{"collection":"myth-cosmogony","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_40686/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_40686","id":"gutenberg_40686","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/40686","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Archaeology & Anthropology","Category: Mythology, Legends & Folklore","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Demonology","Mythology"],"text":"DEMONOLOGY AND DEVIL-LORE\n\n                                   By\n\n                      MONCURE DANIEL CONWAY, M.A.\n\n             B. D. of Divinity College, Harvard University\n            Member of the Anthropological Institute, London\n\n\n\n                      With numerous illustrations\n\n\n\n                                New York\n                         Henry Holt and Company\n\n                                  1879\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\nThree Friars, says a legend, hid themselves near the Witch Sabbath\norgies that they might count the devils; but the Chief of these,\ndiscovering the friars, said--'Reverend Brothers, our army is such\nthat if all the Alps, their rocks and glaciers, were equally divided\namong us, none would have a pound's weight.' This was in one Alpine\nvalley. Any one who has caught but a glimpse of the world's Walpurgis\nNight, as revealed in Mythology and Folklore, must agree that this\ncourteous devil did not overstate the case. Any attempt to catalogue\nthe evil spectres which have haunted mankind were like trying to count\nthe shadows cast upon the earth by the rising sun. This conviction\nhas grown upon the author of this work at every step in his studies\nof the subject.\n\nIn 1859 I contributed, as one of the American 'Tracts for the Times,'\na pamphlet entitled 'The Natural History of the Devil.' Probably\nthe chief value of that essay was to myself, and this in that\nits preparation had revealed to me how pregnant with interest and\nimportance was the subject selected. Subsequent researches in the\nsame direction, after I had come to reside in Europe, revealed how\nslight had been my conception of the vastness of the domain upon which\nthat early venture was made. In 1872, while preparing a series of\nlectures for the Royal Institution on Demonology, it appeared to me\nthat the best I could do was to print those lectures with some notes\nand additions; but after they were delivered there still remained with\nme unused the greater part of materials collected in many countries,\nand the phantasmal creatures which I had evoked would not permit me\nto rest from my labours until I had dealt with them more thoroughly.\n\nThe fable of Thor's attempt to drink up a small spring, and his\nfailure because it was fed by the ocean, seems aimed at such efforts\nas mine. But there is another aspect of the case which has yielded\nme more encouragement. These phantom hosts, however unmanageable as\nto number, when closely examined, present comparatively few types;\nthey coalesce by hundreds; from being at first overwhelmed by their\nmultiplicity, the classifier finds himself at length beating bushes to\nstart a new variety. Around some single form--the physiognomy, it may\nbe, of Hunger or Disease, of Lust or Cruelty--ignorant imagination\nhas broken up nature into innumerable bits which, like mirrors of\nvarious surface, reflect the same in endless sizes and distortions;\nbut they vanish if that central fact be withdrawn.\n\nIn trying to conquer, as it were, these imaginary monsters, they\nhave sometimes swarmed and gibbered around me in a mad comedy\nwhich travestied their tragic sway over those who believed in their\nreality. Gargoyles extended their grin over the finest architecture,\ncornices coiled to serpents, the very words of speakers started out of\ntheir conventional sense into images that tripped my attention. Only\nas what I believed right solutions were given to their problems were\nmy sphinxes laid; but through this psychological experience it appeared\nthat when one was so laid his or her legion disappeared also. Long ago\nsuch phantasms ceased to haunt my nerves, because I discovered their\nunreality; I am now venturing to believe that their mythologic forms\ncease to haunt my studies, because I have found out their reality.\n\nWhy slay the slain? Such may be the question that will arise in the\nminds of many who see this book. A Scotch song says, 'The Devil is\ndead, and buried at Kirkcaldy;' if so, he did not die until he had\ncreated a world in his image. The natural world is overlaid by an\nunnatural religion, breeding bitterness around simplest thoughts,\nobstructions to science, estrangements not more reasonable than if\nthey resulted from varying notions of lunar figures,--all derived from\nthe Devil-bequeathed dogma that certain beliefs and disbeliefs are of\ninfernal instigation. Dogmas moulded in a fossil demonology make the\nfoundation of institutions which divert wealth, learning, enterprise,\nto fictitious ends. It has not, therefore, been mere intellectual\ncuriosity which has kept me working at this subject these many years,\nbut an increasing conviction that the sequel\u00e6 of such superstitions are\nexercising a still formidable influence. When Father Delaporte lately\npublished his book on the Devil, his Bishop wrote--'Reverend Father, if\nevery one busied himself with the Devil as you do, the kingdom of God\nwould gain by it.' Identifying the kingdom here spoken of as that of\nTruth, it has been with a certain concurrence in the Bishop's sentiment\nthat I have busied myself with the work now given to the public.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nPart I.\n\n\nChapter I.\n\nDualism.\n\n    Origin of Deism--Evolution from the far to the near--Illustrations\n    from Witchcraft--The primitive Pantheism--The dawn of Dualism\n\nChapter II.\n\nThe Genesis of Demons.\n\n    Their good names euphemistic--Their mixed character--Illustrations:\n    Beelzebub, Loki--Demon-germs--The knowledge of good and\n    evil--Distinction between Demon and Devil\n\n\nChapter III.\n\nDegradation.\n\n    The degradation of Deities--Indicated in names--Legends of\n    their fall--Incidental signs of the divine origin of Demons and\n    Devils\n\n\nChapter IV.\n\nThe Abgott.\n\n    The ex-god--Deities demonised by conquest--Theological animosity--\n    Illustration from the Avesta--Devil-worship an arrested Deism--\n    Sheik Adi--Why Demons were painted ugly--Survivals of their beauty\n\n\nChapter V.\n\nClassification.\n\n    The obstructions of man--The twelve chief classes--Modifications of\n    particular forms for various functions--Theological Demons\n\n\nPart II.\n\n\nChapter I.\n\nHunger.\n\n    Hunger-demons--Kephn--Miru--Kagura--R\u00e1hu the Hindu sun-devourer--\n    The earth monster at Pelsall--A Franconian custom--Sheitan as\n    moon-devourer--Hindu offerings to the dead--Ghoul--Goblin--\n    Vampyres--Leanness of demons--Old Scotch custom--The origin of\n    sacrifices\n\n\nChapter II.\n\nHeat.\n\n    Demons of fire--Agni--Asmodeus--Prometheus--Feast of fire--Moloch\n    --Tophet--Genii of the lamp--Bel-fires--Hallowe'en--Negro\n    superstitions--Chinese fire-god--Volcanic and incendiary demons--\n    Mangaian fire-demon--Demons' fear of water\n\n\nChapter III.\n\nCold.\n\n    Descent of Ishtar into Hades--Bardism--Baldur--Herakles--Christ--\n    Survivals of the Frost Giant in Slavonic and other countries--\n    The Clavie--The Frozen Hell--The Northern abode of Demons--North\n    side of churches\n\n\nChapter IV.\n\nElements.\n\n    A Scottish Munasa--Rudra--Siva's lightning eye--The flaming\n    sword--Limping Demons--Demons of the storm--Helios, Elias,\n    Perun--Thor arrows--The Bob-tailed Dragon--Whirlwind--Japanese\n    Thunder God--Christian survivals--Jinni--Inundations--Noah--Nik,\n    Nicholas, Old Nick--Nixies--Hydras--Demons of the Danube--Tides\n    --Survivals in Russia and England\n\n\nChapter V.\n\nAnimals.\n\n    Animal demons distinguished--Trivial sources of Mythology--\n    Hedgehog--Fox--Transmigrations in Japan--Horses bewitched--\n    Rats--Lions--Cats--The Dog--Goethe's horror of dogs--Superstitions\n    of the Parsees, people of Travancore, and American Negroes, Red\n    Indians, &c.--Cynocephaloi--The Wolf--Traditions of the Nez Perces\n    --Fenris--Fables--The Boar--The Bear--Serpent--Every animal power\n    to harm demonised--Horns\n\n\nChapter VI.\n\nEnemies.\n\n    Aryas, Dasyus,\n    Nagas--Yakkhos--Lycians--Ethiopians--Hirpini--Polites--Sosipolis--\n    Were-wolves--Goths and Scythians--Giants and Dwarfs--Berserkers--\n    Britons--Iceland--Mimacs--Gog and Magog\n\n\nChapter VII.\n\nBarrenness.\n\n    Indian Famine and Sun-spots--Sun-worship--Demon of the Desert--The\n    Sphinx--Egyptian Plagues described by Lepsius: Locusts, Hurricane,\n    Flood, Mice, Flies--The Sheikh's ride--Abaddon--Set--Typhon--The\n    Cain wind--Seth--Mirage--The Desert Eden--Azazel--Tawiscara and\n    the Wild-rose\n\n\nChapter VIII.\n\nObstacles.\n\n    Mephistopheles on crags--Emerson on Monadnoc--Ruskin on Alpine\n    peasants--Holy and unholy mountains--The Devil's Pulpit--\n    Montagnards--Tarns--Tenjo--T'ai-shan--Apocatequil--Tyrolese\n    legends--Rock ordeal--Scylla and Charybdis--Scottish giants--\n    Pontifex--Devil's bridges--Le g\u00e9ant Y\u00e9ous\n\n\nChapter IX.\n\nIllusion.\n\n    Maya--Natural Treacheries--Misleaders--Glamour--Lorelei--Chinese\n    Mermaid--Transformations--Swan Maidens--Pigeon Maidens--The\n    Seal-skin--Nudity--Teufelsee--Gohlitsee--Japanese Siren--Dropping\n    Cave--Venusberg--Godiva--Will-o'-Wisp--Holy Fr\u00e4ulein--The Forsaken\n    Merman--The Water-Man--Sea Phantom--Sunken Treasures--Suicide\n\n\nChapter X.\n\nDarkness.\n\n    Shadows--Night Deities--Kobolds--Walpurgisnacht--Night as\n    Abettor of Evil-doers--Nightmare--Dreams--Invisible Foes--Jacob\n    and his Phantom--Nott--The Prince of Darkness--The Brood of\n    Midnight--Second-Sight--Spectres of Souter Fell--The Moonshine\n    Vampyre--Glamour--Glam and Grettir--A-Story of Dartmoor\n\n\nChapter XI.\n\nDisease.\n\n    The Plague Phantom--Devil-dances--Destroying Angels--Ahriman in\n    Astrology--Saturn--Satan and Job--Set--The Fatal Seven--Yakseyo--\n    The Singhalese Pretraya--Reeri--Maha Sohon--Morotoo--Luther on\n    Disease-demons--Gopolu--Madan--Cattle-demon in Russia--Bihlweisen\n    --The Plough\n\n\nChapter XII.\n\nDeath.\n\n    The Vendetta of Death--Teoyaomiqui--Demon of Serpents--Death on\n    the Pale Horse--Kali--War-gods--Satan as Death--Death-beds--\n    Thanatos--Yama--Yimi--Towers of Silence--Alcestis--Herakles,\n    Christ, and Death--Hell--Salt--Azra\u00ebl--Death and the Cobbler--\n    Dance of Death--Death as Foe and as Friend\n\n\n\nPart III.\n\n\nChapter I.\n\nDecline of Demons.\n\n    The Holy Tree of Travancore--The growth of Demons in India,\n    and their decline--The Nepaul Iconoclast--Moral Man and unmoral\n    Nature--Man's physical and mental migrations--Heine's 'Gods in\n    Exile'--The Goban Saor--Master Smith--A Greek caricature of\n    the Gods--The Carpenter v. Deity and Devil--Extermination of\n    the Were-wolf--Refuges of Demons--The Giants reduced to Little\n    People--Deities and Demons returning to nature\n\n\nChapter II.\n\nGeneralisation of Demons.\n\n    The Demons' bequest to their\n    conquerors--Nondescripts--Exaggerations of Tradition--Saurian\n    Theory of Dragons--The Dragon not primitive in Mythology--Monsters\n    of Egyptian, Iranian, Vedic, and Jewish Mythologies--Turner's\n    Dragon--Della Bella--The Conventional Dragon\n\n\nChapter III.\n\nThe Serpent.\n\n    The beauty of the Serpent--Emerson on ideal forms--Michelet's\n    thoughts on the viper's head--Unique characters of the\n    Serpent--The Monkey's horror of Snakes--The Serpent protected\n    by superstition--Human defencelessness against its subtle\n    powers--Dubufe's picture of the Fall of Man\n\n\nChapter IV.\n\nThe Worm.\n\n    An African Serpent-drama in America--The Veiled Serpent--The\n    Ark of the Covenant--Aaron's Rod--The Worm--An Episode on the Dii\n    Involuti--The Serapes--The Bambino at Rome--Serpent-transformations\n\n\nChapter V.\n\nApophis.\n\n    The Naturalistic Theory of Apophis--The Serpent of Time--Epic of\n    the Worm--The Asp of Melite--Vanquishers of Time--Nachash-Beriach\n    --The Serpent-Spy--Treading on Serpents\n\n\nChapter VI.\n\nThe Serpent in India.\n\n    The Kankato na--The Vedic Serpents not worshipful--Ananta and\n    Sesha--The Healing Serpent--The guardian of treasures--Miss\n    Buckland's theory--Primitive rationalism--Underworld\n    plutocracy--Rain and lightning--Vritra--History of the word\n    'Ahi'--The Adder--Zohak--A Teutonic Laokoon\n\n\nChapter VII.\n\nThe Basilisk.\n\n    The Serpent's gem--The Basilisk's eye--Basiliscus\n    mitratus--House-snakes in Russia and Germany--King-snakes--Heraldic\n    Dragon--Henry III.--Melusina--The Laidley Worm--Victorious\n    Dragons--Pendragon--Merlin and Vortigern--Medicinal dragons\n    361\n\n\nChapter VIII.\n\nThe Dragon's Eye.\n\n    The Eye of Evil--Turner's Dragons--Cloud-phantoms--Paradise and\n    the Snake--Prometheus and Jove--Art and Nature--Dragon forms:\n    Anglo-Saxon, Italian, Egyptian, Greek, German--The modern\n    conventional Dragon\n\n\nChapter IX.\n\nThe Combat.\n\n    The pre-Munchausenite world--The Colonial Dragon--Io's\n    journey--Medusa--British Dragons--The Communal Dragon--Savage\n    Saviours--A Mimac helper--The Brutal Dragon--Woman protected--The\n    Saint of the Mikados\n\n\nChapter X.\n\nThe Dragon-slayer.\n\n    Demi-gods--Alcestis--Herakles--The Ghilghit Fiend--Incarnate\n    deliverer of Ghilghit--A Dardistan Madonna--The religion\n    of Atheism--Resuscitation of Dragons--St. George and his\n    Dragon--Emerson and Ruskin on George--Saintly allies of the\n    Dragon\n\n\nChapter XI.\n\nThe Dragon's Breath.\n\n    Medusa--Phenomena of recurrence--The Brood of Echidna and their\n    survival--Behemoth and Leviathan--The Mouth of Hell--The Lambton\n    Worm--Ragnar--The Lambton Doom--The Worm's Orthodoxy--The Serpent,\n    Superstition, and Science\n\n\nChapter XII.\n\nFate.\n\n    Dor\u00e9's 'Love and Fate'--Moira and Moir\u00e6--The 'Fates'\n    of \u00c6schylus--Divine absolutism surrendered--Jove\n    and Typhon--Commutation of the Demon's share--Popular\n    fatalism--Theological fatalism--Fate and Necessity--Deification\n    of Will--Metaphysics, past and present\n\n\n\nPart IV.\n\n\nChapter I.\n\nDiabolism.\n\n    Dragon and Devil distinguished--Dragons' wings--War in Heaven--\n    Expulsion of Serpents--Dissolution of the Dragon--Theological\n    origin of the Devil--Ideal and Actual--Devil Dogma--Debasement\n    of ideal persons--Transmigration of phantoms\n\n\nChapter II.\n\nThe Second Best.\n\n    Respect for the Devil--Primitive Atheism--Idealisation--Birth of\n    new gods--New gods diabolised--Compromise between new gods and\n    old--Foreign deities degraded--Their utilisation\n\n\nChapter III.\n\nAhriman, the Divine Devil.\n\n    Mr. Irving's impersonation of Superstition--Revolution against\n    pious privilege--Doctrine of 'Merits'--Saintly immorality in\n    India--A Pantheon turned Inferno--Zendavesta on Good and Evil--\n    Pars\u00ee Mythology--The Combat of Ahriman with Ormuzd--Optimism--\n    Pars\u00ee Eschatology--Final Restoration of Ahriman\n\n\nChapter IV.\n\nVisw\u00e1mitra, the Theocratic Devil.\n\n    Priestcraft and Pessimism--An Aryan Tetzel and his Luther--Brahman\n    Frogs--Evolution of the Sacerdotal Saint--Visw\u00e1mitra the Accuser\n    of Virtue--The Tamil Passion-Play 'Harischandra'--Ordeal of\n    Goblins--The Martyr of Truth--Virtue triumphant over ceremonial\n    'Merits'--Harischandra and Job\n\n\nChapter V.\n\nElohim and Jehovah.\n\n    Deified power--Giants and Jehovah--Jehovah's manifesto--The various\n    Elohim--Two Jehovahs and two Tables--Contradictions--Detachment\n    of the Elohim from Jehovah\n\n\nChapter VI.\n\nThe Consuming Fire.\n\n    The Shekinah--Jewish idols--Attributes of the fiery and\n    cruel Elohim compared with those of the Devil--The powers of\n    evil combined under a head--Continuity--The consuming fire\n    spiritualised\n\n\nChapter VII.\n\nParadise and the Serpent.\n\n    Herakles and Athena in a holy picture--Human significance of\n    Eden--The legend in Genesis puzzling--Silence of later books\n    concerning it--Its Vedic elements--Its explanation--Episode of\n    the Mah\u00e1bh\u00e1rata--Scandinavian variant--The name of Adam--The\n    story re-read--Rabbinical interpretations\n\n\nChapter VIII.\n\nEve.\n\n    The Fall of Man--Fall of gods--Giants--Praj\u00e1pati and R\u00e1hu--Woman\n    and Star-Serpent in Persia--Meschia and Meschiane--Br\u00e1hman\n    legends of the creation of Man--The strength of Woman--Elohist\n    and Jehovist creations of Man--The Forbidden Fruit--Eve reappears\n    as Sara--Abraham surrenders his wife to Jehovah--The idea not\n    sensual--Abraham's circumcision--The evil name of Woman--Noah's\n    wife--The temptation of Abraham--Rabbinical legends concerning\n    Eve--Pandora--Sentiment of the Myth of Eve\n\n\nChapter IX.\n\nLilith.\n\n    Madonnas--Adam's first wife--Her flight and doom--Creation of\n    Devils--Lilith marries Sama\u00ebl--Tree of Life--Lilith's part\n    in the Temptation--Her locks--Lamia--Bodeima--Meschia and\n    Meschiane--Amazons--Maternity--Rib-theory of Woman--K\u00e1li and\n    Durga--Captivity of Woman\n\n\nChapter X.\n\nWar in Heaven.\n\n    The 'Other'--Tiamat, Bohu, 'the Deep'--Ra and Apophis--Hathors\n    --Bel's combat--Revolt in Heaven--Lilith--Myth of the Devil at\n    the creation of Light\n\n\nChapter XI.\n\nWar on Earth.\n\n    The Abode of Devils--Ketef--Disorder--Talmudic legends--The\n    restless Spirit--The Fall of Lucifer--Asteria, Hecate, Lilith--The\n    Dragon's triumph--A Gipsy legend--C\u00e6dmon's Poem of the Rebellious\n    Angels--Milton's version--The Puritans and Prince Rupert--Bel\n    as ally of the Dragon--A 'Mystery' in Marionettes--European\n    Hells\n\n\nChapter XII.\n\nStrife.\n\n    Hebrew God of War--Sama\u00ebl--The father's blessing and curse--\n    Esau--Edom--Jacob and the Phantom--The planet Mars--Tradesman\n    and Huntsman--'The Devil's Dream'\n\n\nChapter XIII.\n\nBarbaric Aristocracy.\n\n    Jacob, the 'Impostor'--The Barterer--Esau, the 'Warrior'--Barbarian\n    Dukes--Trade and War--Reconciliation of Jacob and Esau--Their\n    Ghosts--Legend of Iblis--Pagan Warriors of Europe--Russian\n    Hierarchy of Hell\n\n\nChapter XIV.\n\nJob and the Divider.\n\n    Hebrew Polytheism--Problem of Evil--Job's disbelief in a\n    future life--The Divider's realm--Salted sacrifices--Theory\n    of Orthodoxy--Job's reasoning--His humour--Impartiality of\n    Fortune between the evil and good--Agnosticism of Job--Elihu's\n    Eclecticism--Jehovah of the Whirlwind--Heresies of Job--Rabbinical\n    legend of Job--Universality of the legend\n\n\nChapter XV.\n\nSatan.\n\n    Public Prosecutors--Satan as Accuser--English Devil-Worshipper\n    --Conversion by Terror--Satan in the Old Testament--The trial of\n    Joshua--Sender of Plagues--Satan and Serpent--Portrait of Satan\n    --Scapegoat of Christendom--Catholic 'Sight of Hell'--The ally\n    of Priesthoods\n\n\nChapter XVI.\n\nReligious Despotism.\n\n    Pharaoh and Herod--Zoroaster's mother--Ahriman's emissaries--Kansa\n    and Krishna--Emissaries of Kansa--Astyages and Cyrus--Zoh\u00e1k--Bel\n    and the Christian\n\n\nChapter XVII.\n\nThe Prince of this World.\n\n    Temptations--Birth of Buddha--Mara--Temptation of Power--Asceticism\n    and Luxury--Mara's menaces--Appearance of the Buddha's\n    Vindicator--Ahriman tempts Zoroaster--Satan and Christ--Criticism\n    of Strauss--Jewish traditions--Hunger--Variants\n\n\nChapter XVIII.\n\nTrial of the Great.\n\n    A 'Morality' at Tours--The 'St. Anthony' of Spagnoletto--Bunyan's\n    Pilgrim--Milton on Christ's Temptation--An Edinburgh saint and\n    Unitarian fiend--A haunted Jewess--Conversion by fever--Limit of\n    courage--Woman and sorcery--Luther and the Devil--The ink-spot at\n    Wartburg--Carlyle's interpretation--The cowled Devil--Carlyle's\n    trial--In Rue St. Thomas d'Enfer--The Everlasting No--Devil of\n    Vauvert--The latter-day conflict--New conditions--The Victory of\n    Man--The Scholar and the World\n\n\nChapter XIX.\n\nThe Man of Sin.\n\n    Hindu myth--Gnostic theories--Ophite scheme of redemption--\n    Rabbinical traditions of Primitive Man--Pauline Pessimism--Law\n    of death--Satan's ownership of Man--Redemption of the Elect--\n    Contemporary statements--Baptism--Exorcism--The 'new man's'\n    food--Eucharist--Herbert Spencer's explanation--Primitive\n    ideas--Legends of Adam and Seth--Adamites--A Mormon 'Mystery'\n    of initiation\n\n\nChapter XX.\n\nThe Holy Ghost.\n\n    A Hanover relic--Mr. Atkinson on the Dove--The Dove in the Old\n    Testament--Ecclesiastical symbol--Judicial symbol--A vision of\n    St. Dunstan's--The witness of chastity--Dove and Serpent--The\n    unpardonable sin--Inexpiable sin among the Jews--Destructive\n    power of Jehovah--Potency of the breath--Third persons of\n    Trinities--Pentecost--Christian superstitions--Mr. Moody on the sin\n    against the Holy Ghost--Mysterious fear--Idols of the cave\n\n\nChapter XXI.\n\nAntichrist.\n\n    The Kali Age--Satan sifting Simon--Satan as Angel of Light--\n    Epithets of Antichrist--The C\u00e6sars--Nero--Sacraments imitated\n    by Pagans--Satanic signs and wonders--Jerome on Antichrist--\n    Armillus--Al Dajjail--Luther on Mohammed--'Mawmet'--Satan\n    'God's ape'--Medi\u00e6val notions--Witches' Sabbath--An Infernal\n    Trinity--Serpent of Sins--Antichrist Popes--Luther as Antichrist\n    --Modern notions of Antichrist\n\n\nChapter XXII.\n\nThe Pride of Life.\n\n    The curse of Iblis--Sama\u00ebl as Democrat--His vindication by\n    Christ and Paul--Asmod\u00e4us--History of the name--Aschmedai of the\n    Jews--Book of Tobit--Dor\u00e9's 'Triumph of Christianity'--Aucassin\n    and Nicolette--Asmodeus in the convent--The Asmodeus of Le\n    Sage--Mephistopheles--Blake's 'Marriage of Heaven and Hell'--The\n    Devil and the artists--S\u00e1di's Vision of Satan--Arts of the\n    Devil--Suspicion of beauty--Earthly and heavenly mansions--Deacon\n    versus Devil\n\n\nChapter XXIII.\n\nThe Curse on Knowledge.\n\n    A Bishop on intellect--The Bible on learning--The Serpent and\n    Seth--A Hebrew Renaissance--Spells--Shelley at Oxford--\n    Book-burning--Japanese ink-devil--Book of Cyprianus--Devil's\n    Bible--Red Letters--Dread of Science--Roger Bacon--Luther's\n    Devil--Lutherans and Science\n\n\nChapter XXIV.\n\nWitchcraft.\n\n    Minor gods--Saint and Satyr--Tutelaries--Spells--Early Christianity\n    and the poor--Its doctrine as to pagan deities--Medi\u00e6val\n    Devils--Devils on the stage--An Abbot's revelations--The fairer\n    deities--Oriental dreams and spirits--Calls for Nemesis--Lilith\n    and her children--Neoplatonicism--Astrology and Alchemy--Devil's\n    College--Shem-hammphor\u00e1sch--Apollonius of Tyana--Faustus--Black Art\n    Schools--Compacts with the Devil--Blood covenant--Spirit-seances in\n    old times--The Fairfax delusion--Origin of its devil--Witch, goat,\n    and cat--Confessions of Witches--Witchcraft in New England--Witch\n    trials--Salem demonology--Testing witches--Witch trials in\n    Sweden--Witch Sabbath--Mythological elements--Carriers--Scotch\n    Witches--The cauldron--Vervain--Rue--Invocation of Hecat\u00e9--Factors\n    of Witch persecution--Three centuries of massacre--W\u00fcrzburg\n    horrors--Last victims--Modern Spiritualism\n\n\nChapter XXV.\n\nFaust and Mephistopheles.\n\n    Mephisto and Mephitis--The Raven Book--Papal sorcery--Magic\n    seals--Mephistopheles as dog--George Sabellicus alias Faustus--The\n    Faust myth--Marlowe's 'Faust'--Good and evil angels--'El Magico\n    Prodigioso'--Cyprian and Justina--Klinger's 'Faust'--Satan's\n    sermon--Goethe's Mephistopheles--His German characters--Moral\n    scepticism--Devil's gifts--Helena--Redemption through Art--Defeat\n    of Mephistopheles\n\n\nChapter XXVI.\n\nThe Wild Huntsman.\n\n    The Wild Hunt--Euphemisms--Schimmelreiter--Odinwald--Pied Piper\n    --Lyeshy--Waldemar's Hunt--Palne Hunter--King Abel's Hunt--Lords\n    of Glorup--Le Grand Veneur--Robert le Diable--Arthur--Hugo--Herne\n    --Tregeagle--Der Freisch\u00fctz--Elijah's chariot--Mahan Bali--D\u00e9hak\n    --Nimrod--Nimrod's defiance of Jehovah--His Tower--Robber Knights\n    --The Devil in Leipzig--Olaf hunting pagans--Hunting-horns--Raven\n    --Boar--Hounds--Horse--Dapplegrimm--Sleipnir--Horse-flesh--The\n    mare Chetiya--Stags--St. Hubert--The White Lady--Myths of Mother\n    Rose--Wodan hunting St. Walpurga--Friar Eckhardt\n\n\nChapter XXVII.\n\nLe Bon Diable.\n\n    The Devil repainted--Satan a divine agent--St. Orain's\n    heresy--Primitive universalism--Father Sinistrari--Salvation of\n    demons--Medi\u00e6val sects--Aquinas--His prayer for Satan--Popular\n    antipathies--The Devil's gratitude--Devil defending\n    innocence--Devil against idle lords--The wicked ale-wife--Pious\n    offenders punished--Anachronistic Devils--Devils turn to\n    poems--Devil's good advice--Devil sticks to his word--His love\n    of justice--Charlemagne and the Serpent--Merlin--His prison of\n    Air--Mephistopheles in Heaven\n\n\nChapter XXVIII.\n\nAnimalism.\n\n    Celsus on Satan--Ferocities of inward nature--The Devil\n    of Lust--Celibacy--Blue Beards--Shudendozi--A lady in\n    distress--Bahirawa--The Black Prince--Madana Yaksenyo--Fair\n    fascinators--Devil of Jealousy--Eve's jealousy--Noah's wife--How\n    Satan entered the Ark--Shipwright's Dirge--The Second Fall--The\n    Drunken curse--Solomon's Fall--Cellar Devils--Gluttony--The Vatican\n    haunted--Avarice--Animalised Devils--Man-shaped Animals\n\n\nChapter XXIX.\n\nThoughts and Interpretations      421\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPART I.\n\nDEMONOLATRY.\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nDUALISM.\n\n    Origin of Deism--Evolution from the far to the near--Illustrations\n    from witchcraft--The primitive Pantheism--The dawn of Dualism.\n\n\nA college in the State of Ohio has adopted for its motto the words\n'Orient thyself.' This significant admonition to Western youth\nrepresents one condition of attaining truth in the science of\nmythology. Through neglect of it the glowing personifications and\nmetaphors of the East have too generally migrated to the West only to\nfind it a Medusa turning them to stone. Our prosaic literalism changes\ntheir ideals to idols. The time has come when we must learn rather to\nsee ourselves in them: out of an age and civilisation where we live in\nhabitual recognition of natural forces we may transport ourselves to a\nperiod and region where no sophisticated eye looks upon nature. The sun\nis a chariot drawn by shining steeds and driven by a refulgent deity;\nthe stars ascend and move by arbitrary power or command; the tree is\nthe bower of a spirit; the fountain leaps from the urn of a naiad. In\nsuch gay costumes did the laws of nature hold their carnival until\nScience struck the hour for unmasking. The costumes and masks have\nwith us become materials for studying the history of the human mind,\nbut to know them we must translate our senses back into that phase\nof our own early existence, so far as is consistent with carrying\nour culture with us.\n\nWithout conceding too much to Solar mythology, it may be pronounced\ntolerably clear that the earliest emotion of worship was born out\nof the wonder with which man looked up to the heavens above him. The\nsplendours of the morning and evening; the azure vault, painted with\nfrescoes of cloud or blackened by the storm; the night, crowned with\nconstellations: these awakened imagination, inspired awe, kindled\nadmiration, and at length adoration, in the being who had reached\nintervals in which his eye was lifted above the earth. Amid the rapture\nof Vedic hymns to these sublimities we meet sharp questionings whether\nthere be any such gods as the priests say, and suspicion is sometimes\ncast on sacrifices. The forms that peopled the celestial spaces may\nhave been those of ancestors, kings, and great men, but anterior to\nall forms was the poetic enthusiasm which built heavenly mansions for\nthem; and the crude cosmogonies of primitive science were probably\ncaught up by this spirit, and consecrated as slowly as scientific\ngeneralisations now are.\n\nOur modern ideas of evolution might suggest the reverse of this--that\nhuman worship began with things low and gradually ascended to high\nobjects; that from rude ages, in which adoration was directed to\nstock and stone, tree and reptile, the human mind climbed by degrees\nto the contemplation and reverence of celestial grandeurs. But the\naccord of this view with our ideas of evolution is apparent only. The\nreal progress seems here to have been from the far to the near, from\nthe great to the small. It is, indeed, probably inexact to speak of\nthe worship of stock and stone, weed and wort, insect and reptile,\nas primitive. There are many indications that such things were by no\nrace considered intrinsically sacred, nor were they really worshipped\nuntil the origin of their sanctity was lost; and even now, ages\nafter their oracular or symbolical character has been forgotten, the\nsuperstitions that have survived in connection with such insignificant\nobjects point to an original association with the phenomena of the\nheavens. No religions could, at first glance, seem wider apart than\nthe worship of the serpent and that of the glorious sun; yet many\nancient temples are covered with symbols combining sun and snake,\nand no form is more familiar in Egypt than the solar serpent standing\nerect upon its tail, with rays around its head.\n\nNor is this high relationship of the adored reptile found only in\nregions where it might have been raised up by ethnical combinations as\nthe mere survival of a savage symbol. William Craft, an African who\nresided for some time in the kingdom of Dahomey, informed me of the\nfollowing incident which he had witnessed there. The sacred serpents\nare kept in a grand house, which they sometimes leave to crawl in\ntheir neighbouring grounds. One day a negro from some distant region\nencountered one of these animals and killed it. The people learning\nthat one of their gods had been slain, seized the stranger, and having\nsurrounded him with a circle of brushwood, set it on fire. The poor\nwretch broke through the circle of fire and ran, pursued by the crowd,\nwho struck him with heavy sticks. Smarting from the flames and blows,\nhe rushed into a river; but no sooner had he entered there than the\npursuit ceased, and he was told that, having gone through fire and\nwater, he was purified, and might emerge with safety. Thus, even in\nthat distant and savage region, serpent-worship was associated with\nfire-worship and river-worship, which have a wide representation in\nboth Aryan and Semitic symbolism. To this day the orthodox Israelites\nset beside their dead, before burial, the lighted candle and a basin\nof pure water. These have been associated in rabbinical mythology with\nthe angels Michael (genius of Water) and Gabriel (genius of Fire);\nbut they refer both to the phenomenal glories and the purifying\neffects of the two elements as reverenced by the Africans in one\ndirection and the Parsees in another.\n\nNot less significant are the facts which were attested at the\nwitch-trials. It was shown that for their pretended divinations they\nused plants--as rue and vervain--well known in the ancient Northern\nreligions, and often recognised as examples of tree-worship; but it\nalso appeared that around the cauldron a mock zodiacal circle was\ndrawn, and that every herb employed was alleged to have derived its\npotency from having been gathered at a certain hour of the night or\nday, a particular quarter of the moon, or from some spot where sun or\nmoon did or did not shine upon it. Ancient planet-worship is, indeed,\nstill reflected in the habit of village herbalists, who gather their\nsimples at certain phases of the moon, or at certain of those holy\nperiods of the year which conform more or less to the pre-christian\nfestivals.\n\nThese are a few out of many indications that the small and senseless\nthings which have become almost or quite fetishes were by no means such\nat first, but were mystically connected with the heavenly elements\nand splendours, like the animal forms in the zodiac. In one of the\nearliest hymns of the Rig-Veda it is said--'This earth belongs to\nVaruna (Ouranos) the king, and the wide sky: he is contained also in\nthis drop of water.' As the sky was seen reflected in the shining curve\nof a dew-drop, even so in the shape or colour of a leaf or flower,\nthe transformation of a chrysalis, or the burial and resurrection\nof a scarab\u00e6us' egg, some sign could be detected making it answer in\nplace of the typical image which could not yet be painted or carved.\n\nThe necessities of expression would, of course, operate to invest\nthe primitive conceptions and interpretations of celestial phenomena\nwith those pictorial images drawn from earthly objects of which the\nearly languages are chiefly composed. In many cases that are met\nin the most ancient hymns, the designations of exalted objects are\nso little descriptive of them, that we may refer them to a period\nanterior to the formation of that refined and complex symbolism by\nwhich primitive religions have acquired a representation in definite\ncharacters. The Vedic comparisons of the various colours of the dawn\nto horses, or the rain-clouds to cows, denotes a much less mature\ndevelopment of thought than the fine observation implied in the\nconnection of the forked lightning with the forked serpent-tongue and\nforked mistletoe, or symbolisation of the universe in the concentric\nfolds of an onion. It is the presence of these more mystical and\ncomplex ideas in religions which indicate a progress of the human\nmind from the large and obvious to the more delicate and occult, and\nthe growth of the higher vision which can see small things in their\nlarge relationships. Although the exaltation in the Vedas of Varuna\nas king of heaven, and as contained also in a drop of water, is in\none verse, we may well recognise an immense distance in time between\nthe two ideas there embodied. The first represents that primitive\npantheism which is the counterpart of ignorance. An unclassified\noutward universe is the reflection of a mind without form and void:\nit is while all within is as yet undiscriminating wonder that the\nreligious vesture of nature will be this undefined pantheism. The\nfruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil has not yet been\ntasted. In some of the earlier hymns of the Rig-Veda, the Maruts,\nthe storm-deities, are praised along with Indra, the sun; Yama,\nking of Death, is equally adored with the goddess of Dawn. 'No real\nfoe of yours is known in heaven, nor in earth.' 'The storms are thy\nallies.' Such is the high optimism of sentences found even in sacred\nbooks which elsewhere mask the dawn of the Dualism which ultimately\nsuperseded the harmony of the elemental Powers. 'I create light\nand I create darkness, I create good and I create evil.' 'Look unto\nYezdan, who causeth the shadow to fall.' But it is easy to see what\nmust be the result when this happy family of sun-god and storm-god\nand fire-god, and their innumerable co-ordinate divinities, shall\nbe divided by discord. When each shall have become associated with\nsome earthly object or fact, he or she will appear as friend or foe,\nand their connection with the sources of human pleasure and pain will\nbe reflected in collisions and wars in the heavens. The rebel clouds\nwill be transformed to Titans and Dragons. The adored Maruts will be\nno longer storm-heroes with unsheathed swords of lightning, marching\nas the retinue of Indra, but fire-breathing monsters--Vritras and\nAhis,--and the morning and evening shadows from faithful watch-dogs\nbecome the treacherous hell-hounds, like Orthros and Cerberus. The\nvehement antagonisms between animals and men and of tribe against\ntribe, will be expressed in the conception of struggles among gods,\nwho will thus be classified as good or evil deities.\n\nThis was precisely what did occur. The primitive pantheism was broken\nup: in its place the later ages beheld the universe as the arena of\na tremendous conflict between good and evil Powers, who severally,\nin the process of time, marshalled each and everything, from a world\nto a worm, under their flaming banners.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nTHE GENESIS OF DEMONS.\n\n    Their good names euphemistic--Their mixed character--Illustrations:\n    Beelzebub, Loki--Demon-germs--The knowledge of good and\n    evil--Distinction between Demon and Devil.\n\n\nThe first pantheon of each race was built of intellectual\nspeculations. In a moral sense, each form in it might be described\nas more or less demonic; and, indeed, it may almost be affirmed that\nreligion, considered as a service rendered to superhuman beings,\nbegan with the propitiation of demons, albeit they might be called\ngods. Man found that in the earth good things came with difficulty,\nwhile thorns and weeds sprang up everywhere. The evil powers seemed to\nbe the strongest. The best deity had a touch of the demon in him. The\nsun is the most beneficent, yet he bears the sunstroke along with\nthe sunbeam, and withers the blooms he calls forth. The splendour,\nthe might, the majesty, the menace, the grandeur and wrath of the\nheavens and the elements were blended in these personifications,\nand reflected in the trembling adoration paid to them. The flattering\nnames given to these powers by their worshippers must be interpreted\nby the costly sacrifices with which men sought to propitiate them. No\nsacrifice would have been offered originally to a purely benevolent\npower. The Furies were called the Eumenides, 'the well-meaning,'\nand there arises a temptation to regard the name as preserving the\nprimitive meaning of the Sanskrit original of Erinyes, namely, Saranyu,\nwhich signifies the morning light stealing over the sky. But the\ndescriptions of the Erinyes by the Greek poets--especially of \u00c6schylus,\nwho pictures them as black, serpent-locked, with eyes dropping blood,\nand calls them hounds--show that Saranyu as morning light, and thus\nthe revealer of deeds of darkness, had gradually been degraded into\na personification of the Curse. And yet, while recognising the name\nEumenides as euphemistic, we may admire none the less the growth of\nthat rationalism which ultimately found in the epithet a suggestion of\nthe soul of good in things evil, and almost restored the beneficent\nsense of Saranyu. 'I have settled in this place,' says Athene in the\n'Eumenides' of \u00c6schylus, 'these mighty deities, hard to be appeased;\nthey have obtained by lot to administer all things concerning men. But\nhe who has not found them gentle knows not whence come the ills of\nlife.' But before the dread Erinyes of Homer's age had become the\n'venerable goddesses' (semnai theai) of popular phrase in Athens,\nor the Eumenides of the later poet's high insight, piercing their\nGorgon form as portrayed by himself, they had passed through all the\nphases of human terror. Cowering generations had tried to soothe the\nremorseless avengers by complimentary phrases. The worship of the\nserpent, originating in the same fear, similarly raised that animal\ninto the region where poets could invest it with many profound and\nbeautiful significances. But these more distinctly terrible deities\nare found in the shadowy border-land of mythology, from which we may\nlook back into ages when the fear in which worship is born had not yet\nbeen separated into its elements of awe and admiration, nor the heaven\nof supreme forces divided into ranks of benevolent and malevolent\nbeings; and, on the other hand, we may look forward to the ages in\nwhich the moral consciousness of man begins to form the distinctions\nbetween good and evil, right and wrong, which changes cosmogony into\nreligion, and impresses every deity of the mind's creation to do his\nor her part in reflecting the physical and moral struggles of mankind.\n\nThe intermediate processes by which the good and evil were detached,\nand advanced to separate personification, cannot always be traced, but\nthe indications of their work are in most cases sufficiently clear. The\nrelationship, for instance, between Baal and Baal-zebub cannot be\ndoubted. The one represents the Sun in his glory as quickener of\nNature and painter of its beauty, the other the insect-breeding power\nof the Sun. Baal-zebub is the Fly-god. Only at a comparatively recent\nperiod did the deity of the Philistines, whose oracle was consulted\nby Ahaziah (2 Kings i.), suffer under the reputation of being 'the\nPrince of Devils,' his name being changed by a mere pun to Beelzebul\n(dung-god). It is not impossible that the modern Egyptian mother's\nhesitation to disturb flies settling on her sleeping child, and the\nsanctity attributed to various insects, originated in the awe felt\nfor him. The title Fly-god is parallelled by the reverent epithet\napomuios, applied to Zeus as worshipped at Elis, [1] the Myiagrus\ndeus of the Romans, [2] and the Myiodes mentioned by Pliny. [3] Our\npicture is probably from a protecting charm, and evidently by the god's\nbelievers. There is a story of a peasant woman in a French church who\nwas found kneeling before a marble group, and was warned by a priest\nthat she was worshipping the wrong figure--namely, Beelzebub. 'Never\nmind,' she replied, 'it is well enough to have friends on both\nsides.' The story, though now only ben trovato, would represent the\nactual state of mind in many a Babylonian invoking the protection of\nthe Fly-god against formidable swarms of his venomous subjects.\n\nNot less clear is the illustration supplied by Scandinavian\nmythology. In S\u00e6mund's Edda the evil-minded Loki says:--\n\n\n                Odin! dost thou remember\n                When we in early days\n                Blended our blood together?\n\n\nThe two became detached very slowly; for their separation implied\nthe crumbling away of a great religion, and its distribution into\nnew forms; and a religion requires, relatively, as long to decay\nas it does to grow, as we who live under a crumbling religion have\ngood reason to know. Protap Chunder Mozoomdar, of the Brahmo-Somaj,\nin an address in London, said, 'The Indian Pantheon has many millions\nof deities, and no space is left for the Devil.' He might have added\nthat these deities have distributed between them all the work that\nthe Devil could perform if he were admitted. His remark recalled to\nme the Eddaic story of Loki's entrance into the assembly of gods in\nthe halls of Oegir. Loki--destined in a later age to be identified\nwith Satan--is angrily received by the deities, but he goes round\nand mentions incidents in the life of each one which show them to be\nlittle if any better than himself. The gods and goddesses, unable to\nreply, confirm the cynic's criticisms in theologic fashion by tying\nhim up with a serpent for cord.\n\nThe late Theodore Parker is said to have replied to a Calvinist who\nsought to convert him--'The difference between us is simple: your god\nis my devil.' There can be little question that the Hebrews, from whom\nthe Calvinist inherited his deity, had no devil in their mythology,\nbecause the jealous and vindictive Jehovah was quite equal to any\nwork of that kind,--as the hardening of Pharaoh's heart, bringing\nplagues upon the land, or deceiving a prophet and then destroying him\nfor his false prophecies. [4] The same accommodating relation of the\nprimitive deities to all natural phenomena will account for the absence\nof distinct representatives of evil of the most primitive religions.\n\nThe earliest exceptions to this primeval harmony of the gods,\nimplying moral chaos in man, were trifling enough: the occasional\nmonster seems worthy of mention only to display the valour of the god\nwho slew him. But such were demon-germs, born out of the structural\naction of the human mind so soon as it began to form some philosophy\nconcerning a universe upon which it had at first looked with simple\nwonder, and destined to an evolution of vast import when the work of\nmoralising upon them should follow.\n\nLet us take our stand beside our barbarian, but no longer savage,\nancestor in the far past. We have watched the rosy morning as it\nwaxed to a blazing noon: then swiftly the sun is blotted out, the\ntempest rages, it is a sudden night lit only by the forked lightning\nthat strikes tree, house, man, with angry thunder-peal. From an\ninstructed age man can look upon the storm blackening the sky not as\nan enemy of the sun, but one of its own superlative effects; but some\nthousands of years ago, when we were all living in Eastern barbarism,\nwe could not conceive that a luminary whose very business it was to\ngive light, could be a party to his own obscuration. We then looked\nwith pity upon the ignorance of our ancestors, who had sung hymns to\nthe storm-dragons, hoping to flatter them into quietness; and we came\nby irresistible logic to that Dualism which long divided the visible,\nand still divides the moral, universe into two hostile camps.\n\nThis is the mother-principle out of which demons (in the ordinary\nsense of the term) proceeded. At first few, as distinguished from the\nhost of deities by exceptional harmfulness, they were multiplied with\nman's growth in the classification of his world. Their principle of\nexistence is capable of indefinite expansion, until it shall include\nall the realms of darkness, fear, and pain. In the names of demons,\nand in the fables concerning them, the struggles of man in his ages of\nweakness with peril, want, and death, are recorded more fully than in\nany inscriptions on stone. Dualism is a creed which all superficial\nappearances attest. Side by side the desert and the fruitful land,\nthe sunshine and the frost, sorrow and joy, life and death, sit\nweaving around every life its vesture of bright and sombre threads,\nand Science alone can detect how each of these casts the shuttle\nto the other. Enemies to each other they will appear in every realm\nwhich knowledge has not mastered. There is a refrain, gathered from\nmany ages, in William Blake's apostrophe to the tiger:--\n\n\n\nTiger! tiger! burning bright\nIn the forests of the night;\nWhat immortal hand or eye\nFramed thy fearful symmetry?\n\n\n\nIn what distant deeps or skies\nBurned that fire within thine eyes?\nOn what wings dared he aspire?\nWhat the hand dared seize the fire?\n\n\n\nWhen the stars threw down their spears\nAnd water heaven with their tears,\nDid he smile his work to see?\nDid he who made the lamb make thee?\n\n\n\nThat which one of the devoutest men of genius whom England has produced\nthus asked was silently answered in India by the serpent-worshipper\nkneeling with his tongue held in his hand; in Egypt, by Osiris seated\non a throne of chequer. [5]\n\nIt is necessary to distinguish clearly between the Demon and the Devil,\nthough, for some purposes, they must be mentioned together. The world\nwas haunted with demons for many ages before there was any embodiment\nof their spirit in any central form, much less any conception of\na Principle of Evil in the universe. The early demons had no moral\ncharacter, not any more than the man-eating tiger. There is no outburst\nof moral indignation mingling with the shout of victory when Indra\nslays Vritra, and Apollo's face is serene when his dart pierces the\nPython. It required a much higher development of the moral sentiment\nto give rise to the conception of a devil. Only that intensest light\ncould cast so black a shadow athwart the world as the belief in a\npurely malignant spirit. To such a conception--love of evil for its\nown sake--the word Devil is limited in this work; Demon is applied to\nbeings whose harmfulness is not gratuitous, but incidental to their\nown satisfactions.\n\nDeity and Demon are from words once interchangeable, and the latter has\nsimply suffered degradation by the conventional use of it to designate\nthe less beneficent powers and qualities, which originally inhered\nin every deity, after they were detached from these and separately\npersonified. Every bright god had his shadow, so to say; and under\nthe influence of Dualism this shadow attained a distinct existence\nand personality in the popular imagination. The principle having\nonce been established, that what seemed beneficent and what seemed\nthe reverse must be ascribed to different powers, it is obvious that\nthe evolution of demons must be continuous, and their distribution\nco-extensive with the ills that flesh is heir to.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nDEGRADATION.\n\n    The degradation of deities--Indicated in names--Legends of their\n    fall--Incidental signs of the divine origin of demons and devils.\n\n\nThe atmospheric conditions having been prepared in the human mind for\nthe production of demons, the particular shapes or names they would\nassume would be determined by a variety of circumstances, ethnical,\nclimatic, political, or even accidental. They would, indeed, be rarely\naccidental; but Professor Max M\u00fcller, in his notes to the Rig-Veda,\nhas called attention to a remarkable instance in which the formation of\nan imposing mythological figure of this kind had its name determined\nby what, in all probability, was an accident. There appears in the\nearliest Vedic hymns the name of Aditi, as the holy Mother of many\ngods, and thrice there is mentioned the female name Diti. But there\nis reason to believe that Diti is a mere reflex of Aditi, the a being\ndropped originally by a reciter's license. The later reciters, however,\nregarding every letter in so sacred a book, or even the omission of a\nletter, as of eternal significance, Diti--this decapitated Aditi--was\nevolved into a separate and powerful being, and, every niche of\nbeneficence being occupied by its god or goddess, the new form was at\nonce relegated to the newly-defined realm of evil, where she remained\nas the mother of the enemies of the gods, the Daityas. Unhappily this\naccident followed the ancient tendency by which the Furies and Vices\nhave, with scandalous constancy, been described in the feminine gender.\n\nThe close resemblance between these two names of Hindu mythology,\nseverally representing the best and the worst, may be thus accidental,\nand only serve to show how the demon-forming tendency, after it began,\nwas able to press even the most trivial incidents into its service. But\ngenerally the names of demons, and for whole races of demons, report\nfar more than this; and in no inquiry more than that before us is it\nnecessary to remember that names are things. The philological facts\nsupply a remarkable confirmation of the statements already made\nas to the original identity of demon and deity. The word 'demon'\nitself, as we have said, originally bore a good instead of an evil\nmeaning. The Sanskrit deva, 'the shining one,' Zend da\u00eava, correspond\nwith the Greek theos, Latin deus, Anglo-Saxon Tiw; and remain in\n'deity,' 'deuce' (probably; it exists in Armorican, teuz, a phantom),\n'devel' (the gipsy name for God), and Persian div, demon. The Demon\nof Socrates represents the personification of a being still good, but\nno doubt on the path of decline from pure divinity. Plato declares\nthat good men when they die become 'demons,' and he says 'demons\nare reporters and carriers between gods and men.' Our familiar word\nbogey, a sort of nickname for an evil spirit, comes from the Slavonic\nword for God--bog. Appearing here in the West as bogey (Welsh bwg,\na goblin), this word bog began, probably, as the 'Baga' of cuneiform\ninscriptions, a name of the Supreme Being, or possibly the Hindu\n'Bhaga,' Lord of Life. In the 'Bishop's Bible' the passage occurs,\n'Thou shalt not be afraid of any bugs by night:' the word has been\naltered to 'terror.'  When we come to the particular names of demons,\nwe find many of them bearing traces of the splendours from which they\nhave declined. 'Siva,' the Hindu god of destruction, has a meaning\n('auspicious') derived from Svi, 'thrive'--thus related ideally to\nPluto, 'wealth'--and, indeed, in later ages, appears to have gained\nthe greatest elevation. In a story of the Persian poem Masnavi,\nAhriman is mentioned with Bahman as a fire-fiend, of which class are\nthe Magian demons and the Jinns generally; which, the sanctity of\nfire being considered, is an evidence of their high origin. Avicenna\nsays that the genii are ethereal animals. Lucifer--light-bearing--is\nthe fallen angel of the morning star. Loki--the nearest to an evil\npower of the Scandinavian personifications--is the German leucht,\nor light. Azazel--a word inaccurately rendered 'scape-goat' in the\nBible--appears to have been originally a deity, as the Israelites\nwere originally required to offer up one goat to Jehovah and\nanother to Azazel, a name which appears to signify the 'strength\nof God.' Gesenius and Ewald regard Azazel as a demon belonging\nto the pre-Mosaic religion, but it can hardly be doubted that the\nfour arch-demons mentioned by the Rabbins--Sama\u00ebl, Azazel, Asa\u00ebl,\nand Maccathiel--are personifications of the elements as energies\nof the deity. Sama\u00ebl would appear to mean the 'left hand of God;'\nAzazel, his strength; Asa\u00ebl, his reproductive force; and Maccathiel,\nhis retributive power, but the origin of these names is doubtful..\n\nAlthough Azazel is now one of the Mussulman names for a devil,\nit would appear to be nearly related to Al Uzza of the Koran,\none of the goddesses of whom the significant tradition exists,\nthat once when Mohammed had read, from the Sura called 'The Star,'\nthe question, 'What think ye of Allat, Al Uzza, and Manah, that\nother third goddess?' he himself added, 'These are the most high\nand beauteous damsels, whose intercession is to be hoped for,' the\nresponse being afterwards attributed to a suggestion of Satan. [6]\nBelial is merely a word for godlessness; it has become personified\nthrough the misunderstanding of the phrase in the Old Testament by\nthe translators of the Septuagint, and thus passed into christian\nuse, as in 2 Cor. vi. 15, 'What concord hath Christ with Belial?' The\nword is not used as a proper name in the Old Testament, and the late\ncreation of a demon out of it may be set down to accident.\n\nEven where the names of demons and devils bear no such traces of\ntheir degradation from the state of deities, there are apt to be\ncharacteristics attributed to them, or myths connected with them,\nwhich point in the direction indicated. Such is the case with Satan,\nof whom much must be said hereafter, whose Hebrew name signifies\nthe adversary, but who, in the Book of Job, appears among the sons\nof God. The name given to the devil in the Koran--Eblis--is almost\ncertainly diabolos Arabicised; and while this Greek word is found\nin Pindar [7] (5th century B.C.), meaning a slanderer, the fables\nin the Koran concerning Eblis describe him as a fallen angel of the\nhighest rank.\n\nOne of the most striking indications of the fall of demons from heaven\nis the wide-spread belief that they are lame. Mr. Tylor has pointed\nout the curious persistence of this idea in various ethnical lines of\ndevelopment. [8] Hephaistos was lamed by his fall when hurled by Zeus\nfrom Olympos; and it is not a little singular that in the English\ntravesty of limping Vulcan, represented in Wayland the Smith, [9]\nthere should appear the suggestion, remarked by Mr. Cox, of the name\n'Vala' (coverer), one of the designations of the dragon destroyed by\nIndra. 'In Sir Walter Scott's romance,' says Mr. Cox, 'Wayland is a\nmere impostor, who avails himself of a popular superstition to keep\nup an air of mystery about himself and his work, but the character to\nwhich he makes pretence belongs to the genuine Teutonic legend.' [10]\nThe Persian demon Aeshma--the Asmodeus of the Book of Tobit--appears\nwith the same characteristic of lameness in the 'Diable Boiteux'\nof Le Sage. The christian devil's clubbed or cloven foot is notorious.\n\nEven the horns popularly attributed to the devil may possibly have\noriginated with the aureole which indicates the glory of his 'first\nestate.' Satan is depicted in various relics of early art wearing the\naureole, as in a miniature of the tenth century (from Bible No. 6,\nBib. Roy.), given by M. Didron. [11] The same author has shown that\nPan and the Satyrs, who had so much to do with the shaping of our\nhorned and hoofed devil, originally got their horns from the same\nhigh source as Moses in the old Bibles, [12] and in the great statue\nof him at Rome by Michel Angelo.\n\nIt is through this mythologic history that the most powerful\ndemons have been associated in the popular imagination with stars,\nplanets,--Ketu in India, Saturn and Mercury the 'Infortunes,'--comets,\nand other celestial phenomena. The examples of this are so numerous\nthat it is impossible to deal with them here, where I can only hope\nto offer a few illustrations of the principles affirmed; and in this\ncase it is of less importance for the English reader, because of the\ninteresting volume in which the subject has been specially dealt\nwith. [13] Incidentally, too, the astrological demons and devils\nmust recur from time to time in the process of our inquiry. But it\nwill probably be within the knowledge of some of my readers that the\ndread of comets and of meteoric showers yet lingers in many parts\nof Christendom, and that fear of unlucky stars has not passed away\nwith astrologers. There is a Scottish legend told by Hugh Miller\nof an avenging meteoric demon. A shipmaster who had moored his\nvessel near Morial's Den, amused himself by watching the lights\nof the scattered farmhouses. After all the rest had gone out one\nlight lingered for some time. When that light too had disappeared,\nthe shipmaster beheld a large meteor, which, with a hissing noise,\nmoved towards the cottage. A dog howled, an owl whooped; but when\nthe fire-ball had almost reached the roof, a cock crew from within\nthe cottage, and the meteor rose again. Thrice this was repeated,\nthe meteor at the third cock-crow ascending among the stars. On the\nfollowing day the shipmaster went on shore, purchased the cock, and\ntook it away with him. Returned from his voyage, he looked for the\ncottage, and found nothing but a few blackened stones. Nearly sixty\nyears ago a human skeleton was found near the spot, doubled up as\nif the body had been huddled into a hole: this revived the legend,\nand probably added some of those traits which make it a true bit of\nmosaic in the mythology of Astr\u00e6a. [14]\n\nThe fabled 'fall of Lucifer' really signifies a process similar to\nthat which has been noticed in the case of Saranyu. The morning star,\nlike the morning light, as revealer of the deeds of darkness, becomes\nan avenger, and by evolution an instigator of the evil it originally\ndisclosed and punished. It may be remarked also that though we have\ninherited the phrase 'Demons of Darkness,' it was an ancient rabbinical\nbelief that the demons went abroad in darkness not only because it\nfacilitated their attacks on man, but because being of luminous forms,\nthey could recognise each other better with a background of darkness.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nTHE ABGOTT.\n\n    The ex-god--Deities demonised by conquest--Theological animosity\n    --Illustration from the Avesta--Devil-worship an arrested Deism--\n    Sheik Adi--Why demons were painted ugly--Survivals of their beauty.\n\n\nThe phenomena of the transformation of deities into demons meet the\nstudent of Demonology at every step. We shall have to consider many\nexamples of a kind similar to those which have been mentioned in the\npreceding chapter; but it is necessary to present at this stage of our\ninquiry a sufficient number of examples to establish the fact that in\nevery country forces have been at work to degrade the primitive gods\ninto types of evil, as preliminary to a consideration of the nature\nof those forces.\n\nWe find the history of the phenomena suggested in the German word for\nidol, Abgott--ex-god. Then we have 'pagan,' villager, and 'heathen,' of\nthe heath, denoting those who stood by their old gods after others had\ntransferred their faith to the new. These words bring us to consider\nthe influence upon religious conceptions of the struggles which have\noccurred between races and nations, and consequently between their\nreligions. It must be borne in mind that by the time any tribes had\ngathered to the consistency of a nation, one of the strongest forces of\nits coherence would be its priesthood. So soon as it became a general\nbelief that there were in the universe good and evil Powers, there\nmust arise a popular demand for the means of obtaining their favour;\nand this demand has never failed to obtain a supply of priesthoods\nclaiming to bind or influence the pr\u00e6ternatural beings. These\npriesthoods represent the strongest motives and fears of a people,\nand they were gradually intrenched in great institutions involving\npowerful interests. Every invasion or collision or mingling of races\nthus brought their respective religions into contact and rivalry;\nand as no priesthood has been known to consent peaceably to its own\ndownfall and the degradation of its own deities, we need not wonder\nthat there have been perpetual wars for religious ascendency. It\nis not unusual to hear sects among ourselves accusing each other\nof idolatry. In earlier times the rule was for each religion to\ndenounce its opponent's gods as devils. Gregory the Great wrote\nto his missionary in Britain, the Abbot Mellitus, second Bishop of\nCanterbury, that 'whereas the people were accustomed to sacrifice\nmany oxen in honour of demons, let them celebrate a religious and\nsolemn festival, and not slay the animals to the devil (diabolo),\nbut to be eaten by themselves to the glory of God.' Thus the devotion\nof meats to those deities of our ancestors which the Pope pronounces\ndemons, which took place chiefly at Yule-tide, has survived in our\nmore comfortable Christmas banquets. This was the fate of all the\ndeities which Christianity undertook to suppress. But it had been the\nhabit of religions for many ages before. They never denied the actual\nexistence of the deities they were engaged in suppressing. That would\nhave been too great an outrage upon popular beliefs, and might have\ncaused a reaction; and, besides, each new religion had an interest\nof its own in preserving the basis of belief in these invisible\nbeings. Disbelief in the very existence of the old gods might be\nfollowed by a sceptical spirit that might endanger the new. So the\npropagandists maintained the existence of native gods, but called\nthem devils. Sometimes wars or intercourse between tribes led to their\nfusion; the battle between opposing religions was drawn, in which case\nthere would be a compromise by which several deities of different\norigin might continue together in the same race and receive equal\nhomage. The differing degrees of importance ascribed to the separate\npersons of the Hindu triad in various localities of India, suggest\nit as quite probable that Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva signalled in their\nunion the political unity of certain districts in that country. [15]\nThe blending of the names of Confucius and Buddha, in many Chinese\nand Japanese temples, may show us an analogous process now going on,\nand, indeed, the various ethnical ideas combined in the christian\nTrinity render the fact stated one of easy interpretation. But the\nreligious difficulty was sometimes not susceptible of compromise. The\nmost powerful priesthood carried the day, and they used every ingenuity\nto degrade the gods of their opponents. Agathodemons were turned into\nkakodemons. The serpent, worshipped in many lands, might be adopted\nas the support of sleeping Vishnu in India, might be associated with\nthe rainbow ('the heavenly serpent') in Persia, but elsewhere was\ncursed as the very genius of evil.\n\nThe operation of this force in the degradation of deities, is\nparticularly revealed in the Sacred Books of Persia. In that country\nthe great religions of the East would appear to have contended\nagainst each other with especial fury, and their struggles were\nprobably instrumental in causing one or more of the early migrations\ninto Western Europe. The great celestial war between Ormuzd and\nAhriman--Light and Darkness--corresponded with a violent theological\nconflict, one result of which is that the word deva, meaning 'deity'\nto Brahmans, means 'devil' to Parsees. The following extract from\nthe Zend-Avesta will serve as an example of the spirit in which the\nwar was waged:--\n\n'All your devas are only manifold children of the Evil Mind--and the\ngreat one who worships the Saoma of lies and deceits; besides the\ntreacherous acts for which you are notorious throughout the seven\nregions of the earth.\n\n'You have invented all the evil which men speak and do, which is\nindeed pleasant to the Devas, but is devoid of all goodness, and\ntherefore perishes before the insight of the truth of the wise.\n\n'Thus you defraud men of their good minds and of their immortality\nby your evil minds--as well through those of the Devas as that of the\nEvil Spirit--through evil deeds and evil words, whereby the power of\nliars grows.' [16]\n\nThat is to say--Ours is the true god: your god is a devil.\n\nThe Zoroastrian conversion of deva (deus) into devil does not\nalone represent the work of this odium theologicum. In the early\nhymns of India the appellation asuras is given to the gods. Asura\nmeans a spirit. But in the process of time asura, like d\u00e6mon, came\nto have a sinister meaning: the gods were called suras, the demons\nasuras, and these were said to contend together. But in Persia the\nasuras--demonised in India--retained their divinity, and gave the name\nahura to the supreme deity, Ormuzd (Ahura-mazda). On the other hand,\nas Mr. Muir supposes, Varenya, applied to evil spirits of darkness in\nthe Zendavesta, is cognate with Varuna (Heaven); and the Vedic Indra,\nking of the gods--the Sun--is named in the Zoroastrian religion as\none of the chief councillors of that Prince of Darkness.\n\nBut in every country conquered by a new religion, there will always be\nfound some, as we have seen, who will hold on to the old deity under\nall his changed fortunes. These will be called 'bigots,' but still they\nwill adhere to the ancient belief and practise the old rites. Sometimes\neven after they have had to yield to the popular terminology, and call\nthe old god a devil, they will find some reason for continuing the\ntransmitted forms. It is probable that to this cause was originally\ndue the religions which have been developed into what is now termed\nDevil-worship. The distinct and avowed worship of the evil Power in\npreference to the good is a rather startling phenomenon when presented\nbaldly; as, for example, in a prayer of the Madagascans to Nyang,\nauthor of evil, quoted by Dr. R\u00e9ville:--'O Zamhor! to thee we offer no\nprayers. The good god needs no asking. But we must pray to Nyang. Nyang\nmust be appeased. O Nyang, bad and strong spirit, let not the thunder\nroar over our heads! Tell the sea to keep within its bounds! Spare,\nO Nyang, the ripening fruit, and dry not up the blossoming rice! Let\nnot our women bring forth children on the accursed days. Thou reignest,\nand this thou knowest, over the wicked; and great is their number,\nO Nyang. Torment not, then, any longer the good folk!' [17]\n\nThis is natural, and suggestive of the criminal under sentence of\ndeath, who, when asked if he was not afraid to meet his God, replied,\n'Not in the least; it's that other party I'm afraid of.' Yet it\nis hardly doubtful that the worship of Nyang began in an era when\nhe was by no means considered morally baser than Zamhor. How the\ntheory of Dualism, when attained, might produce the phenomenon\ncalled Devil-worship, is illustrated in the case of the Yezedis, now\nso notorious for that species of religion. Their theory is usually\nsupposed to be entirely represented by the expression uttered by one\nof them, 'Will not Satan, then, reward the poor Izedis, who alone have\nnever spoken ill of him, and have suffered so much for him?' [18]\nBut these words are significant, no doubt, of the underlying fact:\nthey 'have never spoken ill of' the Satan they worship. The Mussulman\ncalls the Yezedi a Satan-worshipper only as the early Zoroastrian held\nthe worshipper of a deva to be the same. The chief object of worship\namong the Yezedis is the figure of the bird Taous, a half-mythical\npeacock. Professor King of Cambridge traces the Taous of this Assyrian\nsect to the \"sacred bird called a phoenix,\" whose picture, as seen\nby Herodotus (ii. 73) in Egypt, is described by him as 'very like an\neagle in outline and in size, but with plumage partly gold-coloured,\npartly crimson,' and which was said to return to Heliopolis every\nfive hundred years, there to burn itself on the altar of the Sun,\nthat another might rise from its ashes. [19] Now the name Yezedis\nis simply Izeds, genii; and we are thus pointed to Arabia, where we\nfind the belief in genii is strongest, and also associated with the\nmythical bird Rokh of its folklore. There we find Mohammed rebuking\nthe popular belief in a certain bird called Ham\u00e2h, which was said to\ntake form from the blood near the brain of a dead person and fly away,\nto return, however, at the end of every hundred years to visit that\nperson's sepulchre. But this is by no means Devil-worship, nor can we\nfind any trace of that in the most sacred scripture of the Yezedis,\nthe 'Eulogy of Sheikh Adi.' This Sheikh inherited from his father,\nMoosafir, the sanctity of an incarnation of the divine essence,\nof which he (Adi) speaks as 'the All-merciful.'\n\n\n    By his light he hath lighted the lamp of the morning.\n    I am he that placed Adam in my Paradise.\n    I am he that made Nimrod a hot burning fire.\n    I am he that guided Ahmet mine elect,\n    I gifted him with my way and guidance.\n    Mine are all existences together,\n    They are my gift and under my direction.\n    I am he that possesseth all majesty,\n    And beneficence and charity are from my grace,\n    I am he that entereth the heart in my zeal;\n    And I shine through the power of my awfulness and majesty.\n    I am he to whom the lion of the desert came:\n    I rebuked him and he became like stone.\n    I am he to whom the serpent came,\n    And by my will I made him like dust.\n    I am he that shook the rock and made it tremble,\n    And sweet water flowed therefrom from every side. [20]\n\n\nThe reverence shown in these sacred sentences for Hebrew names and\ntraditions--as of Adam in Paradise, Marah, and the smitten rock--and\nfor Ahmet (Mohammed), appears to have had its only requital in the\nodious designation of the worshippers of Taous as Devil-worshippers,\na label which the Yezedis perhaps accepted as the Wesleyans and\nFriends accepted such names as 'Methodist' and 'Quaker.'\n\nMohammed has expiated the many deities he degraded to devils by being\nhimself turned to an idol (mawmet), a term of contempt all the more\npopular for its resemblance to 'mummery.' Despite his denunciations\nof idolatry, it is certain that this earlier religion represented\nby the Yezedis has never been entirely suppressed even among his own\nfollowers. In Dr. Leitner's interesting collection there is a lamp,\nwhich he obtained from a mosque, made in the shape of a peacock,\nand this is but one of many similar relics of primitive or alien\nsymbolism found among the Mussulman tribes.\n\nThe evolution of demons and devils out of deities was made real to\nthe popular imagination in every country where the new religion found\nart existing, and by alliance with it was enabled to shape the ideas\nof the people. The theoretical degradation of deities of previously\nfair association could only be completed where they were presented to\nthe eye in repulsive forms. It will readily occur to every one that a\nrationally conceived demon or devil would not be repulsive. If it were\na demon that man wished to represent, mere euphemism would prevent its\nbeing rendered odious. The main characteristic of a demon--that which\ndistinguishes it from a devil--is, as we have seen, that it has a real\nand human-like motive for whatever evil it causes. If it afflict or\nconsume man, it is not from mere malignancy, but because impelled by\nthe pangs of hunger, lust, or other suffering, like the famished wolf\nor shark. And if sacrifices of food were offered to satisfy its need,\nequally we might expect that no unnecessary insult would be offered in\nthe attempt to portray it. But if it were a devil--a being actuated\nby simple malevolence--one of its essential functions, temptation,\nwould be destroyed by hideousness. For the work of seduction we might\nexpect a devil to wear the form of an angel of light, but by no means\nto approach his intended victim in any horrible shape, such as would\nrepel every mortal. The great representations of evil, whether imagined\nby the speculative or the religious sense, have never been, originally,\nugly. The gods might be described as falling swiftly like lightning\nout of heaven, but in the popular imagination they retained for a long\ntime much of their splendour. The very ingenuity with which they were\nafterwards invested with ugliness in religious art, attests that there\nwere certain popular sentiments about them which had to be distinctly\nreversed. It was because they were thought beautiful that they must be\npainted ugly; it was because they were--even among converts to the new\nreligion--still secretly believed to be kind and helpful, that there\nwas employed such elaboration of hideous designs to deform them. The\npictorial representations of demons and devils will come under a more\ndetailed examination hereafter: it is for the present sufficient to\npoint out that the traditional blackness or ugliness of demons and\ndevils, as now thought of, by no means militates against the fact\nthat they were once the popular deities. The contrast, for instance,\nbetween the horrible physiognomy given to Satan in ordinary christian\nart, and the theological representation of him as the Tempter, is\nobvious. Had the design of Art been to represent the theological\ntheory, Satan would have been portrayed in a fascinating form. But\nthe design was not that; it was to arouse horror and antipathy for\nthe native deities to which the ignorant clung tenaciously. It was\nto train children to think of the still secretly-worshipped idols\nas frightful and bestial beings. It is important, therefore, that we\nshould guard against confusing the speculative or moral attempts of\nmankind to personify pain and evil with the ugly and brutal demons and\ndevils of artificial superstition, oftenest pictured on church walls.\nSometimes they are set to support water-spouts, often the brackets\nthat hold their foes, the saints. It is a very ancient device. Our\nfigure 2 is from the handle of a chalice in possession of Sir James\nHooker, meant probably to hold the holy water of Ganges.  These are\nnot genuine demons or devils, but carefully caricatured deities. Who\nthat looks upon the grinning bestial forms carved about the roof of any\nold church--as those on Melrose Abbey and York Cathedral [21]--which,\nthere is reason to believe, represent the primitive deities driven from\nthe interior by potency of holy water, and chained to the uncongenial\nservice of supporting the roof-gutter--can see in these gargoyles\n(Fr. gargouille, dragon), anything but carved imprecations? Was it\nto such ugly beings, guardians of their streams, hills, and forests,\nthat our ancestors consecrated the holly and mistletoe, or with such\nthat they associated their flowers, fruits, and homes? They were\ncaricatures inspired by missionaries, made to repel and disgust, as\nthe images of saints beside them were carved in beauty to attract. If\nthe pagans had been the artists, the good looks would have been on\nthe other side. And indeed there was an art of which those pagans\nwere the unconscious possessors, through which the true characters of\nthe imaginary beings they adored have been transmitted to us. In the\nfables of their folklore we find the Fairies that represent the spirit\nof the gods and goddesses to which they are easily traceable. That\ngoddess who in christian times was pictured as a hag riding on a\nbroom-stick was Frigga, the Earth-mother, associated with the first\nsacred affections clustering around the hearth; or Freya, whose very\nname was consecrated in frau, woman and wife. The mantle of Bertha did\nnot cover more tenderness when it fell to the shoulders of Mary. The\nGerman child's name for the pre-christian Madonna was Mother Rose:\ndistaff in hand, she watched over the industrious at their household\nwork: she hovered near the cottage, perhaps to find there some weeping\nCinderella and give her beauty for ashes.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nCLASSIFICATION.\n\n    The obstructions of man--The twelve chief classes--Modifications\n    of particular forms for various functions--Theological demons.\n\n\nThe statements made concerning the fair names of the chief demons\nand devils which have haunted the imagination of mankind, heighten\nthe contrast between their celestial origin and the functions\nattributed to them in their degraded forms. The theory of Dualism,\nrepresenting a necessary stage in the mental development of every\nrace, called for a supply of demons, and the supply came from the\ninnumerable dethroned, outlawed, and fallen deities and angels which\nhad followed the subjugation of races and their religions. But though\ntheir celestial origin might linger around them in some slight legend\nor characteristic as well as in their names, the evil phenomenon to\nwhich each was attached as an explanation assigned the real form and\nwork with which he or she was associated in popular superstition. We\ntherefore find in the demons in which men have believed a complete\ncatalogue of the obstacles with which they have had to contend in the\nlong struggle for existence. In the devils we discover equally the\nhistory of the moral and religious struggles through which priesthoods\nand churches have had to pass. And the relative extent of this or\nthat particular class of demons or devils, and the intensity of\nbelief in any class as shown in the number of survivals from it,\nwill be found to reflect pretty faithfully the degree to which the\nspecial evil represented by it afflicted primitive man, as attested\nby other branches of pre-historic investigation.\n\nAs to function, the demons we shall have to consider are those\nrepresenting--1. Hunger; 2. Excessive Heat; 3. Excessive Cold;\n4. Destructive elements and physical convulsions; 5. Destructive\nanimals; 6. Human enemies; 7. The Barrenness of the Earth, as rock and\ndesert; 8. Obstacles, as the river or mountain; 9. Illusion, seductive,\ninvisible, and mysterious agents, causing delusions; 10. Darkness\n(especially when unusual), Dreams, Nightmare; 11. Disease; 12. Death.\n\nThese classes are selected, in obedience to necessary limitations,\nas representing the twelve chief labours of man which have given\nshape to the majority of his haunting demons, as distinguished from\nhis devils. Of course all classifications of this character must be\nunderstood as made for convenience, and the divisions are not to be\ntoo sharply taken. What Plotinus said of the gods, that each contained\nall the rest, is equally true of both demons and devils. The demons\nof Hunger are closely related to the demons of Fire: Agni devoured\nhis parents (two sticks consumed by the flame they produce); and\nfrom them we pass easily to elemental demons, like the lightning,\nor demons of fever. And similarly we find a relationship between\nother destructive forces. Nevertheless, the distinctions drawn are\nnot fanciful, but exist in clear and unmistakable beliefs as to the\nspecial dispositions and employments of demons; and as we are not\nengaged in dealing with natural phenomena, but with superstitions\nconcerning them, the only necessity of this classification is that\nit shall not be arbitrary, but shall really simplify the immense mass\nof facts which the student of Demonology has to encounter.\n\nBut there are several points which require especial attention as\npreliminary to a consideration of these various classes of demons.\n\nFirst, it is to be borne in mind that a single demonic form will often\nappear in various functions, and that these must not be confused. The\nserpent may represent the lightning, or the coil of the whirlwind, or\nfatal venom; the earthquake may represent a swallowing Hunger-demon,\nor the rage of a chained giant. The separate functions must not be\nlost sight of because sometimes traceable to a single form, nor their\npractical character suffer disguise through their fair euphemistic\nor mythological names.\n\nSecondly, the same form appears repeatedly in a diabolic as well as\na demonic function, and here a clear distinction must be maintained\nin the reader's mind. The distinction already taken between a demon\nand a devil is not arbitrary: the word demon is related to deity;\nthe word devil, though sometimes connected with the Sanskrit deva,\nhas really no relation to it, but has a bad sense as 'calumniator:'\nbut even if there were no such etymological identity and difference,\nit would be necessary to distinguish such widely separate offices as\nthose representing the afflictive forces of nature where attributed\nto humanly appreciable motives on the one hand, and evils ascribed to\npure malignancy or a principle of evil on the other. The Devil may,\nindeed, represent a further evolution in the line on which the Demon\nhas appeared; Ahriman the Bad in conflict with Ormuzd the Good may\nbe a spiritualisation of the conflict between Light and Darkness, Sun\nand Cloud, as represented in the Vedic Indra and Vritra; but the two\nphases represent different classes of ideas, indeed different worlds,\nand the apprehension of both requires that they shall be carefully\ndistinguished even when associated with the same forms and names.\n\nThirdly, there is an important class of demons which the reader\nmay expect to find fully treated of in the part of my work more\nparticularly devoted to Demonology, which must be deferred, or further\ntraced in that portion relating to the Devil; they are forms which in\ntheir original conception were largely beneficent, and have become of\nevil repute mainly through the anathema of theology. The chequer-board\non which Osiris sat had its development in hosts of primitive shapes of\nlight opposing shapes of darkness. The evil of some of these is ideal;\nothers are morally amphibious: Teraphim, Lares, genii, were ancestors\nof the guardian angels and patron saints of the present day; they were\noftenest in the shapes of dogs and cats and aged human ancestors,\nsupposed to keep watch and ward about the house, like the friendly\nDomovoi respected in Russia; the evil disposition and harmfulness\nascribed to them are partly natural but partly also theological,\nand due to the difficulty of superseding them with patron saints and\nangels. The degradation of beneficent beings, already described in\nrelation to large demonic and diabolic forms, must be understood as\nconstantly acting in the smallest details of household superstition,\nwith what strange reaction and momentous result will appear when we\ncome to consider the phenomena of Witchcraft.\n\nFinally, it must be remarked that the nature of our inquiry renders\nthe consideration of the origin of myths--whether 'solar' or other--of\nsecondary importance. Such origin it will be necessary to point out\nand discuss incidentally, but our main point will always be the forms\nin which the myths have become incarnate, and their modifications\nin various places and times, these being the result of those actual\nexperiences with which Demonology is chiefly concerned. A myth, as\nmany able writers have pointed out, is, in its origin, an explanation\nby the uncivilised mind of some natural phenomenon--not an allegory,\nnot an esoteric conceit. For this reason it possesses fluidity, and\ntakes on manifold shapes. The apparent sleep of the sun in winter\nmay be represented in a vast range of myths, from the Seven Sleepers\nto the Man in the Moon of our nursery rhyme; but the variations all\nhave relation to facts and circumstances. Comparative Mythology is\nmainly concerned with the one thread running through them, and binding\nthem all to the original myth; the task of Demonology is rather to\ndiscover the agencies which have given their several shapes. If it be\nshown that Orthros and Cerberus were primarily the morning and evening\ntwilight or howling winds, either interpretation is here secondary to\ntheir personification as dogs. Demonology would ask, Why dogs? why\nnot bulls? Its answer in each case detaches from the anterior myth\nits mode, and shows this as the determining force of further myths.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPART II.\n\nTHE DEMON.\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nHUNGER.\n\n    Hunger-demons--Kephn--Miru--Kagura--R\u00e1hu the Hindu\n    sun-devourer--The earth monster at Pelsall--A Franconian\n    custom--Sheitan as moon-devourer--Hindu offerings to the\n    dead--Ghoul--Goblin--Vampyres--Leanness of demons--Old Scotch\n    custom.--The origin of sacrifices.\n\n\nIn every part of the earth man's first struggle was for his daily\nfood. With only a rude implement of stone or bone he had to get fish\nfrom the sea, bird from the air, beast from the forest. For ages,\nwith such poor equipment, he had to wring a precarious livelihood from\nnature. He saw, too, every living form around him similarly trying to\nsatisfy its hunger. There seemed to be a Spirit of Hunger abroad. And,\nat the same time, there was such a resistance to man's satisfaction\nof his need--the bird and fish so hard to get, the stingy earth so\nready to give him a stone when he asked for bread--that he came to the\nconclusion that there must be invisible voracious beings who wanted all\ngood things for themselves. So the ancient world was haunted by a vast\nbrood of Hunger-demons. There is an African tribe, the Karens, whose\nrepresentation of the Devil (Kephn) is a huge stomach floating through\nthe air; and this repulsive image may be regarded as the type of nearly\nhalf the demons which have haunted the human imagination. This, too,\nis the terrible Miru, with her daughters and slave, haunting the South\nSea Islander. 'The esoteric doctrine of the priests was, that souls\nleave the body ere breath has quite gone, and travel to the edge of\na cliff facing the setting sun (Ra). A large wave now approaches the\nbase of the cliff, and a gigantic bua tree, covered with fragrant\nblossoms, springs up from Avaiki (nether world) to receive on its\nfar-reaching branches human spirits, who are mysteriously impelled to\ncluster on its limbs. When at length the mystic tree is covered with\nhuman spirits, it goes down with its living freight to the nether\nworld. Akaanga, the slave of fearful Miru, mistress of the invisible\nworld, infallibly catches all these unhappy spirits in his net and\nlaves them to and fro in a lake. In these waters the captive ghosts\nexhaust themselves by wriggling about like fishes, in the vain hope of\nescape. The net is pulled up, and the half-drowned spirits enter into\nthe presence of dread Miru, who is ugliness personified. The secret\nof Miru's power over her intended victims is the 'kava' root (Piper\nmythisticum). A bowl of this drink is prepared for each visitor to the\nshades by her four lovely daughters. Stupefied with the draught, the\nunresisting victims are borne off to a mighty oven and cooked. Miru,\nher peerless daughters, her dance-loving son, and the attendants,\nsubsist exclusively on human spirits decoyed to the nether world\nand then cooked. The drinking-cups of Miru are the skulls of her\nvictims. She is called in song 'Miru-the-ruddy,' because her cheeks\never glow with the heat of the oven where her captives are cooked. As\nthe surest way to Miru's oven is to die a natural death, one need not\nmarvel that the Rev. Mr. Gill, who made these statements before the\nAnthropological Institute in London (February 8, 1876), had heard\n'many anecdotes of aged warriors, scarcely able to hold a spear,\ninsisting on being led to the field of battle in the hope of gaining\nthe house of the brave.' As the South Sea paradise seems to consist\nin an eternal war-dance, or, in one island, in an eternal chewing\nof sugar-cane, it is not unlikely that the aged seek violent death\nchiefly to avoid the oven. We have here a remarkable illustration of\nthe distinguishing characteristic of the demon. Fearful as Miru is,\nit may be noted that there is not one gratuitous element of cruelty\nin her procedure. On the contrary, she even provides her victims\nwith an an\u00e6sthetic draught. Her prey is simply netted, washed, and\ncooked, as for man are his animal inferiors. In one of the islands\n(Aitutaki), Miru is believed to resort to a device which is certainly\nterrible--namely, the contrivance that each soul entering the nether\nworld shall drink a bowl of living centipedes; but this is simply\nwith the one end in view of appeasing her own pangs of hunger, for\nthe object and effect of the draught is to cause the souls to drown\nthemselves, it being apparently only after entire death that they\ncan be cooked and devoured by Miru and her household.\n\nFortunately for the islanders, Miru is limited in her tortures to\na transmundane sphere, and room is left for many a slip between\nher dreadful cup and the human lip. The floating stomach Kephn is,\nhowever, not other-worldly. We see, however, a softened form of him\nin some other tribes. The Greenlanders, Finns, Laps, conceived the\nidea that there is a large paunch-demon which people could invoke to\ngo and suck the cows or consume the herds of their enemies; and the\nIcelanders have a superstition that some people can construct such a\ndemon out of bones and skins, and send him forth to transmute the milk\nor flesh of cattle into a supply of flesh and blood. A form of this\nkind is represented in the Japanese Kagura (figure 3), the favourite\nmask of January dancers and drum-beaters seeking money. The Kagura\nis in precise contrast with the Pretas (Siam), which, though twelve\nmiles in height, are too thin to be seen, their mouths being so small\nas to render it impossible to satisfy their fearful hunger.\n\nThe pot-bellies given to demons in Travancore and other districts\nof India, and the blood-sacrifices by which the natives propitiate\nthem--concerning which a missionary naively remarks, that even these\nheathen recognise, though in corrupted form, 'the great truth that\nwithout shedding of blood there is no remission of sins' [22]--refer\nto the Hunger-demon. They are the brood of Kali, girt round with\nhuman skulls.\n\nThe expedition which went out to India to observe the last solar\neclipse was incidentally the means of calling attention to a\nremarkable survival of the Hunger-demon in connection with astronomic\nphenomena. While the English observers were arranging their apparatus,\nthe natives prepared a pile of brushwood, and, so soon as the eclipse\nbegan, they set fire to this pile and began to shout and yell as they\ndanced around it. Not less significant were the popular observances\ngenerally. There was a semi-holiday in honour of the eclipse. The\nghauts were crowded with pious worshippers. No Hindu, it is thought,\nought to do any work whatever during an eclipse, and there was a\ngeneral tendency to prolong the holiday a little beyond the exact\ntime when the shadow disappears, and indeed to prolong it throughout\nthe day. All earthenware vessels used for cooking were broken, and all\ncooked food in the houses at the time of the eclipse was thrown out. It\nis regarded as a time of peculiar blessings if taken in the right way,\nand of dread consequences to persons inclined to heterodoxy or neglect\nof the proper observances. Between nine and ten in the evening two\nshocks of an earthquake occurred, the latter a rather unpleasant one,\nshaking the tables and doors in an uncomfortable fashion for several\nseconds. To the natives it was no surprise--they believe firmly in\nthe connection of eclipses and earthquakes. [23]\n\nEspecially notable is the breaking of their culinary utensils by\nthe Hindus during an eclipse. In Copenhagen there is a collection\nof the votive weapons of ancient Norsemen, every one broken as it\nwas offered up to the god of their victory in token of good faith,\nlest they should be suspected of any intention to use again what they\nhad given away. For the same reason the cup was offered--broken--with\nthe libation. The Northman felt himself in the presence of the J\u00f6tunn\n(giants), whose name Grimm identifies as the Eaters. For the Hindu of\nto-day the ceremonies appropriate at an eclipse, however important,\nhave probably as little rational meaning as the occasional Belfire\nthat lights up certain dark corners of Europe has for those who build\nit. But the traditional observances have come up from the childhood\nof the world, when the eclipse represented a demon devouring the sun,\nwho was to have his attention called by outcries and prayers to the\nfact that if it was fire he needed there was plenty on earth; and if\nfood, he might have all in their houses, provided he would consent\nto satisfy his appetite with articles of food less important than\nthe luminaries of heaven.\n\nSuch is the shape now taken in India of the ancient myth of the\neclipse. When at the churning of the ocean to find the nectar of\nimmortality, a demon with dragon-tail was tasting that nectar, the sun\nand moon told on him, but not until his head had become immortal; and\nit is this head of R\u00e1hu which seeks now to devour the informers--the\nSun and Moon. [24] Mythologically, too, this R\u00e1hu has been divided;\nfor we shall hereafter trace the dragon-tail of him to the garden of\nEden and in the christian devil, whereas in India he has been improved\nfrom a vindictive to a merely voracious demon.\n\nThe fires kindled by the Hindus to frighten R\u00e1hu on his latest\nappearance might have defeated the purpose of the expedition by the\nsmoke it was sending up, had not two officers leaped upon the fire\nand scattered its fuel; but just about the time when these courageous\ngentlemen were trampling out the fires of superstition whose smoke\nwould obscure the vision of science, an event occurred in England\nwhich must be traced to the same ancient belief--the belief, namely,\nthat when anything is apparently swallowed up, as the sun and moon\nby an eclipse, or a village by earthquake or flood, it is the work\nof a hungry dragon, earthworm, or other monster. The Pelsall mine\nwas flooded, and a large number of miners drowned. When the accident\nbecame known in the village, the women went out with the families of\nthe unfortunate men, and sat beside the mouth of the flooded pit,\nat the bottom of which the dead bodies yet remained. These women\nthen yelled down the pit with voices very different from ordinary\nlamentation. They also refused unanimously to taste food of any kind,\nsaying, when pressed to do so, that so long as they could refrain from\neating, their husbands might still be spared to them. When, finally,\none poor woman, driven by the pangs of hunger, was observed to eat a\ncrust of bread, the cries ceased, and the women, renouncing all hope,\nproceeded in silent procession to their homes in Pelsall.\n\nThe Hindu people casting their food out of the window during\nan eclipse, the Pelsall wives refusing to eat when the mine is\nflooded, are acting by force of immemorial tradition, and so are\ndoing unconsciously what the African woman does consciously when she\nsurrounds the bed of her sick husband with rice and meat, and beseeches\nthe demon to devour them instead of the man. To the same class of\nnotions belong the old custom of trying to discover the body of one\ndrowned by means of a loaf of bread with a candle stuck in it, which\nit was said would pause above the body, and the body might be made to\nappear by firing a gun over it--that is, the demon holding it would be\nfrightened off. A variant, too, is the Persian custom of protecting a\nwoman in parturition by spreading a table, with a lamp at each corner,\nwith seven kinds of fruits and seven different aromatic seeds upon it.\n\nIn 1769, when Pennant made his 'Scottish Tour,' he found fully\nobserved in the Highlands the ceremony of making the Beltane Cake on\nthe first of May, and dedicating its distributed fragments to birds\nand beasts of prey, with invocation to the dread being of whom they\nwere the supposed agents to spare the herds. Demons especially love\nmilk: the Lambton Worm required nine cows' milk daily; and Jerome\nmentions a diabolical baby which exhausted six nurses.\n\nThe Devil nominally inherits, among the peasantry of Christendom, the\nattributes of the demons which preceded him; but it must be understood\nthat in every case where mere voracity is ascribed to the Devil, a\nprimitive demon is meant, and of this fact the superstitious peasant\nis dimly conscious. In Franconia, when a baker is about to put dough\nbiscuits into an oven to be baked, he will first throw half-a-dozen of\nthem into the fire, saying, 'There, poor devil! those are for you.' If\npressed for an explanation, he will admit his fear that but for this\noffering his biscuits are in danger of coming out burnt; but that the\n'poor devil' is not bad-hearted, only driven by his hunger to make\nmischief. The being he fears is, therefore, clearly not the Devil at\nall--whose distinction is a love of wickedness for its own sake--but\nthe half-starved gobbling ghosts of whom, in Christian countries,\n'Devil' has become the generic name. Of their sacrifices, Grace before\nmeat is a remnant. In Moslem countries, however, 'Sheitan' combines the\ndemonic and the malignant voracities. During the late lunar eclipse,\nthe inhabitants of Pera and Constantinople fired guns over their houses\nto drive 'Sheitan' (Satan) away from the moon, for, whoever the foe,\nthe Turk trusts in gunpowder. But superstitions representing Satan\nas a devourer are becoming rare. In the church of N\u00f4tre Dame at Hal,\nBelgium, the lectern shows a dragon attempting to swallow the Bible,\nwhich is supported on the back of an eagle.\n\nThere is another and much more formidable form in which the\nHunger-demon appears in Demonology. The fondness for blood, so\ncharacteristic of supreme gods, was distributed as a special thirst\nthrough a large class of demons. In the legend of Ishtar descending\nto Hades [25] to seek some beloved one, she threatens if the door be\nnot opened--\n\n\n\nI will raise the dead to be devourers of the living!\nUpon the living shall the dead prey!\n\n\n\nThis menace shows that the Chald\u00e6an and Babylonian belief in the\nvampyre, called Akhkharu in Assyrian, was fully developed at a very\nearly date. Although the Hunger-demon was very fully developed in\nIndia, it does not appear to have been at any time so cannibalistic,\npossibly because the natives were not great flesh-eaters. In some\ncases, indeed, we meet with the vampyre superstition; as in the story\nof Vikram and the Vampyre, and in the Tamil drama of Harich\u00e1ndra,\nwhere the frenzied Sandram\u00e1ti says to the king, 'I belong to the\nrace of elves, and I have killed thy child in order that I might\nfeed on its delicate flesh.' Such expressions are rare enough to\nwarrant suspicion of their being importations. The Vetala's appetite\nis chiefly for corpses. The poor hungry demons of India--such as the\nBh\u00fat, a dismal, ravenous ghost, dreaded at the moon-wane of the month\nKatik (Oct.-Nov.)--was not supposed to devour man, but only man's\nfood. The Hindu demons of this class may be explained by reference\nto the sr\u00e1ddha, or oblation to ancestors, concerning which we read\ndirections in the Manu Code. 'The ancestors of men are satisfied a\nwhole month with tila, rice, &c.; two months with fish, &c. The Manes\nsay, Oh, may that man be born in our line who may give us milky food,\nwith honey and pure butter, both on the thirteenth of the moon and\nwhen the shadow of an elephant falls to the east!' The bloodthirsty\ndemons of India have pretty generally been caught up like Kali into\na higher symbolism, and their voracity systematised and satisfied in\nsacrificial commutations. The popular belief in the southern part of\nthat country is indicated by Professor Monier Williams, in a letter\nwritten from Southern India, wherein he remarks that the devils alone\nrequire propitiation. It is generally a simple procedure, performed\nby offerings of food or other articles supposed to be acceptable\nto disembodied beings. For example, when a certain European, once a\nterror to the district in which he lived, died in the South of India,\nthe natives were in the constant habit of depositing brandy and cigars\non his tomb to propitiate his spirit, supposed to roam about the\nneighbourhood in a restless manner, and with evil proclivities. The\nvery same was done to secure the good offices of the philanthropic\nspirit of a great European sportsman, who, when he was alive, delivered\nhis district from the ravages of tigers. Indeed all evil spirits\nare thought to be opposed by good ones, who, if duly propitiated,\nmake it their business to guard the inhabitants of particular places\nfrom demonic intruders. Each district, and even every village, has\nits guardian genius, often called its Mother. [26]\n\nSuch ideas as these are represented in Europe in some varieties of\nthe Kobold and the Goblin (Gk. kobalos). Though the goblin must,\naccording to folk-philosophy, be fed with nice food, it is not\na deadly being; on the contrary, it is said the Gobelin tapestry\nderives its name because the secret of its colours was gained from\nthese ghosts. Though St. Taurin expelled one from Evreux, he found\nit so polite that he would not send it to hell, and it still haunts\nthe credulous there and at Caen, without being thought very formidable.\n\nThe demon that 'lurks in graveyards' is universal, and may have\nsuggested cremation. In the East it is represented mainly by such forms\nas the repulsive ghoul, which preys on dead bodies; but it has been\ndeveloped in some strange way to the Slavonic phantom called Vampyre,\nwhose peculiar fearfulness is that it represents the form in which\nany deceased person may reappear, not ghoul-like to batten on the\ndead, but to suck the blood of the living. This is perhaps the most\nformidable survival of demonic superstition now existing in the world.\n\nA people who still have in their dictionary such a word as 'miscreant'\n(misbeliever) can hardly wonder that the priests of the Eastern\nChurch fostered the popular belief that heretics at death changed\ninto drinkers of the blood of the living. The Slavonic vampyres have\ndeclined in England and America to be the 'Ogres,' who 'smell the blood\nof an Englishman,' but are rarely supposed to enjoy it; but it exposes\nthe real ugliness of the pious superstitions sometimes deemed pretty,\nthat, in proportion to the intensity of belief in supernaturalism,\nthe people live in terror of the demons that go about seeking whom\nthey may devour. In Russia the watcher beside a corpse is armed with\nholy charms against attack from it at midnight. A vampyre may be the\nsoul of any outcast from the Church, or one over whose corpse, before\nburial, a cat has leaped or a bird flown. It may be discovered in a\ngraveyard by leading a black colt through; the animal will refuse to\ntread on the vampyre's grave, and the body is taken out and a stake\ndriven through it, always by a single blow. A related class of demons\nare the 'heart-devourers.' They touch their victim with an aspen or\nother magical twig; the heart falls out, and is, perhaps, replaced\nby some baser one. Mr. Ralston mentions a Mazovian story in which a\nhero awakes with the heart of a hare, and remains a coward ever after;\n[27] and in another case a quiet peasant received a cock's heart and\nwas always crowing. The Werewolf, in some respects closely related\nto the vampyre, also pursues his ravages among the priest-ridden\npeasantry of the South and East.\n\nIn Germany, though the more horrible forms of the superstition are\nrare, the 'Nachzehrer' is much dreaded. Even in various Protestant\nregions it is thought safest that a cross should be set beside every\ngrave to impede any demonic propensities that may take possession\nof the person interred; and where food is not still buried with the\ncorpse to assuage any pangs of hunger that may arise, a few grains\nof corn or rice are scattered upon it in reminiscence of the old\ncustom. In Diesdorf it is believed that if money is not placed in the\ndead person's mouth at burial, or his name not cut from his shirt, he\nis likely to become a Nachzehrer, and that the ghost will come forth\nin the form of a pig. It is considered a sure preventative of such\na result to break the neck of the dead body. On one occasion, it is\nthere related, several persons of one family having died, the suspected\ncorpse was exhumed, and found to have eaten up its own grave-clothes.\n\nDr. Dyer, an eminent physician of Chicago, Illinois, told me (1875)\nthat a case occurred in that city within his personal knowledge,\nwhere the body of a woman who had died of consumption was taken out of\nthe grave and the lungs burned, under a belief that she was drawing\nafter her into the grave some of her surviving relatives. In 1874,\naccording to the Providence Journal, in the village of Peacedale, Rhode\nIsland, U.S., Mr. William Rose dug up the body of his own daughter,\nand burned her heart, under the belief that she was wasting away the\nlives of other members of his family.\n\nThe characteristics of modern 'Spiritualism' appear to indicate\nthat the superstitious have outgrown this ancient fear of ghostly\nmalevolence where surrounded by civilisation. It is very rare in the\nancient world or in barbarous regions to find any invocations for the\nreturn of the spirits of the dead. Mr. Tylor has quoted a beautiful\ndirge used by the Ho tribe of India, beginning--\n\n\n\nWe never scolded you, never wronged you;\n        Come to us back!\n\n\n\nBut generally funereal customs are very significant of the fear that\nspirits may return, and their dirges more in the vein of the Bodo\nof North-East India: 'Take and eat: heretofore you have eaten and\ndrunk with us, you can do so no more: you were one of us, you can be\nso no longer: we come no more to you, come you not to us.' 'Even,'\nsays Mr. Tylor, 'in the lowest culture we find flesh holding its own\nagainst spirit, and at higher stages the householder rids himself with\nlittle scruple of an unwelcome inmate. The Greenlanders would carry\nthe dead out by the window, not by the door, while an old woman,\nwaving a firebrand behind, cried 'Piklerrukpok!' i.e., 'There is\nnothing more to be had here!' the Hottentots removed the dead from the\nhut by an opening broken out on purpose, to prevent him from finding\nthe way back; the Siamese, with the same intention, break an opening\nthrough the house wall to carry the coffin through, and then hurry it\nat full speed thrice round the house; the Siberian Chuwashes fling a\nred-hot stone after the corpse is carried out, for an obstacle to bar\nthe soul from coming back; so Brandenburg peasants pour out a pail of\nwater at the door after the coffin to prevent the ghost from walking;\nand Pomeranian mourners returning from the churchyard leave behind\nthe straw from the hearse, that the wandering soul may rest there,\nand not come back so far as home.' [28]\n\nIt may be remarked, in this connection, that in nearly all the pictures\nof demons and devils, they are represented as very lean. The exceptions\nwill be found generally in certain Southern and tropical demons which\nrepresent cloud or storm--Typhon, for instance--and present a swollen\nor bloated appearance. No Northern devil is fat. Shakespeare ascribes\nto C\u00e6sar a suspicion of leanness--\n\n\n        Yond' Cassius hath a lean and hungry look:\n        He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.\n\n\nWhen Antony defends Cassius, C\u00e6sar only replies, 'Would he were\nfatter!' This mistrust of leanness is a reflection from all the\nHunger-demons; it interprets the old sayings that a devil, however\nfair in front, may be detected by hollowness of the back, and that\nhe is usually so thin as to cast no shadow. [29]\n\nIllustrations of the Hunger-demon and its survivals might be greatly\nmultiplied, were it necessary. It need only, however, be mentioned that\nit is to this early and most universal conception of pr\u00e6ternatural\ndanger that the idea of sacrifice as well as of fasting must be\nascribed. It is, indeed, too obvious to require extended demonstration\nthat the notion of offering fruits and meat to an invisible being\ncould only have originated in the belief that such being was hungry,\nhowever much the spiritualisation of such offerings may have attended\ntheir continuance among enlightened peoples. In the evolution of\npurer deities, Fire--'the devouring element'--was substituted for a\ncoarser method of accepting sacrifices, and it became a sign of baser\nbeings--such as the Assyrian Akhkharu, and the later Lamia--to consume\ndead bodies with their teeth; and this fire was the spiritual element\nin the idolatries whose objects were visible. But the original accent\nof sacrifice never left it. The Levitical Law says: 'The two kidneys,\nand the fat that is upon them, which is by the flanks, and the caul\nabove the liver, with the kidneys, it shall he take away. And the\npriest shall burn them upon the altar: it is the food of the offering\nmade by fire for a sweet savour: all the fat is the Lord's. It shall be\na perpetual statute for your generations throughout all your dwellings,\nthat ye eat neither fat nor blood.' [30] We find the Hunger-demon\nshown as well in the wrath of Jehovah against the sons of Eli for\neating the choice parts of the meats offered on his altar, as in that\noffering of tender infants to Moloch which his priests denounced,\nor in Saturn devouring his children, whom Aryan faith dethroned;\nand they all reappear as phantoms thinly veiled above the spotless\nLamb offered up on Calvary, the sacrificed Macaria ('Blessed'), the\npierced heart of Mary. The beautiful boy Menoeceus must be sacrificed\nto save Thebes; the gods will not have aged and tough Creon, though a\nking, in his place. Iphigenia, though herself saved from the refined\npalate of Artemis, through the huntress's fondness for kid's blood,\nbecomes the priestess of human sacrifices. The human offering deemed\nhalf-divine could alone at last satisfy the Deity, gathered in his\nside this sheaf of sacrificial knives, whetted in many lands and\nages, and in his self-sacrifice the Hunger-demon himself was made\nthe victim. Theologians have been glad to rescue the First Person\nof their Trinity from association with the bloodthirsty demons of\nbarbarous ages by describing the sacrifice of Jesus as God himself\nbecoming the victim of an eternal law. But, whatever may be said of\nthis complex device, it is sufficient evidence that man's primitive\ndemon which personified his hunger has ended with being consumed on\nhis own altar. For though fasting is a survival of the same savage\nnotion that man may secure benefits from invisible beings by leaving\nthem the food, it is a practice which survives rather through the\ndesire of imitating ascetic saints than because of any understood\nprinciple. The strange yet natural consummation adds depth of meaning\nto the legend of Odin being himself sacrificed in his disguise on\nthe Holy Tree at Upsala, where human victims were hung as offerings\nto him; and to his rune in the Havamal--\n\n\n                    I know that I hung\n                    On a wind-rocked tree\n                    Nine whole nights,\n                    With a spear wounded,\n                    And to Odin offered\n                    Myself to myself.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nHEAT.\n\n    Demons of Fire--Agni--Asmodeus--Prometheus--Feast of fire--Moloch\n    --Tophet--Genii of the lamp--Bel-fires--Hallowe'en--Negro\n    superstitions--Chinese fire-god--Volcanic and incendiary demons--\n    Mangaian fire-demon--Demons' fear of water.\n\n\nFire was of old the element of fiends. No doubt this was in part due to\nthe fact that it also was a devouring element. Sacrifices were burnt;\nthe demon visibly consumed them. But the great flame-demons represent\nchiefly the destructive and painful action of intense heat. They\noriginate in regions of burning desert, of sunstroke, and drouth.\n\nAgni, the Hindu god of fire, was adored in Vedic hymns as the twin\nof Indra.\n\n'Thy appearance is fair to behold, thou bright-faced Agni, when like\ngold thou shinest at hand; thy brightness comes like the lightning\nof heaven; thou showest splendour like the splendour of the bright sun.\n\n'Adorable and excellent Agni, emit the moving and graceful smoke.\n\n'The flames of Agni are luminous, powerful, fearful, and not to\nbe trusted.\n\n'I extol the greatness of that showerer of rain, whom men celebrate\nas the slayer of Vritra: the Agni, Vaiswanara, slew the stealer of\nthe waters.'\n\nThe slaying of Vritra, the monster, being the chief exploit of Indra,\nAgni could only share in it as being the flame that darted with\nIndra's weapon, the disc (of the sun).\n\n'Thou (Agni) art laid hold off with difficulty, like the young of\ntortuously twining snakes, thou who art a consumer of many forests\nas a beast is of fodder.'\n\nPetrifaction awaits all these glowing metaphors of early time. Verbal\ninspiration will make Agni a literally tortuous serpent and consuming\nfire. His smoke, called Kali (black), is now the name of Siva's\nterrible bride.\n\nMuch is said in Vedic hymns of the method of producing the sacred\nflame symbolising Agni; namely, the rubbing together of two sticks. 'He\nit is whom the two sticks have engendered, like a new-born babe.' It\nis a curious coincidence that a similar phrase should describe 'the\ndevil on two sticks,' who has come by way of Persia into European\nromance. Asmodeus was a lame demon, and his 'two sticks' as 'Diable\nBoiteux' are crutches; but his lameness may be referable to the\nattenuated extremities suggested by spires of flame--'tortuously\ntwining snakes,'--rather than to the rabbinical myth that he broke\nhis leg on his way to meet Solomon. Benfey identified Asmodeus as\nZend A\u00eashma-da\u00eava, demon of lust. His goat-feet and fire-coal eyes\nare described by Le Sage, and the demon says he was lamed by falling\nfrom the air, like Vulcan, when contending with Pillardoc. It is not\ndifficult to imagine how flame engendered by the rubbing of sticks\nmight have attained personification as sensual passion, especially\namong Zoroastrians, who would detach from the adorable Fire all\nassociations of evil. It would harmonise well with the Persian\ntendency to diabolise Indian gods, that they should note the lustful\ncharacter occasionally ascribed to Agni in the Vedas. 'Him alone,\nthe ever-youthful Agni, men groom like a horse in the evening and\nat dawn; they bed him as a stranger in his couch; the light of Agni,\nthe worshipped male, is lighted.' Agni was the Indian 'Brulefer' or\nlove-charmer, and patron of marriage; the fire-god Hephaistos was the\nhusband of Aphrodite; the day of the Norse thunder-and-lightning god\nThor (Thursday), is in Scandinavian regions considered the luckiest\nfor marriages.\n\nThe process of obtaining fire by friction is represented by a nobler\nclass of myths than that referred to. In the Mah\u00e1bh\u00e1rata the gods\nand demons together churn the ocean for the nectar of immortality;\nand they use for their churning-stick the mountain Manthara. This word\nappears in pramantha, which means a fire-drill, and from it comes the\ngreat name of Prometheus, who stole fire from heaven, and conferred\non mankind a boon which rendered them so powerful that the jealousy\nand wrath of Zeus were excited. This fable is generally read in its\nhighly rationalised and mystical form, and on this account belongs to\nanother part of our general subject; but it may be remarked here that\nthe Titan so terribly tortured by Zeus could hardly have been regarded,\noriginally, as the friend of man. At the time when Zeus was a god\ngenuinely worshipped--when he first stood forth as the supplanter of\nthe malign devourer Saturn--it could have been no friend of man who\nwas seen chained on the rock for ever to be the vulture's prey. It\nwas fire in some destructive form which must have been then associated\nwith Prometheus, and not that power by which later myths represented\nhis animating with a divine spark the man of clay. The Hindu myth\nof churning the ocean for the immortal draught, even if it be proved\nthat the ocean is heaven and the draught lightning, does not help us\nmuch. The traditional association of Prometheus with the Arts might\nalmost lead one to imagine that the early use of fire by some primitive\ninventor had brought upon him the wrath of his mates, and that Zeus'\nthunderbolts represented some early 'strike' against machinery.\n\nIt is not quite certain that it may not have been through some\neuphemistic process that Fire-worship arose in Persia. Not only does\nfire occupy a prominent place in the tortures inflicted by Ahriman\nin the primitive Parsee Inferno, but it was one of the weapons by\nwhich he attempted to destroy the heavenly child Zoroaster. The evil\nmagicians kindled a fire in the desert and threw the child on it;\nbut his mother, Dogdo, found him sleeping tranquilly on the flames,\nwhich were as a pleasant bath, and his face shining like Zohore and\nMoschteri (Jupiter and Mercury). [31] The Zoroastrians also held\nthat the earth would ultimately be destroyed by fire; its metals and\nminerals, ignited by a comet, would form streams which all souls would\nhave to pass through: they would be pleasant to the righteous, but\nterrible to the sinful,--who, however, would come through, purified,\ninto paradise, the last to arrive being Ahriman himself.\n\nThe combustible nature of many minerals under the surface of the\nearth,--which was all the realm of Hades (invisible),--would assist\nthe notion of a fiery abode for the infernal gods. Our phrase 'plutonic\nrock' would then have a very prosaic sense. Pliny says that in his time\nsulphur was used to keep off evil spirits, and it is not impossible\nthat it first came to be used as a medicine by this route. [32]\n\nFire-festivals still exist in India, where the ancient raiment of Agni\nhas been divided up and distributed among many deities. At the popular\nannual festival in honour of Dharma Rajah, called the Feast of Fire,\nthe devotees walk barefoot over a glowing fire extending forty feet. It\nlasts eighteen days, during which time those that make a vow to keep\nit must fast, abstain from women, lie on the bare ground, and walk\non a brisk fire. The eighteenth day they assemble on the sound of\ninstruments, their heads crowned with flowers, their bodies daubed\nwith saffron, and follow the figures of Dharma Rajah and Draupadi\nhis wife in procession. When they come to the fire, they stir it\nto animate its activity, and take a little of the ashes, with which\nthey rub their foreheads; and when the gods have been carried three\ntimes round it they walk over a hot fire, about forty feet. Some\ncarry their children in their arms, and others lances, sabres, and\nstandards. After the ceremony the people press to collect the ashes\nto rub their foreheads with, and obtain from devotees the flowers\nwith which they were adorned, and which they carefully preserve. [33]\n\nThe passion of Agni reappears in Draupadi purified by fire for\nher five husbands, and especially her union with Dharma Rajah,\nson of Yama, is celebrated in this unorthodox passion-feast. It has\nbeen so much the fashion for travellers to look upon all 'idolatry'\nwith biblical eyes, that we cannot feel certain with Sonnerat that\nthere was anything more significant in the carrying of children by\nthe devotees, than the supposition that what was good for the parent\nwas equally beneficial to the child. But the identification of Moloch\nwith an Aryan deity is not important; the Indian Feast of Fire and\nthe rites of Moloch are derived by a very simple mental process\nfrom the most obvious aspects of the Sun as the quickening and the\nconsuming power in nature. The child offered to Moloch was offered\nto the god by whom he was generated, and as the most precious of all\nthe fruits of the earth for which his genial aid was implored and his\ndestructive intensity deprecated. Moloch, a word that means 'king,'\nwas a name almost synonymous with human sacrifice. It was in all\nprobability at first only a local (Ammonite) personification growing\nout of an ancient shrine of Baal. The Midianite Baal accompanied the\nIsraelites into the wilderness, and that worship was never thoroughly\neradicated. In the Egyptian Confession of Faith, which the initiated\ntook even into their graves inscribed upon a scroll, the name of\nGod is not mentioned, but is expressed only by the words Nuk pu Nuk,\n'I am he who I am.' [34] The flames of the burning bush, from which\nthese same words came to Moses, were kindled from Baal, the Sun;\nand we need not wonder that while the more enlightened chiefs of\nIsrael preserved the higher ideas and symbols of the countries they\nabandoned, the ignorant would still cling to Apis (the Golden Calf),\nto Ashtaroth, and to Moloch. Amos (v. 26), and after him Stephen the\nmartyr (Acts vii. 43), reproach the Hebrews with having carried into\nthe wilderness the tabernacle of their god Moloch. And though the\npassing of children through the fire to Moloch was, by the Mosaic Law,\nmade a capital crime, the superstition and the corresponding practice\nretained such strength that we find Solomon building a temple to Moloch\non the Mount of Olives (1 Kings xi. 7), and, long after, Manasseh\nmaking his son pass through the fire in honour of the same god.\n\nIt is certain from the denunciations of the prophets [35] that the\ndestruction of children in these flames was actual. From Jeremiah\nxix. 6, as well as other sources, we know that the burnings took\nplace in the Valley of Tophet or Hinnom (Gehenna). The idol Moloch\nwas of brass, and its throne of brass; its head was that of a calf,\nand wore a royal crown; its stomach was a furnace, and when the\nchildren were placed in its arms they were consumed by the fierce\nheat,--their cries being drowned by the beating of drums; from which,\ntoph meaning a 'drum,' the place was also called Tophet. In the fierce\nwar waged against alien superstitions by Josiah, he defiled Gehenna,\nfilling it with ordure and dead men's bones to make it odious, 'that\nno man might make his son or his daughter to pass through the fire\nto Moloch' (2 Kings xxiii. 10), and a perpetual fire was kept there\nto consume the filth of Jerusalem.\n\nFrom this horrible Gehenna, with its perpetual fire, its loathsome\nworm, its cruelties, has been derived the picture of a never-ending\nHell prepared for the majority of human beings by One who, while they\nlive on earth, sends the rain and sunshine alike on the evil and the\ngood. Wo Chang, a Chinaman in London, has written to a journal [36]\nhis surprise that our religious teachers should be seized with such\nconcern for the victims of Turkish atrocities in Bulgaria, while\nthey are so calm in view of the millions burning, and destined to\nburn endlessly, in the flames of hell. Our Oriental brothers will\nlearn a great deal from our missionaries; among other things, that\nthe theological god of Christendom is still Moloch.\n\nThe Ammonites, of whom Moloch was the special demon, appear to have\ngradually blended with the Arabians. These received from many sources\ntheir mongrel superstitions, but among them were always prominent\nthe planet-gods and fire-gods, whom their growing monotheism (to use\nthe word still in a loose sense) transformed to powerful angels and\ngenii. The genii of Arabia are slaves of the lamp; they are evoked\nby burning tufts of hair; they ascend as clouds of smoke. Though, as\nsubordinate agents of the Fire-fiend, they may be consumed by flames,\nyet those who so fight them are apt to suffer a like fate, as in the\ncase of the Lady of Beauty in the Arabian Nights' Entertainments. Many\nstories of this kind preceded the declarations of the Old Testament,\nthat Jehovah breathes fire and brimstone, his breath kindling Tophet;\nand also the passages of the Koran, and of the New Testament describing\nSatan as a fiery fiend.\n\nVarious superstitions connecting infernal powers with fire survive\namong the Jews of some remote districts of Europe. The Passover\nis kept a week by the Jewish inhabitants in the villages on the\nVosges mountains and on the banks of the Rhine. The time of omer is\nthe interval between the Passover and Pentecost, the seven weeks\nelapsing from the departure from Egypt and the giving of the law,\nmarked in former days by the offering of an omer of barley daily at\nthe temple. It is considered a fearful time, during which every Jew is\nparticularly exposed to the evil influence of evil spirits. There is\nsomething dangerous and fatal in the air; every one should be on the\nwatch, and not tempt the schedim (demons) in any way. Have a strict\neye upon your cattle, say the Jews, for the sorceress will get into\nyour stables, mount your cows and goats, bring diseases upon them,\nand turn their milk sour. In the latter case, try to lay your hand\nupon the suspected person; shut her up in a room with a basin of sour\nmilk, and beat the milk with a hazel-wand, pronouncing God's name\nthree times. Whilst you are doing this, the sorceress will make great\nlamentation, for the blows are falling upon her. Only stop when you see\nblue flames dancing on the surface of the milk, for then the charm is\nbroken. If at nightfall a beggar comes to ask for a little charcoal to\nlight his fire, be very careful not to give it, and do not let him go\nwithout drawing him three times by his coat-tail; and without losing\ntime, throw some large handfuls of salt on the fire. In all of which\nwe may trace traditions of parched wildernesses and fiery serpents,\nas well as of Abraham's long warfare with the Fire-worshippers, until,\naccording to the tradition, he was thrown into the flames he refused\nto worship.\n\nIt is probable that in all the popular superstitions which now\nconnect devils and future punishments with fire are blended both the\napotheosis and the degradation of demons. The first and most universal\nof deities being the Sun, whose earthly representative is fire, the\nstudent of Comparative Mythology has to pick his way very carefully\nin tracing by any ethnological path the innumerable superstitions of\nEuropean folklore in which Fire-worship is apparently reflected. The\ncollection of facts and records contained in a work so accessible to\nall who care to pursue the subject as that of Brand and his editors,\n[37] renders it unnecessary that I should go into the curious facts\nto any great extent here. The uniformity of the traditions by which\nthe midsummer fires of Northern Europe have been called Baal-fires or\nBel-fires warrant the belief that they are actually descended from\nthe ancient rites of Baal, even apart from the notorious fact that\nthey have so generally been accompanied by the superstition that\nit is a benefit to children to leap over or be passed through such\nfires. That this practice still survives in out-of-the way places of\nthe British Empire appears from such communications as the following\n(from the Times), which are occasionally addressed to the London\njournals:--'Lerwick (Shetland), July 7, 1871.--Sir,--It may interest\nsome of your readers to know that last night (being St. John's Eve,\nold style) I observed, within a mile or so of this town, seven bonfires\nblazing, in accordance with the immemorial custom of celebrating the\nMidsummer solstice. These fires were kindled on various heights around\nthe ancient hamlet of Sound, and the children leaped over them, and\n'passed through the fire to Moloch,' just as their ancestors would\nhave done a thousand years ago on the same heights, and their still\nremoter progenitors in Eastern lands many thousand years ago. This\npersistent adherence to mystic rites in this scientific epoch seems\nto me worth taking note of.--A. J.'\n\nTo this may be added the following recent extract from a Scotch\njournal:--\n\n'Hallowe'en was celebrated at Balmoral Castle with unusual ceremony,\nin the presence of her Majesty, the Princess Beatrice, the ladies\nand gentlemen of the royal household, and a large gathering of the\ntenantry. The leading features of the celebration were a torchlight\nprocession, the lighting of large bonfires, and the burning in effigy\nof witches and warlocks. Upwards of 150 torch-bearers assembled at\nthe castle as dark set in, and separated into two parties, one band\nproceeding to Invergelder, and the other remaining at Balmoral. The\ntorches were lighted at a quarter before six o'clock, and shortly\nafter the Queen and Princess Beatrice drove to Invergelder, followed\nby the Balmoral party of torchbearers. The two parties then united\nand returned in procession to the front of Balmoral Castle, where\nrefreshments were served to all, and dancing was engaged in round a\nhuge bonfire. Suddenly there appeared from the rear of the Castle a\ngrotesque apparition representing a witch with a train of followers\ndressed like sprites, who danced and gesticulated in all fashions. Then\nfollowed a warlock of demoniac shape, who was succeeded by another\nwarlock drawing a car, on which was seated the figure of a witch,\nsurrounded by other figures in the garb of demons. The unearthly\nvisitors having marched several times round the burning pile,\nthe principal figure was taken from the car and tossed into the\nflames amid the burning of blue lights and a display of crackers\nand fireworks. The health of her Majesty the Queen was then pledged,\nand drunk with Highland honours by the assembled hundreds. Dancing\nwas then resumed, and was carried on till a late hour at night.'\n\nThe Sixth Council of Constantinople (an. 680), by its sixty-fifth\ncanon, forbids these fires in the following terms:--'Those bonefires\nthat are kindled by certain people before their shops and houses,\nover which also they use ridiculously to leap, by a certain ancient\ncustom, we command them from henceforth to cease. Whoever, therefore,\nshall do any such thing, if he be a clergyman, let him be deposed;\nif he be a layman, let him be excommunicated. For in the Fourth Book\nof the Kings it is thus written: And Manasseh built an altar to all\nthe host of heaven, in the two courts of the Lord's house, and made\nhis children to pass through the fire.' There is a charming na\u00efvet\u00e9\nin this denunciation. It is no longer doubtful that this 'bonefire'\nover which people leaped came from the same source as that Gehenna\nfrom which the Church derived the orthodox theory of hell, as we have\nalready seen. When Shakespeare speaks (Macbeth) of 'the primrose way\nto the everlasting bonfire,' [38] he is, with his wonted felicity,\nassigning the flames of hell and the fires of Moloch and Baal their\nright arch\u00e6ological relation.\n\nIn my boyhood I have often leaped over a bonfire in a part of the\nState of Virginia mainly settled by Scotch families, with whom\nprobably the custom migrated thither. In the superstitions of the\nnegroes of that and other Southern States fire plays a large part,\nbut it is hardly possible now to determine whether they have drifted\nthere from Africa or England. Sometimes there are queer coincidences\nbetween their notions and some of the early legends of Britain. Thus,\nthe tradition of the shepherd guided by a distant fire to the entrance\nof King Arthur's subterranean hall, where a flame fed by no fuel\ncoming through the floor reveals the slumbering monarch and his court,\nresembles somewhat stories I have heard from negroes of their being led\nby distant fires to lucky--others say unlucky--or at any rate enchanted\nspots. A negro belonging to my father told me that once, as he was\nwalking on a country road, he saw a great fire in the distance; he\nsupposed it must be a house on fire, and hastened towards it, meantime\nmuch puzzled, since he knew of no house in that direction. As he went\non his way he turned into a small wood near which the fire seemed to\nbe, but when he emerged, all he found was a single fire-coal burning\nin the path. There were no other traces whatever of fire, but just\nthen a large dog leaped past him with a loud bark and disappeared.\n\nIn a letter on 'Voudouism in Virginia,' which appeared in the New\nYork Tribune, dated Richmond, September 17, 1875, occurs an account\nof a class of superstitions generally kept close from the whites,\nas I have always believed because of their purely African origin. As\nwill be seen, fire represents an important element in the superstitious\npractices.\n\n'If an ignorant negro is smitten with a disease which he cannot\ncomprehend, he often imagines himself the victim of witchcraft,\nand having no faith in 'white folks' physic' for such ailments,\nmust apply to one of these quacks. A physician residing near this\ncity was invited by such a one to witness his mode of procedure\nwith a dropsical patient for whom the physician in question had\noccasionally charitably prescribed. Curiosity led him to attend the\nseance, having previously informed the quack that since the case was\nin such hands he relinquished all connection with it. On the coverlet\nof the bed on which the sick man lay was spread a quantity of bones,\nfeathers, and other trash. The charlatan went through with a series of\nso-called conjurations, burned feathers, hair, and tiny fragments of\nwood in a charcoal furnace, and mumbled gibberish past the physician's\ncomprehension. He then proceeded to rip open the pillows and bolsters,\nand took from them some queer conglomerations of feathers. These he\nsaid had caused all the trouble. Sprinkling a whitish powder over them,\nhe burnt them in his furnace. A black offensive smoke was produced,\nand he announced triumphantly that the evil influence was destroyed\nand that the patient would surely get well. He died not many days\nlater, believing, in common with all his friends and relatives, that\nthe conjurations of the 'trick doctor' had failed to save him only\nbecause resorted to too late.'\n\nThe following account of a spell from which his wife was rescued,\nwas given me by a negro in Virginia:--\n\n'The wizard,' to quote the exact words of my informant, 'threw a stick\non a chest; the stick bounded like a trapball three times; then he\nopened the chest, took out something looking like dust or clay, and\nput it into a cup with water over a fire; then he poured it over a\nboard (after chopping it three times), which he then put up beneath\nthe shingles of the house. Returning to the chest he took a piece of\nold chain, near the length of my hand, took a hoe and buried the chain\nnear the sill of the door of my wife's house where she would pass;\nthen he went away. I saw my wife coming and called to her not to pass,\nand to go for a hoe and dig up the place. She did this, and I took\nup the chain, which burned the ends of all my fingers clean off. The\nsame night the conjuror came back: my wife took two half dollars and\na quarter in silver and threw them on the ground before him. The man\nseemed as if he was shocked, and then offered her his hand, which\nshe refused to take, as I had bid her not to let him touch her. He\nleft and never came to the house again. The spell was broken.'\n\nI am convinced that this is a pure Voudou procedure, and it is\ninteresting in several regards. The introduction of the chain may have\nbeen the result of the excitement of the time, for it was during the\nwar when negroes were breaking their chains. The fire and water show\nhow wide-spread in Africa is that double ordeal which, as we have\nseen, is well known in the kingdom of Dahomey. [39] But the mingling\nof 'something like dust' with the water held in a cup over the fire,\nis strongly suggestive of the Jewish method of preparing holy water,\n'the water of separation.' 'For an unclean person they shall take of\nthe dust of the burnt heifer of purification for sin, and running\nwater shall be put thereto in a vessel.' [40] The fiery element\nof the mixture was in this case imported with the ashes of the red\nheifer. As for this sacrifice of the red heifer itself [41] it was\nplainly the propitiation of a fiery demon. In Egypt red hair and red\nanimals of all kinds were considered infernal, and all the details\nof this sacrifice show that the colour of this selected heifer was\ntypical. The heifer was not a usual sacrifice: a red one was obviously\nby its colour marked for the genii of fire--the terrible Seven--and\nnot to be denied them. Its blood was sprinkled seven times before the\ntabernacle, and the rest was utterly consumed--including the hide,\nwhich is particularly mentioned--and the ashes taken to make the\n'water of separation.' Calmet notes, in this connection, that the\nApis of India was red-coloured.\n\nThe following interesting story of the Chinese Fire-god was supplied\nto Mr. Dennys [42] by Mr. Playfair of H.M. Consulate, to whom it was\nrelated in Peking:--\n\n'The temples of the God of Fire are numerous in Peking, as is natural\nin a city built for the most part of very combustible materials. The\nidols representing the god are, with one exception, decked with red\nbeards, typifying by their colour the element under his control. The\nexceptional god has a white beard, and 'thereby hangs a tale.'\n\n'A hundred years ago the Chinese imperial revenue was in much\nbetter case than it is now. At that time they had not yet come into\ncollision with Western Powers, and the word 'indemnity' had not,\nso far, found a place in their vocabulary; internal rebellions were\nchecked as soon as they broke out, and, in one word, Kien Lung was in\nless embarrassed circumstances than Kwang Hsu; he had more money to\nspend, and did lay out a good deal in the way of palaces. His favourite\nbuilding, and one on which no expense had been spared, was the 'Hall of\nContemplation.' This hall was of very large dimensions; the rafters and\nthe pillars which supported the roof were of a size such as no trees\nin China furnish now-a-days. They were not improbably originally sent\nas an offering by the tributary monarch of some tropical country, such\nas Burmah or Siam. Two men could barely join hands round the pillars;\nthey were cased in lustrous jet-black lacquer, which, while adding to\nthe beauty of their appearance, was also supposed to make them less\nliable to combustion. Indeed, every care was taken that no fire should\napproach the building; no lighted lamp was allowed in the precincts,\nand to have smoked a pipe inside those walls would have been punished\nwith death. The floor of the hall was of different-coloured marbles,\nin a mosaic of flowers and mystic Chinese characters, always kept\npolished like a mirror. The sides of the room were lined with rare\nbooks and precious manuscripts. It was, in short, the finest palace\nin the imperial city, and it was the pride of Kien Lung.\n\n'Alas for the vanity of human wishes! In spite of every precaution,\none night a fire broke out, and the Hall of Contemplation was in\ndanger. The Chinese of a century ago were not without fire-engines,\nand though miserably inefficient as compared with those of our London\nfire brigade, they were better than nothing, and a hundred of them\nwere soon working round the burning building. The Emperor himself\ncame out to superintend their efforts and encourage them to renewed\nexertions. But the hall was doomed; a more than earthly power was\ndirecting the flames, and mortal efforts were of no avail. For on\none of the burning rafters Kien Lung saw the figure of a little old\nman, with a long white beard, standing in a triumphant attitude. 'It\nis the God of Fire,' said the Emperor, 'we can do nothing;' so the\nbuilding was allowed to blaze in peace. Next day Kien Lung appointed a\ncommission to go the round of the Peking temples in order to discover\nin which of them there was a Fire-god with a white beard, that he\nmight worship him, and appease the offended deity. The search was\nfruitless; all the Fire-gods had red beards. But the commission had\ndone its work badly; being highly respectable mandarins of genteel\nfamilies, they had confined their search to such temples as were\nin good repair and of creditable exterior. Outside the north gate\nof the imperial city was one old, dilapidated, disreputable shrine\nwhich they had overlooked. It had been crumbling away for years, and\neven the dread figure of the God of Fire, which sat above the altar,\nhad not escaped desecration. 'Time had thinned his flowing locks,'\nand the beard had fallen away altogether. One day some water-carriers\nwho frequented the locality thought, either in charity or by way\nof a joke, that the face would look the better for a new beard. So\nthey unravelled some cord, and with the frayed-out hemp adorned the\nbeardless chin. An official passing the temple one day peeped in out\nof curiosity, and saw the hempen beard. 'Just the thing the Emperor\nwas inquiring about,' said he to himself, and he took the news to\nthe palace without delay. Next day there was a state visit to the\ndilapidated temple, and Kien Lung made obeisance and vowed a vow.\n\n'O Fire-god,' said he, 'thou hast been wroth with me in that I have\nbuilt me palaces, and left thy shrine unhonoured and in ruins. Here do\nI vow to build thee a temple surpassed by none other of the Fire-gods\nin Peking; but I shall expect thee in future not to meddle with\nmy palaces.'\n\n'The Emperor was as good as his word. The new temple is on the site of\nthe old one, and the Fire-god has a flowing beard of fine white hair.'\n\nIn the San Francisco Bulletin, I recently read a description of the\ncelebration by the Chinese in that city of their Feast for the Dead,\nin which there are some significant features. The chief attention\nwas paid, says the reporter, to a figure 'representing what answers\nin their theology to our devil, and whom they evidently think it\nnecessary to propitiate before proceeding with their worship over\nindividual graves.' This figure is on the west side of their temple;\nbefore and around it candles and joss-sticks were kept burning. On\nthe east side was the better-looking figure, to which they paid\ncomparatively little attention.\n\nIt was of course but natural that the demons of fire should\ngradually be dispelled from that element in its normal aspects, as\nits uses became more important through human invention, and its evil\npossibilities were mastered. Such demons became gradually located in\nthe region of especially dangerous fires, as volcanoes and boiling\nsprings. The Titan whom the ancients believed struggling beneath\n\u00c6tna remained there as the Devil in the christian age. St. Agatha\nis said to have prevented his vomiting fire for a century by her\nprayers. St. Philip ascended the same mountain, and with book and\ncandle pronounced a prayer of exorcism, at which three devils came\nout like fiery flying stones, crying, 'Woe is us! we are still hunted\nby Peter through Philip the Elder!' The volcanoes originated the\nbelief that hell is at the earth's centre, and their busy Vulcans of\nclassic ages have been easily transformed into sulphurous lords of\nthe christian Hell. Such is the medi\u00e6val Haborym, demon of arson,\nwith his three heads--man, cat, and serpent--who rides through the\nair mounted on a serpent, and bears in his hand a flaming torch. The\nastrologers assigned him command of twenty-six legions of demons in\nhell, and the superstitious often saw him laughing on the roofs of\nburning houses. [43] But still more dignified is Raum, who commands\nthirty legions, and who destroys villages; hence, also, concerned in\nthe destructions of war, he became the demon who awards dignities;\nand although this made his usual form of apparition on the right bank\nof the Rhine that of the Odinistic raven, on the left bank he may be\ndetected in the little red man who was reported as the familiar of\nNapoleon I. during his career.\n\nAmong Mr. Gill's South Pacific myths is one of a Prometheus, Maui, who\nby assistance of a red pigeon gets from the subterranean fire-demon\nthe secret of producing fire (by rubbing sticks), the demon (Mauike)\nbeing then consumed with his realm, and fire being brought to the\nupper world to remain the friend of man. In Vedic legend, when the\nworld was enveloped in darkness, the gods prayed to Agni, who suddenly\nburst out as Tvashtri--pure fire, the Vedic Vulcan--to the dismay of\nthe universe. In Eddaic sagas, Loki was deemed the most voracious of\nbeings until defeated in an eating match with Logi (devouring fire).\n\nSurvivals of belief in the fiery nature of demons are very\nnumerous. Thus it is a very common belief that the Devil cannot touch\nor cross water, and may therefore be escaped by leaping a stream. This\nhas sometimes been supposed to have something to do with the purifying\ncharacter of water; but there are many instances in Christian folklore\nwhere the Devil is shown quite independent of even holy water if it\nis not sprinkled on him or does not wet his feet. Thus in the Norfolk\nlegend concerning St. Godric, the Devil is said to have thrown the\nvessel with its holy water at the saint's head out of anger at his\nsinging a canticle which the Virgin taught him. But when the Devil\nattacked him in various ferocious animal shapes, St. Godric escaped\nby running into the Wear, where he sometimes stood all night in water\nup to his neck.\n\nThe Kobolds get the red jackets they are said to wear from their fiery\nnature. Originally the lar familiaris of Germany, the Kobold became\nof many varieties; but in one line he has been developed from the\nhouse-spirit, whose good or evil temper was recognised in the comforts\nor dangers of fire, to a special Stone-demon. The hell-dog in Faust's\nroom takes refuge from the spell of 'Solomon's Key' behind the stone,\nand is there transformed to human shape. The German maidens read many\npretty oracles in the behaviour of the fire, and the like in that of\nits fellow Wahrsager the house-dog. It is indeed a widespread notion\nthat imps and witches lurk about the fireside, obviously in cat and\ndog, and ride through the air on implements that usually stand about\nthe fire,--shovel, tongs, or broom. In Paris it was formerly the\ncustom to throw twenty-four cats into the fire on St. John's night,\nthe animals being, according to M. De Plancy, emblems of the devil. So\nwas replaced the holocaust of human witches, until at last civilisation\nrang out its curfew for all such fires as that.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nCOLD.\n\n    Descent of Ishtar into Hades--Bardism--Baldur--Hercules--Christ\n    --Survivals of the Frost Giant in Slavonic and other countries--\n    The Clavie--The Frozen Hell--The Northern abode of demons--North\n    side of churches.\n\n\nEven across immemorial generations it is impossible to read without\nemotion the legend of the Descent of Ishtar into Hades. [44] Through\nseven gates the goddess of Love passes in search of her beloved,\nand at each some of her ornaments and clothing are removed by the\ndread guardian. Ishtar enters naked into the presence of the Queen\nof Death. But gods, men, and herds languish in her absence, and the\nwonder-working Hea, the Saviour, so charms the Infernal Queen, that\nshe bids the Judge of her realm, Annunak, absolve Ishtar from his\ngolden throne.\n\n\n\n'He poured out for Ishtar the waters of life and let her go.\nThen the first gate let her forth, and restored to her the first\ngarment of her body.\nThe second gate let her forth, and restored to her the diamonds of\nher hands and feet.\nThe third gate let her forth, and restored to her the central girdle\nof her waist.\nThe fourth gate let her forth, and restored to her the small lovely\ngems of her forehead.\nThe fifth gate let her forth, and restored to her the precious stones\nof her head.\nThe sixth gate let her forth, and restored to her the earrings of\nher ears.\nThe seventh gate let her forth, and restored to her the great crown\non her head.'\n\n\n\nThis old miracle-play of Nature--the return of summer flower by\nflower--is deciphered from an ancient Assyrian tablet in a town\nwithin only a few hours of another, where a circle of worshippers\nrepeat the same at every solstice! Myfyr Morganwg, the Arch-Druid,\nadores still Hea by name as his Saviour, and at the winter solstice\nassembles his brethren to celebrate his coming to bruise the head\nof the Serpent of Hades (Annwn, nearly the same as in the tablet),\nthat seedtime and harvest shall not fail. [45]\n\nIs this a survival? No doubt; but there is no cult in the world which,\nif 'scratched,' as the proverb says, will not reveal beneath it the\nsame conception. However it may be spiritualised, every 'plan of\nsalvation' is cast in the mould of Winter conquered by the Sun, the\nDescent of Love to the Under World, the delivery of the imprisoned\ngerms of Life.\n\nIt is very instructive to compare with the myth of Ishtar that of\nHerm\u00f6dr, seeking the release of Baldur the Beautiful from Helheim.\n\nThe deadly powers of Winter are represented in the Eddaic account\nof the death of Baldur, soft summer Light, the Norse Baal. His blind\nbrother H\u00f6dr is Darkness; the demon who directed his arrow is Loki,\nsubterranean fire; the arrow itself is of mistletoe, which, fostered by\nWinter, owes no duty to Baldur; and the realm to which he is borne is\nthat of Hel, the frozen zone. Herm\u00f6dr, having arrived, assured Hel that\nthe gods were in despair for the loss of Baldur. The Queen replied that\nit should now be tried whether Baldur was so beloved. 'If, therefore,\nall things in the world, both living and lifeless, weep for him, he\nshall return to the \u00c6sir.' In the end all wept but the old hag Thokk\n(Darkness), who from her cavern sang--\n\n\n\nThokk will wail\nWith dry eyes\nBaldur's bale-fire.\nNought quick or dead\nFor Carl's son care I.\nLet Hel hold her own.\n\n\n\nSo Baldur remained in Helheim. The myth very closely resembles that\nof Ishtar's Descent. In similar accent the messenger of the Southern\ngods weeps and lacerates himself as he relates the grief of the\nupper world, and all men and animals 'since the time that mother\nIshtar descended into Hades.' But in the latter the messenger is\nsuccessful, in the North he is unsuccessful. In the corresponding\nmyths of warm and sunny climes the effort at release is more or\nless successful, in proportion to the extent of winter. In Adonis\nreleased from Hades for four months every year, and another four if\nhe chose to abandon Persephone for Aphrodite, we have a reflection of\na variable year. That, and the similar myth of Persephone, varied in\nthe time specified for their passing in the upper and under worlds,\nprobably in accordance with the climatic averages of the regions in\nwhich they were told. But in the tropics it was easy to believe the\nrelease complete, as in the myth of Ishtar. In Mangaian myths the hero,\nMaui, escapes from a nether world of fire, aided by a red pigeon.\n\nWhen this contest between Winter's Death and Spring's Life became\nhumanised, it was as Hercules vanquishing Death and completely\nreleasing Alcestis. When it became spiritualised it was as Christ\nconquering Death and Hell, and releasing the spirits from prison. The\nwintry desolation had to be artificially imitated in a forty days' fast\nand Lent, closing with a thrust from the spear (the mistletoe arrow)\namid darkness (blind H\u00f6dr). But the myth of a swift resurrection\nhad to be artificially preserved in the far North. The legend of a\nfull triumph over Death and Hell could never have originated among\nour Norse ancestors. Their only story resembling it, that of Iduna,\nrelated how her recovery from the Giants brought back health to the\ngods, not men. But it was from the South that men had to hear tidings\nof a rescue for the earth and man.\n\nWe cannot realise now what glad tidings were they which told this new\ngospel to peoples sitting in regions of ice and gloom, after it had\nbeen imposed on them against their reluctant fears. In manifold forms\nthe old combat was renewed in their festivals, and peoples who had\nlong been prostrate and helpless before the terrible powers of nature\nwere never weary of the Southern fables of heroic triumphs over them,\nlong interpreted in the simple physical sense.\n\nThe great Demon of the Northern World is still Winter, and the\nhereditary hatred of him is such that he is still cursed, scourged,\nkilled, and buried or drowned under various names and disguises. In\nevery Slavonic country, says Mr. Ralston, there are to be found,\nabout carnival time, traces of ancient rites, intended to typify the\ndeath of Winter and the birth of Spring or Summer. In Poland a puppet\nmade of hemp or straw is flung into a pond or swamp with the words,\n'The Devil take thee!' Then the participators in the deed scamper home,\nand if one of them stumbles and falls it is believed he will die within\nthe year. In Upper Lausatia a similar figure is fastened on a pole to\nbe pelted, then taken to the village boundary and thrown across it or\ncast into the water, its bearers returning with green boughs. Sometimes\nthe figure is shrouded in white, representing snow, and bears in its\nhands a broom (the sweeping storm) and a sickle (the fatal reaper). In\nRussia the 'Straw Mujik' is burned, and also in Bulgaria; in the latter\nthe bonfire is accompanied by the firing of guns, and by dances and\nsongs to Lado, goddess of Spring. This reminiscence of Leto, on whose\naccount Apollo slew the Python, is rendered yet more striking by the\nweek of archery which accompanies it, recalling the sunbeam darts of\nthe god. In Spain and Italy the demon puppet is scourged under the name\nof Judas, as indeed is the case in the annual Good Friday performance\nof Portuguese sailors in the London Docks. Mr. Tylor found in Mexico a\nsimilar custom, the Judas being a regular horned and hoofed devil. In\nScotland the pre-christian accessories of a corresponding custom are\nmore pronounced both in the time selected (the last day of the year,\nold style) and the place. 'The Clavie,' as the custom of burning the\npuppet of Winter is mysteriously called, occurred on January 12 of\nthis year (1878) at Burghead, a fishing village near Forres, where\nstands an old Roman altar locally named the 'Douro.' A tar-barrel\nwas set on fire and carried by a fisherman round the town, while the\npeople shouted and hallooed. (If the man who carries the barrel falls\nit is an evil omen.) The lighted barrel, having gone round the town,\nwas carried to the top of the hill and placed on the Douro. More fuel\nwas added. The sparks as they fly upwards are supposed to be witches\nand evil spirits leaving the town; the people therefore shout at and\ncurse them as they disappear in vacancy. When the burning tar-barrel\nfalls in pieces, the fishwomen rush in and endeavour to get a lighted\nbit of wood from its remains; with this light the fire on the cottage\nhearth is at once kindled, and it is considered lucky to keep this\nflame alive all the rest of the year. The charcoal of the Clavie is\ncollected and put in bits up the chimney to prevent the witches and\nevil spirits coming into the house. The Douro is covered with a thick\nlayer of tar from the fires that are annually lighted upon it. Close\nto it is a very ancient Roman well.\n\nIt is an instance of the irony of etymology that the word 'Hell'\nmeans a place of fireless darkness. Nor is the fact that the name of\nthe Scandinavian demoness Hel, phonetically corresponding with Kali,\n'the Black One' (Goth. Halja), whose abode was an icy hole, has her\nname preserved as a place of fiery torment, without significance. In\nregions where cold was known to an uncomfortable extent as well\nas heat, we usually find it represented in the ideas of future\npunishment. The realm called Hades, meaning just the same as Hell,\nsuggests cold. Tertullian and Jerome say that Christ's own phrases\n'outer darkness' and the 'gnashing (chattering) of teeth' suggest a\nplace of extreme cold alternating with the excessive heat. Traces of\nsimilar speculations are found with the Rabbins. Thus Rabbi Joseph\nsays Gehenna had both water and fire. Noah saw the angel of death\napproaching and hid from him twelve months. Why twelve? Because\n(explains Rabbi Jehuda) such is the trial of sinners,--six in water,\nsix in fire. Dante (following Virgil) has frigid as well as burning\nhells; and the idea was refined by some scholiasts to a statement\nwhich would seem to make the alternations of future punishment amount\nto a severe ague and fever. Milton (Paradise Lost, ii.) has blended\nthe rabbinical notions with those of Virgil (\u00c6n. vi.) in his terrible\npicture of the frozen continent, where\n\n\n\n                              The parching air\nBurns frore, and cold performs th' effect of fire:\nThither by harpy-footed Furies haled\nAt certain revolutions all the damn'd\nAre brought; and feel by turns the bitter change\nOf fierce extremes, extremes by change more fierce,\nFrom beds of raging fire to starve in ice\nTheir soft etherial warmth, and there to pine\nImmovable, infix'd, and frozen round.\n\n\n\nWith which may be compared Shakespeare's lines in 'Measure for\nMeasure'--\n\n\n                The de-lighted spirit\nTo bathe in fiery floods, or to reside\nIn thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice.\n\n\n\nIn Thibet hell is believed to have sixteen circles, eight burning,\neight frozen, which M. Delepierre attributes to the rapid changes of\ntheir climate between the extremes of heat and cold. [46] Plutarch,\nrelating the vision of Thespesius in Hades, speaks of the frozen region\nthere. Denys le Chartreux (De Poenis Inferni) says the severest of\ninfernal torments is freezing. In the 'Kalendar of Shepherds' (1506)\na legend runs:--'Lazarus sayde, 'I sawe a flode of frosone yce in\nthe whiche envyous men and women were plonged unto the navyll, and\nthen sodynly came a colde wynde ryght great that blewe and dyd depe\ndowne all the envyous into the colde water that nothynge was seen of\nthem.' Such, too, is Persian Ard\u00e1 Vir\u00e1f's vision.\n\nThe Demon of Cold has a habitat, naturally, in every\nNorthern region. He is the Ke-mung of China, who--man-shaped,\ndragon-headed--haunts the Chang river, and causes rain-storms. [47] In\nGreenland it is Erleursortok, who suffers perpetual agues, and leaps\non souls at death to satisfy his hunger. The Chenoos (demons) of the\nMimacs of Nova Scotia present certain features of the race-demons,\nbut are fearfully cold. The Chenoo weapon is a dragon's horn, his\nyell is fatal to the hearer, his heart is a block of ice. This heart\nmust be destroyed if the demon is to be slain, but it can only be\ndone by melting in the fire: the chief precaution required is that\none is not drowned in the flood so caused. The icy demon survived\nlong in Scotland. Sir James Melville, in his 'Memoirs,' says 'the\nspirit or devil that helped the Scottish witches to raise a storm\nin the sea of Norway was cold as ice and his body hard as iron;\nhis face was terrible, his nose like the beak of an eagle, great\nburning eyes, his hands and legs hairy, with claws on his nails like\na griffin.' Dr. Fian was burnt for raising this demon to oppose James\nI. on his stormy passage from Denmark.\n\nThis type of demon haunted people's minds in Scandinavia, where,\nthough traditions of a flame demon (Loki) and the end of the world\nby fire were imported, the popular belief seems to have been mainly\noccupied with Frost giants, and the formidable Oegir, god of the\nbleak sea east winds, preserved in our word awe (Anglo-Saxon ege),\nand more directly in the name of our familiar demon, the Ogre,\nso often slain in the child's Gladsheim. Loki (fire) was, indeed,\nspeedily relegated by the \u00c6sir (gods) to a hidden subterraneous\nrealm, where his existence could only be known by the earthquakes,\ngeysers, and Hecla eruptions which he occasioned. Yet he was to come\nforth at Ragnar\u00f6k, the Twilight of the Gods. We can see a singular\nblending of tropical and frigid zones--the one traditional, the other\nnative--in the Prose Edda. Thus:--'What will remain,' said Gangler,\n'after heaven and earth and the whole universe shall be consumed,\nand after all the gods and the homes of Valhalla and all mankind\nshall have perished?' 'There will be many abodes,' replied Thridi,\n'some good, some bad. The best place of all to be in will be Gimil,\nin heaven; and all who delight in quaffing good drink will find a\ngreat store in the hall called Brimir, which is also in heaven in the\nregion Okolni. There is also a fair hall of ruddy gold, (for) Sindri,\nwhich stands on the mountains of Nida. In those halls righteous and\nwell-minded men shall abide. In N\u00e1-str\u00f6nd there is a vast and direful\nstructure with doors that face the north. It is formed entirely of the\nbacks of serpents, wattled together like wicker-work. But the serpents'\nheads are turned towards the inside of the hall, and continually vomit\nforth floods of venom, in which wade all those who commit murder or\nwho forswear themselves. As it is said in the V\u00f6lusp\u00e1:--\n\n\n\nShe saw a hall\nFar from the sun\nIn N\u00e1str\u00f6nd standing,\nNorthward the doors look,\nAnd venom-drops\nFall in through loopholes.\nFormed is that hall\nOf wreathed serpents.\nThere saw she wade\nThrough heavy streams\nMen forsworn\nAnd murderers.\n\n\n\nThese names for the heavenly regions and their occupants indicate\nsunshine and fire. Gimil means fire (g\u00edmr): Brimir (br\u00edmi, flame),\nthe giant, and Sindri (cinder), the dwarf, jeweller of the gods,\nare raised to halls of gold. Nothing is said of a garden, or walking\ntherein 'in the cool of the day.' On the other hand, N\u00e1-str\u00f6nd means\nStrand of the Dead, in that region whose 'doors face the north, far\nfrom the sun,' we behold an inferno of extreme cold. Christianity\nhas not availed to give the Icelanders any demonic name suggestive of\nfire. They speak of 'Skratti' (the roarer, perhaps our Old Scratch),\nand 'Kolski' (the coal black one), but promise nothing so luminous\nand comfortable as fire or fire-fiend to the evil-doer.\n\nIn the great Epic of the Nibelungen Lied we have probably the shape\nin which the Northman's dream of Paradise finally cohered,--a\nRose-garden in the South, guarded by a huge Worm (water-snake,\nor glittering glacial sea intervening), whose glowing charms, with\nBeauty (Chriemhild) for their queen, could be won only by a brave\ndragon-slaying Siegfried. In passing by the pretty lakeside home of\nRichard Wagner, on my way to witness the Ammergau version of another\ndragon-binding and paradise-regaining legend, I noted that the\nold name of the (Starnberg) lake was Wurmsee, from the dragon that\nonce haunted it, while from the composer's window might be seen its\n'Isle of Roses,' which the dragon guarded. Since then the myth of\nmany forms has had its musical apotheosis at Bayreuth under his wand.\n\nEngland, partly perhaps on account of its harsh climate, once had the\nreputation of being the chief abode of demons. A demoness leaving her\nlover on the Continent says, 'My mother is calling me in England.' [48]\nBut England assigned them still higher latitudes; in christianising\nIreland, Iona, and other islands far north, it was preliminary to\nexpel the demons. 'The Clavie,' the 'Deis-iuil' of Lewis and other\nHebrides islands--fire carried round cattle to defend them from demons,\nand around mothers not yet churched, to keep the babes from being\n'changed'--show that the expulsion still goes on, though in such\nregions Norse and christian notions have become so jumbled that it is\n'fighting the devil with fire.' So in the Havamal men are warned to\ninvoke 'fire for distempers;' and Gudrun sings--\n\n\n\nRaise, ye Jarls, an oaken pile;\nLet it under heaven the lightest be.\nMay it burn a breast full of woes!\nThe fire round my heart its sorrows melt.\n\n\n\nThe last line is in contrast with the Hindu saying, 'the flame of\nher husband's pyre cools the widow's breast.'\n\nThe characters of the Northern Heaven and Hell survive in the English\ncustom of burying the dead on the southern side of a church. How widely\nthis usage prevailed in Brand's time may be seen by reference to his\nchapter on churchyards. The north side of the graveyard was set apart\nfor unbaptized infants and executed criminals, and it was permitted\nthe people to dance or play tennis in that part. Dr. Lee says that in\nthe churchyard at Morwenstow the southern portion only contains graves,\nthe north part being untenanted; as the Cornish believe (following old\ntraditions) that the north is the region of demons. In some parishes\nof Cornwall when a baptism occurs the north door of the nave opposite\nthe font is thrown open, so that the devil cast out may retire to his\nown region, the north. [49] This accords with the saying in Martin's\n'Month's Mind'--ab aquilone omne malum.\n\nIndeed, it is not improbable that the fact noted by White, in his\n'History of Selborne,' that 'the usual approach to most country\nchurches is by the south,' indicated a belief that the sacred edifice\nshould turn its back on the region of demons. It is a singular instance\nof survival which has brought about the fact that people who listen\ndevoutly to sermons describing the fiery character of Satan and his\nabode should surround the very churches in which those sermons are\nheard with evidences of their lingering faith that the devil belongs to\nthe region of ice, and that their dead must be buried in the direction\nof the happy abodes of Brimir and Sindri,--Fire and Cinders!\n\nM. Fran\u00e7ois Lenormant has written an extremely instructive chapter\nin comparison of the Accadian and the Finnish mythologies. He there\nshows that they are as one and the same tree, adapted to antagonistic\nclimates. [50] With similar triad, runes, charms, and even names in\nsome cases, their regard for the fire worshipped by both varies in a\nway that seems at first glance somewhat anomalous. The Accadians in\ntheir fire-worship exhausted the resources of praise in ascription of\nglory and power to the flames; the Finns in their cold home celebrated\nthe fire festival at the winter solstice, uttered invocations over\nthe fire, and the mother of the family, with her domestic libation,\nsaid: 'Always rise so high, O my flame, but burn not larger nor more\nardent!' This diminution of enthusiasm in the Northern fire-worshipper,\nas compared with the Southern, may only be the result of euphemism in\nthe latter; or perhaps while the formidable character of the fire-god\namong the primitive Assyrians is indicated in the utter prostration\nbefore him characteristic of their litanies and invocations, in the\ncase of the Finns the perpetual presence of the more potent cold\nled to the less excessive adoration. These ventured to recognise the\nfaults of fire.\n\nThe true nature of this anomaly becomes visible when we consider\nthat the great demon, dreaded by the two countries drawing their\ncult from a common source, represented the excess of the power most\ndreaded. The demon in each case was a wind; among the Finns the north\nwind, among the Accadians the south-west (the most fiery) wind. The\nFinnish demon was Hiisi, speeding on his pale horse through the air,\nwith a terrible train of monster dogs, cats, furies, scattering pain,\ndisease, and death. [51] The Accadian demon, of which the bronze image\nis in the Louvre, is the body of a dog, erect on eagle's feet, its arms\npointed with lion's paws; it has the tail of a scorpion and the head of\na skeleton, half stripped of flesh, preserving the eyes, and mounted\nwith the horns of a goat. It has four outspread wings. On the back\nof this ingeniously horrible image is an inscription in the Accadian\nlanguage, apprising us that it is the demon of the south-west wind,\nmade to be placed at the door or window, to avert its hostile action.\n\nAs we observe such figures as these on the one hand, and on the other\nthe fair beings imagined to be antagonistic to them; as we note in\nrunes and incantations how intensely the ancients felt themselves to\nbe surrounded by these good and evil powers, and, reading nature so,\nlearned to see in the seasons successively conquering and conquered\nby each other, and alternation of longer days and longer nights, the\nchanging fortunes of a never-ending battle; we may better realise\nthe meaning of solstitial festivals, the customs that gathered\naround Yuletide and New Year, and the manifold survivals from them\nwhich annually masquerade in Christian costume and names. To our\nsun-worshipping ancestor the new year meant the first faint advantage\nof the warmer time over winter, as nearly as he could fix it. The\nhovering of day between superiority of light and darkness is now named\nafter doubting Thomas. At Yuletide the dawning victory of the sun is\nseen as a holy infant in a manger amid beasts of the stall. The old\nnature-worship has bequeathed to christian belief a close-fitting\nmantle. But the old idea of a war between the wintry and the warm\npowers still haunts the period of the New Year; and the twelve days\nand nights, once believed to be the period of a fiercely-contested\nbattle between good and evil demons, are still regarded by many\nas a period for especial watchfulness and prayer. New Year's Eve,\nin the north of England still 'Hogmanay,'--probably O. N. h\u00f6ku-n\u00f6tt,\nmidwinter-night, when the sacrifices of Thor were prepared,--formerly\nhad many observances which reflected the belief that good and evil\nghosts were contending for every man and woman: the air was believed\nto be swarming with them, and watch must be kept to see that the\nprotecting fire did not go out in any household; that no strange man,\nwoman, or animal approached,--possibly a demon in disguise. Sacred\nplants were set in doors and windows to prevent the entrance of any\nmalevolent being from the multitudes filling the air. John Wesley,\nwhose noble heart was allied with a mind strangely open to stories\nof hobgoblins, led the way of churches and sects back into this\nancient atmosphere. Nevertheless, the rationalism of the age has\ninfluenced St. Wesley's Feast--Watchnight. It can hardly recognise\nits brother in the Boar's Head Banquet of Queen's College, Oxford,\nwhich celebrated victory over tusky winter, the decapitated demon\nwhose bristles were once icicles fallen beneath the sylvan spirits\nof holly and rosemary. Yet what the Watchnight really signifies in\nthe antiquarian sense is just that old culminating combat between the\npowers of fire and frost, once believed to determine human fates. In\nWhite Russia, on New Year's Day, when the annual elemental battle has\nbeen decided, the killed and wounded on one hand, and the fortunate\non the other, are told by carrying from house to house the rich and\nthe poor Kolyadas. These are two children, one dressed in fine attire,\nand crowned with a wreath of full ears of grain, the other ragged, and\nwearing a wreath of threshed straw. These having been closely covered,\neach householder is called in, and chooses one. If his choice chances\nupon the 'poor Kolyada,' the attending chorus chant a mournful strain,\nin which he is warned to expect a bad harvest, poverty, and perhaps\ndeath; if he selects the 'rich Kolyada,' a cheerful song is sung\npromising him harvest, health, and wealth.