{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_37713/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_37713","id":"gutenberg_37713","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/37713","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Archaeology & Anthropology","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Phallicism"],"text":"Produced by The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at\nhttp://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images\ngenerously made available by The Internet Archive.)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nFISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP.\n\n\n\n\n  Fishes, Flowers, & Fire\n  AS ELEMENTS AND DEITIES IN THE\n  Phallic Faiths & Worship\n  OF THE ANCIENT RELIGIONS OF\n  Greece, Babylon, Rome, India, &c.\n  WITH ILLUSTRATIVE MYTHS AND LEGENDS.\n\n\n  PRIVATELY PRINTED.\n\n  A. READER, ORANGE STREET, RED LION SQUARE, LONDON.\n  1890.\n\n\n\n\n_PREFACE._\n\n\n_The volume now in the reader's hands forms the fifth, and, for the\npresent, the concluding portion of the \"Phallic Series\" it was found\nnecessary to issue in further explication of certain matters set forth in\nthe first book on this peculiar subject._\n\n_Having dealt with Sex Worship generally, Ophiolatr\u00e6ia, the Round Towers\nand Holed Stones, Trees, Fishes, Flowers, and Fire, the ground has been\npretty well covered, and with the exception of an Appendix, which future\ndemands may possibly call forth, the subject is now complete. It is\nconfidently expected that the present volume will be found equally\ninteresting with those which have preceded it; it opens up entirely new\nmatter, and contains a number of curious traditions not before alluded\nto._\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\n                                                                     PAGE.\n\n  CHAPTER I. (FISHES)                                                    1\n\n  Frequent occurrence of the Fish Symbol--Fish Heraldry--Earliest\n  devices--Fish devices on Churches and other public buildings--The\n  Catacombs--Ichthus--Fish devices at Glastonbury Abbey, &c.--The\n  Book-fish--Glasgow Fish-arms--The Fish and the Ring Story of\n  Scotland--Solomon and the Fish and Ring--The Hermit's Fish Pond\n  of St. Neot's--The Sacred Perch--The Dolphin--Neptune.\n\n  CHAPTER II. (FISHES)                                                  10\n\n  The Ancient Sacred Fish--Fish diet and its supposed effects--Fish\n  and the Jews--The God Krodo--Oanes--Dagon--The Fish-god at\n  Nimrod--Khorsabad--Fish Worship in Syria--Temple of Dagon at\n  Azotus--The Dagon of the Bible--Adramelech--Abstinence from\n  Fish-food--Ancient character of Fish Worship--\"Paradise Lost\"--\n  The Irish demi-god Phin--The Fish as a Christian Symbol--Idea\n  involved in Fish Worship--Holy Fish Ponds--Ancient Caledonian\n  objections to Fish--Other anti-fish-eating nations--Ishtar.\n\n  CHAPTER III. (FLOWERS)                                                25\n\n  Universal Love of Flowers--Indifference to Flowers--Excessive\n  Love of Flowers leading to adoration--Myths and Legends\n  connected with Flowers--The Flos Adonis, Narcissus, Myrtle,\n  Silene inflata, Clover--The Hundred-leaved Rose--Worship of\n  Lily species--Signification of the Lotos--Hermaphroditic\n  character of the Lotos--The Indian Mutiny of 1857, part played\n  by the Lotus during its instigation.\n\n  CHAPTER IV. (FLOWERS)                                                 33\n\n  Importance of the Lotos--Varieties of Lotos--Statements by\n  Herodotus, Homer, Theophrastus, Dioscorides, Pliny, Athen\u00e6us\n  and others--The arborescent Lotos--The Sacred Lotos of the\n  Nile--The Indian Lotos--Nepaulese adoration of the Lotos--\n  Shing-moo, the Chinese Holy Mother--Lakshmi--The Queens of\n  Beauty--The Loves of Krishna and Radha.\n\n  CHAPTER V. (FIRE)                                                     43\n\n  Story of the Fire-god and his Secret--Growth of Fire Worship--\n  Fire an essential in Hindoo Worship--The Chaldeans--The\n  Persians--The Hebrews--Fire in Hindu Ceremonies--Duties of\n  Hindu Life--The Serpent and Fire--Phallo-Pythic Solar Shrines--\n  Fire and Phallic Worship--Leaping through fire--Fire-treading\n  in Scotland--Fire-leaping in Russia--The Medes as Fire\n  Worshippers--The Sabines--Fire and the Ancient Christians--The\n  Roman Church and Fire--The Jews--Temple of Vesta--Fire Worship\n  in Ireland--Phallo-fire-worship of the Greeks and Romans.\n\n  CHAPTER VI. (FIRE)                                                    60\n\n  Fire Worship in the States of the Mediterranean--Special\n  sacredness of the Public City-fire of Greece and Rome--The\n  Sacred Fire of Tlachtga--Ceylon Fire Worship--The Parsees--\n  Persian Monuments--Impiety of Cambyses--Cingalese Terms,\n  Sanscrit, Welsh, &c.--The Yule Log--Fire Worship in England--\n  Fire of Beltane--Druidical Fires--May-day Fires--November Fires\n  in Ireland--Between two Fires--Scotland--The Summer Solstice-fire\n  Ceremonies--Worship of Baal in Ireland--St. John's Day--\n  Bonfires--Decree of Council of Constantinople.\n\n  CHAPTER VII. (FIRE)                                                   75\n\n  Paradise Lost and Moloch--The God of the Ammonites--The slaughter\n  of Children by Fire, notices in the Scriptures--Fire Ceremonies\n  and Moloch--Sacred Fire of the Phoenicians--The Carthaginians--\n  Custom of Oziese--Sardinian Customs and Moloch--The Cuthites--\n  Persian Fire Worship--House-fires of Greece and Rome--Sacred Books\n  of the East--Laws of Manu--The Rig Veda and Hymns to Agni, the God\n  of Fire--Vesta, Worship of--The Magi--Zoroaster.\n\n\n\n\nFISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\n    _Frequent occurrence of the Fish Symbol--Fish Heraldry--Earliest\n    Devices--Fish Devices in churches and other public buildings--The\n    Catacombs--Ichthus--Fish Devices in Glastonbury Abbey, &c.--The Book\n    Fish--Glasgow Fish Arms--The Fish and Ring Story of Scotland--Solomon\n    and the Fish and Ring--The Hermit's Fish Pond of St. Neot's--The\n    Sacred Perch--The Dolphin--Neptune._\n\n\nFew, if any, symbols are of such frequent occurrence among the relics of\nbygone ages as that of the fish. Whether we look upon the monuments of\nBabylon and Nineveh, upon the walls of the Roman Catacombs where the early\nChristians sought a refuge from the fury of their Pagan persecutors, or\namongst the heraldic devices adopted by our ancestors as coats of arms in\ncomparatively modern times, the fish is ever prominent. With regard to the\nlatter, it is certainly remarkable to what an extent it prevails, and\nseveral writers on Heraldry (particularly Moule) have given us very full\naccounts and graphic illustrations of its use. Nor is it one kind of fish\nonly we find thus employed, which might perhaps be associated with some\nspecial myth or tradition--the dolphin, the herring, the salmon, the\ntrout, the pike, the barbel, the roach, the sole, the turbot, the\nflounder, the haddock, the cod, the hake, the ling, the whiting, the\nmullet, the grayling and others have all been pressed into the same\nservice, and even the different modes of taking fish by the spear, the\nnet, or the hook, are found in the armorial ensigns of the lords of manors\nderiving revenue from the produce of the fishery. \"The boats,\" says Moule,\n\"employed in the same service, which were at the command of the sovereign\nin time of war, and formed the original navy of Britain, distinguish the\nensigns of the maritime lords, and the corporate bodies to whom the\njurisdiction of the ports was entrusted.\"\n\nIt is not unlikely that the vast numbers of fishes and their great variety\nmay have had much to do with their employment in this connection; some\nyears ago the British Museum contained fifteen hundred different species,\nwhile the museum in Paris--one unusually rich in specimens of this part of\nthe animal kingdom--possessed as many as five thousand, a number which has\nsteadily gone on increasing. \"As the symbol of a name, almost all fish\nhave been used in Heraldry; and in many instances fish have been assumed\nin arms in reference to the produce of the estate, giving to the quaint\ndevice a twofold interest. They are borne upright and extended, and when\nfeeding are termed devouring; Allum\u00e9, when their eyes are bright, and\nParn\u00e9 when their mouths are open.\"[1]\n\n\"The earliest known device of fish, the zodiacal sign, is emblematical of\nthe fishery of the Nile, commencing in the month of February, about the\ntime when the sun enters Pisces, which is the best season for fishing,\naccording to Pliny. Modern travellers relate that the walls of the temple\nof Denderah are literally covered with magnificent sculpture and painting.\nThe figures representing the Zodiac are on the ceiling of the portico, and\nare engraved in the great work on Egypt published by order of the French\nGovernment. The signs of the Zodiac were frequently sculptured on the\nexterior of ancient churches, presenting a sort of rural calendar for the\nlabours of the field each month in the year, which was of practical use.\n\n  'When in the Zodiac the fish wheel round,\n  They loose the floods and irrigate the ground.'\n\n\"In his directions to the husbandman for the month of February, old Tusser\nsays:\n\n  'To the coast, man, ride, Lent stuff provide;'\n\nwith another couplet in encouragement of the fisherman,\n\n  'The land doth will, the sea doth wish,\n  Spare sometimes flesh, and feed off fish.'\n\n\"The Zodiacal signs also appear as an ornament on antique vases, coins,\npavements, &c., and are painted in bright colours on the inside of several\nmummy cases now in the British Museum. A manuscript in the Cottonian\nLibrary shows the sign Pisces having a connecting line from the tail of\neach fish.\"[1]\n\nOn many churches and other buildings both in England and on the continent\nthe same device is found. The porch of the Virgin at Notre Dame at Paris\nhas a number of compartments representing the zodiacal signs and the\nlabours of the different months. The doorway of the church of St.\nMargaret, York, is similarly adorned, as is one of the porches of Merton\nCollege, Oxford. The western doorway of Iffley Church, said to be one of\nthe most beautiful specimens of Anglo-Norman architecture in England,\nbears the sign of the fishes.\n\nIn Canterbury Cathedral also is a pavement of large stones, somewhat\nrudely inlaid, bearing figures of the zodiacal signs in circular\ncompartments. The fishes are attached by a line passing from mouth to\nmouth.\n\nIn the Roman Catacombs the fish is frequently found amongst the countless\ninscriptions with which the walls are crowded. Maitland describes it as\nthere found as a symbol expressive of the name of Christ, and remarkable\nas affording a combination of everything desirable in a tessera, or mystic\nsign. The Greek for fish, [Greek: ichthys], contains the initials of\n[Greek: I\u00easous, Christos Theos Yios S\u00f4t\u00ear]: Jesus Christ, Son of God, the\nSaviour; a sentence which had been adopted from the sibylline verses.\nMoreover the phonetic sign of this word, the actual fish, was an emblem\nwhose meaning was entirely concealed from the uninitiated: an important\npoint with those who were surrounded by foes ready to ridicule and\nblaspheme whatever of Christianity they could detect. Nor did the\nappropriateness of the symbol stop here. \"The fish,\" observed Tertullian,\n\"seems a fit emblem of Him whose spiritual children are, like the\noffspring of fishes, born in the water of baptism.\"[2]\n\n\"On walls, as well as tombstones, we find the Fish, Phoenix, Anchor,\nShip, Olive and Palm, all of which are sacred to the God of Fertility or\nthe procreative energies. The fish, we are told, was adopted by those\nChristians because of the alphabetical rebus--the Greek word I. K. Th. U.\nS. containing the initial letters of the words forming this title in\nGreek, 'Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour;' but Ikthus was a holy name in\nEgypt and the East, long ere Greece had adopted her varied faiths, and\nlong before the good Nazarene had preached his holy gospel in the wilds\nof Judea. The Hebrew for fish is Dg, Dag or De-ag, which some think may\nhave sprung from the Sanscrit De-Dev, and Ag or Ab, and be allied to the\nsolar Ak, and Aqua, water. Dagan was the fish-god (Alheim) of the\nPhilistines, and spelling Dag backwards as was so common and natural,\nseeing some peoples read from right to left, and others from left to\nright, we get Gad, the good one, that is God or Goddess of Day, as in Isa.\nlxv. 11, where, in connection with Meni the moon, we read: 'Ye are they\nthat prepare a table for Gad, and that furnish the offering unto Meni;'\nwhich Bagster's Comprehensive Bible admits to be stars or such objects.\nDag, says Calmet, signifies Preserver, and so Saviour, which has many\nancient connections with fish and water, as we see in the case of Dagon.\nSt. Augustine said of Christ: 'He is the great Fish that lives in the\nmidst of the waters;' so no wonder that Ichthus, a fish, should become a\nholy term, and applied to Christ's representative, who in token wears a\nPoitrine as his higher officers wear what is called a mitre or turban like\na fish's mouth. Christ, being a Hebrew, of course received the title\nIkthus from his Greek followers, just as he got I.H.S.--the monogram of\nBacchus--from those who forsook that god to follow Christianity. There is\nnothing sacred about such matters. Ich or Ik, or Ak == Ab, at once Our\nFather and water; and in India the fish is the god of the water, and so we\nhave _Dev-ab_, from which may come Deg-an or Dagon. The Greeks, of course,\nused _Thus_ or theus, and so Ik-theus or God-Ik; at any rate Christians\nhave made Ik-thus a veritable God, and water its element a very holy\nthing. The most ancient Keltic tongues seem to identify the two, for water\nin Gaelic is _Uisge_, the water of life being Wisge (whiskey), and a fish\nIasg, or in old Irish, Iska or Ischa, which is an Eastern term for Jesus.\nIf V or F--the digamma is here admissible, then we arrive very near our\nown word Fish. Perhaps Vishnoo, Vi\u00e7nu or Fishnoo, is responsible here, for\nhe is the first who rises out of the water, and from a fish; and from his\nfirst incarnation to his last, he is always connected with both.\"[3]\n\n\"Fish\" says Moule, \"have often been made the vehicle of religious\ninstruction, and for this purpose all the fine arts have been put in\nrequisition. Amongst many pictures by the first masters in which the finny\ntribe are introduced, that of Saint Anthony, of Padua, preaching to the\nfish, may be mentioned. This fine picture, by Salvator Rosa, is in the\ncollection at Althorp House, in Northamptonshire; the sermon itself is\ngiven in Addison's Travels in Italy.\n\n\"On the conventual seal of Glastonbury Abbey are represented the figures\nof Saint Dunstan between Saint Patrick and Saint Benignus; each has his\nemblem beneath his feet; the last has a party of fish: perhaps, adds the\nhistorian of the abbey, he also preached to them, as Saint Anthony did.\n\n\"A fish furnishing the University of Cambridge with a religious feast was\nthe occasion of a tract, entitled 'Vox Piscis; or, the Book-fish;'\ncontaining three treatises which were found inside a cod fish in Cambridge\nmarket, on Midsummer Eve, 1676. This fish is said to have been taken in\nLynn deeps, and after finding a book within it, the fish was carried by\nthe bedel to the vice-chancellor; and coming as it did at the\ncommencement, the very time when good learning and good cheer were most\nexpected, it was quaintly remarked, that this sea guest had brought his\nbook and his carcass to furnish both.\n\n\"In the arms of the city of Glasgow, and in those of the ancient see, a\nsalmon with a ring in its mouth is said to record a miracle of St.\nKentigern, the founder of the see and the first bishop of Glasgow. On the\nreverse of Bishop Wishart's seal in the reign of Edward II., this supposed\nallusion to the legendary story of St. Kentigern appears for the first\ntime.\"\n\nSome of the early bishops of Glasgow displayed the figure of a salmon,\neither on the sides of or below the shield of arms on their seals, a\ncircumstance which may be accounted for, without reference to a miracle,\nas depicting the produce of the Clyde. The revenue of the church of\nGlasgow at the Reformation included one hundred and sixty-eight salmon\narising from the franchise or fishing in that river.\n\nJames Cameron, Lord Privy Seal to King James I. of Scotland and bishop of\nGlasgow in 1462, bore on his episcopal seal the figure of St. Kentigern in\na tabernacle, below which are his paternal arms, three bars, having a\nsalmon with a ring in its mouth on either side of the shield, which is\nsurmounted by the mitre. The ring is, perhaps, a type of the annular\nmoney, then current among the Britons.\n\n\"It is curious to note how the emblem of the same fish has continued to\nenter into the composition of the Glasgow arms and those of the\necclesiastical establishment.\n\n\"The diocese of Glasgow was erected into an archbishopric in 1491, with\nGalloway, Argyll and the Isles as suffragans. James Beaton, archbishop of\nGlasgow and abbot of Dumfermline, the uncle of Cardinal Beaton, died\nprimate of Scotland in 1539. Many munificent marks of his public spirit\nand piety long resisted time, and remained after the cathedral ceremonies\nhad been deserted for the plain offices of the kirk of Scotland.\n\n\"On the walls of the Episcopal Palace or Castle of Glasgow were sculptured\nthe arms of Beaton--azure, a fess between three mascles, or, quartered\nwith Balfour, argent, on a chevron sable and otter's head erased of the\nfirst, and below the shield, a salmon with a ring in its mouth, as\nrepresented on the seals of his predecessors.\n\n\"Another Archbishop Beaton re-founded the Scotch College at Paris in 1603,\nwhere, as a monument to his memory, are his arms, surmounted by the\nepiscopal hat, and beneath the shield the fish and ring, the emblem of the\nsee of Glasgow. In more recent times Archbishop Cairncross, in 1684, bore\nthe arms of the see impaled with his paternal coat.\n\n\"The arms of the city of Glasgow are those of the former see, argent, on a\nmount a tree with a bird on a branch to the dexter, and a bell pendent on\nthe sinister side, the stem of a tree surmounted by a salmon in fess\nhaving in its mouth a gold ring.\"[4]\n\nDr. Dibdin says, \"The legend of the 'Fish and the King,' is extant in well\nnigh every chap-book in Scotland; old Spotswood is among the earliest\nhistorians who garnished up the dish from the Latin monastic legends, and\nMessrs. Smith, McLellan and Cleland, have not failed to quote his words.\nThey report of St. Kentigern, that a lady of good place in the country\nhaving lost her ring as she crossed the river Clyde, and her husband\nwaxing jealous, as if she had bestowed the same on one of her lovers, she\ndid mean herself unto Kentigern, entreating his help for the safety of her\nhonour; and that he, going to the river after he had used his devotion,\nwilled one who was making to fish, to bring the first that he caught,\nwhich was done. In the mouth of this fish he found the ring, and sending\nit to the lady, she was thereby freed of her husband's suspicion. The\ncredit of this I believe upon the reporters; but however it be, the see\nand city of Glasgow do both of them bear in their arms a fish with a ring\nin its mouth even to this day.\"[5]\n\nMoule remarks that \"the classical tale of Polycrates, related by Herodotus\na thousand years before the time of St. Kentigern, is perhaps the earliest\nversion of the fish and ring, which has often been repeated with\nvariations. The ring, Herodotus says, was an emerald set in gold and\nbeautifully engraved, the work of Theodorus the Samian; and this very\nring, Pliny relates, was preserved in the Temple of Concord at Rome, to\nwhich it was given by the Emperor Augustus. The device of the fish is\nengraved in M. Claude Paradin's \"Hervical Devices\" as an emblem of\nuninterrupted prosperity.\"\n\n\"If we turn to chapter xxxviii. of Mahomet's Koran, we find the story of\nthe fish and the ring in another form. The note upon the words--'We placed\non his throne a counterfeit body,' says: 'The most received exposition of\nthis passage is taken from the following Talmudic fable: Solomon, having\ntaken Sidon, and slain the king of that city, brought away his daughter\nJerada, who became his favourite; and because she ceased not to lament her\nfather's loss, he ordered the devils to make an image of him for her\nconsolation: which being done, and placed in her chamber, she and her\nmaids worshipped it morning and evening, according to their custom. At\nlength Solomon being informed of this idolatry, which was practised under\nhis roof by his vizier, Asaf, he broke the image, and having chastised the\nwoman went out into the desert, where he wept and made supplications to\nGod; who did not think fit, however, to let his negligence pass without\nsome correction. It was Solomon's custom, while he washed himself, to\nentrust his signet, on which his kingdom depended, with a concubine of his\nnamed Amina: one day, therefore, when she had the ring in her custody, a\ndevil named Sakhar came to her in the shape of Solomon, and received the\nring from her; by virtue of which he became possessed of the kingdom, and\nsat on the throne in the shape which he had borrowed, making what\nalterations in the law he pleased. Solomon, in the mean time, being\nchanged in his outward appearance and known to none of his subjects, was\nobliged to wander about and beg alms for his subsistence; till at length,\nafter the space of forty days, which was the time the image had been\nworshipped in his house, the devil flew away and threw the signet into the\nsea; the signet was immediately swallowed by a fish, which being taken and\ngiven to Solomon, he found the ring in its belly, and having by this means\nrecovered the kingdom, took Sakhar, and, tying a great stone to his neck,\nthrew him into the lake of Tiberias.\"\n\nOne of the windows of St. Neot's Church, Cornwall, contains the history of\nthat saint known as the pious sacristan of Glastonbury Abbey, \"perhaps,\"\nsays Moule \"the only instance of the legend of a local saint so\nrepresented, and one of the most splendid specimens of stained glass in\nthe kingdom. The hermit's fish-pond, now remaining in the valley near his\ncell, afforded materials for one of the legendary tales now represented in\nthe window. In this pool there were three fishes, of which Neot had divine\npermission to take one every day, with an assurance that the supply should\nnever be diminished. Being afflicted with a severe indisposition, his\ndisciple Barius one day caught two fishes, and having boiled one and\nbroiled the other, placed them before him: 'What hast thou done?'\nexclaimed Neot; 'lo, the favour of God deserts us: go instantly and\nrestore these fishes to the water.' While Barius was absent Neot\nprostrated himself in earnest prayer, till he returned with the\nintelligence that the fishes were disporting in the pool. Barius again\nwent and took only one fish, of which Neot had no sooner tasted than he\nwas restored to perfect health.\"[6]\n\nA species of perch, common in the Mediterranean, is of a brilliant scarlet\ncolour, but with a very strong spinal fin, and, from the resemblance of\nthis spine to a razor, it is named _le barbier_. This fish is held sacred\namong the divers for marine productions, and when caught by a hook, it is\ninstantly relieved by the rest of the shoal cutting the line of the angler\nwith their sharp spines.\n\n\"The dolphin, as a most peculiarly sacred fish, was called Philanthropist\nby the ancients, and said to delight in music. It saved the great bard\nArion when he threw himself into the Mediterranean on his way to Corinth,\nwhich event is said to have happened in the seventh century B.C., or about\nthe time the story of Jonah arose. The Greeks placed the dolphin in their\nZodiac. Burckhardt says in his travels in Nubia, that no one is permitted\nto throw a lance at or injure a dolphin in the Red Sea; and the same rule\nis enforced among most of the Greek islands.\n\n\"Neptune, the male sea-god of Rome, was identical with Poseidon of Greece,\nand his temples and festivals were in the Campus Martius. Poseidon was a\nbrother of Jupiter and Pluto, and a mighty representative god-man of the\nwaters, and of what the sea symbolised; his was the teeming womb of\nfertility, and therefore woman. His hosts are dolphins and innumerable\nsea-nymphs and monsters. His chariots are yoked with horses, which he is\nsaid to have created and taught men to manage. His symbol is the phallic\ntrident, or rather the Trisool, or 'giver of life' of Siva, which can\ncleave rocks, produce water, and shake heaven and earth. The Nephthus of\nEgypt was the goddess of the coasts of the Red Sea and the wife of the\nwicked serpent deity Typhon. The Dolphin as a highly emblematic fish often\nstands for Neptune himself, although it probably first rose in importance\nfrom a mere punning on the words delphis a dolphin, and delphus the womb,\nand occasionally the pudenda. Delphax was also a young pig which was\noccasionally offered to Juno; Delphi was goddess Earth: symbolic chasm,\nand Delphinius was her Apollo, and from dolphin springs the name Delphin\nor Dauphin, the eldest son of the King of France.\"[7]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\n    _The Ancient Sacred Fish--Fish Diet and its supposed Effects--Fish\n    and the Jews--The god Krodo--Oanes--Dagon--The Fish-god at Nimroud--\n    Khorsabad--Fish Worship in Syria--Temple of Dagon at Azotus--The\n    Dagon of the Bible--Adramelech--Abstinence from Fish Food--Ancient\n    Character of Fish Worship--Paradise Lost--The Irish demi-god Phin--The\n    Fish as a Christian Symbol--Idea involved in Fish Worship--Holy Fish\n    Ponds--Ancient Caledonian Objections to Fish--Other anti-fish-eating\n    Nations--Ishtar._\n\n\nInman remarks that \"the fish selected for honour amongst the ancients was\nneither flat, globular, nor cylindrical; it was more or less oval, and\nterminated in a forked tail. In shape it was like the almond, or the\n'concha' with the 'nates.' Its open mouth resembles the 'os uteri,' still\ncalled 'os tinc\u00e6,' or tench's mouth. Ancient priests are represented as\nclothed with a fish, the head being the mitre. The fish's head as a mitre\nstill adorns the heads of Romish bishops. The fish was sacred to Venus,\nand was a favourite esculent among the luxurious Romans. The fish was an\nemblem of fecundity. The word _nun_, however, in the Hebrew, signifies to\n_sprout_, _to put forth_, as well as _fish_; and thus the fish symbolises\nthe male principle in an active state. The creature had a very strong\nsymbolic connection with the worship of Aphrodite, and the Romanists still\neat it on that day of the week called Dies Veneris, Venus' Day.\"\n\n\"At the present time there are certain fish which are supposed to give\ngreatly increased virile power to those who eat them. I have (proceeds\nInman) indistinct recollection of a similar fact having been recorded in\nAthen\u00e6us, who quotes Theophrastus as his authority. The passage is to the\neffect, that a diet on a certain fish enabled an Indian prince to show one\nhundred proofs of his manhood in a single day. The same writer mentions\ngoat's flesh as having something of the same effect. The Assyrian Oannes\nwas represented as a man-fish, and the Capricorn or goat with fish tail,\nin the Zodiac, is said to have been an emblem of him.\n\n\"The fish was also associated with Isis, who, like Venus, represented the\nfemale element in creation. It was likewise a sacred emblem amongst the\nBuddhists.\n\n\"Since writing the above, I have ascertained that eating fish for supper,\non Friday night, is a Jewish custom or institution. As amongst that nation\nfecundity is a blessing specially promised by the Omnipotent, so it is\nthought proper to use human means for ensuring the blessing on the day set\napart by the Almighty. The Jewish Sabbath begins at sunset on Friday, and\nthree meals are to be taken during the day, which are supposed to have a\npowerful aphrodisiac operation. The ingredients are meat and fish, garlic\nand pepper; and the particular fish selected, so far as I can learn, is\nthe skate--that which in the Isle of Man is still supposed to be a\npowerful satyrion. The meal is repeated twice on a Saturday. Mons. Lajard\nbears testimony to the extent of this custom in the following passage,\nthough he does not directly associate it with the fish, except that the\nlatter are often seen on coins, with the other attributes of Venus. After\nspeaking of the probable origin of the cult, he says--'In our days,\nindeed, the Druses of Lebanon, in their secret vespers, offer a true\nworship to the sexual parts of the female, and pay their devotions every\nFriday night--that is to say, the day which is consecrated to Venus; the\nday in which, on his side, the Mussulman finds in the code of Mahomet, the\ndouble obligation to go to the mosque and to perform the conjugal\nduty.'