We noted in Chapter 6 that the thunder-god’s missile returns of its own
accord after being thrown. The same useful property is ascribed to certain
other weapons too. The poet of the Iliad, to be sure, reserves such paradoxical
phenomena for divine agency, and when Achilles’ spear is restored to his
hand, it is by Athena’s intervention (Il. 22. 273–7). But extra-Homeric myth
told of Cephalus’ javelin which consequitur quodcumque petit, fortunaque
missum non regit, et reuolat nullo referente cruentum (Ov. Met. 7. 683 f.). In a
battle fought between the gods and the Da ̄navas, led by Skanda, ‘throw after
throw the spear smote the foes in their thousands and then, as witnessed the
Gods and the Da ̄navas, it returned again to Skanda’s hand’.^47 In Irish legend
the spear of Assal returs to the thrower’s hand when he says the magic word
‘Athibar’.^48
As the hero’s inner energy manifests itself in fire erupting from his body, so
also may his weapons ignite. ‘Blazingflames seemed to issue from the points
of weapons, dazzling the eyes’ (MBh. 9. 10. 18). The Nart Kandz has a sword
whose blade flares with blue flame in the heat of battle, and a bow whose
string emits red flames.^49 Belisarius’ troops, encamped before the battle of
Tricamarum, saw their spearheads ablaze with fire, which turned out to be a
portent of victory (Procop. Bell. Vandal. 2. 2. 6). The Valkyries’ spears radiate
light (Helgakviða Hundingsbana A 15). The sorcerer Oddo made the enemy
think that the Danish warriors’ swords were flashing with fire (Saxo 5. 2. 4
p. 109). When Dubthach Dóel Ulad struck the butt of his great spear across
his palm, ‘a sack-measure of fiery tinder-sparks bursts out over its blade
and over its tip, when its spear-heat takes hold of it’ (Mesca Ulad 44, trs. Koch;
cf. Togail bruidne Dá Derga 128 f. = 1232–53 Knott). The sword Dyrnwyrn
‘Whitehilt’, if drawn by a well-born man, would flame from hilt to tip.^50
Arthur’s sword bore the image of two serpents in gold, ‘and when the sword
was drawn from its sheath as it were two flames of fire might be seen from the
mouths of the serpents, and so exceeding dreadful was it that it was not easy
for any to look on’.^51
The warrior’s close relationship with his weapon is such that he literally
swears by it.^52 Parthenopaios swears on his spear, which he trusts and reveres
more than a god or his eyes, that he will sack Thebes (Aesch. Sept. 529–31);
(^47) MBh. 3. 221. 67, cf. 286. 16, 294. 24; Rm. 4. 12. 4 (arrow to quiver); 6. 47. 113 (spear), 97. 19
(the Brahma weapon).
(^48) Imthechta Clainne Tuirill 3. 11, ed. R. Thurneysen, ZCP 12 (1918), 245 (trs.: 249).
(^49) Sikojev (1985), 304; cf. Colarusso (2002), 290.
(^50) Thirteen Treasures 1 in Rachel Bromwich, Trioedd ynys Prydein (2nd edn., Cardiff 1978),
240 f.
(^51) Breudwyt Ronabwy, ed. Melville Richards (Cardiff 1948), p. 10. 27ff., trs. Gwyn and
Thomas Jones, The Mabinogion (London 1949), 144.
(^52) Cf. S. Roz ̇niecki, Archiv für slavische Philologie 23 (1901), 492–7; Watkins (1995), 417 f.
- Arms and the Man 463