\n\nThe natives of certain districts of Dardistan assign political and\nsocial significance to their Feast of Fire, which is celebrated in the\nmonth preceding winter, at new moon, just after their meat provision\nfor the season is laid in to dry. Their legend is, that it was then\ntheir national hero slew their ancient tyrant and introduced good\ngovernment. This legend, related elsewhere, is of a tyrant slain\nthrough the discovery that his heart was made of snow. He was slain\nby the warmth of torches. In the celebrations all the men of the\nvillages go forth with torches, which they swing round their heads,\nand throw in the direction of Ghilgit, where the snow-hearted tyrant\nso long held his castle. When the husbands return home from their\ntorch-throwing a little drama is rehearsed. The wives refuse them\nentrance till they have entreated, recounting the benefits they have\nbrought them; after admission the husband affects sulkiness, and must\nbe brought round with caresses to join in the banquet. The wife leads\nhim forward with this song:--'Thou hast made me glad, thou favourite\nof the Rajah! Thou hast rejoiced me, oh bold horseman! I am pleased\nwith thee who so well usest the gun and sword! Thou hast delighted\nme, oh thou invested with a mantle of honours! Oh great happiness,\nI will buy it by giving pleasure's price! Oh thou nourishment to us,\nheap of corn, store of ghee--delighted will I buy it all by giving\npleasure's price!'\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nELEMENTS.\n\n    A Scottish Munasa--Rudra--Siva's lightning eye--The flaming\n    sword--Limping demons--Demons of the storm--Helios, Elias,\n    Perun--Thor arrows--The Bob-tailed Dragon--Whirlwind--Japanese\n    thunder god--Christian survivals--Jinni--Inundations--Noah--Nik,\n    Nicholas, Old Nick--Nixies--Hydras--Demons of the\n    Danube--Tides--Survivals in Russia and England.\n\n\nDuring some recent years curious advertisements have appeared in a\njournal of Edinburgh, calling for pious persons to occupy certain\nhours of the night with holy exercises. It would appear that they\nrefer to a band of prayerful persons who provide that there shall\nbe an unbroken round of prayers during every moment of the day and\nnight. Their theory is, that it is the usual cessation of christian\nprayers at night which causes so many disasters. The devils being then\nless restrained, raise storms and all elemental perils. The praying\ncircle, which hopes to bind these demons by an uninterrupted chain of\nprayers, originated, as I am informed, in the pious enthusiasm of a\nlady whose kindly solicitude in some pre-existent sister was no doubt\npersonified in the Hindu Munasa, who, while all gods slept, sat in the\nshape of a serpent on a branch of Euphorbia to preserve mankind from\nthe venom of snakes. It is to be feared, however, that it is hardly\nthe wisdom of the serpent which is on prayerful watch at Edinburgh,\nbut rather a vigilance of that perilous kind which was exercised by\n'Meggie o' the Shore,' anno 1785, as related by Hugh Miller. [52]\nOn a boisterous night, when two young girls had taken refuge in her\ncottage, they all heard about midnight cries of distress mingling\nwith the roar of the sea, 'Raise the window curtain and look out,'\nsaid Meggie. The terrified girls did so, and said, 'There is a bright\nlight in the middle of the Bay of Udall. It hangs over the water about\nthe height of a ship's mast, and we can see something below it like\na boat riding at anchor, with the white sea raging around her.' 'Now\ndrop the curtain,' said Meggie; 'I am no stranger, my lasses, to\nsights and noises like these--sights and noises of another world;\nbut I have been taught that God is nearer to me than any spirit can\nbe; and so have learned not to be afraid.' Afterwards it is not\nwonderful that a Cromarty yawl was discovered to have foundered,\nand all on board to have been drowned; though Meggie's neighbours\nseemed to have preserved the legend after her faith, and made the\nscene described a premonition of what actually occurred. It was in\na region where mariners when becalmed invoke the wind by whistling;\nand both the whistling and the praying, though their prospects in\nthe future may be slender, have had a long career in the past.\n\nIn the 'Rig-Veda' there is a remarkable hymn to Rudra (the Roarer),\nwhich may be properly quoted here:--\n\n1. Sire of the storm gods, let thy favour extend to us; shut us not\nout from the sight of the sun; may our hero be successful in the\nonslaught. O Rudra, may we wax mighty in our offspring.\n\n2. Through the assuaging remedies conferred by thee, O Rudra, may\nwe reach a hundred winters; drive away far from us hatred, distress,\nand all-pervading diseases.\n\n3. Thou, O Rudra, art the most excellent of beings in glory, the\nstrongest of the strong, O wielder of the bolt; bear us safely through\nevil to the further shore; ward off all the assaults of sin.\n\n4. May we not provoke thee to anger, O Rudra, by our adorations,\nneither through faultiness in praises, nor through wantonness in\ninvocations; lift up our heroes by thy remedies; thou art, I hear,\nthe chief physician among physicians.\n\n5. May I propitiate with hymns this Rudra who is worshipped with\ninvocations and oblations; may the tender-hearted, easily-entreated,\ntawny-haired, beautiful-chinned god not deliver us up to the plotter\nof evil [literally, to the mind meditating 'I kill'].\n\n6. The bounteous giver, escorted by the storm-gods, hath gladdened\nme, his suppliant, with most invigorating food; as one distressed by\nheat seeketh the shade, may I, free from harm, find shelter in the\ngood-will of Rudra.\n\n7. Where, O Rudra, is that gracious hand of thine, which is healing\nand comforting? Do thou, removing the evil which cometh from the gods,\nO bounteous giver, have mercy upon me.\n\n8. To the tawny, the fair-complexioned dispenser of bounties, I send\nforth a great and beautiful song of praise; adore the radiant god\nwith prostrations; we hymn the illustrious name of Rudra.\n\n9. Sturdy-limbed, many-shaped, fierce, tawny, he hath decked himself\nwith brilliant ornaments of gold; truly strength is inseparable from\nRudra, the sovereign of this vast world.\n\n10. Worthy of worship, thou bearest the arrows and the bow; worthy of\nworship, thou wearest a resplendent necklace of many forms; worthy\nof worship, thou rulest over this immense universe; there is none,\nO Rudra, mightier than thou.\n\n11. Celebrate the renowned and ever-youthful god who is seated on a\nchariot, who is, like a wild beast, terrible, fierce, and destructive;\nhave mercy upon the singer, O Rudra, when thou art praised; may thy\nhosts strike down another than us.\n\n12. As a boy saluteth his father who approacheth and speaketh to him,\nso, O Rudra, I greet thee, the giver of much, the lord of the good;\ngrant us remedies when thou art praised.\n\n13. Your remedies, O storm-gods, which are pure and helping, O\nbounteous givers, which are joy-conferring, which our father Manu\nchose, these and the blessing and succour of Rudra I crave.\n\n14. May the dart of Rudra be turned aside from us, may the great\nmalevolence of the flaming-god be averted; unbend thy strong bow\nfrom those who are liberal with their wealth; O generous god, have\nmercy upon our offspring and our posterity (i.e., our children and\nchildren's children).\n\n15. Thus, O tawny Rudra, wise giver of gifts, listen to our cry,\ngive heed to us here, that thou mayest not be angry with us, O god,\nnor slay us; may we, rich in heroic sons, utter great praise at the\nsacrifice. [53]\n\nIn other hymns the malevolent character of Rudra is made still more\nprominent:--\n\n7. Slay not our strong man nor our little child, neither him who\nis growing nor him who is grown, neither our father nor our mother;\nhurt not, O Rudra, our dear selves.\n\n8. Harm us not in our children and children's children, nor in our men,\nnor in our kine, nor in our horses. Smite not our heroes in thy wrath;\nwe wait upon thee perpetually with offerings. [54]\n\nIn this hymn (verse 1) Rudra is described as 'having braided hair;'\nand in the 'Yajur-veda' and the 'Atharva-veda' other attributes\nof Siva are ascribed to him, such as the epithet n\u00eela-gr\u00eeva, or\nblue-necked. In the 'Rig-veda' Siva occurs frequently as an epithet,\nand means auspicious. It was used as a euphemistic epithet to appease\nRudra, the lord of tempests; and finally, the epithet developed into\na distinct god.\n\nThe parentage of Siva is further indicated in the legends that\nhis glance destroyed the head of the youthful deity Ganesa,\nwho now wears the elephant head, with which it was replaced; and\nthat the gods persuaded him to keep his eyes perpetually winking\n(like sheet-lightning), lest his concentrated look (the thunderbolt)\nshould reduce the universe to ashes. With the latter legend the gaze\nof the evil eye in India might naturally be associated, though in\nthe majority of countries this was rather associated with the malign\ninfluences ascribed to certain planets, especially Saturn; the charms\nagainst the evil eye being marked over with zodiacal signs. The very\nmyth of Siva's eye survives in the Russian demon Magarko ('Winker')\nand the Servian Vii, whose glance is said to have power to reduce men,\nand even cities, to ashes.\n\nThe terrible Rudra is represented in a vast number of beliefs, some\nof them perhaps survivals; in the rough sea and east-wind demon Oegir\nof the northern world, and Typhon in the south; and in Luther's faith\nthat 'devils do house in the dense black clouds, and send storms,\nhail, thunder and lightning, and poison the air with their infernal\nstench,' a doctrine which Burton, the Anatomist of Melancholy, too,\nmaintained against the meteorologists of his time.\n\nAmong the ancient Aryans lightning seems to have been the supreme type\nof divine destructiveness. Rudra's dart, Siva's eye, reappear with\nthe Singhalese prince of demons Wessamonny, described as wielding a\ngolden sword, which, when he is angry, flies out of his hand, to which\nit spontaneously returns, after cutting off a thousand heads. [55]\nA wonderful spear was borne by Odin, and was possibly the original\nExcalibur. The four-faced Sviatevit of Russia, whose mantle has fallen\nto St. George, whose statue was found at Zbrucz in 1851, bore a horn\nof wine (rain) and a sword (lightning).\n\nIn Greece similar swords were wielded by Zeus, and also by the\ngod of war. Through Zeus and Ares, the original wielders of the\nlightning--Indra and Siva--became types of many gods and semi-divine\nheroes. The evil eye of Siva glared from the forehead of the Cyclopes,\nforgers of thunderbolts; and the saving disc of Indra flashed in the\nswords and arrows of famous dragon-slayers--Perseus, Pegasus, Hercules,\nand St. George. The same sword defended the Tree of Life in Eden,\nand was borne in the hand of Death on the Pale Horse (a white horse\nwas sacrificed to Sviatevit in Russia within christian times). And,\nfinally, we have the wonderful sword which obeys the command 'Heads\noff!' delighting all nurseries by the service it does to the King of\nthe Golden Mountain.\n\n'I beheld Satan as lightning falling out of heaven.' To the Greeks\nthis falling of rebellious deities out of heaven accounted, as we\nhave seen explained, for their lameness. But a universal phenomenon\ncan alone account for the many demons with crooked or crippled legs\n(like 'Diable Boiteux') [56] all around the world. The Namaquas of\nSouth Africa have a 'deity' whose occupation it is to cause pain\nand death; his name is Tsui'knap, that is 'wounded knee.' [57]\nLivingstone says of the Bakwains, another people of South Africa,\n'It is curious that in all their pretended dreams or visions of\ntheir god he has always a crooked leg, like the Egyptian Thau.' [58]\nIn Mainas, South America, they believe in a treacherous demon,\nUchuella-chaqui, or Lame-foot, who in dark forests puts on a friendly\nshape to lure Indians to destruction; but the huntsmen say they can\nnever be deceived if they examine this demon's foot-track, because\nof the unequal size of the two feet. [59] The native Australians\nbelieved in a demon named Biam; he is black and deformed in his lower\nextremities; they attributed to him many of their songs and dances,\nbut also a sort of small-pox to which they were liable. [60] We have\nno evidence that these superstitions migrated from a common centre;\nand there can be little doubt that many of these crooked legs are\ntraceable to the crooked lightning. [61] At the same time this is by\nno means inconsistent with what has been already said of the fall of\nTitans and angels from heaven as often accounting for their lameness\nin popular myths. But in such details it is hard to reach certainty,\nsince so many of the facts bear a suspicious resemblance to each\nother. A wild boar with 'distorted legs' attacked St. Godric, and\nthe temptation is strong to generalise on the story, but the legs\nprobably mean only to certify that it was the devil.\n\nDr. Schliemann has unearthed among his other treasures the remarkable\nfact that a temple of Helios (the sun) once stood near the site of\nthe present Church of Elias, at Mycen\u00e6, which has from time immemorial\nbeen the place to which people repair to pray for rain. [62] When the\nstorm-breeding Sun was succeeded by the Prophet whose prayer evoked\nthe cloud, even the name of the latter did not need to be changed. The\ndiscovery is the more interesting because it has always been a part\nof the christian folklore of that region that, when a storm with\nlightning occurs, it is 'Elias in his chariot of fire.' A similar\nphrase is used in some part of every Aryan country, with variation\nof the name: it is Woden, or King Waldemar, or the Grand Veneur,\nor sometimes God, who is said to be going forth in his chariot.\n\nThese storm-demons in their chariots have their forerunner in Vata\nor Vayu, the subject of one of the most beautiful Vedic hymns. 'I\ncelebrate the glory of Vata's chariot; its noise comes rending and\nresounding. Touching the sky he moves onward, making all things ruddy;\nand he comes propelling the dust of the earth.\n\n'Soul of the gods, source of the universe, this deity moves as he\nlists. His sounds have been heard, but his form is not seen; this\nVata let us worship with an oblation.' [63]\n\nThis last verse, as Mr. Muir has pointed out, bears a startling\nresemblance to the passage in John, 'The Wind bloweth where it listeth,\nand thou canst not tell whence it cometh or whither it goeth; so is\nevery one that is born of the Wind.' [64]\n\nBut an equally striking development of the Vedic idea is represented\nin the Siamese legend of Buddha, and in this case the Vedic Wind-god\nVayu reappears by name for the Angels of Tempests, or Loka Phayu. The\nfirst portent which preceded the descent of Buddha from the Tushita\nheavens was 'when the Angels of the Tempest, clothed in red garments,\nand with streaming hair, travel among the abodes of mankind crying,\n'Attend all ye who are near to death; repent and be not heedless! The\nend of the world approaches, but one hundred thousand years more\nand it will be destroyed. Exert yourselves, then, exert yourselves\nto acquire merit. Above all things be charitable; abstain from doing\nevil; meditate with love to all beings, and listen to the teachings of\nholiness. For we are all in the mouth of the king of death. Strive then\nearnestly for meritorious fruits, and seek that which is good.' [65]\n\nNot less remarkable is the Targum of Jonathan Ben Uzziel to 1 Kings\nxix., where around Elias on the mountain gather 'a host of angels of\nthe wind, cleaving the mountain and breaking the rocks before the\nLord;' and after these, 'angels of commotion,' and next 'of fire,'\nand, finally, 'voices singing in silence' preceded the descent of\nJehovah. It can hardly be wondered that a prophet of whom this story\nwas told, and that of the storm evoked from a small cloud, should\nbe caught up into that chariot of the Vedic Vayu which has rolled on\nthrough all the ages of mythology.\n\nMythologic streams seem to keep their channels almost as steadfastly\nas rivers, but as even these change at last or blend, so do the old\ntraditions. Thus we find that while Thor and Odin remain as separate\nin survivals as Vayu and Parjanya in India, in Russia Elias has\ninherited not the mantle of the wind-god or storm-breeding sun,\nbut of the Slavonic Thunderer Perun. There is little doubt that\nthis is Parjanya, described in the 'Rig-Veda' as 'the thunderer,\nthe showerer, the bountiful,' [66] who 'strikes down trees' and 'the\nwicked.' 'The people of Novgorod,' says Herberstein, 'formerly offered\ntheir chief worship and adoration to a certain idol named Perun. When\nsubsequently they received baptism they removed it from its place,\nand threw it into the river Volchov; and the story goes that it swam\nagainst the stream, and that near the bridge a voice was heard saying,\n'This for you, O inhabitants of Novgorod, in memory of me;' and at\nthe same time a certain rope was thrown upon the bridge. Even now\nit happens from time to time on certain days of the year that this\nvoice of Perun may be heard, and on these occasions the citizens run\ntogether and lash each other with ropes, and such a tumult arises\ntherefrom that all the efforts of the governor can scarcely assuage\nit.' [67] The statue of Perun in Kief, says Mr. Ralston, had a trunk\nof wood, while the head was of silver, with moustaches of gold, and\namong its weapons was a mace. Afanasief states that in White-Russian\ntraditions Perun is tall and well-shaped, with black hair and a long\ngolden beard. This beard relates him to Barbarossa, and, perhaps,\nthough distantly, with the wood-demon Barbatos, the Wild Archer,\nwho divined by the songs of birds. [68] Perun also has a bow which is\n'sometimes identified with the rainbow, an idea which is known also to\nthe Finns. From it, according to the White Russians, are shot burning\narrows, which set on fire all things that they touch. In many parts of\nRussia (as well as of Germany) it is supposed that these bolts sink\ndeep into the soil, but that at the end of three or seven years they\nreturn to the surface in the shape of longish stones of a black or dark\ngrey colour--probably belemnites, or masses of fused sand--which are\ncalled thunderbolts, and considered as excellent preservations against\nlightning and conflagrations. The Finns call them Ukonkiwi--the stone\nof thunder-god Ukko, and in Courland their name is Perkuhnsteine, which\nexplains itself. In some cases the flaming dart of Perun became, in the\nimagination of the people, a golden key. With it he unlocked the earth,\nand brought to light its concealed treasures, its restrained waters,\nits captive founts of light. With it also he locked away in safety\nfugitives who wished to be put out of the power of malignant conjurors,\nand performed various other good offices. Appeals to him to exercise\nthese functions still exist in the spells used by the peasants,\nbut his name has given way to that of some christian personage. In\none of them, for instance, the Archangel Michael is called upon to\nsecure the invoker behind an iron door fastened by twenty-seven locks,\nthe keys of which are given to the angels to be carried to heaven. In\nanother, John the Baptist is represented as standing upon a stone in\nthe Holy Sea [i.e., in heaven], resting upon an iron crook or staff,\nand is called upon to stay the flow of blood from a wound, locking\nthe invoker's veins 'with his heavenly key.' In this case the myth has\npassed into a rite. In order to stay a violent bleeding from the nose,\na locked padlock is brought, and the blood is allowed to drop through\nits aperture, or the sufferer grasps a key in each hand, either plan\nbeing expected to prove efficacious. As far as the key is concerned,\nthe belief seems to be still maintained among ourselves.' [69]\n\nThe Key has a holy sense in various religions, and consequently an\ninfernal key is its natural counterpart. The Vedic hymns, which say\nso much about the shutting and opening, imprisoning and releasing,\nof heavenly rains and earthly fruits by demons and deities, interpret\nmany phenomena of nature, and the same ideas have arisen in many\nlands. We cannot be certain, therefore, that Calmet is right in\nassigning an Indian origin to the subjoined Figure 5, an ancient\nPersian medal. The signs of the zodiac on its body show it to be one\nof those celestial demons believed able to bind the beneficent or\nloose the formidable powers of nature. The Key is of especial import\nin Hebrew faith. It was the high-priest Eliakim's symbol of office,\nas being also prefect in the king's house. 'The key of the house of\nDavid will I lay upon his shoulder: he shall open and none shall shut;\nhe shall shut and none shall open.' [70] The Rabbins had a saying\nthat God reserves to himself four keys, which he will intrust not\neven to the angels: the key of rain, the key of the grave, the key of\nfruitfulness, and the key of barrenness. It was the sign of one set\nabove angels when Christ was seen with the keys of Hell and Death,\nor when he delivered the keys of heaven to Peter, [71]--still thrust\ndown the backs of protestant children to cure nose-bleed.\n\nThe ubiquitous superstition which attributes the flint arrows of\npre-historic races to gods, shot by them as lightning, and, as some\nsaid, from a rainbow, is too childlike a theory to call for elaborate\ntreatment. We need not, ethnographically, connect our 'Thor arrows'\nand 'Elf shots' with the stones hurled at mortals by the Thunder-Duke\n(Lui-tsz) of China. The ancient Parthians, who used to reply to the\nthunderstorm by shooting arrows at it, and the Turks, who attack an\neclipse with guns, fairly represent the infancy of the human race,\nthough perhaps with more than its average pluck. Dr. Macgowan relates,\nconcerning the Lei-chau (Thunder District) of China, various myths\nwhich resemble those which surround the world. After thunderstorms,\nblack stones, it is believed, may be found which emit light and\npeculiar sounds on being struck. In a temple consecrated to the\nThunder Duke the people annually place a drum for that stormy demon\nto beat. The drum was formerly left on a mountain-top with a little\nboy as a sacrifice. [72] Mr. Dennys [73] speaks of the belief in the\nsame country that violent winds and typhoons are caused by the passage\nthrough the air of the 'Bob-tailed Dragon,' and also of the rain-god\nY\u00fc-Sh\u00fch. A storm-god connected with the 'Eagre,' or bore of the river\nTsien-tang, presents a coincidence of name with the Scandinavian\nOegir, which would be hardly noticeable were it not for the very close\nresemblance between the folklore concerning the 'Bob-tailed Dragon'\nand the storm-dragons of several Aryan races. Generally, in both\nChina and Japan the Dragon is regarded with a veneration equal to\nthe horror with which the serpent is visited. Of this phenomenon and\nits analogies in Britain I shall have an explanation to submit when\nwe come to consider Dragon-myths more particularly. To this general\nrule the 'Bob-tailed Dragon' of China is a partial exception. His\nfidelity as a friend led to the ill return of an attack by which his\ntail was amputated, and ever since his soured temper has shown itself\nin raising storms. When a violent tempest arises the Cantonese say,\n'The Bob-tailed Dragon is passing,' in the same proverbial way as the\nAryan peasantries attribute the same phenomenon to their storm-gods.\n\nThe notion is widely prevalent in some districts of France that\nall whirlwinds, however slight, are caused by wizards or witches,\nwho are in them, careering through the air; and it is stated by the\nMelusine that in the department of the Orne storms are attributed\nto the clergy, who are supposed to be circling in them. The same\nexcellent journal states that some years ago, in that department, a\nparishioner who saw his crops threatened by a hail-storm fired into\nthe cloud. The next day he heard that the parish priest had broken\nhis leg by a fall for which he could not account.\n\nThe following examples are given by Kuhn. Near Stangenhagen is a\ntreasure hid in a mountain which Lord von Th\u00fcmen tried to seek,\nbut was caught up with his horse by a whirlwind and deposited at\nhome again. The Devil is believed to be seated at the centre of\nevery whirlwind. At Biesenthal it is said a noble lady became the\nWind's bride. She was in her time a famous rider and huntress, who\nrode recklessly over farmers' fields and gardens; now she is herself\nhunted by snakes and dragons, and may be heard howling in every storm.\n\nI suspect that the bristling hair so frequently portrayed in the\nJapanese Oni, Devils, refers to their frequent residence at the\ncentre of a gale of wind. Their demon of the storm is generally\npictured throned upon a flower of flames, his upraised and extended\nfingers emitting the most terrific lightnings, which fall upon his\nvictims and envelop them in flames. Sometimes, however, the Japanese\nartists poke fun at their thunder-god, and show him sprawling on the\nground from the recoil of his own lightnings. The following extract\nfrom The Christian Herald (London, April 12, 1877) will show how\nfar the dread of this Japanese Oni extends: 'A pious father writes,\n'A few days ago there was a severe thunderstorm, which seemed to\ngather very heavily in the direction where my son lived; and I had\na feeling that I must go and pray that he might be protected, and\nnot be killed by the lightning. The impression seemed to say, 'There\nis no time to be lost.' I obeyed, and went and knelt down and prayed\nthat the Lord would spare his life. I believe he heard my prayer. My\nson called on me afterwards, and, speaking of the shower, said,\n'The lightning came downwards and struck the very hoe in my hands,\nand numbed me.' I said, 'Perhaps you would have been killed if some\none had not been praying for you.' Since then he has been converted,\nand, I trust, will be saved in God's everlasting kingdom.''\n\nSuch paragraphs may now strike even many christians as 'survivals.' But\nit is not so very long since some eminent clergymen looked upon\nBenjamin Franklin as the heaven-defying Ajax of Christendom, because\nhe undertook to show people how they might divert the lightnings\nfrom their habitations. In those days Franklin personally visited a\nchurch at Streatham, whose steeple had been struck by lightning, and,\nafter observing the region, gave an opinion that if the steeple were\nagain erected without a lightning-rod, it would again be struck. The\naudacious man who 'snatched sceptres from tyrants and lightnings\nfrom heaven,' as the proverb ran, was not listened to: the steeple\nwas rebuilt, and again demolished by lightning.\n\nThe supreme god of the Quichuas (American), Viracocha ('sea foam'),\nrises out of Lake Titicaca, and journeys with lightnings for\nall opposers, to disappear in the Western Ocean. The Quichua is\nmentally brother of the Arab camel-driver. 'The sea,' it is said\nin the 'Arabian Nights,'--'the sea became troubled before them, and\nthere arose from it a black pillar, ascending towards the sky, and\napproaching the meadow,' and 'behold it was a Jinn [74] of gigantic\nstature.' The Jinn is sometimes helpful as it is formidable; it repays\nthe fisherman who unseals it from the casket fished up from the sea,\nas fruitfulness comes out of the cloud no larger than a man's hand\nevoked by Elijah. The perilous Jinn described in the above extract is\nthe waterspout. Waterspouts are attributed in China to the battles\nof dragons in the air, and the same country recognises a demon of\nhigh tides. The newest goddess in China is a canonised protectress\nagainst the shipwrecking storm-demons of the coast, an exaltation\nrecently proclaimed by the Government of the empire in obedience,\nas the edict stated, to the belief prevailing among sailors. In this\nthe Chinese are a long way behind the mariners and fishermen of the\nFrench coast, who have for centuries, by a pious philology, connected\n'Maria' with 'La Mar\u00e9e' and 'La Mer;' and whenever they have been\nsaved from storms, bring their votive offerings to sea-side shrines\nof the Star of the Sea.\n\nThe old Jewish theology, in its eagerness to claim for Jehovah the\nabsolutism which would make him 'Lord of lords,' instituted his\nresponsibility for many doubtful performances, the burthen of which\nis now escaped by the device of saying that he 'permitted' them. In\nthis way the Elohim who brought on the Deluge have been identified\nwith Jehovah. None the less must we see in the biblical account\nof the Flood the action of tempestuous water-demons. What power a\nchristian would recognise in such an event were it related in the\nsacred books of another religion may be seen in the vision of the\nApocalypse--'The Serpent cast out of his mouth a flood of water after\nthe woman, that he might cause her to be carried away with the flood;\nand the earth helped the woman and opened its mouth and swallowed up\nthe flood.' This Demon of Inundation meets the explorer of Egyptian\nand Accadian inscriptions at every turn. The terrible Seven, whom\neven the God of Fire cannot control, 'break down the banks of the\nAbyss of Waters.' [75] The God of the Tigris, Tourtak (Tartak of the\nBible), is 'the great destroyer.' [76] Leviathan 'maketh the deep to\nboil like a pot:' 'when he raises up himself the mighty are afraid;\nby reason of breakings they purify themselves.' [77]\n\nIn the Astronomical Tablets, which Professor Sayce dates about\nB.C. 1600, we have the continual association of eclipse and flood:\n'On the fifteenth day an eclipse takes place. The king dies; and rains\nin the heaven, floods in the channels are.' 'In the month of Elul\n(August), the fourteenth day, an eclipse takes place.... Northward\n... its shadow is seen; and to the King of Mullias a crown is\ngiven. To the king the crown is an omen; and over the king the eclipse\npasses. Rains in heaven, floods in the channels flow. A famine is\nin the country. Men their sons for silver sell.' 'After a year the\nAir-god inundates.' [78]\n\nIn the Chald\u00e6o-Babylonian cosmogony the three zones of the universe\nwere ruled over by a Triad as follows: the Heaven by Anu; the surface\nof the earth, including the atmosphere, by Bel; the under-world by\nNouah. [79] This same Nouah is the Assyrian Hea or Saviour; and it\nis Noah of the Bible. The name means a rest or residence,--the place\nwhere man may dwell. When Tiamat the Dragon, or the Leviathan, opens\n'the fountains of the great deep,' and Anu 'the windows of Heaven,'\nit is Hea or Noah who saves the life of man. M. Fran\u00e7ois Lenormant\nhas shown this to be the probable sense of one of the most ancient\nAccadian fragments in the British Museum. In it allusion is made\nto 'the serpent of seven heads ... that beats the sea.' [80] Hea,\nhowever, appears to be more clearly indicated in a fragment which\nProfessor Sayce appends to this:--\n\n\n\nBelow in the abyss the forceful multitudes may they sacrifice.\nThe overwhelming fear of Anu in the midst of Heaven encircles his path.\nThe spirits of earth, the mighty gods, withstand him not.\nThe king like a lightning-flash opened.\nAdar, the striker of the fortresses of the rebel band, opened.\nLike the streams in the circle of heaven I besprinkled the seed of men.\nHis marching in the fealty of Bel to the temple I directed,\n(He is) the hero of the gods, the protector of mankind, far (and)\nnear....\nO my lord, life of Nebo (breathe thy inspiration), incline thine ear.\nO Adar, hero, crown of light, (breathe) thy inspiration, (incline)\nthine ear.\nThe overwhelming fear of thee may the sea know....\nThy setting (is) the herald of his rest from marching,\nIn thy marching Merodach (is) at rest [81]....\nThy father on his throne thou dost not smite.\nBel on his throne thou dost not smite.\nThe spirits of earth on their throne may he consume.\nMay thy father into the hands of thy valour cause (them) to go forth.\nMay Bel into the hands of thy valour cause (them) to go forth.\n(The king, the proclaimed) of Anu, the firstborn of the gods.\nHe that stands before Bel, the heart of the life of the House of the\nBeloved. [82]\nThe hero of the mountain (for those that) die in multitudes.... the\none god, he will not urge. [83]\n\n\n\nIn this primitive fragment we find the hero of the mountain (Noah),\ninvoking both Bel and Nebo, aerial and infernal Intelligences, and Adar\nthe Chald\u00e6an Hercules, for their 'inspiration'--that breath which, in\nthe biblical story, goes forth in the form of the Dove ('the herald\nof his rest' in the Accadian fragment), and in the 'wind' by which\nthe waters were assuaged (in the fragment 'the spirits of the earth'\nwhich are given into the hand of the violent 'hero of the mountain,'\nwhom alone the gods 'will not urge').\n\nThe Hydra may be taken as a type of the destructive water-demon in a\ndouble sense, for its heads remain in many mythical forms. The Syrian\nDagon and Atergatis, fish-deities, have bequeathed but their element\nto our Undines of romance. Some nymphs have so long been detached\nfrom aqueous associations as to have made their names puzzling, and\ntheir place in demonology more so. To the Nixy (n\u00each\u00f4) of Germany,\nnow merely mischievous like the British Pixy, many philologists trace\nthe common phrase for the Devil,--'Old Nick.' I believe, however,\nthat this phrase owes its popularity to St. Nicholas rather than to\nthe Norse water-god whose place he was assigned after the christian\naccession. This saintly Poseidon, who, from being the patron of\nfishermen, gradually became associated with that demon whom, Sir\nWalter Scott said, 'the British sailor feared when he feared nothing\nelse,' was also of old the patron of pirates; and robbers were called\n'St. Nicholas' clerks.' [84] In Norway and the Netherlands the ancient\nbelief in the demon Nikke was strong; he was a kind of Wild Huntsman\nof the Sea, and has left many legends, of which 'The Flying Dutchman'\nis one. But my belief is that, through his legendary relation to boys,\nSt. Nicholas gave the name Old Nick its modern moral accent. Because\nof his reputation for having restored to life three murdered children\nSt. Nicholas was made their patron, and on his day, December 6, it\nwas the old custom to consecrate a Boy-Bishop, who held office until\nthe 28th of the month. By this means he became the moral appendage\nof the old Wodan god of the Germanic races, who was believed in\nwinter time to find shelter in and shower benefits from evergreens,\nespecially firs, on his favourite children who happened to wander\nbeneath them. 'Bartel,' 'Klaubauf,' or whatever he might be called, was\nreduced to be the servant of St. Nicholas, whose name is now jumbled\ninto 'Santaclaus.' According to the old custom he appeared attended\nby his Knecht Klaubauf--personated by those who knew all about the\nchildren--bringing a sort of doomsday. The gifts having been bestowed\non the good children, St. Nicholas then ordered Klaubauf to put the\nnaughty ones into his pannier and carry them off for punishment. The\nterror and shrieks thus caused have created vast misery among children,\nand in Munich and some other places the authorities have very properly\nmade such tragedies illegal. But for many centuries it was the custom\nof nurses and mothers to threaten refractory children with being\ncarried off at the end of the year by Nicholas; and in this way\neach year closed, in the young apprehension, with a Judgment Day,\na Weighing of Souls, and a Devil or Old Nick as agent of retribution.\n\nNick has long since lost his aquatic character, and we find his name in\nthe Far West (America) turning up as 'The Nick of the Woods,'--the wild\nlegend of a settler who, following a vow of vengeance for his wrongs,\nused to kill the red men while they slept, and was supposed to be a\ndemon. The Japanese have a water-dragon--Kappa--of a retributive and\nmoral kind, whose office it is to swallow bad boys who go to swim\nin disobedience to their parents' commands, or at improper times\nand places. It is not improbable that such dangers to the young\noriginated some of the water-demons,--probably such as are thought\nof as diminutive and mischievous,--e.g., Nixies. The Nixa was for a\nlong time on the Baltic coast the female 'Old Nick,' and much feared\nby fishermen. Her malign disposition is represented in the Kelpie\nof Scotland,--a water-horse, believed to carry away the unwary by\nsudden floods to devour them. In Germany there was a river-goddess\nwhose temple stood at Magdeburg, whence its name. A legend exists of\nher having appeared in the market there in christian costume, but she\nwas detected by a continual dripping of water from the corner of her\napron. In Germany the Nixies generally played the part of the naiads\nof ancient times. [85] In Russia similar beings, called Rusalkas,\nare much more formidable.\n\nIn many regions of Christendom it is related that these demons,\nrelatives of the Swan-maidens, considered in another chapter, have\nbeen converted into friendly or even pious creatures, and baptized\ninto saintly names. Sometimes there are legends which reveal this\ntransition. Thus it is related that in the year 1440, the dikes of\nHolland being broken down by a violent tempest, the sea overflowed\nthe meadows; and some maidens of the town of Edam, in West Friesland,\ngoing in a boat to milk their cows, espied a mermaid embarrassed in\nthe mud, the waters being very shallow. They took it into their boat\nand brought it to Edam, and dressed it in women's apparel, and taught\nit to spin. It ate as they did, but could not be brought to speak. It\nwas carried to Haarlem, where it lived for some years, though showing\nan inclination to water. Parival, who tells the story, relates that\nthey had conveyed to it some notions of the existence of a deity,\nand it made its reverences devoutly whenever it passed a crucifix.\n\nAnother creature of the same species was in the year 1531 caught in\nthe Baltic, and sent as a present to Sigismund, King of Poland. It\nwas seen by all the persons about the court, but only lived three days.\n\nThe Hydra--the torrent which, cut off in one direction, makes many\nheadways in others--has its survivals in the many diabolical names\nassigned to boiling springs and to torrents that become dangerously\nswollen. In California the boiling springs called 'Devil's Tea-kettle'\nand 'Devil's Mush-pot' repeat the 'Devil's Punch-bowls' of Europe,\nand the innumerable Devil's Dikes and Ditches.  St. Gerard's Hill,\nnear Pesth, on which the saint suffered martyrdom, is believed to be\ncrowded with devils whenever an inundation threatens the city; they\nindulge in fiendish laughter, and play with the telescopes of the\nobservatory, so that they who look through them afterwards see only\ndevils' and witches' dances! [86] At Buda, across the river from Pesth,\nis the famous 'Devil's Ditch,' which the inhabitants use as a sewer\nwhile it is dry, making it a Gehenna to poison them with stenches,\nbut which often becomes a devastating torrent when thaw comes on the\nBlocksberg. In 1874 the inhabitants vaulted it over to keep away the\nnormal stench, but the Hydra-head so lopped off grew again, and in\nJuly 1875 swallowed up a hundred people. [87]\n\nThe once perilous Strudel and Wirbel of the Danube are haunted by\ndiabolical legends. From Dr. William Beattie's admirable work on\n'The Danube' I quote the following passages:--'After descending the\nGreinerschwall, or rapids of Grein above mentioned, the river rolls\non for a considerable space, in a deep and almost tranquil volume,\nwhich, by contrast with the approaching turmoil, gives increased\neffect to its wild, stormy, and romantic features. At first a hollow,\nsubdued roar, like that of distant thunder, strikes the ear and\nrouses the traveller's attention. This increases every second, and\nthe stir and activity which now prevail among the hands on board show\nthat additional force, vigilance, and caution are to be employed\nin the use of the helm and oars. The water is now changed in its\ncolour--chafed into foam, and agitated like a seething cauldron. In\nfront, and in the centre of the channel, rises an abrupt, isolated,\nand colossal rock, fringed with wood, and crested with a mouldering\ntower, on the summit of which is planted a lofty cross, to which in\nthe moment of danger the ancient boatmen were wont to address their\nprayers for deliverance. The first sight of this used to create\nno little excitement and apprehension on board; the master ordered\nstrict silence to be observed, the steersman grasped the helm with a\nfirmer hand, the passengers moved aside, so as to leave free space\nfor the boatmen, while the women and children were hurried into\nthe cabin, there to await, with feelings of no little anxiety, the\nresult of the enterprise. Every boatman, with his head uncovered,\nmuttered a prayer to his patron saint; and away dashed the barge\nthrough the tumbling breakers, that seemed as if hurrying it on\nto inevitable destruction. All these preparations, joined by the\nwildness of the adjacent scenery, the terrific aspect of the rocks,\nand the tempestuous state of the water, were sufficient to produce a\npowerful sensation on the minds even of those who had been all their\nlives familiar with dangers; while the shadowy phantoms with which\nsuperstition had peopled it threw a deeper gloom over the whole scene.'\n\nConcerning the whirlpool called Wirbel, and the surrounding ruins,\nthe same author writes: 'Each of these mouldering fortresses was\nthe subject of some miraculous tradition, which circulated at every\nhearth. The sombre and mysterious aspect of the place, its wild\nscenery, and the frequent accidents which occurred in the passage,\ninvested it with awe and terror; but above all, the superstitions\nof the time, a belief in the marvellous, and the credulity of the\nboatmen, made the navigation of the Strudel and the Wirbel a theme of\nthe wildest romance. At night, sounds that were heard far above the\nroar of the Danube issued from every ruin. Magical lights flashed\nthrough their loopholes and casements, festivals were held in the\nlong-deserted halls, maskers glided from room to room, the waltzers\nmaddened to the strains of an infernal orchestra, armed sentinels\nparaded the battlements, while at intervals the clash of arms, the\nneighing of steeds, and the shrieks of unearthly combatants smote\nfitfully on the boatmen's ear. But the tower on which these scenes\nwere most fearfully enacted was that on the Longstone, commonly\ncalled the 'Devil's Tower,' as it well deserved to be--for here,\nin close communion with his master, resided the 'Black Monk,' whose\noffice it was to exhibit false lights and landmarks along the gulf,\nso as to decoy the vessels into the whirlpool, or dash them against\nthe rocks. He was considerably annoyed in his quarters, however,\non the arrival of the great Soliman in these regions; for to repel\nthe turbaned host, or at least to check their triumphant progress to\nthe Upper Danube, the inhabitants were summoned to join the national\nstandard, and each to defend his own hearth. Fortifications were\nsuddenly thrown up, even churches and other religious edifices were\nplaced in a state of military defence; women and children, the aged\nand the sick, as already mentioned in our notice of Schaumburg,\nwere lodged in fortresses, and thus secured from the violence of\nthe approaching Moslem. Among the other points at which the greatest\nefforts were made to check the enemy, the passage of the Strudel and\nWirbel was rendered as impregnable as the time and circumstances of\nthe case would allow. To supply materials for the work, patriotism\nfor a time got the better of superstition, and the said Devil's Tower\nwas demolished and converted into a strong breastwork. Thus forcibly\ndislodged, the Black Monk is said to have pronounced a malediction\non the intruders, and to have chosen a new haunt among the recesses\nof the Harz mountains.'\n\nWhen the glaciers send down their torrents and flood the Rhone,\nit is the immemorial belief that the Devil may be sometimes seen\nswimming in it, with a sword in one hand and a golden globe in the\nother. Since it is contrary to all orthodox folklore that the Devil\nshould be so friendly with water, the name must be regarded as a\nmodern substitute for the earlier Rhone demon. We probably get closer\nto the original form of the superstition in the Swiss Oberland, which\ninterprets the noises of the Furka Glacier, which feeds the Rhone,\nas the groans of wicked souls condemned for ever to labour there\nin directing the river's course; their mistress being a demoness\nwho sometimes appears just before the floods, floating on a raft,\nand ordering the river to rise.\n\nThere is a tidal demonolatry also. The author of 'Rambles in\nNorthumberland' gives a tradition concerning the river Wansbeck:\n'This river discharges itself into the sea at a place called Cambois,\nabout nine miles to the eastward, and the tide flows to within five\nmiles of Morpeth. Tradition reports that Michael Scott, whose fame as a\nwizard is not confined to Scotland, would have brought the tide to the\ntown had not the courage of the person failed upon whom the execution\nof this project depended. This agent of Michael, after his principal\nhad performed certain spells, was to run from the neighbourhood of\nCambois to Morpeth without looking behind, and the tide would follow\nhim. After having advanced a certain distance he became alarmed at\nthe roaring of the waters behind him, and forgetting the injunction,\ngave a glance over his shoulder to see if the danger was imminent,\nwhen the advancing tide immediately stopped, and the burgesses of\nMorpeth thus lost the chance of having the Wansbeck navigable between\ntheir town and the sea. It is also said that Michael intended to\nconfer a similar favour on the inhabitants of Durham, by making the\nWear navigable to their city; but his good intentions, which were to\nbe carried into effect in the same manner, were also frustrated by\nthe cowardice of the person who had to guide the tide.'\n\nThe gentle and just king \u00c6olus, who taught his islanders navigation, in\nhis mythologic transfiguration had to share the wayward dispositions of\nthe winds he was said to rule; but though he wrecked the Trojan fleet\nand many a ship, his old human heart remained to be trusted on the\nappearance of Halcyon. His unhappy daughter of that name cast herself\ninto the sea after the shipwreck of her husband (Ceyx), and the two\nwere changed into birds. It was believed that for seven days before and\nseven after the shortest day of the year, when the halcyon is breeding,\n\u00c6olus restrains his winds, and the sea is calm. The accent of this\nfable has been transmitted to some variants of the folklore of swans.\nIn Russia the Tsar Morskoi or Water Demon's beautiful daughters (swans)\nmay naturally be supposed to influence the tides which the fair bathers\nof our time are reduced to obey. In various regions the tides are\nbelieved to have some relation to swans, and to respect them. I have\nmet with a notion of this kind in England. On the day of Livingstone's\nfuneral there was an extraordinary tide in the Thames, which had been\npredicted and provided for. The crowds which had gathered at the Abbey\non that occasion repaired after the funeral to Westminster Bridge to\nobserve the tide, and among them was a venerable disbeliever in\nscience, who announced to a group that there would be no high tide,\n'because the swans were nesting.' This sceptic was speedily put to\nconfusion by the result, and perhaps one superstition the less remained\nin the circle that seemed to regard him as an oracle.\n\nThe Russian peasantry live in much fear of the Rusalkas and Vodyanuie,\nwater-spirits who, of course, have for their chief the surly Neptune\nTsar Morskoi. In deprecation of this tribe, the peasant is careful\nnot to bathe without a cross round the neck, nor to ford a stream\non horseback without signing a cross on the water with a scythe\nor knife. In the Ukrain these water-demons are supposed to be the\ntransformed souls of Pharaoh and his host when they were drowned,\nand they are increased by people who drown themselves. In Bohemia\nfishermen are known sometimes to refuse aid to one drowning, for\nfear the Vodyany will be offended and prevent the fish, over which\nhe holds rule, from entering their nets. The wrath of such beings is\nindicated by the upheavals of water and foam; and they are supposed\nespecially mischievous in the spring, when torrents and floods are\npouring from melted snow. Those undefined monsters which Beowulf slew,\nGrendel and his mother, are interpreted by Simrock as personifications\nof the untamed sea and stormy floods invading the low flat shores,\nwhose devastations so filled Faust with horror (II. iv.), and in\ncombating which his own hitherto desolating powers found their task.\n\n\n        The Sea sweeps on in thousand quarters flowing,\n        Itself unfruitful, barrenness bestowing;\n        It breaks, and swells, and rolls, and overwhelms\n        The desert stretch of desolated realms....\n        Let that high joy be mine for evermore,\n        To shut the lordly Ocean from the shore,\n        The watery waste to limit and to bar,\n        And push it back upon itself afar!\n\n\nIn such brave work Faust had many forerunners, whose art and courage\nhave their monument in the fairer fables of all these elemental powers\nin which fear saw demons. Pavana, in India, messenger of the gods,\nrides upon the winds, and in his forty-nine forms, corresponding with\nthe points of the Hindu compass, guards the earth. Solomon, too,\njourneyed on a magic carpet woven of the winds, which still serves\nthe purposes of the Wise. From the churned ocean rose Lakshm\u00ed (after\nthe solar origin was lost to the myth), Hindu goddess of prosperity;\nand from the sea-foam rose Aphrodite, Beauty. These fair forms had\ntheir true worshipper in the Northman, who left on mastered wind and\nwave his song as Emerson found it--\n\n\n            The gale that wrecked you on the sand,\n              It helped my rowers to row;\n            The storm is my best galley hand,\n              And drives me where I go.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nANIMALS.\n\n    Animal demons distinguished--Trivial sources of\n    Mythology--Hedgehog--Fox--Transmigrations in Japan--Horses\n    bewitched--Rats--Lions--Cats--The Dog--Goethe's horror of\n    dogs--Superstitions of the Parsees, people of Travancore,\n    and American Negroes, Red Indians, &c.--Cynocephaloi--The\n    Wolf--Traditions of the Nez Perces--Fenris--Fables--The Boar--The\n    Bear--Serpent--Every animal power to harm demonised--Horns.\n\n\nThe animal demons--those whose evil repute is the result of\nsomething in their nature which may be inimical to man--should\nbe distinguished from the forms which have been diabolised by\nassociation with mythological personages or ideas. The lion, tiger,\nand wolf are examples of the one class; the stag, horse, owl, and\nraven of the other. But there are circumstances which render it very\ndifficult to observe this distinction. The line has to be drawn, if\nat all, between the measureless forces of degradation on the one side,\ndiscovering some evil in animals which, but for their bad associations,\nwould not have been much thought of; and of euphemism on the other,\ntransforming harmful beasts to benignant agents by dwelling upon some\nminor characteristic.\n\nThere are a few obviously dangerous animals, such as the serpent,\nwhere it is easy to pick our way; we can recognise the fear that\nflatters it to an agathodemon and the diminished fear that pronounces\nit accurst. [88] But what shall be said of the Goat? Was there really\nanything in its smell or in its flesh when first eaten, its butting,\nor injury to plants, which originally classed it among the unclean\nanimals? or was it merely demonised because of its uncanny and\nshaggy appearance? What explanation can be given of the evil repute\nof our household friend the Cat? Is it derived by inheritance from\nits fierce ancestors of the jungle? Was it first suggested by its\nhorrible human-like sleep-murdering caterwaulings at night? or has it\nsimply suffered from a theological curse on the cats said to draw the\nchariots of the goddesses of Beauty? The demonic Dog is, if anything,\na still more complex subject. The student of mythology and folklore\nspeedily becomes familiar with the trivial sources from which vast\nstreams of superstition often issue. The cock's challenge to the\nall-detecting sun no doubt originated his ominous career from the\nCode of Manu to the cock-headed devils frescoed in the cathedrals of\nRussia. The fleshy, forked roots of a soporific plant issued in that\nvast Mandrake Mythology which has been the subject of many volumes,\nwithout being even yet fully explored. The Italians have a saying that\n'One knavery of the hedgehog is worth more than many of the fox;' yet\nthe nocturnal and hibernating habits and general quaintness of the\nhumble hedgehog, rather than his furtive propensity to prey on eggs\nand chickens, must have raised him to the honours of demonhood. In\nvarious popular fables this little animal proves more than a match\nfor the wolf and the serpent. It was in the form of a hedgehog that\nthe Devil is said to have made the attempt to let in the sea through\nthe Brighton Downs, which was prevented by a light being brought,\nthough the seriousness of the scheme is still attested in the Devil's\nDyke. There is an ancient tradition that when the Devil had smuggled\nhimself into Noah's Ark, he tried to sink it by boring a hole; but\nthis scheme was defeated, and the human race saved, by the hedgehog\nstuffing himself into the hole. In the Brighton story the Devil would\nappear to have remembered his former failure in drowning people,\nand to have appropriated the form which defeated him.\n\nThe Fox, as incarnation of cunning, holds in the primitive belief of\nthe Japanese almost the same position as the Serpent in the nations\nthat have worshipped, until bold enough to curse it. In many of\nthe early pictures of Japanese demons one may generally detect amid\ntheir human, wolfish, or other characters some traits of the kitsune\n(fox). He is always the soul of the three-eyed demon of Japan\n(fig. 7). He is the sagacious 'Vizier,' as the Persian Desatir\ncalls him, and is practically the Japanese scape-goat. If a fox\nhas appeared in any neighbourhood, the next trouble is attributed\nto his visit; and on such occasions the sufferers and their friends\nrepair to some ancient gnarled tree in which the fox is theoretically\nresident and propitiate him, just as would be done to a serpent in\nother regions. In Japan the fox is not regarded as always harmful,\nbut generally so. He is not to be killed on any account. Being thus\nspared through superstition, the foxes increase sufficiently to supply\nabundant material for the continuance of its demonic character. 'Take\nus the foxes, the little foxes that spoil the vines,' [89] is an\nadmonition reversed in Japan. The correspondence between the cunning\nrespected in this animal and that of the serpent, reverenced elsewhere,\nis confirmed by Mr. Fitz Cunliffe Owen, who observed, as he informs\nme, that the Japanese will not kill even the poisonous snakes which\ncrawl freely amid the decaying Buddhist temples of Nikko, one of the\nmost sacred places in Japan, where once as many as eight thousand\nmonastic Buddhists were harboured. It is the red fox that abounds\nin Japan, and its human-like cry at night near human habitations is\nsuch as might easily encourage these superstitions. But, furthermore,\nmythology supplies many illustrations of a creditable tendency among\nrude tribes to mark out for special veneration or fear any force in\nnature finer than mere strength. Emerson says, 'Foxes are so cunning\nbecause they are not strong.' In our Japanese demon, whose three\neyes alone connect it with the pr\u00e6ternatural vision ascribed by that\nrace to the fox, the harelip is very pronounced. That little animal,\nthe Hare, is associated with a large mythology, perhaps because\nout of its weakness proceeds its main forces of survival--timidity,\nvigilance, and swiftness. The superstition concerning the hare is found\nin Africa. The same animal is the much-venerated good genius of the\nCalmucs, who call him S\u00e1kya-muni (Buddha), and say that on earth he\nsubmitted himself to be eaten by a starving man, for which gracious\ndeed he was raised to dominion over the moon, where they profess to\nsee him. The legend is probably traceable back to the Sanskrit word\nsasin, moon, which means literally 'the hare-marked.' Sasa means\n'hare.' Pausanias relates the story of the moon-goddess instructing\nexiles to build their city where they shall see a hare take refuge in\na myrtle-grove. [90] In the demonic fauna of Japan another cunning\nanimal figures--the Weasel. The name of this demon is 'the sickle\nweasel,' and it also seems to occupy the position of a scape-goat. In\nthe language of a Japanese report, 'When a person's clogs slip from\nunder his feet, and he falls and cuts his face on the gravel, or when\na person, who is out at night when he ought to have been at home,\npresents himself to his family with a freshly-scarred face, the wound\nis referred to the agency of the malignant invisible weasel and his\nsharp sickle.' In an aboriginal legend of America, also, two sister\ndemons commonly take the form of weasels.\n\nThe popular feeling which underlay much of the animal-worship in\nancient times was probably that which is reflected in the Japanese\nnotions of to-day, as told in the subjoined sketch from an amusing\nbook.\n\n'One of these visitors was an old man, who himself was at the time a\nvictim of a popular superstition that the departed revisit the scenes\nof their life in this world in shapes of different animals. We noticed\nthat he was not in his usual spirits, and pressed him to unburden his\nmind to us. He said he had lost his little son Chiosin, but that was\nnot so much the cause of his grief as the absurd way in which his\nwife, backed up by a whole conclave of old women who had taken up\ntheir abode in his house to comfort her, was going on. 'What do they\nall do?' we asked sympathetically. 'Why,' he replied, 'every beastly\nanimal that comes to my house, there is a cry amongst them all,\n'Chiosin, Chiosin has come back!' and the whole house swarms with\ncats and dogs and bats--for they say they are not quite sure which\nis Chiosin, and that they had better be kind to the lot than run the\nchance of treating him badly; the consequence is, all these brutes are\nfed on my rice and meat, and now I am driven out of doors and called\nan unnatural parent because I killed a mosquito which bit me!' [91]\n\nThe strange and inexplicable behaviour of animals in cases of fear,\npanic, or pain has been generally attributed by ignorant races to\ntheir possession by demons. Of this nature is the story of the devil\nentering the herd of swine and carrying them into the sea, related\nin the New Testament. It is said that even yet in some parts of\nScotland the milkmaid carries a switch of the magical rowan to expel\nthe demon that sometimes enters the cow. Professor Monier Williams\nwrites from Southern India--'When my fellow-travellers and myself\nwere nearly dashed to pieces over a precipice the other day by some\nrestive horses on a ghat near Poona, we were told that the road at\nthis particular point was haunted by devils who often caused similar\naccidents, and we were given to understand that we should have done\nwell to conciliate Ganesa, son of the god Siva, and all his troops\nof evil spirits, before starting.' The same writer also tells us\nthat the guardian spirits or 'mothers' who haunt most regions of\nthe Peninsula are believed to ride about on horses, and if they are\nangry, scatter blight and disease. Hence the traveller just arrived\nfrom Europe is startled and puzzled by apparitions of rudely-formed\nterra-cotta horses, often as large as life, placed by the peasantry\nround shrines in the middle of fields as acceptable propitiatory\nofferings, or in the fulfilment of vows in periods of sickness. [92]\n\nThis was the belief of the Corinthians in the Taraxippos, or shade\nof Glaucus, who, having been torn in pieces by the horses with which\nhe had been racing, and which he had fed on human flesh to make more\nspirited, remained to haunt the Isthmus and frighten horses during\nthe races.\n\nThere is a modern legend in the Far West (America) of a horse called\n'The White Devil,' which, in revenge for some harm to its comrades,\nslew men by biting and trampling them, and was itself slain after\ndefying many attempts at its capture; but among the many ancient\nlegends of demon-horses there are few which suggest anything about\nthat animal hostile to man. His occasional evil character is simply\nderived from his association with man, and is therefore postponed. For\na similar reason the Goat also must be dealt with hereafter, and\nas a symbolical animal. A few myths are met with which relate to\nits unpleasant characteristics. In South Guinea the odour of goats\nis accounted for by the Saga that their ancestor having had the\npresumption to ask a goddess for her aromatic ointment, she angrily\nrubbed him with ointment of a reverse kind. It has also been said that\nit was regarded as a demon by the worshippers of Bacchus, because\nit cropped the vines; and that it thus originated the Trageluphoi,\nor goat-stag monsters mentioned by Plato, [93] and gave us also the\nword tragedy. [94] But such traits of the Goat can have very little\nto do with its important relations to Mythology and Demonology. To\nthe list of animals demonised by association must also be added the\nStag. No doubt the anxious mothers, wives, or sweethearts of rash\nyoung huntsmen utilised the old fables of beautiful hinds which\nin the deep forests changed to demons and devoured their pursuers,\n[95] for admonition; but the fact that such stags had to transform\nthemselves for evil work is a sufficient certificate of character to\nprevent their being included among the animal demons proper, that is,\nsuch as have in whole or part supplied in their disposition to harm\nman the basis of a demonic representation.\n\nIt will not be deemed wonderful that Rats bear a venerable rank in\nDemonology. The shudder which some nervous persons feel at sight\nof even a harmless mouse is a survival from the time when it was\nbelieved that in this form unshriven souls or unbaptized children\nhaunted their former homes; and probably it would be difficult to\nestimate the number of ghost-stories which have originated in their\nnocturnal scamperings. Many legends report the departure of unhallowed\nsouls from human mouths in the shape of a Mouse. During the earlier\nNapoleonic wars mice were used in Southern Germany as diviners,\nby being set with inked feet on the map of Europe to show where the\nfatal Frenchmen would march. They gained this sanctity by a series of\nassociations with force stretching back to the Hindu fable of a mouse\ndelivering the elephant and the lion by gnawing the cords that bound\nthem. The battle of the Frogs and Mice is ascribed to Homer. Mice are\nsaid to have foretold the first civil war in Rome by gnawing the gold\nin the temple. Rats appear in various legends as avengers. The uncles\nof King Popelus II., murdered by him and his wife and thrown into a\nlake, reappear as rats and gnaw the king and queen to death. The same\nfate overtakes Miskilaus of Poland, through the transformed widows and\norphans he had wronged. Mouse Tower, standing in the middle of the\nRhine, is the haunted monument of cruel Archbishop Hatto, of Mainz,\nwho (anno 970) bade the famine-stricken people repair to his barn,\nwherein he shut them fast and burned them. But next morning an army\nof rats, having eaten all the corn in his granaries, darkened the\nroads to the palace. The prelate sought refuge from them in the Tower,\nbut they swam after, gnawed through the walls and devoured him. [96]\n\nSt. Gertrude, wearing the funereal mantle of Holda, commands an army\nof mice. In this respect she succeeds to the Pied Piper of Hamelin,\nwho also leads off children; and my ingenious friend Mr. John\nFiske suggests that this may be the reason why Irish servant-maids\noften show such frantic terror at sight of a mouse. [97] The care\nof children is often intrusted to them, and the appearance of mice\nprognosticated of old the appearance of the pr\u00e6ternatural rat-catcher\nand psychopomp. Pliny says that in his time it was considered\nfortunate to meet a white rat. The people of Bassorah always bow to\nthese revered animals when seen, no doubt to propitiate them.\n\nThe Lion is a symbol of majesty and of the sun in his glory (reached\nin the zodiacal Leo), though here and there his original demonic\ncharacter appears,--as in the combats of Indra, Samson, and Herakles\nwith terrible lions. Euphemism, in one sense, fulfils the conditions\nof Samson's riddle--Sweetness coming out of the Strong--and has\nbrought honey out of the Lion. His cruel character has subtly fallen\nto Sirius the Dog-star, to whom are ascribed the drought and malaria\nof 'dog-days' (when the sun is in Leo); but the primitive fact is\nintimated in several fables like that of Arist\u00e6us, who, born after\nhis mother had been rescued from the Lybian lion, was worshipped in\nCeos as a saviour from both droughts and lions. The Lion couching at\nthe feet of beautiful Doorga in India, reappears drawing the chariot\nof Aphrodite, and typifies the potency of beauty rather than, as\nEmerson interprets, that beauty depends on strength. The chariot\nof the Norse Venus, Freyja, was drawn by Cats, diminished forms of\nher Southern sister's steeds. It was partly by these routes the Cat\ncame to play the sometimes beneficent r\u00f4le in Russian, and to some\nextent in German, French, and English folklore,--e.g., Puss in Boots,\nWhittington and his Cat, and Madame D'Aulnoy's La Chatte Blanche. The\ndemonic characteristics of the destructive cats have been inherited\nby the black,--or, as in Macbeth, the brindled,--cat. In Germany the\napproach of a cat to a sick-bed announces death; to dream of one is\nan evil omen. In Hungary it is said every black cat becomes a witch\nat the age of seven. It is the witch's favourite riding-horse, but\nmay sometimes be saved from such servitude by incision of the sign of\nthe cross. A scratch from a black cat is thought to be the beginning\nof a fatal spell.\n\nDe Gubernatis [98] has a very curious speculation concerning the origin\nof our familiar fable the Kilkenny Cats, which he traces to the German\nsuperstition which dreads the combat between cats as presaging death to\none who witnesses it; and this belief he finds reflected in the Tuscan\nchild's 'game of souls,' in which the devil and angel are supposed\nto contend for the soul. The author thinks this may be one outcome\nof the contest between Night and Twilight in Mythology; but, if the\nconnection can be traced, it would probably prove to be derived from\nthe struggle between the two angels of Death, one variation of which\nis associated with the legend of the strife for the body of Moses. The\nBook of Enoch says that Gabriel was sent, before the Flood, to excite\nthe man-devouring giants to destroy one another. In an ancient Persian\npicture in my possession, animal monsters are shown devouring each\nother, while their proffered victim, like Daniel, is unharmed. The\nidea is a natural one, and hardly requires comparative tracing.\n\nDr. Dennys tells us that in China there exists precisely the same\nsuperstition as in Scotland as to the evil omen of a cat (or dog)\npassing over a corpse. Brand and Pennant both mention this, the\nlatter stating that the cat or dog that has so done is killed without\nmercy. This fact would seem to show that the fear is for the living,\nlest the soul of the deceased should enter the animal and become one\nof the innumerable werewolf or vampyre class of demons. But the origin\nof the superstition is no doubt told in the Slavonic belief that if\na cat leap over a corpse the deceased person will become a vampyre.\n\nIn Russia the cat enjoys a somewhat better reputation than it does\nin most other countries. Several peasants in the neighbourhood of\nMoscow assured me that while they would never be willing to remain in\na church where a dog had entered, they would esteem it a good sign if\na cat came to church. One aged woman near Moscow told me that when the\nDevil once tried to creep into Paradise he took the form of a mouse:\nthe Dog and Cat were on guard at the gates, and the Dog allowed the\nevil one to pass, but the Cat pounced on him, and so defeated another\ntreacherous attempt against human felicity.\n\nThe Cat superstition has always been strong in Great Britain. It is,\nindeed, in one sense true, as old Howell wrote (1647)--'We need not\ncross the sea for examples of this kind, we have too many (God wot)\nat home: King James a great while was loath to believe there were\nwitches; but that which happened to my Lord Francis of Rutland's\nchildren convinced him, who were bewitched by an old woman that was\na servant of Belvoir Castle, but, being displeased, she contracted\nwith the Devil, who conversed with her in the form of a Cat, whom she\ncalled Rutterkin, to make away those children out of mere malignity\nand thirst of revenge.' It is to be feared that many a poor woman\nhas been burned as a witch against whom her cherished cat was the\nchief witness. It would be a curious psychological study to trace how\nfar the superstition owns a survival in even scientific minds,--as\nin Buffon's vituperation of the cat, and in the astonishing story,\ntold by Mr. Wood, of a cat which saw a ghost (anno 1877)!\n\nThe Dog, so long the faithful friend of man, and even, possibly,\nbecause of the degree to which he has caught his master's manners,\nhas a large demonic history. In the Semitic stories there are many\nthat indicate the path by which 'dog' became the Mussulman synonym\nof infidel; and the one dog Katmir who in Arabic legend was admitted\nto Paradise for his faithful watching three hundred and nine years\nbefore the cave of the Seven Sleepers, [99] must have drifted among\nthe Moslems from India as the Ephesian Sleepers did from the christian\nworld. In the beautiful episode of the 'Mah\u00e1bh\u00e1rata,' Yudhisthira\nhaving journeyed to the door of heaven, refuses to enter into that\nhappy abode unless his faithful dog is admitted also. He is told\nby Indra, 'My heaven hath no place for dogs; they steal away our\nofferings on earth;' and again, 'If a dog but behold a sacrifice,\nmen esteem it unholy and void.'  This difficulty was solved by the\nDog--Yama in disguise--revealing himself and praising his friend's\nfidelity. It is tolerably clear that it is to his connection with Yama,\ngod of Death, and under the evolution of that dualism which divided the\nuniverse into upper and nether, that the Dog was degraded among our\nAryan ancestors; at the same time his sometimes wolfish disposition\nand some other natural characters supplied the basis of his demonic\ncharacter. He was at once a dangerous and a corruptible guard.\n\nIn the early Vedic Mythology it is the abode of the gods that is\nguarded by the two dogs, identified by solar mythologists as the\nmorning and evening twilight: a later phase shows them in the\nservice of Yama, and they reappear in the guardian of the Greek\nHades, Cerberus, and Orthros. The first of these has been traced\nto the Vedic Sarvara, the latter to the monster Vritra. 'Orthros'\nis the phonetical equivalent of Vritra. The bitch Sarama, mother\nof the two Vedic dogs, proved a treacherous guard, and was slain by\nIndra. Hence the Russian peasant comes fairly by another version of\nhow the Dog, while on guard, admitted the Devil into heaven on being\nthrown a bone. But the two watch-dogs of the Hindu myth do not seem to\nbear an evil character. In a funeral hymn of the 'Rig-Veda' (x. 14),\naddressed to Yama, King of Death, we read:--'By an auspicious path\ndo thou hasten past the two four-eyed brindled dogs, the offspring\nof Sarama; then approach the beautiful Pitris who rejoice together\nwith Yama. Intrust him, O Yama, to thy two watch-dogs, four-eyed,\nroad-guarding, and man-observing. The two brown messengers of Yama,\nbroad of nostril and insatiable, wander about among men; may they give\nus again to-day the auspicious breath of life that we may see the sun!'\n\nAnd now thousands of years after this was said we find the Dog still\nregarded as the seer of ghosts, and watcher at the gates of death, of\nwhose opening his howl forewarns. The howling of a dog on the night of\nDecember 9, 1871, at Sandringham, where the Prince of Wales lay ill,\nwas thought important enough for newspapers to report to a shuddering\ncountry. I read lately of a dog in a German village which was supposed\nto have announced so many deaths that he became an object of general\nterror, and was put to death. In that country belief in the demonic\ncharacter of the dog seems to have been strong enough to transmit an\ninfluence even to the powerful brain of Goethe.\n\nIn Goethe's poem, it was when Faust was walking with the student\nWagner that the black Dog appeared, rushing around them in spiral\ncurves--spreading, as Faust said, 'a magic coil as a snare around\nthem;' [100] that after this dog had followed Faust into his study,\nit assumed a monstrous shape, until changed to a mist, from which\nMephistopheles steps forth--'the kernel of the brute'--in guise of a\ntravelling scholar. This is in notable coincidence with the archaic\nsymbolism of the Dog as the most frequent form of the 'Lares' (fig. 9),\nor household genii, originally because of its vigilance. The form here\npresented is nearly identical with the Cynocephalus, whom the learned\nauthor of 'Mankind: their Origin and Destiny,' identifies as the Adamic\nbeing set as a watch and instructor in Eden (Gen. xvi. 15), an example\nof which, holding pen and tablet (as described by Horapollo), is given\nin that work from Phil\u00e6. Chrysippus says that these were afterwards\nrepresented as young men clothed with dog-skins. Remnants of the\ntutelary character of the dog are scattered through German folklore:\nhe is regarded as oracle, ghost-seer, and gifted with second sight;\nin Bohemia he is sometimes made to lick an infant's face that it may\nsee well.\n\nThe passage in 'Faust' has been traced to Goethe's antipathy to\ndogs, as expressed in his conversation with Falk at the time of\nWieland's death. 'Annihilation is utterly out of the question; but\nthe possibility of being caught on the way by some more powerful\nand yet baser monas, and subordinated to it; this is unquestionably\na very serious consideration; and I, for my part, have never been\nable entirely to divest myself of the fear of it, in the way of a\nmere observation of nature.' At this moment, says Falk, a dog was\nheard repeatedly barking in the street. Goethe, sprang hastily to the\nwindow and called to it: 'Take what form you will, vile larva, you\nshall not subjugate me!' After some pause, he resumed with the remark:\n'This rabble of creation is extremely offensive. It is a perfect pack\nof monades with which we are thrown together in this planetary nook;\ntheir company will do us little honour with the inhabitants of other\nplanets, if they happen to hear anything about them.'\n\nIn visiting the house where Goethe once resided in Weimar, I\nwas startled to find as the chief ornament of the hall a large\nbronze dog, of full size, and very dark, looking proudly forth,\nas if he possessed the Goethean monas after all. However, it is not\nprobable that the poet's real dislike of dogs arose solely from that\nspeculation about monades. It is more probable that in observing the\nold wall-picture in Auerbach's cellar, wherein a dog stands beside\nMephistopheles, Goethe was led to consider carefully the causes of\nthat intimacy. Unfortunately, and notwithstanding the fables and\nthe sentiment which invest that animal, there are some very repulsive\nthings about him, such as his tendency to madness and the infliction on\nman of a frightful death. The Greek Mania's 'fleet hounds' (Bacch\u00e6 977)\nhave spread terrors far and wide.\n\nThose who carefully peruse the account given by Mr. Lewes of the\nquarrel between Karl August and Goethe, on account of the opposition\nof the latter to the introduction of a performing dog on the Weimar\nstage--an incident which led to his resignation of his position of\nintendant of the theatre--may detect this aversion mingling with\nhis disgust as an artist; and it may be also suspected that it was\nnot the mere noise which caused the tortures he described himself as\nhaving once endured at G\u00f6ttingen from the barking of dogs.\n\nIt is, however, not improbable that in the wild notion of Goethe,\njoined with his cynophobia, we find a survival of the belief of the\nParsees of Surat, who venerate the Dog above all other animals,\nand who, when one is dying, place a dog's muzzle near his mouth,\nand make it bark twice, so that it may catch the departing soul,\nand bear it to the waiting angel.\n\nThe devil-worshippers of Travancore to this day declare that the\nevil power approaches them in the form of a Dog, as Mephistopheles\napproached Faust. But before the superstition reached Goethe's poem\nit had undergone many modifications; and especially its keen scent\nhad influenced the Norse imagination to ascribe to it pr\u00e6ternatural\nwisdom. Thus we read in the Saga of Hakon the Good, that when Eystein\nthe Bad had conquered Drontheim, he offered the people choice of\nhis slave Thorer or his dog Sauer to be their king. They chose the\nDog. 'Now the dog was by witchcraft gifted with three men's wisdom;\nand when he barked he spoke one word and barked two.' This Dog wore\na collar of gold, and sat on a throne, but, for all his wisdom and\npower, seems to have been a dog still; for when some wolves invaded\nthe cattle, he attacked and was torn to pieces by them.\n\nAmong the negroes of the Southern States in America I have found the\nbelief that the most frequent form of a diabolical apparition is that\nof a large Dog with fiery eyes, which may be among them an original\nsuperstition attributable to their horror of the bloodhound, by which,\nin some regions, they were pursued when attempting to escape. Among\nthe whites of the same region I have never been able to find any\ninstance of the same belief, though belief in the presage of the\nhowling dog is frequent; and it is possible that this is a survival\nfrom some region in Africa, where the Dog has an evil name of the\nsame kind as the scape-goat. Among some tribes in Fazogl there is\nan annual carnival at which every one does as he likes. The king\nis then seated in the open air, a dog tied to the leg of his chair,\nand the animal is then stoned to death.\n\nMark Twain [101] records the folklore of a village of Missouri,\nwhere we find lads quaking with fear at the howling of a 'stray dog'\nin the night, but indifferent to the howling of a dog they recognise,\nwhich may be a form of the common English belief that it is unlucky\nto be followed by a 'strange' dog. From the same book it appears\nalso that the dog will always have his head in the direction of the\nperson whose doom is signified: the lads are entirely relieved when\nthey find the howling animal has his back turned to them.\n\nIt is remarkable that these fragments of European superstition should\nmeet in the Far West a plentiful crop of their like which has sprung up\namong the aborigines, as the following extract from Mr. Brinton's work,\n'Myths of the New World,' will show: 'Dogs were supposed to stand\nin some peculiar relation to the moon, probably because they howl\nat it and run at night, uncanny practices which have cost them dear\nin reputation. The custom prevailed among tribes so widely asunder\nas Peruvians, Tupis, Creeks, Iroquois, Algonquins, and Greenland\nEskimos to thrash the curs most soundly during an eclipse. The Creeks\nexplained this by saying that the big Dog was swallowing the sun, and\nthat by whipping the little ones they could make him desist. What\nthe big Dog was they were not prepared to say. We know. It was\nthe night goddess, represented by the Dog, who was thus shrouding\nthe world at mid-day. In a better sense, they represented the more\nagreeable characteristics of the lunar goddess. Xochiquetzal, most\nfecund of Aztec divinities, patroness of love, of sexual pleasure,\nand of child-birth, was likewise called Itzcuinan, which, literally\ntranslated, is 'bitch-mother.' This strange and to us so repugnant\ntitle for a goddess was not without parallel elsewhere. When in his\nwars the Inca Pachacutec carried his arms into the province of Huanca,\nhe found its inhabitants had installed in their temples the figure of\na Dog as their highest deity.... This canine canonisation explains why\nin some parts of Peru a priest was called, by way of honour, allco,\nDog!... Many tribes on the Pacific coast united in the adoration of\na wild species, the coyote, the Canis latrans of naturalists.' Of\nthe Dog-demon Chantico the legend of the Nahuas was, 'that he made a\nsacrifice to the gods without observing a preparatory fast, for which\nhe was punished by being changed into a Dog. He then invoked the god\nof death to deliver him, which attempt to evade a just punishment so\nenraged the divinities that they immersed the world in water.'\n\nThe common phrase 'hell-hounds' has come to us by various routes. Diana\nbeing degraded to Hecate, the dogs of Hades, Orthros and Cerberus,\nmultiplied into a pack of hounds for her chase, were degraded with her\ninto infernal howlers and hunters. A like degradation of Odin's hunt\ntook place at a later date. The Wild Huntsman, being a diabolical\ncharacter, is considered elsewhere. Concerning the Dog, it may be\nfurther said here, that there are probably various characteristics\nof that animal reflected in his demonic character. His liability\nto become rabid, and to afflict human beings with hydrophobia,\nappears to have had some part in it. Spinoza alludes to the custom\nin his time of destroying persons suffering from this canine rabies\nby suffocation; and his English biographer and editor, Dr. Willis,\ntells me that in his boyhood in Scotland he always heard this spoken\nof as the old custom. That such treatment could have prevailed can\nhardly be ascribed to anything but a belief in the demonic character\nof the rabid dog, cognate with the unconscious superstition which\nstill causes rural magistrates to order a dog which has bitten any\none to be slain. The notion is, that if the dog goes mad thereafter,\nthe man will also. Of course it would be rational to preserve the\ndog's life carefully, in order that, if it continues healthy, the\nbitten may feel reassured, as he cannot be if it be dead.\n\nBut the degradation of the dog had a cause even in his fidelity\nas a watch. For this, as we have just seen, made him a common form\namong Lares or domestic demons. The teraphim also were often in this\nshape. Christianity had therefore a special reason for ascribing an\ninfernal character to these little idols, which interfered with the\npopular dependence on the saints. It will thus be seen that there\nwere many causes operating to create that formidable class of demons\nwhich were called in the Middle Ages Cynocephaloi. The ancient holy\npictures of Russia especially abound in these dog-headed devils; in\nthe sixteenth century they were frequently represented rending souls\nin hell; and sometimes the dragon of the Apocalypse is represented\nwith seven horrible canine heads.\n\nM. Toussenel, in his transcendental interpretations, has identified\nthe Wolf as the bandit and outlaw. [102] The proverbial medi\u00e6val\nphrase for an outlaw--one who wears a teste loeve, caput lupinum,\nwulfesheofod, which the ingenious author perhaps remembered--is\nof good antiquity. The wolf is called robber in the 'Rig-Veda,'\nand he is there also demonised, since we find him fleeing before a\ndevotee. (In the Zend 'Vendidad' the souls of the pious fear to meet\nthe wolf on the way to heaven.) The god Pushan is invoked against the\nevil wolf, the malignant spirit. [103] Cardano says that to dream of\na wolf announces a robber. There is in the wolf, at the same time,\nthat always attractive love of liberty which, in the well-known fable,\nmakes him prefer leanness to the comfort of the collar-wearing dog,\nwhich makes him among demonic animals sometimes the same as the mighty\nhuntsmen Nimrod and shaggy Esau among humanised demons. One is not\nsurprised to find occasionally good stories about the wolf. Thus the\nNez Perces tribe in America trace the origin of the human race to a\nwolf. They say that originally, when there were nothing but animals,\nthere was a huge monster which devoured them whole and alive. This\nmonster swallowed a wolf, who, when he entered its belly, found\nthe animals therein snarling at and biting one another as they had\ndone on the earth outside. The wolf exhorted them that their common\nsufferings should teach them friendliness, and finally he induced them\nto a system of co-operation by which they made their way out through\nthe side of the monster, which instantly perished. The animals so\nreleased were at once transformed to men, how and why the advocates\nof co-operation will readily understand, and founded the Nez Perces\nIndians. The myths of Asia and Europe are unhappily antipodal to this\nin spirit and form, telling of human beings transformed to wolves. In\nthe Norse Mythology, however, there stands a demon wolf whose story\nbears a touch of feeling, though perhaps it was originally the mere\nexpression for physical law. This is the wolf Fenris, which, from being\nat first the pet of the gods and lapdog of the goddesses, became so\nhuge and formidable that Asgard itself was endangered. All the skill\nand power of the gods could not forge chains which might chain him;\nhe snapped them like straws and toppled over the mountains to which\nhe was fastened.  But the little Elves working underground made that\nchain so fine that none could see or feel it,--fashioned it out of\nthe beards of women, the breath of fish, noise of the cat's footfall,\nspittle of birds, sinews of bears, roots of stones,--by which are meant\nthings non-existent. This held him. Fenris is chained till the final\ndestruction, when he shall break loose and devour Odin. The fine chain\nthat binds ferocity,--is it the love that can tame all creatures? Is\nit the sunbeam that defines to the strongest creature its habitat?\n\nThe two monsters formed when R\u00e1hu was cloven in twain, in Hindu\nMythology, reappear in Eddaic fable as the wolves Sk\u00f6ll and Hati,\nwho pursue the sun and moon. As it is said in the V\u00f6lusp\u00e1:--\n\n\n                Eastward in the Iron-wood\n                The old one sitteth,\n                And there bringeth forth\n                Fenrir's fell kindred.\n                Of these one, the mightiest,\n                The moon's devourer,\n                In form most fiend-like,\n                And filled with the life-blood\n                Of the dead and the dying,\n                Reddens with ruddy gore\n                The seats of the high gods.\n\n\nEuphemism attending propitiation of such monsters may partly explain\nthe many good things told of wolves in popular legend. The stories of\nthe she-wolf nourishing children, as Romulus and Remus, are found in\nmany lands. They must, indeed, have had some prestige, to have been\nso largely adopted in saintly tradition. Like the bears that Elisha\ncalled to devour the children, the wolves do not lose their natural\nferocity by becoming pious. They devour heretics and sacrilegious\npeople. One guarded the head of St. Edmund the Martyr of England;\nanother escorted St. Oddo, Abbot of Cluny, as his ancestors did the\npriests of Cluny. The skin of the wolf appears in folklore as a charm\nagainst hydrophobia; its teeth are best for cutting children's gums,\nand its bite, if survived, is an assurance against any future wound\nor pain.\n\nThe tragedy which is so foolishly sprung upon the nerves of children,\nLittle Red Riding-Hood, shows the wolf as a crafty animal. There are\nmany legends of a like character which have made it a favourite figure\nin which to represent pious impostors. In our figure 10, the wolf\nappears as the 'dangerous confessor;' it was intended, as Mr. Wright\nthought, for Mary of Modena, Queen of James II., and Father Petre. At\nthe top of the original are the words 'Converte Angliam' and beneath,\n'It is a foolish sheep that makes the wolf her confessor.' The craft\nof the wolf is represented in a partly political partly social turn\ngiven by an American fabulist to one of \u00c6sop's fables. The wolf\nhaving accused the lamb he means to devour of fouling the stream, and\nreceiving answer that the lamb was drinking farther down the current,\nalters the charge and says, 'You opposed my candidature at the caucus\ntwo years ago.' 'I was not then born,' replies the lamb. The wolf then\nsays, 'Any one hearing my accusations would testify that I am insane\nand not responsible for my actions,' and thereupon devours the lamb\nwith full faith in a jury of his countrymen. M. Toussenel says the wolf\nis a terrible strategist, albeit the less observant have found little\nin his character to warrant this attribute of craft, his physiognomy\nand habits showing him a rather transparent highwayman. It is probable\nthat the fables of this character have derived that trait from his\nassociation with demons and devils supposed to take on his shape.\n\nIn a beautiful hymn to the Earth in the 'Atharva Veda' it is said, 'The\nEarth, which endureth the burden of the oppressor, beareth up the abode\nof the lofty and of the lowly, suffereth the hog, and giveth entrance\nto the wild boar.' Boar-hounds in Brittany and some other regions\nare still kept at Government expense. There are many indications of\nthis kind that in early times men had to defend themselves vigorously\nagainst the ravages of the wild boar, and, as De Gubernatis remarks,\n[104] its character is generally demoniacal. The contests of Hercules\nwith the Erymanthian, and of Meleager with the Calydonian, Boar,\nare enough to show that it was through its dangerous character that\nhe became sacred to the gods of war, Mars and Odin. But it is also\nto be remembered that the third incarnation of Vishnu was as a Wild\nBoar; and as the fearless exterminator of snakes the pig merited\nthis association with the Preserver. Provided with a thick coat of\nfat, no venom can harm him unless it be on the lip. It may be this\nability to defy the snake-ordeal which, after its uncleanliness had\nexcepted the hog from human voracity in some regions, assigned it a\ndiabolical character. In rabbinical fable the hog and rat were created\nby Noah to clear the Ark of filth; but the rats becoming a nuisance,\nhe evoked a cat from the lion's nose.\n\nIt is clear that our Asiatic and Norse ancestors never had such a\nferocious beast to encounter as the Grisly Bear (Ursus horribilis)\nof America, else the appearances of this animal in Demonology could\nnever have been so respectable. The comparatively timid Asiatic\nBear (U. labiatus), the small and almost harmless Thibetan species\n(U. Thibetanus), would appear to have preponderated over the fiercer\nbut rarer Bears of the North in giving us the Indo-Germanic fables,\nin which this animal is, on the whole, a favourite. Emerson finds in\nthe fondness of the English for their national legend of 'Beauty and\nthe Beast' a sign of the Englishman's own nature. 'He is a bear with\na soft place in his heart; he says No, and helps you.' The old legend\nfound place in the heart of a particularly representative American\nalso--Theodore Parker, who loved to call his dearest friend 'Bear,' and\nwho, on arriving in Europe, went to Berne to see his favourites, from\nwhich its name is derived. The fondness of the Bear for honey--whence\nits Russian name, medv-jed, 'honey-eater'--had probably something to do\nwith its dainty taste for roses and its admiration for female beauty,\nas told in many myths. In his comparative treatment of the mythology\nof the Bear, De Gubernatis [105] mentions the transformation of King\nTrisankus into a bear, and connects this with the constellation of the\nGreat Bear; but it may with equal probability be related to the many\nfables of princes who remain under the form of a bear until the spell\nis broken by the kiss of some maiden. It is worthy of note that in the\nRussian legends the Bear is by no means so amiable as in those of our\nWestern folklore. In one, the Bear-prince lurking in his fountain holds\nby the beard the king who, while hunting, tries to quench his thirst,\nand releases him only after a promise to deliver up whatever he has\nat home without his knowledge; the twins, Ivan and Maria, born during\nhis absence, are thus doomed--are concealed, but discovered by the\nbear, who carries them away. They are saved by help of the bull. When\nescaping the bear Ivan throws down a comb, which becomes a tangled\nforest, which, however, the bear penetrates; but the spread-out\ntowel which becomes a lake of fire sends the bear back. [106] It\nis thus the ferocious Arctic Bear which gives the story its sombre\ncharacter. Such also is the Russian tale of the Bear with iron hairs,\nwhich devastates the kingdom, devouring the inhabitants until Ivan\nand Helena alone remain; after the two in various ways try to escape,\ntheir success is secured by the Bull, which, more kindly than Elisha,\nblinds the Bear with his horns. [107] (The Bear retires in winter.) In\nNorwegian story the Bear becomes milder,--a beautiful youth by night,\nwhose wife loses him because she wishes to see him by lamplight: her\nplace is taken by a long-nosed princess, until, by aid of the golden\napple and the rose, she recovers her husband. In the Pentameron,\n[108] Pretiosa, to escape the persecutions of her father, goes into\nthe forest disguised as a she-bear; she nurses and cures the prince,\nwho is enamoured of her, and at his kiss becomes a beautiful maid. The\nBear thus has a twofold development in folklore. He used to be killed\n(13th century) at the end of the Carnival in Rome, as the Devil. [109]\nThe Siberians, if they have killed a bear, hang his skin on a tree and\napologise humbly to it, declaring that they did not forge the metal\nthat pierced it, and they meant the arrow for a bird; from which it\nis plain that they rely more on its stupidity than its good heart. In\nCanada, when the hunters kill a bear, one of them approaches it and\nplaces between his teeth the stem of his pipe, breathes in the bowl,\nand thus, filling with smoke the animal's mouth, conjures its soul not\nto be offended at his death. As the bear's ghost makes no reply, the\nhuntsman, in order to know if his prayer is granted, cuts the thread\nunder the bear's tongue, and keeps it until the end of the hunt, when\na large fire is kindled, and all the band solemnly throw in it what\nthreads of this kind they have; if these sparkle and vanish, as is\nnatural, it is a sign that the bears are appeased. [110] In Greenland\nthe great demon, at once feared and invoked, especially by fishermen,\nis Torngarsuk, a huge Bear with a human arm. He is invisible to all\nexcept his priests, the Anguekkoks, who are the only physicians of\nthat people.\n\nThe extreme point of demonic power has always been held by the\nSerpent. So much, however, will have to be said of the destructiveness\nand other characteristics of this animal when we come to consider\nat length its unique position in Mythology, that I content myself\nhere with a pictorial representation of the Singhalese Demon of\nSerpents. If any one find himself shuddering at sight of a snake,\neven in a country where they are few and comparatively harmless,\nperhaps this figure (11) may suggest the final cause of the shudder.\n\nIn conclusion, it may be said that not only every animal ferocity,\nbut every force which can be exerted injuriously, has had its\ndemonic representations. Every claw, fang, sting, hoof, horn,\nhas been as certain to be catalogued and labelled in demonology\nas in physical science. It is remarkable also how superstition\nrationalises. Thus the horn in the animal world, though sometimes\ndangerous to man, was more dangerous to animals, which, as foes of\nthe horned animals, were foes to man's interests. The early herdsman\nknew the value of the horn as a defence against dog and wolf, besides\nits other utilities. Consequently, although it was necessary that the\nhorn-principle, so to say, in nature must be regarded as one of its\nretractile and cruel features, man never demonised the animals whose\nbutt was most dangerous, but for such purpose transferred the horns\nto the head of some nondescript creature. The horn has thus become\na natural weapon of man-demons. The same evolution has taken place\nin America; for, although among its aboriginal legends we may meet\nwith an occasional demon-buffalo, such are rare and of apocryphal\nantiquity. The accompanying American figure (12) is from a photograph\nsent me by the President of Vanderbilt University, Tennessee, who\nfound it in an old mound (Red Indian) in the State of Georgia. It is\nprobably as ancient as any example of a human head with horns in the\nworld; and as it could not have been influenced by European notions,\nit supplies striking evidence that the demonisation of the forces and\ndangers of nature belongs to the structural action of the human mind.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nENEMIES.\n\n\n    Aryas, Dasyus, Nagas--Yakkhos--Lycians--Ethiopians--Hirpini--\n    Polites--Sosipolis--Were-wolves--Goths and Scythians--Giants and\n    Dwarfs--Berserkers--Britons--Iceland--Mimacs--Gog and Magog.\n\n\nWe paint the Devil black, says George Herbert. On the other hand the\nnegro paints him white, with reason enough. The name of the Devil\nat Mozambique is Muzungu Maya, or Wicked White Man. Of this demon\nthey make little images of extreme hideousness, which are kept by\npeople on the coast, and occasionally displayed, in the belief that\nif the White Devil is lurking near them he will vanish out of sheer\ndisgust with a glimpse of his own ugliness. The hereditary horror of\nthe kidnapper displayed in this droll superstition may possibly have\nbeen assisted by the familiarity with all things infernal represented\nin the language of the white sailors visiting the coast. Captain\nBasil Hall, on visiting Mozambique about fifty years ago, found\nthat the native dignitaries had appropriated the titles of English\nnoblemen, and a dumpy little Duke of Devonshire met him with his whole\nvocabulary of English,--'How do you do, sir. Very glad see you. Damn\nyour eyes. Johanna man like English very much. God damn. That very\ngood? Eh? Devilish hot, sir. What news? Hope your ship stay too long\nwhile very. Damn my eye. Very fine day.'\n\nIn most parts of India Siva also is painted white, which would indicate\nthat there too was found reason to associate diabolism with the white\nface. It is said the Thugs spared Englishmen because their white faces\nsuggested relationship to Siva. In some of the ancient Indian books\nthe monster whom Indra slew, Vritra, is called Dasyu (enemy), a name\nwhich in the Vedas designates the Aborigines as contrasted with the\nAryans of the North. 'In the old Sanskrit, in the hymns of the Veda,\n\u00e2rya occurs frequently as a national name and as a name of honour,\ncomprising the worshippers of the gods of the Brahmans, as opposed to\ntheir enemies, who are called in the Veda Dasyus. Thus one of the gods,\nIndra, who in some respects answers to the Greek Zeus, is invoked\nin the following words (Rigveda, i. 57, 8):--'Know thou the Aryas,\nO Indra, and those who are Dasyus; punish the lawless, and deliver\nthem unto thy servant! Be thou the mighty helper of the worshippers,\nand I will praise all these thy deeds at the festivals.' [111]\n\nNaglok (snakeland) was at an early period a Hindu name for hell. But\nthe Nagas were not real snakes,--in that case they might have fared\nbetter,--but an aboriginal tribe in Ceylon, believed by the Hindus to\nbe of serpent origin,--'naga' being an epithet for 'native.' [112] The\nSinghalese, on the other hand, have adapted the popular name for demons\nin India, 'Rakshasa,' in their Rakseyo, a tribe of invisible cannibals\nwithout supernatural powers (except invisibility), who no doubt merely\nembody the traditions of some early race. The dreaded powers were\nfrom another tribe designated Yakkhos (demons), and believed to have\nthe power of rendering themselves invisible. Buddha's victories over\nthese demonic beings are related in the 'Mahawanso.' 'It was known\n(by inspiration) by the vanquishers that in Lanka, filled by yakkhos,\n... would be the place where his religion would be glorified. In\nlike manner, knowing that in the centre of Lanka, on the delightful\nbank of a river, ... in the agreeable Mahanaga garden, ... there\nwas a great assembly of the principal yakkhos, ... the deity of\nhappy advent, approaching that great congregation, ... immediately\nover their heads hovering in the air, ... struck terror into them\nby rains, tempests, and darkness. The yakkhos, overwhelmed with awe,\nsupplicated of the vanquisher to be released from their terror.... The\nconsoling vanquisher thus replied: 'I will release ye yakkhos from\nthis your terror and affliction: give ye unto me here by unanimous\nconsent a place for me to alight on.' All these yakkhos replied:\n'Lord, we confer on thee the whole of Lanka, grant thou comfort\nto us.' The vanquisher thereupon dispelling their terror and cold\nshivering, and spreading his carpet of skin on the spot bestowed on\nhim, he there seated himself. He then caused the aforesaid carpet,\nrefulgent with a fringe of flames, to extend itself on all sides:\nthey, scorched by the flames, (receding) stood around on the shores\n(of the island) terrified. The Saviour then caused the delightful isle\nof Giri to approach for them. As soon as they transferred themselves\nthereto (to escape the conflagration), he restored it to its former\nposition.' [113]\n\nThis legend, which reminds one irresistibly of the expulsion of\nreptiles by saints from Ireland, and other Western regions, is\nthe more interesting if it be considered that these Yakkhos are the\nSanskrit Yakshas, attendants on Kuvera, the god of wealth, employed in\nthe care of his garden and treasures. They are regarded as generally\ninoffensive. The transfer by English authorities of the Tasmanians from\ntheir native island to another, with the result of their extermination,\nmay suggest the possible origin of the story of Giri.\n\nBuddha's dealings with the serpent-men or nagas is related as follows\nin the same volume:--\n\n'The vanquisher (i.e., of the five deadly sins), ... in the fifth\nyear of his buddhahood, while residing at the garden of (the prince)\nJeto, observing that, on account of a disputed claim for a gem-set\nthrone between the naga Mahodaro and a similar Chalodaro, a maternal\nuncle and nephew, a conflict was at hand, ... taking with him his\nsacred dish and robes, out of compassion to the nagas, visited\nNagadipo.... These mountain nagas were, moreover, gifted with\nsupernatural powers.... The Saviour and dispeller of the darkness\nof sin, poising himself in the air over the centre of the assembly,\ncaused a terrifying darkness to these nagas. Attending to the prayer\nof the dismayed nagas, he again called forth the light of day. They,\noverjoyed at having seen the deity of felicitous advent, bowed down\nat the feet of the divine teacher. To them the vanquisher preached\na sermon of reconciliation. Both parties rejoicing thereat, made an\noffering of the gem-throne to the divine sage. The divine teacher,\nalighting on the earth, seated himself on the throne, and was served\nby the naga kings with celestial food and beverage. The lord of the\nuniverse procured for eighty kotis of nagas, dwelling on land and in\nthe waters, the salvation of the faith and the state of piety.'\n\nAt every step in the conversion of the native Singhalese,--the demons\nand serpent-men,--Buddha and his apostles are represented as being\nattended by the devas,--the deities of India,--who are spoken of as\nif glad to become menials of the new religion. But we find Zoroaster\nusing this term in a demonic sense, and describing alien worshippers\nas children of the Devas (a Semite would say, Sons of Belial). And\nin the conventional Persian pictures of the Last Judgment (moslem),\nthe archfiend has the Hindu complexion. A similar phenomenon may\nbe observed in various regions. In the medi\u00e6val frescoes of Moscow,\nrepresenting infernal tortures, it is not very difficult to pick out\ndevils representing the physical characteristics of most of the races\nwith which the Muscovite has struggled in early times. There are also\nblack Ethiopians among them, which may be a result of devils being\nconsidered the brood of Tchernibog, god of Darkness; but may also, not\nimpossibly, have come of such apocryphal narratives as that ascribed\nto St. Augustine. 'I was already Bishop of Hippo when I went into\nEthiopia with some servants of Christ, there to preach the gospel. In\nthis country we saw many men and women without heads, who had two\ngreat eyes in their breasts; and in countries still more southerly\nwe saw a people who had but one eye in their foreheads.' [114]\n\nIn considering animal demons, the primitive demonisation of the Wolf\nhas been discussed. But it is mainly as a transformation of man and\na type of savage foes that this animal has been a prominent figure\nin Mythology.\n\nProfessor Max M\u00fcller has made it tolerably clear that Bellerophon\nmeans Slayer of the Hairy; and that Belleros is the transliteration\nof Sanskrit varvara, a term applied to the dark Aborigines by their\nAryan invaders, equivalent to barbarians. [115] This points us for the\norigin of the title rather to Bellerophon's conquest of the Lycians,\nor Wolf-men, than to his victory over the Chim\u00e6ra. The story of\nLycaon and his sons--barbarians defying the gods and devouring human\nflesh--turned into wolves by Zeus, connects itself with the Lycians\n(hairy, wolfish barbarians), whom Bellerophon conquered.\n\nIt was not always, however, the deity that conquered in such\nencounters. In the myth of Soracte, the Wolf is seen able to hold\nhis own against the gods. Soranus, worshipped on Mount Soracte,\nwas at Rome the god of Light, and is identified with Apollo by\nVirgil. [116] A legend states that he became associated with the\ninfernal gods, though called Diespiter, because of the sulphurous\nexhalations from the side of Mount Soracte. It is said that once when\nsome shepherds were performing a sacrifice, some wolves seized the\nflesh; the shepherds, following them, were killed by the poisonous\nvapours of the mountain to which the wolves retreated. An oracle gave\nout that this was a punishment for their pursuing the sacred animals;\nand a general pestilence also having followed, it was declared that it\ncould only cease if the people were all changed to wolves and lived by\nprey. Hence the Hirpini, from the Sabine 'hirpus,' a wolf. The story\nis a variant of that of the Hirpinian Samnites, who were said to have\nreceived their name from their ancestors having followed a sacred wolf\nwhen seeking their new home. The Wolf ceremonies were, like the Roman\nLupercalia, for purposes of purification. The worshippers ran naked\nthrough blazing fires. The annual festival, which Strabo describes\nas occurring in the grove of Feronia, goddess of Nature, became at\nlast a sort of fair. Its history, however, is very significant of\nthe formidable character of the Hirpini, or Wolf-tribe, which could\nalone have given rise to such euphemistic celebrations of the wolf.\n\nIt is interesting to note that in some regions this wolf of\nsuperstition was domesticated into a dog. Pierius says there was a\ntemple of Vulcan in Mount \u00c6tna, in whose grove were dogs that fawned\non the pious, but rent the polluted worshippers. It will be seen by\nthe left form of Fig. 13 that the wolf had a diminution, in pictorial\nrepresentation similar to that which the canine Lares underwent\n(p. 135). This picture is referred by John Beaumont [117] to Cartarius'\nwork on 'The Images of the Gods of the Ancients;' the form wearing\na wolf's skin and head is that of the demon Polites, who infested\nTemesa in Italy, according to a story related by Pausanias. Ulysses,\nin his wanderings, having come to this town, one of his companions\nwas stoned to death for having ravished a virgin; after which his\nghost appeared in form of this demon, which had to be appeased, by\nthe direction of the oracle of Apollo, by the annual sacrifice to\nhim of the most beautiful virgin in the place. Euthymus, enamoured\nof a virgin about to be so offered, gave battle to this demon, and,\nhaving expelled him from the country, married the virgin. However,\nsince the infernal powers cannot be deprived of their rights without\nsubstitution, this saviour of Temesa disappeared in the river C\u00e6cinus.\n\nThe form on the right in Fig. 13 represents the genius of the\ncity of Rome, and is found on some of Hadrian's coins; he holds\nthe cornucopia and the sacrificial dish. The child and the serpent\nin the same picture represent the origin of the demonic character\nattributed to the Eleans by the Arcadians. This child-and-serpent\nsymbol, which bears resemblance to certain variants of Bel and the\nDragon, no doubt was brought to Elea, or Velia in Italy, by the\nPhoc\u00e6ans, when they abandoned their Ionian homes rather than submit\nto Cyrus, and founded that town, B.C. 544. The two forms were jointly\nworshipped with annual sacrifices in the temple of Lucina, under the\nname Sosipolis. The legend of this title is related by Pausanias. When\nthe Arcadians invaded the Eleans, a woman came to the Elean commander\nwith an infant at her breast, and said that she had been admonished\nin a dream to place her child in front of the army. This was done;\nas the Arcadians approached the child was changed to a serpent, and,\nastounded at the prodigy, they fled without giving battle. The child\nwas represented by the Eleans decorated with stars, and holding the\ncornucopia; by the Arcadians, no doubt, in a less celestial way. It\nis not uncommon in Mythology to find the most dangerous demons\nrepresented under some guise of weakness, as, for instance, among\nthe South Africans, some of whom recently informed English officers\nthat the Galeikas were led against them by a terrible sorcerer in\nthe form of a hare. The most fearful traditional demon ever slain\nby hero in Japan was Shuden Dozi--the Child-faced Drinker. In Ceylon\nthe apparition of a demon is said to be frequently under the form of\na woman with a child in her arms.\n\nMany animal demons are mere fables for the ferocity of human\ntribes. The Were-wolf superstition, which exists still in Russia, where\nthe transformed monster is called volkodl\u00e1k (volk, a wolf, and dlak,\nhair), might even have originated in the costume of Norse barbarians\nand huntsmen. The belief was always more or less rationalised,\nresembling that held by Verstegan three hundred years ago, and which\nmay be regarded as prevalent among both the English and Flemish people\nof his day. 'These Were-wolves,' he says, 'are certain sorcerers,\nwho, having anointed their bodies with an ointment they make by the\ninstinct of the devil, and putting on a certain enchanted girdle,\ndo not only unto the view of others seem as wolves, but to their own\nthinking have both the nature and shape of wolves so long as they\nwear the said girdle; and they do dispose themselves as very wolves,\nin worrying and killing, and waste of human creatures.' During the\nFranco-German war of 1870-71, a family of ladies on the German side\nof the Rhine, sitting up all night in apprehension, related to me\nsuch stories of the 'Turcos' that I have since found no difficulty\nin understanding the belief in weird and pr\u00e6ternatural wolves which\nonce filled Europe with horror. The facility with which the old Lycian\nwolf-girdle, so to say, was caught up and worn in so many countries\nwhere race-wars were chronic for many ages, renders it nearly certain\nthat this superstition (Lycanthropy), however it may have originated,\nwas continued through the custom of ascribing demonic characteristics\nto hostile and fierce races. It has been, indeed, a general opinion\nthat the theoretical belief originated in the Pythagorean doctrine\nof metempsychosis. Thus Shakspere:--\n\n\n        Thou almost makest me waver in my faith,\n        To hold opinion with Pythagoras,\n        That souls of animals infuse themselves\n        Into the trunks of men: thy currish spirit\n        Governed a wolf, who, hanged for human slaughter,\n        Even from the gallows did his fell soul fleet,\n        And whilst thou layest in thy unhallowed dam\n        Infused itself in thee; for thy desires\n        Are wolfish, bloody, starved, and ravenous.\n\n\nBut the superstition is much older than Pythagoras, who, no doubt,\ntried to turn it into a moral theory of retributions,--as indeed did\nPlato in his story of the Vision of Er the Armenian.\n\nProfessor Weber and others have adduced evidence indicating that\nalthough belief in the transformation of men into beasts was not\ndeveloped in the Vedic age of India, the matrix of it was there. But\nof our main fact--the association of demonic characters with certain\ntribes--India has presented many examples. In the mountains of\nTravancore there are tribes which are still generally believed to\nbe on terms of especial familiarity with the devils of that region;\nand the dwellers on the plains relate that on these mountains gigantic\ndemons, sixteen or seventeen feet high, may sometimes be seen hurling\nfirebrands at each other.\n\nProfessor Monier Williams contributes an interesting note concerning\nthis general phase of South-Indian demonology. 'Furthermore, it\nmust not be forgotten that although a belief in devils and homage\nto bhutas, or spirits, of all kinds is common all over India, yet\nwhat is called devil-worship is far more systematically practised\nin the South of India and Ceylon than in the North. And the reason\nmay be that as the invading Aryans advanced towards Southern India,\nthey found portions of it peopled by wild aboriginal savages, whose\nbehaviour and aspect appeared to them to resemble that of devils. The\nAryan mind, therefore, naturally pictured to itself the regions of the\nSouth as the chief resort and stronghold of the demon race, and the\ndread of demonical agency became more deeply rooted in Southern India\nthan in the North. Curiously enough, too, it is commonly believed in\nSouthern India that every wicked man contributes by his death to swell\nthe ever-increasing ranks of devil legions. His evil passions do not\ndie with him; they are intensified, concentrated, and perpetuated in\nthe form of a malignant and mischievous spirit.' [118]\n\nIt is obvious that this principle may be extended from individuals\nto entire tribes. The Cimmerians were regarded as dwelling in a land\nallied with hell. In the legend of the Alhambra, as told by Washington\nIrving, the astrologer warns the Moorish king that the beautiful\ndamsel is no doubt one of those Gothic sorceresses of whom they have\nheard so much. Although, as we have seen, England was regarded on the\nContinent as an island of demons because of its northern latitude,\nprobably some of its tribes were of a character dangerous enough to\nprolong the superstition. The nightmare elves were believed to come\nfrom England, and to hurry away through the keyholes at daybreak,\nsaying 'The bells are calling in England.' [119] Visigoth probably\nleft us our word bigot; and 'Goths and Vandals' sometimes designate\nEnglish roughs, as 'Turks' those of Constantinople. Herodotus says\nthe Scythians of the Black Sea regarded the Neurians as wizards,\nwho transformed themselves into wolves for a few days annually; but\nthe Scythians themselves are said by Herodotus to have sprung from a\nmonster, half-woman half-serpent; and possibly the association of the\nScotch with the Scythians by the Germans, who called them both Scutten,\nhad something to do with the uncanny character ascribed to the British\nIsles. Sir Walter Raleigh described the Red Men of America as gigantic\nmonsters. 'Red Devils' is still the pioneer's epithet for them in the\nFar West. The hairy Dukes of Esau were connected with the goat, and\ndemonised as Edom; and Ishmael was not believed much better by the\nmore peaceful Semitic tribes. Such notions are akin to those which\nmany now have of the Thugs and Bashi-Bazouks, and are too uniform\nand natural to tax much the ingenuity of Comparative Mythology.\n\nUnderlying many of the legends of giants and dwarfs may be found a\nsimilar demonologic formation. A principle of natural selection would\nexplain the existence of tribes, which, though of small stature,\nare able to hold their own against the larger and more powerful by\ntheir superior cunning. That such equalisation of apparently unequal\nforces has been known in pre-historic ages may be gathered from many\nfables. Before Bali, the monarch already mentioned, whose power alarmed\nthe gods themselves, Vishnu appeared as a dwarf, asking only so much\nland as he could measure with three steps; the apparently ridiculous\nrequest granted, the god strode over the whole earth with two steps\nand brought his third on the head of Bali. In Scandinavian fable\nwe have the young giantess coming to her mother with the plough and\nploughman in her apron, which she had picked up in the field. To her\nchild's inquiry, 'What sort of beetle is this I found wriggling in\nthe sand?' the giantess replies, 'Go put it back in the place where\nthou hast found it.  We must be gone out of this land, for these\nlittle people will dwell in it.'\n\nThe Sagas contain many stories which, while written in glorification\nof the 'giant' race, relate the destruction of their chiefs by\nthe magical powers of the dwarfs. I must limit myself to a few\nnotes on the Ynglinga Saga. 'In Swithiod,' we are told, 'are many\ngreat domains, and many wonderful races of men, and many kinds of\nlanguages. There are giants, and there are dwarfs, and there are also\nblue men. There are wild beasts, and dreadfully large dragons.' We\nlearn that in Asaland was a great chief, Odin, who went out to conquer\nVanaland. The Vanalanders are declared to have magic arts,--such as\nare ascribed to Finns and Lapps to this day by the more ignorant of\ntheir neighbours. But that the people of Asaland learned their magic\ncharms. 'Odin was the cleverest of them all, and from him all the\nothers learned their magic arts.' 'Odin could make his enemies in\nbattle blind, or deaf, or terror-struck, and their weapons so blunt\nthat they could no more cut than a willow twig; on the other hand, his\nmen rushed forward without armour, were as mad as dogs or wolves, bit\ntheir shields, and were as strong as bears or wild bulls, and killed\npeople at a blow, and neither fire nor iron told upon them. These\nwere called Berserkers.' (From ber, bear, and serkr, sark or coat;\nthe word being probably, as Maurer says, a survival of an earlier\nbelief in the transformation of men into bears.) But the successors of\nOdin did not preserve his occult power. Svegdir, for instance, saw a\nlarge stone and a dwarf at the door entering in it. The dwarf called\nhim to come in and he should see Odin. 'Swedger ran into the stone,\nwhich instantly closed behind him, and Swedger never came back.' The\nwitchcraft of the Finn people is said to have led Vanlandi (Svegdir's\nson) to his death by Mara (night-mare). Vanlandi's son too, Visbur,\nfell a victim to sorcery. Such legends as these, and many others which\nmay be found in Sturleson's Heimskringla, have influenced our popular\nstories whose interest turns on the skill with which some little Jack\nor Thumbling overcomes his adversary by superior cunning.\n\nSuperstitions concerning dwarf-powers are especially rife in\nNorthumberland, where they used to be called Duergar, and they were\nthought to abound on the hills between Rothbury and Elsdon. They\nmislead with torches. One story relates that a traveller, beguiled at\nnight into a hut where a dwarf prepared a comfortable fire for him,\nfound himself when daylight returned sitting upon the edge of a deep\nrugged precipice, where the slightest movement had caused him to be\ndashed to pieces. [120] The Northumbrian stories generally, however,\ndo not bear the emphasis of having grown out of aboriginal conditions,\nor even of having been borrowed for such. The legends of Scotland,\nand of the South-West of England, appear to me much more suggestive of\noriginal struggles between large races and small. They are recalled by\nthe superstitions which still linger in Norway concerning the Lapps,\nwho are said to carry on unholy dealings with gnomes.\n\nIn the last century the 'Brownie' was commonly spoken of in Scotland\nas appearing in shape of 'a tall man,' and the name seems to refer\nto the brown complexion of that bogey, and its long brown hair,\nhardly Scottish. [121] It is generally the case that Second Sight,\nwhich once attained the dignity of being called 'Deuteroscopia,'\nsees a doomed man or woman shrink to the size of a dwarf. The 'tall\nman' is not far off in such cases. 'In some age of the world more\nremote than even that of Alypos,' says Hugh Miller, 'the whole of\nBritain was peopled by giants--a fact amply supported by early English\nhistorians and the traditions of the North of Scotland. Diocletian,\nking of Syria, say the historians, had thirty-three daughters, who,\nlike the daughters of Danaus, killed their husbands on their wedding\nnight. The king, their father, in abhorrence of the crime, crowded\nthem all into a ship, which he abandoned to the mercy of the waves,\nand which was drifted by tides and winds till it arrived on the coast\nof Britain, then an uninhabited island. There they lived solitary,\nsubsisting on roots and berries, the natural produce of the soil,\nuntil an order of demons, becoming enamoured of them, took them for\ntheir wives; and a tribe of giants, who must be regarded as the true\naborigines of the country, if indeed the demons have not a prior claim,\nwere the fruit of these marriages. Less fortunate, however, than even\ntheir prototypes the Cyclops, the whole tribe was extirpated a few ages\nafter by Brutus the parricide, who, with a valour to which mere bulk\ncould offer no effectual resistance, overthrew Gog-Magog and Termagol,\nand a whole host of others with names equally terrible. Tradition\nis less explicit than the historians in what relates to the origin\nand extinction of the race, but its narratives of their prowess are\nmore minute. There is a large and ponderous stone in the parish\nof Edderston which a giantess of the tribe is said to have flung\nfrom the point of a spindle across the Dornoch Firth; and another,\nwithin a few miles of Dingwall, still larger and more ponderous,\nwhich was thrown by a person of the same family, and which still\nbears the marks of a gigantic finger and thumb.' [122]\n\nPerhaps we may find the mythological descendants of these Titans,\nand also of the Druids, in the so-called 'Great Men' once dreaded\nby Highlanders. The natives of South Uist believed that a valley,\ncalled Glenslyte, situated between two mountains on the east side\nof the island, was haunted by these Great Men, and that if any one\nentered the valley without formally resigning themselves to the\nconduct of those beings, they would infallibly become mad. Martin,\nhaving remonstrated with the people against this superstition, was told\nof a woman's having come out of the valley a lunatic because she had\nnot uttered the spell of three sentences. They also told him of voices\nheard in the air. The Brownie ('a tall man with very long brown hair'),\nwho has cow's milk poured out for him on a hill in the same region,\nprobably of this giant tribe, might easily have been demonised at\nthe time when the Druids were giving St. Columba so much trouble,\nand trying to retain their influence over the people by professing\nsupernatural powers. [123]\n\nThe man of the smaller stature, making up for his inferiority by\ninvention, perhaps first forged the sword, the coat of mail, and the\nshield, and so confronted the giant with success. The god with the\nHammer might thus supersede the god of the Flint Spear. Magic art\nseemed to have rendered invulnerable the man from whom the arrow\nrebounded.\n\nIt would appear from King Olaf Tryggvason's Saga that nine hundred\nyears ago the Icelanders and the Danes reciprocally regarded each\nother as giants and dwarfs. The Icelanders indited lampoons against\nthe Danes which allude to their diminutive size:--\n\n\n            The gallant Harald in the field\n            Between his legs lets drop his shield,\n            Into a pony he was changed, &c.\n\n\nOn the other hand, the Danes had by no means a contemptuous idea of\ntheir Icelandic enemies, as the following narrative from Heimskringla\nproves. 'King Harald told a warlock to hie to Iceland in some altered\nshape, and to try what he could learn there to tell him: and he set\nout in the shape of a whale. And when he came near to the land he\nwent to the west side of Iceland, north around the land, when he\nsaw all the mountains and hills full of land-serpents, some great,\nsome small. When he came to Vapnafiord he went in towards the land,\nintending to go on shore; but a huge dragon rushed down the dale\nagainst him, with a train of serpents, paddocks, and toads, that blew\npoison towards him. Then he turned to go westward around the land as\nfar as Eyafiord, and he went into the fiord. Then a bird flew against\nhim, which was so great that its wings stretched over the mountains\non either side of the fiord, and many birds, great and small, with\nit. Then he swam further west, and then south into Breidafiord. When\nhe came into the fiord a large grey bull ran against him, wading into\nthe sea, and bellowing fearfully, and he was followed by a crowd of\nland-serpents. From thence he went round by Reikaness and wanted to\nland at Vikarsted, but there came down a hill-giant against him with\nan iron staff in his hands. He was a head higher than the mountains,\nand many other giants followed him.' The most seductive Hesperian\ngardens of the South and East do not appear to have been so thoroughly\nguarded or defended as Iceland, and one can hardly call it cowardice\nwhen (after the wizard-whale brought back the log of its voyage)\nit is recorded: 'Then the Danish king turned about with his fleet\nand sailed back to Denmark.'\n\nIt is a sufficiently curious fact that the Mimacs, aborigines of\nNova Scotia, [124] were found with a whale-story, already referred to\n(p. 46), so much like this. They also have the legend of an ancient\nwarrior named Booin, who possessed the pr\u00e6ternatural powers especially\nascribed to Odin, those of raising storms, causing excessive cold,\nincreasing or diminishing his size, and assuming any shape. Besides\nthe fearful race of gigantic ice-demons dreaded by this tribe, as\nelsewhere stated (p. 84), they dread also a yellow-horned dragon called\nCheepichealm, (whose form the great Booin sometimes assumes). They\nmake offerings to the new moon. They believe in pixies, calling them\nWigguladum-moochkik, 'very little people.' They anciently believed in\ntwo great spirits, good and evil, both called Manitoos; since their\ncontact with christians only the evil one has been so called.\n\nThe entire motif of the Mimac Demonology is, to my mind, that of\nearly conflicts with some formidable races. It is to be hoped that\ntravellers will pay more attention to this unique race before it\nhas ceased to exist. The Chinese theory of genii is almost exactly\nthat of the Mimacs. The Chinese genii are now small as a moth, now\nfill the world; can assume any form; they command demons; they never\ndie, but, at the end of some centuries, ride to heaven on a dragon's\nback. [125] Ordinarily the Chinese genii use the yellow heron as an\naerial courser. The Mimacs believe in a large pr\u00e6ternatural water-bird,\nCulloo, which devours ordinary people, but bears on its back those\nwho can tame it by magic.\n\nMr. Mayers, in his 'Chinese Reader's Manual,' suggests that the\ndesignation of Formosa as 'Isles of the Genii' (San Sh\u00e9n Shan) by the\nChinese, has some reference to their early attempts at colonisation\nin Japan. Su Fuh, a necromancer, who lived B.C. 219, is said to have\nannounced their discovery, and at the head of a troop of young men\nand maidens, voyaged with an expedition towards them, but, when within\nsight of the magic islands, were driven back by contrary winds.\n\nGog and Magog stand in London Guildhall, though much diminished\nin stature, to suit the English muscles that had to bear them in\nprocessions, monuments of the pr\u00e6ternatural size attributed to\nthe enemies which the Aryan race encountered in its great westward\nmigrations. Even to-day, when the progress of civilisation is harassed\nby untamed Scythian hordes, how strangely fall upon our ears the\nancient legends and prophecies concerning them!\n\n\n    Thus saith the Lord Jehovah:\n    Behold I am against thee, O Gog,\n    Prince of Rosh, of Meshech, and of Tubul:\n    And I will turn thee back, and leave but the sixth part of thee;\n    And I will cause thee to come up from the north parts,\n    And will bring thee upon the mountains of Israel:\n    And I will smite thy bow out of thy left hand,\n    And will cause thine arrows to fall from thy right hand.\n    Thou shalt fall upon the mountains of Israel,\n    Thou and all thy bands. [126]\n\n\nIn the Koran it is related of Dhulkarnein:--'He journeyed from south to\nnorth until he came between the two mountains, beneath which he found\na people who could scarce understand what was said. And they said, O\nDhulkarnein, verily Gog and Magog waste the land; shall we, therefore,\npay thee tribute, on condition that thou build a rampart between us\nand them? He answered, The power wherewith my Lord hath strengthened\nme is better than your tribute; but assist me strenuously and I will\nset a strong wall between you and them.... Wherefore when this wall\nwas finished, Gog and Magog could not scale it, neither could they\ndig through it. And Dhulkarnein said, This is a mercy from my Lord;\nbut when the prediction of my Lord shall come to be fulfilled, he\nwill reduce the wall to dust.'\n\nThe terror inspired by these barbarians is reflected in the prophecies\nof their certain irruption from their supernaturally-built fastnesses;\nas in Ezekiel:--\n\n\n        Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm,\n        Thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land,\n        Thou and all thy bands,\n        And many people with thee;\n\n\nand in the Koran, 'Gog and Magog shall have a passage open for them,\nand they shall hasten from every high hill;' and in the Apocalypse,\n'Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go out to deceive\nthe nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog,\nto gather them in battle: the number of whom is as the sand of the\nsea.' Five centuries ago Sir John Maundeville was telling in England\nthe legend he had heard in the East. 'In that same regioun ben the\nmountaynes of Caspye, that men clepen Uber in the contree. Betwene the\nmountaynes the Jews of 10 lynages ben enclosed, that men clepen Gothe\nand Magothe: and they mowe not gon out on no syde. There weren enclosed\n22 kynges, with hire peple, that dwelleden betwene the mountayns\nof Sythe. There King Alisandre chacede hem betwene the mountaynes,\nand there he thought for to enclose hem thorghe work of his men. But\nwhen he saughe that he might not doon it, ne bringe it to an ende,\nhe preyed to God of Nature, that he wolde performe that that he had\nbegoune. And all were it so, that he was a Payneme, and not worthi to\nben herd, zit God of his grace closed the mountaynes to gydre: so that\nthei dwellen there, all fast ylokked and enclosed with highe mountaynes\nall aboute, saf only on o syde; and on that syde is the See of Caspye.'\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nBARRENNESS.\n\n    Indian famine and Sun-spots--Sun-worship--Demon of the Desert--The\n    Sphinx--Egyptian plagues described by Lepsius: Locusts, Hurricane,\n    Flood, Mice, Flies--The Sheikh's ride--Abaddon--Set--Typhon--The\n    Cain wind--Seth--Mirage--The Desert Eden--Azazel--Tawiscara and\n    the Wild Rose.\n\n\nIn their adoration of rain-giving Indra as also a solar majesty,\nthe ancient Hindus seem to have been fully aware of his inconsistent\nhabits. 'Thy inebriety is most intense,' exclaims the eulogist,\nand soothingly adds, 'Thou desirest that both thy inebriety and thy\nbeneficence should be the means of destroying enemies and distributing\nriches.' [127] Against famine is invoked the thunderbolt of Indra,\nand it is likened to the terrible Tvashtri, in whose fearful shape\n(pure fire) Agni once appeared to the terror of gods and men. [128]\nThis Tvashtri was not an evil being himself, but, as we have seen, an\nartificer for the gods similar to Vulcan; he was, however, father of a\nthree-headed monster who has been identified with Vritra. Though these\nearly worshippers recognised that their chief trouble was connected\nwith 'glaring heat' (which Tvashtri seems to mean in the passage just\nreferred to), Indra's celebrants beheld him superseding his father\nDyaus, and reigning in the day's splendour as well as in the cloud's\nbounty. This monopolist of parts in their theogony anticipated Jupiter\nPluvius. Vedic mythology is pervaded with stories of the demons that\narrested the rain and stole the cloud-cows of Indra--shutting them\naway in caves,--and the god is endlessly praised for dealing death\nto such. He slays Vritra, the 'rain-arresting,' and Dribhika, Bala,\nUrana, Arbuda, 'devouring Swasna,' 'unabsorbable S\u00fashna,' Pipru,\nNamuchi, Rudhikr\u00e1, Varchin and his hundred thousand descendants; [129]\nthe deadly strangling serpent Ahi, especial type of Drouth as it dries\nup rivers; and through all these combats with the alleged authors of\nthe recurring Barrenness and Famine, as most of these monsters were,\nthe seat of the evil was the Sun-god's adorable self!\n\nAlmost pathetic does the long and vast history appear just now,\nwhen competent men of science are giving us good reason to believe\nthat right knowledge of the sun, and the relation of its spots to\nthe rainfall, might have covered India with ways and means which\nwould have adapted the entire realm to its environment, and wrested\nfrom Indra his hostile thunderbolt--the sunstroke of famine. The\nHindus have covered their lands with temples raised to propitiate and\ndeprecate the demons, and to invoke the deities against such sources\nof drouth and famine. Had they concluded that famine was the result of\ninexactly quartered sun-dials, the land would have been covered with\nperfect sun-dials; but the famine would have been more destructive,\nbecause of the increasing withdrawal of mind and energy from the\ntrue cause, and its implied answer. Even so were conflagrations in\nLondon attributed to inexact city clocks; the clocks would become\nperfect, the conflagrations more numerous, through misdirection\nof vigilance. But how much wiser are we of Christendom than the\nHindus? They have adapted their country perfectly for propitiation of\nfamine-demons that do not exist, at a cost which would long ago have\nrendered them secure from the famine-forces that do exist. We have\nsimilarly covered Christendom with a complete system of securities\nagainst hells and devils and wrathful deities that do not exist, while\naround our churches, chapels, cathedrals, are the actually-existent\nseething hells of pauperism, shame, and crime.\n\n'Nothing can advance art in any district of this accursed\nmachine-and-devil-driven England until she changes her mind in many\nthings.' So wrote John Ruskin recently. Of course, so long as the\nmachine toils and earns wealth and other power which still goes to\nsupport and further social and ecclesiastical forms, constituted with\nreference to salvation from a devil or demons no longer believed in,\nthe phrase 'machine-and-devil-driven' is true. Until the invention\nand enterprise of the nation are administered in the interest of right\nideas, we may still sigh, like John Sterling, for 'a dozen men to stand\nup for ideas as Cobden and his friends do for machinery.' But it still\nremains as true that all the machinery and wealth of England devoted\nto man might make its every home happy, and educate every inhabitant,\nas that every idolatrous temple in India might be commuted into a\nshield against famine.\n\nOur astronomers and economists have enabled us to see clearly how\nthe case is with the country whose temples offer no obstruction\nto christian vision. The facts point to the conclusion that the\nsun-spots reach their maximum and minimum of intensity at intervals of\neleven years, and that their high activity is attended with frequent\nfluctuations of the magnetic needle, and increased rainfall. In 1811,\nand since then, famines in India have, with one exception, followed\nyears of minimum sun-spots. [130] These facts are sufficiently well\nattested to warrant the belief that English science and skill will\nbe able to realise in India the provision which Joseph is said to\nhave made for the seven lean years of which Pharaoh dreamed.\n\nUntil that happy era shall arrive, the poor Hindus will only go\non alternately adoring and propitiating the sun, as its benign or\nits cruel influences shall fall upon them. The artist Turner said,\n'The sun is God.' The superb effects of light in Turner's pictures\ncould hardly have come from any but a sun-worshipper dwelling amid\nfogs. Unfamiliarity often breeds reverence. There are few countries\nin which the sun, when it does shine, is so likely to be greeted with\nenthusiasm, and observed in all its variations of splendour, as one\nin which its appearance is rare. Yet the superstition inherited from\nregions where the sun is equally a desolation was strong enough to\nblot out its glory in the mind of a writer famous in his time, Tobias\nSwinden, M.A., who wrote a work to prove the sun to be the abode of\nthe damned. [131] The speculation may now appear only curious, but,\nprobably, it is no more curious than a hundred years from now will\nseem to all the vulgar notion of future fiery torments for mankind,\nthe scriptural necessity of which led the fanciful rector to his\ngrotesque conclusion. These two extremes--the Sun-worship of Turner,\nthe Sun-horror of Swinden,--survivals in England, represent the two\nantagonistic aspects of the sun, which were of overwhelming import\nto those who dwelt beneath its greatest potency. His ill-humour, or\nhis hunger and thirst, in any year transformed the earth to a desert,\nand dealt death to thousands.\n\nIn countries where drouth, barrenness, and consequent famine were\noccasional, as in India, it would be an inevitable result that\nthey would represent the varying moods of a powerful will, and\nin such regions we naturally find the most extensive appliances\nfor propitiation. The preponderant number of fat years would\ntell powerfully on the popular imagination in favour of priestly\nintercession, and the advantage of sacrifices to the great Hunger-demon\nwho sometimes consumed the seeds of the earth. But in countries\nwhere barrenness was an ever-present, visible, unvarying fact,\nthe Demon of the Desert would represent Necessity, a power not to\nbe coaxed or changed. People dwelling in distant lands might invent\ntheoretical myths to account for the desert. It might be an accident\nresulting from the Sun-god having given up his chariot one day to an\ninexperienced driver who came too close to the earth. But to those\nwho lived beside the desert it could only seem an infernal realm,\nquite irrecoverable. The ancient civilisation of Egypt, so full of\ngrandeur, might, in good part, have been due to the lesson taught\nthem by the desert, that they could not change the conditions around\nthem by any entreaties, but must make the best of what was left. If\nsuch, indeed, was the force that built the ancient civilisation\nwhose monuments remain so magnificent in their ruins, its decay\nmight be equally accounted for when that primitive faith passed into\na theological phase. For as Necessity is the mother of invention,\nFate is fatal to the same. Belief in facts, and laws fixed in the\norganic nature of things, stimulates man to study them and constitute\nhis life with reference to them; but belief that things are fixed by\nthe arbitrary decree of an individual power is the final sentence\nof enterprise. Fate might thus steadily bring to ruin the grandest\nachievements of Necessity.\n\nHad we only the true history of the Sphinx--the Binder--we\nmight find it a landmark between the rise and decline of Egyptian\ncivilisation. When the great Limitation surrounding the powers of man\nwas first personified with that mystical grandeur, it would stand\nin the desert not as the riddle but its solution. No such monument\nwas ever raised by Doubt. But once personified and outwardly shaped,\nthe external Binder must bind thought as well; nay, will throttle\nthought if it cannot pierce through the stone and discover the\nmeaning of it. 'How true is that old fable of the Sphinx who sat by\nthe wayside propounding her riddle to the passengers, which if they\ncould not answer she destroyed them! Such a Sphinx is this Life of\nours to all men and societies of men. Nature, like the Sphinx, is of\nwomanly celestial loveliness and tenderness; the face and bosom of\na goddess, but ending in claws and the body of a lioness. There is\nin her a celestial beauty,--which means celestial order, pliancy\nto wisdom; but there is also a darkness, a ferocity, fatality,\nwhich are infernal. She is a goddess, but one not yet disimprisoned;\none still half-imprisoned,--the articulate, lovely still encased in\nthe inarticulate, chaotic. How true! And does she not propound her\nriddles to us? Of each man she asks daily, in mild voice, yet with\na terrible significance, 'Knowest thou the meaning of this Day? What\nthou canst do To-day, wisely attempt to do.' Nature, Universe, Destiny,\nExistence, howsoever we name this grand unnameable Fact, in the midst\nof which we live and struggle, is as a heavenly bride and conquest to\nthe wise and brave, to them who can discern her behests and do them; a\ndestroying fiend to them who cannot. Answer her riddle, it is well with\nthee. Answer it not, pass on regarding it not, it will answer itself;\nthe solution for thee is a thing of teeth and claws; Nature to thee\nis a dumb lioness, deaf to thy pleadings, fiercely devouring. Thou\nart not now her victorious bridegroom; thou art her mangled victim,\nscattered on the precipices, as a slave found treacherous, recreant,\nought to be, and must.' [132]\n\nOn the verge of the Desert, Prime Minister to the Necropolis at\nwhose gateway it stands, the Sphinx reposes amid the silence of\nscience and the centuries. Who built it? None can answer, so far as\nthe human artist, or the king under whom he worked, is concerned. But\nthe ideas and natural forces which built the Sphinx surround even now\nthe arch\u00e6ologist who tries to discover its history and chronology. As\nfittest appendage to Carlyle's interpretation, let us read some\npassages from Lepsius.\n\n'The Oedipus for this king of the Sphinxes is yet wanting. Whoever\nwould drain the immeasurable sand-flood which buries the tombs\nthemselves, and lay open the base of the Sphinx, the ancient\ntemple-path, and the surrounding hills, could easily decide it. But\nwith the enigmas of history there are joined many riddles and wonders\nof nature, which I must not leave quite unnoticed. The newest of all,\nat least, I must describe.\n\n'I had descended with Abeken into a mummy-pit, to open some\nnewly discovered sarcophagi, and was not a little astonished, upon\ndescending, to find myself in a regular snow-drift of locusts, which,\nalmost darkening the heavens, flew over our heads from the south-west\nfrom the desert in hundreds of thousands to the valley. I took it\nfor a single flight, and called my companions from the tombs, where\nthey were busy, that they might see this Egyptian wonder ere it was\nover. But the flight continued; indeed the work-people said it had\nbegun an hour before. Then we first observed that the whole region,\nnear and far, was covered with locusts. I sent an attendant into the\ndesert to discover the breadth of the flock. He ran for the distance\nof a quarter of an hour, then returned and told us that, as far as\nhe could see, there was no end to them. I rode home in the midst of\nthe locust shower. At the edge of the fruitful plain they fell down\nin showers; and so it went on the whole day until the evening, and\nso the next day from morning till evening, and the third; in short to\nthe sixth day, indeed in weaker flights much longer. Yesterday it did\nseem that a storm of rain in the desert had knocked down and destroyed\nthe last of them. The Arabs are now lighting great smoke-fires in the\nfields, and clattering and making loud noises all day long to preserve\ntheir crops from the unexpected invasion. It will, however, do little\ngood. Like a new animated vegetation, these millions of winged spoilers\ncover even the neighbouring sand-hills, so that scarcely anything\nis to be seen of the ground; and when they rise from one place they\nimmediately fall down somewhere in the neighbourhood; they are tired\nwith their long journey, and seem to have lost all fear of their\nnatural enemies, men, animals, smoke, and noise, in their furious\nwish to fill their stomachs, and in the feeding of their immense\nnumber. The most wonderful thing, in my estimation, is their flight\nover the naked wilderness, and the instinct which has guided them from\nsome oasis over the inhospitable desert to the fat soil of the Nile\nvale. Fourteen years ago, it seems, this Egyptian plague last visited\nEgypt with the same force. The popular idea is that they are sent by\nthe comet which we have observed for twelve days in the South-west,\nand which, as it is now no longer obscured by the rays of the moon,\nstretches forth its stately tail across the heavens in the hours\nof the night. The Zodiacal light, too, so seldom seen in the north,\nhas lately been visible for several nights in succession.'\n\nOther plagues of Egypt are described by Lepsius:--\n\n'Suddenly the storm grew to a tremendous hurricane, such as I have\nnever seen in Europe, and hail fell upon us in such masses as almost\nto turn day into night.... Our tents lie in a valley, whither the\nplateau of the pyramids inclines, and are sheltered from the worst\nwinds from the north and west. Presently I saw a dashing mountain\nflood hurrying down upon our prostrate and sand-covered tents, like\na giant serpent upon its certain prey. The principal stream rolled\non to the great tent; another arm threatened mine without reaching\nit. But everything that had been washed from our tents by the shower\nwas torn away by the two streams, which joined behind the tents, and\ncarried into a pool behind the Sphinx, where a great lake immediately\nformed, which fortunately had no outlet. Just picture this scene\nto yourself! Our tents, dashed down by the storm and heavy rain,\nlying between two mountain torrents, thrusting themselves in several\nplaces to the depth of six feet in the sand, and depositing our books,\ndrawings, sketches, shirts, and instruments--yes, even our levers and\niron crow-bars; in short, everything they could seize, in the dark\nfoaming mud-ocean. Besides this, ourselves wet to the skin, without\nhats, fastening up the weightier things, rushing after the lighter\nones, wading into the lake to the waist to fish out what the sand had\nnot yet swallowed; and all this was the work of a quarter of an hour,\nat the end of which the sun shone radiantly again, and announced the\nend of this flood by a bright and glorious rainbow.\n\n'Now comes the plague of mice, with which we were not formerly\nacquainted; in my tent they grow, play, and whistle, as if they\nhad been at home here all their lives, and quite regardless of my\npresence. At night they have already run across my bed and face,\nand yesterday I started terrified from my slumbers, as I suddenly\nfelt the sharp tooth of such a daring guest at my foot.\n\n'Above me a canopy of gauze is spread, in order to keep off the flies,\nthese most shameless of the plagues of Egypt, during the day, and the\nmosquitos at night.... Scorpions and serpents have not bitten us yet,\nbut there are very malicious wasps, which have often stung us.\n\n'The dale (in the Desert) was wild and monotonous, nothing but\nsandstone rock, the surfaces of which were burned as black as coals,\nbut turned into burning golden yellow at every crack, and every ravine,\nwhence a number of sand-rivulets, like fire-streams from black dross,\nran and filled the valleys. No tree, no tuft of grass had we yet seen,\nalso no animals, except a few vultures and crows feeding on the carcase\nof the latest fallen camel.... Over a wild and broken path, and cutting\nstones, we came deeper and deeper into the gorge. The first wide\nbasins were empty, we therefore left the camels and donkeys behind,\nclimbed up the smooth granite wall, and thus proceeded amidst these\ngrand rocks from one basin to another; they were all empty. Behind\nthere, in the farthest ravine, the guide said there must be water,\nfor it was never empty; but there proved to be not a single drop. We\nwere obliged to return dry.... We saw the most beautiful mirages very\nearly in the day; they most minutely resemble seas and lakes, in which\nmountains, rocks, and everything in their vicinity, are reflected\nas in the clearest water. They form a remarkable contrast with the\nstaring dry desert, and have probably deceived many a poor wanderer,\nas the legend goes. If one be not aware that no water is there, it is\nquite impossible to distinguish the appearance from the reality. A\nfew days ago I felt quite sure that I perceived an overflowing of\nthe Nile, or a branch near El Mech\u00earef, and rode towards it, but only\nfound Bahr Sheitan, Satan's water, as the Arabs call it.' [133]\n\nAmid such scenery the Sphinx arose. Egypt was able to recognise the\nproblem of blended barrenness and beauty--alternation of Nature's\nflowing breast and leonine claw--but could she return the right\nanswer? The primitive Egyptian answer may, indeed, as I have guessed,\nbe the great monuments of her civilisation, but her historic solution\nhas been another world. This world a desert, with here and there a\nmomentary oasis, where man may dance and feast a little, stimulated\nby the corpse borne round the banquet, ere he passes to paradise. So\nthought they and were deceived; from generation to generation have\nthey been destroyed, even unto this day. How destroyed, Lepsius may\nagain be our witness.\n\n'The She\u00eekh of the Saad\u00eech-derwishes rides to the chief She\u00eekh of all\nthe derwishes of Egypt, El Bekri. On the way thither, a great number\nof these holy folk, and others, too, who fancy themselves not a whit\nbehind-hand in piety, throw themselves flat on the ground, with their\nfaces downward, and so that the feet of one lie close to the head of\nthe next; over this living carpet the she\u00eekh rides on his horse, which\nis led on each side by an attendant, in order to compel the animal to\nthe unnatural march. Each body receives two treads of the horse; most\nof them jump up again without hurt, but whoever suffers serious, or as\nit occasionally happens, mortal injury, has the additional ignominy\nto bear of not having pronounced, or not being able to pronounce,\nthe proper prayers and magical charms that alone could save him.'\n\n'What a fearful barbarous worship' (the Sikr, in which the derwishes\ndance until exhausted, howling 'No God but Allah') 'which the astounded\nmultitude, great and small, gentle and simple, gaze upon seriously,\nand with stupid respect, and in which it not unfrequently takes a\npart! The invoked deity is manifestly much less an object of reverence\nthan the fanatic saints who invoke him; for mad, idiotic, or other\npsychologically-diseased persons are very generally looked upon as\nholy by the Mohammedans, and treated with great respect. It is the\ndemoniacal, incomprehensibly-acting, and therefore fearfully-observed,\npower of nature that the natural man always reveres when he perceives\nit, because he is sensible of some connection between it and his\nintellectual power, without being able to command it; first in the\nmighty elements, then in the wondrous but obscure law-governed\ninstincts of animals, and at last in the yet more overpowering\necstatical or generally abnormal mental condition of his own race.'\n\nThe right answer to the enigma of the Sphinx is Man. But this creature\nprostrating himself under the She\u00eekh's horse, or under the invisible\nShe\u00eekh called Allah, and ascribing sanctity to the half-witted, is not\nMan at all. Those hard-worked slaves who escaped into the wilderness,\nand set up for worship an anthropomorphic Supreme Will, and sought\ntheir promised milk and honey in this world alone, carried with them\nthe only force that could rightly answer the Sphinx. Their Allah or\nElohim they heard say,--'Why howlest thou to me? Go forward.' Somewhat\nmore significant than his usual jests was that cartoon of Punch which\nrepresented the Sphinx with relaxed face smiling recognition on the\nmost eminent of contemporary Israelites returning to the land of his\nrace's ancient bondage, to buy the Suez Canal. The Suez Canal half\nanswers the Sphinx; when man has subdued the Great Desert to a sea,\nthe solution will be complete, and the Sphinx may cast herself into it.\n\nFar and wide through the Southern world have swarmed the\nlocusts described by Lepsius, and with them have migrated many\nsuperstitions. The writer of this well remembers the visit of the\nso-called 'Seventeen-year locusts,' to the region of Virginia where he\nwas born, and across many years can hear the terrible never-ceasing\nroar coming up from the woods, uttering, as all agreed, the ominous\nword 'Pharaoh.' On each wing every eye could see the letter W,\nsignifying War. With that modern bit of ancient Egypt in my memory,\nI find the old Locust-mythology sufficiently impressive.\n\nBy an old tradition the Egyptians, as described by Lepsius, connected\nthe locusts with the comet. In the Apocalypse (ix.) a falling star\nis the token of the descent of the Locust-demon to unlock the pit\nthat his swarms may issue forth for their work of destruction. Their\nking Abaddon, in Greek Apollyon,--Destroyer,--has had an evolution\nfrom being the angel of the two (rabbinical) divisions of Hades to the\nsuccessive Chiefs of Saracenic hordes. It is interesting to compare the\ngraphic description of a locust-storm in Joel, with its adaptation to\nan army of human destroyers in the Apocalypse. And again the curious\ndescription of these hosts of Abaddon in the latter book, partly repeat\nthe strange notions of the Bedouins concerning the locust,--one of\nwhom, says Niebuhr, 'compared the head of the locust to that of the\nhorse; its breast to that of a lion; its feet to those of a camel;\nits body to that of the serpent; its tail to that of the scorpion;\nits horns (antenn\u00e6) to the locks of hair of a virgin.' The present\ngeneration has little reason to deny the appropriateness of the\nbiblical descriptions of Scythian hordes as locusts. 'The land is as\nthe garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness.'\n\nThe ancient seeming contest between apparent Good and Evil in Egypt,\nwas represented in the wars of Ra and Set. It is said (Gen. iv. 26),\n'And to Seth, to him also was born a son; and he called his name\nEnos; then began men to call upon the name of the Lord.' Aquila\nreads this--'Then Seth began to be called by the name of the\nLord.' Mr. Baring-Gould remarks on this that Seth was at first regarded\nby the Egyptians as the deity of light and civilisation, but that\nthey afterwards identified as Typhon, because he was the chief god of\nthe Hyksos or shepherd kings; and in their hatred of these oppressors\nthe name of Seth was everywhere obliterated from their monuments, and\nhe was represented as an ass, or with an ass's head. [134] But the\nearliest date assigned to the Hyksos dominion in Egypt, B.C. 2000,\ncoincides with that of the Egyptian planisphere in Kircher, [135]\nwhere Seth is found identified with Sirius, or the dog-headed Mercury,\nin Capricorn. This is the Sothiac Period, or Cycle of the Dog-star. He\nwas thus associated with the goat and the winter solstice, to which\n(B.C. 2000) Capricorn was adjacent. That Seth or Set became the\nname for the demon of disorder and violence among the Egyptians is,\nindeed, probably due to his being a chief god, among some tribes\nBaal himself, among the Asiatics, before the time of the Hyksos. It\nwas already an old story to put their neighbours' Light for their own\nDarkness. The Ass's ears they gave him referred not to his stupidity,\nbut to his hearing everything, as in the case of the Ass of Apuleius,\nand the ass Nicon of Plutarch, or, indeed, the many examples of the\nsame kind which preceeded the appearance of this much misunderstood\nanimal as the steed of Christ's triumphal entry into Jerusalem. In\nEgyptian symbolism those long ears were as much dreaded as devils'\nhorns. From the eyes of Ra all beneficent things, from the eyes of Set\nall noxious things, were produced. Amen-Ra, as the former was called,\nslew the son of Set, the great serpent Naka, which in one hymn is\nperhaps tauntingly said to have 'saved his feet.' Amen-Ra becomes\nHorus and Set becomes Typhon. The Typhonian myth is very complex,\nand includes the conflict between the Nile and all its enemies--the\ncrocodiles that lurk in it, the sea that swallows it, the drouth that\ndries it, the burning heat that brings malaria from it, the floods\nthat render it destructive--and Set was through it evolved to a point\nwhere he became identified with Saturn, Sheitan, or Satan. Plutarch,\nidentifying Set with Typho, says that those powers of the universal\nSoul, which are subject to the influences of passions, and in the\nmaterial system whatever is noxious, as bad air, irregular seasons,\neclipses of the sun and moon, are ascribed to Typho. The name Set,\naccording to him, means 'violent' and 'hostile;' and he was described\nas 'double-headed,' 'he who has two countenances,' and 'the Lord of\nthe World.' Not the least significant fact, in a moral sense, is that\nSet or Typho is represented as the brother of Osiris whom he slew.\n\nWithout here going into the question of relationship between Typhaon\nand Typhoeus, we may feel tolerably certain that the fire-breathing\nhurricane-monster Typhaon of Homer, and the hundred-headed,\nfierce-eyed roarer Typhoeus--son of Tartarus, father of Winds and\nHarpies--represent the same ferocities of Nature. No fitter place\nwas ever assigned him than the African desert, and the story of\nthe gods and goddesses fleeing before Typhon into Egypt, and there\ntransforming themselves into animals, from terror, is a transparent\ntribute to the dominion over the wilderness of sand exercised by the\ntyphoon in its many moods. The vulture-harpy tearing the dead is his\nchild. He is many-headed; now hot, stifling, tainted; now tempestuous;\nhere sciroc, there hurricane, and often tornado. It may be indeed that\nas at once coiled in the whirlwind and blistering, he is the fiery\nserpent to appease whom Moses lifted the brasen serpent for the worship\nof Israel. I have often seen snakes hung up by negroes in Virginia,\nto bring rain in time of drouth. Typhon, as may easily be seen by the\naccompanying figure (14), is a hungry and thirsty demon. His tongue is\nlolling out with thirst. [136] His later connection with the underworld\nis shown in various myths, one of which seems to suggest a popular\nbelief that Typhon is not pleased with the mummies withheld from him,\nand that he can enjoy his human viands only through burials of the\ndead. In Egypt, after the Coptic Easter Monday--called Shemmen-Nesseem\n(smelling the zephyr)--come the fifty-days' hot wind, called Khamseen\nor Cain wind. After slaying Abel, Cain wandered amid such a wind,\ntortured with fever and thirst. Then he saw two birds fight in the\nair; one having killed the other scratched a hole in the desert sand\nand buried it. Cain then did the like by his brother's body, when a\nzephyr sprang up and cooled his fever. But still, say the Alexandrians,\nthe fifty-days' hot Cain wind return annually.\n\nIn pictures of the mirage, or in cloud-shapes faintly illumined by\nthe afterglow, the dwellers beside the plains of sand saw, as in\nphantasmagoria, the gorgeous palaces, the air-castles, and mysterious\ncities, which make the romance of the desert. Unwilling to believe\nthat such realms of barrenness had ever been created by any good god,\nthey beheld in dreams, which answer to nature's own mirage-dreaming,\nvisions of dynasties passed away, of magnificent palaces and monarchs\non whose pomp and heaven-defying pride the fatal sand-storm had fallen,\nand buried their glories in the dust for ever. The desert became the\nemblem of immeasurable all-devouring Time. In many of these legends\nthere are intimations of a belief that Eden itself lay where now all is\nunbroken desert. In the beautiful legend in the Midrash of Solomon's\nvoyage on the Wind, the monarch alighted near a lofty palace of gold,\n'and the scent there was like the scent of the garden of Eden.' The\ndust had so surrounded this palace that Solomon and his companions only\nlearned that there had been an entrance from an eagle in it thirteen\ncenturies old, which had heard from its father the tradition of an\nentrance on the western side. The obedient Wind having cleared away\nthe sand, a door was found on whose lock was written, 'Be it known to\nyou, ye sons of men, that we dwelt in this palace in prosperity and\ndelight many years. When the famine came upon us we ground pearls\nin the mill instead of wheat, but it profited us nothing.' Amid\nmarvellous splendours, from chamber to chamber garnished with ruby,\ntopaz, emerald, Solomon passed to a mansion on whose three gates\nwere written admonitions of the transitory nature of all things\nbut--Death. 'Let not fortune deceive thee.' 'The world is given from\none to another.' On the third gate was written, 'Take provision for\nthy journey, and make ready food for thyself while it is yet day;\nfor thou shalt not be left on the earth, and thou knowest not the day\nof thy Death.' This gate Solomon opened and saw within a life-like\nimage seated: as the monarch approached, this image cried with a\nloud voice, 'Come hither, ye children of Satan; see! King Solomon is\ncome to destroy you.' Then fire and smoke issued from the nostrils of\nthe image; and there were loud and bitter cries, with earthquake and\nthunder. But Solomon uttered against them the Ineffable Name, and all\nthe images fell on their faces, and the sons of Satan fled and cast\nthemselves into the sea, that they might not fall into the hands of\nSolomon. The king then took from the neck of the image a silver tablet,\nwith an inscription which he could not read, until the Almighty sent\na youth to assist him. It said:--'I, Sheddad, son of Ad, reigned over\na thousand thousand provinces, and rode on a thousand thousand horses;\na thousand thousand kings were subject to me, and a thousand thousand\nwarriors I slew. Yet in the hour that the Angel of Death came against\nme, I could not withstand him. Whoso shall read this writing let him\nnot trouble himself greatly about this world, for the end of all men\nis to die, and nothing remains to man but a good name.' [137]\n\nAzazel--'of doubtful meaning'--is the biblical name of the Demon of the\nDesert (Lev. xvi.). 'Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats: one lot\nfor Jehovah, and the other for Azazel. And Aaron shall bring the goat\nupon which the lot for Jehovah fell, and offer him for a sin-offering:\nBut the goat, on which the lot for Azazel fell, shall be presented\nalive before Jehovah, to make an atonement with him, to let him go to\nAzazel in the wilderness.... And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon\nthe head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of\nthe children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins,\nputting them upon the head of the goat, and send him away by the hand\nof a fit man into the desert. And the goat shall bear upon him all\ntheir iniquities unto a land not inhabited; and he shall let go the\ngoat in the desert.' Of the moral elements here involved much will\nhave to be said hereafter. This demon ultimately turned to a devil;\nand persisting through both forms is the familiar principle that it\nis 'well enough to have friends on both sides' so plainly at work in\nthe levitical custom; but it is particularly interesting to observe\nthat the same animal should be used as offerings to the antagonistic\ndeities. In Egyptian Mythology we find that the goat had precisely\nthis two-fold consecration. It was sacred to Chem, the Egyptian Pan,\ngod of orchards and of all fruitful lands; and it became also sacred\nto Mendes, the 'Destroyer,' or 'Avenging Power' of Ra. It will thus\nbe seen that the same principle which from the sun detached the\nfructifying from the desert-making power, and made Typhon and Osiris\nhostile brothers, prevailed to send the same animal to Azazel in the\nDesert and Jehovah of the milk and honey land. Originally the goat was\nsupreme. The Samaritan Pentateuch, according to Aben Ezra (Preface to\nEsther), opens, 'In the beginning Ashima created the heaven and the\nearth.' In the Hebrew culture-myth of Cain and Abel, also brothers,\nthere may be represented, as Goldziher supposes, the victory of the\nagriculturist over the nomad or shepherd; but there is also traceable\nin it the supremacy of the Goat, Mendez or Azima. 'Abel brought the\nfirstling of the goats.'\n\nVery striking is the American (Iroquois) myth of the conflict between\nJoskeha and Tawiscara,--the White One and the Dark One. They were\ntwins, born of a virgin who died in giving them life. Their grandmother\nwas the moon (Ataensic, she who bathes). These brothers fought, Joskeha\nusing as weapon the horns of a stag, Tawiscara the wild-rose. The\nlatter fled sorely wounded, and the blood gushing from him turned to\nflint-stones. The victor, who used the stag-horns (the same weapon\nthat Frey uses against Beli, in the Prose Edda, and denoting perhaps a\nprimitive bone-age art), destroyed a monster frog which swallowed all\nthe waters, and guided the torrents into smooth streams and lakes. He\nstocked the woods with game, invented fire, watched and watered crops,\nand without him, says the old missionary Brebeuf, 'they think they\ncould not boil a pot.' The use by the desert-demon Tawiscara of a\nwild rose as his weapon is a beautiful touch in this myth. So much\nloveliness grew even amid the hard flints. One is reminded of the\nclosing scene in the second part of Goethe's Faust. There, when Faust\nhas realised the perfect hour to which he can say, 'Stay, thou art\nfair!' by causing by his labour a wilderness to blossom as a rose,\nhe lies down in happy death; and when the demons come for his soul,\nangels pelt them with roses, which sting them like flames. Not wild\nroses were these, such as gave the Dark One such poor succour. The\ndefence of Faust is the roses he has evoked from briars.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nOBSTACLES.\n\n    Mephistopheles on Crags--Emerson on Monadnoc--Ruskin on\n    Alpine peasants--Holy and Unholy Mountains--The Devil's\n    Pulpit--Montagnards--Tarns--Tenjo--T'ai-shan--Apocatequil--Tyrolese\n    Legends--Rock Ordeal--Scylla and Charybdis--Scottish\n    Giants--Pontifex--Devil's Bridges--Le g\u00e9ant Y\u00e9ous.\n\n\nRelated to the demons of Barrenness, and to the hostile human demons,\nbut still possessing characteristics of their own, are the demons\nsupposed to haunt gorges, mountain ranges, ridges of rocks, streams\nwhich cannot be forded and are yet unbridged, rocks that wreck the\nraft or boat. Each and every obstruction that stood in the way of man's\nplough, or of his first frail ship, or his migration, has been assigned\nits demon. The reader of Goethe's page has only to turn to the opening\nlines of Walpurgisnacht in Faust to behold the real pandemonium of\nthe Northern man, as in Milton he may find that of the dweller amid\nfiery deserts and volcanoes. That labyrinth of vales, crossed with\nwild crag and furious torrent, is the natural scenery to surround\nthe orgies of the phantoms which flit from the uncultured brain to\nuncultured nature. Elsewhere in Goethe's great poem, Mephistopheles\npits against the philosophers the popular theory of the rugged remnants\nof chaos in nature, and the obstacles before which man is powerless.\n\n\n    FAUST. For me this mountain mass rests nobly dumb;\n        I ask not whence it is, nor why 'tis come?\n        Herself when Nature in herself did found\n        This globe of earth, she then did purely round;\n        The summit and abyss her pleasure made,\n        Mountain to mountain, rock to rock she laid;\n        The hillocks down she neatly fashion'd then,\n        To valleys soften'd them with gentle train.\n        Then all grew green and bloom'd, and in her joy\n        She needs no foolish spoutings to employ.\n\n    MEPHISTOPHELES. So say ye! It seems clear as noon to ye,\n        Yet he knows who was there the contrary.\n        I was hard by below, when seething flame\n        Swelled the abyss, and streaming fire forth came;\n        When Moloch's hammer forging rock to rock,\n        Far flew the fragment-cliffs beneath the shock:\n        Of masses strange and huge the land was full;\n        Who clears away such piles of hurl'd misrule?\n        Philosophers the reason cannot see;\n        There lies the rock, and they must let it be.\n        We have reflected till ashamed we've grown;\n        The common folk can thus conceive alone,\n        And in conception no disturbance know,\n        Their wisdom ripen'd has long while ago:\n        A miracle it is, they Satan honour show.\n        My wanderer on faith's crutches hobbles on\n        Towards the devil's bridge and devil's stone. [138]\n\n\nThe great American poet made his pilgrimage to the mountain so\nbeautiful in the distance, thinking to find there the men of equal\nelevation. Did not Milton describe Freedom as 'a mountain nymph?'\n\n\n            To myself I oft recount\n            The tale of many a famous mount,--\n            Wales, Scotland, Uri, Hungary's dells;\n            Roys, and Scanderbergs, and Tells.\n            Here Nature shall condense her powers,\n            Her music, and her meteors,\n            And lifting man to the blue deep\n            Where stars their perfect courses keep,\n            Like wise preceptor, lure his eye.\n            To sound the science of the sky.\n\n\nBut instead of finding there the man using those crags as a fastness\nto fight pollution of the mind, he\n\n\n                    searched the region round\n            And in low hut my monarch found:\n            He was no eagle, and no earl;--\n            Alas! my foundling was a churl,\n            With heart of cat and eyes of bug,\n            Dull victim of his pipe and mug. [139]\n\n\nRuskin has the same gloomy report to make of the mountaineers of\nEurope. 'The wild goats that leap along those rocks have as much\npassion of joy in all that fair work of God as the men that toil\namong them. Perhaps more.' 