\"[8]\n\n\"In 1492, Bede mentions that 'a God Krodo is worshipped in the Hartz,\nhaving his feet on a fish, a wheel in one hand and a pail of water in the\nother--clearly a Vishnoo or Fishnoo solar deity carrying the solar or\nlunar disk, and the ark or womb of fertility. These fish-gods, as Mr.\nBaring Gould states in the case of the American Kox-Kox or Teokipaktli,\n_i.e._, fish-god, much resemble the Old Testament Noah, for Kox,\nencountered a flood and rescued himself in a cypress trunk (a true phallic\nsymbol), and peopled the world with wise and intelligent beings.' His full\ntitle mixes him up with the 'flesh-god' idea of Hebrews and others. North\nAmerican Indians relate that they too followed a fish-man or demi-god\nfrom Asia; he was only a man from the breasts upward, below he was a fish,\nor, indeed, two fish, for each leg was a separate fish.\"[9]\n\n\"It is said Oanes was a man-headed fish, and the earliest Hermes or\nMessenger of God to Kaldia. Berosus says he ate not, yet taught all the\narts of geometry, and the harvesting and storing of fruits and seeds.\nEvery night he retired to the sea (the Female and Holy Spirit), and after\nhim came Messiahs. Helladius called him Oes, but says he had the feet of a\nman, and sprang from a mundane egg. He had a fish's skin, and Higgins says\nhe first taught astrology in Kaldia. The mother of Oanes was worshipped as\nVenus Atergates, 'the good spirit,' and Oanes himself possibly signifies\nthe 'first-born of the Yoni,' the Protogonos of Sankuniathon. The Japanese\nrepresent their Messiah emerging like Vishnoo from a fish, and as such\ncall him Kan-On or Can-on, and his temple, Onius, and make his spirit\nrepose on twelve cushions, just as they do in the case of Fo or Boodha,\nshowing clearly the solar significance of the whole. So we see a close\nconnection between the Kaldian O-AN or Oanes the Hebrew AON, which in\nKoptic is the 'Enlightener,' and the Egyptian ON. In Armorik, Oan and\nOanic, and in Irish, UAN is a lamb, and in Hebrew Jonas signifies the\ngentle one, a 'Revealer' or word from God, and a dove, so that the sum of\nthe whole points to the Sanscrit Yoni.\n\n\"Pan, Jove's senior brother, used to be called 'a whale-like fish,' and he\nentangled Typhon in his nets and caught him, and yet who so unlike a fish\nin character as the goat-footed god.\n\n\"So Boodha is called Day-Po or Fishpo; Vishnoo appears in the first Avatar\nas a fish, for he is Vi\u00e7oo, Fi\u00e7oo or Fish-oo, as Christ is _Ischa_ in\nIreland, which is the Welsh _Fischa_. In all lands, fish have proved the\nsaviours of many men, and among the fish, the dolphin, as the delphus or\nwomb. She who has dedicated her life to her God we call a nun, and this\nwith Hebrews is a fish, and the Yoni. Fish and birds were called in\nAsyrian Nanu-Itsurn, yet a fish spoken of in opposition to a bird was\n_Kha_ and a bird _Khu_. Isis was a brooding bird, yet is generally seen\nwith a fish on her head. The fish was the first to swallow up the\ngenitals of Osiris, when Typhon caused him to be cut up into pieces and\nthrown away.\n\n\"Eating fish was considered to induce venery even more than beef or\ngarlic, and Shemitic races recommended or ordered such repasts on Frig's\nDay, or night--their Sabbath or Sabbath Eve. Among the Druses of Syria,\nLayard assures us such matters are still carefully attended to on Venus'\nor Frig's Eve, adding that 'in secret vespers' these pious persons 'offer\na true worship to the sexual parts of the female.'\"[10]\n\n\"Oannes and Dag-on (the fish On) are identical. According to an ancient\nfable preserved by Berosus, a creature half man and half fish came out of\nthat part of the Erythr\u00e6an Sea, which borders upon Babylonia, where he\ntaught men the arts of life, to construct cities, to found temples, to\ncompile laws, and, in short, instructed them in all things that tend to\nsoften manners and humanize their lives; and, he adds, that a\nrepresentative of this animal Oannes was preserved in his day. A figure of\nhim sporting in the waves, and apparently blessing a fleet of vessels, was\ndiscovered in a marine piece of sculpture by M. Botta, in the excavations\nof Khorsabad.\n\n\"At Nimroud, a gigantic image was found by Mr. Layard, representing him\nwith the fish's head as a cap and the body of the fish depending over his\nshoulders, his legs those of a man, his left hand holding a richly\ndecorated bag, and his right hand upraised as if in the act of presenting\nthe mystic Assyrian fir-cone.\" (_Baring Gould's Myths of the Middle\nAges._)\n\nMr. Layard, in his interesting work \"Nineveh and its Remains,\" thus\nalludes to this--\"I must not omit to allude to the tradition preserved by\nBerosus, which appears to attribute to a foreign nation, arriving by sea,\nthe introduction at some remote period of civilization and certain arts\ninto Babylonia. According to the historian, there appeared out of the\nErythr\u00e6an or Persian Gulf, an animal endowed with reason, called Oannes.\nIts body was like that of a fish; but under the head of the fish was that\nof a man, and added to its tail were women's feet. Its voice, too, was\nhuman, and it spoke an articulate language. During the day it instructed\nthe Chald\u00e6ans in letters and in all arts and sciences, teaching them to\nbuild temples; but at night it plunged again into the sea. Five such\nmonsters appeared at different epochs in Babylonia, and were called\n'Annedoti' (coming out of, or proceeding from). The first was named the\nMusarus Oannes, and the last Odacon. Their images, he adds, were preserved\nin Chald\u00e6a even to this day. (This fragment of Berosus is preserved by\nApollodorus. See Cory's Fragments.)\n\n\"In a bas-relief from Korsabad representing a naval engagement, or the\nseige of a city on the sea coast, we have the god nearly as described by\nBerosus. To the body of a man as far as the waist, is joined the tail of a\nfish. The three-horned cap, surmounted by the flower in the form of a\nfleur-de-lis, as worn by the winged figures of the bas-reliefs, marks the\nsacred character. The right hand is raised as in the representations of\nthe winged deity in the circle. This figure is in the sea amongst fish and\nmarine animals. On Assyrian cylinders and germs the same symbolical figure\nis very frequently found, even more closely resembling in its form the\ndescription of Berosus, numerous instances of which are given in Lajard's\nlarge work on the Worship of Venus.\n\n\"This Fish Worship extended to Syria, and appears to have been more\nprevalent in that country than in Assyria. The Dagon of the Philistines of\nAshdad evidently resembled the figure on the Assyrian sculptures and\ncylinders. When it fell before the ark, the head and both the palms of his\nhands were cut off upon the threshold; only the fishy part of Dagon was\nleft to him. (I. Samuel, v. 4; see the marginal reading.) The same idol is\nmentioned in Judges xvi. The meaning of the word in Hebrew is 'a fish.'\nAlthough the image, like that of the Assyrians, appears to have been\noriginally male; at a later period, it became female in Syria, as we learn\nfrom Lucian (de De\u00e2 Syri\u00e2), and Diodorus Siculus, who describes the idol\nat Ascalon with the face of a woman and body of a fish. (Lib. ii.) An\nicthyolatry, connected with Derceto or Atergates, was perhaps confounded\nwith the worship of Dagon.\"[11]\n\n\"In Azotus, or Asdotus, a renowned city of the Philistines, there was a\ncelebrated temple of Dagon in which the inhabitants kept the ark of the\ncovenant, in presence of the idols. And when they arose early in the\nmorning, behold Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the\nark of the Lord, and the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands\nwere cut off upon the threshold; and rah dagon nischar aghlaju, that is,\nas R. D. Cimchi explains it, only the form of a fish was left to him. (I.\nSamuel, v. 4.) For Dag and Dagah are words interpreted to mean fish,\nwhence he was called Dagon. The sacred scriptures, in Hebrews, bestow on\nhim the masculine gender, and so do the authors of the Greek version.\nPhilo Biblius says of Dagon, that he is a fruiterer and the son of\nCoelus, and thus thinks he should be called, because he first discovered\nfruit. For Dagon in Hebrew is translated by the Greek word Siton, which\nmeans fruit. He is also said to be the inventor of the plough, therefore\nwas named Zeus the plougher, as if he were Jupiter, the president of\nagriculture.\n\n\"Ptolemus says that Ceres was called Sito among the Syracusans, from the\nsame Greek word Sito. But he is mistaken; for, while he derives it from\nDagon (which means fruit), he should have deduced it from Dag (which means\na fish). There is the most ancient testimony outside of the Bible in\nregard to this god of Asia in what Berosus, Apollodorus, and Polyhistor\nwrite concerning Oannes. For Oannes is mentioned as a two-headed animal;\nthat feet like those of human beings grew from his tail, and that the rest\nof him is a fish. His voice was likewise human, and they say that,\nemerging from the Red Sea, he came to Babylon, but that he returned to the\nsea at sunset. He did this every day as if he were an amphibious animal.\nFrom him men learned all the various arts, letters, agriculture, the\nconsecration of temples, architecture, political government, and whatever\ncould possibly pertain to civilised life, and the most wonderful history\nof Belus and Omorea. His image was preserved down to the time of Berosus,\nthat is, to the beginning of the Grecian monarchy. This marine god can be\nno other than Dagon, whose history is found in Samuel. He was worshipped\nnot only by the Philistines, but by the Babylonians also. Apollodorus,\nfrom the same Berosus, narrates more extensively of four Oannes, called\nAnnedotos, who likewise in the lapse of ages appeared out of the Red Sea,\nevery one of whom was half man and half fish. But in the time of \u00c6doracus,\nking of the Chaldeans, who preceded the deluge a few ages, another similar\nfigure appeared, who was called Odakon. Dagon is undoubtedly intended and\nreferred to in this fable of Odakon. Abydenos speaks of a second\nAnnedotos, and bestows on him the form of a semi-demon. Helladius\nBesantinus speaks of a certain man of the name of Oleus arising out of the\nRed Sea, whose head, hands and feet were human, but that the other members\nof the body were those of a fish and that he taught letters, and the\nscience of astronomy. As all these references are so applicable to the\nOannes of Besorus, it is more than probable that the librarian made the\nmistake in the name of abbreviation in the copy.\n\n\"What has been extracted from the Scriptures and what has been said from\nthe writings of the ancients will convince any one that the figure of\nDagon was a mixture of the human and marine form. His body was marine, and\nhis face, hands, and feet were human.\n\n\"The Scriptures say expressly that his hands and feet were cut off, or\nbroken, when he fell before the ark of the Testament. These ancients wrote\nthat his feet grew to his tail. The Scriptures make him a masculine god,\nbut what has been said elsewhere of the common sex of the gods should be\nhere considered, for this very Dagon was changed into the goddess\nAdirdaga, that is, Atergatis, Adargatis, Derceto, and those other names\nmispronounced by the Europeans. It is certain that the Phoenician and\nBabylon goddess is the very same figure as Dagon, if you will change the\nsex. Lucianus describes briefly the image of Derceto as seen by him in\nPhoenicia, and it answers to that of Dagon. But also among other great\nwriters the goddess of Hierapolis is called Derceto, or Atergatis.\n\n\"Macrobius contends that, with the figures of Atergatis, she is Astarte,\nthat very mother of gods, and he does not speak of her as any other than\nthat goddess of Hierapolis.\n\n\"Unless she had been half fish, she would by no means have been called\nDerceto. But Atergatis, Adergatis, Atargata, Derceto, Derce, Adargidis,\nAtargatis, all of which are names of this goddess, are corrupt words, and\nfrom Adardaga, which in Hebrew means a magnificent or potent fish. This\nname was surely most suitable for Oannes, who is said to have conferred so\nmany benefits on mankind.\n\n\"In the same way the Sepharvites called their god Adramelech, which means\na magnificent king. In the fables there is generally no other reason for\nthe figure than that because formerly Dirce, the daughter of Venus, having\nfallen into the sea, was by fish preserved from all injuries of the\nwaters, or on account of the metamorphosis of Venus into a fish, when she\nwas running away terrified at the horrible advances of the monstre Typhon.\n\n\"Manilius, in his Astronomicon, book fourth, says:--\n\n  'When Heaven grew weak and a successful fight,\n  The giants raised and gods were saved by flight,\n  From snaky Typhon's arms, a fish's shape\n  Saved Venus and secured her from a rape.\n  Euphrates hid her, and from thence his streams\n  Owe all obedience to the fish's beams.'\n\n\"Or because a fish carried from the Euphrates an egg of wonderful size,\nwhich a dove kept warm, and hatched the Syrian goddess; hence it was that\nthey abstained from the eating of fish. They feared that if they ate those\nanimals the vengeance of the goddess would be aroused: that the limbs of\ntheir body would swell; that they would be covered by ulcers, and consumed\nby wasting disease. Plutarch says of the Pythagoreans, that of sea\ncreatures they especially abstained from eating the fish called mullet and\nurtic. They abstained from eating any kind of fish in order to instruct\nmen and accustom themselves to acts of justice, for they say that fish\nneither do nor are capable of doing us harm. Others abstained from fish,\nthe same author says, because man arose from a liquid substance, and\ntherefore they worship fish as of the same production and breeding with\nthemselves.\n\n\"Anaximander says that men were first produced in fish, and when they were\ngrown up and able to help themselves were thrown out, and so lived upon\nthe land. So he contends that fishes were our common parents.\n\n\"Xenophon, in his Anabasis, speaking of the river Chalos, says it was\nfilled with large and gentle fish, which the Syrians worshipped as gods.\nNeither would they permit them to be injured.\n\n\"These stories about fish are by no means the growth of the more ancient\nages, for about the time of the return of the Israelites from Egyptian\nbondage, the Tyrians were in the habit of taking fish to Jerusalem for\nsale. In Nehemiah xiii., v. 16 the words are as follows: 'There dwell men\nof Tyre also therein, which brought fish, and all manner of ware and sold\non the sabbath, unto the children of Judah, and in Jerusalem.' At this\ntime the Jews were not free from the profane rites of their neighbours,\nparticularly such as had taken their wives from among the Philistines, who\nespecially worshipped Dagon. To eat fish or to sell them on the public\nmarket-place was surely a great indignity to the god. There were certain\nfish sacred among other nations, as Pompilius among the Grecians, Anguilla\namong the Egyptians, and others among the Pythagoreans. In the same way as\nfish, so were also doves held in great honour out of favour to this god.\nIt is, however, well known that doves were sacred to Venus, and she is\nDerceto.\n\n\"The temple of Dagon is called Beth-Dagon, which is pure Hebrew. (See I.\nMaccabeus x., 23.) 'The horsemen also being scattered in the field, fled\nto Azotus and went into Beth-Dagon, their idol's temple, for safety.'\nVenus of the Ascalonites--that is Derceto--has the very same name with\nHerodotus, as Mylitta, Alitta, and the mother of the gods, and about the\ntemple of the goddess of Hierapolis fish and doves were received as\nsacred, and in her honour, no less than where Derceto was worshipped.\n\n\"'Paradise Lost' has the following of this deity:--\n\n                            'Next came one\n  Who mourned in earnest, when the captive ark\n  Maimed his brute image, heads and hands lopped off\n  In his own temple on the grunsel edge,\n  Where he fell flat, and shamed his worshippers;\n  Dagon his name, sea-monster, upward man\n  And downward fish: yet had his temple high\n  Reared in Azotus, dreaded through the coast\n  Of Palestine, in Gath and Ascalon,\n  And Accaron and Gaza's frontier bounds.'[12]\n\n\"Phin.--The old Irish demi-god Pin or Fin seems to have been a form of\nPineus, and, like him, was a son of Hermes, sharing, with the Budh or\nDa-Beoc, the exalted title of Bar-en-di, Son of the One God. It was Fin\nwho conquered the dragon or put down serpent worship and established all\nthe holy rites connected with Crones or Lingams, and, strangely enough,\nPhins or Feni, as Dr. P. W. Joyce calls them, showed like Eastern\nBoodhists, a great liking for both charms, which are but small phali,\nsuitable for carrying or wearing on the person. They are exactly like the\nlittle Lingas worn on the arms, or secreted on the head or chest of Indian\nSivaites. Irish history relates that Christian Feni diligently searched\nout and revered the teeth of St. Patrick.\n\n\"In the Brehon Laws of the Senchus Mor, the Feni or Fiannas, or champions,\nare described as a real historical people and the lawgivers of Irene. What\nArthur and his knights were to Brythonick, British, or 'Little Briton'\nKelts, Fin and his Fenians were in the two Skotias or among the Skoti.\n\n\"Before the Pagan Phin was converted, he is described as presiding over\nthe Tara assembly 'as a Druid in strangely flowered garments' (note the\nlikeness to Indra and Herakles), and with a double-pointed head-dress, and\nbearing in his hand a book, like Brahma, Matthew, Vishnoo, and the fishy\ndeities of Assyria, and of the Clonfest Cathedral, County Galway, pictures\nof which are given by Keane.\n\n\"The two-headed mitre of fishy form, the upright rod, spotted or chequered\ngarment, and basket in hand, distinctly mark the Eastern idea of a great\nPhalik chief, whilst in the mermaid with open book and jaunty arm akimbo,\nwho allows not even the waters to obscure her sexual capacities, we see\nthe Irish idea of Atargatis or Derketis, or 'Divine Ketis,' that form of\nVenus which Juno assumed at Kupros, in the old Kelto-Pelasgian temple of\nKupreuses. There, says Bryant, she was worshipped by the _Pigalia_,\n_Pialia_ or _Pials_, that is, the worshippers of the Oracle or Pi, who may\nbe called the Pi-i, Phin-i, Pi-ni or Pini, a word which is possibly the\nbase of the Latin and French terms for the Phallus, and which is otherwise\nof unknown but significant derivation. Macrobius calls _Der-Ketis_ 'the\nmother of the gods,' and Syrians, 'the receptacle of the gods,' that is,\nan _Erk_ or Ark, which the fish represented. If we were fully cognisant of\nthe origin of _Der-Ketis_, it might turn out to be, like the Indian names,\na dual or Linga-in Yoni. Thus Brahma, sitting on the lotus, is called\n_Brahma-Yoni_, and if _Der_ be the Jovine tree or Oak, Der-Ketis would be\nsimply the bi-sexual name of a supreme god. The mythical Semiramis was a\ndaughter of _Der-ketis_, who was changed into a dove, and her mother into\na fish, showing the close intertwining of all these figures by\nphallists.\"[13]\n\n\"Christians were very partial to the fish, but indeed, may be said to have\ncarried on freely all the ancient ideas, as which faith has not after its\nfirst attempt at purification? On Christian tombs especially do fish\nabound, commonly crossed, which reminds us that crossed serpents denote\ntheir act of intercourse, and in this symbolism the fish would be very\nnatural and usual, because denoting new life in death. Derceto, the\nhalf-fish and half-woman of the temple of the Dea Syria at Hira, was, says\nLucian, the perfection of woman; she was the mystic Oanes, Athor, and\nVenus, whom Egyptians have handed down to us embalmed.\n\n\"So the Fathers of the Church have called their flocks Pisciculi, and\ntheir high-priest a fisherman; and have given to all cardinals and bishops\nthe fish-head of Dagon.\n\n\"The fish is universally worshipped in all lands as the most fecundative\nof all creatures; and where most valued, the superstitious have offered it\nin sacrifice to their gods refusing to eat it. Many a time have I\ntravelled through a poor and barren country where it was all mankind could\ndo to live, and seen rivers and lakes teeming with fine fish which I dared\nnot touch, or only so by stealth as night came on, much to the annoyance\nof my followers and myself, and the detriment of the people.\n\n\"We find Phoenicians, Kelts and Syrians specially mentioned as holding\nthe fish in the greatest reverence, and at different periods of their\nhistory not eating it. The hill-tribes towards the sources of the Indus\nhave the same ideas. The Phoenicians picture Dagon and Dorketa the gods\nof _Gaza_ and _As-Kal-on_, as Fish Gods, or perhaps we should say a fish\ngod and goddess, for we know they were also Astartian Deities. _Kuthera_\nand _Kupros_ (Cypress) as shrines of Aphrodite, vied in the worship of\nthis fruitful Kubele, and Syria held the great northern shrine of\nHieropolis most holy to Venus as the _Fish Goddess_. _Cadiz_, Kodes, or\n_Gadir-Gades_, had Herkales on one side of her coins, and a fish or\nLunette on the other; whilst Syracuse, or rather Soora-Koos, and Soosa\nalike held their finny multitudes sacred to Fertility. In these days we\ncan imagine what a curse these faiths here were to the poor, and, indeed,\nto humanity.\"[14]\n\n\"The high round hill of Tabor, known to Christians as the 'Mount of\nTransfiguration,' is called by the Fal\u00e2hin the _umbilicus_ of their\ngreat earth mother Terra--that womb of nature in which we are\ntransfigured. To her also they had sacred temples at Askalon and Akcho\nwith suitable holy waters; and still at Tripolis, her very ancient city,\ndo we find her pond of holy fish, which are said to 'fight against\ninfidels,' and to which multitudes still make long pilgrimages, and\nworship with offerings and sacrifices. We have often come across similar\nholy ponds and lakes in India, and been warned off with our unholy rod and\nline. The Venus of Tripolis was Kadishah or Atergatis; indeed the city is\ncalled Kadishah, a name expressive of coarse phallic vices.\"[14]\n\n\"Dion Cassius says the Caledonians never taste fish, although their lakes\nand rivers furnish an inexhaustible supply. Two 'holie fishes' in the\nseventeenth century occupied a well near the church of Kilmore in\nArgyleshire. They were black--never changed colour--neither increased in\nnumber nor in size in the memory of the most aged. The people believed\nthat no others existed anywhere. Mr. Martin, in his 'Western Isles,'\ndescribes the ceremonies practised by invalids who came to be cured by the\nwaters of a well at Loch Saint, in the Isle of Skye. They drank the water\nand then moved round the well deasil (sunwise), and before departing left\nan offering on the stone. Martin adds that no one would venture to kill\nany of the fish in Loch Saint, or to cut as much as a twig from an\nadjacent copse. These customs practised in the end of the seventeenth\ncentury, have apparently reference to the worship of the sun, the\nfountain, the fish, and the oak.\n\n\"The absence of any allusion to the art of catching fish has been used as\nan argument in support of the authenticity of the poem of Ossian, as well\nas being corroborative of the statement of Dion Cassius. Fish-eaters was\none of the contemptuous epithets which the Scottish Celt applied to the\nSaxon and other races that settled in the Lowlands of Scotland, and the\nremains of the superstitious veneration of fish, or rather abstaining from\nfish as an article of food, is registered by the author of 'Caledonia' as\ninfluencing the more purely Celtic portions of the British population in\nthe early part of the present century.\n\n\"Ancient nations that did not eat but worshipped the fish were the\nSyrians, Phoenicians, and Celts. But in Caufiristaun, in the remote\nparts of the Hindu-Cosh, the Caufirs will not eat fish, although it is not\nsaid that they worship it. They believe in one great god, but have\nnumerous idols that represent those who were once men and women. A plain\nstone, about four feet high, represents God, whose shape they say they do\nnot know. One of their tribes call God Dagon. The fish-god and goddess of\nthe Phoenicians were called Dago and Derceto; the worship of Dagon being\nmore particularly celebrated at Gaza and Ashdod; that of Derceto at\nAscalon.\"[15]\n\n\"The old sculptures and gems of Babylon and Assyria furnish sufficient\nproof of the worship of Fertility, but writers and readers have alike lost\nthe key, or purposely skipped the subject, and this we have a prominent\nexample of in the case of the beautiful Assyrian cylinder, exhibiting the\nworship of the Fish God, which Mr. Rawlinson gives us without a comment.\nThere we see the mitred man-god with rod and basket adoring the solar\nFructifier, hovering over the fruitful tree from which spring thirteen\nfull buds, whilst behind him stands another adoring winged deity backed by\na star, a dove, and a yoni. On the opposite side of the Tree of Life is\nfire, and another man in the act of adoration, probably the Priest of God,\npleading with both hands open, that the requests of the other two figures\nmay be granted.\"[16]\n\n\"I may state that all that the author of Anc. Mons. writes in regard to\nthese old faiths thoroughly supports what I urge, though he is far from\nlooking at their features as I do, for he clearly knows very little of\nEastern Phallic faiths and their interpretation. Ashtoreth is Ishtar or\nwoman, the Star in more senses than one; the Phoenicians call her\nAstarte, but the 'present Mendean form is Ashtar,' and the plural\nAshtaroth. Bunsen derives this representative name from the very coarse,\nbut I fear perfectly correct source, '_the seat of the cow_--_Has_ and\n_toreth_;' for this is true to the idea of all Hindoos, and shows us that\nthe terms 'male' and 'female' originally meant the _organs pur et simple_,\nwhich indeed the writer of Gen. i. 27 expresses in the words _Zakar_ and\n_Nekabah_. In all African and Arabian dialects, _Nana_ and not Ishtar is\nthe commonest term for Mother, the usual initial being Ma, Ya, Ye, Ni, and\nrarely Om and On; see the long list of over one hundred names given by Sir\nJohn Lubbock as those of the 'non-Aryan nations of Europe and Asia' and of\n'East Africa.' There we see Ma and even _Ama_ occasionally used for\nFather, perhaps because among some tribes the strange custom existed of\nhis going to bed to protect and warm the infant as soon as born. The\nalmost universal initial sounds for the male ancestor are Pa, Fa, Ba, and\nin a few instances Da and Ad, and once Od and Ta. In Asia Baba, Aba, Apa,\nand sometimes Ama occur; now what we want to know is the origin of these\nsounds, but here philology is silent with seemingly no power to advance.\nThis is not the case, however, in regard to the objective roots of\nreligion; here we work with reasoning creatures, and can see that the\nchild continues, and that all mankind have ever continued to mate, whether\nin their own kind, or in their gods, the same A's, P's, F's, D's, to\nmales, and M's, N's, Om's, Y's to females, and we therefore conclude that\nthose were man's earliest symbols and names for the organs of sex, the\nOmphe or Mamma of the mother, which man had first cognisance of, and the\nA, Ab or Pa which he noticed as the characteristic of the opposite sex.\nThe Assyrian often represented Ishtar as the upright fish, probably\nbecause of the fecundative powers of the fish, and as the creature _par\nexcellence_ of water. The great mythic queen Semiramis, wife of Ninus, the\nfounder of Nineveh or Ninus, was said to have sprung from a fish some\ntwenty-three centuries B.C., and to be representative woman, Eva or Mary.