In the Vedas of the Hindus we find Veyu personified in the
gentler movements of the air, answering in this respect to the
Latin Favonius or the Greek Pan. The more violent forces of
the wind in Hindu myth are represented by the Maruts, who
overturn trees and uproot forests, roar like lions, and shake the
mountains. The rain is their raiment, and they are swift as
Thor. When the tempest rages, the wayfarer may hear the
cracking of their whips as they pass overhead. But their on-
slaught over and their purpose accomplished, they resume the
shape of new-born babes. They are the crushers or grinders,
the children of Rudra, father of the winds, who is also the
deceiver, the master-thief; this last attribute possibly sym-
bolizing the shifting nature of wind.
In Greek myth we have the gentle or intermittent wind
in Pan, who breathes melody through his reed pipes. As
the lover of Pitys, the nymph of the pine-tree, he aroused the
jealousy of Boreas, the rude north wind, who hurled the maiden
from a rock, and changed her into the tree which bears her
name. Boreas is the son of the night and the dawn, and is
usually figured in Greek myth as dwelling in the north. In

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THE VARIOUS TYPES OF DEITY

the Odyssey all the winds are placed by Zeus under the charge
of ^olus, to whom is entrusted the power of rousing or quelling
them at will. The more vigorous wind from the west was
known as Zephyros, husband of Podarge, the white-footed wind
who drives before her the snow-white vapours.
