tated in the Rig Veda, verse 6 of
hymn 1 to Agni and Soma. Mataricvan brought the one from heaven, the
eagle brought the other from the celestial mountain.

Kuhn admits that the eagle represents Indra; and Lehmann regards the
eagle who takes the fire as Agni himself. It is patent that both Indra
and Agni are in fact merely specialized forms of Horus of the Winged
Disk Saga, in one of which the warrior sun-god is represented, in the
other the living fire. The elixir of life of the Egyptian story is
represented by the _soma_, which by confusion is associated with the
eagle: in other words, the god Soma is the homologue not only of Osiris,
but also of Horus.

Other incidents in the same original version are confused in the Greek
story of Prometheus. He stole the fire from heaven and brought it to
earth: but, in place of the episode of the elixir, which is adopted in
the Indian story just mentioned, the creation of men from clay is
accredited by the Greeks to the "flaming one," the "fire eagle"
Prometheus.

The double axe was the homologue of the winged disk which fell, or
rather flew, from heaven as the tangible form of the god. This fire from
heaven inevitably came to be identified with the lightning. According to
Blinkenberg (_op. cit._, p. 19) "many points go to prove that the
double-axe is a representation of the lightning (see Usener, p. 20)". He
refers to the design on the famous gold ring from Mycenae where "the sun,
the moon, a double curved line presumably representing the rainbow, and
the double-axe, i.e. the lightning": but "the latter is placed lower
than the others, probably because it descends from heaven to earth,"
like Horus when he assumed the form of the winged disk and flew down to
earth as a fiery bolt to destroy the enemies of Re.

The recognition of the homology of the winged disk with the double axe
solves a host of problems which have puzzled classical scholars within
recent years. The form of the double axe on the Mycenaean ring[206] and
the painted sarcophagus from Hagia Triada in Crete (and especially the
oblique markings upon the axe) is probably a suggestion of the double
series of feathers and the outlines of the individual feathers
respectively on the wings. The position of the axe upon a symbolic tree
is not intended, as Blinkenberg claims (_op. cit._, p. 21), as "a ritual
representation of the trees struck by lightning": but is the familiar
scene of Mesopotamian culture-area, the tree o