'Is it not strange to reflect that hardly\nan evening passes in London or Paris but one of those cottages is\npainted for the better amusement of the fair and idle, and shaded\nwith pasteboard pines by the scene-shifter; and that good and kind\npeople,--poetically minded,--delight themselves in imagining the\nhappy life led by peasants who dwell by Alpine fountains, and kneel\nto crosses upon peaks of rock? that nightly we lay down our gold to\nfashion forth simulacra of peasants, in gay ribbons and white bodices,\nsinging sweet songs and bowing gracefully to the picturesque crosses;\nand all the while the veritable peasants are kneeling, songlessly, to\nveritable crosses in another temper than the kind and fair audiences\ndream of, and assuredly with another kind of answer than is got out\nof the opera catastrophe.' [140]\n\nThe writer remembers well the emphasis with which a poor woman at whose\ncottage he asked the path to the Natural Bridge in Virginia said,\n'I don't know why so many people come to these rocks; for my part,\ngive me a level country.' Many ages lay between that aged crone and\nEmerson or Ruskin, and they were ages of heavy war with the fortresses\nof nature. The fabled ordeals of water and fire through which the human\nrace passed were associated with Ararat and Sinai, because to migrating\nor farming man the mountain was always an ordeal, irrespective even of\nits torrents or its occasional lava-streams. A terrible vista is opened\nby the cry of Lot, 'I cannot escape to the mountain lest some evil take\nme!' Not even the fire consuming Sodom in the plains could nerve him\nto dare cope with the demons of the steep places. As time went on,\ndevotees proved to the awe-stricken peasantries their sanctity and\nauthority by combating those mountain demons, and erecting their altars\nin the 'high places.' So many summits became sacred. But this very\nsanctity was the means of bringing on successive demoniac hordes to\nhaunt them; for every new religion saw in those altars in 'high places'\nnot victories over demons, but demon-shrines. And thus mountains became\nthe very battlefields between rival deities, each demon to his or her\nrival; and the conflict lasts from the cursing of the 'high places'\nby the priests of Israel [141] to the Devil's Pulpits of the Alps\nand Apennines. Among the beautiful frescoes at Baden is that of the\nAngel's and the Devil's Pulpit, by G\u00f6tzenberger. Near Gernsbach,\nappropriately at the point where the cultivable valley meets the\nunconquerable crests of rock, stand the two pulpits from which Satan\nand an Angel contended, when the first Christian missionaries had\nfailed to convert the rude foresters. When, by the Angel's eloquence,\nall were won from the Devil's side except a few witches and usurers,\nthe fiend tore up great masses of rock and built the 'Devil's Mill'\non the mountain-top; and he was hurled down by the Almighty on the\nrocks near 'Lord's Meadow,' where the marks of his claws may still\nbe seen, and where, by a diminishing number of undiminished ears,\nhis groans are still heard when a storm rages through the valley.\n\nSuch conflicts as these have been in some degree associated with every\nmountain of holy or unholy fame. Each was in its time a prosaic Hill\nDifficulty, with lions by no means chained, to affright the hearts\nof Mistrust and Timorous, till Dervish or Christian impressed there\nhis holy footprint, visible from Adam's Peak to Olivet, or built\nthere his convents, discernible from Meru and Olympus to Pontyprydd\nand St. Catharine's Hill. By necessary truces the demons and deities\nrepair gradually to their respective summits,--Seir and Sinai hold\neach their own. But the Holy Hills have never equalled the number of\nDark Mountains [142] dreaded by man. These obstructive demons made\nthe mountains Moul-ge and Nin-ge, names for the King and Queen of\nthe Accadian Hell; they made the Finnish Mount Kippumaki the abode\nof all Pests. They have identified their name (Elf) with the Alps,\ngiven nearly every tarn an evil fame, and indeed created a special\nclass of demons, 'Montagnards,' much dreaded by medi\u00e6val miners,\nwhose faces they sometimes twisted so that they must look backward\nphysically, as they were much in the habit of doing mentally, for ever\nafterward. Gervais of Tilbury, in his Chronicle, declares that on the\ntop of Mount Canigon in France, which has a very inaccessible summit,\nthere is a black lake of unknown depth, at whose bottom the demons\nhave a palace, and that if any one drops a stone into that water,\nthe wrath of the mountain demons is shown in sudden and frightful\ntempests. From a like tarn in Cornwall, as Cornish Folklore claims,\non an accessible but very tedious hill, came up the hand which received\nthe brand Escalibore when its master could wield it no more,--as told\nin the Morte D'Arthur, with, however, clear reference to the sea.\n\nI cannot forbear enlivening my page with the following sketch of a\nvisit of English officers to the realm of Ten-jo, the long-nosed\nMountain-demon of Japan, which is very suggestive of the mental\natmosphere amid which such spectres exist. The mountains and forests\nof Japan are, say these writers, inhabited as thickly by good and\nevil spirits as the Hartz and Black Forest, and chief among them,\nin horrible sanctity, is O-yama,--the word echoes the Hindu Yama,\nJapanese Amma, kings of Hades,--whose demon is Ten-jo. 'Abdul and\nMulney once started, on three days' leave, with the intention of\nclimbing to the summit--not of Ten-jo's nose, but of the mountain;\ntheir principal reason for so doing being simply that they were told\nby every one that they had better not. They first tried the ascent on\nthe most accessible side, but fierce two-sworded yakomins jealously\nguarded it; and they were obliged to make the attempt on the other,\nwhich was almost inaccessible, and was Ten-jo's region. The villagers\nat the base of the mountain begged them to give up the project; and\none old man, a species of patriarch, reasoned with them. 'What are\nyou going to do when you get to the top?' he asked. Our two friends\nwere forced to admit that their course, then, would be very similar\nto that of the king of France and his men--come down again.\n\nThe old man laughed pityingly, and said, 'Well, go if you like; but,\ntake my word for it, Ten-jo will do you an injury.'\n\nThey asked who Ten-jo was.\n\n'Why Ten-jo,' said the old man, 'is an evil spirit, with a long nose,\nwho will dislocate your limbs if you persist in going up the mountain\non this side.'\n\n'How do you know he has got a long nose?' they asked, 'Have you ever\nseen him?'\n\n'Because all evil spirits have long noses'--here Mulney hung his\nhead,--'and,' continued the old man, not noticing how dreadfully\npersonal he was becoming to one of the party, 'Ten-jo has the longest\nof the lot. Did you ever know a man with a long nose who was good?'\n\n'Come on,' said Mulney hurriedly to Abdul, 'or the old fool will make\nme out an evil spirit.'\n\n'Syonara,' said the old man as they walked away, 'but look out for\nTen-jo!'\n\nAfter climbing hard for some hours, and not meeting a single human\nbeing,--not even the wood-cutter could be tempted by the fine timber\nto encroach on Ten-jo's precincts,--they reached the top, and enjoyed\na magnificent view. After a rest they started on their descent,\nthe worst part of which they had accomplished, when, as they were\nwalking quietly along a good path, Abdul's ankle turned under him,\nand he went down as if he had been shot, with his leg broken in two\nplaces. With difficulty Mulney managed to get him to the village\nthey had started from, and the news ran like wild-fire that Ten-jo\nhad broken the leg of one of the adventurous tojins.\n\n'I told you how it would be,' exclaimed the old man, 'but you would\ngo. Ah, Ten-jo is a dreadful fellow!'\n\nAll the villagers, clustering round, took up the cry, and shook\ntheir heads. Ten-jo's reputation had increased wonderfully by this\naccident. Poor Abdul was on his back for eleven weeks, and numbers of\nJapanese--for he was a general favourite amongst them--went to see him,\nand to express their regret and horror at Ten-jo's behaviour. [143]\n\nIt is obvious that to a demon dwelling in a high mountain a\nlong nose would be variously useful to poke into the affairs of\npeople dwelling in the plains, and also to enjoy the scent of\ntheir sacrifices offered at a respectful distance. That feature\nof the face which Napoleon I. regarded as of martial importance,\nand which is prominent in the warriors marked on the Mycen\u00e6 pottery,\nhas generally been a physiognomical characteristic of European ogres,\nwho are blood-smellers. That the significance of Ten-jo's long nose\nis this, appears probable when we compare him with the Calmuck\ndemon Erlik, whose long nose is for smelling out the dying. The\nCossacks believed that the protector of the earth was a many-headed\nelephant. The snouted demon (figure 15) is from a picture of Christ\ndelivering Adam and Eve from hell, by Lucas Van Leyden, 1521.\n\nThe Chinese Mountains also have their demons. The demon of the mountain\nT'ai-shan, in Shantung, is believed to regulate the punishments\nof men in this world and the next. Four other demon princes rule\nover the principal mountain chains of the Empire. Mr. Dennys remarks\nthat mountainous localities are so regularly the homes of fairies in\nChinese superstition that some connection between the fact and the\nrelation of 'Elf' to 'Alp' in Europe is suggested. [144] But this\ncoincidence is by no means so remarkable as the appearance among\nthese Chinese mountain sprites of the magical 'Sesame,' so familiar\nto us in Arabian legend. The celebrated mountain Ku'en Lun (usually\nidentified with the Hindoo Kush) is said to be peopled with fairies,\nwho cultivate upon its terraces the 'fields of sesamum and gardens\nof coriander seeds,' which are eaten as ordinary food by those who\npossess the gift of longevity.\n\nIn the superstitions of the American Aborigines we find gigantic demons\nwho with their hands piled up mountain-chains as their castles, from\nwhose peak-towers they hurled stones on their enemies in the plains,\nand slung them to the four corners of the earth. [145] Such was the\nterrible Apocatequil, whose statue was erected on the mountains, with\nthat of his mother on the one hand and his brother on the other. He\nwas Prince of Evil and the chief god of the Peruvians. From Quito\nto Cuzco every Indian would give all he possessed to conciliate\nhim. Five priests, two stewards, and a crowd of slaves served his\nimage. His principal temple was surrounded by a considerable village,\nwhose inhabitants had no other occupation than to wait on him. [146]\n\nThe plaudits which welcomed the first railway train that sped beneath\nthe Alps, echoing amid their crags and gorges, struck with death\nthe old phantasms which had so long held sway in the imagination of\nthe Southern peasantry. The great tunnel was hewn straight through\nthe stony hearts of giants whom Christianity had tried to slay, and,\nfailing that, baptised and adopted. It is in the Tyrol that we find\nthe clearest survivals of the old demons of obstruction, the mountain\nmonarchs. Such is Jordan the Giant of Kohlh\u00fctte chasm, near Ungarkopf,\nwhose story, along with others, is so prettily told by the Countess Von\nGunther. This giant is something of a Ten-jo as to nose, for he smells\n'human meat' where his pursued victims are hidden, and his snort makes\nthings tremble as before a tempest; but he has not the intelligence\nascribed to large noses, for the boys ultimately persuade him that\nthe way to cross a stream is to tie a stone around his neck, and he\nis drowned. One of the giants of Albach could carry a rock weighing\n10,000 pounds, and his comrades, while carrying others of 700 pounds,\ncould leap from stone to stone across rivers, and stoop to catch\nthe trout with their hands as they leaped. The ferocious Orco, the\nmountain-ghost who never ages, fulfils the tradition of his classic\nname by often appearing as a monstrous black dog, from whose side\nstones rebound, and fills the air with a bad smell (like Mephisto). His\nemployment is hurling wayfarers down precipices. In her story of the\n'Unholdenhof'--or 'monster farm' in the Stubeithal--the Countess Von\nGunther describes the natural character of the mountain demons.\n\n'It was on this self-same spot that the forester and his son took up\ntheir abode, and they became the dread and abomination of the whole\nsurrounding country, for they practised, partly openly and partly in\nsecret, the most manifold iniquities, so that their nature and bearing\ngrew into something demoniacal. As quarrellers very strong, and as\nenemies dreadfully revengeful, they showed their diabolical nature by\nthe most inhuman deeds, which brought down injury not only on those\nagainst whom their wrath was directed, but also upon their families for\ncenturies. In the heights of the mountains they turned the beds of the\ntorrents, and devastated by this means the most flourishing tracts of\nland; on other places the Unholde set on fire whole mountain forests,\nto allow free room for the avalanches to rush down and overwhelm the\nfarms. Through certain means they cut holes and fissures in the rocks,\nin which, during the summer, quantities of water collected, which froze\nin the winter, and then in the spring the thawing ice split the rocks,\nwhich then rolled down into the valleys, destroying everything before\nthem.... But at last Heaven's vengeance reached them. An earthquake\nthrew the forester's house into ruins, wild torrents tore over it,\nand thunderbolts set all around it in a blaze; and by fire and water,\nwith which they had sinned, father and son perished, and were condemned\nto everlasting torments. Up to the present day they are to be seen\nat nightfall on the mountain in the form of two fiery boars.' [147]\n\nSome of these giants, as has been intimated, were converted. Such was\nthe case with Heimo, who owned and devastated a vast tract of country\non the river Inn, which, however, he bridged--whence Innsbruck--when\nhe became a christian and a monk. This conversion was a terrible\ndisappointment to the devil, who sent a huge dragon to stop the\nbuilding of the monastery; but Heimo attacked the dragon, killed him,\nand cut out his tongue. With this tongue, a yard and a half long, in\nhis hand, he is represented in his statue, and the tongue is still\npreserved in the cloister. Heimo became a monk at Wilten, lived\na pious life, and on his death was buried near the monastery. The\nstone coffin in which the gigantic bones repose is shown there,\nand measures over twenty-eight feet.\n\nOf nearly the same character as the Mountain Demons, and possessing\neven more features of the Demons of Barrenness, are the monsters\nguarding rocky passes. They are distributed through land, sea,\nand rivers. The famous rocks between Italy and Sicily bore the\nnames of dangerous monsters, Scylla and Charybdis, which have now\nbecome proverbial expressions for alternative perils besetting any\nenterprise. According to Homer, Scylla was a kind of canine monster\nwith six long necks, the mouths paved each with three rows of sharp\nteeth; while Charybdis, sitting under her fig-tree, daily swallowed\nthe waters and vomited them up again. [148] Distantly related to these\nfabulous monsters, probably, are many of the old notions of ordeals\nundergone between rocks standing close together, or sometimes through\nholes in rocks, of which examples are found in Great Britain. An\nordeal of this kind exists at Pera, where the holy well is reached\nthrough a narrow slit. Visitors going there recently on New Year's\nDay were warned by the dervish in charge--'Look through it at the\nwater if you please, but do not essay to enter unless your consciences\nare completely free from sin, for as sure as you try to pass through\nwith a taint upon your soul, you will be gripped by the rock and held\nthere for ever.' [149] The 'Bocca della Verit\u00e0'--a great stone face\nlike a huge millstone--stands in the portico of the church S. Maria\nin Cosmedin at Rome, and its legend is that a suspected person was\nrequired to place his hand through the open mouth; if he swore falsely\nit would bite off the hand--the explanation now given being that a\nswordsman was concealed behind to make good the judicial shrewdness\nof the stone in case the oath were displeasing to the authorities.\n\nThe myth of Scylla, which relates that she was a beautiful maiden,\nbeloved by Glaucus, whom Circe through jealousy transformed to a\nmonster by throwing magic herbs into the well where she was wont to\nbathe, is recalled by various European legends. In Thuringia, on the\nroad to Oberhof, stands the Red Stone, with its rosebush, and a stream\nissuing from beneath it, where a beautiful maid is imprisoned. Every\nseven years she may be seen bathing in the stream. On one occasion\na peasant passing by heard a sneeze in the rock, and called out,\n'God help thee!' The sneeze and the benediction were repeated,\nuntil at the seventh time the man cried, 'Oh, thou cursed witch,\ndeceive not honest people!' As he then walked off, a wailing voice\ncame out of the stone, 'Oh, hadst thou but only wished the last time\nthat God would help me. He would have helped me, and thou wouldst\nhave delivered me; now I must tarry till the Day of Judgment!' The\nvoice once cried out to a wedding procession passing by the stone,\n'To-day wed, next year dead;' and the bride having died a year after,\nwedding processions dread the spot.\n\nThe legends of giants and giantesses, so numerous in Great Britain,\nare equally associated with rocky mountain-passes, or the boulders\nthey were supposed to have tossed thence when sportively stoning each\nother. They are the Tor of the South and Ben of the North. The hills of\nRoss-shire in Scotland are mythological monuments of Cailliachmore,\ngreat woman, who, while carrying a pannier filled with earth and\nstones on her back, paused for a moment on a level spot, now the site\nof Ben-Vaishard, when the bottom of the pannier gave way, forming the\nhills. The recurrence of the names Gog and Magog in Scotland suggests\nthat in mountainous regions the demons were especially derived from the\nhordes of robbers and savages, among whom, in their uncultivable hills,\nthe ploughshare could never conquer the spear and club. Richard Doyle\nenriched the first Exhibition of the Grosvenor Gallery in London, 1877,\nwith many beautiful pictures inspired by European Folklore. They were\na pretty garniture for the cemetery of dead religions. The witch once\nseen on her broom departing from the high crags of Cuhillan, cheered\nby her faithful dwarf, is no longer unlovely as in the days when she\nwas burned by proxy in some poor human hag; obedient to art--a more\npotent wand than her own--she reascends to the clouds from which she\nwas borne, and is hardly distinguishable from them. Slowly man came\nto learn with the poet--\n\n\n            It was the mountain streams that fed\n            The fair green plain's amenities. [150]\n\n\nThen the giants became fairies, and not a few of these wore at last\nthe mantles of saints. A similar process has been undergone by another\nsubject, which finds its pretty epitaph in the artist's treatment. We\nsaw in two pictures the Dame Blanche of Normandy, lurking in the ravine\nbeside a stream under the dusk, awaiting yon rustic wood-cutter who is\npresently horizontal in the air in that mad dance, after which he will\nbe found exhausted. As her mountain-sister is faintly shaped out of\nthe clouds that cap Cuhillan, this one is an imaginative outgrowth of\nthe twilight shadows, the silvery glintings of moving clouds mirrored\nin pools, and her tresses are long luxuriant grasses. She is of a\nsisterhood which passes by hardly perceptible gradations into others,\nelsewhere described--the creations of Illusion and Night. She is not\naltogether one of these, however, but a type of more direct danger--the\nperil of fords, torrents, thickets, marshes, and treacherous pools,\nwhich may seem shallow, but are deep.\n\nThe water-demons have been already described in their obvious aspects,\nbut it is necessary to mention here the simple obstructive river-demons\nhaunting fords and burns, and hating bridges. Many tragedies, and\nmany personifications of the forces which caused them, preceded the\nsanctity of the title Pontifex. The torrent that roared across man's\npath seemed the vomit of a demon: the sacred power was he who could\nbridge it. In one of the most beautiful celebrations of Indra it is\nsaid: 'He tranquillised this great river so that it might be crossed;\nhe conveyed across it in safety the sages who had been unable to pass\nover it, and who, having crossed, proceeded to realise the wealth\nthey sought; in the exhilaration of the soma, Indra has done these\ndeeds.' [151] In Ceylon, the demon Tota still casts malignant spells\nabout fords and ferries.\n\nMany are the legends of the opposition offered by demons to\nbridge-building, and of the sacrifices which had to be made to them\nbefore such works could be accomplished. A few specimens must suffice\nus. Mr. Dennys relates a very interesting one of the 'Loh-family\nbridge' at Shanghai. Difficulty having been found in laying the\nfoundations, the builder vowed to Heaven two thousand children if the\nstones could be placed properly. The goddess addressed said she would\nnot require their lives, but that the number named would be attacked by\nsmall-pox, which took place, and half the number died. A Chinese author\nsays, 'If bridges are not placed in proper positions, such as the\nlaws of geomancy indicate, they may endanger the lives of thousands,\nby bringing about a visitation of small-pox or sore eyes.' At Hang-Chow\na tea-merchant cast himself into the river Tsien-tang as a sacrifice\nto the Spirit of the dikes, which were constantly being washed away.\n\nThe 'Devil's Bridges,' to which Mephistopheles alludes so proudly, are\nfrequent in Germany, and most of them, whether natural or artificial,\nhave diabolical associations. The oldest structures often have legends\nin which are reflected the conditions exacted by evil powers, of\nthose who spanned the fords in which men had often been drowned. Of\nthis class is the Montafon Bridge in the Tyrol, and another is the\nbridge at Ratisbon. The legend of the latter is a fair specimen of\nthose which generally haunt these ancient structures. Its architect\nwas apprentice to a master who was building the cathedral, and laid\na wager that he would bridge the Danube before the other laid the\ncoping-stone of the sacred edifice. But the work of bridging the river\nwas hard, and after repeated failures the apprentice began to swear,\nand wished the devil had charge of the business! Whereupon he of the\ncloven foot appeared in guise of a friar, and agreed to build the\nfifteen arches--for a consideration. The fee was to be the first three\nthat crossed the bridge. The cunning apprentice contrived that these\nthree should not be human, but a dog, a cock, and a hen. The devil,\nin wrath at the fraud, tore the animals to pieces and disappeared;\na procession of monks passed over the bridge and made it safe;\nand thereon are carved figures of the three animals. In most of the\nstories it is a goat which is sent over and mangled, that poor animal\nhaving preserved its character as scape-goat in a great deal of the\nFolklore of Christendom. The Danube was of old regarded as under the\nspecial guardianship of the Prince of Darkness, who used to make great\nefforts to obstruct the Crusaders voyaging down it to rescue the Holy\nLand from pagans. On one occasion, near the confluence of the Vilz\nand Danube, he began hurling huge rocks into the river-bed from the\ncliffs; the holy warriors resisted successfully by signing the cross\nand singing an anthem, but the huge stone first thrown caused a whirl\nand swell in that part of the river, which were very dangerous until\nit was removed by engineers.\n\nIt is obvious, especially to the English, who have so long found a\ndefensive advantage in the silver streak of sea that separates them\nfrom the Continent, that an obstacle, whether of mountain-range\nor sea, would, at a certain point in the formation of a nation,\nbecome as valuable as at another it might be obstructive. Euphemism\nis credited with having given the friendly name 'Euxine' to the\nrough 'Axine' Sea,--'terrible to foreigners.' But this is not so\ncertain. Many a tribe has found the Black Sea a protection and a\nfriend. In the case of mountains, their protective advantages would\naccount at once for Milton's celebration of Freedom as a mountain\nnymph, and for the stupidity of the people that dwell amid them,\nso often remarked; the very means of their independence would also\nbe the cause of their insulation and barbarity. It is for those who\ngo to and fro that knowledge is increased. The curious and inquiring\nare most apt to migrate; the enterprising will not submit to be shut\naway behind rocks and mountains; by their departure there would be\ninstituted, behind the barriers of rock and hill, a survival of the\nstupidest. These might ultimately come to worship their chains and\ncover their craggy prison-walls with convents and crosses. The demons\nof aliens would be their gods. The climbing Hannibals would be their\ndevils. It might have been expected, after the passages quoted from\nMr. Ruskin concerning the bovine condition of Alpine peasantries,\nthat he would salute the tunnel through Mont Cenis. The peasantries\nwho would see in the sub-alpine engine a demon are extinct. Admiration\nof the genii of obstruction, and horror of the demons that vanquished\nthem, are discoverable only in folk-tales distant enough to be pretty,\nsuch as the interesting Serbian story of 'Satan's jugglings and God's\nmight,' in which fairies hiding in successively opened nuts vainly\ntry to oppose with fire and flood a she-demon pursuing a prince and\nhis bride, to whose aid at last comes a flash of lightning which\nstrikes the fiend dead.\n\nOne of the beautiful 'Contes d'une Grand'm\u00e8re,' by George Sand,\nLe g\u00e9ant Y\u00e9ous, has in it the sense of many fables born of man's\nstruggle with obstructive nature. With her wonted felicity she\nplaces the scene of this true human drama near the mountain Y\u00e9ous,\nin the Pyrenees, whose name is a far-off echo of Zeus. The summit\nbore an enormous rock which, seen from a distance, appeared somewhat\nlike a statue. The peasant Miquelon, who had his little farm at the\nmountain's base, whenever he passed made the sign of the cross and\ntaught his little son Miquel to do the same, telling him that the\ngreat form was that of a pagan god, an enemy of the human race. An\navalanche fell upon the home and garden of Miquelon; the poor man\nhimself was disabled for life, his house and farm turned in a moment\ninto a wild mass of stones. Miquel looked up to the summit of Y\u00e9ous;\nthe giant had disappeared; henceforth it was the mighty form of an\norganic monster which the boy saw stretched over what had once been\ntheir happy home and smiling acres. The family went about begging,\nMiquelon repeating his strange appeal, 'Le g\u00e9ant s'est couch\u00e9 sur\nmoi.' But when at last the old man dies, the son resolves to fulfil the\nsilent dream of his life; he will encounter the giant Y\u00e9ous still in\npossession of his paternal acres. With eyes of the young world this\nboy sees starting up here and there amid the vast debris, the head\nof the demon he wishes to crush. He hurls stones hither and thither\nwhere some fearful feature or limb appears. He is filled with rage;\nhis dreams are filled with attacks on the giant, in which the colossal\nhead tumbles only to reappear on the shoulders; every broken limb has\nthe self-repairing power. There is no progress. But as the boy grows,\nand the contest grows, and need comes, there gathers in Miquel a\ndesire to clear the ground. When he begins to think, it is no longer\nthe passion to avenge his father on the stony giant which possesses\nhim, but to recover their lost garden. Thus, indeed, the giant himself\ncould alone be conquered. The huge rocks are split by gunpowder, some\nfragments are made into fences, others into a comfortable mansion\nfor Miquel's mother and sisters. When the garden smiles again, and\nall are happy the demon form is no longer discoverable. [152]\n\nThis little tale interprets with fine insight the demonology of\nbarrenness and obstruction. The boy's wrath against the unconscious\ncause of his troubles is the rage often observed in children\nwho retaliate upon the table or chair on which they have been\nbruised, and it repeats embryologically the rage of the world's\nboyhood inspired by ascription of personal motives to inanimate\nobstructions. Possibly such wrath might have added something to\nthe force with which man entered upon his combat with nature; but\nGeorge Sand's tale reminds us that whatever was gained in force was\nlost in its misdirection. Success came in the proportion that fury\nwas replaced by the youth's growing recognition that he was dealing\nwith facts that could not be raged out of existence. It is crowned\nwhen he makes friends with the unconquerable remnant of the giant,\nand sees that he is not altogether evil.\n\nIt is at this stage that the higher Art, conversant with Beauty, enters\nto relieve man of many moral wounds received in the struggle. Clothed\nwith moss and clematis, Y\u00e9ous appears not so hideous after all. Further\ninvested by the genius of a Turner, he would be beautiful. Y\u00e9ous is\na fair giant after all, only he needed finish. He is a type of nature.\n\nThe boyhood of the world has not passed away with Miquel. We find a\nfictitious dualism cherished by the lovers of nature in their belief or\nfeeling that nature exerts upon man some spiritual influence. Ruskin\nhas said that in looking from the Campanile at Venice to the circle\nof snow which crowns the Adriatic, and then to the buildings which\ncontain the works of Titian and Tintoret, he has felt unable to\nanswer the question of his own heart, By which of these--the nature\nor the manhood--has God given mightier evidence of Himself? So nature\nmay teach the already taught. While Ruskin looks from the Campanile,\nthe peasant is fighting the mountain and calling its rocky grandeurs\nby the devil's name; before the pictures he kneels. Untaught by art\nand science, the mind can derive no elevation from nature, can find no\nsympathy in it. It is a false notion that there is any compensation for\nthe ignorant, denied access to art-galleries, in ability to pass their\nSundays amid natural scenery. Health that may bring them, but mentally\nthey are still inside the prison-walls from which look the stony eyes\nof Fates and Furies. Natural sublimities cannot refine minds crude\nas themselves; they must pass through thought before they can feed\nthought; it is nature transfigured in art that changes the snow-clad\nmountain from a heartless giant to a saviour in snow-pure raiment.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nILLUSION.\n\n    Maya--Natural Treacheries--Misleaders--Glamour--Lorelei--Chinese\n    Mermaid--Transformations--Swan Maidens--Pigeon Maidens--The\n    Seal-skin--Nudity--Teufelsee--Gohlitsee--Japanese Siren--Dropping\n    Cave--Venusberg--Godiva--Will-o'-Wisp--Holy Fr\u00e4ulein--The Forsaken\n    Merman--The Water-Man--Sea Phantom--Sunken Treasures--Suicide.\n\n\nMost beautiful of all the goddesses of India is Maya, Illusion. In\nHindu iconography she is portrayed in drapery of beautiful colours,\nwith decoration of richest gems and broidery of flowers. From above\nher crown falls a veil which, curving above her knees, returns on\nthe other side, making, as it were, also an apron in which are held\nfair animal forms--prototypes of the creation over which she has\ndominion. The youthful yet serious beauty of her face and head is\nsurrounded with a semi-aureole, fringed with soft lightning, striated\nwith luminous sparks; and these are background for a cruciform nimbus\nmade of three clusters of rays. Maya presses her full breasts, from\nwhich flow fountains of milk which fall in graceful streams to mingle\nwith the sea on which she stands.\n\nSo to our Aryan ancestors appeared the spirit that paints the universe,\nflushing with tints so strangely impartial fruits forbidden and\nunforbidden for man and beast. Mankind are slandered by the priest's\ncreed, Populus vult decipi; they are justly vindicated in Plato's\naphorism, 'Unwillingly is the soul deprived of truth;' but still\nthey are deceived. Large numbers are truly described by Swedenborg,\nwho found hells whose occupants believed themselves in heaven and\nsang praises therefor. Such praises we may hear in the loud laughter\nproceeding from dens where paradise has been gained by the cheap charm\nof a glass of gin or a prostitute's caress. Serpent finds its ideal\nin serpent. In heaven, says Swedenborg, we shall see things as they\nare. But it is the adage of those who have lost their paradise, and\neat still the dry dust of reality not raised by science; the general\nworld has not felt that divine curse, or it has been wiped away so that\nthe most sensual fool may rejoice in feeling himself God's darling,\nand pities the paganism of Plato. Man and beast are certain that they\ndo see things as they are. Maya's milk is tinctured from the poppies\nof her robe; untold millions of misgivings have been put to sleep by\nher tender bounty; the waters that sustain her are those of Lethe.\n\nBut beneath every illusive heaven Nature stretches also an illusive\nhell. The poppies lose their force at last, and under the scourge\nof necessity man wakes to find all his paradise of roses turned to\nbriars. Maya's breast-fountains pass deeper than the surface--from\none flows soft Lethe, the other issues at last in Phlegethon. Fear is\neven a more potent painter than Hope, and out of the manifold menaces\nof Nature can at last overlay the fairest illusions. It is a pathetic\nfact, that so soon as man begins to think his first theory infers a\nwill at work wherever he sees no cause; his second, to suppose that\nit will harm him!\n\nHarriet Martineau's account of her childish terror caused by seeing\nsome prismatic colours dancing on the wall of a vacant room she was\nentering--'imps' that had no worse origin than a tremulous candelabrum,\nbut which haunted her nerves through life--is an experience which may\nbe traced in the haunted childhood of every nation. There are other\nphenomena besides these prismatic colours, which have had an evil name\nin popular superstition, despite their beauty. Strange it might seem to\na Buddhist that yon exquisite tree with its blood-red buds should be\ncalled the Judas-tree, as to us that the graceful swan which might be\nthe natural emblem of purity should be associated with witchcraft! But\nthe student of mythology will at every moment be impressed by the fact\nthat myths oftener represent a primitive science than mere fancies\nand conceits. The sinuous neck of the swan, its passionate jealousy,\nand the uncanny whistle, or else dumbness, found where, from so snowy\nan outside, melody might have been looked for, may have made this\nanimal the type of a double nature. The treacherous brilliants of\nthe serpent, or honey protected by stings, or the bright blossoms of\npoisons, would have trained the instinct which apprehends evil under\nthe apparition of beauty. This, as we shall have occasion to see,\nhas had a controlling influence upon the ethical constitution of our\nnature. But it is at present necessary to observe that the primitive\nscience generally reversed the induction of our later philosophy; for\nwhere an evil or pain was discovered in anything, it concluded that\nsuch was its raison d'\u00eatre, and its attractive qualities were simply\na demon's treacherous bait. However, here are the first stimulants\nto self-control in the lessons that taught distrust of appearances.\n\nBecause many a pilgrim perished through a confidence in the\nlake-pictures of the mirage which led to carelessness about economising\nhis skin of water, the mirage gained its present name--Bahr Sheitan,\nor Devil's Water. The 'Will o' wisp,' which appeared to promise the\nnight-wanderer warmth or guidance, but led him into a bog, had its\nexcellent directions as to the place to avoid perverted by an unhappy\nmisunderstanding into a wilful falsehood, and has been branded ignis\nfatuus. Most of the mimicries in nature gradually became as suspicious\nto the primitive observer as aliases to a magistrate. The thing\nthat seemed to be fire, or water, but was not; the insect or animal\nwhich took its hue or form from some other, from the leaf-spotted\nor stem-striped cats to that innocent insect whose vegetal disguise\nhas gained for it the familiar name of 'Devil's Walking-stick;'\nthe humanlike hiss, laugh, or cry of animals; the vibratory sound or\nmovement which so often is felt as if near when it really is far; the\nsand which seems hard but sinks; the sward which proves a bog;--all\nthese have their representation in the demonology of delusion. The\nCoroados of Brazil says that the Evil One 'sometimes transforms\n(himself) into a swamp, &c., leads him astray, vexes him, brings him\ninto danger, and even kills him.' [153] It is like an echo of Burton's\naccount. 'Terrestrial devils are those lares, genii, faunes, satyrs,\nwood-nymphs, foliots, fairies, Robin Good-fellows, trulli, &c., which,\nas they are most conversant with men, so they do them most harm. These\nare they that dance on heaths and greens, as Lavater thinks with\nTrithemius, and, as Olaus Magnus adds, leave that green circle which\nwe commonly find in plain fields. They are sometimes seen by old women\nand children. Hieron. Pauli, in his description of the city of Bercino,\nSpain, relates how they have been familiarly seen near that town, about\nfountains and hills. 'Sometimes,' saith Trithemius, 'they lead simple\npeople into the recesses of mountains and show them wonderful sights,'\n&c. Giraldus Cambrensis gives an instance of a monk of Wales that was\nso deluded. Paracelsus reckons up many places in Germany where they\ndo usually walk about in little coats, some two feet long. [154] Real\ndangers beset the woods and mountain passes, the swamp and quicksand;\nin such forms did they haunt the untamed jungles of imagination!\n\nOver that sea on which Maya stands extends the silvery wand of\nGlamour. It descended to the immortal Old Man of the Sea, favourite\nof the nymphs, oracle of the coasts, patron of fishermen, friend of\nProteus, who could see through all the sea's depths and assume all\nshapes. How many witcheries could proceed from the many-tinted sea to\naffect the eyes and enable them to see Triton with his wreathed horn,\nand mermaids combing their hair, and marine monsters, and Aphrodite\npoised on the white foam! Glaucoma it may be to the physicians;\nbut Glaucus it is in the scheme of Maya, who has never left land\nor sea without her witness. Beside the Polar Sea a Samoyed sailor,\nasked by Castr\u00e9n 'where is Num' (i.e., Jumala, his god), pointed to\nthe dark distant sea, and said, He is there.\n\nTo the ancients there were two seas,--the azure above, and that\nbeneath. The imaginative child in its development passes all those\ndreamy coasts; sees in clouds mountains of snow on the horizon, and in\nthe sunset luminous seas laving golden isles. When as yet to the young\nworld the shining sun was Berchta, the white fleecy clouds were her\nswans. When she descended to the sea, as a thousand stories related,\nit was to repeat the course of the sun for all tribes looking on a\nwestward sea. No one who has read that charming little book, 'The\nGods in Exile,' [155] will wonder at the happy instinct of learning\nshown in Heine's little poem, 'Sonnenuntergang,' [156] wherein we\nsee shining solar Beauty compelled to become the spinning housewife,\nor reluctant spouse of Poseidon:--\n\n\n            A lovely dame whom the old ocean-god\n            For convenience once had married;\n            And in the day-time she wanders gaily\n            Through the high heaven, purple-arrayed,\n            And all in diamonds gleaming,\n            And all beloved, and all amazing\n            To every worldly being,\n            And every worldly being rejoicing\n            With warmth and splendour from her glances.\n            Alas! at evening, sad and unwilling,\n            Back must she bend her slow steps\n            To the dripping house, to the barren embrace\n            Of grisly old age.\n\n\nThis of course is Heinesque, and has no relation to any legend of\nBertha, but is a fair specimen of mythology in the making, and is\nquite in the spirit of many of the myths that have flitted around\nsunset on the sea. Whatever the explanation of their descent, the\nShining One and her fleecy retinue were transformed. When to sea or\nlake came Berchta (or Perchta), it was as Bertha of the Large Foot\n(i.e., webbed), or of the Long Nose (beak), and her troop were\nSwan-maidens. Their celestial character was changed with that of\ntheir mistress. They became familiars of sorcerers and sorceresses. To\n'wear yellow slippers' became the designation of a witch.\n\nHow did these fleecy white cloud-phantoms become demonised? What\nconnection is there between them and the enticing Lorelei and the\ndangerous Rhine-daughters watching over golden treasures, once,\nperhaps, metaphors of moonlight ripples? They who have listened to\nthe wild laughter of these in Wagner's opera, Das Rheingold, and\ntheir weird 'Heiayaheia!' can hardly fail to suspect that they became\nassociated with the real human nymphs whom the summer sun still finds\nfreely sporting in the bright streams of Russia, Hungary, Austria,\nand East Germany, naked and not ashamed. Many a warning voice against\nthese careless Phrynes, who may have left tattered raiment on the shore\nto be transfigured in the silvery waves, must have gone forth from\npriests and anxious mothers. Nor would there be wanting traditions\nenough to impress such warnings. Few regions have been without such\nstories as those which the traveller Hiouen-Thsang (7th century)\nfound in Buddhist chronicles of the Rakshasis of Ceylon. 'They waylay\nthe merchants who land in the isle, and, changing themselves to women\nof great beauty, come before them with fragrant flowers and music;\nattracting them with kind words to the town of Iron, they offer them\na feast, and give themselves up to pleasure with them; then shut them\nin an iron prison, and eat them one after the other.'\n\nThere is a strong accent of human nature in the usual plot of the\nSwan-maiden legend, her garments stolen while she bathes, and her\nwillingness to pay wondrous prices for them--since they are her\nfeathers and her swanhood, without which she must remain for ever\ncaptive of the thief. The stories are told in regions so widely\nsundered, and their minor details are so different, that we may at\nany rate be certain that they are not all traceable solely to fleecy\nclouds. Sometimes the garments of the demoness--and these beings\nare always feminine--are not feathery, as in the German stories, but\nseal-skins, or of nondescript red tissue. Thus, the Envoy Li Ting-yuan\n(1801) records a Chinese legend of a man named Ming-ling-tzu, a poor\nand worthy farmer without family, who, on going to draw water from\na spring near his house, saw a woman bathing in it. She had hung\nher clothes on a pine tree, and, in punishment for her 'shameless\nways' and for her fouling the well, he carried off the dress. The\nclothing was unlike the familiar Lewchewan in style, and 'of a ruddy\nsunset colour.' The woman, having finished her bath, cried out in\ngreat anger, 'What thief has been here in broad day? Bring back my\nclothes, quick.' She then perceived Ming-ling-tzu, and threw herself\non the ground before him. He began to scold her, and asked why she\ncame and fouled his water; to which she replied that both the pine\ntree and the well were made by the Creator for the use of all. The\nfarmer entered into conversation with her, and pointed out that fate\nevidently intended her to be his wife, as he absolutely refused to\ngive up her clothes, while without them she could not get away. The\nresult was that they were married. She lived with him for ten years,\nand bore him a son and a daughter. At the end of that time her fate\nwas fulfilled: she ascended a tree during the absence of her husband,\nand having bidden his children farewell, glided off on a cloud and\ndisappeared. [157]\n\nIn South Africa a parallel myth, in its demonological aspect, bears\nno trace of a cloud origin. In this case a Hottentot, travelling with\na Bushwoman and her child, met a troop of wild horses. They were all\nhungry; and the woman, taking off a petticoat made of human skin,\nwas instantly changed into a lioness. She struck down a horse, and\nlapped its blood; then, at the request of the Hottentot, who in his\nterror had climbed a tree, she resumed her petticoat and womanhood, and\nthe friends, after a meal of horseflesh, resumed their journey. [158]\nAmong the Minussinian Tartars these demons partake of the nature of\nthe Greek Harpies; they are bloodthirsty vampyre-demons who drink\nthe blood of men slain in battle, darken the air in their flight,\nand house themselves in one great black fiend. [159] As we go East\nthe portrait of the Swan-maiden becomes less dark, and she is not\nassociated with the sea or the under-world. Such is one among the\nMalays, related by Mr. Tylor. In the island of Celebes it is said\nthat seven nymphs came down from the sky to bathe, and were seen by\nKasimbaha, who at first thought them white doves, but in the bath\nperceived they were women. He stole the robe of one of them, Utahagi,\nand as she could not fly without it, she became his wife and bare him\na son. She was called Utahagi because of a single magic white hair\nshe had; this her husband pulled out, when immediately a storm arose,\nand she flew to heaven. The child was in great grief, and the husband\ncast about how he should follow her up into the sky.\n\nThe Swan-maiden appears somewhat in the character of a Nemesis in\na Siberian myth told by Mr. Baring-Gould. A certain Samoyed who had\nstolen a Swan-maiden's robe, refused to return it unless she secured\nfor him the heart of seven demon robbers, one of whom had killed\nthe Samoyed's mother. The robbers were in the habit of hanging\nup their hearts on pegs in their tent. The Swan-maiden procured\nthem. The Samoyed smashed six of the hearts; made the seventh robber\nresuscitate his mother, whose soul, kept in a purse, had only to be\nshaken over the old woman's grave for that feat to be accomplished,\nand the Swan-maiden got back her plumage and flew away rejoicing. [160]\n\nIn Slavonic Folklore the Swan-maiden is generally of a dangerous\ncharacter, and if a swan is killed they are careful not to show it to\nchildren for fear they will die. When they appear as ducks, geese,\nand other water-fowl, they are apt to be more mischievous than when\nthey come as pigeons; and it is deemed perilous to kill a pigeon,\nas among sailors it was once held to kill an albatross. Afanasief\nrelates a legend which shows that, even when associated with the\nwater-king, the Tsar Morskoi or Slavonic Neptune, the pigeon preserves\nits beneficent character. A king out hunting lies down to drink from\na lake (as in the story related on p. 146), when Tsar Morskoi seizes\nhim by the beard, and will not release him until he agrees to give\nhim his infant son. The infant prince, deserted on the edge of the\nfatal lake, by advice of a sorceress hides in some bushes, whence he\npresently sees twelve pigeons arrive, which, having thrown off their\nfeathers, disport themselves in the lake. At length a thirteenth,\nmore beautiful than the rest, arrives, and her sorochka (shift) Ivan\nseizes. To recover it she agrees to be his wife, and, having told\nhim he will find her beneath the waters, resumes her pigeon-shape and\nflies away. Beneath the lake he finds a beautiful realm, and though\nthe Tsar Morskoi treats him roughly and imposes heavy tasks on him,\nthe pigeon-maiden (Vassilissa) assists him, and they dwell together\nhappily. [161]\n\nIn Norse Mythology the vesture of the uncanny maid is oftenest a\nseal-skin, and a vein of pathos enters the legends. Of the many\nlegends of this kind, still believed in Sweden and Norway, one has\nbeen pleasantly versified by Miss Eliza Keary. A fisherman having\nfound a pretty white seal-skin, took it home with him. At night there\nwas a wailing at his door; the maid enters, becomes his wife, and\nbears him three children. But after seven years she finds the skin,\nand with it ran to the shore. The eldest child tells the story to\nthe father on his return home.\n\n\n              Then we three, Daddy,\n            Ran after, crying, 'Take us to the sea!\n\n            Wait for us, Mammy, we are coming too!\n            Here's Alice, Willie can't keep up with you!\n            Mammy, stop--just for a minute or two!'\n              At last we came to where the hill\n            Slopes straight down to the beach,\n            And there we stood all breathless, still\n            Fast clinging each to each.\n                We saw her sitting upon a stone,\n                Putting the little seal-skin on.\n                  O Mammy! Mammy!\n                She never said goodbye, Daddy,\n                  She didn't kiss us three;\n                She just put the little seal-skin on\n                  And slipt into the sea!\n\n\nSome of the legends of this character are nearly as realistic as\nMr. Swinburne's 'Morality' of David and Bathsheba. To imagine\nthe scarcity of wives in regions to which the primitive Aryan\nrace migrated, we have only to remember the ben trovato story of\nCalifornians holding a ball in honour of a bonnet, in the days before\nwomen had followed them in migration. To steal Bathsheba's clothes,\nand so capture her, might at one period have been sufficiently common\nin Europe to require all the terrors contained in the armoury of\ntradition concerning the demonesses that might so be taken in, and\nmight so tempt men to take them in. In the end they might disappear,\ncarrying off treasures in the most prosaic fashion, or perhaps they\nmight bring to one's doors a small Trojan war. It is probable that\nthe sentiment of modesty, so far as it is represented in the shame\nof nudity, was the result of prudential agencies. Though the dread\nof nudity has become in some regions a superstition in the female\nmind strong enough to have its martyrs--as was seen at the sinking\nof the Northfleet and the burning hotel in St. Louis--it is one\nthat has been fostered by men in distrust of their own animalism. In\nbarbarous regions, where civilisation introduces clothes, the women\nare generally the last to adopt them; and though Mr. Herbert Spencer\nattributes this to female conservatism, it appears more probable\nthat it is because the men are the first to lose their innocence and\nthe women last to receive anything expensive. It is noticeable how\ngenerally the Swan-maidens are said in the myths to be captured by\nviolence or stratagem. At the same time the most unconscious temptress\nmight be the means of breaking up homes and misleading workmen, and\nthus become invested with all the wild legends told of the illusory\nphenomena of nature in popular mythology.\n\nIt is marvellous to observe how all the insinuations of the bane were\nfollowed by equal dexterities in the antedote. The fair tempters might\ndisguise their intent in an appeal to the wayfarer's humanity; and,\nbehold, there were a thousand well-attested narratives ready for the\nlips of wife and mother showing the demoness appealing for succour\nto be fatalest of all!\n\nThere is a stone on the M\u00fcggelsberger, in Altmark, which is said to\ncover a treasure; this stone is sometimes called 'Devil's Altar,'\nand sometimes it is said a fire is seen there which disappears when\napproached. It lies on the verge of Teufelsee,--a lake dark and small,\nand believed to be fathomless. Where the stone lies a castle once\nstood which sank into the ground with its fair princess. But from the\nunderground castle there is a subterranean avenue to a neighbouring\nhill, and from this hill of an evening sometimes comes an old woman,\nbent over her staff. Next day there will be seen a most beautiful lady\ncombing her long golden hair. To all who pass she makes her entreaties\nthat they will set her free, her pathetic appeals being backed by offer\nof a jewelled casket which she holds. The only means of liberating her\nis, she announces, that some one shall bear her on his shoulders three\ntimes round Teufelsee church without looking back. The experiment\nhas several times been made. One villager at his first round saw a\nlarge hay-waggon drawn past him by four mice, and following it with\nhis eyes received blows on the ears. Another saw a waggon drawn by\nfour coal-black fire-breathing horses coming straight against him,\nstarted back, and all disappeared with the cry 'Lost again for ever!' A\nthird tried and almost got through. He was found senseless, and on\nrecovering related that when he took the princess on his shoulders\nshe was light as a feather, but she grew heavier and heavier as he\nbore her round. Snakes, toads, and all horrible animals with fiery\neyes surrounded him; dwarfs hurled blocks of wood and stones at him;\nyet he did not look back, and had nearly completed the third round,\nwhen he saw his village burst into flames; then he looked behind--a\nblow felled him--and he seems to have only lived long enough to tell\nthis story. The youth of K\u00f6pernick are warned to steel their hearts\nagainst any fair maid combing her hair near Teufelsee. But the folklore\nof the same neighbourhood admits that it is by no means so dangerous\nfor dames to listen to appeals of this kind. In the Gohlitzsee, for\nexample, a midwife was induced to plunge in response to a call for aid;\nhaving aided a little Merwoman in travail, she was given an apronful of\ndust, which appeared odd until on shore it proved to be many thalers.\n\nIn countries where the popular imagination, instead of being\nscientific, is trained to be religiously retrospective, it relapses\nat the slightest touch into the infantine speculations of the human\nrace. Not long ago, standing at a shop-window in Ostend where a\n'Japanese Siren' was on view, the clever imposture interested me\nless than the comments of the passing and pausing observers. The\nmost frequent wonders seriously expressed were, whether she sang,\nor combed her hair, or was under a doom, or had a soul to be\nsaved. Every question related to Circe, Ulysses and the Sirens, and\nother conceptions of antiquity. The Japanese artists rightly concluded\nthey could float their Siren in any intellectual waters where Jonah\nin his whale could pass, or a fish appear with its penny. Nay, even\nin their primitive form the Sirens find their kith and kin still\nhaunting all the coasts of northern Europe. A type of the Irish and\nScottish Siren may be found in the very complete legend of one seen\nby John Reid, shipmaster of Cromarty. With long flowing yellow hair\nshe sat half on a rock, half in water, nude and beautiful, half woman\nhalf fish, and John managed to catch and hold her tight till she had\npromised to fulfil three wishes; then, released, she sprang into the\nsea. The wishes were all fulfilled, and to one of them (though John\nwould never reveal it) the good-luck of the Reids was for a century\nafter ascribed. [162]\n\nThe scene of this legend is the 'Dropping Cave,' and significantly\nnear the Lover's Leap. One of John's wishes included the success of\nhis courtship. These Caves run parallel with that of Venusberg, where\nthe minstrel Tannh\u00e4user is tempted by Venus and her nymphs. Heine\nfinishes off his description of this Frau Venus by saying he fancied\nhe met her one day in the Place Br\u00e9da. 'What do you take this lady\nto be?' asked he of Balzac, who was with him. 'She is a mistress,'\nreplied Balzac. 'A duchess rather,' returned Heine. But the friends\nfound on further explanation that they were both quite right. Venus'\ndoves, soiled for a time, were spiritualised at last and made white,\nwhile the snowy swan grew darker. An old German word for swan,\nelbiz, originally denoting its whiteness (albus), furthered its\nconnection with all 'elfish' beings--elf being from the same word,\nmeaning white; but, as in Goethe's 'Erl K\u00f6nig,' often disguising a\ndark character. The Swan and the Pigeon meet (with some modifications)\nas symbols of the Good and Evil powers in the legend of Lohengrin. The\nwitch transforms the boy into a Swan, which, however, draws to save his\nsister, falsely accused of his murder, the Knight of the Sangreal, who,\nwhen the mystery of his holy name is inquired into by his too curious\nbride, is borne away by white doves. These legends all bear in them,\nhowever faintly, the accent of the early conflict of religion with\nthe wild passions of mankind. Their religious bearings bring us to\ninquiries which must be considered at a later phase of our work. But\napart from purely moral considerations, it is evident that there must\nhave been practical dangers surrounding the early social chaos amid\nwhich the first immigrants in Europe found themselves.\n\nAlthough the legend of Lady Godiva includes elements of another origin,\nit is probable that in the fate of Peeping Tom there is a distant\nreflection of the punishment sometimes said to overtake those who\ngazed too curiously upon the Swan-maiden without her feathers. The\ndevotion of the nude lady of Coventry would not be out of keeping\nwith one class of these mermaiden myths. There is a superstition, now\nparticularly strong in Iceland, that all fairies are children of Eve,\nwhom she hid away on an occasion when the Lord came to visit her,\nbecause they were not washed and presentable. So he condemned them\nto be for ever invisible. This superstition seems to be related to\nan old debate whether these pr\u00e6ternatural beings are the children of\nAdam and Eve or not. A Scotch story bears against that conclusion. A\nbeautiful nymph, with a slight robe of green, came from the sea and\napproached a fisherman while he was reading his Bible. She asked him if\nit contained any promise of mercy for her. He replied that it contained\nan offer of salvation to 'all the children of Adam;' whereupon with a\nloud shriek she dashed into the sea again. Euphemism would co-operate\nwith natural compassion in saying a good word for 'the good little\npeople,' whether hiding in earth or sea. In Altmark, 'Will-o'-wisps'\nare believed to be the souls of unbaptized children--sometimes of\nlunatics--unable to rest in their graves; they are called 'Light-men,'\nand it is said that though they may sometimes mislead they often guide\nrightly, especially if a small coin be thrown them,--this being also\nan African plan of breaking a sorcerer's spell. Christianity long\nafter its advent in Germany had to contend seriously with customs and\nbeliefs found in some lakeside villages where the fishermen regarded\nthemselves as in friendly relations with the pr\u00e6ternatural guardians\nof the waters, and unto this day speak of their presiding sea-maiden\nas a Holy Fr\u00e4ulein. They hear her bells chiming up from the depths in\nholy seasons to mingle with those whose sounds are wafted from church\ntowers; and it seems to have required many fables, told by prints of\nfishermen found sitting lifeless on their boats while listening to\nthem, to gradually transfer reverence to the new christian fairy.\n\nIt may be they heard some such melody as that which has found its\nfinest expression in Mr. Matthew Arnold's 'Forsaken Merman:'--\n\n\n            Children dear, was it yesterday\n            (Call yet once) that she went away?\n            Once she sate with you and me,\n            On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea,\n            And the youngest sate on her knee.\n        She comb'd its bright hair, and she tended it well,\n        When down swung the sound of the far-off bell.\n        She sigh'd, she look'd up through the clear green sea;\n        She said: 'I must go, for my kinsfolk pray\n        In the little grey church on the shore to-day.\n        'Twill be Easter-time in the world--ah me!\n        And I lose my poor soul, Merman, here with thee.'\n        I said, 'Go up, dear heart, through the waves,\n        Say thy prayer, and come back to the kind sea-caves.'\n        She smil'd, she went up through the surf in the bay.\n            Children dear, was it yesterday?\n\n\nPerhaps we should find the antecedents of this Merman's lost Margaret,\nwhom he called back in vain, in the Danish ballad of 'The Merman and\nthe Marstig's Daughter,' who, in Goethe's version, sought the winsome\nMay in church, thither riding as a gay knight on\n\n\n                          horse of the water clear,\n        The saddle and bridle of sea-sand were.\n\n        They went from the church with the bridal train,\n        They danced in glee, and they danced full fain;\n        They danced them down to the salt-sea strand,\n        And they left them standing there, hand in hand.\n\n        'Now wait thee, love, with my steed so free,\n        And the bonniest bark I'll bring for thee.'\n        And when they passed to the white, white sand,\n        The ships came sailing on to the land;\n\n        But when they were out in the midst of the sound,\n        Down went they all in the deep profound!\n        Long, long on the shore, when the winds were high,\n        They heard from the waters the maiden's cry.\n\n        I rede ye, damsels, as best I can--\n        Tread not the dance with the Water-Man!\n\n\nAccording to other legends, however, the realm under-sea was not a\nplace for weeping. Child-eyes beheld all that the Erl-king promised,\nin Goethe's ballad--\n\n\n        Wilt thou go, bonny boy? wilt thou go with me?\n        My daughters shall wait on thee daintily;\n        My daughters around thee in dance shall sweep,\n        And rock thee and kiss thee, and sing thee to sleep!\n\n\nOr perhaps child-eyes, lingering in the burning glow of manhood's\npassion, might see in the peaceful sea some picture of lost love like\nthat so sweetly described in Heine's 'Sea Phantom:'--\n\n\n        But I still leaned o'er the side of the vessel,\n        Gazing with sad-dreaming glances\n        Down at the water, clear as a mirror,\n        Looking yet deeper and deeper,--\n        Till far in the sea's abysses,\n        At first like dim wavering vapours,\n        Then slowly--slowly--deeper in colour,\n        Domes of churches and towers seemed rising,\n        And then, as clear as day, a city grand....\n        Infinite longing, wondrous sorrow,\n        Steal through my heart,--\n        My heart as yet scarce healed;\n        It seems as though its wounds, forgotten,\n        By loving lips again were kissed,\n        And once again were bleeding\n        Drops of burning crimson,\n        Which long and slowly trickle down\n        Upon an ancient house below there\n        In the deep, deep sea-town,\n        On an ancient, high-roofed, curious house,\n        Where, lone and melancholy,\n        Below by the window a maiden sits,\n        Her head on her arm reclined,--\n        Like a poor and uncared-for child;\n        And I know thee, thou poor and long-sorrowing child!\n\n        ... I meanwhile, my spirit all grief,\n        Over the whole broad world have sought thee,\n        And ever have sought thee,\n        Thou dearly beloved,\n        Thou long, long lost one,\n        Thou finally found one,--\n        At last I have found thee, and now am gazing\n        Upon thy sweet face,\n        With earnest, faithful glances,\n        Still sweetly smiling;\n        And never will I again on earth leave thee.\n        I am coming adown to thee,\n        And with longing, wide-reaching embraces,\n        Love, I leap down to thy heart!\n\n\nThe temptations of fishermen to secure objects seen at the bottom of\ntransparent lakes, sometimes appearing like boxes or lumps of gold,\nand even more reflections of objects in the upper world or air, must\nhave been sources of danger; there are many tales of their being so\nbeguiled to destruction. These things were believed treasures of the\nlittle folk who live under water, and would not part with them except\non payment. In Blumenthal lake, 'tis said, there is an iron-bound\nyellow coffer which fishermen often have tried to raise, but their\ncords are cut as it nears the surface. At the bottom of the same\nlake valuable clothing is seen, and a woman who once tried to secure\nit was so nearly drowned that it is thought safer to leave it. The\nlegends of sunken towns (as in Lake Paarsteinchen and Lough Neagh),\nand bells (whose chimes may be heard on certain sacred days), are\nprobably variants of this class of delusions. They are often said to\nhave been sunk by some final vindictive stroke of a magician or witch\nresolved to destroy the city no longer trusting them. Landslides,\nengulfing seaside homes, might originate legends like that of King\nGradlon's daughter Dahut, whom the Breton peasant sees in rough weather\non rocks around Poul-Dahut, where she unlocked the sluice-gates on\nthe city Is in obedience to her fiend-lover.\n\nIf it be remembered that less than fifty years ago Dr. Belon [163]\nthought it desirable to anatomise gold fishes, and prove in various\nways that it is a fallacy to suppose they feed on pure gold (as\nmany a peasant near Lyons declares of the laurets sold daily in the\nmarket), it will hardly be thought wonderful that perilous visions of\nprecious things were seen by early fishermen in pellucid depths, and\nthat these should at last be regarded as seductive arts of Lorelei,\nwho have given many lakes and rivers the reputation of requiring one\nor more annual victims.\n\nPossibly it was through accumulation of many dreams about beautiful\nrealms beneath the sea or above the clouds that suicide became among\nthe Norse folk so common. It was a proverb that the worst end was to\ndie in bed, and to die by suicide was to be like Egil, and Omund, and\nKing Hake, like nearly all the heroes who so passed to Valhalla. The\nNorthman had no doubt concerning the paradise to which he was going,\nand did not wish to reach it enfeebled by age. But the time would come\nwhen the earth and human affection must assert their claims, and the\nwatery tribes be pictured as cruel devourers of the living. Even so\nwould the wood-nymphs and mountain-nymphs be degraded, and fearful\nlegends of those lost and wandering in dark forests be repeated to\nshuddering childhood. The actual dangers would mask themselves in\nthe endless disguises of illusion, the wold and wave be peopled with\ncruel and treacherous seducers. Thus suicide might gradually lose\nits charms, and a dismal underworld of heartless gnomes replace the\ngrottoes and fairies.\n\nWe may close this chapter with a Scottish legend relating to the\n'Shi'ichs,' or Men of Peace, in which there is a strange intimation\nof a human mind dreaming that it dreams, and so far on its way to\nwaking. A woman was carried away by these shadowy beings in order that\nshe might suckle her child which they had previously stolen. During her\nretention she once observed the Shi'ichs anointing their eyes from a\ncaldron, and seizing an opportunity, she managed to anoint one of her\nown eyes with the ointment. With that one eye she now saw the secret\nabode and all in it 'as they really were.' The deceptive splendour\nhad vanished. The gaudy ornaments of a fairy grot had become the\nnaked walls of a gloomy cavern. When this woman had returned to live\namong human beings again, her anointed eye saw much that others saw\nnot; among other things she once saw a 'man of peace,' invisible to\nothers, and asked him about her child. Astonished at being recognised,\nhe demanded how she had been able to discover him; and when she had\nconfessed, he spit in her eye and extinguished it for ever.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nDARKNESS.\n\n    Shadows--Night Deities--Kobolds--Walpurgisnacht--Night as\n    Abettor of Evil-doers--Nightmare--Dreams--Invisible Foes--Jacob\n    and his Phantom--Nott--The Prince of Darkness--The Brood of\n    Midnight--Second-Sight--Spectres of Souter Fell--The Moonshine\n    Vampyre--Glamour--Glam and Grettir--A Story of Dartmoor.\n\n\nFrom the little night which clings to man even by day--his own\nshadow--to the world's great shade of darkness, innumerable are the\ncoverts from which have emerged the black procession of phantoms which\nhave haunted the slumbers of the world, and betrayed the enterprise\nof man.\n\nHow strange to the first man seemed that shadow walking beside him,\nfrom the time when he saw it as a ghost tracking its steps and giving\nhim his name for a ghost, on to the period in which it seemed the\nemanation of an occult power, as to them who brought their sick into\nthe streets to be healed by the passing shadow of Peter; and still\non to the day when Beaumont wrote--\n\n\n            Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,\n            Our fatal shadows that walk by us still;\n\n\nor that in which Goethe found therein the mystical symbol of the\ninward arrest of our moral development, and said 'No man can jump\noff of his shadow.' And then from the culture of Europe we pass to\nthe Feejee-Islanders, and find them believing that every man has\ntwo spirits. One is his shadow, which goes to Hades; the other is\nhis image as reflected in water, and it is supposed to stay near the\nplace where the man dies. [164] But, like the giants of the Brocken,\nthese demons of the Shadow are trembled at long after they are known\nto be the tremblers themselves mirrored on air. Have we not priests\nin England still fostering the belief that the baptized child goes\nattended by a white spirit, the unbaptized by a dark one? Why then\nneed we apologise for the Fijians?\n\nBut little need be said here of demons of the Dark, for they are\nclosely related to the phantasms of Delusion, of Winter, and others\nalready described. Yet have they distinctive characters. As many as\nwere the sunbeams were the shadows; every goddess of the Dawn (Ushas)\ncast her shadow; every Day was swallowed up by Night. This is the\ncavern where hide the treacherous Panis (fog) in Vedic mythology,\nthey who steal and hide Indra's cows; this is the realm of Hades (the\ninvisible); this is the cavern of the hag Th\u00f6kk (dark) in Scandinavian\nmythology,--she who alone of all in the universe refused to weep\nfor Baldur when he was shut up in Helheim, where he had been sent\nby the dart of his blind brother H\u00f6dr (darkness). In the cavern of\nNight sleep the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, and Barbarossa, and all\nslumbering phantoms whose genius is the night-winged raven. Thorr,\nthe Norse Hercules, once tried to lift a cat--as it seemed to him--from\nthe ground; but it was the great mid-earth serpent which encircles the\nwhole earth. Impossible feat as it was for Thorr--who got only one paw\nof the seeming cat off the ground--in that glassless and gasless era,\ninvention has accomplished much in that direction; but the black Cat\nis still domiciled securely among idols of the mental cave.\n\nThere is an Anglo-Saxon word, cof-godas (lit. cove-gods), employed as\nthe equivalent of the Latin lares (the Penates, too, are interpreted as\ncof-godu, cofa signifying the inner recess of a house, penetrale). The\nword in German corresponding to this cofa, is koben; and from this\nHildebrand conjectures kob-old to be derived. The latter part of\nthe word he supposes to be walt (one who 'presides over,' e.g.,\nWalter); so that the original form would be kob-walt. [165] Here,\nthen, in the recesses of the household, among the least enlightened\nof its members--the menials, who still often neutralise the efforts\nof rational people to dispel the delusions of their children--the\ndiscredited deities and demons of the past found refuge, and through\na little baptismal change of names are familiars of millions unto\nthis day. In the words of the ancient Hebrew, 'they lay in their\nown houses prisoners of darkness, fettered with the bonds of a long\nnight.' 'No power of the fire might give them light, neither could\nthe bright flames of the stars lighten that horrible night.' [166]\nWell is it added, 'Fear is nothing else but a betraying of the succours\nwhich reason offereth,' a truth which finds ample illustration in the\nKobolds. These imaginary beings were naturally associated with the dark\nrecesses of mines. There they gave the name to our metal Cobalt. The\nvalue of Cobalt was not understood until the 17th century, and the\nmetal was first obtained by the Swedish chemist Brandt in 1733. The\nminers had believed that the silver was stolen away by Kobolds, and\nthese 'worthless' ores left in its place. Nickel had the like history,\nand is named after Old Nick. So long did those Beauties slumber in\nthe cavern of Ignorance till Science kissed them with its sunbeam,\nand led them forth to decorate the world!\n\nHow passed this (mental) cave-dweller even amid the upper splendours\nand vastnesses of his unlit world? A Faust guided by his Mephistopheles\nonly amid interminable Hartz labyrinths.\n\n\n            How sadly rises, incomplete and ruddy,\n            The moon's lone disk, with its belated glow,\n            And lights so dimly, that, as one advances,\n            At every step one strikes a rock or tree!\n            Let us then use a Jack-o'-lantern's glances:\n            I see one yonder, burning merrily.\n            Ho, there! my friend! I'll levy thine attendance:\n            Why waste so vainly thy resplendence?\n            Be kind enough to light us up the steep!\n\n            Tell me, if we still are standing,\n            Or if further we're ascending?\n            All is turning, whirling, blending,\n            Trees and rocks with grinning faces,\n            Wandering lights that spin in mazes,\n            Still increasing and expanding. [167]\n\n\nIt could only have been at a comparatively late period of social\ndevelopment that Sancho's benediction on the inventor of sleep could\nhave found general response. The Red Indian found its helplessness\nfatal when the 'Nick of the Woods' was abroad; the Scotch sailor found\nin it a demon's opiate when the 'Nigg of the Sea' was gathering his\nstorms above the sleeping watchman. It was among the problems of Job,\nthe co\u00f6peration of darkness with evil-doers.\n\n\n            The eye of the adulterer waiteth for the twilight;\n            He saith, No eye will see me,\n            And putteth a mask upon his face.\n            In the dark men break into houses;\n            In the day-time they shut themselves up;\n            They are strangers to the light.\n            The morning to them is the shadow of death;\n            They are familiar with the dark terrors of midnight.\n\n\nBesides this fact that the night befriends and masks every treacherous\nfoe, it is also to be remembered that man is weakest at night. Not\nonly is he weaker than by day in the veil drawn over his senses,\nbut physiologically also. When the body is wearied out by the toils\nor combats of the day, and the mind haunted by dreams of danger,\nthere are present all the terrors which Byron portrays around the\nrestless pillow of Sardanapalus. The war-horse of the day becomes\na night-mare in the darkness. In the Heimskringla it is recorded:\n'Vanland, Svegdir's son, succeeded his father and ruled over the\nUpsal domain. He was a great warrior, and went far around in different\nlands. Once he took up his winter abode in Finland with Snio the Old,\nand got his daughter Drisa in marriage; but in spring he set out\nleaving Drisa behind, and although he had promised to return within\nthree years he did not come back for ten. Then Drisa sent a message to\nthe witch Hulda; and sent Visbur, her son by Vanland, to Sweden. Drisa\nbribed the witch-wife Hulda, either that she should bewitch Vanland\nto return to Finland or kill him. When this witch-work was going\non Vanland was at Upsal, and a great desire came over him to go to\nFinland, but his friends and counsellors advised him against it, and\nsaid the witchcraft of the Fin people showed itself in this desire of\nhis to go there.  He then became very drowsy, and laid himself down to\nsleep; but when he had slept but a little while he cried out, saying,\n'Mara was treading on him.' His men hastened to help him; but when they\ntook hold of his head she trod on his legs, and when they laid hold\nof his legs she pressed upon his head; and it was his death.' [168]\n\nThis witch is, no doubt, Hildur, a Walkyr of the Edda, leading heroes\nto Walhalla. Indeed, in Westphalia, nightmare is called Walriderske. It\nis a curious fact that 'Mara' should be preserved in the French\nword for nightmare, Cauche-mar, 'cauche' being from Latin calcare,\nto tread. Through Teutonic folklore this Night-demon of many names,\nhaving floated from England in a sieve paddled with cow-ribs, rides to\nthe distress of an increasingly unheroic part of the population. Nearly\nalways still the 'Mahrt' is said to be a pretty woman,--sometimes,\nindeed, a sweetheart is involuntarily transformed to one,--every\nrustic settlement abounding with tales of how the demoness has been\ncaptured by stopping the keyhole, calling the ridden sleeper by his\nbaptismal name, and making the sign of the cross; by such process the\nwicked beauty appears in human form, and is apt to marry the sleeper,\nwith usually evil results. The fondness of cats for getting on the\nbreasts of sleepers, or near their breath, for warmth, has made that\nanimal a common form of the 'Mahrt.' Sometimes it is a black fly with\nred ring around its neck. This demoness is believed to suffer more\npain than it inflicts, and vainly endeavours to destroy herself.\n\nIn savage and nomadic times sound sleep being an element of danger, the\nsecurity which required men to sleep on their arms demanded also that\nthey should sleep as it were with one eye open. Thus there might have\narisen both the intense vividness which demons acquired by blending\nsubjective and objective impressions, and the curious inability, so\nfrequent among barbarians and not unknown among the men civilised, to\ndistinguish dream from fact. The habit of day-dreaming seems, indeed,\nmore general than is usually supposed. Dreams haunt all the region of\nour intellectual twilight,--the borderland of mystery, where rise the\nsources of the occult and the mystical which environ our lives. The\ndaily terrors of barbarous life avail to haunt the nerves of civilised\npeople, now many generations after they have passed away, with special\nand irrational shudders at certain objects or noises: how then must\nthey have haunted the dreams of humanity when, like the daughter of\nNathan the Wise, rescued from flames, it passed the intervals of strife\n\n\n                  With nerves unstrung through fear,\n        And fire and flame in all she sees or fancies;\n        Her soul awake in sleep, asleep when wide awake?\n\n\nAmong the sources of demoniac beliefs few indeed are more prolific than\nDreams. 'The witchcraft of sleep,' says Emerson, 'divides with truth\nthe empire of our lives. This soft enchantress visits two children\nlying locked in each other's arms, and carries them asunder by wide\nspans of land and sea, wide intervals of time. 'Tis superfluous to\nthink of the dreams of multitudes; the astonishment remains that\none should dream; that we should resign so quietly this deifying\nreason and become the theatre of delusions, shows, wherein time,\nspace, persons, cities, animals, should dance before us in merry and\nmad confusion, a delicate creation outdoing the prime and flower of\nactual nature, antic comedy alternating with horrid spectres. Or we\nseem busied for hours and days in peregrinations over seas and lands,\nin earnest dialogues, strenuous actions for nothings and absurdities,\ncheated by spectral jokes, and waking suddenly with ghostly laughter,\nto be rebuked by the cold lonely silent midnight, and to rake with\nconfusion in memory among the gibbering nonsense to find the motive\nof this contemptible cachinnation.' [169]\n\nIt has always been the worst of periods of religious excitement that\nthey shape the dreams of old and young, and find there a fearful\nand distorted, but vivid and realistic, embodiment of their feverish\nexperiences. In the days of witchcraft thousands visited the Witches'\nSabbaths, as they believed and danced in the Walpurgis orgies,\nborne (by hereditary orthodox canon) on their own brooms up their own\nchimneys; and to-day, by the same morbid imaginations, the victims are\nable to see themselves or others elongated, levitated, floating through\nthe air. If people only knew how few are ever really wide-awake,\nthese spiritual nightmares would soon reach their termination. The\nnatural terrors before which helpless man once cowered, have been\nprolonged past all his real victories over his demons by a succession\nof such nightmares, so that the vulgar religion might be portrayed\nsomewhat as Richard Wagner described his first tragedy, in which,\nhaving killed off forty-two of his characters, he had to bring them\nback as ghosts to carry on the fifth act!\n\nThe perils of darkness, as ambush of foes human and animal,\nconcealer of pitfalls, misguider of footsteps, misdirector of aims,\nwere more real than men can well imagine in an age of gaslight plus\nthe policeman. The myth of Joshua commanding the sun to stand still;\nthe cry of Ajax when darkness fell on the combat, 'Grant me but to\nsee!' refer us to the region from which come all childish shudders\nat going into the dark. The limit of human courage is reached where\nits foe is beyond the reach of its force. Fighting in the dark may\neven be suicidal. A German fable of blindfold zeal--the awakened\nsleeper demolishing his furniture and knocking out his own teeth in\nthe attempt to punish cats--has its tragical illustrations also. But\nnone of these actual dangers have been of more real evil to man than\nthe demonisation of them. This rendered his very skill a blunder, his\nenergy weakness. If it was bad to retreat in the dusk from an innocent\nbush into an unrecognised well, it was worse to meet the ghost with\nrune or crucifix and find it an assassin. When man fights with his\nshadow, he instantly makes it the demon he fears; ghoul-like it preys\nupon his paralysed strength, vampyre-like it sucks his blood, and he is\nconsigned disarmed to the evil that is no shadow. The Scottish Sinclair\nmarching through Norway, in the 16th century, owes his monument at\nWiblungen rather to the magpie believed to precede him as a spy,\nwith night and day upon its wings, than to his own prowess or power.\n\nIn a sense all demons, whatever their shapes, are the ancient\nbrood of night. Mental darkness, even more moral darkness within,\nsupply the phantasmagoria in which unknown things shape themselves as\ndemons. Esau is already reconciled, but guilty Jacob must still wrestle\nwith him as a phantom of Fear till daybreak. A work has already been\nwritten on 'The Night-side of Nature,' but it would require many\nvolumes to tell the story of what monsters have been conjured out\nof the kind protecting darkness. How great is the darkness which\nman makes for himself out of the imagination which should be his\nlight and vision! Much of the so-called 'religion' of our time is\nbut elaborate demoniculture and artificial preservation of mental\nWalpurgis-nights. Nott (Night) says the Edda rides first on her horse\ncalled Hrimfaxi (frost-maned), which every morning as he ends his\ncourse bedews the earth with the foam that falls from his bit. Though\nthe horse of Day--Skinfaxi, or Shining-mane--follows hard after her,\nyet the foam is by no means drunk up by his fires. Foam of the old\nphantasms still lingers in our medi\u00e6val liturgies, and even falls\nafresh where the daylight is shut out that altar-candles may burn,\nor for other dark seances are prepared the conditions necessary for\nwhatsoever loves not the light.\n\nWhat we call the Dark Ages were indeed spiritually a perpetual seance\nwith lights lowered. Nay, human superstition was able to turn the\nvery moon and stars into mere bluish night-tapers, giving just light\nenough to make the darkness visible in fantastic shapes fluttering\naround the Prince of Darkness,--or Non-existence in Chief! How much\nof the theosophic speculation of our time is the mere artificial\nconservation of that darkness? How much that still flits bat-winged\nfrom universities, will, in the future, be read with the same wonder\nas that with which even the more respectable bats can now read account\nof the midnight brood which now for the most part sleep tranquilly in\nsuch books as Burton's 'Anatomy of Melancholy'? 'There are,' he says,\n'certain spirits which Miraldus calls Ambulones, that walk about\nmidnight on great heaths and desert places, which (saith Lavater)\ndraw men out of their way, and lead them all night by a byway, or\nquite bar them of their way. These have several names in several\nplaces. We commonly call them Pucks. In the deserts of Lop, in Asia,\nsuch illusions of walking spirits are often perceived, as you may read\nin M. Paulus, the Venetian, his travels. If one lose his company by\nchance, these devils will call him by his name, and counterfeit voices\nof his companions to seduce him. Lavater and Cicogna have a variety of\nexamples of spirits and walking devils in this kind. Sometimes they\nsit by the wayside to give men falls, and make their horses stumble\nand start as they ride (according to the narration of that holy man\nKetellus in Nubrigensis, that had an especial grace to see devils);\nand if a man curse and spur his horse for stumbling, they do heartily\nrejoice at it.'\n\nWhile observing a spirited and imaginative picture by Macallum of\nthe Siege of Jerusalem, it much interested me to observe the greater\nor less ease with which other visitors discovered the portents in\nthe air which, following the narrative of Josephus, the artist had\nvaguely portrayed. The chariots and horsemen said to have been seen\nbefore that event were here faintly blent with indefinite outlines\nof clouds; and while some of the artist's friends saw them with a\ndistinctness greater, perhaps, than that with which they impressed\nthe eye of the artist himself, others could hardly be made to see\nanything except shapeless vapour, though of course they all agreed\nthat they were there and remarkably fine.\n\nIt would seem that thus, in a London studio, there were present all\nthe mental pigments for frescoing the air and sky with those visions\nof a\u00ebrial armies or huntsmen which have become so normal in history\nas to be, in a subjective sense, natural. In the year 1763, an author,\nstyling himself Theophilus Insulanus, published at Edinburgh a book on\nSecond-Sight, in which he related more than a hundred instances of the\npower he believed to exist of seeing events before they had occurred,\nand whilst, of course, they did not exist. It is not difficult in\nreading them to see that they are all substantially one and the\nsame story, and that the sight in operation was indeed second; for\nman or woman, at once imaginative and illiterate, have a second and\nsupernumerary pair of eyes inherited from the traditional superstitions\nand ghost stories which fill all the air they breathe from the cradle\nto the grave. While the mind is in this condition, that same nature\nwhose apparitions and illusions originally evoked and fostered the\nglamoury, still moves on with her minglings of light and shade, cloud\nand mirage, giving no word of explanation. There are never wanting the\nshadowy forms without that cast their shuttles to the dark idols of the\nmental cave, together weaving subtle spells round the half-waking mind.\n\nIn the year 1743 all the North of England and Scotland was in alarm\non account of some spectres which were seen on the mountain of Souter\nFell in Cumberland. The mountain is about half-a-mile high. On a summer\nevening a farmer and his servant, looking from Wilton Hall, half a\nmile off, saw the figures of a man and a dog pursuing some horses\nalong the mountain-side, which is very steep; and on the following\nmorning they repaired to the place, expecting to find dead bodies, but\nfinding none. About one year later a troop of horsemen were seen riding\nalong the same mountain-side by one of the same persons, the servant,\nwho then called others who also saw the a\u00ebrial troopers. After a year\nhad elapsed the above vision was attested before a magistrate by two\nof those who saw it. The event occurred on the eve of the Rebellion,\nwhen horsemen were exercising, and when also the popular mind along\nthe Border may be supposed to have been in a highly excited condition.\n\nWhat was seen on this strongly-authenticated occasion? Was anything\nseen? None can tell. It is open to us to believe that there may have\nbeen some play of mirage. As there are purely a\u00ebrial echoes, so are\nthere a\u00ebrial reflectors for the eye. On the other hand, the vision so\nnearly resembles the spectral processions which have passed through\nthe mythology of the world, that we can never be sure that it was\nnot the troop of King Arthur, emerging from Avallon to announce\nthe approaching strife. A few fleecy, strangely-shaped clouds,\nchasing each other along the hillside in the evening's dusk would\nhave amply sufficed to create the latter vision, and the danger of\nthe time would easily have supplied all the Second-Sight required to\nreveal it to considerable numbers. In questions of this kind a very\nsmall circumstance--a phrase, a name, perhaps--may turn the balance\nof probabilities. Thus it may be noted that, in the instance just\nrelated, the vision was seen on the steep side of Souter Fell. Fell\nmeans a hill or a steep rock, as in Drachenfels. But as to Souter,\nalthough, as Mr. Robert Ferguson says, the word may originally\nhave meant sheep, [170] it is found in Scotland used as 'shoemaker'\nin connection with the fabulous giants of that region. Sir Thomas\nUrquhart, in the seventeenth century, relates it as the tradition\nof the two promontories of Cromarty, called 'Soutars,' that they\nwere the work-stools of two giants who supplied their comrades with\nshoes and buskins. Possessing but one set of implements, they used\nto fling these to each other across the opening of the firth, where\nthe promontories are only two miles apart. In process of time the name\nSoutar, shoemaker, was bequeathed by the craftsmen to their stools. It\nis not improbable that the name gradually connected itself with other\nplaces bearing traditions connecting them with the fabulous race,\nand that in this way the Souter Fell, from meaning in early times\nmuch the same as Giants' Hill, preserved even in 1743-44 enough of the\nearlier uncanny associations to awaken the awe of Borderers in a time\nof rebellion. The vision may therefore have been seen by light which\nhad journeyed all the way from the mythologic heavens of ancient India:\nsubstantially subjective--such stuff as dreams and dreamers are made\nof--no doubt there were outer clouds, shapes and afterglows enough,\neven in the absence of any fata morgana to supply canvas and pigment\nto the cunning artist that hides in the eye.\n\nIn an old tale, the often-slain Vampyre-bat only requests, with\npathos, that his body may be laid where no sunlight, but only the\nmoonlight, will fall on it--only that! But it is under the moonshine\nthat it always gains new life. No demon requires absolute darkness,\nbut half-darkness, in which to live: enough light to disclose a\nSomewhat, but not enough to define and reveal its nature, is just\nwhat has been required for the bat-eyes of fable and phantasy, which\ncan make vampyre of a sparrow or giant out of a windmill.\n\nGlamour! A marvellous history has this word of the artists and\npoets,--sometimes meaning the charm with which the eye invests any\nobject; or, in Wordsworth's phrase, 'the light that never was on\nland or sea.' But no artist or poet ever rose to the full height\nof the simple term itself, which well illustrates Emerson's saying,\n'Words are fossil poetry.' Professor Cowell of Cambridge says: 'Gl\u00e1m,\nor in the nominative Gl\u00e1mr, is also a poetical name for the Moon. It\ndoes not actually occur in the ancient literature, but it is given in\nthe glossary in the Prose Edda in the list of the very old words for\nthe Moon.' Vigfusson in his dictionary says, 'The word is interesting\non account of its identity with Scot. Glamour, which shows that the\ntale of Glam was common to Scotland and Iceland, and this much older\nthan Grettir (in the year 1014).' The Ghost or Goblin Glam seems\nevidently to have arisen from a personification of the delusive and\ntreacherous effects of moonlight on the benighted traveller,\n\n\n        Quale per incertam lunam sub luce malign\u00e2,\n        Est iter in sylvis.\n\n\nNow, there is a curious old Sanskrit word, glau or gl\u00e1v, which is\nexplained in all the old native lexicons as meaning 'the moon.' It\nmight either be taken as 'waning,' or in a casual sense 'obscuring.'\n\nThe following lines from an early medi\u00e6val poet, Bh\u00e1sa (seventh\ncentury), will illustrate the deceptive character of moonlight from\na Hindu point of view. The strong and wild Norse imagination delights\nin what is terrible and gloomy: the Hindu loves to dwell on the milder\nand quieter aspects of human life.\n\n'The cat laps the moonbeams in the bowl of water, thinking them to\nbe milk: the elephant thinks that the moonbeams, threaded through\nthe intervals of the trees, are the fibres of the lotus-stalk. The\nwoman snatches at the moonbeams as they lie on the bed, taking them\nfor her muslin garment: oh, how the moon, intoxicated with radiance,\nbewilders all the world!'\n\nA similar passage, no doubt imitated from this, is also quoted:\n\n'The bewildered herdsmen place the pails under the cows, thinking\nthat the milk is flowing; the maidens also put the blue lotus blossom\nin their ears, thinking that it is the white; the mountaineer's wife\nsnatches up the jujube fruit, avaricious for pearls. Whose mind is\nnot led astray by the thickly clustering moonbeams?' [171]\n\nIn the Icelandic legend of the struggle between the hero Grettir,\ntranslated by Magn\u00fassen and Morris (London, 1869), the saga\nsupplies a scenery as arch\u00e6ological as if the philologists had been\nconsulted. 'Bright moonlight was there without, and the drift was\nbroken, now drawn over the moon, now driven off from her; and even as\nGlam fell, a cloud was driven from the moon, and Glam glared up against\nher.' When the hero beheld these glaring eyes of the giant Ghost, he\nfelt some fiendish craft in them, and could not draw his short sword,\nand 'lay well nigh 'twixt home and hell.' This half-light of the moon,\nwhich robs the Strong of half his power, is repeated in Glam's curse:\n'Exceedingly eager hast thou sought to meet me, Grettir, but no\nwonder will it be deemed, though thou gettest no good hap of me;\nand this I must tell thee, that thou now hast got half the strength\nand manhood which was thy lot if thou hadst not met me: now I may\nnot take from thee the strength which thou hast got before this;\nbut that may I rule, that thou shalt never be mightier than now thou\nart ... therefore this weird I lay on thee, ever in those days to\nsee these eyes with thine eyes, and thou wilt find it hard to be\nalone--and that shalt drag thee unto death.'\n\nThe Moon-demon's power is limited to the spell of illusion he can\ncast. Presently he is laid low; the 'short sword' of a sunbeam pales,\ndecapitates him. But after Glam is burned to cold coals, and his\nashes buried in skin of a beast 'where sheep-pastures were fewest,\nor the ways of men,' the spell lay upon the hero's eyes. 'Grettir\nsaid that his temper had been nowise bettered by this, that he was\nworse to quiet than before, and that he deemed all trouble worse than\nit was; but that herein he found the greatest change, in that he was\nbecome so fearsome a man in the dark, that he durst go nowhither alone\nafter nightfall, for then he seemed to see all kinds of horrors. And\nthat has fallen since into a proverb, that Glam lends eyes, or gives\nGlamsight to those who see things nowise as they are.'\n\nIn reading which one may wonder how this world would look if for\na little moment one's eyes could be purged of glamour. Even at the\nmoon's self one tries vainly to look: where Hindu and Zulu see a hare,\nthe Arab sees coils of a serpent, and the Englishman sees a man; and\nthe most intelligent of these several races will find it hard to see in\nthe moon aught save what their primitive ancestors saw. And this small\nhint of the degree to which the wisest, like Merlin, are bound fast\nin an air-prison by a Vivien whose spells are spun from themselves,\nwould carry us far could we only venture to follow it out. 'The Moon,'\nobserved Dr. Johnson unconsciously, 'has great influence in vulgar\nphilosophy.' How much lunar theology have we around us, so that\nmany from the cradle to the grave get no clear sight of nature or of\nthemselves! Very closely did Carlyle come to the fable of Glam when\nspeaking of Coleridge's 'prophetic moonshine,' and its effect on poor\nJohn Sterling. 'If the bottled moonshine beactually substance? Ah,\ncould one but believe in a church while finding it incredible!... The\nbereaved young lady has taken the veil then!... To such lengths can\ntranscendental moonshine, cast by some morbidly radiating Coleridge\ninto the chaos of a fermenting life, act magically there, and produce\ndivulsions and convulsions and diseased developments.' One can almost\nfancy Carlyle had ringing in his memory the old Scottish ballad of\nthe Rev. Robert Kirk, translator of the Psalms into Gaelic, who,\nwhile walking in his night-gown at Aberfoyle, was 'snatched away to\nthe joyless Elfin bower.'\n\n\n            It was between the night and day\n            When the fairy-king has power.\n\n\nThe item of the night-gown might have already prepared us for the\ncouplet; and it has perhaps even a mystical connection with the\nvestment of the 'black dragoon' which Sterling once saw patrolling\nin every parish, to whom, however, he surrendered at last.\n\nA story is told of a man wandering on a dark night over Dartmoor,\nwhose feet slipped over the edge of a pit. He caught the branch of\na tree suspended over the terrible chasm, but unable to regain the\nground, shrieked for help. None came, though he cried out till his\nvoice was gone; and there he remained dangling in agony until the grey\nlight revealed that his feet were only a few inches from the solid\nground. Such are the chief demons that bind man till cockcrow. Such are\nthe apprehensions that waste also the moral and intellectual strength\nof man, and murder his peace as he regards the necessary science of his\ntime to be cutting some frail tenure sustaining him over a bottomless\npit, instead of a release from real terror to the solid ground.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\nDISEASE.\n\n    The Plague Phantom--Devil-dances--Destroying Angels--Ahriman in\n    Astrology---Saturn--Satan and Job--Set--The Fatal Seven--Yakseyo\n    --The Singhalese Pretraya--Reeri--Maha Sohon--Morotoo--Luther on\n    Disease-demons--Gopolu--Madan--Cattle-demon in Russia--Bihlweisen\n    --The Plough.\n\n\nA familiar fable in the East tells of one who met a fearful phantom,\nwhich in reply to his questioning answered--'I am Plague: I have come\nfrom yon city where ten thousand lie dead: one thousand were slain by\nme, the rest by Fear.' Perhaps even this story does not fully report\nthe alliance between the plague and fear; for it is hardly doubtful\nthat epidemics retain their power in the East largely because they have\ngained personification through fear as demons whose fatal power man\ncan neither prevent nor cure, before which he can only cower and pray.\n\nIn the missionary school at Canterbury the young men prepare themselves\nto help the 'heathen' medically, and so they go forth with materia\nmedica in one hand, and in the other an infallible revelation from\nheaven reporting plagues as the inflictions of Jehovah, or the\ndestroying angel, or Satan, and the healing of disease the jealously\nreserved monopoly of God. [172]\n\nThe demonisation of diseases is not wonderful. To thoughtful\nminds not even science has dispelled the mystery which surrounds\nmany of the ailments that afflict mankind, especially the normal\ndiseases besetting children, hereditary complaints, and the strange\nliabilities to infection and contagion. A genuine, however partial,\nobservation would suggest to primitive man some connection between\nthe symptoms of many diseases and the mysterious universe of which he\ncould not yet recognise himself an epitome. There were indications\nthat certain troubles of this kind were related to the seasons,\nconsequently to the celestial rulers of the seasons,--to the sun\nthat smote by day, and the moon at night. Professor Monier Williams,\ndescribing the Devil-dances of Southern India, says that there seems\nto be an idea among them that when pestilences are rife exceptional\nmeasures must be taken to draw off the malignant spirits, supposed\nto cause them, by tempting them to enter into these wild dancers,\nand so become dissipated. He witnessed in Ceylon a dance performed by\nthree men who personated the forms and phases of typhus fever. [173]\nThese dances probably belong to the same class of ideas as those of\nthe dervishes in Persia, whose manifold contortions are supposed\nto repeat the movements of planets. They are invocations of the\nsouls of good stars, and propitiations of such as are evil. Belief\nin such stellar and planetary influences has pervaded every part of\nthe world, and gave rise to astrological dances. 'Gebelin says that\nthe minuet was the danse oblique of the ancient priests of Apollo,\nperformed in their temples. The diagonal line and the two parallels\ndescribed in this dance were intended to be symbolical of the zodiac,\nand the twelve steps of which it is composed were meant for the twelve\nsigns and the months of the year. The dance round the Maypole and the\nCotillon has the same origin. Diodorus tells us that Apollo was adored\nwith dances, and in the island of Iona the god danced all night. The\nChristians of St. Thomas till a very late day celebrated their worship\nwith dances and songs. Calmet says there were dancing-girls in the\ntemple at Jerusalem.' [174]\n\nThe influence of the Moon upon tides, the sleeplessness it causes,\nthe restlessness of the insane under its occasional light, and such\ntreacheries of moonshine as we have already considered, have populated\nour uninhabited satellite with demons. Lunar legends have decorated\nsome well-founded suspicions of moonlight. The mother draws the\ncurtain between the moonshine and her little Endymion, though not\nbecause she sees in the waning moon a pining Selene whose kiss may\nwaste away the beauty of youth. A mere survival is the 'bowing to\nthe new moon:' a euphonism traceable to many myths about 'lunacy,'\namong them, as I think, to Delilah ('languishing'), in whose lap\nthe solar Samson is shorn of his locks, leaving him only the blind\ndestructive strength of the 'moonstruck.'\n\nIn the purely Semitic theories of the Jews we find diseases ascribed\nto the wrath of Jehovah, and their cure to his merciful mood. 'Jehovah\nwill make thy plagues wonderful, and the plagues of thy seed; ... he\nwill bring upon thee all the diseases of Egypt whereof thou wast\nafraid.' [175] The emerods which smote the worshippers of Dagon were\nascribed directly to the hand of Jehovah. [176] In that vague degree\nof natural dualistic development which preceded the full Iranian\ninfluence upon the Jews, the infliction of diseases was delegated to\nan angel of Jehovah, as in the narratives of smiting the firstborn\nof Egypt, wasting the army of Sennacherib, and the pestilence sent\nupon Israel for David's sin. In the progress of this angel to be\na demon of disease we find a phase of ambiguity, as shown in the\nhypochondria of Saul. 'The spirit of Jehovah departed from Saul,\nand an evil spirit from Jehovah troubled him.' [177]\n\nAll such ambiguities disappeared under the influence of Iranian\ndualism. In the Book of Job we find the infliction of diseases and\nplagues completely transferred to a powerful spirit, a fully formed\nopposing potentate. The 'sons of God,' who in the first chapter\nof Job are said to have presented themselves before Jehovah, may\nbe identified in the thirty-eighth as the stars which shouted for\njoy at the creation. Satan is the wandering or malign planet which\nleads in the Ahrimanic side of the Persian planisphere. In the\ncosmographical theology of that country Ormuzd was to reign for\nsix thousand years, and then Ahriman was to reign for a similar\nperiod. The moral associations of this speculation are discussed\nelsewhere; it is necessary here only to point out the bearing of the\nplanispheric conception upon the ills that flesh is heir to. Ahriman\nis the 'star-serpent' of the Zendavasta. 'When the p\u00e2ris rendered\nthis world desolate, and overran the universe; when the star-serpent\nmade a path for himself between heaven and earth,' &c.; 'when Ahriman\nrambles on the earth, let him who takes the form of a serpent glide\non the earth; let him who takes the form of the wolf run on the earth,\nand let the violent north wind bring weakness.' [178]\n\nThe dawn of Ormuzd corresponds with April. The sun returns from\nwinter's death by sign of the lamb (our Aries), and thenceforth\nevery month corresponds with a thousand years of the reign of the\nBeneficent. September is denoted by the Virgin and Child. To the dark\ndomain of Ahriman the prefecture of the universe passes by Libra,--the\nsame balances which appear in the hand of Satan. The star-serpent\nprevails over the Virgin and Child. Then follow the months of the\nscorpion, the centaur, goat, &c., every month corresponding to a\nthousand years of the reign of Ahriman.\n\nWhile this scheme corresponds in one direction with the demons of\ncold, and in another with the entrance and reign of moral evil in\nthe world, beginnings of disease on earth were also ascribed to this\nseventh thousand of years when the Golden Age had passed. The depth of\nwinter is reached in domicile of the goat, or of Sirius, Seth, Saturn,\nSatan--according to the many variants. And these, under their several\nnames, make the great 'infortune' of astrology, wherein old Culpepper\namply instructed our fathers. 'In the general, consider that Saturn\nis an old worn-out planet, weary, and of little estimation in this\nworld; he causeth long and tedious sicknesses, abundance of sadness,\nand a Cartload of doubts and fears; his nature is cold, and dry,\nand melancholy. And take special notice of this, that when Saturn is\nLord of an Eclipse (as he is one of the Lords of this), he governs all\nthe rest of the planets, but none can govern him. Melancholy is made\nof all the humors in the body of man, but no humor of melancholy. He\nis envious, and keeps his anger long, and speaks but few words, but\nwhen he speaks he speaks to purpose. A man of deep cogitations; he\nwill plot mischief when men are asleep; he hath an admirable memory,\nand remembers to this day how William the Bastard abused him; he\ncannot endure to be a slave; he is poor with the poor, fearful with\nthe fearful; he plots mischief against the Superiours, with them that\nplot mischief against them; have a care of him, Kings and Magistrates\nof Europe; he will show you what he can do in the effects of this\nEclipse; he is old, and therefore hath large experience, and will\ngive perilous counsel; he moves but slowly, and therefore doth the\nmore mischief; all the planets contribute their natures and strength\nto him, and when he sets on doing mischief he will do it to purpose;\nhe doth not regard the company of the rest of the Planets, neither\ndo any of the rest of the Planets regard his; he is a barren Planet,\nand therefore delights not in women; he brings the Pestilence; he is\ndestructive to the fruits of the earth; he receives his light from\nthe Sun, and yet he hates the Sun that gives it him.' [179]\n\nMany ages anterior to this began in India the dread of Ketu,\nastronomically the ninth planet, mythologically the tail of the\ndemon Rahu, cut in twain as already told (p. 46), supposed to be\nthe prolific source of comets, meteors, and falling stars, also of\ndiseases. From this Ketu or dragon's tail were born the Arunah Ketavah\n(Red Ketus or apparitions), and Ketu has become almost another word\nfor disease. [180]\n\nStrongly influenced as were the Jews by the exact division of the\nduodecimal period between Good and Evil, affirmed by the Persians,\nthey never lost sight of the ultimate supremacy of Jehovah. Though\nSatan had gradually become a voluntary genius of evil, he still had\nto receive permission to afflict, as in the case of Job, and during\nthe lifetime of Paul appears to have been still denied that 'power of\ndeath' which is first asserted by the unknown author of the Epistle\nto the Hebrews. [181] Satan's especial office was regarded as the\ninfliction of disease. Paul delivers the incestuous Corinthian to\nSatan 'for the destruction of the flesh,' and he also attributed the\nsickness and death of many to their communicating unworthily. [182]\nHe also recognises his own 'thorn in the flesh' as 'an angel from\nSatan,' though meant for his moral advantage. [183]\n\nA penitential Psalm (Assyrian) reads as follows:--\n\nO my Lord! my sins are many, my trespasses are great; and the wrath\nof the gods has plagued me with disease, and with sickness and sorrow.\n\n\n    I fainted, but no one stretched forth his hand!\n    I groaned, but no one drew nigh!\n    I cried aloud, but no one heard!\n    O Lord, do not abandon thy servant!\n    In the waters of the great storm seize his hand!\n    The sins which he has committed turn them to righteousness. [184]\n\n\nThis Psalm would hardly be out of place in the English burial-service,\nwhich deplores death as a visitation of divine wrath. Wherever such\nan idea prevails, the natural outcome of it is a belief in demons of\ndisease. In ancient Egypt--following the belief in Ra the Sun, from\nwhose eyes all pleasing things proceeded, and Set, from whose eyes came\nall noxious things,--from the baleful light of Set's eyes were born the\nSeven Hathors, or Fates, whose names are recorded in the Book of the\nDead. Mr. Fox Talbot has translated 'the Song of the Seven Spirits:'--\n\n\n    They are seven! they are seven!\n    In the depths of ocean they are seven!\n    In the heights of heaven they are seven!\n    In the ocean-stream in a palace they were born!\n    Male they are not: female they are not!\n    Wives they have not: children are not born to them!\n    Rule they have not: government they know not!\n    Prayers they hear not!\n    They are seven! they are seven! twice over they are seven! [185]\n\n\nThese demons have a way of herding together; the Assyrian tablets\nabundantly show that their occupation was manifested by diseases,\nphysical and mental. One prescription runs thus:--\n\n\n    The god (...) shall stand by his bedside:\n    Those seven evil spirits he shall root out, and shall expel them\n                                                          from his body:\n    And those seven shall never return to the sick man again!\n\n\nIt is hardly doubtful that these were the seven said to have been\ncast out of Mary Magdalen; for their father Set is Shed\u00eem (devils)\nof Deut. xxxii. 17, and Shaddai (God) of Gen. xvi. 1. But the fatal\nSeven turn to the seven fruits that charm away evil influences at\nparturition in Persia, also the Seven Wise Women of the same country\ntraditionally present on holy occasions. When Ard\u00e1 Vir\u00e1f was sent\nto Paradise by a sacred narcotic to obtain intelligence of the true\nfaith, seven fires were kept burning for seven days around him,\nand the seven wise women chanted hymns of the Avesta. [186]\n\nThe entrance of the seven evil powers into a dwelling was believed by\nthe Assyrians to be preventible by setting in the doorway small images,\nsuch as those of the sun-god (Hea) and the moon-goddess, but especially\nof Marduk, corresponding to Serapis the Egyptian Esculapius. These\npowers were reinforced by writing holy texts over and on each side\nof the threshold. 'In the night time bind around the sick man's head\na sentence taken from a good book.' The phylacteries of the Jews were\noriginally worn for the same purpose. They were called Tefila, and were\nrelated to teraphim, the little idols [187] used by the Jews to keep\nout demons--such as those of Laban, which his daughter Rachel stole.\n\nThe resemblance of teraphim to the Tarasca (connected by some with\nG. teras, a monster) of Spain may be noted,--the serpent figures\ncarried about in Corpus Christi processions. The latter word is\nknown in the south of France also, and gave its name to the town\nTarascon. The legend is that an amphibious monster haunted the Rhone,\npreventing navigation and committing terrible ravages, until sixteen\nof the boldest inhabitants of the district resolved to encounter\nit. Eight lost their lives, but the others, having destroyed the\nmonster, founded the town of Tarascon, where the 'F\u00eate de la tarasque'\nis still kept up. [188] Calmet, Sedley, and others, however, believe\nthat teraphim is merely a modification of seraphim, and the Tefila,\nor phylacteries, of the same origin.\n\nThe phylactery was tied into a knot. Justin Martyr says that the\nJewish exorcists used 'magic ties or knots.' The origin of this\ncustom among the Jews and Babylonians may be found in the Assyrian\nTalismans preserved in the British Museum, of which the following\nhas been translated by Mr. Fox Talbot:--\n\n\nHea says: Go, my son!\nTake a woman's kerchief,\nBind it round thy right hand, loose it from the left hand!\nKnot it with seven knots: do so twice:\nSprinkle it with bright wine:\nBind it round the head of the sick man:\nBind it round his hands and feet, like manacles and fetters.\nSit down on his bed:\nSprinkle holy water over him.\nHe shall hear the voice of Hea,\nDarkness shall protect him!\nAnd Marduk, eldest son of Heaven, shall find him a happy\nhabitation. [189]\n\n\nThe number seven holds an equally high degree of potency in Singhalese\ndemonolatry, which is mainly occupied with diseases. The Capuas or\nconjurors of that island enumerate 240,000 magic spells, of which all\nexcept one are for evil, which implies a tolerably large preponderance\nof the emergencies in which their countervailing efforts are required\nby their neighbours. That of course can be easily appreciated by\nthose who have been taught that all human beings are included under a\nprimal curse. The words of Micah, 'Thou wilt cast all their sins into\nthe depths of the sea,' [190] are recalled by the legend of these\nevil spells of Ceylon. The king of Oude came to marry one of seven\nprincesses, all possessing pr\u00e6ternatural powers, and questioned each\nas to her art. Each declared her skill in doing harm, except one who\nasserted her power to heal all ills which the others could inflict. The\nking having chosen this one as his bride, the rest were angry, and\nfor revenge collected all the charms in the world, enclosed them in a\npumpkin--the only thing that can contain spells without being reduced\nto ashes--and sent this infernal machine to their sister. It would\nconsume everything for sixteen hundred miles round; but the messenger\ndropped it in the sea. A god picked it up and presented it to the King\nof Ceylon, and these, with the healing charm known to his own Queen,\nmake the 240,000 spells known to the Capuas of that island, who have\nno doubt deified the rescuer of the spells on the same principle that\ninspires some seaside populations to worship Providence more devoutly\non the Sunday after a valuable wreck in their neighbourhood.\n\nThe astrological origin of the evils ascribed to the Yakseyo (Demons)\nof Ceylon, and the horoscope which is a necessary preliminary to\nany dealing with their influences; the constant recurrence of the\nnumber seven, denoting origin with races holding the seven-planet\ntheories of the universe; and the fact that all demons are said, on\nevery Saturday evening, to attend an assemblage called Yaksa Sabawa\n(Witches' Sabbath), are facts that may well engage the attention\nof Comparative Mythologists. [191] In Dardistan the evil spirits are\ncalled Yatsh; they dwell 'in the regions of snow,' and the overthrow of\ntheir reign over the country is celebrated at the new moon of Daykio,\nthe month preceding winter.\n\nThe largest proportion of the Disease Demons of Ceylon are descended\nfrom its Hunger Demons. The Preta there is much the same phantom\nas in Siam, only they are not quite so tall. [192] They range from\ntwo to four hundred feet in height, and are so numerous that a Pali\nBuddhist book exhorts people not to throw stones, lest they should\nharm one of these harmless starveling ghosts, who die many times\nof hunger, and revive to suffer on in expiation of their sins in a\nprevious existence. They are harmless in one sense, but filthy; and\nbad smells are personified in them. The great mass of demons resemble\nthe Pretraya, in that their king (Wessamony) has forbidden them to\nsatisfy themselves directly upon their victims, but by inflicting\ndiseases they are supposed to receive an imaginative satisfaction\nsomewhat like that of eating people.\n\nReeri is the Demon of Blood-disease. His form is that of a man with\nface of a monkey; he is fiery red, rides on a red bull, and all\nhemorrhages and diseases of the blood are attributed to him. Reeri\nhas eighteen different disguises or avatars. One of these recalls his\nearlier position as a demon of death, before Vishnu revealed to Capuas\nthe means of binding him: he is now supposed to be present at every\ndeath-bed in the form of a delighted pigmy, one span and six inches\nhigh. On such occasions he bears a cock in one hand, a club in the\nother, and in his mouth a corpse. In the same country Maha Sohon is the\n'great graveyard demon.' He resides in a hill where he is supposed to\nsurround himself with carcases. He is 122 feet high, has four hands\nand three eyes, and a red skin. He has the head of a bear; the legend\nbeing that while quarrelling with another giant his head was knocked\noff, and the god Senasura was gracious enough to tear off the head\nof a bear and clap it on the decapitated giant. His capua threatens\nhim with a repetition of this catastrophe if he does not spare any\nthreatened victim who has called in his priestly aid. Except for this\ntimidity about his head, Maha is formidable, being chief of 30,000\ndemons. But curiously enough he is said to choose for his steeds the\nmore innocent animals,--goat, deer, horse, elephant, and hog.\n\nOne of the demons most dreaded in Ceylon is the 'Foreign Demon'\nMorotoo, said to have come from the coast of Malabar, and from\nhis residence in a tree disseminated diseases which could not be\ncured until, the queen being afflicted, one capua was found able\nto master him. Seven-eighths of the charms used in restraining the\ndisease-demons of Ceylon, of which I have mentioned but a few, are\nin the Tamil tongue. In various parts of India are found very nearly\nthe same systematic demonolatry and 'devil-dancing;' for example in\nTravancore, to whose superstitions of this character the Rev. Samuel\nMateer has devoted two chapters in his work 'The Land of Charity.'\n\nThe great demon of diseases in Ceylon is entitled Maha Cola Sanni\nYakseya. His father, a king, ordered his queen to be put to death in\nthe belief that she had been faithless to him. Her body was to be cut\nin two pieces, one of which was to be hung upon a tree (Ukberiya),\nthe other to be thrown at its foot to the dogs. The queen before\nher execution said, 'If this charge be false, may the child in my\nwomb be born this instant a demon, and may that demon destroy the\nwhole of this city and its unjust king.' So soon as the executioners\nhad finished their work, the two severed parts of the queen's body\nreunited, a child was born who completely devoured his mother,\nand then repaired to the graveyard (Sohon), where for a time he\nfattened on corpses. Then he proceeded to inflict mortal diseases\nupon the city, and had nearly depopulated it when the gods Iswara\nand Sekkra interfered, descending to subdue him in the disguise of\nmendicants. Possibly the great Maha Sohon mentioned above, and the\nSohon (graveyard) from which Sanni dealt out deadliness, may be best\nunderstood by the statement of the learned writer from whom these facts\nare quoted, that, 'excepting the Buddhist priests, and the aristocrats\nof the land, whose bodies were burnt in regular funeral-piles after\ndeath, the corpses of the rest of the people were neither burned nor\nburied, but thrown into a place called Sohona, which was an open piece\nof ground in the jungle, generally a hollow among the hills, at the\ndistance of three or four miles from any inhabited place, where they\nwere left in the open air to be decomposed or devoured by dogs and\nwild beasts.' [193] There would appear to be even more ground for\nthe dread of the Great Graveyard Demon in many parts of Christendom,\nwhere, through desire to preserve corpses for a happy resurrection,\nthey are made to steal through the water-veins of the earth, and find\ntheir resurrection as fell diseases. Iswara and Sekkra were probably\ntwo reformers who persuaded the citizens to bury the poor deep in\nthe earth; had they been wise enough to place the dead where nature\nwould give them speedy resurrection and life in grass and flowers,\nit would not have been further recorded that 'they ordered him (the\ndemon) to abstain from eating men, but gave him Wurrun or permission\nto inflict disease on mankind, and to obtain offerings.' This is very\nmuch the same as the privilege given our Western funeral agencies and\ncemeteries also; and when the Modliar adds that Sanni 'has eighteen\nprincipal attendants,' one can hardly help thinking of the mummers,\ngravediggers, chaplains, all engaged unconsciously in the work of\nmaking the earth less habitable.\n\nThe first of the attendants of this formidable avenger of his mother's\nwrongs is named Bhoota Sanni Yakseya, Demon of Madness. The whole\ndemonolatry and devil-dancing of that island are so insane that one is\nnot surprised that this Bhoota had but little special development. It\nis amid clear senses we might naturally look for full horror of\nmadness, and there indeed do we find it. One of the most horrible\nforms of the disease-demon was the personification of madness among\nthe Greeks, as Mania. [194] In the Hercules Furens of Euripides,\nwhere Madness, 'the unwedded daughter of black Night,' and sprung of\n'the blood of Coelus,' is evoked from Tartarus for the express purpose\nof imbreeding in Hercules 'child-slaying disturbances of reason,'\nthere is a suggestion of the hereditary nature of insanity. Obedient\nto the vindictive order of Juno, 'in her chariot hath gone forth the\nmarble-visaged, all-mournful Madness, the Gorgon of Night, and with\nthe hissing of hundred heads of snakes, she gives the goad to her\nchariot, on mischief bent.' We may plainly see that the religion\nwhich embodied such a form was itself ending in madness. Already\nancient were the words mantik\u00ea (prophecy) and manik\u00ea (madness) when\nPlato cited their identity to prove one kind of madness the special\ngift of Heaven: [195] the notion lingers in Dryden's line, 'Great\nwits to madness sure are near allied;' and survive in regions where\ndeference is paid to lunatics and idiots. Other diseases preserve in\ntheir names indications of similar association: e.g., Nympholepsy,\nSt. Vitus's Dance, St. Anthony's Fire. Wesley attributes still epilepsy\nto 'possession.' This was in pursuance of ancient beliefs. Typhus, a\nname anciently given to every malady accompanied with stupor (typhos),\nseemed the breath of feverish Typhon. Max M\u00fcller connects the word\nquinsy with Sanskrit amh, 'to throttle,' and Ahi the throttling\nserpent, its medium being angina; and this again is kynanch\u00ea,\ndog-throttling, the Greek for quinsy. [196]\n\nThe genius of William Blake, steeped in Hebraism, never showed\ngreater power than in his picture of Plague. A gigantic hideous form,\npale-green, with the slime of stagnant pools, reeking with vegetable\ndecays and gangrene, the face livid with the motley tints of pallor\nand putrescence, strides onward with extended arms like a sower sowing\nhis seeds, only in this case the germs of his horrible harvest are not\ncast from the hands, but emanate from the fingers as being of their\nessence. Such, to the savage mind, was the embodiment of malaria,\nsultriness, rottenness, the putrid Pretraya, invisible, but smelt\nand felt. Such, to the ignorant imagination, is the Destroying Angel\nto which rationalistic artists and poets have tried to add wings\nand majesty; but which in the popular mind was no doubt pictured\nmore like this form found at Ostia (fig. 16), and now passing in\nthe Vatican for a Satan,--probably a demon of the Pontine Marshes,\nand of the fever that still has victims of its fatal cup (p. 291). In\nthese fearful forms the poor savage believed with such an intensity\nthat he was able to shape the brain of man to his phantasy; bringing\nabout the anomaly that the great reformer, Luther, should affirm,\neven while fighting superstition, that a Christian ought to know\nthat he lives in the midst of devils, and that the devil is nearer\nto him than his coat or his shirt. The devils, he tells us, are\nall around us, and are at every moment seeking to ensnare our lives,\nsalvation, and happiness. There are many of them in the woods, waters,\ndeserts, and in damp muddy places, for the purpose of doing folk a\nmischief. They also house in the dense black clouds, and send storms,\nhail, thunder and lightning, and poison the air with their infernal\nstench. In one place, Luther tells us that the devil has more vessels\nand boxes full of poison, with which he kills people, than all the\napothecaries in the whole world. He sends all plagues and diseases\namong men. We may be sure that when any one dies of the pestilence,\nis drowned, or drops suddenly dead, the devil does it.\n\nKnowing nothing of Zoology, the primitive man easily falls into the\nbelief that his cattle--the means of life--may be the subjects of\nsorcery. Jesus sending devils into a herd of swine may have become\nby artificial process a divine benefactor in the eye of Christendom,\nbut the myth makes Him bear an exact resemblance to the dangerous\nsorcerer that fills the savage mind with dread. It is probable that the\ncovetous eye denounced in the decalogue means the evil eye, which was\nsupposed to blight an object intensely desired but not to be obtained.\n\nGopolu, already referred to (p. 136) as the Singhalese demon of\nhydrophobia, bears the general name of the 'Cattle Demon.' He\nis said to have been the twin of the demigod Mangara by a queen\non the Coromandel coast. The mother died, and a cow suckled the\ntwins, but afterwards they quarrelled, and Gopolu being slain was\ntransformed into a demon. He repaired to Arangodde, and fixed his\nabode in a Banyan where there is a large bee-hive, whence proceed\nmany evils. The population around this Banyan for many miles being\nprostrated by diseases, the demigod Mangara and Pattini (goddess of\nchastity) admonished the villagers to sacrifice a cow regularly,\nand thus they were all resuscitated. Gopolu now sends all cattle\ndiseases. India is full of the like superstitions. The people of\nTravancore especially dread the demon Madan, 'he who is like a cow,'\nbelieved to strike oxen with sudden illness,--sometimes men also.\n\nIn Russia we find superstition sometimes modified by common\nsense. Though the peasant hopes that Zegory (St. George) will defend\nhis cattle, he begins to see the chief foes of his cattle. As in\nthe folk-song--\n\n\n            We have gone around the field,\n            We have called Zegory....\n            O thou, our brave Zegory,\n            Save our cattle,\n            In the field and beyond the field,\n            In the forest and beyond the forest,\n            Under the bright moon,\n            Under the red sun,\n            From the rapacious wolf,\n            From the cruel bear,\n            From the cunning beast. [197]\n\n\nNevertheless when a cattle plague occurs many villages relapse into a\nnormally extinct state of mind. Thus, a few years ago, in a village\nnear Moscow, all the women, having warned the men away, stripped\nthemselves entirely naked and drew a plough so as to make a furrow\nentirely around the village. At the point of juncture in this circle\nthey buried alive a cock, a cat, and a dog. Then they filled the\nair with lamentations, crying--'Cattle Plague! Cattle Plague! spare\nour cattle! Behold, we offer thee cock, cat, and dog!' The dog is\na demonic character in Russia, while the cat is sacred; for once\nwhen the devil tried to get into Paradise in the form of a mouse,\nthe dog allowed him to pass, but the cat pounced on him--the two\nanimals being set on guard at the door. The offering of both seems to\nrepresent a desire to conciliate both sides. The nudity of the women\nmay have been to represent to the hungry gods their utter poverty,\nand inability to give more; but it was told me in Moscow, where I\nhappened to be staying at the time, that it would be dangerous for\nany man to draw near during the performance.\n\nIn Altmark [198] the demons who bewitch cattle are called 'Bihlweisen,'\nand are believed to bury certain diabolical charms under thresholds\nover which the animals are to pass, causing them to wither away, the\nmilk to cease, etc. The prevention is to wash the cattle with a lotion\nof sea cabbage boiled with infusion of wine. In the same province it\nis related that once there appeared in a harvest-field at one time\nfifteen, at another twelve men (apparently), the latter headless.\nThey all laboured with scythes, but though the rustling could be\nheard no grain fell. When questioned they said nothing, and when\nthe people tried to seize them they ran away, cutting fruitlessly as\nthey ran. The priests found in this a presage of the coming cattle\nplague. The Russian superstition of the plough, above mentioned, is\nfound in fragmentary survivals in Altmark. Thus, it is said that to\nplough around a village and then sit under the plough (placed upright),\nwill enable any one to see the witches; and in some villages, some\nbit of a plough is hung up over a doorway through which cattle pass,\nas no devil can then approach them. The demons have a natural horror\nof honest work, and especially the culture of the earth. Goethe,\nas we have seen, notes their fear of roses: perhaps he remembered\nthe legend of Aspasia, who, being disfigured by a tumour on the chin,\nwas warned by a dove-maiden to dismiss her physicians and try a rose\nfrom the garland of Venus; so she recovered health and beauty.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\nDEATH.\n\n    The Vendetta of Death--Teoyaomiqui--Demon of Serpents--Death on\n    the Pale Horse--Kali--War-gods--Satan as Death--Death-beds--\n    Thanatos--Yama--Yimi--Towers of Silence--Alcestis--Hercules,\n    Christ, and Death--Hel--Salt--Azra\u00ebl--Death and the Cobbler--\n    Dance of Death--Death as Foe, and as Friend.\n\n\nSavage races believe that no man dies except by sorcery. Therefore\nevery death must be avenged. The Actas of the Philippines regard the\n'Indians' as the cause of the deaths among them; and when one of them\nloses a relative, he lurks and watches until he has spied an 'Indian'\nand killed him. [199] It is a progress from this when primitive man\nadvances to the belief that the fatal sorcerer is an invisible man--a\ndemon. When this doctrine is taught in the form of a belief that death\nentered the world through the machinations of Satan, and was not in the\noriginal scheme of creation, it is civilised; but when it is inculcated\nunder a set of African or other non-christian names, it is barbarian.\n\nThe following sketch, by Mr. Gideon Lang, will show the intensity of\nthis conviction among the natives of New South Wales:--\n\n'While at Nanima I constantly saw one of these, named Jemmy, a\nremarkably fine man, about twenty-eight years of age, who was the\n'model Christian' of the missionaries, and who had been over and\nover again described in their reports as a living proof that, taken\nin infancy, the natives were as capable of being truly christianised\nas a people who had had eighteen centuries of civilisation. I confess\nthat I strongly doubted, but still there was no disputing the apparent\nfacts. Jemmy was not only familiar with the Bible, which he could\nread remarkably well, but he was even better acquainted with the more\nabstruse tenets of christianity; and so far as the whites could see,\nhis behaviour was in accordance with his religious acquirements. One\nSunday morning I walked down to the black fellows' camp, to have\na talk with Jemmy, as usual. I found him sitting in his gunyah,\noverlooking a valley of the Macquarrie, whose waters glanced brightly\nin the sunshine of the delicious spring morning. He was sitting in a\nstate of nudity, excepting his waistcloth, very earnestly reading the\nBible, which indeed was his constant practice; and I could see that\nhe was perusing the Sermon on the Mount. I seated myself, and waited\ntill he concluded the chapter, when he laid down the Bible, folded\nhis hands, and sat with his eyes fixed abstractedly on his fire. I\nbade him 'good morning,' which he acknowledged without looking up. I\nthen said, 'Jemmy, what is the meaning of your spears being stuck\nin a circle round you?' He looked me steadily in the eyes, and said\nsolemnly and with suppressed fierceness, 'Mother's dead!' I said that\nI was very sorry to hear it; 'but what had her death to do with the\nspears being stuck around so?' 'Bogan black-fellow killed her!' was\nthe fierce and gloomy reply. 'Killed by a Bogan black!' I exclaimed:\n'why, your mother has been dying a fortnight, and Dr. Curtis did not\nexpect her to outlive last night, which you know as well as I do.' His\nonly reply was a dogged repetition of the words: 'A Bogan black-fellow\nkilled her!' I appealed to him as a Christian--to the Sermon on the\nMount, that he had just been reading; but he absolutely refused to\npromise that he would not avenge his mother's death. In the afternoon\nof that day we were startled by a yell which can never be mistaken by\nany person who has once heard the wild war-whoop of the blacks when\nin battle array. On marching out we saw all the black fellows of the\nneighbourhood formed into a line, and following Jemmy in an imaginary\nattack upon an enemy. Jemmy himself disappeared that evening. On the\nfollowing Wednesday morning I found him sitting complacently in his\ngunyah, plaiting a rope of human hair, which I at once knew to be that\nof his victim. Neither of us spoke; I stood for some time watching him\nas he worked with a look of mocking defiance of the anger he knew I\nfelt. I pointed to a hole in the middle of his fire, and said, 'Jemmy,\nthe proper place for your Bible is there.' He looked up with his eyes\nflashing as I turned away, and I never saw him again. I afterwards\nlearned that he had gone to the district of the Bogan tribe, where\nthe first black he met happened to be an old friend and companion of\nhis own. This man had just made the first cut in the bark of a tree,\nwhich he was about to climb for an opossum; but on hearing footsteps\nhe leaped down and faced round, as all blacks do, and whites also,\nwhen blacks are in question. Seeing that it was only Jemmy, however,\nhe resumed his occupation, but had no sooner set to work than Jemmy\nsent a spear through his back and nailed him to the tree. [200]\n\nPerhaps if Jemmy could have been cross-examined by the non-missionary\nmind, he might have replied with some effect to Mr. Lang's suggestion\nthat he ought to part with his Bible. Surely he must have found\nin that volume a sufficient number of instances to justify his\nfaith in the power of demons over human health and life. Might he\nnot have pondered the command, 'thou shalt not suffer a witch to\nlive,' and imagined that he was impaling another Manasseh, who 'used\nenchantments, and used witchcraft, and dealt with a familiar spirit,\nand with wizards (and) wrought much evil in the sight of the Lord to\nprovoke Him to anger.' [201] Those who hope that the Bible may carry\nlight into the dark places of superstition and habitations of cruelty\nmight, one would say, reflect upon the long contest which European\nscience had with bibliolators in trying to relieve the popular mind\nfrom the terrors of witchcraft, whose genuineness it was (justly)\ndeclared contrary to the Scriptures to deny. There are districts in\nGreat Britain and America, and many more on the continent of Europe,\nwhere the spells that waste and destroy are still believed in; where\neffigies of wax or even onions are labelled with some hated name,\nand stuck over with pins, and set near fires to be melted or dried\nup, in full belief that some subject of the charm will be consumed by\ndisease along with the object used. Under every roof where such coarse\nsuperstitions dwell the Bible dwells beside them, and experience proves\nthat the infallibility of all such talismans diminishes pari passu.\n\nWhat the savage is really trying to slay when he goes forth to avenge\nhis relative's death on the first alien he finds may be seen in the\naccompanying figure (17), which represents the Mexican goddess of\ndeath--Teoyaomiqui. The image is nine feet high, and is kept in\na museum in the city of Mexico. Mr. Edward B. Tylor, from whose\nexcellent book of travels in that country the figure is copied,\nsays of it:--'The stone known as the statue of the war-goddess is a\nhuge block of basalt covered with sculptures. The antiquaries think\nthat the figures on it stand for different personages, and that it is\nthree gods--Huitzilopochtli, the god of war; Teoyaomiqui, his wife; and\nMictlanteuctli, the god of hell. It has necklaces of alternate hearts\nand dead men's hands, with death's heads for a central ornament. At the\nbottom of the block is a strange sprawling figure, which one cannot\nsee now, for it is the base which rests on the ground; but there are\ntwo shoulders projecting from the idol, which show plainly that it\ndid not stand on the ground, but was supported aloft on the tops of\ntwo pillars. The figure carved upon the bottom represents a monster\nholding a skull in each hand, while others hang from his knees and\nelbows. His mouth is a mere oval ring, a common feature of Mexican\nidols, and four tusks project just above it. The new moon laid down\nlike a bridge forms his forehead, and a star is placed on each side\nof it. This is thought to have been the conventional representation\nof Mictlanteuctli (Lord of the Land of the Dead), the god of hell,\nwhich was a place of utter and eternal darkness. Probably each victim\nas he was led to the altar could look up between the two pillars and\nsee the hideous god of hell staring down upon him from above. There is\nlittle doubt that this is the famous war-idol which stood on the great\nteocalli of Mexico, and before which so many thousands of human beings\nwere sacrificed. It lay undisturbed under ground in the great square,\nclose to the very site of the teocalli, until sixty years ago. For\nmany years after that it was kept buried, lest the sight of one of\ntheir old deities might be too exciting for the Indians, who, as I\nhave mentioned before, had certainly not forgotten it, and secretly\nornamented it with garlands of flowers while it remained above ground.'\n\nIf my reader will now turn to the (fig. 11) portrait of the Demon\nof Serpents, he will find a conception fundamentally similar to\nthe Mexican demoness of death or slaughter, but one that is not\nshut up in a museum of antiquities; it still haunts and terrifies a\nvast number of the people born in Ceylon. He is the principal demon\ninvoked in Ceylon by the malignant sorcerers in performing the 84,000\ndifferent charms that afflict evils (Hooniyan). His general title is\nOddy Cumara Hooniyan Dewatawa; but he has a special name for each of\nhis six several apparitions, the chief of these being Cali Oddisey,\nor demon of incurable diseases, therefore of death, and Naga Oddisey,\ndemon of serpents--deadliest of animals. Beneath him is the Pale Horse\nwhich has had its career so long and far,--even to the White Mare on\nwhich, in some regions, Christ is believed to revisit the earth every\nChristmas; and also the White Mare of Yorkshire Folklore which bore\nits rider from Whitestone Cliff to hell. This Singhalese form also,\nalbeit now associated by Capuas with fatal disease, was probably at\nfirst, like the Mexican, a war goddess and god combined, as is shown\nby the uplifted sword, and reeking hand uplifted in triumph. Equally\na god of war is our 'Death on the Pale Horse,' which christian art,\nfollowing the so-called Apocalypse, has made so familiar. 'I looked,\nand behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and\nHell followed with him. And power was given to him over the fourth\npart of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death,\nand with the beasts of the earth.' This is but a travesty of the Greek\nAres, the Roman Mars, or god of War. In the original Greek-form Ares\nwas not solely the god of war, but of destruction generally. In the\nOEdipus Tyrannus of Sophocles we have the popular conception of him\nas one to whom the deadly plague is ascribed. He is named as the\n'god unhonoured among gods,' and it is said:--'The city is wildly\ntossing, and no more can lift up her head from the waves of death;\nwithering the ripening grain in the husks, withering the kine in their\npastures; blighted are the babes through the failing labours of women;\nthe fire-bearing god, horrid Pestilence, having darted down, ravages\nthe city; by him the house of Cadmus is empty, and dark Hades enriched\nwith groans and lamentations.'\n\nMother of the deadliest 'Calas' of Singhalese demonolatry, sister of\nthe Scandinavian Hel in name and nature, is Kali. Although the Hindu\nwriters repudiate the idea that there is any devil among their three\nhundred and thirty millions of deities, it is difficult to deny Kali\nthat distinction. Her wild dance of delight over bodies of the slain\nwould indicate pleasure taken in destruction for its own sake, so\nfulfilling the definition of a devil; but, on the other hand, there\nis a Deccan legend that reports her as devouring the dead, and this\nwould make her a hunger-demon. We may give her the benefit of the\ndoubt, and class her among the demons--or beings whose evil is not\ngratuitous--all the more because the mysteriously protruding tongue,\nas in the figure of Typhon (p. 185), probably suggests thirst. Hindu\nlegend does, indeed, give another interpretation, and say that when she\nwas dancing for joy at having slain a hundred-headed giant demigod, the\nshaking of the earth was so formidable that Siva threw himself among\nthe slain, whom she was crushing at every step, hoping to induce her\nto pause; but when, unheeding, she trod upon the body of her husband,\nshe paused and thrust out her tongue from surprise and shame. The\nVedic description of Agni as an ugra (ogre), with 'tongue of flame,'\nmay better interpret Kali's tongue. It is said Kali is pleased for\na hundred years by the blood of a tiger; for a thousand by that of\na man; for a hundred thousand by the blood of three men.\n\nHow are we to understand this dance of Death, and the further legend\nof her tossing dead bodies into the air for amusement? Such a figure\nfound among a people who shudder at taking life even from the lowest\nanimals is hardly to be explained by the destructiveness of nature\npersonified in her spouse Siva.  Her looks and legends alike represent\nslaughter by human violence. May it not be that Kali represents some\nperiod when the abhorrence of taking life among a vegetarian people--a\npeople, too, believing in transmigration--might have become a public\ndanger? When Krishna appeared it was, according to the Bh\u00e1gavat Gita,\nas charioteer inciting Arjoon to war. There must have been various\nperiods when a peaceful people must fall victims to more savage\nneighbours unless they could be stimulated to enter on the work of\ndestruction with a light heart. There may have been periods when the\nhuman Kalis of India might stimulate their husbands and sons to war\nwith such songs as the women of Dardistan sing at the Feast of Fire\n(p. 91). The amour of the Greek goddess of Beauty with the god of War,\nleaving her lawful spouse the Smith, is full of meaning. The Assyrian\nVenus, Istar, appeared in a vision, with wings and halo, bearing a bow\nand arrow for Assurbanipal. The Thug appears to have taken some such\nview of Kali, regarding her as patroness of their plan for reducing\npopulation. They are said to have claimed that Kali left them one of\nher teeth for a pickaxe, her rib for a knife, her garment's hem for\na noose, and wholesale murder for a religion. The uplifted right\nhand of the demoness has been interpreted as intimating a divine\npurpose in the havoc around her, and it is possible that some such\neuphemism attached to the attitude before the Thug accepted it as his\nown benediction from this highly decorated personage of human cruelty.\n\nThe ancient reverence for Kali has gradually passed to her mitigated\nform--Durg\u00e1. Around her too are visible the symbols of destruction;\nbut she is supposed to be satisfied with pumpkin-animals, and the\nweapons in her ten hands are believed to be directed against the\nenemies of the gods, especially against the giant king Muheshu. She\nis mother of the beautiful boy Kartik, and of the elephant-headed\ninspirer of knowledge Ganesa. She is reverenced now as female energy,\nthe bestower of beauty and fruitfulness on women.\n\nThe identity of war-gods and death-demons, in the most frightful\nconceptions which have haunted the human imagination, is of profound\nsignificance. These forms do not represent peaceful and natural death,\nnot death by old age,--of which, alas, those who cowered before them\nknew but little,--but death amid cruelty and agony, and the cutting\ndown of men in the vigour of life. That indeed was terrible,--even\nmore than these rude images could describe.\n\nBut there are other details in these hideous forms. The priest has\nadded to the horse and sword of war the adored serpent, and hideous\nsymbols of the 'Land of the Dead.' For it is not by terror of death,\nbut of what he can persuade men lies beyond, that the priest has\nreigned over mankind. When Isabel (in 'Measure for Measure') is\ntrying to persuade her brother that the sense of death lies most in\napprehension, the sentenced youth still finds death 'a fearful thing.'\n\n\n        Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;\n        To lie in cold obstruction and to rot;\n        This sensible warm motion to become\n        A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit\n        To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside\n        In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;\n        To be imprisoned in the viewless winds,\n        And blown with violence round about\n        The pendent world; or to be worse than worst\n        Of these, that lawless and incertain thoughts\n        Imagine howling!--'tis too horrible!\n        The weariest and most loathed worldly life\n        That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment\n        Can lay on nature, is a paradise\n        To what we fear of death.\n\n\nIn all these apprehensions of Claudio there is no thought of\nannihilation. What if he had seen death as an eternal sleep? Let\nHamlet answer:--\n\n\n                        To die,--to sleep;--\n        No more;--and, by a sleep, to say we end\n        The heartache, and the thousand natural shocks\n        That flesh is heir to,--'tis a consummation\n        Devoutly to be wished.\n\n\nThe greater part of the human race still belong to religions which,\nin their origin, promised eternal repose as the supreme final\nbliss. Had death in itself possessed horrors for the human mind,\nthe priest need not have conjured up beyond it those tortures that\nhaunted Hamlet with the dreams of possible evils beyond which make\neven the wretched rather bear the ills they have than fly to others\nthey know not of. It would have been sufficient sanction to promise\nimmortality only to the pious. But as in Claudio's shuddering lines\nevery hell is reflected--whether of ice, fire, or brutalisation--so\nare the same mixed with the very blood and brain of mankind, even\nwhere literally outgrown. Christianity superadded to the horrors by\nimporting the idea that death came by human sin, and so by gradual\ndevelopment ascribing to Satan the power of death; thereby forming a\nnew devil who bore in him the power to make death a punishment. How\nthe matter stood in the medi\u00e6val belief may be seen in figure 19,\ncopied from a Russian Bible of the (early) seventeenth century. Lazarus\nsmiles to see the nondescript soul of Dives torn from him by a devil\nwith a hook, while another drowns the groans with a drum. Satan\nsquirts an infernal baptism on the departing soul, and the earnest\nco-operation of the archangel justifies the satisfaction of Lazarus\nand Abraham. This degraded belief is still found in the almost gleeful\npulpit-picturings of physical agonies as especially attending the\ndeath-beds of 'infidels,'--as Voltaire and Paine,--and its fearful\nresult is found in the degree to which priesthoods are still able\nto paralyse the common sense and heart of the masses by the barbaric\nceremonials with which they are permitted to surround death, and the\narrogant line drawn between unorthodox goats and credulous sheep by\n'consecrated' ground.\n\nMr. Keary, in his interesting volume on 'The Dawn of History,' [202]\nsays that it has been suggested that the youthful winged figure\non the drum of a column from the temple of Diana at Ephesus to the\nBritish Museum, may be a representation of Thanatos, Death. It would\nbe agreeable to believe that the only important representation of Death\nleft by Greek art is that exquisite figure, whose high tribute is that\nit was at first thought to be Love! The figure is somewhat like the\ntender Eros of preraphaelite art, and with the same look of gentle\nmelancholy. Such a sweet and simple form of Death would be worthy of\nthe race which, amid all the fiery or cold rivers of the underworld\nwhich had gathered about their religion, still saw running there the\nsoft-flowing stream of forgetfulness. Let one study this Ephesian\nThanatos reverently--no engraving or photograph can do it even partial\njustice--and then in its light read those myths of Death which seem to\nbear us back beyond the savagery of war and the artifices of priests\nto the simpler conceptions of humanity. In its serene light we may\nespecially read both Vedic and Iranian hymns and legends of Yama.\n\nThe first man to die became the powerful Yama of the Hindus, the\nmonarch of the dead; and he became invested with metaphors of the sun\nthat had set. [203] In a solemn and pathetic hymn of the Vedas he is\nsaid to have crossed the rapid waters, to have shown the way to many,\nto have first known the path on which our fathers crossed over. [204]\nBut in the splendours of sunset human hope found its prophetic pictures\nof a heaven beyond. The Vedic Yama is ever the friend. It is one of\nthe most picturesque facts of mythology that, after Yama had become\nin India another name for Death, the same name reappeared in Persia,\nand in the Avesta, as a type at once of the Golden Age in the past\nand of paradise in the future.\n\nSuch was the Iranian Yima. He was that 'flos regum' whose reign\nrepresented 'the ideal of human happiness, when there was neither\nillness nor death, neither heat nor cold,' and who has never\ndied. 'According to the earlier traditions of the Avesta,' says\nSpiegel, 'Jima does not die, but when evil and misery began to prevail\non earth, retires to a smaller space, a kind of garden or Eden, where\nhe continues his happy life with those who remained true to him.' Such\nhave been the antecedents of our many beautiful myths which ascribe\neven an earthly immortality to the great,--to Barbarossa, Arthur,\nand even to the heroes of humbler races as Hiawatha and Glooscap\nof North American tribes,--who are or were long believed to have\n'sailed into the fiery sunset,' or sought some fair island, or to\nslumber in a hidden grotto, until the world shall have grown up to\ntheir stature and requires their return.\n\nIn Japan the (Sintoo) god of Hell is now named Amma, and one may\nsuspect that it is some imitation of Yama by reason of the majesty he\nstill retains in the popular conception. He is pictured as a grave\nman, wearing a judicial cap, and no cruelties seem to be attributed\nto him personally, but only to the oni or demons of whom he is lord.\n\nThe kindly characteristics of the Hindu Yama seem in Persia to have\nbeen replaced by the bitterness of Ahriman, or Anra-mainyu, the\ngenius of evil. Haug interprets Anra-mainyu as 'Death-darting.' The\nword is the counterpart of Spe\u00f1ta-mainyu, and means originally the\n'throttling spirit;' being thus from anh, philologically the root of\nall evil, as we shall see when we consider its dragon brood. Professor\nWhitney translates the name 'Malevolent.' But, whatever may be the\nmeaning of the word, there is little doubt that the Twins of Vedic\nMythology--Yama and Yami--parted into genii of Day and Night, and\nwere ultimately spiritualised in the Spirit of Light and Spirit of\nDarkness which have made the basis of all popular theology from the\ntime of Zoroaster until this day.\n\nNothing can be more remarkable than the extreme difference between\nthe ancient Hindu and the Persian view of death. As to the former it\nwas the happy introduction to Yama, to the latter it was the visible\nseal of Ahriman's equality with Ormuzd. They held it in absolute\nhorror. The Towers of Silence stand in India to-day as monuments of\nthis darkest phase of the Pars\u00ee belief. The dead body belonged to\nAhriman, and was left to be devoured by wild creatures; and although\nthe raising of towers for the exposure of the corpse, so limiting its\nconsumption to birds, has probably resulted from a gradual rationalism\nwhich has from time to time suggested that by such means souls of the\ngood may wing their way to Ormuzd, yet the Pars\u00ee horror of death is\nstrong enough to give rise to such terrible suspicions, even if they\nwere unfounded, as those which surrounded the Tower (Khao's Dokhma)\nin June 1877. The strange behaviour of the corpse-bearers in leaving\none tower, going to another, and afterwards (as was said) secretly\nrepairing to the first, excited the belief that a man had been found\nalive in the first and was afterwards murdered. The story seems to have\nbegun with certain young Pars\u00ees themselves, and, whether it be true\nor not, they have undoubtedly interpreted rightly the ancient feeling\nof that sect with regard to all that had been within the kingdom of\nthe King of Terrors. 'As sickness and death,' says Professor Whitney,\n'were supposed to be the work of the malignant powers, the dead body\nitself was regarded with superstitious horror. It had been gotten by\nthe demons into their own peculiar possession, and became a chief\nmedium through which they exercised their defiling action upon the\nliving. Everything that came into its neighbourhood was unclean, and to\na certain extent exposed to the influences of the malevolent spirits,\nuntil purified by the ceremonies which the law prescribed.' [205]\nIt is to be feared this notion has crept in among the Brahmans;\nthe Indian Mirror (May 26, 1878) states that a Chandernagore lady,\nthrown into the Ganges, but afterwards found to be alive, was believed\nto be possessed by Dano (an evil spirit), and but for interference\nwould have found a watery grave. The Jews also were influenced by\nthis belief, and to this day it is forbidden a Cohen, or descendant\nof the priesthood, to touch a dead body.\n\nThe audience at the Crystal Palace which recently witnessed the\nperformance of Euripides' Alcestis could hardly, it is to be feared,\nhave realised the relation of the drama to their own religion. Apollo\ninduces the Fates to consent that Admetus shall not die provided he\ncan find a substitute for him. The pure Alcestis steps forward and\ndevotes herself to death to save her husband. Apollo tries to persuade\nDeath to give back Alcestis, but Death declares her fate demanded\nby justice. While Alcestis is dying, Admetus bids her entreat the\ngods for pity; but Alcestis says it is a god who has brought on the\nnecessity, and adds, 'Be it so!' She sees the hall of the dead, with\n'the winged Pluto staring from beneath his black eyebrows.' She reminds\nher husband of the palace and regal sway she might have enjoyed in\nThessaly had she not left it for him. Bitterly does Pheres reproach\nAdmetus for accepting life through the vicarious suffering and death\nof another. Then comes Hercules; he vanquishes Death; he leads forth\nAlcestis from 'beneath into the light.' With her he comes into the\npresence of Admetus, who is still in grief. Admetus cannot recognise\nher; but when he recognises her with joy, Hercules warns him that it\nis not lawful for Alcestis to address him 'until she is unbound from\nher consecration to the gods beneath, and the third day come.'\n\nIt only requires a change of names to make Alcestis a Passion-play. The\nunappeasable Justice which is as a Fate binding the deity, though it\nmay be satisfied vicariously; 'the last enemy, Death;' the atonement\nby sacrifice of a saintly human being, who from a father's palace is\nbrought by love freely to submit to death; the son of a god (Zeus) by a\nhuman mother (Alcmene),--the god-man Herakles,--commissioned to destroy\nearthly evils by twelve great labours,--descending to conquer Death and\ndeliver one of the 'spirits in prison,' the risen spirit not recognised\nat first, as Jesus was not by Mary; still bearing the consecration\nof the grave until the third day, which forbade intercourse with the\nliving ('Touch me not, for I am not yet ascended to my Father'),--all\nthese enable us to recognise in the theologic edifices around us the\nfragments of a crumbled superstition as they lay around Euripides.\n\nFrom the old pictures of Christ's triumphal pilgrimage on earth\nparallels for the chief Labours of Herakles may be found; he is shown\ntreading on the lion, asp, dragon, and Satan; but the myths converge\nin the Descent into Hades and the conquest of Death. It is remarkable\nthat in the old pictures of Christ delivering souls from Hades he is\ngenerally represented closely followed by Eve, whose form so emerging\nwould once have been to the greater part of Europe already familiar as\nthat of either Alcestis, Eurydice, or Persephone. One of the earliest\nexamples of the familiar subject, Christ conquering Death, is that in\nthe ancient (tenth century) Missal of Worms,--that city whose very name\npreserves the record of the same combat under the guise of Siegfried\nand the Worm, or Dragon. The cross is now the sword thrust near the\nmonster's mouth. The picture illustrates the chant of Holy Week:\n'De manu Mortis liberabo eos, de Morte redimam eos. Ero Mors tua,\nO Mors; morsus tuus ero, inferne.' From the pierced mouth of Death\nare vomited flames, which remind us of his ethnical origin; but it\nis not likely that to the christianised pagans of Worms the picture\ncould ever have conveyed an impression so weirdly horrible as that\nof their own goddess of Death, Hel. 'Her hall is called Elvidnir,\nrealm of the cold storm: Hunger is her table; Starvation, her knife;\nDelay, her man; Slowness, her maid; Precipice, her threshold; Care,\nher bed; burning Anguish, the hangings of her apartments. One half\nof her body is livid, the other half the colour of human flesh.'\n\nWith the Scandinavian picture of the Abode of Death may be compared the\ndescription of the Abode of Nin-ki-gal, the Assyrian Queen of Death,\nfrom a tablet in the British Museum, translated by Mr. Fox Talbot:\n[206]--\n\n\n    To the House men enter--but cannot depart from:\n    To the Road men go--but cannot return.\n    The abode of darkness and famine\n    Where Earth is their food: their nourishment Clay:\n    Light is not seen; in darkness they dwell:\n    Ghosts, like birds, flutter their wings there;\n    On the door and the gate-posts the dust lies undisturbed.\n\n\nThe Semitic tribes, undisturbed, like the importers of their theology\ninto the age of science, by the strata in which so many perished animal\nkingdoms are entombed, attributed all death, even that of animals,\nto the forbidden fruit. The Rabbins say that not only Adam and Eve,\nbut the animals in Eden, partook of that fruit, and came under the\npower of Samma\u00ebl the Violent, and of his agent Azra\u00ebl, the demon of\nDeath. The Phoenix, having refused this food, preserved the power of\nrenovating itself.\n\nIt is an example of the completeness and consistency with which a\ntheory may organise its myth, that the fatal demons are generally\nrepresented as abhorring salt--the preserving agent and foe of\ndecay. The 'Covenant of Salt' among the ancient Jews probably had\nthis significance, and the care with which Job salted his sacrifice\nis considered elsewhere. Aubrey says, 'Toads (Saturnine animals) are\nkilled by putting salt upon them. I have seen the experiment.' The\ndevil, as heir of death-demons, appears in all European folklore\nas a hater of salt. A legend, told by Heine, relates that a knight,\nwandering in a wood in Italy, came upon a ruin, and in it a wondrous\nstatue of the goddess of Beauty. Completely fascinated, the knight\nhaunted the spot day after day, until one evening he was met by a\nservant who invited him to enter a villa which he had not before\nremarked. What was his surprise to be ushered into the presence of\nthe living image of his adored statue! Amid splendour and flowers\nthe enraptured knight is presently seated with his charmer at\na banquet. Every luxury of the world is there; but there is no\nsalt! When he hints this want a cloud passes over the face of his\nBeauty. Presently he asks the servant to bring the salt; the servant\ndoes so, shuddering; the knight helps himself to it. The next sip of\nwine he takes elicits a cry from him: it is liquid fire. Madness seizes\nupon him; caresses, burning kisses follow, until he falls asleep on the\nbosom of his goddess. But what visions! Now he sees her as a wrinkled\ncrone, next a great bat bearing a torch as it flutters around him,\nand again as a frightful monster, whose head he cuts off in an agony\nof terror. When the knight awakes it is in his own villa. He hastens\nto his ruin, and to the beloved statue; he finds her fallen from the\npedestal, and the beautiful head cut from the neck lying at her feet.\n\nThe Semitic Angel of Death is a figure very different from any that\nwe have considered. He is known in theology only in the degradation\nwhich he suffered at the hands of the Rabbins, but originally was an\nawful but by no means evil genius. The Persians probably imported him,\nunder the name of Asuman, for we do not find him mentioned in their\nearlier books, and the name has a resemblance to the Hebrew shamad,\nto exterminate, which would connect it with the biblical 'destroyer'\nAbaddon. This is rendered more probable because the Zoroastrians\nbelieved in an earlier demon, V\u00edzaresha, who carried souls after death\nto the region of Deva-worshippers (India). The Chaldaic Angel of Death,\nMalk-ad Mousa, may have derived his name from the legend of his having\napproached Moses with the object of forcing his soul out of his body,\nbut, being struck by the glory of Moses' face, and by virtue of the\ndivine name on his rod, was compelled to retire. The legend is not\nso ancient as the name, and was possibly a Saga suggested by the\nname; it is obviously the origin of the tradition of the struggle\nbetween Michael and Satan for the body of Moses (Jude 9.). This\npersonification had thus declined among the Jews into being evil enough\nto be identified with Sama\u00ebl,--who, in the Book of the Assumption of\nMoses, is named as his assailant,--and subsequently with Satan himself,\nnamed in connection with the New Testament version. It was on account\nof this degradation of a being described in the earlier books of the\nBible as the commissioner of Jehovah that there was gradually developed\namong the Jews two Angels of Death, one (Sama\u00ebl, or his agent Azra\u00ebl)\nfor those who died out of the land of Israel, and the other (Gabriel)\nfor those who had the happier lot of dying in their own country.\n\nThis relegation of Sama\u00ebl to the wandering Jews--who if they died\nabroad were not supposed to reach Paradise with facility, if at\nall--is significant. For Sama\u00ebl is pretty certainly a conception\nborrowed from outlying Semitic tribes. What that conception was we\nfind in Job xviii. 18, where he is 'the king of Terrors,' and still\nmore in the Arabic Azra\u00ebl. The legend of this typical Angel of Death\nis that he was promoted to his high office for special service. When\nAllah was about to create man he sent the angels Gabriel, Michael,\nand Israfil to the earth to bring clay of different colours for that\npurpose; but the Earth warned them that the being about to be formed\nwould rebel against his creator and draw down a curse upon her (the\nEarth), and they returned without bringing the clay. Then Azra\u00ebl was\nsent by Allah, and he executed his commission without fear; and for\nthis he was appointed the angel to separate souls from bodies. Azra\u00ebl\nhad subordinate angels under him, and these are alluded to in the\nopening lines of the Sura 79 of the Koran:\n\n\n    By the angels who tear forth the souls of some with violence;\n    And by those who draw forth the souls of others with gentleness.\n\n\nThe souls of the righteous are drawn forth with gentleness, those\nof the wicked torn from them in the way shown in the Russian picture\n(Fig. 19), which is indeed an illustration of the same mythology.\n\nThese terrible tasks were indeed such as were only too likely to\nbring Azra\u00ebl into the evil repute of an executioner in the course\nof time; but no degradation of him seems to have been developed\namong the Moslems. He seems to have been associated in their minds\nwith Fate, and similar stories were told of him. Thus it is related\nthat once when Azra\u00ebl was passing by Solomon he gazed intently upon\na man with whom Solomon was conversing. Solomon told his companion\nthat it was the Angel of Death who was looking at him, and the man\nreplied, 'He seems to want me: order the wind to carry me from hence\ninto India;' when this was done Azra\u00ebl approached Solomon and said,\n'I looked earnestly at that man from wonder, for I was commanded to\ntake his soul in India.' [207]\n\nAzra\u00ebl was often represented as presenting to the lips a cup of\npoison. It is probable that this image arose from the ancient ordeal\nby poison, whereby draughts, however manipulated beforehand with\nreference to the results, were popularly held to be divinely mingled\nfor retributive or beneficent effects. 'Cup' thus became among Semitic\ntribes a symbol of Fate. The 'cup of consolation,' 'cup of wrath,'\n'cup of trembling,' which we read of in the Old Testament; the 'cup\nof blessing,' and 'cup of devils,' spoken of by Paul, have this\nsignificance. The cup of Nestor, ornamented with the dove (Iliad,\nxi. 632), was probably a 'cup of blessing,' and Mr. Schliemann has\nfound several of the same kind at Mycen\u00e6. The symbol was repeatedly\nused by Christ,--'Let this cup pass from me,' 'The cup that my Father\nhath given me to drink shall I not drink it,' 'Are ye able to drink\nof the cup that I drink of,'--and the familiar association of Azra\u00ebl's\ncup is expressed in the phrase 'taste of death.'\n\nOne of the most pleasing modifications of the belief in the Angel of\nDeath is that found by Lepsius [208] among the Mohammedan negroes of\nKordofan. Osra\u00een (Azra\u00ebl), it is said, receives the souls of the dead,\nand leads the good to their reward, the bad to punishment. 'He lives\nin a tree, el segerat mohana (the tree of fulfilling), which has as\nmany leaves as there are inhabitants in the world. On each leaf is\na name, and when a child is born a new one grows. If any one becomes\nill his leaf fades, and should he be destined to die, Osra\u00een breaks\nit off. Formerly he used to come visibly to those whom he was going\nto carry away, and thus put them in great terror. Since the prophet's\ntime, however, he has become invisible; for when he came to fetch\nMohammed's soul he told him that it was not good that by his visible\nappearance he should frighten mankind. They might then easily die of\nterror, before praying; for he himself, although a courageous and\nspirited man, was somewhat perturbed at his appearance. Therefore\nthe prophet begged God to make Osra\u00een invisible, which prayer was\ngranted.' Mr. Mackenzie adds on this that, among the Moravian Jews,\nat new moon a branch is held in its light, and the name of a person\npronounced: his face will appear between the horns of the moon,\nand should he be destined to die the leaves will fade.\n\nMr. John Ruskin has been very severe upon the Italians for the humour\nwith which they introduce Death as a person of their masque. 'When I\nwas in Venice in 1850,' he says, 'the most popular piece of the comic\nopera was \"Death and the Cobbler,\" in which the point of the plot was\nthe success of a village cobbler as a physician, in consequence of\nthe appearance of Death to him beside the bed of every patient who\nwas not to recover; and the most applauded scene in it was one in\nwhich the physician, insolent in success, and swollen with luxury,\nwas himself taken down into the abode of Death, and thrown into an\nagony of terror by being shown lives of men, under the form of wasting\nlamps, and his own ready to expire.' On which he expresses the opinion\nthat 'this endurance of fearful images is partly associated with\nindecency, partly with general fatuity and weakness of mind.' [209]\nBut may it not rather be the healthy reaction from morbid images of\nterror, with which a purely natural and inevitable event has so long\nbeen invested by priests, and portrayed in such popular pictures as\n'The Dance of Death?' The mocking laughter with which the skeletons\nbeset the knight in our picture (Fig. 20), from the wall of La Chaise\nDieu, Auvergne, marks the priestly terrorism, which could not fail\nto be vulgarised even more by the frivolous. In 1424 there was a\nmasquerade of the Dance of Death in the Cemetery of the Innocents\nat Paris, attended by the Duke of Bedford and the Duke of Burgundy,\njust returned from battle. It may have been the last outcome in\nthe west of Kali's dance over the slain; but it is fortunate when\nFanaticism has no worse outcome than Folly. The Skeleton Death has\nthe advantage over earlier forms of suggesting the naturalness of\ndeath. It is more scientific. The gradual discovery by the people\nthat death is not caused by sin has largely dissipated its horrors\nin regions where the ignorance and impostures of priestcraft are of\ndaily observation; and although the reaction may not be expressed with\ngood taste, there would seem to be in it a certain vigour of nature,\nreasserting itself in simplicity.\n\nIn the northern world we are all too sombre in the matter. It is the\nages of superstition which have moulded our brains, and too generally\ngiven to our natural love of life the unnatural counterpart of a\nterror of death. What has been artificially bred into us can be\ncultivated out of us. There are indeed deaths corresponding to the\ntwo Angels--the death that comes by lingering disease and pain, and\nthat which comes by old age. There are indeed Azra\u00ebls in our cities\nwho poison the food and drink of the people, and mingle death in the\ncup of water; and of them there should be increasing horror until the\ngentler angel abides with us, and death by old age becomes normal. The\ndeparture from life being a natural condition of entering upon it,\nit is melancholy indeed that it should be ideally confused with the\npains and sorrows often attending it. It is fabled that Menippus\nthe Cynic, travelling through Hades, knew which were the kings there\nby their howling louder than the rest. They howled loudest because\nthey had parted from most pleasures on earth. But all the happy and\nyoung have more reason to lament untimely death than kings. The only\ntragedy of Death is the ruin of living Love. Mr. Watts, in his great\npicture of Love and Death (Grosvenor Gallery, 1877), revealed the\nreal horror. Not that skeleton which has its right time and place,\nnot the winged demon (called angel), who has no right time or place,\nis here, but a huge, hard, heartless form, as of man half-blocked out\nof marble; a terrible emblem of the remorseless force that embodies\nthe incompleteness and ignorance of mankind--a force that steadily\ncrushes hearts where intellects are devoting their energies to alien\nworlds. Poor Love has little enough science; his puny arm stretched\nout to resist the colossal form is weak as the prayers of agonised\nparents and lovers directed against never-swerving laws; he is almost\nexhausted; his lustrous wings are broken and torn in the struggle;\nthe dove at his feet crouches mateless; the rose that climbed on his\ndoor is prostrate; over his shoulder the beam-like arm has set the\nstony hand against the door where the rose of joy must fall.