In two early Laconian dedications to Helen her name is spelled with a
digamma, fελνα.^115 This rules out attempts to connect it with σλα
‘brightness’, σελ νη‘moon’, or the Indian Saran
̇
yu ̄ , the As ́vins’ mare-
mother mentioned at the end of the last chapter. The older form of the name
must have been Sweléna ̄. We can recognize here the -no-/-na ̄ suffix that
is so characteristic of Indo-European divine names (Chapter 3). As for swel-,
it is hard not to see it as somehow related to the words for ‘sun’. It resembles
the Vedic and Avestan forms súvar/svàr,hvarə, ‘sun, solar glare’, the verb
svarati ‘shine, gleam’, Albanian diell ‘sun’,^116 Old English swelan ‘burn’,
German schwelen, Lithuanian svìlti‘grill’; in Greek itself we have aλη, ε λη
(< $-hfλα-), meaning ‘sunshine, sun’s heat’. These connections have long
been noted.^117 They set Helen in etymological contact with Su ̄rya ̄, and make
her by origin something like the Mistress of Sunlight.
She can manifest herself as a luminous body. The Dioskouroi, who can
appear to storm-tossed sailors bringing light and salvation, were identified
in the electrical discharges that can play about ships’ masts and are known as
corposants or St Elmo’sfire. Occasionally Helen too is associated with this
phenomenon.^118
Her birth from a goose-egg (Cypria fr. 11 W., cf. Sappho fr. 166) may
perhaps reflect her solar affinities. Baltic myth furnishes a striking parallel.
The Indo-European mythology of the Daughter of the Sun spread from
Latvia to neighbouring Estonia and across the gulf to Finland.^119 Saules meita
became in Estonia ‘Salme’, a maiden of outstanding beauty who was wooed
by the Sun, the Moon, and the eldest son of the Stars (whom she chose). And
she was born from a goose-egg.^120
The Dioskouroi cannot be Helen’s suitors, but they do pursue two other
girls who seem to represent another version of the Daughter of the Sun. These
(^115) SEG 457 (c.675–650), 458 (sixth century). The digamma is also attested by grammarians:
Dion. Hal. Ant. 1. 20. 3; Marius Victorinus, Gramm. Lat. vi. 15. 6; Astyages ap. Prisc. Inst. 1. 20,
who quoted a verse %ψο ́ μενο fελναν λικ.πιδα (PMG 1011a, perhaps Alcman). It is
mostly neglected in Homer except in the formula (δ4ο) ,Αλξανδρο, UΕλνη πο ́ σι
(ϋκο ́ μοιο.
(^116) From *swel-: E. Hamp in Per Aspera ad Asteriscos (as Chapter 4, n. 5), 207.
(^117) At least since Mannhardt (1875), 310.
(^118) Cf. Eur. Or. 1637, 1690. Later a double corposant was considered a good sign, a single
one (= Helen) a bad one: Sosibius FGrHist 595 F 20; Pliny, HN 2. 101; Stat. Theb. 7. 792, Silv. 3. 2.
8–12; O. Skutsch, JHS 107 (1987), 191 f. One of the Latvian songs (LD 33776, Jonval no. 403)
goes: ‘Deux chandelles brûlaient sur la mer, | dans les flambeaux d’argent. | Elles sont allumées
par les Fils de Dieu | attendant la Fille de Saule.’
(^119) Mannhardt (1875), 314 f.; K. Krohn, Finnisch-ugrische Forschungen 3 (1903), 15–44; von
Schroeder (1914–16), ii. 425–33.
(^120) H. Neus, Ehstnische Volkslieder (Reval [Tallinn] 1850–2), i. 9–23; Kalevipoeg 1. 126–863.
For the sun as an egg see F. Lukas, ‘Das Ei als kosmologische Vorstellung’,Zeitschrift des Vereins
für Volkskunde 4 (1894), 227–43.
- Sun and Daughter 231