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

lynx

257

It remains to ask why a wry-neck was attached to the solar
wheel. And here we are naturally reduced to mere conjecture.
Two main reasons suggest themselves. On the one hand, the bird
can and does twist its head round in a most surprising fashion:
hence its names wry-neck or writhe-neck in our own country,
Drehhals or Wendehals in Germany, torcol, tourlicon, tourne tcte, etc.,
in France, torcicollo in Italy, capu tortu in Sicily1. This odd faculty
of rotary movement may well have been thought to quicken or
intensify the rotation of the solar wheel. On the other hand, the
wry-neck breeds in the hole of a tree and, if disturbed, utters
a peculiar hissing noise calculated to make the observer believe
that its hole is tenanted by a snake2: this reason, added to the
mobility of its neck and tongue, has earned for it the sobriquet of
snake-bird in Sussex, Hampshire, and Somerset, Natterwendel in
Switzerland, Nattervogel in Germany, co de conleuvre in the depart-
ment of Meuse3. Now the solar wheel, as we have had occasion to
note more than once4, tends to be represented with the wings of a
bird and a couple of snakes. The wry-neck, combining as it did
the qualities of both bird and snake, was a most desirable appen-
dage.

Alexandrine wits were busied over the task of providing the
wry-neck with a suitable myth. According to Zenodotos, lynx
was called by some Mintha, being a Naiad nymph whose mother
was Peitho5. Kallimachos in his work On Birds made lynx a
daughter of Echo, who by her spells attracted Zeus to Io and
suffered the feathery change at the hands of Hera6. Nikandros
told how Pieros, king of Pieria, had nine daughters, who vied with
the nine Muses in dance and song. A contest was arranged on

1 C. Swainson The Folk Lore and Provincial Names of British Birds London 1886
p. 103, E. Rolland Faunepopulaire de la France Paris 1879 u- (Les oiseaux sauvages) 66 f.

2 J. L. Bonhote Birds of Britain London 1907 p. 178 pi. 53, W. P. Pycraft A Book
of Birds London 1908 p. 109 pi. 23, 6. Cp. Aristot. hist. an. 2. 12. 504 a 12 ff. {rj tvy£)
£xei...t7]v yXQrrav o/moiav rots cxpeaw...£tl Se irepiarpecpeL tov rpdxyXov els tovttl<to} rod
Xolttov cw/xaros ypefxovvTos, Kaddirep oi ocpets, Plin. nat. hist. 11. 256 iynx.. .linguam serpen-
tium similem in magnam longitudinem porrigit.

3 C Swainson and E. Rolland locc. citt.

4 Supra pp. 205 ff., 227, 228 ff., 248 f.

5 Zenod. ap. Phot. lex. s.v. fiivda. Menthe or Minthe was beloved by Hades and,
when maltreated by Persephone or Demeter, was changed by him into the herb ' mint'
(Roscher Lex. Myth. ii. 2801, Gruppe Gr. Myth. Bel. p. 852).

e Kallim. irepl opveojv frag. iooc, 8 Schneider ap. schol. Theokr. 2. 17, schol. Pkid.
Nem. 4. 56, Tzetz. in Lyk. Al. 310, Nikephoros Gregoras in Synes. irepl evvirvluv p. 360
Petavius, Phot. lex. s.v."Ivy^, Souid. lex. s.v. "Ivy^. In schol. Theokr. loc. cit. PI. L.
Ahrens restores (papfianeveiv de tov Aia <eTri 'Ioi>, ottws av avrrj fxixdfj, O. Schneider
oVws hv ad rrj <'Iot> fuxQy- In Phot, and Souid. locc. citt. we should probably read
airwpvidudrj for airehLdwdT) (G. Bernhardy cj. airoipvewd-q, cp. Tzetz. in Lyk. Al. 310).