\n\nThe aged when they die do but follow the treasures that have gone\nbefore. One by one the old friends have left them, the sweet ties\nparted, and the powers to enjoy and help become feeble. When of the\ngarden that once bloomed around them memory alone is left, friendly\nis death to scatter also the leaves of that last rose where the loved\nones are sleeping. This is the real office of death. Nay, even when\nit comes to the young and happy it is not Death but Disease that is\nthe real enemy; in disease there is almost no compensation at all but\nlearning its art of war; but Death is Nature's pity for helpless pain;\nwhere love and knowledge can do no more it comes as a release from\nsufferings which were sheer torture if prolonged. The presence of\ndeath is recognised oftenest by the cessation of pain. Superstition\nhas done few heavier wrongs to humanity than by the mysterious terrors\nwith which it has invested that change which, to the simpler ages,\nwas pictured as the gentle river Lethe, flowing from the abode of\nsleep, from which the shades drank oblivion alike of their woes and\nof the joys from which they were torn.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPART III.\n\nTHE DRAGON.\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nDECLINE OF DEMONS.\n\n    The Holy Tree of Travancore--The growth of Demons in India and\n    their decline--The Nepaul Iconoclast--Moral Man and unmoral\n    Nature--Man's physical and mental migrations--Heine's 'Gods in\n    Exile'--The Goban Saor--Master Smith--A Greek caricature of\n    the Gods--The Carpenter v. Deity and Devil--Extermination of\n    the Werewolf--Refuges of Demons--The Giants reduced to Little\n    People--Deities and Demons returning to nature.\n\n\nHaving indicated, necessarily in mere outline and by selected\nexamples, the chief obstacles encountered by primitive man, and his\napprehensions, which he personified as demons, it becomes my next\ntask to show how and why many of these demons declined from their\nterrible proportions and made way for more general forms, expressing\ncomparatively abstract conceptions of physical evil. This will involve\nsome review of the processes through which man's necessary adaptation\nto his earthly environment brought him to the era of Combat with\nmultiform obstruction.\n\nThere was, until within a few recent years, in a mountain of\nTravancore, India, an ancient, gigantic Tree, regarded by the natives\nas the residence of a powerful and dangerous deity who reigned over\nthe mountains and the wild beasts. [210] Sacrifices were offered to\nthis tree, sermons preached before it, and it seems to have been the\nancient cathedral of the district. Its trunk was so large that four\nmen with outstretched arms could not compass it.\n\nThis tree in its early growth may symbolise the upspringing of natural\nreligion. Its first green leaves may be regarded as corresponding\nto the first crude imaginations of man as written, for instance,\non leaves of the Vedas. Perceiving in nature, as we have seen, a\npower of contrivance like his own, a might far superior to his own,\nman naturally considered that all things had been created and were\ncontrolled by invisible giants; and bowing helplessly beneath them\nsang thus his hymns and supplications.\n\n'This earth belongs to Varuna, the king, and the wide sky, with its\nends far apart: the two seas (sky and ocean) are Varuna's loins;\nhe is also contained in this drop of water. He who would flee far\nbeyond the sky even he would not be rid of Varuna. His spies proceed\nfrom heaven towards this earth.'\n\n'Through want of strength, thou ever strong and bright god, have I\ngone wrong: have mercy, have mercy!'\n\n'However we break thy laws from day to day, men as we are, O god\nVaruna, do not deliver us to death!'\n\n'Was it an old sin, Varuna, that thou wished to destroy the friend\nwho always praises thee!'\n\n'O Indra, have mercy, give me my daily bread! Raise up wealth to the\nworshipper, thou mighty Dawn!'\n\n'Thou art the giver of horses, Indra, thou art the giver of cows,\nthe giver of corn, the strong lord of wealth: the old guide of\nman disappointing no desires: to him we address this song. All this\nwealth around here is known to be thine alone: take from it conqueror,\nbring it hither!'\n\nIn these characteristic sentences from various hymns we behold\nman making his first contract with the ruling powers of nature:\nso much adoration and flattery on his part for so much benefit on\ntheirs. But even in these earliest hymns there are intimations that\nthe gods were not fulfilling their side of the engagement. 'Why is\nit,' pleads the worshipper, 'that you wish to destroy one who always\npraises you? Was it an old sin?' The simple words unconsciously report\nhow faithfully man was performing his part of the contract. Having\nomitted no accent of the prayer, praise, or ritual, he supposes the\ncontinued indifference of the gods must be due to an old sin, one he\nhas forgotten, or perhaps one committed by some ancestor.\n\nIn this state of mind the suggestion would easily take root that\nwords alone were too cheap to be satisfactory to the gods. There must\nbe offerings. Like earthly kings they must have their revenues. We\nthus advance to the phase of sacrifices. But still neither in answer\nto prayer, flattery, or sacrifice did the masses receive health or\nwealth. Poverty, famine, death, still continued their remorseless\ncourse with the silent machinery of sun, moon, and star.\n\nBut why, then, should man have gone on fulfilling his part of\nthe contract--believing and worshipping deities, who when he\nbegged for corn gave him famine, and when he asked for fish gave\nhim a serpent? The priest intervened with ready explanation. And\nhere we may consult the holy Tree of Travancore again? Why should\nthat particular Tree--of a species common in the district and not\nusually very large--have grown so huge? 'Because it is holy,' said\nthe priest. 'Because it was believed holy,' says the fact. For ages\nthe blood and ashes of victims fed its roots and swelled its trunk;\nuntil, by an argument not confined to India, the dimensions of\nthe superstition were assumed to prove its truth. When the people\ncomplained that all their offerings and worship did not bring\nany returns the priest replied, You stint the gods and they stint\nyou. The people offered the fattest of their flocks and fruits:\nMore yet! said the priest. They built fine altars and temples for\nthe gods: More yet! said the priest. They built fine houses for the\npriests, and taxed themselves to support them. And when thus, fed by\npopular sacrifices and toils, the religion had grown to vast power,\nthe priest was able to call to his side the theologian for further\nexplanation. The theologian and the priest said--'Of course there must\nbe good reasons why the gods do not answer all your prayers (if they\ndid not answer some you would be utterly consumed); mere mortals must\nnot dare to inquire into their mysteries; but that there are gods,\nand that they do attend to human affairs, is made perfectly plain\nby this magnificent array of temples, and by the care with which\nthey have supplied all the wants of us, their particular friends,\nwhose cheeks, as you see, hang down with fatness.'\n\nIf, after this explanation, any scepticism or rebellion arose among\nthe less favoured, the priest might easily add--'Furthermore, we and\nour temples are now institutions; we are so strong and influential\nthat it is evident that the gods have appointed us to be their\nrepresentatives on earth, the dispensers of their favours. Also, of\ntheir disfavours. We are able to make up for the seeming indifference\nof the gods, rewarding you if you give us honour and wealth, but\nruining you if you turn heretical.'\n\nSo grew the holy Tree. But strong as it was there was something\nstronger. Some few years ago a missionary from London went to\nTravancore, and desired to build a chapel near the same tree, no\ndoubt to be in the way of its worshippers and to borrow some of\nthe immemorial sanctity of the spot. This missionary fixed a hungry\neye upon that holy timber, and reflected how much holier it would\nbe if ending its career in the beams of a christian chapel. So one\nday--English authorities being conveniently near--he and his workmen\nbegan to cut down the sacred Tree. The natives gradually gathered\naround, and looked on with horror. While the cutting proceeded a\ntiger drew near, but shouts drove him off: the natives breathed freer;\nthe demon had come and looked on, but could not protect the Tree from\nthe Englishman. They still shuddered, however, at the sacrilege, and\nwhen at last the Holy Tree of Travancore fell, its crash was mingled\nwith the cries and screams of its former worshippers. The victorious\nmissionary may be pointing out in his chapel the cut-up planks which\nreveal the impotence of the deity so long feared by the natives; and\nperhaps he is telling them of the bigness of his Tree, and claiming\nits flourishing condition in Europe as proof of its supernatural\ncharacter. Possibly he may omit to mention the blood and ashes which\nhave fattened the root and enlarged the trunk of his Holy Tree!\n\nThat Tree in Travancore could never have been so destroyed if the\nprimitive natural religion in which lay its deeper root had not\npreviously withered. The gods, the natural forces, which through\nso many ages had not heeded man's daily martyrdoms, had now for a\nlong time been shown quite as impotent to protect their own shrines,\nimages, holy trees, and other interests. The priests as vainly invoked\nthose gods to save their own country from subjugation by other nations\nwith foreign gods, as the masses had invoked their personal aid. For\na long time the gods in some parts of India have received only a\nformal service, coextensive with their association with a lingering\norder, or as part of princely establishments; but they topple down\nfrom time to time, as the masses realise their freedom to abandon\nthem with impunity. They are at the mercy of any strong heretic\nwho arises. The following narrative, quoted by Mr. Herbert Spencer,\npresents a striking example of what some Hindoos had been doing before\nthe missionary cut down the Tree at Travancore:--\n\n'A Nepaul king, Rum Bah\u00e2dur, whose beautiful queen, finding her\nlovely face had been disfigured by smallpox, poisoned herself,\ncursed his kingdom, her doctors, and the gods of Nepaul, vowing\nvengeance on all. Having ordered the doctors to be flogged, and\nthe right ear and nose of each to be cut off, he then wreaked his\nvengeance on the gods of Nepaul, and after abusing them in the most\ngross way, he accused them of having obtained from him 12,000 goats,\nsome hundred-weights of sweetmeats, 2000 gallons of milk, &c., under\nfalse pretences. He then ordered all the artillery, varying from\nthree to twelve-pounders, to be brought in front of the palace. All\nthe guns were then loaded to the muzzle, and down he marched to\nthe headquarters of the Nepaul deities. All the guns were drawn up\nin front of the several deities, honouring the most sacred with the\nheaviest metal. When the order to fire was given, many of the chiefs\nand soldiers ran away panic-stricken, and others hesitated to obey\nthe sacrilegious order; and not till several gunners had been cut down\nwere the guns opened. Down came the gods and the goddesses from their\nhitherto sacred positions; and after six hours' heavy cannonading,\nnot a vestige of the deities remained.'\n\nHowever panic-stricken the Nepaulese may have been at this ferocious\nmanifestation, it was but a storm bred out of a more general mental and\nmoral condition. Rum Bah\u00e2dur only laid low in a few moments images of\ngods who, passing from the popular interest, had been successively\nlaid to sleep on the innumerable shelves of Hindu mythology. The\nearly Dualism was developed into Moral Man on one side, and Unmoral\nNature on the other. Man had discovered that moral order in nature\nwas represented solely by his own power: by his culture or neglect the\nplant or animal grew or withered, and where his control did not extend,\nthere sprang the noxious weed or beast. So far as good gods had been\nimagined they were respected now only as incarnate in men. But the\nactive powers of evil still remained, hurtful and hateful to man, and\nthe pessimist view of nature became inevitable. To man engaged in his\nlife-and-death struggle with nature many a beauty which now nourishes\nthe theist's optimism was lost. The fragrant flower was a weed to\nthe man hungry for bread, and he viewed many an idle treasure with\nthe disappointment of S\u00e2di when, travelling in the desert, he found a\nbag in which he hoped to discover grain, but found only pearls. Fatal\nto every deity not anthropomorphic was the long pessimistic phase of\nhuman faith. Each became more purely a demon, and passed on the road\nto become a devil.\n\nMany particular demons man conquered as he progressively carried\norder amid the ruggedness and wildness of his planet. Every new weapon\nor implement he invented punctured a thousand phantoms. Only in the\nrealms he could not yet conquer remained the hostile forces to which\nhe ascribed pr\u00e6ternatural potency, because not able to pierce them and\nsee through them. Nevertheless, the early demonic forms had to give\nway, for man had discovered that they were not his masters. He could\ncut down the Upas and root up the nightshade; he had bruised many a\nserpent's head and slain many a wolf. In detail innumerable enemies\nhad been proved his inferiors in strength and intelligence. Important\nmigrations took place: man passes, geographically, away from the region\nof some of his worst enemies, inhabits countries more fruitful, less\nmalarious, his habitat exceeding that of his animal foe in range;\nand, still better, he passes by mental migration out of the stone\nage, out of other helpless ages, to the age of metal and the skill to\nfashion and use it. He has made the fire-fiend his friend. No longer\nhenceforth a naked savage, with bit of stone or bone only to meet\nthe crushing powers of the world and win its reluctant supplies!\n\nThere is a sense far profounder than its charming play of fancy in\nHeine's account of the 'Gods in Exile,' an essay which Mr. Pater\nwell describes as 'full of that strange blending of sentiment which\nis characteristic of the traditions of the Middle Age concerning\nthe Pagan religions.' [211] Heine writes: 'Let me briefly remind\nthe reader how the gods of the older world, at the time of the\ndefinite triumph of Christianity, that is, in the third century,\nfell into painful embarrassments, which greatly resembled certain\ntragical situations of their earlier life. They now found themselves\nexposed to the same troublesome necessities to which they had once\nbefore been exposed during the primitive ages, in that revolutionary\nepoch when the Titans broke out of the custody of Orcus, and, piling\nPelion on Ossa, scaled Olympus. Unfortunate gods! They had, then,\nto take flight ignominiously, and hide themselves among us here on\nearth under all sorts of disguises. Most of them betook themselves to\nEgypt, where for greater security they assumed the form of animals,\nas is generally known. Just in the same way they had to take flight\nagain, and seek entertainment in remote hiding-places, when those\niconoclastic zealots, the black brood of monks, broke down all the\ntemples, and pursued the gods with fire and curses. Many of these\nunfortunate emigrants, entirely deprived of shelter and ambrosia,\nhad now to take to vulgar handicrafts as a means of earning their\nbread. In these circumstances, many, whose sacred groves had been\nconfiscated, let themselves out for hire as wood-cutters in Germany,\nand had to drink beer instead of nectar. Apollo seems to have been\ncontent to take service under graziers, and as he had once kept the\ncows of Admetus, so he lived now as a shepherd in Lower Austria. Here,\nhowever, having become suspected, on account of his beautiful singing,\nhe was recognised by a learned monk as one of the old pagan gods,\nand handed over to the spiritual tribunal. On the rack he confessed\nthat he was the god Apollo; and before his execution he begged that\nhe might be suffered to play once more upon the lyre and to sing a\nsong. And he played so touchingly, and sang with such magic, and was\nwithal so beautiful in form and feature that all the women wept, and\nmany of them were so deeply impressed that they shortly afterwards\nfell sick. And some time afterwards the people wished to drag him\nfrom the grave again, that a stake might be driven through his body,\nin the belief that he had been a vampire, and that the sick women\nwould by this means recover. But they found the grave empty.'\n\nNaturally: it is hard to bury Apollo. The next time he appeared was, no\ndoubt, as musical director in the nearest cathedral. The young singers\nand artists discovered by such severe lessons that it was dangerous\nto sing Pagan ballads too realistically; that a cowl is capable of a\nhigh degree of decoration; that Pan's pipe sounds well evolved into\nan organ; that Cupids look just as well if called Cherubs. It is odd\nthat it should have required Robert Browning three centuries away to\ndetect the real form and face beneath the vestment of the Bishop who\norders his tomb at Saint Praxed's Church:--\n\n\n        The bas-relief in bronze ye promised me,\n        Those Pans and Nymphs ye wot of, and perchance\n        Some tripod, thyrsus, with a vase or so,\n        The Saviour at his sermon on the mount,\n        Saint Praxed in a glory, and one Pan\n        Ready to twitch the Nymph's last garment off,\n        And Moses with the tables....\n\n\nSo in one direction grew the hermitage to the Vatican; so Zeus regained\nhis throne by exchanging his thunderbolts for Peter's keys, and Mars\nregained his steed as St. George, and Hercules as Christ wrestles with\nDeath once more. But while these artificial restorations were going on\nin one direction, in another some of the gods were passing through many\ncountries, outwitting and demolishing their former selves as lowered\nto demons. There are many legends which report this strange phase of\ndevelopment, one of the finest being that of The Goban Saor, told by\nMr. Kennedy. The King of Munster sent for this wonderful craftsman to\nbuild him a castle. The Goban could fashion a spear with three strokes\nof his hammer--St. Patrick, who found the Trinity in the shamrock,\nmay have determined the number of strokes,--and when he wished to drive\nin nails high up, had only to throw his hammer at them. On his way to\nwork for the King, Goban, accompanied by his son, passed the night at\nthe house of a farmer, whose daughters--one dark and industrious, the\nother fair and idle--received from him (Goban) three bits of advice:\n'Always have the head of an old woman by the hob; warm yourselves\nwith your work in the morning; and some time before I come back take\nthe skin of a newly-killed sheep to the market, and bring itself and\nthe price of it home again.' As Goban, with his son, journeyed on,\nthey found a poor man vainly trying to roof his house with three\njoists and mud; and by simply making one end of each joist rest on\nthe middle of another, the other ends being on the wall, the structure\nwas perfect. He relieved puzzled carpenters by putting up for them the\npegless and nailless bridge described in C\u00e6sar's Commentaries. Having\ndone various great things, Goban returns to the homestead of the\ngirls who had received his three bits of advice. The idle one had,\nof course, blundered at each point, and been ridiculed in the market\nfor her proposition to bring back the sheep's skin and its price. The\nother, by kindly taking in an aged female relative, by working till\nshe was warm, and by plucking and selling the wool of the sheep's\nskin and bringing home the latter, had obeyed the Goban's advice,\nand was selected as his daughter-in-law--the prince attending the\nwedding. Now, as to building the castle, Goban knew that the King had\nemployed on previous castles four architects and then slain them, so\nthat they should never build another palace equal to his. He therefore\nsays he has left at home a necessary implement which his wife will\nonly give to himself or one of royal blood. The King sends his son,\nwho is kept as hostage till the husband's safe return.\n\nThis is the Master Smith of Norse fable, who has a chair from which\nnone can rise, and who therein binds the devil; which again is the\nstory of Hephaistos, and the chair in which he entrapped Hera until\nshe revealed the secret of his birth. The 'devil' whom the Master\nSmith entraps is, in Norse mythology, simply Loki: and as Loki is a\ndegraded Hephaistos, fire in its demonic forms, we have in all these\nlegends the fire-fiend fought with fire.\n\nThis re-dualisation of the gods into demonic and saintly forms\nhad a long preparation. The forces that brought it about may be\nseen already beginning in Hesiod's representations of the gods, in\ntheir presentation on the stage by Euripides, in a manner certain\nto demonise them to the vulgar, and to subject them to such laughter\namong scholars as still rings across the ages in the divine dialogues\nof Lucian. What the gods had become to the Lucians before they\nreached the Heines may be gathered from the accompanying caricature\n(Fig. 21). [212] Nothing can be more curious than the encounters of the\ngods with their dead selves, their Manes. What unconscious ingenuity\nin the combinations! St. Martin on his grey steed divides with the\nbeggar the cloud-cloak of Wodan on his black horse, treading down\njust such paupers in his wild hunt; as saint he now shelters those\nwhom as storm-demon he chilled; but the identity of Junker Martin\nis preserved in both titles and myths, and the Martinhorns (cakes),\ntwisted after fashion of the horns of goat or buck pursued by Wodan,\nare deemed potent like horse-shoes to defend house or stable from\nthe outlawed god. [213]\n\nThe more impressive and attractive myths transferred to christian\nsaints--as the flowers sacred to Freyja became Our Lady's-glove,\nor slipper, or smock--there remained to the old gods, in their own\nname, only the repulsive and puerile, and by this means they were\ndoomed at once to become unmitigated knaves and fools. If Titans,\nJ\u00f6tunn or Jinni, they were giant humbugs, whom any small Hans or Jack\nmight outwit and behead. Our Fairy lore is full of stories which show\nthat in the North as well as in Latin countries there had already\nbeen a long preparation for the contempt poured by Christianity\nupon the Norse deities. Many of the stories, as they now stand in\nFolktales, speak of the vanquished demon or giant as the devil,\nbut it is perfectly easy to detach the being meant from the name\nso indiscriminately bestowed by christian priests upon most of the\noutlawed deities. In Lithuania, where survived too much reverence for\nsome of the earlier deities to admit of their being identified with\nthe devil, we still find them triumphed over by the wit and skill of\nthe artisan. Such is the case in a favourite popular legend of that\ncountry in which Perkunas--the ancient Thunder-god, corresponding to\nPerun in Russia--is involved in disgrace along with the devil by the\nsagacity and skill of a carpenter. The aged god, the venerable Devil,\nand the young Carpenter, united for a journey. Perkun kept the beasts\noff with thunder and lightning, the Devil hunted up food, the Carpenter\ncooked. At length they built a hut and lived in it, and planted the\nground with vegetables. Presently a thief invaded their garden. Perkun\nand the Devil successively tried to catch him, but were well thrashed;\nwhereas the Carpenter by playing the fiddle fascinated the thief,\nwho was a witch, a hag whose hand the fiddler managed to get into\na split tree (under pretence of giving her a music lesson), holding\nher there till she gave up her iron waggon and the whip which she had\nused on his comrades. After this the three, having decided to separate,\ndisputed as to which should have the hut; and they finally agreed that\nit should be the possession of him who should succeed in frightening\nthe two others. The Devil raised a storm which frightened Perkun, and\nPerkun with his thunder and lightning frightened the Devil; but the\nCarpenter held out bravely, and, in the middle of the night, came in\nwith the witch's waggon, and, cracking her whip, the Devil and Perkun\nboth took flight, leaving the Carpenter in possession of the hut. [214]\n\nSo far as Perkun is concerned, and may be regarded as representative\nof the gods, the hut may be symbol of Europe, and the Carpenter\ntype of the power which conquered all that was left of them after\ntheir fair or noble associations had been transferred to christian\nforms. Somewhat later, the devil was involved in a like fate, as we\nshall have to consider in a future chapter.\n\nThe most horrible superstitions, if tracked in their popular\ndevelopment, reveal with special impressiveness the progressive\nemancipation of man from the phantasms of ferocity which represented\nhis primal helplessness. The universal werewolf superstition, for\ninstance, drew its unspeakable horrors from deep and wide-spreading\nroots. Originating, probably, in occasional relapses to cannibalism\namong tribes or villages which found themselves amid circumstances as\nurgent as those which sometimes lead a wrecked crew to draw lots which\nshall die to support the rest, it would necessarily become demonised\nby the necessity of surrounding cannibalism with dangers worse than\nstarvation. But it would seem that individuals are always liable,\nby arrest of development which usually takes the form of disease\nor insanity, to be dragged back to the savage condition of their\nrace. In the course of this dark history, we note first an increasing\ntendency to show the means of the transformation difficult. In the\nVolsunga Saga it is by simply putting on a 'wolf-shirt' (wolfskin)\nthat a man may become a wolf. Then it is said it is done by a belt\nmade of the skin of a man who has been hung--all executed persons\nbeing sacred to Wodan (because not dying a natural death), to whom\nalso the wolf was sacred. Then it is added, that the belt must be\nmarked with the signs of the zodiac, and have a buckle with seven\nteeth. Then it is said that 'only a seventh son' is possessed of\nthis diabolical power; or others say one whose brows meet over his\nnose. The means of detecting werewolves and retransforming them to\nhuman shape multiplied as those of transformation diminished in number,\nand such remedies reflected the advance of human skill. The werewolf\ncould be restored by crossing his path with a knife or polished\nsteel; by a sword laid on the ground with point towards him; by a\nsilver ball. Human skill was too much for him. In Posen mothers had\ndiscovered that one who had bread in his or her mouth could by even\nsuch means discover werewolves; and fathers, to this hint about keeping\n'the wolf from the door,' added that no one could be attacked by any\nsuch monster if he were in a cornfield. The Slav levelled a plough\nat him. Thus by one prescription and another, and each representing a\npart of man's victory over chaos, the werewolf was driven out of all\nbut a few 'unlucky' days in the year, and especially found his last\nrefuge in Twelfth Night. But even on that night the werewolf might\nbe generally escaped by the simple device of not speaking of him. If\na wolf had to be spoken of he was then called Vermin, and Dr. Wuttke\nmentions a parish priest named Wolf in East Prussia who on Twelfth\nNight was addressed as Mr. Vermin! The actual wolf being already out\nof the forests in most places by art of the builder and the architect;\nthe phantasmal wolf driven out of fear for most of the year by man's\nrecognition of his own superiority to this exterminated beast; even\nthe proverbial 'ears' of the vanishing werewolf ceased to be visible\nwhen on his particular fest-night his name was not mentioned.\n\nThe last execution of a man for being an occasional werewolf was,\nI believe, in 1589, near Cologne, there being some evidence of\ncannibalism. But nine years later, in France, where the belief in\nthe Loup-garou had been intense, a man so accused was simply shut\nup in a mad-house. It is an indication of the revolution which has\noccurred, that when next governments paid attention to werewolves\nit was because certain vagabonds went about professing to be able\nto transform themselves into wolves, in order to extort money from\nthe more weak-minded and ignorant peasants. [215] There could hardly\nbe conceived a more significant history: the werewolf leaves where\nhe entered. Of ignorance and weakness trying, too often in vain,\n'to keep the wolf from the door,' was born this voracious phantom;\nwith the beggar and vagabond, survivals of helplessness become\ninveterate, he wanders thin and crafty. He keeps out of the way of all\nculture, whether of field or mind. So is it indeed with all demons\nin decline--of which I can here only adduce a few characteristic\nexamples. So runs the rune--\n\n\n                When the barley there is,\n                Then the devils whistle;\n                When the barley is threshed,\n                Then the devils whine;\n                When the barley is ground,\n                Then the devils roar;\n                When the flour is produced,\n                Then the devils perish.\n\n\nThe old Scottish custom, mentioned by Sir Walter Scott, of leaving\naround each cultivated field an untilled fringe, called the Gude\nMan's Croft, is derived from the ancient belief that unless some\nwild place is left to the sylvan spirits they will injure the grain\nand vegetables; and, no doubt, some such notion leads the farmers of\nThurgau still to graft mistletoe upon their fruit-trees. Many who can\nsmile at such customs do yet preserve in their own minds, or those of\ntheir servants or neighbours, crofts which the ploughshare of science\nis forbidden to touch, and where the pr\u00e6ternatural troops still hide\ntheir shrivelled forms. But this wild girdle becomes ever narrower,\nand the images within it tend to blend with rustling leaf and straw,\nand the insects, and to be otherwise invisible, save to that second\nsight which is received from Glam. As in some shadow-pantomime, the\ndeities and demons pursue each other in endless procession, dropping\ndown as awe-inspiring Titans, vanishing as grotesque pigmies--vanishing\nbeyond the lamp into Nothingness!\n\nSo came most of the monsters we have been describing--Animals,\nVolcanoes, Icebergs, Deserts, though they might be--by growing culture\nand mastery of nature to be called 'the little people;' and perhaps\nit is rather through pity than euphemism when they were so often\ncalled, as in Ireland (Duine Matha), 'the good little people.' [216]\nAt every step in time or space back of the era of mechanic arts\nthe little fairy gains in physical proportions. The house-spirits\n(Domovoi) of Russia are full-sized, shaggy human-shaped beings. In\nLithuania the corresponding phantoms (Kaukas) average only a foot\nin height. The Krosnyata, believed in by the Slavs on the Baltic\ncoast, are similarly small; and by way of the kobolds, elves, fays,\ntravelling westward, we find the size of such shapes diminishing, until\nwarnings are given that the teeth must never be picked with a straw,\nthat slender tube being a favourite residence of the elf! In Bavaria\na little red chafer with seven spots (Coccinella septempunctata) is\nable to hold Thor with his lightnings, and in other regions is a form\nof the goddess of Love! [217] Our English name for the tiny beetle\n'Lady-bug' is derived from the latter notion; and Mr. Karl Blind has\nexpressed the opinion that our children's rune--\n\n\n        Lady-bug, lady-bug, fly away home,\n        Thy house is on fire, thy children will roam--\n\n\nis last echo of the Eddaic prophecies of the destruction of the\nuniverse by the fire-fiend Loki! [218] Such reductions of the ancient\ngods, demons, and terrors to tiny dimensions would, of course, be\nonly an indirect result of the general cause stated. They were driven\nfrom the great world, and sought the small world: they survived in\nthe hut and were adapted to the nerves of the nursery. So alone can\nTithonos live on: beyond the age for which he is born he shrinks to\na grasshopper; and it is now by only careful listening that in the\nchirpings of the multitudinous immortals, of which Tithonos is type,\nmay be distinguished the thunders and roarings of deities and demons\nthat once made the earth to tremble.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nGENERALISATION OF DEMONS.\n\n    The Demons' bequest to their conquerors--Nondescripts--\n    Exaggerations of tradition--Saurian Theory of Dragons--\n    The Dragon not primitive in Mythology--Monsters of Egyptian,\n    Iranian, Vedic, and Jewish Mythologies--Turner's Dragon--\n    Della Bella--The Conventional Dragon.\n\n\nAfter all those brave victories of man over the first chaos, organic\nand inorganic, whose effect upon his phantasms has been indicated;\nafter fire had slain its thousands, and iron its tens of thousands of\nhis demons, and the rough artisan become a Nemesis with his rudder and\nwheel pursuing the hosts of darkness back into Night and Invisibility;\nstill stood the grim fact of manyformed pain and evil in the world,\nstill defying the ascending purposes of mankind. Moreover, confronting\nthese, he is by no means so different mentally from that man he was\nbefore conquering many foes in detail, and laying their phantoms, as\nhe was morally. More courage man had gained, and more defiance; and,\nintellectually, a step had been taken, if only one: he had learned\nthat his evils are related to each other. Hunger is of many heads\nand forms. Its yawning throat may be seen in the brilliant sky that\nlasts till it is as brass, in the deluge, the earthquake, in claw\nand fang; and then these together do but relate the hunger-brood to\nFire and Ferocity; the summer sunbeam may be venomous as a serpent,\nand the end of them all is Death. Some tendency to these more general\nconceptions of an opposing principle and power in the world seems\nto be represented in that phase of development at which nondescript\nforms arise. These were the conquered demons' bequest.\n\nIt is, of course, impossible to measure the various forces which\ncombined to produce the complex symbolical forms of physical\nevil. Tradition is not always a good draughtsman, and in portraying\nfor a distant generation in Germany a big snake killed in India might\nnot be exact as to the number of its heads or other details. Heroes\nbefore Falstaff were liable to overstate their foes in buckram. The\nless measurable a thing by fact, the more immense in fancy: werewolves\nof especial magnitude haunted regions where there had not been actual\nwolves for centuries; huge serpents play a large part in the annals\nof Ireland, where not even the smallest have been found. But after all\nnatural influences have been considered, one can hardly look upon the\nsphynx, the chim\u00e6ra, or on a conventional dragon, without perceiving\nthat he is in presence of a higher creation than a demonic bear or a\ngiant ruffian. The fundamental difference between the two classes is\nthat one is natural, the other pr\u00e6ternatural. Of course a werewolf is\nas pr\u00e6ternatural as a gryphon to the eye of science, but as original\nexpressions of human imagination the former could hardly have been a\nmore miraculous monster than the Siamese twins to intelligent people\nto-day. The demonic forms are generally natural, albeit caricatured\nor exaggerated. And this effort at a pr\u00e6ternatural conception is,\nin this early form, by no means mere superstition; rather is it\npoetic and artistic,--a kind of crude effort at allgemeinheit, at\nrealisation of the types of evil--the claw-principle, fang-principle\nin the universe, the physiognomies of venom and pain detached from\nforms to which they are accidental.\n\nSome of the particular forms we have been considering are, indeed,\nby no means of the prosaic type. Such conceptions as R\u00e1hu, Cerberus,\nand several others, are transitional between the natural and mystical\nconceptions; while the sphynx, however complete a combination of ideal\nforms, is not all demonic. In this Part III. are included those forms\nwhose combination is not found in objective nature, but which are\nyet travesties of nature and genuine fauna of the human mind.\n\nPerhaps it may be thought somewhat arbitrary that I should describe\nall these intermediate forms between demon and devil by the term\nDragon; but I believe there is no other fabulous form which includes\nso many individual types of transition, or whose evolution may be\nso satisfactorily traced from the point where it is linked with the\ndemon to that where it bequeathes its characters to the devil. While,\nhowever, this term is used as the best that suggests itself, it cannot\nbe accepted as limiting our inquiry or excluding other abstract forms\nwhich ideally correspond to the dragon,--the generalised expression\nfor an active, powerful, and intelligent enemy to mankind, a being\nwho is antagonism organised, and able to command every weapon in\nnature for an antihuman purpose.\n\nThe opinion has steadily gained that the conventional dragon is the\ntraditional form of some huge Saurian. It has been suggested that some\nof those extinct forms may have been contemporaneous with the earliest\nmen, and that the traditions of conflicts with them, transmitted orally\nand pictorially, have resulted in preserving their forms in fable\n(proximately). The restorations of Saurians on their islet at the\nCrystal Palace show how much common sense there is in this theory. The\ndiscoveries of Professor Marsh of Yale College have proved that the\ngeneral form of the dragon is startlingly prefigured in nature; and\nMr. Alfred Tylor, in an able paper read before the Anthropological\nSociety, has shown that we are very apt to be on the safe side in\nsticking to the theory of an 'object-origin' for most things.\n\nConcerning this theory, it may be said that the earliest descriptions,\nboth written and pictorial, which have been discovered of the\nreptilian monsters around which grew the germs of our dragon-myths,\nare crocodiles or serpents, and not dragons of any conventional\nkind,--with a few doubtful exceptions. In an Egyptian papyrus there\nis a hieroglyphic picture of San-nu Hut-ur, 'plunger of the sea;'\nit is a marine, dolphin-like monster, with four feet, and a tail\nending in a serpent's head. [219] With wings, this might approach\nthe dragon-form. Again, Amen-Ra slew Naka, and this serpent 'saved\nhis feet.' Possibly the phrase is ironical, and means that the\nserpent saved nothing; but apart from that, the poem is too highly\nmetaphorical--the victorious god himself being described in it\nas a 'beautiful bull'--for the phrase to be important. On Egyptian\nmonuments are pictured serpents with human heads and members, and the\nserpent Nahab-ka is pictured on amulets with two perfect human legs\nand feet. [220] Winged serpents are found on Egyptian monuments, but\nalmost as frequently with the incredible number of four as with the\nconceivable two wings of the pterodactyl. The forms of the serpents\nthus portrayed with anthropomorphic legs and slight wings are, in\ntheir main shapes, of ordinary species. In the Iranian tradition of the\ntemptation of the first man and woman, Meschia and Meschiane, by the\n'two-footed serpent of lies.' And it is possible that out of this myth\nof the 'two-footed' serpent grew the puzzling legend of Genesis that\nthe serpent of Eden was sentenced thereafter to crawl on his belly. The\nsnake's lack of feet, however, might with equal probability have given\nrise to the explanation given in mussulman and rabbinical stories of\nhis feet being cut off by the avenging angel. But the antiquity of the\nIranian myth is doubtful; while the superior antiquity of the Hindu\nfable of R\u00e1hu, to which it seems related, suggests that the two legs\nof the Ahriman serpent, like the four arms of serpent-tailed R\u00e1hu,\nis an anthropomorphic addition. In the ancient planispheres we find\nthe 'crooked serpent' mentioned in the Book of Job, but no dragon.\n\nThe two great monsters of Vedic mythology, Vritra and Ahi, are\nnot so distinguishable from each other in the Vedas as in more\nrecent fables. Vritra is very frequently called Vritra Ahi--Ahi\nbeing explained in the St. Petersburg Dictionary as 'the Serpent\nof the Heavens, the demon Vritra.' Ahi literally means 'serpent,'\nanswering to the Greek echi-s, echi-dna; and when anything is added\nit appears to be anthropomorphic--heads, arms, eyes--as in the case\nof the Egyptian serpent-monsters. The Vedic demon Urana is described\nas having three heads, six eyes, and ninety-nine arms.\n\nThere would appear to be as little reason for ascribing to the\nTannin of the Old Testament the significance of dragon, though it is\ngenerally so translated. It is used under circumstances which show it\nto mean whale, serpent, and various other beasts. Jeremiah (xiv. 6)\ncompares them to wild asses snuffing the wind, and Micah (i. 8)\ndescribes their 'wailing.' The fiery serpents said to have afflicted\nIsrael in the wilderness are called seraphim, but neither in their\nnatural or mythological forms do they anticipate our conventional\ndragon beyond the fiery character that is blended with the serpent\ncharacter. Nor do the descriptions of Behemoth and Leviathan comport\nwith the dragon-form.\n\nThe serpent as an animal is a consummate development. Its feet, so\nfar from having been amputated, as the fables say, in punishment of\nits sin, have been withdrawn beneath the skin as crutches used in a\nfeebler period. It is found as a tertiary fossil. Since, therefore,\nthe dragon form ex hypothesi is a reminiscence of the huge, now fossil,\nSaurians which preceded the serpent in time, the early mythologies\ncould hardly have so regularly described great serpents instead of\ndragons. If the realistic theory we are discussing were true, the\nearliest combats--those of Indra, for instance--ought to have been\nwith dragons, and the serpent enemies would have multiplied as time\nwent on; but the reverse is the case--the (alleged) extinct forms\nbeing comparatively modern in heroic legend.\n\nMr. John Ruskin once remarked upon Turner's picture of the Dragon\nguarding the Hesperides, that this conception so early as 1806,\nwhen no Saurian skeleton was within the artist's reach, presented\na singular instance of the scientific imagination. As a coincidence\nwith such extinct forms Turner's dragon is surpassed by the monster on\nwhich a witch rides in one of the engravings of Della Bella, published\nin 1637. In that year, on the occasion of the marriage of the grand\nduke Ferdinand II. in Florence, there was a masque d'Inferno, whose\nrepresentations were engraved by Della Bella, of which this is one, so\nthat it may be rather to some scenic artist than to the distinguished\nimitator of Callot that we owe this grotesque form, which the late\nMr. Wright said 'might have been borrowed from some distant geological\nperiod.' If so, the fact would present a curious coincidence with the\ntrue history of Turner's Dragon; for after Mr. Ruskin had published\nhis remark about the scientific imagination represented in it,\nan old friend of the artist declared that Turner himself had told\nhim that he copied that dragon from a Christmas spectacle in Drury\nLane theatre. But Turner had shown the truest scientific instinct\nin repairing to the fossil-beds of human imagination, and drawing\nthence the conventional form which never had existence save as the\nstructure of cumulative tradition.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nTHE SERPENT.\n\n    The beauty of the Serpent--Emerson on ideal forms--Michelet's\n    thoughts on the viper's head--Unique characters of the\n    Serpent--The monkey's horror of Snakes--The Serpent protected\n    by superstition--Human defencelessness against its subtle\n    powers--Dubufe's picture of the Fall of Man.\n\n\nIn the accompanying picture, a medal of the ancient city of Tyre,\ntwo of the most beautiful forms of nature are brought together,--the\nSerpent and the Egg. Mr. D. R. Hay has shown the endless extent to\nwhich the oval arches have been reproduced in the ceramic arts of\nantiquity; and the same sense of symmetry which made the Greek vase\na combination of Eggs prevails in the charm which the same graceful\noutline possesses wherever suggested,--as in curves of the swan,\ncrescent of the moon, the elongated shell,--on which Aphrodite may well\nbe poised, since the same contours find their consummate expression\nin the flowing lines attaining their repose in the perfect form of\nwoman. The Serpent--model of the 'line of grace and beauty'--has had\nan even larger fascination for the eye of the artist and the poet. It\nis the one active form in nature which cannot be ungraceful, and to\nestimate the extent of its use in decoration is impossible, because\nall undulating and coiling lines are necessarily serpent forms. But\nin addition to the perfections of this form--which fulfil all the\nascent of forms in Swedenborg's mystical morphology, circular, spiral,\nperpetual-circular, vortical, celestial--the Serpent bears on it, as\nit were, gems of the underworld that seem to find their counterpart\nin galaxies.\n\nOne must conclude that Serpent-worship is mainly founded in fear. The\nsacrifices offered to that animal are alone sufficient to prove\nthis. But as it is certain that the Serpent appears in symbolism\nand poetry in many ways which have little or no relation to its\nterrors, we may well doubt whether it may not have had a career in the\nhuman imagination previous to either of the results of its reign of\nterror,--worship and execration. It is the theory of Pestalozzi that\nevery child is born an artist, and through its pictorial sense must be\nled on its first steps of education. The infant world displayed also\nin its selection of sacred trees and animals a profound appreciation\nof beauty. The myths in which the Serpent is represented as kakodemon\nrefer rather to its natural history than to its appearance; and even\nwhen its natural history came to be observed, there was--there now\nis--such a wide discrepancy between its physiology and its functions,\nalso between its intrinsic characters and their relation to man,\nthat we can only accept its various aspects in mythology without\nattempting to trace their relative precedence in time.\n\nThe past may in this case be best interpreted by the present. How\ndifferent now to wise and observant men are the suggestions of this\nexceptional form in nature!\n\nLet us read a passage concerning it from Ralph Waldo Emerson:--\n\n'In the old aphorism, nature is always self-similar. In the plant,\nthe eye or germinative point opens to a leaf, then to another leaf,\nwith a power of transforming the leaf into radicle, stamen, pistil,\npetal, bract, sepal, or seed. The whole art of the plant is still to\nrepeat leaf on leaf without end, the more or less of heat, light,\nmoisture, and food, determining the form it shall assume. In the\nanimal, nature makes a vertebra, or a spine of vertebr\u00e6, and helps\nherself still by a new spine, with a limited power of modifying its\nform,--spine on spine, to the end of the world. A poetic anatomist,\nin our own day, teaches that a snake being a horizontal line, and man\nbeing an erect line, constitute a right angle; and between the lines\nof this mystical quadrant, all animated beings find their place:\nand he assumes the hair-worm, the span-worm, or the snake, as the\ntype or prediction of the spine. Manifestly, at the end of the spine,\nnature puts out smaller spines, as arms; at the end of the arms, new\nspines, as hands; at the other end she repeats the process, as legs\nand feet. At the top of the column she puts out another spine, which\ndoubles or loops itself over, as a span-worm, into a ball, and forms\nthe skull, with extremities again: the hands being now the upper jaw,\nthe feet the lower jaw, the fingers and toes being represented this\ntime by upper and lower teeth. This new spine is destined to high\nuses. It is a new man on the shoulders of the last.' [221]\n\nAs one reads this it might be asked, How could its idealism be more\nprofoundly pictured for the eye than in the Serpent coiled round\nthe egg,--the seed out of which all these spines must branch out for\ntheir protean variations? What refrains of ancient themes subtly sound\nbetween the lines,--from the Serpent doomed to crawl on its belly in\nthe dust, to the Serpent that is lifted up!\n\nNow let us turn to the page of Jules Michelet, and read what the\nSerpent signified to one mood of his sympathetic nature.\n\n'It was one of my saddest hours when, seeking in nature a refuge from\nthoughts of the age, I for the first time encountered the head of\nthe viper. This occurred in a valuable museum of anatomical imitations.\n\nThe head marvellously imitated and enormously enlarged, so as to\nremind one of the tiger's and the jaguar's, exposed in its horrible\nform a something still more horrible. You seized at once the delicate,\ninfinite, fearfully prescient precautions by which the deadly machine\nis so potently armed. Not only is it provided with numerous keen-edged\nteeth, not only are these teeth supplied with an ingenious reservoir\nof poison which slays immediately, but their extreme fineness which\nrenders them liable to fracture is compensated by an advantage that\nperhaps no other animal possesses, namely, a magazine of supernumerary\nteeth, to supply at need the place of any accidentally broken. Oh,\nwhat provisions for killing! What precautions that the victim shall\nnot escape! What love for this horrible creature! I stood by it\nscandalised, if I may so speak, and with a sick soul. Nature, the great\nmother, by whose side I had taken refuge, shocked me with a maternity\nso cruelly impartial. Gloomily I walked away, bearing on my heart a\ndarker shadow than rested on the day itself, one of the sternest in\nwinter. I had come forth like a child; I returned home like an orphan,\nfeeling the notion of a Providence dying away within me.' [222]\n\nMany have so gone forth and so returned; some to say, 'There is no\nGod;' a few to say (as is reported of a living poet), 'I believe in\nGod, but am against him;' but some also to discern in the viper's\nhead Nature's ironclad, armed with her best science to defend the\nadvance of form to humanity along narrow passes.\n\nThe primitive man was the child that went forth when his world was also\na child, and when the Serpent was still doing its part towards making\nhim and it a man. It was a long way from him to the dragon-slayer; but\nit is much that he did not merely cower; he watched and observed, and\nthere is not one trait belonging to his deadly crawling contemporaries\nthat he did not note and spiritualise in such science as was possible\nto him.\n\nThe last-discovered of the topes in India represents\nSerpent-worshippers gathered around their deity, holding their tongues\nwith finger and thumb. No living form in nature could be so fitly\nregarded in that attitude. Not only is the Serpent normally silent,\nbut in its action it has 'the quiet of perfect motion.' The maximum of\nforce is shown in it, relatively to its size, along with the minimum\nof friction and visible effort. Footless, wingless, as a star, its\nswift gliding and darting is sometimes like the lightning whose forked\ntongue it seemed to incarnate. The least touch of its ingenious tooth\nis more destructive than the lion's jaw. What mystery in its longevity,\nin its self-subsistence, in its self-renovation! Out of the dark it\ncomes arrayed in jewels, a crawling magazine of death in its ire,\nin its unknown purposes able to renew its youth, and fable for man\nimperishable life! Wonderful also are its mimicries. It sometimes\nborrows colours of the earth on which it reposes, the trees on which it\nhangs, now seems covered with eyes, and the 'spectacled snake' appeared\nto have artificially added to its vision. Altogether it is unique\namong natural forms, and its vast history in religious speculation\nand mythology does credit to the observation of primitive man.\n\nRecent experiments have shown the monkeys stand in the greatest terror\nof snakes. Such terror is more and more recognised as a survival in\nthe European man. The Serpent is almost the only animal which can\nfollow a monkey up a tree and there attack its young. Our arboreal\nanthropoid progenitors could best have been developed in some place\nnaturally enclosed and fortified, as by precipices which quadrupeds\ncould not scale, but which apes might reach by swinging and leaping\nfrom trees. But there could be no seclusion where the Serpent could\nnot follow. I am informed by the King of Bonny that in his region\nof Africa the only serpent whose worship is fully maintained is the\nNomboh (Leaper), a small snake, white and glistening, whose bite is\nfatal, and which, climbing into trees, springs thence upon its prey\nbeneath, and can travel far by leaping from branch to branch. The\nfirst arboreal man who added a little to the natural defences of any\nsituation might stand in tradition as a god planting a garden; but even\nhe would not be supposed able to devise any absolute means of defence\nagainst the subtlest of all the beasts. Among the three things Solomon\nfound too wonderful for him was 'the way of a serpent upon a rock'\n(Prov. xxx. 19). This comparative superiority of the Serpent to any and\nall devices and contrivances known to primitive men--whose proverbs\nmust have made most of Solomon's wisdom--would necessarily have its\neffect upon the animal and mental nerves of our race in early times,\nand the Serpent would find in his sanctity a condition favourable to\nsurvival and multiplication. It is this fatal power of superstition\nto change fancies into realities which we find still protecting the\nSerpent in various countries. From being venerated as the arbiter of\nlife and death, it might thus actually become such in large districts\nof country. In Dubufe's picture of the Fall of Man, the wrath of\nJehovah is represented by the lightning, which has shattered the tree\nbeneath which the offending pair are now crouching; beyond it Satan\nis seen in human shape raising his arm in proud defiance against the\nblackened sky. So would the Serpent appear. His victims were counted\nby many thousands where the lightning laid low one. Transmitted along\nthe shuddering nerves of many generations came the confession of the\nSon of Sirach, 'There is no head above the head of a serpent.'\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nTHE WORM.\n\n    An African Serpent-drama in America--The Veiled Serpent--The\n    Ark of the Covenant--Aaron's Rod--The Worm--An Episode\n    on the Dii Involuti--The Serapes--The Bambino at\n    Rome--Serpent-transformations.\n\n\nOn the eve of January 1, 1863,--that historic New Year's Day on\nwhich President Lincoln proclaimed freedom to American slaves,--I was\npresent at a Watchnight held by negroes in a city of that country. In\nopening the meeting the preacher said,--though in words whose eloquent\nshortcomings I cannot reproduce:--'Brethren and sisters, the President\nof the United States has promised that, if the Confederates do not\nlay down their arms, he will free all their slaves to-morrow. They\nhave not laid down their arms. To-morrow will be the day of liberty\nto the oppressed. But we all know that evil powers are around the\nPresident. While we sit here they are trying to make him break his\nword. But we have come together to watch, and see that he does not\nbreak his word. Brethren, the bad influences around the President\nto-night are stronger than any Copperheads. [223] The Old Serpent\nis abroad to-night, with all his emissaries, in great power. His\nwrath is great, because he knows his hour is near. He will be in this\nchurch this evening. As midnight comes on we shall hear his rage. But,\nbrethren and sisters, don't be alarmed. Our prayers will prevail. His\nhead will be bruised. His back will be broken. He will go raging to\nhell, and God Almighty's New Year will make the United States a true\nland of freedom.'\n\nThe sensation caused among the hundreds of negroes present by these\nwords was profound; they were frequently interrupted by cries of\n'Glory!' and there were tears of joy. But the scene and excitement\nwhich followed were indescribable. A few moments before midnight\nthe congregation were requested to kneel, which they did, and prayer\nsucceeded prayer with increasing fervour. Presently a loud, prolonged\nhiss was heard. There were cries--'He's here! he's here!' Then came a\nvolley of hisses; they seemed to proceed from every part of the room,\nhisses so entirely like those of huge serpents that the strongest\nnerves were shaken; above them rose the preacher's prayer that\nhad become a wild incantation, and ecstatic ejaculations became so\nuniversal that it was a marvel what voices were left to make the\nhisses. Finally, from a neighbouring steeple the twelve strokes\nof midnight sounded on the frosty air, and immediately the hisses\ndiminished, and presently died away altogether, and the New Year\nthat brought freedom to four millions of slaves was ushered in by\nthe jubilant chorus of all present singing a hymn of victory.\n\nFar had come those hisses and that song of victory, terminating the\ndragon-drama of America. In them was the burden of Ezekiel: 'Son of\nman, set thy face against Pharaoh, king of Egypt, and prophesy against\nhim and against all Egypt, saying, Thus saith the Lord Jehovah:\nBehold I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great dragon\nthat lieth in the midst of the rivers ... I will put a hook in thy\njaws.' In them was the burden of Isaiah: 'In that day Jehovah with\nhis sore and great and strong sword shall punish Leviathan the\npiercing serpent, even Leviathan that crooked serpent: he shall\nslay the dragon that is in the sea.' In it was the cry of Zophar:\n'His meat in his bowels is turned, it is the gall of asps within\nhim. He hath swallowed down riches, and he shall vomit them up again:\nGod shall cast them out of his belly.' And these Hebrew utterances,\nagain, were but the distant echoes of far earlier voices of those\nAfrican slaves still seen pictured with their chains on the ruined\nwalls of Egypt,--voices that gathered courage at last to announce the\nnever-ending struggle of man with Oppression, as that combat between\ngod and serpent which never had a nobler event than when the dying\nhiss of Slavery was heard in America, and the victorious Sun rose\nupon a New World of free and equal men.\n\nThe Serpent thus exalted in America to a type of oppression is very\ndifferent from any snake that may this day be found worshipped as a\ndeity by the African in his native land. The swarthy snake-worshipper\nin his migration took his god along with him in his chest or\nbasket--at once ark and altar--and in that hiding-place it underwent\ntransformations. He emerged as the protean emblem of both good and\nevil. In a mythologic sense the serpent certainly held its tail in its\nmouth. No civilisation has reached the end of its typical supremacy.\n\nConcerning the accompanying Eleusinian form (Fig. 24), Calmet\nsays:--'The mysterious trunk, coffer, or basket, may be justly\nreckoned among the most remarkable and sacred instruments of worship,\nwhich formed part of the processional ceremonies in the heathen\nworld. This was held so sacred that it was not publicly exposed to\nview, or publicly opened, but was reserved for the inspection of the\ninitiated, the fully initiated only. Completely to explain this symbol\nwould require a dissertation; and, indeed, it has been considered,\nmore or less, by those who have written on the nature of the Ark of\nthe testimony among the Hebrews. Declining the inquiry at present, we\nmerely call the attention of the reader to what this mystical coffer\nwas supposed to contain--a serpent!' The French Benedictine who wrote\nthis passage, though his usual candour shames the casuistry of our own\ntime, found it necessary to conceal the Hebrew Ark: it was precisely\nso that the occupant of the Ark was originally concealed; and though\nSt. John exorcised it from the Chalice its genius lingers in the Pyx,\nbefore whose Host 'lifted up' the eyes of worshippers are lowered.\n\nThe writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews (chap. ix.), describing\nthe Tabernacle, says: 'After the second veil, the tabernacle which\nis called the Holiest of all; which had the golden censer, and the\nark of the covenant overlaid round about with gold, wherein was\nthe golden pot that had manna, and Aaron's rod that budded, and the\ntables of the covenant.' But this rod of Aaron, which, by budding,\nhad swallowed up all rival pretensions to the tribal priesthood,\nwas the same rod which had been changed to a serpent, and swallowed\nup the rod-serpents of the sorcerers in Pharaoh's presence. So soft\nand subtle is 'the way of a serpent upon a rock!'\n\nThis veiling of the Serpent, significant of a great deal, is\ncharacteristic even of the words used to name it. Of these I have\nselected one to head this chapter, because it is one of the innumerable\nveils which shielded this reptile's transformation from a particular\nexternal danger to a demonic type. This general description of things\nthat wind about or turn (vermes, traced by some to the Sanskrit\nroot hvar, 'curved'), gradually came into use to express the demon\nserpents. Dante and Milton call Satan a worm. No doubt among the two\nhundred names for the Serpent, said to be mentioned in an Arabic work,\nwe should find parallels to this old adaptation of the word 'worm.' In\ncountries--as Germany and England--where no large serpents are found,\nthe popular imagination could not be impressed by merely saying that\nSiegfried or Lambton had slain a snake. The tortuous character of\nthe snake was preserved, but, by that unconscious dexterity which so\noften appears in the making of myths, it was expanded so as to include\na power of supernatural transformation. The Lambton worm comes out of\nthe well very small, but it afterwards coils in nine huge folds around\nits hill. The hag-ridden daughter of the King of Northumberland, who\n\n\n                  crept into a hole a worm\n            And out stept a fair ladye,\n\n\ndid but follow the legendary rule of the demonic serpent tribe.\n\nWhy was the Serpent slipped into the Ark or coffer and hid behind\nveils? To answer this will require here an episode.\n\nIn the Etruscan theology and ceremonial the supreme power was lodged\nwith certain deities that were never seen. They were called the Dii\nInvoluti, the veiled gods. Not even the priests ever looked upon\nthem. When any dire calamity occurred, it was said these mysterious\ndeities had spoken their word in the council of the gods,--a word\nalways final and fatal.\n\nThere have been fine theories on the subject, and the Etruscans\nhave been complimented for having high transcendental views of the\ninvisible nature of the Divine Being. But a more prosaic theory is\nprobably true. These gods were wrapped up because they were not fit to\nbe seen. The rude carvings of some savage tribe, they had been seen and\nadored at first: temples had been built for them, and their priesthood\nhad grown powerful; but as art advanced and beautiful statues arose,\nthese rude designs could not bear the contrast, and the only way of\npreserving reverence for them, and the institutions grown up around\nthem, was to hide them out of sight altogether. Then it could be said\nthey were so divinely beautiful that the senses would be overpowered\nby them.\n\nThere have been many veiled deities, and though their veils have\nbeen rationalised, they are easily pierced. The inscription on the\ntemple of Isis at Sais was: 'I am that which has been, which is,\nand which shall be, and no one has yet lifted the veil that hides\nme.' Isis at this time had probably become a negro Madonna, like\nthat still worshipped in Spain as holiest of images, and called by\nthe same title, 'Our Immaculate Lady.' As the fair race and the dark\nmingled in Egypt, the primitive Nubian complexion and features of\nIsis could not inspire such reverence as more anciently, and before\nher also a curtain was hung. The Ark of Moses carried this veil\ninto the wilderness, and concealed objects not attractive to look\nat--probably two scrawled stones, some bones said to be those of\nJoseph, a pot of so-called manna, and the staff said to have once\nbeen a serpent and afterwards blossomed. Fashioned by a rude tribe,\nthe Ark was a fit thing to hide, and hidden it has been to this\nday. When the veil of the Temple was rent,--allegorically at the\ndeath of Christ, actually by Titus,--nothing of the kind was found;\nand it would seem that the Jews must long have been worshipping before\na veil with emptiness behind it. Paul discovered that the veil said\nto have covered the face of Moses when he descended from Sinai was a\nmyth; it meant that the people should not see to the end of what was\nnevertheless transient. 'Their minds were blinded; for unto this day,\nwhen Moses is read, that veil is on their heart.'\n\nKircher says the Seraphs of Egypt were images without any eminency of\nlimbs, rolled as it were in swaddling clothes, partly made of stone,\npartly of metal, wood, or shell. Similar images, he says, were called\nby the Romans 'secret gods.' As an age of scepticism advanced, it was\nsometimes necessary that these 'involuti' should be slightly revealed,\nlest it should be said there was no god there at all.  Such is the\ncase with the famous bambino of Aracoeli Church in Rome. This effigy,\nsaid to have been carved by a pilgrim out of a tree on the Mount of\nOlives, and painted by St. Luke while the pilgrim was sleeping, is now\nkept in its ark, and visitors are allowed to see part of its painted\nface. When the writer of this requested a sight of the whole form, or\nof the head at any rate, the exhibiting priest was astounded at the\nsuggestion. No doubt he was right: the only wonder is that the face\nis not hid also, for a more ingeniously ugly thing than the flat,\nblackened, and rouged visage of the bambino it were difficult to\nconceive. But it wears a very cunning veil nevertheless. The face is\nset in marvellous brilliants, but these are of less effect in hiding\nits ugliness than the vesture of mythology around it. The adjacent\nwalls are covered with pictures of the miracles it has performed,\nand which have attracted to it such faith that it is said at one\ntime to have received more medical fees than all the physicians in\nRome together. Priests have discovered that a veil over the mind\nis thicker than a veil on the god. Such is the popular veneration\nfor the bambino, that, in 1849, the Republicans thought it politic\nto present the monks with the Pope's state coach to carry the idol\nabout. In the end it was proved that the Pope was securely seated\nbeside the bambino, and he presently emerged from behind his veil also.\n\nThere came, then, a period when the Serpent crept behind the veil,\nor lid of the ark, or into a chalice,--a very small worm, but yet\nable to gnaw the staff of Solomon. No wisdom could be permitted to\nrise above fear itself, though its special sources might be here and\nthere reduced or vanquished. The snake had taught man at last its arts\nof war. Man had summoned to his aid the pig, and the ibis made havoc\namong the reptiles; and some of that terror which is the parent of\nthat kind of devotion passed away. When it next emerged, it was in\ntwofold guise,--as Agathodemon and Kakodemon,--but in both forms as\nthe familiar of some higher being. It was as the genius of Minerva,\nof Esculapius, of St. Euphemia. We have already seen him (Fig. 13)\nas the genius of the Eleans, the Sosopolis, where also we see the\nSerpent hurrying into his cavern, leaving the mother and child to\nbe worshipped in the temple of Lucina. In Christian symbolism the\nSeraphim--'burning (s\u00e1raf) serpents'--veiled their faces and forms\nbeneath their huge wings, crossed in front, and so have been able to\nbecome 'the eminent,' and to join in the praises of modern communities\nat being delivered from just such imaginary fiery worms as themselves!\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nAPOPHIS.\n\n    The Naturalistic Theory of Apophis--The Serpent of Time--\n    Epic of the Worm--The Asp of Melite--Vanquishers of Time--\n    Nachash-Beriach--The Serpent-Spy--Treading on Serpents.\n\n\nThe considerations advanced in the previous chapter enable us to\ndismiss with facility many of the rationalistic interpretations which\nhave been advanced to explain the monstrous serpents of sacred books\nby reference to imaginary species supposed to be now extinct. Flying\nserpents, snakes many-headed, rain-bringing, woman-hating, &c., may be\nsuffered to survive as the fauna of bibliolatrous imaginations. Such\nforms, however, are of such mythologic importance that it is necessary\nto watch carefully against this method of realistic interpretation,\nespecially as there are many actual characteristics of serpents\nsufficiently mysterious to conspire with it. A recent instance of\nthis literalism may here be noticed.\n\nMr. W. R. Cooper [224] supposes the evil serpent of Egyptian Mythology\nto have a real basis in 'a large and unidentified species of coluber,\nof great strength and hideous longitude,' which 'was, even from the\nearliest ages, associated as the representative of spiritual, and\noccasionally physical evil, and was named Hof, Rehof, or Apophis,'\nthe 'destroyer, the enemy of the gods, and the devourer of the souls\nof men.' That such a creature, he adds, 'once inhabited the Libyan\ndesert, we have the testimony of both Hanno the Carthaginian and Lucan\nthe Roman, and if it is now no longer an inhabitant of that region,\nit is probably owing to the advance of civilisation having driven it\nfarther south.'\n\nApart from the extreme improbability that African exploration should\nhave brought no rumours of such a monster if it existed, it may be said\nconcerning Mr. Cooper's theory: (1.) If, indeed, the references cited\nwere to a reptile now unknown, we might be led by mythologic analogy\nto expect that it would have been revered beyond either the Asp or the\nCobra. In proportion to the fear has generally been the exaltation of\nits objects. Primitive peoples have generally gathered courage to pour\ninvective upon evil monsters when--either from their non-existence\nor rarity--there was least danger of its being practically resented\nas a personal affront. (2.) The regular folds of Apophis on the\nsarcophagus of Seti I. and elsewhere are so evidently mystical and\nconventional that, apparently, they refer to a serpent-form only as\nthe guilloche on a wall may refer to sea-waves. Apophis (or Apap)\nwould have been a decorative artist to fold himself in such order.\n\nThese impossible labyrinthine coils suggest Time, as the serpent\nwith its tail in its mouth signifies Eternity,--an evolution of the\nsame idea. This was the interpretation given by a careful scholar,\nthe late William Hickson, [225] to the procession of nine persons\ndepicted on the sarcophagus mentioned as bearing a serpent, each\nholding a fold, all being regular enough for a frieze. 'The scene,'\nsays this author, 'appears to relate to the Last Judgment, for Osiris\nis seen on his throne, passing sentence on a crowd before him; and\nin the same tableaux are depicted the river that divides the living\nfrom the dead, and the bridge of life. The death of the serpent may\npossibly be intended to symbolise the end of time.' This idea of long\nduration might be a general one relating to all time, or it might\nrefer to the duration of individual life; it involved naturally the\nevils and agonies of life; but the fundamental conception is more\nsimple, and also more poetic, than even these implications, and it\nmeans eternal waste and decay. One has need only to sit before a clock\nto see Apophis: there coil upon coil winds the ever-moving monster,\nwhose tooth is remorseless, devouring little by little the strength\nand majesty of man, and reducing his grandest achievements--even his\nuniverse--to dust. Time is the undying Worm.\n\n\n        God having made me worm, I make you--smoke.\n        Though safe your nameless essence from my stroke,\n                              Yet do I gnaw no less\n        Love in the heart, stars in the livid space,--\n        God jealous,--making vacant thus your place,--\n                              And steal your witnesses.\n\n        Since the star flames, man would be wrong to teach\n        That the grave's worm cannot such glory reach;\n                              Naught real is save me.\n        Within the blue, as 'neath the marble slab I lie,\n        I bite at once the star within the sky,\n                              The apple on the tree.\n\n        To gnaw yon star is not more tough to me\n        Than hanging grapes on vines of Sicily;\n                              I clip the rays that fall;\n        Eternity yields not to splendours brave.\n        Fly, ant, all creatures die, and nought can save\n                              The constellations all.\n\n        The starry ship, high in the ether sea,\n        Must split and wreck in the end: this thing shall be:\n                              The broad-ringed Saturn toss\n        To ruin: Sirius, touched by me, decay,\n        As the small boat from Ithaca away\n                              That steers to Kalymnos. [226]\n\n\nThe natural history of Apophis, so far as he has any, is probably\nsuggested in the following passage cited by Mr. Cooper from\nWilkinson:--'\u00c6lian relates many strange stories of the asp, and the\nrespect paid to it by the Egyptians; but we may suppose that in his\nsixteen species of asps other snakes were included. He also speaks\nof a dragon which was sacred in the Egyptian Melite, and another\nkind of snake called Paries or Paruas, dedicated to \u00c6sculapius. The\nserpent of Melite had priests and ministers, a table and bowl. It\nwas kept in a tower, and fed by the priests with cakes made of flour\nand honey, which they placed there in a bowl. Having done this they\nretired. The next day, on returning to the apartment, the food was\nfound to be eaten, and the same quantity was again put into the bowl,\nfor it was not lawful for any one to see the sacred reptile.' [227]\n\nIt was in this concealment from the outward eye that the Serpent was\nable to assume such monstrous proportions to the eye of imagination;\nand, indeed, it is not beyond conjecture that this serpent of Melite,\ncoming in conflict with Osirian worship, was degraded and demonised\ninto that evil monster (Apophis) whom Horus slew to avenge his\ndestruction of Osiris (for he was often identified with Typhon).\n\nThough Horus cursed and slew this terrible demon-serpent, he reappears\nin all Egyptian Mythology with undiminished strength, and all evil\npowers were the brood of himself or Typhon, who were sometimes\ndescribed as brothers and sometimes as the same beings. From the\n'Ritual of the Dead' we learn that it was the high privilege and task\nof the heroic dead to be reconstructed and go forth to encounter\nand subdue the agents of Apophis, who sent out to engage them the\ncrocodiles Seb, Hem, and Shui, and other crocodiles from north, south,\neast, and west; the hero having conquered these, acquires their might,\nand next prevails over the walking viper Ru; and so on with other\ndemons called 'precursors of Apophis,' until their prince himself is\nencountered and slain, all the hero's guardian deities attending to\nfix a knife in each of the monster's folds. These are the Vanquishers\nof Time,--the immortal.\n\nIn Apophis we find the Serpent fairly developed to a principle of\nevil. He is an 'accuser of the sun;' the twelve gateways into Hades\nare surmounted by his representatives, which the Sun must pass--twelve\nhours of night. He is at once the 'Nachash beriach' and 'Nachash\naktalon'--the 'Cross-bar serpent' and the 'Tortuous serpent'--which we\nmeet with in Isa. xxvii. 1: 'In that day the Lord with his sore and\ngreat and strong sword shall punish leviathan the piercing serpent,\neven leviathan that crooked serpent.' The marginal translation in the\nEnglish version is 'crossing like a bar,' instead of piercing, and the\nVulgate has serpens vectis. This refers to the moral function of the\nserpent, as barring the way, or guarding the door. No doubt this is the\n'crooked serpent' of Job xxvi. 13, for the astrological sense of it\ndoes not invalidate the terrestrial significance. Imagination could\nonly project into the heavens what it had learned on earth. Bochart\nin identifying 'Nachash-beriach' as 'the flying Serpent,' is quite\nright: the Seraph, or winged Serpent, which barred the way to the tree\nof life in Eden, and in some traditions was the treacherous guard\nat the gate of the garden, and which bit Israel in the wilderness,\nwas this same protean Apophis. For such tasks, and to soar into the\ncelestial planisphere, the Serpent must needs have wings; and thus\nit is already far on its way to become the flying Dragon. But in one\nform, as the betrayer of man, it must lose its wings and crawl upon\nthe ground for ever. The Serpent is thus not so much agathodemon\nand kakodemon in one form, as a principle of destructiveness which\nis sometimes employed by the deity to punish his enemies, as Horus\nemploys fiery Kheti, but sometimes requires to be himself punished.\n\nThere have been doubts whether the familiar derivation of ophis,\nserpent, from ops, the eye, shall continue. Some connect the Greek\nword with echis, but Curtius maintains that the old derivation from\nops is correct. [228] Even were this not the etymology, the popularity\nof it would equally suggest the fact that this reptile was of old\nsupposed to kill with its glance; and it was also generally regarded\nas gifted with pr\u00e6ternatural vision. By a similar process to that\nwhich developed avenging Furies out of the detective dawn--Erinyes\nfrom Saranyu, Satan from Lucifer [229]--this subtle Spy might have\nbecome also a retributive and finally a malignant power. The Furies\nwere portrayed bearing serpents in their hands, and each of these\nmight carry ideally the terrors of Apophis: Time also is a detective,\nand the guilty heard it saying, 'Your sin will find you out.'\n\nThrough many associations of this kind the Serpent became at an\nearly period an agent of ordeal. Any one handling it with impunity\nwas regarded as in league with it, or specially hedged about by the\ndeity whose 'hands formed the crooked serpent.' It may have been\nas snake-charmers that Moses and Aaron appeared before Pharaoh and\ninfluenced his imagination; or, if the story be a myth, its existence\nstill shows that serpent performances would then have been regarded\nas credentials of divine authentication. So when Paul was shipwrecked\non Malta, where a viper is said to have fastened on his hand, the\nbarbarians, having at first inferred that he was a murderer, 'whom\nthough he hath escaped the sea, yet Vengeance suffereth not to live,'\nconcluded he was a god when they found him unharmed. Innumerable\ntraditions preceded the words ascribed to Christ (Luke x. 19),\n'Behold, I give unto you power to tread on serpents and scorpions,\nand over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means\nhurt you.' It is instructive to compare this sentence attributed to\nChrist with the notion of the barbarians concerning Paul's adventure,\nwhatever it may have been. Paul's familiarity with the Serpent seems\nto them proof that he is a god. Such also is the idea represented\nin Isa. xi. 8, 'The sucking child shall play on the hole of the\nasp.' But the idea of treading on serpents marks a period more\nnearly corresponding to that of the infant Hercules strangling\nthe serpents. Yet though these two conceptions--serpent-treading,\nand serpent-slaying--approach each other, they are very different\nin source and significance, both morally and historically. The word\nused in Luke, pateiin, conveys the idea of walking over something in\nmajesty, not in hostility; it must be interpreted by the next sentence\n(x. 20), 'Notwithstanding, in this rejoice not, that the spirits are\nsubject unto you (ta pneumata hypotassetai).' The serpent-slayer\nor dragon-slayer is not of Semitic origin. The awful supremacy of\nJehovah held all the powers of destruction chained to his hand;\nand to ask man if he could draw out Leviathan with a hook was only\nanother form of reminding him of his own inferiority to the creator\nand lord of Leviathan. How true the Semitic ideas running through the\nBible, and especially represented in the legend of Paul in Malta,\nare to the barbarian nature is illustrated by an incident related\nin Mr. Brinton's 'Myths of the New World.' The pious founder of the\nMoravian Brotherhood, Count Zinzendorf, was visiting a missionary\nstation among the Shawnees in the Wyoming Valley, America. Recent\nquarrels with the white people had so irritated the red men that they\nresolved to make him their victim. After he had retired to his hut\nseveral of the braves softly peered in. Count Zinzendorf was seated\nbefore a fire, lost in perusal of the Scriptures; and while the\nred men gazed they saw what he did not--a huge rattlesnake trailing\nacross his feet to gather itself in a coil before the comfortable\nwarmth of the fire. Immediately they forsook their murderous purpose,\nand retired noiselessly, convinced that this was indeed a divine man.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nTHE SERPENT IN INDIA.\n\n    The Kankato na--The Vedic Serpents not worshipful--Ananta and\n    Sesha--The Healing Serpent--The guardian of treasures--Miss\n    Buckland's theory--Primitive rationalism--Underworld\n    plutocracy--Rain and lightning--Vritra--History of the word\n    'Ahi'--The Adder--Zoh\u00e1k--A Teutonic Laokoon.\n\n\nThat Serpent-worship in India was developed by euphemism seems\nsufficiently shown in the famous Vedic hymn called Kankato na,\nrecited as an antidote against all venom, of which the following is\na translation:--\n\n'1. Some creature of little venom; some creature of great venom;\nor some venomous aquatic reptile; creatures of two kinds, both\ndestructive of life, or poisonous, unseen creatures, have anointed\nme with their poison.\n\n'2. The antidote coming to the bitten person destroys the unseen\nvenomous creatures; departing it destroys them; deprived of substance\nit destroys them by its odour; being ground it pulverises them.\n\n'3. Blades of sara grass, of kusara, of darhba, of sairya, of munja,\nof virana, all the haunt of unseen venomous creatures, have together\nanointed me with their venom.\n\n'4. The cows had lain down in their stalls; the wild beasts had\nretreated to their lairs; the senses of men were at rest; when the\nunseen venomous creatures anointed me with their venom.\n\n'5. Or they may be discovered in the dark, as thieves in the dusk\nof evening; for although they be unseen yet all are seen by them;\ntherefore, men be vigilant.\n\n'6. Heaven, serpents, is your father; Earth, your mother; Soma, your\nbrother; Aditi, your sister; unseen, all-seeing, abide in your holes;\nenjoy your own good pleasure.\n\n'7. Those who move with their shoulders, those who move with their\nbodies, those who sting with sharp fangs, those who are virulently\nvenomous; what do ye here, ye unseen, depart together far from us.\n\n'8. The all-seeing Sun rises in the East, the destroyer of the unseen,\ndriving away all the unseen venomous creatures, and all evil spirits.\n\n'9. The Sun has risen on high, destroying all the many poisons;\nAditya, the all-seeing, the destroyer of the unseen, rises for the\ngood of living beings.\n\n'10. I deposit the poison in the solar orb, like a leathern bottle\nin the house of a vendor of spirits; verily that adorable Sun never\ndies; nor through his favour shall we die of the venom; for, though\nafar off, yet drawn by his coursers he will overtake the poison:\nthe science of antidotes converted thee, Poison, to ambrosia.\n\n'11. That insignificant little bird has swallowed thy venom; she does\nnot die; nor shall we die; for although afar off, yet, drawn by his\ncoursers, the Sun will overtake the poison: the science of antidotes\nhas converted thee, Poison, to ambrosia.\n\n'12. May the thrice-seven sparks of Agni consume the influence of\nthe venom; they verily do not perish; nor shall we die; for although\nafar off, the Sun, drawn by his coursers, will overtake the poison:\nthe science of antidotes has converted thee, Poison, to ambrosia.\n\n'13. I recite the names of ninety and nine rivers, the destroyers\nof poison: although afar off, the Sun, drawn by his coursers, will\novertake the poison: the science of antidotes will convert thee,\nPoison, to ambrosia.\n\n'14. May the thrice-seven peahens, the seven-sister rivers, carry off,\nO Body, thy poison, as maidens with pitchers carry away water.\n\n'15. May the insignificant mungoose carry off thy venom, Poison: if\nnot, I will crush the vile creature with a stone: so may the poison\ndepart from my body, and go to distant regions.\n\n'16. Hastening forth at the command of Agastya, thus spake the\nmungoose: The venom of the scorpion is innocuous; Scorpion, thy venom\nis innocuous.' [230]\n\nThough, in the sixth verse of this hymn, the serpents are said to\nbe born of Heaven and Earth, the context does not warrant the idea\nthat any homage to them is intended; they are associated with the\nevil Rakshasas, the Sun and Agni being represented as their haters\nand destroyers. The seven-sister rivers (streams of the sacred\nGanges) supply an antidote to their venom, and certain animals,\nthe partridge and the mungoose, are said, though insignificant,\nto be their superiors. The science of antidotes alluded to is that\nwhich Indra taught to Dadhyanch, who lost his head for communicating\nit to the Aswins. It is notable, however, that in the Vedic period\nthere is nothing which represents the serpent as medicinal, unless by\na roundabout process we connect the expression in the Rig-Veda that\nthe wrath of the Maruts, or storm-gods, is 'as the ire of serpents,'\nwith the fact that their chief, Rudra, is celebrated as the bestower of\n'healing herbs,' and they themselves solicited for 'medicaments.' This\nwould be stretching the sense of the hymns too far. It is quite\npossible, however, that at a later day, when serpent-worship was fully\ndeveloped in India, what is said in the sixth verse of the hymn may\nhave been adduced to confirm the superstition.\n\nIt seems clear, then, that at the time the Kankato na was written,\nthe serpent was regarded with simple abhorrence. And we may remember,\nalso, that even now, when the Indian cobra is revered as a Brahman\nof the highest caste, there is a reminiscence of his previous ill\nrepute preserved in the common Hindu belief that a certain mark\non his head was left there by the heel of Vishnu, Lord of Life,\nwho trod on it when, in one of his avatars, he first stepped upon\nthe earth. Although in the later mythology we find Vishnu, in the\nintervals between his avatars or incarnations, reposing on a serpent\n(Sesha), this might originally have signified only his lordship over\nit, though Sesha is also called Ananta, the Infinite. The idea of\nthe Infinite is a late one, however, and the symbolisation of it\nby Sesha is consistent with a lower significance at first. In Hindu\npopular fables the snake appears in its simple character. Such is the\nfable of which so many variants are found, the most familiar in the\nWest being that of Bethgelert, and which is the thirteenth of the 4th\nHitopadesa. The Brahman having left his child alone, while he performs\na rite to his ancestors, on his return finds a pet mungoose (nakula)\nsmeared with blood. Supposing the mungoose has devoured his child,\nhe slays it, and then discovers that the poor animal had killed a\nserpent which had crept upon the infant. In the Kankato na the word\ninterpreted by S\u00e1yana as mungoose (Viverra Mungo, or ichneumon) is\nnot the same (nakula), but it evidently means some animal sufficiently\nunimportant to cast contempt upon the Serpent.\n\nThe universality of the Serpent as emblem of the healing art--found\nas such among the Egyptians, Greeks, Germans, Aztecs, and natives\nof Brazil--suggests that its longevity and power of casting its old\nskin, apparently renewing its youth, may have been the basis of this\nreputation. No doubt, also, they would have been men of scientific\ntendencies and of close observation who first learned the snake's\nsusceptibilities to music, and how its poison might be drawn, or even\nits fangs, and who so gained reputation as partakers of its supposed\npowers. Through such primitive rationalism the Serpent might gain an\nimportant alliance and climb to make the asp-crown of Isis as goddess\nof health (the Thermuthis), to twine round the staff of Esculapius,\nto be emblem of Hippocrates, and ultimately survive to be the sign of\nthe European leech, twining at last as a red stripe round the barber's\npole. The primitive zoologist and snake-charmer would not only, in all\nlikelihood, be a man cunning in the secrets of nature, but he would\nstudy to meet as far as he could the popular demand for palliatives\nand antidotes against snake-bites; all who escaped death after such\nwounds would increase his credit as a practitioner; and even were his\nmitigations necessarily few, his knowledge of the Serpent's habits\nand of its varieties might be the source of valuable precautions.\n\nSuch probable facts as these must, of course, be referred to a\nperiod long anterior to the poetic serpent-symbolism of Egypt,\nand the elaborate Serpent mythology of Greece and Scandinavia. How\nsimple ideas, having once gained popular prestige, may be caught up\nby theologians, poets, metaphysicians, and quacks, and modified into\nmanifold forms, requires no proof in an age when we are witnessing the\nrationalistic interpretations by which the cross, the sacraments, and\nthe other plain symbols are invested with all manner of philosophical\nmeanings. The Serpent having been adopted as the sign-post of Egyptian\nand Assyrian doctors--and it may have been something of that kind\nthat was set up by Moses in the wilderness--would naturally become\nthe symbol of life, and after that it would do duty in any capacity\nwhatever.\n\nAn ingenious anthropologist, Mr. C. Staniland Wake, [231] supposes the\nSerpent in India to have been there also the symbol of pr\u00e6ternatural\nand occult knowledge. Possibly this may have been so to a limited\nextent, and in post-Vedic times, but to me the accent of Hindu\nserpent-mythology appears to be emphatically in the homage paid to\nit as the guardian of the treasures. I may mention here also the\ntheory propounded by Miss A. W. Buckland in a paper submitted to the\nAnthropological Institute in London, March 10, 1874, on 'The Serpent in\nconnection with Primitive Metallurgy.' In this learned monograph the\nwriter maintains that a connection may be observed between the early\nserpent-worship and a knowledge of metals, and indeed that the Serpent\nwas the sign of Turanian metallurgists in the same way as I have\nsuggested that in Egypt and Assyria it was the sign of physicians. She\nbelieves that the Serpent must have played some part in the original\ndiscovery of the metals and precious stones by man, in recognition\nof which that animal was first assumed as a totem and thence became\nan emblem. She states that traditional and ornamentational evidences\nshow that the Turanian races were the first workers in metals, and\nthat they migrated westward, probably from India to Egypt and Chald\u00e6a,\nand thence to Europe, and even to America, bearing their art and its\nsign; and that they fled before the Aryans, who had the further art\nof smelting, and that the Aryan myths of serpent-slaying record the\noverthrow of the Turanian serpent-worshippers.\n\nI cannot think that Miss Buckland has made out a case for crediting\nnomadic Turanians with being the original metallurgists; though it\nis not impossible that it may have been a Scythian tribe in Southern\nIndia who gave its fame to 'the gold of Ophir,' which Max M\u00fcller has\nshown to have been probably an Indian region. [232] But that these\nearly jewellers may have had the Serpent as their sign or emblem is\nhighly probable, and in explanation of it there seems little reason\nto resort to the hypothesis of aid having been given by the Serpent\nto man in his discovery of metals. Surely the jewelled decoration of\nthe serpent would in itself have been an obvious suggestion of it\nas the emblem of gems. Where a reptile for some reasons associated\nwith the snake--the toad--had not the like bright spots, the cognate\nsuperstition might arise that its jewel is concealed in its head. And,\nfinally, when these reptiles had been connected with gems, the eye\nof either would easily receive added rays from manifold eye-beams\nof superstition.\n\nWe might also credit the primitive people with sufficient logical power\nto understand why they should infer that an animal so wonderfully\nand elaborately provided with deadliness as the Serpent should have\ntasks of corresponding importance. The medicine which healed man\n(therefore possibly gods), the treasures valued most by men (therefore\nby anthropomorphic deities), the fruit of immortality (which the gods\nmight wish to monopolise),--might seem the supreme things of value,\nwhich the supreme perfection of the serpent's fang might be created\nto guard. This might be so in the heavens as well as in the world\nor the underworld. The rainbow was called the 'Celestial Serpent'\nin Persia, and the old notion that there is a bag of gold at the end\nof it is known to many an English and American child.\n\nWhatever may have been the nature of the original suggestion, there\nare definite reasons why, when the Serpent was caught up to be part\nof combinations representing a Principle of Evil, his character as\nguardian of treasures should become of great importance. Wealth is\nthe characteristic of the gods of the Hades, or unseen world beneath\nthe surface of the earth.\n\nIn the vast Sinhalese demonology we find the highest class of demons\n(dewatawas) described as resident in golden palaces, glittering with\ngems, themselves with skins of golden hue, wearing cobras as ornaments,\ntheir king, Wessamony seated on a gem-throne and wielding a golden\nsword. Pluto is from the word for wealth (ploutos), as also is his\nLatin name Dis (dives). For such are lords of all beneath the sod,\nor the sea's surface. Therefore, it is important to observe, they own\nall the seeds in the earth so long as they remain seeds. So soon as\nthey spring to flower, grain, fruitage, they belong not to the gods\nof Hades but to man: an idea which originated the myth of Persephone,\nand seems to survive in a school of extreme vegetarians, who refuse\nto eat vegetables not ripened in the sun.\n\nThese considerations may enable us the better to apprehend the\nearlier characters of Ahi, the Throttler, and Vritra, the Coverer. As\nguardians of such hidden treasures as metals and drugs the Serpent\nmight be baroneted and invoked to bestow favours; but those particular\nserpents which by hiding away the cloud-cows withheld the rain,\nor choked the rivers with drought, all to keep under-world garners\nfat and those of the upper world lean, were to be combated. Against\nthem man invoked the celestial deities, reminding them that their own\naltars must lack offerings if they did not vanquish these thievish\nBinders and Concealers.\n\nThe Serpent with its jewelled raiment, its self-renovating power, and\nits matchless accomplishments for lurking, hiding, fatally striking,\nwas gradually associated with undulations of rivers and sea-waves on\nthe earth, with the Milky-way, with 'coverers' of the sky--night and\ncloud--above all, with the darting, crooked, fork-tongued lightning. It\nmay have been the lightning that was the Amrita churned out of the\nazure sea in the myth of the 'Mah\u00e1bh\u00e1rata,' when the gods and demons\nturned the mountain with a huge serpent for cord (p. 59), meaning\nthe descent of fire, or its discovery; but other fair and fruitful\nthings emerged also,--the goddess of wine, the cow of plenty, the\ntree of heaven. The inhabitants of Burmah still have a custom of\npulling at a rope to produce rain. A rain party and a drought party\ntug against each other, the rain party being allowed the victory,\nwhich, in the popular notion is generally followed by rain. I have\noften seen snakes hung up after being killed to bring rain, in the\nState of Virginia. For there also rain means wealth. It is there\nbelieved also that, however much it may be crushed, a snake will\nnot die entirely until it thunders. These are distant echoes of the\nVedic sentences. 'Friend Vishnu,' says Indra, 'stride vastly; sky give\nroom for the thunderbolt to strike; let us slay Vritra and let loose\nthe waters.' 'When, Thunderer, thou didst by thy might slay Vritra,\nwho stopped up the streams, then thy dear steeds grew.'\n\nVritra, though from the same root as Varuna (the sky), means at first\na coverer of the sky--cloud or darkness; hence eventually he becomes\nthe hider, the thief, who steals and conceals the bounties of heaven--a\nrainless cloud, a suffocating night; and eventually Vritra coalesces\nwith the most fearful phantasm of the Aryan mind--the serpent Ahi.\n\nThe Greek word for Adder, echis, is a modification of Ahi. Perhaps\nthere exists no more wonderful example of the unconscious idealism of\nhuman nature than the history of the name of the great Throttler, as it\nhas been traced by Professor Max M\u00fcller. The Serpent was also called\nahi in Sanskrit, in Greece echis or echidna, in Latin anguis. The\nroot is ah in Sanskrit, or amh, which means to press together,\nto choke, to throttle. It is a curious root this amh, and it still\nlives in several modern words, In Latin it appears as ango, anxi,\nanctum, to strangle; in angina, quinsy; in angor, suffocation. But\nangor meant not only quinsy or compression of the neck: it assumed\na moral import, and signifies anguish or anxiety. The two adjectives\nangustus, narrow, and anxius, uneasy, both came from the same root. In\nGreek the root retained its natural and material meaning; in eggys,\nnear, and echis, serpent, throttler. But in Sanskrit it was chosen\nwith great truth as the proper name of sin. Evil no doubt presented\nitself under various aspects to the human mind, and its names are\nmany; but none so expressive as those derived from our root amh, to\nthrottle. Amhas in Sanskrit means sin, but it does so only because\nit meant originally throttling--the consciousness of sin being\nlike the grasp of the assassin on the throat of the victim. All\nwho have seen and contemplated the statue of Laokoon and his sons,\nwith the serpent coiled around them from head to foot, may realise\nwhat those ancients felt and saw when they called sin amhas, or the\nthrottler. This amhas is the same as the Greek agos, sin. In Gothic\nthe same root has produced agis, in the sense of fear, and from the\nsame source we have awe, in awful, i.e., fearful, and ug in ugly. The\nEnglish anguish is from the French angoise, a corruption of the Latin\nangustit\u00e6, a strait. [233] In this wonderful history of a word, whose\nbiography, as Max M\u00fcller in his Hibbert Lectures said of Deva, might\nfill a volume, may also be included our ogre, and also the German unke,\nwhich means a 'frog' or 'toad,' but originally a 'snake'--especially\nthe little house-snake which plays a large part in Teutonic folklore,\nand was supposed to bring good luck. [234]\n\nThis euphemistic variant is, however, the only exception I can find\nto the baleful branches into which the root ah has grown through\nthe world; one of its fearful fruits being the accompanying figure,\ncopied from one of the ornamental bosses of Wells Cathedral.\n\nThe Adder demon has been universal. Herodotus relates that from a\nmonster, half-woman, half-serpent, sprang the Scythians, and the fable\nhas often been remembered in the history of the Turks. The 'Zoh\u00e1k'\nof Firdusi is the Iranian form of Ahi. The name is the Arabicised form\nof the 'Azhi Dah\u00e1ka' of the Avesta, the 'baneful serpent' vanquished\nby Thra\u00eataono (Traitana of the Vedas), and this Iranian name again\n(D\u00e1saka) is Ahi. The name reappears in the Median Astyages. [235] Zoh\u00e1k\nis represented as having two serpents growing out of his shoulders,\nwhich the late Professor Wilson supposed might have been suggested by\na phrase in the Kankato na (ye ansy\u00e1 ye angy\u00e1h) which he translates,\n'Those who move with their shoulders, those who move with their\nbodies,' which, however, may mean 'those produced on the shoulders,\nbiting with them,' and 'might furnish those who seek for analogies\nbetween Iranian and Indian legends with a parallel in the story of\nZoh\u00e1k.' The legend alluded to is a favourite one in Persia, where it\nis used to point a moral, as in the instruction of the learned Saib to\nthe Prince, his pupil. Saib related to the boy the story of King Zoh\u00e1k,\nto whom a magician came, and, breathing on him, caused two serpents to\ncome forth from the region of his breast, and told him they would bring\nhim great glory and pleasure, provided he would feed these serpents\nwith the poorest of his subjects. This Zoh\u00e1k did; and he had great\npleasure and wealth until his subjects revolted and shut the King up\nin a cavern where he became himself a prey to the two serpents. The\nyoung Prince to whom this legend was related was filled with horror,\nand begged Saib to tell him a pleasanter one. The teacher then related\nthat a young Sultan placed his confidence in an artful courtier\nwho filled his mind with false notions of greatness and happiness,\nand introduced into his heart Pride and Voluptuousness. To those two\npassions the young Sultan sacrificed the interests of his kingdom,\nuntil his subjects banished him; but his Pride and Voluptuousness\nremained in him, and, unable to gratify them in his exile, he died\nof rage and despair. The prince-pupil said, 'I like this story better\nthan the other.' 'And yet,' said Saib, 'it is the same.'\n\nIt is curious that this old Persian fable should have survived in\nthe witch-lore of America, and at last supplied Nathaniel Hawthorne\nwith the theme of one of his beautiful allegorical romances,--that,\nnamely, of the man with a snake in his bosom which ever threatened to\nthrottle him if he did not feed it. It came to the American fabulist\nthrough many a mythical skin, so to say. One of the most beautiful it\nhas worn is a story which is still told by mothers to their children\nin some districts of Germany. It relates that a little boy and girl\nwent into the fields to gather strawberries. After they had gathered\nthey met an aged woman, who asked for some of the fruit. The little\ngirl emptied her basket into the old woman's lap; but the boy clutched\nhis, and said he wanted his berries for himself. When they had passed\non the old woman called them back, and presented to each a little\nbox. The girl opened hers, and found in it two white caterpillars which\nspeedily became butterflies, then grew to be angels with golden wings,\nand bore her away to Paradise. The boy opened his box, and from it\nissued two tiny black worms; these swiftly swelled to huge serpents,\nwhich, twining all about the boy's limbs, drew him away into the dark\nforest; where this Teutonic Laokoon still remains to illustrate in\nhis helplessness the mighty power of little faults to grow into bad\nhabits and bind the whole man.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nTHE BASILISK.\n\n    The Serpent's gem--The Basilisk's eye--Basiliscus mitratus--\n    House-snakes in Russia and Germany--King-snakes--Heraldic\n    dragon--Henry III.--Melusina--The Laidley Worm--Victorious\n    dragons--Pendragon--Merlin and Vortigern--Medicinal dragons.\n\n\nA Dragoon once presented himself before Frederick the Great and offered\nthe king a small pebble, which, he said, had been cut from the head\nof a king-snake, and would no doubt preserve the throne. Frederick\nprobably trusted more to dragoons than dragons, but he kept the little\ncuriosity, little knowing, perhaps, that it would be as prolific\nof legends as the cock's egg, to which it is popularly traceable,\nin cockatrices (whose name may have given rise to the cock-fables)\nor basilisks. It has now taken its place in German folklore that\nFrederick owed his greatness to a familiar kept near him in the form\nof a basilisk. But there are few parts of the world where similar\nlegends might not spring up and coil round any famous reputation. An\nIndian newspaper, the Lawrence Gazette, having mentioned that the\nex-king of Oudh is a collector of snakes, adds--'Perhaps he wishes to\nbecome possessed of the precious jewel which some serpents are said\nto contain, or of that species of snake by whose means, it is said,\na person can fly in the air.' Dr. Dennys, in whose work on Chinese\nFolklore this is quoted, finds the same notion in China. In one\nstory a foreigner repeatedly tries to purchase a butcher's bench,\nbut the butcher refuses to sell it, suspecting there must be some\nhidden value in the article; for this reason he puts the bench by,\nand when the foreigner returns a year afterwards, learns from him\nthat lodged in the bench was a snake, kept alive by the blood soaking\nthrough it, which held a precious gem in its mouth--quite worthless\nafter the snake was dead. Cursing his stupidity at having put the\nbench out of use, the butcher cut it open and found the serpent dead,\nholding in its mouth something like the eye of a dried fish.\n\nHere we have two items which may only be accidental, and yet, on the\nother hand, possibly possess significance. The superior knowledge\nabout the serpent attributed to a 'foreigner' may indicate that such\nstories in China are traditionally alien, imported with the Buddhists;\nand the comparison of the dead gem to an eye may add a little to\nthe probabilities that this magical jewel, whether in head of toad or\nserpent, is the reptile's eye as seen by the glamour of human eyes. The\neye of the basilisk is at once its wealth-producing, its fascinating,\nand its paralysing talisman, though all these beliefs have their\nvarious sources and their several representations in mythology. That\nit was seen as a gem was due, as I think, to the jewelled skin of most\nserpents, which gradually made them symbols of riches; that it was\nbelieved able to fascinate may be attributed to the general principles\nof illusion already considered; but its paralysing power, its evil\neye, connects it with a notion, found alike in Egypt and India, that\nthe serpent kills with its eye. Among Sanskrit words for serpent are\n'drig-visha' and 'drishti-visha'--literally 'having poison in the eye.'\n\nWhile all serpents were lords and guardians of wealth, certain of\nthem were crested, or had small horns, which conveyed the idea of a\ncrowned and imperial snake, the basiliskos. Naturalists have recognised\nthis origin of the name by giving the same (Basiliscus mitratus)\nto a genus of Iguanid\u00e6, remarkable for a membranous crest not only\non the occiput but also along the back, which this lizard can raise\nand depress at pleasure. But folklore, the science of the ignorant,\nhad established the same connection by alleging that the basilisk\nis hatched from the egg of a black cock,--which was the peasant's\nexplanation of the word cockatrice. De Plancy traces one part of\nthe belief to a disease which causes the cock to produce a small\negg-like substance; but the resemblance between its comb and the\ncrests of serpent and frog [236] was the probable link between them;\nwhile the ancient eminence of the cock as the bird of dawn relegated\nthe origin of the basilisk to a very exceptional member of the\nfamily--a black cock in its seventh year. The useful fowl would seem,\nhowever, to have suffered even so slightly mainly through a phonetic\nmisconception. The word 'cockatrice' is 'crocodile' transformed. We\nhave it in the Old French 'cocatrix,' which again is from the Spanish\n'cocotriz,' meaning 'crocodile,'--krokodeilos; which Herodotus, by the\nway, uses to denote a kind of lizard, and whose sanctity has extended\nfrom the Nile to the Danube, where folklore declares that the skeleton\nof the lizard presents an image of the passion of Christ, and it must\nnever be harmed. Thus 'cockatrice' has nothing to do with 'cock' or\n'coq,' though possibly the coincidence of the sound has marred the\nancient fame of the 'Bird of Dawn.' Indeed black cocks have been so\ngenerally slain on this account that they were for a long time rare,\nand so the basilisks had a chance of becoming extinct. There were\nfabulous creatures enough, however, to perpetuate the basilisk's\nimaginary powers, some of which will be hereafter considered. We\nmay devote the remainder of this chapter to the consideration of a\nvariant of dragon-mythology, which must be cleared out of our way in\napprehending the Dragon. This is the agathodemonic or heraldic Dragon,\nwhich has inherited the euphemistic characters of the treasure-guarding\nand crowned serpent.\n\nIn Slavonic legend the king-serpent plays a large part, and innumerable\nstories relate the glories of some peasant child that, managing to\nsecure a tiny gem from his crown, while the reptilian monarch was\nbathing, found the jewel daily surrounded with new treasures. This is\nthe same serpent which, gathering up the myths of lightning and of\ncomets, flies through many German legends as the red Drake, Kolbuk,\nAlp, or Alberflecke, dropping gold when it is red, corn if blue,\nand yielding vast services and powers to those who can magically\nmaster it. The harmless serpents of Germany were universally invested\nwith agathodemonic functions, though they still bear the name that\nrelates them to Ahi, viz., unken. Of these household-snakes Grimm\nand Simrock give much information. It is said that in fields and\nhouses they approach solitary children and drink milk from the dish\nwith them. On their heads they wear golden crowns, which they lay\ndown before drinking, and sometimes forget when they retire. They\nwatch over children in the cradle, and point out to their favourites\nwhere treasures are hidden. To kill them brings misfortune. If the\nparents surprise the snake with the child and kill it, the child\nwastes away. Once the snake crept into the mouth of a pregnant woman,\nand when the child was born the snake was found closely coiled around\nits neck, and could only be untwined by a milk-bath; but it never left\nthe child's side, ate and slept with it, and never did it harm. If\nsuch serpents left a house or farm, prosperity went with them. In\nsome regions it is said a male and female snake appear whenever the\nmaster or mistress of the house is about to die, and the legends of\nthe Unken sometimes relapse into the original fear out of which they\ngrew. Indeed, their vengeance is everywhere much dreaded, while their\ngratitude, especially for milk, is as imperishable as might be expected\nfrom their ancestor's quarrel with Indra about the stolen cows. In the\nGesta Romanorum it is related that a milkmaid was regularly approached\nat milking-time by a large snake to which she gave milk. The maid\nhaving left her place, her successor found on the milking-stool a\ngolden crown, on which was inscribed 'In Gratitude.' The crown was\nsent to the milkmaid who had gone, but from that time the snake was\nnever seen again. [237]\n\nIn England serpents were mastered by the vows of a saintly\nChristian. The Knight Bran in the Isle of Wight is said to have\npicked up the cockatrice egg, to have been pursued by the serpents,\nwhich he escaped by vowing to build St. Lawrence Church in that\nisland,--the egg having afterwards brought him endless wealth and\nuniform success in combat. With the manifold fables concerning the\nroyal dragon would seem to blend traditions of the astrological,\ncelestial, and lightning serpents. But these would coincide with\na development arising from the terrestrial worms and their heroic\nslayers. The demonic dragon with his terrible eye might discern\nfrom afar the advent of his predestined destroyer. It might seek\nto devour him in infancy. As the comet might be deemed a portent of\nsome powerful prince born on earth, so it might be a compliment to a\nroyal family, on the birth of a prince, to report that a dragon had\nbeen seen. Nor would it be a long step from this office of the dragon\nas the herald of greatness to placing that monster on banners. From\nthese banners would grow sagas of dragons encountered and slain. The\ndevices might thus multiply. Some process of this kind would account\nfor the entirely good reputation of the dragon in China and Japan,\nwhere it is the emblem of all national grandeur. It would also appear\nto underlie the proud titles of the Pythian Apollo and Bellerophon,\ngained from the monsters they were said to have slain. The city of\nWorms takes its name from the serpent instead of its slayer. [238]\nPendragon, in the past--and even our dragoon of the present--are\nnames in which the horrors of the monster become transformed in the\nhero's fame. The dragon, says Mr. Hardwicke, was the standard of the\nWest Saxons, and of the English previous to the Norman Conquest. It\nformed one of the supporters of the royal arms borne by all the\nTudor monarchs, with the exception of Queen Mary, who substituted the\neagle. Several of the Plantagenet kings and princes inscribed a figure\nof the dragon on their banners and shields. Peter Langtoffe says,\nat the battle of Lewis, fought in 1264, 'The king schewed forth his\nschild, his dragon full austere.' Another authority says the said king\n(Henry III.) ordered to be made 'a dragon in the manner of a banner,\nof a certain red silk embroidered with gold; its tongue like a flaming\nfire must always seem to be moving; its eyes must be made of sapphire,\nor of some other stone suitable for that purpose.' [239]\n\nIt will thus be seen that an influence has been introduced into\ndragon-lore which has no relation whatever to the demon itself. This\nwill explain those variants of the legend of Melusina--the famous\nwoman-serpent--which invest her with romance. Melusina, whose\nindiscreet husband glanced at her in forbidden hours, when she was in\nher serpent shape, was long the glory of the Chateau de Lusignan, where\nher cries announced the approaching death of her descendants. There is\na peasant family still dwelling in Fontainebleau Forest who claim to\nbe descended from Melusina; and possibly some instance of this kind\nmay have dropped like a seed into the memory of the author of 'Elsie\nVenner' to reappear in one of the finest novels of our generation. The\ncorresponding sentiment is found surrounding the dragon in the familiar\nBritish legend of the Laidley [240] Worm. The king of Northumberland\nbrought home a new Queen, who was also a sorceress, and being envious\nof the beauty of her step-daughter, changed that poor princess into\nthe worm which devastated all Spindleton Heugh. For seven miles every\ngreen thing was blighted by its venom, and seven cows had to yield\ntheir daily supplies of milk. Meanwhile the king and his son mourned\nthe disappearance of the princess. The young prince fitted out a ship\nto go and slay the dragon. The wicked Queen tries unsuccessfully to\nprevent the expedition. The prince leaps from his ship into the shallow\nsea, and wades to the rock around which the worm lay coiled. But as\nhe drew near the monster said to him:\n\n\n            Oh, quit thy sword, and bend thy bow,\n              And give me kisses three;\n            If I'm not won ere the sun goes down,\n              Won I shall never be.\n\n            He quitted his sword and bent his bow,\n              He gave her kisses three;\n            She crept into a hole a worm,\n              But out stept a ladye.\n\n\nIn the end the prince managed to have the wicked Queen transformed\ninto a toad, which in memory thereof, as every Northumbrian boy knows,\nspits fire to this day: but it is notable that the sorceress was not\ntransformed into a dragon, as the story would probably have run if the\ndragon form had not already been detached from its original character,\nand by many noble associations been rendered an honourable though\nfearful shape for maidens like this princess and like Melusina.\n\nIn the same direction point the legends which show dragons as sometimes\nvictorious over their heroic assailants. Geoffrey of Monmouth so\nrelates of King Morvidus of Northumbria, who encountered a dragon\nthat came from the Irish Sea, and was last seen disappearing in\nthe monster's jaws 'like a small fish.' A more famous instance is\nthat of Beowulf, whose Anglo-Saxon saga is summed up by Professor\nMorley as follows:--'Afterward the broad land came under the sway of\nBeowulf. He held it well for fifty winters, until in the dark night\na dragon, which in a stone mound watched a hoard of gold and cups,\nwon mastery. It was a hoard heaped up in sin, its lords were long\nsince dead; the last earl before dying hid it in the earth-cave, and\nfor three hundred winters the great scather held the cave, until some\nman, finding by chance a rich cup, took it to his lord. Then the den\nwas searched while the worm slept; again and again when the dragon\nawoke there had been theft. He found not the man but wasted the whole\nland with fire; nightly the fiendish air-flyer made fire grow hateful\nto the sight of men. Then it was told to Beowulf.... He sought out\nthe dragon's den and fought with him in awful strife. One wound the\npoison-worm struck in the flesh of Beowulf.' Whereof Beowulf died.\n\nEqually significant is the legend that when King Arthur had embarked\nat Southampton on his expedition against Rome, about midnight he\nsaw in a dream 'a bear flying in the air, at the noise of which all\nthe shores trembled; also a terrible dragon, flying from the west,\nwhich enlightened the country with the brightness of its eyes. When\nthese two met they had a dreadful fight, but the dragon with its fiery\nbreath burned the bear which assaulted him, and threw him down scorched\nto the earth.' This vision was taken to augur Arthur's victory. The\nfather of Arthur had already in a manner consecrated the symbol, being\nnamed Uther Pendragon (dragon's head). On the death of his brother\nAurelius, it was told 'there appeared a star of wonderful magnitude\nand brightness,' darting forth a ray, at the end of which was a globe\nof fire, in form of a dragon, out of whose mouth issued two rays,\none of which seemed to stretch out itself towards the Irish Sea,\nand ended in seven lesser rays.' Merlin interpreted this phenomenon\nto mean that Uther would be made king and conquer various regions;\nand after his first victory Uther had two golden dragons made, one\nof which he presented to Winchester Cathedral, retaining the other\nto attend him in his wars.\n\nIn the legend of Merlin and Vortigern we find the Dragon so completely\ndeveloped into a merely warrior-like symbol that its moral character\nhas to be determined by its colour. As in the two armies of serpents\nseen by Zoroaster, in Persian legends, which fought in the air, the\nvictory of the white over the black foreshowing the triumph of Ormuzd\nover Ahriman, the tyranny of Vortigern is represented by a red dragon,\nwhile Aurelius and Uther are the two heads of a white dragon. Merlin,\nabout to be buried alive, in pursuance of the astrologer's declaration\nto Vortigern that so only would his ever-falling wall stand firm,\nhad revealed that the recurring disaster was caused by the struggle\nof these two dragons underground. When the monsters were unearthed\nthey fought terribly, until the white one\n\n\n            Hent the red with all his might,\n            And to the ground he him cast,\n            And, with the fire of his blast,\n            Altogether brent the red,\n            That never of him was founden shred;\n            But dust upon the ground he lay.\n\n\nThe white dragon vanished and was seen no more; but the tyrant\nVortigern fulfilled the fate of the red dragon, being burnt in his\ncastle near Salisbury. These two dragons met again, however, as red\nand white roses.\n\nMany developments corresponding to these might be cited. One indeed\nbears a startling resemblance to our English legends. Of King Nuat\nMeiamoun, whose conquest of Egypt is placed by G. Maspero about\nB.C. 664-654, the Ethiopian 'Stele of the Dream' relates:--'His\nMajesty beheld a dream in the night, two snakes, one to his right,\nthe other to his left, (and) when His Majesty awoke ... he said:\n'Explain these things to me on the moment,' and lo! they explained\nit to him, saying: 'Thou wilt have the Southern lands, and seize the\nNorthern, and the two crowns will be put on thy head, (for) there is\ngiven unto thee the earth in all its width and its breadth.' These\ntwo snakes were probably suggested by the ur\u00e6i of the Egyptian diadem.\n\nBeyond the glory reflected upon a monster from his conqueror,\nthere would be reason why the alchemist and the wizard should\nencourage that aspect of the dragon. The more perilous that Gorgon\nwhose blood Esculapius used, the more costly such medicament; while,\nthat the remedy may be advantageous, the monster must not be wholly\ndestructive. This is so with the now destructive now preservative\nforces of nature, and how they may blend in the theories, and subserve\nthe interests, of pretenders is well shown in a German work on Alchemy\n(1625) quoted by Mr. Hardwicke. 'There is a dragon lives in the forest,\nwho has no want of poison; when he sees the sun or fire he spits venom,\nwhich flies about fearfully. No living animal can be cured of it;\neven the basilisk does not equal him. He who can properly kill this\nserpent has overcome all his danger. His colours increase in death;\nphysic is produced from his poison, which he entirely consumes,\nand eats his own venomous tail. This must be accomplished by him,\nin order to produce the noblest balm. Such great virtue as we will\npoint out herein that all the learned shall rejoice.'\n\nIt will be readily understood that these traditions and fables would\ncombine to 'hedge about a king' by ascribing to him familiarity\nwith a monster so formidable to common people, and even investing\nhim with its attributes. The dragon's name, drak\u00f4n, derived from the\nSanskrit word for serpent (drig-visha), came to mean 'the thing that\nsees.' While this gave rise to many legends of pr\u00e6ternatural powers\nof vision gained by tasting or bathing in a dragon's blood, as in\nthe poem of Siegfried; or from waters it guarded, as 'Eye Well,'\nin which Guy's dragon dipped its tail to recover from wounds; the\nSanskrit sense of eye-poisoning was preserved in legends of occult\nand dangerous powers possessed by kings,--one of the latest being the\npotent evil eye popularly ascribed in Italy to the late Pius IX. But\nthese stories are endless; the legends adduced will show the sense\nof all those which, if unexplained, might interfere with our clear\ninsight into the dragon itself, whose further analysis will prove it\nto be wholly bad,--the concentrated terrors of nature.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nTHE DRAGON'S EYE.\n\n    The Eye of Evil--Turner's Dragons--Cloud-phantoms--Paradise and\n    the Snake--Prometheus and Jove--Art and Nature--Dragon forms:\n    Anglo-Saxon, Italian, Egyptian, Greek, German--The modern\n    conventional Dragon.\n\n\nThe etymologies of the words Dragon and Ophis given in the preceding\nchapter, ideally the same, both refer to powers of the serpent which\nit does not possess in nature,--the pr\u00e6ternatural vision and the\nglance that kills. The real nature of the snake is thus overlaid;\nwe have now to deal with the creation of another world.\n\nThere are various conventionalised types of the Dragon, but through\nthem all one feature is constant,--the idealised serpent. Its presence\nis the demonic or supernatural sign. The heroic dragon-slayer must not\nbe supposed to have wrestled with mere flesh and blood, in whatever\npowerful form. The combat which immortalises him is waged with all\nthe pains and terrors of earth and heaven concentrated and combined\nin one fearful form.\n\nImpossible and phantasmal as was this form in nature, its mystical\nmeaning in the human mind was terribly real. It was this Eye of\nanti-human nature which filled man with dismay, and conjured up\nthe typical phantom. It was this Pain, purposed and purposing, the\nAgony of far-searching vision, subtlest skill, silently creeping,\nwinged, adapted to meet his every device with a cleverer device,\nwhich gradually impressed mankind with belief in a general principle\nof antagonism to human happiness.\n\nIt is only as a combination that any dragon form is miraculous. Every\nconstituent feature and factor of it is in nature, but here they are\nrolled together in one pandemonic expression and terror. Yet no such\nform loses its relations with nature: it is lightning and tempest,\nfever-bearing malaria and fire, venom and fang, slime and jungle,\nall the ferocities of the earth, air, and heavens, gathering to\ntheir fatal artistic force, and waylaying man at every step in his\nadvance. In Turner's picture of Apollo slaying the Python there is\na marvellous suggestion of the natural conceptions from which the\ndragon was evolved. The fearful folds of the monster, undulating\nwith mound and rock on which he lies, at points almost blend with\ntangle of bushes and the jagged chaos amid which he stretches. The\nhard, wild, cruel aspects of inanimate nature seem here and there\nrankly swelling to horrible life, as yet but half-distinguishable\nfrom the stony-hearted matrix; the crag begins to coil and quiver,\nthe jungle puts forth in claws; but above all appear the monstrous\nEYES, in which the forces of pain, hardship, obstacle have at last\nacquired purpose and direction. The god confronts them with eyes yet\nkeener; his arrow, feathered with eyebeams, has reached its mark,\nstraight between the monster's eyes; but there is no more anger in\nhis face than might mar the calm strength of a gardener clearing away\nthe stone and thicket that make the constituent parts of Python.\n\nIf we turn now to the neighbouring picture in the National Gallery\nby the same artist, the Hesperian Gardens and their Guard, we behold\nthe Dragon on his high crag outlining and vitalising not only the\nedge of rock but also the sky it meets. His breath steams up into\ncloud. The heavens also have their terrors, which take on eyes and\ncoils. On the line of the horizon were hung the pictures of the\nprimitive art-gallery. Imagination painted them with brush dipped\nnow in blackness of the storm, now in fires of the lightning or the\nsunset, but the forms were born of experience, of earthly struggle,\ndefeat, and victory.\n\nAs I write these words, I lay aside my pen to look across a little\nlake amid the lonely hills of Wales to a sunset which is flooding the\nsky with glory. Through the almost greenish sky the wind is bearing\nfantastic clouds, that sometimes take the shape of chariots, in which\ncloud-veiled forms are seated, and now great birds with variegated\nplumage, all hastening as it were to some gathering-place of aerial\ngods. Beneath a long bar of maroon-tint stretches a sea of yellow\nlight, on the hither side of which is set a garden of fleecy trees\ntouched with golden fruit. Amid them plays a fountain of changing\ncolours. On the left has stood, fast as a mountain range, a mass\nof dark-blue cloud with uneven peaks; suddenly a pink faint glow\nshines from behind that leaden mass, and next appears, sinuous with\nits long indented top, the mighty folds of a fiery serpent. Nay,\nits head is seen, its yawning lacertine jaws, its tinted crest. It\nis sleepless Ladon on his high barrier keeping watch and ward over\nthe Hesperian garden.\n\nJuno set him there, but he is the son of Ge,--the earth. The tints of\nheaven invest and transform, and in a sense create him; but he would\nnever have been born mythologically had it not been that in this world\nstings hover near all sweetness, danger environs beauty, and, as Plato\nsaid, 'Good things come hard.' The grace and lustre of the serpent\nwith his fatal fang preceded him, and all the perils that lurk beneath\nthings fair and fascinating. So far there is nothing essentially moral\nor unmoral about him. This dragon is a shape designed by primitive\nmeteorology and metaphysics together. Man has asked what is so, and\nthis is the answer: he has not yet asked why it is so, whether it ought\nto be so, and whether it may not be otherwise. The challenge has not\nyet been given, the era of combat not yet arrived. The panoplied guard\nand ally of gods as unmoral as himself has yet to be transformed under\nthe touch of the religious sentiment, and expelled from the heaven of\nnobler deities as a dragon cast down, deformed, and degraded for ever.\n\nAs thought goes on, such allies compromise their employers; the\ncreator's work reflects the creator's character; and after many\ntimorous ages we find the dragon-guarded deities going down with\ntheir cruel defenders. It is not without significance that in the\nSanskrit dictionary the most ancient of all words for god, Asura,\nhas for its primary meaning 'demon' or 'devil:' the gods and dragons\nunited to churn the ocean for their own wealth, and in the end they\nwere tarred with one brush. I have already described in the beginning\nof this work the degradation of deities, and need here barely recall\nto the reader's memory the forces which operated to that result. The\nbearing of that force upon the celestial or paradise-guarding Serpent\nis summed up in one quatrain of Omar Khayy\u00e1m:--\n\n\n        O Thou who man of baser earth didst make,\n          And e'en in Paradise devised the Snake;\n          For all the sin wherewith the face of man\n        Is blackened, man's forgiveness give--and take!\n\n\nThe heart of humanity anticipated its logic by many ages, and, long\nbefore the daring genius of the Persian poet wrote this immortal\nepitaph on the divine allies of the Serpent, heroes had given battle\nto the whole fraternity. Nay, in their place had arisen a new race\nof gods, whose theoretical omnipotence was gladly surrendered in the\ninterest of their righteousness; and there was now war in heaven;\nthe dragon and his allies were cast down, and man was now free to\nfight them as enemies of the gods as well as himself. Woe henceforth\nto any gods suspected of taking sides with the dragon in this man's\nlife-and-death struggle with the ferocities of nature, and with his\nown terrors reflected from them! The legend of Prometheus was their\nunconsciously-given 'notice to quit,' though it waited many centuries\nfor its great interpreter. It is Goethe who alone has seen how pale\nand weak grow Jove's fireworks before the thought-thunderbolts of\nthe artist, launched far beyond the limitations that chain him in\nnature. Gods are even yet going down in many lands before the sublime\nsentence of Prometheus:--\n\n\n        Curtain thy heavens, thou Jove, with clouds and mist,\n        And, like a boy that moweth thistles down,\n        Unloose thy spleen on oaks and mountain-tops;\n        Yet canst thou not deprive me of my earth,\n        Nor of my hut, the which thou didst not build,\n        Nor of my hearth, whose little cheerful flame\n        Thou enviest me!\n\n        I know not aught within the universe\n        More slight, more pitiful than you, ye gods!\n        Who nurse your majesty with scant supplies\n        Of offerings wrung from fear, and muttered prayers,\n        And needs must starve, were't not that babes and beggars\n        Are hope-besotted fools!\n\n        When I was yet a child, and knew not whence\n        My being came, nor where to turn its powers,\n        Up to the sun I bent my wildered eye,\n        As though above, within its glorious orb,\n        There dwelt an ear to listen to my plaint,\n        A heart, like mine, to pity the oppressed.\n\n        Who gave me succour\n        Against the Titans in their tyrannous might?\n        Who rescued me from death--from slavery?\n        Thou!--thou, my soul, burning with hallowed fire,\n        Thou hast thyself alone achieved it all!\n        Yet didst thou, in thy young simplicity,\n        Glow with misguided thankfulness to him\n        That slumbers on in idlenesse there above!\n\n        I reverence thee?\n        Wherefore? Hast thou ever\n        Lightened the sorrows of the heavy laden?\n        Thou ever stretch thy hand to still the tears\n        Of the perplexed in spirit?\n        Was it not\n        Almighty Time, and ever-during Fate--\n        My lords and thine--that shaped and fashioned me\n        Into the MAN I am?\n\n        Belike it was thy dream\n        That I should hate life--fly to wastes and wilds,\n        For that the buds of visionary thought\n        Did not all ripen into goodly flowers?\n\n        Here do I sit and mould\n        Men after mine own image--\n        A race that may be like unto myself,\n        To suffer, weep; to enjoy, and to rejoice;\n        And, like myself, unheeding all of thee!\n\n\nThe myth of Prometheus reveals the very dam of all dragons,--the mere\nterrorism of nature which paralysed the energies of man. Man's first\ncombat was to be with his own quailing heart. Apollo driving back the\nArgives to their ships with the image of the Gorgon's head on Jove's\nshield is Homer's picture of the fears that unnerved heroes:--\n\n\n        Phoebus himself the rushing battle led;\n        A veil of clouds involved his radiant head:\n        High held before him, Jove's enormous shield\n        Portentous shone, and shaded all the field:\n        Vulcan to Jove th' immortal gift consigned,\n        To scatter hosts, and terrify mankind....\n        Deep horror seizes ev'ry Grecian breast,\n        Their force is humbled, and their fear confest.\n        So flies a herd of oxen, scattered wide,\n        No swain to guard them, and no day to guide,\n        When two fell lions from the mountain come,\n        And spread the carnage thro' the shady gloom....\n        The Grecians gaze around with wild despair,\n        Confused, and weary all their pow'rs with prayer. [241]\n\n\nA generation whose fathers remembered the time when men educated\nin universities regarded Franklin with his lightning-rod as\n'heaven-defying,' can readily understand the legend of Vulcan--type of\nthe untamed force of fire--being sent to bind Prometheus, master of\nfire. [242] How much fear of the forces of nature, as personified by\nsuperstition, levelled against the first creative minds and hands the\nepithets which Franklin heard, and which still fall upon the heads\nof some scientific investigators! Storm, lightning, rock, ocean,\nvulture,--these blend together with the intelligent cruelty of Jove\nin the end; and behold, the Dragon! The terrors of nature, which\ndrive cowards to their knees, raise heroes to their height. Then\nit is a flame of genius matched against mad thunderbolts. Whether\nthe jealous nature-god be Jehovah forbidding sculpture, demanding\nan altar of unhewn stone, and refusing the fruits of Cain's garden,\nor Zeus jealous of the artificer's flame, they are thrown into the\nOpposition by the artist; and when the two next meet, he of the\nthunderbolt with all his mob will be the Dragon, and Prometheus will\nbe the god, sending to its heart his arrow of light.\n\nThe dragon forms which have become familiar to us through medi\u00e6val\nand modern iconography are of comparatively little importance as\nillustrating the social or spiritual conditions out of which they\ngrew, and of which they became emblems. They long ago ceased to be\ndescriptive, and in the rude periods or places a very few scratches\nwere sometimes enough to indicate the dragon; such mere suggestions\nin the end allowing large freedom to subsequent designers in varying\noriginal types.\n\nAs to external form, the various shapes of the more primitive\ndragons have been largely determined by the mythologic currents\namid which they have fallen, though their original basis in nature\nmay generally be traced. In the far North, where the legends of\nswan-maidens, pigeon-maidens, and vampyres were paramount in the\nMiddle Ages, we find the bird-shaped dragon very common. Sometimes\nthe serpent-characteristics are pronounced, as in this ancient French\nSwan-Dragon (Fig. 26); but, again, and especially in regions where\nserpents are rare and comparatively innocuous, the serpent tail is\noften conventionalised away, as in this initial V from the C\u00e6dmon\nManuscript, tenth century (Fig. 27), a fair example of the ornamental\nAnglo-Saxon dragon. The cuttlefish seems to have suggested the\nanimalised form of the Hydra, which in turn helped to shape the Dragon\nof the Apocalypse. Yet the Hydra in pictorial representation appears\nto have been influenced by Assyrian ideas; for although the monster\nhad nine heads, it is often given seven (number of the Hathors, or\nFates) by the engravers, as in Fig. 6. The conflicts of Hercules with\nthe Hydra repeated that of Bel with Tiamat ('the Deep'), and had no\ndoubt its counterpart in that of Michael with the Dragon,--the finest\nrepresentation of which, perhaps, is the great fresco by Spinello\n(fourteenth century) at Arezzo, a group from which is presented in\nFig. 28. In this case the wings represent those always attributed\nin Semitic mythology to the Destroying Angel. The Egyptian Dragon,\nof which the crocodile is the basis, at an early period entered\ninto christian symbolism, and gradually effaced most of the pagan\nmonsters. The crocodile and the alligator, besides being susceptible\nof many horrible variations in pictorial treatment, were particularly\nacceptable to the Christian propaganda, because of the sanctity\nattached to them by African tribes,--a sanctity which continues to\nthis day in many parts of that country, where to kill one of these\nreptiles is believed to superinduce dangerous inundations. In Semitic\ntraditions, also, Leviathan was generally identified as a demonic\ncrocodile, and the feat of destroying him was calculated to impress the\nimaginations of all varieties of people in the Southern countries for\nwhich Christianity struggled so long. This form contributed some of its\ncharacters to the lacertine dragons which were so often painted in the\nMiddle Ages, with what effect may be gathered from the accompanying\ndesign by Albert Durer (Fig. 29). In this loathsome creature, which\nseeks to prevent deliverance of 'the spirits in prison,' we may remark\nthe sly and cruel eye: the pr\u00e6ternatural vision of such monsters was\nstill strong in the traditions of the sixteenth century. In looking\nat this lizard-guard at the mouth of hell we may realise that it\nhas been by some principle of psychological selection that the\nreptilian kingdom gradually gained supremacy in these portrayals of\nthe repulsive. If we compare with Fig. 29 the well-known form of the\nChim\u00e6ra (Fig. 30), most of us will be conscious of a sense of relief;\nfor though the reptilian form is present in the latter, it is but an\nappendage--almost an ornament--to the lion. It is impossible to feel\nany loathing towards this spirited Trisomatos, and one may recognise\nin it a different animus from that which depicted the christian\ndragon. One was meant to attest the boldness of the hero who dared\nto assail it; the other was meant, in addition to that, to excite\nhatred and horror of the monster assailed. We may, therefore, find a\nvery distinct line drawn between such forms as the Chim\u00e6ra and such as\nthe Hydra, or our conventional Dragon. The hairy inhabitants of Lycia,\nhuman or bestial, whom Bellerophon conquered, [243] were not meant to\nbe such an abstract expression of the evil principle in nature as the\nDragon, and while they are generalised, the elements included are also\nlimited. But the Dragon, with its claws, wings, scales, barbed and\ncoiling tail, its fiery breath, forked tongue, and frequent horns,\nincludes the organic, inorganic, the terrestrial and atmospheric,\nand is the combination of harmful contrivances in nature.\n\nNearly all of the Dragon forms, whatever their original types and their\nregion, are represented in the conventional monster of the European\nstage, which meets the popular conception. This Dragon is a masterpiece\nof the popular imagination, and it required many generations to give it\nartistic shape. Every Christmas he appears in some London pantomime,\nwith aspect similar to that which he has worn for many ages. His body\nis partly green, with memories of the sea and of slime, and partly\nbrown or dark, with lingering shadow of storm-clouds. The lightning\nflames still in his red eyes, and flashes from his fire-breathing\nmouth. The thunderbolt of Jove, the spear of Wodan, are in the barbed\npoint of his tail. His huge wings--batlike, spiked--sum up all the\nmythical life of extinct Harpies and Vampyres. Spine of crocodile\nis on his neck, tail of the serpent, and all the jagged ridges of\nrocks and sharp thorns of jungles bristle around him, while the ice\nof glaciers and brassy glitter of sunstrokes are in his scales. He is\nideal of all that is hard, obstructive, perilous, loathsome, horrible\nin nature: every detail of him has been seen through and vanquished\nby man, here or there, but in selection and combination they rise\nagain as principles, and conspire to form one great generalisation\nof the forms of Pain--the sum of every creature's worst.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nTHE COMBAT.\n\n    The pre-Munchausenite world--The Colonial Dragon--Io's journey\n    --Medusa--British Dragons--The Communal Dragon--Savage Saviours\n    --A Mimac helper--The Brutal Dragon--Woman protected--The Saint\n    of the Mikados.\n\n\nThe realm of the Unknown has now, by exploration of our planet\nand by science, been pretty well pressed into annexation with the\nUnknowable. In early periods, however, unexplored lands and seas\nexisted only in the human imagination, and men appear to have included\nthem within the laws of analogy as slowly as their descendants so\nincluded the planets. The monstrous forms with which superstition\nnow peoples regions of space that cannot be visited could then dwell\nsecurely in parts of the world where their existence or non-existence\ncould not be verified. Science had not yet shown the simplicity and\nunity underlying the superficial varieties of nature; and though\nRudolf Raspe appeared many times, and related the adventures of\nhis Baron Munchausen in many languages, it was only a hundred years\nago that he managed to raise a laugh over them. It has taken nearly\nanother hundred to reveal the humour of Munchausenisms that relate\nto invisible and future worlds.\n\nThe Dragon which now haunts the imagination of a few compulsory\nvoyagers beyond the grave originated in speculations concerning the\nunseen shores of equally mythical realms, whose burning zones and\nfrozen seas had not yet been detached from this planet to make the\nInferno of another. In our section on Demonology we have considered\nmany of these imaginary forms in detail, limiting ourselves generally\nto the more realistic embodiments of special obstacles. Just above that\nformation comes the stratum in which we find the separate features\nof the previous demonic fauna combining to forms which indicate the\nnew creative power which, as we have seen, makes nature over again\nin its own image.\n\nBeginning thus on the physical plane, with a view of passing to the\nsocial, political, and metaphysical arenas where man has successively\nmet his Dragons, we may first consider the combination of terrors\nand perils, real and imaginary, which were confronted by the early\ncolonist. I will venture to call this the Colonial Dragon.\n\nThis form may be represented by any of those forms against which\nthe Prometheus of \u00c6schylus cautions Io on her way to the realm which\nshould be called Ionia. 'When thou shalt have crossed the stream that\nbounds the continents to the rosy realms of the morning where the sun\nsets forth, ... thou shalt reach beyond the roaring sea Cisthene's\nGorgonian plains, where dwell the Phorkides, ... and hard by are\ntheir three winged sisters, the Snake-haired Gorgons, by mortals\nabhorred, on whom none of human race can look and live.... Be on\nthy guard against the Gryphons, sharp-fanged hounds of Jove that\nnever bark, and against the cavalry host of one-eyed Arimaspians,\ndwelling on the gold-gushing fount, the stream of Pluto. Thou wilt\nreach a distant land, a dark tribe, near to the fount of the sun,\nwhere runs the river \u00c6thiops.' [244]\n\nOne who has looked upon Leonardo da Vinci's Medusa at Florence--one of\nthe finest interpretations of a mythologic subject ever painted--may\ncomprehend what to the early explorer and colonist were the\nfascinations of those rumoured regions where nature was fair but\ngirt round with terrors. The Gorgon's head alone is given, with\nits fearful tangle of serpent tresses; her face, even in its pain,\npossesses the beauty that may veil a fatal power; from her mouth is\nexhaled a vapour which in its outline has brought into life vampyre,\nnewt, toad, and loathsome nondescript creatures. Here is the malaria\nof undrained coasts, the vermin of noxious nature. The source of\nthese must be destroyed before man can found his city; it is the\nfiery poisonous breath of the Colonial Dragon.\n\nMost of the Dragon-myths of Great Britain appear to have been\nimportations of the Colonial monsters. Perhaps the most famous\nof these in all Europe was the Chim\u00e6ra, which came westward upon\ncoins, Bellerophon having become a national hero at Corinth--almost\nsuperseding the god of war himself--and his effigy spread with\nmany migrations. Our conventional figure of St. George is still\nBellerophon, though the Dragon has been substituted for Chim\u00e6ra,--a\nchange which christian tradition and national respect for the lion\nrendered necessary (Fig. 31). Corresponding to this change in outward\nrepresentation, the monster-myths of Great Britain have been gradually\npressed into service as moral and religious lessons. The Lambton Worm\nillustrates the duty of attending mass and sanctity of the sabbath;\nthe demon serpents of Ireland and Cornwall prove the potency of\nholy exorcism; and this process of moralisation has extended, in the\ncase of the Boar, whose head graces the Christmas table at Queen's\nCollege, Oxford, to an illustration of the value of Aristotelian\nphilosophy. It was with a volume of Aristotle that the monster was\nslain, the mythologic affinities of the legend being quaintly preserved\nin the item that it was thrust down the boar's throat.\n\nBut these modifications are very transparent, the British legends\nbeing mainly variants of one or two original myths which appear to have\ngrown out of the heraldic devices imported by ancient families. These\nprobably acquired realistic statement through the prowess and energy\nof chieftains, and were exaggerated by their descendants, perhaps also\nconnected with some benefit to the community, in order to strengthen\nthe family tenure of its estates. For this kind of duty the Colonial\nDragon was the one usually imported by the family romancer or poet. The\nmultiplication of these fables is, indeed, sufficiently curious. It\nlooks as if there were some primitive agrarian sentiment which had\nto be encountered by aid of appeals to exceptional warrant. The\nfamily which could trace its title to an estate to an ancestor who\nrescued the whole district, was careful to preserve some memorial\nof the feat. On account of the interests concerned in old times we\nshould be guarded in receiving the rationalised interpretations of\nsuch myths, which have become traditional in some localities. The\nbarbaric achievements of knights did not lose in the ballads of\nminstrels any marvellous splendours, but gained many; and most of\nthese came from the south and east. The Dragon which Guy of Warwick\nslew still retained traces of Chim\u00e6ra; it had 'paws as a lion.' Sir\nWilliam Dugdale thought that this was a romanticised version of a real\ncombat which Guy fought with a Danish chief, A.C. 926. Similarly the\nDragon of Wantley has been reduced to a fraudulent barrister.\n\nThe most characteristic of this class of legends is that of\nSockburn. Soon after the Norman conquest the Conyers family\nreceived that manor by episcopal grant, the tradition being that\nit was because Sir John Conyers, Knight, slew a huge Worm which had\ndevoured many people. The falchion with which this feat was achieved\nis still preserved, and I believe it is still the custom, when a\nnew bishop visits that diocese, for the lord of Sockburn to present\nthis sword. The lord of the manor meets the bishop in the middle of\nthe river Tees, and says:--'My Lord Bishop, I here present you with\nthe falchion wherewith the Champion Conyers slew the Worm, Dragon,\nor fiery flying Serpent, which destroyed man, woman, and child, in\nmemory of which the king then reigning gave him the manor of Sockburn\nto hold by this tenure,--that upon the first entrance of every bishop\ninto the country this falchion should be presented.' The bishop\nreturns the sword and wishes the lord long enjoyment of the tenure,\nwhich has been thus held since the year 1396. The family tradition\nis that the Dragon was a Scotch intruder named Comyn, whom Conyers\ncompelled to kneel before the episcopal throne. The Conyers family\nof Sockburn seem to have been at last overtaken by a Dragon which was\ntoo much for them: the last knight was taken from a workhouse barely\nin time not to die there.\n\nIn the 'Memoirs of the Somervilles' we read that one of that family\nacquired a parish by slaying a 'hydeous monster in forme of a\nworme.' [245]\n\n\n            The wode Laird of Laristone\n            Slew the Worme of Worme's Glen,\n            And wan all Linton parochine.\n\n\nIt was 'in lenth 3 Scots yards, and somewhat bigger than an ordinary\nman's leg, with a hede more proportionable to its lenth than its\ngreatness; its forme and collour (like) to our common muir adders.'\n\nThis was a very moderate dragon compared with others, by slaying\nwhich many knights won their spurs: this, for example, which Sir\nDygore killed in the fourteenth century--\n\n\n            ----A Dragon great and grymme,\n            Full of fyre, and also of venymme:\n            With a wide throte and tuskes grete,\n            Uppon that knight fast gan he bete;\n            And as a Lionn then was his fete,\n            His tayle was long and ful unmete;\n            Between his hede and his tayle\n            Was xxii. fote withouten fayle;\n            His body was like a wine tonne,\n            He shone full bright ageynst the sunne;\n            His eyes were bright as any glasse,\n            His scales were hard as any brasse.\n\n\nThe familiar story of St. Patrick clearing the snakes out of Ireland,\nand the Cornish version of it, in which the exorcist is St. Petrox,\npresents some features which relate it to the colonist's combat\nwith his dragon, though it is more interesting in other aspects. The\nColonial Dragon includes the diseases, the wild beasts, the savages,\nand all manner of obstructions which environ a new country. But\nwhen these difficulties have been surmounted, the young settlement\nhas still its foes to contend with,--war-like invaders from without,\nambitious members within. We then find the Dragon taking on the form\nof a public enemy, and his alleged slayer is representative of the\ncommune,--possibly in the end to transmit its more real devourer. Most\nof the British Dragon-myths have expanded beyond the stage in which\nthey represent merely the struggles of immigrants with wild nature,\nand include the further stage where they represent the formation of\nthe community. The growth of patriotism at length is measured by its\nshadow. The Colonial is transformed to the Communal Dragon. Many\nDragon-myths are adaptations of the ancient symbolism to hostes\ncommunes: such are the monsters described as desolating villages and\ndistricts, until they are encountered by antagonists animated by public\nspirit. Such antagonists are distinguishable from the heroes that go\nforth to rescue the maiden in distress: their chief representative\nin mythology is Herakles, most of whose labours reveal the man of\nself-devotion redressing public wrongs, and raising the standard of\nhumanity as well as civilisation.\n\nThe age of chivalry has its legend in the Centaurs and Cheiron. The\nHippo-centaurs are mounted savages: Cheiron is the true knight,\nwithstanding monsters in his own shape, saving Peleus from them, and\ngiving hospitality to the Argonauts. The mounted man was dragon to the\nman on foot until he became the chevalier; then the demonic character\npassed to the strategist who had no horse. It is curious enough to\nfind existing among the Mormons a murderous order calling themselves\nDanites, or Destroying Angels, after the text of Gen. xlix. 17,\n'Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that biteth\nthe horse's heel that his rider shall fall backward.' The Ritter,\nhowever, so far as his Dragon was concerned, was as one winged, and\nevery horse a Pegasus when it bore him to decide the day between the\nadder and its victim. It is remarkable that the Mormons should have\ncarried from the East a cruel superstition to find even among the Red\nMen, who are disappearing before the western march of Saxon strength,\nmore gentle fables.\n\nAmong the Mimacs, the aborigines of Nova Scotia, there is a legend\nof a young hero named Keekwajoo, who, in seeking for a wife, is\nbefriended by a good sage named Glooscap, who warns him against\na powerful magician disguised as a beaver, and two demon sisters,\nwho will waylay him in the disguise of large weasels. The youth is\nadmonished to beat a certain drum as his canoe passes them, and he\nis saved as Orpheus in passing Cerberus and Ulysses in sailing past\nthe Syrens. The weasels, hearing the music, aspire to wed the stars,\nbut find themselves in an indescribable nest at the top of a tall\nwhite pine. [246]\n\nThe chevalier encounters also the Brutal Dragon, whose victim is\nWoman. From immemorial time man's captive, unable to hold her own\nagainst brute force, she is at the mercy of all who are insensible to\nthe refined and passive powers. The rock-bound Andromeda, the pursued\nLeto, or whatever fair maid it may be that the Dragon-slayer rescues,\nmay have begun mythologically as emblem of the Dawn, whose swallower is\nthe Night Cloud; but in the end she symbolises a brighter dawn,--that\nof civility and magnanimity among men.\n\nIt is a notable fact that far away in Japan we should find a\nDragon-myth which would appear to represent, with rare beauty, the\nsocial evolution we have been considering. Their great mythological\nSerpent, Yamati-no-orochi, that is, the serpent of eight heads and\ntails, stretching over eight valleys, would pretty certainly represent\na river annually overflowing its banks. One is reminded by this monster\nof the accounts given by Mencius of the difficulties with streams\nwhich the Chinese had to surmount before they could make the Middle\nStates habitable. But this Colonial Dragon, in the further evolution\nof the country, reappears as the Brutal Dragon. The admirable legend\nrelates that, while the rest of the world were using stone implements,\nthere came into the possession of Sosano-o-no-Mikoto (the Prince\nof Sosano) a piece of iron which was wrought into a sword. That\nmaiden-sword of the world was fleshed to save a maiden from the jaws\nof a monster. The prince descended from heaven to a bank of the river\nHino Kawa, and the country around seemed uninhabited; but presently\nhe saw a chopped stick floating down the stream, and concluded that\nthere must be beings dwelling farther up; so he travelled until he\ncame to a spot where he beheld an aged man and his wife (Asinaduti\nand Tenaduti), with their beautiful daughter, Him\u00e9 of Inada. The three\nwere weeping bitterly, and the prince was informed that Him\u00e9 was the\nlast of their daughters, seven of whom had been devoured by a terrible\nserpent. This serpent had eight heads, and the condition on which it\nhad ceased to desolate the district was that one of these eight maidens\nshould be brought annually to this spot to satisfy his voracity. The\nlast had now been brought to complete the dreadful compact. The\nJapanese are careful to distinguish this serpent from a dragon,\nwith them an agathodemon. It had no feet, and its heads branched by\nas many necks from a single body, this body being so large that it\nstretched over eight valleys. It was covered with trees and moss,\nand its belly was red as blood. The prince doubted if even with his\nsword he could encounter such a monster, so he resorted to stratagem;\nhe obtained eight vast bowls, filled them with eight different kinds\nof wine, and, having built a fence with the same number of openings,\nset a bowl in each. The result may be imagined: the eight heads in\npassing over the bowls paused, drank deep, and were soon in a state\nof beastly intoxication. In this condition the heads were severed\nfrom their neck, and the maiden saved to wed the first Mikado Prince.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nTHE DRAGON-SLAYER.\n\n    Demigods--Alcestis--Herakles--The Ghilghit Fiend--Incarnate\n    deliverer of Ghilghit--A Dardistan Madonna--The religion\n    of Atheism--Resuscitation of Dragons--St. George and his\n    Dragon--Emerson and Ruskin on George--Saintly allies of the Dragon.\n\n\nTheology has pronounced Incarnation a mystery, but nothing is\nsimpler. The demigod is man's appeal from the gods. It may also\nbe, as Emerson says, that 'when the half-gods go the gods arrive,'\nbut it is equally true that their coming signals the departure of\ndeities which man had long invoked in vain. The great Heraklean myth\npresents us the ideal of godlike force united to human sympathy. Ra\n(the Sun) passing the twelve gates (Hours) of Hades (Night) [247]\nis humanised in Herakles and his Twelve Labours. He is Son of Zeus\nby a human mother--Alcmene--and his labours for human welfare,\nas well as his miraculous conception, influenced Christianity. The\ndivine Man assailing the monsters of divine creation represents human\nrecognition of the fact that moral order in nature is co-extensive\nwith the control of mankind. One expression of this perception is\nthe Alcestis of Euripides, whose significance in relation to death\nwe have considered. [248]\n\n'Alcestis,' as I have written in another work, 'is one of the few\nancient Greek melodramas.  The majority of dramas left us by the\npoets of Greece turn upon religious themes, and usually they are\ntragedies. It is evident that to them the popular religion around them\nwas itself a tragedy. Their heroes and heroines--such as Prometheus\nand Macaria--were generally victims of the jealousy or caprice of the\ngods; and though the poets display in their dramas the irresistible\npower of the gods, they do so without reverence for that power,\nand generally show the human victims to be more honourable than\nthe gods. But the 'Alcestis' of Euripides is not a tragedy; it ends\nhappily, and in the rescue of one of those victims of the gods. It\nstands as about the first notice served on the gods that the human\nheart had got tired of their high-handed proceedings, and they might\nprepare to quit the thrones of a universe unless they could exhibit\nmore humanity.... Knowing that neither he nor any other deity can\nlegally resist the decree of another deity, Apollo is reduced to\nhope for help from man. Human justice may save when divine justice\nsacrifices. He prophesies to Death that although he may seize Alcestis,\na man will come who will conquer him, and deliver that woman from\nthe infernal realm.... Then Hercules comes on the scene. He has been\nslaying lion and dragon, and he now resolves to conquer Death and\ndeliver Alcestis. This he does.' [249]\n\nIn this pre-christian yet christian Passion Play, the part played by\nthe heart of woman is equally heroic with that which represents the\nhonour of man. So in the religion which followed there was an effort\nto set beside the incarnate vanquisher of infernal powers the pierced\nheart of Mary. But among all the legends of this character it were\ndifficult to find one more impressive than that which Dr. Leitner\nfound in Dardistan, and one which, despite its length, will repay a\ncareful perusal. This legend of the origin of the Ghilghit tribe and\ngovernment was told by a native.\n\n'Once upon a time there lived a race at Ghilghit whose origin is\nuncertain. Whether they sprung from the soil or had immigrated from a\ndistant region is doubtful; so much is believed that they were Gayup\u00ed,\ni.e., spontaneous, aborigines, unknown. Over them ruled a monarch who\nwas a descendant of the evil spirits, the Yatsh, who terrorised over\nthe world. His name was Shiribadatt, and he resided at a castle in\nfront of which was a course for the performance of the manly game of\nPolo. His tastes were capricious, and in every one of his actions his\nfiendish origin could be discerned. The natives bore his rule with\nresignation, for what could they effect against a monarch at whose\ncommand even magic aids were placed? However, the country was rendered\nfertile, and round the capital bloomed attractive. The heavens,\nor rather the virtuous Peris, at last grew tired of his tyranny,\nfor he had crowned his iniquities by indulging in a propensity for\ncannibalism. This taste had been developed by an accident. One day\nhis cook brought him some mutton broth the like of which he had never\ntasted. After much inquiry as to the nature of the food on which the\nsheep had been brought up, it was eventually traced to an old woman,\nits first owner. She stated that her child and the sheep were born\non the same day, and losing the former, she had consoled herself\nby suckling the latter. This was a revelation to the tyrant. He\nhad discovered the secret of the palatability of the broth, and was\ndetermined to have a never-ending supply of it. So he ordered that\nhis kitchen should be regularly provided with children of a tender\nage, whose flesh, when converted into broth, would remind him of\nthe exquisite dish he had once so much relished. This cruel order was\ncarried out. The people of the country were dismayed at such a state of\nthings, and sought slightly to improve it by sacrificing, in the first\nplace, all orphans and children of neighbouring tribes. The tyrant,\nhowever, was insatiable, and soon was his cruelty felt by many families\nat Ghilghit, who were compelled to give up their children to slaughter.\n\n'Relief came at last. At the top of the mountain Ko, which it takes\na day to ascend, and which overlooks the village of Doyur, below\nGhilghit, on the other side of the river, appeared three figures. They\nlooked like men, but much more strong and handsome. In their arms they\ncarried bows and arrows, and turning their eyes in the direction of\nDoyur, they perceived innumerable flocks of sheep and cattle grazing\non a prairie between that village and the foot of the mountain. The\nthree strangers were brothers, and none of them had been born at\nthe same time. It was their intention to make Azru Shemsher, the\nyoungest, Rajah of Ghilghit, and, in order to achieve their purpose,\nthey hit upon the following plan. On the already noticed prairie,\nwhich is called Diding\u00e9, a sportive calf was gambolling towards\nand away from its mother. It was the pride of its owner, and its\nbrilliant red colour could be seen from a distance. 'Let us see who\nis the best marksman,' exclaimed the eldest, and, saying this, he shot\nan arrow in the direction of the calf, but missed his aim. The second\nbrother also tried to hit it, but also failed. At last, Azru Shemsher,\nwho took a deep interest in the sport, shot his arrow, which pierced\nthe poor animal from side to side and killed it. The brothers, whilst\ndescending, congratulated Azru on his sportsmanship, and on arriving at\nthe spot where the calf was lying, proceeded to cut its throat and to\ntake out from its body the titbits, namely, the kidneys and the liver.\n\n'They then roasted these delicacies, and invited Azru to partake of\nthem first. He respectfully declined, on the ground of his youth,\nbut they urged him to do so, 'in order,' they said, 'to reward you\nfor such an excellent shot.' Scarcely had the meat touched the lips of\nAzru than the brothers got up, and, vanishing into the air, called out,\n'Brother! you have touched impure food, which Peris never should eat,\nand we have made use of your ignorance of this law, because we want\nto make you a human being [250] who shall rule over Ghilghit; remain,\ntherefore, at Doyur.' Azru, in deep grief at the separation, cried,\n'Why remain at Doyur, unless it be to grind corn?' 'Then,' said the\nbrothers, 'go to Ghilghit.' 'Why,' was the reply, 'go to Ghilghit,\nunless it be to work in the gardens?' 'No, no,' was the last and\nconsoling rejoinder; 'you will assuredly become the king of this\ncountry, and deliver it from its merciless oppressor!' No more\nwas heard of the departing fairies, and Azru remained by himself,\nendeavouring to gather consolation from the great mission which\nhad been bestowed on him. A villager met him, and, struck by his\nappearance, offered him shelter in his house. Next morning he went\non the roof of his host's house, and calling out to him to come up,\npointed to the Ko mountain, on which, he said, he plainly discerned\na wild goat. The incredulous villager began to fear he had harboured\na maniac, if no worse character; but Azru shot off his arrow, and,\naccompanied by the villager (who had assembled some friends for\nprotection, as he was afraid his young guest might be an associate\nof robbers, and lead him into a trap), went in the direction of the\nmountain. There, to be sure, at the very spot that was pointed out,\nthough many miles distant, was lying the wild goat, with Azru's arrow\ntransfixing its body. The astonished peasants at once hailed him as\ntheir leader, but he exacted an oath of secrecy from them, for he had\ncome to deliver them from their tyrant, and would keep his incognito\ntill such time as his plans for the destruction of the monster would\nbe matured.\n\n'He then took leave of the hospitable people of Doyur, and went\nto Ghilghit. On reaching this place, which is scarcely four miles\ndistant from Doyur, he amused himself by prowling about in the\ngardens adjoining the royal residence. There he met one of the\nfemale companions of Shiribadatt's daughter fetching water for\nthe princess. This lady was remarkably handsome, and of a sweet\ndisposition. The companion rushed back, and told the young lady to look\nfrom over the ramparts of the castle at a wonderfully handsome young\nman whom she had just met. The princess placed herself in a place\nfrom which she could observe any one approaching the fort. Her maid\nthen returned, and induced Azru to come with her in the Polo ground,\nin front of the castle; the princess was smitten with his beauty, and\nat once fell in love with him. She then sent word to the young prince\nto come and see her. When he was admitted into her presence he for a\nlong time denied being anything more than a common labourer. At last\nhe confessed to being a fairy's child, and the overjoyed princess\noffered him her heart and hand. It may be mentioned here that the\ntyrant Shiribadatt had a wonderful horse, which could cross a mile\nat every jump, and which its rider had accustomed to jump both into\nand out of the fort, over its walls. So regular were the leaps which\nthis famous animal could take that he invariably alighted at the\ndistance of a mile from the fort, and at the same place. On that\nvery day on which the princess had admitted young Azru into the fort\nKing Shiribadatt was out hunting, of which he was desperately fond,\nand to which he used sometimes to devote a week or two at a time.\n\n'We must now return to Azru, whom we left conversing with the\nprincess. Azru remained silent when the lady confessed her love. Urged\nto declare his sentiments, he said that he would not marry her unless\nshe bound herself to him by the most stringent oath; this she did,\nand they became in the sight of God as if they were wedded man and\nwife. He then announced that he had come to destroy her father, and\nasked her to kill him herself. This she refused; but as she had sworn\nto aid him in every way she could, he finally induced her to promise\nthat she would ask her father where his soul was. 'Refuse food,' said\nAzru, 'for three or four days, and your father, who is devotedly fond\nof you, will ask for the reason of your strange conduct; then say,\n'Father, you are often staying away from me for several days at a\ntime, and I am getting distressed lest something should happen to\nyou; do reassure me by letting me know where your soul is, and let me\nfeel certain that your life is safe.' This the princess promised to\ndo, and when her father returned refused food for several days. The\nanxious Shiribadatt made inquiries, to which she replied by making\nthe already named request. The tyrant was for a few moments thrown\ninto mute astonishment, and finally refused compliance with her\npreposterous demand. The love-smitten lady went on starving herself,\ntill at last her father, fearful for his daughter's life, told her\nnot to fret herself about him as his soul was of snow, in the snows,\nand that he could only perish by fire. The princess communicated this\ninformation to her lover. Azru went back to Doyur and the villages\naround, and assembled his faithful peasants. Them he asked to take\ntwigs of the fir-tree, bind them together, and light them; then to\nproceed in a body with torches to the castle in a circle, keep close\ntogether, and surround it on every side. He then went and dug out a\nvery deep hole, as deep as a well, in the place where Shiribadatt's\nhorse used to alight, and covered it with green boughs. The next\nday he received information that the torches were ready. He at once\nordered the villagers gradually to draw near the fort in the manner\nwhich he had already indicated.\n\nKing Shiribadatt was then sitting in his castle; near him his\ntreacherous daughter, who was so soon to lose her parent. All at\nonce he exclaimed, 'I feel very close; go out, dearest, and see what\nhas happened.' The girl went out, and saw torches approaching from a\ndistance; but fancying it to be something connected with the plans of\nher husband, she went back and said it was nothing. The torches came\nnearer and nearer, and the tyrant became exceedingly restless. 'Air,\nair,' he cried, 'I feel very ill; do see, daughter, what is the\nmatter.' The dutiful lady went, and returned with the same answer\nas before. At last the torch-bearers had fairly surrounded the fort,\nand Shiribadatt, with a presentiment of impending danger, rushed out\nof the room, saying, 'that he felt he was dying.' He then ran to the\nstables and mounted his favourite charger, and with one blow of the\nwhip made him jump over the wall of the castle. Faithful to its habit\nthe noble animal alighted at the same place, but, alas! only to find\nitself engulfed in a treacherous pit. Before the king had time to\nextricate himself the villagers had run up with their torches. 