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

The Fire-drill

327

' are roughly carved in human form and personified, almost deified, as the super-
natural guardians of the reindeer. The holes made by drilling in the board are
deemed the eyes of the figure and the squeaking noise produced by the friction
of the fire-drill in the hole is thought to be its voice. At every sacrifice the
mouth of the figure is greased with tallow or with the marrow of bones1.'

Now, if uncivilised people can regard the fire-stick in its hole as
turned about in the eye of a voracious and supernatural herdsman,
who squeaks at the process, it becomes—I think—credible that the
myth of Odysseus plunging his heated bar into the Kyklops' eye
originated in a primitive story concerning the discovery of the same
simple utensil. Is it a mere coincidence that the Homeric episode
culminates in a simile drawn from a strap-drill2?

On this showing the hero of the Kyklops-adventure must have
been originally a divine or semi-divine figure comparable with that

A.Fire-stick of A Fire-stick of

Fig. 256. Fig. 257.

of Prometheus. Recently K. Bapp has sought to prove that
Prometheus was an appellative or cult-title of the Titan whose true
name was Ithas or Ithax3. He relies on two glosses of Hesychios.
One of these informs us that Ithas or Ithax was Prometheus the
herald of the Titans4. The other enables us to connect the name
with a verb meaning 'to be heated' {itkainesthatf\ The root of this
verb is idh-, the weak grade of aidh- from which ait ho, T burn,'

1 Frazer Golden Bough^: The Magic Art ii. 225.

2 Supra p. 322. Nonnos unconsciously hit the mark, when he described the Kyklops'
blaze as 'Seed of Sicilian fire and glowing hearth' {supra p. 318).

3 K. Bapp in Roscher Lex. Myth. iii. 3034.

4 Hesych. s.v. 'Idas' 6 tQp Tirdvwv KTjpv^ Upo/xridevs. Tives"I6a%.

5 Hesych. s.v. idabecrOai' depfAabecrdcu, cp. s.v. Idacveiv evcf>poveiv and idapos, 'pure,
clear.'