ny struggle between opposing divinities.
But in the myth of Hercules and Cacus, the fundamental idea is the
victory of the solar god over the robber who steals the light. Now
whether the robber carries off the light in the evening when Indra has
gone to sleep, or boldly rears his black form against the sky during the
daytime, causing darkness to spread over the earth, would make little
difference to the framers of the myth. To a chicken a solar eclipse
is the same thing as nightfall, and he goes to roost accordingly. Why,
then, should the primitive thinker have made a distinction between
the darkening of the sky caused by black clouds and that caused by
the rotation of the earth? He had no more conception of the scientific
explanation of these phenomena than the chicken has of the scientific
explanation of an eclipse. For him it was enough to know that the solar
radiance was stolen, in the one case as in the other, and to suspect
that the same demon was to blame for both robberies.

The Veda itself sustains this view. It is certain that the victory of
Indra over Vritra is essentially the same as his victory over the Panis.
Vritra, the storm-fiend, is himself called one of the Panis; yet the
latter are uniformly represented as night-demons. They steal Indra's
golden cattle and drive them by circuitous paths to a dark hiding-place
near the eastern horizon. Indra sends the dawn-nymph, Sarama, to search
for them, but as she comes within sight of the dark stable, the Panis
try to coax her to stay with them: "Let us make thee our sister, do not
go away again; we will give thee part of the cows, O darling." [113]
According to the text of this hymn, she scorns their solicitations, but
elsewhere the fickle dawn-nymph is said to coquet with the powers of
darkness. She does not care for their cows, but will take a drink of
milk, if they will be so good as to get it for her. Then she goes back
and tells Indra that she cannot find the cows. He kicks her with his
foot, and she runs back to the Panis, followed by the god, who smites
them all with his unerring arrows and recovers the stolen light. From
such a simple beginning as this has been deduced the Greek myth of the
faithlessness of Helen. [114]

These night-demons, the Panis, though not apparently regarded with any
strong feeling of moral condemnation, are nevertheless hated and dreaded
as the authors of calamity. They not only steal the daylight, but they
parch the earth and w