'Throw\nthem upon him,' cried Azru. With one accord all the blazing wood was\nthrown upon Shiribadatt, who miserably perished.'\n\nAzru was then most enthusiastically proclaimed king, celebrated his\nnuptials with the fair traitor, and, as sole tribute, exacted the\noffering of one sheep annually, instead of the human child, from\nevery one of the natives.\n\nWhen Azru had safely ascended the throne he ordered the tyrant's place\nto be levelled to the ground. The willing peasants, manufacturing\nspades of iron, flocked to accomplish a grateful task, and sang whilst\ndemolishing his castle:--\n\n'My nature is of a hard metal,' said Shiri and Badatt. 'Why hard? I,\nKoto, the son of the peasant Dem Singh, am alone hardy; with this iron\nspade I raze to the ground thy kingly house. Behold now, although\nthou art of race accursed, of Shatsho Malika, I, Dem Singh's son,\nam of a hard metal; for with this iron spade I level thy very palace;\nlook out! look out!' [251]\n\nAn account of the Feast of Torches, instituted as a memorial of this\ntradition, has already been given in another connection. [252] The\nlegend, the festival, and the song just quoted constitute a noble\nhuman epic. That startling defiance of the icy-hearted god by the\nhuman-hearted peasant, that brave cry of the long cowering wretch who\nat last holds in his spade an iron weapon to wield against the hardness\nof nature, are the sublime p\u00e6an of the Dragon-slayer. Look out, ye\nsnow-gods! Man's heart is there, and woman's heart; their courage,\nplus the spade, can level your palaces; their love will melt you,\ntheir arts and sciences kill you: so fatal may be torches!\n\nAll great religions were born in this grand atheism. As the worship\nof Herakles meant the downfall of Zeus, the worship of Christ meant\nthe overthrow of both Jove and Jehovah. Every race adores the epoch\nwhen their fathers grew ashamed of their gods and identified them as\ndragons--the supreme cruelties of nature--welcoming the man who first\nrose from his knees and defied them. But in the end the Priests of the\nDragon manage to secure a compromise, and by labelling him with the\nname of his slayer, manage to resuscitate and re-enthrone him. For,\nas we shall presently see, the Dragon never really dies.\n\nChristianity did not fail to avail itself of the Dragon-slayer's\nprestige, which had preceded it in Europe and in Africa. It could\nnot afford to offer for popular reverence saints less heroic than\npagan warriors and demigods. The old Dragon-myths, especially\nthose which made the fame of Herakles, were appropriated to invest\nsaintly forms. St. Michael, St. Andrew, St. Margaret, and many\nanother, were pictured subduing or treading on Dragons. Christ was\nshown crushing the serpent Sin, spearing the dragon Death, or even\nissuing from its impotent jaws, like Jason from the Dragon. [253]\nBut in this competition for the laurels of dead Dragon-slayers, and\nfierce hostility to dragons already slain, the real Dragon was left\nto revive and flourish in security, and in the end even inherited\nthe mantle and the palm of his own former conqueror.\n\nThe miscarriage of canonisation in the case of St. George is a small\nand merely curious thing in itself; but it is almost mystical in its\ncoincidence with the great miscarriage which brought the cross of\nChrist to authorise the crucifixions of the men most like him for a\nthousand years.\n\nMr. John Ruskin has sharply challenged Ralph Waldo Emerson's\npenetrating touch on the effigy that decorates the escutcheons of\nEngland and Russia. 'George of Cappadocia,' says Emerson, 'born\nat Epiphania in Cilicia, was a low parasite, who got a lucrative\ncontract to supply the army with bacon. A rogue and an informer,\nhe got rich and was forced to run from justice. He saved his money,\nembraced Arianism, collected a library, and got promoted by a faction\nto the episcopal throne of Alexandria. When Julian came, A.D. 361,\nGeorge was dragged to prison. The prison was burst open by the mob,\nand George was lynched as he deserved. And this precious knave became\nin good time Saint George of England, patron of chivalry, emblem of\nvictory and civility, and the pride of the best blood of the modern\nworld.' Whereon Emerson further remarks that 'nature trips us up when\nwe strut.'\n\nIt is certainly rather hard for the founder of the St. George\nAssociation to be told that his patron was no Dragon-slayer at all,\nbut the Dragon's ally. Mr. Ruskin may be right in contending that\nwhatever may have been the facts, they who made George patron saint\nof England still meant their homage for a hero, or at any rate\nnot for a rogue; but he is unsatisfactory in his argument that our\nSt. George was another who died for his faith seventy years before\nthe bacon-contractor. Even if the Ruskin St. George, said to have\nsuffered under Diocletian, could be shown historical, his was a\nvery commonplace martyrdom compared with that of a bishop torn in\npieces by a 'pagan' mob. The distant christian nations would never\nhave listened to the pagan version of the story even had it reached\nthem. A bishop so martyred would have been the very man to give\ntheir armies a watchword. The martyr was portrayed as a Dragon-slayer\nonly as a title might be added to the name of one knighted, or the\nbadge of an order set upon his breast; the heraldic device grew\ninto a variant of the common legend which suggests the origin of the\nmythical George. 'The magician Athanasius, successively an opponent\nof Christianity, a convert, and a martyr, is his chief antagonist;\nand the city of Alexandria appears as the Empress Alexandria, the wife\nof Diocletian, and herself a convert and a martyr.' This sentence\nfrom Smith's 'Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography' tells more\nthan Professor Ruskin's seventeenth-century authority. The Dragon is\nthe same Athanasius whose creed sends forth its anathemas in churches\ndedicated to the Arian canonised for having slain him!\n\nThough it be granted that they who made George of Cappadocia the\nideal hero of England really intended their homage for a martyr and\nhero, it must equally be acknowledged that his halo was clearly drawn\nfrom Dragon-fire. He was a man who had taken to the sword, and by it\nperished; so much was known and announced in his canonisation. He\nwas honoured as 'the Victor' among the Greeks, therefore to-day\npatron of Russia; as protector of Crusaders, therefore now patron of\nEngland; thus is he saint of a war waged by the strong against the\nweak, in interest of a church and priesthood against human freedom;\ntherefore George was taking the side of the Dragon against Christ,\nrestoring the priestly power he had assailed, and delivering up his\nbrave brothers in all history to be nailed to Christianity as a cross.\n\nLet George remain! Whether naming fashionable temples or engraved on\ngold coins, the fictitious Dragon-slayer will remain the right saint\nin the right place so long as the real Dragon-slayer is made to name\nevery power he hated, and to consecrate every lie in whose mouth he\ndarted his spear.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\nTHE DRAGON'S BREATH.\n\n    Medusa--Phenomena of recurrence--The Brood of Echidna and their\n    survival--Behemoth and Leviathan--The Mouth of Hell--The Lambton\n    Worm--Ragnar--The Lambton Doom--The Worm's Orthodoxy--The Serpent,\n    Superstition, and Science.\n\n\nAsura has already been mentioned as the most ancient Aryan name for\ndeity. The meaning of it is, the Breather. It has also been remarked\nthat in the course of time the word came to signify both the good\nand the evil spirit. What this evil breath meant in nature is told\nin Leonardo da Vinci's picture of the expiring Medusa, referred to\non p. 386, from whose breath noxious creatures are produced. It may\nhave been that the artist meant only to interpret the Gorgon as a\npersonification of the malarious vapours of nature and their organic\nkindred; if so, he painted better than he knew, and has suggested\nthat fatal vitality of the evil power which raised it to its throne\nas a principle coeternal with good.\n\nThe phenomena of recurrence in things evil made for man the mystery\nof iniquity. The darkness may be dispersed, but it returns; the storm\nmay clear away, but it gathers again; inundations, sickly seasons,\ndog-days, Cain-winds, they go and return; the cancer is cut out and\ngrows again; the tyrant may be slain, tyranny survives. The serpent\nslipping from one skin to another coils steadily into the symbol of\nendlessness. In another expression it is the poisonous breath of\nthe Dragon. It is this breath that cannot be killed; the special\nincarnations of it, any temporary brood of it, may be destroyed,\nbut the principle in nature which produces them cannot be exterminated.\n\nDragon fables have this undertone to their brave strain. In the\nRig Veda (v. 32) it is said that when Indra slew Ahi, 'another more\npowerful was generated.' Isaiah (xiv. 29) cries, 'Rejoice not thou,\nwhole Palestina, because the rod of him that smote thee is broken:\nfor out of the serpent's root shall come forth a cockatrice, and his\nfruit shall be a fiery flying serpent.' Herakles struggles with the\ngiant robber, Ant\u00e6us, only to find the demon's strength restored by\ncontact with the earth. He kills one head of the Hydra only to see two\ngrow in its place; and even when he has managed to burn away these,\nthe central head is found to be immortal, and he can only hide it\nunder a rock. That one is the self-multiplying principle of evil. The\nvast brood of Echidna in mythology expresses the brood of evil in\nnature. Echidna, daughter of Ge and Tartarus, Earth and Hell--phonetic\nreappearance of Ahi--is half-serpent, half-woman, with black eyes,\nfearful and bloodthirsty. She becomes the mother of fire-breathing\nTyphon, buried beneath the earth by Jove's lightning when he aspired\nto scale Olympus; of the Dragon that guarded the Hesperian garden;\nof the Sphinx which puzzled and devoured; of three-headed Cerberus;\nof the eagle that preyed on rock-bound Prometheus; of the Nem\u00e6an lion\nwhich Herakles slew; of Chim\u00e6ra; and of Scylla the monster whom Homer\ndescribes sitting between two large rocks waylaying mariners on the\nway from Italy to Sicily,--possessing twelve feet, six long necks\nand mouths, each with three rows of rushing teeth.\n\nThe Dragon that Cadmus slew also had terrible teeth; and it will be\nremembered that when these teeth were sown they sprang up as armed\nmen. Like them, the ancient Dragon-myths were also sown, broadcast, in\nthe mental and moral fields, cleared and ploughed by a new theology,\nand they sprang up as dogmas more hard and cruel than the ferocious\nforces of nature which gave birth to their ancestral monsters.\n\nWhat the superstitious method of interpreting nature, forced as\nit is to personify its painful as well as its pleasant phenomena,\ninevitably results in, finds illustration in the two great lines of\ntradition--the Aryan and the Semitic--which have converged to form\nthe christian mythology.\n\nThe Hebrew personification, Jehovah, originating in a rude period,\nbecame invested with many savage and immoral traditions; but when his\nworshippers had reached a higher moral culture, national sentiment\nhad become too deeply involved with the sovereign majesty of their\ndeity for his alleged actions to be criticised, or his absolute\nsupremacy and omnipotence to be questioned, even to save his moral\ncharacter. Thus, the Rabbins appear to have been at their wits'\nend to account for the existence of the two great monsters which\nhad got into their sacred records--from an early mythology--Behemoth\nand Leviathan. Unwilling to admit that Jehovah had created foes to\nhis own kingdom, or that creatures which had become foes to it were\nbeyond his power to control, they worked out a theory that Behemoth\nand Leviathan were made and preserved by special order of Jehovah to\nexecute his decrees at the Messianic Day of Judgment. They probably\ncorresponded at an earlier period with the gryphon, or grabber, and\nthe serpent which bit, guardians at the gate of paradise; but the\nneed of such guards, biters, and spies by the all-powerful all-seeing\nShaddai having been recognised, the monsters had to be rationalised\ninto accord with his character as a retributive ruler. Hence Behemoth\nand Leviathan are represented as being fattened with the wicked,\nwho die in order to be the food of the righteous during the unsettled\ntimes that follow the revelation of the Messiah! Behemoth is Jehovah's\n'cattle on a thousand hills' (Ps. i. 10). In Pireque de Rabbi Eliezur\nhe is described as feeding daily upon a thousand mountains on which\nthe grass grows again every night; and the Jordan supplies him with\ndrink, as it is said in Job (xl. 23), 'he trusteth that he can draw up\nJordan into his mouth.' In the Talmud these monsters are divided into\ntwo pairs, but are said to have been made barren lest their progeny\nshould destroy the earth. They are kept in the wilderness of Dendain,\nthe mythical abode of the descendants of Cain, east of Eden, for the\nunique purpose mentioned.\n\nBut now we may remark the steady progress of these monsters to\nthe bounds of their mythological habitat. There came a time when\nBehemoth and Leviathan were hardly more presentable than other\npersonified horrors. They too must 'take the veil,'--a period in the\nhistory of mythical, corresponding to extinction in that of actual,\nmonsters. The following passage in the Book of Enoch is believed by\nProfessor Drummond to be a later insertion, probably from the Book\nof Noah, and as early as the middle of the first century:--'In that\nday two monsters shall be divided; a female monster named Leviathan,\nto dwell in the abyss of the sea, above the sources of the waters;\nbut the male is called Behemoth, which occupies with its breast a\ndesolate wilderness named Dendain, on the east of the garden where\nthe elect and righteous dwell, where my grandfather (Enoch) was\ntaken up, being the seventh from Adam, the first man whom the Lord\nof the spirits created. And I asked that other angel to show me the\nmight of these monsters, how they were separated in one day, and one\nwas set in the depth of the sea, the other on the firm land of the\nwilderness. And he spoke to me, 'Thou son of man, thou desirest in\nthis to know what has been concealed.' And the other angel who went\nwith me, and showed me what is in concealment, spake, ... 'These two\nmonsters are prepared conformably to the greatness of God to be fed,\nin order that the penal judgment of God may not be in vain.' [254]\n\nWe may thus see that there were antecedents to the sentiment of\nAquinas,--'Beati in regno coelesti videbunt poenas damnatorum,\nut beatitudo illis magis complaceat.' Or, perhaps, one might say\nrather to the logic of Aquinas; for though he saw that it would be\nnecessary for souls in bliss to be happy at vision of the damned or\nelse deficient in bliss, it is said he could hardly be happy from\nthinking of the irreversible doom of Satan himself. It would appear\nthat only the followers of the Genevan who anticipated his god's hell\nfor Servetus managed to adapt their hearts to such logic, and glory\nin the endless tortures of their fellow-creatures.\n\nAn eloquent minister in New York, Octavius B. Frothingham, being\nrequested to write out his views on the 'question' of everlasting\ndamnation, began with the remark that he felt somewhat as a sportsman\nsuddenly called upon to hunt the Iguanodon. Really it is Behemoth and\nLeviathan he was called to deal with. Leviathan transmitted from Jonah\nto the Middle Ages the idea of 'the belly of Hell,' and Behemoth's\njaws expanded in the 'mouth of Hell' of the Miracle-plays; and their\nutility, as described in the Book of Enoch, perhaps originated\nthe doctrine of souls tasting heavenly joys from the agonies of\nothers. The dogma of Hell has followed the course of its prototype\nwith precision. It has arrived at just that period when, as in the\ncase of Enoch's inquiring, the investigator finds it has taken the\nveil. Theologians shake their heads, call it a terrible question,\nwrite about free-will and sin, but only a few, of the fatuous sort,\nconfess belief in the old-fashioned Hell where the worm dieth not\nand the fire is not quenched.\n\nLet us now take under consideration the outcome of the Aryan Dragon,\nwhich has travelled far to meet Behemoth in the west. And it is\nprobable that we could not, with much seeking, find an example so\npregnant with instruction for our present inquiry as our little Durham\nfolk-tale of the Lambton Worm.\n\nThis Worm is said to have been slain by Sir Lambton, crusader, and\nancestor of the Earls of Durham. This young Lambton was a wild fellow;\nhe was fond of fishing in the river Wear, which runs near Durham\nCastle, and he had an especial taste for fishing there on Sunday\nmornings. He was profane, and on Sundays, when the people were all\ngoing to mass, they were often shocked by hearing the loud oaths\nwhich Lambton uttered whenever he had no rise. One Sunday morning\nsomething got hold of his hook, pulled strong, and he made sure of a\ngood trout; what was his disappointment when instead thereof he found\nat the end of his line a tiny black worm. He tore it off with fierce\nimprecations and threw it in a well near by. However, soon after this\nthe young man joined the crusaders and went off to the Holy Land,\nwhere he distinguished himself by slaying many Saracens.\n\nBut while he was off there things were going on badly around Durham\nCastle. Some peasant passing that well into which the youth had cast\nthe tiny black worm looked into it, and beheld a creature that made him\nshudder,--a diabolical big snake with nine ferocious eyes. A little\ntime only had elapsed before this creature had grown too large for\nthe well to hold it, and it came out and crawled on, making a path\nof desolation, breakfasting on a village, until it came to a small\nhill. Around that hill it coiled with nine coils, each weighty enough\nto make a separate terrace. One may still see this hill with its nine\nterraces, and be assured of the circumstances by peasants residing\nnear. Having taken up its headquarters on this hill, the nine-eyed\nmonster was in the habit of sallying forth every day and satisfying\nhis hunger by devouring the plumpest family he could find, until\nat length the people consulted an oracle--some say a witch, others\nagain a priest--and were told that the monster would be satisfied\nif it were given each day the milk of nine cows. So nine cows were\ngot together, and a plucky dairymaid was found to milk the cows and\ncarry it to the dragon. If a single gill of the milk was missing\nthe monster took a dire revenge upon the nearest village. This was\nthe unpleasant situation which young Lambton found when he returned\nhome from the crusades. He was now an altered man. He was no longer\ngiven to fishing and profanity. He felt keenly that by raising the\ndemon out of the river Wear he had brought woe upon his neighbours,\nand he resolved to engage the Worm in single combat. But he learned\nthat it had already been fought by several knights, and had slain\nthem, while no wounds received by itself availed anything, since,\nif it were cut in twain, the pieces grew together again. The knight\nthen consulted the oracle, witch or priest, and was told that he could\nprevail in the combat on certain conditions. He must provide himself\nwith special armour, all over which must be large razor-blades. He\nmust manage to entice the worm into the middle of the river Wear,\nin whose waters the combat must take place. And, finally, he must\nvow to slay as a sacrifice the first living thing he should meet\nafter his victory. These conditions having been fulfilled, the knight\nentered the stream. The dragon, not having received his milk as usual\nthat morning, crawled from his hill seeking whom he might devour,\nand seeing the knight in the river, went at him. Quickly he coiled\naround the armour, but its big razors cut him into many sections;\nand these sections could not piece themselves together again because\nthe current of the river washed them swiftly away.\n\nNow, observe how this dragon was pieced together mythologically. He is\na storm cloud. He begins smaller than a man's hand and swells to huge\ndimensions; that characteristic of the howling storm was represented\nin the howling wolf Fenris of Norse Mythology, who was a little pet,\na sort of lapdog for the gods at first, but when full grown broke the\nchains that tied him to mountains, and was only fettered at last by\nthe thread finer than cobweb, which was really the sunbeam conquering\nwinter. Then, when this worm was cut in two, the parts came together\nagain. This feature of recurrence is especially characteristic of\nHydras. In the Egyptian 'Tale of Setnau,' Ptah-nefer-ka saw the\nriver-snake twice resume its form after he had killed it with his\nsword,--he succeeded the third time by placing sand between the two\nparts; and what returning floods taught the ancient scribe remained\nto characterise the dragon encountered by Guy of Warwick, which\nrecovered from every wound by dipping its tail in the well it had\nguarded. The Lernean Hydra had nine heads, the Lambton Worm nine\neyes and nine folds, and drank nine cows' milk. His fondness for\nthe milk of cows connects him straightly with the dragon Vritra,\nwhom Indra slew because he stole Indra's cows (that is, the good\nclouds, whose milk is gentle rain, and do no harm), and shut them up\nin a cavern to enjoy their milk himself. That is the oldest Dragon\nfable on record, and it is said in the Rig-Veda that beneath Indra's\nthunderbolt the monster broke up into pieces, and was washed away in a\ncurrent of water. Finally, in being destroyed at last by razor blades,\nthe dragon is connected with that slain by Ragnar, in whose armour the\nsun-darts of Apollo had turned to icicles. In the 'Death-Song of Ragnar\nLodbrach,' preserved by Olaus Wormius, it is said that King Ella of\nNorthumberland having captured that terror of the North (8th cent.),\nordered him to be thrown into a pit of serpents. His surname, Lodbrach,\nor Hair Breeches, had been given because of his method of slaying a\nWorm which devastated Gothland, whose king had promised his daughter\nto the man who should slay the same. Ragnar dressed himself in hairy\nskins, and threw water over the hair, which, freezing, encased him in\nan armour of ice. The Worm, unable to bite through this, was impaled by\nRagnar. Another version is that Ragnar killed two serpents which the\nKing of Gothland had set to guard his daughter, but which had grown\nto such size that they terrified the country. It may be observed that\nthe Lambton story christianises the Ragnar legend, showing that to be\ndone in atonement for sin which in the other was done for love. The\nCornish legend of St. Petrox has also taken a hint from Ragnar, and\nannounces the rescue of christians from the serpent-pit in which the\npagan hero perished. The icicles reappear on the slayer of the dragon\nof Wantley, represented by long spikes bristling from his armour.\n\nThe Knight Lambton, remembering his vow to slay as a sacrifice the\nfirst living thing he might meet after the combat, had arranged that\na dog should be placed where it would attract his eye. But it turned\nout that his own father came rushing to him. As he could not kill\nhis father, he consulted the oracle again to know what would be the\npenalty of non-fulfilment of his vow. It was that no representative\nof the family should die in his bed for nine generations. The notion\nis still found in that neighbourhood that no Earl of Durham has since\nthen died in his bed. The nine generations have long passed since\nany crusading Lambton lived, but several peasants of the district\nclosed their narrative with, 'Strange to say, no Earl of Durham has\ndied in his bed!' At the castle I talked with a servant on the estate\nwhile looking at the old statues of the knight, worm, and dairymaid,\nall kept there, and he told me he had heard that the late Earl, as\ndeath drew nigh, asked to sit up--insisted--and died in a chair. If\nthere be any truth in this, it would show that the family itself has\nsome morbid feeling about the legend which has been so long told them\nwith pride. The old well from which the little worm emerged a monster\nis now much overgrown, but I was told that it was for a long time a\nwishing-well, and the pins cast in by rustics may still be seen at\nthe bottom of it.\n\nPins are the last offerings at the Worm's Well; 'wishes' its last\nprayers; but where go now the coins and the prayers? To propitiate a\npower and commute a doom resting upon much the same principles as those\nrepresented in the Lambton legend. A community desolated because one\nman is sinful miniatures a world's doom for Adam's sin. The demand of\na human sacrifice is more clear in the Sockburn story, where Conyers\noffered up his only son to the Holy Ghost in the parish church before\nengaging the Dragon, that being a condition of success prescribed by\nthe 'Oracle' or 'Sybil.' This claim of the infernal powers represented\nby the Worm--many-eyed, all-seeing--cannot be set aside; Lambton's\nfilial love may resist it only to have it pass as the hereditary doom\nof his family, representing an imputed sin. 'For I, the Lord thy God,\nam a jealous God, and visit the sins of the fathers on the children\nunto the third and fourth generation.'\n\nThere are processes of this kind in nature, hereditary evils,\ntransmitted diseases and disgraces, and afflictions of many\nthrough the offences of one. But a fearful Nemesis follows the\ndeification and adoration of them. 'How can I be happy in heaven,'\nsaid a tender-hearted lady to her clerical adviser, 'when I must\nsee others in hell?' 'You will be made to see that it is all for the\nbest.' 'If I am to be made so heartless, I prefer to go to hell.' This\ngenuine conversation reports the doom of all deities whose extension\nis in dragons. Hell implies a Dragon as its representative and\nruler. Theology may induce the abject and cowardly to subject their\nhuman hearts to the process of induration required for loyalty to such\npowers, but in the end it makes atheism the only salvation of brave,\npure, and loving natures. The Dragons' breath has clouded the ancient\nheavens and blighted the old gods; but the starry ideals they pursue\nin vain. Behemoth has supplied sirloins to many priesthoods for a\nlong time, but he has at last become too tough even for their teeth,\nand they feed him less carefully every year. Nay, he is encountered\nnow and then by his professional feeders, and has found even in\nWestminster Abbey his Guy of Warwick.\n\n\n            Nor could this desp'rate champion daunt\n            A Dun Cow bigger than elephant;\n            But he, to prove his courage sterling,\n            Cut from her enormous side a sirloin.\n\n\nThe Worms--whether Semitic Leviathan or Aryan Dragon--are nearly\nfossilised as to their ancient form. The sacrifice of Jephtha's\ndaughter to the one, and of young Conyers to the other, found\ncommutation in the case of man's rescue from Satan by Christ's descent\nto Hades, and in the substitution of nine uneasy deaths for the\ndemanded parricide in the Lambton case; and the most direct 'survival'\nof these may be found in any country lad trying to cure his warts by\nproviding a weed for them to adhere to. Their end in Art was in such\nforms as this starveling creature of Callot's (Fig. 32), whose thin,\nspectacled rider, tilting at St. Anthony, denotes as well the doom\nof all powers, however lofty, whose majesty requires tali auxilio et\nistis defensoribus. The Dragon passes and leaves a roar of laughter\nbehind him, in which even St. Anthony could now join. But Leviathan\nand Lambton Worm have combined and merged their life in a Dogma; it\nis a Dogma as remorseless and voracious as its prototype, and requires\nto be fed with all the milk of human kindness, or it at once begins to\ngnaw the foundations of Christendom itself. Christianity rests upon the\npast work of the Worm in Paradise, and its present work in Hell. It\nmakes no real difference whether man's belief in a universe enmeshed\nin serpent-coils be expressed in the Hindu's cowering adoration\nof the venomous potentate, or the christian's imprecation upon it:\nfundamentally it is serpent-worship in each case. Vishnu reposes on\nhis celestial Serpent; the god of Dogma maintains his government by\nsupport of the infernal Serpent. Fear beheld him appearing in Durham to\nvindicate the mass and the Sabbath; but the same fear still sees him\nin the fiery world punishing Sabbath-breakers and blasphemers against\nhis Creator and chief. That fear built every cathedral in Christendom,\nand they must crumble with the phantasm evoked for their creation.\n\nThe Serpent in itself is a perfect type of all evil in nature. It is\nirreconcilable with the reign of a perfectly good and omnipotent man\nover the universe. No amount of casuistry can explain its co-existence\nwith anthropomorphic Love and Wisdom, as all acknowledge when a\nparallel casuistry attempts to defend any other god than their own\nfrom deeds that are, humanly considered, evil. It is just as easy to\ndefend the jealousy and cruelty of Jove, on the ground that his ways\nare not as our ways, as it is to defend similar tempers in Jehovah. The\nmonster sent by one to devour Prometheus is ethically atwin with the\nsnake created by the other to bite the heel of man.\n\nMan is saved from the superstitious evolution of the venomous Serpent\ninto a Dragon by recognising its real evolution as seen by the eye\nof Science. Science alone can tell the true story of the Serpent,\nand justify its place in nature. It forbids man his superstitious\nmethod of making a god in his own image, and his egotistic method\nof judging nature according to his private likes and dislikes, his\nconvenience or inconvenience. Taught by Science man may, with a freedom\nthe barbarian cannot feel, exterminate the Serpent; with a freedom the\nchristian cannot know, he may see in that reptile the perfection of\nthat economy in nature which has ever defended the advancing forms of\nlife. It judges the good and evil of every form with reference to its\nadaptation to its own purposes. Thus Science alone wields the spear\nof Ithuriel, and beneath its touch every Dragon shrinks instantly to\nits little shape in nature to be dealt with according to what it is.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\nFATE.\n\n    Dor\u00e8's 'Love and Fate'--Moira and Moir\u00e6--The 'Fates' of \u00c6schylus\n    --Divine absolutism surrendered--Jove and Typhon--Commutation of\n    the Demon's share--Popular fatalism--Theological fatalism--Fate\n    and Necessity--Deification of Will--Metaphysics, past and present.\n\n\nGustave Dor\u00e8 has painted a picture of 'Love and Fate,' in which the\nterrible hag is portrayed towering above the tender Eros, and while\nthe latter is extending the thread as far as he can, the wrinkled\nhands of Destiny are the boundaries of his power, and the fatal shears\nclose upon the joy he has stretched to its inevitable limit. To the\nancient mind these two forms made the two great realms of the universe,\ntheir powers meeting in the fruit with a worm at its core, in seeds\nof death germinating amid the play of life, in all the limitations\nof man. They are projected in myths of Elysium and Hades, Eden and\nthe Serpent, Heaven and Hell, and their manifold variants.\n\nPerhaps there is no one line of mythological development which more\nclearly and impressively illustrates the forces under which grew the\nidea of an evil principle, than the changes which the personification\nof Fate underwent in Greece and Rome. The Moira, or Fate with Homer,\nis only a secondary cause, if that, and simply carries out the\ndecrees of her father, Zeus. Zeus is the real Fate. Nevertheless,\nwhile this is the Homeric theory or theology, there are intimations\n(see chap. xxvii. part 4) that the real awe of men was already\ntransferred from Zeus to the Erinnyes. This foreshadows a change of\ngovernment. With Hesiod we find, instead of one, three Moir\u00e6. They\nare no longer offspring of Zeus, but, as it were, his Cabinet. They\ndo not act independently of him, but when, in pursuance of their just\ncounsels, Zeus issues decrees, the Moir\u00e6 administer them. Next we find\nthe Moir\u00e6 of Hesiod developed by other writers into final Recorders;\nthey write the decrees of Zeus on certain indestructible tablets,\nafter which they are irrevocable and inevitable. With \u00c6schylus we\nfind the Moir\u00e6 developed into independent and supreme powers, above\nZeus himself. The chained Prometheus looks not to Zeus but to Fate\nfor his final liberation.\n\n\n    Chorus. Who, then, is the guide of Necessity?\n\n    Prometheus. The tri-form Fates and the unforgetting Furies.\n\n    Cho. Is Zeus, then, less powerful than they?\n\n    Prom. At least 'tis certain he cannot escape his own doom.\n\n    Cho. And what can be Zeus' doom but everlasting rule?\n\n    Prom. This ye may not learn; press it not.\n\n    Cho. Surely some solemn mystery thou hidest.\n\n    Prom. Turn to some other theme: for this disclosure time has not\n    ripened: it must be veiled in deep mystery, for by the keeping of\n    this secret shall come my liberty from base chains and misery.\n\n\nThese great landmarks represent successive revolutions in the Olympian\ngovernment. Absolutism became burthensome: as irresponsible monarch,\nZeus became responsible for the woes of the world, and his priests were\nsatisfied to have an increasing share of that responsibility allotted\nto his counsellors, until finally the whole of it is transferred. From\nthat time the countenance of Zeus, or Jupiter, shines out unclouded by\nresponsibility for human misfortunes and earthly evils; and, on the\nother hand, the once beautiful Fates are proportionately blackened,\nand they become hideous hags, the aged and lame crones of popular\nbelief in Greece and Rome, every line of whose ugliness would have\ndisfigured the face of Zeus had he not been subordinated to them.\n\nMoira means 'share,' and originally, perhaps, meant simply the\npower that meted out to each his share of life, and of the pains\nand pleasures woven in it till the term be reached. But as the Fates\ngained more definite personality they began to be regarded as having\nalso a 'share' of their own. They came to typify all the dark and\nformidable powers as to their inevitableness. No divine power could\nset them aside, or more than temporarily subdue them. Fate measured\nout her share to the remorseless Gorgon as well as to the fairest\ngod. But where destructive power was exercised in a way friendly to\nman, the Fates are put somewhat in the background, and the feat is\nclaimed for some god. Such, in the 'Prometheus' of \u00c6schylus, is the\nspirit of the wonderful passage concerning Typhon, rendered with\ntragic depth by Theodore Buckley:--'I commiserated too,' says the\nrock-bound Prometheus, 'when I beheld the earth-born inmate of the\nCilician caverns, a tremendous prodigy, the hundred-headed impetuous\nTyphon, overpowered by force; who withstood all the gods, hissing\nslaughter from his hungry jaws, and from his eyes there flashed a\nhideous glare as if he would perforce overthrow the sovereignty\nof Jove. But the sleepless shaft of Jupiter came upon him, the\ndescending thunderbolt breathing forth flame which scared him out of\nhis presumptuous bravadoes; for having been smitten to his very soul\nhe was crumbled to a cinder, and thunder-blasted in his prowess. And\nnow, a hapless and paralysed form, is he lying hard by a narrow frith,\npressed down beneath the roots of \u00c6tna. And, seated on the topmost\npeaks, Vulcan forges the molten masses whence there shall burst forth\nfloods, devouring with full jaws the level fields of fruitful Sicily;\nwith rage such as this shall Typhon boil over in hot artillery of a\nnever glutted fire-breathing storm; albeit he hath been reduced to\nashes by the thunderbolt of Jupiter.'\n\nIn this passage we see Jove invested with the glory of defeating\na great demon; but we also recognise the demon still under the\nprotection of Fate. Destiny must bear that burthen. So was it said\nin the Apocalypse Satan should be loosed after being bound in the\nPit a thousand years; and so Mohammed declared Gog and Magog should\nbreak loose with terror and destruction from the mountain-prison in\nwhich Allah had cast them. The destructive Principle had its 'share'\nas well as the creative and preservative Principles, and could not\nbe permanently deprived of it. Gradually the Fates of various regions\nand names were identified with the deities, whose interests, gardens,\nor treasures they guarded; and when some of these deities were degraded\ntheir retainers were still more degraded, while in other cases deities\nwere enabled to maintain fair fame by fables of their being betrayed\nand their good intentions frustrated by such subordinates. Thus we\nfind a certain notion of technical and official power investing such\nfigures as Satan, Ahriman, Iblis, and the Dragon, as if the upper\ngods could not disown or reverse altogether the bad deeds done by\nthese commissioners.\n\nBut the large though limited degree of control necessarily claimed for\nthe greatest and best gods had to be represented theologically. Hence\nthere was devised a system of Commutation. The Demon or Dragon,\nthough abusing his power, could not have it violently withdrawn, but\nmight be compelled to accept some sacrifice in lieu of the precise\nobject sought by his voracity. These substitutions are found in every\ntheological system, and to apply them to individuals constitutes the\nraison d'\u00eatre of every priesthood. In the progress towards civilisation\nthe substitutes diminish in value, and finally they become merely\nnominal and ceremonial,--an effigy of a man instead of the man,\nor wine instead of blood. At first the commutation was often in the\nsubstitution of persons of lower for others of higher rank, as when\nslaves or wives were, or are, sacrificed to assure paradise to the\nmaster or husband. Thus, Death is allowed to take Alcestis instead\nof Admetus. A higher degree of civilisation substitutes animals\nfor human victims. In keeping with this is the legend of Christ's\nsending demons out of two men into a herd of swine: [255] which,\nagain, is referable to the same class of ideas as the legend that\nfollowed concerning Jesus himself as a vicarious offering; mankind\nin this case being the herd, as compared with the son of a god, and\nthe transfer of the Satanic power from the human race to himself,\nfor even a little time, being accepted in theology as an equivalent,\non account of the divine dignity of the being who descended into\nhell. It was some time, however, before theology worked out this\ntheory as it now stands, the candid fathers having rejoiced in the\nbelief that the contract for commutation on its face implied that\nChrist was to remain for ever in hell, Satan being outwitted in this.\n\nThe ancient Babylonian charms often end with the refrain:--'May the\nenchantment go forth and to its own dwelling-place betake itself,'\nEvery evil spirit was supposed to have an appropriate dwelling,\nas in the case of Judas, into whom Satan entered, [256] and of whom\nit is said he 'by transgression fell, that he might go to his own\nplace. [257] Very ingenious are some of the ancient speculations\nconcerning the habitations and congenial resorts of demons. In some\nregions the colour of a disease on the skin is supposed to indicate\nthe tastes of the demon causing it; and the spells of exorcism end\nby assigning him to something of the same hue. The demon of jaundice\nis generally consigned to the yellow parrots, and inflammation to\nthe red or scarlet weeds. Their colours are respected. Humanity is\nlittle considered in the Eastern formulas of this kind, and it is\npretty generally the case that in praying against plague or famine,\npopulations are often found selecting a tribe to which their trouble is\nadjured to betake itself. 'May Nin-cigal,' says a Babylonian exorcism,\n'turn her face towards another place; may the noxious spirit go\nforth and seize another; may the female cherub and the female demon\nsettle upon his body; may the king of heaven preserve, may the king\nof earth preserve!'\n\nSo is it in regions and times which we generally think of as\nsemi-barbarous. But every now and then communities which fancy\nthemselves civilised and enlightened are brought face to face with\nthe popular fatalism in its pagan form, and are shocked thereat, not\nremembering that it is equally the dogma of vicarious satisfaction\nor atonement. A lady residing in the neighbourhood of the Traunsee,\nAustria, informs me that recently two men were nearly drowned in\nthat lake, being rescued at the last moment and brought to life with\ngreat difficulty. But this incident, instead of causing joy among\nthe neighbours of the men, excited their displeasure; and this not\nbecause the rescued were at all unpopular, but because of a widespread\nnotion that the Destinies required two lives, that they would have to\nbe presently satisfied with two others, and that since the agonies of\nthe drowning men had passed into unconsciousness, it would have been\nbetter to surrender the selected victims to their fate. At Elsinore,\nin Denmark, when the sea moans it is said to 'want somebody,' and\nit is generally the case that some story of a person just drowned\ncirculates afterwards.\n\nWhile the early mythological forms of the Fates diminish and pass away\nas curious superstitions, they return in metaphysical disguises. They\ngather their kindred in primitive sciences and cosmogonies, and\nfinding their old home swept free of pagan demons, and, garnished\nwith philosophic phrases, they enter as grave theories; but their\nsubtlety and their sting is with them, and the last state of the\nhouse they occupy is worse than the first.\n\nYes, worse: for all that man ever won of courage or moral freedom,\nby conquering his dragons in detail, he surrenders again to the\nphantom-forces they typified when he gives up his mind to belief in\na power not himself that makes for evil. The terrible conclusion that\nEvil is a positive and imperishable Principle in the universe carries\nin it the poisonous breath of every Dragon. It lurks in all theology\nwhich represents the universe as an arena of struggle between good\nand evil Principles, and human life as a war of the soul against the\nflesh. It animates all the pious horrors which identify Materialism\nwith wickedness. It nestles in the mind which imagines a personal\ndeity opposed by any part of nature. It coils around every heart\nwhich adores absolute sovereign Will, however apotheosised.\n\nAll of these notions, most of all belief in a supreme arbitrary Will,\nare modern disguises of Fate; and belief in Fate is the one thing\nfatal to human culture and energy. The notion of Fate (fatum, the\nword spoken) carries in it the conception of arbitrariness in the\nuniverse, of power deliberately exerted without necessary reference\nto the nature of things; and it is precisely opposed to that idea of\nNecessity taught by Science, which is another name for the supremacy of\nLaw. Happily the notion of a universe held at the mercy of a personal\ndecree is suicidal in a world full of sorrows and agonies, which,\non such a theory, can only be traced to some individual caprice\nor malevolence. However long abject fear may silence the lips of\nthe suffering, rebellion is in their hearts. Every blow inflicted,\ndirectly or permissively, by mere Will, however omnipotent, every\nagony that is consciously detached from universal organic necessity,\nin order that it may be called 'providential,' can arouse no natural\nfeeling in man nobler than indignation. The feeling of a suitor in\na court of law, who knows that the adverse judgment that ruins him\nhas no root in the facts or the law, but proceeds from the prejudice\nor whim of the judge, can be nowise different from that of a mother\nwho sees her son stricken down by death, and hears at his grave that\nhe was consumed by the wrath of a god who might have yielded to her\nprayer, but refused it. The heart's protest may be throttled for a\ntime by the lingering coil of terror, but it is there, and christian\ntheologians will be as anxious to protect their deity from it, at\nwhatever cost to his sovereignty, as their predecessors who invented\nthe Cabinet of Women to relieve Jove from responsibility.\n\nMetaphysics--which appear to have developed into the art of\nmaking things look true in words when their untruth in fact\nhas been detected--have indeed already set about the task just\npredicted. Eminent divines are found writing about matter and spirit,\nfreedom and natural law, as solemnly as if all this discussion were\nnew, and had never been carried out to its inevitable results. They\ncan only put in christian or modern phraseology conclusions which have\nbeen reached again and again in the history of human speculation. The\nvarious schools of Buddhist and Vedantist philosophy have come by every\nconceivable route to their fundamental unity of belief in God, Soul,\nand Matter; in a pessimist visible nature, an ideal invisible nature,\nand a human soul held in matter like a frog in a snake's mouth, but\nable by certain mysterious, mostly metaphysical or verbal, tactics,\nto gain release, and pass into a corresponding situation in the deity.\n\n'As a king, whose son had strayed away from him and lived in ignorance\nof his father among the Veddahs (wild men), will, on discovering\nhis son, exclaim, 'Come to me, my darling son!' and make him a\nparticipator of the happiness he himself enjoys, even so will the\nSupreme God present himself before the soul when in distress--the\nsoul enmeshed in the net of the five Veddahs (senses), and, severing\nthat soul from P\u00e2sam (Matter), assimilate it to himself, and bless\nit at his holy feet.'\n\nIt is too late for man to be interested in an 'omnipotent' Personality,\nwhose power is mysteriously limited at the precise point when it\nis needed, and whose moral government is another name for man's own\ncontrol of nature. Nevertheless, this Oriental pessimism is the Pauline\ntheory of Matter, and it is the speculative protoplasm out of which\nhas been evolved, in many shapes, that personification which remains\nfor our consideration--the Devil.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPART IV.\n\nTHE DEVIL.\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\nDIABOLISM.\n\n    Dragon and Devil distinguished--Dragons' wings--War in Heaven--\n    Expulsion of Serpents--Dissolution of the Dragon--Theological\n    origin of the Devil--Ideal and actual--Devil Dogma--Debasement\n    of ideal persons--Transmigration of phantoms.\n\n\n'We are all nothing other than Wills,' says St. Augustine; and he\nadds that of the good and bad angels the nature is the same, the will\ndifferent. In harmony with this John Beaumont says, 'A good desire\nof mind is a good God.' [1] To which all the mythology of Evil adds,\na bad desire of mind is a Devil. Every personification of an evil\nWill looks beyond the outward phenomena of pain, and conceives a\nheart that loves evil, a spirit that makes for wickedness. At this\npoint a new element altogether enters. The physical pain incidentally\nrepresented by the Demon, generalised and organised into a principle\nof harmfulness in the Dragon, begins now to pass under the shadow cast\nby the ascending light of man's moral nature. Man becomes conscious of\nmoral and spiritual pains: they may be still imaginatively connected\nwith bodily agonies, but these drop out of the immediate conception,\ndisappear into a distant future, and are even replaced by the notion\nof an evil symbolised by pleasure.\n\nThe fundamental difference between either a Demon or Dragon and a\nDevil may be recognised in this: we never find the former voluntarily\nbestowing physical pleasure or happiness on man, whereas it is a\nchief part of the notion of a Devil that he often confers earthly\nfavours in order to corrupt the moral nature.\n\nThere are, indeed, apparent exceptions to this theorem presented\nin the agatho-dragons which have already been considered in our\nchapter on the Basilisk; but the reader will observe that there is\nno intimation in such myths of any malign ulterior purpose in the\ngood omens brought by those exceptional monsters, and that they are\nreally forms of malevolent power whose afflictive intent is supposed\nto have been vanquished by the superior might of the heroes or saints\nto whose glory they are reluctantly compelled to become tributary.\n\nUndoubtedly the Dragon attended this moral and religious development of\nman's inward nature very far, and still occupies, as at once prisoner\nand gaoler in the underworld, a subordinate relation to it. In the long\nprocess he has undergone certain transformations, and in particular\nhis attribute of wings, if not derived from the notion of his struggle\nagainst holier beings, seems to have been largely enhanced thereby. The\nexceptional wings given to serpents in Greek art, those, for instance,\nwhich draw Demeter and Persephone in their chariot, are trifling as\ncompared with the fully-developed wings of our conventional Dragon of\nthe christian era. Such wings might have been developed occasionally\nto denote the flying cloud, the fire-breathing storm, or explain how\nsome R\u00e1hu was enabled to pursue the sun and moon and swallow them\ntemporarily in the phenomena of eclipse. But these wings grew to\nmore important dimensions when they were caught up into the Semitic\nconception of winged genii and destroying angels, and associated with\nan ambitious assault on heaven and its divine or angelic occupants.\n\n'There was war in Heaven,' says the Apocalypse. The traditional\ndescriptions of this war follow pretty closely, in dramatic details,\nother and more ancient struggles which reflect man's encounters with\nthe hardships of nature. In those encounters man imagined the gods\ndescending earthward to mingle in the fray; but even where the struggle\nmounted highest the scenery is mainly terrestrial and the issues those\nof place and power, the dominion of visible Light established above\nDarkness, or of a comparatively civilised over a savage race. The\nwars between the Devas and Asuras in India, the Devs and Ahuras in\nPersia, Buddha and the Nagas in Ceylon, Gar\u00fara and the Serpent-men\nin the north of India, gods and Frost-giants in Scandinavia, still\nconcern man's relation to the fruits of the earth, to heat and frost,\nto darkness or storm and sunshine.\n\nBut some of these at length find versions which reveal their tendency\ntowards spiritualisation. The differences presented by one of these\nlegends which has survived among us in nearly its ancient form from\nthe same which remains in a partly mystical form will illustrate\nthe transitional phase. Thus, Gar\u00fara expelling the serpents from\nhis realm in India is not a saintly legend; this exterminator of\nserpents is said to have compelled the reptile race to send him one\nof their number daily that he might eat it, and the rationalised\ntradition interprets this as the prince's cannibalism. The expulsion\nof Nagas or serpents from Ceylon by Buddha, in order that he might\nconsecrate that island to the holy law, marks the pious accentuation\nof the fable. The expulsion of snakes from Ireland by St. Patrick\nis a legend conceived in the spirit of the curse pronounced upon the\nserpent in Eden, but in this case the modern myth is the more primitive\nmorally, and more nearly represents the exploit of Gar\u00fara. St. Patrick\nexpels the snakes that he may make Ireland a paradise physically,\nand establish his reputation as an apostle by fulfilling the signs\nof one named by Christ; [2] and in this particular it slightly rises\nabove the Hindu story. In the case of the serpent cursed in Eden a\nfurther moralisation of the conflict is shown. The serpent is not\npresent in Eden, as in the realms of Gar\u00fara and St. Patrick, for\npurposes of physical devastation or pain, but to bestow a pleasure\non man with a view to success in a further issue between himself and\nthe deity. Yet in this Eden myth the ancient combat is not yet fairly\nspiritualised; for the issue still relates, as in that between the\nDevas and Asuras, to the possession of a magical fruit which by no\nmeans confers sanctity. In the apocalyptic legend of the war in heaven,\n[3] the legend has become fairly spiritualised. The issue is no longer\nterrestrial, it is no longer for mere power; the Dragon is arrayed\nagainst the woman and child, and against the spiritual 'salvation'\nof mankind, of whom he is 'accuser' and 'deceiver.'\n\nSurely nobody could be 'deceived' by 'a great fiery-red Dragon, having\nseven heads and ten horns'! In this vision the Dragon is pressed as far\nas the form can go in the symbolisation of evil. To devour the child is\nits legitimate work, but as 'accuser of the brethren before God day and\nnight' the monstrous shape were surely out of place by any mythologic\nanalogy; and one could hardly imagine such a physiognomy capable of\ndeceiving 'the whole world.' It is not wonderful, therefore, that the\nDragon's presence in heaven is only mentioned in connection with his\nfall from it. It is significant that the wings are lost in this fall;\nfor while his 'angelic' relationship suggests the previous wings,\nthe woman is able to escape the fallen monster by the two wings given\nher. [4] Wingless now, 'the old serpent' once more, the monster's\nshape has no adaptation to the moral and religious struggle which\nis to ensue. For his shape is a method, and it means the perfection\nof brute force. That, indeed, also remains in the sequel of this\nmagnificent myth. As in the legend of the Hydra two heads spring up\nin place of that which falls, so in this Christian legend out of the\noverthrown monster, henceforth himself concealed, two arise from his\ninspiration,--the seven-headed, ten-horned Beast who continues the work\nof wrath and pain; but also a lamb-like Beast, with only two horns\n(far less terrible), and able to deceive by his miracles, for he is\neven able to call down fire from heaven. The ancient Serpent-dragon,\nthe expression of natural pain, thus goes to pieces. His older part\nremains to work mischief and hurt; and the cry is uttered, 'Be merry,\nye heavens, and ye that tabernacle in them: woe to the earth and the\nsea! for the devil is come down unto you, having great wrath because\nhe knows that he has a short time.' [5] But there is a lamb-like part\nof him too, and his relation to the Dragon is only known by his voice.\n\nThis subtle adaptation of the symbol of external pain to the\nrepresentation of the moral struggle, wherein the hostile power\nmay assume deceptive forms of beauty and pleasure, is only one\nimpressive illustration of the transfer of human conceptions of evil\nfrom outward to inward nature. The transition is from a malevolent,\nfatal, principle of harmfulness to the body to a malevolent, fatal,\nprinciple of evil to the conscience. The Demon was natural; the\nDragon was both physical and metaphysical; the Devil was and is\ntheological. In the primitive Zoroastrian theology, where the Devil\nfirst appears in clear definition, he is the opponent of the Good\nMind, and the combat between the two, Ormuzd and Ahriman, is the\nspiritualisation of the combat between Light and Darkness, Pain and\nHappiness, in the external world. As these visible antagonists were\nsupposed to be exactly balanced against each other, so are their\nspiritual correlatives. The Two Minds are described as Twins.\n\n'Those old Spirits, who are twins, made known what is good and what is\nevil in thoughts, words, and deeds. Those who are good distinguished\nbetween the two; not so those who are evil-doers.\n\n'When these two Spirits came together they made first life and death,\nso that there should be at last the most wretched life for the bad,\nbut for the good blessedness.\n\n'Of these two Spirits the evil one chose the worst deeds; the\nkind Spirit, he whose garment is the immovable sky, chose what is\nright.' [6]\n\nThis metaphysical theory follows closely the primitive scientific\nobservations on which it is based; it is the cold of the cold,\nthe gloom of the darkness, the sting of death, translated into some\norder for the intellect which, having passed through the Dragon, we\nfind appearing in this Persian Devil; and against his blackness the\nglory of the personality from whom all good things proceed shines\nout in a splendour no longer marred by association with the evil\nside of nature. Ormuzd is celebrated as 'father of the pure world,'\nwho sustains 'the earth and the clouds that they do not fall,' and\n'has made the kindly light and the darkness, the kindly sleep and the\nawaking;' [7] at every step being suggested the father of the impure\nworld, the unkindly light, darkness or sleep.\n\nThe ecstasy which attended man's first vision of an ideal life defied\nthe contradictory facts of outward and inward nature. So soon as he\nhad beheld a purer image of himself rising above his own animalism,\nhe must not only regard that animalism as an instigation of a devil,\nbut also the like of it in nature; and this conception will proceed\npari passu with the creation of pure deities in the image of that\nhigher self. There was as yet no philosophy demanding unity in the\nCosmos, or forbidding man to hold as accursed so much of nature as\ndid not obviously accord with his ideals.\n\nMr. Edward B. Tylor has traced the growth of Animism from man's\nshadow and his breathing; Sir John Lubbock has traced the influence of\ndreams in forming around him a ghostly world; Mr. Herbert Spencer has\ngiven an analysis of the probable processes by which this invisible\nenvironment was shaped for the mental conception in accordance\nwith family and social conditions. But it is necessary that we\nshould here recognise the shadow that walked by the moral nature,\nthe breathings of religious aspiration, and the dreams which visited\na man whose moral sense was so generally at variance with his animal\ndesires. The code established for the common good, while necessarily\nhaving a relation to every individual conscience, is a restriction\nupon individual liberty. The conflict between selfishness and duty is\nthus inaugurated; it continues in the struggle between the 'law in the\nmembers and the law in the spirit,' which led Paul to beat his body\n(hypopiaxomai) to keep it in subjection; it passes from the Latin\npoet to the Englishman, who turns his experience to a rune--\n\n\n        I see the right, and I approve it too;\n        Condemn the wrong, and yet the wrong pursue.\n\n\nAs the light which cast it was intense, even so intense was the shadow\nit cast beneath all it could not penetrate. Passionate as was the\nsaintliest man's love of good, even so passionate was his spiritual\nenemy's love of evil. High as was the azure vault that mingled with his\ndreams of purity, so deep was the abyss beneath his lower nature. The\nsuperficial equalities of phenomena, painful and pleasurable, to his\nanimal nature had cast the mould into which his theories of the inward\nand the moral phenomena must be cast; and thus man--in an august\nmoment--surrendered himself to the dreadful conception of a supreme\nPrinciple of Wickedness: wherever good was there stood its adversary;\nwherever truth, there its denier; no light shone without the dark\npresence that would quench it; innocence had its official accuser,\nvirtue its accomplished tempter, peace its breaker, faith its disturber\nand mocker. Nay, to this impersonation was added the last feature\nof fiendishness, a nature which found its supreme satisfaction in\nultimately torturing human beings for the sins instigated by himself.\n\nIt is open to question how far any average of mankind really conceived\nthis theological dogma. Easy as it is to put into clear verbal\nstatement; readily as the analogies of nature supply arguments for\nand illustrations of a balance between moral light and darkness, love\nand hatred; yet is man limited in subjective conceptions to his own\npossibilities, and it may almost be said that to genuinely believe in\nan absolute Fiend a man would have to be potentially one himself. But\nany human being, animated by causeless and purposeless desire to\ninflict pain on others, would be universally regarded as insane,\nmuch more one who would without motive corrupt as well as afflict.\n\nEven theological statements of the personality of Evil, and what that\nimplies, are rare. The following is brave enough to be put on record,\napart from its suggestiveness.\n\n'It cannot be denied that as there is an inspiration of holy love,\nso is there an inspiration of hatred, or frantic pleasure, with which\nmen surrender themselves to the impulses of destructiveness; and when\nthe popular language speaks of possessions of Satan, of incarnate\ndevils, there lies at the bottom of this the grave truth that men,\nby continued sinning, may pass the ordinary limit between human and\ndiabolic depravity, and lay open in themselves a deep abyss of hatred\nwhich, without any mixture of self-interest, finds its gratification\nin devastation and woe.' [8]\n\nOn this it may be said that the popular commentary on cases of the\nkind is contained in the very phrase alluded to, 'possession,'--the\nimplication being that such disinterested depravity is nowise possible\nwithin the range of simple human experience,--and, in modern times,\n'possessions' are treated in asylums. Morbid conditions, however, are\nof such varied degrees that it is probable many have imagined a Being\nin whom their worst impulses are unrestrained, and thus there have\nbeen sufficient popular approximations to an imaginative conception\nof a Devil to enable the theological dogma, which few can analyse,\nto survive.\n\nIt must not be supposed, however, that the moral and spiritual ideals,\nto which allusion has just been made, are normally represented in the\nvarious Devils which we have to consider. It is the characteristic of\npersonifications, whether celestial or infernal, to supersede gradually\nthe ideas out of which they spring. As in the fable of Agni, who is\nsaid to have devoured his parents when he was born, a metaphor of fire\nconsuming the two sticks which produce it, religious history shows both\ndeities and devils, by the flame of personal devotion or hatred they\nengender, burning up the ideas that originate them. When instead of\nunconscious forces and inanimate laws working to results called good\nand evil, men see great personal Wills engaged in personal conflict,\nthe universe becomes a government of combat; the stars of heaven, the\nangels and the imps, men and women, the very plants and animals, are\ncaught up in the battle, to be marshalled on one side or the other;\nand in the military spirit and fury of the struggle the spiritual\nideals become as insignificant beneath the phantom-hosts they evoked\nas the violets and daisies which an army tramples in its march. There\nis little difference at last between the moral characteristics of\nthe respective armies of Ormuzd and Ahriman, Michael and Satan; their\nstrategy and ferocity are the same. [9] Wherever the conception is that\nof a universe divided into hostile camps, the appropriate passions are\nkindled, and in the thick of the field, where Cruelty and Gentleness\nmet, is seen at last a horned Beast confronted by a horned Lamb. [10]\nOn both sides is exaltation of the horn.\n\nWe need only look at the outcome of the gentle and lowly Jesus through\nthe exigencies of the church militant to see how potent are such\nforces. Although lay Christians of ordinary education are accustomed\nto rationalise their dogmas as well as they can, and dwell on the\nloving and patient characteristics of Jesus, the horns which were\nattached to the brow of him who said, 'Love your enemies' by ages of\nChristian warfare remain still in the Christ of Theology, and they\nare still depended on to overawe the 'sinner.' In an orthodox family\nwith which I have had some acquaintance, a little boy, who had used\nnaughty expressions of resentment towards a playmate was admonished\nthat he should be more like Christ, 'who never did any harm to his\nenemies.' 'No,' answered the wrathful child, 'but he's a-going to.'\n\nAs in Demonology we trace the struggles of man with external\nobstructions, and the phantasms in which these were reflected until\nthey were understood or surmounted, we have now to consider the forms\nwhich report human progression on a higher plane,--that of social,\nmoral, and religious evolution. Creations of a crude Theology, in its\nattempt to interpret the moral sentiment, the Devils to which we now\nturn our attention have multiplied as the various interests of mankind\nhave come into relations with their conscience. Every degree of ascent\nof the moral nature has been marked by innumerable new shadows cast\nathwart the mind and the life of man. Every new heaven of ideas\nis followed by a new earth, but ere this conformity of things to\nthoughts can take place struggles must come and the old demons will\nbe recalled for new service. As time goes on things new grow old;\nthe fresh issues pass away, their battlefields grow cold; then the\nbrood of superstition must flit away to the next field where carrion is\nfound. Foul and repulsive as are these vultures of the mind--organisms\nof moral sewage--every one of them is a witness to the victories of\nmankind over the evils they shadow, and to the steady advance of a\nnew earth which supplies them no habitat but the arch\u00e6ologist's page.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\nTHE SECOND BEST.\n\n    Respect for the Devil--Primitive atheism--Idealisation--Birth of\n    new gods--New gods diabolised--Compromise between new gods and\n    old--Foreign deities degraded--Their utilisation.\n\n\nA lady residing in Hampshire, England, recently said to a friend of\nthe present writer, both being mothers, 'Do you make your children\nbow their heads whenever they mention the Devil's name? I do,' she\nadded solemnly,--'I think it's safer.'\n\nThis instance of reverence for the Devil's name, occurring in a\nrespectable English family, may excite a smile; but if my reader has\nperused the third and fourth chapters (Part I.) of this work, in which\nit was necessary to state certain facts and principles which underlie\nthe phenomena of degradation in both Demonology and Devil-lore, he will\nalready know the high significance of nearly all the names which have\ninvested the personifications of evil; and he will not be surprised to\nfind their original sanctity, though lowered, sometimes, surviving in\nsuch imaginary forms after the battles in which they were vanquished\nhave passed out of all contemporary interest. If, for example, instead\nof the Devil, whose name is uttered with respect in the Hampshire\nhousehold, any theological bogey of our own time were there mentioned,\nsuch as 'Atheist,' it might hardly receive such considerate treatment.\n\nThe two chapters just referred to anticipate much that should be\nconsidered at this point of our inquiry. It is only necessary here\nto supplement them with a brief statement, and to some extent a\nrecapitulation, of the processes by which degraded deities are\npreserved to continue through a structural development and fulfil\na necessary part in every theological scheme which includes the\nconception of an eternal difference between good and evil.\n\nEvery personification when it first appears expresses a higher\nand larger view. When deities representing the physical needs of\nmankind have failed, as they necessarily must, to meet those needs,\natheism follows, though it cannot for a long time find philosophical\nexpression. It is an atheism ad hoc, so to say, and works by\ndegrading particular gods instead of by constructing antitheistic\ntheories. Successive dynasties of deities arise and flourish in this\nway, each representing a less arbitrary relation to nature,--peril\nlying in that direction,--and a higher moral and spiritual ideal,\nthis being the stronghold of deities. It is obvious that it is far\neasier to maintain the theory that prayers are heard and answered\nby a deity if those prayers are limited to spiritual requests, than\nwhen they are petitions for outward benefits. By giving over the\ncruel and remorseless forces of nature to the Devil,--i.e.,  to this\nor that personification of them who, as gods, had been appealed to\nin vain to soften such forces,--the more spiritual god that follows\ngains in security as well as beauty what he surrenders of empire and\nomnipotence. This law, illustrated in our chapter on Fate, operates\nwith tremendous effect upon the conditions under which the old combat\nis spiritualised.\n\nAn eloquent preacher has said:--'Hawthorne's fine fancy of the youth\nwho ascribed heroic qualities to the stone face on the brow of a\ncliff, thus converting the rocky profile into a man, and, by dint of\nmeditating on it with admiring awe, actually transferred to himself\nthe moral elements he worshipped, has been made fact a thousand times,\nis made fact every day, by earnest spirits who by faithful longing\nturn their visions into verities, and obtain live answers to their\npetitions to shadows.' [11]\n\nHowever imaginary may be the benedictions so derived by the worshipper\nfrom his image, they are most real as they redound to the glory\nand power of the image. The crudest personification, gathering up\nthe sanctities of generations, associated with the holiest hopes,\nthe best emotions, the profoundest aspirations of human nature,\nmay be at length so identified with these sentiments that they all\nseem absolutely dependent upon the image they invest. Every criticism\nof such a personification then seems like a blow aimed at the moral\nlaws. If educated men are still found in Christendom discussing whether\nmorality can survive the overthrow of such personifications, and\nwhether life were worth living without them, we may readily understand\nhow in times when the social, ethical, and psychological sciences\ndid not exist at all, all that human beings valued seemed destined\nto stand or fall with the Person supposed to be their only keystone.\n\nBut no Personage, however highly throned, can arrest the sun and\nmoon, or the mind and life of humanity. With every advance in\nphysical or social conditions moral elements must be influenced;\nevery new combination involves a recast of experiences, and presently\nof convictions. Henceforth the deified image can only remain as a\ntyrant over the heart and brain which have created it,--\n\n\n                          Creatura a un tempo\n            E tiranno de l'uom, da cui soltanto\n            Ebbe nomi ed aspetti e regno e altari. [12]\n\n\nThis personification, thus 'at once man's creature and his tyrant,' is\nobjectively a name. But as it has been invested with all that has been\nmost sacred, it is inevitable that any name raised against it shall be\nequally associated with all that has been considered basest. This also\nmust be personified, for the same reason that the good is personified;\nand as names are chiefly hereditary, it pretty generally happens that\nthe title of some fallen and discredited deity is advanced to receive\nthe new anathema. But what else does he receive? The new ideas; the\ngrowing ideals and the fresh enthusiasms are associated with some\nfantastic shape with anathematised name evoked from the past, and\nthus a portentous situation is reached. The worshippers of the new\nimage will not accept the bad name and its base associations; they\neven grow strong enough to claim the name and altars of the existing\norder, and give battle for the same. Then occurs the demoralisation,\nliterally speaking, of the older theology. The personification reduced\nto struggle for its existence can no longer lay emphasis upon the\nmoral principles it had embodied, these being equally possessed by\ntheir opponents; nay, its partisans manage to associate with their\nholy Name so much bigotry and cruelty that the innovators are at length\nwilling to resign it. The personal loyalty, which is found to continue\nafter loyalty to principles has ceased, proceeds to degrade the virtues\nonce reverenced when they are found connected with a rival name. 'He\ncasteth out devils through Beelzebub' is a very ancient cry. It was\nheard again when Tertullian said, 'Satan is God's ape.' St. Augustine\nrecognises the similarity between the observances of Christians and\npagans as proving the subtle imitativeness of the Devil; the phenomena\nreferred to are considered elsewhere, but, in the present connection,\nit may be remarked that this readiness to regard the same sacrament\nas supremely holy or supremely diabolical as it is celebrated in\nhonour of one name or another, accords closely with the reverence\nor detestation of things more important than sacraments, as they\nare, or are not, consecrated by what each theology deems official\nsanction. When sects talk of 'mere morality' we may recognise in\nthe phrase the last faint war-cry of a god from whom the spiritual\nideal has passed away, and whose name even can survive only through\nalliance with the new claimant of his altars. While the new gods were\nbeing called devils the old ones were becoming such.\n\nThe victory of the new ideal turns the old one to an idol. But we are\nconsidering a phase of the world when superstition must invest the\nnew as well as the old, though in a weaker degree. A new religious\nsystem prevails chiefly through its moral superiority to that it\nsupersedes; but when it has succeeded to the temples and altars\nconsecrated to previous divinities, when the ardour of battle is\nover and conciliation becomes a policy as well as a virtue, the old\nidol is likely to be treated with respect, and may not impossibly be\nbrought into friendly relation with its victorious adversary. He may\ntake his place as 'the second best,' to borrow Goethe's phrase, and be\nassigned some function in the new theologic r\u00e9gime. Thus, behind the\nsimplicity of the Hampshire lady instructing her children to bow at\nmention of the Devil's name, stretch the centuries in which Christian\ndivines have as warmly defended the existence of Satan as that of God\nhimself. With sufficient reason: that infernal being, some time God's\n'ape' and rival, was necessarily developed into his present position\nand office of agent and executioner under the divine government. He\nis the great Second Best; and it is a strange hallucination to fancy\nthat, in an age of peaceful inquiry, any divine personification can\nbe maintained without this patient Goat, who bears blame for all\nthe faults of nature, and who relieves divine Love from the odium\nof supplying that fear which is the mother of devotion,--at least in\nthe many millions of illogical eyes into which priests can still look\nwithout laughing.\n\nSuch, in brief outline, has been the interaction of moral and\nintellectual forces operating within the limits of established systems,\nand of the nations governed by them. But there are added factors,\nintensifying the forces on each side, when alien are brought into\nrivalry and collision with national deities. In such a contest, besides\nthe moral and spiritual sentiments and the household sanctities, which\nhave become intertwined with the internal deities, national pride is\nalso enlisted, and patriotism. But on the other side is enlisted the\ncharm of novelty, and the consciousness of fault and failure in the\nhome system. Every system imported to a foreign land leaves behind\nits practical shortcomings, puts its best foot forward--namely, its\ntheoretical foot--and has the advantage of suggesting a way of escape\nfrom the existing routine which has become oppressive. Napoleon I. said\nthat no people profoundly attached to the institutions of their country\ncan be conquered; but what people are attached to the priestly system\nover them? That internal dissatisfaction which, in secular government,\ngives welcome to a dashing Corsican or a Prince of Orange, has been\nthe means of introducing many an alien religion, and giving to many a\nprophet the honour denied him in his own country. Buddha was a Hindu,\nbut the triumph of his religion is not in India; Zoroaster was a\nPersian, but there are no Parsees in Persia; Christianity is hardly\na colonist even in the native land of Christ.\n\nThese combinations and changes were not effected without fierce\ncontroversies, ferocious wars, or persecutions, and the formation\nof many devils. Nothing is more normal in ancient systems than the\nbelief that the gods of other nations are devils. The slaughter of\nthe priests of Baal corresponds with the development of their god\ninto Beelzebub. In proportion to the success of Olaf in crushing\nthe worshippers of Odin, their deity is steadily transformed to a\ndiabolical Wild Huntsman. But here also the forces of partial recovery,\nwhich we have seen operating in the outcome of internal reform,\nmanifest themselves; the vanquished, and for a time outlawed deity, is,\nin many cases, subsequently conciliated and given an inferior, and,\nthough hateful, a useful office in the new order. Sometimes, indeed,\nas in the case of the Hindu destroyer Siva, it is found necessary\nto assign a god, anathematised beyond all power of whitewash, to an\nequal rank with the most virtuous deity. Political forces and the\nexigencies of propagandism work many marvels of this kind, which will\nmeet us in the further stages of our investigation.\n\nEvery superseded god who survives in subordination to another is pretty\nsure to be developed into a Devil. Euphemism may tell pleasant fables\nabout him, priestcraft may find it useful to perpetuate belief in his\nexistence, but all the evils of the universe, which it is inconvenient\nto explain, are gradually laid upon him, and sink him down, until\nnothing is left of his former glory but a shining name.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\nAHRIMAN: THE DIVINE DEVIL.\n\n    Mr. Irving's impersonation of Superstition--Revolution against\n    pious privilege--Doctrine of 'merits'--Saintly immorality in\n    India--A Pantheon turned Inferno--Zendavesta on Good and Evil--\n    Pars\u00ee Mythology--The Combat of Ahriman with Ormuzd--Optimism--\n    Pars\u00ee Eschatology--Final Restoration of Ahriman.\n\n\nAny one who has witnessed Mr. Henry Irving's scholarly and masterly\nimpersonation of the character of Louis XI. has had an opportunity of\nrecognising a phase of superstition which happily it were now difficult\nto find off the stage. Nothing could exceed the fine realism with\nwhich that artist brought before the spectator the perfected type of a\npretended religion from which all moral features have been eliminated\nby such slow processes that the final success is unconsciously reached,\nand the horrible result appears unchecked by even any affectation\nof actual virtue. We see the king at sound of a bell pausing in his\ninstructions for a treacherous assassination to mumble his prayers,\nand then instantly reverting to the villany over whose prospective\nsuccess he gloats. In the secrecy of his chamber no mask falls, for\nthere is no mask; the face of superstition and vice on which we look\nis the real face which the ages of fanaticism have transmitted to him.\n\nSuch a face has oftener been that of a nation than that of an\nindividual, for the healthy forces of life work amid the homes\nand hearts of mankind long before their theories are reached and\ninfluenced. Such a face it was against which the moral insurrection\nwhich bears the name of Zoroaster arose, seeing it as physiognomy of\nthe Evil Mind, naming it Ahriman, and, in the name of the conscience,\naiming at it the blow which is still felt across the centuries.\n\nIngenious theorists have accounted for the Iranian philosophy of\na universal war between Ormuzd (Ahuramazda) the Good, and Ahriman\n(Angromainyus) the Evil, by vast and terrible climatic changes,\ninvolving extremes of heat and cold, of which geologists find traces\nabout Old Iran, from which a colony of Aryans migrated to New Iran,\nor Persia. But although physical conditions of this character may have\nsupplied many of the metaphors in which the conflict between Good and\nEvil is described in the Avesta, there are other characteristics of\nthat ancient scripture which render it more probable that the early\ncolonisation of Persia was, like that of New England, the result of a\nreligious struggle. Some of the gods most adored in India reappear as\nexecrated demons in the religion of Zoroaster; the Hindu word for god\nis the Pars\u00ee word for devil. These antagonisms are not merely verbal;\nthey are accompanied in the Avesta with the most furious denunciations\nof theological opponents, whom it is not difficult to identify with\nthe priests and adherents of the Brahman religion.\n\nThe spirit of the early scriptures of India leaves no room for\ndoubt as to the point at which this revolution began. It was against\npious Privilege. The saintly hierarchy of India were a caste quite\nirresponsible to moral laws. The ancient gods, vague names for the\npowers of nature, were strictly limited in their dispensations to\nthose of their priests; [13] and as to these priests the chief\nnecessities were ample offerings, sacrifices, and fulfilment of\nthe ceremonial ordinances in which their authority was organised,\nthese were the performances rewarded by a reciprocal recognition of\nauthority. To the image of this political r\u00e9gime, theology, always\nfacile, accommodated the regulations of the gods. The moral law can\nonly live by being supreme; and as it was not supreme in the Hindu\npantheon, it died out of it. The doctrine of 'merits,' invented by\npriests purely for their own power, included nothing meritorious,\nhumanly considered; the merits consisted of costly sacrifices,\nrich offerings to temples, tremendous penances for fictitious sins,\ningeniously devised to aggrandise the penances which disguised power,\nand prolonged austerities that might be comfortably commuted by the\nwealthy. When this doctrine had obtained general adherence, and was\nrepresented by a terrestrial government corresponding to it, the\ngods were necessarily subject to it. That were only to say that the\npowers of nature were obedient to the 'merits' of privileged saints;\nand from this it is an obvious inference that they are relieved from\nmoral laws binding on the vulgar.\n\nThe legends which represent this phase of priestly dominion are\ncuriously mixed. It would appear that under the doctrine of 'merits'\nthe old gods declined. Such appears to be the intimation of the\nstories which report the distress of the gods through the power\nof human saints. The Rajah Ravana acquired such power that he was\nsaid to have arrested the sun and moon, and so oppressed the gods\nthat they temporarily transformed themselves to monkeys in order\nto destroy him. Though Visw\u00e1mitra murders a saint, his merits are\nsuch that the gods are in great alarm lest they become his menials;\nand the completeness, with which moral considerations are left out\nof the struggle on both sides is disclosed in the item that the gods\ncommissioned a nymph to seduce the saintly murderer, and so reduce a\nlittle the force of his austerities. It will be remembered that the\nancient struggle of the Devas and Asuras was not owing to any moral\ndifferences, but to an alleged unfair distribution of the ambrosia\nproduced by their joint labours in churning the ocean. The fact that\nthe gods cheated the demons on that occasion was never supposed to\naffect the supremacy they acquired by the treachery; and it could,\ntherefore, cause no scandal when later legends reported that the demons\nwere occasionally able to take gods captive by the practice of these\nwonderful 'merits' which were so independent of morals. One Asura\nis said to have gained such power in this way that he subjugated the\ngods, and so punished them that Siva, who had originally endowed that\ndemon, called into being Scanda, a war-god, to defend the tortured\ndeities. The most ludicrous part of all is that the gods themselves\nwere gradually reduced to the necessity of competing like others for\nthese tremendous powers; thus the Bhagavat Purana states that Brahma\nwas enabled to create the universe by previously undergoing penance\nfor sixteen thousand years.\n\nThe legends just referred to are puranic, and consequently of much\nlater date than the revolution traceable in the Iranian religion;\nbut these later legends are normal growths from vedic roots. These\nwere the principles of ancient theology, and the foundation of\npriestly government. In view of them we need not wonder that Hindu\ntheology devised no special devil; almost any of its gods might\nanswer the purposes of one. Nor need we be surprised that it had no\nparticular hell; any society organised by the sanctions of religion,\nbut irresponsible to its moral laws, would render it unnecessary to\nlook far for a hell.\n\nFrom this cosmological chaos the more intelligent Hindus were of\ncourse liberated; but the degree to which the fearful training had\ncorrupted the moral tissues of those who had been subjected to it\nwas revealed in the bald principle of their philosophers, that the\nsuperstition must continue to be imposed on the vulgar, whilst the\nlearned might turn all the gods into a scientific terminology.\n\nThe first clear and truthful eye that touched that system would\ntransform it from a Heaven to an Inferno. So was it changed under\nthe eye of Zoroaster. That ancient pantheon which had become a refuge\nfor all the lies of the known world; whose gods were liars and their\nsupporters liars; was now turned into a realm of organised disorder, of\nsystematised wrong; a vast creation of wickedness, at whose centre sat\nits creator and inspirer, the immoral god, the divine devil--Ahriman.\n\nIt is indeed impossible to ascertain how far the revolt against the old\nBrahmanic system was political. It is, of course, highly improbable\nthat any merely speculative system would excite a revolution; but at\nthe same time it must be remembered that, in early days, an importance\nwas generally attached to even abstract opinions such as we still\nfind among the superstitious who regard an atheistic sentiment as\nworse than a theft. However this may have been, the Avesta does\nnot leave us in any doubt as to the main fact,--namely, that at a\ncertain time and place man came to a point where he had to confront\nantagonism to fundamental moral principles, and that he found the\nso-called gods against him. In the establishment of those principles\npriests recognised their own disestablishment. What those moral laws\nthat had become necessary to society were is also made clear. 'We\nworship the Pure, the Lord of Purity!' 'We honour the good spirit,\nthe good kingdom, the good law,--all that is good.' 'Evil doctrine\nshall not again destroy the world.' 'Good is the thought, good the\nword, good the deed, of the pure Zarathustra.' 'In the beginning\nthe two heavenly Ones spoke--the Good to the Evil--thus: Our souls,\ndoctrines, words, works, do not unite together.' These sentences are\nfrom the oldest G\u00e2th\u00e2s of the Avesta.\n\nThe following is a very ancient G\u00e2th\u00e2:--'All your Devas (Hindu 'gods')\nare only manifold children of the Evil Mind, and the great One who\nworships the Saoma of lies and deceits; besides the treacherous acts\nfor which you are notorious in the Seven Regions of the earth. You have\ninvented all the evil that men speak and do, which is indeed pleasant\nto the Devas, and is devoid of all goodness, and therefore perishes\nbefore the insight of the truth of the wise. Thus you defraud men of\ntheir good minds and of their immortality by your evil minds--as well\nby those of the Devas as through that of the Evil Spirit--through\nevil deeds and evil words, whereby the power of liars grows.\n\n'1. Come near, and listen to the wise sayings of the omniscient,\nthe songs in praise of the Living One, and the prayers of the Good\nSpirit, the glorious truths whose origin is seen in the flames.\n\n'2. Listen, therefore, to the Earth spirit--Look at the flames with\nreverent mind. Every one, man and woman, is to be distinguished\naccording to his belief. Ye ancient Powers, watch and be with us!\n\n'3. From the beginning there were two Spirits, each active in\nitself. They are the good and the bad in thought, word, and\ndeed. Choose ye between them: do good, not evil!\n\n'4. And these two Spirits meet and create the first existence,\nthe earthy, that which is and that which is not, and the last,\nthe spiritual. The worst existence is for the liars, the best for\nthe truthful.\n\n'5. Of these two spirits choose ye one, either the lying, the worker\nof Evil, or the true holiest spirit. Whoso chooses the first chooses\nthe hardest fate; whoso the last, honours Ahuramazda in faith and in\ntruth by his deeds.\n\n'6. Ye cannot serve both of these two. An evil spirit whom we will\ndestroy surprises those who deliberate, saying, Choose the Evil\nMind! Then do those spirits gather in troops to attack the two lives\nof which the prophets prophesy.\n\n'7. And to this earthly life came Armaiti with earthly power to help\nthe truth, and the good disposition: she, the Eternal, created the\nmaterial world, but the Spirit is with thee, O Wise One! the first\nof creations in time.\n\n'8. When any evil falls upon the spirit, thou, O Wise One, givest\ntemporal possessions and a good disposition; but him whose promises\nare lies, and not truth, thou punishest.'\n\nAround the hymns of the Avesta gradually grew a theology and a\nmythology which were destined to exert a powerful influence on\nthe world. These are contained in the Bundehesch. [14] Anterior to\nall things and all beings was Zeruane-Akrene ('Boundless Time'), so\nexalted that he can only be worshipped in silence. From him emanated\ntwo Ferouers, spiritual types, which took form in two beings, Ormuzd\nand Ahriman. These were equally pure; but Ahriman became jealous of his\nfirst-born brother, Ormuzd. To punish Ahriman for his evil feeling, the\nSupreme Being condemned him to 12,000 years' imprisonment in an empire\nof rayless Darkness. During that period must rage the conflict between\nLight and Darkness, Good and Evil. As Ormuzd had his pre-existing type\nor Ferouer, so by a similar power--much the same as the Platonic Logos\nor Word--he created the pure or spiritual world, by means of which the\nempire of Ahriman should be overthrown. On the earth (still spiritual)\nhe raised the exceeding high mountain Albordj, Elburz (snow mountain),\n[15] on whose summit he fixed his throne; whence he stretched the\nbridge Chinevat, which, passing directly over Duzhak, the abyss of\nAhriman (or hell), reaches to the portal of Gorodman, or heaven. All\nthis was but a Ferouer world--a prototype of the material world. In\nanticipation of its incorporation in a material creation, Ormuzd\n(by emanations) created in his own image six Amshaspands, or agents,\nof both sexes, to be models of perfection to lower spirits--and to\nmankind, when they should be created--and offer up their prayers to\nhimself. The second series of emanations were the Izeds, benevolent\ngenii and guardians of the world, twenty-eight in number, of whom the\nchief is Mithras, the Mediator. The third series of emanations were the\ninnumerable Ferouers of things and men--for each must have its soul,\nwhich shall purify them in the day of resurrection. In antagonism to\nall these, Ahriman produced an exactly similar host of dark and evil\npowers. These Devas rise, rank on rank, to their Arch-Devs--each\nof whom is chained to his planet--and their head is Ash-Mogh, the\n'two-footed serpent of lies,' who seems to correspond to Mithras,\nthe divine Mediator.\n\nAfter a reign of 3000 years Ormuzd entered on the work of realising\nhis spiritual emanations in a material universe. He formed the sun\nas commander-in-chief, the moon as his lieutenant, the planets as\ncaptains of a great host--the stars--who were soldiers in his war\nagainst Ahriman. The dog Sirius he set to watch at the bridge Chinevat\n(the Milky Way), lest thereby Ahriman should scale the heavens. Ormuzd\nthen created earth and water, which Ahriman did not try to prevent,\nknowing that darkness was inherent in these. But he struck a blow\nwhen life was produced. This was in form of a Bull, and Ahriman\nentered it and it perished; but on its destruction there came out\nof its left shoulder the seed of all clean and gentle animals, and,\nout of its right shoulder--Man.\n\nAhriman had matched every creation thus far; but to make man was\nbeyond his power, and he had no recourse but to destroy him. However,\nwhen the original man was destroyed, there sprang from his body a tree\nwhich bore the first human pair, whom Ahriman, however, corrupted in\nthe manner elsewhere described.\n\nIt is a very notable characteristic of this Iranian theology, that\nalthough the forces of good and evil are co-extensive and formally\nbalanced, in potency they are not quite equal. The balance of force\nis just a little on the side of the Good Spirit. And this advantage\nappears in man. Zoroaster said, 'No earthly man with a hundredfold\nstrength does so much evil as Mithra with heavenly strength does good;'\nand this thought reappears in the Pars\u00ee belief that the one part\nof paradisiac purity, which man retained after his fall, balances\nthe ninety-nine parts won by Ahriman, and in the end will redeem\nhim. For this one divine ray preserved enables him to receive and\nobey the Avesta, and to climb to heaven by the stairway of three\nvast steps--pure thought, pure word, pure deed. The optimistic\nessence of the mythology is further shown in the belief that every\ndestructive effort of Ahriman resulted in a larger benefit than Ormuzd\nhad created. The Bull (Life) destroyed, man and animal sprang into\nbeing; the man destroyed, man and woman appeared. And so on to the\nend. In the last quarter of the 12,000 years for which Ahriman was\ncondemned, he rises to greater power even than Ormuzd, and finally\nhe will, by a fiery comet, set the visible universe in conflagration;\nbut while this scheme is waxing to consummation Ormuzd will send his\nholy Prophet Sosioch, who will convert mankind to the true law, [16]\nso that when Ahriman's comet consumes the earth he will really be\npurifying it. Through the vast stream of melted metals and minerals\nthe righteous shall pass, and to them it will be as a bath of warm\nmilk: the wicked in attempting to pass shall be swept into the abyss\nof Duzhak; having then suffered three days and nights, they shall be\nraised by Ormuzd refined and purified. Duzhak itself shall be purified\nby this fire, and last of all Ahriman himself shall ascend to his\noriginal purity and happiness. Then from the ashes of the former\nworld shall bloom a paradise that shall remain for ever.\n\nIn this system it is notable that we find the monster serpent\nof vedic mythology, Ahi, transformed into an infernal region,\nDuzhak. The dragon, being a type of physical suffering, passes away\nin Iranian as in the later Semitic mythology before the new form,\nwhich represents the stings of conscience though it may be beneath\nexternal pleasure. In this respect, therefore, Ahriman fulfils the\ndefinition of a devil already given. In the Avesta he fulfils also\nanother condition essential to a devil, the love of evil in and for\nitself. But in the later theology it will be observed that evil\nin Ahriman is not organic. The war being over and its fury past,\nthe hostile chief is seen not so black as he had been painted;\nthe belief obtains that he does not actually love darkness and\nevil. He was thrust into them as a punishment for his jealousy,\npride, and destructive ambition. And because that dark kingdom was a\npunishment--therefore not congenial--it was at length (the danger past)\nheld to be disciplinary. Growing faith in the real supremacy of Good\ndiscovers the immoral god to be an exaggerated anthropomorphic egoist;\nthis divine devil is a self-centred potentate who had attempted to\nsubordinate moral law and human welfare to his personal ascendancy. His\nfate having sealed the sentence on all ambitions of that character,\nhumanity is able to pardon the individual offender, and find a hope\nthat Ahriman, having learned that no real satisfaction for a divine\nnature can be found in mere power detached from rectitude, will join\nin the harmony of love and loyalty at last.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\nVISW\u00c1MITRA: THE THEOCRATIC DEVIL.\n\n    Priestcraft and Pessimism--An Aryan Tetzel and his Luther--Brahman\n    Frogs--Evolution of the sacerdotal Saint--Visw\u00e1mitra the Accuser\n    of Virtue--The Tamil Passion-play 'Harischandra'--Ordeal of\n    Goblins--The Martyr of Truth--Virtue triumphant over ceremonial\n    'merits'--Harischandra and Job.\n\n\nPriestcraft in government means pessimism in the creed and despair in\nthe heart. Under sacerdotal rule in India it seemed paradise enough to\nleave the world, and the only hell dreaded was a return to it. 'The\ntwice-born man,' says Manu, 'who shall without intermission have\npassed the time of his studentship, shall ascend after death to the\nmost exalted of regions, and no more spring to birth again in this\nlower world.' Some clause was necessary to keep the twice-born man\nfrom suicide. Buddha invented a plan of suicide-in-life combined with\nannihilation of the gods, which was driven out of India because it put\ninto the minds of the people the philosophy of the schools. Thought\ncould only be trusted among classes interested to conceal it.\n\nThe power and authority of a priesthood can only be maintained on\nthe doctrine that man is 'saved' by the deeds of a ceremonial law;\nany general belief that morality is more acceptable to gods than\nceremonies must be fatal to those occult and fictitious virtues which\nhedge about every pious impostor. Sacerdotal power in India depended on\nsuperstitions carefully fostered concerning the mystical properties of\na stimulating juice (soma), litanies, invocations, and benedictions\nby priests; upon sacrifices to the gods, including their priests,\nausterities, penances, pilgrimages, and the like; one characteristic\nrunning through all the performances--their utter worthlessness to any\nbeing in the universe except the priest. An artificial system of this\nkind has to create its own materials, and evoke forces of evolution\nfrom many regions of nature. It is a process requiring much more\nthan the wisdom of the serpent and more than its harmfulness; and\nthere is a bit of nature's irony in the fact that when the Brahman\nRishi gained supremacy, the Cobra was also worshipped as belonging\nto precisely the same caste and sanctity.\n\nThere are traces of long and fierce struggles preceding this\nconsummation. Even in the Vedic age--in the very dawn of religious\nhistory--Tetzel appears with his indulgences and Luther confronts\nhim. The names they bore in ancient India were Visw\u00e1mitra and\nVasishtha. Both of these were among the seven powerful Rishis who\nmade the hierarchy of India in the earliest age known to us. Both were\ncomposers of some of the chief hymns of the Vedas, and their respective\nhymns bear the stamp of the sacerdotal and the anti-sacerdotal parties\nwhich contended before the priestly sway had reached its complete\ntriumph. Visw\u00e1mitra was champion of the high priestly party and its\npolitical pretensions. In the Rig-Veda there are forty hymns ascribed\nto him and his family, nearly all of which celebrate the divine\nvirtues of Soma-juice and the Soma-sacrifice. As the exaltation of\nthe priestly caste in Israel was connected with a miracle, in which\nthe Jordan stopped flowing till the ark had been carried over, so\nthe rivers Sutledge and Reyah were said to have rested from their\ncourse when Visw\u00e1mitra wished to cross them in seeking the Soma. This\nRishi became identified in the Hindu mind for all time with political\npriestcraft. On the other hand, Vasishtha became equally famous for\nhis hostility to that power, as well as for his profoundly religious\ncharacter,--the finest hymns of the Vedas, as to moral feeling, being\nthose that bear his name. The anti-sacerdotal spirit of Vasishtha is\nespecially revealed in a strange satirical hymn in which he ridicules\nthe ceremonial Br\u00e1hmans under the guise of a panegyric on frogs. In\nthis composition occur such verses as these:--\n\n'Like Br\u00e1hmans at the Soma-sacrifice of Atir\u00e2tra, sitting round a\nfull pond and talking, you, O frogs, celebrate this day of the year\nwhen the rainy season begins.\n\n'These Br\u00e1hmans, with their Soma, have had their say, performing the\nannual rite. These Adhwaryus, sweating while they carry the hot pots,\npop out like hermits.\n\n'They have always observed the order of the gods as they are to\nbe worshipped in the twelvemonth; these men do not neglect their\nseason....\n\n'Cow-noise gave, Goat-noise gave, the Brown gave, and the Green gave\nus treasures. The frogs, who give us hundreds of cows, lengthened\nour life in the rich autumn.' [17]\n\nVisw\u00e1mitra and Vasishtha appear to have been powerful rivals in\nseeking the confidence of King Sud\u00e1s, and from their varying fortunes\ncame the tremendous feud between them which plays so large a part\nin the traditions of India. The men were both priests, as are both\nritualists and broad-churchmen in the present day. They were borne\non the stream of mythologic evolution to representative regions\nvery different from any they could have contemplated. Vasishtha,\nennobled by the moral sentiment of ages, appears as the genius of\ntruth and justice, maintaining these as of more 'merit' than any\nceremonial perfections. The Br\u00e1hmans, whom he once ridiculed, were\nglad enough in the end to make him their patron saint, though they\ndid not equally honour his principles. On the other hand, Visw\u00e1mitra\nbecame the type of that immoral divinity which received its Iranian\nanathema in Ahriman. The murder he commits is nothing in a personage\nwhose Soma-celebrations have raised him so high above the trivialities\nof morality.\n\nIt is easy to see what must be the further development of such a\ntype as Visw\u00e1mitra when he shall have passed from the guarded pages\nof puranic tradition to the terrible simplicities of folklore. The\nsaint whose majesty is built on 'merits,' which have no relation\nto what the humble deem virtues, naturally holds such virtues in\ncynical contempt; naturally also he is indignant if any one dares\nto suggest that the height he has reached by costly and prolonged\nobservances may be attained by poor and common people through the\npractice of virtue. The next step is equally necessary. Since it is\nhard to argue down the facts of human nature, Vasishtha is pretty\nsure to have a strong, if sometimes silent, support for his heretical\ntheory of a priesthood representing virtue; consequently Visw\u00e1mitra\nwill be reduced at length to deny the existence of virtue, and will\nbecome the Accuser of those to whom virtues are attributed. Finally,\nfrom the Accuser to the Tempter the transition is inevitable. The\npublic Accuser must try and make good his case, and if the facts do\nnot support it, he must create other facts which will, or else bear\nthe last brand of his tribe--Slanderer.\n\nLeaving out of sight all historical or probable facts concerning\nVisw\u00e1mitra and Vasishtha, but remembering the spirit of them, let us\nread the great Passion-play of the East, in which their respective\nparts are performed again as intervening ages have interpreted\nthem. The hero of this drama is an ancient king named Harischandra,\nwho, being childless, and consequently unable to gain immortality,\npromised the god Varuna to sacrifice to him a son if one were granted\nhim. The son having been born, the father beseeches Varuna for respite,\nwhich is granted again and again, but stands firmly by his promise,\nalthough it is finally commuted. The repulsive features of the ancient\nlegend are eliminated in the drama, the promise now being for a vast\nsum of money which the king cannot pay, but which Visw\u00e1mitra would\ntempt him to escape by a technical fiction. Sir Mutu Cum\u00e1ra Sw\u00e1my,\nwhose translation I follow, presents many evidences of the near\nrelation in which this drama stands to the religious faith of the\npeople in Southern India and parts of Ceylon, where its representation\nnever fails to draw vast crowds from every part of the district in\nwhich it may occur, the impression made by it being most profound. [18]\n\nWe are first introduced to Harischandra, King of Ay\u00f2diah (Oude),\nin his palace, surrounded by every splendour, and by the devotion\nof his prosperous people. His first word is an ascription to the\n'God of gods.' His ministers come forward and recount the wealth\nand welfare of the nation. The first Act witnesses the marriage of\nHarischandra with the beautiful princess Chandravat\u00ed, and it closes\nwith the birth of a son.\n\nThe second Act brings us into the presence of Indra in the Abode of\nthe Gods. The Chief enters the Audience Hall of his palace, where an\nassembly of deities and sages has awaited him. These sages are holy men\nwho have acquired supernatural power by their tremendous austerities;\nand of these the most august is Visw\u00e1mitra. By the magnitude and\nextent of his austerities he has gained a power beyond even that of\nthe Triad, and can reduce the worlds to cinders. All the gods court\nhis favour. As the Council proceeds, Indra addresses the sages--'Holy\nmen! as gifted with supernatural attributes, you roam the universe\nwith marvellous speed, there is no place unknown to you. I am curious\nto learn who, in the present times, is the most virtuous sovereign on\nthe earth below. What chief of mortals is there who has never told a\nlie--who has never swerved from the course of justice?' Vasishtha,\na powerful sage and family-priest of Harischandra, declares that\nhis royal disciple is such a man. But the more powerful Visw\u00e1mitra\ndenounces Harischandra as cruel and a liar. The quarrel between the\ntwo Rishis waxes fierce, until Indra puts a stop to it by deciding\nthat an experiment shall be made on Harischandra. Vasishtha agrees\nthat if his disciple can be shown to have told a lie, or can be made\nto tell one, the fruit of his life-long austerities, and all the power\nso gained, shall be added to Visw\u00e1mitra; while the latter must present\nhis opponent with half of his 'merits' if Harischandra be not made\nto swerve from the truth. Visw\u00e1mitra is to employ any means whatever,\nneither Indra or any other interfering.\n\nVisw\u00e1mitra sets about his task of trying and tempting Harischandra by\ninforming that king that, in order to perform a sacrifice of special\nimportance, he has need of a mound of gold as high as a missile\nslung by a man standing on an elephant's back. With the demand\nof so sacred a being Harischandra has no hesitation in complying,\nand is about to deliver the gold when Visw\u00e1mitra requests him to be\ncustodian of the money for a time, but perform the customary ceremony\nof transfer. Holding Harischandra's written promise to deliver the\ngold whensoever demanded, Visw\u00e1mitra retires with compliments. Then\nwild beasts ravage Harischandra's territory; these being expelled,\na demon boar is sent, but is vanquished by the monarch. Visw\u00e1mitra\nthen sends unchaste dancing-girls to tempt Harischandra; and when he\nhas ordered their removal, Visw\u00e1mitra returns with them, and, feigning\nrage, accuses him of slaying innocent beasts and of cruelty to the\ngirls. He declares that unless Harischandra yields to the Pariah\ndamsels, he himself shall be reduced to a Pariah slave. Harischandra\noffers all his kingdom and possessions if the demand is withdrawn,\nabsolutely refusing to swerve from his virtue. This Visw\u00e1mitra accepts,\nis proclaimed sovereign of Ay\u00f2diah, and the king goes forth a beggar\nwith his wife and child. But now, as these are departing, Visw\u00e1mitra\ndemands that mound of gold which was to be paid when called for. In\nvain Harischandra pleads that he has already delivered up all he\npossesses, the gold included; the last concession is declared to\nhave nothing to do with the first. Yet Visw\u00e1mitra says he will\nbe charitable; if Harischandra will simply declare that he never\npledged the gold, or, having done so, does not feel bound to pay it,\nhe will cancel that debt. 'Such a declaration I can never make,'\nreplies Harischandra. 'I owe thee the gold, and pay it I shall. Let a\nmessenger accompany me and leave me not till I have given him thy due.'\n\nFrom this time the efforts of Visw\u00e1mitra are directed to induce\nHarischandra to declare the money not due. Amid his heartbroken\npeople--who cry, 'Where are the gods? Can they tolerate this?'--he who\nwas just now the greatest and happiest monarch in the world goes forth\non the highway a wanderer with his Chandravat\u00ed and their son Devar\u00e1ta\ndressed in coarsest garments. His last royal deed is to set the crown\non his tempter's head. The people and officers follow, and beg his\npermission to slay Visw\u00e1mitra, but he rebukes them, and counsels\nsubmission. Visw\u00e1mitra orders a messenger, Nakshatra, to accompany\nthe three wretched ones, and inflict the severest sufferings on them\nuntil the gold is paid, and amid each ordeal to offer Harischandra\nall his former wealth and happiness if he will utter a falsehood.\n\nThey come to a desert whose sands are so hot that the wife\nfaints. Harischandra bears his son in his arms, but in addition\nis compelled to bear Nakshatra (the Br\u00e1hman and tormentor) on his\nshoulders. They so pass amid snakes and scorpions, and receive\nterrible stings; they pass through storm and flood, and yet vainly\ndoes Nakshatra suggest the desired falsehood.\n\nThen follows the ordeal of Demons, which gives an interesting insight\ninto Tamil Demonology. One of the company exclaims--'How frightful\nthey look! Who can face them? They come in battalions, young and old,\nsmall and great--all welcome us. They disport themselves with a wild\ndance; flames shoot from their mouths; their feet touch not the earth;\nthey move in the air. Observe you the bleeding corpses of human\nbeings in their hands. They crunch them and feed on the flesh. The\nplace is one mass of gore and filth. Wolves and hy\u00e6nas bark at them;\njackals and dogs follow them. They are near. May Siva protect us!'\n\nNakshatra. How dreadful! Harischandra, what is this? Look! evil demons\nstare at me--I tremble for my life. Protect me now, and I ask you no\nmore for the gold.\n\nHarischandra. Have no fear, Nakshatra. Come, place thyself in the\nmidst of us.\n\nChief of the Goblins. Men! little men! human vermin! intrude ye thus\ninto my presence? Know that, save only the Br\u00e1hman standing in the\nmidst of you, you are all my prey to-night.\n\nHarischandra. Goblin! certainly thou art not an evil-doer, for thou\nhast excepted this holy Br\u00e1hman. As for ourselves, we know that the\nbodies which begin to exist upon earth must also cease to exist on\nit. What matters it when death comes? If he spares us now he reserves\nus only for another season. Good, kind demon! destroy us then together;\nhere we await our doom.\n\nNakshatra. Harischandra! before you thus desert me, make the goblin\npromise you that he will not hurt me.\n\nHarischandra. Thou hast no cause for alarm; thou art safe.\n\nChief of the Goblins. Listen! I find that all four of you are very\nthin; it is not worth my while to kill you. On examining closely, I\nperceive that the young Br\u00e1hman is plump and fat as a wild boar. Give\nhim up to me--I want not the rest.\n\nNakshatra. O Gods! O Harischandra! you are a great monarch! Have\nmercy on me! Save me, save me! I will never trouble you for the gold,\nbut treat you considerately hereafter.\n\nHarischandra. Sir, thy life is safe, stand still.\n\nNakshatra. Allow me, sirs, to come closer to you, and to hold you by\nthe hand (He grasps their hands.)\n\nHarischandra. King of the Goblins! I address thee in all sincerity;\nthou wilt confer on us a great favour indeed by despatching us\nspeedily to the Judgment Hall of the God of Death. The Br\u00e1hman must\nnot be touched; devour us.\n\nThe Goblin (grinding his teeth in great fury). What! dare you disobey\nme? Will you not deliver the Br\u00e1hman?\n\nHarischandra. No, we cannot. We alone are thy victims.\n\n[Day breaks, and the goblins disappear.]\n\nHaving thus withstood all temptation to harm his enemy, or to break\na promise he had given to treat him kindly, Harischandra is again\npressed for the gold or the lie, and, still holding out, an ordeal of\nfire follows. Trusting the God of Fire will cease to afflict if one is\nsacrificed, Harischandra prepares to enter the conflagration first,\nand a pathetic contention occurs between him and his wife and son\nas to which shall be sacrificed. In the end Harischandra rushes in,\nbut does not perish.\n\nHarischandra is hoping to reach the temple of Vis Wan\u00e0th [19] at Kasi\nand invoke his aid to pay the gold. To the temple he comes only to\nplead in vain, and Nakshatra tortures him with instruments. Finally\nHarischandra, his wife and child, are sold as slaves to pay\nthe debt. But Visw\u00e1mitra, invisibly present, only redoubles his\npersecutions. Harischandra is subjected to the peculiar degradation\nof having to burn dead bodies in a cemetery. Chandravat\u00ed and her son\nare subjected to cruelties. The boy is one day sent to the forest,\nis bitten by a snake, and dies. Chandravat\u00ed goes out in the night to\nfind the body. She repairs with it to the cemetery. In the darkness\nshe does not recognise her husband, the burner of the bodies, nor he\nhis wife. He has strictly promised his master that every fee shall be\npaid, and reproaches the woman for coming in the darkness to avoid\npayment. Chandravat\u00ed offers in payment a sacred chain which Siva\nhad thrown round her neck at birth, invisible to all but a perfect\nman. Harischandra alone has ever seen it, and now recognises his\nwife. But even now he will not perform the last rites over his dead\nchild unless the fee can be obtained as promised. Chandravat\u00ed goes\nout into the city to beg the money, leaving Harischandra seated beside\nthe dead body of Devar\u00e1ta. In the street she stumbles over the corpse\nof another child, and takes it up; it proves to be the infant Prince,\nwho has been murdered. Chandravat\u00ed--arrested and dragged before the\nking--in a state of frenzy declares she has killed the child. She is\ncondemned to death, and her husband must be her executioner. But the\nlast scene must be quoted nearly in full.\n\nVerakvoo (Harischandra's master, leading on Chandravat\u00ed). Slave! this\nwoman has been sentenced by our king to be executed without delay. Draw\nyour sword and cut her head off. (Exit.)\n\nHarischandra. I obey, master. (Draws the sword and approaches her.)\n\nChandravat\u00ed (coming to consciousness again). My husband! What! do I\nsee thee again? I applaud thy resolution, my lord. Yes; let me die\nby thy sword. Be not unnerved, but be prompt, and perform thy duty\nunflinchingly.\n\nHarischandra. My beloved wife! the days allotted to you in\nthis world are numbered; you have run through the span of your\nexistence. Convicted as you are of this crime, there is no hope for\nyour life; I must presently fulfil my instructions. I can only allow\nyou a few seconds; pray to your tutelary deities, prepare yourself\nto meet your doom.\n\nVisw\u00e1mitra (who has suddenly appeared). Harischandra! what, are you\ngoing to slaughter this poor woman? Wicked man, spare her! Tell a\nlie even now and be restored to your former state!\n\nHarischandra. I pray, my lord, attempt not to beguile me from the path\nof rectitude. Nothing shall shake my resolution; even though thou didst\noffer to me the throne of Indra I would not tell a lie. Pollute not thy\nsacred person by entering such unholy grounds. Depart! I dread not thy\nwrath; I no longer court thy favour. Depart. (Visw\u00e1mitra disappears.)\n\nMy love! lo I am thy executioner; come, lay thy head gently on this\nblock with thy sweet face turned towards the east. Chandravat\u00ed,\nmy wife, be firm, be happy! The last moment of our sufferings has\nat length come; for to sufferings too there is happily an end. Here\ncease our woes, our griefs, our pleasures. Mark! yet awhile, and thou\nwilt be as free as the vultures that now soar in the skies.\n\nThis keen sabre will do its duty. Thou dead, thy husband dies too--this\nself-same sword shall pierce my breast. First the child--then the\nwife--last the husband--all victims of a sage's wrath. I the martyr of\nTruth--thou and thy son martyrs for me, the martyr of Truth. Yes; let\nus die cheerfully and bear our ills meekly. Yes; let all men perish,\nlet all gods cease to exist, let the stars that shine above grow dim,\nlet all seas be dried up, let all mountains be levelled to the ground,\nlet wars rage, blood flow in streams, let millions of millions of\nHarischandras be thus persecuted; yet let Truth be maintained--let\nTruth ride victorious over all--let Truth be the light--Truth the\nguide--Truth alone the lasting solace of mortals and immortals. Die,\nthen, O goddess of Chastity! Die, at this the shrine of thy sister\ngoddess of Truth!\n\n[Strikes the neck of Chandravat\u00ed with great force; the sword, instead\nof harming her, is transformed into a string of superb pearls, which\nwinds itself around her: the gods of heaven, all sages, and all kings\nappear suddenly to the view of Harischandra.]\n\nSiva (the first of the gods). Harischandra, be ever blessed! You have\nborne your severe trials most heroically, and have proved to all men\nthat virtue is of greater worth than all the vanities of a fleeting\nworld. Be you the model of mortals. Return to your land, resume your\nauthority, and rule your state. Devar\u00e1ta, victim of Visw\u00e1mitra's wrath,\nrise! (He is restored to life.)\n\nRise you, also, son of the King of Kasi, with whose murder you,\nChandravat\u00ed, were charged through the machinations of Visw\u00e1mitra. (He\ncomes to life also.)\n\nHarischandra. All my misfortunes are of little consequence, since thou,\nO God of gods, hast deigned to favour me with thy divine presence. No\nlonger care I for kingdom, or power, or glory. I value not children, or\nwives, or relations. To thy service, to thy worship, to the redemption\nof my erring soul, I devote myself uninterruptedly hereafter. Let me\nnot become the sport of men. The slave of a Pariah cannot become a\nking; the slave-girl of a Br\u00e1hman cannot become a queen. When once the\nmilk has been drawn from the udder of a cow nothing can restore the\nself-same milk to it. Our degradation, O God, is now beyond redemption.\n\nVisw\u00e1mitra. I pray, O Siva, that thou wouldst pardon my folly. Anxious\nto gain the wager laid by me before the gods, I have most mercilessly\ntormented this virtuous king; yet he has proved himself the most\ntruthful of all earthly sovereigns, triumphing victoriously over\nme and my efforts to divert him from his constancy. Harischandra,\nking of kings! I crave your forgiveness.\n\nVerakvoo (throwing off his disguise). King Harischandra, think not\nthat I am a Pariah, for you behold in me even Y\u00e1ma, the God of Death.\n\nKalakanda (Chandravat\u00ed's cruel master, throwing off his\ndisguise). Queen! rest not in the belief that you were the slave\nof a Br\u00e1hman. He to whom you devoted yourself am even I--the God of\nFire, Agni.\n\nVasishtha. Harischandra, no disgrace attaches to thee nor to the Solar\nrace, of which thou art the incomparable gem. Even this cemetery\nis in reality no cemetery: see! the illusion lasts not, and thou\nbeholdest here a holy grove the abode of hermits and ascetics. Like\nthe gold which has passed through successive crucibles, devoid of all\nimpurities, thou, O King of Ay\u00f2diah, shinest in greater splendour than\neven yon god of light now rising to our view on the orient hills. (It\nis morning.)\n\nSiva. Harischandra, let not the world learn that Virtue is vanquished,\nand that its enemy, Vice, has become the victor. Go, mount yon throne\nagain--proclaim to all that we, the gods, are the guardians of the\ngood and the true. Indra! chief of the gods, accompany this sovereign\nwith all your retinue, and recrown him emperor of Ay\u00f2diah. May his\nreign be long--may all bliss await him in the other world!\n\n\n\nThe plot of this drama has probably done as much and as various duty\nas any in the world. It has spread like a spiritual banyan, whose\nbranches, taking root, have swelled to such size that it is difficult\nnow to say which is the original trunk. It may even be that the only\nroot they all had in common is an invisible one in the human heart,\ndeveloped in its necessary struggles amid nature after the pure and\nperfect life.\n\nBut neither in the Book of Job, which we are yet to consider, nor in\nany other variation of the theme, does it rise so high as in this drama\nof Harischandra. In Job it represents man loyal to his deity amid the\nterrible afflictions which that deity permits; but in Harischandra\nit shows man loyal to a moral principle even against divine orders\nto the contrary. Despite the hand of the licenser, and the priestly\nmanipulations, visible here and there in it--especially towards the\nclose--sacerdotalism stands confronted by its reaction at last, and\nreceives its sentence in the joy with which the Hindu sees the potent\nRishis with all their pretentious 'merits,' and the gods themselves,\nkneeling at the feet of the man who stands by Truth.\n\nIt is amusing to find the wincings of the priests through many\ncenturies embodied in a legend about Harischandra after he went to\nheaven. It is related that he was induced by N\u00e1rada to relate his\nactions with such unbecoming pride that he was lowered from Svarga\n(heaven) one stage after each sentence; but having stopped in time,\nand paid homage to the gods, he was placed with his capital in mid-air,\nwhere eyes sacerdotally actinised may still see the aerial city at\ncertain times. The doctrine of 'merits' will no doubt be able for\nsome time yet to charge 'good deeds' with their own sin--pride; but,\nafter all, the priest must follow the people far enough to confess that\none must look upward to find the martyr of Truth. In what direction\none must look to find his accuser requires no further intimation than\nthe popular legend of Visw\u00e1mitra.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\nELOHIM AND JEHOVAH.\n\n    Deified power--Giants and Jehovah--Jehovah's manifesto--The various\n    Elohim--Two Jehovahs and two Tables--Contradictions--Detachment\n    of the Elohim from Jehovah.\n\n\nThe sacred books of the Hebrews bring us into the presence\nof the gods (Elohim) supposed to have created all things out\nof nothing--nature-gods--just as they are in transition to the\nconception of a single Will and Personality. Though the plural is\nused ('gods') a singular verb follows: the tendency is already to\nthat concentration which resulted in the enthronement of one supreme\nsovereign--Jehovah. The long process of evolution which must have\npreceded this conception is but slightly traceable in the Bible. It\nis, however, written on the face of the whole world, and the same\nprocess is going on now in its every phase. Whether with Gesenius\n[20] we take the sense of the word Elohim to be 'the revered,' or,\nwith F\u00fcrst, [21] 'the mighty,' makes little difference; the fact\nremains that the word is applied elsewhere to gods in general,\nincluding such as were afterwards deemed false gods by the Jews;\nand it is more important still that the actions ascribed to the\nElohim, who created the heavens and the earth, generally reflect\nthe powerful and un-moral forces of nature. The work of creation in\nGenesis (i. and ii. 1-3) is that of giants without any moral quality\nwhatever. Whether or not we take in their obvious sense the words,\n'Elohim created man in his own image, ... male and female created\nhe them,' there can be no question of the meaning of Gen. vi. 1, 2:\n'The sons of Elohim saw the daughters of men that they were beautiful,\nand they took to themselves for wives whomsoever they chose.' When\ngood and evil come to be spoken of, the name Jehovah [22] at once\nappears. The Elohim appear again in the Flood, the wind that assuaged\nit, the injunction to be fruitful and multiply, the cloud and rainbow;\nand gradually the germs of a moral government begin to appear in their\nassigning the violence of mankind as reason for the deluge, and in\nthe covenant with Noah. But even after the name Jehovah had generally\nblended with, or even superseded, the other, we find Elohim often\nused where strength and wonder-working are thought of--e.g., 'Thou\nart the god that doest wonders' (Ps. lxxvii.). 'Thy way is in the sea,\nand thy path in the great waters, and thy footsteps are not known.'\n\nAgainst the primitive nature-deities the personality and jealous\nsupremacy of Jehovah was defined. The golden calf built by Aaron was\ncalled Elohim (plural, though there was but one calf). Solomon was\ndenounced for building altars to the same; and when Jeroboam built\naltars to two calves, they are still so called. Other rivals--Dagon\n(Judges xvi.), Astaroth, Chemosh, Milcom (1 Kings xi.)--are called\nby the once-honoured name. The English Bible translates Elohim, God;\nJehovah, the Lord; Jehovah Elohim, the Lord God; and the critical\nreader will find much that is significant in the varied use of these\nnames. Thus (Gen. xxii.) it is Elohim that demands the sacrifice\nof Isaac, Jehovah that interferes to save him. At the same time, in\nediting the story, it is plainly felt to be inadmissible that Abraham\nshould be supposed loyal to any other god than Jehovah; so Jehovah\nadopts the sacrifice as meant for himself, and the place where the\nram was provided in place of Isaac is called Jehovah-Jireh. However,\nwhen we can no longer distinguish the two antagonistic conceptions\nby different names their actual incongruity is even more salient,\nand, as we shall see, develops a surprising result.\n\nJehovah inaugurates his reign by a manifesto against these giants,\nthe Elohim, for whom the special claim--clamorously asserted when\nAaron built the Golden Calf, and continued as the plea for the same\ndeity--was that they (Elohim) had brought Israel out of Egypt. 'I,'\ncries Jehovah, 'am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the\nland of Egypt, out of the house of bondage: thou shalt have no other\ngods but me;' and the first four commandments of the law are devoted\nentirely to a declaration of his majesty, his power (claiming credit\nfor the creation), his jealous determination to punish his opponents\nand reward his friends, to vindicate the slightest disrespect to his\nname. The narrative of the Golden Calf was plainly connected with\nSinai in order to illustrate the first commandment. The punishment of\nthe believers in another divine emancipator, even though they had not\nyet received the proclamation, must be signal. Jehovah is so enraged\nthat by his order human victims are offered up to the number of three\nthousand, and even after that, it is said, Jehovah plagued Israel on\naccount of their Elohim-worship. In the same direction is the command\nto keep holy the Sabbath day, because on it he rested from the work\nof creation (Gen. xx.), or because on that day he delivered Israel\nfrom Egypt (Deut. v.), the editors do not seem to remember exactly\nwhich, but it is well enough to say both, for it is taking the two\npicked laurels from the brow of Elohim and laying them on that of\nJehovah. In all of which it is observable that there is no moral\nquality whatever. Nero might equally command the Romans to have no\nother gods before himself, to speak his name with awe, to rest when\nhe stopped working. In the fifth commandment, arbitrarily ascribed to\nthe First Table, we have a transition to the moral code; though even\nthere the honour of parents is jealously associated with Jehovah's\ngreatness ('that thy days may be long in the land which Jehovah\nElohim giveth thee'). The nature-gods were equal to that; for the\nElohim had begotten the giants who were 'in the earth in those days.'\n\n'Elohim spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am Jehovah; and I\nappeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob by (the name of) God\nAlmighty (El-Shaddai), but by my name Jehovah was I not known to them'\n(Exod. vi. 2, 3).\n\nThe ancient gods--the Elohim--were, in the process of absorption\ninto the one great form, the repository of their several powers,\ndistinguishable; and though, for the most part, they bear names related\nto the forces of nature, now and then they reflect the tendencies\nto humanisation. Thus we have 'the most high god' (El-elyon--e.g.,\nGen. xiv. 18); 'the everlasting-god' (El-elim, Gen. xxi. 33); 'the\njealous god' (El-kana, Exod. xx. 5); 'the mighty god, and terrible'\n(El-gadol and nora, Deut. vii. 21); 'the living god' (El-chi,\nJosh. iii. 10); 'the god of heaven' (El-shemim, Ps. cxxxvi. 26);\nthe 'god almighty' (El-shaddai, [23] Exod. vi. 2). These Elohim,\nwith each of whose names I have referred to an instance of its\ncharacteristic use, became epithets, as the powers they represented\nwere more and more absorbed by the growing personality of Jehovah; but\nthese epithets were also characters, and their historic expressions\nhad also to undergo a process of slow and difficult digestion. The\nall-devouring grandeur of Jehovah showed what it had fed on. Not only\nall the honours, but many of the dishonours, of the primitive deities\nadhered to the sovereign whose rule was no doubt inaugurated by their\ndisgrace and their barbarism. The costliness of the glory of divine\nabsolutism is again illustrated in the evolution of the premature\nmonotheism, which had for its figure-head the dread Jehovah, who,\nas heir of the nature-gods, became responsible for the monstrosities\nof a tribal demonolatry, thus being compelled to fill simultaneously\nthe r\u00f4les of the demon and the lawgiver. [24]\n\nThe two tables of the law--one written by Jehovistic theology, the\nother by the moral sense of mankind--ascribed to this dual deity, for\nwhom unity was so fiercely insisted on, may be read in their outcome\nthroughout the Bible. They are here briefly, in a few examples,\nset forth side by side.\n\n\nTABLE OF JEHOVAH I.                 TABLE OF JEHOVAH II.\n\nExod. xxxiii. 27. 'Slay every       Exod. xx. 13. 'Thou shalt not\nman his brother, every man his      kill.'\ncompanion, and every man his\nneighbour.'\n\nNum. xv. 32. 'While the children    Exod. xx. 14. 'Thou shalt not\nof Israel were in the wilderness,   commit adultery.'\nthey found a man that gathered\nsticks upon the Sabbath Day....\nAnd they put him in ward, because\nit was not declared what should\nbe done to him. And the Lord said\nunto Moses, The man shall be\nsurely put to death: all the\ncongregation shall stone him with\nstones without the camp.' Neither\nthis nor the similar punishment\nfor blasphemy (Lev. xxiv.), were\nexecutions of existing law. For a\nfearful instance of murder\ninflicted on the innocent, and\naccepted as a human sacrifice by\nJehovah, see 2 Sam. xxi.; and for\nthe brutal murder of Shimei, who\ndenounced and resented the crime\nwhich hung the seven sons of Saul\n'before the Lord,' see 1 Kings ii.\nBut the examples are many.\n\nIn the story of Abraham, Sarai,\nand Hagar (Gen. xvi.), Lot and\nhis daughters (xix.), Abraham's\npresentation of his wife to\nAbimilech (xx.), the same done by\nIsaac (xxvi.), Judah, Tamar\n(xxxviii.), and other cases where\nthe grossest violations of the\nseventh commandment go unrebuked\nby Jehovah, while in constant\ncommunication with the guilty\nparties, we see how little the\nsecond table was supported by\nthe first.\n\nThe extortions, frauds, and         Exod. xx. 15. 'Thou shalt not\nthefts of Jacob (Gen. xxv.,         steal.'\nxxvii., xxx.), which brought upon\nhim the unparalleled blessings of\nJehovah; the plundering of\nNabal's property by David and his\nfellow-bandits; the smiting of\nthe robbed farmer by Jehovah and\nthe taking of his treacherous\nwife by David (1 Sam. xxv.), are\nnarratives befitting a Bible of\nfootpads.\n\nJehovah said, 'Who shall deceive    Exod. xx. 16. 'Thou shalt not\nAhab?... And there came forth a     bear false witness against thy\nspirit, and stood before Jehovah,   neighbour.'\nand said, I will deceive him. And\nJehovah said, Wherewith? And he\nsaid, I will go forth and be a\nlying spirit in the mouth of all\nthese thy prophets. And he said,\nThou shalt deceive him, and\nprevail also: go forth and do so.\nNow, therefore, Jehovah hath put\na lying spirit in the mouth of\nall these thy prophets, and\nJehovah hath spoken evil\nconcerning thee' (1 Kings xxii.).\nSee Ezek. xx. 25.\n\nDeut xx. 10-18, is a complete       Exod. xx. 17. 'Thou shalt not\ninstruction for invasion, murder,   covet they neighbour's wife,\nrapine, eating the spoil of the     thou shalt not covet thy\ninvaded, taking their wives,        neighbour's wife, nor his\ntheir cattle, &c., all such as      man-servant, nor his maid-\nmight have been proclaimed by a     servant, nor his ox, nor his\nSupreme Bashi-Bazouk.               ass, nor anything that is thy\n                                    neighbour's.'\n\n\nInstances of this discrepancy might be largely multiplied. Any one who\ncares to pursue the subject can trace the building upon the powerful\npersonal Jehovah of a religion of human sacrifices, anathemas, and\npriestly despotism; while around the moral ruler and judge of the\nsame name, whose personality is more and more dispersed in pantheistic\nascriptions, there grows the common law, and then the more moral law\nof equity, and the corresponding sentiments which gradually evolve\nthe idea of a parental deity.\n\nIt is obvious that the more this second idea of the deity prevails,\nthe more he is regarded as 'merciful,' 'long-suffering,' 'a God\nof truth and without iniquity, just and right,' 'delighting not in\nsacrifice but mercifulness,' 'good to all,' and whose 'tender mercies\nare over all his works,' and having 'no pleasure in the death of him\nthat dieth;' the less will it be possible to see in the very same\nbeing the 'man of war,' 'god of battles,' the 'jealous,' 'angry,'\n'fire-breathing' one, who 'visits the sins of the fathers upon the\nchildren,' who laughs at the calamities of men and mocks when their\nfear cometh. It is a structural necessity of the human mind that\nthese two shall be gradually detached the one from the other. From\none of the Jehovahs represented in parallel columns came the 'Father'\nwhom Christ adored: from the other came the Devil he abhorred.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\nTHE CONSUMING FIRE.\n\n    The Shekinah--Jewish idols--Attributes of the fiery and\n    cruel Elohim compared with those of the Devil--The powers of\n    evil combined under a head--Continuity--The consuming fire\n    spiritualised.\n\n\nThat Abraham was a Fire-worshipper might be suspected from the\nimmemorial efforts of all Semitic authorities to relieve him of\ntraditional connection with that particular idolatry. When the good\nand evil powers were being distinguished, we find the burning and\nthe bright aspects of Fire severally regarded. The sign of Jehovah's\ncovenant with Abram included both. 'It came to pass that when the sun\nwent down, and it was dark, behold a smoking furnace and a burning\nlamp that passed between those pieces' (of the sacrifice). In the\nlegend of Moses we have the glory resting on Sinai and the burning\nbush, the bush which, it is specially remarked, was 'not consumed,'\nan exceptional circumstance in honour of Moses. To these corresponded\nthe Urim and Thummim, marking the priest as source of light and\nof judgment. In his favourable and adorable aspect Jehovah was the\nBrightness of Fire. This was the Shekinah. In the Targum, Jonathan\nBen Uzziel to the Prophets, it is said: 'The mountains trembled\nbefore the Lord; the mountains Tabor, Hermon, Carmel said one to the\nother: Upon me the Shekinah will rest, and to me will it come. But\nthe Shekinah rested upon Mount Sinai, weakest and smallest of all the\nmountains. This Sinai trembled and shook, and its smoke went up as the\nsmoke of an oven, because of the glory of the God of Israel which had\nmanifested itself upon it.' The Brightness [25] passed on to illumine\nevery event associated with the divine presence in Semitic mythology;\nit was 'the glory of the Lord' shining from the Star of Bethlehem,\nand the figure of the Transfiguration.\n\nThe Consuming Fire also had its development. Among the spiritual\nit was spiritualised. 'Who among us shall dwell with the Devouring\nFire?' cries Isaiah. 'Who among us shall dwell with the Everlasting\nBurnings? He that walketh righteously and speaketh uprightly; he\nthat despiseth the gain of oppressions, that shaketh his hands from\nholding of bribes, that stoppeth his ears from hearing of blood,\nand shutteth his eyes from seeing evil.' It was by a prosaic route\nthat the Devouring Fire became the residence of the wicked.\n\nAfter Jeroboam (1 Kings xiii.) had built altars to the Elohim,\nunder form of Calves, a prophet came out of Judah to denounce the\nidolatry. 'And he cried against the altar in the word of Jehovah,\nand said, O altar, altar! thus saith Jehovah, Behold, a child shall\nbe born unto the house of David, Josiah by name; and upon thee shall\nhe offer the priests of the high places that burn incense upon thee,\nand men's bones shall be burnt upon thee.' It was deemed so important\nthat this prophecy should be fulfilled in the letter, when it could\nno longer be fulfilled in reality, that some centuries later Josiah\ndug up the bones of the Elohistic priests and burned them upon their\nlong-ruined altars (2 Kings xxiii.).\n\nThe incident is significant, both on account of the prophet's\npersonification of the altar, and the institution of a sort of Gehenna\nin connection with it. The personification and the Gehenna became\nmuch more complete as time went on. The Jews originally had no Devil,\nas indeed had no races at first; and this for the obvious reason\nthat their so-called gods were quite equal to any moral evils that\nwere to be accounted for, as we have already seen they were adequate\nto explain all physical evils. But the antagonists of the moral\nJehovah were recognised and personified with increasing clearness,\nand were quite prepared for connection with any General who might be\ntheoretically proposed for their leadership. When the Jews came under\nthe influence of Persian theology the archfiend was elected, and all\nthe Elohim--Moloch, Dagon, Astarte, Chemosh, and the rest--took their\nplace under his rebellious ensign.\n\nThe descriptions of the Devil in the Bible are mainly borrowed from\nthe early descriptions of the Elohim, and of Jehovah in his Elohistic\ncharacter. [26] In the subjoined parallels I follow the received\nEnglish version.\n\n\nGen. xxii. 1. 'God tempted          Matt. iv. 1. 'Then was Jesus\nAbraham.'                           led up into the wilderness\n                                    to be tempted of the devil.'\n                                    See also 1 Cor. vii. 5, 1\n                                    Thes. iii. 5, James 1.13.\n\nExod. v. 3. 'I (Jehovah) will       John xiii. 2. 'The devil having\nharden Pharaoh's heart;' v. 13,     now put into the heart Judas\n'He hardened Pharaoh's heart.'      Iscariot, Simon's son, to betray\n                                    him.'\n\n1 Kings xxii. 23. 'Behold the       John viii. 44. 'He (the devil) is\nLord hath put a lying spirit in     a liar' ('and so is his father,'\nthe mouth of all these thy          continues the sentence by right\nprophets, and the Lord hath         of translation). 1 Tim. iii. 2,\nspoken evil concerning them.'       'slanderers' (diabolous). 2 Tim.\nEzek. xiv. 9. 'If the prophet be    iii. 3, 'false accusers'\ndeceived when he hath spoken a      (diabolo). Also Titus ii. 3, Von\nthing, I the Lord have deceived     Tischendorf translates\nthat prophet, and I will stretch    'calumniators.'\nout my hand upon him, and will\ndestroy him from the midst of\nmy people.'\n\nIsa. xlv. 7. 'I make peace and      Matt. xiii. 38. 'The tares are\ncreate evil. I the Lord do all      the children of the wickied\nthese things.' Amos iii. 6.         one.' 1 John iii. 8. 'He that\n'Shall there be evil in a city      committeth sin is of the devil;\nand the Lord hath not done it?'     for the devil sinneth from the\n1 Sam. xvi. 14. 'An evil spirit     beginning.'\nfrom the Lord troubled him'\n(Saul).\n\nExod. xii. 29. 'At midnight the     John viii. 44. 'He (the devil)\nLord smote all the firstborn of     was a murderer from the\nEgypt.' Ver. 30. 'There was a       beginning.'\ngreat cry in Egypt; for there was\nnot a house where there was not\none dead.' Exod. xxxiii. 27.\n'Thus saith the Lord God of\nIsrael, Put every man his sword\nby his side, and go in and out\nfrom gate to gate throughout the\ncamp, and slay every man his\nbrother, and every man his\ncompanion, and every man his\nneighbour.'\n\nExod. vi. 9. 'Take thy rod and      Rev. xii. 7, &c. 'There was war\ncast it before Pharaoh and it       in heaven: Michael and his angels\nshall become a serpent.' Ver. 12.   fought against the dragon.... And\n'Aaron's rod swallowed up their     the great dragon was cast out,\nrods.' Num. xxi. 6. 'Jehovah sent   that old serpent, called the\nfiery serpents (Seraphim) among     Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth\nthe people.' Ver. 8. 'And the       the whole world.... Woe to the\nLord said unto Moses, Make thee a   inhabiters of the earth and of\nfiery serpent, and set it upon a    the sea! for the devil has come\npole: and it shall come to pass,    down to you, having great wrath.'\nthat every one that is bitten,\nwhen he looketh upon it, shall\nlive.' (This serpent was\nworshipped until destroyed by\nHezekiah, 2 Kings xviii.) Compare\nJer. viii. 17, Ps. cxlviii.,\n'Praise ye the Lord from the\nearth, ye dragons.'\n\nGen. xix. 24. 'The Lord rained      Matt. xxv. 41. 'Depart from me,\nupon Sodom and Gomorrah brimstone   ye cursed, into everlasting fire,\nand fire from the Lord out of       prepared for the devil and his\nheaven.' Deut. iv. 24. 'The Lord    angels.' Mark ix. 44. 'Where\nthy God is a consuming fire.' Ps.   their worm dieth not, and the\nxi. 6. 'Upon the wicked he shall    fire is not quenched.' Rev. xx.\nrain snares, fire and brimstone.'   10. 'And the devil that\nPs. xviii. 8. 'There went up a      deceiveth them was cast into the\nsmoke out of his nostrils.' Ps.     lake of fire and brimstone.' In\nxcvii. 3. 'A fire goeth before      Rev. ix. Abaddon, or Apollyon, is\nhim, and burneth up his enemies     represented as the king of the\nround about.' Ezek. xxxviii. 19,    scorpion tormentors; and the\n&c. 'For in my jealousy, and in     diabolical horses, with stinging\nthe fire of my wrath, have I        serpent tails, are described as\nspoken.... I will plead against     killing with the smoke and\nhim with pestilence and with        brimstone from their mouths.\nblood, and I will rain upon him\n... fire and brimstone.' Isa.\nxxx. 33. 'Tophet is ordained of\nold; yea, for the king is it\nprepared: he hath made it deep\nand wide; the pile thereof is\nfire and much wood; the breath\nof the Lord, like a stream of\nbrimstone, doth kindle it.'\n\n\nIn addition to the above passages may be cited a notable passage from\nPaul's Epistle to the Thessalonians (ii. 3). 'Let no man deceive you\nby any means: for that day (of Christ) shall not come, except there\ncome a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son\nof perdition; who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is\ncalled God, or that is worshipped; so that he, as God, sitteth in the\ntemple of God, showing himself that he is God. Remember ye not that,\nwhen I was yet with you, I told you these things? And now ye know what\nwithholdeth that he might be revealed in his time. For the mystery of\niniquity doth already work: only he who now letteth will let, until he\nbe taken out of the way: and then shall that Wicked be revealed, whom\nthe Lord shall consume with the spirit of his mouth, and shall destroy\nwith the brightness of his coming: even him whose coming is after the\nworking of Satan, with all power, and signs, and lying wonders, and\nwith all the deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish;\nbecause they received not the love of the truth, that they might\nbe saved. And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion,\nthat they should believe a lie; that they all might be damned who\nbelieved not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.'\n\nThis remarkable utterance shows how potent was the survival in the\nmind of Paul of the old Elohist belief. Although the ancient deity,\nwho deceived prophets to their destruction, and sent forth lying\nspirits with their strong delusions, was dethroned and outlawed, he was\nstill a powerful claimant of empire, haunting the temple, and setting\nhimself up therein as God. He will be consumed by Christ's breath when\nthe day of triumph comes; but meanwhile he is not only allowed great\npower in the earth, but utilised by the true God, who even so far\ncooperates with the false as to send on some men 'strong delusions'\n('a working of error,' Von Tischendorf translates), in order that\nthey may believe the lie and be damned. Paul speaks of the 'mystery\nof iniquity;' but it is not so very mysterious when we consider the\nantecedents of his idea. The dark problem of the origin of evil, and\nits continuance in the universe under the rule of a moral governor,\nstill threw its impenetrable shadow across the human mind. It was a\nterrible reality, visible in the indifference or hostility with which\nthe new gospel was met on the part of the cultured and powerful; and it\ncould only then be explained as a mysterious provisional arrangement\nconnected with some divine purpose far away in the depths of the\nuniverse. But the passage quoted from Thessalonians shows plainly\nthat all those early traditions about the divinely deceived prophets\nand lying spirits, sent forth from Jehovah Elohim, had finally, in\nPaul's time, become marshalled under a leader, a personal Man of Sin;\nbut this leader, while opposing Christ's kingdom, is in some mysterious\nway a commissioner of God.\n\nWe may remark here the beautiful continuity by which, through all\nthese shadows of terror and vapours of speculation, 'clouding the\nglow of heaven,' [27] the unquenchable ideal from first to last is\nsteadily ascending.\n\n'One or three things,' says the Talmud, 'were before this world--Water,\nFire, and Wind. Water begat the Darkness, Fire begat Light, and\nWind begat the Spirit of Wisdom.' This had become the rationalistic\ntranslation by a crude science of the primitive demons, once believed\nto have created the heavens and the earth. In the process we find\nthe forces outlawed in their wild action, but becoming the choir of\nGod in their quiet action:--\n\n1 Kings xix. 11-13. 'And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount\nbefore the Lord. And, behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and\nstrong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before\nthe Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an\nearthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake: and after the\nearthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the\nfire a still small voice. And it was so, when Elijah heard it, that\nhe wrapped his face in his mantle.'\n\nBut man must have a philosophical as well as a moral development: the\nhuman mind could not long endure this elemental anarchy. It asked,\nIf the Lord be not in the hurricane, the earthquake, the volcanic\nflame, who is therein? This is the answer of the Targum: [28]\n\n'And he said, Arise and stand on the mountain before the Lord. And\nGod revealed himself: and before him a host of angels of the wind,\ncleaving the mountain and breaking the rocks before the Lord; but\nnot in the host of angels was the Shechinah. And after the host of\nthe angels of the wind came a host of angels of commotion; but not in\nthe host of the angels of commotion was the Shechinah of the Lord. And\nafter the angels of commotion came a host of angels of fire; but not\nin the host of angels of fire was the Shechinah of the Lord. But after\nthe host of the angels of the fire came voices singing in silence. And\nit was when Elijah heard this he hid his face in his mantle.'\n\nThe moral sentiment takes another step in advance with the unknown but\nartistic writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Moses had described\nGod as a 'consuming fire;' and 'the sight of the glory of the Lord\nwas like devouring fire on the top of the mount in the eyes of the\nchildren of Israel' (Exod. xxiv. 17). When next we meet this phrase it\nis with this writer, who seeks to supersede what Moses (traditionally)\nbuilt up. 'Whose voice,' he says, 'then shook the earth; but now he\nhath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but\nalso heaven. And this word, 'yet once more,' signifieth the removing\nof those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those\nwhich cannot be shaken may remain.... For our God is a consuming fire.'\n\n'Our God also!' cries each great revolution that advances. His\nconsuming wrath is not now directed against man, but the errors\nwhich are man's only enemies: the lightnings of the new Sinai, while\nthey enlighten the earth, smite the old heaven of human faith and\nimagination, shrivelling it like a burnt scroll!\n\nIn this nineteenth century, when the old heaven, amid which this\nfiery pillar glowed, is again shaken, the ancient phrase has still\nits meaning. The Russian Tourgenieff represents two friends who had\nstudied together in early life, then parted, accidentally meeting\nonce more for a single night. They compare notes as to what the long\nintervening years have taught them; and one sums his experience in the\nwords--'I have burned what I used to worship, and worship what I used\nto burn.' The novelist artfully reproduces for this age a sentence\nassociated with a crisis in the religious history of Europe. Clovis,\nKing of the Franks, invoked the God of his wife Clotilda to aid him\nagainst the Germans, vowing to become a Christian if successful; and\nwhen, after his victory, he was baptized at Rheims, St. Remy said to\nhim--'Bow thy head meekly, Sicambrian; burn what thou hast worshipped,\nand worship what thou hast burned!' Clovis followed the Bishop's advice\nin literal fashion, carrying fire and sword amid his old friends the\n'Pagans' right zealously. But the era has come in which that which\nClovis' sword and St. Remy's theology set up for worship is being\nconsumed in its turn. Tourgenieff's youths are consuming the altar on\nwhich their forerunners were consumed. And in this rekindled flame the\nworld now sees shrivelling the heavens once fresh, but now reflecting\nthe aggregate selfishness of mankind, the hells representing their\naggregate cowardice, and feeds its nobler faith with this vision of the\neternal fire which evermore consumes the false and refines the world.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\nPARADISE AND THE SERPENT.\n\n    Herakles and Athena in a holy picture--Human significance of\n    Eden--The legend in Genesis puzzling--Silence of later books\n    concerning it--Its Vedic elements--Its explanation--Episode of\n    the Mah\u00e1bh\u00e1rata--Scandinavian variant--The name of Adam--The\n    story re-read--Rabbinical interpretations.\n\n\nMontfaucon has among his plates one (XX.) representing an antique\nagate which he supposes to represent Zeus and Athena, but which\nprobably relates to the myth of Herakles and Athena in the garden of\nHesperides. The hero having penetrated this garden, slays the dragon\nwhich guards its immortalising fruit, but when he has gathered this\nfruit Athena takes it from him, lest man shall eat it and share the\nimmortality of the gods. In this design the two stand on either side of\nthe tree, around which a serpent is twined from root to branches. The\nhistory which Montfaucon gives of the agate is of equal interest\nwith the design itself. It was found in an old French cathedral,\nwhere it had long been preserved and shown as a holy picture of the\nTemptation. It would appear also to have previously deceived some\nrabbins, for on the border is written in Hebrew characters, much\nmore modern than the central figures, 'The woman saw that the tree\nwas good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree\nto be desired to make one wise.'\n\nThis mystification about a design, concerning whose origin and design\nthere is now no doubt, is significant. The fable of Paradise and\nthe Serpent is itself more difficult to trace, so many have been the\nraces and religions which have framed it with their holy texts and\npreserved it in their sacred precincts. In its essence, no doubt,\nthe story grows from a universal experience; in that aspect it is a\nmystical rose that speaks all languages. When man first appears his\ncounterpart is a garden. The moral nature means order. The wild forces\nof nature--the Elohim--build no fence, forbid no fruit. They say to\nman as the supreme animal, Subdue the earth; every tree and herb shall\nbe your meat; every animal your slave; be fruitful and multiply. But\nfrom the conflict the more real man emerges, and his sign is a garden\nhedged in from the wilderness, and a separation between good and evil.\n\nThe form in which the legend appears in the Book of Genesis presents\none side in which it is simple and natural. This has already been\nsuggested (vol. i. p. 330). But the legend of man defending his refuge\nfrom wild beasts against the most subtle of them is here overlaid by\na myth in which it plays the least part. The mind which reads it by\nsuch light as may be obtained only from biblical sources can hardly\nfail to be newly puzzled at every step. So much, indeed, is confessed\nin the endless and diverse theological theories which the story has\nelicited. What is the meaning of the curse on the Serpent that it\nshould for ever crawl thereafter? Had it not crawled previously? Why\nwas the Tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil forbidden? Why,\nwhen its fruit was tasted, should the Tree of Life have been for the\nfirst time forbidden and jealously guarded? These riddles are nowhere\nsolved in the Bible, and have been left to the fanciful inventions\nof theologians and the ingenuity of rabbins. Dr. Adam Clarke thought\nthe Serpent was an ape before his sin, and many rabbins concluded he\nwas camel-shaped; but the remaining enigmas have been fairly given up.\n\nThe ancient Jews, they who wrote and compiled the Old Testament, more\ncandid than their modern descendants and our omniscient christians,\nsilently confessed their inability to make anything out of this\nsnake-story. From the third chapter of Genesis to the last verse of\nMalachi the story is not once alluded to! Such a phenomenon would\nhave been impossible had this legend been indigenous with the Hebrew\nrace. It was clearly as a boulder among them which had floated from\nregions little known to their earlier writers; after lying naked\nthrough many ages, it became overgrown with rabbinical lichen and\nmoss, and, at the Christian era, while it seemed part of the Hebrew\nlandscape, it was exceptional enough to receive special reverence as\na holy stone. That it was made the corner-stone of Christian theology\nmay be to some extent explained by the principle of omne ignotum pro\nmirifico. But the boulder itself can only be explained by tracing it\nto the mythologic formation from which it crumbled.\n\nHow would a Parsi explain the curse on a snake which condemned it to\ncrawl? He would easily give us evidence that at the time when most\nof those Hebrew Scriptures were written, without allusion to such\na Serpent, the ancient Persians believed that Ahriman had tempted\nthe first man and woman through his evil mediator, his anointed son,\nAsh-Mogh, 'the two-footed Serpent.'\n\nBut let us pass beyond the Persian legend, carrying that and the\nbiblical story together, for submission to the criticism of a\nBr\u00e1hman. He will tell us that this Ash-Mogh of the Parsi is merely\nthe ancient A\u00e8shma-da\u00e9va of the Avesta, which in turn is Ahi, the\ngreat Vedic Serpent-monster whom Indra 'prostrated beneath the feet'\nof the stream he had obstructed--every stream having its deity. He\nwould remind us that the Vedas describe the earliest dragon-slayer,\nIndra, as 'crushing the head' of his enemy, and that this figure of\nthe god with his heel on a Serpent's head has been familiar to his race\nfrom time immemorial. And he would then tell us to read the Rig-Veda,\nv. 32, and the Mah\u00e1bh\u00e1rata, and we would find all the elements of\nthe story told in Genesis.\n\nIn the hymn referred to we find a graphic account of how, when Ahi\nwas sleeping on the waters he obstructed, Indra hurled at him his\nthunderbolt. It says that when Indra had 'annihilated the weapon of\nthat mighty beast from him (Ahi), another, more powerful, conceiving\nhimself one and unmatched, was generated,' This 'wrath-born son,'\n'a walker in darkness,' had managed to get hold of the sacred Soma,\nthe plant monopolised by the gods, and having drunk this juice, he\nlay slumbering and 'enveloping the world,' and then 'fierce Indra\nseized upon him,' and having previously discovered 'the vital part\nof him who thought, himself invulnerable,' struck that incarnation\nof many-formed Ahi, and he was 'made the lowest of all creatures'.\n\nBut one who has perused the philological biography of Ahi already\ngiven, vol. i. p. 357, will not suppose that this was the end of\nhim. We must now consider in further detail the great episode\nof the Mah\u00e1bh\u00e1rata, to which reference has been made in other\nconnections. [29] During the Deluge the most precious treasure of\nthe gods, the Amrita, the ambrosia that rendered them immortal, was\nlost, and the poem relates how the Devas and Asuras, otherwise gods\nand serpents, together churned the ocean for it. There were two great\nmountains,--Meru the golden and beautiful, adorned with healing plants,\npleasant streams and trees, unapproachable by the sinful, guarded\nby serpents; Mandar, rocky, covered with rank vegetation, infested\nby savage beasts. The first is the abode of the gods, the last of\ndemons. To find the submerged Amrita it was necessary to uproot Mandar\nand use it to churn the ocean. This was done by calling on the King\nSerpent Ananta, who called in the aid of another great serpent, V\u00e1suki,\nthe latter being used as a rope coiling and uncoiling to whirl the\nmountain. At last the Amrita appeared. But there also streamed forth\nfrom the ocean bed a terrible stench and venom, which was spreading\nthrough the universe when Siva swallowed it to save mankind,--the\ndrug having stained his throat blue, whence his epithet 'Blue Neck.'\n\nWhen the Asuras saw the Amrita, they claimed it; but one of the Devas,\nNarya, assumed the form of a beautiful woman, and so fascinated them\nthat they forgot the Amrita for the moment, which the gods drank. One\nof the Asuras, however, R\u00e1hu, assumed the form of a god or Deva, and\nbegan to drink. The immortalising nectar had not gone farther than\nhis throat when the sun and moon saw the deceit and discovered it to\nNaraya, who cut off R\u00e1hu's head. The head of R\u00e1hu, being immortal,\nbounded to the sky, where its efforts to devour the sun and moon,\nwhich betrayed him, causes their eclipses. The tail (Ketu) also enjoys\nimmortality in a lower plane, and is the fatal planet which sends\ndiseases on mankind. A furious war between the gods and the Asuras\nhas been waged ever since. And since the Devas are the strongest,\nit is not wonderful that it should have passed into the folklore\nof the whole Aryan world that the evil host are for ever seeking to\nrecover by cunning the Amrita. The Serpents guarding the paradise of\nthe Devas have more than once, in a mythologic sense, been induced\nto betray their trust and glide into the divine precincts to steal\nthe coveted draught. This is the Kv\u00e1sir [30] of the Scandinavian\nMythology, which is the source of that poetic inspiration whose songs\nhave magical potency. The sacramental symbol of the Amrita in Hindu\nTheology is the Soma juice, and this plant Indra is declared in the\nRig-Veda (i. 130) to have discovered \"hidden, like the nestlings of\na bird, amidst a pile of rocks enclosed by bushes,\" where the dragon\nDrought had concealed it. Indra, in the shape of a hawk, flew away\nwith it. In the Prose Edda the Frost Giant Suttung has concealed the\nsacred juice, and it is kept by the maid Gunlauth in a cavern overgrown\nwith bushes. Bragi bored a hole through the rock. Odin in the shape\nof a worm crept through the crevice; then resuming his godlike shape,\ncharmed the maid into permitting him to drink one draught out of the\nthree jars; and, having left no drop, in form of an eagle flew to\nAsgard, and discharged in the jars the wonder-working liquid. Hence\npoetry is called Odin's booty, and Odin's gift.\n\nThose who attentively compare these myths with the legend in Genesis\nwill not have any need to rest upon the doubtful etymology of 'Adam'\n[31] to establish the Ayran origin of the latter. The Tree of the\nknowledge of Good and Evil which made man 'as one of us' (the Elohim)\nis the Soma of India, the Haoma of Persia, the kv\u00e1sir of Scandinavia,\nto which are ascribed the intelligence and powers of the gods, and\nthe ardent thoughts of their worshippers. The Tree of Immortality is\nthe Amrita, the only monopoly of the gods. 'The Lord God said, Behold\nthe man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest\nhe put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat,\nand live for ever: Therefore the Lord God sent him forth the garden\nof Eden to till the ground whence he had been taken. So he drove out\nthe man; and he placed on the east of the garden of Eden cherubim,\nand a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way of the\ntree of life.'\n\nThis flaming sword turning every way is independent of the cherub,\nand takes the place of the serpent which had previously guarded the\nMeru paradise, but is now an enemy no longer to be trusted.\n\nIf the reader will now re-read the story in Genesis with the old names\nrestored, he will perceive that there is no puzzle at all in any part\nof it:--'Now R\u00e1hu [because he had stolen and tasted Soma] was more\nsubtle than any beast of the field which the Devas had made, and he\nsaid to Adea Suktee, the first woman, Have the Devas said you shall\nnot eat of every tree in the garden? And she said unto R\u00e1hu, We may\neat of the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the Soma-plant,\nwhich is in the middle of the garden, the Devas have said we shall\nnot eat or touch it on pain of death. Then R\u00e1hu said to Adea, You\nwill not suffer death by tasting Soma [I have done so, and live]:\nthe Devas know that on the day when you taste it your eyes shall be\nopened, and you will be equal to them in knowledge of good and evil\n... [and you will be able at once to discover which tree it is that\nbears the fruit which renders you immortal--the Amrita].... Adea took\nof the Soma and did eat, and gave also unto Adima, her husband, and the\neyes of them both were opened.... And Indra, chief of the Devas, said\nto R\u00e1hu, Because you have done this, you are cursed above all cattle\nand above every beast of the field; [for they shall transmigrate,\ntheir souls ascend through higher forms to be absorbed in the Creative\nprinciple; but] upon thy belly shalt thou go [remaining transfixed in\nthe form you have assumed to try and obtain the Amrita]; and [instead\nof the ambrosia you aimed at] you shall eat dirt through all your\nexistence.... And Indra said, Adima and Adea Suktee have [tasted Soma,\nand] become as one of us Devas [so far as] to know good and evil;\nand now, lest man put forth his hand [on our precious Amrita], and\ntake also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever [giving\nus another race of Asuras or Serpent-men to compete with].... Indra\nand the Devas drove Adima out of Meru, and placed watch-dogs at the\neast of the garden; and [a sinuous darting flame, precisely matched\nto the now unchangeable form of R\u00e1hu], a flaming sword which turned\nevery way, to keep the way of the Amrita from Adima and Asuras.'\n\nWhile the gods and serpents were churning the ocean for the Amrita,\nall woes and troubles for mortals came up first. That ocean shrinks\nin one region to the box of Pandora, in another to the fruit eaten by\nEve. How foreign such a notion is to the Hebrew theology is shown by\nthe fact that even while the curses are falling from the fatal fruit\non the earth and man, they are all said to have proceeded solely from\nJehovah, who is thus made to supplement the serpent's work.\n\nIt will be seen that in the above version of the story in Genesis I\nhave left out various passages. These are in part such as must be more\nfully treated in the succeeding chapter, and in part the Semitic mosses\nwhich have grown upon the Aryan boulder. But even after the slight\ntreatment which is all I have space to devote to the comparative\nstudy of the myth in this aspect, it may be safely affirmed that\nthe problems which we found insoluble by Hebrew correlatives no\nlonger exist if an Aryan origin be assumed. We know why the fruit\nof knowledge was forbidden: because it endangered the further fruit\nof immortality. We know how the Serpent might be condemned to crawl\nfor ever without absurdity: because he was of a serpent-race, able\nto assume higher forms, and capable of transmigration, and of final\nabsorption. We know why the eating of the fruit brought so many woes:\nit was followed by the stream of poison from the churned ocean which\naccompanied the Amrita, and which would have destroyed the race of both\ngods and men, had not Siva drank it up. If anything were required to\nmake the Aryan origin of the fable certain, it will be found in the\nfact which will appear as we go on,--namely, that the rabbins of our\nera, in explaining the legend which their fathers severely ignored,\ndid so by borrowing conceptions foreign to the original ideas of\ntheir race,--notions about human transformation to animal shapes,\nand about the Serpent (which Moses honoured), and mainly of a kind\ntravestying the Iranian folklore. Such contact with foreign races\nfor the first time gave the Jews any key to the legend which their\npatriarchs and prophets were compelled to pass over in silence.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\nEVE.\n\n    The Fall of Man--Fall of gods--Giants--Praj\u00e1pati and R\u00e1hu--Woman\n    and Star-serpent in Persia--Meschia and Meschiane--Br\u00e1hman\n    legends of the creation of Man--The strength of Woman--Elohist\n    and Jehovist creations of Man--The Forbidden Fruit--Eve reappears\n    as Sara--Abraham surrenders his wife to Jehovah--The idea not\n    sensual--Abraham's circumcision--The evil name of Woman--Noah's\n    wife--The temptation of Abraham--Rabbinical legends concerning\n    Eve--Pandora--Sentiment of the Myth of Eve.\n\n\nThe insignificance of the Serpent of Eden in the scheme and teachings\nof the Hebrew Bible is the more remarkable when it is considered that\nthe pessimistic view of human nature is therein fully represented. In\nthe story of the Temptation itself, there is, indeed, no such\ngeneralisation as we find in the modern dogma of the Fall of Man;\nbut the elements of it are present in the early assumption that\nthe thoughts of man's heart run to evil continually,--which must\nbe an obvious fact everywhere while goodness is identified with\nfictitious merits. There are also expressions suggesting a theory\nof heredity, of a highly superstitious character,--the inheritance\nbeing by force of the ancestral word or act, and without reference\nto inherent qualities. Outward merits and demerits are transmitted\nfor reward and punishment to the third and fourth generation; but\nthe more common-sense view appears to have gradually superseded this,\nas expressed in the proverb that the fathers ate sour grapes and the\nchildren's teeth were on edge.\n\nIn accounting for this condition of human nature, popular traditions\namong the Jews always pointed rather to a fall of the gods than to\nany such catastrophe to man. 'The sons of the Elohim (gods) saw the\ndaughters of men that they were beautiful, and they took to themselves\nfor wives whomsoever they chose.' 'There were giants in the earth in\nthose days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto\nthe daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became\nmighty men, which were of old men of renown.' [32] These giants were\nto the Semitic mind what the Ahis, Vritras, Sushnas and other monsters\nwere to the Aryan, or Titans to the Greek mind. They were not traced\nto the Serpent, but to the wild nature-gods, the Elohim, and when\nJehovah appears it is to wage war against them. The strength of this\nbelief is illustrated in the ample accounts given in the Old Testament\nof the Rephaim and their king Og, the Anakim and Goliath, the Emim,\nthe Zamzummim, and others, all of which gained full representation in\nHebrew folklore. The existence of these hostile beings was explained\nby their fall from angelic estate.\n\nThe Book of Enoch gives what was no doubt the popular understanding\nof the fall of the angels and its results. Two hundred angels took\nwives of the daughters of men, and their offspring were giants three\nthousand yards in height. These giants having consumed the food\nof mankind, began to devour men, whose cries were brought to the\nattention of Jehovah by his angels. One angel was sent to warn Noah\nof the Flood; another to bind Azazel in a dark place in the desert\ntill the Judgment Day; Gabriel was despatched to set the giants to\ndestroying one another; Michael was sent to bury the fallen angels\nunder the hills for seventy generations, till the Day of Judgment, when\nthey should be sent to the fiery abyss for ever. Then every evil work\nshould come to an end, and the plant of righteousness spring up. [33]\n\nSuch exploits and successes on the part of the legal Deity against\noutlaws, though they may be pitched high in heroic romance, are\nfound beside a theology based upon a reverse situation. Nothing is\nmore fundamental in the ancient Jewish system than the recognition\nof an outside world given over to idolatry and wickedness, while\nJews are a small colony of the children of Israel and chosen of\nJehovah. Such a conception in primitive times is so natural, and\npossibly may have been so essential to the constitution of nations,\nthat it is hardly useful to look for parallels. Though nearly all\nraces see in their traditional dawn an Age of Gold, a Happy Garden,\nor some corresponding felicity, these are normally defined against\nanterior chaos or surrounding ferocity. Every Eden has had its guards.\n\nWhen we come to legends which relate particularly to the way in\nwhich the early felicity was lost, many facts offer themselves for\ncomparative study. And with regard to the myths of Eden and Eve,\nwe may remark what appears to have been a curious interchange of\nlegends between the Hebrews and Persians. The ancient doctrines of\nIndia and Persia concerning Origins are largely, if not altogether,\nastronomical. In the Genesis of India we see a golden egg floating\non a shoreless ocean; it divides to make the heaven above and earth\nbeneath; from it emerges Praj\u00e1pati, who also falls in twain to make\nthe mortal and immortal substances; the parts of him again divide to\nmake men and women on earth, sun and moon in the sky. This is but one\nversion out of many, but all the legends about Praj\u00e1pati converge\nin making him a figure of Indian astronomy. In the Rig-Veda he is\nOrion, and for ever lies with the three arrows in his belt which\nSirius shot at him because of his love for Aldebaran,--towards which\nconstellation he stretches. Now, in a sort of antithesis to this,\nthe evil R\u00e1hu is also cut in twain, his upper and immortal part\npursuing and trying to eclipse the sun and moon, his tail (Ketu)\nbecoming the 9th planet, shedding evil influences on mankind. [34]\nThis tail, Ketu, is quite an independent monster, and we meet with\nhim in the Persian planisphere, where he rules the first of the six\nmansions of Ahriman, and is the 'crooked serpent' mentioned in the\nBook of Job. By referring to vol. i. p. 253, the reader will see that\nthis Star-serpent must stand as close to the woman with her child and\nsheaf as September stands to October. But unquestionably the woman\nwas put there for honour and not disgrace; with her child and sheaf\nshe represented the fruitage of the year.