In war unharmed; in battle still a saviour; Winner of heaven and waters, town-defender, Born mid loud joy, and fair of home and glory, A conqueror, thou; in thee may we be happy. Thou hast, O Soma, every plant begotten; The waters, thou; and thou, the cows; and thou hast Woven the wide space 'twixt the earth and heaven; Thou hast with light put far away the darkness. With mind divine, O Soma, thou divine[34] one, A share of riches win for us, O hero; Let none restrain thee, thou art lord of valor; Show thyself foremost to both sides in battle[35]. Of more popular songs, Hillebrandt cites as sung to Soma (!) VIII. 69. 8-10: Sing loud to him, sing loud to him; Priyamedhas, oh, sing to him, And sing to him the children, too; Extol him as a sure defence.... To _Indra_ is the prayer up-raised. The three daily _soma_-oblations are made chiefly to Indra and V[=a]yu; to Indra at mid-day; to the Ribhus, artisans of the gods, at evening; and to Agni in the morning. Unmistakable references to Soma as the moon, as, for instance, in X. 85. 3: "No one eats of that _soma_ which the priests know," seem rather to indicate that the identification of moon and Soma was something esoteric and new rather than the received belief of pre-Vedic times, as will Hillebrandt. This moon-_soma_ is distinguished from the "_soma_-plant which they crush." The floods of _soma_ are likened to, or, rather, identified with, the rain-floods which the lightning frees, and, as it were, brings to earth with him. A whole series of myths depending on this natural phenomenon has been evolved, wherein the lightning-fire as an eagle brings down _soma_ to man, that is, the heavenly drink. Since Agni is threefold and the G[=a]yatri metre is threefold, they interchange, and in the legends it is again the metre which brings the _soma_, or an archer, as is stated in one doubtful passage[36]. What stands out most clearly in _soma_-laudations is that the _soma_-hymns are not only quite mechanical, but that they presuppose a very complete and elaborate ritual, with the employment of a number of priests, of whom the _hotars_ (one of the various sets of priests) alone number five in the early and seven in the late books; with a complicated service; with certain divinities honored at certain hours; and other paraphernalia of sacerdotal ceremony; while Indra, most honored with Soma, and Agni, most closely connected with the execution of sacrifice, not only receive the most hymns, but these hymns are, for the most part, palpably made for ritualistic purposes. It is this truth that the ritualists have seized upon and too sweepingly applied. For in every family book, besides this baksheesh verse, occur the older, purer hymns that have been retained after the worship for which they were composed had become changed into a trite making of phrases.