said to have tongues of fire, and eyes like the sun.[11] Vishṇus himself, in the Ṛigvedas, at the instigation of Indras, brings a hundred oxen, the milky gruel, and the destroying wild boar.[12] Therefore Indras himself loves the shape of a wild boar, which, in the Avesta, is his alter ego. Verethraghnas assumes the same form. We know that the sun (sometimes the moon), in the form of a ram or he-goat, thrusts and pushes against the cloud, or the darkness, until he pierces it with his golden horns; and so Vishṇus, the penetrator, with his sharp golden tusks (thunderbolts, lunar horns, and solar rays), puts forth such great strength in the darkness and the cloud that he bursts through both, and comes forth luminous and victorious. According to the Pâuranic traditions, Vishṇus, in his third incarnation, when killing the demon Hiraṇyâkshas (or him of the golden eye), drew forth or delivered the earth from the waters (or from the ocean of the damp and gloomy night of the winter).[13] According to the Râmâyaṇam,[14] Indras took the form of a wild boar immediately after his birth.

The Arcadian wild boar of Mount Erymanthüs is familiar to the reader. Hêraklês killed it in his third labour, in the same way as Vishṇus in the third of his incarnations became a wild boar; Ovid describes him very elegantly in the eighth book of the Metamorphoses—

The wild boar of Meleagros is a variety of this very monster; it is, therefore, not without reason that when Hêraklês goes to the infernal regions, all the shades flee before him, except those of Meleagros and Medusa. Meleagros and Hêraklês resemble each other, are identified with each other; as to Medusa, we must not forget that the head of the Gorgon was represented upon the ægis of Zeus, that Gorgon is one of the names given to Pallas, and that the Gorgons, and especially Medusa, are connected with the garden of the Hesperîdes, where the golden apples grow which Hêraklês loves.

In the sixty-first hymn of the first book of the Ṛigvedas, the god, after having eaten and drunk well, kills, with the weapon stolen from the celestial blacksmith Tvashṭar, the monster wild boar, who steals that which is destined for the gods.[15] In the ninety-ninth hymn of the tenth book of the Ṛigvedas, Tritas (the third brother), by the strength which he has received from Indras, kills the monster wild boar.[16] In the Tâittiriya Brâhmaṇam, we find another very interesting passage. The wild boar keeps guard over the treasure of the demons, which is enclosed within seven mountains. Indras, with the sacred herb, succeeds in opening the seven mountains, kills the wild boar, and, in consequence, discovers the treasure.[17] In the fifty-fifth hymn of the seventh book of the Ṛigvedas, the hog and the dog lacerate and tear each other to pieces in turns;[18] the dog and the pig are found in strife again in the Æsopian fable.

In the Mahâbhâratam,[19] Puloman assumes the form of a wild boar to carry off the wife of Bhṛigus; she prematurely gives birth to Ćyavanas, who, to avenge his mother, burns the wild boar to ashes. The thunderbolt tears through the cloud, the sun's ray (or the lunar horn) breaks through the darkness. In the popular Tuscan story, the stupid Pimpi kills the hog, by teasing and tormenting it with the tongs, which he has made red-hot in the fire. In the ninth of the Sicilian stories collected by Laura Gonzenbach, the girl Zafarana, throwing three hog's bristles upon the burning embers, causes the old prince, her husband, to become young and handsome again; it is ever the same lucid myth (a variety of Apâlâ). Thus, in the first Esthonian story, the prince, by eating pork (or in the night forest), acquires the faculty of understanding the language of birds; the hero acquires malice, if he has it not already; he becomes cunning, if he was previously stupid; we therefore also find in a story of Afanassieff,[20] the wolf cheated, first by the dog, then by the goat, and finally by the hog, who nearly drowns him. The wolf wishes to eat the hog's little ones; the hog requests him to wait under a bridge, where there is no water, whilst he goes, as he promises, in the meantime to wash the young porkers; the wolf waits, and the hog goes to let off the water, which, as it passes under the bridge, puts the wolf's life in danger. Hence the belief noticed by Aristotle, that the hog is a match for the wolf, and the corresponding Greek fables. This prudence is found carried to the highest degree in the hedgehog. The Arabs are accustomed to say that the champion of truth must have the courage of the cock, the scrutiny of the hen, the heart of the lion, the rush of the wild boar, the cunning of the fox, the prudence of the hedgehog, the swiftness of the wolf, the resignation of the dog, and the complexion of the naguir.[21] A verse attributed to Archilokos says:—

which passed into the proverb: "One knavery of the hedgehog is worth more than many of the fox." In the Âitarey. Br.,