\n\nThere is nothing in Persian Mythology going to show that the woman\nbetrayed her mansion of fruitage--the golden year--to the Serpent\nnear her feet. In the Bundehesch we have the original man, Kaiomarts,\nwho is slain by Ahriman as Praj\u00e1pati (Orion) was by Sirius; from his\ndead form came Meschia and Meschiane, the first human pair. Ahriman\ncorrupts them by first giving them goats' milk, an evil influence\nfrom Capricorn. After they had thus injured themselves he tempted\nthem with a fruit which robbed them of ninety-nine hundredths\nof their happiness. In all this there is no indication that the\nwoman and man bore different relations to the calamity. But after a\ntime we find a Pars\u00ee postscript to this effect: 'The woman was the\nfirst to sacrifice to the Devas.' This is the one item in the Pars\u00ee\nMythology which shows bias against woman, and as it is unsupported\nby the narratives preceding it, we may suppose that it was derived\nfrom some foreign country.\n\nThat country could hardly have been India. There is a story in remote\ndistricts of India which relates that the first woman was born out\nof an expanding lotus on the Ganges, and was there received in his\nparadise by the first man (Adima, or Manu). Having partaken of the\nSoma, they were expelled, after first being granted their prayer to be\nallowed a last draught from the Ganges; the effect of the holy water\nbeing to prevent entire corruption, and secure immortality to their\nsouls. But nowhere in Indian legend or folklore do we find any special\ndishonour put upon woman such as is described in the Hebrew story.\n\nRather we find the reverse. Early in the last century, a traveller,\nJohn Marshall, related stories of the creation which he says were\ntold him by the Brahmins, and others 'by the Brahmins of Persia.' [35]\n\n'Once on a time,' the Brahmins said, 'as (God) was set in eternity,\nit came into his mind to make something, and immediately no sooner had\nhe thought the same, but that the same minute was a perfect beautiful\nwoman present immediately before him, which he called Adea Suktee,\nthat is, the first woman. Then this figure put into his mind the\nfigure of a man; which he had no sooner conceived in his mind, but\nthat he also started up, and represented himself before him; this he\ncalled Manapuise, that is, the first man; then, upon a reflection of\nthese things, he resolved further to create several places for them\nto abide in, and accordingly, assuming a subtil body, he breathed in\na minute the whole universe, and everything therein, from the least\nto the greatest.'\n\n'The Brahmins of Persia tell certain long stories of a great Giant that\nwas led into a most delicate garden, which, upon certain conditions,\nshould be his own for ever. But one evening in a cool shade one of\nthe wicked Devatas, or spirits, came to him, and tempted him with vast\nsums of gold, and all the most precious jewels that can be imagined;\nbut he courageously withstood that temptation, as not knowing what\nvalue or use they were of: but at length this wicked Devata brought\nto him a fair woman, who so charmed him that for her sake he most\nwillingly broke all his conditions, and thereupon was turned out.'\n\nIn the first of these two stories the names given to the man and woman\nare popular words derived from Sanskrit. In the second the Persian\ncharacters are present, as in the use of Devatas to denote wicked\npowers; but for the rest, this latter legend appears to me certainly\nborrowed from the Jews so far as the woman is concerned. It was they\nwho first perceived any connection between Virgo in the sixth mansion\nof Ormuzd, and Python in the seventh, and returned the Persians their\nplanisphere with a new gloss. Having adopted the Dragon's tail (Ketu)\nfor a little preliminary performance, the Hebrew system dismisses\nthat star-snake utterly; for it has already evolved a terrestrial\ndevil from its own inner consciousness.\n\nThe name of that devil is--Woman. The diabolisation of woman in their\ntheology and tradition is not to be regarded as any indication that\nthe Hebrews anciently held women in dishonour; rather was it a tribute\nto her powers of fascination such as the young man wrote to be placed\nunder the pillow of Darius--'Woman is strongest.' As Darius and his\ncouncil agreed that, next to truth, woman is strongest--stronger than\nwine or than kings, so do the Hebrew fables testify by interweaving\nher beauty and genius with every evil of the world.\n\nBetween the Elohist and Jahvist accounts of the creation of man,\nthere are two differences of great importance. The Elohim are said to\nhave created man in their own image, male and female,--the word for\n'created' being bar\u00e1, literally meaning to carve out. Jehovah Elohim\nis said to have formed man,--nothing being said about his own image,\nor about male and female,--the word formed being yatsar'. The sense of\nthis word yatsar in this place (Gen. ii. 7) must be interpreted by what\nfollows: Jehovah is said to have formed man out of the aphar', which\nthe English version translates dust, but the Septuagint more correctly\nsperma. The literal meaning is a finely volatilised substance, and in\nNumbers xxiii. 10, it is used to represent the seed of Jacob. In the\nJehovistic creation it means that man was formed out of the seminal\nprinciple of the earth combined with the breath of Jehovah; and the\nlegend closely resembles the account of the ancient Satapatha-Br\u00e1hmana,\nwhich shows the creative power in sexual union with the fluid world\nto produce the egg  from which Praj\u00e1pati was born, to be divided into\nman and woman.\n\nThese two accounts, therefore,--to wit, that in the first and that in\nthe second chapter of Genesis,--must be regarded as being of different\nevents, and not merely varying myths of the same event. The offspring\nof Jehovah were 'living souls,' an expression not used in connection\nwith the created images of the giants or Elohim. The Elohist pair\nroam about the world freely eating all fruits and herbs, possessing\nnature generally, and, as male and female, encouraged to increase\nand multiply; but Jehovah carefully separates his two children from\ngeneral nature, places them in a garden, forbids certain food, and\ndoes not say a word about sex even, much less encourage its functions.\n\nAdam was formed simply to be the gardener of Eden; no other motive\nis assigned. In proposing the creation of a being to be his helper\nand companion, nothing is said about a new sex,--the word translated\n'help-meet' (\u00e9zer) is masculine. Adam names the being made 'woman,'\n(Vulg. Virago) only because she has been made out of man, but sex\nis not even yet suggested. This is so marked that the compiler has\nfilled up what he considered an omission with (verse 24) a little\nlecture on duty to wives.\n\nIt is plain that the jealously-guarded ambrosia of Aryan gods has here\nbeen adapted to signify the sexual relation. That is the fruit in the\nmidst of the garden which is reserved. The eating of it is immediately\nassociated with consciousness of nudity and shame. The curse upon\nEve is appropriate. Having taken a human husband, she is to be his\nslave; she shall bring forth children in sorrow, and many of them\n(Gen. iii. 16). Adam is to lose his position in Jehovah's garden,\nand to toil in accursed ground, barren and thorny.\n\nCast out thus into the wilderness, the human progeny as it increased\ncame in contact with the giant's progeny,--those created by the Elohim\n(Gen. i.). When these had intermarried, Jehovah said that the fact\nthat the human side in such alliance had been originally vitalised\nby his breath could not now render it immortal, because 'he (man)\nalso is flesh,' i.e., like the creatures of the nature-gods. After\ntwo great struggles with these Titans, drowning most of them, hurling\ndown their tower and scattering them, Jehovah resolved upon a scheme\nof vast importance, and one which casts a flood of light upon the\nnarrative just given. Jehovah's great aim is shown in the Abrahamic\ncovenant to be to found a family on earth, of which he can say, 'Thou\nart my son; I have begotten thee.' Eve was meant to be the mother of\nthat family, but by yielding to her passion for the man meant only\nto be her companion she had thwarted the purpose of Jehovah. But she\nreappears again under the name of Sara; and from first to last the\nsense of these records, however overlaid by later beliefs, is the\nexpansion, varying fortunes, and gradual spiritualisation of this\naspiration of a deity for a family of his own in the earth.\n\nCelsus said that the story of the Virgin Mary and the Holy Ghost\nis one in which Christians would find little 'mystery' if the names\nwere Dana\u00eb and Jupiter. The same may be said of the story of Sara and\nJehovah, of which that concerning Mary is a theological travesty. Sarai\n(as she was called before her transfer to Jehovah, who then forbade\nAbraham to call her 'My Princess,' but only 'Princess') was chosen\nbecause she was childless. Abraham was paid a large recompense\nfor her surrender, and provision was made that he should have a\nmistress, and by her a son. This natural son was to be renowned\nand have great possessions; nominally Abraham was to be represented\nby Sara's miraculously-conceived son, and to control his fortunes,\nbut the blood of the new race was to be purely divine in its origin,\nso that every descendant of Isaac might be of Jehovah's family in\nAbraham's household.\n\nAbraham twice gave over his wife to different kings who were\njealously punished by Jehovah for sins they only came near committing\nunconsciously, while Abraham himself was not even rebuked for the sin\nhe did commit. The forbidden fruit was not eaten this time; and the\ncertificate and proof of the supernatural conception of Isaac were\nmade clear in Sarah's words--'God hath made me to laugh: all that hear\nwill laugh with me: who would have said unto Abraham that Sarah should\nhave given children suck? for I have borne a son in his old age.' [36]\n\nIt was the passionate nature and beauty of Woman which had thus far\nmade the difficulty. The forbidden fruit was 'pleasant to the eyes,'\nand Eve ate it; and it was her 'voice' to which Adam had hearkened\nrather than to that of Jehovah (Gen. iii. 17). And, again, it was\nthe easy virtue and extreme beauty of Sara (Gen. xii. 11, 14) which\nendangered the new scheme. The rabbinical traditions are again on\nthis point very emphatic. It is related that when Abram came to\nthe border of Egypt he hid Sara in a chest, and was so taking her\ninto that country. The collector of customs charged that the chest\ncontained raiment, silks, gold, pearls, and Abram paid for all these;\nbut this only increased the official's suspicions, and he compelled\nAbram to open the chest; when this was done and Sara rose up, the\nwhole land of Egypt was illumined by her splendour. [37]\n\nThere is no reason for supposing that the ideas underlying the\nrelation which Jehovah meant to establish with Eve, and succeeded in\nestablishing with Sara, were of a merely sensual description. These\nmyths belong to the mental region of ancestor-worship, and the\nfundamental conception is that of founding a family to reign over all\nother families. Jehovah's interest is in Isaac rather than Sara, who,\nafter she has borne that patriarch, lapses out of the story almost\nas completely as Eve. The idea is not, indeed, so theological as it\nbecame in the Judaic-christian legend of the conception of Jesus\nby Mary as spouse of the Deity; it was probably, however, largely\nethnical in the case of Eve, and national in that of Sara.\n\nIt being considered of the utmost importance that all who claimed the\nadvantages in the Jewish commonwealth accruing only to the legal,\nthough nominal, 'children of Abraham,' should really be of divine\nlineage, security must be had against Isaac having any full brother. It\nmight be that in after time some natural son of Sara might claim\nto be the one born of divine parentage, might carry on the Jewish\ncommonwealth, slay the children of Jehovah by Sara, and so end the\ndivine lineage with the authority it carried. Careful precautions\nhaving been taken that Ishmael should be an 'irreconcilable,'\nthere is reason to suspect that the position of Isaac as Jehovah's\n'only-begotten son' was secured by means obscurely hinted in the\ncircumcision first undergone by Abraham, and made the sign of the\ncovenant. That circumcision, wheresoever it has survived, is the\nrelic of a more horrible practice of barbarian asceticism, is hardly\ndoubtful; that the original rite was believed to have been that by\nwhich Abraham fulfilled his contract with Jehovah, appears to me\nintimated in various passages of the narrative which have survived\neditorial arrangement in accordance with another view. For instance,\nthe vast inducements offered Abraham, and the great horror that fell\non the patriarch, appear hardly explicable on the theory that nothing\nwas conceded on Abraham's side beyond the surrender of a wife whom\nhe had freely consigned to earthly monarchs.\n\nThough the suspicion just expressed as to the nature of Abraham's\ncircumcision may be doubted, it is not questionable that the rite of\ncircumcision bears a significance in rabbinical traditions and Jewish\nusages which renders its initiation by Abraham at least a symbol of\nmarital renunciation. Thus, the custom of placing in a room where\nthe rite of circumcision was performed a pot of dust, was explained\nby the rabbins to have reference to the dust which Jehovah declared\nshould be the serpent's food. [38] That circumcision should have been\ntraditionally associated with the temptation of Eve is a confirmation\nof the interpretation which regards her (Eve) as the prototype of\nSara and the serpent as sexual desire.\n\nAlthough, if the original sense of Abraham's circumcision were what\nhas been suggested, it had been overlaid, when the Book of Genesis\nin its present form was compiled, by different traditions, and that\npatriarch is described as having married again and had other children,\nthe superior sanctity of Sara's son was preserved. Indeed, there would\nseem to have continued for a long time a tradition that the Abrahamic\nline and covenant were to be carried out by 'the seed of the woman'\nalone, and the paternity of Jehovah. Like Sara, Rebekah is sterile, and\nafter her Rachel; the birth of Jacob and Esau from one, and of Joseph\nand Benjamin from the other, being through the intervention of Jehovah.\n\nThe great power of woman for good or evil, and the fact that it has\noften been exercised with subtlety--the natural weapon of the weak in\ndealing with the strong--are remarkably illustrated in the legends of\nthese female figures which appear in connection with the divine schemes\nin the Book of Genesis. But even more the perils of woman's beauty\nare illustrated, especially in Eve and Sara. There were particular and\nobvious reasons why these representative women could not be degraded or\ndiabolised in their own names or history, even where their fascinations\ntended to countervail the plans of Jehovah. The readiness with which\nSara promoted her husband's prostitution and consented to her own,\nthe treachery of Rebekah to her son Esau, could yet not induce Jewish\northodoxy to give evil names to the Madonnas of their race; but the\ninference made was expressed under other forms and names. It became\na settled superstition that wherever evil was going on, Woman was at\nthe bottom of it. Potiphar's wife, Jezebel, Vashti, and Delilah, were\namong the many she-scape-goats on whom were laid the offences of their\naugust official predecessors who 'could do no wrong.' Even after Satan\nhas come upon the scene, and is engaged in tempting Job, it seems to\nhave been thought essential to the task that he should have an agent\nbeside the troubled man in the wife who bade him 'curse God and die.'\n\nIt is impossible to say at just what period the rabbins made their\ningenious discovery that the devil and Woman entered the world at\nthe same time,--he coming out of the hole left by removal of the\nrib from Adam before it was closed. This they found disclosed in the\nfact that it is in Genesis iii. 21, describing the creation of Woman,\nthat there appears for the first time Samech--the serpent-letter S\n(in Vajisgor). [39] But there were among them many legends of a\nsimilar kind that leave one no wonder concerning the existence of\na thanksgiving taught boys that they have not been created women,\nhowever much one may be scandalised at its continuance in the present\nday. It was only in pursuance of this theory of Woman that there was\ndeveloped at a later day a female assistant of the Devil in another\ndesign to foil the plans of Jehovah, from the Scriptual narrative of\nwhich the female r\u00f4le is omitted. In the Scriptural legend of Noah\nhis wife is barely mentioned, and her name is not given, but from an\nearly period vague rumours to her discredit floated about, and these\ngathered consistency in the Gnostic legend that it was through her\nthat Satan managed to get on board the Ark, as is elsewhere related\n(Part IV. chap. xxvii.), and was so enabled to resuscitate antediluvial\nviolence in the drunken curses of Noah. Satan did this by working\nupon both the curiosity and jealousy of Noraita, the name assigned\nNoah's wife.\n\nIt has been necessary to give at length the comparative view of the\nmyth of Eden in order that the reader may estimate the grounds upon\nwhich rests a theory which has been submitted after much hesitation\nconcerning its sense. The 'phallic' theory by which it has become\nthe fashion to interpret so many of these old fables, appears\nto me to have been done to death; yet I cannot come to any other\nconclusion concerning the legend of Eve than that she represents\nthat passional nature of Woman which, before it was brought under\nsuch rigid restraint, might easily be regarded as a weakness to any\ntribe desirous of keeping itself separate from other tribes. The\noath exacted by Abraham of his servant that he should seek out a\nwife from among his own people, and not among Canaanitish women,\nis one example among many of this feeling, which, indeed, survives\namong Jews at the present day. Such a sentiment might underlie the\nstories of Eve and Sara--the one mingling the blood of the family\nof Jehovah with mere human flesh, the other nearly confusing it\nwith aliens. As the idea of tribal sanctity and separateness became\nstrengthened by the further development of theocratic government,\nsuch myths would take on forms representing Jehovah's jealousy in\ndefending his family line against the evil powers which sought to\nconfuse or destroy it. One such attempt appears to underlie the story\nof the proposed sacrifice of Isaac. Although the account we have of\nthat proceeding in the Bible was written at a time when the Elohist\nand Jahvist parties had compromised their rivalries to some extent,\nand suggests the idea that Jehovah himself ordered the sacrifice in\norder to try the faith of Abraham, enough of the primitive tradition\nlingers in the narrative to make it probable that its original intent\nwas to relate how one of the superseded Elohim endeavoured to tempt\nAbraham to sacrifice Sara's only son, and so subvert the aim of Jehovah\nto perpetuate his seed. The God who 'tempted Abraham' is throughout\nsharply distinguished from the Jehovah who sent his angel to prevent\nthe sacrifice and substitute an animal victim for Isaac.\n\nAlthough, as we have seen, Sara was spared degradation into a she-devil\nin subsequent myths, because her body was preserved intact despite her\nlaxity of mind, such was not the case with Eve. The silence concerning\nher preserved throughout the Bible after her fall is told was broken\nby the ancient rabbins, and there arose multitudinous legends in\nwhich her intimacies with devils are circumstantially reported. Her\nfirst child, Cain, was generally believed to be the son of one of the\ndevils (Sama\u00ebl) that consorted with her, and the world was said to be\npeopled with gnomes and demons which she brought forth during that\n130 years at the end of which it is stated that Adam begot a son in\nhis own image and likeness, and called his name Seth (Gen. v. 3). The\nprevious children were supposed to be not in purely human form, and\nnot to have been of Adam's paternity. Adam had during that time refused\nto have any children, knowing that he would only rear inmates of hell.\n\nThe legend of Eden has gone round the world doing various duty,\nbut nearly always associated with the introduction of moral evil\ninto the world. In the Lateran Museum at Rome there is a remarkable\nbas-relief representing a nude man and woman offering sacrifice before\na serpent coiled around a tree, while an angel overthrows the altar\nwith his foot. This was probably designed as a fling at the Ophites,\nand is very interesting as a survival from the ancient Aryan meaning\nof the Serpent. But since the adaptation of the myth by the Semitic\nrace, it has generally emphasised the Tree of the Knowledge of Good\nand Evil, instead of the Tree of Immortality (Amrita), which is the\nchief point of interest in the Aryan myth. There are indeed traces of\na conflict with knowledge and scepticism in it which we shall have\nto consider hereafter. The main popular association with it, the\nintroduction into the world of all the ills that flesh is heir to,\nis perfectly consistent with the sense which has been attributed to\nits early Hebrew form; for this includes the longing for maternity,\nits temptations and its pains, and the sorrows and sins which are\nobviously traceable to it.\n\nSome years ago, when the spectacular drama of 'Paradise' was performed\nin Paris, the Temptation was effected by means of a mirror. Satan\nglided behind the tree as a serpent, and then came forth as a\nhandsome man, and after uttering compliments that she could not\nunderstand, presented Eve with a small oval mirror which explained them\nall. Mlle. Abingdon as Eve displayed consummate art in her expression\nof awakening self-admiration, of the longing for admiration from the\nman before her, and the various stages of self-consciousness by which\nshe is brought under the Tempter's power. This idea of the mirror\nwas no doubt borrowed from the corresponding fable of Pandora. On\na vase (Etruscan) in the Hamilton Collection there is an admirable\nrepresentation of Pandora opening her box, from which all evils are\nescaping. She is seated beneath a tree, around which a serpent is\ncoiled. Among the things which have come out of the box is this same\nsmall oval mirror. In this variant, Hope, coming out last corresponds\nwith the prophecy that the seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's\nhead. The ancient Etruscan and the modern Parisian version are both\nby the mirror finely connected with the sexual sense of the legend.\n\nThe theological interpretation of the beautiful myth of Eden\nrepresents a sort of spiritual vivisection; yet even as a dogma the\nstory preserves high testimony: when woman falls the human race falls\nwith her; when man rises above his inward or outward degradations\nand recovers his Paradise, it is because his nature is refined by\nthe purity of woman, and his home sweetened by her heart. There is a\nwidespread superstition that every Serpent will single out a woman\nfrom any number of people for its attack. In such dim way is felt\nher gentle bruising of man's reptilian self. No wonder that woman is\nexcluded from those regions of life where man's policy is still to\ncrawl, eat dust, and bite the heel.\n\nIt is, I suppose, the old Mystery of the Creation which left Coventry\nits legend of a Good Eve (Godiva, whose name is written 'good Eve'\nin a Conventry verse, 1494), whose nakedness should bring benefit to\nman, as that of the first Eve brought him evil. The fig-leaf of Eve,\ngathered no doubt from the tree whose forbidden fruit she had eaten,\nhas gradually grown so large as to cloak her mind and spirit as well\nas her form. Her work must still be chiefly that of a spirit veiled\nand ashamed. Her passions suppressed, her genius disbelieved, her\ninfluence forced to seek hidden and often illegitimate channels,\nWoman now outwardly represents a creation of man to suit his own\nconvenience. But the Serpent has also changed a great deal since\nthe days of Eve, and now, as Intelligence, has found out man in his\nfool's-paradise, where he stolidly maintains that, with few exceptions,\nit is good for man to be alone. But good women are remembering Godiva;\nand realising that, the charms which have sometimes lowered man or\ncost him dear may be made his salvation. It shall be so when Woman\ncan face with clear-eyed purity all the facts of nature, can cast\naway the mental and moral swathing-clothes transmitted from Eden,\nand put forth all her powers for the welfare of mankind,--a Good Eva,\nwhom Coventry Toms may call naked, but who is 'not ashamed' of the\ngarb of Innocence and Truth.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\nLILITH.\n\n    Madonnas--Adam's first wife--Her flight and doom--Creation of\n    devils--Lilith marries Sama\u00ebl--Tree of Life--Lilith's part\n    in the Temptation--Her locks--Lamia--Bodeima--Meschia and\n    Meschiane--Amazons--Maternity--Rib-theory of Woman--K\u00e1li and\n    Durga--Captivity of Woman.\n\n\nThe attempt of the compilers of the Book of Genesis to amalgamate\nthe Elohist and Jehovist legends, ignoring the moral abyss that yawns\nbetween them, led to some sufficiently curious results. One of these\nit may be well enough to examine here, since, though later in form\nthan some other legends which remain to be considered, it is closely\nconnected in spirit with the ancient myth of Eden and illustrative\nof it.\n\nThe differences between the two creations of man and woman critically\nexamined in the previous chapter were fully recognised by the ancient\nrabbins, and their speculations on the subject laid the basis for\nthe further legend that the woman created (Gen. i.) at the same time\nwith Adam, and therefore not possibly the woman formed from his rib,\nwas a first wife who turned out badly.\n\nTo this first wife of Adam it was but natural to assign the name\nof one of the many ancient goddesses who had been degraded into\ndemonesses. For the history of Mariolatry in the North of Europe has\nbeen many times anticipated: the mother's tenderness and self-devotion,\nthe first smile of love upon social chaos, availed to give every race\nits Madonna, whose popularity drew around her the fatal favours of\npriestcraft, weighing her down at last to be a type of corruption. Even\nthe Semitic tribes, with their hard masculine deities, seem to have\nonce worshipped Alilat, whose name survives in Elohim and Allah. Among\nthese degraded Madonnas was Lilith, whose name has been found in a\nChaldean inscription, which says, when a country is at peace 'Lilith\n(Lilatu) is not before them.' The name is from Assyr. lay'l\u00e2, Hebrew\nLil (night), which already in Accadian meant 'sorcery.' It probably\npersonified, at first, the darkness that soothed children to slumber;\nand though the word Lullaby has, with more ingenuity than accuracy,\nbeen derived from Lilith Abi, the theory may suggest the path by\nwhich the soft Southern night came to mean a nocturnal spectre.\n\nThe only place where the name of Lilith occurs in the Bible is\nIsa. xxxiv. 14, where the English version renders it 'screech-owl.' In\nthe Vulgate it is translated 'Lamia,' and in Luther's Bible, 'Kobold;'\nGesenius explains it as 'nocturna, night-spectre, ghost.'\n\nThe rabbinical myths concerning Lilith, often passed over as puerile\nfancies, appear to me pregnant with significance and beauty. Thus\nAbraham Ecchelensis, giving a poor Arabic version of the legend, says,\n'This fable has been transmitted to the Arabs from Jewish sources\nby some converts of Mahomet from Cabbalism and Rabbinism, who have\ntransferred all the Jewish fooleries to the Arabs.' [40] But the\nrabbinical legend grew very slowly, and relates to principles and facts\nof social evolution whose force and meaning are not yet exhausted.\n\nPremising that the legend is here pieced together mainly from\nEisenmenger, [41] who at each mention of the subject gives ample\nreferences to rabbinical authorities, I will relate it without further\nreferences of my own.\n\nLilith was said to have been created at the same time and in the same\nway as Adam; and when the two met they instantly quarrelled about\nthe headship which both claimed. Adam began the first conversation\nby asserting that he was to be her master. Lilith replied that she\nhad equal right to be chief. Adam insisting, Lilith uttered a certain\nspell called Schem-hammphorasch--afterwards confided by a fallen angel\nto one of 'the daughters of men' with whom he had an intrigue, and of\nfamous potency in Jewish folklore--the result of which was that she\nobtained wings. Lilith then flew out of Eden and out of sight. [42]\nAdam then cried in distress--'Master of the world, the woman whom thou\ndidst give me has flown away.' The Creator then sent three angels to\nfind Lilith and persuade her to return to the garden; but she declared\nthat it could be no paradise to her if she was to be the servant of\nman. She remained hovering over the Red Sea, where the angels had\nfound her, while these returned with her inflexible resolution. And\nshe would not yield even after the angels had been sent again to\nconvey to her, as the alternative of not returning, the doom that\nshe should bear many children but these should all die in infancy.\n\nThis penalty was so awful that Lilith was about to commit suicide\nby drowning herself in the sea, when the three angels, moved by her\nanguish, agreed that she should have the compensation of possessing\nfull power over all children after birth up to their eighth day; on\nwhich she promised that she would never disturb any babes who were\nunder their (the angels') protection. Hence the charm (Camea) against\nLilith hung round the necks of Jewish children bore the names of these\nthree angels--Sen\u00f3i, Sansen\u00f3i, and Sammangel\u00f3f. Lilith has special\npower over all children born out of wedlock for whom she watches,\ndressed in finest raiment; and she has especial power on the first\nday of the month, and on the Sabbath evening. When a little child\nlaughs in its sleep it was believed that Lilith was with it, and the\nbabe must be struck on the nose three times, the words being thrice\nrepeated--'Away, cursed Lilith! thou hast no place here!'\n\nThe divorce between Lilith and Adam being complete, the second Eve\n(i.e., Mother) was now formed, and this time out of Adam's rib in\norder that there might be no question of her dependence, and that the\nembarrassing question of woman's rights might never be raised again.\n\nBut about this time the Devils were also created. These beings were\nthe last of the six days' creation, but they were made so late in\nthe day that there was no daylight by which to fashion bodies for\nthem. The Creator was just putting them off with a promise that he\nwould make them bodies next day, when lo! the Sabbath--which was\nfor a long time personified--came and sat before him, to represent\nthe many evils which might result from the precedent he would set\nby working even a little on the day whose sanctity had already been\npromulgated. Under these circumstances the Creator told the Devils\nthat they must disperse and try to get bodies as they could find\nthem. On this account they have been compelled ever since to seek\ncarnal enjoyments by nestling in the hearts of human beings and\navailing themselves of human senses and passions.\n\nThese Devils as created were ethereal spirits; they had certain\natmospheric forms, but felt that they had been badly treated in not\nhaving been provided with flesh and blood, and they were envious\nof the carnal pleasures which human beings could enjoy. So long as\nman and woman remained pure, the Devils could not take possession of\ntheir bodies and enjoy such pleasures, and it was therefore of great\nimportance to them that the first human pair should be corrupted. At\nthe head of these Devils stood now a fallen angel--Sama\u00ebl. Of this\narchfiend more is said elsewhere; at this point it need only be said\nthat he had been an ideal flaming Serpent, leader of the Seraphim. He\nwas already burning with lust and envy, as he witnessed the pleasures\nof Adam and Eve in Eden, when he found beautiful Lilith lamenting\nher wrongs in loneliness.\n\nShe became his wife. The name of Sama\u00ebl by one interpretation signifies\n'the Left'; and we may suppose that Lilith found him radical on\nthe question of female equality which she had raised in Eden. He\ngave her a splendid kingdom where she was attended by 480 troops;\nbut all this could not compensate her for the loss of Eden,--she\nseems never to have regretted parting with Adam,--and for the loss\nof her children. She remained the Lady of Sorrow. Her great enemy was\nMachalath who presided over 478 troops, and who was for ever dancing,\nas Lilith was for ever sighing and weeping. It was long believed that\nat certain times the voice of Lilith's grief could be heard in the air.\n\nSama\u00ebl found in Lilith a willing conspirator against Jehovah in\nhis plans for man and woman. The corruption of these two meant, to\nthe troops of Sama\u00ebl, bringing their bodies down into a plane where\nthey might be entered by themselves (the Devils), not to mention at\npresent the manifold other motives by which they were actuated. It\nmay be remarked also that in the rabbinical traditions, after their\nAryan impregnation, there are traces of a desire of the Devils to\nreach the Tree of Life.\n\nTruly a wondrous Tree! Around it, in its place at the east of\nEden, sang six hundred thousand lovely angels with happy hymns,\nand it glorified the vast garden. It possessed five hundred thousand\ndifferent flavours and odours, which were wafted to the four sides\nof the world by zephyrs from seven lustrous clouds that made its\ncanopy. Beneath it sat the disciples of Wisdom on resplendent seats,\nscreened from the blaze of sun, moon, and cloud-veiled from potency\nof the stars (there was no night); and within were the joys referred\nto in the verse (Prov. viii. 21), 'That I may cause those that love\nme to inherit substance; and I will fill their treasures.'\n\nHad there been an order of female rabbins the story of Lilith might\nhave borne obvious modifications, and she might have appeared as\na heroine anxious to rescue her sex from slavery to man. As it is\nthe immemorial prerogative of man to lay all blame upon woman, that\nbeing part of the hereditary following of Adam, it is not wonderful\nthat Lilith was in due time made responsible for the temptation of\nEve. She was supposed to have beguiled the Serpent on guard at the\ngate of Eden to lend her his form for a time, after which theory the\ncurse on the serpent might mean the binding of Lilith for ever in\nthat form. This would appear to have originated the notion mentioned\nin Comestor (Hist. Schol., 12th cent.), that while the serpent was\nyet erect it had a virgin's head. The accompanying example is from a\nvery early missal in the possession of Sir Joseph Hooker, of which I\ncould not discover the date or history, but the theory is traceable\nin the eighth century. In this picture we have an early example of\nthose which have since become familiar in old Bibles. Pietro d'Orvieto\npainted this serpent-woman in his finest fresco, at Pisa. Perhaps in\nno other picture has the genius of Mich\u00e6l Angelo been more felicitous\nthan in that on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, in which Lilith is\nportrayed. In this picture (Fig. 2) the marvellous beauty of his first\nwife appears to have awakened the enthusiasm of Adam; and, indeed,\nit is quite in harmony with the earlier myth that Lilith should be\nof greater beauty than Eve.\n\nAn artist and poet of our own time (Rossetti) has by both of his arts\ncelebrated the fatal beauty of Lilith. His Lilith, bringing 'soft\nsleep,' antedates, as I think, the fair devil of the Rabbins, but is\nalso the medi\u00e6val witch against whose beautiful locks Mephistopheles\nwarns Faust when she appears at the Walpurgis-night orgie.\n\n\n        The rose and poppy are her flowers; for where\n        Is he not found, O Lilith, whom shed scent\n        And soft-shed kisses and soft sleep shall snare?\n        Lo! as that youth's eyes burned at thine, so went\n        Thy spell through him, and left his straight neck bent,\n        And round his heart one strangling golden hair.\n\n\nThe potency of Lilith's tresses has probably its origin in the hairy\nnature ascribed by the Rabbins to all demons (shedim), and found\nfully represented in Esau. Perhaps the serpent-locks of Medusa had a\nsimilar origin. Nay, there is a suggestion in Dante that these tresses\nof Medusa may have once represented fascinating rather than horrible\nserpents. As she approaches, Virgil is alarmed for his brother-poet:\n\n\n        'Turn thyself back, and keep thy vision hid;\n        For, if the Gorgon show, and then behold,\n        'Twould all be o'er with e'er returning up.'\n        So did the master say; and he himself\n        Turned me, and to my own hands trusted not,\n        But that with his too he should cover me.\n        O you that have a sane intelligence,\n        Look ye unto the doctrine which herein\n        Conceals itself 'neath the strange verses' veil. [43]\n\n\nIf this means that the security against evil is to veil the eyes from\nit, Virgil's warning would be against a beautiful seducer, similar to\nthe warning given by Mephistopheles to Faust against the fatal charms\nof Lilith. Since, however, even in the time of Homer, the Gorgon was\na popular symbol of terrors, the possibility of a survival in Dante's\nmind of any more primitive association with Medusa is questionable. The\nPauline doctrine, that the glory of a woman is her hair, no doubt had\nimportant antecedents: such glory might easily be degraded, and every\nhair turn to a fatal 'binder,' like the one golden thread of Lilith\nround the heart of her victim; or it might ensnare its owner. In\nTreves Cathedral there is a curious old picture of a woman carried\nto hell by her beautiful hair; one devil draws her by it, another is\nseated on her back and drives her by locks of it as a bridle.\n\nIn the later developments of the myth of Lilith she was, among\nthe Arabs, transformed to a Ghoul, but in rabbinical legend she\nappears to have been influenced by the story of Lamia, whose name is\nsubstituted for Lilith in the Vulgate. Like Lilith, Lamia was robbed\nof her children, and was driven by despair to avenge herself on all\nchildren. [44] The name of Lamia was long used to frighten Italian\nchildren, as that of Lilith was by Hebrew nurses.\n\nIt is possible that the part assigned to Lilith in the temptation\nof Eve may have been suggested by ancient Egyptian sculptures,\nwhich represent the Tree of Life in Amenti (Paradise) guarded by the\nSerpent-goddess Nu. One of these in the British Museum represents\nthe Osirian on his journey to heaven, and his soul in form of a\nhuman-headed bird, drinking the water of Life as poured out to them\nfrom a jar by the goddess who coils around the sacred sycamore, her\nwoman's bust and face appearing amid the branches much like Lilith\nin our old pictures.\n\nThe Singhalese also have a kind of Lilith or Lamia whom they call\nBodrima, though she is not so much dreaded for the sake of children as\nfor her vindictive feelings towards men. She is the ghost of a woman\nwho died in childbirth and in great agony. She may be heard wailing\nin the night, it is said, and if she meets any man will choke him\nto death. When her wailing is heard men are careful to stay within\ndoors, but the women go forth with brooms in their hands and abuse\nBodrima with epithets. She fears women, especially when they carry\nbrooms. But the women have also some compassion for this poor ghost,\nand often leave a lamp and some betel leaves where she may get some\nwarmth and comfort from them. If Bodrima be fired at, there may be\nfound, perhaps, a dead lizard near the spot in the morning.\n\nAs protomartyr of female independence, Lilith suffered a fate not\nunlike that of her sisters and successors in our own time who have\nappealed from the legendary decision made in Eden: she became the\nprototype of the 'strong-minded' and 'cold-hearted' woman, and\npersonification of the fatal fascination of the passionless. Her\nspecial relation to children was gradually expanded, and she was\nregarded as the perilous seducer of young men, each of her victims\nperishing of unrequited passion. She was ever young, and always dressed\nwith great beauty. It would seem that the curse upon her for forsaking\nAdam--that her children should die in infancy--was escaped in the\ncase of the children she had by Sama\u00ebl. She was almost as prolific as\nEchidna. Through all the latter rabbinical lore it is repeated, 'Sama\u00ebl\nis the fiery serpent, Lilith the crooked serpent,' and from their\nunion came Leviathan, Asmodeus, and indeed most of the famous devils.\n\nThere is an ancient Persian legend of the first man and woman, Meschia\nand Meschiane, that they for a long time lived happily together:\nthey hunted together, and discovered fire, and made an axe, and with\nit built them a hut. But no sooner had they thus set up housekeeping\nthan they fought terribly, and, after wounding each other, parted. It\nis not said which remained ruler of the hut, but we learn that after\nfifty years of divorce they were reunited.\n\nThese legends show the question of equality of the sexes to have\nbeen a very serious one in early times. The story of Meschia and\nMeschiane fairly represents primitive man living by the hunt; that\nof Eden shows man entering on the work of agriculture. In neither\nof these occupations would there be any reason why woman should be\nso unequal as to set in motion the forces which have diminished her\nphysical stature and degraded her position. Women can still hunt and\nfish, and they are quite man's equal in tilling the soil. [45]\n\nIn all sex-mythology there are intimations that women were taken\ncaptive. The proclamation of female subordination is made not only in\nthe legend of Eve's creation out of the man's rib, but in the emphasis\nwith which her name is declared to have been given her because she\nwas the Mother of all living. In the variously significant legends\nof the Amazons they are said to have burned away their breasts that\nthey might use the bow: in the history of contemporary Amazons--such\nas the female Areoi of Polynesia--the legend is interpreted in the\nsystematic slaughter of their children. In the hunt, Meschia might be\naided by Meschiane in many ways; in dressing the garden Adam might find\nLilith or Eve a 'help meet' for the work; but in the brutal r\u00e9gime of\nwar the child disables woman, and the affections of maternity render\nher man's inferior in the work of butchery. Herakles wins great glory\nby slaying Hyppolite; but the legends of her later reappearances--as\nLibussa at Prague, &c.,--follow the less mythological story of the\nAmazons given by Herodotus (IV. 112), who represents the Scythians\nas gradually disarming them by sending out their youths to meet them\nwith dalliance instead of with weapons. The youths went off with\ntheir captured captors, and from their union sprang the Sauromat\u00e6,\namong whom the men and women dressed alike, and fought and hunted\ntogether. But of the real outcome of that truce and union Tennyson\ncan tell us more than Herodotus: in his Princess we see the woman\nwhom maternity and war have combined to produce, her independence\nbetrayed by the tenderness of her nature. The surrender, once secured,\nwas made permanent for ages by the sentiments and sympathies born of\nthe child's appeal for compassion.\n\nIn primitive ages the child must in many cases have been a burthen\neven to man in the struggle for existence; the population question\ncould hardly have failed to press its importance upon men, as it does\neven upon certain animals; and it would be an especial interest to a\nman not to have his hut overrun with offspring not his own,--turning\nhis fair labour into drudgery for their support, and so cursing the\nearth for him. Thus, while Polyandry was giving rise to the obvious\ncomplications under which it must ultimately disappear, it would be\nnatural that devils of lust should be invented to restrain the maternal\ninstinct. But as time went on the daughters of Eve would have taken\nthe story of her fall and hardships too much to heart. The pangs and\nperils of childbirth were ever-present monitors whose warnings might\nbe followed too closely. The early Jewish laws bear distinct traces\nof the necessity which had arrived for insisting on the command to\nincrease and multiply. Under these changed circumstances it would\nbe natural that the story of a recusant and passionless Eve should\narise and suffer the penalties undergone by Lilith,--the necessity\nof bearing, as captive, a vast progeny against her will only to lose\nthem again, and to long for human children she did not bring forth\nand could not cherish. The too passionate and the passionless woman\nare successively warned in the origin and outcome of the myth. [46]\n\nIt is a suggestive fact that the descendants of Adam should trace their\nfall not to the independent Lilith, who asserted her equality at cost\nof becoming the Devil's bride, but to the apparently submissive Eve\nwho stayed inside the garden. The serpent found out the guarded and\nrestrained woman as well as the free and defiant, and with much more\nformidable results. For craft is the only weapon of the weak against\nthe strong. The submissiveness of the captive woman must have been\nfor a long time outward only. When Adam found himself among thorns\nand briars he might have questioned whether much had been gained\nby calling Eve his rib, when after all she really was a woman, and\nprepared to take her intellectual rights from the Serpent if denied\nher in legitimate ways. The question is, indeed, hardly out of date\nyet when the genius of woman is compelled to act with subtlety and\nreduced to exert its influence too often by intrigue.\n\nIt is remarkable that we find something like a similar development to\nthe two wives of Adam in Hindu mythology also. K\u00e1li and D\u00farga have the\nsame origin: the former is represented dancing on the prostrate form\nof her 'lord and master,' and she becomes the demoness of violence,\nthe mother of the diabolical 'Calas' of Singhalese demonolatry. D\u00farga\nsacrificed herself for her husband's honour, and is now adored. The\ncounterpart of D\u00farga-worship is the Zenana system. In countries where\nthe Zenana system has not survived, but some freedom has been gained\nfor woman, it is probable that K\u00e1li will presently not be thought of\nas necessarily trampling on man, and Lilith not be regarded as the\nDevil's wife because she will not submit to be the slave of man. When\nman can make him a home and garden which shall not be a prison, and in\nwhich knowledge is unforbidden fruit, Lilith will not have to seek her\nliberty by revolution against his society, nor Eve hers by intrigue;\nunfitness for co-operation with the ferocities of nature will leave\nher a help meet for the rearing of children, and for the recovery\nand culture of every garden, whether within or without the man who\nnow asserts over woman a lordship unnatural and unjust.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\nWAR IN HEAVEN.\n\n    The 'Other'--Tiamat, Bohu, 'the Deep'--Ra and Apophis--Hathors--\n    Bel's combat--Revolt in Heaven--Lilith--Myth of the Devil at the\n    creation of Light.\n\n\nIn none of the ancient scriptures do we get back to any theory or\nexplanation of the origin of evil or of the enemies of the gods. In\na Persian text at Persepolis, of Darius I., Ahriman is called with\nsimplicity 'the Other' (Aniya), and 'the Hater' (Duvaisa\u00f1t, Zend\nthaisat), and that is about as much as we are really told about the\ndevils of any race. Their existence is taken for granted. The legends\nof rebellion in heaven and of angels cast down and transformed to\ndevils may supply an easy explanation to our modern theologians, but\nwhen we trace them to their origin we discover that to the ancients\nthey had no such significance. The angels were cast down to Pits\nprepared for them from the foundation of the world, and before it, and\nwhen they fell it was into the hands of already existing enemies eager\nto torment them. Nevertheless these accounts of rebellious spirits\nin heaven are of great importance and merit our careful consideration.\n\nIt is remarkable that the Bible opens with an intimation of the\nexistence of this 'Other.' Its second verse speaks of a certain\n'darkness upon the face of the deep.' The word used here is Bohu,\nwhich is identified as the Assyrian Bahu, the Queen of Hades. In the\ninscription of Shalmaneser the word is used for 'abyss of chaos.' [47]\nBahu is otherwise Gula, a form of Ishtar or Allat, 'Lady of the House\nof Death,' and an epithet of the same female demon is Nin-cigal,\n'Lady of the Mighty Earth.' The story of the Descent of Ishtar into\nHades, the realm of Nin-cigal, has already been told (p. 77); in\nthat version Ishtar is the same as Astarte, the Assyrian Venus. But\nlike the moon with which she was associated she waned and declined,\nand the beautiful legend of her descent (like Persephone) into Hades\nseems to have found a variant in the myth of Bel and the Dragon. There\nshe is a sea-monster and is called Tiamat (Thalatth of Berosus),--that\nis, 'the Deep,' over which rests the darkness described in Genesis\ni. 2. The process by which the moon would share the evil repute of\nTiamat is obvious. In the Babylonian belief the dry land rested upon\nthe abyss of watery chaos from which it was drawn. This underworld\nocean was shut in by gates. They were opened when the moon was created\nto rule the night--therefore Prince of Darkness. The formation by Anu\nof this Moon-god (Uru) from Tiamat, might even have been suggested\nby the rising of the tides under his sway. The Babylonians represent\nthe Moon as having been created before the Sun, and he emerged from\n'a boiling' in the abyss. 'At the beginning of the month, at the rising\nof the night, his horns are breaking through to shine on heaven.' [48]\nIn the one Babylonian design, a seal in the British Museum, [49] which\nseems referable to the legend of the Fall of Man, the male figure\nhas horns. It may have been that this male Moon (Uru) was supposed\nto have been corrupted by some female emanation of Tiamat, and to\nhave fallen from a 'ruler of the night' to an ally of the night. This\nfemale corrupter, who would correspond to Eve, might in this way have\nbecome mistress of the Moon, and ultimately identified with it.\n\nAlthough the cause of the original conflict between the Abyss\nbeneath and the Heaven above is left by ancient inscriptions and\nscriptures to imagination, it is not a very strained hypothesis that\nancient Chaos regarded the upper gods as aggressors on her domain\nin the work of creation. 'When above,' runs the Babylonian legend,\n'were not raised the heavens, and below on the earth a plant had not\ngrown ... the chaos (or water) Tiamat was the producing mother of the\nwhole of them.' 'The gods had not sprung up, any one of them.' [50]\nIndeed in the legend of the conflict between Bel and the Dragon,\non the Babylonian cylinders, it appears that the god Sar addressed\nher as wife, and said, 'The tribute to thy maternity shall be forced\nupon them by thy weapons.' [51] The Sun and Moon would naturally be\ndrawn into any contest between Overworld (with Light) and Underworld\n(with Darkness).\n\nThough Tiamat is called a Dragon, she was pictured by the Babylonians\nonly as a monstrous Griffin. In the Assyrian account of the fight\nit will be seen that she is called a 'Serpent.' The link between\nthe two--Griffin and Serpent--will be found, I suspect, in Typhonic\ninfluence on the fable. In a hymn to Amen-Ra (the Sun), copied about\nfourteenth century b.c. from an earlier composition, as its translator,\nMr. Goodwin, supposes, we have the following:--\n\n\n    The gods rejoice in his goodness who exalts those who are lowly:\n    Lord of the boat and barge,\n    They conduct thee through the firmament in peace.\n      Thy servants rejoice:\n    Beholding the overthrow of the wicked:\n    His limbs pierced with the sword:\n    Fire consumes him:\n    His soul and body are annihilated.\n      Naka (the serpent) saves his feet:\n    The gods rejoice:\n    The servants of the Sun are in peace.\n\n\nThe allusion in the second line indicates that this hymn relates to\nthe navigation of Ra through Hades, and the destruction of Apophis.\n\nWe may read next the Accadian tablet (p. 256) which speaks of the\nseven Hathors as neither male nor female, and as born in 'the Deep.'\n\nAnother Accadian tablet, translated by Mr. Sayce, speaks of these\nas the 'baleful seven destroyers;' as 'born in the mountain of the\nsunset;' as being Incubi. It is significantly said:--'Among the\nstars of heaven their watch they kept not, in watching was their\noffice.' Here is a prim\u00e6val note of treachery. [52]\n\nWe next come to a further phase, represented in a Cuneiform tablet,\nwhich must be quoted at length:--\n\n\n    Days of storm, Powers of Evil,\n    Rebellious spirits, who were born in the lower part of heaven,\n    They were workers of calamity.\n\n\n(The lines giving the names and descriptions of the spirits are\nhere broken.)\n\n\n    The third was like a leopard,\n    The fourth was like a snake ...\n    The fifth was like a dog ...\n    The sixth was an enemy to heaven and its king.\n    The seventh was a destructive tempest.\n    These seven are the messengers of Anu [53] their king.\n    From place to place by turns they pass.\n    They are the dark storms in heaven, which into fire unite\n    themselves.\n    They are the destructive tempests, which on a fine day sudden\n    darkness cause.\n    With storms and meteors they rush.\n    Their rage ignites the thunderbolts of Im. [54]\n    From the right hand of the Thunderer they dart forth.\n    On the horizon of heaven like lightning they ...\n    Against high heaven, the dwelling-place of Anu the king, they\n    plotted evil, and had none to withstand them.\n    When Bel heard this news, he communed secretly with his own heart.\n    Then he took counsel with Hea the great Inventor (or Sage) of the\n    gods.\n    And they stationed the Moon, the Sun, and Ishtar to keep guard over\n    the approach to heaven.\n    Unto Anu, ruler of heaven, they told it.\n    And those three gods, his children,\n    To watch night and day unceasingly he commanded them.\n    When those seven evil spirits rushed upon the base of heaven,\n    And close in front of the Moon with fiery weapons advanced,\n    Then the noble Sun and Im the warrior side by side stood firm.\n    But Ishtar, with Anu the king, entered the exalted dwelling, and\n    hid themselves in the summit of heaven.\n\n\nColumn II.\n\n\n    Those evil spirits, the messengers of Anu their king ...\n    They have plotted evil ...\n    From mid-heaven like meteors they have rushed upon the earth.\n    Bel, who the noble Moon in eclipse\n    Saw from heaven,\n    Called aloud to Paku his messenger:\n    O my messenger Paku, carry my words to the Deep. [55]\n    Tell my son that the Moon in heaven is terribly eclipsed!\n    To Hea in the Deep repeat this!\n    Paku understood the words of his Lord.\n    Unto Hea in the Deep swiftly he went.\n    To the Lord, the great Inventor, the god Nukimmut,\n    Paku repeated the words of his Lord.\n    When Hea in the Deep heard these words,\n    He bit his lips, and tears bedewed his face.\n    Then he sent for his son Marduk to help him.\n    Go to my son Marduk,\n    Tell my son that the Moon in heaven is terribly eclipsed!\n    That eclipse has been seen in heaven!\n    They are seven, those evil spirits, and death they fear not!\n    They are seven, those evil spirits, who rush like a hurricane,\n    And fall like firebrands on the earth!\n    In front of the bright Moon with fiery weapons (they draw nigh);\n    But the noble Sun and Im the warrior (are withstanding them).\n\n\n[The rest of the legend is lost.]\n\nNukimmut is a name of Hea which occurs frequently: he was the good\ngenius of the earth, and his son Marduk was his incarnation--a Herakles\nor Saviour. It will be noted that as yet Ishtar is in heaven. The\nnext Tablet, which shows the development of the myth, introduces us\nto the great female dragon Tiamat herself, and her destroyer Bel.\n\n\n    ... And with it his right hand he armed.\n    His naming sword he raised in his hand.\n    He brandished his lightnings before him.\n    A curved scymitar he carried on his body.\n    And he made a sword to destroy the Dragon,\n    Which turned four ways; so that none could avoid its rapid blows.\n    It turned to the south, to the north, to the east, and to the west.\n    Near to his sabre he placed the bow of his father Anu.\n    He made a whirling thunderbolt, and a bolt with double flames,\n    impossible to extinguish.\n    And a quadruple bolt, and a septuple bolt, and a ... bolt of\n    crooked fire.\n    He took the thunderbolts which he had made, and there were seven\n    of them,\n    To be shot at the Dragon, and he put them into his quiver behind\n    him.\n    Then he raised his great sword, whose name was 'Lord of the Storm.'\n    He mounted his chariot, whose name was 'Destroyer of the Impious.'\n    He took his place, and lifted the four reins\n    In his hand.\n\n\n[Bel now offers to the Dragon to decide their quarrel by single combat,\nwhich the Dragon accepts. This agrees with the representations of\nthe combat on Babylonian cylinders in Mr. Smith's 'Chaldean Genesis,'\np. 62, etc.]\n\n\n    (Why seekest thou thus) to irritate me with blasphemies?\n    Let thy army withdraw: let thy chiefs stand aside:\n    Then I and thou (alone) we will do battle.\n    When the Dragon heard this.\n    Stand back! she said, and repeated her command.\n    Then the tempter rose watchfully on high.\n    Turning and twisting, she shifted her standing point,\n    She watched his lightnings, she provided for retreat.\n    The warrior angels sheathed their swords.\n    Then the Dragon attacked the just Prince of the gods.\n    Strongly they joined in the trial of battle,\n    The King drew his sword, and dealt rapid blows,\n    Then he took his whirling thunderbolt, and looked well behind\n    and before him:\n    And when the Dragon opened her mouth to swallow him,\n    He flung the bolt into her, before she could shut her lips.\n    The blazing lightning poured into her inside.\n    He pulled out her heart; her mouth he rent open;\n    He drew his (falchion), and cut open her belly.\n    He cut into her inside and extracted her heart;\n    He took vengeance on her, and destroyed her life.\n    When he knew she was dead he boasted over her.\n    After that the Dragon their leader was slain,\n    Her troops took to flight: her army was scattered abroad,\n    And the angels her allies, who had come to help her,\n    Retreated, grew quiet, and went away.\n    They fled from thence, fearing for their own lives,\n    And saved themselves, flying to places beyond pursuit.\n    He followed them, their weapons he broke up.\n    Broken they lay, and in great heaps they were captured.\n    A crowd of followers, full of astonishment,\n    Its remains lifted up, and on their shoulders hoisted.\n    And the eleven tribes pouring in after the battle\n    In great multitudes, coming to see,\n    Gazed at the monstrous serpent....\n\n\nIn the fragment just quoted we have the 'flaming sword which turned\nevery way' (Gen. iii. 24). The seven distinct forms of evil are but\nfaintly remembered in the seven thunderbolts taken by Bel: they are\nnow all virtually gathered into the one form he combats, and are\nthus on their way to form the seven-headed dragon of the Apocalypse,\nwhere Michael replaces Bel. [56] 'The angels, her allies who had come\nto help her,' are surely that 'third part of the stars of heaven'\nwhich the apocalyptic dragon's tail drew to the earth in its fall\n(Rev. xii. 4). Bel's dragon is also called a 'Tempter.'\n\nAt length we reach the brief but clear account of the 'Revolt in\nHeaven' found in a cuneiform tablet in the British Museum, and\ntranslated by Mr. Fox Talbot: [57]--\n\n\n    The Divine Being spoke three times, the commencement of a psalm.\n    The god of holy songs, Lord of religion and worship\n    seated a thousand singers and musicians: and established a choral\n    band who to his hymn were to respond in multitudes....\n        With a loud cry of contempt they broke up his holy song\n        spoiling, confusing, confounding his hymn of praise.\n        The god of the bright crown with a wish to summon his\n        adherents sounded a trumpet blast which would wake the dead,\n    which to those rebel angels prohibited return\n    he stopped their service, and sent them to the gods who were his\n    enemies.\n        In their room he created mankind.\n        The first who received life, dwelt along with him.\n        May he give them strength never to neglect his word,\n    following the serpent's voice, whom his hands had made.\n        And may the god of divine speech expel from his five thousand\n        that wicked thousand\n    who in the midst of his heavenly song had shouted evil blasphemies!\n\n\nIt will be observed that there were already hostile gods to whom\nthese riotous angels were sent. It is clear that in both the Egyptian\nand Assyrian cosmogonies the upper gods had in their employ many\nferocious monsters. Thus in the Book of Hades, Horus addresses a\nterrible serpent: 'My Kheti, great fire, of which this flame in\nmy eye is the emission, and of which my children guard the folds,\nopen thy mouth, draw wide thy jaws, launch thy flame against the\nenemies of my father, burn their bodies, consume their souls!' [58]\nMany such instances could be quoted. In this same book we find a great\nserpent, Saa-Set, 'Guardian of the Earth.' Each of the twelve pylons\nof Hades is surmounted by its serpent-guards--except one. What has\nbecome of that one? In the last inscription but one, quoted in full,\nit will be observed (third line from the last) that eleven (angel)\ntribes came in after Bel's battle to inspect the slain dragon. The\ntwelfth had revolted. These, we may suppose, had listened to 'the\nserpent's voice' mentioned in the last fragment quoted.\n\nWe have thus distributed through these fragments all the elements\nwhich, from Egyptian and Assyrian sources gathered around the legend\nof the Serpent in Eden. The Tree of Knowledge and that of Life are\nnot included, and I have given elsewhere my reasons for believing\nthese to be importations from the ancient Aryan legend of the war\nbetween the Devas and Asuras for the immortalising Amrita.\n\nIn the last fragment quoted we have also a notable statement, that\nmankind were created to fill the places that had been occupied by the\nfallen angels. It is probable that this notion supplied the basis\nof a class of legends of which Lilith is type. She whose place Eve\nwas created to fill was a serpent-woman, and the earliest mention\nof her is in the exorcism already quoted, found at Nineveh. In all\nprobability she is but another form of Gula, the fallen Istar and\nQueen of Hades; in which case her conspiracy with the serpent Sama\u00ebl\nwould be the Darkness which was upon the face of Bahu, 'the Deep,'\nin the second verse of the Bible.\n\nThe Bible opens with the scene of the gods conquering the Dragon of\nDarkness with Light. There is a rabbinical legend, that when Light\nissued from under the throne of God, the Prince of Darkness asked the\nCreator wherefore he had brought Light into existence? God answered\nthat it was in order that he might be driven back to his abode of\ndarkness. The evil one asked that he might see that; and entering\nthe stream of Light, he saw across time and the world, and beheld the\nface of the Messiah. Then he fell upon his face and cried, 'This is\nhe who shall lay low in ruin me and all the inhabitants of hell!'\n\nWhat the Prince of Darkness saw was the vision of a race: beginning\nwith the words (Gen. i. 3, 4), 'God said, Let there be Light; and\nthere was Light; and God saw the Light that it was good; and God\ndivided between the Light and the Darkness;' ending with Rev. xx. 1,\n2, 'And I saw an angel come down from heaven having the key of the\nbottomless pit, and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on\nthe dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil and Satan, and bound\nhim a thousand years.'\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\nWAR ON EARTH.\n\n    The Abode of Devils--Ketef--Disorder--Talmudic legends--The\n    restless Spirit--The Fall of Lucifer--Asteria, Hecate, Lilith--The\n    Dragon's triumph--A Gipsy legend--C\u00e6dmon's Poem of the Rebellious\n    Angels--Milton's version--The Puritans and Prince Rupert--Bel as\n    ally of the Dragon--A 'Mystery' in Marionettes--European Hells.\n\n\n'Rejoice, ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them! Woe to the earth\nand the sea! for the devil is come down to you, having great wrath,\nbecause he knoweth that he hath but a short time.' This passage from\nthe Book of Revelations is the refrain of many and much earlier\nscriptures. The Assyrian accounts of the war in heaven, given in\nthe preceding chapter, by no means generally support the story that\nthe archdragon was slain by Bel. Even the one that does describe the\nchief dragon's death leaves her comrades alive, and the balance of\ntestimony is largely in favour of the theory which prevailed, that the\nrebellious angels were merely cast out of heaven, and went to swell\nthe ranks of the dark and fearful abode which from the beginning had\nbeen peopled by the enemies of the gods. The nature of this abode is\ndescribed in various passages of the Bible, and in many traditions.\n\n'Out of the north an evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of\nthe land.' So said Jeremiah (i. 14), in pursuance of nearly universal\ntraditions as to the region of space in which demons and devils\nhad their abode. 'Hell is naked before him,' says Job (xxvi. 6),\n'and destruction hath no covering. He stretcheth out the north over\nthe empty place.' According to the Hebrew mythology this habitation\nof demons was a realm of perpetual cold and midnight, which Jehovah,\nin creating the world, purposely left chaotic; so it was prepared\nfor the Devil and his angels at the foundation of the world.\n\nAlthough this northern hell was a region of disorder, so far as the\npeople of Jehovah and the divine domain were concerned, they had\namong themselves a strong military and aristocratic government. It\nwas disorder perfectly systematised. The anarchical atmosphere of\nthe region is reflected in the abnormal structures ascribed to the\nmany devils with whose traits Jewish and Arabic folklore is familiar,\nand which are too numerous to be described here. Such a devil, for\ninstance, is Bedargon, 'hand-high,' with fifty heads and fifty-six\nhearts, who cannot strike any one or be struck, instant death ensuing\nto either party in such an attack. A more dangerous devil is Ketef,\nidentified as the 'terror from the chambers' alluded to by Jeremiah\n(xxxii. 25), 'Bitter Pestilence.' His name is said to be from kataf,\n'cut and split,' because he divides the course of the day; and those\nwho are interested to compare Hebrew and Hindu myths may find it\ninteresting to note the coincidences between Ketef and Ketu, the\ncut-off tail of R\u00e1hu, and source of pestilence. [59] Ketef reigns\nneither in the dark or day, but between the two; his power over the\nyear is limited to the time between June 17 and July 9, during which\nit was considered dangerous to flog children or let them go out after\nfour P.M. Ketef is calf-headed, and consists of hide, hair, and eyes;\nhe rolls like a cask; he has a terrible horn, but his chief terror\nlies in an evil eye fixed in his heart which none can see without\ninstant death. The arch-fiend who reigns over the infernal host has\nmany Court Fools--probably meteors and comets--who lead men astray.\n\nAll these devils have their regulations in their own domain, but, as\nwe have said, their laws mean disorder in that part of the universe\nwhich belongs to the family of Jehovah. In flying about the world\nthey are limited to places which are still chaotic or waste. They\nhaunt such congenial spots as rocks and ruins, and frequent desert,\nwilderness, dark mountains, and the ruins of human habitations. They\ncan take possession of a wandering star.\n\nThere is a pretty Talmudic legend of a devil having once gone to sleep,\nwhen some one, not seeing him of course, set down a cask of wine on\nhis ears. In leaping up the devil broke the cask, and being tried for\nit, was condemned to repay the damage at a certain period. The period\nhaving elapsed before the money was brought, the devil was asked the\ncause of the delay. He replied that it was very difficult for devils\nto obtain money, because men were careful to keep it locked or tied\nup; and 'we have no power,' he said, 'to take from anything bound\nor sealed up, nor can we take anything that is measured or counted;\nwe are permitted to take only what is free or common.'\n\nAccording to one legend the devils were specially angered, because\nJehovah, when he created man, gave him dominion over things in the\nsea (Gen. i. 28), that being a realm of unrest and tempest which they\nclaimed as belonging to themselves. They were denied control of the\nlife that is in the sea, though permitted a large degree of power\nover its waters. Over the winds their rule was supreme, and it was\nonly by reducing certain demons to slavery that Solomon was able to\nride in a wind-chariot.\n\nOut of these several realms of order and disorder in nature were\nevolved the angels and the devils which were supposed to beset man. The\nfirst man is said to have been like an angel. From the instant of\nhis creation there attended him two spirits, whom the rabbins found\nshadowed out in the sentence, 'Jehovah-Elohim formed man of the dust\nof the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life;\nand man became a living soul' (Gen. ii. 7). This 'breath of life'\nwas a holy spirit, and stood on Adam's right; the 'living soul' was a\nrestless spirit on his left, which continually moved up and down. When\nAdam had sinned, this restless spirit became a diabolical spirit,\nand it has ever acted as mediator between man and the realm of anarchy.\n\nIt has been mentioned that in the Assyrian legends of the Revolt in\nHeaven we find no adequate intimation of the motive by which the rebels\nwere actuated. It is said they interrupted the heavenly song, that they\nbrought on an eclipse, that they afflicted human beings with disease;\nbut why they did all this is not stated. The motive of the serpent\nin tempting Eve is not stated in Genesis. The theory which C\u00e6dmon\nand Milton have made so familiar, that the dragons aspired to rival\nJehovah, and usurp the throne of Heaven, must, however, have been\nalready popular in the time of Isaiah. In his rhapsody concerning\nthe fall of Babylon, he takes his rhetoric from the story of Bel\nand the Dragon, and turns a legend, as familiar to every Babylonian\nas that of St. George and the Dragon now is to Englishmen, into an\nillustration of their own doom. The invective is directed against\nthe King of Babylon, consequently the sex of the devil is changed;\nbut the most remarkable change is in the ascription to Lucifer of a\nclear purpose to rival the Most High, and seize the throne of heaven.\n\n'Hell from beneath is moved for thee to meet thee at thy coming,\nit stirreth up the (spirits of) the dead, even all the chief ones\n(great goats) of the earth: it hath raised up from their thrones all\nthe kings of the nations (demon-begotten aliens). All these shall\nsay unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? Art thou become like\nunto us? Thy splendour is brought down to the underworld, and the\nnoise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms\ncover thee. How art thou fallen, O Lucifer (Daystar), son of the\nmorning! how art thou cut down to the ground which didst weaken the\nnations! For thou hast said in thy heart, I will ascend into (the\nupper) heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars (archangels)\nof God: I will sit (reign) also upon the mount of the congregation\n(the assembly of the enemies of God) in the sides of the north. I will\nascend above the heights of the clouds (the thunder-throne of Jehovah);\nI will be like the Most High. Yet shalt thou be brought down to hell,\nto the sides of the pit.' [60]\n\nIn this passage we mark the arena of the combat shifted from heaven\nto earth. It is not the throne of heaven but that of the world at\nwhich the fiends now aim. Nay, there is confession in every line of\nthe prophecy that the enemy of Jehovah has usurped his throne. Hell\nhas prevailed, and Lucifer is the Prince of this World. The celestial\nsuccess has not been maintained on earth. This would be the obvious\nfact to a humiliated, oppressed, heavily-taxed people, who believed\nthemselves the one family on earth sprung from Jehovah, and their\nmasters the offspring of demons. This situation gave to the vague\ntraditions of a single combat between Bel and the Dragon, about an\neclipse or a riot, the significance which it retained ever afterward of\na mighty conflict on earth between the realms of Light and Darkness,\nbetween which the Elohim had set a boundary-line (Gen. i. 4) in\nthe beginning.\n\nA similar situation returned when the Jews were under the sway of\nRome, and then all that had ever been said of Babylon was repeated\nagainst Rome under the name of Edom. It recurred in the case of those\nJews who acknowledged Jesus as their Messiah: in the pomp and glory\nof the C\u00e6sars they beheld the triumph of the Powers of Darkness,\nand the burthen of Isaiah against Lucifer was raised again in that\nof the Apocalypse against the seven-headed Dragon. It is notable how\nthese writers left out of sight the myth of Eden so far as it did\nnot belong to their race. Isaiah does not say anything even of the\nserpent. The Apocalypse says nothing of the two wonderful trees, and\nthe serpent appears only as a Dragon from whom the woman is escaping,\nby whom she is not at all tempted. The shape of the Devil, and the\nCombat with him, have always been determined by dangers and evils\nthat are actual, not such as are arch\u00e6ological.\n\nA gipsy near Edinburgh gave me his version of the combat between God\nand Satan as follows. 'When God created the universe and all things\nin it, Satan tried to create a rival universe. He managed to match\neverything pretty well except man. There he failed; and God to punish\nhis pride cast him down to the earth and bound him with a chain. But\nthis chain was so long that Satan was able to move over the whole\nface of the earth!' There had got into this wanderer's head some bit\nof the Babylonian story, and it was mingled with Gnostic traditions\nabout Ildabaoth; but there was also a quaint suggestion in Satan's\nlong chain of the migration of this mythical combat not only round\nthe world, but through the ages.\n\nThe early followers of Christ came before the glories of Paganism\nwith the legend that the lowly should inherit the earth. And though\nthey speedily surrendered to the rulers of the world in Rome, and made\nthemselves into a christian aristocracy, when they came into Northern\nEurope the christians were again brought to confront with an humble\nsystem the religion of thrones and warriors. St. Gatien celebrating\nmass in a cavern beside the Loire, meant as much weakness in presence\nof Paganism as the Huguenots felt twelve centuries later hiding in\nthe like caverns from St. Gatien's priestly successors.\n\nThe burthen of Isaiah is heard again, and with realistic intensity,\nin the seventh century, and in the north, with our patriarchial\npoet C\u00e6dmon.\n\n\n        The All-powerful had\n        Angel-tribes,\n        Through might of hand,\n        The holy Lord,\n        Ten established,\n        In whom he trusted well\n        That they his service\n        Would follow,\n        Work his will;\n        Therefore gave he them wit,\n        And shaped them with his hands,\n        The holy Lord.\n        He had placed them so happily,\n        One he had made so powerful,\n        So mighty in his mind's thought,\n        He let him sway over so much,\n        Highest after himself in heaven's kingdom.\n        He had made him so fair,\n        So beauteous was his form in heaven,\n        That came to him from the Lord of hosts,\n        He was like to the light stars.\n        It was his to work the praise of the Lord,\n        It was his to hold dear his joys in heaven,\n        And to thank his Lord\n        For the reward that he had bestowed on him in that light;\n        Then had he let him long possess it;\n        But he turned it for himself to a worse thing,\n        Began to raise war upon him,\n        Against the highest Ruler of heaven,\n        Who sitteth in the holy seat.\n        Dear was he to our Lord,\n        But it might not be hidden from him\n        That his angel began\n        To be presumptuous,\n        Raised himself against his Master,\n        Sought speech of hate,\n        Words of pride towards him,\n        Would not serve God,\n        Said that his body was\n        Light and beauteous,\n        Fair and bright of hue:\n        He might not find in his mind\n        That he would God\n        In subjection,\n        His Lord, serve:\n        Seemed to himself\n        That he a power and force\n        Had greater\n        Than the holy God\n        Could have\n        Of adherents.\n        Many words spake\n        The angel of presumption:\n        Thought, through his own power,\n        How he for himself a stronger\n        Seat might make,\n        Higher in heaven:\n        Said that him his mind impelled,\n        That he west and north\n        Would begin to work,\n        Would prepare structures:\n        Said it to him seemed doubtful\n        That he to God would\n        Be a vassal.\n        'Why shall I toil?' said he;\n        'To me it is no whit needful.\n        To have a superior;\n        I can with my hands as many\n        Wonders work;\n        I have great power\n        To form\n        A diviner throne,\n        A higher in heaven.\n        Why shall I for his favour serve,\n        Bend to him in such vassalage?\n        I may be a god as he\n        Stand by me strong associates,\n        Who will not fail me in the strife,\n        Heroes stern of mood,\n        They have chosen me for chief,\n        Renowned warriors!\n        With such may one devise counsel,\n        With such capture his adherents;\n        They are my zealous friends,\n        Faithful in their thoughts;\n        I may be their chieftain,\n        Sway in this realm:\n        Thus to me it seemeth not right\n        That I in aught\n        Need cringe\n        To God for any good;\n        I will no longer be his vassal.'\n        When the All-powerful it\n        All had heard,\n        That his angel devised\n        Great presumption\n        To raise up against his Master,\n        And spake proud words\n        Foolishly against his Lord,\n        Then must he expiate the deed,\n        Share the work of war,\n        And for his punishment must have\n        Of all deadly ills the greatest.\n        So doth every man\n        Who against his Lord\n        Deviseth to war,\n        With crime against the great Ruler.\n        Then was the Mighty angry;\n        The highest Ruler of heaven\n        Hurled him from the lofty seat;\n        Hate had he gained at his Lord,\n        His favour he had lost,\n        Incensed with him was the Good in his mind,\n        Therefore must he seek the gulf\n        Of hard hell-torment,\n        For that he had warred with heaven's Ruler,\n        He rejected him then from his favour,\n        And cast him into hell,\n        Into the deep parts,\n        Where he became a devil:\n        The fiend with all his comrades\n        Fell then from heaven above,\n        Through as long as three nights and days,\n        The angels from heaven into hell;\n        And them all the Lord transformed to devils,\n        Because they his deed and word\n        Would not revere;\n        Therefore them in a worse light,\n        Under the earth beneath,\n        Almighty God\n        Had placed triumphless\n        In the swart hell;\n        There they have at even,\n        Immeasurably long,\n        Each of all the fiends,\n        A renewal of fire;\n        Then cometh ere dawn\n        The eastern wind,\n        Frost bitter-cold,\n        Ever fire or dart;\n        Some hard torment\n        They must have,\n        It was wrought for them in punishment,\n        Their world was changed:\n        For their sinful course\n        He filled hell\n        With the apostates.\n\n\nWhether this spirited description was written by C\u00e6dmon, and whether\nit is of his century, are questions unimportant to the present\ninquiry. The poem represents a medi\u00e6val notion which long prevailed,\nand which characterised the Mysteries, that Satan and his comrades\nwere humiliated from the highest angelic rank to a hell already\nprepared and peopled with devils, and were there, and by those devils,\nseverely punished. One of the illuminations of the C\u00e6dmon manuscript,\npreserved in the Bodleian Library, shows Satan undergoing his torment\n(Fig. 3). He is bound over something like a gridiron, and four devils\nare torturing him, the largest using a scourge with six prongs. His\nface manifests great suffering. His form is mainly human, but his\nbushy tail and animal feet indicate that he has been transformed to\na devil similar to those who chastise him.\n\nOn C\u00e6dmon's foundation Milton built his gorgeous edifice. His\nSatan is an ambitious and very English lord, in whom are reflected\nthe whole aristocracy of England in their hatred and contempt of\nthe holy Puritan Commonwealth, the Church of Christ as he deemed\nit. The ages had brought round a similar situation to that which\nconfronted the Jews at Babylon, the early Christians of Rome, and\ntheir missionaries among the proud pagan princes of the north. The\nChurch had long allied itself with the earlier Lucifers of the north,\nand now represented the proud empire of a satanic aristocracy, and\nthe persecuted Nonconformists represented the authority of the King\nof kings. In the English palace, and in the throne of Canterbury,\nMilton saw his Beelzebub and his Satan.\n\n\n        Th' infernal serpent; he it was, whose guile,\n        Stirred up with envy and revenge, deceived\n        The mother of mankind, what time his pride\n        Had cast him out from heav'n, with all his host\n        Of rebel angels, by whose aid aspiring\n        To set himself in glory above his peers\n        He trusted to have equall'd the Most High,\n        If he opposed; and with ambitious aim\n        Against the throne and monarchy of God\n        Raised impious war in heav'n, and battle proud,\n        With vain attempt. Him the almighty Power\n        Hurl'd headlong flaming from th' ethereal sky,\n        With hideous ruin and combustion, down\n        To bottomless perdition, there to dwell\n        In adamantine chains and penal fire,\n        Who durst defy th' Omnipotent to arms. [61]\n\n\nThis adaptation of the imagery of Isaiah concerning Lucifer has in\nit all the thunder hurled by Cromwell against Charles. Even a Puritan\npoet might not altogether repress admiration for the dash and daring\nof a Prince Rupert, to which indeed even his prosaic co-religionists\npaid the compliment of ascribing to it a diabolical source. [62] Not\namid conflicts that raged in ancient Syria broke forth such lines as--\n\n\n        Better to reign in hell, than serve in heav'n.\n\n        With rallied arms to try what may be yet\n        Regain'd in heav'n, or what more lost in hell.\n\n\nThe Bel whom Milton saw was Cromwell, and the Dragon that serpent\nof English oppression which the Dictator is trampling on in a\nwell-known engraving of his time. In the history of the Reformation\nthe old legend did manifold duty again, as in the picture (Fig. 13)\nby Luther's friend Lucas Cranach.\n\nIt would seem that in the course of time Bel and the Dragon became\nsufficiently close allies for their worshippers to feed and defend\nthem both with equal devotion, and for Daniel to explode them both in\ncarrying on the fight of his deity against the gods of Babylon. This\nstory of Bel is apocryphal as to the canon, but highly significant as\nto the history we are now considering. Although the Jews maintained\ntheir struggle against 'principalities and powers' long after it had\nbeen a forlorn hope, and never surrendered, nor made alliance with the\nDragon, the same cannot be said of those who appropriated their title\nof 'the chosen of God,' counterfeited their covenant, and travestied\ntheir traditions. The alliance of Christianity and the Dragon has\nnot been nominal, but fearfully real. In fulfilling their mission of\n'inheriting the earth,' the 'meek' called around them and pressed into\ntheir service agents and weapons more diabolical than any with which\nthe Oriental imagination had peopled the abode of devils in the north.\n\nAt a Fair in Tours (August 1878) I saw two exhibitions which were\nimpressive enough in the light they cast through history. One was\na shrunken and sufficiently grotesque production by puppets of the\nMedi\u00e6val 'Mystery' of Hell. Nearly every old scheme and vision of\nthe underworld was represented in the scene. The three Judges sat\nto hear each case. A devil rang a bell whenever any culprit appeared\nat the gate. The accused was ushered in by a winged devil--Satan, the\nAccuser--who, by the show-woman's lips, stated the charges against each\nwith an eager desire to make him or her out as wicked as possible. A\ndevil with pitchfork received the sentenced, and shoved them down into\na furnace. There was an array of brilliant dragons around, but they\nappeared to have nothing to do beyond enjoying the spectacle. But this\nexhibition which was styled 'Twenty minutes in Hell,' was poor and\nfaint beside the neighbouring exhibition of the real Hell, in which\nEurope had been tortured for fifteen centuries. Some industrious\nGermans had got together in one large room several hundreds of the\ninstruments of torture by which the nations of the West were persuaded\nto embrace Christianity. Every limb, sinew, feature, bone, and nerve of\nthe human frame had suggested to christian inventiveness some ingenious\ndevice by which it might be tortured. Wheels on which to break bones,\nchairs of anguish, thumbscrews, the iron Virgin whose embrace pierced\nthrough every vital part; the hunger-mask which renewed for Christ's\nsake the exact torment of Tantalus; even the machine which bore the\nvery name of the enemy that was cast down--the Dragon's Head! By such\ninstrumentalities came those quasi-miraculous 'Triumphs of the Cross,'\nof which so much has been said and sung! The most salient phenomenon\nof christian history is the steady triumph of the Dragon. Misleader\nand Deceiver to the last, he is quite willing to sprinkle his fork\nand rack with holy water, to cross himself, to label his caldrons\n'divine justice,' to write CHRIST upon his forehead; by so doing he\nwas able to spring his infernal engine on the best nations, and cow\nthe strongest hearts, till from their pallid lips were wrung the\n'confessions of faith,' or the last cry of martyred truth. So was\nhe able to assault the pure heavens once more, to quench the stars\nof human faith and hope, and generate a race of polite, learned,\nand civilised hypocrites. But the ancient sunbeams are after him:\nthe mandate has again gone forth, 'Let there be light,' and the Light\nthat now breaks forth is not of that kind which respects the limit\nof Darkness.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\nSTRIFE.\n\n    Hebrew god of War--Sama\u00ebl--The father's blessing and curse--Esau\n    --Edom--Jacob and the Phantom--The planet Mars--Tradesman and\n    Huntsman--'The Devil's Dream.'\n\n\n        Who is this that cometh from Edom,\n        In dyed garments from Bozrah?\n        This that is glorious in his apparel,\n        Travelling in the greatness of his strength?\n        I who promise deliverance, mighty to save.\n          Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel,\n        And thy garments like him that treadeth the wine-vat?\n          I have trodden the wine-press alone;\n        And of the peoples there was none with me:\n        And I will tread them in mine anger,\n        And trample them in my fury;\n        And their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments,\n        And I will stain all my raiment.\n        For the day of vengeance is in my heart,\n        And the year of mine avenged is come.\n        And I looked, and there was none to help;\n        And I wondered that there was none to uphold;\n        Therefore mine own arm gained me the victory,\n        And mine own fury, it upheld me.\n        And I will tread down the peoples in mine anger,\n        And make them drunk in my wrath,\n        And will bring down their strength to the earth. [63]\n\n\nThis is the picture of the god of War. Upon it the comment in Emek\nHammelech is: 'The colour of the godless Sama\u00ebl and of all his princes\nand lords has the aspect of red fire; and all their emanations are\nred. Sama\u00ebl is red, also his horse, his sword, his raiment, and the\nground beneath him, are red. In the future the Holy God shall wear\nhis raiment.' [64] Sama\u00ebl is leader of the Opposition. He is the\nSoul of the fiery planet Mars. He is the Creator and inspirer of\nall Serpents. Azazel, demon of the Desert, is his First Lord. He was\nthe terrestrial Chief around whom the fallen angels gathered, and his\ngreat power was acknowledged. All these characters the ancient Rabbins\nfound blended in his name. Simm\u00e9 (dazzling), S\u00f3me (blinding), Sem\u00f3l\n(the left side), and Samhammaveth (deadly poison), were combined in\nthe terrible name of Sama\u00ebl. He ruled over the sinister Left. When\nMoses, in war with the Amalekites, raised his ten fingers, it was a\nspecial invocation to the Ten Sephiroth, Divine Emanations, because\nhe knew the power which the Amalekites got from Sama\u00ebl might turn his\nown left hand against Israel. [65] The scapegoat was a sacrifice to\nhim through Azazel.\n\nSama\u00ebl is the mythologic expression and embodiment of the history of\nEsau, afterward Edom. Jacob and Esau represented the sheep and the\ngoat, divided in the past and to be sundered for ever. As Jacob by\ncovering his flesh with goat-skins obtained his father's blessing due\nto Esau, the Israelites wandering through the wilderness (near Edom's\nforbidden domain) seemed to have faith that the offering of a goat\nwould convince his Viceroy Azazel that they were orthodox Edomites. The\nredness of Sama\u00ebl begins with the red pottage from which Esau was\ncalled Edom. The English version does not give the emphasis with which\nEsau is said to have called for the pottage--\"the red! the red!\" The\ncharacteristics ascribed to Esau in the legend are merely a saga built\non the local names with which he was associated. 'Edom' means red,\nand 'Seir' means hairy. It probably meant the 'Shaggy Mountains.' [66]\n\nIt is interesting to observe the parting of the human and the\ntheological myths in this story. Jacob is the third person of a\npatriarchal trinity,--Abraham the Heavenly Father, Isaac the Laugher\n(the Sun), and Jacob the Impostor or Supplanter. As the moon supplants\nthe sun, takes hold of his heel, shines with his light, so does Jacob\nsupplant his elder brother; and all the deadliness ascribed to the\nMoon, and other Third Persons of Trinities, was inherited by Jacob\nuntil his name was changed by euphemism. As the impartial sun shines\nfor good and evil, the smile of Isaac, the Laugher, promised great\nblessings to both of his sons. The human myth therefore represents\nboth of them gaining great power and wealth, and after a long feud\nthey are reconciled. This feature of the legend we shall consider\nhereafter. Jehovah has another interest to be secured. He had\ndeclared that one should serve the other; that they should be\ncursed who cursed Jacob; and he said, 'Jacob have I loved, Esau\nhave I hated.' Jahvistic theology had here something more important\nthan two brothers to harmonise; namely a patriarch's blessing and\na god's curse. It was contrary to all orthodoxy that a man whom\nJehovah hated should possess the blessings of life; it was equally\nunorthodox that a father's blessing should not carry with it every\nadvantage promised. It had to be recorded that Esau became powerful,\nlived by his sword, and had great possessions.\n\nIt had also to be recorded that 'Edom revolted from under the hand of\nJudah and made a king unto themselves,' and that such independence\ncontinued 'unto this day' (2 Kings viii. 20, 22). There was thus no\nroom for the exhibition of Jacob's superiority,--that is of Israel's\npriority over Edom,--in this world; nor yet any room to carry out\nIsaac's curse on all who cursed Jacob, and the saying: 'Jacob have\nI loved, Esau have I hated, and laid his mountains and his heritage\nwaste for the dragons of the wilderness' (Mal. i.).\n\nAnswers to such problems as these evolve themselves slowly\nbut inevitably. The agonised cry of the poor girl in Browning's\npoem--'There may be heaven, there must be hell'--marks the direction in\nwhich necessity led human speculation many ages before her. A future\nhad to be invented for the working out of the curse on Esau, who on\nearth had to fulfil his father's blessing by enjoying power, wealth,\nand independence of his brother. In that future his greatness while\nliving was repaid by his relegation to the desert and the rock with\nthe he-goat for his support. Esau was believed to have been changed\ninto a terrible hairy devil. [67] But still there followed him in his\nphantasmal transformation a ghostly environment of his former power\nand greatness; the boldest and holiest could not afford to despise\nor set aside that 'share' which had been allotted him in the legend,\nand could not be wholly set aside in the invisible world.\n\nJacob's share began with a shrewd bargain with his imprudent\nbrother. Jacob by his cunning in the breeding of the streaked animals\n(Gen. xxx.), by which he outwitted Laban, and other manoeuvres, was\nreally the cause of bringing on the race called after him that repute\nfor extortion, affixed to them in such figures as Shylock, which they\nhave found it so hard to live down. In becoming the great barterers\nof the East, their obstacle was the plunderer sallying forth from\nthe mountain fastnesses or careering over the desert. These were the\ntraditional descendants of Esau, who gradually included the Ishmaelites\nas well as the Edomites, afterwards merged in the Idumeans. But as\nthe tribal distinctions became lost, the ancient hostility survived\nin the abstract form of this satan of Strife--Sama\u00ebl. He came to\nmean the spirit that stirs up antagonism between those who should be\nbrethren. He finally became, and among the more superstitious Jews\nstill is, instigator of the cruel persecutions which have so long\npursued their race, and the prejudices against them which survive\neven in countries to whose wealth, learning, and arts they have\nlargely contributed. In Jewish countries Edom has long been a name\nfor the power of Rome and Romanism, somewhat in the same way as the\nsame are called 'Babylon' by some christians. Jacob, when passing\ninto the wilderness of Edom, wrestled with the invisible power of\nEsau, or Sama\u00ebl, and had not been able to prevail except with a lame\nthigh,--a part which, in every animal, Israel thereafter held sacred\nto the Opposing Power and abstained from eating. A rabbinical legend\nrepresents Jacob as having been bitten by a serpent while he was\nlingering about the boundary of Edom, and before his gift of goats\nand other cattle had been offered to his brother. The fiery serpents\nwhich afflicted Israel were universally attributed to Sama\u00ebl, and\nthe raising of the Brazen Serpent for the homage of the people was an\ninstance of the uniform deference to Esau's power in his own domain\nwhich was long inculcated.\n\nAs I write, fiery Mars, near enough for the astronomer to detect\nits moons, is a wondrous phenomenon in the sky. Beneath it fearful\nfamine is desolating three vast countries, war is raging between\ntwo powerful nations, and civil strife is smiting another ere it has\nfairly recovered from the wounds of a foreign struggle. The dismal\nconditions seem to have so little root in political necessity that\none might almost be pardoned even now for dreaming that some subtle\ninfluence has come among men from the red planet that has approached\nthe earth. How easy then must it have been in a similar conjunction of\nearthly and celestial phenomena to have imagined Sama\u00ebl, the planetary\nSpectre, to be at work with his fatal fires! Whatever may have been\nthe occasion, the red light of Mars at an early period fixed upon that\nplanet the odium of all the burning, blighting, desert-producing powers\nof which it was thought necessary to relieve the adorable Sun. It\nwas believed that all 'born under' that planet were quarrelsome. And\nit was part of the popular Jewish belief in the ultimate triumph of\ngood over evil that under Mars the Messias was to be born.\n\nWe may regard Esau-Sama\u00ebl then as the Devil of Strife. His traditional\nson Cain was like himself a 'murderer from the beginning;' [68] but in\nthat early period the conflict was between the nomad and the huntsman\non one side, on the other the agriculturist and the cattle-breeder,\nwho was never regarded as a noble figure among the Semitic tribes. In\nthe course of time some Semitic tribes became agriculturists, and among\nthem, in defiance of his arch\u00e6ological character, Sama\u00ebl was saddled\nwith the evils that beset them. As an ox he brought rinderpest. But\nhis visible appearance was still more generally that of the raven,\nthe wild ass, the hog which brought scurvy; while in shape of a dog\nhe was so generally believed to bring deadly disease, that it would\nseem as if 'hydrophobia' was specially attributed to him.\n\nIn process of time benignant Peace dwelt more and more with the\nagriculturists, but still among the Israelites the tradesman was\nthe 'coming man,' and to him peace was essential. The huntsman, of\nthe Esau clan, figures in many legends, of which the following is\ntranslated from the Arabic by Lane:--There was a huntsman who from a\nmountain cave brought some honey in his water-skin, which he offered\nto an oilman; when the oilman opened the skin a drop of honey fell\nwhich a bird ate; the oilman's cat sprang on the bird and killed it;\nthe huntsman's hound killed the cat; the oilman killed the dog; the\nhuntsman killed the oilman; and as the two men belonged to different\nvillages, their inhabitants rose against each other in battle,\n'and there died of them a great multitude, the number of whom none\nknoweth but God, whose name be exalted!' [69]\n\nEsau's character as a wild huntsman is referred to in another\nchapter. It is as the genius of strife and nomadic war that he more\ndirectly stands in contrast with his 'supplanter.'\n\nFrom the wild elemental demons of storm and tempest of the most\nprimitive age to this Devil of Strife, the human mind has associated\nevil with unrest. 'The wicked are like the troubled sea when it cannot\nrest.' Such is the burthen of the Japanese Oni throned in the heart\nof the hurricane, of the wild huntsman issuing forth at the first\nnote of war, of Edom hating the victories of peace, living by the\nsword. The prophecy that the Prince of Peace should be born under\nthe planet Mars is a strange and mystical suggestion. In a powerful\npoem by Thomas Aird, 'The Devil's Dream,' the last fearful doom of\nSatan's vision is imprisonment beneath a lake for ever still,--the\nSpirit of Unrest condemned for ever to the realm of absolute stillness!\n\n\n  There all is solemn idleness: no music here, no jars,\n  Where Silence guards the coast, e'er thrill her everlasting bars.\n  No sun here shines on wanton isles; but o'er the burning sheet\n  A rim of restless halo shakes, which marks the internal heat;\n  As, in the days of beauteous earth, we see with dazzled sight\n  The red and setting sun o'erflow with rings of welling light.\n\n  Oh! here in dread abeyance lurks of uncreated things\n  The last Lake of God's Wrath, where He His first great Enemy brings.\n  Deep in the bosom of the gulf the Fiend was made to stay,\n  Till, as it seemed, ten thousand years had o'er him rolled away;\n  In dreams he had extended life to bear the fiery space;\n  But all was passive, dull, and stern within his dwelling-place.\n\n  Oh! for a blast of tenfold ire to rouse the giant surge,\n  Him from that flat fixed lethargy impetuously to urge!\n  Let him but rise, but ride upon the tempest-crested wave\n  Of fire enridged tumultuously, each angry thing he'd brave!\n  The strokes of Wrath, thick let them fall! a speed so glorious dread\n  Would bear him through, the clinging pains would strip from off\n  his head.\n\n  The vision of this Last Stern Lake, oh! how it plagued his soul,\n  Type of that dull eternity that on him soon must roll,\n  When plans and issues all must cease that earlier care beguiled,\n  And never era more shall stand a landmark on the wild:\n  Nor failure nor success is there, nor busy hope nor fame,\n  But passive fixed endurance, all eternal and the same.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII.\n\nBARBARIC ARISTOCRACY.\n\n    Jacob, the 'Impostor'--The Barterer--Esau, the 'Warrior'--Barbarian\n    Dukes--Trade and War--Reconciliation of Jacob and Esau--Their\n    Ghosts--Legend of Iblis--Pagan Warriors of Europe--Russian\n    Hierarchy of Hell.\n\n\nIn the preceding chapter it was noted that there were two myths\nwrapped up in the story of Jacob and Esau,--the one theological,\nthe other human. The former was there treated, the latter may be\nconsidered here. Rabbinical theology has made the Jewish race adopt\nas their founder that tricky patriarch whom Shylock adopted as his\nmodel; but any censure on them for that comes with little grace\nfrom christians who believe that they are still enjoying a covenant\nwhich Jacob's extortions and treacheries were the divinely-adopted\nmeans of confirming. It is high time that the Jewish people should\nrepudiate Jacob's proceedings, and if they do not give him his first\nname ('Impostor') back again, at least withdraw from him the name\nIsrael. But it is still more important for mankind to study the phases\nof their civilisation, and not attribute to any particular race the\nspirit of a legend which represents an epoch of social development\nthroughout the world.\n\nWhen Rebekah asked Jehovah why her unborn babes struggled in her\nwomb, he answered, 'Two nations are in thy womb. One people shall\nbe stronger than the other people; the elder shall be subject to\nthe younger.' What peoples these were is described in the blessings\nof Jacob on the two representatives when they had grown up to be,\nthe one red and hairy, a huntsman; the other a quiet man, dwelling\nin tents and builder of cattle-booths.\n\nJacob--cunning, extortionate, fraudulent in spirit even when\ntechnically fair--is not a pleasing figure in the eyes of the\nnineteenth century. But he does not belong to the nineteenth\ncentury. His contest was with Esau. The very names of them belong\nto mythology; they are not individual men; they are conflicting\ntendencies and interests of a primitive period. They must be thought\nof as Israel and Edom historically; morally, as the Barter principle\nand the Bandit principle.\n\nHigh things begin low. Astronomy began as Astrology; and when Trade\nbegan there must have been even more trickery about it than there\nis now. Conceive of a world made up of nomadic tribes engaged in\nperpetual warfare. It is a commerce of killing. If a tribe desires\nthe richer soil or larger possessions of another, the method is to\nexterminate that other. But at last there rises a tribe either too\nweak or too peaceful to exterminate, and it proposes to barter. It\nchallenges its neighbours to a contest of wits. They try to get the\nadvantage of each other in bargains; they haggle and cheat; and it\nis not heroic at all, but it is the beginning of commerce and peace.\n\nBut the Dukes of Edom as they are called will not enter into this\ncompact. They have not been used to it; they are always outwitted\nat a bargain; just like those other red men in the West of America,\nwhose lands are bought with beads, and their territorial birthright\ntaken for a mess of pottage. They prefer to live by the hunt and by\nthe sword. Then between these two peoples is an eternal feud, with\nan occasional truce, or, in biblical phrase, 'reconciliation.'\n\nSurrounded by a commercial civilisation, with its prosaic virtues and\nits petty vices, we cannot help admiring much about the Duke of Edom,\nnon-producer though he be. Brave, impulsive, quick to forgive as to\nresent; generous, as people can afford to be when they may give what\nthey never earned; his gallant qualities cast a certain meanness\nover his grasping brother, the Israelite. It is a healthy sign in\nyouth to admire such qualities. The boy who delights in Robin Hood;\nthe youth who feels a stir of enthusiasm when he reads Schiller's\nRobbers; the ennuy\u00e9s of the clubs and the roughs, with unfulfilled\ncapacities for adventure in them, who admire 'the gallant Turk,' are\nall lingering in the nomadic age. They do not think of things but\nof persons. They are impressed by the barbaric dash. The splendour\nof warriors hides trampled and decimated peasantries; their courage\ncan gild atrocities. Beside such captivating qualities and thrilling\nscenes how poor and commonplace appear thrifty rusticity, and the\ncautious, selfish, money-making tradesmen!\n\nBut fine and heroic as the Duke of Edom may appear in the distance,\nit is best to keep him at a distance. When Robin Hood reappeared on\nBlackheath lately, his warmest admirers were satisfied to hear he was\nsecurely lodged in gaol. The Jews had just the same sensations about\nthe Dukes of Edom. They saw that tribe near to, and lived in daily\ndread of them. They were hirsute barbarians, dwelling amid mountain\nfastnesses, and lording it over a vast territory. The weak tribe of\nthe plains had no sooner got together some herds and a little money,\nthan those dashing Edomites fell upon them and carried away their\nsavings and substance in a day. This made the bartering tribe all the\nmore dependent on their cunning. They had to match their wits against,\nthe world; and they have had to do the same to this day, when it is\na chief element of their survival that their thrift is of importance\nto the business and finance of Europe. But in the myth it is shown\nthat Trade, timorous as it is in presence of the sword, may have a\nmagnanimity of its own. The Supplanter of Edom is haunted by the wrong\nhe has done his elder brother, and driven him to greater animosity. He\nresolves to seek him, offer him gifts, and crave reconciliation. It is\neasy to put an unfavourable construction upon his action, but it is not\nnecessary. The Supplanter, with droves of cattle, a large portion of\nhis possessions, passes out towards perilous Edom, unarmed, undefended,\nexcept by his amicable intentions towards the powerful chieftain\nhe had wronged. At the border of the hostile kingdom he learns that\nthe chieftain is coming to meet him with four hundred men. He is now\nseized, with a mighty spirit of Fear. He sends on the herdsmen with\nthe herds, and remains alone. During the watches of the night there\ncloses upon him this phantom of Fear, with its presage of Death. The\ntricky tradesman has met his Conscience, and it is girt about with\nTerror. But he feels that his nobler self is with it, and that he\nwill win. Finely has Charles Wesley told the story in his hymn:--\n\n\n            Come, O thou traveller unknown,\n            Whom still I hold but cannot see!\n            My company before is gone\n            And I am left alone with thee:\n            With thee all night I mean to stay\n            And wrestle till the break of day.\n\n\n'Confident in self-despair,' the Supplanter conquers his Fear; with\nthe dawn he travels onward alone to meet the man he had outraged\nand his armed men, and to him says, 'I have appeared before thee as\nthough I had appeared before God, that thou mightest be favourable\nto me.' The proud Duke is disarmed. The brothers embrace and weep\ntogether. The chieftain declines the presents, and is only induced\nto accept them as proof of his forgiveness. The Tradesman learns for\nall time that his mere cleverness may bring a demon to his side in\nthe night, and that he never made so good a bargain as when he has\nrestored ill-gotten gains. The aristocrat and warrior returns to his\nmountain, aware now that magnanimity and courage are not impossible\nto quiet men living by merchandise. The hunting-ground must make way\nnow for the cattle-breeder. The sword must yield before the balances.\n\nWhatever may have been the tribes which in primitive times had\nthese encounters, and taught each other this lesson, they were long\nsince reconciled. But the ghosts of Israel and Edom, of Barter and\nPlunder, fought on through long tribal histories. Israel represented\nby the archangel Michael, and Edom by dragon Sama\u00ebl, waged their\nwar. One characteristic of the opposing power has been already\nconsidered. Sama\u00ebl embodied Edom as the genius of Strife. He was the\nespecial Accuser of Israel, their Antichrist, so to say, as Michael\nwas their Advocate. But the name 'Edom' itself was retained as a kind\nof personification of the barbaric military and lordly Devil. The\nhighwayman in epaulettes, the heroic spoiler, with his hairy hand\nwhich Israel itself had imitated many a time in its gloves, were\nsummed up as 'Edom.'\n\nThis personification is the more important since it has characterised\nthe more serious idea of Satan which prevails in the world. He is\nmainly a moral conception, and means the pride and pomp of the world,\nits natural wildness and ferocities, and the glory of them. The\nMussulman fable relates that when Allah created man, and placed him\nin a garden, he called all the angels to worship this crowning work\nof his hands. Iblis alone refused to worship Adam. The very idea of\na garden is hateful to the spirit of Nomadism. [70] Man the gardener\nreceives no reverence from the proud leader of the Seraphim. God\nsaid unto him (Iblis), What hindered thee from worshipping Adam,\nsince I commanded thee? He answered, I am more excellent than he:\nthou hast created me of (ethereal) fire, and hast created him of clay\n(black mud). God said, Get thee down therefore from paradise, for it\nis not fit that thou behave thyself proudly therein. [71]\n\nThe earnestness and self-devotion of the northern pagans in their\nresistance to Christianity impressed the finest minds in the Church\nprofoundly. Some of the Fathers even quoted the enthusiasm of those\nwhom they regarded as devotees of the Devil, to shame the apathy of\nchristians. The Church could show no martyr braver than Rand, down\nwhose throat St. Olaf made a viper creep, which gnawed through his\nside; and Rand was an example of thousands. This gave many of the early\nchristians of the north a very serious view of the realm of Satan,\nand of Satan himself as a great potentate. It was increased by their\ndiscovery that the pagan kings--Satan's subjects--had moral codes and\nlaw-courts, and energetically maintained justice. In this way there\ngrew up a more dignified idea of Hell. The grotesque imps receded\nbefore the array of majestic devils, like Satan and Beelzebub; and\nthese were invested with a certain grandeur and barbaric pride. They\nwere regarded as rival monarchs who had refused to submit themselves to\nJehovah, but they were deemed worthy of heroic treatment. The traces of\nthis sentiment found in the ancient frescoes of Russia are of especial\nimportance. Nothing can exceed the grandeur of the Hierarchy of Hell\nas they appear in some of these superb pictures. Satan is generally\ndepicted with similar dignity to the king of heaven, from whom he is\ndivided by a wall's depth, sometimes even resembling him in all but\ncomplexion and hair (which is fire on Satan). There are frequent\ninstances, as in the accompanying figure (4), where, in careful\ncorrespondence with the attitude of Christ on the Father's knees,\nSatan supports the betrayer of Christ. Beside the king of Hell,\nseated in its Mouth, are personages of distinction, some probably\nrepresenting those poets and sages of Greece and Rome, the prospect\nof whose damnation filled some of the first christian Fathers with\nsuch delight.\n\nIn Spain, when a Bishop is about to baptize one of the European\nDukes of the Devil, he asks at the font what has become of his\nancestors, naming them--all heathen. 'They are all in hell!' replies\nthe Bishop. 'Then there will I follow them,' returns the Chief, and\nthereafter by no persuasion can he be induced to fare otherwise than\nto Hell. Gradually the Church made up its mind to ally itself with\nthis obstinate barbaric pride and ambition. It was willing to give\nup anything whatever for a kingdom of this world, and to worship any\nnumber of Princes of Darkness, if they would give unto the Bishops\nsuch kingdoms, and the glory of them. They induced Esau to be baptized\nby promise of their aid in his oppressions, and free indulgences to\nall his passions; and then, by his help, they were able to lay before\nweaker Esaus the christian alternatives--Be baptized or burnt!\n\nNot to have known how to conquer in bloodless victories the barbaric\nEsaus of the world by a virtue more pure, a heroism more patient,\nthan theirs, and with that 'sweet reasonableness of Christ,'\nwhich is the latest epitaph on his tomb among the rich; not to have\nrecognised the true nobility of the Dukes, and purified their pride\nto self-reverence, their passion to moral courage, their daring and\nfreedom to a self-reliance at once gentle and manly; this was no doubt\nthe necessary failure of a dogmatic and irrational system. But it\nis this which has made the christian Israel more of an impostor than\nits prototype, in every country to which it came steadily developing\nto a hypocritical imitator of the Esau whose birthright it stole\nby baptism. It speedily lost his magnanimity, but never his sword,\nwhich however it contrived to make at once meaner and more cruel\nby twisting it into thumbscrews and the like. For many centuries\nits voice has been, in a thin phonographic way, the voice of Jesus,\nbut the hands are the hands of Esau with Sama\u00ebl's claw added.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV.\n\nJOB AND THE DIVIDER.\n\n    Hebrew Polytheism--Problem of Evil--Job's disbelief in a\n    future life--The Divider's realm--Salted Sacrifices--Theory\n    of Orthodoxy--Job's reasoning--His humour--Impartiality of\n    Fortune between the evil and good--Agnosticism of Job--Elihu's\n    eclecticism--Jehovah of the Whirlwind--Heresies of Job--Rabbinical\n    legend of Job--Universality of the legend.\n\n\n        Israel is a flourishing vine,\n        Which bringeth forth fruit to itself;\n        According to the increase of his fruit\n        He hath multiplied his altars;\n        According to the goodness of his land\n        He hath made goodly images.\n        Their heart is divided: now shall they be found guilty;\n        He will break down their altars, he will spoil their images.\n\n\nThese words of the prophet Hosea (x. 1, 2) foreshadow the devil which\nthe devout Jahvist saw growing steadily to enormous strength through\nall the history of Israel. The germ of this enemy may be found in our\nchapter on Fate; one of its earliest developments is indicated in the\naccount already given of the partition between Jacob and Esau, and the\nsuperstition to which that led of a ghostly Antagonist, to whom a share\nhad been irreversibly pledged. From the principle thus adopted, there\ngrew a host of demons whom it was believed necessary to propitiate by\noffering them their share. A divided universe had for its counterpart\na divided loyalty in the heart of the people. The growth of a belief\nin the supremacy of one God was far from being a real monotheism; as\na matter of fact no primitive race has been monotheistic. In 2 Kings\nxvii. it is stated as a belief of the Jews that some Assyrians who\nhad been imported into their territory (Samaria) were slain by lions\nbecause they knew not 'the manner of the God of the land.' Spinoza\nnoticed the indications given in this and other narratives that\nthe Jews believed that gods whose worship was intolerable within\ntheir own boundaries were yet adapted to other regions (Tractatus,\nii.). With this state of mind it is not wonderful that when the Jews\nfound themselves in those alien regions they apprehended that the\ngods of those countries might also employ lions on such as knew not\ntheir manner, but adhered to the worship of Jehovah too exclusively.\n\nAmong the Jews grew up a more spiritual class of minds, whose feeling\ntowards the mongrel worship around them was that of abhorrence; but\nthese had a very difficult cause to maintain. The popular superstitions\nwere firmly rooted in the fact that terrible evils afflicted mankind,\nand in the further fact that these did not spare the most pious. Nay,\nit had for a long time been a growing belief that the bounties and\nafflictions of nature, instead of following the direction promised by\nthe patriarchs,--rewarding the pious, punishing the wicked,--were\ndistributed in a reverse way. Dives and Lazarus seemed to have\ntheir respective lots before any future paradise was devised for\ntheir equalisation--as indeed is natural, since Dives attends to\nhis business, while Lazarus is investing his powers in Abraham's\nbosom. Out of this experience there came at last the demand for a\nlife beyond the grave, without whose redress the pious began to deem\nthemselves of all men the most miserable. But before this heavenly\nfuture became a matter of common belief, there were theories which\nprepared, the way for it. It was held by the devout that the evils\nwhich afflicted the righteous were Jehovah's tests of their loyalty\nto him, and that in the end such trials would be repaid. And when\nobservation, following the theory, showed that they were not so\nrepaid, it was said the righteousness had been unreal, the devotee\nwas punished for hidden wickedness. When continued observation had\nproved that this theory too was false, and that piety was not paid in\nexternal bounties, either to the good man or his family, the solution\nof a future settlement was arrived at.\n\nThis simple process may be traced in various races, and in its\nseveral phases.\n\nThe most impressive presentation of the experiences under which the\nprimitive secular theory of rewards and punishments perished, and\nthat of an adjustment beyond the grave arose, is found in the Book\nof Job. The solution here reached--a future reward in this life--is\nan impossible one for anything more than an exceptional case. But\nthe Book of Job displays how beautiful such an instance would be,\nshowing afflictions to be temporary and destined to be followed by\ncompensations largely outweighing them. It was a tremendous statement\nof the question--If a man die, shall he live again? Jehovah answered,\n'Yes' out of the whirlwind, and raised Job out of the dust. But\nfor the millions who never rose from the dust that voice was heard\nannouncing their resurrection from a trial that pressed them even\ninto the grave. It is remarkable that Job's expression of faith that\nhis Vindicator would appear on earth, should have become the one text\nof the Old Testament which has been adapted by christians to express\nfaith in immortality. Job strongly disowns that faith.\n\n\n                    There is hope for a tree,\n        If it be cut down, that it will sprout again,\n        And that its tender branches will not fail;\n        Though its root may have grown old in the earth,\n        And though its trunk be dead upon the ground,\n        At the scent of water it will bud,\n        And put forth boughs, like a young plant.\n        But man dieth and is gone for ever!\n\n        Yet I know that my Vindicator liveth,\n        And will stand up at length on the earth;\n        And though with my skin this body be wasted away,\n        Yet in my flesh shall I see God.\n        Yea, I shall see him my friend;\n        My eyes shall behold him no longer an adversary;\n        For this my soul panteth within me. [72]\n\n\nThe scenery and details of this drama are such as must have made\nan impression upon the mind of the ancient Jews beyond what is now\npossible for any existing people. In the first place, the locality\nwas the land of Uz, which Jeremiah (Lam. iv. 21) points out as part\nof Edom, the territory traditionally ruled over by the great invisible\nAccuser of Israel, who had succeeded to the portion of Esau, adversary\nof their founder, Jacob. Job was within the perilous bounds. And\nyet here, where scape-goats were offered to deprecate Sama\u00ebl, and\nwhere in ordinary sacrifices some item entered for the devil's share,\nJob refused to pay any honour to the Power of the Place. He offered\nburnt-offerings alone for himself and his sons, these being exclusively\ngiven to Jehovah. [73] Even after his children and his possessions were\ndestroyed by this great adversary, Job offered his sacrifice without\neven omitting the salt, which was the Oriental seal of an inviolable\ncompact between two, and which so especially recalled and consecrated\nthe covenant with Jehovah. [74] Among his twenty thousand animals,\nAzazel's animal, the goat, is not even named. Job's distinction was\nan absolute and unprecedented singleness of loyalty to Jehovah.\n\nThis loyalty of a disciple even in the enemy's country is\nmade the subject of a sort of boast by Jehovah when the Accuser\nenters. Postponing for the moment consideration of the character and\noffice of this Satan, we may observe here that the trial which he\nchallenges is merely a test of the sincerity of Job's allegiance\nto Jehovah. The Accuser claims that it is all given for value\nreceived. These possessions are taken away.\n\nThis is but the framework around the philosophical poem in which all\ntheories of the world are personified in grand council.\n\nFirst of all Job (the Troubled) asks--Why? Orthodoxy answers. (Eliphaz\nwas the son of Esau (Sama\u00ebl), and his name here means that he was\nthe Accuser in disguise. He, 'God's strength,' stands for the Law. It\naffirms that God's ways are just, and consequently afflictions imply\nprevious sin.) Eliphaz repeats the question put by the Accuser in\nheaven--'Was not thy fear of God thy hope?' And he brings Job to the\ntest of prayer, in which he has so long trusted. Eliphaz rests on\nrevelation; he has had a vision; and if his revelation be not true,\nhe challenges Job to disprove it by calling on God to answer him, or\nelse securing the advocacy of some one of the heavenly host. Eliphaz\nsays trouble does not spring out of the dust.\n\nJob's reply is to man and God--Point out the error! Grant my troubles\nare divine arrows, what have I done to thee, O watcher of men! Am I\na sea-monster--and we imagine Job looking at his wasted limbs--that\nthe Almighty must take precautions and send spies against me?\n\nThen follows Bildad the Shuhite,--that is the 'contentious,' one\nof the descendants of Keturah (Abraham's concubine), traditionally\nsupposed to be inimical to the legitimate Abrahamic line, and at a\nlater period identified as the Turks. Bildad, with invective rather\nthan argument, charges that Job's children had been slain for their\nsins, and otherwise makes a personal application of Eliphaz's theology.\n\nJob declares that since God is so perfect, no man by such standard\ncould be proved just; that if he could prove himself just, the\nargument would be settled by the stronger party in his own favour;\nand therefore, liberated from all temptation to justify himself, he\naffirms that the innocent and the guilty are dealt with much in the\nsame way. If it is a trial of strength between God and himself, he\nyields. If it is a matter of reasoning, let the terrors be withdrawn,\nand he will then be able to answer calmly. For the present, even if\nhe were righteous, he dare not lift up his head to so assert, while\nthe rod is upon him.\n\nZophar 'the impudent' speaks. Here too, probably, is a disguise:\nhe is (says the LXX.) King of the Min\u00e6ans, that is the Nomades, and\nhis designation 'the Naamathite,' of unknown significance, bears a\nsuspicious resemblance to Naamah, a mythologic wife of Sama\u00ebl and\nmother of several devils. Zophar is cynical. He laughs at Job for\neven suggesting the notion of an argument between himself and God,\nwhose wisdom and ways are unsearchable. He (God) sees man's iniquity\neven when it looks as if he did not. He is deeper than hell. What\ncan a man do but pray and acknowledge his sinfulness?\n\nBut Job, even in his extremity, is healthy-hearted enough to laugh\ntoo. He tells his three 'comforters' that no doubt Wisdom will die\nwith them. Nevertheless, he has heard similar remarks before, and he\nis not prepared to renounce his conscience and common-sense on such\ngrounds. And now, indeed, Job rises to a higher strain. He has made\nup his mind that after what has come upon him, he cares not if more\nbe added, and challenges the universe to name his offence. So long as\nhis transgression is 'sealed up in a bag,' he has a right to consider\nit an invention. [75]\n\nTemanite Orthodoxy is shocked at all this. Eliphaz declares that\nJob's assertion that innocent and guilty suffer alike makes the fear\nof God a vain thing, and discourages prayer. 'With us are the aged\nand hoary-headed.' (Job is a neologist.) Eliphaz paints human nature\nin Calvinistic colours.\n\n\n    Behold, (God) putteth no trust in his ministering spirits,\n    And the heavens are not pure in his sight;\n    Much less abominable and polluted man,\n    Who drinketh iniquity as water!\n\n\nThe wise have related, and they got it from the fathers to whom\nthe land was given, and among whom no stranger was allowed to bring\nhis strange doctrines, that affliction is the sign and punishment\nof wickedness.\n\nJob merely says he has heard enough of this, and finds no wise man\namong them. He acknowledges that such reproaches add to his sorrows. He\nwould rather contend with God than with them, if he could. But he\nsees a slight indication of divine favour in the remarkable unwisdom\nof his revilers, and their failure to prove their point.\n\nBildad draws a picture of what he considers would be the proper\nenvironment of a wicked man, and it closely resembles the situation\nof Job.\n\nBut Job reminds him that he, Bildad, is not God. It is God that has\nbrought him so low, but God has been satisfied with his flesh. He\nhas not yet uttered any complaint as to his conduct; and so he,\nJob, believes that his vindicator will yet appear to confront his\naccusers--the men who are so glib when his afflictor is silent. [76]\n\nZophar harps on the old string. Pretty much as some preachers\ngo on endlessly with their pictures of the terrors which haunted\nthe deathbeds of Voltaire and Paine, all the more because none are\npresent to relate the facts. Zophar recounts how men who seemed good,\nbut were not, were overtaken by asps and vipers and fires from heaven.\n\nBut Job, on the other hand, has a curious catalogue of examples in\nwhich the notoriously wicked have lived in wealth and gaiety. And\nif it be said God pays such off in their children, Job denies the\njustice of that. It is the offender, and not his child, who ought\nto feel it. The prosperous and the bitter in soul alike lie down in\nthe dust at last, the good and the evil; and Job is quite content to\nadmit that he does not understand it. One thing he does understand:\n'Your explanations are false.'\n\nBut Eliphaz insists on Job having a dogma. If the orthodox dogma is\nnot true, put something in its place! Why are you afflicted? What is,\nyour theory? Is it because God was afraid of your greatness? It must be\nas we say, and you have been defrauding and injuring people in secret.\n\nJob, having repeated his ardent desire to meet God face to face as\nto his innocence, says he can only conclude that what befalls him and\nothers is what is 'appointed' for them. His terror indeed arises from\nthat: the good and the evil seem to be distributed without reference\nto human conduct. How darkness conspires with the assassin! If God\nwere only a man, things might be different; but as it is, 'what he\ndesireth that he doeth,' and 'who can turn him?'\n\nBildad falls back on his dogma of depravity. Man is a 'worm,' a\n'reptile.' Job finds that for a worm Bildad is very familiar with the\ndivine secrets. If man is morally so weak he should be lowly in mind\nalso. God by his spirit hath garnished the heavens; his hand formed\nthe 'crooked serpent'--\n\n\n        Lo! these are but the borders of his works;\n        How faint the whisper we have heard of him!\n        But the thunder of his power who can understand?\n\n\nJob takes up the position of the agnostic, and the three 'Comforters'\nare silenced. The argument has ended where it had to end. Job then\nproceeds with sublime eloquence. A man may lose all outward things, but\nno man or god can make him utter a lie, or take from him his integrity,\nor his consciousness of it. Friends may reproach him, but he can see\nthat his own heart does not. That one superiority to the wicked he\ncan preserve. In reviewing his arguments Job is careful to say that\nhe does not maintain that good and evil men are on an equality. For\none thing, when the wicked man is in trouble he cannot find resource\nin his innocence. 'Can he delight himself in the Almighty?' When such\ndie, their widows do not bewail them. Men do not befriend oppressors\nwhen they come to want. Men hiss them. And with guilt in their heart\nthey feel their sorrows to be the arrows of God, sent in anger. In\nall the realms of nature, therefore, amid its powers, splendours,\nand precious things, man cannot find the wisdom which raises him\nabove misfortune, but only in his inward loyalty to the highest,\nand freedom from moral evil.\n\nThen enters a fifth character, Elihu, whose plan is to mediate\nbetween the old dogma and the new agnostic philosophy. He is Orthodoxy\nrationalised. Elihu's name is suggestive of his ambiguity; it seems to\nmean one whose 'God is He' and he comes from the tribe of Buz, whose\nHebrew meaning might almost be represented in that English word which,\nwith an added z, would best convey the windiness of his remarks. Buz\nwas the son of Milkah, the Moon, and his descendant so came fairly\nby his theologic 'moonshine' of the kind which Carlyle has so well\ndescribed in his account of Coleridgean casuistry. Elihu means to be\nfair to both sides! Elihu sees some truth in both sides! Eclectic\nElihu! Job is perfectly right in thinking he had not done anything\nto merit his sufferings, but he did not know what snares were\naround him, and how he might have done something wicked but for his\naffliction. Moreover, God ruins people now and then just to show how\nhe can lift them up again. Job ought to have taken this for granted,\nand then to have expressed it in the old abject phraseology, saying,\n'I have received chastisement; I will offend no more! What I see not,\nteach thou me!' (A truly Elihuic or 'contemptible' answer to Job's\nsensible words, 'Why is light given to a man whose way is hid?' Why\nadminister the rod which enlightens as to the anger but not its cause,\nor as to the way of amend?) In fact the casuistic Elihu casts no light\nwhatever on the situation. He simply overwhelms him with metaphors and\ngeneralities about the divine justice and mercy, meant to hide this\nnew and dangerous solution which Job had discovered--namely, that\nthe old dogmatic theories of evil were proved false by experience,\nand that a good man amid sorrow should admit his ignorance, but never\nallow terror to wring from him the voice of guilt, nor the attempt\nto propitiate divine wrath.\n\nWhen Jehovah appears on the scene, answering Job out of the whirlwind,\nthe tone is one of wrath, but the whole utterance is merely an\namplification of what Job had said--what we see and suffer are but\nfringes of a Whole we cannot understand. The magnificence and wonder\nof the universe celebrated in that voice of the whirlwind had to be\ngiven the lame and impotent conclusion of Job 'abhorring himself,'\nand 'repenting in dust and ashes.' The conventional Cerberus must\nhave his sop. But none the less does the great heart of this poem\nreveal the soul that was not shaken or divided in prosperity or\nadversity. The burnt-offering of his prosperous days, symbol of a\nworship which refused to include the supposed powers of mischief,\nwas enjoined on Job's Comforters. They must bend to him as nearer God\nthan they. And in his high philosophy Job found what is symbolised in\nthe three daughters born to him: Jemima (the Dove, the voice of the\nreturning Spring); Kezia (Cassia, the sweet incense); Kerenhappuch\n(the horn of beautiful colour, or decoration).\n\nFrom the Jewish point of view this triumph of Job represented a\ntremendous heresy. The idea that afflictions could befall a man without\nany reference to his conduct, and consequently not to be influenced\nby the normal rites and sacrifices, is one fatal to a priesthood. If\nevil may be referred in one case to what is going on far away among\ngods in obscurities of the universe, and to some purpose beyond the\nken of all sages, it may so be referred in all cases, and though\nburnt-offerings may be resorted to formally, they must cease when\ntheir powerlessness is proved. Hence the Rabbins have taken the\nside of Job's Comforters. They invented a legend that Job had been\na great magician in Egypt, and was one of those whose sorceries so\nlong prevented the escape of Israel. He was converted afterwards,\nbut it is hinted that his early wickedness required the retribution\nhe suffered. His name was to them the troubler troubled.\n\nHeretical also was the theory that man could get along without any\nAngelolatry or Demon-worship. Job in his singleness of service,\nfearing God alone, defying the Seraphim and Cherubim from Sama\u00ebl\ndown to do their worst, was a perilous figure. The priests got no\npart of any burnt-offering. The sin-offering was of almost sumptuary\nimportance. Hence the rabbinical theory, already noticed, that it\nwas through neglect of these expiations to the God of Sin that the\nmorally spotless Job came under the power of his plagues.\n\nBut for precisely the same reasons the story of Job became\nrepresentative to the more spiritual class of minds of a genuine as\ncontrasted with a nominal monotheism, and the piety of the pure, the\nundivided heart. Its meaning is so human that it is not necessary to\ndiscuss the question of its connection with the story of Harischandra,\nor whether its accent was caught from or by the legends of Zoroaster\nand of Buddha, who passed unscathed through the ordeals of Ahriman\nand Mara. It was repeated in the encounters of the infant Christ with\nHerod, and of the adult Christ with Satan. It was repeated in the\nunswerving loyalty of the patient Griselda to her husband. It is indeed\nthe heroic theme of many races and ages, and it everywhere points to\na period when the virtues of endurance and patience rose up to match\nthe agonies which fear and weakness had tried to propitiate,--when\nman first learned to suffer and be strong.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV.\n\nSATAN.\n\n    Public Prosecutors--Satan as Accuser--English Devil-worshipper\n    --Conversion by Terror--Satan in the Old Testament--The trial\n    of Joshua--Sender of Plagues--Satan and Serpent--Portrait of\n    Satan--Scapegoat of Christendom--Catholic 'Sight of Hell'--\n    The ally of Priesthoods.\n\n\nThere is nothing about the Satan of the Book of Job to indicate him\nas a diabolical character. He appears as a respectable and powerful\npersonage among the sons of God who present themselves before Jehovah,\nand his office is that of a public prosecutor. He goes to and fro\nin the earth attending to his duties. He has received certificates\nof character from A. Schultens, Herder, Eichorn, Dathe, Ilgen, who\nproposed a new word for Satan in the prologue of Job, which would\nmake him a faithful but too suspicious servant of God.\n\nSuch indeed he was deemed originally; but it is easy to see how the\ndegradation of such a figure must have begun. There is often a clamour\nin England for the creation of Public Prosecutors; yet no doubt there\nis good ground for the hesitation which its judicial heads feel in\nadvising such a step. The experience of countries in which Prosecuting\nAttorneys exist is not such as to prove the institution one of unmixed\nadvantage. It is not in human nature for an official person not to make\nthe most of the duty intrusted to him, and the tendency is to raise\nthe interest he specially represents above that of justice itself. A\ndefeated prosecutor feels a certain stigma upon his reputation as much\nas a defeated advocate, and it is doubtful whether it be safe that\nthe fame of any man should be in the least identified with personal\nsuccess where justice is trying to strike a true balance. The recent\nperformances of certain attorneys in England and America retained by\nSocieties for the Suppression of Vice strikingly illustrate the dangers\nhere alluded to. The necessity that such salaried social detectives\nshould perpetually parade before the community as purifiers of society\ninduces them to get up unreal cases where real ones cannot be easily\ndiscovered. Thus they become Accusers, and from this it is an easy\nstep to become Slanderers; nor is it a very difficult one which may\nmake them instigators of the vices they profess to suppress.\n\nThe first representations of Satan show him holding in his hand\nthe scales; but the latter show him trying slyly with hand or\nfoot to press down that side of the balance in which the evil\ndeeds of a soul are being weighed against the good. We need not\ntry to track arch\u00e6ologically this declension of a Prosecutor, by\nincreasing ardour in his office, through the stages of Accuser,\nAdversary, Executioner, and at last Rival of the legitimate Rule,\nand tempter of its subjects. The process is simple and familiar. I\nhave before me a little twopenny book, [77] which is said to have\na vast circulation, where one may trace the whole mental evolution\nof Satan. The ancient Devil-worshipper who has reappeared with such\npower in England tells us that he was the reputed son of a farmer,\nwho had to support a wife and eleven children on from 7s. to 9s. per\nweek, and who sent him for a short time to school. 'My schoolmistress\nreproved me for something wrong, telling me that God Almighty took\nnotice of children's sins. This stuck to my conscience a great while;\nand who this God Almighty could be I could not conjecture; and how he\ncould know my sins without asking my mother I could not conceive. At\nthat time there was a person named Godfrey, an exciseman, in the town,\na man of a stern and hard-favoured countenance, whom I took notice of\nfor having a stick covered with figures, and an ink-bottle hanging at\nthe button-hole of his coat. I imagined that man to be employed by\nGod Almighty to take notice and keep an account of children's sins;\nand once I got into the market-house and watched him very narrowly,\nand found that he was always in a hurry, by his walking so fast; and I\nthought he had need to hurry, as he must have a deal to do to find out\nall the sins of children!' This terror caused the little Huntington to\nsay his prayers. 'Punishment for sin I found was to be inflicted after\ndeath, therefore I hated the churchyard, and would travel any distance\nround rather than drag my guilty conscience over that enchanted spot.'\n\nThe child is father to the man. When Huntington, S.S., grew up, it\nwas to record for the thousands who listened to him as a prophet his\nmany encounters with the devil. The Satan he believes in is an exact\ncounterpart of the stern, hard-favoured exciseman whom he had regarded\nas God's employ\u00e9. On one occasion he writes, 'Satan began to tempt me\nviolently that there was no God, but I reasoned against the belief of\nthat from my own experience of his dreadful wrath, saying, How can I\ncredit this suggestion, when (God's) wrath is already revealed in my\nheart, and every curse in his book levelled at my head.' (That seems\nhis only evidence of God's existence--his wrath!) 'The Devil answered\nthat the Bible was false, and only wrote by cunning men to puzzle and\ndeceive people. 'There is no God,' said the adversary, 'nor is the\nBible true.' ... I asked, 'Who, then, made the world?' He replied,\n'I did, and I made men too.' Satan, perceiving my rationality almost\ngone, followed me up with another temptation; that as there was no\nGod I must come back to his work again, else when he had brought me\nto hell he would punish me more than all the rest. I cried out, 'Oh,\nwhat will become of me! what will become of me!' He answered that\nthere was no escape but by praying to him; and that he would show me\nsome lenity when he took me to hell. I went and sat in my tool-house\nhalting between two opinions; whether I should petition Satan, or\nwhether I should keep praying to God, until I could ascertain the\nconsequences. While I was thinking of bending my knees to such a\ncursed being as Satan, an uncommon fear of God sprung up in my heart\nto keep me from it.'\n\nIn other words, Mr. Huntington wavered between the petitions 'Good\nLord! Good Devil!' The question whether it were more moral, more\nholy, to worship the one than the other did not occur to him. He\nonly considers which is the strongest--which could do him the most\nmischief--which, therefore, to fear the most; and when Satan has almost\nconvinced him in his own favour, he changes round to God. Why? Not\nbecause of any superior goodness on God's part. He says, 'An uncommon\nfear of God sprung up in my heart.' The greater terror won the day;\nthat is to say, of two demons he yielded to the stronger. Such an\nexperience, though that of one living in our own time, represents a\nphase in the development of the relation between God and Satan which\nwould have appeared primitive to an Assyrian two thousand years\nago. The ethical antagonism of the two was then much more clearly\nfelt. But this bit of contemporary superstition may bring before us\nthe period when Satan, from having been a Nemesis or Retributive Agent\nof the divine law, had become a mere personal rival of his superior.\n\nSatan, among the Jews, was at first a generic term for an adversary\nlying in wait. It is probably the furtive suggestion at the root of\nthis Hebrew word which aided in its selection as the name for the\ninvisible adverse powers when they were especially distinguished. But\noriginally no special personage, much less any antagonist of Jehovah,\nwas signified by the word. Thus we read: 'And God's anger was kindled\nbecause he (Balaam) went; and the angel of the Lord stood in the way\nfor a Satan against him.... And the ass saw the angel of the Lord\nstanding in the way and his sword drawn in his hand.' [78] The eyes of\nBalaam are presently opened, and the angel says, 'I went out to be a\nSatan to thee because the way is perverse before me.' The Philistines\nfear to take David with them to battle lest he should prove a Satan to\nthem, that is, an underhand enemy or traitor. [79] David called those\nwho wished to put Shimei to death Satans; [80] but in this case the\nepithet would have been more applicable to himself for affecting to\nprotect the honest man for whose murder he treacherously provided. [81]\n\nThat it was popularly used for adversary as distinct from evil appears\nin Solomon's words, 'There is neither Satan nor evil occurrent.' [82]\nYet it is in connection with Solomon that we may note the entrance\nof some of the materials for the mythology which afterwards invested\nthe name of Satan. It is said that, in anger at his idolatries,\n'the Lord stirred up a Satan unto Solomon, Hadad the Edomite:\nhe was of the king's seed in Edom.' [83] Hadad, 'the Sharp,' bore\na name next to that of Esau himself for the redness of his wrath,\nand, as we have seen in a former chapter, Edom was to the Jews the\nland of 'bogeys.' 'Another Satan,' whom the Lord 'stirred up,' was\nthe Devastator, Prince Rezon, founder of the kingdom of Damascus,\nof whom it is said, 'he was a Satan to Israel all the days of\nSolomon.' [84] The human characteristics of supposed 'Scourges of\nGod' easily pass away. The name that becomes traditionally associated\nwith calamities whose agents were 'stirred up' by the Almighty is not\nallowed the glory of its desolations. The word 'Satan,' twice used in\nthis chapter concerning Solomon's fall, probably gained here a long\nstep towards distinct personification as an eminent national enemy,\nthough there is no intimation of a power daring to oppose the will of\nJehovah. Nor, indeed, is there any such intimation anywhere in the\n'canonical' books of the Old Testament. The writer of Psalm cix.,\nimprecating for his adversaries, says: 'Set thou a wicked man over\nhim; and let Satan stand at his right hand. When he shall be judged,\nlet him be condemned; and let his prayer become sin.' In this there is\nan indication of a special Satan, but he is supposed to be an agent\nof Jehovah. In the catalogue of the curses invoked of the Lord,\nwe find the evils which were afterwards supposed to proceed only\nfrom Satan. The only instance in the Old Testament in which there\nis even a faint suggestion of hostility towards Satan on the part of\nJehovah is in Zechariah. Here we find the following remarkable words:\n'And he showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of\nJehovah, and the Satan standing at his right hand to oppose him. And\nJehovah said unto Satan, Jehovah rebuke thee, O Satan; even Jehovah,\nthat hath chosen Jerusalem, rebuke thee: is not this a brand plucked\nout of the fire? Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and\nstood before the angel. And he answered and spake to those that stood\nbefore him, saying, Take away the filthy garments from him. And to\nhim he said, Lo, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee,\nand I will clothe thee with goodly raiment.' [85]\n\nHere we have a very fair study and sketch of that judicial trial of\nthe soul for which mainly the dogma of a resurrection after death\nwas invented. The doctrine of future rewards and punishments is not\none which a priesthood would invent or care for, so long as they\npossessed unrestricted power to administer such in this life. It is\nwhen an alien power steps in to supersede the priesthood--the Gallio\ntoo indifferent whether ceremonial laws are carried out to permit the\nfull application of terrestrial cruelties--that the priest requires a\ntribunal beyond the grave to execute his sentence. In this picture\nof Zechariah we have this invisible Celestial Court. The Angel\nof Judgment is in his seat. The Angel of Accusation is present to\nprosecute. A poor filthy wretch appears for trial. What advocate can\nhe command? Where is Michael, the special advocate of Israel? He does\nnot recognise one of his clients in this poor Joshua in his rags. But\nlo! suddenly Jehovah himself appears; reproves his own commissioned\nAccuser; declares Joshua a brand plucked from the burning (Tophet);\norders a change of raiment, and, condoning his offences, takes him\ninto his own service. But in all this there is nothing to show general\nantagonism between Jehovah and Satan, but the reverse.\n\nWhen we look into the Book of Job we find a Satan sufficiently\ndifferent from any and all of those mentioned under that name in other\nparts of the Old Testament to justify the belief that he has been\nmainly adapted from the traditions of other regions. The plagues and\nafflictions which in Psalm cix. are invoked from Jehovah, even while\nSatan is mentioned as near, are in the Book of Job ascribed to Satan\nhimself. Jehovah only permits Satan to inflict them with a proviso\nagainst total destruction. Satan is here named as a personality in\na way not known elsewhere in the Old Testament, unless it be in 1\nChron. xxi. 1, where Satan (the article being in this single case\nabsent) is said to have 'stood up against Israel, and provoked David\nto number Israel.' But in this case the uniformity of the passage with\nthe others (excepting those in Job) is preserved by the same incident\nbeing recorded in 2 Sam. xxiv. 1, 'The anger of Jehovah was kindled\nagainst Israel, and he (Jehovah) moved David against them to say,\nGo number Israel and Judah.'\n\nIt is clear that, in the Old Testament, it is in the Book of Job\nalone that we find Satan as the powerful prince of an empire which\nis distinct from that of Jehovah,--an empire of tempest, plague, and\nfire,--though he presents himself before Jehovah, and awaits permission\nto exert his power on a loyal subject of Jehovah. The formality of\na trial, so dear to the Semitic heart, is omitted in this case. And\nthese circumstances confirm the many other facts which prove this\ndrama to be largely of non-Semitic origin. It is tolerably clear that\nthe drama of Harischandra in India and that of Job were both developed\nfrom the Sanskrit legends mentioned in our chapter on Visw\u00e1mitra; and\nit is certain that Aryan and Semitic elements are both represented in\nthe figure of Satan as he has passed into the theology of Christendom.\n\nNor indeed has Satan since his importation into Jewish literature\nin this new aspect, much as the Rabbins have made of him, ever\nbeen assigned the same character among that people that has been\nassigned him in Christendom. He has never replaced Sama\u00ebl as their\nArchfiend. Rabbins have, indeed, in later times associated him\nwith the Serpent which seduced Eve in Eden; but the absence of any\nimportant reference to that story in the New Testament is significant\nof the slight place it had in the Jewish mind long after the belief\nin Satan had become popular. In fact, that essentially Aryan myth\nlittle accorded with the ideas of strife and immorality which the\nJews had gradually associated with Sama\u00ebl. In the narrative, as\nit stands in Genesis, it is by no means the Serpent that makes the\nworst appearance. It is Jehovah, whose word--that death shall follow\non the day the apple is eaten--is falsified by the result; and while\nthe Serpent is seen telling the truth, and guiding man to knowledge,\nJehovah is represented as animated by jealousy or even fear of man's\nattainments. All of which is natural enough in an extremely primitive\nmyth of a combat between rival gods, but by no means possesses the\nmoral accent of the time and conditions amid which Jahvism certainly\noriginated. It is in the same unmoral plane as the contest of the\nDevas and Asuras for the Amrita, in Hindu mythology, a contest of\nphysical force and wits.\n\nThe real development of Satan among the Jews was from an accusing\nto an opposing spirit, then to an agent of punishment--a hated\nexecutioner. The fact that the figure here given (Fig. 5) was\nidentified by one so familiar with Semitic demonology as Calmet as a\nrepresentation of him, is extremely interesting. It was found among\nrepresentations of Cherubim, and on the back of one somewhat like\nit is a formula of invocation against demons. The countenance is of\nthat severe beauty which the Greeks ascribed to Nemesis. Nemesis has\nat her feet the wheel and rudder, symbols of her power to overtake\nthe evil-doer by land or sea; the feet of this figure are winged\nfor pursuit. He has four hands. In one he bears the lamp which, like\nLucifer, brings light on the deed of darkness. As to others, he answers\nBaruch's description (Ep. 13, 14) of the Babylonian god, 'He hath a\nsceptre in his hand like a man, like a judge of the kingdom--he hath\nin his hand a sword and an axe.' He bears nicely-graduated implements\nof punishment, from the lash that scourges to the axe that slays; and\nhis retributive powers are supplemented by the scorpion tail. At his\nknees are signets; whomsoever he seals are sealed. He has the terrible\neyes which were believed able to read on every forehead a catalogue\nof sins invisible to mortals, a power that made women careful of\ntheir veils, and gave meaning to the formula 'Get thee behind me!' [86]\n\nNow this figure, which Calmet believed to be Satan, bears on its\nreverse, 'The Everlasting Sun.' He is a god made up of Egyptian and\nMagian forms, the head-plumes belonging to the one, the multiplied\nwings to the other. Matter (Hist. Crit. de Gnost.) reproduces it,\nand says that 'it differs so much from all else of the kind as to\nprove it the work of an impostor.' But Professor C. W. King has a\n(probably fifth century) gem in his collection evidently a rude copy\nof this (reproduced in his 'Gnostics,' Pl. xi. 3), on the back of\nwhich is 'Light of Lights;' and, in a note which I have from him,\nhe says that it sufficiently proves Matter wrong, and that this form\nwas primitive. In one gem of Professor King's (Pl. v. 1) the lamp\nis also carried, and means the 'Light of Lights.' The inscription\nbeneath, within a coiled serpent, is in corrupt cuneiform characters,\nlong preserved by the Magi, though without understanding them. There\nis little doubt, therefore, that the instinct of Calmet was right,\nand that we have here an early form of the detective and retributive\nMagian deity ultimately degraded to an accusing spirit, or Satan.\n\nAlthough the Jews did not identify Satan with their Scapegoat, yet\nhe has been veritably the Scapegoat among devils for two thousand\nyears. All the nightmares and phantasms that ever haunted the human\nimagination have been packed upon him unto this day, when it is\nalmost as common to hear his name in India and China as in Europe and\nAmerica. In thus passing round the world, he has caught the varying\nfeatures of many fossilised demons: he has been horned, hoofed,\nreptilian, quadrupedal, anthropoid, anthropomorphic, beautiful, ugly,\nmale, female; the whites painted him black, and the blacks, with\nmore reason, painted him white. Thus has Satan been made a miracle\nof incongruities. Yet through all these protean shapes there has\npersisted the original characteristic mentioned. He is prosecutor\nand executioner under the divine government, though his office has\nbeen debased by that mental confusion which, in the East, abhors the\nburner of corpses, and, in the West, regards the public hangman with\ncontempt; the abhorrence, in the case of Satan, being intensified\nby the supposition of an overfondness for his work, carried to the\nextent of instigating the offences which will bring him victims.\n\nIn a well-known English Roman Catholic book [87] of recent times, there\nis this account of St. Francis' visit to hell in company with the Angel\nGabriel:--'St. Francis saw that, on the other side of (a certain) soul,\nthere was another devil to mock at and reproach it. He said, Remember\nwhere you are, and where you will be for ever; how short the sin was,\nhow long the punishment. It is your own fault; when you committed that\nmortal sin you knew how you would be punished. What a good bargain you\nmade to take the pains of eternity in exchange for the sin of a day,\nan hour, a moment. You cry now for your sin, but your crying comes\ntoo late. You liked bad company; you will find bad company enough\nhere. Your father was a drunkard, look at him there drinking red-hot\nfire. You were too idle to go to mass on Sundays; be as idle as you\nlike now, for there is no mass to go to. You disobeyed your father,\nbut you dare not disobey him who is your father in hell.'\n\nThis devil speaks as one carrying out the divine decrees. He\npreaches. He utters from his chasuble of flame the sermons of Father\nFurniss. And, no doubt, wherever belief in Satan is theological, this\nis pretty much the form which he assumes before the mind (or what such\nbelievers would call their mind, albeit really the mind of some Syrian\ndead these two thousand years). But the Satan popularly personalised\nwas man's effort to imagine an enthusiasm of inhumanity. He is the\nnecessary appendage to a personalised Omnipotence, whose thoughts are\nnot as man's thoughts, but claim to coerce these. His degradation\nreflects the heartlessness and the ingenuity of torture which must\nalways represent personal government with its catalogue of fictitious\ncrimes. Offences against mere Majesty, against iniquities framed in\nlaw, must be doubly punished, the thing to be secured being doubly\nweak. Under any theocratic government law and punishment would become\nthe types of diabolism. Satan thus has a twofold significance. He\nreports what powerful priesthoods found to be the obstacles to their\nauthority; and he reports the character of the priestly despotisms\nwhich aimed to obstruct human development.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI.\n\nRELIGIOUS DESPOTISM.\n\n    Pharaoh and Herod--Zoroaster's mother--Ahriman's emissaries--Kansa\n    and Krishna--Emissaries of Kansa--Astyages and Cyrus--Zoh\u00e1k--Bel\n    and the Christian.\n\n\nThe Jews had already, when Christ appeared, formed the theory that\nthe hardening of Pharaoh's heart, and his resistance to the departure\nof Israel from Egypt, were due to diabolical sorcery. The belief\nafterwards matured; that Edom (Esau or Sama\u00ebl) was the instigator\nof Roman aggression was steadily forming. The mental conditions\nwere therefore favourable to the growth of a belief in the Jewish\nfollowers of Christ that the hostility to the religious movement\nof their time was another effort on the part of Sama\u00ebl to crush\nthe kingdom of God. Herod was not, indeed, called Satan or Sama\u00ebl,\nnor was Pharaoh; but the splendour and grandeur of this Idumean\n(the realm of Esau), notwithstanding his oppressions and crimes,\nhad made him a fair representative to the people of the supernatural\npower they dreaded. Under these circumstances it was a powerful appeal\nto the sympathies of the Jewish people to invent in connection with\nHerod a myth exactly similar to that associated with Pharaoh,--namely,\na conspiracy with sorcerers, and consequent massacre of all new-born\nchildren.\n\nThe myths which tell of divine babes supernaturally saved from royal\nhostility are veritable myths, even where they occur so late in\ntime that historic names and places are given; for, of course, it is\nimpossible that by any natural means either Pharaoh or Herod should be\naware of the peculiar nature of any particular infant born in their\ndominions. Such traditions, when thus presented in historical guise,\ncan only be explained by reference to corresponding fables written out\nin simpler mythic form; while it is especially necessary to remember\nthat such corresponding narratives may be of independent ethnical\norigin, and that the later in time may be more primitive spiritually.\n\nIn the Legend of Zoroaster [88] his mother Dogdo, previous to his\nbirth, has a dream in which she sees a black cloud, which, like\nthe wing of some vast bird, hides the sun, and brings on frightful\ndarkness. This cloud rains down on her house terrible beasts with\nsharp teeth,--tigers, lions, wolves, rhinoceroses, serpents. One\nmonster especially attacks her with great fury, and her unborn babe\nspeaks in reassuring terms. A great light rises and the beasts fall. A\nbeautiful youth appears, hurls a book at the Devas (Devils), and they\nfly, with exception of three,--a wolf, a lion, and a tiger. These,\nhowever, the youth drives away with a luminous horn. He then replaces\nthe holy infant in the womb, and says to the mother: 'Fear nothing! The\nKing of Heaven protects this infant. The earth waits for him. He is\nthe prophet whom Ormuzd sends to his people: his law will fill the\nworld with joy: he will make the lion and the lamb drink in the same\nplace. Fear not these ferocious beasts; why should he whom Ormuzd\npreserves fear the enmity of the whole world?' With these words\nthe youth vanished, and Dogdo awoke. Repairing to an interpreter,\nshe was told that the Horn meant the grandeur of Ormuzd; the Book\nwas the Avesta; the three Beasts betokened three powerful enemies.\n\nZoroaster was born laughing. This prodigy being noised abroad, the\nMagicians became alarmed, and sought to slay the child. One of them\nraised a sword to strike him, but his arm fell to the ground. The\nMagicians bore the child to the desert, kindled a fire and threw him\ninto it, but his mother afterwards found him sleeping tranquilly and\nunharmed in the flames. Next he was thrown in front of a drove of\ncows and bulls, but the fiercest of the bulls stood carefully over\nthe child and protected him. The Magicians killed all the young of\na pack of wolves, and then cast the infant Zoroaster to them that\nthey might vent their rage upon him, but the mouths of the wolves\nwere shut. They abandoned the child on a lonely mountain, but two\newes came and suckled him.\n\nZoroaster's father respected the ministers of the Devas (Magi),\nbut his child rebuked him. Zoroaster walked on the water (crossing\na great river where was no bridge) on his way to Mount Iran where he\nwas to receive the Law. It was then he had the vision of the battle\nbetween the two serpent armies,--the white and black adders, the\nformer, from the South, conquering the latter, which had come from\nthe North to destroy him.\n\nThe Legend of the Infant Krishna is as follows:--The tyrant Kansa,\nhaving given his sister Devaki in marriage to Vasud\u00e9va, as he was\nreturning from the wedding heard a voice declare, 'The eighth son of\nDevaki is destined to be thy destroyer.' Alarmed at this, Kansa cast\nhis sister and her husband into a prison with seven iron doors, and\nwhenever a son was born he caused it to be instantly destroyed. When\nDevaki became pregnant the eighth time, Brahma and Siva, with attending\nDevas, appeared and sang: 'O favoured among women! in thy delivery all\nnature shall have cause to exult! How ardently we long to behold that\nface for the sake of which we have coursed round three worlds!' When\nKrishna was born a chorus of celestial spirits saluted him; the room\nwas illumined with supernatural light. While Devaki was weeping at the\nfatal decree of Kansa that her son should be destroyed, a voice was\nheard by Vasud\u00e9va saying: 'Son of Yadu, carry this child to Gokul,\non the other side of the river Jumna, to Nauda, whose wife has just\ngiven birth to a daughter. Leave him and bring the girl hither.' At\nthis the seven doors swung open, deep sleep fell on the guards,\nand Vasud\u00e9va went forth with the holy infant in his arms. The river\nJumna was swollen, but the waters, having kissed the feet of Krishna,\nretired on either side, opening a pathway. The great serpent of\nVishnu held its hood over this new incarnation of its Lord. Beside\nsleeping Nauda and his wife the daughter was replaced by the son,\nwho was named Krishna, the Dark.\n\nWhen all this had happened a voice came to Kansa saying: 'The boy\ndestined to destroy thee is born, and is now living.' Whereupon Kansa\nordered all the male children in his kingdom to be destroyed. This\nbeing ineffectual, the whereabouts of Krishna were discovered; but the\nmessenger who was sent to destroy the child beheld its image in the\nwater and adored it. The Rakshasas worked in the interest of Kansa. One\napproached the divine child in shape of a monstrous bull whose head\nhe wrung off; and he so burned in the stomach of a crocodile which\nhad swallowed him that the monster cast him from his mouth unharmed.\n\nFinally, as a youth, Krishna, after living some time as a herdsman,\nattacked the tyrant Kansa, tore the crown from his head, and dragged\nhim by his hair a long way; with the curious result that Kansa became\nliberated from the three worlds, such virtue had long thinking about\nthe incarnate one, even in enmity!\n\nThe divine beings represented in these legends find their complement\nin the fabulous history of Cyrus; and the hostile powers which\nsought their destruction are represented in demonology by the Persian\ntyrant-devil Zoh\u00e1k. The name of Astyages, the grandfather of Cyrus,\nhas been satisfactorily traced to Ashdah\u00e1k, and Ajis Dah\u00e1ka, the\n'biting snake.' The word thus connects him with Vedic Ahi and with\nIranian Zoh\u00e1k, the tyrant out of whose shoulders a magician evoked\ntwo serpents which adhered to him and became at once his familiars and\nthe arms of his cruelty. As Astyages, the last king of Media, he had\na dream that the offspring of his daughter Mandane would reign over\nAsia. He gave her in marriage to Cambyses, and when she bore a child\n(Cyrus), committed it to his minister Harpagus to be slain. Harpagus,\nhowever, moved with pity, gave it to a herdsman of Astyages, who\nsubstituted for it a still-born child, and having so satisfied the\ntyrant of its death, reared Cyrus as his own son.\n\nThe luminous Horn of the Zoroastrian legend and the diabolism\nof Zoh\u00e1k are both recalled in the Book of Daniel (viii.) in the\nterrific struggle of the ram and the he-goat. The he-goat, ancient\nsymbol of hairy Esau, long idealised into the Invisible Foe of\nIsrael, had become associated also with Babylon and with Nimrod\nits founder, the Semitic Zoh\u00e1k. But Bel, conqueror of the Dragon,\nwas the founder of Babylon, and to Jewish eyes the Dragon was his\nfamiliar; to the Jews he represented the tyranny and idolatry of\nNimrod, the two serpents of Zoh\u00e1k. When Cyrus supplanted Astyages,\nthis was the idol he found the Babylonians worshipping until Daniel\ndestroyed it. And so, it would appear, came about the fact that to\nthe Jews the power of Christendom came to be represented as the Reign\nof Bel. One can hardly wonder at that. If ever there were cruelty\nand oppression passing beyond the limit of mere human capacities, it\nhas been recorded in the tragical history of Jewish sufferings. The\ndisbeliever in pr\u00e6ternatural powers of evil can no less than others\nrecognise in this 'Bel and the Christian,' which the Jews substituted\nfor 'Bel and the Dragon,' the real archfiend--Superstition, turning\nhuman hearts to stone when to stony gods they sacrifice their own\nhumanity and the welfare of mankind.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII.\n\nTHE PRINCE OF THIS WORLD.\n\n    Temptations--Birth of Buddha--Mara--Temptation of power--Asceticism\n    and Luxury--Mara's menaces--Appearance of the Buddha's\n    Vindicator--Ahriman tempts Zoroaster--Satan and Christ--Criticism\n    of Strauss--Jewish traditions--Hunger--Variants.\n\n\nThe Devil, having shown Jesus all the kingdoms of this world, said,\n'All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is\ndelivered unto me, and to whomsoever I will I give it,' The theory\nthus announced is as a vast formation underlying many religions. As\nevery religion begins as an ideal, it must find itself in antagonism\nto the world at large; and since the social and political world\nare themselves, so long as they last, the outcome of nature, it is\ninevitable that in primitive times the earth should be regarded as a\nSatanic realm, and the divine world pictured elsewhere. A legitimate\nresult of this conclusion is asceticism, and belief in the wickedness\nof earthly enjoyments. To men of great intellectual powers, generally\naccompanied as they are with keen susceptibilities of enjoyment and\nstrong sympathies, the renunciation of this world must be as a living\nburial. To men who, amid the corruptions of the world, feel within them\nthe power to strike in with effect, or who, seeing 'with how little\nwisdom the world is governed,' are stirred by the sense of power, the\nstruggle against the temptation to lead in the kingdoms of this world\nis necessarily severe. Thus simple is the sense of those temptations\nwhich make the almost invariable ordeal of the traditional founders\nof religions. As in earlier times the god won his spurs, so to say,\nby conquering some monstrous beast, the saint or saviour must have\novercome some potent many-headed world, with gems for scales and\ndouble-tongue, coiling round the earth, and thence, like Lilith's\ngolden hair, round the heart of all surrendered to its seductions.\n\nIt is remarkable to note the contrast between the visible and\ninvisible worlds which surrounded the spiritual pilgrimage of Sakya\nMuni to Buddhahood or enlightenment. At his birth there is no trace\nof political hostility: the cruel Kansa, Herod, Magicians seeking to\ndestroy, are replaced by the affectionate force of a king trying to\nretain his son. The universal traditions reach their happy height in\nthe ecstatic gospels of the Siamese. [89] The universe was illumined;\nall jewels shown with unwonted lustre; the air was full of music;\nall pain ceased; the blind saw, the deaf heard; the birds paused\nin their flight; all trees and plants burst into bloom, and lotus\nflowers appeared in every place. Not under the dominion of Mara [90]\nwas this beautiful world. But by turning from all its youth, health,\nand life, to think only of its decrepitude, illness, and death, the\nPrince Sakya Muni surrounded himself with another world in which Mara\nhad his share of power. I condense here the accounts of his encounters\nwith the Prince, who was on his way to be a hermit.\n\nWhen the Prince passed out at the palace gates, the king Mara,\nknowing that the youth was passing beyond his evil power, determined\nto prevent him. Descending from his abode and floating in the air,\nMara cried, 'Lord, thou art capable of such vast endurance, go not\nforth to adopt a religious life, but return to thy kingdom, and in\nseven days thou shalt become an emperor of the world, ruling over\nthe four great continents.' 'Take heed, O Mara!' replied the Prince;\n'I also know that in seven days I might gain universal empire, but\nI have no desire for such possessions. I know that the pursuit of\nreligion is better than the empire of the world. See how the world\nis moved, and quakes with praise of this my entry on a religious\nlife! I shall attain the glorious omniscience, and shall teach the\nwheel of the law, that all teachable beings may free themselves from\ntransmigratory existence. You, thinking only of the lusts of the flesh,\nwould force me to leave all beings to wander without guide into your\npower. Avaunt! get thee away far from me!'