it seems to denote the wider tribal network or alliance. In a famous prayer
that perhaps goes back to the prophet’s time Airyaman is invoked as a god to
the aid of Zarathushtra’s men and women (Y. 27. 5 = 54. 1 = Vd. 20. 11). This
prayer, regarded as a general defence against illness, magic, and evil (Y. 54. 2;
Yt. 3. 5; Ga ̄h 1. 6; Vd. 20. 12, cf. 22. 6–20), has traditionally been used in the
Zoroastrian marriage ritual, and perhaps was so from the start.
As for Éremón, he is not a god, indeed he was the man who drove the
Tuatha Dé Danann, the people who stand for the old gods in Irish mythology,
underground. He was the legendary first king of the sons of Míl, the Goidelic
Celts, that is, in our terms, of the first Indo-Europeans in Ireland (unless the
earlier Fir Bolg represent a prior settlement of ‘Belgic’ P-Celts). It is appro-
priate, therefore, that his name should mark him as the eponymous represen-
tative of Aryanness. No doubt he originally had divine status but, like the rest
of the pagan pantheon, was euhemerized in Christian times. A trace of his old
connection with marriage may survive in the story that he provided wives to
the Cruithnig (Picts). Perhaps this means that he sanctioned a measure of
intermarriage.
It has been conjectured that Aryomen’s name is further to be recognized
in the Germanic ermina- or ermana- that appears as a name of Odin
(io ̨rmunr) and in a number of compounds in various languages: Gothic
Ermanareiks ‘Ermanaric’; Old Norse Io ̨rmungandr, the world serpent,
io ̨rmungrund‘the whole vast earth’; Old English eormengrund, eormencyn
‘mighty race’,eormenþeod‘mighty people’; Old Saxon irminman, irminthiod;
Irminsûl, a pillar revered in Saxon cult; Old High German Irmingot, a god
called to witness in the Hildebrandslied (30).^79 It seems to have existed as a
god’s name, and in the compounds it appears to have a cosmic or universal
connotation. One can see how this might relate to Aryomen’s sphere.
Some Western goddessesWe have seen that the gods were celebrated as givers of good things, these
being denoted in Indo-Iranian with the word vásu-, vaŋhu- (wesu-). Com-
bined with poti- it gives vásupati-‘lord of good things’, which occurs some
fifteen times in the Rigveda as an attribute of Indra or other gods. There is
also a class of deities, headed by Indra, known as the Vasus (Vásavah
̇
), the
Good Ones. One might say that just as certain neuter singulars turn into gods
(^79) Cf. von Schroeder (1914–16), i. 500–2; J. de Vries, Cahiers du Sud 36 (1952), 18–27;
id. (1956), ii. 14–16; Puhvel in Cardona et al. (1970), 382 n. 26. On the sources for the Irminsûl
see Grimm (1883–8), 115–19; Clemen (1928), 48, 54, 61, 67–9; de Vries (1956), ii. 386.
- Gods and Goddesses 143