duct towards his uncle Mâth and his virgin footholder, in that the latter is outraged by one of Gwydion's brothers with Gwydion's active intervention.[1] Another account makes Indra's mother give him the soma to drink,[2] wherein one may perhaps see a faint correspondence between the story of Woden and Gundfled at the mead-giant's house. But a far closer parallel is to be detected in a story[3] in the Ramayana, relating how Indra assumed the garb of his tutor and seduced the latter's wife, for which he cursed Indra to undergo, not the agonies of Prometheus, but a nameless punishment to be compared rather with that inflicted on Gwydion by Mâth. It is right to say that the poet of the Ramayana simply makes Indra revoltingly lewd, and knows of no palliation for his crime such as that suggested by the motive of Woden in his conduct towards Gundfled; but, apart from this story, one may be said to find in all three cases of Gwydion, Woden and Indra, the same remarkable unscrupulousness with regard to the other powers, who are treated as the avaricious and jealous owners of boons which they wish to keep to themselves. In Norse poetry the stealing of the precious mead is spiritualized into a story of the origin of poetry and wisdom, and the Welsh tradition makes the cauldron of the Head of Hades a vessel whence the muses and their inspiration ascend; while Vedic literature clings rather to the more original idea of an intoxicating drink, in that it loves to dwell on Indra's excessive fondness of
- ↑ R. B. Mab. pp. 63-5; Guest, iij. 224-7.
- ↑ Bergaigne, ij. 165, iij. 58 (Rig-Veda, iij. 48, 2), 104.
- ↑ Ramayana, ed. A. von Schlegel (Bonn, 1829, 1838), Book i. chap, xlviij.