\n\n\"The mythic genealogy of Semiramis begins with a fish and ends with\nNinyas. Her mother was Dorketo the Fish Goddess of Askalon, in Syria,\nwhere she was worshipped as Astarte or Aphrodite. She was famed down to\nthe days of Augustus for her beauty, voluptuousness, virtues and vices.\nThere seems no doubt but that there was some ruler called Semiramis, who\nconquered most of Western Asia, Egypt and part of Ethiopia, and who\nattempted India. Her fish origin is simply due to her being a woman and to\nher marrying _On_ or _Ones_, or probably _Oanes_ or _Ho-Anes_, the Serpent\nFish, or recognised God of Passion, both on the lower Euphrates and the\nlower Nile. Her conquests may merely signify that the race who had faith\nin her conquered, or that certain conquerors embraced the worship of the\nSun Goddess. When Kaldia fell to Assyria, she was very naturally made to\nmarry Ninus, or the strong Bull-Uan which this name signifies; she was\npreserved by doves, for these birds were sacred to Aphrodite. Mr.\nRawlinson believes that the origin of the myth lies in Ivaloosh's Queen of\nthe eighth century B.C., who was possibly a Babylonian, and shared in the\nGovernment with her Lord, but there is little doubt that there was such a\nqueen or goddess. Her name, if embracing Sun and fertilizing energies,\nwould naturally be Sivamy or Sami (God), Rames, Rami, or Ramesi--the\nGoddess of the Sun, in fact Ishtar, which Wilford calls her, saying these\nnames mean Isis. The Assyrian story is, that she sprang from a dove or\nYoni, which Capotesi would signify, and this is the Indian\nmanifestation.\"[17]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\n    _Universal Love of Flowers--Indifference to Flowers--Excessive Love\n    of Flowers leading to Adoration--Myths and Legends connected with\n    Flowers, the Flos Adonis, Narcissus, Myrtle, Silene inflata,\n    Clover--The Hundred-leaved Rose--The Worship of the Lily Species--\n    Signification of the Lotos--Hermaphroditic Character of the Lotos--\n    The Indian Mutiny of 1857, part played by the Lotos during its\n    Instigation._\n\n\n\"Why?\" asked a writer some years ago, \"why is it that every eye kindles\nwith delight at the sight of beautiful flowers? that in all lands, and\namidst all nations, the love of flowers appears to prevail to so great an\nextent, that no home is considered complete without them--no festival duly\nhonoured unless they decorate the place where it is observed? They are\nstrewn in the path of the bride; they are laid on the bier of the dead;\nthe merry-maker selects from the floral tribes the emblem of his joy; and\nthe mourner the insignia of his grief. Everywhere and under all\ncircumstances, flowers are eagerly sought after and affectionately\ncherished; and when the living and growing are not to be obtained, then is\ntheir place filled by some substitute or other, according to the\ncircumstances or taste of the wearer; but whether that substitute be a\nwreath of gorgeous gems for the brow of royalty, or a bunch of coloured\ncambric for the adornment of a servant girl, it is usually wrought into\nthe form of flowers.\n\n\"This taste depends not on wealth or on education, but is given, if not to\nall individuals, yet to some of every class. From the infant's first gleam\nof intelligence, a flower will suffice to still its cries; and even in old\nage the mind which has not been perverted from its natural instincts, can\nfind a calm and soothing pleasure in the contemplation of these gems of\ncreation.\"\n\nA man, reputed wise, was once asked in a garden: \"do you like flowers?\"\n\"No,\" said he; \"I seldom find time to descend to the little things.\" \"This\nman,\" said an American writer, \"betrayed a descent, in his speech, to the\npithole of ignorance. Flowers, sweet flowers! he that loves them not\nshould be classed with the man that hath not music in his soul, as a\ndangerous member of the community.\"\n\nInstead of _not liking_ or _not caring_, leaving out, _not loving_\nflowers, the general tendency with humanity has been to run to an opposite\nextreme and render them not merely estimation, care or love, but\nveneration and worship.\n\nThe adoration of flowers is one of the most ancient systems of worship\nwith which we are acquainted. It can be traced back for ages amongst the\nHindus, who believing that the human soul is a spark or emanation from the\nGreat Supreme, held that this essence can only be renovated in man by a\ncommunion with his works; it is found amongst the Chinese, it occupied a\nmost important position in the mysteries of Egyptian idolatry, it figures\nprominently on the past and present monuments of Mexico, and to some\nextent prevailed in Europe. Naturally enough, it arose in the warmer\nregions of the earth, where the vegetable productions of the tropics are\nso much more gorgeous in their colouring and noble in their growth, and in\nthose regions it still lingers, after having been swept away in other\nlands before the advance of education and a more intellectual religion.\n\nIt would be interesting did space allow to enumerate some of the myths and\nlegends connected with flowers, but as we have another object in view\nthese must be allowed to pass with a mere cursory allusion. There is the\nFlos Adonis which perpetuates the memory of Venus's favourite, Adonis, the\nson of Myrrha, who was herself said to be turned into a tree called myrrh.\nAdonis had often been warned by Venus not to hunt wild beasts; but\ndisregarding her advice, he was at last killed by a wild boar and was then\nchanged by his mistress into this flower. There was Narcissus, too,\ndestroying himself in trying to grasp his form when reflected in the water\nby whose margin he was reclining. Then we have Myrtillus and the Myrtle.\nThe father of Hippodamia declared that no one should marry his daughter\nwho could not conquer him in a chariot race; and one of the lovers of the\nyoung lady bribed Myrtillus, who was an attendant of Oenoma\u00fcs, to take\nout the linchpin from his master's chariot, by which means the master was\nkilled; and Myrtillus, repenting when he saw him dead, cast himself into\nthe sea, and was afterwards changed by Mercury into the myrtle.\n\nA bladder campion (Silene inflata) is another curiosity. Ancient writers\nsay that it was formerly a youth named Campion, whom Minerva employed to\ncatch flies for her owls to eat during the day, when their eyes did not\nserve them to catch food for themselves; but Campion indulging himself\nwith a nap when he ought to have been busy at his task, the angry goddess\nchanged him into this flower, which still retains in its form the bladders\nin which Campion kept his flies, and droops its head at night when owls\nfly abroad and have their eyes about them.\n\nThe common clover which was much used in ancient Greek festivals, was\nregarded by the Germans as sacred, chiefly in its four leaved variety.\nThere is indeed, in the vicinity of Altenburg, a superstition that if a\nfarmer takes home with him a handful of clover taken from each of the four\ncorners of his neighbour's field it will go well with his cattle during\nthe whole year; but the normal belief is that the four-leaved clover, on\naccount of its cross form, is endowed with magical virtues. The general\nform of the superstition is that one who carries it about with him will be\nsuccessful at play, and will be able to detect the proximity of evil\nspirits. In Bohemia it is said that if the maiden manages to put it into\nthe shoe of her lover without knowledge when he is going on any journey,\nhe will be sure to return to her faithfully and safely. In the Tyrol the\nlover puts it under the pillow to dream of the beloved. On Christmas Eve,\nespecially, one who has it may see witches. Plucked with a gloved hand and\ntaken into the house of a lunatic without anyone else perceiving it, it is\nsaid to cure madness. In Ireland also it is deemed sacred and has been\nimmortalized in Lover's beautiful song as a safeguard against every\nimaginable kind of sorrow and misfortune.\n\nIt was a belief among the Jews, according to Zoroaster says Howitt, that\nevery flower is appropriated to a particular angel, and that the\nhundred-leaved rose is consecrated to an archangel of the highest order.\nThe same author relates that the Persian fire-worshippers believe that\nAbraham was thrown into a furnace by Nimrod, and the flames forthwith\nturned into a bed of roses.\n\nIn contradistinction to this in sentiment is the belief of the Turk, who\nholds that this lovely flower springs from the perspiration of Mohammed,\nand, in accordance with this creed, they never tread upon it or suffer one\nto lie upon the ground.\n\n\"Of shrub or flower worship, the most important in the east and south has\nbeen that of the lily species. The lily of October--the saffron--was very\nsacred to the Karnean, or horned Apollo--that is, the sun--for horns\nusually stand for rays of glory, as in the case of the horned Moses of our\npoets, artists and ecclesiastics, who make him like an Apis of Egypt,\nbecause of the text which says, 'his face shone' when he came down from\nthe mountain. All lilies have more or less to do with the female or\nfecundating energies, and so even in Europe we have many stories of the\ncrocus species, because it is said 'of their irradiating light, having\npeculiar looking bells, three-headed and crested capillaments, three\ncells, and reddish seeds,' &c.\n\n\"The Lotus is the seat of most deities, but notably so of the creator\nBrahma, who, thus enthroned, is called the _Kamal-a-yoni_, or the great\nandrogynous god. The lotus is the womb of all creation. It is said to\noriginate from the great fertiliser, water, alone; and dropping its great\nleaves on this fertiliser as on a bed, it springs upwards with a slender,\nelegant stalk, and spreads forth in a lovely flower. Even the grave and\nmighty Vishnoo delights in the lotus, which is one of the four emblems he\nholds in his fourfold arms. It is Venus' sacred flower.\n\n\"The flower is shaped like a boat, is a representation of divinity, and is\nshown as springing from the navel of the great god resting on his milky\nsea. It always signifies fecundation. Inman, under the head Nabhi, navel,\nsays--'The germ is \"Meroo\" (the highest pinnacle of the earth), the petals\nand filaments are the mountains which encircle Meroo, a type of the Yoni,'\nand Sanscrit for _mons veneris_. Amongst fourteen kinds of fruit and\nflowers which must be presented to 'Ananta' (Sanskrit, eternity), the\nlotus is the only indispensable one, as he (Ananta) is then worshipped in\nthe form of a mighty serpent with seven heads.\n\n\"Hindoo and other writers often tell us that the lotus originated the idea\nof the triangle, which is 'the first of perfect figures, for two lines are\nan imperfection,' and the lotus also gives us a circle on a triangle which\nis full of cells and seed, and so is more perfect still. Siva is, as\nOrientals know, '_the god of the triangle_,' and hence, in his palace in\n_Kailasa_ we are told the most precious object 'on his table of nine\nprecious stones is the padma (lotus), carrying in its bosom the triangle,\nas origin and source of all things;' and that from 'this triangle issues\nthe Lingam, the eternal god who makes in it his eternal dwelling;' which,\nhowever, is not quite correct on the part of M. Guigniant, whom Mr. Barlow\nquotes. The lotus is an inverted triangle, and is therefore the female\nsign; the pyramid or triangle on base is Siva, or the _Ray of Light_, the\nsun-god.\n\n\"Another reason why the lotus is in all lands so sacred is its androgynous\nor hermaphrodite character, a feature imperative in the case of all the\ngreat gods of man, though this is not very clear if we dive deeply below\nthe surface, either in the case of the Jewish Elohim or the lotus. Brahma,\nthe creator, whilst sitting on the lotus, as all great gods do, desired,\nsays the 'Hindoo Inspired Word,' to create the universe, and for this\npurpose, became androgynous, or a breathing-spirit (Ruach?)--prakriti or\nnature; when creation at once commenced and progressed, much as we have it\nin the genesis of most faiths. The details of this mystic plant have much\nexercised all Asiatic and Egyptian minds. In its circular stamina it shows\ntwo equilateral triangles placed across each other, which Sanskritists\ncall the _shristi-chakra_, also sixteen petals called the _shoodasa_; and\nthis, it is held, is a revelation from the deity as to the proper age for\nthe representative woman or prakriti, in the Sakti ceremonies. These\ntriangles, with apex upwards and downwards, are _the chapel_ or magic\ndiagram which the pious are told to ponder over, for it has many\nsignifications and possesses numerous spells; and hence we see it\nvenerated in all early ages, and still an important article of\nFreemasonry. The spells go by the name of the _devi-chakrams_, or godesses\nof circles, no doubt having a solar signification.\n\n\"The _Padma_ and _Kamalata_ or _Granter-of-Desires_, or\n'Consummator-of-our-Wishes,' are all terms applied to the lotus. It is the\nsymbol of Venus or Lakshmi, or of her incarnation--Krishna's wife, Padha,\nwho is commonly a nude Venus or Sakti. It is also called '_love's\ncreeper_,' the throne and ark of the gods, and the water-born one. One\nauthor writes, that from far Thibet to Ceylon, and over every eastern\nland and islet, the holy Padma is only a little less sacred than the Queen\nof Heaven--Juno (I Oni) herself. It is as mysterious as the Yoni--is, like\nit, the flower of concealment, of night and of silence, and that\nmysteriousness of generation and reproduction; it is described as a sort\nof incomprehensible dualism which veils the Almighty One and his mysteries\nfrom our minds. Linn\u00e6us tells us it is the _Nelumbo_, but R. Payne Knight\nis clearer when he writes to this effect. The flowers of the lotus contain\na seed vessel shaped like an inverted _cone or bell_, which are very holy\nsymbols with all peoples, and representative male and female. This\ninverted bell is punctuated on the top with little cavities or cells in\nwhich the seeds grow as in a matrix fed by the parent plant till they\narrive at such a size as to break open 'the ark boat of life.' They then\nemerge and float away, taking root wherever they find ground, and throwing\ndown long tentacles or tendrills in quest of it. The idea is expressed by\nBrahma in his address to the angels, as given in the _Linga-Pooran_,\nbeginning: 'When I sprang into existence, I beheld the mighty Narayana\nreposing on the abyss of waters;' which reminds us of the Jewish\nElohim-god who it is said generated all things 'by brooding o'er the\ndeep.'\"[18]\n\nThose who remember the Indian mutiny of the year 1867 and the long tale of\nhorrors which overwhelmed the British dominions with grief, dismay and\nindignation, will be interested by the information that the conspiracy was\nfirst manifested by the circulation of symbols in the forms of cakes and\nlotus flowers. Commenting upon this, a writer in \"Household Words,\" of\nSeptember, 1857, said, after he had given a description and historical\naccount of the flower: I fear I may have indulged in too long an excursion\ninto the realms of botany to suit the reader, who merely wishes to know\nwhy the Indian rebels choose lotus flowers as symbols of cospiracy. I am\nsure I am as innocent of the knowledge as of the rebellion, but I will try\nto help my readers to a guess. Four-fifths of the human species worship a\nGod-woman; and the vestiges of this worship are found in the most ancient\nmonuments, documents and traditions, stretching backwards into the past\neternity from millenium to millenium, towards an epoch beyond the records\nof the Deluge, and almost coeval with the loss of Eden. The Tentyrian\nplanisphere of the ancient Egyptians represents the virgin and child\nrising out of a lotus flower. The Egyptian hieroglyphics depict the\ngoddess Asteria, or Justice, issuing out of a lotus, and seating herself\nupon the centre of the beam of Libra, or the Scales. Pictorial\ndelineations of the judgment of the dead, represent Osiris as Ameuti,\nswathed in the white garments of the grave, girt with a red girdle, and\nseated upon a chequered throne of white and black spots, or good and evil.\nBefore him are the vase of nectar, the table of ambrosia, the great\nserpent, and the lotus of knowledge--the emblems of Paradise. There are\nEgyptian altar-pieces upon which the lotus figures as the tree of life.\nThe Hindu priests say that the lotus rising out of the lakes is the type\nof the world issuing out of the ocean of time.\n\nTravellers who have observed the worship of the Hindus and Parsees, tell\nus that they give religious honours to the lotus. The Budhist priests\ncultivate it in precious vases, and place it in their temples. The Chinese\npoets celebrate the sacred bean of India, out of which their god Amida and\nher child arose, in the middle of a lake. We can be at no loss to imagine\nthe appearance of the Budhist pagodas, for our Gothic cathedrals are just\nthose pagodas imitated in stone. Their pillars copy the trunks of the\npalm-trees and the effects of the creeping plants of the pagodas; their\nheaven piercing spires are the golden spathes of palm flowers, and the\nstained glass reproduces, feebly, the many brilliances of the tropical\nskies. Every pious Buddist, giving himself up to devout meditations,\nrepeats as often as he can, the words \"On ma ni bat mo Klom.\" When many\nworshippers are kneeling and repeating the sound, the effect is like\ncounter-bass or the humming of bees; and profound sighs mingle with the\nrepetitions. The Mongolian priests say these words are endowed with\nmysterious and supernatural powers; they increase the virtues of the\nfaithful; they bring them nearer to divine protection, and they exempt\nthem from the pains of the future life. When the priests are asked to\nexplain the words, they say volumes would be required to tell all their\nmeanings. Klaproth, however, says that the formula is nothing but a\ncorruption of four Hindu words, \"Om man'i padma houm,\" signifying \"Oh!\nprecious lotus!\" Without pretending that the volume of the Hindu fakirs on\nthe signification of the lotus, might not throw more light upon the use of\nit as a symbol of conspiracy, there are hints enough in the facts I have\nstated to warrant the conclusion that it serves as a sign of a great and\ngeneral rising on behalf of Budhism. The flower was circulated to rally\nthe votaries of the goddess of the lotus.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\n    _Importance of the Lotos--Varieties of Lotos--Statements by Herodotus,\n    Homer, Theophrastus, Dioscorides, Pliny, Athen\u00e6us and others--The\n    Arborescent Lotos--The Sacred Lotos of the Nile--The Indian Lotos--\n    Nepaulese Adoration of the Lotos--Shing-moo, the Chinese Holy Mother--\n    Lakshmi--The Queens of Beauty--The Loves of Krishna and Radha._\n\n\nThe Lotos is a flower of such importance and prominence in the subject\nbefore us, and especially in connection with the ancient worship of the\nEast--notably of that of a _phallic_ character, that we naturally look\ncarefully about us for the best descriptive information we can find\nrespecting it. A writer (M. C. Cooke, M.A.) in the \"Popular Science\nReview\" for July, 1871, says:--\"The history of sacred plants is always an\ninteresting and instructive study; more so when it extends into a remote\nantiquity, and is associated with such great and advanced nations as those\nof Egypt and India. Much has been written and speculated concerning the\nLotos of old authors; and great confusion has existed in many minds on\naccount of the desire to make all allusions and descriptions to harmonise\nwith one ideal plant--the classic Lotos. We must clearly intimate that it\nis impossible to combine all the fragments of history and description\napplied to some plant or plants, known by the name of Lotos--and met with\nin the pages of Herodotus, Homer, Theophrastus, and others--into one\nharmonising whole, and apply them to a single mythical plant. It is\nmanifest, from the authors themselves, that more than one Lotos is spoken\nof, and it was never intended to convey the notion that, like immortal\nJove, the Lotos was one and indivisible. Starting, then, with the\nconviction that the one name has been applied to more than one or two very\ndistinct and different plants, we shall have less difficulty than were we\nto attempt the futile task of reconciling all remarks about the Lotos to a\nsingle plant.\"\n\n\"In the first instance, it is perfectly clear that the Lotos of Homer,\nwhich Ulysses discovered, and which is alluded to in the ninth book of the\n'Odyssey,' is quite distinct from any of the rest. It is the fruit of\nthis tree to which interest attaches, and not to the flower as in some\nothers--this is the arborescent Lotos.\n\n\"The second Lotos may be designated as the Sacred Lotos, or Lotos of the\nNile. It is the one which figures so conspicuously on the monuments,\nenters so largely into the decoration, and seems to have been interwoven\nwith the religious faith of the Ancient Egyptians. This Lotos is mentioned\nby Herodotus, Theophrastus, Dioscorides, Pliny, and Athen\u00e6us as an\nherbaceous plant of aquatic habits, and from their combined description,\nit seems evident that some kind of water-lily is intended. Herodotus\nsays:--'When the river is full, and the plains are inundated, there grow\nin the water numbers of lilies which the Egyptians call Lotos.'\nTheophrastus says:--'The Lotos, so called, grows chiefly in the plains\nwhen the country is inundated. The flower is white, the petals are narrow,\nas those of the lily, and numerous, as of a very double flower. When the\nsun sets they cover the seed-vessel, and as soon as the sun rises the\nflowers open, and appear above the water; and this is repeated until the\nseed-vessel is ripe and the petals fall off. It is said that in the\nEuphrates both the seed-vessel and the petals sink down into the water\nfrom the evening until midnight to a great depth, so that the hand cannot\nreach them; at daybreak they emerge, and as day comes on they rise above\nthe water; at sunrise the flowers open, and when fully expanded they rise\nup still higher, and present the appearance of a very double flower.'\nDioscorides says:--'The Lotos which grows in Egypt, in the water of the\ninundated plains, has a stem like that of the Egyptian bean. The flower is\nsmall and white like the lily, which is said to expand at sunrise, and to\nclose at sunset. It is also said that the seed-vessel is then entirely hid\nin the water, and that at sunrise it emerges again.' Athen\u00e6us states that\nthey grow in the lakes in the neighbourhood of Alexandria, and blossom in\nthe heat of summer. He also mentions a rose-coloured and a blue variety.\n'I know that in that fine city they have a crown called Antinoean, made\nof the plant which is there named Lotos, which plant grows in the lakes in\nthe heat of summer, and there are two colours of it; one of them is the\ncolour of a rose, of which the Antinoean crown is made; the other is\ncalled Lotinos, and has a blue flower.'\"\n\nAfter quoting a number of other descriptions from these authors, the\nwriter proceeds:--\"From these descriptions it is evident that the Sacred\nLotos of the Nile, the Egyptian Lotos of the ancients, was a species of\nNymphoea, common in the waters of that river. Plants, and animals also,\nsubmit so much to external circumstances, that the lapse of centuries may\neradicate them from spots on which they were at one time common. It by no\nmeans follows that the same plants will be found flourishing in the Nile\nnow, that were common under the Pharaohs; but, when the French invaded\nEgypt in 1798, Savigny brought home from the Delta a blue Nymphoea,\nwhich was figured in the 'Annales du Museum,' corresponding very closely\nin habit to the conventional Lotos so common on the Egyptian monuments.\n\n\"It seems to be very probable that the Lotos-flower in the hands of the\nguests at Egyptian banquets, and those presented as offerings to the\ndeities, were fragrant. The manner in which they are held strengthens this\nprobability, as there is no other reason why they should be brought into\nsuch close proximity with the nose.\n\n\"There is still a third Lotos mentioned by Dioscorides, Theocritus, and\nHomer, which may be some species of Medicago or of the modern genus Lotos.\nIt is herbaceous, sometimes wild, and sometimes cultivated; but always\nwritten about as though constituting herbage, and is on one occasion cropt\nby the horses of Achilles. We shall not pause to identify this plant, but\nproceed at once to the last plant it is our design to deal with.\n\n\"The Kyamos, or Indian Lotos. This can scarcely claim to be one of the\nkinds of Lotos mentioned by the ancients, since it is distinctly alluded\nto by them as the Egyptian bean, or Kyamos. This plant among the Hindus\nhas a sacred character, equal to that of the Lotus among the Egyptians. It\nwas doubtless Asiatic in its origin, but at one time was plentiful in\nEgypt, whence it has now totally vanished. It is represented on the\nEgyptian monuments, but far less common than the Sacred Lotos. Some\nauthors declare this to be the veritable 'Sacred Lotos of Egypt,' a title\nto which it has no claim. Herodotus, after describing the Lotos,\nadds--'There are likewise other lilies, like roses (and these, too, grew\nin the Nile) whose fructification is produced in a separate seed-vessel,\nspringing like a sucker from the root, in appearance exactly resembling a\nwasp's nest and containing a number of esculent seeds, about the size of\nolive-berries. These are also eaten when tender and dry.\n\n\"Theophrastus describing this plant, says:--'It is produced in marshes and\nin stagnant waters; the length of the stem, at the longest, four cubits,\nand the thickness of a finger, like the smooth jointless reed. The inner\ntexture of the stem is perforated throughout like a honey-comb, and upon\nthe top of it is a poppy-like seed-vessel, in circumference and appearance\nlike a wasp's nest. In each of the cells there is a bean projecting a\nlittle above the surface of the seed-vessel, which usually contains about\nthirty of these beans or seeds. The flower is twice the size of a poppy,\nof the colour of a full-blown rose, and elevated above the water; about\neach flower are produced large leaves of the size of a Thessalian hat,\nhaving the same kind of stem as the flower-stem. In each bean when broken\nmay be seen the embryo plant, out of which the leaf grows. So much for the\nfruit. The root is thicker than the thickest reed, and cellular like the\nstem; and those who live about the marshes eat it as food, either raw, or\nboiled, or roasted. These plants are produced spontaneously, but they are\ncultivated in beds. To make these bean-beds, the beans are sown in the\nmud, being previously mixed up carefully with chaff, so that they may\nremain without injury till they take root, after which the plant is safe.\nThe root is strong, and not unlike that of the reed; the stem is also\nsimilar, except that it is full of prickles, and therefore the crocodiles,\nwhich do not see very well, avoid the plant, for fear of running the\nprickles into their eyes.\"\n\nMajor Drury observes that the mode of sowing the seeds, is by first\nenclosing them in balls of clay, and then throwing them into the water.\nSir James Smith says that in process of time the receptacle separates from\nthe stalk, and, laden with ripe oval nuts, floats down the water. The nuts\nvegetating, it becomes a cornucopoeia of young sprouting plants, which\nat length break loose from their confinement, and take root in the mud.\n\nAfter comparing these and other accounts, the author of the paper urges\nthat there is no room for doubt that this is the plant which was known to\nthe ancients as the Kyamos or Egyptian bean, the Tamara of modern India.\n\n\"The beans and flower stalks of this plant abound in spiral tubes, which\nare extracted with great care by gently breaking the stems and drawing\napart the ends; with these filaments are prepared those wicks which are\nburnt by the Hindoos in the lamps placed before the shrines of their gods.\nIn India, as well as in China and Ceylon, the flowers are held to be\nspecially sacred.\"\n\nSir William Jones says:--\"The Thibetans embellish their temples and altars\nwith it, and a native of Nepaul made prostration before it on entering my\nstudy, where the fine plant and beautiful flowers lay for examination.