Page:Studies in Lowland Scots - Colville - 1909.djvu/280

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STUDIES IN LOWLAND SCOTS

Thunder (a)=sound, groan, S. stanita, L. tonitru, A.S. thunnr, Icel. Thor (god of thunder), Thurs-day; (b)=strike, S. Vadhá-tra (thunder-bolt), T. Wuodan (Woden), Odin, Wednes-day. Darkness=what dims, mist, S. Ragas, ragani (night), Gr. Erebus, Orpheus, Go. rikwis, Sc. reek (smoke). Fire (a) S. agni, L. ignis, Sl. ogni; (b) firestick, S. pramantha, Prometheus. Bug-bear, S. Bhaga, Phrygian, Zeus Bagaios, Ir. puca (sprite Puck), Sc. bogle (scare-crow). Heaven=(a) bright sky, S. dyaus, Dyaus-pitar=Dies-piter=Jupiter, Diana, Janus, S. deva (a god), Lit. devas, C. di, Norse Edda, Tivar (gods), Tyr (god of war), Tuesday=Tiwes-daeg; (b)=all-embracing and all-seeing, S. Varuna (sky) Uranus; (c)=living, being.—R. as, to be, V. Asura, Z. Ahura-mazda, cf. Jehovah = I am, that I am.

The terms under these beads enable us to plant Aryan civilisation deeper, showing as they do a more profound grasp of what is in the best sense culture. They prove the truth of the maxim—"Nil in intellectu nisi prius in sensu." Whatever may be the psychologist's verdict on the scholastic question of primum cognitum and primum appellatum, these primitive concepts tell us that the Aryans reached the abstract through the concrete, and moved in a world of quick sensations. They had even grasped the Kantian distinction of subjective and objective, differentiating the wissen from the kennen, the savoir from the connaître. The higher consciousness is choice, and the most solemn and impressive symbol for physical pain and religious dread is found in the sensation of choking. The last head reveals to us the boundless region of comparative mythology. Here we read the unconscious literature of the Aryans, the sacred books of the race. It has the same physical basis as the terms for mental operations. The cardinal fact of the Aryan's simple existence was the ever-ending, ever-beginning struggle of the bright sun, eternal type of his own lot. Against his hero are arranged the powers of nature, the demons of the cloud and the darkness. His love is the dawn-nymph. In the first blush of their love she coyly eludes him; fair but faithless and fleeting. In the beat of the day she will haunt him, till once again in the glory of his manbood she meets his embraces, and they sink together into the mystic Avillon with his twilight smile irradiating her azure brow. Thus did the simple Aryan endow