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

240 The Solar Wheel in Greece

Miss J. E. Harrison1 and K. Seeliger2 from The Thousand and One
Nights, viz. The Tale of King Bedr Basim*. I quote Miss Harrison's
summary of it:

' King Bedr Basim, like Odysseus, is seeking to return to his kingdom. He
is shipwrecked, and escapes on a plank to [a tongue of land jutting out into the
deep, on which is a white city with high walls and towers]; he desires to go up
to it. But as he tries to approach, "there came to him mules and asses and
horses, numerous as the grains of sand, and they began to strike him and prevent
him from going up from the sea to the land." Later on a sheykh, who plays the
part of Hermes, tells him that this is the city of the Enchanters, wherein dwells
Queen Lab, an enchantress, who is like to a she-devil. A curious, and, I think,
significant fact is, that the [Old] Persian word " lab " means sun4. We remember
that Circe was daughter of Helios. The conceptions of magic and sun-worship
seem to have been closely interwoven, and this seems the more natural if the
Greek myth were of Eastern origin. The sheykh tells Bedr Basim that the
strange mules and horses and asses are the lovers of this wicked witch. With
each of them she abides forty days, and after that enchants them into beast-
shapes. Queen Lab sees Bedr Basim, and falls in love with him. He goes up
to her castle, but after some suspicious experiences begins to fear that his
appointed day is drawing nigh. [He has seen a white she-bird consorting with
a black bird beneath a tree full of birds, and has learnt that this was Queen Lab
with one of her many lovers.] His friend the sheykh gives him a magic "saweek."
This " saweek," which he is to give to the queen in place of her own magic
potion, is the meal of parched barley made into a sort of gruel—thick, but not
too thick to drink—a curious parallel to the " mess of cheese and barley meal
and yellow honey mixed with Pramnian wine." Queen Lab fares worse for her
evil deeds than did Circe. Bedr Basim gives her the "saweek," and commands
her to become a dappled mule. He then puts a bridle in her mouth and
rides her forth from the city, and the sheykh thus addresses her:—"May God,
whose name be exalted, abase thee by affliction.'"

The name Kirke denotes a ' Hawk' (kzrkos)5. But this does
not militate against our solar interpretation of the myth. For not
only in Vedic mythology is Surya, the sun, sometimes conceived as
a bird6, but Mithraic worshippers spoke of Helios as a hawk7. In

homer. Gedichte Darmstadt 1878 p. 22 ff. ; on both, Gruppe Gr. Myth. Bel. p. 708 n. 2.
Cp. also the tales noted by the Rev. J. A. MacCulloch op. cit. p. 385^

1 J. E. Harrison op. cit. p. 86 f. 2 K. Seeliger in Roscher Lex. Myth. ii. 1195 f.

3 Nights 751 ff. ed. Captain Sir R. F. Burton. The name Badr Basim means ' Full
moon smiling.'

4 So Burton; but Profs. E. G. Browne, A. A. Bevan, and J. H. Moulton, to whom I
have applied, all view the statement with the greatest suspicion. The last-named wittily
declares that lab is ' moonshine ' !

5 This rather obvious derivation has, I find, been anticipated by C. de Kay Bird
Gods New York 1898 p. 164, of whose ornithological interpretations ('/Fetes' = eagle,
' Oulixes' = owl, etc.) the less said, the better.

6 A. A. Macdonell Vedic Mythology Strassburg 1897 pp. 31, 152, E. W. Hopkins
The Religions of India Boston etc. 1895 pp. 45, 49, 113, 123 f., 140, 164.

7 Porph. de abst. 4. 16 rov 5t "HXiov aavpov, \4ovra, dp&KOPra, UpaKa with the
preceding context.