\"\n\n\"Thunberg affirms that the Japanese regard the plant as pleasing to the\ngods, the images of their idols being often represented sitting on its\nlarge leaves. In China, the Shing-moo or Holy Mother is generally\nrepresented with a flower of it in her hand, and few temples are without\nsome representation of the plant.\n\n\"According to Chinese mythology, Shing-moo bore a son, while she was a\nvirgin, by eating the seeds of this plant, which lay upon her clothes on\nthe bank of a river where she was bathing. In the course of time she\nreturned to the same place, and was there delivered of a boy. The infant\nwas afterwards found and educated by a poor fisherman, and in process of\ntime became a great man and performed miracles. When Shing-moo is\nrepresented standing, she generally holds a flower in her hand; when she\nis sitting, she is usually placed upon one of its leaves.\"[19]\n\nThe Lotos (Lotus) is held in the highest veneration in India, inclusive of\nThibet and Nepaul. Amongst the Brahmans and enthusiastic Hindoos, no\nobject in nature is looked on with more superstition; and their books\nabound in mystical allusions to this lovely aquatic. Being esteemed the\nmost beautiful of vegetables, it not unappropriately furnishes a name for\nthe Hindoo queen of beauty, and Kamal or Kamala is a name of Lakshmi: as\nis Padma or Pedma, another Sanscrit appellation for both. Under the form\nof Kamala, Lakshmi is usually represented with a Lotos in her hand, and in\nmost pictures and statues of her consort Vishnu, he is furnished with the\nPedma, or Lotus bud, in one of his four hands, as a distinguishing\nattribute. Accordingly, as it is represented in different stages of\nefflorescence, it varies, in the eyes of mystics, its emblematical\nallusions. As an aquatic, the Lotos is a symbol also of Vishnu, he being a\npersonification of water or humidity, and he is often represented seated\non it. Brahma the creative power, is also sometimes seated on the Lotos,\nand is borne on its calyx in the whimsical representation of the\nrenovation of the world, when this mystical plant issued out of the navel\nof Vishnu from the bottom of the sea where he was reposing on the serpent\nLesha.\n\nLakshmi, as we have just noticed, is the sakti or consort of Vishnu, the\npreservative power of the deity. The extensive sect of Vaishnava, or\nworshippers of Vishnu, esteem Lakshmi as mother of the world, and then\ncall her Ada Maya; and such Vaishnavas as are saktas, that is, adorers of\nthe supremacy of the female energy, worship her extensively as the type of\nthe Eternal Being, and endow her with suitable attributes. She is\nrepresented by the poets and painters as of perfect beauty. Hindoo females\nare commonly named after her: and there are few in the long catalogue of\ntheir deities whose various names and functions are so frequently alluded\nto in conversation and writing, either on theogony, mythology, poetry or\nphilosophy. Her terrestrial manifestations have been frequent, and her\norigin various. As Rhemba, the sea born goddess, she arose out of the\nfourteen gems from the ocean when churned by the good and evil beings for\nthe amrita or beverage of immortality. She then assumes the character of\nVenus Marina, or Aphrodites of the Greeks, who, as Hesiod and Homer sing,\narose from the sea, ascended to Olympus, and captivated all the gods. The\nproduction of Rhemba, Sri, or Lakshmi is thus described in the\nthirty-sixth section of the first book of Ramayana. \"The gods, the asuras\nand the gandharvas, again agitating the sea, after a long time appeared\nthe great goddess, inhabiting the lotus; clothed with superlative beauty,\nin the first bloom of youth, covered with ornaments, and bearing every\nauspicious sign; adorned with a crown, with bracelets on her arms, her\njetty locks flowing in ringlets, and her body--which resembled burnished\ngold--adorned with ornaments of pearl. Thus was produced the goddess Padma\nor Sri, adored by the whole universe, Padma by name. She took up her\nabode in the bosom of Padma-nabha, even of Heri,\" that is, of Vishnu, of\nwhom these are names. Sri, as this deity is often called, distinguished\nher more particularly as the goddess of fortune, the word meaning\n_prosperity_; but it is not given exclusively to Lakshmi. Other of her\nnames are derived from the lotus, which is the emblem of female beauty,\nand especially applicable to this goddess. In images and pictures of her,\nwhich are very common in India, Lakshmi is generally represented as a mere\nwoman; sometimes, however, four-armed; often holding a kamal or lotus, in\nan easy and elegant attitude, and always very handsome. With her lord,\nVishnu, she is frequently seen on the serpent Sesha; he reposing, she in\nrespectful attendance, while a lotus springing from Vishnu's navel to the\nsurface of the sea (for this scene is subaqueous) bears in its expanded\ncalyx, Brahma, the creator of the world, about to perform the work of\nrenovation. Sometimes she is seated with her lord on Garuda, or Superva,\nclearing the air, of which Vishnu is a personification. In Vishnu's most\nsplendid avatara, or incarnation of Krishna, she became manifested as\nRukmein, or Radha, the most adored of the amorous deities, and mother of\nthe god of love; here again corresponding with our popular Venus, the\nmother of Cupid. In the avatara of Rama, Lakshmi was his faithful spouse,\nin the form of Sita; in that of Narsingha she was Narsinhi, or Nrisinhi;\nwhen Varaha, Varahi; and as the Sakti of Narayana she is by her own\nsectaries called Narayni; and in most of the many incarnations of Vishnu\nshe appears to have descended with him, frequently under his own celestial\nname: as his consort generally she is called Vaishnavi.\n\nLakshmi and Bhavani are both considered queens of beauty, and their\ncharacters are said to \"melt into each other.\" Lakshmi being commonly seen\nwith a Kamal or Lotos, the emblem of female beauty, in her hand, she is\ncalled Kamala: the word is by some--by Sir W. Jones, indeed, in his\nearlier lucubrations on Hindu mythology, spelled Kemel. In his profound\nand spirited hymn to Narayana, which every inquirer into its subject would\ndo well to consult with attention, that deity, a personification of the\nSpirit of Brahme, as \"he heavenly pensive on the Lotus lay,\" said to\nBrahma, \"Go; bid all the worlds exist!\" and the Lotus is thus\napostrophised:--\n\n  \"Hail, primal blossom! hail, empyreal gem!\n  Kemel, or Pedma, or whate'er high name\n  Delight thee; say, what four-formed Godhead came,\n  With graceful stole, and bearing diadem,\n  Forth from thy verdant stem?--\n  Full-gifted Brahma.\"[20]\n\nThe following extract from the \"Loves of Krishna and Radha\" shews the deep\npoetic sentiment associated with flowers, and especially with the Lotos.\nKrishna, afflicted by the jealous anger of Radha, exclaims--\n\n\"Grant me but a sight of thee, O lovely Radhica! for my passion torments\nme. I am not the terrible Mahesa: a garland of water-lilies, with subtile\nthreads, decks my shoulders--not serpents with twisted folds: the blue\npetals of the Lotos glitter on my neck--not the azure gleam of poison:\npowdered sandal wood is sprinkled on my limbs--not pale ashes. O god of\nlove! mistake me not for Mahadeva; wound me not again; approach me not in\nanger; hold not in thy hand the shaft barbed with an amra flower. My heart\nis already pierced by arrows from Radha's eyes, black and keen as those of\nan antelope; yet mine eyes are not gratified by her presence. Her's are\nfull of shafts; her eyebrows are bows, and the tips of her ears are silken\nstrings: thus armed by Ananga, the god of desire, she marches, herself a\ngoddess, to ensure his triumph over the vanquished remorse. I meditate on\nher delightful embrace: on the vanishing glances darted from the fragrant\nLotos of her mouth: on her nectar-dropping speech; on her lips, ruddy as\nthe berries of the Bimba.\"\n\nRadha, half pacified, thus tenderly reproaches him--\n\n\"Alas! alas! Go, Madhava--depart, Kesavi; speak not the language of guile:\nfollow her, O Lotus-eyed god--follow her, who dispels thy care. Look at\nhis eyes, half-opened, red with waking through the pleasurable night--yet\nsmiling still with affection for my rival. Thy teeth, O cerulean youth!\nare as azure as thy complexion, from the kisses which thou hast imprinted\non the beautiful eyes of thy darling, graced with dark blue powder; and\nthy limbs, marked with punctures in love's warfare, exhibit a letter of\nconquest, written in polished sapphire with liquid gold. That broad\nbosom, stained by the bright Lotos of her foot, displays a vesture of\nruddy leaves over the tree of thy heart, which trembles within it. The\npressure of her lips on thine wound me to the soul. Ah! how canst thou\nassert that we are one, since our sensations differ thus widely?--Thy\nsoul, O dark-limbed god! shows its blackness externally; even thy childish\nheart was malignant, and thou gavest death to the nurse who would have\ngiven thee milk.\"\n\nKrishna is thus farther described in the same poem--\n\n\"His azure breast glittered with pearls of unblemished lustre, like the\nfull bed of the cerulean Yamuna, interspersed with curls of white foam.\nFrom his graceful waist flowed a pale yellow robe, which resembled the\ngolden dust of the water-lily scattered over its blue petals. His passion\nwas inflamed by the glances of her eyes, which played like a pair of water\nbirds with azure plumage, that sport near a full-blown Lotos on a pool, in\na season of dew. Bright earrings, like two suns, displayed, in full\nexpansion, the flowers of his cheeks and lips, which glistened with the\nliquid radiance of smiles. His locks, interwoven with blossoms, were like\na cloud variegated with moonbeams, and on his forehead shone a circle of\nodorous oils, extracted from the sandal of Malaya--like the moon just\nappearing on the dusky horizon, while his whole body seemed in a flame\nfrom the blaze of unnumbered gems.\"\n\nWith respect to the mention above of the _blue_ Lotos, Moor\nnotes:--\"Written in the north of India; the Lotos in the southern parts,\nBengal and the Dekhan, having only white and red flowers. Hence the Hindu\npoets feign that the Lotus was dyed red by the blood of Siva, that flowed\nfrom the wound made by the arrow of Kama.\"\n\nAnd with respect to the expression, \"the bright Lotos of her foot,\" he\nsays:--\"Hindustani women dye the soles of their feet, and nails, of a\nbright red. Redha, in her frenzied jealousy, fancies she sees a print of\nher rival's foot on Krishna's breast; observing, perhaps, the indelible\nimpression of the foot of Brighu, received on his breast by Vishnu.\"\n\n\"The Indians commonly represent the mystery of their physiological\nreligion by the emblem of a _Nymphoea_, or _Lotos_, floating like a boat\non the boundless ocean; where the whole plant signifies both the earth\nand the two principles of its fecundation: the germ is both _M\u00e9ru_ and the\n_Linga_; the _petals_ and _filaments_ are the mountains which encircle\nM\u00e9ru, and are also a type of the Yoni; the leaves of the calyx are the\nfour vast regions to the cardinal points of M\u00e9ru, and the leaves of the\nplant are the _dwipas_ or isles round the land of _Jambu_. Another of\ntheir emblems is called _Argha_, which means a _cup_ or _dish_, or any\nother vessel, in which _fruit_ and _flowers_ are offered to the deities,\nand which _ought_ always to be _shaped like a boat_, though we now see\narghas of many different forms, oval, circular or square; and hence it is\nthat Iswara has the title of _Arghanatha_, or the lord of the boat-shaped\nvessel: a rim round the _argha_ represents the mysterious Yoni, and the\nnavel of Vishnu is commonly denoted by a convexity in the centre, while\nthe contents of the vessel are symbols of the _linga_. This _argha_, as a\ntype of the _adhara-sacti_, or _power of conception_, excited and vivified\nby the _linga_, or _Phallus_, we cannot but suppose to be one and the same\nwith the ship Argo, which was built, according to Orpheus, by Juno and\nPallas, and according to Appolonius, by Pallas and Argus at the instance\nof Juno: the Yoni, as it is usually pronounced, nearly resembles the name\nof the principal Hetruscan goddess, and the Sanscrit phrase _Arghanatha_\nIswara seems accurately rendered by Plutarch, when he asserts Osiris was\ncommander of the Argo. We cannot yet affirm that the words phala, or\nfruit, and phulla, or a flower, have ever the sense of Phallus; but fruit\nand flowers are the chief oblations in the _argha_, and triphala is a name\nsometimes given, especially in the West of India, to the trifula, or\ntrident of Mahadeva. It can be shown that the Jupiter Triphylius of the\nPauchoean Islands was no other than Siva holding a triphala, who is\nrepresented also with three eyes to denote a triple energy, as Vishnu and\nPrithivi are severally typified by an equilateral triangle, (which\nlikewise gives an idea of capacity) and conjointly, when their powers are\nsupposed to be combined, by two such equal triangles intersecting each\nother.\"[21]\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\n    _Story of the Fire-God and his secret--Growth of Fire-Worship--Fire an\n    essential in Hindu Worship--The Chaldeans--The Persians--The Hebrews--\n    Fire in Hindu Ceremonies--Duties of Hindu Life--The Serpent and Fire--\n    Phallo-Pythic Solar Shrines--Fire and Phallic Worship--Leaping through\n    Fire--Fire-treading in Scotland--Fire-leaping in Russia--The Medes as\n    Fire Worshippers--The Sabines--Fire and the Ancient Christians--The\n    Roman Church and Fire--The Jews--Temple of Vesta--Fire Worship in\n    Ireland--Phallo-Fire Worship of Greeks and Romans._\n\n\nThe Rev. W. Gill in his \"Myths and Songs from the South Pacific\" supplies\nus with a story particularly suitable for notice here, called the \"Fire\nGod's Secret.\" The story tells us that originally fire was unknown to the\ninhabitants of the world, who of necessity ate raw food. That in the\nnether-world (Avaiki) lived four mighty ones: Manike, god of fire; the\nSun-god Ra; Ru, supporter of the heavens; and lastly, his wife\nBuataranga, guardian of the road to the invisible world. To Ru Buataranga\nwas born a famous son Mani. At an early age Mani was appointed one\nof the guardians of this upper world where mortals live. Like the rest of\nthe inhabitants of the world, he subsisted on uncooked food. The mother\nBuataranga, occasionally visited her son; but always ate her food apart,\nout of a basket brought with her from nether-land. One day, when she was\nasleep, Mani peeped into her basket and discovered cooked food. Upon\ntasting it he was decidedly of opinion that it was a great improvement\nupon the raw diet to which he was accustomed. This food came from\nnether-world; it was evident that the secret of fire was there. To\nnether-world, the home of his parents he would descend to gain this\nknowledge, so that ever after he might enjoy the luxury of cooked food.\n\nThe story goes on to say that when Buataranga set out, next day, on her\njourney to nether-world, Mani followed her, unbeknown to her. He then\nsaw his mother standing opposite a black rock which she addressed in\nthese words: \"Buataranga, descend thou bodily through this chasm. The\nrainbow-like must be obeyed. As two dark clouds parting at dawn, Open,\nopen up my road to nether-world, ye fierce ones!\"\n\nAt these words the rock divided, and Buataranga descended. Mani\ncarefully treasured up these words; and started off to see the god Tane,\nthe owner of some wonderful pigeons. He begged Tane to lend him one, but\nas the one Tane lent him did not please him, he returned it, as he did\nalso another and a better one. The only bird that would content him was a\ncertain red pigeon, which was specially prized by its owner and was made a\ngreat pet of. Tane at first objected to part with the bird and only did so\nupon Mani's faithfully promising to restore it uninjured. Off went\nMani with the bird to the place where his mother had descended.\nPronouncing the magic words, the rock opened, and Mani descended. The\nguardian demons of the chasm, enraged at finding themselves imposed upon\nby a stranger, tried to seize the pigeon, intending to devour it. They\nonly succeeded in getting possession of the tail, which the pigeon went on\nwithout. (They say that Mani had transformed himself into a small\ndragon-fly and was perched upon the pigeon's back.)\n\nArrived at nether-land, Mani sought for the home of his mother, which\nwas the first house he saw. The pigeon alighted on an oven-house opposite\nto an open shed where Buataranga was beating out cloth. She stopped her\nwork to gaze at the bird, which she guessed to be a visitor from the upper\nworld as none of the pigeons in the shades were red. She said to the\nbird:--\"Are you not come from daylight?\" The pigeon nodded assent; \"Are\nyou not my son Mani?\" Again the pigeon nodded. At this Buataranga\nentered her dwelling and the bird flew to a bread-fruit tree. Mani\nresumed his proper form, and went to embrace his mother, who inquired how\nhe had descended to nether-world and the object of his visit. Mani\nanswered that he had come to learn the secret of fire. Buataranga said,\n\"This secret rests with the fire-god Manike. When I wish to cook I ask\nyour father Ru to beg a lighted stick from Manike.\" Mani inquired where\nthe fire-god lived. His mother pointed out the direction, and said it was\ncalled Are-ava, _house-of-banyan-sticks_. She warned her son to be\ncareful, \"for,\" she said, \"the fire is a terrible fellow, and of a very\nirritable temper.\"\n\nMani walked up boldly towards the house of the fire-god. Manike, who\nhappened to be busy cooking an oven of food, stopped at his work and\ndemanded what the stranger wanted. Mani replied, \"A fire brand.\" The\nfire brand was given. Mani carried it to a stream running past the\nbread fruit tree and there extinguished it. He now returned to Manike and\nobtained a second fire brand, which he also extinguished in the stream.\nThe third time a lighted stick was demanded of the fire-god he was beside\nhimself with rage. Raking the ashes of the oven, he gave the daring\nMani some of them on a piece of dry wood. These live coals were thrown\ninto the stream as the former lighted sticks had been.\n\nMani correctly thought that a fire brand would be of little use unless\nhe could obtain the secret of fire. The brand would eventually go out;\n_but how to reproduce the fire?_ His object therefore was to pick a\nquarrel with the fire-god, and compel him by sheer violence to yield up\nthe invaluable secret, as yet known to none but himself. On the other\nhand, the fire-god, confident in his own prodigious strength, resolved to\ndestroy this insolent intruder into his secret. Mani for the fourth\ntime demanded fire of the enraged god. Manike ordered him away, under pain\nof being tossed into the air; for Mani was small of stature. But the\nvisitor said he should enjoy nothing better than a trial of strength with\nthe fire-god. Manike entered his dwelling to put on his war-girdle; but on\nreturning found that Mani had swelled himself to an enormous size.\nNothing daunted at this, Manike boldly seized him with both hands and\nhurled him to the height of a cocoa-nut tree. Mani contrived in falling\nto make himself so light that he was in no degree hurt by his adventure.\nManike, maddened that his adversary should yet breathe, excited his full\nstrength, and next time hurled him far higher than the highest cocoa-nut\ntree that ever grew. Yet Mani was uninjured by his fall, whilst the\nfire-god lay panting for breath.\n\nIt was now Mani's turn. Seizing the fire-god he threw him up to a dizzy\nheight and caught him again like a ball with his hands. Without allowing\nManike to touch the ground, he threw him a second time into the air, and\ncaught him in his hands. Assured that this was but a preparation for a\nfinal toss which would seal his fate, the panting and thoroughly exhausted\nManike entreated Mani to stop and to spare his life. Whatever he\ndesired should be his.\n\nThe fire-god, now in miserable plight, was allowed to breathe awhile.\nMani said, \"Only on one condition will I spare you--_tell me the secret\nof fire_. _Where is it hidden? How is it produced?_ Manike gladly promised\nto tell him all he knew, and led him inside his wonderful dwelling. In one\ncorner there was a quantity of fine cocoa-nut fibre; in another, bundles\nof fire-yielding sticks--the _au_, the oronga, the tauinu, and\nparticularly the aoa or banyan tree. These sticks were all dry and ready\nfor use. In the middle of the room were two smaller sticks by themselves.\nOne of these the fire-god gave to Mani, desiring him to hold it firmly,\nwhile he himself plied the other most vigorously. And thus runs the\nFire-god's Song:--\n\n  \"Grant, oh grant me thy hidden fire,\n        Thou banyan tree!\n  Perform an incantation;\n  Utter a prayer to (the spirit of)\n        The banyan tree!\n  Kindle a fire for Manike\n  Of the dust of the banyan tree.\"\n\nBy the time the song was completed, Mani, to his great joy, perceived a\nfaint smoke arising out of the fine dust produced by the friction of one\nstick upon another. As they persevered in their work the smoke increased;\nand, favoured with the fire-god's breath, a slight flame arose, when the\nfine cocoa-nut fibre was called into requisition to catch and increase the\nflame. Manike now called to his aid the different bundles of sticks and\nspeedily got up a blazing fire, to the astonishment of Mani.\n\nThe grand secret of fire was secured. The story tells us that the victor\nthen in order to be revenged for his trouble and his tossing into the air,\nset fire to his adversary's abode, that in a short time all the\nnether-world was in flames, which consumed the fire-god and all he\npossessed.\n\nMani then picked up the two fire-sticks and hastened to the bread-fruit\ntree, where the red pigeon awaited his return. His first care was to\nrestore the tail of the bird so as to avoid the anger of Tane. There was\nno time to be lost, for the flames were rapidly spreading. \"He re-entered\nthe pigeon, which carried his fire-stalks one in each claw, and flew to\nthe lower entrance of the chasm. Once more pronouncing the words he learnt\nfrom Buataranga, the rocks parted, and he safely got back to this upper\nworld. Mani now resumed his original human form, and hastened to carry\nback the pet bird of Tane. Passing through the main valley of Keia, he\nfound that the flames had preceded him, and had found an aperture at\nTeava, since closed up. The king's Rangi and Mokoiro trembled for their\nland; for it seemed as if everything would be destroyed by the devouring\nflames. To save Mangaia from utter destruction, they excited themselves to\nthe utmost, and finally succeeded in putting out the fire. Rangi\nthenceforth adopted the new name of Matamea, or Watery-eyes, to\ncommemorate his sufferings; and Mokoiro was ever after called Anai, or\nSmoke.\"\n\n\"The inhabitants of Mangaia availed themselves of the conflagration to get\nfire and to cook food. But after a time the fire went out, and as they\nwere not in possession of the secret, they could not get new fire.\n\n\"But Mani was never without fire in his dwelling; a circumstance that\nexcited the surprise of all. Many were the inquiries as to the cause. At\nlength he took compassion on the inhabitants of the world, and told them\nthe wonderful secret--that fire lies hidden in the hibiscus, the urtica\nargenta, the 'tauinu' and the banyan. This hidden fire might be elicited\nby the use of fire sticks which he produced. Finally, he desired them to\nchant the fire-god's song, to give efficacy to the use of the\nfire-sticks.\"\n\n\"From that memorable day all the dwellers in this upper world used\nfire-sticks with success, and enjoyed the luxuries of light and cooked\nfood.\n\n\"To the present time this primitive method of obtaining fire is still in\nvogue; cotton, however, being substituted for fine cocoa-nut fibre as\ntinder. It was formerly supposed that only the four kinds of wood found in\nthe fire-god's dwelling would yield fire.\n\n\"'Aoa' means banyan-tree; for intensity and rhythm the word is lengthed\ninto 'aoaoaoa.' The banyan was sacred to the fire-god.\n\n\"The spot where the flames are said to have burst through, named Te-oao\nor _the banyan-tree_, was sacred till Christianity induced the owner to\nconvert the waste land into a couple of taro patches.\"[22]\n\n\"Light, then fire, the sun, and the 'whole host of heaven' seem\nsuccessively, and at last collectively, to have become objects of worship\nto the Arian race; but first of all light, which was to them pre-eminently\nthe object of adoration in Northern India previous to the period of the\ncollection or composition of the hymns of the earliest Hindu Veda, or, in\nround numbers, thirty-five centuries ago.\n\n\"According to Herodotus, the Persians venerated fire as a divinity, and\nPliny explains that the magic of Persia might apparently have been learned\nfrom the practices of the Britons. There is abundant evidence to show that\nour heathen ancestors worshipped the sun and moon. It might, therefore,\nreasonably be inferred that in Britain, as in other countries, fire would\nbe substituted as typical of the great luminary--of its light and its\nheat--and became an object of adoration, when the sun was obscured or\ninvisible in seasons set apart for celebrating the religious rites of a\nSabian worship. But we are not dependent on inference, however rational,\nfor a knowledge of the fact that fire was an object of adoration to our\nheathen ancestors, even so late as the eleventh century; for in the laws\nof Cnut fire appears as one of the objects the worship of which is\nforbidden.\"\n\n\"Fire seems to have always had the firmest hold upon the wonderment and\nthen the adoration of the infant mind. To the present moment it is an\nessential part of all Hindoo worship and ceremonies. From his cradle to\nhis grave, when the Hindoo is folded in the god's embrace, the ancient\nraces around me seek for it, use it, offer sacrifices to it, and adore\nit.\"\n\nThe Chaldeans had a high veneration for fire, which they accounted a\ndivinity; and in the province of Babylon there was a city consecrated to\nthis usage, which was called the city of Ur, or of Fire.\n\nThe Persians also adored God under the image or representation of fire,\nbecause it is fire that gives motion to everything in nature. They had\ntemples which they called \"Pyr\u00e6a,\" fire temples set apart solely for the\npreservation of the sacred fire. They are said to have in that empire\nfires still subsisting which have burnt many thousand years.\n\nThe worship of the goddess Vesta and of fire, was brought into Italy by\n\u00c6neas and the other Trojans who landed there; but the Phrygians themselves\nhad received it from the eastern nations. Fire was held in religious\nveneration among the Gauls; and similar sentiments and practices have\nprevailed in several countries of America.\n\nThe Hebrews kept up the holy fire in the temple. This holy fire descended\nfrom heaven, first upon the altar in the tabernacle at the consecration of\nAaron and his sons to the priesthood, and afterwards it descended anew on\nthe altar in the temple of Solomon, at the consecration of that temple.\nAnd there it was constantly maintained by the priest day and night,\nwithout suffering it ever to go out; and with this all the sacrifices were\noffered that required fire. This fire, according to some of the Jewish\nwriters, was extinguished in the days of Manasseh; but the more general\nopinion among them is, that it continued till the destruction of the\ntemple by the Chaldeans; after that it was never more restored; but\ninstead of it, they had only common fire in the second temple.\n\nThe part played by fire in the life of a Hindoo is a remarkable one, and\nshews the immense extent to which this form of worship has prevailed and\nstill prevails in some countries. In the man's earliest days--in his\nchildhood--at the ceremony called the investiture of the thread, fire is\nkindled from the droppings of the sacred cow, sprinkled with holy water\nand blessed. Then are brought to it various offerings of grain, butter,\n&c., by the worshippers who are supplicating blessings, the officiating\npriest all the while reading passages from the sacred books. The child's\nfather and mother pray to Agni (Fire) that its past sins may be forgiven,\nhaving been done in ignorance; then they declare him to be of an age to\nknow good and evil--he is between seven and nine. The sacred thread is\nthen, after being duly washed and held over the fire, placed around the\nchild's neck, constituting him a Brahm Achari--one sworn to practise the\nlaws and behests of Brahm or Almighty God. Dubois, in Moeurs des Indes,\nsays--\"A pious father will then say privately to his child, 'Remember, my\nson, there is but one God, the Sovereign Master and Principle of all\nthings, and every Brahman is bound to worship him in secret.'