[1.  Bancroft’s “Native Races,” vol. iii, p. 89.]

170 THE LEGENDS.

they could not prevail against the shining one; and they agreed to die, and to cut themselves open through the breast. .  Xololt was appointed minister, and he killed his companions one by one, and last of all he slew himself also. . . .  Immediately after the death of the gods, the sun began his motion in the heavens; and a man called Tecuzistecatl, or Tezcociztecatl, who, when Nanahuatzin leaped into the fire, had retired into a cave, now emerged from his concealment as the moon.  Others say that instead of going into a cave, this Tecuzistecatl had leaped into the fire after Nanahuatzin, but that the heat of the fire being somewhat abated he had come out less brilliant than the sun.  Still another variation is that the sun and moon came out equally bright, but this not seeming good to the gods, one of them took a rabbit by the heels and slung it into the face of the moon, dimming its luster with a blotch whose mark may be seen to this day."[1]

Here we have the same Titanic battle between the gods, the godlike men of old—­“the old ones”—­and the Comet, which appears in the Norse legends, when Odin, Thor, Prey, Tyr, and Heimdal boldly march out to encounter the Comet and fall dead, like Citli, before the weapons or the poisonous breath of the monster.  In the same way we see in Hesiod the great Jove, rising high on Olympus and smiting Typhaon with his lightnings.  And we shall see this idea of a conflict between the gods and the great demon occurring all through the legends.  And it may be that the three arrows of this American story represent the three comets spoken of in Hesiod, and the Fenris-wolf, Midgard-serpent, and Surt or Garm of the Goths:  the first arrow did not strike the sun; the second and the third “attained its body,” and then the enraged sun launched the last arrow back at Citli, at the earth; and thereupon despair filled the people, and they prepared to die.

[1.  Bancroft’s “Native Races,” vol. iii, p. 62.]

{p. 171}

The Avesta, the sacred book of the ancient Persians, written in the Zend dialect, tells the same story.  I have already given one version of it: 

Ahura Mazda is the good god, the kind creator of life and growth; he sent the sun, the fertilizing rain.  He created for the ancestors of the Persians a beautiful land, a paradise, a warm and fertile country.  But Ahriman, the genius of evil, created Azhidahaka, “the biting snake of winter.”  “He had triple jaws, three heads, six eyes, the strength of a thousand beings.”  He brings ruin and winter on the fair land.  Then comes a mighty hero, Thraetaona, who kills the snake and rescues the land.[1]