\n\nMara withdrew, but only to watch for another opportunity. It came when\nthe Prince had reduced himself to emaciation and agony by the severest\nausterities. Then Mara presented himself, and pretending compassion,\nsaid, 'Beware, O grand Being! Your state is pitiable to look on; you\nare attenuated beyond measure, and your skin, that was of the colour of\ngold, is dark and discoloured. You are practising this mortification\nin vain. I can see that you will not live through it. You, who are a\nGrand Being, had better give up this course, for be assured you will\nderive much more advantage from sacrifices of fire and flowers.' Him\nthe Grand Being indignantly answered, 'Hearken, thou vile and wicked\nMara! Thy words suit not the time. Think not to deceive me, for I\nheed thee not. Thou mayest mislead those who have no understanding,\nbut I, who have virtue, endurance, and intelligence, who know what\nis good and what is evil, cannot be so misled. Thou, O Mara! hast\neight generals. Thy first is delight in the five lusts of the flesh,\nwhich are the pleasures of appearance, sound, scent, flavour, and\ntouch. Thy second general is wrath, who takes the form of vexation,\nindignation, and desire to injure. Thy third is concupiscence. Thy\nfourth is desire. Thy fifth is impudence. Thy sixth is arrogance. Thy\nseventh is doubt. And thine eighth is ingratitude. These are thy\ngenerals, who cannot be escaped by those whose hearts are set on\nhonour and wealth. But I know that he who can contend with these thy\ngenerals shall escape beyond all sorrow, and enjoy the most glorious\nhappiness. Therefore I have not ceased to practise mortification,\nknowing that even were I to die whilst thus engaged, it would be a\nmost excellent thing.'\n\nIt is added that Mara 'fled in confusion,' but the next incident\nseems to show that his suggestion was not unheeded; for 'after he\nhad departed,' the Grand Being had his vision of the three-stringed\nguitar--one string drawn too tightly, the second too loosely, the third\nmoderately--which last, somewhat in defiance of orchestral ideas,\nalone gave sweet music, and taught him that moderation was better\nthan excess or laxity. By eating enough he gained that pristine\nstrength and beauty which offended the five Brahmans so that they\nleft him. The third and final effort of Mara immediately preceded\nthe Prince's attainment of the order of Buddha under the Bo-tree. He\nnow sent his three daughters, Raka (Love), Aradi (Anger), Tanha\n(Desire). Beautifully bedecked they approached him, and Raka said,\n'Lord, fearest thou not death?' But he drove her away. The two others\nalso he drove away as they had no charm of sufficient power to entice\nhim. Then Mara assembled his generals, and said, 'Listen, ye Maras,\nthat know not sorrow! Now shall I make war on the Prince, that man\nwithout equal. I dare not attack him in face, but I will circumvent\nhim by approaching on the north side. Assume then all manner of shapes,\nand use your mightiest powers, that he may flee in terror.'\n\nHaving taken on fearful shapes, raising awful sounds, headed by\nMara himself, who had assumed immense size, and mounted his elephant\nGirimaga, a thousand miles in height, they advanced; but they dare not\nenter beneath the shade of the holy Bo-tree. They frightened away,\nhowever, the Lord's guardian angels, and he was left alone. Then\nseeing the army approaching from the north, he reflected, 'Long have I\ndevoted myself to a life of mortification, and now I am alone, without\na friend to aid me in this contest. Yet may I escape the Maras,\nfor the virtue of my transcendent merits will be my army.' 'Help\nme,' he cried, 'ye thirty Barami! ye powers of accumulated merit,\nye powers of Almsgiving, Morality, Relinquishment, Wisdom, Fortitude,\nPatience, Truth, Determination, Charity, and Equanimity, help me in\nmy fight with Mara!' The Lord was seated on his jewelled throne (the\nsame that had been formed of the grass on which he sat), and Mara\nwith his army exhausted every resource of terror--monstrous beasts,\nrain of missiles and burning ashes, gales that blew down mountain\npeaks--to inspire him with fear; but all in vain! Nay, the burning\nashes were changed to flowers as they fell.\n\n'Come down from thy throne,' shouted the evil-formed one; 'come down,\nor I will cut thine heart into atoms!' The Lord replied, 'This jewelled\nthrone was created by the power of my merits, for I am he who will\nteach all men the remedy for death, who will redeem all beings,\nand set them free from the sorrows of circling existence.'\n\nMara then claimed that the throne belonged to himself, and had been\ncreated by his own merits; and on this armed himself with the Chakkra,\nthe irresistible weapon of Indra, and Wheel of the Law. Yet Buddha\nanswered, 'By the thirty virtues of transcendent merits, and the five\nalms, I have obtained the throne. Thou, in saying that this throne\nwas created by thy merits, tellest an untruth, for indeed there is\nno throne for a sinful, horrible being such as thou art.'\n\nThen furious Mara hurled the Chakkra, which clove mountains in its\ncourse, but could not pass a canopy of flowers which rose over the\nLord's head.\n\nAnd now the great Being asked Mara for the witnesses of his acts of\nmerit by virtue of which he claimed the throne. In response, Mara's\ngenerals all bore him witness. Then Mara challenged him, 'Tell me now,\nwhere is the man that can bear witness for thee?' The Lord reflected,\n'Truly here is no man to bear me witness, but I will call on the earth\nitself, though it has neither spirit nor understanding, and it shall\nbe my witness.' Stretching forth his hand, he thus invoked the earth:\n'O holy Earth! I who have attained the thirty powers of virtue,\nand performed the five great alms, each time that I have performed a\ngreat act have not failed to pour water on thee. Now that I have no\nother witness, I call upon thee to give thy testimony!'\n\nThe angel of the earth appeared in shape of a lovely woman, and\nanswered, 'O Being more excellent than angels or men! it is true\nthat, when you performed your great works, you ever poured water on\nmy hair.' And with these words she wrung her long hair, and from it\nissued a stream, a torrent, a flood, in which Mara and his hosts were\noverturned, their insignia destroyed, and King Mara put to flight,\namid the loud rejoicings of angels.\n\nThen the evil one and his generals were conquered not only in power but\nin heart; and Mara, raising his thousand arms, paid reverence, saying,\n'Homage to the Lord, who has subdued his body even as a charioteer\nbreaks his horses to his use! The Lord will become the omniscient\nBuddha, the Teacher of angels, and Brahmas, and Yakkhas (demons),\nand men. He will confound all Maras, and rescue men from the whirl\nof transmigration!'\n\nThe menacing powers depicted as assailing Sakya Muni appear only\naround the infancy of Zoroaster. The interview of the latter with\nAhriman hardly amounts to a severe trial, but still the accent of\nthe chief temptation both of Buddha and Christ is in it, namely,\nthe promise of worldly empire. It was on one of those midnight\njourneys through Heaven and Hell that Zoroaster saw Ahriman, and\ndelivered from his power 'one who had done both good and evil.' [91]\nWhen Ahriman met Zoroaster's gaze, he cried, 'Quit thou the pure law;\ncast it to the ground; thou wilt then be in the world all that thou\ncanst desire. Be not anxious about thy end. At least, do not destroy\nmy subjects, O pure Zoroaster, son of Poroscharp, who art born of\nher thou hast borne!' Zoroaster answered, 'Wicked Majesty! it is for\nthee and thy worshippers that Hell is prepared, but by the mercy of\nGod I shall bury your work with shame and ignominy.'\n\nIn the account of Matthew, Satan begins his temptation of Jesus in\nthe same way and amid similar circumstances to those we find in the\nSiamese legends of Buddha. It occurs in a wilderness, and the appeal\nis to hunger. The temptation of Buddha, in which Mara promises the\nempire of the world, is also repeated in the case of Satan and Jesus\n(Fig. 6). The menaces, however, in this case, are relegated to the\ninfancy, and the lustful temptation is absent altogether. Mark has an\nallusion to his being in the wilderness forty days 'with the beasts,'\nwhich may mean that Satan 'drove' him into a region of danger to\ninspire fear. In Luke we have the remarkable claim of Satan that\nthe authority over the world has been delivered to himself, and he\ngives it to whom he will; which Jesus does not deny, as Buddha did\nthe similar claim of Mara. As in the case of Buddha, the temptation\nof Jesus ends his fasting; angels bring him food (di\u00eakonoun ayt\u00f4\nprobably means that), and thenceforth he eats and drinks, to the\nscandal of the ascetics.\n\nThe essential addition in the case of Jesus is the notable temptation\nto try and perform a crucial act. Satan quotes an accredited messianic\nprophecy, and invites Jesus to test his claim to be the predicted\ndeliverer by casting himself from the pinnacle of the Temple,\nand testing the promise that angels should protect the true Son\nof God. Strauss, [92] as it appears to me, has not considered the\nimportance of this in connection with the general situation. 'Assent,'\nhe says, 'cannot be withheld from the canon that, to be credible,\nthe narrative must ascribe nothing to the devil inconsistent with his\nestablished cunning. Now, the first temptation, appealing to hunger,\nwe grant, is not ill-conceived; if this were ineffectual, the devil,\nas an artful tactician, should have had a yet more alluring temptation\nat hand; but instead of this, we find him, in Matthew, proposing to\nJesus the neck-breaking feat of casting himself down from the pinnacle\nof the Temple--a far less inviting miracle than the metamorphosis of\nthe stones. This proposition finding no acceptance, there follows,\nas a crowning effort, a suggestion which, whatever might be the bribe,\nevery true Israelite would instantly reject with abhorrence--to fall\ndown and worship the devil.'\n\nNot so! The scapegoat was a perpetual act of worship to the Devil. In\nthis story of the temptation of Christ there enter some characteristic\nelements of the temptation of Job. [93] Uz in the one case and the\nwilderness in the other mean morally the same, the region ruled over\nby Azazel. In both cases the trial is under divine direction. And\nthe trial is in both cases to secure a division of worship between\nthe good and evil powers, which was so universal in the East that\nit was the test of exceptional piety if one did not swerve from\nan unmixed sacrifice. Jesus is apparently abandoned by the God in\nwhom he trusted; he is 'driven' into a wilderness, and there kept\nwith the beasts and without food. The Devil alone comes to him;\nexhibits his own miraculous power by bearing him through the air to\nhis own Mount Seir, and showing him the whole world in a moment of\ntime; and now says to him, as it were, 'Try your God! See if he will\neven turn stones into bread to save his own son, to whom I offer the\nkingdoms of the world!' Then bearing him into the 'holy hill' of his\nown God--the pinnacle of the Temple--says, 'Try now a leap, and see\nif he saves from being dashed to pieces, even in his own precincts,\nhis so trustful devotee, whom I have borne aloft so safely! Which,\nthen, has the greater power to protect, enrich, advance you,--he who\nhas left you out here to starve, so that you dare not trust yourself to\nhim, or I? Fall down then and worship me as your God, and all the world\nis yours! It is the world you are to reign over: rule it in my name!\n\nWhen St. Anthony is tempted by the Devil in the form of a lean monk,\nit was easy to see that the hermit was troubled with a vision of his\nown emaciation. When the Devil appears to Luther under guise of a holy\nmonk, it is an obvious explanation that he was impressed by a memory\nof the holy brothers who still remained in the Church, and who, while\nthey implored his return, pointed out the strength and influence he had\nlost by secession. Equally simple are the moral elements in the story\nof Christ's temptation. While a member of John's ascetic community,\nfor which 'though he was rich he became poor,' hunger, and such\nanxiety about a living as victimises many a young thinker now, must\nhave assailed him. Later on his Devil meets him on the Temple, quotes\nscripture, and warns him that his visionary God will not raise him so\nhigh in the Church as the Prince of this World can. [94] And finally,\nwhen dreams of a larger union, including Jews and Gentiles, visited\nhim, the power that might be gained by connivance with universal\nidolatry would be reflected in the offer of the kingdoms of the world\nin payment for the purity of his aims and singleness of his worship.\n\nThat these trials of self-truthfulness and fidelity, occurring\nat various phases of life, would be recognised, is certain. A\nyouth of high position, as Christ probably was, [95] or even one\nwith that great power over the people which all concede, was, in a\nworldly sense, 'throwing away his prospects;' and this voice, real\nin its time, would naturally be conventionalised. It would put on\nthe stock costume of devils and angels; and among Jewish christians\nit would naturally be associated with the forty-days' fast of Moses\n(Exod. xxxiv. 28; Deut. ix. 9), and that of Elias (1 Kings xix. 8),\nand the forty-years' trial of Israel in the wilderness. Among Greek\nchristians some traces of the legend of Herakles in his seclusion as\nherdsman, or at the cross-roads between Vice and Virtue, might enter;\nand it is not impossible that some touches might be added from the\nOriental myth which invested Buddha.\n\nHowever this may be, we may with certainty repair to the common\nsource of all such myths in the higher nature of man, and recognise\nthe power of a pure genius to overcome those temptations to a success\nunworthy of itself. We may interpret all such legends with a clearness\nproportioned to the sacrifices we have made for truth and ideal right;\nand the endless perplexities of commentators and theologians about\nthe impossible outward details of the New Testament story are simple\nconfessions that the great spirit so tried is now made to label with\nhis name his own Tempter--namely, a Church grown powerful and wealthy,\nwhich, as the Prince of this World, bribes the conscience and tempts\naway the talent necessary to the progress of mankind.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII.\n\nTRIAL OF THE GREAT.\n\n    A 'Morality' at Tours--The 'St. Anthony' of Spagnoletto--Bunyan's\n    Pilgrim--Milton on Christ's Temptation--An Edinburgh saint and\n    Unitarian fiend--A haunted Jewess--Conversion by fever--Limit of\n    courage--Woman and sorcery--Luther and the Devil--The ink-spot at\n    Wartburg--Carlyle's interpretation--The cowled devil--Carlyle's\n    trial--In Rue St. Thomas d'Enfer--The Everlasting No--Devil of\n    Vauvert--The latter-day conflict--New conditions--The Victory of\n    Man--The Scholar and the World.\n\n\nA representation of the Temptation of St. Anthony (marionettes), which\nI witnessed at Tours (1878), had several points of significance. It\nwas the medi\u00e6val 'Morality' as diminished by centuries, and\nconventionalised among those whom the centuries mould in ways and\nfor ends they know not. Amid a scenery of grotesque devils, rudely\ncopied from Callot, St. Anthony appeared, and was tempted in a way\nthat recalled the old pictures. There was the same fair Temptress, in\nthis case the wife of Satan, who warns her lord that his ugly devils\nwill be of no avail against Anthony, and that the whole affair should\nbe confided to her. She being repelled, the rest of the performance\nconsisted in the devils continually ringing the bell of the hermitage,\nand finally setting fire to it. This conflagration was the supreme\ntorment of Anthony--and, sooth to say, it was a fairly comfortable\nabode--who utters piteous prayers and is presently comforted by an\nangel bringing him wreaths of evergreen.\n\nThe prayers of the saint and the response of the angel were meant to\nbe seriously taken; but their pathos was generally met with pardonable\nlaughter by the crowd in the booth. Yet there was a pathos about it\nall, if only this, that the only temptations thought of for a saint\nwere a sound and quiet house and a mistress. The bell-noise alone\nremained from the great picture of Spagnoletto at Siena, where the\nunsheltered old man raises his deprecating hand against the disturber,\nbut not his eyes from the book he reads. In Spagnoletto's picture\nthere are five large books, pen, ink, and hour-glass; but there is\nneither hermitage to be burnt nor female charms to be resisted.\n\nBut Spagnoletto, even in his time, was beholding the vision of\nexceptional men in the past, whose hunger and thirst was for knowledge,\ntruth, and culture, and who sought these in solitude. Such men have\nso long left the Church familiar to the French peasantry that any\nrepresentation of their temptations and trials would be out of place\namong the marionettes. The bells which now disturb them are those\nthat sound from steeples.\n\nAnother picture loomed up before my eyes over the puppet performance at\nTours, that which for Bunyan frescoed the walls of Bedford Gaol. There,\ntoo, the old demons, giants, and devils took on grave and vast forms,\nand reflected the trials of the Great Hearts who withstood the Popes\nand Pagans, the armed political Apollyons and the Giant Despairs,\nwho could make prisons the hermitages of men born to be saviours of\nthe people.\n\nSuch were the temptations that Milton knew; from his own heart\ncame the pigments with which he painted the trial of Christ in the\nwilderness. 'Set women in his eye,' said Belial:--\n\n\n        Women, when nothing else, beguiled the heart\n        Of wisest Solomon, and made him build,\n        And made him bow to the gods of his wives.\n            To whom quick answer Satan thus returned.\n        Belial, in much uneven scale thou weigh'st\n        All others by thyself....\n        But he whom we attempt is wiser far\n        Than Solomon, of more exalted mind,\n        Made and set wholly on the accomplishment\n        Of greatest things....\n        Therefore with manlier objects we must try\n        His constancy, with such as have more show\n        Of worth, of honour, glory, and popular praise;\n        Rocks whereon greatest men have oftest wrecked. [96]\n\n\nThe progressive ideas which Milton attributed to Satan have not\nfailed. That Celestial City which Bunyan found it so hard to reach\nhas now become a metropolis of wealth and fashion, and the trials\nwhich once beset pilgrims toiling towards it are now transferred\nto those who would pass beyond it to another city, seen from afar,\nwith temples of Reason and palaces of Justice.\n\nThe old phantasms have shrunk to puppets. The trials by personal\ndevils are relegated to the regions of insanity and disease. It is\neverywhere a dance of puppets though on a cerebral stage. A lady well\nknown in Edinburgh related to me a terrible experience she had with\nthe devil. She had invited some of her relations to visit her for some\ndays; but these relatives were Unitarians, and, after they had gone,\nhaving entered the room which they had occupied, she was seized by\nthe devil, thrown on the floor, and her back so strained that she had\nto keep her bed for some time. This was to her 'the Unitarian fiend'\nof which the Wesleyan Hymn-Book sang so long; but even the Wesleyans\nhave now discarded the famous couplet, and there must be few who would\nnot recognise that the old lady at Edinburgh merely had a tottering\nbody representing a failing mind.\n\nI have just read a book in which a lady in America relates her trial\nby the devil. This lady, in her girlhood, was of a christian family,\nbut she married a rabbi and was baptized into Judaism. After some years\nof happy life a terrible compunction seized her; she imagined herself\nlost for ever; she became ill. A christian (Baptist) minister and\nhis wife were the evil stars in her case, and with what terrors they\nsurrounded the poor Jewess may be gathered from the following extract.\n\n'She then left me--that dear friend left me alone to my God, and to\nhim I carried a lacerated and bleeding heart, and laid it at the foot\nof the cross, as an atonement for the multiplied sins I had committed,\nwhether of ignorance or wilfulness; and how shall I proceed to portray\nthe heart-felt agonies of that night preceding my deliverance from\nthe shafts of Satan? Oh! this weight, this load of sin, this burden\nso intolerable that it crushed me to the earth; for this was a\ndark hour with me--the darkest; and I lay calm, to all appearance,\nbut with cold perspiration drenching me, nor could I close my eyes;\nand these words again smote my ear, No redemption, no redemption; and\nthe tempter came, inviting me, with all his blandishment and power,\nto follow him to his court of pleasure. My eyes were open; I certainly\nsaw him, dressed in the most phantastic shape. This was no illusion;\nfor he soon assumed the appearance of one of the gay throng I had\nmingled with in former days, and beckoned me to follow. I was awake,\nand seemed to lie on the brink of a chasm, and spirits were dancing\naround me, and I made some slight outcry, and those dear girls watching\nwith me came to me, and looked at me. They said I looked at them but\ncould not speak, and they moistened my lips, and said I was nearly\ngone; then I whispered, and they came and looked at me again, but\nwould not disturb me. It was well they did not; for the power of God\nwas over me, and angels were around me, and whispering spirits near,\nand I whispered in sweet communion with them, as they surrounded me,\nand, pointing to the throne of grace, said, 'Behold!' and I felt that\nthe glory of God was about to manifest itself; for a shout, as if a\nchoir of angels had tuned their golden harps, burst forth in, 'Glory\nto God on high,' and died away in softest strains of melody. I lifted\nup my eyes to heaven, and there, so near as to be almost within my\nreach, the brightest vision of our Lord and Saviour stood before me,\nenveloped with a light, ethereal mist, so bright and yet transparent\nthat his divine figure could be seen distinctly, and my eyes were\nriveted upon him; for this bright vision seemed to touch my bed,\nstanding at the foot, so near, and he stretched forth his left hand\ntoward me, whilst with the right one he pointed to the throne of grace,\nand a voice came, saying, 'Blessed are they who can see God; arise,\ntake up thy cross and follow me; for though thy sins be as scarlet\nthey shall be white as wool.' And with my eyes fixed on that bright\nvision, I saw from the hand stretched toward me great drops of blood,\nas if from each finger; for his blessed hand was spread open, as if\nin prayer, and those drops fell distinctly, as if upon the earth;\nand a misty light encircled me, and a voice again said, 'Take up thy\ncross and follow me; for though thy sins be as scarlet they shall be\nwhite as wool.' And angels were all around me, and I saw the throne\nof heaven. And, oh! the sweet calm that stole over my senses. It\nmust have been a foretaste of heavenly bliss. How long I lay after\nthis beautiful vision I know not; but when I opened my eyes it was\nearly dawn, and I felt so happy and well. My young friends pressed\naround my bedside, to know how I felt, and I said, 'I am well and so\nhappy.' They then said I was whispering with some one in my dreams\nall night. I told them angels were with me; that I was not asleep,\nand I had sweet communion with them, and would soon be well.' [97]\n\nThat is what the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness comes to when\ndislocated from its time and place, and, with its gathered ages of\nfable, is imported at last to be an engine of torture sprung on the\nnerves of a devout woman. This Jewess was divorced from her husband\nby her Christianity; her child died a victim to precocious piety;\nbut what were home and affection in ruins compared with salvation\nfrom that frightful devil seen in her holy delirium?\n\nHistory shows that it has always required unusual courage for a human\nbeing to confront an enemy believed to be pr\u00e6ternatural. This Jewess\nwould probably have been able to face a tiger for the sake of her\nhusband, but not that fantastic devil. Not long ago an English actor\nwas criticised because, in playing Hamlet, he cowered with fear on\nseeing the ghost, all his sinews and joints seeming to give way;\nbut to me he appeared then the perfect type of what mankind have\nalways been when believing themselves in the presence of pr\u00e6ternatural\npowers. The limit of courage in human nature was passed when the foe\nwas one which no earthly power or weapon could reach.\n\nIn old times, nearly all the sorcerers and witches were women; and\nit may have been, in some part, because woman had more real courage\nthan man unarmed. Sorcery and witchcraft were but the so-called\npagan rites in their last degradation, and women were the last to\nabandon the declining religion, just as they are the last to leave\nthe superstition which has followed it. Their sentiment and affection\nwere intertwined with it, and the threats of eternal torture by devils\nwhich frightened men from the old faith to the new were less powerful\nto shake the faith of women. When pagan priests became christians,\npriestesses remained, to become sorceresses. The new faith had\ngradually to win the love of the sex too used to martyrdom on earth\nto fear it much in hell. And now, again, when knowledge clears away\nthe old terrors, and many men are growing indifferent to all religion,\nbecause no longer frightened by it, we may expect the churches to be\nincreasingly kept up by women alone, simply because they went into them\nmore by attraction of saintly ideals than fear of diabolical menaces.\n\nThomas Carlyle has selected Luther's boldness in the presence of what\nhe believed the Devil to illustrate his valour. 'His defiance of the\n'Devils' in Worms,' says Carlyle, 'was not a mere boast, as the like\nmight be if spoken now. It was a faith of Luther's that there were\nDevils, spiritual denizens of the Pit, continually besetting men. Many\ntimes, in his writings, this turns up; and a most small sneer has\nbeen grounded on it by some. In the room of the Wartburg, where he sat\ntranslating the Bible, they still show you a black spot on the wall;\nthe strange memorial of one of these conflicts. Luther sat translating\none of the Psalms; he was worn down with long labour, with sickness,\nabstinence from food; there rose before him some hideous indefinable\nImage, which he took for the Evil One, to forbid his work; Luther\nstarted up with fiend-defiance; flung his inkstand at the spectre,\nand it disappeared! The spot still remains there; a curious monument\nof several things. Any apothecary's apprentice can now tell us what we\nare to think of this apparition, in a scientific sense; but the man's\nheart that dare rise defiant, face to face, against Hell itself, can\ngive no higher proof of fearlessness. The thing he will quail before\nexists not on this earth nor under it--fearless enough! 'The Devil\nis aware,' writes he on one occasion, 'that this does not proceed\nout of fear in me. I have seen and defied innumerable Devils. Duke\nGeorge,'--of Leipzig, a great enemy of his,--'Duke George is not equal\nto one Devil,' far short of a Devil! 'If I had business at Leipzig,\nI would ride into Leipzig, though it rained Duke Georges for nine\ndays running.' What a reservoir of Dukes to ride into!' [98]\n\nAlthough Luther's courage certainly appears in this, it is plain that\nhis Devil was much humanised as compared with the fearful phantoms\nof an earlier time. Nobody would ever have tried an inkstand on the\nGorgons, Furies, Lucifers of ancient belief. In Luther's Bible the\nDevil is pictured as a monk--a lean monk, such as he himself was only\ntoo likely to become if he continued his rebellion against the Church\n(Fig. 17). It was against a Devil liable to resistance by physical\nforce that he hurled his inkstand, and against whom he also hurled\nthe contents of his inkstand in those words which Richter said were\nhalf-battles.\n\nLuther's Devil, in fact, represents one of the last phases in\nthe reduction of the Evil Power from a personified phantom with\nwhich no man could cope, to that impersonal but all the more real\nmoral obstruction with which every man can cope--if only with\nan inkstand. The horned monster with cowl, beads, and cross, is a\nmere transparency, through which every brave heart may recognise the\npractical power of wrong around him, the established error, disguised\nas religion, which is able to tempt and threaten him.\n\nThe temptations with menace described--those which, coming upon\nthe weak nerves of women, vanquished their reason and heart; that\nwhich, in a healthy man, raised valour and power--may be taken as\nside-lights for a corresponding experience in the life of a great\nman now living--Carlyle himself. It was at a period of youth when,\namid the lonely hills of Scotland, he wandered out of harmony with the\nworld in which he lived. Consecrated by pious parents to the ministry,\nhe had inwardly renounced every dogma of the Church. With genius and\nculture for high work, the world demanded of him low work. Friendless,\nalone, poor, he sat eating his heart, probably with little else to\neat. Every Scotch parson he met unconsciously propounded to that youth\nthe question whether he could convert his heretical stone into bread,\nor precipitate himself from the pinnacle of the Scotch Kirk without\nbruises? Then it was he roamed in his mystical wilderness, until he\nfound himself in the gayest capital of the world, which, however,\non him had little to bestow but a further sense of loneliness.\n\n'Now, when I look back, it was a strange isolation I then lived\nin. The men and women around me, even speaking with me, were but\nFigures; I had practically forgotten that they were alive, that they\nwere not merely automatic. In the midst of their crowded streets and\nassemblages, I walked solitary; and (except as it was my own heart,\nnot another's, that I kept devouring) savage also, as is the tiger in\nhis jungle. Some comfort it would have been, could I, like a Faust,\nhave fancied myself tempted and tormented of a Devil; for a Hell,\nas I imagine, without Life, though only diabolic Life, were more\nfrightful: but in our age of Downpulling and Disbelief, the very Devil\nhas been pulled down--you cannot so much as believe in a Devil. To\nme the Universe was all void of Life, of Purpose, of Volition, even\nof Hostility: it was one huge, dead, immeasurable, Steam-engine,\nrolling on, in its dead indifference, to grind me limb from limb. Oh,\nthe vast gloomy, solitary Golgotha, and Mill of Death! Why was the\nLiving banished thither, companionless, conscious? Why, if there is\nno Devil; nay, unless the Devil is your God?' ...\n\n'From suicide a certain aftershine of Christianity withheld me.' ...\n\n'So had it lasted, as in bitter, protracted Death-agony, through\nlong years. The heart within me, unvisited by any heavenly dewdrop,\nwas smouldering in sulphurous, slow-consuming fire. Almost since\nearliest memory I had shed no tear; or once only when I, murmuring\nhalf-audibly, recited Faust's Deathsong, that wild Selig der den er\nim Siegesglanze findet (Happy whom he finds in Battle's splendour),\nand thought that of this last Friend even I was not forsaken, that\nDestiny itself could not doom me not to die. Having no hope, neither\nhad I any definite fear, were it of Man or of Devil; nay, I often\nfelt as if it might be solacing could the Arch-Devil himself, though\nin Tartarean terrors, rise to me that I might tell him a little of my\nmind. And yet, strangely enough, I lived in a continual, indefinite,\npining fear; tremulous, pusillanimous, apprehensive of I knew not what;\nit seemed as if all things in the Heavens above and the Earth beneath\nwould hurt me; as if the Heavens and the Earth were but boundless jaws\nof a devouring monster, wherein I, palpitating, waited to be devoured.\n\n'Full of such humour, and perhaps the miserablest man in the whole\nFrench Capital or Suburbs, was I, one sultry Dogday, after much\nperambulation, toiling along the dirty little Rue Sainte Thomas\nde l'Enfer, among civic rubbish enough, in a close atmosphere, and\nover pavements hot as Nebuchadnezzar's Furnace; whereby doubtless my\nspirits were little cheered; when all at once there rose a Thought\nin me, and I asked myself, 'What art thou afraid of? Wherefore, like\na coward, dost thou for ever pip and whimper, and go cowering and\ntrembling? Despicable biped! what is the sum-total of the worst that\nlies before thee? Death? Well, Death; and say the pangs of Tophet too,\nand all that the Devil or Man may, will, or can do against thee! Hast\nthou not a heart; canst thou not suffer whatsoever it be; and, as a\nChild of Freedom, though outcast, trample Tophet itself under thy feet,\nwhile it consumes thee! Let it come, then; I will meet it and defy\nit!' And as I so thought, there rushed like a stream of fire over my\nwhole soul; and I shook base Fear away from me for ever. I was strong,\nof unknown strength; a spirit, almost a god. Ever from that time the\ntemper of my misery was changed: not Fear or whining Sorrow was it,\nbut Indignation and grim fire-eyed Defiance.\n\n'Thus had the Everlasting No pealed authoritatively through all the\nrecesses of my Being, of my Me; and then was it that my whole Me\nstood up, in native God-created majesty and with emphasis recorded\nits Protest. Such a Protest, the most important transaction in Life,\nmay that same Indignation and Defiance, in a psychological point of\nview, be fitly called. The Everlasting No had said, 'Behold thou\nart fatherless, outcast, and the Universe is mine (the Devil's);'\nto which my whole Me now made answer, 'I am not thine, but Free,\nand for ever hate thee!'\n\n'It is from this hour that I incline to date my spiritual New Birth,\nor Baphometic fire-baptism; perhaps I directly thereupon began to be\na Man.' [99]\n\nPerhaps he who so uttered his Apage Satana did not recognise amid\nwhat haunted Edom he wrestled with his Phantom. Saint Louis, having\ninvited the Carthusian monks to Paris, assigned them a habitation in\nthe Faubourg Saint-Jacques, near the ancient chateau of Vauvert,\na manor built by Robert (le Diable), but for a long time then\nuninhabited, because infested by demons, which had, perhaps, been\nfalse coiners. Fearful howls had been heard there, and spectres seen,\ndragging chains; and, in particular, it was frequented by a fearful\ngreen monster, serpent and man in one, with a long white beard,\nwielding a huge club, with which he threatened all who passed that\nway. This demon, in common belief, passed along the road to and\nfrom the chateau in a fiery chariot, and twisted the neck of every\nhuman being met on his way. He was called the Devil of Vauvert. The\nCarthusians were not frightened by these stories, but asked Louis to\ngive them the Manor, which he did, with all its dependencies. After\nthat nothing more was heard of the Diable Vauvert or his imps. It\nwas but fair to the Demons who had assisted the friars in obtaining a\nvaluable property so cheaply that the street should thenceforth bear\nthe name of Rue d'Enfer, as it does. But the formidable genii of the\nplace haunted it still, and, in the course of time, the Carthusians\nproved that they could use with effect all the terrors which the\nDevils had left behind them. They represented a great money-coining\nChristendom with which free-thinking Michaels had to contend, even\nto the day when, as we have just read, one of the bravest of these\nthere encountered his Vauvert devil and laid him low for ever.\n\nI well remember that wretched street of St. Thomas leading into Hell\nStreet, as if the Parisian authorities, remembering that Thomas\nwas a doubter, meant to remind the wayfarer that whoso doubteth\nis damned. Near by is the convent of St. Michael, who makes no war\non the neighbouring Rue Dragon. All names--mere idle names! Among\nthe thousands that crowd along them, how many pause to note the\nquaintness of the names on the street-lamps, remaining there from\nfossil fears and phantom battles long turned to fairy lore. Yet amid\nthem, on that sultry day, in one heart, was fought and won a battle\nwhich summed up all their sense and value. Every Hell was conquered\nthen and there when Fear was conquered. There, when the lower Self\nwas cast down beneath the poised spear of a Free Mind, St. Michael at\nlast chained his dragon. There Luther's inkstand was not only hurled,\nbut hit its mark; there, 'Get thee behind me,' was said, and obeyed;\nthere Buddha brought the archfiend Mara to kneel at his feet.\n\nAnd it was by sole might of a Man. Therefore may this be emphasised\nas the temptation and triumph which have for us to-day the meaning\nof all others.\n\nA young man of intellectual power, seeing beyond all the conventional\nerrors around him, without means, feeling that ordinary work, however\nhonourable, would for him mean failure of his life--because failure\nto contribute his larger truth to mankind--he finds the terrible\ncost of his aim to be hunger, want, a life passed amid suspicion\nand alienation, without sympathy, lonely, unloved--and, alas! with a\nprobability that all these losses may involve loss of just what they\nare incurred for, the power to make good his truth. After giving up\nlove and joy, he may, after all, be unable to give living service\nto his truth, but only a broken body and shed blood. Similar trials\nin outer form have been encountered again and again; not only in\nthe great temptations and triumphs of sacred tradition, but perhaps\neven more genuinely in the unknown lives of many pious people all\nover the world, have hunger, want, suffering, been conquered by\nfaith. But rarely amid doubts. Rarely in the way of Saint Thomas,\nin no fear of hell or devil, nor in any hope of reward in heaven, or\non earth; rarely indeed without any feeling of a God taking notice,\nor belief in angels waiting near, have men or women triumphed utterly\nover self. All history proves what man can sacrifice on earth for an\neternal weight of glory above. We know how cheerfully men and women\ncan sing at the stake, when they feel the fire consuming them to be\na chariot bearing them to heaven. We understand the valour of Luther\nmarching against his devils with his hymn, 'Ein feste Burg ist unser\nGott.' But it is important to know what man's high heart is capable of\nwithout any of these encouragements or aids, what man's moral force\nwhen he feels himself alone. For this must become an increasingly\nmomentous consideration.\n\nAlready the educated youth of our time have followed the wanderer\nof threescore years ago into that St. Thomas d'Enfer Street, which\nmay be morally translated as the point where man doubts every hell\nhe does not feel, and every creed he cannot prove. The old fears\nand hopes are fading faster from the minds around us than from\ntheir professions. There must be very few sane people now who are\nrestrained by fear of hell, or promises of future reward. What then\ncontrols human passion and selfishness? For many, custom; for others,\nhereditary good nature and good sense; for some, a sense of honour;\nfor multitudes, the fear of law and penalties. It is very difficult\nindeed, amid these complex motives, to know how far simple human\nnature, acting at its best, is capable of heroic endurance for truth,\nand of pure passion for the right. This cannot be seen in those\nwho intellectually reject the creed of the majority, but conform to\nits standards and pursue its worldly advantages. It must be seen,\nif at all, in those who are radically severed from the conventional\naims of the world,--who seek not its wealth, nor its honours, decline\nits proudest titles, defy its authority, share not its prospects for\ntime or eternity. It must be proved by those, the grandeur of whose\naims can change the splendours of Paris to a wilderness. These may\nshow what man, as man, is capable of, what may be his new birth,\nand the religion of his simple manhood. What they think, say, and\ndo is not prescribed either by human or supernatural command; in\nthem you do not see what society thinks, or sects believe, or what\nthe populace applaud. You see the individual man building his moral\nedifice, as genuinely as birds their nests, by law of his own moral\nconstitution. It is a great thing to know what those edifices are,\nfor so at last every man will have to build if he build at all. And if\nnoble lives cannot be so lived, we may be sure the career of the human\nrace will be downhill henceforth. For any unbiassed mind may judge\nwhether the tendency of thought and power lies toward or away from\nthe old hopes and fears on which the regime of the past was founded.\n\nA great and wise Teacher of our time, who shared with Carlyle his\nlonely pilgrimage, has admonished his generation of the temptations\nbrought by talent,--selfish use of it for ambitious ends on the\none hand, or withdrawal into fruitless solitude on the other; and I\ncannot forbear closing this chapter with his admonition to his young\ncountrymen forty years ago. [100]\n\n'Public and private avarice makes the air we breathe thick and fat. The\nscholar is decent, indolent, complacent. See already the tragic\nconsequence. The mind of this country, taught to aim at low objects,\neats upon itself. There is no work for any but the decorous and the\ncomplacent. Young men of the fairest promise, who begin life upon our\nshores, inflated by the mountain winds, shined upon by all the stars of\nGod, find the earth below not in unison with these,--but are hindered\nfrom action by the disgust which the principles on which business is\nmanaged inspire and turn drudges, or die of disgust,--some of them\nsuicides. What is the remedy? They did not yet see, and thousands of\nyoung men as hopeful, now crowding to the barriers for the career,\ndo not yet see, that if the single man plant himself indomitably on\nhis instincts, and there abide, the huge world will come round to\nhim. Patience--patience;--with the shades of all the good and great\nfor company; and for solace, the perspective of your own infinite\nlife; and for work, the study and the communication of principles,\nthe making those instincts prevalent, the conversion of the world. Is\nit not the chief disgrace in the world--not to be an unit; not to\nbe reckoned one character; not to yield that peculiar fruit which\neach man was created to bear,--but to be reckoned in the gross, in\nthe hundred, in the thousand of the party, the section, to which we\nbelong; and our opinion predicted geographically, as the north or the\nsouth? Not so, brothers and friends,--please God, ours shall not be\nso. We will walk on our own feet; we will work with our own hands;\nwe will speak our own minds.'\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX.\n\nTHE MAN OF SIN.\n\n    Hindu myth--Gnostic theories--Ophite scheme of\n    redemption--Rabbinical traditions of primitive man--Pauline\n    Pessimism--Law of death--Satan's ownership of man--Redemption of\n    the elect--Contemporary statements--Baptism--Exorcism--The 'new\n    man's' food--Eucharist--Herbert Spencer's explanation--Primitive\n    ideas--Legends of Adam and Seth--Adamites--A Mormon 'Mystery'\n    of initiation.\n\n\nIn a Hindu myth, Dhrubo, an infant devotee, passed much time in a\njungle, surrounded by ferocious beasts, in devotional exercises of\nsuch extraordinary merit that Vishnu erected a new heaven for him\nas the reward of his piety. Vishnu even left his own happy abode\nto superintend the construction of this special heaven. In Hebrew\nmythology the favourite son, the chosen people, is called out of\nEgypt to dwell in a new home, a promised land, not in heaven but on\nearth. The idea common to the two is that of a contrast between a\nnatural and a celestial environment,--a jungle and beasts, bondage\nand distress; a new heaven, a land flowing with milk and honey,--and\nthe correspondence with these of the elect child, Dhrubo or Israel.\n\nThe tendency of Christ's mind appears to have been rather in the Aryan\ndirection; he pointed his friends to a kingdom not of this world,\nand to his Father's many mansions in heaven. But the Hebrew faith in a\nmessianic reign in this world was too strong for his dream; a new earth\nwas appended to the new heaven, and became gradually paramount, but\nthis new earth was represented only by the small society of believers\nwho made the body of Christ, the members in which his blood flowed.\n\nThat great cauldron of confused superstitions and mysticisms which the\nRoman Empire became after the overthrow of Jerusalem, formed a thick\nscum which has passed under the vague name of Gnosticism. The primitive\nnotions of all races were contained in it, however, and they gathered\nin the second and third centuries a certain consistency in the system\nof the Ophites. In the beginning existed Bythos (the Depth); his first\nemanation and consort is Ennoia (Thought); their first daughter is\nPneuma (Spirit), their second Sophia (Wisdom). Sophia's emanations are\ntwo--one perfect, Christos; the other imperfect, Sophia-Achamoth,--who\nrespectively guide all that proceed from God and all that proceed\nfrom Matter. Sophia, unable to act directly upon anything so gross\nas Matter or unordered as Chaos, employs her imperfect daughter\nSophia-Achamoth for that purpose. But she, finding delight in imparting\nlife to inert Matter, became ambitious of creating in the abyss a\nworld for herself. To this end she produced the Demiurgus Ildabaoth\n(otherwise Jehovah) to be creator of the material world. After this\nSophia-Achamoth shook off Matter, in which she had become entangled;\nbut Ildabaoth ('son of Darkness') proceeded to produce emanations\ncorresponding to those of Bythos in the upper universe. Among his\ncreations was Man, but his man was a soulless monster crawling on the\nground. Sophia-Achamoth managed to transfer to Man the small ray of\ndivine light which Ildabaoth had inherited from her. The 'primitive\nMan' became thus a divine being. Ildabaoth, now entirely evil, was\nenraged at having produced a being who had become superior to himself,\nand his envy took shape in a serpent-formed Satan, Ophiomorphos. He\nis the concentration of all that is most base in Matter, conjoined\nwith a spiritual intelligence. Their anti-Judaism led the Ophites to\nidentify Ildabaoth as Jehovah, and this serpent-son of his as Michael;\nthey also called him Sama\u00ebl. Ildabaoth then also created the animal,\nvegetable, and mineral kingdoms, with all their evils. Resolving\nto confine man within his own lower domain, he forbade him to eat\nof the Tree of Knowledge. To defeat his scheme, which had all been\nevolved out of her own temporary fall, Sophia-Achamoth sent her own\ngenius, also in form of a serpent, Ophis, to induce Man to transgress\nthe tyrant's command. Eve supposing Ophis the same as Ophiomorphos,\nregarded the prohibition against the fruit as withdrawn and readily\nate of it. Man thus became capable of understanding heavenly\nmysteries, and Ildabaoth made haste to imprison him in the dungeon\nof Matter. He also punished Ophis by making him eat dust, and this\nheavenly serpent, contaminated by Matter, changed from Man's friend\nto his foe. Sophia-Achamoth has always striven against these two\nSerpents, who bind man to the body by corrupt desires; she supplied\nmankind with divine light, through which they became sensible of\ntheir nakedness--the misery of their condition. Ildabaoth's seductive\nagents gained control over all the offspring of Adam except Seth, type\nof the Spiritual Man. Sophia-Achamoth moved Bythos to send down her\nperfect brother Christos to aid the Spiritual Race of Seth. Christos\ndescended through the seven planetary regions, assuming successively\nforms related to each, and entered into the man Jesus at the moment\nof his baptism. Ildabaoth, discovering him, stirred up the Jews to\nput him to death; but Christos and Sophia, abandoning the material\nbody of Jesus on the cross, gave him one made of ether. Hence his\nmother and disciples could not recognise him. He ascended to the\nMiddle Space, where he sits by the right hand of Ildabaoth, though\nunperceived by the latter, and, putting forth efforts for purification\nof mankind corresponding to those put forth by Ildabaoth for evil,\nhe is collecting all the Spiritual elements of the world into the\nkingdom which is to overthrow that of the Enemy. [101]\n\nNotwithstanding the animosity shown by the Ophites towards the\nJews, most of the elements in their system are plagiarised from the\nJews. According to ancient rabbinical traditions, Adam and Eve, by\neating the fruit of the lowest region, fell through the six regions\nto the seventh and lowest; they were there brought under control of\nthe previously fallen Sama\u00ebl, who defiled them with his spittle. Their\nnakedness consisted in their having lost a natural protection of which\nonly our finger-nails are left; others say they lost a covering of\nhair. [102] The Jews also from of old contended that Seth was the\nson of Adam, in whom returned the divine nature with which man was\noriginally endowed. We have, indeed, only to identify Ildabaoth with\nElohim instead of Jehovah to perceive that the Ophites were following\nJewish precedents in attributing the natural world to a fiend. The link\nbetween, the two conceptions may be discovered in the writings of Paul.\n\nPaul's pessimistic conception of this world and of human nature was\nradical, and it mainly formed the mould in which dogmatic Christianity\nsubsequently took shape. His general theology is a travesty of the\ncreation of the world and of man. All that work of Elohim was, by\nimplication, natural, that is to say, diabolical. The earth as then\ncreated belonged to the Prince of this world, who was the author of\nsin, and its consequence, death. In Adam all die. The natural man is\nenmity against God; he is of the earth earthy; his father is the devil;\nhe cannot know spiritual things. All mankind are born spiritually\ndead. Christ is a new and diviner Demiurgos, engaged in the work of\nproducing a new creation and a new man. For his purpose the old law,\ncircumcision or uncircumcision, are of no avail or importance, but a\nnew creature. His death is the symbol of man's death to the natural\nworld, his resurrection of man's rising into a new world which mere\nflesh and blood cannot inherit. As God breathed into Adam's nostrils\nthe breath of life, the Spirit breathes upon the elect of Christ a\nnew mind and new heart.\n\nThe 'new creature' must inhale an entirely new physical\natmosphere. When Paul speaks of 'the Prince of the Power of the Air,'\nit must not be supposed that he is only metaphorical. On this, however,\nwe must dwell for a little.\n\n'The air,' writes Burton in his 'Anatomy of Melancholy,' 'The air\nis not so full of flies in summer as it is at all times of invisible\ndevils. They counterfeit suns and moons, and sit on ships' masts. They\ncause whirlwinds of a sudden, and tempestuous storms, which though our\nmeteorologists generally refer to natural causes, yet I am of Bodine's\nmind, they are more often caused by those aerial devils in their\nseveral quarters. Cardan gives much information concerning them. His\nfather had one of them, an aerial devil, bound to him for eight and\ntwenty years; as Agrippa's dog had a devil tied to his collar. Some\nthink that Paracelsus had one confined in his sword pommel. Others\nwear them in rings;' and so the old man runs on, speculating about\nthe mysterious cobwebs collected in the ceiling of his brain.\n\nThe atmosphere mentally breathed by Burton and his authorities was\nindeed charged with invisible phantasms; and every one of them was in\nits origin a genuine intellectual effort to interpret the phenomena\nof nature. It is not wonderful that the ancients should have ascribed\nto a diabolical source the subtle deaths that struck at them from\nthe air. A single breath of the invisible poison of the air might\nlay low the strongest. Even after man had come to understand his\nvisible foes, the deadly animal or plant, he could only cower and\npray before the lurking power of miasma and infection, the power of\nthe air. The Tyndalls of a primitive time studied dust and disease,\nand called the winged seeds of decay and death 'aerial devils,' and\nprepared the way for Mephistopheles (devil of smells), as he in turn\nfor the bacterial demon of modern science.\n\nThere were not wanting theologic explanations why these malignant\nbeings should find their dwelling-place in the air. They had been\ndriven out of heaven. The etherial realm above the air was reserved\nfor the good. Of the demons the Hindus say, 'Their feet touch not the\nground.' 'What man of virtue is there,' said Titus to his soldiers,\n'who does not know that those souls which are severed from their\nfleshy bodies in battles by the sword are received by the \u00e6ther--that\npurest of elements--and joined to that company which are placed among\nthe stars; that they become gods, d\u00e6mons, and propitious heroes,\nand show themselves as such to their posterity afterwards?' [103]\nMalignant spirits were believed to hold a more undisputed sway over\nthe atmosphere than over the earth, although our planet was mainly\nin their power, and the subjects of the higher empire always a small\ncolony. [104] Moreover, there was a natural tendency of demons, which\noriginally represented earthly evils, when these were conquered by\nhuman intelligence, to pass into the realm least accessible to science\nor to control by man. The uncharted winds became their refuge.\n\nThis belief was general among the Christian Fathers, [105] lasted a\nvery long time even among the educated, and is still the teaching\nof the Roman Catholic Church, as any one may see by reading the\nauthorised work of Mgr. Gaume on 'Holy Water' (p. 305). So long as\nit was admitted among thinking people that the mind was as competent\nto build facts upon theory as theories on fact, a great deal might\nbe plausibly said for this atmospheric diabolarchy. In the days\nwhen witchcraft was first called in question, Glanvil argued 'that\nsince this little Spot is so thickly peopled in every Atome of it,\n'tis weakness to think that all the vast spaces Above and hollows\nunder Ground are desert and uninhabited,' and he anticipated that,\nas microscopic science might reveal further populations in places\nseemingly vacant, it would necessitate the belief that the regions of\nthe upper air are inhabited. [106] Other learned men concluded that\nthe spirits that lodge there are such as are clogged with earthly\nelements; the baser sort; dwelling in cold air, they would like to\ninhabit the more sheltered earth. In repayment for broth, and various\ndietetic horrors proffered them by witches, they enable them to pass\nfreely through their realm--the air.\n\nOut of such intellectual atmosphere came Paul's sentence (Eph. ii. 2)\nabout 'the Prince of the Power of the Air.' It was a spiritualisation\nof the existing aerial demonology. When Paul and his companions carried\ntheir religious agitation into the centres of learning and wealth,\nand brought the teachings of a Jew to confront the temples of Greece\nand Rome, they found themselves unrelated to that great world. It had\nanother habit of mind and feeling, and the idea grew in him that it\nwas the spirits of the Satanic world counteracting the spirit sent on\nearth from the divine world. This animated its fashions, philosophy,\nscience, and literature. He warns the Church at Ephesus that they\nwill need the whole armour of God, because they are wrestling not with\nmere flesh and blood, but against the rulers of the world's darkness,\nthe evil spirits in high places--that is, in the Air.\n\nAs heirs of this new nature and new world, with its new atmosphere,\npurchased and endowed by Christ, the Pauline theory further\npresupposes, that the natural man, having died, is buried with\nChrist in baptism, rises with him, and is then sealed to him by the\nHoly Ghost. For a little time such must still bear about them their\nfleshy bodies, but soon Christ shall come, and these vile bodies\nshall be changed into his likeness; meanwhile they must keep their\nbodies in subjection, even as Paul did, by beating it black and blue\n(hyp\u00f4piaz\u00f4), and await their deliverance from the body of the dead\nworld they have left, but which so far is permitted to adhere to\nthem. This conception had to work itself out in myths and dogmas of\nwhich Paul knew nothing. 'If any man come after me and hate not his\nfather and mother, and his own (natural) life also, he cannot be my\ndisciple.' The new race with which the new creation was in travail\nwas logically discovered to need a new Mother as well as a new\nFather. Every natural mother was subjected to a stain that it might\nbe affirmed that only one mother was immaculate--she whose conception\nwas supernatural, not of the flesh. Marriage became an indulgence to\nsin (whose purchase-money survives still in the marriage-fee). The\nmonastery and the nunnery represented this new ascetic kingdom;\nthat perilous word 'worldliness' was transmitted to be the source of\ninsanity and hypocrisy.\n\nHappily, the common sense and sentiment of mankind have so steadily\nand successfully won back the outlawed interests of life and the\nworld, that it requires some research into ecclesiastical arch\u00e6ology\nto comprehend the original significance of the symbols in which\nit survives. The ancient rabbins limited the number of souls which\nhang on Adam to 600,000, but the Christian theologians extended the\nfigures to include the human race. Probably even some orthodox people\nmay be scandalised at the idea of the fathers (Iren\u00e6us, for example),\nthat, at the Fall, the human race became Satan's rightful property,\ndid they see it in the picture copied by Buslaef, from an ancient\nRussian Bible, in possession of Count Uvarof. Adam gives Satan\na written contract for himself and his descendants (Fig. 7). And\nyet, according to a recent statement, the Rev. Mr. Simeon recently\npreached a sermon in the Church of St. Augustine, Kilburn, London,\n'to prove that the ruler of the world is the devil. He stated that the\nCreator of the world had given the control of the world to one of his\nchief angels, Lucifer, who, however, had gone to grief, and done his\nutmost to ruin the world. Since then the Creator and Lucifer had been\ncontinually striving to checkmate each other. As Lucifer is still the\nPrince of this world, it would seem that it is not he who has been\nbeaten yet.' [107] A popular preacher in America, Rev. Dr. Talmage,\nstates the case as follows:--\n\n'I turn to the same old book, and I find out that the Son of Mary,\nwho was the Son of God, the darling of heaven, the champion of the\nages, by some called Lord, by some called Jesus, by others called\nChrist, but this morning by us called by the three blessed titles,\nLord Jesus Christ, by one magnificent stroke made it possible for\nus all to be saved. He not only told us that there was a hell, but\nhe went into it. He walked down the fiery steeps. He stepped off the\nbottom rung of the long ladder of despair. He descended into hell. He\nput his bare foot on the hottest coal of the fiercest furnace.\n\n'He explored the darkest den of eternal midnight, and then He came\nforth lacerated and scarified, and bleeding and mauled by the hands\nof infernal excruciation, to cry out to all the ages, 'I have paid\nthe price for all those who would make me their substitute. By my\npiled-up groans, by my omnipotent agony, I demand the rescue of all\nthose who will give up sin and trust in me,' Mercy! mercy! mercy! But\nhow am I to get it? Cheap. It will not cost you as much as a loaf of\nbread. Only a penny? No, no. Escape from hell, and all the harps,\nand mansions, and thrones, and sunlit fields of heaven besides in\nthe bargain, 'without money, and without price.''\n\nThese preachers are only stating with creditable candour the\noriginal significance of the sacraments and ceremonies which were\nthe physiognomy of that theory of 'a new creature.' Following various\nancient traditions, that life was produced out of water, that water\nescaped the primal curse on nature, that devils hate and fear it\nbecause of this and the saltness of so much of it, many religions\nhave used water for purification and exorcism. [108] Baptism is\nbased on the notion that every child is offspring of the Devil,\nand possessed of his demon; the Fathers agreed that all unbaptized\nbabes, even the still-born, are lost; and up to the year 1550 every\ninfant was subjected at baptism to the exorcism, 'I command thee,\nunclean spirit, in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the\nHoly Ghost, that thou come out, and depart from, these infants whom\nour Lord Jesus Christ has vouchsafed to call to his holy baptism,\nto be made members of his body and of his holy congregation,' &c.\n\nA clergyman informed me that he knew of a case in which a man,\nreceiving back his child after christening, kissed it, and said,\n'I never kissed it before, because I knew it was not a child of God;\nbut now that it is, I love it dearly.' But why not? Some even now teach\nthat a white angel follows the baptized, a black demon the unbaptized.\n\nThe belief was wide-spread that unbaptized children were turned into\nelves at death. In Iceland it is still told as a bit of folk-lore,\nthat when God visited Eve, she kept a large number of her children\nout of sight, 'because they had not been washed,' and these children\nwere turned into elves, and became the progenitors of that uncanny\nrace. The Greek Church made so much of baptism, that there has been\ndeveloped an Eastern sect which claims John the Baptist as its founder,\nmaking little of Christ, who baptized none; and to this day in Russia\nthe peasant regards it as almost essential to a right reception of\nthe benedictions of Sunday to have been under water on the previous\nday--soap being sagaciously added. The Roman Catholic Church, following\nthe provision of the Council of Carthage, still sets a high value on\nbaptismal exorcism; and Calvin refers to a theological debate at the\nSorbonne in Paris, whether it would not be justifiable for a priest to\nthrow a child into a well rather than have it die unbaptized. Luther\npreserved the Catholic form of exorcism; and, in some districts of\nGermany, Protestants have still such faith in it, that, when either\na child or a domestic animal is suspected of being possessed, they\nwill send for the Romish priest to perform the rite of exorcism.\n\nMr. Herbert Spencer has described the class of superstitions out of\nwhich the sacrament of the Eucharist has grown. 'In some cases,' he\nsays, 'parts of the dead are swallowed by the living, who seek thus\nto inspire themselves with the good qualities of the dead; and we saw\n(\u00a7 133) that the dead are supposed to be honoured by this act. The\nimplied notion was supposed to be associated with the further notion\nthat the nature of another being, inhering in all the fragments of\nhis body, inheres too in the unconsumed part of anything consumed\nwith his body; so that an operation wrought on the remnants of his\nfood becomes an operation wrought on the food swallowed, and therefore\non the swallower. Yet another implication is, that between those who\nswallow different parts of the same food some community of nature is\nestablished. Hence such beliefs as that ascribed by Bastian to some\nnegroes, who think that, 'on eating and drinking consecrated food,\nthey eat and drink the god himself'--such god being an ancestor, who\nhas taken his share. Various ceremonies among savages are prompted\nby this conception; as, for instance, the choosing a totem. Among\nthe Mosquito Indians, 'the manner of obtaining this guardian was\nto proceed to some secluded spot and offer up a sacrifice: with\nthe beast or bird which thereupon appeared, in dream or in reality,\na compact for life was made, by drawing blood from various parts of\nthe body.' This blood, supposed to be taken by the chosen animal,\nconnected the two, and the animal's life became so bound up with their\nown that the death of one involved that of the other.' [109] And now\nmark that, in these same regions, this idea reappears as a religious\nobservance. Sahagun and Herrera describe a ceremony of the Aztecs\ncalled 'eating the god.' Mendieta, describing this ceremony, says,\n'They had also a sort of eucharist.... They made a sort of small idols\nof seeds, ... and ate them as the body or memory of their gods.' As\nthe seeds were cemented partly by the blood of sacrificed boys;\nas their gods were cannibal gods; as Huitzilopochtli, whose worship\nincluded this rite, was the god to whom human sacrifices were most\nextensive; it is clear that the aim was to establish community with\ngods by taking blood in common.' [110]\n\nWhen, a little time ago, a New Zealand chief showed his high\nappreciation of a learned German by eating his eyes to improve his\nown intellectual vision, the case seemed to some to call for more\nand better protected missionaries; but the chief might find in the\nsacramental communion of the missionaries the real principle of his\nfaith. The celebration of the 'Lord's Supper' when a Bishop is ordained\nhas only to be 'scratched,' as the proverb says, to reveal beneath\nit the Indians choosing their episcopal totem. As Israel observed\nthe Passover--eating together of the lamb whose blood sprinkled on\ntheir door-posts had marked those to be preserved from the Destroying\nAngel in Egypt--they who believed that Jesus was Messias tasted the\nbody and blood of their Head, as indicating the elect out of a world\notherwise given over to the Destroyer spiritually, and finally to be\ndelivered up to him bodily. 'He that eateth my flesh and drinketh my\nblood dwelleth in me and I in him.' These were to tread on serpents,\nor handle them unharmed, as it is said Paul did. They were not really\nto die, but to fall asleep, that they might be changed as a seed to\nits flower, through literal resurrection from the earth.\n\nWe should probably look in vain after any satisfactory vestiges of\nthe migration of the superstition concerning the mystical potency\nof food. It is found fully developed in the ancient Hindu myth\nof the struggle between the gods and demons for the Amrita, the\nimmortalising nectar, one stolen sip of which gave the monster R\u00e1hu\nthe imperishable nature which no other of his order possesses. It\nis found in corresponding myths concerning the gods of Asgard and of\nOlympus. The fall of man in the Iranian legend was through a certain\nmilk given by Ahriman to the first pair, Meschia and Meschiane. In\nBuddhist mythology, it was eating rice that corrupted the nature\nof man. It was the process of incarnation in the Gilghit legend\n(i. 398). The whole story of Persephone turns upon her having\neaten the seed of a pomegranate in Hades, by which she was bound to\nthat sphere. There is a myth very similar to that of Persephone in\nJapan. There is a legend in the Scottish Highlands that a woman was\nconveyed into the secret recesses of the 'men of peace'--the Daoine\nShi', euphemistic name of uncanny beings, who carry away mortals to\ntheir subterranean apartments, where beautiful damsels tempt them to\neat of magnificent banquets. This woman on her arrival was recognised\nby a former acquaintance, who, still retaining some portion of human\nbenevolence, warned her that, if she tasted anything whatsoever for a\ncertain space of time, she would be doomed to remain in that underworld\nfor ever. The woman having taken this counsel, was ultimately restored\nto the society of mortals. It was added that, when the period named by\nher unfortunate friend had elapsed, a disenchantment of this woman's\neyes took place, and the viands which had before seemed so tempting\nshe now discovered to consist only of the refuse of the earth. [111]\n\nThe difficulty of tracing the ethnical origin of such legends as\nthese is much greater than that of tracing their common natural\norigin. The effect of certain kinds of food upon the human system is\nvery marked, even apart from the notorious effects of the drinks made\nfrom the vegetative world. The effects of mandrake, opium, tobacco,\nvarious semi-poisonous fungi, the simplicity with which differences of\nrace might be explained by their vegetarian or carnivorous customs,\nwould be enough to suggest theories of the potency of food over the\nbody and soul of man such as even now have their value in scientific\nspeculation.\n\nThe Jewish opinion that Seth was the offspring of the divine part of\nAdam was the germ of a remarkable christian myth. Adam, when dying,\ndesired Seth to procure the oil of mercy (for his extreme unction)\nfrom the angels guarding Paradise. Michael informs Seth that it\ncan only be obtained after the lapse of the ages intervening the\nFall and the Atonement. Seth received, however, a small branch of\nthe Tree of Knowledge, and was told that when it should bear fruit,\nAdam would recover. Returning, Seth found Adam dead, and planted the\nbranch in his grave. It grew to a tree which Solomon had hewn down\nfor building the temple; but the workmen could not adapt it, threw it\naside, and it was used as a bridge over a lake. The Queen of Sheba,\nabout to cross this lake, beheld a vision of Christ on the cross,\nand informed Solomon that when a certain person had been suspended\non that tree the fall of the Jewish nation would be near. Solomon in\nalarm buried the wood deep in the earth, and the spot was covered by\nthe pool of Bethesda. Shortly before the crucifixion the tree floated\non that water, and ultimately, as the cross, bore its fruit. [112]\n\nIn our old Russian picture (Fig. 8) Seth is shown offering a branch\nof the Tree of Knowledge to his father Adam. That it should spring up\nto be the Tree of Life is simply in obedience to Magian and Gnostic\ntheories, which generally turn on some scheme by which the Good turns\nagainst the Evil Mind the point of his own weapon. These were the\ninfluences which gave to christian doctrines on the subject their\nperilous precision. The universal tradition was that Adam was the\nfirst person liberated by Christ from hell; and this corresponded\nwith an equally wide belief that all who were saved by the death\nof Christ and his descent into hell were at once raised into the\nmoral condition of Adam and Eve before the Fall,--to eat the food\nand breathe the holy air of Paradise.\n\nAn honest mirror was held up before this theology by the christian\nAdamites. Their movement (second and third centuries) was a most\nlegitimate outcome of the Pauline and Johannine gospel. The author of\nthis so-called 'heresy,' Prodicus, really anticipated the Methodist\ndoctrine of 'sanctification,' and he was only consistent in admonishing\nhis followers that clothing was, in the Bible, the original badge\nof carnal guilt and shame, and was no longer necessary for those\nwhom Christ had redeemed from the Fall and raised to the original\ninnocence of Adam and Eve. These believers, in the appropriate\nclimate of Northern Africa, had no difficulty in carrying out their\ndoctrine practically, and having named their churches 'Paradises,'\nassembled in them quite naked. There is still a superstition in\nthe East that a snake will never attack one who is naked. The same\nAdamite doctrine--a prelapsarian perfection symbolised by nudity--was\ntaught by John Picard in Bohemia, and a flourishing sect of 'Adamites'\narose there in the fifteenth century. The Slavonian Adamites of the\nlast century--and they are known to carry on their services still in\nsecret--not only dispense with clothing, but also with sacraments and\nceremonies, which are for the imperfect, not for the perfected. Again\nand again has this logical result of the popular theology appeared,\nand with increasingly gross circumstances, as the refined and\nintelligent abandon except in name the corresponding dogmas. It is\nan impressive fact that Paul's central doctrine of 'a new creature'\nis now adopted with most realistic orthodoxy by the Mormons of Utah,\nwhose initiation consists of a dramatic performance on each candidate\nof moulding the body out of clay, breathing in the nostrils, the\n'deep sleep' presentation of an Eve to each Adam, the temptation,\nfall, and redemption. The 'saints' thus made, unfortunately, seem\nto have equally realistic ideas that the Gentiles are adherents of\nthe Prince of this world, and their sacramental bands have shown some\nstriking imitations of those events of history which, when not labelled\n'Christian,' are pronounced barbarous. Now that the old dogmatic system\nis being left more and more to the ignorant and vulgar to make over\ninto their own image and likeness, it may be hoped that elsewhere also\nthe error that libels and outrages nature will run to seed; for error,\nlike the aloe, has its period when it shoots up a high stem and--dies.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX.\n\nTHE HOLY GHOST.\n\n    A Hanover relic--Mr. Atkinson on the Dove--The Dove in the Old\n    Testament--Ecclesiastical symbol--Judicial symbol--A vision of\n    St. Dunstan's--The witness of chastity--Dove and Serpent--The\n    unpardonable sin--Inexpiable sin among the Jews--Destructive\n    power of Jehovah--Potency of the breath--Third persons of\n    Trinities--Pentecost--Christian superstitions--Mr. Moody on the\n    sin against the Holy Ghost--Mysterious fear--Idols of the cave.\n\n\nThere is in the old town of Hanover, in Germany, a schoolhouse\nin which, above the teacher's chair, there was anciently the\nrepresentation of a dove perched upon an iron branch or rod; and\nbeneath the inscription--'This shall lead you into all truth.' In the\ncourse of time the dove fell down and was removed to the museum; but\nthere is still left before the children the rod, with the admonition\nthat it will lead them into all truth. This is about as much as for\na long time was left in the average christian mind of the symbolical\nDove, the Holy Ghost. Half of its primitive sense departed, and there\nremained only an emblem of mysterious terror. More spiritual minds\nhave introduced into the modern world a conception of the Holy Ghost\nas a life-giving influence or a spirit of love, but the ancient view\nwhich regarded it as the Iron Rod of judgment and execution still\nsurvives in the notion of the 'sin against the Holy Ghost.'\n\nMr. Henry G. Atkinson writes as follows: [113]--'My old friend\nBarry Cornwall, the fine poet, once said to me, 'My dear Atkinson,\ncan you tell me the meaning of the Holy Ghost; what can it possibly\nmean?' 'Well,' I said, 'I suppose it means a pigeon. We have never\nheard of it in any other form but that of the dove descending from\nheaven to the Virgin Mary. Then we have the pretty fable of the dove\nreturning to the ark with the olive-branch, so that the Christian\nreligion may be called the Religion of the Pigeon. In the Greek Church\nthe pigeon is held sacred. St. Petersburgh is swarming with pigeons,\nbut they are never killed or disturbed. I knew a lady whose life\nwas made wretched in the belief that she had sinned the unpardonable\nsin against the Holy Ghost, and neither priest nor physician could\npersuade her out of the delusion, though in all other respects she\nwas quite sensible. She regarded herself as such a wretch that she\ncould not bear to see herself in the glass, and the looking-glasses\nhad all to be removed, and when she went to an hotel, her husband had\nto go first and have the looking-glasses of the apartments covered\nover. But what is the Holy Ghost--what is its office? Sitting with\nMiss Martineau at her house at Ambleside one day, a German lady, who\nspoke broken English, came in. She was a neighbour, and had a large\nhouse and grounds, and kept fowls. 'Oh!' she said, quite excited,\n'the beast has taken off another chicken (meaning the hawk). I saw\nit myself. The wretch! it came down just like the Holy Ghost, and\nsnatched off the chicken.' How Miss Martineau did laugh; but I don't\nknow that this story throws much light upon the subject, since it\ndoes but bring us back to the pigeon.'\n\nIt would require a volume to explain fully all the problems suggested\nin this brief note, but the more important facts may be condensed.\n\nIt is difficult to show how far the natural characteristics and habits\nof the dove are reflected in its wide-spread symbolism. Its plaintive\nnote and fondness for solitudes are indicated in the Psalmist's\naspiration, 'Oh that I had the wings of a dove, then would I fly\naway and be at rest; lo, then would I wander far off, and remain in\nthe wilderness.' [114] It is not a difficult transition from this\nassociation with the wilderness to investment with a relationship with\nthe demon of the wilderness--Azazel. So we find it in certain passages\nin Jeremiah, where the word has been suppressed in the ordinary\nEnglish version. 'The land is desolate because of the fierceness\nof the dove.' 'Let us go again to our own people to avoid the sword\nof the dove.' 'They shall flee away every one for fear of the sword\nof the dove.' [115] In India its lustres--blue and fiery--may have\nconnected it with azure-necked Siva.\n\nThe far-seeing and wonderful character of the pigeon as a carrier\nwas well known to the ancients. On Egyptian bas-reliefs priests are\nshown sending them with messages. They appear in the branches of the\noaks of Dodona, and in old Russian frescoes they sometimes perch on\nthe Tree of Knowledge in paradise. It is said that, in order to avail\nhimself of this universal symbolism, Mohammed trained a dove to perch\non his shoulder. As the raven was said to whisper secrets to Odin,\nso the dove was often pictured at the ear of God. In N\u00f4tre Dame de\nChartres, its beak is at the ear of Pope Gregory the Great.\n\nIt passed--and did not have far to go--to be the familiar of kings. It\nbrought the chrism from heaven at the baptism of Clovis. White\ndoves came to bear the soul of Louis of Thuringia to heaven. The\ndove surmounted the sceptre of Charlemagne. At the consecration of\nthe kings of France, after the ceremony of unction, white doves were\nlet loose in the church. At the consecration of a monarch in England,\na duke bears before the sovereign the sceptre with the dove.\n\nBy association with both ecclesiastical and political sovereignty,\nit came to represent very nearly the old fatal serpent power which\nhad lurked in all its transformations. When the Holy Ghost was\nrepresented as a crowned man, the dove was pictured on his wrist like\nthat falcon with which the German lady, mentioned by Mr. Atkinson,\nidentified it. But in this connection its symbolism is more especially\nreferable to a passage in Isaiah: [116] 'There shall come forth a rod\nout of the stem of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots;\nand the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom\nand understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of the\nknowledge and of the fear of the Lord.' The sanctity of the number\nseven led to the partition of the last clause into three spirits,\nmaking up the seven, which were: Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel,\nStrength, Knowledge, Piety, Fear. In some of the representations\nof these where each of the seven Doves is labelled with its name,\n'Fear' is at the top of their arch, a Psalm having said, 'The fear\nof the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.' When the knightly Order\nof the Holy Ghost was created in 1352, it was aristocratic, and,\nwhen reorganised by Henry III. of France in 1579, it was restricted\nto magisterial and political personages. With them was the spirit of\nFear certainly; and the Order shows plainly what had long been the\nideas connected with the Holy Ghost.\n\nM. Didron finds this confirmed in the legends of every country, and\nespecially refers to a story of St. Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury,\nin the tenth century. Three men, convicted of coining false money, had\nbeen condemned to death. Immediately before the celebration of mass\non the day of Pentecost, the festival of the Holy Ghost, St. Dunstan\ninquired whether justice had been done upon the three criminals:\nhe was informed in reply that the execution had been delayed on\naccount of the solemn feast of Pentecost then in celebration. 'It\nshall not be thus,' cried the indignant archbishop, and gave orders\nfor the immediate execution of the guilty men. Several of those who\nwere present remonstrated against the cruelty of that order; it was\nnevertheless obeyed.\n\nAfter the execution of the criminals, Dunstan washed his face, and\nturned with a joyful countenance towards his oratory. 'I now hope,'\nsaid he, 'that God will be pleased to accept the sacrifice I am about\nto offer;' and in fact, during the celebration of mass, at the moment\nwhen the Saint raised his hands to implore that God the Father would\nbe pleased to give peace to his Church, to guide, guard, and keep\nit in unity throughout the world, 'a dove, as white as snow, was\nseen to descend from heaven, and during the entire service remained\nwith wings extended, floating silently in air above the head of the\narchbishop.' [117]\n\nThe passionate sexual nature of the dove made it emblem of Aphrodite,\nand it became spiritualised in its consecration to the Madonna. From\nits relation to the falsely-accused Mary, there grew around the Dove\na special class of legends which show it attesting female innocence\nor avenging it. The white dove said to have issued from the mouth\nof Joan of Arc is one of many instances. There is still, I believe,\npreserved in the Lyttleton family the picture painted by Dowager\nLady Lyttleton in 1780, in commemoration of the warning of death\ngiven to Lord Lyttleton by the mother of two girls he had seduced,\nthe vision being attended by a fluttering dove. The original account\nof his vision or dream, attributed to Lord Lyttleton, mentions only\n'a bird.' When next told, it is that he 'heard a noise resembling the\nfluttering of a dove,' and on looking to the window saw 'an unhappy\nfemale whom he had seduced.' But the exigencies of orthodoxy are too\nstrong for original narratives. As the 'bird' attested an announcement\nthat on the third day (that too was gradually added) he would die,\nit must have been a dove; and as the dove attends only the innocent,\nit must have been the poor girl's mother that appeared. It was easy\nto have the woman die at the precise hour of appearance. [118] When in\nChicago in 1875, I read in one of the morning papers a very particular\naccount of how a white dove flew into the chamber window of a young\nunmarried woman in a neighbouring village, she having brought forth\na child, and solemnly declaring that she had never lost her virginity.\n\nIn this history of the symbolism of the Dove the theological\ndevelopment of the Holy Ghost has been outlined. We have seen\nin the previous chapter that the Holy Spirit is in opposition to\nthe Natural Air,--repository of evils. The Dove symbolised this\naspect of it in hovering over the world emerging from its diluvial\nbaptism, and also over the typical new Adam (Jesus) coming from his\nbaptism. But in this it corresponds with the serpent-symbol of life\nin Egyptian mythology brooding over the primal mundane egg (as in\nFig. 23, vol. i.). Nathaniel Hawthorne found a mystical meaning in\nthe beautiful group at Rome representing a girl pressing a dove to\nher bosom while she is attacked by a serpent. But in their theological\naspects the Dove and the Serpent blend; they are at once related and\nseparated in Christ's words, 'Be ye wise as serpents and harmless\nas doves;' but in the office of the Holy Ghost as representing a\ndivine Intelligence, and its consequent evolution as executor of\ndivine judgments, it fulfils in Christendom much the same part as\nthe Serpent in the more primitive mythologies.\n\n'Every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven unto men,' said a legendary\nChrist; [119] 'but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be\nforgiven. And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man,\nit will be forgiven him, but whosoever shall speak against the Holy\nGhost, it will not be forgiven him, neither in this world nor in that\nto come.' In Mark [120] it is said, 'All things shall be forgiven\nunto the sons of men, the sins and the blasphemies wherewith they\nshall blaspheme: but whosoever shall blaspheme against the Holy\nGhost has never forgiveness, but will be guilty of everlasting sin;\n(because they said, He has an unclean spirit).' When Christ uttered\nthese tremendous words, no disciple seems to have been startled,\nor to have inquired into the nature of that sin, so much worse than\nany offence against himself or the Father, which has since employed\nso much theological speculation.\n\nIn fact, they needed no explanation: it was an old story;\nthe unpardonable sin was a familiar feature of ancient Jewish\nlaw. Therein the sin excluded from expiation was any presumptuous\nlanguage or action against Jehovah. It is easy to see why this was\nso. Real offences, crimes against man or society, were certain of\npunishment, through the common interest and need. But the honour\nand interests of Jehovah, not being obvious or founded in nature,\nrequired special and severe statutes. The less a thing is protected\nby its intrinsic and practical importance, the more it must, if at\nall, be artificially protected. This is illustrated in the story\nof Eli and his two sons. These youths were guilty of the grossest\nimmoralities, but not a word was said against them, they being sons\nof the High Priest, except a mild remonstrance from Eli himself. But\nwhen on an occasion these youths tasted the part of the sacrificial\nmeat offered to Jehovah, the divine wrath was kindled. Eli, much more\nterrified at this ceremonial than the moral offence, said to his sons,\n'If one man sin against another, the judge shall judge him, but if a\nman sin against Jehovah, who shall entreat for him?' In protecting\nhis interests, Jehovah's destroying angel does not allude to any\nother offence of Eli's sons except that against himself. But when the\npriestly guardians of the divine interests came with their people under\nthe control of successive Gallios,--aliens who cared not for their\nceremonial law, and declined to permit the infliction of its penalties,\nas England now forbids suttee in India,--the priests could only pass\nsentences; execution of them had to be adjourned to a future world.\n\nThe doctrine of a future state of rewards and punishments is not one\nwhich a priesthood would naturally prefer or invent. So long as a\npriesthood possesses the power of life and death over the human body,\nthey would not, by suggesting future awards, risk the possibility\nof a heresy arising to maintain Deorum injuria diis cura. But where\nan alien jurisdiction has relegated to local deities the defence of\ntheir own majesty, there must grow up the theory that such offences\nas cannot be expiated on earth are unpardonable, and must, because\nof the legal impunity with which they can be committed, be all the\nmore terribly avenged somewhere else.\n\nUnder alien influences, also, the supreme and absolute government of\nJehovah had been divided, as is elsewhere described. He who originally\nclaimed the empire of both light and darkness, good and evil, when\nhis rivalry against other gods was on a question of power, had to be\nrelieved of responsibility for earthly evils when the moral sense\ndemanded dualism. Thus there grew up a separate personification of\nthe destructive power of Jehovah, which had been supposed to lodge\nin his breath. The last breath of man obviously ends life; there is\nnothing more simple in its natural germ than the association of the\nfirst breath and the last with the Creative Spirit. [121] This potency\nof the breath or spirit is found in many ancient regions. It is the\nnatural teaching of the destructive simoom, [122] or even of the annual\nautumnal breath which strikes the foliage with death. Persia especially\nabounded with superstitions of this character. By a sorcerer's breath\nthe two serpents were evoked from the breast of Zoh\u00e1k. Nizami has woven\nthe popular notion into his story of the two physicians who tried to\ndestroy each other; one of whom survived his rival's poisonous draught,\nand killed that rival by making him smell a flower on which he had\nbreathed. [123] Such notions as these influenced powerfully the later\ndevelopment of the idea of Jehovah, concerning whom it was said of old,\n'With the breath of his mouth shall he slay the wicked;' 'the breath\nof the Lord like a stream of brimstone doth kindle (Tophet).'\n\nMeanwhile in all the Trinitarian races which were to give form to\nchristian Mythology, destructiveness had generally (not invariably)\nbecome the traditional r\u00f4le of the Third Person. [124] In Egypt there\nwere Osiris the Creator, Horus the Preserver, Typhon the Destroyer;\nin Babylonia, Anu the Upper Air, Sin (Uri) the Moon, Samis the Sun. In\nAssyria the Sun regains his place, and deadly influences were ascribed\nto the Moon. In India, Brahma the Father, Vishnu the Saviour, Siva the\nDestroyer; in Persia, Zeru\u00e2ne-Akrane Infinite Time, Ormuzd the Good,\nAhriman the Evil; in Greece Zeus, Poseid\u00f4n, and Had\u00eas, or Heaven,\nOcean, and Hell, were the first-born of Time. The Trinitarian form had\ngradually crept in among the Jews, though their Jahvistic theology only\nadmitted its application to inferior deities--Cain, Abel, Seth; Moses,\nAaron, Hur; Abraham, Isaac, Jacob. As time went on, these succeeded\nthe ideas of Jehovah, Messias, and Wisdom. But already the serpent\nwas the wisest of all the beasts of the field in Jewish mythology;\nand the personified Wisdom was fully prepared to be identified with\nAthene, the Greek Wisdom, who sprang armed from the head of Zeus\n(the Air), and whose familiar was a serpent.\n\nOn the other hand, however, the divine Breath had also its benign\nsignificance. Siva ('the auspicious') inherited the character of Rudra\n('roaring storm'), but it was rather supported later on by his wife\nK\u00e1li. Athena though armed was the goddess of agriculture. The breath\nof Elohim had given man life. 'I now draw in and now let forth,'\nsays Krishna; [125] 'I am generation and dissolution; I am death\nand immortality.' 'Thou wilt fancy it the dawning zephyr of an early\nspring,' says S\u00e0di; 'but it is the breath of Isa, or Jesus; for in\nthat fresh breath and verdure the dead earth is reviving.' [126]\n'The voice of the turtle is heard in the land,' sings Solomon.\n\nWhen the Third Person of the Christian Trinity was constituted,\nit inherited the fatality of all the previous Third Persons--the\nDestroyers--while it veiled them in mystery. When the Holy Ghost\ninspired the disciples the account is significant. [127] 'Suddenly\nthere came a sound from heaven as of a rushing mighty wind,\n... and there appeared unto them cloven tongues like as of fire,\nand it sat upon each of them. And they were all filled with the Holy\nGhost.' This was on the Day of Pentecost, the harvest festival, when\nthe first-fruits were offered to the quickening Spirit or Breath of\nnature; but the destructive feature is there also--the tongues are\ncloven like those of serpents. The beneficent power was manifest at\nthe gate called Beautiful when the lame man was made to walk by Peter's\npower; but its fatal power was with the same apostle, and when he said,\n'Why hath Satan filled thy heart to lie to the Holy Ghost?' instantly\nAnanias fell down and gave up the ghost. [128] The spirit was carried,\nit is said, in the breath of the apostles. Its awfulness had various\nillustrations. Mary offered up two doves in token of her conception by\nthe Holy Ghost. Jesus is described as scourging from the temple those\nthat sold doves, and the allegory is repeated in Peter's denunciation\nof Simon Magus, who offered money for the gift of the Holy Ghost. [129]\n\nIn one of his sermons Mr. Moody said, 'Nearly every day we have\nsomebody coming into the inquiry-room very much discouraged and\ndisheartened and cast down, because they think they have committed\na sin against the Holy Ghost, and that there is no hope for\nthem.' Mr. Moody said he believed the sin was nearly impossible, but\nhe adds this remarkable statement, 'I don't remember of ever hearing\na man swear by the Holy Ghost except once, and then I looked upon\nhim expecting him to fall dead, and my blood ran cold when I heard\nhim.' But it is almost as rare to hear prayers addressed to the Holy\nGhost; and both phenomena--for praying and swearing are radically\nrelated--are no doubt survivals of the ancient notions which I\nhave described. The forces of nature out of which the symbol grew,\nthe life that springs from death and grows by decay, is essentially\nrepeated again by those who adhere to the letter that kills, and\nalso by those who ascend with the spirit that makes alive. It is\nprobable that no more terrible form of the belief in a Devil survives\nthan this Holy Ghost Dogma, which, lurking in vagueness and mystery,\nlike the serpent of which it was born, passes by the self-righteous\nto cast its shadows over the most sensitive and lowly minds, chiefly\nthose of pure women prone to exaggerate their least blemishes.\n\nIn right reason the fatal Holy Ghost stands as the type of that Fear\nby which priesthoods have been able to preserve their institutions\nafter the deities around whom they grew had become unpresentable,\nand which could best be fostered beneath the veil of mystery. They\nwho love darkness rather than light because their deeds cannot bear\nthe light, veil their gods not to abolish them but to preserve\nthem. Calvinism is veiled, and Athanasianism, and Romanism; they\nare all veiled idols, whose power lives by being hid in a mass of\nphilology and casuistry. So long as Christianity can persuade the\nPope and Dr. Martineau, Dean Stanley and Mr. Moody, Quakers, Shakers,\nJumpers, all to describe themselves alike as 'Christians,' its real\nnature will be veiled, its institutions will cumber the ground, and\ndraw away the strength and intellect due to humanity; the indefinable\n'infidel' will be a devil. This process has been going on for a long\ntime. The serpent-god, accursed by the human mind which grew superior\nto it, has crept into its Ark; but its fang and venom linger with that\nBishop breathing on a priest, the priest breathing on a sick child,\nand bears down side by side with science that atmosphere of mystery\nin which creep all the old reptiles that throttle common sense and\nsend their virus through all the social frame.\n\nIn demonology the Holy Ghost is not a Devil, but in it are reflected\nthe diabolisation of Culture and Progress and Art. It was these\n'Devils' which compelled the gods to veil themselves through successive\nages, and to spiritualise their idols and dogmas to save their\ninstitutions. The deities concealed have proved far more potent over\nthe popular imagination than when visible. The indefinable terrible\nmenace of the Holy Ghost was a consummate reply to that equally\nindefinable spirit of loathing and contempt which rises among the\ncultured and refined towards things that have become unreal, their\nformalities and their cant. It is this ever-recurring necessity that\nenables clergymen to denounce belief in Hell and a Devil in churches\nwhich assuredly would never have been built but for the superstition\nso denounced. The ancient beliefs and the present denunciation of them\nare on the same thread,--the determination of a Church to survive and\nhold its power at any and every cost. The jesuitical power to veil\nthe dogma is the most successful method of confronting the Spirit\nof an Age, which in the eye of reason is the only holy spirit, but\nwhich to ecclesiastical power struggling with enlightenment is the\nonly formidable Satan.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXI.\n\nANTICHRIST.\n\n    The Kali Age--Satan sifting Simon--Satan as Angel of\n    Light--Epithets of Antichrist--The C\u00e6sars--Nero--Sacraments\n    imitated by Pagans--Satanic signs and wonders--Jerome\n    on Antichrist--Armillus--Al Dajjail--Luther on\n    Mohammed--'Mawmet'--Satan 'God's ape'--Medi\u00e6val notions--Witches\n    Sabbath--An Infernal Trinity--Serpent of Sins--Antichrist\n    Popes--Luther as Antichrist--Modern notions of Antichrist.\n\n\nIn the 'Padma Purana' it is recorded that when King Vena embraced\nheretical doctrine and abjured the temples and sacrifices, the people\nfollowing him, seven powerful Rishis, high priests, visited him\nand entreated him to return to their faith. They said, 'These acts,\nO king, which thou art performing, are not of our holy traditions,\nnor fit for our religion, but are such as shall be performed by\nmankind at the entrance of Kali, the last and sinful age, when thy\nnew faith shall be received by all, and the service of the gods be\nutterly relinquished.' King Vena, being thus in advance of his time,\nwas burned on the sacred grass, while a mantra was performed for him.\n\nThis theory of Kali is curious as indicating a final triumph of the\nenemies of the gods. In the Scandinavian theory of 'Ragnarok,' the\nTwilight of the gods, there also seems to have been included no hope\nof the future victory of the existing gods. In the Pars\u00ed faith we\nfirst meet with the belief in a general catastrophe followed by the\nsupremacy and universal sway of good. This faith characterised the\nlater Hebrew prophecies, and is the spirit of Paul's brave saying,\n'When all things shall be subjected unto him, then also shall the\nSon himself be subject unto him that put all things under him, that\nGod may be all in all.'\n\nWhen, however, theology and metaphysics advanced and modelled this\nfiery lava of prophetic and apostolic ages into dogmatic shapes,\nevil was accorded an equal duration with good. The conflict between\nChrist and his foes was not to end with the conversion or destruction\nof his foes, but his final coming as monarch of the world was to\nwitness the chaining up of the Archfiend in the Pit.\n\nChrist's own idea of Satan, assuming certain reported expressions to\nhave been really uttered by him, must have been that which regarded\nhim as a Tempter to evil, whose object was to test the reality of\nfaith. 'Simon, Simon, behold, Satan asked you for himself, that he\nmight sift you as the wheat; but I made supplication for thee, that\nthy faith fail not; and when once thou hast returned, confirm thy\nbrethren. And he said unto him, Lord, I am ready to go with thee,\nboth into prison and into death. And he said, I tell thee, Peter,\na cock will not crow this day till thou wilt thrice deny that thou\nknowest me.' [130] Such a sentiment could not convey to Jewish ears\na degraded notion of Satan, except as being a nocturnal spirit who\nmust cease his work at cock-crow. It is an adaptation of what Jehovah\nhimself was said to do, in the prophecy of Amos. 'I will not utterly\ndestroy the house of Jacob, saith the Lord.... I will sift the house\nof Israel among all nations, like as corn is sifted in a sieve,\nyet shall not the least grain fall upon the earth.' [131]\n\nPaul, too, appears to have had some such conception of Satan, since he\nspeaks of an evil-doer as delivered up to Satan 'for the destruction\nof the flesh that the spirit may be saved.' [132] There is, however,\nin another passage an indication of the distinctness with which Paul\nand his friends had conceived a fresh adaptation of Satan as obstacle\nof their work. 'For such,' he says, 'are false apostles, deceitful\nworkers, transforming themselves into apostles of Christ. And no\nmarvel: for Satan transforms himself into an angel of light. It is\nno great thing therefore if his ministers also transform themselves\nas ministers of righteousness; whose end will be according to their\nworks.' [133] It may be noted here that Paul does not think of Satan\nhimself as transforming himself to a minister of righteousness, but of\nSatan's ministers as doing so. It is one of a number of phrases in the\nNew Testament which reveal the working of a new movement towards an\nexpression of its own. Real and far-reaching religious revolutions in\nhistory are distinguished from mere sectarian modifications, which they\nsum up in nothing more than in their new phraseology. When Jehovah,\nMessias, and Satan are gradually supplanted by Father, Christ, and\nAntichrist (or Man of Sin, False Christ, Withholder (katechon), False\nProphet, Son of Perdition, Mystery of Iniquity, Lawless One), it is\nplain that new elements are present, and new emergencies. These varied\nphrases just quoted could not, indeed, crystallise for a long time into\nany single name for the new Obstacle to the new life, for during the\nsame time the new life itself was too living, too various, to harden\nin any definite shape or be marked with any special name. The only New\nTestament writer who uses the word Antichrist is the so-called Apostle\nJohn; and it is interesting to remark that it is by him connected\nwith a dogmatic statement of the nature of Christ and definition of\nheresy. 'Every spirit that confesses Jesus Christ is come in the flesh\nis of God; and every spirit that confesses not Jesus is not of God:\nand this is the spirit of Antichrist, whereof ye have heard that\nit comes; and now it is in the world already.' [134] This language,\ncharacteristic of the middle and close of the second century, [135]\nis in strong contrast with Paul's utterance in the first century,\ndescribing the Man of Sin (or of lawlessness, the son of perdition),\nas one 'who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God,\nor that is worshipped; so that he sat in the temple of God, showing\nhimself that he is God.' [136] Christ has not yet begun to supplant\nGod; to Paul he is the Son of God confronting the Son of Destruction,\nthe divine man opposed by the man of sin. When the nature of Christ\nbecomes the basis of a dogma, the man of sin is at once defined as\nthe opponent of that dogma.\n\nAs this dogma struggled on to its consummation and victory, it\nnecessarily took the form of a triumph over the C\u00e6sars, who were\nproclaiming themselves gods, and demanding worship as such. The writer\nof the second Epistle bearing Peter's name saw those christians who\nyielded to such authority typified in Balaam, the erring prophet who\nwas opposed by the angel; [137] the writer of the Gospel of John saw\nthe traitor Judas as the 'son of perdition,' [138] representing Jesus\nas praying that the rest of his disciples might be kept 'out of the\nevil one;' and many similar expressions disclose the fact that, towards\nthe close of the second century, and throughout the third, the chief\nobstacle of those who were just beginning to be called 'Christians'\nwas the temptation offered by Rome to the christians themselves to\nbetray their sect. It was still a danger to name the very imperial\ngods who successively set themselves up to be worshipped at Rome,\nbut the pointing of the phrases is unmistakable long before the last\nof the pagan emperors held the stirrup for the first christian Pontiff\nto mount his horse.\n\nNero had answered to the portrait of 'the son of perdition sitting\nin the temple of God' perfectly. He aspired to the title 'King\nof the Jews.' He solemnly assumed the name of Jupiter. He had his\ntemples and his priests, and shared divine honours with his mistress\nPopp\u00e6a. Yet, when Nero and his glory had perished under those phials\nof wrath described in the Apocalypse, a more exact image of the\ninsidious 'False Christ' appeared in Vespasian. His alleged miracles\n('lying wonders'), and the reported prediction of his greatness\nby a prophet on Mount Carmel, his oppression of the Jews, who had\nto contribute the annual double drachma to support the temples and\ngods which Vespasian had restored, altogether made this decorous and\npopular emperor a more formidable enemy than the 'Beast' Nero whom\nhe succeeded. The virtues and philosophy of Marcus Aurelius still\nincreased the danger. Political conditions favoured all those who\nwere inclined to compromise, and to mingle the popular pagan and the\nJewish festivals, symbols, and ceremonies. In apocalyptic metaphor,\nVespasian and Aurelius are the two horns of the Lamb who spake like\nthe Dragon, i.e., Nero (Rev. xiii. 11).\n\nThe beginnings of that mongrel of superstitions which at last gained\nthe name of Christianity were in the liberation, by decay of parts\nand particles, of all those systems which Julius C\u00e6sar had caged\ntogether for mutual destruction. 'With new thrones rise new altars,'\nsays Byron's Sardanapalus; but it is still more true that, with new\nthrones all altars crumble a little. At an early period the differences\nbetween the believers in Christ and those they called idolaters\nwere mainly in name; and, with the increase of Gentile converts,\nthe adoption of the symbolism and practices of the old religions was\nso universal that the quarrel was about originality. 'The Devil,'\nsays Tertullian, 'whose business it is to pervert the truth, mimics\nthe exact circumstances of the Divine Sacraments in the mysteries of\nidols. He himself baptizes some, that is to say, his believers and\nfollowers: he promises forgiveness of sins from the sacred fount,\nand thus initiates them into the religion of Mithras; he thus marks\non the forehead his own soldiers: he then celebrates the oblation of\nbread; he brings in the symbol of resurrection, and wins the crown\nwith the sword.' [139]\n\nWhat masses of fantastic nonsense it was possible to cram into\none brain was shown in the time of Nero, the brain being that of\nSimon the Magician. Simon was, after all, a representative man;\nhe reappears in christian Gnosticism, and Peter, who denounced him,\nreappears also in the phrenzy of Montanism. Take the followers of\nthis Sorcerer worshipping his image in the likeness of Jupiter,\nthe Moon, and Minerva; and Montanus with his wild women Priscilla\nand Maximilla going about claiming to be inspired by the Holy Ghost\nto re-establish Syrian orthodoxy and asceticism; and we have fair\nspecimens of the parties that glared at each other, and apostrophised\neach other as children of Belial. They competed with each other by\npretended miracles. They both claimed the name of Christ, and all the\napproved symbols and sacraments. The triumph of one party turned the\nother into Antichrist.\n\nThus in process of time, as one hydra-head fell only to be followed\nby another, there was defined a Spirit common to and working through\nthem all--a new devil, whose special office was hostility to Christ,\nand whose operations were through those who claimed to be christians\nas well as through open enemies.\n\nAs usual, when the phrases, born of real struggles, had lost their\nmeaning, they were handed up to the theologians to be made into\nperpetual dogmas. Out of an immeasurable mass of theories and\nspeculations, we may regard the following passage from Jerome as\nshowing what had become the prevailing belief at the beginning of\nthe fifth century. 'Let us say that which all ecclesiastical writers\nhave handed down, viz., that at the end of the world, when the Roman\nEmpire is to be destroyed, there will be ten kings, who will divide\nthe Roman world among them; and there will arise an eleventh little\nking who will subdue three of the ten kings, that is, the king of\nEgypt, of Africa, and of Ethiopia; and on these having been slain,\nthe seven other kings will submit.' 'And behold,' he says, 'in the\nram were the eyes of a man'--this is that we may not suppose him to\nbe a devil or a d\u00e6mon, as some have thought, but a man in whom Satan\nwill dwell utterly and bodily--'and a mouth speaking great things;'\nfor he is the 'man of sin, the son of perdition, who sitteth in the\ntemple of God making himself as God.' [140]\n\nThe 'Little Horn' of Daniel has proved a cornucopia of Antichrists. Not\nonly the christians but the Jews and the mussulmans have definite\nbeliefs on the subject. The rabbinical name for Antichrist is Armillus,\na word found in the Targum (Isa. xi. 4): 'By the word of his mouth\nthe wicked Armillus shall die.' There will be twelve signs of the\nMessiah's coming--appearance of three apostate kings, terrible heat of\nthe sun, dew of blood, healing dew, the sun darkened for thirty days,\nuniversal power of Rome with affliction for Jews, and the appearance\nof the first Messias (Joseph's tribe), Nehemiah. The next and seventh\nsign will be the appearance of Armillus, born of a marble statue in a\nchurch at Rome. The Romans will accept him as their god, and the whole\nworld be subject to him. Nehemiah alone will refuse to worship him,\nand for this will be slain, and the Jews suffer terrible things. The\neighth sign will be the appearance of the angel Michael with three\nblasts of his trumpet--which shall call forth Elias, the forerunner,\nand the true Messias (Ben David), and bring on the war with Armillus\nwho shall perish, and all christians with him. The ten tribes shall\nbe gathered into Paradise. Messias shall wed the fairest daughter of\ntheir race, and when he dies his sons shall succeed him, and reign\nin unbroken line over a beatified Israel.\n\nThe mussulman modification of the notion of Antichrist is very\nremarkable. They call him Al Dajjail, that is, the impostor. They say\nthat Mohammed told his follower Tamisri Al-Dari, that at the end of\nthe world Antichrist would enter Jerusalem seated on an ass; but that\nJesus will then make his second coming to encounter him. The Beast of\nthe Apocalypse will aid Antichrist, but Jesus will be joined by Imam\nMahadi, who has never died; together they will subdue Antichrist,\nand thereafter the mussulmans and christians will for ever be united\nin one religion. The Jews, however, will regard Antichrist as their\nexpected Messias. Antichrist will be blind of one eye, and deaf of\none ear. 'Unbeliever' will be written on his forehead. In that day\nthe sun will rise in the west. [141]\n\nThe christians poorly requited this amicable theory of the mussulmans\nby very extensively identifying Mohammed as Antichrist, at one\nperiod. From that period came the English word mawmet (idol),\nand mummery (idolatry), both of which, probably, are derived from\nthe name of the Arabian Prophet. Daniel's 'Little Horn' betokens,\naccording to Martin Luther, Mohammed. 'But what are the Little Horn's\nEyes? The Little Horn's Eyes,' says he, 'mean Mohammed's Alkoran,\nor Law, wherewith he ruleth. In the which Law there is nought but\nsheer human reason (eitel menschliche Vernunft).' ... 'For his Law,'\nhe reiterates, 'teaches nothing but that which human understanding and\nreason may well like.' ... Wherefore 'Christ will come upon him with\nfire and brimstone.' When he wrote this--in his 'army sermon' against\nthe Turks--in 1529, he had never seen a Koran. 'Brother Richard's'\n(Predigerordens) Confutatio Alcoran, dated 1300, formed the exclusive\nbasis of his argument. But in Lent of 1540, he relates, a Latin\ntranslation, though a very unsatisfactory one, fell into his hands,\nand once more he returned to Brother Richard, and did his Refutation\ninto German, supplementing his version with brief but racy notes. This\nBrother Richard had, according to his own account, gone in quest of\nknowledge to 'Babylon, that beautiful city of the Saracens,' and at\nBabylon he had learnt Arabic and been inured in the evil ways of the\nSaracens. When he had safely returned to his native land he set about\ncombating the same. And this is his exordium:--'At the time of the\nEmperor Heraclius there arose a man, yea, a Devil, and a first-born\nchild of Satan, ... who wallowed in ... and he was dealing in the Black\nArt, and his name it was Machumet.' ... This work Luther made known to\nhis countrymen by translating and commenting, prefacing, and rounding\nit off by an epilogue. True, his notes amount to little more but an\noccasional 'Oh fie, for shame, you horrid Devil, you damned Mahomet,'\nor 'O Satan, Satan, you shall pay for that,' or, 'That's it, Devils,\nSaracens, Turks, it's all the same,' or, 'Here the Devil smells a rat,'\nor briefly, 'O Pfui Dich, Teufel!' except when he modestly, with a\nquery, suggests whether those Assassins, who, according to his text,\nare regularly educated to go out into the world in order to kill and\nslay all Worldly Powers, may not, perchance, be the Gypsies or the\n'Tattern' (Tartars); or when he breaks down with a 'Hic nescio quid\ndicat translator.' His epilogue, however, is devoted to a special\ndisquisition as to whether Mohammed or the Pope be worse. And in the\ntwenty-second chapter of this disquisition he has arrived at the\nfinal conclusion that, after all, the Pope is worse, and that he,\nand not Mohammed, is the real 'Endechrist.' 'Wohlen,' he winds up,\n'God grant us his grace, and punish both the Pope and Mohammed,\ntogether with their devils. I have done my part as a true prophet\nand teacher. Those who won't listen may leave it alone.' In similar\nstrains speaks the learned and gentle Melancthon. In an introductory\nepistle to a reprint of that same Latin Koran which displeased Luther\nso much, he finds fault with Mohammed, or rather, to use his own\nwords, he thinks that 'Mohammed is inspired by Satan,' because he\n'does not explain what sin is,' and further, since he 'showeth not the\nreason of human misery.' He agrees with Luther about the Little Horn:\nthough in another treatise he is rather inclined to see in Mohammed\nboth Gog and Magog. And 'Mohammed's sect,' he says, 'is altogether\nmade up (conflata) of blasphemy, robbery, and shameful lusts.' Nor\ndoes it matter in the least what the Koran is all about. 'Even if\nthere were anything less scurrilous in the book, it need not concern\nus any more than the portents of the Egyptians, who invoked snakes\nand cats.... Were it not that partly this Mohammedan pest, and partly\nthe Pope's idolatry, have long been leading us straight to wreck and\nruin--may God have mercy upon some of us!' [142]\n\n'Mawmet' was used by Wicliffe for idol in his translation of the\nNew Testament, Acts vii. 41, 'And they made a calf in those days and\noffered a sacrifice to the Mawmet' (idol). The word, though otherwise\nderived by some, is probably a corruption of Mohammed. In the 'Mappa\nMundi' of the thirteenth century we find the representation of the\ngolden calf in the promontory of Sinai, with the superscription 'Mahum'\nfor Mohammed, whose name under various corruptions, such as Mahound,\nMawmet, &c., became a general byword in the medi\u00e6val languages for an\nidol. In a missionary hymn of Wesley's Mohammed is apostrophised as--\n\n\n            That Arab thief, as Satan bold,\n            Who quite destroyed Thy Asian fold;\n\n\nand the Almighty is adjured to--\n\n\n            The Unitarian fiend expel,\n            And chase his doctrine back to Hell.\n\n\nIn these days, when the very mention of the Devil raises a smile,\nwe can hardly realise the solemnity with which his work was once\nviewed. When Goethe represents Mephistopheles as undertaking to\nteach Faust's class in theology and dwells on his orthodoxy, it\nis the refrain of the faith of many generations. The Devil was not\n'God's Ape,' as Tertullian called him, in any comical way; not only\nwas his ceremonial believed to be modelled on that of God, but his\ninspiration of his followers was believed to be quite as potent and\nearnest. Tertullian was constrained to write in this strain--'Blush,\nmy Roman fellow-soldiers, even if ye are not to be judged by Christ,\nbut by any soldier of Mithras, who when he is undergoing initiation\nin the cave, the very camp of the Powers of Darkness, when the wreath\nis offered him (a sword being placed between as if in semblance of\nmartyrdom), and then about to be set on his head, he is warned to\nput forth his hand and push the wreath away, transferring it to,\nperchance, his shoulder, saying at the same time, My only crown is\nMithras. And thenceforth he never wears a wreath; and this is a mark\nhe has for a test, whenever tried as to his initiation, for he is\nimmediately proved to be a soldier of Mithras if he throws down the\nwreath offered him, saying his crown is in his god. Let us therefore\nacknowledge the craft of the Devil, who mimics certain things of\nthose that be divine, in order that he may confound and judge us by\nthe faith of his own followers.'\n\nThis was written before the exaltation of Christianity under\nConstantine. When the age of the martyrdom of the so-called pagans\ncame on, these formul\u00e6 became real, and the christians were still\nmore confounded by finding that the worshippers of the Devil,\nas they thought them, could yield up their lives in many parts of\nEurope as bravely for their faith as any christian had ever done. The\n'Prince of this world' became thus an unmeaning phrase except for\nthe heretics. Christ had become the Prince of this world; and he was\nopposed by religious devotees as earnest as any who had suffered under\nNero. The relation of the Opposition to the Devil was yet more closely\ndefined when it claimed the christian name for its schism or heresy,\nand when it carried its loyalty to the Adversary of the Church to the\nextent of suffering martyrdom. 'Tell me, holy father,' said Evervinus\nto St. Bernard, concerning the Albigenses, 'how is this? They entered\nto the stake and bore the torment of the fire not only with patience,\nbut with joy and gladness. I wish your explanation, how these members\nof the Devil could persist in their heresy with a courage and constancy\nscarcely to be found in the most religious of the faith of Christ?'\n\nUnder these circumstances the personification of Antichrist had\na natural but still wonderful development. He was to be born of a\nvirgin, in Babylon, to be educated at Bethsaida and Chorazin, and to\nmake a triumphal entry into Jerusalem, proclaiming himself the Son of\nGod. In the interview at Messina (1202) between Richard I. and the\nAbbot Joachim of Floris, the king said, 'I thought that Antichrist\nwould be born at Antioch or in Babylon, and of the tribe of Dan,\nand would reign in the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem, and would\nwalk in that land in which Christ walked, and would reign in it for\nthree years and a half, and would dispute against Elijah and Enoch,\nand would kill them, and would afterwards die; and that after his\ndeath God would give sixty days of repentance, in which those might\nrepent which should have erred from the way of truth, and have been\nseduced by the preaching of Antichrist and his false prophets.'\n\nThis belief was reflected in Western Europe in the belief that the\ncongregation of Witches assembled on their Sabbath (an institution\nthen included among paganisms) to celebrate grand mass to the Devil,\nand that all the primitive temples were raised in honour of Satan. In\nthe Russian Church the correspondence between the good and evil powers,\nfollowing their primitive faith in the conflict between Byelbog and\nTchernibog (white god and black god), went to the curious extent of\npicturing in hell a sort of infernal Trinity. The Father throned in\nHeaven with the Son between his knees and the Dove beside or beneath\nhim, was replied to by a majestic Satan in hell, holding his Son\n(Judas) on his knees, and the Serpent acting as counteragent of\nthe Dove. This singular arrangement may still be seen in many of\nthe pictures which cover the walls of the oldest Russian churches\n(Fig. 9). The infernal god is not without a solemn majesty answering\nto that of his great antagonist above. The Serpent of Sins proceeds\nfrom the diabolical Father and Son, passing from beneath their throne\nthrough one of the two mouths of Hell, and then winds upward, hungrily\nopening its jaws near the terrible Balances where souls are weighed\n(Fig. 10). Along its hideous length are seated at regular intervals\nnine winged devils, representing probably antagonists of the nine\nSephiroth or \u00c6ons of the Gnostic theology. Each is armed with a hook\nwhereby the souls weighed and found wanting may be dragged. The\nsins which these devils represent are labelled, generally on\nrings around the serpent, and increase in heinousness towards the\nhead. It is a curious fact that the Sin nearest the head is marked\n'Unmercifulness.' Strange and unconscious sarcasm on an Omnipotent\nDeity under whose sway exists this elaboration of a scheme of sins\nand tortures precisely corresponding to the scheme of virtues and joys!\n\nTruly said the Epistle of John, there be many Antichrists. If this\nwas true before the word Christianity had been formed, or the system\nit names, what was the case afterwards? For centuries we find vast\nsystems denouncing each other as Antichrist. And ultimately, as a\nsubtle hardly-conscious heresy spread abroad, the great excommunicator\nof antichrists itself, Rome, acquired that title, which it has\nnever shaken off since. The See of Rome did not first receive that\nappellation from Protestants, but from its own chiefs. Gregory himself\n(A.C. 590) started the idea by declaring that any man who held even\nthe shadow of such power as the Popes arrogated to themselves after\nhis time would be the forerunner of Antichrist. Arnulphus, Bishop\nof Orleans, in an invective against John XV. at Rheims (A.C. 991),\nintimated that a Pope destitute of charity was Antichrist. But the\nstigma was at length fixed (twelfth century) by Amalrich of Bena\n('Quia Papa esset Antichristus et Roma Babylon et ipse sedit in\nMonte Oliveti, i.e., in pinguedine potestatis'); and also by the\nAbbot Joachim (A.C. 1202). The theory of Richard I., as stated to\nJoachim concerning Antichrist, has already been quoted. It was in the\npresence of the Archbishops of Rouen and Auxerre, and the Bishop of\nBayonne, and represented their opinion and the common belief of the\ntime. But Joachim said the Second Apocalyptic Beast represented some\ngreat prelate who will be like Simon Magus, and, as it were, universal\nPontiff, and that very Antichrist of whom St. Paul speaks. Hildebrand\nwas the first Pope to whom this ugly label was affixed, but the\ncareer of Alexander VI. (Roderic Borgia) made it for ever irremovable\nfor the Protestant mind. There is in the British Museum a volume of\ncaricatures, dated 1545, in which occurs an ingenious representation\nof Alexander VI. The Pope is first seen in his ceremonial robes; but\na leaf being raised, another figure is joined to the lower part of the\nformer, and there appears the papal devil, the cross in his hand being\nchanged to a pitchfork (Fig. 11). Attached to it is an explanation in\nGerman giving the legend of the Pope's death. He was poisoned (1503)\nby the cup he had prepared for another man. It was afterwards said\nthat he had secured the papacy by aid of the Devil. Having asked\nhow long he would reign, the Devil returned an equivocal answer;\nand though Alexander understood that it was to be fifteen years, it\nproved to be only eleven. When in 1520 Pope Leo X. issued his formal\nbull against Luther, the reformer termed it 'the execrable bull of\nAntichrist.' An Italian poem of the time having represented Luther\nas the offspring of Meg\u00e6ra, the Germans returned the invective in a\nform more likely to impress the popular mind; namely, in a caricature\n(Fig. 12), representing the said Fury as nursing the Pope. This\ncaricature is also of date 1545, and with it were others showing\nAlecto and Tisiphone acting in other capacities for the papal babe.\n\nThe Lutherans had made the discovery that the number of the Apocalyptic\nBeast, 666, put into Hebrew numeral letters, contained the words\nAberin Kadescha Papa (our holy father the Pope). The downfall of this\nAntichrist was a favourite theme of pulpit eloquence, and also with\nartists. A very spirited pamphlet was printed (1521), and illustrated\nwith designs by Luther's friend Lucas Cranach. It was entitled\nPassional Christi und Antichristi. The fall of the papal Antichrist\n(Fig. 13), has for its companion one of Christ washing the feet of\nhis disciples.\n\nBut the Catholics could also make discoveries; and among many other\nthings they found that the word 'Luther' in Hebrew numerals also made\nthe number of the Beast. It was remembered that one of the earliest\npredictions concerning Antichrist was that he would travesty the birth\nof Christ from a virgin by being born of a nun by a Bishop. Luther's\nmarriage with the nun Catharine von Bora came sufficiently near the\nprediction to be welcomed by his enemies. The source of his inspiration\nas understood by Catholics is cleverly indicated in a caricature of\nthe period (Fig. 14).\n\nThe theory that the Papacy represents Antichrist has so long been the\nsolemn belief of rebels against its authority, that it has become a\nvulgarised article of Protestant faith. On the other hand, Catholics\nappear to take a political and prospective view of Antichrist. Cardinal\nManning, in his pastoral following the election of Leo XIII., said:\n'A tide of revolution has swept over all countries. Every people\nin Europe is inwardly divided against itself, and the old society\nof Christendom, with its laws, its sanctities, and its stability,\nis giving way before the popular will, which has no law, or rather\nwhich claims to be a law to itself. This is at least the forerunning\nsign of the Lawless One, who in his own time shall be revealed.'\n\nThroughout the endless exchange of epithets, it has been made clear\nthat Antichrist is the reductio ad absurdum of the notion of a personal\nDevil. From the day when the word was first coined, it has assumed\nevery variety of shape, has fitted with equal precision the most\ncontrarious things and persons; and the need of such a novel form\nat one point or another in the progress of controversy is a satire\non the inadequacy of Satan and his ancient ministers. Bygone Devils\ncannot represent new animosities. The ascent of every ecclesiastical\nor theological system is traceable in massacres and martyrdoms; each\nof these, whether on one side or the other, helps to develop a new\ndevil. The story of Antichrist shows devils in the making. Meantime,\nto eyes that see how every system so built up must sacrifice a\nvirtue at every stage of its ascent, it will be sufficiently clear\nthat every powerful Church is Adversary of the religion it claims to\nrepresent. Buddhism is Antibuddha; Islam is Antimohammed; Christianity\nis Antichrist.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXII.\n\nTHE PRIDE OF LIFE.\n\n    The curse of Iblis--Sama\u00ebl as Democrat--His vindication by\n    Christ and Paul--Asmod\u00e4us--History of the name--Aschmedai of the\n    Jews--Book of Tobit--Dor\u00e9's 'Triumph of Christianity'--Aucassin\n    and Nicolette--Asmodeus in the convent--The Asmodeus of Le\n    Sage--Mephistopheles--Blake's 'Marriage of Heaven and Hell'--The\n    Devil and the artists--S\u00e1di's Vision of Satan--Arts of the\n    Devil--Suspicion of beauty--Earthly and heavenly mansions--Deacon\n    versus Devil.\n\n\nOn the parapet of the external gallery of N\u00f4tre Dame in Paris is the\ncarved form, of human size, represented in our figure (15). There is\nin the face a remarkable expression of pride and satisfaction as he\nlooks forth on the gay city and contemplates all the wickedness in it,\nbut this satisfaction is curiously blended with a look of envy and\nlust. His elegant head-dress gives him the pomp becoming the Asmodeus\npresiding over the most brilliant capital in the world.\n\nHis seat on the fine parapet is in contrast with the place assigned\nhim in Eastern traditions--ruins and desert places,--but otherwise he\nfairly fulfilled, no doubt, early ideas in selecting his headquarters\nat Paris. A mussulman legend says that when, after the Fall of Man,\nAllah was mitigating the sentences he had pronounced, Iblis (who,\nas the Koran relates, pleaded and obtained the deferment of his\nconsignment to Hell until the resurrection, and unlimited power over\nsinners who do not accept the word of Allah) asked--\n\n'Where shall I dwell in the meantime?\n\n'In ruins, tombs, and all other unclean places shunned by man.\n\n'What shall be my food?\n\n'All things slain in the name of idols.\n\n'How shall I quench my thirst?\n\n'With wine and intoxicating liquors.\n\n'What shall occupy my leisure hours?\n\n'Music, song, love-poetry, and dancing.\n\n'What is my watchword?\n\n'The curse of Allah until the day of judgment.\n\n'But how shall I contend with man, to whom thou hast granted two\nguardian angels, and who has received thy revelation?\n\n'Thy progeny shall be more numerous than his,--for for every man that\nis born, there shall come into the world seven evil spirits--but they\nshall be powerless against the faithful.'\n\nIblis with wine, song, and dance--the 'pride of life'--is also said\nto have been aided in entering Paradise by the peacock, which he\nflattered. [143]\n\nThis fable, though later than the era of Mohammed in form, is as\nancient as the myth of Eden in substance. The germ of it is already\nin the belief that Jehovah separated from the rest of the earth a\ngarden, and from the human world a family of his own, and from the\nweek a day of his own. The reply of the elect to the proud Gentile\naristocracy was an ascetic caste established by covenant with the\nKing of kings. This attitude of the pious caste turned the barbaric\naristocrats, in a sense, to democrats. Indeed Sama\u00ebl, in whom the\nexecrated Dukes of Edom were ideally represented, might be almost\ndescribed as the Democratic Devil. According to an early Jewish\nlegend, Jehovah, having resolved to separate 'men' (i.e., Jews)\nfrom 'swine' (i.e., idolaters, Gentiles), made circumcision the\nseal on them as children of Abraham. There having been, however,\nJews who were necessarily never circumcised, their souls, it was\narranged, should pass at death into the forms of certain sacred\nbirds where they would be purified, and finally united to the elect\nin Paradise. Now, Sama\u00ebl, or Adam Belial as he was sometimes called,\nis said to have appealed to the Creator that this arrangement should\ninclude all races of beings. 'Lord of the world!' he said, 'we also\nare of your creation. Thou art our father. As thou savest the souls\nof Israel by transforming them that they may be brought back again\nand made immortal, so also do unto us! Why shouldst thou regard the\nseed of Abraham before us?' Jehovah answered, 'Have you done the same\nthat Abraham did, who recognised me from his childhood and went into\nChaldean fire for love of me? You have seen that I rescued him from\nyour hands, and from the fiery oven which had no power over him,\nand yet you have not loved and worshipped me. Henceforth speak no\nmore of good or evil.' [144]\n\nThe old rabbinical books which record this conversation do not report\nSama\u00ebl's answer; nor is it necessary: that answer was given by Jesus\nand Paul breaking down the partitions between Jew and Gentile. It was\nquite another thing, however, to include the world morally. Jesus,\nit would seem, aimed at this also; he came 'eating and drinking,'\nand the orthodox said Sama\u00ebl was in him. Personally, he declined to\nsubstitute even the cosmopolitan rite of baptism for the discredited\nnational rite of circumcision. But Paul was of another mind. His\npharisaism was spiritualised and intensified in his new faith, to\nwhich the great world was all an Adversary.\n\nIt was a tremendous concession, this giving up of the gay and beautiful\nworld, with its mirth and amusements, its fine arts and romance--to\nthe Devil. Unswerving Nemesis has followed that wild theorem in many\nforms, of which the most significant is Asmodeus.\n\nAsmod\u00e4us, or A\u00eashma-da\u00eava of the Zend texts, the modern Persian Khasm,\nis etymologically what Carlyle might call 'the god Wish;' a\u00easha\nmeaning 'wish,' from the Sanskrit root ish, 'to desire.' An almost\nstanding epithet of A\u00eashma is Khrv\u00eedra, meaning apparently 'having a\nhurtful weapon or lance.' He is occasionally mentioned immediately\nafter Anr\u00f4-mainyus (Ahriman); sometimes is expressly named as one\nof his most prominent supporters. In the remarkable combat between\nAhuro-mazda (Ormuzd) and Anr\u00f4-mainyus, described in Zam. Y. 46, the\ngood deity summons to his aid Vohumano, Ashavahista, and Fire; while\nthe Evil One is aided by Ak\u00f4mano, A\u00eashma, and Aji-Dah\u00e1ka. [145] Here,\ntherefore, A\u00eashma appears as opposed to Ashavahista, 'supreme purity'\nof the Lord of Fire. A\u00eashma is the spirit of the lower or impure Fire,\nLust and Wrath. A Sanskrit text styles him Kossa-deva, 'the god of\nWrath.' In Ya\u00e7na 27, 35, Sraosha, A\u00eashma's opponent, is invoked to\nshield the faithful 'in both worlds from Death the Violent, from A\u00eashma\nthe Violent, from the hosts of Violence that raise aloft the terrible\nbanner--from the assaults of A\u00eashma that he makes along with V\u00edd\u00e1tu\n('Divider, Destroyer'), the demon-created.' He is thus the leading\nrepresentative of dissolution, the fatal power of Ahriman. Ormuzd\nis said to have created Sraosha to be the destroyer of 'A\u00eashma of\nthe fatal lance.' Sraosha ('the Hearer') is the moral vanquisher of\nA\u00eashma, in distinction from Haoma, who is his chief opponent in the\nphysical domain.\n\nSuch, following Windischmann, [146] is the origin of the devil\nwhom the apocryphal book of Tobit has made familiar in Europe as\nAsmodeus. Aschmedai, as the Jews called him, appears in this story as\nprecisely that spirit described in the Avesta--the devil of Violence\nand Lust, whose passion for Sara leads him to slay her seven husbands\non their wedding-night. The devils of Lust are considered elsewhere,\nand Asmodeus among them; there is another aspect of him which here\nconcerns us. He is a fastidious devil. He will not have the object of\nhis passion liable to the embrace of any other. He cannot endure bad\nsmells, and that raised by the smoke of the fish-entrails burnt by\nTobit drives him 'into the utmost parts of Egypt, where the angel\nbound him.' It is, however, of more importance to read the story\nby the light of the general reputation of Aschmedai among the Jews\nand Arabians. It was notably that of the devil represented in the\nMoslem tradition at the beginning of this chapter. He is the Eastern\nDon Giovanni and Lothario; he plies Noah and Solomon with wine,\nand seduces their wives, and always aims high with his dashing\nintrigues. He would have cried Amen to Luther's lines--\n\n\n            Who loves not wine, woman, and song,\n            He lives a fool his whole life long.\n\n\nBesides being an aristocrat, he is a scholar, the most learned Master\nof Arts, educated in the great College of Hell, founded by Asa and\nAsael, as elsewhere related. He was fond of gaming; and so fashionable\nthat Calmet believed his very name signifies fine dress.\n\nNow, the moral reflections in the Book of Tobit, and its casual\nintimations concerning the position of the persons concerned, show\nthat they were Jewish captives of the humblest working class, whose\nreligion is of a type now found chiefly among the more ignorant\nsectarians. Tobit's moral instructions to his son, 'In pride is\ndestruction and much trouble, and in lewdness is decay and much want,'\n'Drink not wine to make thee drunken,' and his careful instructions\nabout finding wealth in the fear of God, are precisely such as would\nshape a devil in the image of Asmodeus. Tobit's moral truisms are\nmade falsities by his puritanism: 'Prayer is good with fasting and\nalms and righteousness;' 'but give nothing to the wicked;' 'If thou\nserve God he will repay thee.'\n\n'Cakes and ale' do not cease to exist because Tobits are virtuous;\nbut unfortunately they may be raised from their subordinate to an\ninsubordinate place by the transfer of religious restraints to the\nhands of Ignorance and Cant. Asmodeus, defined against Persian and\nJewish asceticism and hypocrisy, had his attractions for men of the\nworld. Through him the devil became perilously associated with wit,\ngallantry, and the one creed of youth which is not at all consumptive--\n\n\n            Grey is all Theory,\n            Green Life's golden-fruited tree!\n\n\nEspecially did Asmodeus represent the subordination of so-called\n'religious' and tribal distinctions to secular considerations. As\nSama\u00ebl had petitioned for an extension of the Abrahamic Covenant to\nall the world and failed to secure it from Jehovah, Asmodeus proposed\nto disregard the distinction. There is much in the Book of Tobit which\nlooks as if it were written especially with the intention of persuading\nJewish youth, tempted by Babylonians to marriage, that their lovers\nmight prove to be succubi or incubi. Tobit implores his son to marry\nin his own tribe, and not take a 'strange woman.' Asmodeus was as\ncosmopolitan as the god of Love himself, and many of his uglier early\ncharacteristics were hidden out of sight by such later developments.\n\nGustave Dor\u00e9 has painted in his vivid way the 'Triumph of\nChristianity.' In it we see the angelic hosts with drawn swords\noverthrowing the forms adored of paganism--hurling them headlong\ninto an abyss. So far as the battle and victory go, this is just\nthe conception which an early christian would have had of what took\nplace through the advent of Christ. It filled their souls with joy to\nbehold by Faith's vision those draped angels casting down undraped\ngoddesses; they would delight to imagine how the fall might break\nthe bones of those beautiful limbs. For they never thought of these\ngods and goddesses as statues, but as real seductive devils; and when\nthese christians had brought over the arts, they often pictured the\nblack souls coming out of these fair idols as they fell.\n\nDor\u00e9 may have tried to make the angels as beautiful as the goddesses,\nbut he has not succeeded. In this he has interpreted the heart behind\nevery deformity which was ever added to a pagan deity. The horror\nof the monks was transparent homage. Why did they starve and scourge\ntheir bodies, and roll them in thorns? Because not even by defacing\nthe beautiful images were they able to expel from their inward worship\nthe lovely ideals they represented.\n\nIt is not difficult now to perceive that the old monks were consigning\nthe pagan ideals to imaginary and themselves to actual hells, in full\nhope of thereby gaining permanent possession of the same beauty abjured\non earth. The loveliness of the world was transient. They grew morbid\nabout death; beneath the rosiest form they saw the skeleton. The\nheavenly angels they longed for were Venuses and Apollos, with no\nskeletons visible beneath their immortalised flesh. They never made\nsacrifices for a disembodied heaven. The force of self-crucifixion\nlay in the creed--'I believe in the resurrection of the body, and\nthe life everlasting.'\n\nThe world could not generally be turned into a black procession at its\nown funeral. In proportion to the conquests of Christianity must be its\nprogressive surrender to the unconquerable--to human nature. Aphrodite\nand Eros, over whose deep graves nunneries and monasteries had been\nbuilt, were the first to revive, and the story, as Mr. Pater has told\nit, is like some romantic version of Ishtar's Descent into Hades and\nher resurrection. [147] While as yet the earth seemed frostbound,\nlong before the Renaissance, the song of the turtle was heard in the\nballad of Aucassin and Nicolette. The christian knight will marry the\nbeautiful Saracen, and to all priestly warnings that he will surely\ngo to hell, replies, 'What could I do in Paradise? I care only to go\nwhere I can be with Nicolette. Who go to Paradise? Old priests, holy\ncripples, dried-up monks, who pass their lives before altars. I much\nprefer Hell, where go the brave, the gay, and beautiful. There will\nbe the players on harps, the classic poets and singers; and there I\nshall not be parted from Nicolette!'\n\nAlong with pretty Saracen maidens, or memories of them, were brought\nback into Europe legends of Asmodeus. Aphrodite and Eros might disguise\nthemselves in his less known and less anathematised name, so that\nhe could manage to sing of his love for Sara, of Parsi for Jewess,\nunder the names of christian Aucassin and saracen Nicolette. In the\nEastern Church he reappeared also. There are beautiful old pictures\nwhich show the smart cavalier, feather-in-cap, on the youth's left,\nwhile on his right stands 'grey Theory' in the form of a long-bearded\nfriar. Such pictures, no doubt, taught for many a different lesson\nfrom that intended--namely, that the beat of the heart is on the left.\n\nWhere St. Benedict rolled himself in thorns for dreaming of his\n(deserted) 'Nicolette,' St. Francis planted roses; and the Latin Church\nhad to recognise this evolution of seven centuries. They hid the thorns\nin the courts of convents, and sold the roses to the outside world as\nindulgences. But as Asmodeus had not respected the line between Jew\nand Gentile in Nineveh, so he passed over that between priest, nun,\nand worldling in the West. In the days of Witchcraft the Church was\nscandalised by the rumour that the nuns of the Franciscan Convent of\nLouviers had largely taken to sorcery, and were attending the terrible\n'Witches' Sabbaths.' The nun most prominent in this affair was one\nMadeleine Bavent. The priests announced that she had confessed that\nshe was borne away to the orgies by the demon Asmodeus, and that\nhe had induced her to profane the sacred host. It turned out that\nthe nuns had engaged in intrigues with the priests who had charge\nof them--especially with Fathers David, Picard, and Boul\u00e9--but\nAsmodeus was credited with the crime, and the nuns were punished\nfor it. Madeleine was condemned to life-long penance, and Picard\nanticipated the fire by a suicide, in which he was said to have been\nassisted by the devil.\n\nFollowing the rabbinical tradition which represented him as continually\npassing from the high infernal College of Asa and Asael to the\nearth to apply his arts of sorcery, Asmodeus gained a respectable\nposition in European literature through the romance of Le Sage ('Le\nDiable Boiteux'), and his fame so gained did much to bring about\nin France that friendly feeling for the Devil which has long been a\ncharacteristic of French literature. A very large number of books,\nperiodicals, and journals in France have gained popularity through\nthe Devil's name. Asmodeus was, in fact, the Arch-bohemian. As such,\nhe largely influenced the conception of Mephistopheles as rendered by\nGoethe--himself the Prince of Bohemians. The old horror of Asmodeus\nfor bad smells is insulted in the name Mephistopheles, and this devil\nis many rolled into one; yet in many respects his kinship to Asmodeus\nis revealed. All the dried starveling Anthonys and Benedicts are,\nin a cultured way, present in the theologian and scholar Faust;\nall the sweet ladies that haunted their seclusion became realistic\nin Gretchen. She is the Nemesis of suppressed passions.\n\nOne province of nature after another has been recovered from\nAsceticism. In this case Ishtar has had to regain her apparel and\nornaments at successive portals that are centuries, and they are not\nall recovered yet. But we have gone far enough, even in puritanised\nEngland, to produce a 'madman' far-seeing enough to behold The\nMarriage of Heaven and Hell. The case of Asmodeus is stated well,\nalbeit radically, by William Blake, in that proverb which was told\nhim by the devils, whom he alone of midnight travellers was shrewd\nenough to consult: 'The pride of the peacock is the glory of God;\nthe lust of the goat is the bounty of God; the wrath of the lion is\nthe wisdom of God.' When that statement is improved, as it well may\nbe, it will be when those who represent religion shall have learned\nthat human like other nature is commanded by obedience.\n\nIn this connection may be mentioned a class of legends indicating\nthe Devil's sensitiveness with regard to his personal appearance. The\nanxiety of the priests and hermits to have him represented as hideous\nwas said to have been warmly resented by Satan, one of the most\nstriking being the legend of many versions concerning a Sacristan,\nwho was also an artist, who ornamented an abbey with a devil so ugly\nthat none could behold it without terror. It was believed he had by\ninspiration secured an exact portrait of the archfiend. The Devil\nappeared to the Sacristan, reproached him with having made him so\nugly, and threatened to punish him grievously if he did not make him\nbetter looking. Although this menace was thrice repeated, the Sacristan\nrefused to comply. The Devil then tempted him into an intrigue with a\nlady of the neighbourhood, and they eloped after robbing the abbey of\nits treasure. But they were caught, and the Sacristan imprisoned. The\nDevil then appears and offers to get him out of his trouble if he will\nonly destroy the ugly likeness, and make another and handsomer. The\nSacristan consented, and suddenly found himself in bed as if nothing\nhad happened, while the Devil in his image lay in chains. The Devil\nwhen discovered vanished; the Sacristan got off on the theory that\ncrimes and all had been satanic juggles. But the Sacristan took care\nto substitute a handsome devil for the ugly one. In another version\nthe Sacristan remained faithful to his original portraiture of the\nDevil despite all menaces of the latter, who resolved to take a dire\nrevenge. While the artist was completing his ornamentation of the abbey\nwith an image of the Virgin, made as beautiful as the fiend near it was\nugly, the Devil broke the ladder on which he was working, and a fatal\nfall was only prevented by the hand of the Madonna he had just made,\nwhich was outstretched to sustain him. The accompanying picture of this\nscene (Fig. 16) is from 'Queen Mary's Psalter' in the British Museum.\n\nVasari relates that when Spinello of Arezzo, in his famous fresco of\nthe fall of the rebellious angels, had painted the hideous devil with\nseven faces about his body, the fiend appeared to him in the same form,\nand asked the artist where he had seen him in so frightful an aspect,\nand why he had treated him so ignominiously. When Spinello awoke in\nhorror, he fell into a state of gloom, and soon after died.\n\nThe Persian poet S\u00e1di has a remarkable passage conceived in the spirit\nof these legends, but more kindly.\n\n\n            I saw the demon in a dream,\n              But how unlike he seemed to be\n            To all of horrible we dream,\n              And all of fearful that we see.\n            His shape was like a cypress bough,\n              His eyes like those that Houris wear,\n            His face as beautiful as though\n              The rays of Paradise were there.\n            I near him came, and spoke--'Art thou,'\n              I said, 'indeed the Evil One?\n            No angel has so bright a brow,\n              Such yet no eye has looked upon.\n            Why should mankind make thee a jest,\n              When thou canst show a face like this?\n            Fair as the moon in splendour drest,\n              An eye of joy, a smile of bliss!\n            The painter draws thee vile to sight,\n              Our baths thy frightful form display;\n            They told me thou wert black as night,\n              Behold, thou art as fair as day!'\n            The lovely vision's ire awoke,\n              His voice was loud and proud his mien:\n            'Believe not, friend!' 'twas thus he spoke,\n              'That thou my likeness yet hast seen:\n            The pencil that my portrait made\n              Was guided by an envious foe;\n            In Paradise I man betrayed,\n              And he, from hatred, paints me so.'\n\n\nBoehme relates that when Satan was asked the cause of God's enmity\nto him and his consequent downfall, he replied, 'I wished to be an\nartist.' There is in this quaint sentence a very true intimation of the\nallurements which, in ancient times, the arts of the Gentile possessed\nfor the Jews and christian judaisers. Indeed, a similar feeling towards\nthe sensuous attractions of the Catholic and Ritualistic Churches is\nnot uncommon among the prosaic and puritanical sects whose younger\nmembers are often thus charmed away from them. Dr. Donne preached a\nsermon before Oliver Cromwell at Whitehall, in which he affirmed that\nthe Muses were damned spirits of devils; and the discussion on the\nDrama which occurred at Sheffield Church Congress (1878), following\nDr. Bickerstith's opening discourse on 'the Devil and his wiles,'\nshows that the Low Church wing cherishes much the same opinion as that\nof Dr. Donne. The dread of the theatre among some sects amounts to\nterror. The writer remembers the horror that spread through a large\nWesleyan circle, with which he was connected, when a distinguished\nminister of that body, just returned from Europe, casually remarked\nthat 'the theatre at Rome seemed to be poorly supported.' The fearful\nconfession spread through the denomination, and it was understood that\nthe observant traveller had 'made shipwreck of faith.' The Methodist\ninstinct told true: the preacher became an accomplished Gentile.\n\nMusic made its way but slowly in the Church, and the suspicion of it\nstill lingers among many sects. The Quakers took up the burthen of\nEpiphanius who wrote against the flute-players, 'After the pattern\nof the serpent's form has the flute been invented for the deceiving\nof mankind. Observe the figure that the player makes in blowing his\nflute. Does he not bend himself up and down to the right hand and\nto the left, like unto the serpent? These forms hath the Devil used\nto manifest his blasphemy against things heavenly, to destroy things\nupon earth, to encompass the world, capturing right and left such as\nlend an ear to his seductions.' The unregenerate birds that carol\nall day, be it Sabbath or Fast, have taught the composer that his\nbest inspiration is from the Prince of the Air. Tartini wrote over a\nhundred sonatas and as many concertos, but he rightly valued above\nthem all his 'Sonata del Diavolo.' Concerning this he wrote to the\nastronomer Lalande:--'One night, in the year 1713, I dreamed that I\nhad made a compact with his Satanic Majesty, by which he was received\ninto my service. Everything succeeded to the utmost of my desires, and\nmy every wish was anticipated by my new domestic. I thought that, in\ntaking up my violin to practise, I jocosely asked him if he could play\non this instrument. He answered that he believed he was able to pick\nout a tune; when, to my astonishment, he began a sonata, so strange,\nand yet so beautiful, and executed in so masterly a manner, that in the\nwhole course of my life I had never heard anything so exquisite. So\ngreat was my amazement that I could scarcely breathe. Awakened\nby the violence of my feelings, I instantly seized my violin, in\nthe hope of being able to catch some part of the ravishing melody\nwhich I had just heard, but all in vain. The piece which I composed\naccording to my scattered recollections is, it is true, the best I\never produced. I have entitled it, 'Sonata del Diavolo;' but it is so\nfar inferior to that which had made so forcible an impression on me,\nthat I should have dashed my violin into a thousand pieces, and given\nup music for ever in despair, had it been possible to deprive myself\nof the enjoyments which I receive from it.'\n\nThe fire and originality of Tartini's great work is a fine\nexample of that power which Timoleon called Automatia, and Goethe\nthe D\u00e4monische,--'that which cannot be explained by reason or\nunderstanding; it is not in my nature, but I am subject to it.' 'It\nseems to play at will with all the elements of our being.'\n\nThe Puritans brought upon England and America that relapse into the\nancient asceticism which was shown in the burning of great pictures\nby Cromwell's Parliament. It is shown still in the jealousy with\nwhich the puritanised mind in both countries views all that aims at\nthe simple decoration of life, and whose ministry is to the sense of\nbeauty. On that day of the week when England and New England hebraise,\nas Matthew Arnold says, it is observable that the sabbatarian fury is\nespecially directed against everything which proposes to give simple\npleasure or satisfy the popular craving for beauty. Sabbatarianism\nsees a great deal of hard work going on, but is not much troubled so\nlong as it is ugly and dismal work. It utters no cry at the thousands\nof hands employed on Sunday railways, but is beside itself if one of\nthe trains takes excursionists to the seaside, and is frantic at the\nthought of a comparatively few persons being employed on that day in\nMuseums and Art Galleries. It is a survival of the old feeling that\nthe Devil lurks about all beauty and pleasure.\n\nA money-making age has measurably dispersed the superstitions which\nonce connected the Devil with all great fortunes. For a long time,\nand in many regions of the world, the Jews suffered grievously by\nbeing supposed to get their wealth by the Devil's help. Their wealth\n(largely the result of their not exchanging it for worldly enjoyments)\nso often proved their misfortune, that it was easy to illustrate by\ntheir case the monkish theory that devil's gifts turn to ashes. Princes\nwere indefatigable in relieving the Jews of such ashes, however. The\nLords of Triar, who possessed the mines of Glucksbrunn, were believed\nto have been guided to them by a gold stag which often appeared to\nthem--of course the Devil. It is related that when St. Wolfram went\nto convert the Frislanders, their king, Radbot, was prevented from\nsubmitting to baptism by a diabolical deception. The Devil appeared\nto him as an angel clothed in a garment woven of gold, on his head\na jewelled diadem, and said, 'Bravest of men! what has led thee to\ndepart from the Prince of thy gods? Do it not; be steadfast to thy\nreligion and thou shalt dwell in a house of gold which I will give\ninto thy possession to all eternity. Go to Wolfram to-morrow, ask\nhim about those bright dwellings he promises thee. If he cannot show\nthem, let both parties choose an ambassador; I will be their leader\nand will show them the gold house I promise thee.' St. Wolfram being\nunable to show Radbot the bright dwellings of Paradise, one of his\ndeacons was sent along with a representative of the king, and the\nDevil (disguised as a traveller) took them to the house of gold,\nwhich was of incredible size and splendour. The Deacon exclaimed,\n'If this house be made by God it will stand for ever; if by the\nDevil, it must vanish speedily.' Whereupon he crossed himself; the\nhouse vanished, and the Deacon found himself with the Frislander in\na swamp. It took them three days to extricate themselves and return\nto King Radbot, whom they found dead.\n\nThe ascetic principle which branded the arts, interests, pursuits,\nand pleasures of the world as belonging to the domain of Satan,\ninvolved the fatal extreme of including among the outlawed realms all\nsecular learning. The scholar and man of science were also declared\nto be inspired by the 'pride of life.' But this part of our subject\nrequires a separate chapter.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIII.\n\nTHE CURSE ON KNOWLEDGE.\n\n    A Bishop on intellect--The Bible on learning--The Serpent and\n    Seth--A Hebrew Renaissance--Spells--Shelley at Oxford--\n    Book-burning--Japanese ink-devil--Book of Cyprianus--Devil's\n    Bible--Red letters--Dread of Science--Roger Bacon--Luther's\n    Devil--Lutherans and Science.\n\n\nIn Lucas van Leyden's picture of Satan tempting Christ (Fig. 6),\nthe fiend is represented in the garb of a University man of the\ntime. From his head falls a streamer which coils on the ground to a\nserpent. From that serpent to the sceptical scholar demanding a miracle\nthe evolution is fully traceable. The Serpent, of old the 'seer,'\nwas in its Semitic adaptation a tempter to forbidden knowledge. This\nwas the earliest priestly outcry against 'godless education.'\n\nDuring the Shakespere tercentenary festival at Stratford-on-Avon,\nthe Bishop of St. Andrews declared that there is not a word in the\nBible warranting homage to Intellect, and such a boast beside the\ngrave of the most intellectual of Englishmen is in itself a survival\nillustrating the tremendous curse hurled by jealous Jehovah on man's\nfirst effort to obtain knowledge. That same Serpent of knowledge\nhas passed very far, and his curse has many times been repeated. In\nthe Accadian poem of the fatal Seven, as we have seen, it is said,\n'In watching was their office;' and the Assyrian version says,\n'Unto heaven that which was not seen they raised.' On the Babylonian\ncylinders is inscribed the curse of the god of Intelligence (Hea)\nupon man--'Wisdom and knowledge hostilely may they injure him.' [148]\nThe same Serpent twined round the staff of \u00c6sculapius and whispered\nthose secrets which made the gods jealous, so that Jove killed the\nlearned Physician with a flash of lightning. Its teeth were sown when\nCadmus imported the alphabet into Greece; and when these alphabetical\ndragon's-teeth had turned to type, the ancient curse was renewed in\nlegends which connected Fust with the Devil.\n\nThe Hebrews are least among races responsible for the legend which\nhas drifted into Genesis. Nor was the Bishop's boast about their Bible\ncorrect. The homage paid to Solomon was hardly on account of his moral\ncharacter. 'He spake of trees, from the cedar-tree that is in Lebanon,\neven unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall; he spake also of\nbeasts, and of fowl, and of creeping things, and of fishes.' [149]\nWhile the curse on man for eating the fruit of knowledge is never\nquoted in the Hebrew scriptures, there are many indications of their\ndevotion to knowledge; and their prophets even heard Jehovah saying,\n'My people are destroyed through lack of knowledge.' It is not\nwonderful, therefore, that we find among the Jews the gradual growth\nof a legend concerning Seth, which may be regarded as a reply to the\ncurse on the Serpent.\n\nThe apotheosis of Seth in rabbinical and mussulman mythology represents\na sort of Semitic Renaissance. As we have seen in a former chapter,\nthe Egyptians and Greeks identified Set with Typhon, but at the same\ntime that demon was associated with science. He is astronomically\nlocated in Capricorn, the sphere of the hierophants in the Egyptian\nMysteries, and the mansion of the guardians of science. Thus he would\ncorrespond with the Serpent, who, as adapted by the Hebrews in the\nmyth of Eden, whispers to Eve of divine knowledge. But, as detached\nfrom Typho, Seth, while leaving behind the malignancy, carried away\nthe reputation for learning usually ascribed to devils. Thus, while we\nhave had to record so many instances of degraded deities, we may note\nin Seth a converted devil. In the mussulman and rabbinical traditions\nSeth is a voluminous author; he receives a library from heaven; he is\nthe originator of astronomy and of many arts; and, as an instructor in\ncultivation, he restores many an acre which as Set he had blighted. In\nthe apocryphal Genesis he is represented as having been caught up to\nheaven and shown the future destiny of mankind. Anastasius of Sinai\nsays that when God created Adam after his own image, he breathed\ninto him grace and illumination, and a ray of the Holy Spirit. But\nwhen he had sinned this glory left him. Then he became the father of\nCain and Abel. But afterwards it is said Adam 'begat a son in his own\nlikeness, after his image, and called his name 'Seth,' which is not\nsaid of Cain and Abel; and this means that Seth was begotten in the\nlikeness of unfallen man in paradise--Seth meaning 'Resurrection.' And\nall those then living, when they saw how the face of Seth shone with\ndivine light, and heard him speak with divine wisdom, said, He is God;\ntherefore his sons were commonly called the sons of God. [150]\n\nThat this 'Resurrection' of departed glory and wisdom was really,\nas I have said, a Renaissance--a restoration of learning from the\ncurse put upon it in the story of the Serpent--is indicated by\nits evolution in the Gnostic myth wherein Seth was made to avenge\nSatan. He took under his special care the Tree of the Knowledge of\nGood and Evil, and planted it in his father's grave (Fig. 8). Rabbins\ncarried their homage to Seth even to the extent of vindicating Saturn,\nthe most notorious of planets, and say that Abraham and the Prophets\nwere inspired by it. [151] The Dog (Jackal) was, in Egyptian symbols,\nemblem of the Scribe; Sirius was the Dog-star domiciled with Saturn;\nSeth was by them identified with Sirius, as the god of occult\nand infernal knowledge. He was near relative of the serpent Sesha,\nfamiliar of \u00c6sculapius, and so easily connected with the subtlest of\nthe beasts in Eden which had crept in from the Iranian mythology.\n\nThis reaction was instituted by scholars, who, in their necessarily\ntimid way of fable, may be said to have recovered the Tree of\nKnowledge under guise of homage to Seth. It flourished, as we have seen\n(chap. xi.), to the extent of finally raising the Serpent to be a god,\nand lowering Jehovah who cursed him to a jealous devil!\n\nBut the terror with which Jehovah is said to have been inspired when\nhe said, 'The man has become as one of us, to know good and evil,'\nnever failed to reappear among priesthoods when anything threatened\nto remove the means of learning from under their control. The causes\nof this are too many to be fully considered here; but the main cause\nunquestionably was the tendency of learning to release men from\nthe sway of the priest. The primitive man of science would speedily\ndiscover how many things existed of which his priest was ignorant, and\nthus the germ of Scepticism would be planted. The man who possessed\nthe Sacred Books, in whole or in part, might become master of the\n'spells' supposed to be contained in its words and sentences, and\nmight use them against the priests; or, at any rate, he might feel\nindependent of the ordinary apparatus of salvation.\n\nThe anxiety of priests to keep fast hold of the keys of learning,\nso that no secular son of Adam should become 'as one of them,'\ncoupled with the wonderful powers they professed ability to exercise,\npowerfully stimulated the curiosity of intellectual men, and led\nthem to seek after this forbidden fruit in subtle ways, which\neasily illustrated the story of the Serpent. The poet Shelley,\nwho was suspected at Oxford because of his fondness for chemistry,\nrecognised his mythological ancestry, and used to speak of 'my\ncousin, the Serpent.' The joke was born of circumstances sufficiently\nscandalous in the last generation to make the Oxonian of to-day blush;\nbut the like histories of earlier ages are so tragical that, when fully\nknown by the common people, they will change certain familiar badges\ninto brands of shame. While the cant goes on about the Church being\nthe protector of learning through the dark ages, the fact is that,\nfrom the burning of valuable books at Ephesus by christian fanatics\n(Acts xix. 19) to the present day, the Church has destroyed tenfold\nmore important works than it ever produced, and almost suffocated the\nintellectual life of a thousand years. Amid the unbroken persecution\nof the Jews by christian cruelty, which lasted from the early eleventh\ncentury for five hundred years, untold numbers of manuscripts were\ndestroyed, which might have now been giving the world full and clear\nknowledge concerning ages, for whose records arch\u00e6ological scholars\nare painfully exploring the crumbled ruins of the East. Synagogues\nwere believed to be temples of Satan; they were plundered and razed\nto the ground, and their precious archives strewed the streets of\nmany cities. On the 17th of June 1244 twenty-four cartloads of these\nancient MSS. were burned in Paris alone. \"And all this by our holy\n'protector of learning' through the Middle Ages!\n\nThe Japanese have pictures of a famous magician who conjured up a\ndemon--vast, vague, and terrible--out of his inkstand. They call\nit latterly 'emblem of a licentious press,' but, no doubt, it was\noriginally used to terrify the country generally concerning the\npress. That Devil has also haunted the ecclesiastical imagination\nin Europe. Nearly every book written without priestly command was\nassociated with the Devil, and there are several old books in Europe,\nlaboriously and honestly written, which to this day are invested with\npopular superstitions reporting the denunciations with which they\nwere visited. For some centuries it has been believed in Denmark and\nneighbouring countries that a strange and formidable book exists,\nby means of which you can raise or lay the Devil. It is vulgarly\nknown as the Book of Cyprianus. The owner of it can neither sell,\nbury, or burn it, and if he cannot get rid of it before his death,\nhe becomes the prey of the fiend. The only way of getting rid of it is\nto find somebody who will accept it as a present, well knowing what it\nis. Cyprianus is said to have been a clever and virtuous young student,\nbut he studied the black art in Norway, and came under the power of the\nDevil, who compelled him to use his unholy learning to evil ends. This\ngrieved him sorely, and he wrote a book, in which he shows first,\nhow evil shall be done, and then how to counteract it. The book is\nprobably one which really exists or existed, and professed to teach\nthe art of sorcery, and likewise the charms against it. It consists\nof three parts, severally called Cyprianus, Dr. Faust, and Jacob\nRamel. The two latter are written in cypher. It teaches everything\nappertaining to 'signing,' conjuring, second sight, and all the\ncharms alluded to in Deuteronomy xviii. 10-12. The person possessing\nCyprianus' book is said never to be in need of money, and none can\nharm him. The only way of getting rid of it is to put it away in a\nsecret place in a church along with a clerk's fee of four shillings.\n\nIn Stockholm I saw the so-called Devil's Bible, the biggest book in\nthe world, in the Royal Library. It is literally as they describe it,\n'gigas librorum': no single man can lift it from the floor. It was part\nof the booty carried off by the Swedes after the surrender of Prague,\nA.D. 1648. It contains three hundred parchment leaves, each one made of\nan ass's hide, the cover being of oak planks, 1 1/2 inches thick. It\ncontains the Old and New Testaments; Josephi Flavii Antiquitates\nJudaic\u00e6; Isidori Episcopi L. XX. de diversis materiis; Confessio\npeccatorum; and some other works. The last-named production is written\non black and dark brown ground with red and yellow letters. Here and\nthere sentences are marked 'h\u00e6c sunt suspecta,' 'superstitiosa,'\n'prohibita.' One MS., which is headed, 'Experimentum de furto et\nfebribus', is a treatise in Monkish Latin on the exorcism of ghosts\nand evil spirits, charms against thieves and sickness, and various\nprescriptions in 'White Magic.' The age of the book is considerably\nover three hundred years. The autograph of a German emperor is in it:\n'Ferdinandus Imperator Romanorum, A.D. 1577.' The volume is known\nin Sweden as Fan's Bibel (Devil's Bible). The legend says, that\na monk, suspected of black arts, who had been condemned to death,\nbegged for life, and his judge mockingly told him that he would be\npardoned only if he should produce next morning all the books here\nfound and in this vast size. The monk invoked the Devil's assistance,\nand the ponderous volume was written in a single night. This Devil\nmust have been one who prided himself more on his literary powers\nthan his personal appearance; for the face and form said to be his\nportrait, frontispiece of the volume, represent a most hideous ape,\ngreen and hairy, with horrible curled tusks. It is, no doubt, the ape\nAnerhahn of the Wagner legends; Burns's 'towzie tyke, black, grim,\nand large.' [152]\n\nI noticed particularly in this old work the recurrence of deep red\nletters and sentences similar to the ink which Fust used at the close\nof his earliest printed volumes to give his name, with the place and\ndate of printing. Now Red is sacred in one direction as symbolising\nthe blood of Christ, but it is also the colour of Judas, who betrayed\nthat blood. Hence, while red letters might denote sacred days and\nsentences in priestly calendars, they might be supposed mimicry\nof such sanctities by 'God's Ape' if occurring in secular works or\nbooks of magic. It is said that these red letters were especially\nnoted in Paris as indications of the diabolical origin of the works\nso easily produced by Fust; and, though it is uncertain whether he\nsuffered imprisonment, the red lines with his name appear to have\nbeen regarded as his signature in blood.\n\nFor a long time every successive discovery of science, every invention\nof material benefit to man, was believed by priest-ridden peoples\nto have been secured by compact with the devil. The fate of the\nartist Prometheus, fettered by jealous Jove, was repeated in each\nwho aspired to bring light to man, and some men of genius--such as\nCornelius Agrippa, and Paracelsus--appear to have been frightened away\nfrom legitimate scientific research by the first connection of their\nnames with sorcery. They had before them the example of the greatest\nscientific man of the Middle Ages, Roger Bacon, and knew how easily,\nin the priestly whisper, the chemist's crucible grew to a wizard's\ncauldron. The time may come when Oxford University will have learned\nenough to build a true memorial of the grandest man who ever wrote\nand taught within its walls. It would show Roger Bacon--rectifier\nof the Julian Calendar, analyst of lenses, inventor of spectacles\nand achromatic lenses, probable constructor of the first telescope,\ndemonstrator of the chemical action of air in combustion, inventor of\nthe mode of purifying saltpetre and crystallising it into gunpowder,\nanticipator of the philosophical method with which his namesake is\ncredited--looking on a pile of his books for whose researches he had\npaid two thousand French livres, to say nothing of a life's labour,\nonly to see them condemned by his University, their circulation\nprohibited; and his sad gaze might be from the prison to which the\nCouncil of Franciscans at Paris sentenced him whom Oxford gladly\ndelivered into their hands. He was condemned, says their historian\nWadding, 'propter novitates quasdam suspectas.' The suspected novelties\nwere crucibles, retorts, and lenses that made the stars look larger. So\nwas it with the Oxford six hundred years ago. Undeniably some progress\nhad been made even in the last generation, for Shelley was only\nforbidden to study chemistry, and expelled for his metaphysics. But\nnow that it is claimed that Oxford is no longer partaker with them\nthat stoned investigators and thinkers from Bacon to Shelley, it would\nbe in order to build for its own great martyr of science a memorial,\nthat superstition may look on one whom it has pierced.\n\nReferring to Luther's inkstand thrown at the Devil, Dr. Zerffii,\nin his lecture on the Devil, says, 'He (the devil) hates nothing\nso much as writing or printer's ink.' But the truth of this remark\ndepends upon which of two devils be considered. It would hardly\napply to the Serpent who recommended the fruit of knowledge, or to\nthe University man in Lucas van Leyden's picture (Fig. 6). But if\nwe suppose the Devil of Luther's Bible (Fig. 17) to be the one at\nwhich the inkstand was thrown, the criticism is correct. The two\npictures mentioned may be instructively compared. Luther's Devil\nis the reply of the University to the Church. These are the two\ndevils--the priest and the scholar--who glared at each other in the\nearly sixteenth century. 'The Devil smelled the roast,' says Luther,\n'that if the languages revived, his kingdom would get a hole which\nhe could not easily stop again.' And it must be admitted that some\nof the monkish execrations of the time, indeed of many times since,\nhave an undertone of Jahvistic jealousy. 'These Knowers will become\nas one of us.' It must also be admitted that the clerical instinct\ntold true: the University man held in him that sceptical devil who\nis always the destroyer of the priest's paradise. These two devils\nwhich struggled with each other through the sixteenth century still\nwage their war in the arena of Protestantism. Many a Lutheran now\nliving may remember to have smiled when Hofmann's experiments in\ndiscovering carbonic acid gas gained him repute for raising again\nMephosto; but perhaps they did not recognise Luther's devil when,\nat the annual assembly of Lutheran Pastors in Berlin (Sept. 1877), he\nreappeared as the Rev. Professor Grau, and said, 'Not a few listen to\nthose striving to combine Christ with Belial, to reconcile redeeming\ntruth with modern science and culture.' But though they who take the\nname of Luther in vain may thus join hands with the Devil, at whom\nthe Reformer threw his inkstand, the combat will still go on, and the\nUniversity Belial do the brave work of Bel till beneath his feet lies\nthe dragon of Darkness whether disguised as Pope or Protestant.