\"\n\nA fortnight afterwards, a kind of confirmation ceremony takes place, again\nbefore the fire, in which the parents promise that they will see that he\ngets married and leads a good life.\n\nMarriage is the principal feature in a Hindoo's life, and this, as most\npeople know, takes place very early and is attended with many important\nceremonies.\n\nHere, again, fire is conspicuous as an object of worship, the ceremony\nbefore it--the God Agni--being the last and most serious of all. With\nclothes tied together, bride and bridegroom parade round about the deity\ncasting to him their offerings which now \"symbolise,\" says Forlong, \"the\nsacrifice of all their virgin modesty to the god, as the emblem of sexual\nfire.\" The final oath of mutual love and faith is then taken in an address\nto the fire, and the pair, who are mere boy and girl, are duly married.\n\nA little further on when the period arrives for cohabitation, the fourth\nceremony is then gone through, fire again being adored and sacrifice\noffered.\n\nIn the final scene, when death has taken possession of the body, fire is\nagain called into requisition; it is carried before the corpse by the\nnearest relatives, and ultimately reduces the inanimate form to its\noriginal dust and ashes.\n\nForlong says--\"Fire enters into every duty of a Hindoo's life. Before\npartaking of his morning meal he utters incantations to Agni, offers to\nhim portions of that meal; and in like manner, before he wears a new cloth\nor garment, he must take some threads or parts of it and offer these to\nthe same deity.\"\n\n\"It is from the rubbing together of the wood of trees, notably of the\nthree Banian figs--Peepal, Bar, and Gooler, the favourite woods for\nPhallic images, that holy fire is drawn from heaven, and before all these\nspecies do women crave their desires from God.\"\n\n\"Cave and fire rites are not yet extirpated from Jerusalem, nor, indeed,\nfrom any nation of the earth. Christians still rush for sacred fire to the\nholy cave at the birth of Sol, and men and women strive, in secret nooks,\nto pass naked through holy fire.\"\n\n\"Syrians, as well as all other nations, connected the Serpent with Fire.\nThus the Jews had their fire altars, on which the holy flame must be ever\nburning and never go out; and they carried about a serpent on a pole as\ntheir healer. So also the writer of the Acts of the Apostles speaks of the\nChristian Holy Ghost as having serpent-like 'cloven tongues of fire,'\nwhich the margin of orthodox Bibles very properly connects with Isaiah's\nSeraphim.\"\n\nForlong says:--\"I began my study of British ruins about eight years ago\n(from 1882), during a two-year-furlough, attracted to it at first by my\nfriend the late Sir James Simpson--President of the Society of\nAntiquaries, Edinburgh--at that time writing and debating much on these\nmatters; and I came then to the same conclusion as I hold to-day; viz.:\nthat the ruins of Armorika, those of Stonehenge, Abury, and various\nothers, known popularly as 'Druid Circles,' are, or originally were,\nPhallo-Pythic--Solar shrines, or places where all the first five elemental\nfaiths more or less flourished; the first (Tree) very little, and the last\n(Sun) very abundantly; and if so, then we see the cause why European\nwriters so pugnaciously hold out, some for Sun, some for Fire; one that\nthey are mere places for sacrifices or burial, or for assembly of rulers,\nclans, &c.; whilst a few outlying writers hint that the large stones are\nLingams, or mere groups of such stones as that of Kerloaz--the Newton\nstone, &c. Colonel Forbes Leslie, in his 'Ancient Races of Scotland,' has\nvery nearly told us the truth, his long residence and travels in Asia\nhaving enabled him almost to pierce the cloud, though he seems at first\nnot to have fully appreciated the ever very close connection between Sun,\nFire, Serpent and Lingam faiths, which I believe he does now.\"\n\n\"The European mind having once lost the old ideas of what these words\nmeant, and from having still such objects as Sun, Fire, and Serpent before\nthem, is always thinking of these visible objects, which I might almost\nsay a true Sivaite never recognises _per se_; for in fire the true Phallic\nworshipper sees no flame, and in the sun no far-out resplendent orb as we\nknow, standing apart, as it were, in space, and to which we all gravitate;\nhe sees simply a source of fertility, without which the Serpent has no\npower or passion, and in whose absence the animal and vegetable world must\ncease to exist. The fire here, then, is not that which the real Sivaite\nsees or cooks by, but Hot or _Holy Fire_, or the 'Holy Spirit,' or the\nfire of passion, which to a certain small extent, and in certain symbolic\nforms and positions, he recognises in flame, as when raised on a tower,\ncoming out of an obelisk, or rising in a column or pillar over an ark, or\nsmouldering in the secret adytum; for the first impresses him with the\nArkite, the second with the Phallic and Arkite, and the third with the\npurely feminine idea; in all, he merely sees representative male and\nfemale energies which are excited and fructified by the Sun, Apollo, or\nthe Sun-Serpent, as in his old coin, where fertility fed by fire feeds the\nshell. In a column, be it wood, stone, or fire, he sees the Sun-stone,\nsuch as the Mudros of Phoenicia, the Mindir of Ireland, and obelisk of\nEgypt; and in the cist, shell, or Akros, the womb, Yoni, or sun-box; in\nall, the column or Palas, and its Caput-oline.\"\n\n\"Leaping or walking through the fire, so frequently mentioned in Jewish\nwritings in connection with Molek, is still quite common in the less\ncivilised parts of India, being usually done in fulfilment of a vow for\nblessings desired, or believed to have been conferred by the deity upon\nthe Nazarite or Vower. I have known of it being gone through for recovery\nfrom a severe illness, and for success in an expedition or project which\nthe Nazarite had much at heart.\"\n\nSome say fire should be trod because Drupadi, the mythical wife of the\nPandoos, did this, after defilement through the touch of Kichaka, and\nbecause Sita proved her purity by fire. Where the British Government can\nprevent this rite, flowers are thrown into the fire-pit, which seems as if\nthe fire were looked upon as a female energy. Fire-treading is commonly\naccomplished by digging a deepish narrow pit, and filling it with\nfirewood, and then when the flames are scorching hot, leaping over it;\nusually the rite begins by first walking closely round the fire, slowly at\nfirst, then faster and faster, with occasional leaps into and out of it in\nthe wildest excitement. Mr. Stokes, of the Madras Civil Service, thus\ndescribes the rite as it came officially to notice in April, 1873.\n\nIn a level place before the village deity, who was Drupadi Ama (Mother\nD.), a fire-pit, in size 27 by 7-1/2 feet by 9 inches deep, was excavated\neast and west, and the goddess set up at the west end. Six Babool or\nAcacia trees (this being a fiercely burning wood) were cut and thrown in;\nthirteen persons trod this fire, and one died from the effects. They\nfollowed each other, some with tabors, others ringing a bell, and each,\nafter passing through the fire, went into a pit filled with water, called\nthe \"milk pit.\" All merely wore a waist cloth, and had their bodies daubed\nover with sandal. The one who died, fell into the fire, and had to be\npulled out. The fire was lit at noon, and \"walking it\" took place at two\np.m., when it had become very bright and hot. The Poojore, or priest of\nthe temple, said it was his duty to walk annually through the fire, and\nthat he had done so for seven or eight years. It was the mother of the\ndead man who had vowed that if her son recovered from an attack of\njaundice she would tread the fire, but the old woman being blind, her son\nfulfilled the vow. Some said that the dead man himself had vowed thus to\nthe Goddess Drupadi: \"Mother, if I recover, I shall tread on your fire.\"\nDeath is rarely the result of this practice, but Mr. Stokes adds that a\nfew years ago, a mother and her infant died from the effects.\n\n\"On the 29th of June, men, and even babes, had to be passed through the\nfire. 'On this night,' says Dr. Moresin, 'did the Highlanders run about on\nthe mountains and high grounds with lighted torches, like the Cicilian\nwomen of old, in search of Proserpine,' and Scotch farmers then used to go\nround their corn-fields with blazing torches, as was the custom at the\nCerealia. The ancient Roman Kalendar states, among other matter, that\nfires are made on the 23rd; 'Boys dress in girls' clothes; waters are swum\nin during the night. Water is fetched in vessels and hung up for purposes\nof divination; fern is esteemed by the vulgar because of the seed...;\ngirls gather thistles, and place a hundred crosses by the same;' for has\nnot the thistle a cap like the lotus, and is it not a trefoil?\n\n\"In the 'Englishwoman in Russia,' p. 223, a writer says that 'on midsummer\neve a custom still (1855) exists in Russia, among the lower classes, that\ncould only be derived from a very remote antiquity, and is perhaps a\nremnant of the worship of Baal. A party of peasant women and girls\nassemble in some retired unfrequented spot, and light a large fire, over\nwhich they leap in succession. If by chance one of the other sex should be\nfound near the place, or should have seen them in the act of performing\nthe rite, it is at the imminent hazard of his life, for the women would\nnot scruple to sacrifice him for his temerity.' The writer was assured\nthat such instances had often been known. Thus this 'Fire-dance' is a very\nserious matter, and one which under the circumstances, we can learn very\nlittle about: from its secret practice here by women it is clearly\nconnected with Agni, the Procreator or Fertiliser. Our ancestors were\ninveterate fire-worshippers, especially at the four great solar festivals.\nThey thought no cattle safe unless passed through the May Day and\nMidsummer Beltine fires, and no person would suffer a fire within their\nparish which had not been then kindled afresh from the Tin-Egin, or sacred\nfire produced by friction.\"\n\nThe Medes were undoubtedly worshippers of Fire, \"as the most subtle,\nethereal, incomprehensible, and powerful agent. They were averse to all\ntemples or personification of the material things, or of Ormazd. Like our\nParsee fellow-subjects, they never allowed their hearth-fires to be\nextinguished, nor would they even blow out any ordinary fire or candle; in\nthe Magian days, he who did so forfeited his life.\"\n\n\"We still see the remains--some very perfect--of the lone Fire-towers,\nwhich Greeks called _Puraitheia_, amidst the lofty hills of Armenia,\nAzerbijan, Koordistan and Looristan, some of which were Dakmas, or 'Towers\nof Silence,' having gratings for roofs, through which the bones fell when\nthe body was destroyed. The Fire-God was called _At-Ar_.\"\n\nThe Sabines were, perhaps, more nearly related to our ancestors than is\ngenerally thought; at least we may believe so from the Sabine and G\u00e6lic\nlanguages having more affinity even than the Welsh and Irish, and from\nother evidence. Dr. Leatham, in his work on _Descriptive Ethnology_, says\nthat 'much of the blood of the Romans was Keltic, and so is much of the\nLatin language,' and a study of the movements of ancient peoples will show\nhow this is so. Like the Skyths, these old Sabines were devoted to all the\nworship of Sivaites, and particularly of Mars' symbol, the Quiris or\nSpear, after which we still call their greatest f\u00eate Quirinalia, and their\nMount Zion, the Quirinal. The worship of the _Quiris_ has not yet ceased\nin high Asia, nor, I believe, in America. It was prominent on the summits\nof all the Skythian bonfire piles and mounds at which these Aryan fathers\nworshipped, and is connected with most rites. We also see it on numerous\nsculpturings which have been unearthed from the ruins of the Skuti, or\nKelts of Ireland and Scotland--much to the perplexity of local\nantiquaries. Hue, in his 'Travels in Tartary,' gives us these Phalli as\nexisting all over the immense extent of country he traversed, including\nNorthern China, Mongolia, Thibet. Spears are, however, too valuable to be\nleft sticking in 'these _Obos_,' as he calls them, and therefore 'dried\nbranches of trees' are substituted in very good imitation of spears.\n\n\"We have abundant proof that Fire was never neglected by ancient\nChristians, either on tomb or altar. In a letter from Rome, we find that\nin front of the Cubiculum, or square tomb of Cornelius the martyr, is a\nshort pillar supporting an ever-burning lamp of oil; and when this custom\nof never-dying flame--alike common to all faiths--was revived in the third\ncentury A.C., we read that the Popes used to send to kings and queens a\nfew drops of the oil from this lamp of the tomb of Cornelius. (See\nCor.--Ill. Lon. News, 3-72.) Nor need we be astonished at this, seeing\nthat Vesta's shrine still flourished and received Papal attention, and\nthat in every corner of the world Fire-faith existed. To this day none may\nneglect the rites of this faith in Syria--cradle of the God, as the poor\nTurkish Bey of Antioch and his son found to their cost, when, after the\nearthquake of April 3rd, 1872, they and their officers kindly, reverently\nand wisely buried the Christian dead, but without the fire-symbols and\nbell-ringing (which they failed to understand), thereby greatly offending\na powerful sect of Antioch, called the Dusars, who, still clearly\nworshipping Baal and Astaroth, rose upon the poor Turks and smote them hip\nand thigh.\"\n\n\"In the county of Kildare, Ireland, 'everlasting fire' was preserved by\n'holy virgins--called _Ingheaw Andagha_, or _daughters of fire_,' down to\nthe time of the Reformation. These were often the first ladies of the\nland, and never other than those of gentle birth.\"\n\n\"No blessing can be asked or granted from the altar of any Catholic Church\nuntil the candles are lighted. If a woman when pregnant desires to be\nblessed by the Christian Church, she is instructed 'to wait on her knees,\nat the door of the church, with a lighted taper in her hand,' nor can any\ncross be blessed until three tapers are lighted by the 'man of God,' had\nplaced at its base. See Picart II., 117, where he gives some graphic\nplates of Christian Phallo-solar-fire rites.\n\n\"In Goodwin's _Civil and Ecclesiastical Rites_, under the head of _Feasts\nof the Expiation_, which we have reason to believe was at one time a\nperiod of human sacrifice, we have the great Winter-Christmas Saturnalia,\nor Juvenalia Festival of Lights and Fires described, when not only the\ntemples of Jews and Christians, but every house had to be carefully\nlighted. Jews taught that the lights must be held in the left hand, and\nthe holder must 'walk between two commandments,' which seems to denote the\nclimatic or solar turn of the year. This old writer tells us that it was\n'woman's peculiar province to light their lamps;' and that 'there are\ncertain prayers appropriated to this festival, and among the rest _one in\npraise of God, who hath ordained the lighting up of lamps upon Solemn\nDays_.' Here we see a close resemblance between the faith of the Jew and\nthe Islami, whose wives are enjoined personally to see to the lighting of\nthe household lamps on Venus' Eve. Jerusalem, we know, acknowledges the\nGod of Agni to the present hour, by annually giving out that holy Fire\ndescends from heaven at a stated season into the dark Adyta of the Sacred\nShrine; all old fires must be extinguished at this the season of Sol's\nrenewed vigour, so when the priest emerges from the adytum with the new\nfire in his hand (and Christian priests have often done this, if they do\nnot do so still), crowds of every hue and creed rush towards him, light\ntheir tapers, and bear away the new fire to their homes.\"\n\nReferring to the Temple of Vesta mentioned by Davies, Forlong says--\"Now,\nwhat was this Temple of Vesta? In its rites and surroundings, its duties\nsocial and political, it was one with the temples still existing in Asia\ndevoted to Phallic and Fire-worship combined, or perhaps I should say a\ntemple to Phallic worship only, but the cult in the dawn of brighter\nfaiths was somewhat hid away by the priests in the darkest recesses of\ntheir temples, and not well-known by many of the worshippers, and scarcely\nat all by European writers even of the middle ages. Any student of Delphic\nlore and of Eastern travel, however, will recognise at once in Delphi's\nOracle and Vesta's Temple, 'The Old Faith' and its priestess worshippers,\nalthough the writer in Smith's Dictionary of Antiquities does not appear\nto do so. He describes Vesta's as merely a Fire-temple, and says that\nthere were six Vestales or Virgin Priestesses to watch the eternal Fire\nwhich blazed everlastingly on the altar of the goddess. On the Pope has\ndescended the name of their superior as 'Pontifex Maximus.' If by any\nnegligence or misfortune the Fire went out, the Pontifex Maximus scourged\nthe erring vestal virgin, for had not she--a woman--permitted the\nprocreative energy of the god to forsake mankind?\"\n\n\"Dr. George Petrie, who in 1845 still combatted, but without force, the\npre-Christian idea of Irish Towers, acknowledges signs of a very strong\nand all-prevailing Fire Worship in Ireland. This he sees in Bel or\nBil-tene--'the goodly fire,' in which Bel, the sun in Ireland, as of old\nin Babylon, was the great purifier. The Druids, he says, used to worship\nin presence of two fires, and make cattle walk between them to keep off\nevil. Even in Dublin we have still May-fires, and those of St. John's Eve;\nand an old manuscript of Trinity College tells us that 'Bel was the name\nof an idol at whose festival (Bel-tine) a couple of all cattle were\nexhibited as in his possession,' which I conclude means--fixed by his\nrays. The name of this feast in Scotland was Egin-Tin, in which we can\nrecognise Agin, Ag, or Agni-fire, and the fire-god of all Asia. In the\nisland of Skye--says Dr. Martin, quoted by Petrie, page xxxviii.--the Tin\nEgin was a forced fire or fire of necessity which cured the plague and\nmurrain amongst cattle. All the fires in the parish were extinguished, and\neighty-one married men (a multiple of the mystic number nine) being\nthought the necessary number for effecting this design took two great\nplanks of wood, and nine of them were employed by turns, who, by their\nrepeated efforts, rubbed one of the planks against the other until the\nheat thereof produced fire, and from this forced fire each family is\nsupplied with new fire.\n\n\"This is the true 'fire which falls from heaven,' and it must still be so\nproduced at the temples of all fire-worshipping races, and at the hearths\nof the Guebre or Parsees, as it was in this remote Isle of Skye.\n\n\"I must now make a few general observations upon the marked Phallo-Fire\nWorship of the Greeks and Romans, too commonly called 'Fire and Ancestor\nWorship,' it not being perceived that the ancestor came to be honoured and\nworshipped only as the _Generator_, and so also the Serpent, as his\nsymbol.\n\n\"The 'Signs' or Nishans of the generating parents, that is the Lares and\nPenates, were placed in the family niches close to the holy flame--that\n'hot air,' 'holy spirit,' or 'breath'--the active force of the Hebrew BRA,\nand the Egyptian P'ta--the engenderer of the heavens and earth, before\nwhich ignorant and superstitious races prayed and prostrated themselves,\njust as they do to-day before very similar symbols.\n\n\"The Greeks and Romans watched over their fires as do our Parsees or\nZoroastrians. The males of the family had to see that the holy flame never\nwent out, but in the absence of the head, and practically at all times,\nthis sacred duty devolved on the matron of the house. Every evening the\nsacred fire was carefully covered with ashes so that it might not go out\nby oversight, but quietly smoulder on; and in the early morning the ashes\nwere removed, when it was brightened up and worshipped. In March or early\nspring it was allowed to die out, but not before the New Year's Fire had\nbeen kindled from Sol's rays and placed in the sanctuary. No unclean\nobject was allowed to come near Agni; none durst even warm themselves near\nhim; nor could any blameworthy action take place in his presence. He was\nonly approached for adoration or prayer; not as fire, which he was not,\nbut as _sexual flame_ or _life_. Prayers were offered to him similar to\nthose Christians use; and with most he held just such a mediatorial office\nas Christ does. The Almighty was addressed through him, and he was asked\nfor health, happiness wisdom and foresight; guidance in prosperity and\ncomfort in adversity, long life, off-spring, and all manly and womanly\nqualifications. His followers were taught that it was the most heinous sin\nto approach him with unclean hearts or hands, and were encouraged to come\nto him at all times for repentance and sanctification.\n\n\"Before leaving the house, prayer had to be made to the sacred fire; and\non returning, the father must do so even before embracing his wife and\nchildren. Thus Agamemnon acted, we are told, on his return from Troy.\nSacrifices, libations, wine, oil and victims were regularly offered to the\nFire, and as the god brightened up under the oils, all exulted and fell\ndown before him. They believed that he ate and drank, and with more reason\nthan the Jew said this of his Jehovah and El-Shadai. Above all, it was\nnecessary to offer food and wine to him; to ask a blessing before every\nmeal, and return thanks when it was over. From Ovid and Horace we see it\nwas thought pious and proper to sup in presence of the sacred flame, and\nto make oblations to it. There was no difference between Romans, Greeks,\nand Hindoos in these respects, except that Soma wine in India took the\nplace of the grape of cooler lands. All alike besought Agni by fervent\nprayers for increase of flocks and families, for happy lives and serene\nold age, for wisdom and pardon of sin. We see the great antiquity of this\nfaith in the well-known fact, that even when the early Greeks were\nsacrificing to Zeus and Athene at Olympia, they always first invoked Agni,\nprecisely as had been ordered in the Vedas some 2,000 years B.C., and\nprobably as he had been invoked many thousands of years before the art of\nwriting was known.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\n    _Fire-worship in the States of the Mediterranean--Special Sacredness\n    of the public City-fire of Greece and Rome--The sacred Fire of\n    Tlachtga--Ceylon Fire-worship--The Parsees--Persian Monuments--Impiety\n    of Cambyses--Cingalese Terms, Sanscrit, Welsh, &c.--The Yule-log--\n    Fire-worship in England--The Fire of Beltane--Druidical Fires--May-day\n    Fires--November Fires in Ireland--Between Two Fires--Scotland--The\n    Summer Solstice and Fire Ceremonies--Worship of Baal in Ireland--St.\n    John's Day--Bonfires--Decree of Council of Constantinople._\n\n\n\"All the states of the Mediterranean and Persia had, like India, baptismal\nforms connected with Fire. With the Greeks and Romans the baptismal\nceremony took place between the ninth and twelfth days of birth, and\ngenerally commenced by women seizing the infant and running round, or\ndashing through the fire with it. So also at marriages, fire was the\nactive and 'covenant god.' No account was taken of a bride's faith; to\nmarry was to embrace the husband's religion, to be to him _in fili\u00e6 loco_,\nand to break entirely with her own family; nay, marriage was for long\nentered into with a show of violence, as if to demonstrate the separation.\nIt certainly reminds one of early times when men thus obtained their\nwives. The principal part of the marriage ceremony was to bring the bride\nbefore her husband's hearth, anoint her with holy water, and make her\ntouch the sacred fire; after which she broke bread or ate a cake with him.\nFire was also the God who witnessed the separation of husband and wife,\nwhich, if there were offspring, was a rare and difficult act; but if the\ncouple were childless, divorce was an easy matter.\"\n\n\"No stranger dared appear before the city-fire either in Greece or Rome,\nindeed the _mere look_ of a person foreign to the worship would profane a\nsacred act, and disturb the auspices. The very name of strangers was\n_hostis_, or enemy to the gods. When the Roman Pontiff had to sacrifice\nout-of-doors, he veiled his face so that the chance sight of strangers\nmight be thus atoned for to the gods, who were supposed to dislike\nforeigners so much, that the most laborious ceremonies were undertaken if\nany of these passed near, not to say handled any holy object. Every sacred\nfire had to be re-lit if a stranger entered a temple; and so in India,\nevery sacred place must be carefully purified if a foreigner (ruler and\nhighly respected though he may be) pass too close to a Hindoo shrine. I\nhave seen Government servants under me, and Sepoys, who meant no\ndisrespect, throw away the whole of a day's food, and dig up the little\nfire-places they had prepared before cooking and eating, because, by\naccident or oversight, my shadow had passed over it; though sometimes, if\nthere were no onlookers, this extreme measure was not carried out, partly\nout of regard for me.\"\n\nDr. Keating, in his \"History of Ireland,\" speaks of the royal seat of\nTlachtga, where the Fire Tlachtga was ordained to be kindled. He\nsays:--\"The use of this sacred fire was to summon the Priests, the Augurs,\nand Druids of Ireland to repair thither and assemble upon the Eve of All\nSaints, in order to consume the sacrifices that were offered to their\nPagan Gods; and it was established under the penalty of a great fine, that\nno other fire should be kindled upon that night throughout the kingdom; so\nthat the fire that was to be used in the country, was to be derived from\nthis holy fire; for which privilege the people were to pay a _Scraball_,\nwhich amounts to threepence every year as an acknowledgment to the King of\nMunster, because the palace of Tlachtga, where this fire burned, was the\nproportion taken from the province of Munster, and added to the country of\nMeath.\n\n\"The second royal palace that was erected was in the proportion taken from\nthe province of Conacht, and here was a general convocation assembled of\nall the inhabitants of the kingdom that were able to appear, which was\ncalled the Convocation of Visneach, and kept upon the first day of May,\nwhere they offered sacrifices to the principal deity in the island, whom\nthey adored under the name of Beul. Upon this occasion they were used to\nkindle two fires in every territory in the kingdom, in honour of this\npagan god. It was a solemn ceremony at this time to drive a number of\ncattle of every kind between these fires; this was conceived to be an\nantidote and a preservation against the murrain, or any other pestilential\ndistemper among cattle for the year following; and from these fires that\nwere made in worship of the god Beul, the day upon which the Christian\nfestival of St. Philip and St. James is observed, is called in the Irish\nlanguage Beul-tinne. The derivation of the word is thus: La in Irish\nsignifies a day, Beul is the name of the pagan deity, and Teinne is the\nsame with fire in the English, which words, when they are pronounced\ntogether, sound La Beultinne.\"\n\nLeslie in his \"Early Races of Scotland,\" says: \"From Dondera Head in\nCeylon to the Himalaya Mountains, and from the borders of China to the\nextremities of Western Europe and its islands, we find clear evidence of\nthe former prevalence of the earliest form of false worship, viz., the\nadoration of light, the sun, and 'the whole host of heaven.' In the\nRajpoot state of Marwar, in its capital Udayayoor, 'The City of the Rising\nSun!' the precedence of Surya, the sun god, is still maintained. The\nsacred standard of the country bears his image, and the Raja, claiming to\nbe his descendant, appears as his representative.