In the Persian legends we have Feridun, the hero of the Shah-Nameh.  There is a serpent-king called Zohak, who has committed dreadful crimes, assisted by a demon called Iblis.  As his reward, Iblis asked permission to kiss the king’s shoulder, which was granted.  Then from the shoulder sprang two dreadful serpents.  Iblis told him that these must be fed every day with the brains of two children.  So the human race was gradually being exterminated.  Then Feridun, beautiful and strong, rose up and killed the serpent-king Zohak, and delivered his country.  Zohak is the same as Azhidahaka in the Avesta—­“the biting snake of winter."[2] He is Python; he is Typhaon; he is the Fenris-wolf; he is the Midgard-serpent.

The Persian fire-worship is based on the primeval recognition of the value of light and fire, growing out of this Age of Darkness and winter.

In the legends of the Hindoos we read of the fight between Rama, the sun-god (Ra was the Egyptian god of the sun), and Ravana, a giant who, accompanied by the

[1.  Poor, “Sanskrit Literature,” p. 144.

2.  Ibid., p. 158.]

{p. 172}

Rakshasas, or demons, made terrible times in the ancient land where the ancestors of the Hindoos dwelt at that period.  He carries away the wife of Rama, Sita; her name signifies “a furrow,” and seems to refer to agriculture, and an agricultural race inhabiting the furrowed earth.  He bears her struggling through the air.  Rama and his allies pursue him.  The monkey-god, Hanuman, helps Rama; a bridge of stone, sixty miles long, is built across the deep ocean to the Island of Lanka, where the great battle is fought:  “The stones which crop out through Southern India are said to have been dropped by the monkey builders!” The army crosses on the bridge, as the forces of Muspelheim, in the Norse legends, marched over the bridge “Bifrost.”

The battle is a terrible one.  Ravana has ten heads, and as fast as Rama cuts off one another grows in its place.  Finally, Rama, like Apollo, fires the terrible arrow of Brahma, the creator, and the monster falls dead.

“Gods and demons are watching the contest from the sky, and flowers fall down in showers on the victorious hero.”

The body of Ravana is consumed by fire.  Sita, the furrowed earth, goes through the ordeal of fire, and comes out of it purified and redeemed from all taint of the monster Ravana; and Rama, the sun, and Sita, the earth, are separated for fourteen years; Sita is hid in the dark jungle, and then they are married again, and live happily together ever after.

Here we have the battle in the air between the sun and the demon:  the earth is taken possession of by the demon; the demon is finally consumed by fire, and perishes; the earth goes through an ordeal of fire, a conflagration; and for fourteen years the earth and sun do not see each other; the earth is hid in a dark jungle; but