"
And that is the mystic's prayer.
The winds of heaven were bound to make indelible impressions
on the primitive mind. But few will be prepared for Max
Mueller's statement that the wind, next to fire, is the
most important phenomenon in nature which has led to the
conception of a divine being. But our surprise ceases when we
realise how manifest and universal are the parts played by the
wind in relation to man's weal or woe--they bring the rain, they
drive the storm, they clear the air. The landsman knows much--
the sailor more. Guy de Maupassant makes the sailor say, "Vous
ne le (vent) connaissez point, gens de la terre! Nous autres, nous
le connaissons plus que notre pere ou que notre mere, cet
invisible, ce terrible, ce capricieux, ce sournois, ce feroce. Nous
l'aimons et nous le redoutons, nous savons ses malices et ses
coleres . . . car la lutte entre nous et lui ne s'interrompt
jamais."
Wind-gods and wind-myths are practically of world-wide
diffusion. Those of the American Indians have already been
noted. Similar, if less striking and poetical, are those which
prevail among the Polynesians and Maoris. Those of the Greeks
and Romans are best known, but have abundant parallels in
other lands. The Maruts of the Vedic hymns are unequivocally
storm-gods, who uproot forests and shatter rocks--strikers,
shouters, warriors--though able anon to take the form of
new-born babes. The Babylonians had their wind-gods, good and
bad, created in the lower part of the heaven, and joining at times
in the fateful fight against the dragon.
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