\"\n\n\"In a complicated form the Parsees of British India still retain that\nworship of light, symbolised in the sun and fire, for which they became\nexiles when their faith was proscribed in the land of their ancestors.\"\n\nLeslie quotes various authors and travellers who had personally witnessed\nthe remains of many of these altars. \"Chardin,\" he says, \"in his travels\nin Media in the end of the seventeenth century describes circles of large\nstones that must have been brought a distance of six leagues to the place\nwhere he observed them. The tradition regarding these circles was, that\ncouncils were there held, each member of the assembly being seated on a\nseparate stone.\"[23]\n\nIn the Persian province of Fars, Sir William Ouseley observed a monolith\nten or twelve feet high, surrounded by a fence of stones. This rude column\nhad a cavity on the top. Similar instances--viz., of monoliths having a\ncavity in the top--existed among the primitive monuments of Scotland. In\nKincardineshire, at Auchincorthie, there were five circles of stones. On\nthe top of one of the stones which stood on the east side of the largest\ncircle, there was a hollow three inches deep, along the bottom of which,\nand down the side of the stone, a channel was cut. Another of the stones\nin this group had a similar cavity and channel. Other examples of such\nartificial cavities in ancient British monuments could be pointed\nout.--(Gibson's Camden, vol. ii., p. 291.) The same traveller remarked a\nfew old trees which grew near this column, and these he supposed to be the\nremains of a consecrated grove. One of the trees was thickly hung with\nrags, the native offerings of the inhabitants of the country. Trees with\nsuch garniture may commonly be observed in the Dekhan and other parts of\nIndia, and not long since might be seen in many places in Britain. The\nMonolith thus described, and adjacent to the grove, was called by an\nexpression equivalent to \"Stone of the Fire Temple.\" We know from\nHerodotus that the ancient Persians, like their expatriated descendants\nthe Parsees, were worshippers of the sun and fire, and the mysterious\nrites of the heathen inhabitants of Britain must have closely resembled\nthose of the Persians, when the similarity induced Pliny to remark that\nBritain cultivates magic with ceremonial so august that it might be\nsupposed that the art was first communicated from them to the people of\nPersia.\n\nTurning to Herodotus as here suggested, speaking of the order given by\nCambyses to burn the corpse of Amasis, after his people had failed to tear\nit apart, owing to its having been embalmed, the historian says:--\"This\nwas truly an impious command to give, for the Persians hold fire to be a\ngod, and never by any chance burn their dead. Indeed this practice is\nunlawful, both with them and with the Egyptians--with them for the reason\nabove mentioned, since they deem it wrong to give the corpse of a man to a\ngod; and with the Egyptians, because they believe fire to be a live\nanimal, which eats whatever it can seize, and then glutted with the food,\ndies with the matter it feeds upon.\"[24]\n\nLeslie says \"it is important, as a prelude to the description of rites in\na worship common to the early inhabitants of the Indian Peninsula and to\nthe Celtic population of Gaul and Britain, to refer to the cognate\nexpressions which they employed for the object of their adoration. In\nCingalese, Ja, Jwala, signifies light, lustre, flame; Jwalana, light; also\nAgni, or personified and deified fire. Eliya is also Cingalese for light;\nin Welsh, Lleuer and Lleuad, the moon; in Gaelic, Eibhle, anything on\nfire. In Sanscrit, Jwala signifies light, flame; in Cornish, Gwawl; in\nWelsh, Goleu; in Armorican, Goleu. In Gaelic, Geal and Eallaidhe is white;\nSoillse, light, sunlight; Suil, the eye. In Cingalese, Haili and Hel, and\nin Sanscrit, Heli or Helis is the sun. In Welsh it is Haul, pronounced\nHail; in Armorican, Haul and Heol; in Cornish, Houl and Heul. The great\nfestival of heathen Britain--viz, Yeul--was celebrated at that period of\nthe year when the sun having obtained the greatest distance from the\nearth, commenced his return to restore warmth and to revivify nature.\nAlthough Christmas superseded the heathen festival, not only the ancient\nname of Yeul, but many of the customs, evidently connected with the\nheathen rites, are not yet obsolete in South Britain; and in Scotland, at\nleast in the more remote parts, and in agricultural districts, Yeul is\nstill the word in general use for Christmas Day.\"\n\nHone, in his \"Every-day Book\" vol. I. p. 204, says: \"The Yeul feast and\nYeul log can be clearly traced to their original source. The blaze of\nlights, and the kindling of the great Yule log on Christmas Eve by a\nportion of the Yule brand of the former year, is as clearly a heathen\nceremony, and for the same object of worship, as the fires on Midsummer\nEve. As to the feast, in times comparatively recent, the Greenlanders held\na sun-feast at the winter solstice, to rejoice in the conmencement of\nreturning light and warmth.\"\n\n\"From Teinidh and Tein, Irish and Gaelic for fire, is probably derived the\nobsolete English word 'to teend.' Herrich, speaking of the Christmas\nbrand, says part must be kept wherewith to _teend_ the Christmas by next\nyear.\"\n\nEvidence of some sort of fire-worship in England at various times is to be\nfound in the _Confessional_ of Ecgbert, Archbishop of York (8th century)\nand the Penitential of Theodore, Archbishop of Canterbury (7th century),\nand that this included the adoration of the light of the sun and moon\nseems probable from the prohibition of the practice of passing children\nthrough fire extending to that of exposing them on the house-tops for the\nbenefit of their health.\n\nLeslie remarks that it is curious to compare these restrictions and\npenalties to be enforced by English ecclesiastical authorites with the\ndenunciation of the same heathen practices by the prophet Zephaniah,\n(Chap. I., 4, 5.) \"I will cut off the remnant of Baal, and them that\nworship the host of heaven upon the house-tops.\"\n\nThe allusion to the Midsummer Eve Fire in Hone, reminds us of the \"Fire of\nBel\" or Beltane of Scotland, a festival generally celebrated on May-day\nold style. Leslie says, in other Celtic countries of Western Europe the\nsame expression, with slight variations in sound, was also used for the\ngreat heathen festival which was held about the beginning of the month of\nMay. He further says: \"Beltane is also used to express the fires that were\nkindled in honour of Bel on that and on other days connected with his\nworship, as on Midsummer Eve, afterwards called the vigil of St. John, on\nAll-Hallowe'en, and on Yeule, which is now Christmas. Of the ceremonies\npractised at Beltane, and continued almost to our own times, the most\nremarkable and general were the fires lighted in honour of Bel.\"\n\n\"Kindling fires at Beltane, on the hills and conspicuous places in level\ndistricts, was so universal in Scotland--also in Ireland and\nCornwall--that it is unnecessary to refer to records for proof of events\nwhich may still be witnessed in this year 1865.\n\n\"Conjoined with Apollo in the inscription on a Roman altar found at\nInveresk is an epithet bearing a considerable resemblance to the name of\nthe sun in Gaelic. Apollini-Granno is the commencement of the inscription.\nGrian or Greine is the sun in Gaelic, and Grianach is 'the sunny.' This\nresemblance it is as well to notice, for epithets not similar in sound but\nidentical in meaning are used for Apollo or the sun by classic authors and\nthe Scottish Celts, as Gruagach, the fair-haired. Enclosures called\nGrianan or Greinham, 'the house of the sun,' where the people worshipped\nthe sun, are to be met with everywhere. On the Gruagach stones libations\nof milk were poured. A clergyman of the Western Isles says that about a\ncentury ago (this was in 1774), Gruagach got credit for being the father\nof a child at Shulista, near Duntulme, the seat of M'Donald. Gruagach, the\nsun, was represented by certain rude stones of large size. On the island\nof Bernera, in the parish of Harris, a circle, defined by long sharp\npointed stones, has in the centre a stone in the form of an inverted\npyramid, called Clach-na-Greine, 'the stone of the sun.'\"\n\nToland, in his \"History of Druids,\" gathers together a good deal of\nimportant information relative to Fire Customs in various parts of\nEngland, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales, and the adjacent islands. He speaks\nof the carns (cairns) or heaps of stones which are found on mountain tops\nand other eminencies in different localities, and after alluding to the\nuses they served in course of time as beacons, being conveniently situated\nfor such a purpose, says--\"They were originally designed for fires of\nanother nature. The fact stood thus. On May-eve the Druids made prodigious\nfires on those carns, which being every one in sight, could not but afford\na glorious show over a whole nation. These fires were in honour of Beal or\nBealan, latinised by the Roman authors into Belenus, by which name the\nGauls and their colonies understood the sun: and, therefore, to this hour\nthe first day of May is by the aboriginal Irish called La Bealteine, or\nthe day of Belen's fire.\"\n\n\"May-day is likewise called La Bealteine by the Highlanders of Scotland,\nwho are no contemptible part of the Celtic offspring. So it is in the Isle\nof Man; and in Armoric a priest is still called Belec, or the Servant of\nBel, and priesthood Belegieth. Two such fires as we have mentioned were\nkindled by one another on May-eve in every village of the nation (as well\nthroughout all Gaul, as in Britain, Ireland, and the adjoining lesser\nislands), between which fires the men and the beasts to be sacrificed were\nto pass; from whence came the proverb, _Between Bel's two fires_, meaning\none in a great strait, not knowing how to extricate himself. One of the\nfires was on the carn, another on the ground. On the eve of the first day\nof November there were also such fires kindled, accompanied (as they\nconstantly were) with sacrifices and feasting. These November fires were\nin Ireland called Tine tlach'd gha, from tlach'd-gha, a place hence so\ncalled in Meath where the Archdruid of the realm had his fire on the said\neve; and for which piece of ground, because originally belonging to\nMunster, but appointed by the supreme monarch for this use, there was an\nannual acknowledgement (called sgreaboll) paid to the king of that\nprovince.\n\n\"On the aforesaid eve all the people of the country, out of a religious\npersuasion instilled into them by the Druids, extinguished their fires as\nentirely as the Jews are wont to sweep their houses the night before the\nfeast of unleavened bread. Then every master of a family was religiously\nobliged to take a portion of the consecrated fire home, and to kindle the\nfire anew in his house, which for the ensuing year was to be lucky and\nprosperous. He was to pay, however, for his future happiness whether the\nevent proved answerable or not; and though his house should be afterwards\nburnt, yet he must deem it the punishment of some new sin, or ascribe it\nto anything rather than to want of virtue in the consecration of the fire,\nor of validity in the benediction of the Druid, who, from officiating at\nthe carns, was likewise called Cairnech, a name that continued to signify\npriest even in Christian times. But if any man had not cleared with the\nDruids for the last year's dues, he was neither to have a spark of this\nholy fire from the carns, nor durst any of his neighbours let him take the\nbenefit of theirs under pain of excommunication, which, as managed by the\nDruids, was worse than death. If he would brew, therefore, or bake, or\nroast, or boil, or warm himself and family; in a word, if he would live\nthe winter out, the Druid's dues must be paid by the last of October, so\nthat this trick alone was more effectual than are all the Acts of\nParliament made for securing our present clergy's dues.\n\n\"As to the fire-worship which (by the way) prevailed over all the world,\nthe Celtic nations kindled other fires on Midsummer-eve, which are still\ncontinued by the Roman Catholics of Ireland; making them in all their\ngrounds, and carrying flaming brands about their corn-fields. This they do\nlikewise all over France and in some of the Scottish Isles. These\nmidsummer fires and sacrifices were to obtain a blessing on the fruits of\nthe earth, now becoming ready for gathering; as those of the first of May,\nthat they might prosperously grow; and those of the last of October were a\nthanksgiving for finishing their harvest. But in all of them regard was\nalso had to the several degrees of increase and decrease in the heat of\nthe sun's rays.\"\n\nWith regard to the proverb \"Between Bel's two fires,\" Mr. Huddleston in\nhis new edition of Toland (1814) adds a note in which he says:--\"As Mr.\nToland in his note on this passage, informs us the Irish phrase is Ittir\ndha theine Bheil; Dr. Smith has also given us the Scottish phrase, Gabha\nBheil, _i.e._, the jeopardy of Bel. Both agree that these expressions\ndenote one in the most imminent danger. Mr. Toland says the men and beasts\nto be sacrificed passed between two fires, and that hence the proverb\noriginated. Dr. Smith, on the contrary, imagines that this was one of the\nDruidical ordeals whereby criminals were tried; and instead of making them\npass betwixt the fires, makes them march directly across them. Indeed, he\nsupposed the Druids were kind enough to anoint the feet of the criminals,\nand render them invulnerable to the flames. If so there could have been\nneither danger nor trial. It may also be remarked, that had the doctor's\nhypothesis been well founded, there was no occasion for two fires, whereas\nby the phrase, _between Bel's two fires_, we know that two were used.\nDoctor Smith has evidently confounded the Gabha Bheil with a feat\npractised by the Hirpins on Mount Soracte.\"\n\nIt seems that the expression used by the Scotch expressive of a man in\ndifficulties, \"He is between the two fires of Bel,\" was common enough to\nattract the attention of other writers than those we have cited, and of\nmost travellers in the Highlands. Martin mentions it in his \"Western\nIsles,\" as also Shaw and the Rev. D. M'Queen. The latter is cited by\nLeslie as a Gaelic scholar of the last century, who in regard to the\nexpression, \"He is betwixt two Beltein fires,\" gives as an explanation\nthat the Celtic tribes in their sacred enclosures offered sacrifices,\ncommonly horses, that were burnt between two large fires, and Leslie adds,\n\"On this it may be remarked that horses were sacrificed to the sun by the\nArian race from the earliest times; and this continued to be practised by\nHindus, Persians, and other nations. In Britain it is probable that our\nheathen ancestors sacrificed horses, and it is certain that they ate\nthem.\"\n\nJamieson's splendid \"Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language,\"\nsupplies us with valuable information on the point we are discussing,\ndrawn from a variety of reliable authorities. Under \"BELTANE, Beltein, the\nname of a sort of festival observed on the first day of May, O.S.;\" we\nhave:--\"A town in Perthshire, on the borders of the Highlands, is called\n_Tillie-_ (or _Tullie_) _beltane_, _i.e._ the eminence or rising ground of\nthe fire of Baal. In the neighbourhood is a druidical temple of eight\nupright stones, where it is supposed the fire was kindled. At some\ndistance from this is another temple of the same kind, but smaller, and\nnear it a well still held in great veneration. On Beltane morning\nsuperstitious people go to this well, and drink of it; then they make a\nprocession round it, as I am informed, nine times. After this, they in\nlike manner go round the temple. So deep rooted is this heathenish\nsuperstition in the minds of many who reckon themselves good Protestants,\nthat they will not neglect these rites, even when Beltane falls on\nSabbath.\"\n\nQuoting from P. Loudon, Statist. Acc. iii., 105, the writer\nproceeds:--\"The custom still remains [in the West of Scotland] among the\nherds and young people to kindle fires in the high grounds, in honour of\nBeltan. _Beltan_, which in Gaelic signifies _Baal_ or _Bel's fire_, was\nanciently the time of this solemnity. It is now kept on St. Peter's Day.\"\n\nJust here we may turn to Mr. Pennant's \"Tour in Scotland,\" for the\nfollowing interesting particulars. \"On the first of May, the herdsmen of\nevery village hold their Beltein, a rural sacrifice. They cut a square\ntrench on the ground, leaving the turf in the middle; on that they make a\nfire of wood, on which they dress a large caudle of eggs, butter, oatmeal,\nand milk; and bring, besides the ingredients of the caudle, plenty of beer\nand whisky; for each of the company must contribute something. The rites\nbegin with spilling some of the caudle on the ground by way of libation:\non that every one takes a cake of oatmeal, upon which are raised nine\nsquare knobs, each dedicated to some particular being, the supposed\npreserver of their flocks and herds, or to some particular animal, the\nreal destroyer of them: each person then turns his face to the fire,\nbreaks off a knob, and flinging it over his shoulder, says--_This I give\nto thee, preserve thou my horses; this to thee, preserve thou my sheep_;\nand so on. After that they use the same ceremony to the noxious animals;\n_This I give to thee, O Fox! spare thou my lambs; this to thee, O hooded\nCrow! this to thee, O Eagle!_\"[25]\n\nFurther on the same traveller writes:--\"The Beltein, or the rural\nsacrifice on the first of May, O.S., has been mentioned before. Hallow-eve\nis also kept sacred: as soon as it is dark, a person sets fire to a bush\nof broom fastened round a pole, and attended with a crowd, runs round the\nvillage. He then flings it down, keeps a great quantity of combustible\nmatters in it, and makes a great bonfire. A whole tract is thus\nilluminated at the same time, and makes a fine appearance. The carrying of\nthe fiery pole appears to be a relic of Drudism.\"[26]\n\nThe \"Statistical Account of Scotland, Parish of Callander, Perths,\"\nsupplies several important and interesting facts relating to this. \"The\npeople of this district have two customs which are fast wearing out, not\nonly here, but all over the Highlands, and therefore ought to be taken\nnotice of while they remain. Upon the first day of May, which is called\n_Beltau_ or _Baltein Day_, all the boys in a township or hamlet meet in\nthe moors. They cut a table in the green sod, of a round figure, by\ncasting a trench in the ground of such circumference as to hold the whole\ncompany. They kindle a fire, and dress a repast of eggs and milk in the\nconsistence of a custard. They knead a cake of oatmeal, which is toasted\nat the embers against a stone. After the custard is eaten up, they divide\nthe cake into so many portions, as similar as possible to one another in\nsize and shape, as there are persons in the company. They daub one of\nthese portions all over with charcoal, until it be perfectly black. They\nput all the bits of cake into a bonnet. Every one, blindfold, draws out a\nportion. He who holds the bonnet is entitled to the last bit. Whoever\ndraws the black bit is the devoted person who is to be sacrificed to Baal,\nwhose favour they mean to implore, in rendering the year productive of the\nsustenance of man and beast. There is little doubt of these inhuman\nsacrifices having been once offered in this country, as well as in the\neast, although they now pass from the act of sacrificing, and only compel\nthe devoted person to leap three times through the flames; with which the\nceremonies of this festival are closed.\"\n\nAgain referring to Jamieson, he says:--\"The respect paid by the ancient\nBritons to Belus, or Belinus, is evident from the names of some of their\nkings. As the Babylonians had their _Beletis_ or _Belibus_, _Rige-Belus_,\n_Merodoch-Baladan_ and _Belshazzar_; the Tyrians their _Ich-baals_ and\n_Balator_, the Britons had their _Cassi-belin_, and their _Cuno-belin_.\n\n\"The Gael and Ir. word _Beal-tine_ or _Beil-teine_ signifies _Belus'\nFire_; as composed of Baal or Belis, one of the names of the sun in Gaul,\nand _tein_ signifying fire. Even in Angus a spark of fire is called a\n_tein_ or _teind_.\"\n\nMartin's Western Islands bears similar testimony, thus:--\"Another god of\nthe Britons was Belus or Belinus, which seems to have been the Assyrian\ngod Bel, or Belus; and probably from this Pagan deity comes the Scots'\nterm of Beltin--having its first rise from the custom practised by the\nDruids in the isles, of extinguishing all the fires in the parish until\nthe tythes were paid; and upon payment of them, the fires were kindled in\neach family, and never till then. In those days malefactors were burnt\nbetween two fires; hence when they would express a man in a great strait,\nthey say, He is between two fires of Bel, which in their language they\nexpress thus, Edir da hin Veaul or Bel.\"\n\nIt has been remarked that the Pagan rites of the festival of Midsummer\nEve, the Summer Solstice may be considered as a counterpart of those used\nat the Winter Solstice of Yule-tide. \"There is one thing,\" says Brand,\n\"that seems to prove this beyond the possibility of a doubt. In the old\nRunic Fasti, a wheel was used to denote the festival of Christmas. Thus\nDurandus, when speaking of the Rites of the Feast of St. John Baptist,\ninforms us of this curious circumstance, that in some places they roll a\nwheel about to signify that the Sun, then occupying the highest place in\nthe Zodiac, is beginning to descend; and in the amplified account given by\nNaogeorgus, we read that this wheel was taken up to the top of a mountain\nand rolled down from thence; and that, as it had been previously covered\nwith straw, twisted about it and set on fire, it appeared at a distance as\nif the sun had been falling from the sky. And he further observes, that\nthe people imagine that all their ill-luck rolls away from them together\nwith this wheel.\"\n\n\"Leaping over the fires is mentioned among the superstitious rites used at\nthe Palilia in Ovid's Fasti. The Palilia were feasts instituted in honour\nof Pales, the goddess of shepherds (though Varro makes Pales masculine),\non the calends of May. In order to drive away wolves from the folds, and\ndistempers from the cattle, the shepherds on this day kindled several\nheaps of straw in their fields, which they leaped over.\"\n\n\"Bourne tells us that it was the custom in his time, in the North of\nEngland, chiefly in country villages, for old and young people to meet\ntogether and be merry over a large fire, which was made for that purpose\nin the open street. This, of whatever materials it consisted, was called a\nBone-fire. Over and about this fire they frequently leap, and play at\nvarious games such as running, wrestling, dancing, &c.; this, however, is\ngenerally confined to the younger sort; for the old ones, for the most\npart, sit by as spectators only, and enjoy themselves over their bottle,\nwhich they do not quit till midnight, and sometimes till cock-crow the\nnext morning.\"\n\nA correspondent of the _Gentleman's Magazine_ for February, 1795, writing\nfrom Skye, gives us:--\"Curious fact relating to the worship of Baal in\nIreland. The Irish have ever been worshippers of fire, and of Baal, and\nare so to this day. The chief festival in honour of the sun and fire, is\nupon the twenty-first of June, when the sun arrives at the Summer\nSolstice, or rather begins its retrograde movement. I was so fortunate, in\nthe summer of 1782, as to have my curiosity gratified by a sight of this\nceremony over a very great extent of country. At the house where I was\nentertained, it was told me that we should see at midnight the most\nsingular sight in Ireland, which was the lighting of Fires in honour of\nthe Sun. Accordingly, exactly at midnight, the Fires began to appear; and\ntaking the advantage of going up to the leads of the house, which had a\nwidely-extended view, I saw on a radius of thirty miles, all around, the\nFires burning on every eminence which the country afforded. I had a\nfarther satisfaction, in learning from undoubted authority, that the\npeople danced round the Fires, and at the close went through these Fires,\nand made their sons and daughters, together with their cattle, pass\nthrough the Fire; and the whole was conducted with religious solemnity.\nThis account is exceedingly curious, and though I forbear the mention of\nnames, I can venture to assure you that it is authentic.\"\n\nThe remarks of Borlase in his \"Antiquities of Cornwall,\" come in here very\nsuitably. He says--\"Of the fires we kindle in many parts of England, at\nsome stated time of the year, we know not certainly the rise, reason or\noccasion, but they may probably be reckoned among the relicks of the Druid\nsuperstitious fires. In Cornwall, the festival fires called Bonfires, are\nkindled on the Eve of St. John the Baptist and St. Peter's Day; and\nMidsummer is thence, in the Cornish tongue, called 'Golnan,' which\nsignifies both light and rejoicing. At these fires the Cornish attend with\nlighted torches, tarred and pitched at the end, and make their\nperambulations round their fires, and go from village to village carrying\ntheir torches before them, and this is certainly the remains of the Druid\nsuperstition, for 'faces pr\u00e6ferre,' to carry lighted torches, was reckoned\na kind of Gentilism, and as such particularly prohibited by the Gallick\nCouncils. They were in the eye of the law '_accensores facularum_,' and\nthought to sacrifice to the devil, and to deserve capital punishment.\"\n\nBrand mentions a few additional particulars which we here transcribe.\n\n\"Torreblanca, in his 'Demonology,' has a passage in which he tells us how\nthe ancients were accustomed to pass their children of both sexes through\nthe fire for the sake of securing them a prosperous and fortunate lot, and\nhe adds that the Germans imitated this profane usage in their Midsummer\npyres in honour of the anniversary of St. John's Day.\n\n\"Moresin appears to have been of opinion that the custom of leaping over\nthese fires is a vestige of the ordeal, where to be able to pass through\nfires with safety was held to be an indication of innocence. To strengthen\nthe probability of this conjecture, we may observe that not only the young\nand vigorous, but even those of grave characters used to leap over them,\nand there was an interdiction of ecclesiastical authority to deter\nclergymen from this superstitious instance of agility. A note at the foot\nof the page says that Mr. Brand saw in the possession of Douce, a French\nprint, entitled 'L'este le Feu de la St. Jean,' from the hand of Mariette.\nIn the centre was the fire made of wood piled up very regularly, and\nhaving a tree stuck up in the midst of it. Young men and women were\nrepresented dancing round it hand in hand. Herbs were stuck in their hats\nand caps, and garlands of the same surrounded their waists or were slung\nacross their shoulders.\n\n\"In the 'Traite des Superstitions,' we read 'Whoever desires to know the\ncolour of his future wife's hair, has only to walk three times round the\nfire of St. John, and when the fire is half extinguished he must take a\nbrand, let it go out, and then put it under his pillow, and the next\nmorning he will find encircling it threads of hair of the desired colour.'\nBut this must be done with the eyes shut. We are further told, where there\nis a widow or a marriageable girl in a house, it is necessary to be very\ncareful not to remove the brands, as this drives away lovers.\n\n\"The third Council of Constantinople, A.D. 680, in its sixty-fifth canon,\nenacted the following interdiction:--'Those Bonefires that are kindled by\ncertaine people on New Moones before their shops and houses, over which\nalso they do foolishly leape, by a certaine ancient custome, we command\nthem from henceforth to cease. Whoever, therefore, shall doe any such\nthing; if he be a clergyman, let him be deposed; if a layman, let him be\nexcommunicated. For, in the Fourth Book of the Kings it is written: And\nManasseh built an altar to all the host of heaven, in the two courts of\nthe Lord's house, and made his children to passe through the Fire, &c.'