.

[781] We also find the lame goat, or he-goat, in the legend of Thor. The god kills his he-goats, takes off their skins, and keeps their bones, to be able to resuscitate them at pleasure. His son, Thialfi, steals the thigh-bone of one of the goats, in order to go and sell it; then one of the he-goats of Thor, being resuscitated, is lame.—Cfr. for the analogous traditions the notices given by Simrock, work quoted before, p. 260.

[782] In a Russian song we read: "Moon! moon! golden horns!"

[783] ii. 240.

[784] Cfr. Du Cange, s. v. galaxia.

[785] Das festliche Jahr, zweite Ausg., p. 216.

[786] Florence, Piatti, 1821.

[787] Concerning this stone, cfr. a whole chapter in Aldrovandi, De Quadrupedibus Bisulcis, i.

[788] Cfr. Du Cange, s. v. Agnus Dei, where we even find the verses with which Urban V. accompanied the gift of an Agnus Dei to John Paleologus.—In the month of October, the Thuringians celebrate the festival of the race after the ram, which, when overtaken, is led to a large rock and there killed. For the race after the ram, cfr. also Villemarqué, Chants Populaires de la Bretagne.—In a popular song, in which England is transformed into Engelland (or country of the angels), Mary, the nurse of God, appears with the white lamb:—

[789] Menzel, the work quoted before.

[790] Professor Emilio Teza has published a mediæval Italian version of this poem with notes.

[791] Cfr. the before-quoted fable of Babrios, in which the vine complains of the he-goat which eats its leaves.—In the Italian proverb, "Salvar la capra e i cavoli," the she-goat is again indicated as an eater of leaves.—The leaves of the sorb-apple, according to the Norwegian belief, cure sick goats, by which the god Thor is drawn.—Cfr. Kuhn, Die H. d. F. u. d. G.

[792] From a narrative made to me by my friend Valentino Carrera, an intrepid Alp-climber and popular dramatist.

[793] Referred to by Martial's epigram:—

[794] With this myth of the brother Phrixos and of the sister Helle, who pass the sea or fly through the air with the sheep, is connected the Russian story recorded above of Ivan and Helena; Ivan is changed into a little kid or lamb. In the Italian variety of the same story, the sister is thrown into the sea by the witch. Whilst the brother and sister pass the Hellespont upon the golden ram, Helle falls into the sea. We learn from Apôllonios, in the second book of the Argon., that the fleece of the sheep became gold only when, on its arrival in Colchis, it was sacrificed and suspended upon an oak-tree. The cloud-ram becomes golden only in the morning and evening sky.—The luminous fleece can perhaps be recognised in the bride of the Ṛigvedas, who, leaning towards the relations of Kakshîvant, says: "Every day I shall be (properly speaking, I am) like the little woolly sheep of the gandhâri (sarvâham asmi romaçâ gandhârîṇâm ivâvikâ);" Ṛigv. i. 126. As there is an etymological analogy, so there may be a mythical analogy between the gandhâri and the gandharvâs.

[795] Book x.

[796] Ovid calls the goat "hædorum mater formosa duorum," and sings that the goat herself broke one of her horns against a tree, which horn the nymph Amalthea wrapped—

and Jupiter, when lord of heaven, in reward—