

AAKYHN 3 I 



AAKYGN {continued). 

 goras seven, and Philochorus nine. See also references in Bochart, 

 Hieroz. ii. 861. 



On the myth of Alcyone and Ceyx, cf. II. ix. 563 (where the bird 

 is not mentioned, but cf. Heyne, in /oc), Lucian, Halcyon. 2, where 

 Alcyone and Ceyx descend from the Morning Star, Ovid, Met. xi. 410, 

 Apollod. I. vii. 4, Serv. ad Virg. Georg. i. 399, Lutat. ad Stat. Theb. 

 ix. 361, Tzetz. ad Lye. p. 69, &c. 



The myth of the Halcyon days is unexplained. The above state- 

 ments have no zoological significance : the Kingfisher neither breeds 

 at four months old, nor lays five eggs (but rather six or seven), nor 

 nests in the winter season, nor on the sea. I conjecture that the 

 story originally referred to some astronomical phenomenon, probably 

 in connexion with the Pleiades, of which constellation Alcyone is the 

 principal star. In what appears to have been the most vigorous period 

 of ancient astronomy (not later than 2000 B.C., but continuing long 

 afterwards to influence legend and nomenclature), the sun rose at the 

 vernal equinox in conjunction with the Pleiad, in the sign Taurus : the 

 Pleiad is in many languages associated with bird-names (cf. Engl. ' hen- 

 and-chickens,' see also s. v. jxepo\j>), and I am inclined to take the bird 

 on the bull's back in coins of Eretria, Dicaea, and Thurii for the asso- 

 ciated constellation of the Pleiad. (Note, as a coincidence, the relation 

 of Alcyoneus to the heavenly Bull in Pind. I. v. 47 ; ubi Schol. ftovfioTav 

 de tov jSoukoAoj/ cprjal, nap* ov ras HXiOV (3ovs UTrrfKacre . . .) The particular 

 bird thus associated with Taurus may vary; on some of the above- 

 mentioned coins, where it is certainly not a Kingfisher, it is taken by 

 Canon Tristram (Ibis, 1893, p. 215) to be a Tern ; to me it seems 

 rather to be the Swallow, figuring as the bird of spring ; (on the 

 cognate symbolism of the Dove, see s. v. ire'Xeia). The Halcyon is said 

 by Canon Tristram (1. c.) to have been the sacred bird of Eretria ; 

 I cannot find a direct statement of the fact. Suidas definitely asserts 

 that the Pleiades were called ^kkuvoves. At the winter solstice, in the 

 same ancient epoch, the Pleiad culminated at night-fall in mid-heaven, 

 a phenomenon possibly referred to in the line vv% paicpr) Kai x^P-* 1 p-earjv 6' 

 eVt EEAf 16.8a dtW. This culmination, between three and four months after 

 the heliacal rising of the Pleiad in Autumn, was, I conjecture, sym- 

 bolized as the nesting of the Halcyon. Owing to the antiquity and 

 corruption of the legend, it is impossible to hazard more than a very 

 guarded conjecture ; but that the phenomenon was in some form an 

 astronomic one I have no doubt. [It might for instance refer more 

 directly to the Sun, which anciently began its annual course at the 

 spring equinox when in conjunction with the Pleiads, and which at 

 the winter season, when in the lowest part of its course, might be said 

 to brood upon the sea, only beginning its ascent a week after the actual 