\nPrynne observes upon this: 'Bonefires, therefore, had their originall from\nthis idolatrous custome, as this Generall Councell hath defined; therefore\nall Christians should avoid them.' And the Synodus Francica under Pope\nZachary, A.D. 742, inhibits 'those sacrilegious Fires which they call\n_Nedfri_ (or Bonefires), and all other observations of the Pagans\nwhatsoever.'\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\n    _Paradise Lost and Moloch--The God of the Ammonites--The slaughter of\n    Children by Fire, notices in the Scriptures--Fire Ceremonies and\n    Moloch--Sacred Fires of the Phoenicians--The Carthaginians--Custom\n    of the Oziese--Sardinian Customs and Moloch--The Cuthites--Persian\n    Fire Worship--The House-Fires of Greece and Rome--Sacred Books of the\n    East--Laws of Manu--The Rig Veda and Hymns to Agni, the God of Fire--\n    Vesta, worship of--The Magi--Zoroaster._\n\n\nIn Milton's \"Paradise Lost\" we read:--\n\n  \"First, Moloch, horrid king, besmeared with blood\n  Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears;\n  Though for the noise of drums and timbrels loud,\n  Their children's cries unheard, that passed through fire,\n  To his grim idol. Him the Ammonite\n  Worshipped in Rabba and her watery plain,\n  In Argob and in Basan, to the stream\n  Of utmost Arnon: nor content with such\n  Audacious neighbourhood, the wisest heart\n  Of Solomon he led by fraud to build\n  His temple right against the temple of God,\n  On that opprobrious hill, and made his grove\n  The pleasant valley of Hinnom, Tophet thence\n  And black Gehenna called, the type of Hell.\"\n\n\"Moloch was the god of the Ammonites. In the worship and sacrifices in his\nhonour they burnt their sons and daughters, with the accustomed forms and\nceremonies.\" In Leviticus xviii. 21 we find a prohibition of passing the\nchildren through the fire and in chapter xx. the punishment of death by\nstoning is awarded to any who gave their seed to Moloch.\n\n\"However,\" says Selden, \"many of the Hebrews write that the children were\nneither burnt nor slain, but that two funeral pyres were constructed by\nthe priests of Moloch, and that they led the children only between the\npyres, as if in this way to purify them. Moses Ben Maimon says that in\nthose days the servitors of the fires made men believe that their sons and\ndaughters would die unless they were thus led, and on this account and\nthe love of their children they hastened to do that which was so easy, and\nthere was no other way of saving the children from the fire. There are\nsome who say that the father in due form delivered the child to the\npriests to be given back, and that he led it through, carrying it on his\nshoulders. It is nevertheless true that the children were not only led\nbetween the fires, but were also burnt in the sacrifices of the idols. See\nPsalm cvi. 37 and 38, and read, \"Yea, they sacrificed their sons and their\ndaughters unto devils, and shed innocent blood, even the blood of their\nsons and their daughters, whom they sacrificed unto the idols of Canaan,\nand the land was polluted with the blood.\"\n\nPhilastrius says \"that they placed an altar in the valley of the children\nof Hinnom, and so called after the name of a certain Tophet, and in that\nplace the Jews sacrificed their sons and daughters to demons.\" There are\nother places which sufficiently indicate immolation of children in those\nregions of Syria where Moloch was adored. Thus, see Wisdom of Solomon,\nxii. 5, \"And also those merciless murders of children and devourers of\nmen's flesh, the feasts of blood;\" and xiv. 23, \"For whilst they slew\ntheir children in sacrifices\"; and Jeremiah vii. 31, says \"And they have\nbuilt the high places of Tophet, which is in the valley of the son of\nHinnom, to burn their sons and their daughters in the fire.\" See also\nnineteenth chapter, verse 5; Ezekiel xvi. 20, 21, and xxiii. 37 and 39.\nFrom this affair perhaps arose the delusion of the Greeks and Hebrews\nthat, by another ancient rite, they who took an oath were accustomed to\npass through fire, as if by escaping from injury their words would be\nproved true. The learned Paul Fagius, in speaking of him, says, \"The\nstatue of Moloch was such that it had seven hollow chambers. One was open\nfor meal offerings, another for turtle doves, the third for sheep, the\nfourth for the ram, the fifth for the calf, the sixth for the bull, and a\nseventh was open for him who wished to offer his child.\" The face of the\nidol was the same as that of the calf, and the hands were evidently\ndisposed and arranged conveniently to receive from the bystanders all that\nwas offered. While the child was burning in the blazing fire, they danced\nabout and beat drums to drown the horrible cries and lamentations. There\nis a question whether the author of these seven hollow chambers did not\nlearn it from the sacred rites of the Persian Mithra, for he also had\nseven sacred doors, which referred to the number of the planets, and men,\nwomen and children were likewise sacrificed to him.\n\nIt was necessary to such as were initiated to this god to pass through\neighty kinds of sufferings, that is, through fire and cold and most\nserious dangers of every kind, before they could be received as epoptas,\nor regularly initiated. It is proper to add that neither elsewhere than in\nMoloch will be found Adrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim.\nSee II. Kings xviii. 31: \"And they burnt their children in fire to\nAdrammelech and Anammelech, the gods of Sepharvaim.\" His priests, who were\nalso frequently the priests of other gods, were called Cemerin. This word\nin the Chaldee dialect Comeraja, is everywhere in the Targum substituted\nfor priests of idolatry. In II. Kings xxiii. 10, it reads, \"And he\n(Josiah) defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the children of\nHinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter pass through the\nfire to Moloch.\" The valley of the children of Hinnom, which in Hebrew is\ngi ber Hinnom, was a field near the city, and is so called from the groans\nor lamentations of the children while they were burning. Hinnom is from\nthe Hebrew word nahmen, and means that he groans or gnashed his teeth from\nintense pain. That place is watered by the streams of Siloe, and in the\ntime of St. Jerome was beautiful, and ornamented with shady groves and\ndelightful gardens. And there he remarks \"that it was a custom among other\nnations to select the head of streams and groves for sacred rites.\" But\nthe word Tophet is from the Hebrew Toph, that is, \"they ask for a drum,\"\nwhich was beaten and loudly sounded in the vicinity to prevent the parents\nhearing the most doleful lamentations and wailings of their children while\nthe sacred rites were performing.\n\nMoloch is also called Baal. See Jeremiah xix. 5., \"They have built also\nthe high places of Baal to burn their sons with fire.\" He is also called\nMilcolm in Kings xi. 5., \"For Solomon went after Ashtoreth the goddess of\nthe Zidonians, and after Milcolm the abominations of the Ammonites.\" And\nLuke, in Acts viii. 43., says, \"Yea, ye took up the tabernacle of Molech.\"\nThe Syrians and Arabians call it Melcom. In many oriental languages\nMelech, means king, Milcom means their king, and Malcecem, our king, and\nboth words in sacred scripture designate Moloch. To him reference is had\nin Zephaniah i. 5., \"And them that worship and swear by the Lord, and that\nswear by Melcham,\" because Moloch was especially worshipped under the name\nof king. As thus Baal means Lord, and as Melech or Molech or Moloch means\nking, they denote this god of the Ammonites; and it is perhaps, he himself\nwho, in the most ancient theology of the Phoenicians, was often called\nby the singular title of king of gods. He was also called Adodus, and was\nworshipped by the Syrians not only as Adad-Hadad and Benhadad (and which\ncould readily pass into Adodus), but the very name Adad was propagated\ncontinually for ten generations in their royal families. These names, and\nBedad, Hedar Mesahab, and Ahab, will be found in Genesis xxxvi. and I\nKings xx. Macrobius, speaking of the Syrians and this god Adodus and king\nof gods, says, \"They gave to the god whom they venerate as the highest and\nthe greatest the name Adad, and which means unus or one. Hada or Chada is\na god of the female sex, and agrees with Adardaga or Atergatis, and was\nworshipped in that name in the neighbourhood of Syria. Heseychius says\nthat Hada was the goddess of Juno, and Adad a god and the sun. But Hadad\nvery well denotes the clamour or loud noise of persons exhorting; neither\nis it altogether unlike the lamentations of children in the sacrifices to\nMoloch. And ancient writers say that the effigies of both Adad and Moloch\nwere the same, and fashioned for expressing the sun.\n\nTheophylactus says \"that the bright shining stone in the image of\nPhosphorus he understands to be the sun.\" All these are very proper for\nthe sun, the king of gods or stars, and which he also thought who made the\nfirst mention of the seven hollow chambers in the statue of Moloch. In the\nsame number is ascribed to Mithra, who by the unanimous consent of\nantiquity, and especially of the ancient inscriptions, is regarded as\nbeing the same as the sun, shines with many colours. But Mithri, Mithir or\nMether, in Persian, signifies dynasty or lord, and this is also one of the\ntitles of Moloch.\n\nSaturn among the Latins, and Chronos among the Greeks, is oft-times\nconsidered to be Moch. Infants or children were victims common to both,\nand that nefarious sacred rite would seem to have migrated from Syria\ninto Europe and Africa. Pescennius Festus says \"that the Carthaginians\nwere accustomed to offer human victims to Saturn, and when they were\novercome in battle by Agathocles, king of the Siculi, he (the king)\nbelieved that his god was angry with him, and, therefore, that he might\ndiligently make the necessary expiation, he immolated to this god two\nhundred children of the nobility. Those who had no children were forced to\nbuy them from the poor.\"\n\nTertullian writes:--\"That impious custom continued in Africa down to the\ntimes of Tiberias.\" These sacred rites of the Phoenicians proceeded from\nthose of the Syrians, as the solemn use of fifes and drums among them will\nprove. For the lamentations of the children or parents among those about\nto be sacrificed is held to be an atonement. It is almost certain that by\nthe name of Moloch this God was worshipped in like manner among the\nCarthaginians.\n\nThe Carthaginians worshipped Amilear, and that name comes from the same\nsource as Molech. Both words are pure Hebrew or Punic, if you regard their\netymology, and they mean king, or perhaps Ameliar may be queen, that is,\nmay mean Basilia, queen of the Atlantians, and which may refer to\nCelestis, queen of the Carthaginians. For as among them Bel or Uranus is a\ngod, and Coelestis a goddess, so Uranus and Basilia may be a god and\ngoddess among them. And from the same source we must look for the name of\nMilicus, the father-in-law of Hannibal, and of his daughter Imilcis, which\nis queen, and of Imilco, a Carthaginian general. Melech means king, and\nMalcha queen, which they pronounce Molicus and Imilcis. Strabo says \"that\nHercules, worshipped among the Tyrians, was called Melcartos or\nMelcarthos. But he was the son of Jove Demaruns, and he is the same as the\nPhoenician and Carthaginian Hercules, who was appeased by human victims\nas Moloch was. The first part of his name was evidently derived from\nMelech of the Hebrews, for almost by the same word Hercules was known\namong the Amathusians. Amathus was a city of Phoenicia, and an island of\nthe Phoenician sea adjoins Cyprus, and in it there is also a city called\nAmathus. The latter had sacred rites in common with the former. What the\nwords Artos or Arthos in the name mean is not clear. Traces of it,\nhowever, are seen in the Punic names Bomilcar and Hamilcar. In Boeotia,\nwhich retains many names which Cadmus brought with him from Phoenicia,\nthere is a river and a city called Haliartus, named after the builder and\ndiscoverer. In Scolus there is likewise an image of Megalartus held in\ngreat esteem. Some think it is the image of the Megalartian Ceres, and\nderive it from the Greek word artos, which means bread, because she was\nthe goddess of corn.\"\n\n\"But whatever the god was, his Phoenician origin is evident, for Cadmus,\nIsmenus, and Thebes were all Phoenician names, and perhaps the Hebrew\nword Aritz in artes passed into Melicartes, which some read Melicatus.\nAritz means very strong, and thus Melicaritz signifies a strong king or\ntyrant, and the word could readily pass into Melicartos. Thence perhaps in\nthe Persian language Artaioi is heroes, or those who in the olden periods\nmade themselves particularly illustrious, and the word with this idea is\npresent in the names Artoxerxis and Artabasis. Hence in Persian, Artas\nmeant great or illustrious, and Artana kingdoms, and Herodotus says that\nArtoxerxis means a great warrior.\n\n\"Among the ancient Persians and Syrians in customs and languages many\nthings were common to both. The Persians are accounted among our Syrians\nnow and then by European writers, and Babylon is called a Persian city.\n\n\"As to the horrid sacrifice, the slaying of children, its origin does not\nlie concealed if there is any truth in Phoenician annals. There is a\ntradition among them that Saturn, one of the most ancient kings of\nPhoenicia, and whom they called Israel in order that he might deliver\nhis kingdom from the greatest peril of an impending war, to render the\ngods propitious, immolated an only begotten son of himself and wife\nAnobreta. He was first ornamented with the royal fillets, and then led to\nthe altar built for that purpose, and a wicked posterity, not\nunderstanding the case or the circumstances, continued to follow his\nexample.\"[27]\n\nAmong the many usages derived by the Sardes from their Phoenician\nancestors, one of a singular character is still practised by the Oziese,\nof which Father Bresciani gives the following account:--\"Towards the end\nof March, or the beginning of April, it is the custom for young men and\nwomen to agree together to fill the relation of godfathers and godmothers\nof St. John, _compare e comare_--such is the phrase--for the ensuing year.\nAt the end of May the proposed _comare_, having procured a segment of the\nbark of a cork tree, fashions it in the shape of a vase, and fills it with\nrich light mould in which are planted some grains of barley or wheat. The\nvase being placed in the sunshine, well watered and carefully tended, the\nseed soon germinates, blades spring up, and, making a rapid growth, in the\ncourse of twenty-one days--that is, before the eve of St. John--the vase\nis filled by a spreading and vigorous plant of young corn. It then\nreceives the name of Hermes, or, more commonly, of _Su Nennere_, from a\nSarde word, which possibly has the same signification as the Phoenician\nname of garden; similar vases being called, in ancient times, the gardens\nof Adonis.\"\n\nForester in his \"Rambles in Corsica and Sardinia,\" quoting the above and\nremarking upon it says:--\"On the eve of St. John, the cereal vase,\nornamented with ribbons, is exposed on a balcony, decorated with garlands\nand flags. Formerly, also a little image in female attire, or _phallic_\nemblems moulded in clay, such as were exhibited in the feasts of Hermes,\nwere placed among the blades of corn; but these representations have been\nso severely denounced by the Church, that they are fallen into disuse. The\nyoung men flock in crowds to witness the spectacle and attend the maidens\nwho come out to grace the feast. A great fire is lit on the piazza, round\nwhich they leap and gambol, the couple who have agreed to be St. John's\n_compare_ completing the ceremony in this manner:--The man is placed on\none side of the fire, the woman on the other, each holding opposite ends\nof a stick extended over the burning embers, which they pass rapidly\nbackwards and forwards. This is repeated three times, so that the hand of\neach party passes thrice through the flames. The union being thus sealed,\nthe _comparatico_ or spiritual alliance is considered perfect. After that,\nthe music strikes up, and the festival is concluded by dances, prolonged\nto a late hour of the night.\"\n\n\"Father Bresciani, La Marmora, and other writers, justly consider the\nNennere as one of the many relics of the Phoenician colonisation of\nSardinia. Every one knows that the sun and moon, under various names such\nas Isis and Osiris, Adonis and Astarte, were the principal objects of\nworship in the east from the earliest times; the sun being considered as\nthe vivifying power of universal nature, the moon represented as a female,\nderiving her light from the sun, as the passive principle of production.\nThe abstruse doctrines on the origin of things, thus shadowed out by the\nancient seers, generated the grossest ideas, expressed in the _phallic_\nemblems, the lewdness and obscenities mixed up in the popular worship of\nthe deified principles of all existence. Of the prevalence in Sardinia of\nthe Egypto-Phoenician mythology, in times the most remote, no one who\nhas examined the large collection of relics in the Royal Museum at\nCagliari, or who consults the plates attached to La Marmora's work, can\nentertain any doubt. But it is surprising to find, among the usages of the\nSardes at the present day, a very exact representation of the rites of a\nprimitive religion, introduced into the island nearly thirty-five years\nago, though it now partakes more of the character of a popular festival\nthan a religious ceremony.\n\n\"One of the principal incidents in the _Sarde Nennere_ consists in the\nconsecration of the spiritual relation between the _compare_ and _comare_,\nby their thrice crossing hands over the fire in the ceremonies of St.\nJohn's Day. A still more extraordinary vestige of the idolatrous rite of\npassing through the fire, is said to be still subsisting among the customs\nof the people of Logudoro, in the neighbourhood of Ozieri, and in other\nparts of Sardinia.\n\n\"Of the worship of Moloch--_par excellence_ the Syrian and Phoenician\ngod of fire--by the ancient Sardes, there is undoubted proof. We find\namong the prodigious quantity of such relics, collected from all parts of\nthe island, in the Royal Museum at Cagliari, a statuette of this idol,\nsupposed to have been a household god. Its features are appalling: great\ngoggle eyes leer fiercely from their hollow sockets; the broad nostrils\nseem ready to sniff the fumes of the horrid sacrifice; a wide gaping mouth\ngrins with rabid fury at the supposed victim; dark plumes spring from the\nforehead, like horns, and expanded wings from each shoulder and knee. The\nimage brandishes a sword with the left hand, holding in the right a small\ngrate, formed of metal bars. It would appear that, this being heated, the\nwretched victim was placed on it, and then, scorched so that the fumes of\nthe disgusting incense savoured in the nostrils of the rabid idol, it fell\nupon a brazier of burning coals beneath, where it was consumed. There is\nanother idol in this collection with the same truculent cast of features,\nbut horned, and clasping a bunch of snakes in the right hand, a trident in\nthe left, with serpents twined round its legs. This image has a large\norifice in the belly, and flames are issuing between the ribs, so that it\nwould appear that when the brazen image of the idol was thoroughly heated,\nthe unhappy children intended for sacrifice were thrust into the mouth in\nthe navel, and there grilled--savoury morsels, on which the idol seems,\nfrom its features, rabidly gloating, while the priests, we are told,\nendeavoured to drown the cries of the sufferers by shouts and the noise of\ndrums and timbrels--\n\n  '... horrid king, besmeared with blood\n  Of human sacrifice, and parents' tears;\n  Though, for the noise of drums and timbrels loud,\n  Their children's cries unheard, that passed through fire\n  To his grim idol.'--_Par. Lost_, i. 392.\n\n\"This cruel child-sacrifice was probably the giving of his seed to Moloch,\nfor which any Israelite or stranger that sojourned in Israel guilty of the\ncrime was, according to the Mosaic law, to be stoned to death. We are\ninformed in the Sacred Records that no such denunciations of the\nidolatries of the surrounding nations, no revelations of the attributes or\nteachings of the pure worship of Jehovah, restrained the Israelites from\nthe practice of the foul and cruel rites of their heathen neighbours; and\nwe find in the latter days of the Jewish Commonwealth the prophet Jeremiah\npredicting the desolation of the people for this sin among others, that\nthey had estranged themselves from the worship of Jehovah, and burned\nincense to strange gods, and filled the holy place with the blood of\ninnocents, and burned their sons and their daughters with fire for\nburnt-offerings unto Baal.\n\n\"There appear to have been two modes in which the ancient idolaters\ndevoted their children to Moloch. In one they were sacrificed and consumed\nin the manner already described, a burnt offering to the idol for the\nexpiation of the sins of their parents or their people. In the other they\nwere only made to pass through the fire, in honour of the deity, and as a\nsort of initiation into his mysteries, and consecration to his service.\n\n\"Thus Ahaz, King of Judah, is said to have made his son to pass through\nthe fire, according to the abominations of the heathen. And it is reckoned\nin the catalogue of the sins of Judah, which drew on them the vengeance of\nGod, that they 'built the high places of Baal, to cause their sons and\ntheir daughters to pass through the fire unto Moloch.'[28]\n\n\"In the case of infants, it is supposed that this initiation, this\n'baptism by fire' was performed either by placing them on a sort of grate\nsuspended by chains from the vault of the temple, and passed rapidly over\nthe sacred fire, or by the priests taking the infants in their arms and\nswaying them to and fro over or across the fire, chanting meanwhile\ncertain prayers or incantations. With respect to children of older growth,\nthey were made to leap naked through the fire before the idol, so that\ntheir whole bodies might be touched by the sacred flames, and purified, as\nit were, by contact with the divinity.\n\n\"The Sardes, we are informed by Father Bresciani, still preserve a custom\nrepresenting this initiation by fire, but as in other Phoenician rites\nand practices, without the slightest idea of their profane origin. In the\nfirst days of spring, from one end of the island to the other, the\nvillagers assemble and light great fires in the piazza and at the cross\nroads. The flames beginning to ascend, the children leap through them at a\nbound, so rapidly and with such dexterity that when the flames are highest\nit is seldom that their clothes or a hair of their head are singed. They\ncontinue this practice till the fuel is reduced to embers, the musicians\nmeanwhile playing on the _lionedda_ tunes adapted to a Phyrric dance.\nThis, says the learned father, is a representation of the initiation\nthrough fire into the mysteries of Moloch.\"[29]\n\n\"Nergal, which is a Hebrew word, was, perhaps, a perpetual fire most\nreligiously preserved in their Sefta, or sacred places. The Cuthites were\nso called from Cuthus, which was both the name of a river and region in\nPersia, and from which they were carried into Samaria in very large\nnumbers. Strabo confirms the existence of the sacred fire in Persia in\nbook fifteen. He says 'that in the temples of the worshippers of Anaitis\nand Omanus, or Amanus, Persian gods among the Cappadocians, the care of\nthe perpetual fire was committed to magi, who were called Pyrethri, or\nfire worshippers.' He further says, 'In that country there is a great\nmultitude of them, and likewise many temples of the Persian gods; that\nthey do not slay the victims with a knife, but with a certain kind of\nclub, as pounding them to death with a pestle; that there were also\ncertain chapels in which these fires were kept worthy of being remembered;\nthat the altar was in the centre of the chapel, and upon which there were\nmany cinders, and there the priests watched the inextinguishable fires;\nthat they entered there daily, and sang or chanted for the space of almost\nan hour, at the same time holding a bundle of rods before the fire; that\nthey were veiled in a woollen tiara, which, fitting well on all sides,\ncovered their lips and jaws. These, which were built in their shrines, and\nwhich were called Pyratheia, were the eternal fires of the magi. That\nwhich they chanted was the theogony, or primeval history of the gods.'\n\n\"The Persians believed that every song was not equally efficacious in\nsacred rites. The rods seem to have been of tamarisk, and without a magus\nno kind of sacrifices were performed. In the other sacred rites it was an\nannual custom for the magi to hold the tamarisk while they chanted the\ntheogony, as it was the habit of the ancient poets while singing to carry\nlaurel in their hands. For this reason some believed that they were called\nrhapsodists, from the Greek word rhabdos, which means a rod. While\nchanting they stirred the fires with their rods and increased the flames.\nThat which the ancients write is true regarding the institutions of the\nPersians, that any one who was about to become a king should be initiated\ninto the magic rites, and that Ninus could not be more a king than a magus\nfrom that custom. The Persians received these sacred rites from the most\nancient Chaldeans, and the latter called them Nergal, from two Hebrew\nwords, nir and gal, which may mean either the fountain of fire or light,\nor fire or versatile light, and especially that inextinguishable fire\nwhich they watched in their holy places as the symbol of the sun. And\nalthough there were many gods in Persia, yet fire was worshipped by them\nbefore and above all other gods, and in every sacrifice they especially\ninvoked him as the Romans did Janus. And hence, bound by religion, they\ndid not dare to pollute fire destined for daily uses with any\nuncleanliness. The Pyratheia, or fires, were called Pyreia by others.\nSuidas says that Heraclius destroyed the Persian cities and overthrew\ntheir Pyreia. But so ancient do the Hebrews make the worship of fire among\nthe Chaldeans, that Ur of the Chaldeans, mentioned in Genesis XI., they\ntook for their fire god. Neither do the writings of the ancients quoted by\nMaimonides prove anything else than that fire was held in so much honour\nbecause it was a symbol of the sun. In regard to this most ancient worship\nin Chald\u00e6a he thus discourses in 'More Nebochim,' book three, chapter\nthirty:--'It is known that Abraham was born among a people who served\nfire, and who, in their credulity, believed there was no other god except\nthe stars, and I will in this chapter make you acquainted with their\nbooks, which are not found with us translated in the Arabic language. In\ntheir narrations and ancient contentions you will know their reasons and\nopinions. Their credulity is proved to you in their worship of the stars\nwhich they believed to be gods, and that the sun is the greater among the\ngods. And they said that the other planets are gods, but that the sun and\nmoon are the greatest of their gods. You will find what they undoubtedly\nsay, that the sun governs the upper and lower world. All this you will\nfind in their books; and they speak of the condition of Abraham, and they\ndeclare further that Abraham was born and educated in the land of fire\nworshippers. He there contradicted their opinions, saying that there was\nanother operator besides the sun. And they offered their reasons opposed\nto his, and among which they mentioned the operations of the sun, which\nare manifest and which appear to be seen throughout the universe.' But\nAbraham was cast into chains because he refused to adore their sun, and\nafter that he was robbed of his goods, and by the king banished into\nCanaan. They believed that the sun ruled the world, that there was no god\nsuperior to him, and they adored fire. Therefore, what else was fire than\nthe sign or symbol of the sun, and very consonant to his nature? And here,\nI think, is seen the god of Nahor, son of Terah, referred to in Genesis\nXXXI., 53:--'The god of Abraham, the God of Nahor, the god of their\nfather, judge betwixt us.' Here, likewise, you have the foreign gods,\nwhich the ancients served in the time of Abraham, as the Sacred Scriptures\ntestify, in Joshua XXIV., 2:--'And Joshua said unto all the people, Thus\nsaith the Lord God of Israel, your fathers dwelt on the other side of the\nflood in the olden time, even Terah, the father of Abraham and the father\nof Nahor: and they served other gods.' Certainly before the Babylonian\ncaptivity also, and in the kingdom of Judea, those Pyratheia and the\nworship of fire existed, if Joseph Scaliger conjectures correctly in\nCatullus, when, in the sacred language, or that of the prophets, he says\nthat the Pyratheia are called Chamanim.