¹ The contents of this paper were delivered as a T. B. L. Webster Memorial Lecture at Stanford University in April 1985. I am indebted for advice on several points to J. T. Hooker, O. Szemerényi and M. L. West, also to Prof. A. Mette and two unnamed advisors to this Journal.

² Nilsson, Martin F., Geschichte der grieschischen Religion ³ i. (Munich 1967) 211Google Scholar.

³ Der Glaube der Hellenen i (Berlin 1931) 231Google Scholar n. 1.

⁴ Immortal Helen, Inaugural Lecture at Bedford College, London, 1975Google Scholar.

⁵ Like West I discount the questionable statement of Ptolemy Chennos, preserved in Photios' Bibliotheke 149a, which makes her the daughter of Leda and the Sun.

⁶ Szemerényi, O., Monumentum Nyberg ii (Teheran-Liège 1975) 316 fGoogle Scholar.

⁷ It is a different matter if a hymn in the Rigveda, x 129, begins: nāsad āsīn, nó sád āsīt tadānīm ‘no not-being was then, nor being’, where the double negative was required by the contrast.

⁸ Ward, D. J., The divine twins, Folklore studies, University of California Publications xix (1968)Google Scholar.

⁹ Nilsson (n. 2) 5.

¹⁰ KZ xlii (1909) 81Google Scholar=Kleine Schrifien 217 (he thought of it in 1880).

¹¹ Wilamowitz (n. 3) 247 n. 1.

¹² Meyer, E., Der Kleine Pauly i 594Google Scholar.

¹³ Wackernagel's equation of Saranyu with Ἐρινύς (Kleine Schriften 759) fails to account for the absence of the rough breathing in the Greek name and, more importantly, for the iota in the central syllable.

¹⁴ Catling, Hector and Cavanagh, Helen, Kadmos xv (1976) 145Google Scholar f; now SEG xxvi 457 f.

¹⁵ Arena, R., Le iscrizione Corinzie su vast Accad. dei Lincei ser. 8 xiii 2 (Rome 1967)Google Scholar nos. 15 and 29. The former contains in Fhekabā a particularly early form; see Arena ad loc.

¹⁶ Griechische Sprachwissenschaft i (Berlin 1954) 137Google Scholar.

¹⁷ Some scholars, e.g. M. Doria, La parola del passato (1962) 161 ff., believe that the name of Helen, whether with s or with digamma, is one and the same. A parallel to this might be thought to be the numeral six, which has a digamma in Greek dialects, Armenian and Old Prussian, but s in other languages. The s there, however, is probably secondary and due to the influence of the following numeral; see Szemerényi, O., Studies in the Indo-European system of Numerals (Heidelberg 1960) 78Google Scholar f.

¹⁸ From Mycenae to Homer (London 1958) 86Google Scholar f.

¹⁹ Helen with a torch on the ramparts of Troy seems to be shown on a gem (Furtwängler, plate xxxviii 6) belonging to the Augustan or early Imperial ago. It may therefore reflect Virgil's story, but again it may go back to earlier sources.

²⁰ Linda L. Clader, Helen, 1976 (Mnemos. Suppl. xlii) 80, considers two etymologies of the name: (1) A semantic back-formation from ἐλενηφόρια (2) έλένη meaning ‘shoot, sprig’ used as the name of the vegetation goddess. However, (1): the ‘basket-carrying’ festival must have been celebrated in honour of some divinity, and if it was not Helen herself, she could not have replaced the goddess so worshipped; (2): the meaning ‘shoot, sprig’ is posited without support.

²¹ Sosibios, known as ὁ Λάκων, wrote a commentary on Aleman, and one might assume that his comment on Helen occurred in connection with Aleman's poem in praise of the Dioscuri; but he also wrote on Sparta, her religion and customs, and it is just as likely that he made it in speaking of the worship of Helen there.

²² Kranz, W., Stasimon (Berlin 1933) 287Google Scholar.

²³ Griechische Verskunst ² (Darmstadt 1958) 219Google Scholar.

²⁴ Zeus i (Cambridge 1914) 773Google Scholar n. 3.