[345] Madhu priyam bharatho yat saradbhyaḥ; _Ṛigv._ i. 112, 21.
[346] Haṅsâso ye vâm madhumanto asridho hiraṇyaparṇâ uhuva ushar-budhaḥ udapruto mandino mandinispṛiço madhvo na makshaḥ savanâni gaćhathah; _Ṛigv._ iv. 45, 4. Here _makshas_, in conjunction with _madhvas_, gives us the sense of _madhumakshas_ and _madhumakshika_, which means bee, and not fly, as it was interpreted by other translators, and by the Petropolitan Dictionary, whose learned editors will be all the more induced to make this slight correction in the new _Verbesserungen_, as in this hymn, as well as in the hymn i. 112, the bees are considered in connection with the Açvinâu.
[348] The god of thunder (or Indras), in opposition to the bees, is also found in a legend of the Ćerkessians quoted by Menzel. The god destroys them; but one of them hides under the shirt of the mother of God, and of this one all the other bees are born.--According to the popular superstition of Normandy, in _De Nore_, quoted by Menzel, the bees (the same is said of the wasps and the horseflies) are revengeful when maltreated, and carry happiness into a house when treated well. In Russia it is considered sacrilege to kill a bee.
[349] Cfr. Addison, _Indian Reminiscences_.
[351] Perì ton en Odüsseia tôn Nümphôn antron.
[352] Die Bienen gebeten werden: "Biene, du Weltvöglein, flieg in die Weite, über neun Seen, über den Mond, über die Sonne, hinter des Himmelssterne, neben der Achse des Wagengestirns; flieg in den Keller des Schöpfers, in des Allmächtigen Vorrathskammer, bring Arznei mit deinen Flügeln, Honig in deinem Schnabel, für böse Eisenwunden und Feuerwunden;" _Die Vorchristliche Unsterblichkeits-Lehre_. In this work, to which I refer the reader, Menzel treats at length of the worship of bees, and of honey.
[353] In the Engadine in Switzerland, too, it is believed that the souls of men emigrate from the world and return into it in the forms of bees. The bees are there considered messengers of death; cfr. Rochholtz, _Deutscher Glaube und Brauch_, i. 147, 148.--When some one dies, the bee is invoked as follows, almost as if requesting the soul of the departed to watch for ever over the living:--
"Bienchen, unser Herr ist todt, Verlass mich nicht in meiner Noth."