\n\n\"In II. Chronicles, XXXIV., 4, we find as follows in regard to Josiah, the\nking:--'And they broke down the altars of Baalim in his presence, and he\nbroke into pieces the images that were sacred to him.' The images here in\nHebrew are called Chamanim, and the Rabbins understand them to be effigies\nof the sun. For the sun and heat were called Chamha, thence Chamanim was\nused for the images, chapels, or Pyrathean consecrated to the sun. In\nLeviticus XXVI., 30, the words are as follows:--'I will destroy your high\nplaces, and cut down Chamanicem, that is, your images,' &c. The Hebrews\nunderstand that their idols were dedicated in honour of the sun. In that\nplace in Leviticus and elsewhere Chamanim and other sacred rites borrowed\nfrom the Persians are reproved, and among these 'high places,' called\nBamoth in Hebrew. It was a custom of the Persians to perform their sacred\nrites in the most high and elevated places, and in this way they offered\nsacrifice to heaven or Jove. Herodotus, in Clio, says 'it was their custom\nto ascend the most lofty summits of the mountains, and there immolate\ntheir victims to Jove, and calling by the name of Jove every circle of the\nheavens.' But it was a custom both of the Europeans and Asiatics to ascend\nthe summits of mountains to worship Jove. Hence he was called Epakrios, or\nthe Lofty.\n\n\"That Jupiter, with Herodotus, is Belus and Assyrius, for in that name he\nwas called Jove in the most ancient theology of the Persians, as Berosus,\nAthenocles, and Simachus write. It is a question for the learned whether\nin the god Omanus, or Amanus, whom Strabo mentions, reference may be had\nto Chamanim, or Hamanim. Scaliger thinks in the affirmative, and he thence\ndeduces Ach\u00e6menis and Ach\u00e6meniss, who denote Persian extraction. Amanus\nwas indeed the sun, as Anaitis was the moon, and who were called Diana and\nVenus. No one, however, is ignorant that the Persians worshipped fire as a\nsymbol of the sun, and that is the reason why Datis, the captain of a ship\nunder Xerxes, left the island of Delos unharmed, inasmuch as it was sacred\nto the sun, or Apollo. As to the other kind of Chamanim, or effigy reduced\nto powder by King Josiah, the following will be found in II. Kings,\nXXIII., 11, 'And in process of time he removed the horses which the King\nof Judah had given to the sun, in the entrance of the temple of the Lord,\nnear the tabernacle of Nathan-melech the eunuch, who was a prince in the\nsuburbs, and he burnt the chariots of the sun in fire.' These also,\nperhaps, should be called Chamanim, as Cimchi, Solomon Jarchi, and Levi\nBen Gershon explain that place concerning the horses and chariot, that,\nwhile adoring the rising sun, they led them in solemn pomp from the\nentrance of the temple to the tabernacle of Nathan-melech. This more\nprobably means the molten images of the horses and chariots consecrated to\nthe sun, for, among the Persians, the horse was sacred to the sun, and\naccustomed to be sacrificed to it. The same custom was transplanted among\nthe Grecians. In ancient times the chariots were also dedicated to the\nsame, as the swiftest of swift gods. But their place was at the door of\nthe True God. The Jews worshipped the sun towards the east within the\nvestibule of the door. Thus in Ezekiel VIII., 14, 'And behold, near the\ntemple of the Lord, between the vestibule and the altar, there were as if\ntwenty-five men, whose backs were towards the temple of the Lord, and\ntheir faces towards the east, and they adored the sun in the east.'\"[30]\n\nFrom most of the classic authors, such as Homer, Tibullus, Horace, Ovid,\nEuripides, Aristophanes, Virgil, &c., we gather that every Greek and Roman\nhouse had its altar on which fire was ever burning. At night it was\ncovered up with ashes so as to reserve some of the wood for the morrow and\nkeep it gently and slowly smouldering. Day by day, the first thing in the\nmorning, the master of the house applied himself to the rousing up or\nrekindling of the fire, in order that it might be ready for the coming\nceremonies and worship; in his absence from home this duty devolved upon\nhis wife as his nearest relation. Writers tell us that the fire did not\ncease to burn until the family had altogether perished, and an\nextinguished hearth in early days meant the same thing as an extinguished\nfamily.\n\nNor was the keeping up of this fire a mere matter of unmeaning form, a\nsimple custom to which no signification of any particular importance was\nattached; it was essentially connected with the people's most ancient and\ncherished religious beliefs. So serious a matter was it that even the\nparticular kind of wood was specified. Virgil and Plutarch distinctly\nstate that only certain trees ought to be used for such a purpose, and\nthese were kept sacred and forbidden for other uses. The fire, according\nto Euripides and Ovid, must be kept pure--no polluted object might be cast\ninto it, no offensive action might be performed in its presence.\n\nAs we remark in another place, there was one day in the year (March 1st in\nRome) when all fires and lights were put out--but immediately renewed with\nthe observation of many rites. The strictest rules had to be attended to\non these occasions; it was forbidden to renew the fire from any remaining\nspark of the old--indeed it was essential to thoroughly extinguish every\nspark of the previous flame--neither might a spark be struck from flint\nand steel; only by the sun's rays or by rubbing two pieces of wood\ntogether might the new fire be started into being, for the fire was\nregarded as the representative of the sun--the greatest of lights and\nfires, and as such was adored. Well it was not unreasonable or to be\nwondered at, that men, for want of better knowledge, should render divine\nhonours to that from which they received such benefits; they saw the light\nand heat of the sun pouring down upon the earth and in conjunction with\nthe rain and dew, softening its crust, swelling and fructifying its seed\nand bringing forth from it food and nourishment for man and beast. And so\nthey prayed as we read in the Orphic hymns: \"Render us always flourishing,\nalways happy, O fire: thou who art eternal, beautiful, ever young; thou\nwho nourishest, thou who art rich, receive favourably these our offerings,\nand in return give us happiness and sweet health.\"\n\nThe fire seems to have been perpetually invoked; hardly a monument was\nmade, hardly a household or business duty performed or engagement\nfulfilled, without a prayer to it; if a man left his home for a brief\nwhile, he worshipped the fire; when he returned, before he saluted his\nnearest relatives, the same duty was observed. \u00c6schylus tells of Agamemnon\nreturning from Troy, and instead of going to the temple and returning\nthanks to Jupiter, offering thanksgiving before the fire in his own house.\nEuripides, also, represents the dying Alcestis speaking to the fire:\n\"Mistress, I go beneath the earth, and for the last time fall before thee,\nand address thee. Protect my infant children; give to my boy a tender\nwife, and to my daughter a noble husband. Let them not die, like their\nmother, before the time, but may they lead a long and happy life in their\nfatherland.\"\n\nDe Coulanges says \"the sacred fire was a sort of providence in the family.\nSacrifices were offered to it, and not merely was the flame supplied with\nwood, but upon the altar were poured wine, oil, incense and the fat of\nvictims. The god graciously received these offerings and devoured them.\nRadiant with satisfaction, he rose above the altar, and lit up the\nworshipper with his brightness. Then was the moment for the suppliant\nhumbly to invoke him and give heartfelt utterance to his prayer.\"\n\nCorresponding with the \"grace\" of modern times, recited before and after\nmeals, was the tribute of prayer and praise uttered by the ancient before\nhis fire when he was about to partake of food and when he had satisfied\nhis hunger. He went even further than the modern does, for before a\nparticle of food was eaten a due proportion of meat and drink had to be\npoured out upon the altar and presented to the god. And when the flame\nrose up, they regarded it as the deity rearing himself in their midst and\nconsuming what had been presented.\n\nIf we turn to the Sacred Books of the East we shall find how strong a hold\nthis Fire Worship has upon the Hindoo mind, and the importance attached to\na due observance of all points of ritual connected with it. In the \"Laws\nof Manu\" we find directions for his guidance extending to the most\nordinary domestic necessities and some of which we cannot very well repeat\nin these pages. Some of his private necessities must not be satisfied in\nview of the fire but he must retire either into darkness or out of sight\nof it. \"Let him not blow a fire with his mouth--Let him not throw any\nimpure substance into the fire, let him not warm his feet at it--Let him\nnot place fire under a bed or the like; nor step over it, nor place it\nwhen he sleeps at the footend of his bed--Let him keep his right arm\nuncovered in a place where a sacred fire is kept--A Brahmana who is impure\nmust not touch with his hand a cow, a Brahmana, or fire; nor, being in\ngood health, let him look at the luminaries in the sky while he is\nimpure.\" Then again, \"A Brahmana shall offer of the cooked food destined\nfor the Vaisvadeva in the sacred domestic fire to the following deities:\nFirst to Agni, and next to Soma, then to both these gods conjointly,\nfurther to all the gods, and then to Dhanvautari, further to Kuhu (the\ngoddess of the new moon day), to Anumati (the goddess of the full moon\nday), to Pragapati (the lord of creatures), to heaven and earth\nconjointly, and finally to Agni Svishtakrit (the fire which performs the\nsacrifice well).\" And so on in many other places, in one of which the king\nis to behave like fire. \"Let the king emulate the energetic action of\nIndra, of the sun, of the wind, of Yama, of Varuna, of the moon, of the\nfire, and of the earth. If he is ardent in wrath against criminals and\nendowed with brilliant energy, and destroys wicked vassals, then his\ncharacter is said to resemble that of fire.\"\n\nTurning to the Rig Veda we find \"Hymns to Agni (the god of fire) and the\nMaruts (the storm gods).\"\n\n\"1. Thou art called forth to this fair sacrifice for a draught of milk;\nwith the Maruts come hither, O Agni!\"\n\n\"2. No god, indeed, no mortal, is beyond the might of thee, the mighty\none; with the Maruts come hither, O Agni!\"\n\n\"3. Those who know of the great sky, the Visne Devas without guile; with\nthose Maruts come hither, O Agni!\"\n\n\"4. The wild ones who sing their song, unconquerable by force; with the\nMaruts come hither, O Agni!\"\n\n\"5. Those who are brilliant, of awful shape, powerful, and devourers of\nfoes; with the Maruts come hither, O Agni!\"\n\n\"6. They who in heaven are enthroned as gods, in the light of the\nfirmament; with the Maruts come hither, O Agni!\"\n\n\"7. They who shoot with their darts across the sea with might; with the\nMaruts come hither, O Agni!\"\n\n\"9. I pour out to thee for the early draught the sweet juice of Soma; with\nthe Maruts come hither, O Agni!\"\n\nAnother one says:--\"O Agni, thou art the life, thou art the patron of man.\nIn return for our prayers, bestow glory and riches on the father of a\nfamily who now addresses thee. Agni, thou art a wise protector and a\nfather; to thee we owe life, we are of thy household.\"\n\nDe Coulanges says:--\"So the hearth-god was, as in Greece, a tutelary\ndeity. Men asked of him abundance, and that the earth might be productive.\nHe was prayed to for health, and that a man might long enjoy the light and\narrive at old age like the sun at his setting. Even wisdom is demanded,\nand pardon for sin. For as in Greece the fire-god was essentially pure, so\nnot only was the Brahmin forbidden to throw anything filthy into his fire,\nbut he might not even warm his feet at it. The guilty man, also, as in\nGreece, might not approach his own hearth before he was purified from the\nstain he had contracted.\"\n\nAssuredly the Greeks did not borrow this religion from the Hindoos, nor\nthe Hindoos from the Greeks; but Greeks, Italians, and Hindoos, belonged\nto one and the same race, and their ancestors at a very early period had\nlived together in Central Asia. There they had learnt this creed, and\nestablished their rites. When the tribes gradually moved further away from\none another, they transported this religion with them, the one to the\nbanks of the Ganges, and the others to the Mediterranean. Afterwards, some\nlearnt to worship Brahma, others Zeus, and others again Janus; but all had\npreserved as a legacy the earlier religion which they had practised at the\ncommon cradle of the race.\n\nIt is remarkable that in all sacrifices, even in those offered to Zeus or\nto Athene, it was always to the fire that the first invocation was made.\nAt Olympia assembled Greece offered her first sacrifice to the\nhearth-fire, and the second to Zeus. Similarly at Rome, the first to be\nadored was always Vesta, who was nothing else but the fire. And so we read\nin the hymns of the Veda: \"Before all gods, Agni must be invoked. We will\npronounce thy holy name before that of all the other immortals. O Agni,\nwhatever be the god we honour by our sacrifice, to thee is the holocaust\noffered.\" It was not that Jupiter and Brahma had not acquired a much\ngreater importance in the minds of men, but it was remembered that the\nfire was much older than the gods.\n\nWhen the populations of Greece and Italy had learnt to represent their\nGods as persons, and had given each a proper name and a human shape, the\nold worship of the fire was similarly modified. The sacred fire was called\nVesta. The common noun was made a proper name, and a legend by degrees\nattached to it. They even went so far as to represent the fire in statues\nunder the features of a woman, the gender of the noun having determined\nthe sex of the deity.\n\nVesta, in mythology, was one of the principal deities of the Pagans. Those\nwho have diligently investigated the religion of the Pythagorean\nphilosophers pretend that by Vesta they meant the universe, to which they\nascribed a soul, and which they worshipped as the sole divinity sometime\nunder the name of [Greek: to pan], the whole, and sometimes under the\nappellation of [Greek: monos], unity. However, fabulous history records\ntwo goddesses under the name of Vesta; one the mother of Saturn, and wife\nof Coelum, and the other the daughter of Saturn, by his wife Rhea. The\nfirst was Terra, or the Earth, called also Cybele, and derived her name\nVesta, according to some, from clothing, because the earth is clothed,\n_vestitur_, with plants and fruits, or, according to Ovid, from the\nstability of the earth because _stat vi terra sua_, or it supports itself.\nHence the first oblations in all sacrifices were offered to her, because\nwhatsoever is sacrificed springs from the earth; and the Greeks both began\nand concluded their sacrifices with Vesta, because they esteemed her the\nmother of all gods.\n\nThe second was Fire, and Vesta whose power was exercised about altars and\nhouses, derives her name, according to Cicero, from fire or hearth.\nAccordingly the poets frequently use Vesta for fire or flame; as they do\nJupiter for air, Ceres for corn, &c. An image of Vesta, to which they\nsacrificed every day, was placed before the doors of the houses at Rome;\nand the places where these statues were erected were called _vestibula_,\nfrom Vesta. This goddess was a virgin, and so great an admirer of\nvirginity, that when Jupiter her brother gave her leave to ask what she\nwould, she besought that she might always be a virgin, and have the first\noblations in all sacrifices.\n\nThis goddess is called by Horace _\u00e6terna Vesta_, and it was in honour of\nher that Numa erected a temple at Rome, and dedicated virgins to keep a\nperpetual fire upon her altars. One way of representing this goddess, it\nis said, was in the habit of a matron, holding in her right hand a\nflambeau or lamp, and sometimes a Palladium or small Victory.\n\nThe worship of Vesta and of fire was brought from Phrygia into Italy by\n\u00c6neas and the other Trojans who resorted thither. To this purpose Virgil\nobserves that \u00c6neas, before he left the palace of his father, had taken\naway the fire from the sacred hearth. The name Vesta was synonymous with\nthe Chaldean and Persian Avesta and hence Zoroaster gave to his book on\nthe worship of fire, the name of Avesta or Abesta, _i.e._, the custody of\nfire.\n\nThe Vestals were the virgins in Ancient Rome, consecrated to the service\nof the goddess Vesta, whose worship, we have said, was brought into Italy\nby \u00c6neas, and one of their special duties was the watching of the sacred\nfire, the going out of which was visited upon them with such severe\nwhipping. This fire, which they had to watch so jealously and carefully,\nwas neither on an altar nor on a hearth, but in little earthen vessels\nwith two handles, called _capeduncula_. It was held a pledge of the empire\nof the world. If it went out, it was judged a very unlucky prognostic, and\nwas to be expiated with infinite ceremonies. Among the Romans, Festus\ntells us, it was only to be rekindled by rubbing a kind of wood proper for\nthe purpose. But among the Greeks, Plutarch, in his life of Numa,\nobserves, it was to be rekindled by exposing some inflammable matter in\nthe centre of a concave vessel held to the sun. It is to be noted, the\nRomans were not the only people who kept the perpetual fire of Vesta, in\nimitation of the celestial fires; but the Greeks were possessed with the\nsame superstition; particularly the Delphians, Athenians, Tenedians,\nArgives, Rhodians, Cyzicenians, Milesians, Ephesians, &c.\n\nMagi, or Magians, was the title which the ancient Persians gave to their\nwise men and philosophers. Whatever may be the origin of the word, and\nupon this great diversity of opinion seems to have prevailed, it\ncorresponds with the [Greek: sophoi] among the Greeks; sapientes among the\nLatins; Druids among the Gauls; Gynosophists among the Indians; and\nprophets, priests among the Egyptians.\n\nPlato, Apuleius, Laertius, and others agree that the philosophy of the\nMagi related principally to the worship of the gods; they were the persons\nwho were to offer prayers, supplications and sacrifices, as if the gods\nwould be heard by them alone.\n\nThey teach their doctrine concerning the nature and origin of the gods,\nsays Laertius, whom they think to be fire, earth, and water; they reject\nthe use of pictures and images, and reprobate the opinion that the gods\nare male and female; they discourse to the people concerning justice; they\nthink it impious to consume dead bodies with fire; they all practise\ndivination and prophecy, pretending that the gods appear to them; they\nforbid the use of ornaments in dress; they clothe themselves in a white\nrobe; they make use of the ground as their bed, of herbs, cheese and bread\nfor food, and of a reed for their staff. Strabo also relates, that there\nwere in Cappadocia a great number of Magi, who were called \"Pyrethi,\" or\nworshippers of fire, and many temples of the Persian gods, in the midst of\nwhich were altars attended by priests, who daily renewed the sacred fire,\naccompanying the ceremony with music.\n\nThe chief doctrine of the Magi was, that there were two principles, one of\nwhich was the cause of all good, and the other the cause of all evil. The\nformer was represented by light, and the latter by darkness, as their\ntruest symbols; and of the composition of these two they supposed that all\nthings in the world were made. The good god they always worshipped before\nfire, as being the cause of light, and especially before the sun, as being\nin their opinion the most perfect fire, and causing the most perfect\nlight; and for this reason they had in all their temples fire constantly\nburning on altars erected in them for that purpose. Before these sacred\nfires, they performed all their public acts of devotion, as they likewise\npractised their private devotions before their private fires in their own\nhouses. Such were the tenets of this sect when Smerdis, who was the\nprincipal leader of it, having usurped the crown after the death of\nCambyses, was slain by seven princes of Persia; and many of the Magians,\nwho adhered to him, shared likewise the same fate. In consequence of this\nevent, those who adopted the sentiments of this sect were called, by way\nof derision, Magians, from _mige-gush_, which signified, in the language\nof the country then in use, one that had his ears cropped. The whole sect\nof the Magians would soon have sunk into utter extinction if it had not,\nin a few years after this period, been revived and reformed by Zoroaster.\nThis celebrated philosopher, called by the Persians Zerdusht or Zaratusht,\nbegan about the thirty-sixth year of the reign of Darius to restore and\nreform the Magian system of religion. He was not only excellently skilled\nin all the learning of the East that prevailed in his time, but likewise\nthoroughly versed in the Jewish religion, and in all the sacred writings\nof the Old Testament that were then extant, whence some have inferred that\nhe was a native Jew both by birth and profession; and that he had been\nservant to one of the prophets, probably Ezekiel or Daniel. He made his\nfirst appearance in Media, in the city of Xiz, afterwards called\nAderbijan, as some say; or according to others, in Ecbatana, afterwards\nTauris. Instead of admitting the existence of two first causes with the\nMagians, he introduced a principle superior to them both--one supreme God,\nwho created both these, and out of these two produced, according to his\nsovereign pleasure, everything else.\n\nZoroaster caused fire temples to be erected wherever he came: for having\nfeigned that he was taken up into heaven, and there instructed in the\ndoctrines he taught by God himself, out of the midst of a great and most\nbright flame of fire, he taught his followers that fire was the truest\nshekinah of the divine presence; that the sun being the most perfect fire,\nGod had there the throne of his glory, and the residence of his divine\npresence in a peculiar manner; and next to this in our elementary fire;\nand, therefore, he ordered them to direct all their worship to God, first\ntowards the sun, which they called Mithra, and next towards their sacred\nfires; and when they came before these fires to worship, they always\napproached them on the west side, that having their faces towards them,\nand also towards the rising sun at the same time, they might direct their\nworship towards both. And in this posture they always performed every act\nof their worship. Zoroaster also pretended that he brought some of the\nheavenly fire with him on his return and placed it on the altar of the\nfirst fire temple, which he erected at Xiz, in Media, whence it was\npropagated to all the rest; and on this account their priests carefully\nwatched it and never suffered it to be extinguished.\n\nZoroaster, having assumed the character of a divine prophet and reformer\nof religion, retired into a cave, devoting himself to prayer and\nmeditation, where he composed the book called the Zend, in which his\npretended revelations were contained. From Media he removed into Bactria;\nand he went also into India among the Brachmans, and having acquired all\ntheir knowledge in mathematics, philosophy and astronomy, returned and\ncommunicated the knowledge to his Magians; and thus they became famous for\ntheir skill in these sciences; so that a learned man and a Magian were\nequivalent terms. The vulgar conceived of them as persons actuated and\ninspired by supernatural powers; and hence those who pretended to wicked\nand diabolical acts, assumed the name of Magians; and the term Magician\nacquired its evil meaning. However, this distinguished knowledge was\nconfined to those who were by way of eminence, the Magi, or the priests;\nwho, like those of the Jews, being of the same tribe, appropriated their\nlearning to their own families. These priests were distributed into three\norders, viz.: the inferior priests, who conducted the ordinary ceremonies\nof religion; the superintendents who governed them and presided over the\nsacred fire; and the archimagus, or high-priest, who possessed supreme\nauthority over the whole order; and their churches or temples were also of\nthree sorts, parochial or oratories, in which the people performed their\ndevotions, and where the sacred fire was kept only in lamps; fire-temples,\nin which fire was kept continually burning on a sacred altar, where the\nhigher order of the Magi directed the public devotions, and the people\nassembled to perform magical incantations, hear interpretations of dreams,\nand practise other superstitions; and lastly, the fire-temple in which the\narchimagus resided, which was visited by the people at certain seasons\nwith peculiar solemnity, and to which it was deemed an indispensable duty\nfor every one to repair at least once in his life. Zoroaster at length\ncarried his religious system to the royal court at Susa, and made Darius a\nproselyte, together with most of the great men of the kingdom.\n\n\nTHE END.\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n[1] Moule's Heraldry.\n\n[2] Maitland's Church in the Catacombs.\n\n[3] Forlong.\n\n[4] Moule's Heraldry.\n\n[5] Northern Tour.\n\n[6] Gorham, Hist. S. Neots.\n\n[7] Rivers of Life.\n\n[8] Ancient Faiths, vol. i.\n\n[9] Rivers of Life.\n\n[10] Riv. Life, Forlong.\n\n[11] Nineveh, &c.\n\n[12] Selden's Syrian Deities.\n\n[13] Forlong.\n\n[14] Rivers of Life.\n\n[15] Leslie's Early Races of Scotland.\n\n[16] Rivers of Life.\n\n[17] Forlong, Riv. Life.\n\n[18] Rivers of Life.\n\n[19] See Pop. Science Rev., vol. x.\n\n[20] Hindu Pantheon.\n\n[21] See Asiat. Res., vol. iii.\n\n[22] For a somewhat longer account of this and other Myths, see Rev. W.\nGill's Book.\n\n[23] Chardin's Voyages, vol. ii.\n\n[24] Thalia, 16, Rawlinson.\n\n[25] Pennant, vol. I., p. 111.\n\n[26] Pennant, vol. III.\n\n[27] Selden's Syrian Deities. Hauser's Translation.\n\n[28] Jeremiah xxxii. 35.\n\n[29] See Bresciani and Forrester's Sardinia.\n\n[30] Selden's Syrian Deities, Hausser's Translation.\n\n\n\n\nPHALLIC SERIES\n\nCR. 8VO, VELLUM, 7/6 EACH.\n\nOnly a _very limited number_, privately printed\n\n\nPHALLICISM.--A Description of the Worship of Lingam-Yoni in various parts\nof the World, and in different Ages, with an Account of Ancient and Modern\nCrosses, particularly of the Crux Ansata (or Handled Cross) and other\nSymbols connected with the Mysteries of Sex Worship.\n\n_Only a few copies to be sold with sets at 7/6, or separately, 10/6._\n\nOPHIOLATREIA.--An Account of the Rites and Mysteries connected with the\nOrigin, Rise, and Development of Serpent Worship in various parts of the\nWorld, enriched with Interesting Traditions, and a full description of the\ncelebrated Serpent Mounds and Temples, the whole forming an exposition of\none of the phases of Phallic, or Sex Worship.\n\nPHALLIC OBJECTS, MONUMENTS AND REMAINS; Illustrations of the Rise and\nDevelopment of the Phallic Idea (Sex Worship), and its embodiment in Works\nof Nature and Art. _Etched Frontispiece._\n\nCULTUS ARBORUM.--A Descriptive Account of Phallic Tree Worship, with\nillustrative Legends, Superstitious Usages, &c.; exhibiting its Origin and\nDevelopment amongst the Eastern and Western Nations of the World, from the\nearliest to modern times.\n\n\n\n\nTranscriber's Notes:\n\nPassages in italics are indicated by _italics_.\n\nLetters with diacritical marks are not represented in this text version.\n\nThe original text includes Greek characters. For this text version these\nletters have been replaced with transliterations.","title":"Fishes, Flowers, & Fire as Elements and Deities in the Phallic Faiths & Worship of the Ancient Religions of Greece, Babylon, Rome, India, &c.","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":38894}