and Auseklis’ son. The Sons of God appear in particular rivalry with Me ̄nesis
or with Auseklis. In one song (346) Auseklis, or in a variant Me ̄nesis, has risen
early, before Saule, wanting her daughter, and Saule is urged to get up herself
and deny her to him. In another song (415) we read that the Sons of God
and the Daughters of Saule were celebrating their wedding-feast in mid-air,
when Me ̄nesis (or Auseklis) ran up and switched the rings. In another, Saule
promised her daughter to the Son of God, but then gave her to Me ̄nesis
instead.^107
The wedding apparently takes place at the beginning of summer:
Aujourd’hui Saule court chaudement
plus que tous les autres jours.
Aujourd’hui on emmène la Fille de Saule
de la Daugava en Allemagne. (LD 33996 = Jonval no. 356)It is attended by Pe ̄rkons, whose thunder shatters the golden oak-tree (J. 128,
359, cf. 349, 361; Schleicher (1857), 216 no. 4).
As in India, songs about the Sun’s daughter were sung at weddings.^108 The
celestial nuptials were evidently seen as a cosmic paradigm of terrestrial ones.
Similarly, songs about the wedding of the Sun and the Morning Star were
sung at weddings among the southern Slavs.^109 The Daughter of the Sun does
not seem to have maintained her distinct identity in the Slavonic area, though
I have found one reference to a Russian story about a daughter of the Sun
and Moon who asks to be ferried over the water.^110 Her place appears to be
partly taken by ‘the sister of the Sun’, who was sometimes identified with the
Morning Star or the Dawn. Her limbs were golden-yellow, and she was
referred to as a paradigm of beauty: ‘as beautiful as the Sun’s sister’.^111
The Greek evidenceMore than one individual in Greek mythology is said to be a daughter of
Helios. There is Minos’ wife Pasiphae ‘Shining for all’, whose name at least
(^107) Mannhardt (1875), 82 no. 72, cf. no. 73. Note that although the Sons of God may appear
as plural suitors of Saules meita, when a marriage is spoken of there is either only one Son of
God or plural Daughters of the Sun. No ménage à trois is countenanced as in the As ́vins’ joint
possession of Su ̄rya ̄.
(^108) Mannhardt (1905), ii. xx n.
(^109) F. S. Krauss, Sitte und Brauch der Südslaven (Vienna 1885), 351.
(^110) Mannhardt (1875), 305.
(^111) Gregor Krek, Die Wichtigkeit der slavischen traditionellen Literatur (Vienna 1869), 83; von
Schroeder (1914–16), ii. 398.
- Sun and Daughter 229