five fifties would fall before his blades, twenty hundred laid waste at one time’
(Y Gododdin 47–51). According to Nennius (Hist. Brittonum 50) Arthur killed
nine hundred men at Mt Badon. In the Armenian epic Sanasar faces sixty
warriors and kills forty of them; his brother then arrives and kills the
rest (Sassountsy David 86 f., 91). Nor does one have to look far in the
Maha ̄bha ̄rata for parallels. ‘Kuntı ̄’s son Yudhis
̇
t
̇hira struck down a thousand,
while Bhı ̄ma showed seven hundred fighters the way to the other world.
Nakula too dispatched seven hundred with his arrows, and the majestic
Sahadeva three hundred champions’ (4. 32. 24 f.).
It was noted in Chapter 9 that ‘thrice nine’ is a typical number in several
contexts, and for men killed at one time. ‘Three times he rushed at them...
and thrice nine men he killed’ (Il. 16. 785). ‘Cú Chulainn cast the spear at
him, and the butt-end towards him, so that it went through his head and
through three times nine other men’.^100
The Vedic gods are praised for their assistance in the Aryans’ victories over
the Dasyus, the earlier population of north India. In several places they are
said to have made light for the Aryan: urú jyótis ́ cakrathur A ̄ ́riya ̄ya,‘you
(As ́vins) made broad light for the Aryan’ (RV 1. 117. 21); ápa ̄vr
̇
n
̇or jyótir
A ̄ ́riya ̄ya, | ní savyatáh
̇
sa ̄di Dásyur Indra, ‘you uncovered the light for the
Aryan, the Dasyu was left lying on the left, O Indra’ (2. 11. 18); tuvám
̇
Dásyu ̄m ̇ r ókaso Agna a ̄ja, | urú jyótir janáyann A ̄ ́riya ̄ya, ‘you drove the Dasyus
from their homeland, generating broad light for the Aryan’ (7. 5. 6). In
prayers for help in battle Indra is bidden, s ́évr
̇
dham ádhi dha ̄ dyumnám asmé,
‘make precious light for us’ (1. 54. 11); Índra dyumnám
̇
suvárvad dhehi asmé,
‘Indra, make light as of the sun for us’ (6. 19. 9). Durante has compared the
Homeric use of ‘light’ as a metaphor for the relief or salvation that a hero
brings to his troops when they are in difficulties on the battlefield. Ajax
broke the Trojan line, φο ́ ω δ, τα ́ ροισιν #θηκεν, ‘and made light for his
comrades’ (Il. 6. 6). Here and in 16. 95 the verb is τθημι, the cognate of dha ̄
in the last two Vedic passages. Elsewhere the saviour ‘becomes’ a light for his
side: αA κν τι φο ́ ω ∆αναο4σι γνηαι, ‘in the hope that you become a light
for the Danaans’ (8. 282, 11. 797, cf. 16. 39). The use of γενσθαι may be
linked with the causative participle from the same root in RV 7. 5. 6 janáyan,
while the dative ∆αναο4σι is functionally parallel to A ̄ ́riya ̄ya in all of the
first three passages. This was evidently a traditional form of expression in
Graeco-Aryan heroic poetry.^101
(^100) Aided Con Chulainn, ed. W. Stokes, RC 3 (1876–8), 180; trs. Koch. Cf. Togail bruidne Dá
Derga 1195, 1223, 1369 Knott; Tochmarc Emire 27, 86; Mesca Ulad 40; Fled Bricrenn 84.
(^101) Cf. also Il. 15. 741, 17. 615; Durante (1976), 117 f.
482 12. Arms and the Man