layed 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. And our Teutonic fathers
had their storm-gods who were brave warriors, Odin, or Wodin,
being the chief. Grimm thus sums up Wodin's characteristics.
"He is the all-pervading and formative power, who bestows
shape and beauty on man and all things, from whom proceeds
the gift of song, and the management of war and victory, on
whom at the same time depends the fertility of the soil, nay,
wishing and all the highest gifts and blessings." We have here a
typical transition. The abstract conception of "the all-pervading
creative and formative power is evidently later than that of the
storm-god, rushing through the air in the midst of the howling
tempest--later even than that of the god who quaffs the draught
of inspiration and shares it with seers, bards, and faithful fallen
warriors. The idea of life or soul emerges, and frees itself
from its cruder elements; the tempest god yields place to the
All-Father, sitting on the throne of the world. The same evolution
is seen in the case of the cloud-compelling Zeus. Nay, Jehovah
Himself would seem to have been originally a god of storms,
sitting above the canopy of the aerial water-flood, "making the
clouds His chariot," and "walking upon the wings of the wind,"
His voice the thunder, His shaft the lightning. How strange and
u