1847.] 



or Scythian Vestiges. 



95 



'^ovi Agastya was by common consent once a Bauddhist,- but, with 

 some marvellous accompaniments, was again born as a Brahman. In the 

 Siberian tale one of the Bauddhists performed the part of Agastya, The 

 occurrence of a like legend, in places so widely apart as Siberia and 

 the Carnatic, argues intercommunication somehow or other. In some 

 still lighter and more discursive papers, I have met with essays, on 

 popular superstitions of the northern nations. The position of the 

 writer, following the late Sir Walter Scott, is that the popular my- 

 thology of a remote age, becomes, under a change of religion, the rem- 

 nants of superstitions, fairy tales, and tales of the nursery. I was not 

 before prepared to find the Devergar so well known in Hindu history, 

 in the Divergars of Scandinavia; still less in the dwarfs and fairies 

 of Europe. And much less was I prepared to find that the legend 

 of Jigastya above adverted to had passed into Europe ; and, by the 

 process indicated, lives in the nursery tales of Tom Thumb, and Jack 

 the Giant Killer. Such however, very probably, is the case. Agas- 

 tya is always stated to be small of stature. The reverse of the pro- 

 verb " stories never lose by carrying" seems to have occurred, in the 

 progress of mythology north and west, into the tales of the nursery. 

 There are however additions in such tales, as to variety of incidents. 



That languages will show an affinity between the east and the 

 west has long been my opinion. 



The aflninity is particularly great between the Tali, and old Saxon. 

 But, on this point, I must not now enlarge. 



In looking for the periodical containing the Siberian legend quasi 

 of Agastya, though I found it not, yet I met with another number, 

 containing an article on old Northern History and Antiquities, with 

 reference to Proceedings of the Royal Society of Northern Antiqua- 

 rians at Copenhagen, with one or two extracts from which I purpose 

 to close this paper. I must pass by matter of only general interest, 

 and the five great streams of population which flowed westward, or 

 north-westward — to wit, the Iberians, the Celts, the Teutones, the 

 Sclavonians, and Finns — and all connected matter, in order to come 

 at the llunic inscription at Hoby near Carlshamn in Sweden : the 

 oldest of the kind in the north ; which, after many failures, is at 

 length I hope rightly translated. The first portion is, 



HiLDEKiN received the kingdom 



Gard hewed out 



Ole took the oath 



OriN consecrate these runes. 



