Cook, Arthur B.: Zeus: a study in ancient religion (Band 1): Zeus god of the bright sky (Cambridge, 1914)

Kirke

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show her wearing a rayed crown1, the proper attribute of a solar
power, whose island-home is placed by Homer precisely at the
sunrise2.

That Kirke was in some sense solar is further shown by the
parallels to her myth which can be adduced from various quarters.
Thus in the Celtic area we have many accounts of the Otherworld-
visit. These fall into two well-defined groups. On the one hand,
in such tales as The Voyage of Bran, The Adventures of Connla,
Oisin, The Sick-bed of Cuchulain, and Laegaire mac Crimthainn the
hero crosses the sea to an Elysian island, where he mates with a
divine queen and so becomes its king. On the other hand, in such
tales as The Adventures of Cormac, The Adventures of Tadg, and
The Baile an Scdil he is entertained, but not married, by the queen,
and receives at her hands a magic cup, after which he returns home
in safety. Intermediate between the two groups is The Voyage of
Mael-Duin, where we get at once the marriage, the entertainment,
and the safe return. I have discussed these tales elsewhere3 and
here would merely point out that the goddess-queen inhabiting
with her maidens the Otherworld island is regularly solar4. Indeed,
in the story of Laegaire mac Crimthainn she bears the appropriate
name Deorgreine, ' Tear of the Sun.' J. G. von Hahn compared
the Kirke-myth with a modern Greek folk-tale from Wilza in
Cagori, in which a princess living with her maidens in an island
mates with a prince described as ' sprung from the sun ' and subse-
quently tries to kill him through the machinations of an iron dervish5.
But the closest parallel6 to the Homeric story is cited by

1824 ii. 85 pi. 43, W. Zahn Die schbnsten Ornamente und merkwiirdigsten Gemalde aus
Pompeji, Herkulanum und Stabiae Berlin 1859 iii pi. 44, Overbeck Gall. her. Bildw.

i. 784 Atlas pi. 32, 11, R. Engelmann Bilder-Atlas zum Homer Leipzig 1889 Od.
pi. 9, 47.

1 Arch. Zeit. 1865 xxiii pi. 194 figs. 4 and 3, J. E. Harrison Myths of the Odyssey
London 1882 p. 77 f. pi. 24a, b, Roscher Lex. Myth. ii. 1197-—1199 figs. 3, 4.

2 Od. 12. 3 f. vy\aov r Aiairjv, ode r 'Hou? t}pL-yevelr)s \ oiKia koX x°P0L et'(7t KaL avroXal
'HeXioio.

3 In Folk-Lore 1906 xvii. 141—173. The latest writer on the Celtic island-Elysium is
the Rev. J. A. MacCulloch The Religion of the Ancient Celts Edinburgh 1911 p. 385 ft.

4 Folk-Lore loc. cit. p. 156 ft". For a criticism of my view see G. L. Gomme Folklore
as an historical science London 1908 p. io6ff.

5 J. G. von Hahn Griechische und albanesische Mdrchen Leipzig 1864 i. 79ft". no. 4,

ii. 186 ft. In another Greek folk-tale, translated by E. M. Geldart Folk-Lore of Modern
Greece London 1884 p. 22 ft. ' My lady Sea' (Thera) from the original text in the journal
Hapvaoaos, the prince marries a beautiful maiden whose sire is the Sun and whose mother
is the Sea. On children of the Sun in Greek folk-lore see N. G. Polites '0 "HXios Kara
roi)s drj/xibdets ixvdovs Athens 1882 p. 24 f.

6 For Indian parallels see G. Gerland Altgriechische Mdrchen in der Odysee Magde-
burg 1869 p. 35 f., E. Rohde Der griechische Roman und seine Vorliiufer Leipzig 1876
p. 173 n. 2; for a Mongolian parallel, F. Bender Die miirchenhaften Bestandtheile der