\n\nIf the Church wishes to know precisely how far the roughness pardonable\nin the past survives unpardonably in itself, let its clergy peruse\ncarefully the following translation by Mr. Leland of a poem by Heine;\nand realise that the Devil portrayed in it is, by grace of its own\nprelates, at present the most admired personage in every Court and\nfashionable drawing-room in Christendom.\n\n\n            I called the Devil, and he came:\n            In blank amaze his form I scan.\n            He is not ugly, is not lame,\n            But a refined, accomplished man,--\n            One in the very prime of life,\n            At home in every cabinet strife,\n            Who, as diplomatist, can tell\n            Church and State news extremely well.\n            He is somewhat pale--and no wonder either,\n            Since he studies Sanskrit and Hegel together.\n            His favourite poet is still Fonqu\u00e9.\n            Of criticism he makes no mention,\n            Since all such matters unworthy attention\n            He leaves to his grandmother, Hecat\u00e9.\n            He praised my legal efforts, and said\n            That he also when younger some law had read,\n            Remarking that friendship like mine would be\n            An acquisition, and bowed to me,--\n            Then asked if we had not met before,\n            At the Spanish Minister's soiree?\n            And, as I scanned his face once more,\n            I found I had known him for many a day.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIV.\n\nWITCHCRAFT.\n\n    Minor gods--Saint and Satyr--Tutelaries--Spells--Early Christianity\n    and the poor--Its doctrine as to pagan deities--Medi\u00e6val\n    Devils--Devils on the stage--An Abbot's revelations--The fairer\n    deities--Oriental dreams and spirits--Calls for Nemesis--Lilith\n    and her children--Neoplatonicism--Astrology and Alchemy--Devil's\n    College--Shem-hammphor\u00e1sch--Apollonius of Tyana--Faustus--Black Art\n    Schools--Compacts with the Devil--Blood-covenant--Spirit-seances in\n    old times--The Fairfax delusion--Origin of its devil--Witch, goat,\n    and cat--Confessions of Witches--Witchcraft in New England--Witch\n    trials--Salem demonology--Testing witches--Witch trials in\n    Sweden--Witch Sabbath--Mythological elements--Carriers--Scotch\n    Witches--The cauldron--Vervain--Rue--Invocation of Hecat\u00e9--Factors\n    of Witch persecution--Three centuries of massacre--W\u00fcrzburg\n    horrors--Last victims--Modern Spiritualism.\n\n\nSt. Cyprian saw the devil in a flower. [153] That little vision may\nreport more than many more famous ones the consistency with which\nthe first christians had developed the doctrine that nature is the\nincarnation of the Evil Spirit. It reports to us the sense of many\nsounds and sights which were heard and seen by ears and eyes trained\nfor such and no other, all showing that the genii of nature and\nbeauty were vanishing from the earth. Over the \u00c6gean sea were heard\nlamentations and the voice, 'Great Pan is dead!' Augustus consults\nthe oracle of Apollo and receives reply--\n\n\n        Me puer Hebr\u00e6us, Divos Deus ipse gubernans,\n        Cedere sede jubet, tristremque redire sub orcum;\n        Aris ergo dehinc tacitis abscedito nostris.\n\n\nBut while the rage of these Fathers towards all the great gods and\ngoddesses, who in their grand temples represented 'the pride of life,'\nwas remorseless, they were comparatively indifferent to the belief or\ndisbelief of the lower classes in their small tutelary divinities. They\nappear almost to have encouraged belief in these, perhaps appreciating\nthe advantages of the popular custom of giving generous offerings\nto such personal and domestic patrons. At a very early period there\nseems to have arisen an idea of converting these more plebeian spirits\ninto guardian angels with christian names. Thus Jerome relates in\nhis Life of the first Hermit Paul, that when St. Anthony was on his\nway to visit that holy man, he encountered a Centaur who pointed\nout the way; and next a human-like dwarf with horns, hooked fingers,\nand feet like those of a goat. St. Anthony believing this to be an\napparition of the Devil, made the sign of the Cross; but the little\nman, nowise troubled by this, respectfully approached the monk,\nand having been asked who he was, answered: 'I am a mortal, and one\nof those inhabitants of the Desert whom the Gentiles in their error\nworship under the names of Fauns, Satyrs, and Incubi: I am delegated\nby my people to ask of thee to pray for us to our common God, who we\nknow has descended for the salvation of the world, and whose praises\nresound in all the earth.' At this glorification of Christ St. Anthony\nwas transported with joy, and turning towards Alexandria he cried,\n'Woe to thee, adulterous city, which adorest animals as gods!'\n\nPerhaps the evolution of these desert demons into good christians would\nhave gone on more rapidly and completely if the primitive theologians\nhad known as much of their history as comparative mythology has\ndisclosed to the modern world. St. Anthony was, however, fairly on\nthe track of them when he turned towards Alexandria. Egypt appears\nto have been the especial centre from which were distributed through\nthe world the fetish guardians of provinces, towns, households and\nindividuals. Their Serapes reappear in the Teraphim of Laban, and many\nof the forms they used reappear in the Penates, Lares, and genii of\nLatin countries. All these in their several countries were originally\nrelated to its ancient religion or mythology, but before the christian\nera they were very much the same in Egypt, Greece, and Italy. They were\nshaped in many different, but usually natural forms, such as serpents,\ndogs, boys, and old men, though often some intimation was given of\ntheir demonic character. They were so multiplied that even plants\nand animals had their guardians. The anthropomorphic genii called the\nPatrii, who were supposed to preside over provinces, were generally\nrepresented bearing weapons with which they defended the regions of\nwhich they were patrons. These were the Averrunci or Apotrop\u00e6i.\n\nThere are many interesting branches of this subject which cannot be\nentered into here, and others have already been considered in the\nforegoing parts of this work. It is sufficient for my present purpose\nto remark, that, in the course of time, all the households of the world\nhad traditional guardians; these were generally represented in some\nshape on amulets and talismans, on which were commonly inscribed the\nverbal charms by which the patron could be summoned. In the process\nof further time the amulets--especially such as were reproduced\nby tribes migrating from the vicinity of good engravers--might\nbe marked only with the verbal charms; these again were, in the\nend, frequently represented only by some word or name. This was the\n'spell.' Imagination fails in the effort to conceive how many strata of\nextinct deities had bequeathed to the ancient Egyptians those mystical\nnames whose exact utterance they believed would constrain each god so\nnamed to appear and bind him to serve the invoker's purpose whether\ngood or evil. [154] This idea continued among the Jews and shaped\nthe commandment, 'Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God\nin vain.'\n\nIt was in these diminutive forms that great systems survived among\nthe common people. Amid natural convulsions ancient formations of\nfaith were broken into fragments; in the ebb and flow of time these\nfragments were smoothed, as it were, into these talismanic pebbles. Yet\neach of these conveyed all the virtue which had been derived from the\ngreat and costly ceremonial system from which it originally crumbled;\nthe virtue of soothing the mind and calming the nerves of sufferers\nwith the feeling that, though they might have been assailed by\nhostile powers, they had friendly powers too who were active in their\nbehalf--Vindicators, to recall Job's phrase--who at last would stand\nby them to the end. In the further ebb and flow of generations the\nmass of such charms are further pulverised into sand or into mud; but\nnot all of them: amid the mud will be found many surviving specimens,\nand such mud of accumulated superstitions is always susceptible of\nbeing remoulded after such lingering models, should occasion demand.\n\nErasmus, in his 'Adages,' suggests that it was from these genii of\n'the Gentiles' that the christians derived their notion of each person\nbeing attended by two angels, a good and a bad. Probably he was but\nhalf right. The peoples to whom he refers did not generally believe\nthat each man was attended by a bad spirit, a personal enemy. That was\nan honour reserved for individuals particularly formidable to the evil\npowers,--Adam, Jacob, Hercules, or Zoroaster. The one preternatural\npower attending each ordinary individual defended him from the general\nforces of evil. But it was Christianity which, in the gradual effort\nto substitute patron-saints and guardian-angels of its own for the\npagan genii, turned the latter from friends to enemies, and their\nprotecting into assailing weapons.\n\nAll the hereditary household gods of what is now called Christendom\nwere diabolised. But in order that the masses might turn from them\nand invoke christian guardians, the Penates, Lares, and genii had to\nbe belittled on the one hand, and the superior power of the saints\nand angels demonstrated. When Christianity had gained the throne of\npolitical power, it was easy to show that the 'imps,' as the old\nguardians were now called, could no longer protect their invokers\nfrom christian punishment, or confer equal favours.\n\nChristianity conquered Europe by the sword, but at first that sword\nwas not wielded against the humble masses. It was wielded against\ntheir proud oppressors. To the common people it brought glad tidings\nof a new order, in which, under the banner of a crucified working-man\nand his (alleged) peasant mother, all caste should disappear but that\nof piety and charity. Christ eating with publicans and sinners and\nhealing the wayside cripples reappeared in St. Martin dividing his\nembroidered cloak with a beggar--type of a new aristocracy. They\nwho worshipped the Crucified Peasant in the rock-cave of Tours\nwhich St. Martin had consecrated, or in little St. Martin's Church\nat Canterbury where Bertha was baptized, could not see the splendid\ncathedrals now visible from them, built of their bones and cemented\nwith their blood. King Ethelbert surrendered the temple of his idol\nto the consecration of Augustine, and his baptized subjects had no\ndifficulty in seeing the point of the ejected devil's talons on the\nwall which he assailed when the first mass was therein celebrated.\n\nGlad tidings to the poor were these that the persecuted first\nmissionaries brought to Gaul, Britain, and Germany. But they did not\nlast. The christians and the pagan princes, like Herod and Pilate,\njoined hands to crucify the European peasant, and he was reduced to\na worse serfdom than he had suffered before. Every humble home in\nEurope was trampled in the mire in the name of Christ. The poor man's\nwife and child, and all he possessed were victims of the workman of\nJerusalem turned destroyer of his brethren. Michelet has well traced\nWitchcraft to the Despair of the Middle Ages. [155] The decay of\nthe old religions, which Christianity had made too rapid for it to\nbe complete, had left, as we have seen, all the trains laid for that\nterrible explosion; and now its own hand of cruelty brought the torch\nto ignite them. Let us, at risk of some iteration, consider some of\nthese combustible elements.\n\nIn the first place the Church had recognised the existence of the\npagan gods and goddesses, not wishing to imbreed in the popular mind a\nsceptical habit, and also having use for them to excite terror. Having\nfor this latter purpose carved and painted them as ugly and bestial,\nit became further of importance that they should be represented as\nstupid and comparatively impotent. Baptism could exorcise them,\nand a crucifix put thousands of them to flight. This tuition was\nnot difficult. The peasantries of Europe had readily been induced\nto associate the newly announced (christian) Devil with their most\nmischievous demons. But we have already considered the forces under\nwhich these demons had entered on their decline before they were\nassociated with Satan. Many conquered obstructions had rendered the\nDemons which represented them ridiculous. Hence the 'Dummeteufel' of\nso many German fables and of the medi\u00e6val miracle-plays. 'No greater\nproof,' says Dr. Dasent, 'can be given of the small hold which the\nchristian Devil has taken of the Norse mind, than the heathen aspect\nunder which he constantly appears, and the ludicrous way in which\nhe is always outwitted.' [156] 'The Germans,' says Max M\u00fcller,\n'indoctrinated with the idea of a real devil, the Semitic Satan\nor Diabolus, treated him in the most good-humoured manner.' [157]\nA fair idea of the insignificance he and his angels reached may be\ngained from the accompanying picture (Fig. 18), with which a medi\u00e6val\nMissal now in possession of Sir Joseph Hooker is illuminated. It could\nnot be expected that the masses would fear beings whom their priests\nthus held up to ridicule. It is not difficult to imagine the process\nof evolution by which the horns of such insignificant devils turned\nto the asinine ears of such devils as this stall carving at Corbeil,\nnear Paris (Fig. 19), which represented the popular view of the mastery\nobtained by witches over devils. It must be remembered also that this\npower over devils was in accordance with the traditions concerning\nSolomon, and the subserviency of Oriental demons generally to the\nlamps or charms to which they were bound.\n\nWhat the popular christian devil had become in all the Northern\nnations is sufficiently shown in the figure he presented in most\nof the old miracle-plays and 'Moralities.' 'The Devill in his\nfethers all ragged and rent,' [158] had horns, wide mouth, long\n(sometimes up-turned) nose, red beard, cloven foot, and tail. He\nwas attended by a buffoon called Vice. 'And,' says Harsenet, 'it\nwas a pretty part in the old Church playes when the nimble Vice\nwould skip up nimbly like a Jackanapes into the Devil's necke, and\nride the Devil a course, and belabour him with a wooden dagger,\ntill he made him roar, whereat the people would laugh to see the\nDevil so Vice-haunted.' [159] The two must have nearly resembled the\nclown and his unhappy victim Pantaloon in our pantomimes, as to their\nantics. It would seem that sometimes holy personages were caricatured\nin the make-up of the stage-devil. Thus in 'Gammer Gurton's Needle'\nwe have this conversation:--\n\n\n  GAMMER. But, Hodge, had he no horns to push?\n\n  HODGE. As long as your two armes. Saw ye never fryer Rushe\n  Painted on cloth, with a side long cowe's tayle\n  And crooked cloven feet, and many a hooked nayle?\n  For all the world (if I should judge) should reckon him his brother;\n  Loke, even what face fryer Rushe had, the devil had such another.\n\n\nIn the scene of Christ's delivering souls from purgatory, the Devil\nis represented as blowing lustily a horn to alarm his comrades,\nand crying, 'Out, out, aronzt!' to the invader. He fights with a\nthree-pronged fork. He and his victims are painted black, [160] in\ncontrast with the souls of the saved, which are white. The hair was\nconsidered very important. [161] When he went to battle, even his\nfiery nature was sometimes represented in a way that must have been\nmore ludicrous than impressive. [162]\n\nThe insignificance to which the priests had reduced the devil in the\nplays, where they were usually the actors, reflected their own petty\nroutine of life. They could conceive of nothing more terrible than\ntheir own mean mishaps and local obstructions. One great office of the\nDevil was to tempt some friar to sleep when he should be at prayer,\n[163] make another drink too much, or a third cast warm glances at\na village beauty. The Revelations of the Abbot Richalmus, written\nseven hundred years ago, shows the Devil already far gone in his\nprocess of diminution. The Devil here concentrates the energies\nwhich once made the earth tremble on causing nausea to the Abbot,\nand making the choir cough while he is preaching. 'When I sit down to\nholy studies,' he says, 'the devils make me heavy with sleep. Then I\nstretch my hands beyond my cuffs to give them a chill. Forthwith the\nspirits prick me under my clothes like so many fleas, which causes me\nto put my hands on them; and so they get warm again, and my reading\ngrows careless.' 'Come, just look at my lip; for twenty years has an\nimp clung to it just to make it hang down.' It is ludicrous to find\nthat ancient characteristic of the gods of Death already adverted\nto--their hatred of salt, the agent of preservation--descended from\nbeing the sign of Job's constancy to Jehovah into a mere item of the\nAbbot's appetite. 'When I am at dinner, and the devil has taken away my\nappetite, as soon as I have tasted a little salt it comes back to me;\nand if, shortly afterwards, I lose it again, I take some more salt,\nand am once more an hungered.' [164]\n\nOne dangerous element was the contempt into which, by many causes,\nthe infernal powers had been brought. But a more dangerous one lay in\nanother direction. Though the current phrases of the New Testament\nand of the Fathers of the Church, declaring this world, its wealth,\nloves, and pleasures, to be all the kingdom of Satan, had become cant\nin the mouths of priests ruling over Europe, it had never been cant\nto the humble peasantries. Although they had degraded many devils\nimported by the priests, it had been in connection with the declining\nterrors of their native demonologies. But above these degraded and\nhated gnomes and elves, whose paternity had been transferred from\nSoetere to Satan, there was an array of beautiful deities--gentle\ngods and goddesses traditionally revered and loved as protectors of\nthe home and the family--which had never really lost their hold on the\ncommon people. They might have shrunk before the aggressive victories\nof the Saints into little Fairies, but their continued love for the\npoor and the oppressed was the romance of every household. What did\nthese good fairies do? They sometimes loaded the lowly with wealth,\nif summoned in just the right way; they sang secrets to them from\ntrees as little birds, they smoothed the course of love, clothed\nash-maidens in fine clothes, transported people through the air,\nenabled them to render themselves invulnerable, or invisible, to get\nout of prisons, to vanquish 'the powers that be,' whether 'ordained of\nGod' or not. Now all these were benefits which, by christian theory,\ncould only be conferred by that Prince of this World who ministered to\n'the pride of life.'\n\nInto homes which the priest and his noble had stripped of happiness\nand hope,--whose loving brides were for baptized Bluebeards, whose\nhard earnings were taken as the price of salvation from devils whose\nawfulness was departing,--there came from afar rumours of great wealth\nand splendour conferred upon their worshippers by Eastern gods and\ngoddesses. The priests said all those were devils who would torture\ntheir devotees eternally after death; yet it could not be denied\nthat the Moors had the secret of lustres and ornamentation, that\nthe heathen East was gorgeous, that all Christendom was dreaming of\nthe wealth of Ormus and of Ind. Granted that Satan had come westward\nand northward, joined the scurvy crew of Loki, and become of little\nimportance; but what of Baal or Beelzebub, of Asmodeus, of the genii\nwho built Solomon's temple, of rich Pluto, of august Ahriman? Along\nwith stories of Oriental magnificence there spread through Christendom\nnames of many deities and demons; many of them beautiful names, too,\neuphemism having generally managed to bestow melodious epithets alike\non deities feared and loved. In Faust's 'Miraculous Art and Book of\nMarvels, or the Black Raven' (1469), the infernal heirarchy are thus\nnamed:--King, Lucifer; Viceroy, Belial; Gubernatores, Satan, Beelzebub,\nAstaroth, Pluto; Chief Princes, Aziel, Mephistopheles, Marbuel, Ariel,\nAniguel, Anisel, Barfael. Seductive meanings, too, corresponding to\nthese names, had filtered in some way from the high places they once\noccupied into the minds of the people. Lucifer was a fallen star that\nmight rise again; Belial and Beelzebub were princes of the fire that\nrendered possible the arts of man, and the Belfires never went out in\nthe cold North; Astarte meant beauty, and Pluto wealth; Aziel (Asael)\nwas President of the great College of occult arts, from whom Solomon\nlearned the secrets by which he made the jinni his slaves; Marbuel\nwas the artist and mechanic, sometimes believed to aid artisans who\nproduced work beyond ordinary human skill; Ariel was the fine spirit\nof the air whose intelligence corresponded to that of the Holy Ghost\non the other side; Aniguel is the serpent of Paradise, generally\nwritten Anisel; Anizazel is probably a fanciful relative of Azazel,\n'the strong god;' and Barfael, who in a later Faust book is Barbuel,\nis an orientalised form of the 'demon of the long beard' who holds\nthe secret of the philosopher's stone.\n\nIn a later chapter the growth of favourable views of the devil is\nconsidered. Some of the legends therein related may be instructively\nread in connection with the development of Witchcraft. Many rumours\nwere spread abroad of kindly assistance brought by demons to persons in\ndistress. But even more than by hopes so awakened was the witch aided\nby the burning desire of the people for vengeance. They wanted Zamiel\n(Sama\u00ebl) to help them to mould the bullet that would not miss its\nmark. The Devil and all his angels had long been recognised by their\ncatechists as being utilised by the Deity to execute his vengeance\non the guilty; and to serfs in their agony that devil who would not\nspare prince or priest was more desired than even the bestower of\nfavours to their starving minds and bodies.\n\nUnder the long ages of war in Europe, absorbing the energies of men,\nwomen had become the preservers of letters. The era of witchcraft in\nEurope found that sex alone able to read and write, arts disesteemed\nin men, among the peasantry at least. To them men turned when it had\nbecome a priestly lesson that a few words were more potent than the\nweapons of princes. Besides this, women were the chief sorcerers,\nbecause they were the chief sufferers. In Alsace (1615), out of\nseventy-five who perished as witches, sixty-two were women. The\nfamous Malleus Maleficorum, which did more evil than any work ever\npublished, derives femina from fide minus. Although in the Faust\nlegend Mephistopheles objects to marriage, many stories represent\ndiabolical weddings. Particular details were told of the marriage of\nSatan with the daughter of a Sorceress at Egnischen (1585), on which\noccasion the three towers of the castle there were said to have been\nilluminated, and a splendid banquet spread, the favourite dish being\na ragout of bats. There was exquisite music, and a 'beautiful man'\nblessed the nuptials. How many poor peasant girls must have had such\ndreams as they looked up from their drudgery to the brilliant chateaux?\n\nIn the illuminated manuscript known as 'Queen Mary's Psalter' (1553)\nthere is a picture of the Fall of Man (Fig. 20) which possesses\nfar-reaching significance. It is a modification of that idea,\nwhich gained such wide currency in the Middle Ages, that it was\nthe serpent-woman Lilith who had tempted Adam to eat the forbidden\nfruit. In this picture, while the beautiful face and ample hair\nof Lilith are given, instead of the usual female bust she has the\nbody of a cat. This nocturnal animal, already sacred to Freyja, the\nTeutonic Venus, whose chariot it drew, gained a new mythological\ncareer in the North by the large number of Southern and Oriental\nstones which related it to the lunar and amorous demonesses. When\nthe gods fled before the Titans, Diana, as Ovid relates, changed\nherself to a cat, and as infernal Hecate that animal was still\nbeside her. If my reader will turn to vol. i. p. 130, some of the\nvast number of myths which prepared the cat to take its place as\nfamiliar of the witch may be found. Whether the artist had Lilith in\nhis mind or not, the illumination in 'Queen Mary's Psalter' represents\na remarkable association of myths. For Lilith was forerunner of the\nmedi\u00e6val mothers weeping for their children; her voice of perpetual\nlamentation at the cruel fate allotted her by the combined tyranny\nof God and man was heard on every sighing wind; and she was the\nrichly dressed bride of the Prince of Devils, ever seeking to tempt\nyouth. Such stories floated through the mind of the Middle Ages,\nand this infernal Madonna is here seen in association with the cat,\nbeneath whose soft sparkling fur the goddess of Love and Beauty was\nsupposed to be still lurking near the fireside of many a miserable\nhome. Some fragrance of the mystical East was with this feline beauty,\nand nothing can be more striking than the contrast which the ordinary\ndevils beside her present. Their unseductive ugliness and meanness is\nplaced out of sight of the pair tempted to seek the fruit of forbidden\nknowledge. They inspire the man and woman in their evidently eager\ngrasping after the fruit, which here means the consultation of fair\nfortune-tellers and witches to obtain that occult knowledge for which\nspeculative men are seeking in secret studies and laboratories.\n\nThose who have paid attention to the subject of Witchcraft need not\nbe reminded that its complexity and vastness would require a larger\nvolume than the present to deal with it satisfactorily. The present\nstudy must be limited to a presentation of some of the facts which\ninduce the writer to believe that, beneath the phenomena, lay a\nprofound alienation from Christianity, and an effort to recall the\nbanished gods which it had superseded.\n\nThe first christian church was mainly Jewish, and this is also to say\nthat it inherited the vast Angelolatry and the system of spells which\nthat tribe had brought from Babylon. To all this was now superadded\nthe accumulation of Assyrian and Egyptian lore which was re-edited\nin the form of Neoplatonicism. This mongrel mass, constituted of\nnotions crumbled from many systems, acquired a certain consistency\nin Gnosticism. The ancient Egyptians had colleges set apart for\nastrological study, and for cultivation of the art of healing by\ncharms. Every month, decade, day of the year had its special guardian\nin the heavens. The popular festivals were astronomic. To the priests\nin the colleges were reserved study of the sacred books in which\nthe astrological secrets were contained, and whose authorship was\nattributed to the god Thoth, inventor of writing, the Greek Hermes,\nand, later, Egyptian Hermes Trismegistus. The zodiac is a memorial of\nthe influence which the stars were supposed to exert upon the human\nbody. Alchemy (the word is Egyptian, K\u00e9mi meaning 'black earth')\nwas also studied in connection with solar, lunar, and stellar\ninfluences. The Alchemists dreamed of discovering the philosopher's\nstone, which would change base metals to gold; and Diocletian, in\nburning the Alchemists' books, believed that, in so doing, he would\ndeprive the Egyptians of their source of wealth. [165]\n\nImported into Greece, these notions and their cult had a twofold\ndevelopment. Among the Platonists they turned to a naturalistic\nand allegorical Demonology; among the uncultivated they formed a\nDiabolarchy, which gathered around the terrible lunar phantasm--Hecate.\n\nThe astrological College of Egypt gave to the Jews their strange\nidea of the high school maintained among the devils, already\nreferred to in connection with Asmodeus, who was one of its leading\nprofessors. The rabbinical legend was, that two eminent angels, Asa\nand Asael, remonstrated with the Creator on having formed man only\nto give trouble. The Creator said they would have done the same as\nman under similar circumstances; whereupon Asa and Asael proposed\nthat the experiment should be tried. They went to earth, and the\nCreator's prediction was fulfilled: they were the first 'sons of God'\nwho fell in love with the daughters of men (Gen. vi. 2). They were\nthen embodied. In heaven they had been angels of especial knowledge in\ndivine arts, and they now used their spells to reascend. But their sin\nrendered the spells powerless for that, so they repaired to the Dark\nMountains, and there established a great College of Sorcery. Among the\nmany distinguished graduates of this College were Job, Jethro, and\nBileam. It was believed that these three instructed the soothsayers\nwho attempted to rival the miracles of Moses before Pharaoh. Job\nand Jethro were subsequently converted, but Bileam continued his\nhostility to Israel, and remains a teacher in the College. Through\nknowledge of the supreme spell--the Shem-hammphor\u00e1sch, or real name\nof God--Solomon was able to chain Professor Asmodeus, and wrest from\nhim the secret of the worm Sch\u00e1mir, by whose aid the Temple was built.\n\nTraditions of the learning of the Egyptians, and of the marvels\nlearned by Solomon from Asa and Asael by which he compelled demons to\nserve him, and the impressive story of the Witch of Endor, powerfully\ninfluenced the inquisitive minds of Europe. The fierce denunciations of\nall studies of these arts of sorcery by the early Church would alone\nreveal how prevalent they were. The wonderful story of Apollonius of\nTyana, [166] as told by Philostratus, was really a kind of gospel to\nthe more worldly-minded scholars. Some rabbins, following the outcry\nagainst Jesus, 'He casteth out devils by Beelzebub,' circulated at an\nearly date the story that Jesus had derived his power to work miracles\nfrom the spell Shem-hammphor\u00e1sch, which he found on one of the stones\nof the Temple where Solomon had left it. Though Eusebius cast doubt\nupon them, the christians generally do not appear to have denied the\nmiracles of Apollonius, which precisely copy those of Jesus from the\nmiraculous birth to the ascension, but even to have quoted them as\nan evidence of the possibility of miracles. Celsus having attributed\nthe miracles of Jesus to sorcery, and said that magic influenced\nonly the ignorant and immoral, Origen replies that, in order to\nconvince himself of the contrary, he has only to read the memoirs\nof Apollonius by M\u00e6ragenes, who speaks of him as a philosopher and\nmagician, who repeatedly exercised his powers on philosophers. Arnobius\nand the fathers of the fourth century generally believed in the\nApollonian thaumaturgy and attributed it to magic. Aldus Manutius\npublished the book of Philostratus in the fifteenth century, and the\ndegree to which the fascinating and marvellous stories concerning\nApollonius fired the European imagination just awaking under the\nbreath of the Renaissance, may be estimated by the fury with which\nthe 'magician' was anathematised by Pico della Mirandola, Jean Bodin,\nand Baronius. The book and the controversy attracted much attention,\nand while the priests still continued to charge Apollonius with being a\n'magician,' they appear to have perceived that it would have been more\nto the point, so far as their real peril was concerned, to have proved\nhim an impostor. Failing that, Dr. Faustus and his fellow-professors\nin the 'black art' were left masters of the situation. The people\nhad to digest the facts admitted, that a Pagan had learned, by\ninitiations into the astrological schools of Egypt and India, the\nmeans of healing the sick, raising the dead, flying through the air,\nthrowing off chains, opening locks, rendering himself invisible,\nand discerning the future.\n\nThere was a call for some kind of Apollonius, and Faustus arose. Side\nby side flourished Luther and Faustus. To Roman Catholic eyes they\nwere twin sons of the Devil; [167] that they were characteristic\nproducts of one moral age and force appears to me certain, even as\nto-day the negations of Science and the revival of 'Spiritualism'\nhave a common root in radical disbelief of the hereditary dogmas\nand forms of so-called religion. It is, however, not surprising that\nProtestantism felt as much horror of its bastard brother as Science\nhas of the ghostly seances. Through the early sixteenth century we\ncan trace this strange Dr. Faustus ('auspicious,' he had chosen that\nname) going about Germany, not omitting Erfurth, and talking in taverns\nabout his magic arts and powers. More is said of him in the following\nchapter; it is sufficient to observe here, and it is the conclusion\nof Professor Morley, who has sifted the history with his usual care,\nthat about him, as a centre of crystallisation, tales ascribed in\nthe first place to other conjurers arranged themselves, until he\nbecame the popular ideal of one who sought to sound the depths of\nthis world's knowledge and enjoyments without help from the Church or\nits God. The priests did not doubt that this could be done, nor did\nthe Protestants; they generally agreed that it could be accomplished\nat cost of the soul. As angels of the good God must answer to the\nformulas of invocation to those who had made a sacramental compact\nwith their Chief, so was it possible to share a sacrament of Satan,\nand by certain invocations summon his infernal angels to obtain the\npleasures of this world of which he is Prince. A thousand years'\nexperience of the Church had left the poor ready to sign the compact\nif they could secure some little earthly joy. As for Heaven, if it\nwere anything like what its ministers had provided for the poor on\nearth, Hell might be preferable after all.\n\nDr. Wuttke, while writing his recent work on German superstitions, was\nsurprised to learn that there still exist in France and in Wurtemberg\nschools for teaching the Black Art. A priest in the last-named country\nwrote him that a boy had confessed to having passed the lower grade of\nsuch a school, but, scared by the horrid ceremonies, had pronounced\nsome holy words which destroyed the effect of the wicked practices,\nand struck the assembled Devil-worshippers with consternation. The\nboy said he had barely escaped with his life. I have myself passed an\nevening at a school in London 'for the development of Spirit-mediums,'\nand possibly Dr. Wuttke's correspondent would describe these also\nas Devil-worshippers. No doubt all such circles might be traced\narch\u00e6ologically to that Sorcerers' College said by the rabbins to\nhave been kept by Asa and Asael. But what moral force preserved\nthem? They do but represent a turning of methods made familiar by\nthe Church to coax benefits from other supernatural powers in the\nhope that they would be less dilatory than the Trinity in bestowing\ntheir gifts. What is the difference between St. Wolfram's God and King\nRadbot's Devil? The one offers a golden mansion on earth warranted to\nlast through eternity, the other a like mansion in the skies receivable\nafter death. The Saint agrees that if Radbot's Devil can build him such\na house the king would be quite right to worship the architect. The\nquestion of the comparative moral merits of the two invisible Powers\nis not mentioned. This legend, related in a preceding chapter,\nis characteristic of the motives to which the priesthood appealed\nthrough the Middle Ages. It is no wonder that the people began to\nappeal to the gods of their traditional Radbots, nor that they should\nhave used the ceremonial and sacramental formulas around them.\n\nBut to these were added other formulas borrowed from different\nsources. The 'Compact with the Devil' had in it various elements. It\nappears to have been a custom of the Odinistic religion for men to sign\nacts of self-dedication to trusted deities, somewhat corresponding\nto the votive tablets of Southern religion. It was a legend of\nOdin that when dying he marked his arm with the point of a spear,\nand this may have been imitated. In the 'Mysteries' of pagan and\nchristian systems blood played an important part--the human blood of\nearlier times being symbolised by that of animals, and ultimately,\namong christians, in wine of the Eucharist. The primitive history of\nthis blood-covenant is given in another chapter. Some astrological\nformulas, and many of the deities invoked, spread through Europe with\nthe Jews. The actual, and quite as often fabulous, wealth of that\nantichristian race was ascribed to Antichrist, and while christian\nprinces thought of such gold as legitimate spoil, the honest peasants\nsought from their astrologers the transmitted 'key of Solomon,' in\nvirtue of which the demons served him. The famous 'Compact' therefore\nwas largely of christian-judaic origin, and only meant conveyance of\nthe soul in consideration of precisely the same treasures as those\npromised by the Church to all whose names were written in the Lamb's\nBook,--the only difference being in the period when redemption of\nthe respective issues of priest and astrologer should fall due. One\nwas payable during this life, the other after death.\n\nThe ceremonial performances of Witchcraft have also always existed\nin some form. What we are familiar with of late as Spirit-seances\nare by no means new. More than a hundred years ago, Mr. Wesley and\nvarious clergymen were sitting at a table in Cock Lane, asking the\nspirit 'Fanny' to rap twice if she were 'in a state of progressive\nhappiness.' Nay, a hundred years before that (1661), Sir Thomas\nChamberlain and others, sitting in a haunted house at Tedworth, Wilts,\nasked 'Satan, if the Drummer set thee to work, give three knocks,\nand no more, which it did very distinctly, and stopped.' [168] We\nalso learn that, in another town and case (1654), 'a naked arm and\nhand appeared and beat the floor.' It would not be difficult to go\nfurther back and find that the dark circle of our Spiritualists with\nmuch of its apparatus has existed continuously through the Middle\nAges. The dark seance which Goethe has represented in Faust, Part\nII., at which the spirits of Helen and Paris are evoked, is a very\naccurate picture of the 'materialisations' now exhibited by mediums,\nmore than forty years after its publication. These outer resemblances\nare physiognomical. The seance of to-day has lost the darker features\nof its medi\u00e6val prototype, because the Present has not a real and\ntemporal, but only a speculative and sentimental despair, and this is\nthe kind that possesses chiefly the well-to-do and idle classes. It is\nnot difficult to meet the eye of our everyday human nature amid those\nfrenzied periods when whole districts seemed afflicted with epidemic\nmadness, and look deep in that eye to the fathomless heart of humanity.\n\nIn an old parish register of Fewston, Yorkshire, are the following\nentries:--'1621. Anne, daughter of Edward Fairfax, baptized the 12th\nJune.' '1621. Edward Fairfax, Esq., a child named Anne, buried the\n9th October.' Then in the History of Knaresborough we read of this\nchild, 'She was held to have died through witchcraft.' In what dreams\ndid that child, supposed to have been snatched away by diabolic\nmalice, return as a pure spirit uplifted in light, yet shadowed by\nthe anxiety and pain of the bereaved family! A medium is at hand,\none through whose mind and heart all the stormy electricities\nof the time are playing. The most distinguished representative\nof the Fairfax family is off fighting for Parliament against the\nKing. Edward Fairfax is a zealous Churchman. His eldest daughter,\nHelen, aged twenty-one, is a parishioner of the Rev. Mr. Smithson, yet\nshe has come under the strong influence of a Nonconformist preacher,\nMr. Cook. The scholarly clergyman and his worldly Church on one side,\nand the ignorant minister with his humble followers on the other,\nare unconscious personifications of Vice and Virtue, while between\nthem poor Helen is no Heraklea.\n\nNineteen days after the burial of her little sister Anne, as mentioned\nabove, Helen is found 'in a deadly trance.' After a little she begins\nto speak, her words showing that she is, by imagination, 'in the church\nat Leeds, hearing a sermon by Mr. Cook.' On November 3, as she lies on\nher bed, Helen exclaims, 'A white cat hath been long upon me and drawn\nmy breath, and hath left in my mouth and throat so filthy a smell that\nit doth poison me!' Next we have the following in the father's diary:\n'Item. Upon Wednesday, the 14th of November, she saw a black dog by her\nbedside, and, after a little sleep, she had an apparition of one like\na young gentleman, very brave, his apparel all laid with gold lace,\na hat with a golden band, and a ruff in fashion. He did salute her\nwith the same compliment as she said Sir Fernandino Fairfax useth when\nhe cometh to the house and saluteth her mother.... He said he was a\nPrince, and would make her Queen of England and of all the world if\nshe would go with him. She refused, and said, 'In the name of God,\nwhat art thou?' He presently did forbid her to name God; to which\nshe replied, 'Thou art no man if thou canst not abide the name of\nGod; but if thou be a man, come near, let me feel of thee;' which he\nwould not do, but said, 'It is no matter for feeling.' She proceeded,\n'If thou wert a man, thou wouldst not deny to be felt; but thou art\nthe devil, and art but a shadow.'\n\nIt is possible that Helen Fairfax had read in Shakspere's 'Lear,'\nprinted twelve years before, that\n\n\n            The Prince of Darkness is a gentleman;\n            Modo he's called, and Mahu. [169]\n\n\nBut the reader will remark how her vision anticipates that of Faust,\nthe transformation of the poodle to finely-dressed Mephistopheles. On\nthe next apparition a bit from Patmos is interpolated, the Devil\nappearing as a beast with many horns; but the folklore of Yorkshire\nprevails, and 'presently he was like a very little dog, and desired\nher to open her mouth and let him come into her body, and then he\nwould rule all the world.' Lastly, he 'filled the room with fire.'\n\nIn the account thus far we have the following items of ancient\nmythology:--1, the Cat; 2, the Dog; 3, the Pride of Life (Asmodeus),\nrepresented in the fine dress and manners of the fiend; 4, the\nPrince of this World, offering its throne; 5, the Egyptian belief\nin potency of the Name; 6, the Hunger-Demon, who dares not be felt,\nbecause his back is hollow, and, though himself a shadow, casts none;\n7, the disembodied devil of the rabbins, who seeks to enter a human\nform, in order to enjoy the higher powers of which man is capable;\n8, the fiend of fire.\n\nThe period in which Helen Fairfax lived supplied forms for the\n'materialisation' of these notions flitting from the ancient cemeteries\nof theology. The gay and gallant Asmodeus had been transformed into a\ngoat under the ascetic eye of Europe; his mistress is a naked witch;\nher familiar and slave is a cat. This is the conventionalised theologic\ntheory, as we find it in many examples, one of which is here shown\n(Fig. 21), as copied from a stone panel at the entrance of Lyons\nCathedral. This is what Helen's visions end in. She and her younger\nsister of seven years, and a young neighbour, a girl of twelve, who\nhave become infected with Helen's hysterics, identify six poor women\nas witches, and Edward Fairfax would have secured their execution\nhad it not been for the clergyman Smithson.\n\nCats played a large part in this as in other witch-trials. They\nhad long been regarded as an insurance of humble households. In\nmany regions still may be found beliefs that a three-coloured cat\nprotects against fire; a black cat cures epilepsy, protects gardens;\nand in Bohemia a cat is the favourite bridal gift to procure a happy\nwedded life. One who kills a cat has no luck for seven years. The\nYorkshire women called witches remembered these proverbs to their\ncost. Among the cats regarded by the Fairfaxes as familiars of the\naccused, some names are notable. One is called 'Gibbe.' This is the\nIcelandic gabba, to 'delude,' and our gibber; it is the 'Gib' cat of\nReinicke Fuchs, and of the 'Romaunt of the Rose.' In 'Gammer Gurton'\nwe read, 'Hath no man gelded Gyb, her cat;' and in Henry IV. i. 2,\n'I am as melancholy as a gib cat.' Another of the cats is called\nInges. That is, ignis, fire--Agni maintaining his reign of terror.\n\nHelen's devil hates the dissenter, and says, 'Cook is a lying villain,'\nbecause Cook exorcises him with a psalm. On the other hand, the\ndevil praises the clergyman, but Helen breaks out with 'He is not\nworthy to be a vicar who will bear with witches.' Amid the religious\ncontroversies then exciting all households, mourning for his dead\nchild, humiliated by the suspicions of his best neighbours that\nhis daughter was guilty of deception, Edward Fairfax, Gentleman,\na scholar and author, lent an ear to the vulgar superstitions of\nhis neighbourhood. Could he have stood on the shoulders of Grimm,\nhe would have left us a very different narrative than that preserved\nby the Philobiblion Society. [170]\n\nIt is hardly possible to determine now the value of the alleged\nconfessions of witches. They were extorted by torture or by promises\nof clemency (the latter rarely fulfilled); they were shaped by\ncross-examiners rather than by their victims; and their worth is still\nmore impaired where, as is usual, they are not given in detail, but\nrecorded in 'substance,' the phraseology in such case reflecting the\npriest's preconceived theory of witches and their orgies. It is to be\nfeared, for instance, that 'devil' is often written instead of some\nname that might now be interesting. Nevertheless, there seems to be\nground for believing that in many cases there were seances held to\ninvoke supernatural powers.\n\nAmong the vast number of trials and confessions, I have found none\nmore significant than the following. In February 1691 a daughter\nand niece of Mr. Parris, minister in Salem (Massachusetts), girls of\nten or eleven years, and several other girls, complained of various\nbodily torments, and as the physicians could find no cause for them,\nthey were pronounced bewitched. The Rev. Mr. Parris had once been\nin business at the Barbadoes, and probably brought thence his two\nslaves, Spanish Indians, man and wife. When the children were declared\nbewitched, the Indian woman, Tituba, tried an experiment, probably with\nfetishes familiar in the Barbadoes, to find out the witch. Whereupon\nthe children cried out against the Indian woman as appearing to them\nand tormenting them. Tituba said her mistress, in her own country,\nhad taught her how to find out a witch, but denied being one herself;\nbut afterwards (urged, as she subsequently declared, by her master)\nshe confessed; and the marks of Spanish cruelty on her body were\nassumed to be the Devil's wounds. The Rev. Mr. Parris in a calmer time\nmight have vindicated poor Tituba by taking for text of his sermon on\nthe subject Christ's saying about a house divided against itself, and\nreminding the colony, which held public fast against Satan, that the\ndevil was too clever to cover his Salem agent with wounds; but instead\nof that he preached on the words, 'Have I not chosen you twelve, and\none of you is a devil.' During this sermon a woman left the church;\nshe was sister of a woman who had also been accused by the children,\nand, being offended by something Mr. Parris said, went out of meeting;\nof course, also to prison. There were three other women involved with\nTituba, in whose fetish experiments a well-informed writer thinks the\nSalem delusion began. [171] The examination before the Deputy-Governor\n(Danforth) began at Salem, April 11, 1692, and there are several\nnotable points in it. Tituba's husband, the Indian John, cunningly\nescaped by pretending to be one of the afflicted. He charged Goody\nProctor, and said, 'She brought the book to me.' No one asked what\nbook! Abigail Williams, also one of the accusers of Goody, was asked,\n'Does she bring the book to you? A. Yes. Q. What would she have you do\nwith it? A. To write in it, and I shall be well.' Not a descriptive\nword is demanded or given concerning this book. The examiners are\nevidently well acquainted with it. In the alleged confessions preserved\nin official reports, but not in the words of the accused, the nature\nof the book is made clear. Thus Mary Osgood 'confesses that about\neleven years ago, when she was in a melancholy state and condition,\nshe used to walk abroad in her orchard, and, upon a certain time she\nsaw the appearance of a cat at the end of the house, which yet she\nthought was a real cat. However, at that time it diverted her from\npraying to God, and instead thereof she prayed to the Devil; about\nwhich time she made a covenant with the Devil, who, as a black man,\ncame to her, and presented her a book, upon which she laid her finger,\nand that left a red spot. And that upon her signing that book, the\ndevil told her that he was her god.' This is not unlikely to be a\nparaphrase of some sermon on the infernal Book of Satan corresponding\nto the Book of Life, the theory being too conventional for the court\nto inquire about the mysterious volume. Equally well known was the\nAntichrist theory which had long represented that avatar of Satan\nas having organised a church. Thus we read:--'Abigail Williams,\ndid you see a company at Mr. Parris's house eat and drink? A. Yes,\nsir; that was their sacrament. Q. What was it? A. They said it was\nour blood.' 'Mary Walcot, have you seen a white man? A. Yes, sir,\na great many times. Q. What sort of man was he? A. A fine grave man,\nand when he came he made all the witches to tremble.' When it is\nremembered that Mary Osgood had described the Devil as 'a black man'\n(all were thinking of the Indians), this Antiblackman suggests Christ\nresisting Antichrist. Again, although nothing seems to have been said\nin the court previously about baptism, one of the examiners asks 'Goody\nLaccy how many years ago since they were baptized? A. Three or four\nyears ago I suppose. Q.  Who baptized them? A. The old serpent. Q. How\ndid he do it? A. He dipped their heads in the water, saying they\nwere his, and that he had power over them; ... there were six (who)\nbaptized. Q. Name them. A. I think they were of the higher powers.'\n\nThere are interspersed through the proceedings suggestions of mercy on\ncondition of confession, which, joined to these theoretical questions,\nrender it plain that the retractations which the so-called witches\nmade were true, and that in New England, at least, there was little\nif any basis for the delusion beyond the experiment of the two Spanish\nIndians. The terrible massacre of witches which occurred there was the\nresult of the decision of English judges and divines that witchcraft\nis recognised in the Bible, and there assigned the death-penalty.\n\nIt will be observed here that ancient mythology to Salem is chiefly\nthat of the Bible, modified by local conditions. White man and black\nman represent Christ and Antichrist, and we have the same symbols on\nboth sides,--eucharists, baptisms, and names written in books. The\nsurvivals from European folklore met with in the New England trials\nare--the cat, the horse (rarely), and the dog. In one case a dog\nsuffered from the repute of being a witch, insomuch that some who\nmet him fell into fits; he was put to death. Riding through the air\ncontinues, but the American witches ride upon a stick or pole. The\nold-fashioned broom, the cloud-symbol of the Wild Huntsman, is\nrarely mentioned. One thing, however, survives from England, at\nleast; the same sharp controversy that is reflected in the Fairfax\ncase. Cotton Mather tried one of the possessed with the Bible, the\n'Assembly's Catechism,' his grandfather's 'Milk for Babes,' his\nfather's 'Remarkable Providence,' and a book to prove there were\nwitches. 'And when any of those were offered for her to read in,\nshe would be struck dead and fall into convulsions.' But when he\ntried her with Popish and Quaker books, the English Prayer-Book,\nand a book to prove there were no witches, the devil permitted her\nto read these as long as she pleased. One is at a loss which most to\nadmire, the astuteness of the accused witch in bearing testimony to\nthe Puritan religion, or the phenomenon of its eminent representative\nseeking a witness to it in the Father of lies.\n\nIf now we travel towards the East we find the survivals growing\nclearer, as in the West they become faint.\n\nIn 1669 the people of the villages of Mohra and Elfdale in Sweden,\nbelieving that they were troubled by witches, were visited by a royal\ncommission, the result of whose investigations was the execution of\ntwenty-three adults and fifteen children; running of the gauntlet by\nthirty-six between the ages of nine and sixteen years; the lashing\non the hand of twenty children for three Sundays at the church-door,\nand similar lashing of the aforesaid thirty-six once a week for a\nyear. Portions of the confessions of the witches are given below\nfrom the Public Register as translated by Anthony Horneck, D.D.,\nand printed in London, anno 1700. I add a few words in brackets to\npoint out survivals.\n\n'We of the province of Elfdale do confess that we used to go to a\ngravel-pit which lay hard by a cross-way (Hecate), and there we put\non a vest (Wolf-girdle) over our heads, and then danced round, and\nafter this ran to the cross-way, and called the Devil thrice, first\nwith a still voice, the second time somewhat louder, and the third\ntime very loud, with these words--Antecessor, come and carry us to\nBlockula. Whereupon immediately he used to appear, but in different\nhabits; but for the most part we saw him in a grey coat and red and\nblue stockings: he had a red beard (Barbarossa), a high-crowned hat\n(Turn-cap), with linen of divers colours wrapt about it, and long\ngarters upon his stockings.\n\n'Then he asked us whether we would serve him with soul and body. If we\nwere content to do so, he set us upon a beast which he had there ready,\nand carried us over churches and high walls; and after all we came\nto a green meadow where Blockula lies. We must procure some scrapings\nof altars, and filings of church clocks; and then he gives us a horn\nwith a salve in it, wherewith we do anoint ourselves (chrism); and a\nsaddle with a hammer (Thor's), and a wooden nail, thereby to fix the\nsaddle (Walkyr's); whereupon we call upon the Devil and away we go.'\n\n'For their journey, they said they made use of all sorts of\ninstruments, of beasts, of men, of spits, and posts, according as they\nhad opportunity: if they do ride upon goats (Azazel) and have many\nchildren with them, that all may have room, they stick a spit into\nthe backside of the Goat, and then are anointed with the aforesaid\nointment. What the manner of their journey is, God only knows. Thus\nmuch was made out, that if the children did at any time name the\nnames (Egyptian spells) of those that had carried them away, they\nwere again carried by force either to Blockula, or to the cross-way,\nand there miserably beaten, insomuch that some of them died of it.'\n\n'A little girl of Elfdale confessed that, naming the name of Jesus\nas she was carried away, she fell suddenly upon the ground, and got\na great hole in her side, which the Devil presently healed up again,\nand away he carried her; and to this day the girl confessed she had\nexceeding great pain in her side.'\n\n'They unanimously confessed that Blockula is situated in a delicate\nlarge meadow, whereof you can see no end. The place or house they\nmet at had before it a gate painted with divers colours; through\nthis gate they went into a little meadow distinct from the other,\nwhere the beasts went that they used to ride on; but the men whom\nthey made use of in their journey stood in the house by the gate in a\nslumbering posture, sleeping against the wall (castle of Waldemar). In\na huge large room of this house, they said, there stood a very long\ntable, at which the witches did sit down; and that hard by this\nroom was another chamber where there were very lovely and delicate\nbeds. The first thing they must do at Blockula was, that they must\ndeny all, and devote themselves body and soul to the Devil, and\npromise to serve him faithfully, and confirm all this with an oath\n(initiation). Hereupon they cut their fingers (Odinism), and with\ntheir blood write their name in his book (Revelations). They added\nthat he caused them to be baptized, too, by such priests as he had\nthere (Antichrist's Sacraments).'\n\n'And he, the Devil, bids them believe that the day of judgment will\ncome speedily, and therefore sets them on work to build a great house\nof stone (Babel), promising that in that house he will preserve them\nfrom God's fury, and cause them to enjoy the greatest delights and\npleasures (Moslem). But while they work exceeding hard at it, there\nfalls a great part of the wall down again.'\n\n'They said, they had seen sometimes a very great Devil like a Dragon,\nwith fire round about him, and bound with an iron chain (Apocalyptic),\nand the Devil that converses with them tells them that if they confess\nanything he will let that great Devil loose upon them, whereby all\nSweedeland shall come into great danger.\n\n'They added that the Devil had a church there, such another as in\nthe town of Mohra. When the Commissioners were coming he told the\nWitches they should not fear them; for he would certainly kill them\nall. And they confessed that some of them had attempted to murther\nthe Commissioners, but had not been able to effect it.\n\n'Some of the children talked much of a white Angel (Frigga as christian\ntutelary), which used to forbid them what the Devil had bid them do,\nand told them that those doings should not last long. What had been\ndone had been permitted because of the wickedness of the people.\n\n'Those of Elfdale confessed that the Devil used to play upon an\nharp before them (Tannhauser), and afterwards to go with them that\nhe liked best into a chamber, when he committed venerous acts with\nthem (Asmodeus); and this indeed all confessed, that he had carnal\nknowledge of them, and that the Devil had sons and daughters by them,\nwhich he did marry together, and they ... brought forth toads and\nserpents (Echidna).\n\n'After this they sat down to table, and those that the Devil esteemed\nmost were placed nearest to him; but the children must stand at the\ndoor, where he himself gives them meat and drink (Sacrament). After\nmeals they went to dancing, and in the meanwhile swore and cursed\nmost dreadfully, and afterwards went to fighting one with another\n(Valhalla).\n\n'They also confessed that the Devil gives them a beast about the\nbigness and shape of a young cat (Hecate), which they call a carrier;\nand that he gives them a bird as big as a raven (Odin's messenger),\nbut white; [172] and these two creatures they can send anywhere, and\nwherever they come they take away all sorts of victuals they can get,\nbutter, cheese, milk, bacon, and all sorts of seeds, whatever they\nfind, and carry it to the witch. What the bird brings they may keep\nfor themselves, but what the carrier brings they must reserve for the\nDevil, and that is brought to Blockula, where he doth give them of it\nso much as he thinks fit. They added likewise that these carriers fill\nthemselves so full sometimes, that they are forced to spue ('Odin's\nbooty') by the way, which spuing is found in several gardens, where\ncolworts grow, and not far from the houses of these witches. It is\nof a yellow colour like gold, and is called butter of witches.\n\n'The Lords Commissioners were indeed very earnest, and took great pains\nto persuade them to show some of their tricks, but to no purpose;\nfor they did all unanimously confess that since they had confessed\nall, they found that all their witchcraft was gone, and that the\nDevil at this time appeared to them very terrible, with claws on\nhis hands and feet, and with horns on his head, a long tail behind,\nand showed to them a pit burning, with a hand put out; but the Devil\ndid thrust the person down again with an iron fork; and suggested to\nthe witches that if they continued in their confession, he would deal\nwith them in the same manner.'\n\nThe ministers of both Elfdale and Mohra were the chief inciters of\nthis investigation, and both testified that they had suffered many\ntortures in the night from the witches. One was taken by the throat\nand so violently used that 'for some weeks he was not able to speak\nor perform divine service.'\n\nWe have in this narrative the official and clerical statement, and can\nnever know to what the victims really confessed. Blockula seems to be\na Swedish edition of Blocksberg, of old considered a great resort of\nwitches. But we may especially note the epithet by which the witches\nare said to have first appealed to the Devil--Antecessor. Dr. Horneck\nhas not given us the Swedish term of which this is a translation,\nbut we may feel assured that it was not a phrase coined by the class\namong whom reputed witches were found. In all probability it was a\nlearned phrase of the time for some supposed power which preceded\nand was conquered by Christianity; and if we knew its significance it\nmight supply a clue to the reality with which the Commissioners were\ndealing. There would seem to be strong probabilities that in Sweden\nalso, as elsewhere, there had been a revival of faith in the old\nreligion whose barbaric rites had still survived in a few holes and\ncorners where they were practised by night. The Antecessor was still\npresent to hold out promises where the Successor had broken all that\nhis sponsors had made when the populace accepted his baptism. This\nprobability is further suggested by the fact that some of these\nuncanny events happened at Elfdale, a name which hints at a region of\nespecial sanctity under the old religion, and also by the statement\nthat the Devil had a church there, a sort of travesty of the village\nchurch. About the same time we find John Fiene confessing in Scotland\nthat the Devil appeared to him in 'white raiment,' and it is also\ntestified that John heard 'the Devil preach in a kirk in the pulpit\nin the night by candlelight, the candle burning blue.' [173]\n\nThe names used by the Scotch witches are often suggestive of\npagan survivals. Thus in the trial at the Paisley Assizes, 1678,\nconcerning the alleged bewitching of Sir George Maxwell, Margaret\nJackson testified to giving up her soul by renouncing her baptism to\na devil named Locas (Loki?); another raised a tempest to impede the\nking's voyage to Denmark by casting into the sea a cat, and crying\nHola (Hela?); and Agnes Sampson called the Devil to her in the shape\nof a dog by saying, 'Elva (Elf?), come and speak to me!'\n\nIt is necessary to pass by many of the indications contained in the\nwitch-trials that there had been an effort to recur to the pleasures\nand powers traditionally associated with the pagan era of Europe, and\nconfirmed by the very denunciations of contemporary paganism with its\npomp and luxury by the priesthood. The promises held out by the 'Devil'\nto Elfdale peasants and puritanised Helen Fairfax are unmistakable. But\nit is necessary to remark also that the ceremonies by which, as was\nclearly proved in various cases, the fortune-tellers or 'witches'\nendeavoured to imitate the spells of Dr. Faustus were arch\u00e6ological.\n\nAround the cauldron, which was used in imitation of the Alchemists,\na rude Zodiac was marked, some alchemic signs being added; and\nin the cauldron were placed ingredients concerning many of which\nthe accounts are confused. It is, however, certain that the chief\ningredients were plants which, precisely as in ancient Egypt, had\nbeen gathered at certain phases of the moon, or seasons of the year,\nor from some spot where the sun was supposed not to have shone on\nit. It was clearly proved also that the plants chiefly used by the\nsorceresses were rue and vervain. Vervain was sacred to the god of war\nin Greece and Rome, and made the badge of ambassadors sent to make\ntreaties of peace. In Germany it was sacred to Thor, and he would\nnot strike with his lightning a house protected by it. The Druids\ncalled it 'holy herb;' they gathered it when the dog-star rose, from\nunsunned spots, and compensated the earth for the deprivation with\na sacrifice of honey. Its reputation was sufficient in Ben Jonson's\nday for him to write--\n\n\n        Bring your garlands, and with reverence place\n        The vervain on the altar.\n\n\nThe charm which vervain had for the medi\u00e6val peasant was that it\nwas believed, if it had first touched a Bel-fire, to snap iron; and,\nif boiled with rue, made a liquid which, being poured on a gunflint,\nmade the shot as sure to take effect as any Freisch\u00fctz could desire.\n\nRue was supposed to have a potent effect on the eye, and to bestow\nsecond sight. So sacred was it once in England that missionaries\nsprinkled holy water from brushes made up of it, whence it was called\n'herb of grace.' Milton represents Michael as purging Adam's eyes\nwith it. In the Tyrol it is believed to confer fine vision and used\nwith agrimony (flowers of Argos, the many-eyed); in Posen it is said\nalso to heal serpent-bites. By this route it came into the cauldron\nof the wizard and witch. In Drayton's incantation it is said--\n\n\n            Then sprinkles she the juice of rue,\n            With nine drops of the midnight dew\n            From lunary distilling.\n\n\nThis association of lunary, or moon-wort, once supposed to cure lunacy,\nwith rue is in harmony with the mythology of both. An old oracle,\nsaid to have been revealed by Hecate herself, ran thus:--'From a\nroot of wild rue fashion and polish a statue; adorn it with household\nlizards; grind myrrh, gum, and frankincense with the same reptiles,\nand let the mixture stand in the air during the waning of a moon;\nthen address your vows in the following terms' (the formula is not\npreserved). 'As many forms as I have, so many lizards let there be;\ndo these things exactly; you will build me an abode with branches of\nlaurel, and having addressed fervent prayers to the image, you will\nsee me in your sleep.' [174]\n\nRue was thus consecrated as the very substance of Hecate, the mother\nof all European witches. M. Maury supposes that it was because it was\na narcotic and caused hallucinations. Hallucinations were, no doubt,\nthe basis of belief in second sight. But whatever may be the cause,\nrue was the plant of witchcraft; and Bishop Taylor speaks of its being\nused by exorcists to try the devil, and thence deriving its appellation\n'herb of grace.' More probably it was used to sprinkle holy water\nbecause of a traditional sanctity. All narcotics were supposed to be\nchildren of the night; and if, in addition, they were able to cause\nhallucinations, they were supposed to be under more especial care of\nthe moon.\n\nAfter reading a large number of reports concerning the ordeals and\ntrials of witches, and also many of their alleged confessions, I have\narrived at the conclusion that there were certainly gatherings held\nin secret places; that some of the ordinary ceremonies and prayers of\nthe Church were used, with names of traditional deities and Oriental\ndemons substituted for those of the Trinity and saints; that with\nthese were mingled some observances which had been preserved from\nthe ancient world by Gnostics, Astrologists, and Alchemists. That at\nthese gatherings there was sometimes direct devil-worship is probable,\nbut oftener the invocations were in other names, and it is for the\nmost part due to the legal reporters that the 'Devil' is so often\nnamed. As to the 'confessions,' many, no doubt, admitted they had\ngone to witches' Sabbaths who had been there only in feverish dreams,\nas must have been the case of many young children and morbid pietists\nwho were executed; others confessed in hope of escape from charges\nthey could not answer; and others were weary of their lives.\n\nThe writer of this well remembers, in a small Virginian village\n(Falmouth), more than thirty years ago, the terrible persecutions to\nwhich an old white woman named Nancy Calamese was subjected because\nof her reputation as a witch. Rumours of lizards vomited by her poor\nneighbours caused her to be dreaded by the ignorant; the negroes\nwere in terror of her; she hardly dared pass through the streets\nfor fear of being hooted by boys. One morning she waded into the\nRappahannock river and drowned herself, and many of her neighbours\nregarded the suicide as her confession. Probably it was a similar\nsort of confession to many that we read in the reports of witch trials.\n\nThe retribution that followed was more ferocious than could have\nvisited mere attempts by the poor and ignorant to call up spirits\nto their aid. Every now and then the prosecutions disclose the\nwell-known animus of heresy, persecution, and also the fury of\nmagistrates suspicious of conspiracies. In England, New England,\nand France, particularly, an incipient rationalism was revealed\nin the party called 'Saducees,' who tried to cast discredit on\nthe belief in witchcraft. This was recognised by Sir Mathew Hale\nin England and Cotton Mather in New England, consequently by the\nchief authorities of church and state in both countries, as an\nattack on biblical infallibility, since it was said in the Bible,\n'Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.' The leading wizards and\nwitches were probably also persons who had been known in connection\nwith the popular discontent and revolutionary feeling displayed in\nso many of the vindictive conjurations which were brought to light.\n\nThe horrors which attended the crushing out of this last revival\nof paganism are such as recall the Bartholomew massacre and the\nrecent slaughter of Communists in Paris, so vividly that one can\nhardly repress the suspicion that the same sort of mingled panic and\nfanaticism were represented in them all. Dr. R\u00e9ville has summed up the\nfearful history of three hundred years as follows:--'In the single\nyear 1485, and in the district of Worms alone, eighty-five witches\nwere delivered to the flames. At Geneva, at Basle, at Hamburg,\nat Ratisbon, at Vienna, and in a multitude of other towns, there\nwere executions of the same kind. At Hamburg, among other victims,\na physician was burnt alive, because he saved the life of a woman\nwho had been given up by the midwife. In Italy, during the year\n1523, there were burnt in the diocese of Como alone more than two\nhundred witches. This was after the new bull hurled at witchcraft\nby Pope Adrian VI. In Spain it was still worse; there, in 1527,\ntwo little girls, of from nine to eleven years of age, denounced a\nhost of witches, whom they pretended to detect by a mark in their\nleft eye. In England and Scotland political influence was brought to\nbear upon sorcery; Mary Stuart was animated by a lively zeal against\nwitches. In France the Parliament of Paris happily removed business\nof this kind from the ecclesiastical tribunals; and under Louis XI.,\nCharles VIII., and Louis XII. there were but few condemnations for\nthe practice of magic; but from the time of Francis I., and especially\nfrom Henry II., the scourge reappeared. Jean Bodin, a man of sterling\nworth in other respects, but stark mad upon the question of witchcraft,\ncommunicated his mania to all classes of the nation. His contemporary\nand disciple, Boguet, showed how that France swarmed with witches and\nwizards. 'They increase and multiply on the land,' said he, 'even as do\nthe caterpillars in our gardens. Would that they were all got together\nin a heap, so that a single fire might burn them all at once.' Savoy,\nFlanders, the Jura Mountains, Lorraine, B\u00e9arn, Provence, and in almost\nall parts of France, the frightful hecatombs were seen ablaze. In the\nseventeenth century the witch-fever somewhat abated, though it burst\nout here and there, centralising itself chiefly in the convents of\nhysterical nuns. The terrible histories of the priests Gaufridy and\nUrban Grandier are well known. In Germany, and particularly in its\nsouthern parts, witch-burning was still more frequent. In one small\nprincipality at least 242 persons were burnt between 1646 and 1651;\nand, horribile dictu, in the official records of these executions,\nwe find that among those who suffered were children from one to six\nyears of age! In 1657 the witch-judge, Nicholas Remy, boasted of having\nburnt 900 persons in fifteen years. It would even seem that it is to\nthe proceedings against sorcery that Germany owes the introduction\nof torture as an ordinary mode of getting at the truth. Mr. Roskoff\nreproduces a catalogue of the executions of witches and wizards in\nthe episcopal town of W\u00fcrzburg, in Bavaria, up to the year 1629. In\n1659 the number of those put to death for witchcraft amounted, in\nthis diocese, to 900. In the neighbouring bishopric of Bamberg at\nleast 600 were burnt. He enumerates thirty-one executions in all,\nnot counting some regarded by the compilers of the catalogue as not\nimportant enough to mention. The number of victims at each execution\nvaries from two to seven. Many are distinguished by such surnames\nas 'The Big Hunchback, The Sweetheart, The Bridge-keeper, The Old\nPork-woman,' &c. Among them appear people of all sorts and conditions,\nactors, workmen, jugglers, town and village maidens, rich burghers,\nnobles, students, magistrates even, and a fair number of priests. Many\nare simply entered as 'a foreigner.' Here and there is added to the\nname of the condemned person his age and a short notice. Among the\nvictims, for instance, of the twentieth execution figures 'Little\nBarbara, the prettiest girl in W\u00fcrzburg;' 'a student who could speak\nall manner of languages, who was an excellent musician, vocaliter et\ninstrumentaliter;' 'the master of the hospice, a very learned man.' We\nfind, too, in this, gloomy account the cruel record of children burnt\nfor witchcraft; here a little girl of about nine or ten years of age,\nwith her baby sister, younger than herself (their mother was burnt a\nlittle while afterwards); here boys of ten or eleven; again, a young\ngirl of fifteen; two children from the poorhouse; the little boy of\na councillor. The pen falls from one's hand in recapitulating such\nmonstrosities. Cannot those who would endow Catholicity with the\ndogma of papal infallibility hearken, before giving their vote,\nto the cries that rise before God, and which history re-echoes,\nof those poor innocent ones whom pontifical bulls threw into\nflames? The seventeenth century saw the rapid diminution of trials\nand tortures. In one of his good moments, Louis XIV. mitigated greatly\nthe severity of this special legislation. For this he had to undergo\nthe remonstrances of the Parliament of Rouen, which believed society\nwould be ruined if those who dealt in sorcery were merely condemned to\nperpetual confinement. The truth is, that belief in witchcraft was so\nwide-spread, that from time to time even throughout the seventeenth\ncentury there were isolated executions. One of the latest and most\nnotorious was that of Renata Saenger, superior of the convent of\nUnterzell, near W\u00fcrzburg (1748). At Landshut, in Bavaria, in 1756,\na young girl of thirteen years was convicted of impure intercourse\nwith the Devil, and put to death. Seville in 1781, and Glaris in 1783,\nsaw the last two known victims to this fatal superstition.' [175]\n\nThe Reformation swept away in Northern countries, for the upper\nclasses, as many Christian saints and angels as priestcraft had\npreviously turned to enemies for the lower. The poor and ignorant\nsimply tried to evoke the same ideal spirit-guardians under the\npagan forms legendarily associated with a golden age. Witchcraft\nwas a pathetic appeal against a cruel present to a fair, however\nvisionary, past. But Protestantism has brought on famine of another\nkind--famine of the heart. The saints of the Church have followed those\nof paganism; and although one result of the process has been a vast\nincrease in enterprise, science, and wealth, man cannot live by these\nalone. Modern spiritualism, which so many treat with a superciliousness\nlittle creditable to a scientific age, is a cry of starved sentiment\nand affections left hopeless under faded heavens, as full of pathetic\nmeaning as that which was wrung from serfs enticed into temples only\nto find them dens of thieves. Desolate hearts take up the burthen\nof desolate homes, and appeal to invisible powers for guidance;\nand for attestation of hopes which science has blighted, ere poetry,\nart, and philanthropy have changed these ashes into beauty. Because\nthese so-called spirits, evoked by mediums out of morbid nerves,\nare really longed-for ideals, the darker features of witchcraft are\nnot called about them. That fearful movement was a wronged Medea\nwhose sorrows had made Hecate--to remember the dreadful phrase of\nEuripides--'the chosen assistant dwelling in the inmost recesses of\nher house.' Modern spiritualism is Rachel weeping for her children,\nnot to be comforted if they are not. But the madness of the one is\nto be understood by the plaintive appeal of the other.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXV.\n\nFAUST AND MEPHISTOPHELES.\n\n    Mephisto and Mephitis--The Raven Book--Papal sorcery--Magic\n    seals--Mephistopheles as dog--George Sabellicus alias Faustus--The\n    Faust myth--Marlowe's Faust--Good and evil angels--El Magico\n    Prodigioso--Cyprian and Justina--Klinger's Faust--Satan's\n    sermon--Goethe's Mephistopheles--His German characters--Moral\n    scepticism--Devil's gifts--Helena--Redemption through Art--Defeat\n    of Mephistopheles.\n\n\nThe name Mephistopheles has in it, I think, the priest's shudder at\nthe fumes of the laboratory. Duntzer [176] finds that the original\nform of the word was 'Mephostophiles,' and conjectures that it was a\nbungling effort to put together three Greek words, to mean 'not loving\nthe light.' In this he has the support of Bayard Taylor, who also\nthinks that it was so understood by Goethe. The transformation of it\nwas probably amid the dreaded gases with which the primitive chemist\nsurrounded himself. He who began by 'not loving the light' became the\nfamiliar of men seeking light, and lover of their mephitic gases. The\nancient Romans had a mysterious divinity called Mephitis, whose grove\nand temple were in the Esquili\u00e6, near a place it was thought fatal\nto enter. She is thought to have been invoked against the mephitic\nexhalations of the earth in the grove of Albunea. Sulphur springs also\nwere of old regarded as ebullitions from hell, and both Schwarz and\nRoger Bacon particularly dealt in that kind of smell. Considering how\nlargely Asmodeus, as 'fine gentleman,' entered into the composition\nof Mephistopheles, and how he flew from Nineveh to Egypt (Tobit)\nto avoid a bad smell, it seems the irony of mythology that he should\nturn up in Europe as a mephitic spirit.\n\nMephistopheles is the embodiment of all that has been said in preceding\nchapters of the ascetic's horror of nature and the pride of life,\nand of the medi\u00e6val priest's curse on all learning he could not\nmonopolise. The Faust myth is merely his shadow cast on the earth,\nthe tracery of his terrible power as the Church would have the\npeople dread it. The early Raven Book at Dresden has the title:--'\n\u2020 \u2020 \u2020 D. J. Fausti \u2020 \u2020 \u2020 Dreifacher H\u00f6llen-Zwung und Magische\n(Geister-Commando) nebst den schwarzen Raaben. Rom\u00e6 ad Arcanum\nPontificatus unter Papst Alexander VI. gedruckt. Anno (Christi)\nMDI.' In proof of which claim there is a Preface purporting to be\na proclamation signed by the said Pope and Cardinal Piccolomini\nconcerning the secrets which the celebrated Dr. Faust had scattered\nthroughout Germany, commanding ut ad Arcanum Pontificatus mandentur et\nsicut pupilla oculi in archivio Nostro serventur et custodiantur, atque\nextra Valvas Vaticanas non imprimantur neque inde transportentur. Si\nvero quiscunque temere contra agere ausus fuerit, Divinam maledictionem\nlat\u00e6 sententi\u00e6 ipso facto servatis Nobis Solis reservandis se\nincursurum sciat. Ita mandamus et constituemus Virtute Apostolic\u00e6\nEcclesi\u00e6 Jesu Christi sub poena Excommunicationis ut supra. Anno\nsecundo Vicariatus Nostri. Rom\u00e6 Verbi incarnati Anno M.D.I.\n\nThis is an impudent forgery, but it is an invention which, more than\nanything actually issued from Rome, indicates the popular understanding\nthat the contention of the Church was not against the validity of\nmagic arts, but against their exercise by persons not authorised\nby itself. It was, indeed, a tradition not combated by the priests,\nthat various ecclesiastics had possessed such powers, even Popes, as\nJohn XXII., Gregory VII., and Clement V. The first Sylvester was said\nto have a dragon at his command; John XXII. denounced his physicians\nand courtiers for necromancy; and the whispers connecting the Vatican\nwith sorcery lasted long enough to attribute to the late Pius IX. a\npower of the evil eye. Such awful potencies the Church wished to be\nascribed to itself alone. Faust is a legend invented to impress on\nthe popular mind the fate of all who sought knowledge in unauthorised\nways and for non-ecclesiastical ends.\n\nIn the Raven Book just mentioned, there are provisions for calling up\nspirits which, in their blending of christian with pagan formulas,\noddly resemble the solemn proceedings sometimes affected by our\nspiritual mediums. The magician (Magister) had best be alone, but if\nothers are present, their number must be odd; he should deliberate\nbeforehand what business he wishes to transact with the spirits; he\nmust observe God's commandment; trust the Almighty's help; continue\nhis conjuration, though the spirits do not appear quickly, with\nunwavering faith; mark a circle on parchment with a dove's blood;\nwithin this circle write in Latin the names of the four quarters\nof heaven; write around it the Hebrew letters of God's name, and\nbeneath it write Sadan; and standing in this circle he must repeat\nthe ninety-first Psalm. In addition there are seals in red and black,\nvarious Hebrew, Greek, and Latin words, chiefly such as contain the\nletters Q, W, X, Y, Z,--e.g., Yschyros, Theos, Zebaoth, Adonay. The\nspecimen (Fig. 22), which I copied from the book in Dresden, is there\ncalled 'Sigillum Telschunhab.' The 'Black Raven' is pictured in the\nbook, and explained as the form in which the angel Raphael taught\nTobias to summon spirits. It is said also that the Magician must in\ncertain cases write with blood of a fish (Tobit again) or bat on\n'maiden-parchment,'--this being explained as the skin of a goat,\nbut unpleasantly suggestive of a different origin.\n\nIn this book, poorly printed, and apparently on a private press,\nMephistopheles is mentioned as one of the chief Princes of Hell. He\nis described as a youth, adept in all arts and services, who brings\nspirit-servants or familiars, and brings treasures from earth and\nsea with speed. In the Frankfort Faust Book (1587), Mephistopheles\nsays, 'I am a spirit, and a flying spirit, potently ruling under\nthe heavens.' In the oldest legends he appears as a dog, that, as we\nhave seen, being the normal form of tutelary divinities, the symbol\nof the Scribe in Egypt, guard of Hades, and psychopomp of various\nmythologies. A dog appears following the family of Tobias. Manlius\nreports Melancthon as saying, 'He (Faust) had a dog with him, which\nwas the Devil.' Johann Gast ('Sermones Conviviales') says he was\npresent at a dinner at Basle given by Faust, and adds: 'He had also\na dog and a horse with him, both of which, I believe, were devils,\nfor they were able to do everything. Some persons told me that the\ndog frequently took the shape of a servant, and brought him food.' In\nthe old legends this dog is named Praestigiar. [177]\n\nAs for the man Faust, he seems to have been personally the very\nfigure which the Church required, and had the friar, in whose guise\nMephistopheles appears, been his actual familiar, he could hardly\nhave done more to bring learning into disgrace. Born at the latter\npart of the fifteenth century at Knittlingen, Wurtemberg, of poor\nparents, the bequest of an uncle enabled him to study medicine at\nCracow University, and it seems plain that he devoted his learning and\nabilities to the work of deluding the public. That he made money by his\n'mediumship,' one can only infer from the activity with which he went\nabout Germany and advertised his 'powers.' It was at a time when high\nprices were paid for charms, philtres, mandrake mannikins; and the\nwitchcraft excitement was not yet advanced enough to render dealing\nin such things perilous. It seems that the Catholic clergy made haste\nto use this impostor to point their moral against learning, and to\nidentify him as first-fruit of the Reformation; while the Reformers,\nwith equal zeal, hurled him back upon the papists as outcome of their\nidolatries. Melancthon calls him 'an abominable beast, a sewer of\nmany devils.' The first mention of him is by Trithemius in a letter\nof August 20, 1507, who speaks of him as 'a pretender to magic'\n('Magister Georgius Sabellicus, Faustus Junior'), whom he met at\nGelnhaussen; and in another letter of the same year as at Kreuznach,\nConrad Mudt, friend of Luther and Melancthon, mentions (Oct. 3, 1513)\nthe visit to Erfurth of Georgius Faustus Hemitheus Hedebeyensis, 'a\nbraggart and a fool who affects magic,' whom he had 'heard talking in\na tavern,' and who had 'raised theologians against him.' In Vogel's\nAnnals of Leipzig (1714), kept in Auerbach's Cellar, is recorded\nunder date 1525 Dr. Johann Faust's visit to the Cellar. He appears\ntherefore to have already had aliases. The first clear account of him\nis in the 'Index Sanitatis' of Dr. Philip Begardi (1539), who says:\n'Since several years he has gone through all regions, provinces, and\nkingdoms, made his name known to everybody, and is highly renowned\nfor his great skill, not alone in medicine, but also in chiromancy,\nnecromancy, physiognomy, visions in crystal, and the like other\narts. And also not only renowned, but written down and known as\nan experienced master. Himself admitted, nor denied that it was\nso, and that his name was Faustus, and called himself philosophum\nphilosophorum. But how many have complained to me that they were\ndeceived by him--verily a great number! But what matter?--hin ist hin.'\n\nThese latter words may mean that Faust had just died. He must have\ndied about that time, and with little notice. The rapidity with which\na mythology began to grow around him is worthy of more attention than\nthe subject has received. In 1543 the protestant theologian Johann\nGast has ('Sermones Convivialium') stories of his diabolical dog and\nhorse, and of the Devil's taking him off, when his body turns itself\nfive times face downward. In 1587 Philip Camerarius speaks of him as\n'a well-known magician who lived in the time of our fathers.' April\n18, 1587, two students of the University of T\u00fcbingen were imprisoned\nfor writing a Comedy of Dr. Faustus: though it was not permitted to\nmake light of the story, it was thought a very proper one to utilise\nfor pious purposes, and in the autumn of the same year (1587) the\noriginal form of the legend was published by Spiess in Frankfort. It\ndescribes Faust as summoning the Devil at night, in a forest near\nWittenberg. The evil spirit visits him on three occasions in his\nstudy, where on the third he gives his name as 'Mephostophiles,'\nand the compact to serve him for twenty-four years for his soul is\nsigned. When Faust pierces his hand, the blood flows into the form\nof the words O homo fuge! Mephistopheles first serves him as a monk,\nand brings him fine garments, wine, and food. Many of the luxuries are\nbrought from the mansions of prelates, which shows the protestant bias\nof the book; which is also shown in the objection the Devil makes to\nFaust's marrying, because marriage is pleasing to God. Mephistopheles\nchanges himself to a winged horse, on which Faust is borne through\nmany countries, arriving at last at Rome. Faust passes three days,\ninvisible, in the Vatican, which supplies the author with another\nopportunity to display papal luxury, as well as the impotence of\nthe Pope and his cardinals to exorcise the evil powers which take\ntheir food and goblets when they are about to feast. On his further\naerial voyages Faust gets a glimpse of the garden of Eden; lives in\nstate in the Sultan's palace in the form of Mohammed; and at length\nbecomes a favourite in the Court of Charles V. at Innsbruck. Here he\nevokes Alexander the Great and his wife. In roaming about Germany,\nFaust diverts himself by swallowing a load of hay and horses, cutting\noff heads and replacing them, making flowers bloom at Christmas,\ndrawing wine from a table, and calling Helen of Troy to appear to\nsome students. Helen becomes his mistress; by her he has a son,\nJustus Faustus; but these disappear simultaneously with the dreadful\nend of Dr. Faustus, who after a midnight storm is found only in the\nfragments with which his room is strewn.\n\nSeveral of these legends are modifications of those current before\nFaust's time. The book had such an immense success that new volumes\nand versions on the same subject appeared not only in Germany but\nin other parts of Europe,--a rhymed version in England, 1588; a\ntranslation from the German in France, 1589; a Dutch translation,\n1592; Christopher Marlowe's drama in 1604.\n\nIn Marlowe's 'Tragical History of Doctor Faustus,' the mass of\nlegends of occult arts that had crystallised around a man thoroughly\nrepresentative of them was treated with the dignity due to a subject\namid whose moral and historic grandeur Faust is no longer the petty\npersonality he really was. He is precisely the character which the\nChurch had been creating for a thousand years, only suddenly changed\nfrom other-worldly to worldly desires and aims. What he seeks is what\nall the energy of civilisation seeks.\n\n\n        EVIL ANGEL. Go forward, Faustus, in that famous art\n        Wherein all Nature's treasure is contained:\n        Be thou on earth as Jove is in the sky,\n        Lord and commander of these elements.\n\n        FAUST. How am I glutted with conceit of this!\n        Shall I make spirits fetch me what I please,\n        Resolve me of all ambiguities,\n        Perform what desperate enterprise I will?\n        I'll have them fly to India for gold,\n        Ransack the ocean for orient pearl,\n        And search all corners of the new-found world\n        For pleasant fruits and princely delicates;\n        I'll have them read me strange philosophy,\n        And tell the secrets of all foreign kings;\n        I'll have them wall all Germany with brass,\n        And make swift Rhine circle fair Wertenberg;\n        I'll have them fill the public schools with silk,\n        Wherewith the students shall be bravely clad.\n\n\nFor this he is willing to pay his soul, which Theology has so long\ndeclared to be the price of mastering the world.\n\n\n        This word damnation terrifies not him,\n        For he confounds hell in Elysium:\n        His ghost be with the old philosophers!\n\n\nThe 'Good Angel' warns him:\n\n\n        O Faustus, lay that damned book aside,\n        And gaze not on it, lest it tempt thy soul,\n        And heap God's heavy wrath upon thy head!\n        Read, read the Scriptures:--that is blasphemy.\n\n\nSo, dying away amid the thunders of the Reformation, were heard the\nechoes of the early christian voices which exulted in the eternal\ntortures of the Greek poets and philosophers: the anathemas on Roger\nBacon, Socinus, Galileo; the outcries with which every great invention\nhas been met. We need only retouch the above extracts here and there\nto make Faust's aspirations those of a saint. Let the gold be sought\nin New Jerusalem, the pearl in its gates, the fruits in paradise,\nthe philosophy that of Athanasius, and no amount of selfish hunger\nand thirst for them would grieve any 'Good Angel' he had ever heard of.\n\nThe 'Good Angel' has not yet gained his wings who will tell him that\nall he seeks is included in the task of humanity, but warn him that\nthe method by which he would gain it is just that by which he has\nbeen instructed to seek gold and jasper of the New Jerusalem,--not\nby fulfilling the conditions of them, but as the object of some\nfavouritism. Every human being who ever sought to obtain benefit\nby prayers or praises that might win the good graces of a supposed\nbestower of benefits, instead of by working for them, is but the Faust\nof his side--be it supernal or infernal. Hocus-pocus and invocation,\nblood-compacts and sacraments,--they are all the same in origin;\nthey are all mean attempts to obtain advantages beyond other people\nwithout serving up to them or deserving them. To Beelzebub Faust will\n'build an altar and a church;' but he had probably never entered a\nchurch or knelt before an altar with any less selfishness.\n\nA strong Nemesis follows Self to see that its bounds are not overpassed\nwithout retribution. Its satisfactions must be weighed in the balance\nwith its renunciations. And the inflexible law applies to intellect and\nself-culture as much as to any other power of man. Mephistopheles is\n'the kernel of the brute;' he is the intellect with mere canine hunger\nfor knowledge because of the power it brings. Or, falling on another\npart of human nature, it is pride making itself abject for ostentation;\nor it is passion selling love for lust. Re-enter Mephistopheles with\nDevils, who give crowns and rich apparel to Faustus, dance, and then\ndepart. To the man who has received his intellectual and moral liberty\nonly to so spend it, Lucifer may well say, in Marlowe's words--\n\n\n        Christ cannot save thy soul, for he is just:\n        There's none but I have interest in the same.\n\n\nPerhaps he might even better have suggested to Faust that his soul\nwas not of sufficient significance to warrant much anxiety.\n\nSomething was gained when it was brought before the people in popular\ndramas of Faust how little the Devil cared for the cross which had so\nlong been regarded as the all-sufficient weapon against him. [178]\nFaust and Mephistopheles flourish in the Vatican despite all the\ncrosses raised to exorcise them. The confession of the cross which\nonce meant martyrdom of the confessor had now come to mean martyrdom\nof the denier. Protestantism put its faith in Theology, Creeds, and\nOrthodoxy. But Calderon de la Barca blended the legend of Faust with\nthe legendary temptation of St. Cyprian, and in 'El Magico Prodigioso'\nwe have, in impressive contrast, the powerlessness of the evil powers\nover the heart of a pure woman, and its easy entrance into a mind fully\nfurnished with the soundest sentiments of theology. St. Cyprian had\nbeen a worshipper of pagan deities [179] before his conversion, and\neven after this he had once saved himself while other christians were\nsuffering martyrdom. It is possible that out of this may have grown the\nlegend of his having called his earlier deities--theoretically changed\nto devils--to his aid; a trace of the legend being that magical 'Book\nof Cyprianus' mentioned in another chapter. In his tract 'De Gratia\nDei' Cyprian says concerning his spiritual condition before conversion,\n'I lay in darkness, and floating on the world's boisterous sea,\nwith no resting-place for my feet, ignorant of my proper life, and\nestranged from truth and light.' Here is a metaphorical 'vasty deep'\nfrom which the centuries could hardly fail to conjure up spirits,\none of them being the devil of Calderon's drama, who from a wrecked\nship walks Christ-like over the boisterous sea to find Cyprian on\nthe sea-shore. The drama opens with a scene which recalls the most\nperilous of St. Anthony's temptations. According to Athanasius, the\nDevil having utterly failed to conquer Anthony's virtue by charming\nimages, came to him in his proper black and ugly shape, and, candidly\nconfessing that he was the Devil, said he had been vanquished by\nthe saint's extraordinary sanctity. Anthony prevailed against the\nspirit of pride thus awakened; but Calderon's Cyprian, though he\ndoes not similarly recognise the Devil, becomes complacent at the\ndialectical victory which the tempter concedes him. Cyprian having\nargued the existence and supremacy of God, the Devil says, 'How can\nI impugn so clear a consequence?' 'Do you regret my victory?' 'Who\nbut regrets a check in rivalry of wit?' He leaves, and Cyprian says,\n'I never met a more learned person.' The Devil is equally satisfied,\nknowing, no doubt, that gods worked out by the wits alone remain in\ntheir abode of abstraction and do not interfere with the world of\nsense. Calderon is artful enough to throw the trial of Cyprian back\ninto his pagan period, but the mirror is no less true in reflecting\nfor those who had eyes to see in it the weakness of theology.\n\n'Enter the Devil as a fine gentleman,' is the first sign of the\ntemptation in Calderon's drama--it is Asmodeus [180] again, and the\n'pride of life' he first brings is the conceit of a clever theological\nvictory. So sufficient is the doorway so made for all other pride\nto enter, that next time the devil needs no disguise, but has only\nto offer him a painless victory over nature and the world, including\nJustina, the object of his passion.\n\n\n                  Wouldst thou that I work\n        A charm over this waste and savage wood,\n        This Babylon of crags and aged trees,\n        Filling its coverts with a horror\n        Thrilling and strange?...\n                  I offer thee the fruit\n        Of years of toil in recompense; whate'er\n        Thy wildest dream presented to thy thought\n        As object of desire, shall be thine. [181]\n\n\nJustina knows less about the philosophical god of Cyprian, and more\nof the might of a chaste heart. To the Devil she says--\n\n\n        Thought is not in my power, but action is:\n        I will not move my foot to follow thee.\n\n\nThe Devil is compelled to say at last--\n\n\n        Woman, thou hast subdued me,\n        Only by not owning thyself subdued.\n\n\nHe is only able to bring a counterfeit of Justina to her lover.\n\nLike Goethe's Mephistopheles, Cyprian's devil is unable to perform\nhis exact engagements, and consequently does not win in the game. He\nenables Cyprian to move mountains and conquer beasts, until he boasts\nthat he can excel his infernal teacher, but the Devil cannot bring\nJustina. She has told Cyprian that she will love him in death. Cyprian\nand she together abjure their paganism at Antioch, and meet in a\ncell just before their martyrdom. Over their bodies lying dead on\nthe scaffold the Devil appears as a winged serpent, and says he is\ncompelled to announce that they have both ascended to heaven. He\ndescends into the earth.\n\nWhat the story of Faust and Mephistopheles had become in the popular\nmind of Germany, when Goethe was raising it to be an immortal type of\nthe conditions under which genius and art can alone fulfil their task,\nis well shown in the sensational tragedy written by his contemporary,\nthe playwright Klinger. The following extract from Klinger's 'Faust'\nis not without a certain impressiveness.\n\n'Night covered the earth with its raven wing. Faust stood before\nthe awful spectacle of the body of his son suspended upon the\ngallows. Madness parched his brain, and he exclaimed in the wild\ntones of dispair:\n\n'Satan, let me but bury this unfortunate being, and then you may take\nthis life of mine, and I will descend into your infernal abode, where\nI shall no more behold men in the flesh. I have learned to know them,\nand I am disgusted with them, with their destiny, with the world,\nand with life. My good action has drawn down unutterable woe upon my\nhead; I hope that my evil ones may have been productive of good. Thus\nshould it be in the mad confusion of earth. Take me hence; I wish\nto become an inhabitant of thy dreary abode; I am tired of light,\ncompared with which the darkness in the infernal regions must be the\nbrightness of mid-day.'\n\nBut Satan replied: 'Hold! not so fast--Faust; once I told thee that\nthou alone shouldst be the arbiter of thy life, that thou alone\nshouldst have power to break the hour-glass of thy existence; thou\nhast done so, and the hour of my vengeance has come, the hour for\nwhich I have sighed so long. Here now do I tear from thee thy mighty\nwizard-wand, and chain thee within the narrow bounds which I draw\naround thee. Here shalt thou stand and listen to me, and tremble;\nI will draw forth the terrors of the dark past, and kill thee with\nslow despair.\n\n'Thus will I exult over thee, and rejoice in my victory. Fool! thou\nhast said that thou hast learned to know man! Where? How and when? Hast\nthou ever considered his nature? Hast thou ever examined it, and\nseparated from it its foreign elements? Hast thou distinguished\nbetween that which is offspring of the pure impulses of his heart,\nand that which flows from an imagination corrupted by art? Hast thou\ncompared the wants and the vices of his nature with those which he\nowes to society and prevailing corruption? Hast thou observed him in\nhis natural state, where each of his undisguised expressions mirrors\nforth his inmost soul? No--thou hast looked upon the mask that society\nwears, and hast mistaken it for the true lineaments of man; thou hast\nonly become acquainted with men who have consecrated their condition,\nwealth, power, and talents to the service of corruption; who have\nsacrificed their pure nature to your Idol--Illusion. Thou didst at\none time presume to show me the moral worth of man! and how didst\nthou set about it! By leading me upon the broad highways of vice,\nby bringing me to the courts of the mighty wholesale butchers of men,\nto that of the coward tyrant of France, of the Usurper in England! Why\ndid we pass by the mansions of the good and the just? Was it for me,\nSatan, to whom thou hast chosen to become a mentor, to point them out\nto thee? No; thou wert led to the places thou didst haunt by the fame\nof princes, by thy pride, by thy longing after dissipation. And what\nhast thou seen there? The soul-seared tyrants of mankind, with their\nsatellites, wicked women and mercenary priests, who make religion a\ntool by which to gain the object of their base passions.\n\n'Hast thou ever deigned to cast a glance at the oppressed, who, sighing\nunder his burden, consoles himself with the hope of an hereafter? Hast\nthou ever sought for the dwelling of the virtuous friend of humanity,\nfor that of the noble sage, for that of the active and upright father\nof a family?\n\n'But how would that have been possible? How couldst thou, the most\ncorrupt of thy race, have discovered the pure one, since thou hadst\nnot even the capacity to suspect his existence?\n\n'Proudly didst thou pass by the cottages of the pure and humble,\nwho live unacquainted with even the names of your artificial vices,\nwho earn their bread in the sweat of their brow, and who rejoice at\ntheir last hour that they are permitted to exchange the mortal for the\nimmortal. It is true, hadst thou entered their abode, thou mightst\nnot have found thy foolish ideal of an heroic, extravagant virtue,\nwhich is only the fanciful creation of your vices and your pride;\nbut thou wouldst have seen the man of a retiring modesty and noble\nresignation, who in his obscurity excels in virtue and true grandeur\nof soul your boasted heroes of field and cabinet. Thou sayest that\nthou knowest man! Dost thou know thyself? Nay, deeper yet will I\nenter into the secret places of thy heart, and fan with fierce blast\nthe flames which thou hast kindled there for thee.\n\n'Had I a thousand human tongues, and as many years to speak to thee,\nthey would be all insufficient to develop the consequences of thy\ndeeds and thy recklessness. The germ of wretchedness which thou\nhast sown will continue its growth through centuries yet to come;\nand future generations will curse thee as the author of their misery.\n\n'Behold, then, daring and reckless man, the importance of actions\nthat appear circumscribed to your mole vision! Who of you can say,\nTime will obliterate the trace of my existence! Thou who knowest not\nwhat beginning, what middle, and end are, hast dared to seize with\na bold hand the chain of fate, and hast attempted to gnaw its links,\nnotwithstanding that they were forged for eternity!\n\n'But now will I withdraw the veil from before thy eyes, and then--cast\nthe spectre despair into thy soul.'\n\n'Faust pressed his hands upon his face; the worm that never dieth\ngnawed already on his heart.'\n\nThe essence and sum of every devil are in the Mephistopheles of\nGoethe. He is culture.\n\n\n        Culture, which smooth the whole world licks,\n        Also unto the Devil sticks.\n\n\nHe represents the intelligence which has learned the difference\nbetween ideas and words, knows that two and two make four, and also how\nconvenient may be the dexterity that can neatly write them out five.\n\n\n        Of Metaphysics learn the use and beauty!\n        See that you most profoundly gain\n        What does not suit the human brain!\n        A splendid word to serve, you'll find\n        For what goes in--or won't go in--your mind.\n\n        On words let your attention centre!\n        Then through the safest gate you'll enter\n        The temple halls of certainty. [182]\n\n\nHe knows, too, that the existing moment alone is of any advantage;\nthat theory is grey and life ever green; that he only gathers real\nfruit who confides in himself. He is thus the perfectly evolved\nintellect of man, fully in possession of all its implements, these\npolished till they shine in all grace, subtlety, adequacy. Nature\nshows no symbol of such power more complete than the gemmed serpent\nwith its exquisite adaptations,--freed from cumbersome prosaic feet,\nequal to the winged by its flexible spine, every tooth artistic.\n\nFrom an ancient prison was this Ariel liberated by his Prospero,\nwhose wand was the Reformation, a spirit finely touched to fine\nissues. But his wings cannot fly beyond the atmosphere. The ancient\nheaven has faded before the clearer eye, but the starry ideals have\ncome nearer. The old hells have burnt out, but the animalism of man\ncouches all the more freely on his path, having broken every chain of\nfear. Man still walks between the good and evil, on the hair-drawn\nbridge of his moral nature. His faculties seem adapted with equal\nprecision to either side of his life, upper or under,--to Wisdom\nor Cunning, Self-respect or Self-conceit, Prudence or Selfishness,\nLust or Love.\n\nSuch is the seeming situation, but is it the reality? Goethe's 'Faust'\nis the one clear answer which this question has received.\n\nIn one sense Mephistopheles may be called a German devil. The\nChristian soul of Germany was from the first a changeling. The ancient\nNature-worship of that race might have had its normal development in\nthe sciences, and alone with this intellectual evolution there must\nhave been formed a related religion able to preserve social order\nthrough the honour of man. But the native soul of Germany was cut\nout by the sword and replaced with a mongrel Hebrew-Latin soul. The\nmetaphorical terrors of tropical countries,--the deadly worms, the\nburning and suffocating blasts and stenches, with which the mind of\nthose dwelling near them could familiarise itself when met with in\ntheir scriptures, acquired exaggerated horrors when left to be pictured\nby the terrorised imagination of races ignorant of their origin. It\nis a long distance from Potsdam and Hyde Park to Zahara. Christianity\ntherefore blighted nature in the north by apparitions more fearful\nthan the southern world ever knew, and long after the pious there\ncould sing and dance, puritanical glooms hung over the Christians\nof higher latitudes. When the progress of German culture began the\nwork of dissipating these idle terrors, the severity of the reaction\nwas proportioned to the intensity of the delusions. The long-famished\nfaculties rushed almost madly into their beautiful world, but without\nthe old reverence which had once knelt before its phenomena. That may\nremain with a few, but the cynicism of the noisiest will be reflected\neven upon the faces of the best. Goethe first had his attention drawn\nto Spinoza by a portrait of him on a tract, in which his really noble\ncountenance was represented with a diabolical aspect. The orthodox had\nmade it, but they could only have done so by the careers of Faust,\nParacelsus, and their tribe. These too helped to conventionalise\nVoltaire into a Mephistopheles. [183]\n\nGoethe was probably the first European man to carry out this scepticism\nto its full results. He was the first who recognised that the moral\nedifice based upon monastic theories must follow them; and he had in\nhis own life already questioned the right of the so-called morality to\nits supreme if not tyrannous authority over man. Hereditary conscience,\npassing through this fierce crucible, lay levigable before Goethe, to\nbe swept away into dust-hole or moulded into the image of reason. There\nremained around the animal nature of a free man only a thread which\nseemed as fine as that which held the monster Fenris. It was made\nonly of the sentiment of love and that of honour. But as Fenris\nfound the soft invisible thread stronger than chains, Faust proved\nthe tremendous sanctions that surround the finer instincts of man.\n\nEmancipated from grey theory, Faust rushes hungrily at the golden\nfruit of life. The starved passions will have their satisfaction,\nat whatever cost to poor Gretchen. The fruit turns to ashes on\nhis lips. The pleasure is not that of the thinking man, but of the\naccomplished poodle he has taken for his guide. To no moment in that\nintrigue can the suffrage of his whole nature say, 'Stay, thou art\nfair!' That is the pact--it is the distinctive keynote of Goethe's\n'Faust.'\n\n\n        Canst thou by falsehood or by flattery\n        Make me one moment with myself at peace,\n        Cheat me into tranquillity?--come then\n        And welcome life's last day.\n        Make me to the passing moment plead.\n        Fly not, O stay, thou art so fair!\n        Then will I gladly perish.\n\n\nThe pomp and power of the court, luxury and wealth, equally fail\nto make the scholar at peace with himself. They are symbolised in\nthe paper money by which Mephistopheles replenished the imperial\nexchequer. The only allusion to the printing-press, whose inventor\nFust had been somewhat associated with Faust, is to show its power\nturned to the work of distributing irredeemable promises.\n\nAt length one demand made by Faust makes Mephistopheles tremble. As a\nmere court amusement he would have him raise Helen of Troy. Reluctant\nthat Faust should look upon the type of man's harmonious development,\nyet bound to obey, Mephistopheles sends him to the Mothers,--the\nhealthy primal instincts and ideals of man which expressed themselves\nin the fair forms of art. Corrupted by superstition of their own\nworshippers, cursed by christianity, they 'have a Hades of their own,'\nas Mephistopheles says, and he is unwilling to interfere with them. The\nimage appears, and the sense of Beauty is awakened in Faust. But he\nis still a christian as to his method: his idea is that heaven must\nbe taken by storm, by chance, wish, prayer, any means except patient\nfulfilment of the conditions by which it may be reached. Helen is\nflower of the history and culture of Greece; and so lightly Faust\nwould pluck and wear it!\n\nHelen having vanished as he tried to clasp her, Faust has learned\nhis second lesson. When he next meets Helen it is not to seek\nintellectual beauty as, in Gretchen's case, he had sought the sensuous\nand sensual. He has fallen under a charm higher than that of either\nChurch or Mephistopheles; the divorce of ages between flesh and spirit,\nthe master-crime of superstition, from which all devils sprang, was\nover for him from the moment that he sees the soul embodied and body\nensouled in the art-ideal of Greece.\n\nThe redemption of Faust through Art is the gospel of the nineteenth\ncentury. This is her vesture which Helen leaves him when she vanishes,\nand which bears him as a cloud to the land he is to make beautiful. The\npurest Art--Greek Art--is an expression of Humanity: it can as little\nbe turned to satisfy a self-culture unhumanised as to consist with a\nsuperstition which insults nature. When Faust can meet with Helen,\nand part without any more clutching, he is not hurled back to his\nGothic study and mocking devil any more: he is borne away until he\nreaches the land where his thought and work are needed. Blindness\nfalls on him--or what Theology deems such: for it is metaphorical--it\nmeans that he has descended from clouds to the world, and the actual\nearth has eclipsed a possible immortality.\n\n\n        The sphere of Earth is known enough to me;\n        The view beyond is barred immortality:\n        A fool who there his blinking eyes directeth,\n        And o'er his clouds of peers a place expecteth!\n        Firm let him stand and look around him well!\n        This World means something to the capable;\n        Why needs he through Eternity to wend?\n\n\nThe eye for a fictitious world lost, leaves the vision for reality\nclearer. In every hard chaotic object Faust can now detect a slumbering\nbeauty. The swamps and pools of the unrestrained sea, the oppressed\npeople, the barrenness and the flood, they are all paths to Helen--a\nnobler Helen than Greece knew. When he has changed one scene of\nChaos into Order, and sees a free people tilling the happy earth,\nthen, indeed, he has realised the travail of his manhood, and\nis satisfied. To a moment which Mephistopheles never brought him,\nhe cries 'Stay, thou art fair!'\n\nMephistopheles now, as becomes a creation of the Theology of obtaining\nwhat is not earned, calls up infernal troops to seize Faust's soul,\nbut the angels pelt them with roses. The roses sting them worse than\nflames. The roses which Faust has evoked from briars are his defence:\nthey are symbols of man completing his nature by a self-culture\nwhich finds its satisfaction in making some outward desert rejoice\nand blossom like the rose.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVI.\n\nTHE WILD HUNTSMAN.\n\n    The Wild Hunt--Euphemisms--Schimmelreiter--Odinwald--Pied\n    Piper--Lyeshy--Waldemar's Hunt--Palne Hunter--King Abel's Hunt\n    --Lords of Glorup--Le Grand Veneur--Robert le Diable--Arthur--\n    Hugo--Herne--Tregeagle--Der Freisch\u00fctz--Elijah's chariot--Mahan\n    Bali--D\u00e9hak--Nimrod--Nimrod's defiance of Jehovah--His Tower--\n    Robber Knights--The Devil in Leipzig--Olaf hunting pagans--\n    Hunting-horns--Raven--Boar--Hounds--Horse--Dapplegrimm--Sleipnir\n    --Horseflesh--The mare Chetiya--Stags--St. Hubert--The White Lady\n    --Myths of Mother Rose--Wodan hunting St. Walpurga--Friar Eckhardt.\n\n\nThe most important remnant of the Odin myth is the universal legend of\nthe Wild Huntsman. The following variants are given by Wuttke. [184]\nIn Central and South Germany the Wild Hunt is commonly called\nW\u00fctenden Heere, i.e., Wodan's army or chase--called in the Middle\nAges, Wuotanges Heer. The hunter, generally supposed to be abroad\nduring the twelve nights after Christmas, is variously called Wand,\nWaul, Wodej\u00e4ger, Hellj\u00e4ger, Nightj\u00e4ger, Hackelberg, Hackelberend\n(man in armour), Fro Gode, Banditterich, Jenner. The most common\nbelief is that he is the spectre of a wicked lord or king who\nsacrilegiously enjoyed the chase on Sundays and other holy days,\nand who is condemned to expiate his sin by hunting till the day of\ndoom. He wears a broad-brimmed hat; is followed by dogs and other\nanimals, fiery, and often three-legged; and in his spectral train\nare the souls of unbaptized children, huntsmen who have trodden down\ngrain, witches, and others--these being mounted on horses, goats,\nand cocks, and sometimes headless, or with their entrails dragging\nbehind them. They rush with a fearful noise through the air, which\nresounds with the cracking of whips, neighing of horses, barking of\ndogs, and cries of ghostly huntsmen. The unlucky wight encountered\nis caught up into the air, where his neck is wrung, or he is dropped\nfrom a great height. In some regions, it is said, such must hunt until\nrelieved, but are not slain. The huntsman is a Nemesis on poachers or\ntrespassers in woods and forests. Sometimes the spectres have combats\nwith each other over battlefields. Their track is marked with bits\nof horseflesh, human corpses, legs with shoes on. In some regions,\nit is said, the huntsmen carry battle-axes, and cut down all who\ncome in their way. When the hunt is passing all dogs on earth become\nstill and quiet. In most regions there is some haunted gorge, hill,\nor castle in which the train disappears.\n\nIn Thuringia, it is said that, when the fearful noises of the spectral\nhunt come very near, they change to ravishing music. In the same\neuphemistic spirit some of the prognostications it brings are not evil:\ngenerally, indeed, the apparition portends war, pestilence, and famine,\nbut frequently it announces a fruitful year. If, in passing a house,\none of the train dips his finger in the yeast, the staff of life will\nnever be wanting in that house. Whoever sees the chase will live long,\nsay the Bohemians; but he must not hail it, lest flesh and bones rain\nupon him.\n\nIn most regions, however, there is thought to be great danger in\nproximity to the hunt. The perils are guarded against by prostration on\nthe earth face downward, praying meanwhile; by standing on a white\ncloth (Bertha's linen), or wrapping the same around the head; by\nputting the head between the spokes of a wheel; by placing palm leaves\non a table. The hunt may be observed securely from the cross-roads,\nwhich it shuns, or by standing on a stump marked with three crosses--as\nis often done by woodcutters in South Germany.\n\nWodan also appears in the Schimmelreiter--headless rider on a white\nhorse, in Swabia called Bachreiter or Junker J\u00e4kele. This apparition\nsometimes drives a carriage drawn by four white (or black) horses,\nusually headless. He is the terrible forest spectre Hoimann, a giant\nin broad-brimmed hat, with moss and lichen for beard; he rides a\nheadless white horse through the air, and his wailing cry, 'Hoi,\nhoi!' means that his reign is ended. He is the bugbear of children.\n\nIn the Odinwald are the Riesen\u00e4ule and Riesenaltar, with mystic marks\ndeclaring them relics of a temple of Odin. Near Erbach is Castle\nRodenstein, the very fortress of the Wild J\u00e4ger, to which he passes\nwith his horrid train from the ruins of Schnellert. The village of\nReichelsheim has on file the affidavits of the people who heard him\njust before the battles of Leipzig and Waterloo. Their theory is\nthat if the J\u00e4ger returns swiftly to Schnellert all will go well for\nGermany; but if he tarry at Rodenstein 'tis an omen of evil. He was\nreported near Frankfort in 1832; but it is notable that no mention\nof him was made during the late Franco-German war.\n\nA somewhat later and rationalised variant relates that the wild\nhuntsman was Hackelberg, the Lord of Rodenstein, whose tomb--really\na Druidical stone--is shown at the castle, and said to be guarded\nby hell-hounds. Hackelberg is of old his Brunswick name. It was the\nHackelberg Hill that opened to receive the children, which the Pied\nPiper of Hamelin charmed away with his flute from that old town,\nbecause the corporation would not pay him what they had promised\nfor ridding them of rats. It is easy to trace this Pied Piper,\nwho has become so familiar through Mr. Robert Browning's charming\npoem, to the Odin of more blessed memory, who says in the Havamal,\n'I know a song by which I soften and enchant my enemies, and render\ntheir weapons of no effect.'\n\nThis latter aspect of Odin, his command over vermin, connects him\nwith the Slavonic Lyeshy, or forest-demon of the Russias. The ancient\nthunder-god of Russia, Perun, who rides in his storm-chariot through\nthe sky, has in the more christianised districts dropped his mantle\non Ilya (Elias); while in the greater number of Slavonic districts he\nhas held his original physical characters so remarkably that it has\nbeen necessary to include him among demons. In Slavonian Folklore the\nfamiliar myth of the wild huntsman is distributed--Vladimir the Great\nfulfils one part of it by still holding high revel in the halls of\nKief, but he is no huntsman; Perun courses noisily through the air, but\nhe is rather benevolent than otherwise; the diabolical characteristics\nof the superstition have fallen to the evil huntsmen (Lyeshies),\nwho keep the wild creatures as their flocks, the same as shepherds\ntheir herds, and whom every huntsman must propitiate. The Lyeshy is\ngigantic, wears a sheepskin, has one eye without eyebrow or eyelash,\nhorns, feet of a goat, is covered with green hair, and his finger-nails\nare claws. He is special protector of the bears and wolves.\n\nIn Denmark the same myth appears as King Volmer's Hunt. Waldemar was\nso passionately fond of the chase that he said if the Lord would only\nlet him hunt for ever near Gurre (his castle in the north of Seeland),\nhe would not envy him his paradise. For this blasphemous wish he is\ncondemned to hunt between Burre and Gurre for ever. His cavalcade is\nmuch like that already described. Volmer rides a snow-white charger,\npreceded by a pack of coal-black hounds, and he carries his head\nunder his left arm. On St. John the women open gates for him. It\nis believed that he is allowed brief repose at one and another of\nhis old seats, and it is said spectral servants are sometimes seen\npreparing the ruined castle at Vordingborg for him, or at Waldemar's\nTower. A sceptical peasant resolved to pass the night in this tower. At\nmidnight the King entered, and, thanking him for looking after his\ntower, gave him a gold piece which burned through his hand and fell\nto the ground as a coal. On the other hand, Waldemar sometimes makes\npeasants hold his dogs, and afterwards throws them coals which turn\nout to be gold pieces.\n\nThe Palnatoke or Palne Hunter appears mostly in the island of\nFuen. Every New Year's night he supplies himself with three horse-shoes\nfrom some smithy, and the smith takes care that he may find them\nready for use on his anvil, as he always leaves three gold pieces in\ntheir stead. If the shoes are not ready for him, he carries the anvil\noff. In one instance he left an anvil on the top of a church tower,\nand it caused the smith great trouble to get it down again.\n\nKing Abel was interred after his death in St. Peter's Church in\nSleswig, but the fratricide could find no peace in his grave. His\nghost walked about in the night and disturbed the monks in their\ndevotions. The body was finally removed from the church, and\nsunk in a foul bog near Gottorp. To keep him down effectively, a\npointed stake was drove through his body. The spot is still called\nK\u00f6nigsgrabe. Notwithstanding this, he appears seated on a coal-black\ncharger, followed by a pack of black hounds with eyes and tongues of\nfire. The gates are heard slamming and opening, and the shrieks and\nyells are such that they appal the stoutest hearts.\n\nAt the ancient capital of Fuen, Odense, said to have been built\nby Odin, the myth has been reduced to a spectral Christmas-night\nequipage, which issues from St. Canute's Church and passes to the\nancient manor-house of Glorup. It is a splendid carriage, drawn by\nsix black horses with fiery tongues, and in it are seated the Lords\nof Glorup, famous for their cruelty to peasants, and now not able to\nrest in the church where they were interred. It is of evil omen to\nwitness the spectacle: a man who watched for it was struck blind.\n\nIn France Le Grand Veneur bears various names; he is King Arthur,\nSaint Hubert, Hugo. His alleged appearances within historic times\nhave been so strongly attested that various attempts have been made\nto give them rational explanations. Thus Charles VI. of France,\nwhen going to war in Bretagne, is said to have been met by such a\nspectre in the Forest of Mans, and became insane; he believed himself\nto have been the victim of sorcery, as did many of his subjects. It\nhas been said that the King was met by a disguised emissary of the\nDuc de Bretagne. More particular accounts are given of the apparition\nof the Wild Huntsman to Henry IV. when he was hunting with the Comte\nde Soissons in the Forest of Fontainebleau, an event commemorated by\n'La Croix du Grand Veneur.' According to Matthieu, [185] both the King\nand the Count heard the cries of the hunt, and when the Count went to\ndiscover their origin, the terrible dark figure stood forth and cried,\n'You wish to see me, then behold!' This incident has been explained\nvariously, as a project of assassination, or as the jest of two fellows\nwho, in 1596, were amusing Paris by their skill in imitating all\nthe sounds of a hunt. But such phantoms had too long hunted through\nthe imagination of the French peasantry for any explanation to be\nrequired. Robert le Diable, wandering in Normandy till judgment-day,\nand King Arthur, at an early date domesticated in France as a spectral\nhuntsman (the figure most popularly identified at the time with the\nphantom seen by Henry IV.), are sufficient explanations. The ruins of\nArthur's Castle near Huelgoat, Finist\u00e8re, were long believed to hide\nenormous treasures, guarded by demons, who appear sometimes as fiery\nlights (ignes fatuui), owls, buzzards, and ravens--one of the latter\nbeing the form in which Arthur comes from his happy Vale of Avallon,\nwhen he would vary its repose with a hunt. [186]\n\nA sufficiently curious interchange of such superstitions is represented\nin the following extract from Surtees:--'Sir Anthon Bek, busshop of\nDureme in the tyme of King Eduarde, the son of King Henry, was the\nmaist prowd and masterfull busshop in all England, and it was com'only\nsaid that he was the prowdest lord of Christienty. It chaunced that\nemong other lewd persons, this sir Anthon entertained at his court\none Hugh de Pountchardon, that for his evill deeds and manifold\nrobberies had been driven out of the Inglische courte, and had come\nfrom the southe to seek a little bread, and to live by staylinge. And\nto this Hughe, whom also he imployed to good purpose in the warr of\nScotland, the busshop gave the land of Thikley, since of him called\nThikley-Puntchardon, and also made him his chiefe huntsman. And after,\nthis blake Hughe died afore the busshop; and efter that the busshop\nchasid the wild hart in Galtres forest, and sodainly ther met with\nhim Hugh de Pontchardon, that was afore deid, on a wythe horse; and\nthe said Hughe loked earnestly on the busshop, and the busshop said\nunto him, 'Hughe, what makethe thee here?' and he spake never word,\nbut lifte up his cloke, and then he showed sir Anton his ribbes set\nwith bones, and nothing more; and none other of the varlets saw him\nbut the busshop only; and ye said Hughe went his way, and sir Anton\ntoke corage, and cheered the dogges; and shortly efter he was made\nPatriarque of Hierusalem, and he same nothing no moe; and this Hugh\nis him that the silly people in Galtres doe call le Gros Veneur,\nand he was seen twice efter that by simple folk, afore yat the forest\nwas felled in the tyme of Henry, father of King Henry yat now ys.'\n\nUpon this uncanny fellow fell the spectral mantle of Hugo\nCapet; elsewhere as is probable, worn by nocturnal protestant\nassemblies--Huguenots.\n\nThe legend of the Wild Huntsman tinges many old English stories. Herne,\nthe Hunter, may be identified with him, and the demons, with ghostly\nand headless wish-hounds, who still hunt evil-doers over Dartmoor on\nstormy nights, are his relations. The withered look of horses grazing\non Penzance Common was once explained by their being ridden by demons,\nand the fire-breathing horse has found its way by many weird routes\nto the service of the Exciseman in the 'Ingoldsby Legends,' or that\nof Earl Garrett, who rides round the Curragh of Kildare on a steed\nwhose inch-thick silver shoes must wear as thin as a cat's ear,\nere he fights the English and reigns over Ireland. The Teutonic myth\nappears very plainly in the story of Tregeagle. This man, traced to\nan old Cornish family, is said to have been one of the wickedest men\nthat ever lived; but though he had disposed of his soul to the Devil,\nthe evil one was baulked by the potency of St. Petroc. This, however,\nwas on condition of Tregeagle's labouring at the impossible task of\nclearing the sand from Porthcurnow Cove, at which work he may still\nbe heard groaning when wind and wave are high. Whenever he tries\nto snatch a moment's rest, the demon is at liberty to pursue him,\nand they may be heard on stormy nights in hot pursuit of the poor\ncreature, whose bull-like roar passed into the Cornish proverb,\n'to roar like Tregeagle.'\n\nOn a pleasant Sunday evening in July 1868, I witnessed 'Der Freisch\u00fctz'\nin the newly-opened opera-house at Leipzig. Never elsewhere have I seen\nsuch completeness and splendour in the weird effects of the infernal\nscene in the Wolf's Glen. The 'White Lady' started forth at every step\nof Rodolph's descent to the glen, warning him back. Zamiel, instead\nof the fiery garb he once wore as Sama\u00ebl, was arrayed in raiment\nblack as night; and when the magic bullet was moulded, the stage\nswarmed with huge reptiles, fiery serpents crawled on the ground,\na dragon-drawn chariot, with wheels of fire, driven by a skeleton,\npassed through the air; and the wild huntsman's chase, composed of\nanimals real to the eye and uttering their distinguishable cries,\nhurried past. The animals represented were the horse, hound, boar,\nstag, chamois, raven, bat, owl, and they rushed amid the wild blast\nof horns.\n\nI could but marvel at the yet more strange and weird history of the\nhuman imagination through which had flitted, from the varied regions\nof a primitive world, the shapes combined in this apotheosis of\ndiablerie. Probably if Elijah in his fire-chariot, preached about\nin the neighbouring church that morning, and this wild huntsman\ncareering in the opera, had looked closely at each other and at their\nown history, they might have found a common ancestor in the mythical\nMahan Bali of India, the king whose austerities raised in power till\nhe excited the jealousy of the gods, until Vishnu crushed him with his\nheel into the infernal regions, where he still exercises sovereignty,\nand is permitted to issue forth for an annual career (at the Onam\nfestival), as described in Southey's 'Curse of Kehama.' And they\nmight probably both claim mythological relationship with Yami, lord of\ndeath, who, as Jami, began in Persia the career of all warriors that\nnever died, but sometimes sleep till a magic horn shall awaken them,\nsometimes dwell, like Jami himself and King Arthur, in happy isles,\nand in other cases issue forth at certain periods for the chase or\nfor war--like Odin and Waldemar--with an infernal train.\n\nBut how did these mighty princes and warriors become demon huntsmen?\n\nIn the Persian 'Desatir' it is related that the animals contested\nthe superiority of man, the two orders of beings being represented by\ntheir respective sages, and the last animal to speak opposed the claim\nof his opponent that man attained elevation to the nature of angels,\nwith the remark, 'In his putting to death of animals and similar acts\nman resembleth the beasts of prey, and not angels.'\n\nThe prophet of the world then said, 'We deem it sinful to kill\nharmless, but right to slay ravenous, animals. Were all ravenous\nanimals to enter into a compact not to kill harmless animals, we\nwould abstain from slaying them, and hold them dear as ourselves.'\n\nUpon this the wolf made a treaty with the ram, and the lion became\nfriend of the stag. No tyranny was left in the world, till man (Dehak)\nbroke the treaty and began to kill animals. In consequence of this,\nnone observed the treaty except the harmless animals. [187]\n\nThis fable, from the Aryan side, may be regarded as showing the\nreason of the evil repute which gathered around the name of Dehak\nor Zohak. The eating of animal food was among our Aryan ancestors\nprobably the provisional commissariat of a people migrating from\ntheir original habitat. The animals slain for food had all their\noriginal consecration, and even the ferocious were largely invested\nwith awe. The woodcutters of Bengal invoke Kalrayu--an archer\ntiger-mounted--to protect them against the wild beasts he (a form of\nSiva) is supposed to exterminate; but while the exterminator of the\nmost dangerous animals may, albeit without warrant in the Shastr,\nbe respected in India, the huntsman is generally of evil repute. The\ngentle Krishna was said to have been slain by an arrow from the bow\nof Ungudu, a huntsman, who left the body to rot under a tree where\nit fell, the bones being the sacred relics for which the image of\nJugernath at Orissa was constructed. [188]\n\nIt is not known at what period the notion of transmigration arose,\nbut that must have made him appear cannibalistic who first hunted\nand devoured animals. Such was the Persian Zohak (or Dehak). His\nBabylonian form, Nimrod, represented also the character of Esau,\nas huntsman; that is, the primitive enemy of the farmer, and of the\ncommerce in grains; the preserver of wildness, and consequently of\nall those primitive aboriginal idolatries which linger in the heaths\n(whence heathen) and country villages (whence pagans) long after\nthey have passed away from the centres of civilisation. Hunting is\nessentially barbarous. The willingness of some huntsmen even now,\nwhen this serious occupation of an early period has become a sport,\nto sacrifice not only animal life to their pleasure, but also the\ninterests of labour and agriculture, renders it very easy for us to\nunderstand the transformation of Nimrod into a demon. In the Hebrew\nand Arabian legends concerning Nimrod, that 'mighty hunter' is shown\nas related to the wild elements and their worshipper. When Abraham,\nhaving broken the images of his father, was brought by Terah before\nNimrod, the King said, 'Let us worship the fire!'\n\n'Rather the water that quenches the fire,' said Abraham.\n\n'Well, the water.'\n\n'Rather the cloud that carries the water.'\n\n'Well, the cloud.'\n\n'Rather the wind that scatters the cloud.'\n\n'Well, the wind.'\n\n'Rather man, for he withstands the wind.'\n\n'Thou art a babbler,' said Nimrod. 'I worship the fire and will cast\nthee into it.'\n\nWhen Abraham was cast into the fiery furnace by Nimrod, and on the\nseventh day after was found sitting amid the roses of a garden,\nthe mighty hunter--hater of gardens--resolved on a daring hunt for\nAbraham's God himself. He built a tower five thousand cubits high, but\nfinding heaven still far away, he attached a car to two half-starved\neagles, and by holding meat above them they flew upward, until Nimrod\nheard a voice saying, 'Godless man, whither goest thou?' The audacious\nman shot an arrow in the direction of the voice; the arrow returned\nto him stained with blood, and Nimrod believed that he had wounded\nAbraham's God.\n\nHe who hunted the universe was destroyed by one of the weakest of\nanimated beings--a fly. In the aspiring fly which attacked Nimrod's\nlip, and then nose, and finally devoured his brain, the Moslem and\nHebrew doctors saw the fittest end of one whose adventurous spirit\nhad not stopped to attack animals, man, Abraham, and Allah himself.\n\nBut though, in one sense, destroyed, Nimrod, say various myths, may\nbe heard tumbling and groaning about the base of his tower of Babel,\nwhere the confusion of tongues took place; and it might be added,\nthat they have, like the groan, a meaning irrespective of race or\nlanguage. Dehak and Nimrod have had their brothers in every race, which\nhas ever reached anything that may be called civilisation. It was the\nbarbaric Baron and the Robber Knight of the Middle Ages, living by\nthe hunt, who, before conversion, made for the Faithful Eckhardts of\nthe Church the chief impediment; they might then strike down the monk,\nwhose apparition has always been the legendary warning of the Demon's\napproach. When the Eckhardts had baptized these knights, they had\nalready been transformed to the Devils which people the forests of\nGermany, France, and England with their terrible spectres. The wild\nfables of the East, telling of fell Demons coursing through the air,\nwhispered to the people at one ear, and the equally wild deeds of the\nRobber Knights at the other. The Church had given the people one name\nfor all such phantasms--Devil--and it was a name representative of\nthe feelings of both priest and peasant, so long as the Robber Knights\nwere their common enemy. Jesus had to be a good deal modified before he\ncould become the model of this Teutonic Esau. It is after the tradition\nof his old relation to huntsmen that the Devil has been so especially\nconnected in folklore with soldiers. In the 'Annals of Leipzig,' kept\nin Auerbach's Cellar, famous for the flight of Mephisto and Faust\nfrom its window on a wine-cask, I found two other instances in which\nthe Devil was reported as having appeared in that town. In one case\n(1604), the fiend had tempted one Jeremy of Strasburg, a marksman,\nto commit suicide, but that not succeeding, had desired him to go with\nhim to the neighbouring castle and enjoy some fruit. The marksman was\nsaved by help of a Dean. In 1633, during a period of excessive cold\nand snow, the Devil induced a soldier to blaspheme. The marksman and\nthe soldier were, indeed, the usual victims of the Wild Huntsmen's\ntemptations; and it was for such that the unfailing magic bullets\nwere moulded in return for their impawned souls.\n\nHow King Olaf--whose name lingers among us in 'Tooley Street,' so\nfamous for its Three Tailors! [189]--spread the Gospel through the\nNorth after his baptism in England is well known. Whatever other hunt\nmay have been phantasmal, it was not Olaf's hunt of the heathen. To\nput a pan of live coals under the belly of one, to force an adder\ndown the throat of another, to offer all men the alternatives of being\nbaptized or burnt, were the arguments which this apostle applied with\nsuch energy that at last--but not until many brave martyrdoms--the\nchief people were convinced. Olaf encountered Odin as if he had been a\nliving foe, and what is more, believed in the genuine existence of his\nformer God. Once, as Olaf and his friends believed, Odin appeared to\nthis devastator of his altars as a one-eyed man in broad-brimmed hat,\ndelighting the King in his hours of relaxation with that enchanting\nconversation for which he was so famous. But he (Odin) tried secretly\nto induce the cook to prepare for his royal master some fine meat\nwhich he had poisoned. But Olaf said, 'Odin shall not deceive us,'\nand ordered the tempting viand to be thrown away. Odin was god of\nthe barbarian Junkers, and the people rejoiced that he was driven\ninto holes and corners; his rites remained mainly among huntsmen,\nand had to be kept very secret. In the Gulathings Lagen of Norway\nit is ordered: 'Let the king and bishop, with all possible care,\nsearch after those who exercise pagan rites, who use magic arts, who\nadore the genii of particular places, of tombs, or rivers, and who,\nafter the manner of devils in travelling, are transported from place\nto place through the air.'\n\nUnder such very actual curses as these, the once sacred animals of\nOdin, and all the associations of the hunt, were diabolised. Even\nthe hunting-horn was regarded as having something pr\u00e6ternatural\nabout it. The howling blast when Odin consulteth Mimir's head [190]\nwas heard again in the Pied Piper's flute, and passed southward\nto blend its note with the horn of Roland at Roncesvalles,--which\nbrought help from distances beyond the reach of any honest horn,\nand even with the pipe of Pan.\n\nThat the Edda described Odin as mounted on a mysterious horse,\nas cherishing two wolves for pets, having a roasted boar for the\ndaily pi\u00e8ce de r\u00e9sistance of his table, and with a raven on either\nshoulder, whispering to him the secret affairs of the earth, was\nenough to settle the reputation of those animals in the creed of\nchristian priests. The Raven was, indeed, from of old endowed with\nthe holy awfulness of the christian dove, in the Norse Mythology. To\nthis day no Swede will kill a raven. The superstition concerning it\nwas strong enough to transmit even to Voltaire an involuntary shudder\nat its croak. Odin was believed to have given the Raven the colour of\nthe night that it might the better spy out the deeds of darkness. Its\n'natural theology' is, no doubt, given correctly by Robert Browning's\nCaliban, who, when his speculations are interrupted by a thunderstorm,\nsupposes his soliloquy has been conveyed by the raven he sees flying\nto his god Setebos. In many parts of Germany ravens are believed to\nhold souls of the damned. If a raven's heart be secured it procures\nan unerring shot.\n\nFrom an early date the Boar became an ensign of the prowess of the\ngods, by which its head passed to be the device of so many barbaric\nclans and ancient families in the Northern world. In Vedic Mythology\nwe find Indra taking the shape of a Wild Boar, also killing a demon\nBoar, and giving Tritas the strength by which a similar monster is\nslain. [191] According to another fable, while Brahma and Vishnu are\nquarrelling as to which is the first-born, Siva interferes and cries,\n'I am the first-born; nevertheless I will recognise as my superior\nhim who is able to see the summit of my head or the sole of my\nfeet.' Vishnu, transforming himself to a Boar, pierced the ground,\npenetrated to the infernal regions, and then saw the feet of Siva,\nwho on his return saluted him as first-born of the gods. De Gubernatis\nregards this fable as making the Boar emblem of the hidden Moon. [192]\nHe is hunted by the Sun. He guards the treasure of the demons which\nIndra gains by slaying him. In Sicilian story, Zafarana, by throwing\nthree hog's bristles on embers, renews her husband's youth. In\nEsthonian legend, a prince, by eating pork, acquires the faculty\nof understanding the language of birds,--which may mean leading on\nthe spring with its songs of birds. But whether these particular\ninterpretations be true or not, there is no doubt that the Boar,\nat an early period, became emblematic of the wild forces of nature,\nand from being hunted by King Odin on earth passed to be his favourite\nfood in Valhalla, and a prominent figure in his spectral hunt.\n\nEnough has already been said of the Dog in several chapters of this\nwork to render it but natural that this animal should take his place\nin any diabolical train. It was not as a 'hell-hound,' or descendant\nof the guardians of Orcus, that he entered the spectral procession of\nOdin, but as man's first animal assistant in the work of obtaining a\nliving from nature. It is the faithful friend of man who is demoralised\nin Waldemar's Lystig, the spectre-hound of Peel Castle, the Manthe\nDoog of the Isle of Man, the sky-dogs (Cwn wybir or aunwy) of Wales,\nand Roscommon dog of Ireland.\n\nOf the Goat, the Dog, and some other diabolised animals, enough\nhas been said in previous pages. The nocturnal animals would be\nas naturally caught up into the Wild Huntsman's train as belated\npeasants. But it is necessary to dwell a little on the relations of\nthe Horse to this Wild Hunt. It was the Horse that made the primitive\nking among men.\n\n'The Horse,' says Dasent, 'was a sacred animal among the Teutonic\ntribes from the first moment of their appearance in history; and\nTacitus has related how, in the shade of those woods and groves which\nserved them for temples, white horses were fed at the public cost,\nwhose backs no mortal crossed, whose neighings and snortings were\ncarefully watched as auguries and omens, and who were thought to be\nconscious of divine mysteries. In Persia, too, the classical reader\nwill remember how the neighing of a horse decided the choice for the\ncrown. Here in England, at any rate, we have only to think of Hengist\nand Horsa, the twin heroes of the Anglo-Saxon migration--as the legend\nran--heroes whose name meant horse, and of the Vale of the White Horse,\nin Berks, where the sacred form still gleams along the down, to be\nreminded of the sacredness of the horse to our forefathers. The Eddas\nare filled with the names of famous horses, and the Sagas contain many\nstories of good steeds, in whom their owners trusted and believed as\nsacred to this or that particular god. Such a horse is Dapplegrimm\nin the Norse tales, who saves his master out of all his perils, and\nbrings him to all fortune, and is another example of that mysterious\nconnection with the higher powers which animals in all ages have been\nsupposed to possess.'\n\nIt was believed that no warrior could approach Valhalla except on\nhorseback, and the steed was generally buried with his master. The\nScandinavian knight was accustomed to swear 'by the shoulder of a\nhorse and the edge of a sword.' Odin (the god) was believed to have\nalways near him the eight-legged horse Sleipnir, whose sire was the\nwonderful Svaldilfari, who by night drew the enormous stones for the\nfortress defending Valhalla from the frost-giants. On Sleipnir the\ndeity rode to the realm of Hela, when he evoked the spirit of the\ndeceased prophetess, Vala, with Runic incantations, to learn Baldur's\nfate. This is the theme of the Veytamsvida, paraphrased by Gray in\nhis ode beginning--\n\n\n        Up rose the king of men with speed,\n        And saddled straight his coal-black steed\n\n\nThe steed, however, was not black, but grey. Sleipnir was the foal of\na magically-created mare. The demon-mare (Mara) holds a prominent place\nin Scandinavian superstition, besetting sleepers. In the Ynglinga Saga,\nVanland awakes from sleep, crying, 'Mara is treading on me!' His men\nhasten to help him, but when they take hold of his head Mara treads\non his legs, and when they hold his legs she tramples on his head;\nand so, says Thiodolf--\n\n\n        Trampled to death, to Skyta's shore\n        The corpse his faithful followers bore;\n        And there they burnt, with heavy hearts,\n        The good chief, killed by witchcraft's arts.\n\n\nAll this is, of course, the origin of the common superstition of\nthe nightmare. The horse-shoe used against witches is from the same\nregion. We may learn here also the reason why hippophagy has been so\nlong unknown among us. Odin's boar has left his head on our Christmas\ntables, but Olaf managed to rob us of the horse-flesh once eaten in\nhonour of that god. In the eleventh century he proclaimed the eating\nof horse-flesh a test of paganism, as baptism was of Christianity,\nand punished it with death, except in Iceland, where it was permitted\nby an express stipulation on their embracing Christianity. To these\nfacts it may be added that originally the horse's head was lifted,\nas the horse-shoe is now, for a charm against witches. When Wittekind\nfought twenty years against Charlemagne, the ensign borne by his\nSaxon followers was a horse's head raised on a pole. A white horse\non a yellow ground is to-day the Hanoverian banner, its origin being\nundoubtedly Odinistic.\n\nThe christian edict against the eating of horse-flesh had probably\na stronger motive than sentimental opposition to paganism. A Roman\nemperor had held the stirrup for a christian pontiff to mount,\nand something of the same kind occurred in the North. The Horse,\nwhich had been a fire-breathing devil under Odin, became a steed of\nthe Sun under the baptized noble and the bishop. Henceforth we read\nof coal-black and snow-white horses, as these are mounted in the\ninterest of the old religion or the new.\n\nIt is very curious to observe how far and wide has gone religious\ncompetition for possession of that living tower of strength--the\nHorse. In ancient Ceylon we find the Buddhist immigrants winning over\nthe steed on which the aborigines were fortified. It was a white horse,\nof course, that became their symbol of triumph. The old record says--\n\n'A certain yakkhini (demoness) named Chetiya, having the form and\ncountenance of a mare, dwelt near the marsh of Tumbariungona. A\ncertain person in the prince's (Pandukabhayo) retinue having seen this\nbeautiful (creature), white with red legs, announced the circumstance\nto the prince. The prince set out with a rope to secure her. She\nseeing him approach from behind, losing her presence of mind from\nfear, under the influence of his imposing appearance, fled without\n(being able to exert the power she possessed of) rendering herself\ninvisible. He gave chase to the fugitive. She, persevering in her\nflight, made the circuit of the marsh seven times. She made three\nmore circuits of the marsh, and then plunged into the river at the\nKachchhaka ferry. He did the same, and (in the river) seized her\nby the tail, and (at the same time grasped) the leaf of a palmira\ntree which the stream was carrying down. By his supernatural good\nfortune this (leaf) became an enormous sword. Exclaiming, 'I put\nthee to death!' he flourished the sword over her. 'Lord!' replied\nshe to him, 'subduing this kingdom for thee, I will confer it on\nthee: spare me my life.' Seizing her by the throat, and with the\npoint of the sword boring her nostril, he secured her with his rope:\nshe (instantly) became tractable. Conducting her to the Dhumarakkho\nmountain, he obtained a great accession of warlike power by making her\nhis battle-steed.' [193] The wonderful victories won by the prince,\naided by this magical mare, are related, and the tale ends with his\nsetting up 'within the royal palace itself the mare-faced yakkhini,'\nand providing for her annually 'demon offerings.'\n\nEqually ambiguous with the Horse in this zoologic diablerie\nis the Stag. In the Heraklean legends we find that hero's son,\nTelephon, nursed by a hind in the woods; and on the other hand,\nhis third 'labour' was the capture of Artemis' gold-antlered stag,\nwhich brought on him her wrath (it being 'her majesty's favourite\nstag'). We have again the story of Act\u00e6on pursuing the stag too far\nand suffering the fate he had prepared for it; and a reminiscence\nof it in the 'Pentamerone,' when the demon Huoreo allures Canneloro\ninto the wood by taking the form of a beautiful hind. These complex\nlegends are reflected in Northern folklore also. Count Otto I. of\nAltmark, while out hunting, slept under an oak and dreamed that he\nwas furiously attacked by a stag, which disappeared when he called\non the name of God. The Count built a monastery, which still stands,\nwith the oak's stump built into its altar. On the other hand, beside\nthe altar of a neighbouring church hang two large horns of a stag\nsaid to have brought a lost child home on its back. Thus in the old\ntown of Steindal meet these contrary characters of the mystical stag,\nof which it is not difficult to see that the evil one results from its\nmisfortune in being at once the huntsman's victim and scapegoat. [194]\n\nIn the legend of St. Hubert we have the sign of Christ--risen\nfrom his tomb among the rich Christians to share for a little the\ncrucifixion of their first missionaries in the North--to the huntsmen\nof Europe. Hubert pursues the stag till it turns to face him, and\nbehold, between its antlers, the cross! It is a fable conceived in the\nspirit of him who said to fishermen, 'Come with me and I will make you\nfishers of men.' The effect was much the same in both cases. Hubert\nkneels before the stag, and becomes a saint, as the fishermen left\ntheir nets and became apostles. But, as the proverb says, when the\nsaint's day is over, farewell the saint. The fishermen's successors\ncaught men with iron hooks in their jaws; the successors of Hubert\nhunted men and women so lustily that they never paused long enough\nto see whether there might not be a cross on their forehead also.\n\nIt was something, however, that the cross which Constantine could\nonly see in the sky could be seen by any eye on the forehead of a\nharmless animal; and this not only because it marked the rising in\nchristian hearts of pity for the animals, but because what was done to\nthe flying stag was done to the peasant who could not fly, and more\nterribly. The vision of Hubert came straight from the pagan heart of\nWestern and Northern Europe. In the Bible, from Genesis to Apocalypse,\nno word is found clearly inculcating any duty to the animals. So\nlittle, indeed, could the christians interpret the beautiful tales\nof folklore concerning kindly beasts, out of which came the legend\nof Hubert, that Hubert was made patron of huntsmen; and while, by\na popular development, Wodan was degraded to a devil, the baptized\nsportsman rescued his chief occupation by ascribing its most dashing\nlegends to St. Martin and their inspiration to the Archangel Michael.\n\nIt is now necessary to consider the light which the German heart cast\nacross the dark shadows of Wodan. This is to be discovered in the myth\nof the White Lady. We have already seen, in the confessions of the\nwitches of Elfdale, in Sweden, that when they were gathering before\ntheir formidable Devil, a certain White Spirit warned them back. The\nchildren said she tried to keep them from entering the Devil's Church\nat Blockula. This may not be worth much as a 'confession,' but it\nsufficiently reports the theories prevailing in the popular mind of\nElfdale at that time. It is not doubtful now that this White Lady and\nthat Devil she opposed were, in pre-christian time, Wodan and his wife\nFrigga. The humble people who had gladly given up the terrible huntsman\nand warrior to be degraded into a Devil, and with him the barbaric\nNimrods who worshipped him, did not agree to a similar surrender\nof their dear household goddess, known to them as Frigga, Holda,\nBertha, Mother Rose,--under all her epithets the Madonna of the North,\ninterceding between them and the hard king of Valhalla, ages before\nthey ever heard of a jealous Jehovah and a tender interceding Mary.\n\nDr. Wuttke has collected many variants of the myths of Frigga, some\nof which bear witness to the efforts of the Church to degrade her\nalso into a fiend. She is seen washing white clothes at fountains,\nmilking cows, spinning flax with a distaff, or combing her flaxen\nhair. She was believed to be the divine ancestress of the human\nrace; many of the oldest families claimed descent from her, and\nbelieved that this Ahnenfrau announced to them good fortune, or,\nby her wailing, any misfortune coming to their families. She brought\nevil only to those who spoke evil of her. If any one shoots at her\nthe ball enters his own heart. She appears to poor wandering folk,\nespecially children, and guides them to spots where they find heaps\nof gold covered with the flower called 'Forget-me-not'--because her\ngentle voice is heard requesting, as the only compensation, that the\nflowers shall be replaced when the gold is removed. The primroses are\nsacred to her, and often are the keys (thence called 'key-blossoms')\nwhich unlock her treasures. The smallest tribute she repays,--even a\npebble consecrated to her. Every child ascending the Burgeiser Alp\nplaces a stone on a certain heap of such, with the words, 'Here I\noffer to the wild maidens.' These are Bertha's kindly fairies. (When\nFrederika Bremer was with a picnic on the Hudson heights, which\nWashington Irving had peopled with the Spirits he had brought from\nthe Rhine, she preferred to pour out her champagne as a libation to\nthe 'good spirits' of Germany and America.) The beautiful White Lady\nwears a golden chain, and glittering keys at her belt; she appears at\nmid-day or in strong moonlight. In regions where priestly influence\nis strong she is said to be half-black, half-white, and to appear\nsometimes as a serpent. She often helps the weary farmer to stack\nhis corn, and sorely-tasked Cinderellas in their toil.\n\nIn pre-christian time this amiable goddess--called oftenest Bertha\n(shining) and Mother Rose--was related to Wodan as the spring\nand summer to the storms of winter, in which the Wild Huntsman's\nprocession no doubt originated. The Northman's experience of seed-time\nand harvest was expressed in the myth of this sweet Rose hidden\nthrough the winter's blight to rise again in summer. This myth has\nmany familiar variants, such as Aschenputtel and Sleeping Beauty;\nbut it was more particularly connected with the later legends of\nthe White Lady, as victim of the Wild Huntsman, by the stories of\ntransformed princesses delivered by youths. Rescue of the enchanted\nprincess is usually effected by three kisses, but she is compelled\nto appear before the deliverer in some hideous aspect--as toad or\nserpent; so that he is repelled or loses courage. This is the rose\nhid under the ugliness of winter.\n\nWhen the storm-god Wodan was banished from nature altogether and\nidentified with the imported, and naturally inconceivable, Satan, he\nwas no more regarded as Frigga's rough lord, but as her remorseless\nfoe. She was popularly revered as St. Walpurga, the original May\nQueen, and it was believed that happy and industrious children\nmight sometimes see her on May-day with long flowing flaxen hair,\nfine shoes, distaff in hand, and a golden crown on her head. But for\nthe nine nights after May-day she was relentlessly pursued by the\nWild Huntsman and his mounted train. There is a picture by G. Watts\nof the hunted lady of Bocaccio's tale, now in the Cosmopolitan Club\nof London, which vividly reproduces the weird impressiveness of this\nmyth. The White Lady tries to hide from her pursuer in standing corn,\nor gets herself bound up in a sheaf. The Wild Huntsman's wrath extends\nto all her retinue,--moss maidens of the wood, or Holtzweibeln. The\nsame belief characterises Waldemar's hunt. It is a common legend in\nDenmark that King Volmer rode up to some peasants, busy at harvest\non Sobjerg Hill, and, in reply to his question whether they had\nseen any game, one of the men said--'Something rustled just now in\nyonder standing corn.' The King rushed off, and presently a shot was\nheard. The King reappeared with a mermaid lying across his horse, and\nsaid as he passed, 'I have chased her a hundred years, and have her at\nlast.' He then rode into the hill. In this way Frigga and her little\npeople, hunted with the wild creatures, awakened sympathy for them.\n\nThe holy friar. Eckhardt (who may be taken as a myth and type of the\nChurch ad hoc) gained his legendary fame by being supposed to go in\nadvance of the Wild Huntsman and warn villagers of his approach; but\nas time went on and a compromise was effected between the hunting\nBarons and the Church, on the basis that the sports and cruelties\nshould be paid for with indulgence-fees, Eckhardt had to turn his\nattention rather to the White Lady. She was declared a Wild Huntress,\nbut the epithet slipped to other shoulders. The priests identified\nher ultimately with Freija, or Frau Venus; and Eckhardt was the holy\nhermit who warned young men against her sorceries in Venusberg and\nelsewhere. But Eckhardt never prevailed against the popular love\nof Mother Rose as he had against her pursuer; he only increased\nthe attractions of 'Frau Venus' beyond her deserts. In the end it\nwas as much as the Church could do to secure for Mary the mantle\nof her elder sister's sanctity. Even then the earlier faith was not\neradicated. After the altars of Mary had fallen, Frigga had vitality\nenough to hold her own as the White Witch who broke the Dark One's\nspells. It was chiefly this helpful Mother-goddess to whom the wretched\nwere appealing when they were burnt for witchcraft.\n\nAt Urselberg, Wurtemberg, there is a deep hole called the\n'Nightmaidens' Retreat,' in which are piled the innumerable stones that\nhave been cast therein by persons desiring good luck on journeys. These\nstones correspond to the bones of the 11,000 Virgins in St. Ursula's\nChurch at Cologne. The White Lady was sainted under her name of Ursel\n(the glowing one), otherwise Horsel. Horselberg, near Eisenach, became\nher haunt as Venus, the temptress of Tannha\u00fcsers; Urselberg became her\nretreat as the good fairy mother; but the attractions of herself and\nher moss-maidens, which the Church wished to borrow, were taken on a\nlong voyage to Rome, and there transmuted to St. Ursula and her 11,000\nVirgins. These Saints of Cologne encountered their ancient mythical\npursuers--the Wild Huntsman's train--in those barbarian Huns who are\nsaid to have slaughtered them all because they would not break their\nvows of chastity. The legend is but a variant of Wodan's hunt after\nthe White Lady and her maidens. When it is remembered that before\nher transformation by Christianity Ursula was the Huntsman's own\nwife, Frigga, a quaint incident appears in the last meeting between\nthe two. After Wodan had been transformed to the Devil, he is said\nto have made out the architectural plan for Cologne Cathedral, and\noffered it to the architect in return for a bond for his soul; but,\nhaving weakly allowed him to get possession of the document before\nthe bond was signed, the architect drew from under his gown a bone of\nSt. Ursula, from which the Devil fled in great terror. It was bone\nof his bone; but after so many mythological vicissitudes Wodan and\nhis Horsel could hardly be expected to recognise each other at this\nchance meeting in Cologne.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVII.\n\nLE BON DIABLE.\n\n    The Devil repainted--Satan a divine agent--St. Orain's\n    heresy--Primitive universalism--Father Sinistrari--Salvation of\n    demons--Medi\u00e6val sects--Aquinas--His prayer for Satan--Popular\n    antipathies--The Devil's gratitude--Devil defending\n    innocence--Devil against idle lords--The wicked ale-wife--Pious\n    offenders punished--Anachronistic Devils--Devils turn to\n    poems--Devil's good advice--Devil sticks to his word--His love\n    of justice--Charlemagne and the Serpent--Merlin--His prison of\n    Air--Mephistopheles in Heaven.\n\n\nThe phrase which heads this chapter is a favourite one in France. It\nmay have had a euphemistic origin, for the giants dreaded by primitive\nEuropeans were too formidable to be lightly spoken of. But within\nmost of the period concerning which we have definite knowledge such\nphrases would more generally have expressed the half-contemptuous pity\nwith which these huge beings with weak intellects were regarded. The\nDevil imported with Christianity was made over, as we have seen,\ninto the image of the Dummeteufel, or stupid good-natured giant, and\nhe is represented in many legends which show him giving his gifts and\nservices for payments of which he is constantly cheated. Le Bon Diable\nin France is somewhat of this character, and is often taken as the\nsign of tradesmen who wish to represent themselves as lavishing their\ngoods recklessly for inadequate compensation. But the large accession\nof demons and devils from the East through Jewish and Moslem channels,\nof a character far from stupid, gave a new sense to that phrase and\ncorresponding ones. There is no doubt that a very distinct reaction\nin favour of the Devil arose in Europe, and one expressive of very\ninteresting facts and forces. The pleasant names given him by the\nmasses would alone indicate this,--Monsieur De Scelestat, Lord Voland,\nBl\u00fcmlin (floweret), Federspiel (gay-plumed), Maitre Bernard, Maitre\nParsin (Parisian).\n\nThe Devil is not so black as he's painted. This proverb concerning the\nlong-outlawed Evil One has a respectable antiquity, and the feeling\nunderlying it has by no means been limited to the vulgar. Even the\ndevout George Herbert wrote--\n\n\n            We paint the Devil black, yet he\n            Hath some good in him all agree.\n\n\nRobert Burns naively appeals to Old Nick's better nature--\n\n\n            But fare ye weel, auld Nickie-ben!\n            O wad ye tak a thought an' men'!\n            Ye aiblins might--I dinna ken--\n                          Still ha'e a stake;\n            I'm wae to think upon yon den,\n                          E'en for your sake!\n\n\nIt is hard to destroy the natural sentiments of the human\nheart. However much they may be overlaid by the transient exigencies\nof a creed, their indestructible nature is pretty certain to reveal\nitself. The most orthodox supporters of divine cruelty in their\nown theology will cry out against it in another. The saint who is\nquite satisfied that the everlasting torture of Satan or Judas is\njustice, will look upon the doom of Prometheus as a sign of heathen\nheartlessness; and the burning of one widow for a few moments on\nher husband's pyre will stimulate merciful missionary ardour among\nmillions of christians whose creed passes the same poor victim to\nendless torture, and half the human race with her.\n\nIt is doubtful whether the general theological conception of the\nfunctions of Satan is consistent with the belief that he is in a state\nof suffering. As an agent of divine punishment he is a part of the\ndivine government; and it is even probable that had it not been for\nthe necessity of keeping up his office, theology itself would have\nfound some means of releasing him and his subordinates from hell,\nand ultimately of restoring them to heaven and virtue. [195]\n\nIt is a legend of the island Iona that when St. Columba attempted to\nbuild a church there, the Devil--i.e., the same Druid magicians who\ntried to prevent his landing there by tempests--threw down the stones\nas often as they were piled up. An oracle declared that the church\ncould arise only after some holy man had been buried alive at the spot,\nand the saint's friend Orain offered himself for the purpose. After\nOrain had been buried, and the wall was rising securely, St. Columba\nwas seized with a strong desire to look upon the face of his poor\nfriend once more. The wall was pulled down, the body dug up; but\ninstead of Orain being found dead, he sat up and told the assembled\nchristians around him that he had been to the other world, and\ndiscovered that they were in error about various things,--especially\nabout Hell, which really did not exist at all. Outraged by this heresy\nthe christians immediately covered up Orain again in good earnest.\n\nThe resurrection of this primitive universalist of the seventh century,\nand his burial again, may be regarded as typifying a dream of the\nultimate restoration of the universe to the divine sway which has\noften given signs of life through christian history, though many times\nburied. The germ of it is even in Paul's hope that at last 'God may be\nall in all' (1 Cor. xv. 28). In Luke x. 17, also, it was related that\nthe seventy whom Jesus had sent out among the idol-worshipping Gentiles\n'returned again with joy, saying, Lord, even the devils are subject\nunto us through thy name.' These ideas are recalled in various legends,\nsuch as that elsewhere related of the Satyr who came to St. Anthony to\nask his prayers for the salvation of his demonic tribe. On the strength\nof Anthony's courteous treatment of that Satyr, the famous Consulteur\nof the Inquisition, Father Sinistrari (seventeenth century), rested\nmuch of his argument that demons were included in the atonement wrought\nby Christ and might attain final beatitude. The Father affirmed that\nthis was implied in Christ's words, 'Other sheep I have which are not\nof this flock: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice;\nand there shall be one fold and one shepherd' [196] (John x. 16). That\nthese words were generally supposed to refer to the inclusion of the\nGentile world was not accepted by Sinistrari as impairing his argument,\nbut the contrary. He maintained with great ingenuity that the salvation\nof the Gentiles logically includes the salvation of their inspiring\ndemons, and that there would not be one fold if these aerial beings,\nwhose existence all authorities attested, were excluded. He even\nintimates, though more timidly, that their father, Satan himself,\nas a participator in the sin of Adam and sharer of his curse, may\nbe included in the general provision of the deity for the entire and\nabsolute removal of the curse throughout nature.\n\nSinistrari's book was placed on the 'Index Expurgatorius' at Rome in\n1709, 'donec corrigatur,' eight years after the author's death; it was\nrepublished, 'correctus,' 1753. But the fact that such sentiments had\noccupied many devout minds in the Church, and that they had reached\nthe dignity of a consistent and scholarly statement in theology, was\nproved. The opinion grew out of deeper roots than New Testament phrases\nor the Anthony fables. The Church had been for ages engaged in the vast\ntask of converting the Gentile world; in the course of that task it had\nsucceeded only by successive surrenders of the impossible principles\nwith which it had started. The Prince of this World had been baptized\nafresh with every European throne ascended by the Church. Asmodeus\nhad triumphed in the sacramental inclusion of marriage; St. Francis\nd'Assisi, preaching to the animals, represented innumerable pious\nmyths which had been impossible under the old belief in a universal\ncurse resting upon nature. The evolution of this tendency may be\ntraced through the entire history of the Church in such sects as the\nPaulicians, Cathari, Bogomiles, and others, who, though they again\nand again formulated anew the principle of an eternal Dualism, as\noften revealed some further stage in the progressive advance of the\nchristianised mind towards a normal relation with nature. Thus the\nCathari maintained that only those beings who were created by the\nevil principle would remain unrecovered; those who were created by\nGod, but seduced by the Adversary, would be saved after sufficient\nexpiation. The fallen angels, they believed, were passing through\nearthly, in some cases animal, bodies to the true Church and to\nheaven. Such views as these were not those of the learned, but of the\ndissenting sects, and they prepared ignorant minds in many countries\nfor that revival of confidence in their banished deities which made\nthe cult of Witchcraft.\n\nSt. Thomas Aquinas, the 'Angelical Doctor,' in his famous work\n'Summa Theologi\u00e6,' maintains that in the Resurrection the bodies of\nthe redeemed will rise with all their senses and organs, including\nthose of sex, active and refined. The authentic affirmation of that\ndoctrine in the thirteenth century was of a significance far beyond\nthe comprehension of the Church. Aquinas confused the lines between\nflesh and spirit, especially by admitting sex into heaven. The Devil\ncould not be far behind. The true interpretation of his doctrine is to\nbe found in the legend that Aquinas passed a night in prayer for the\nsalvation and restoration of the Devil. This legend is the subject\nof a modern poem so fraught with the spirit of the medi\u00e6val heart,\npining in its dogmatic prison, that I cannot forbear quoting it here:--\n\n\n            All day Aquinas sat alone;\n            Compressed he sat and spoke no word,\n            As still as any man of stone,\n            In streets where never voice is heard;\n            With massive front and air antique\n            He sat, did neither move or speak,\n            For thought like his seemed words too weak.\n\n            The shadows brown about him lay;\n            From sunrise till the sun went out,\n            Had sat alone that man of grey,\n            That marble man, hard crampt by doubt;\n            Some kingly problem had he found,\n            Some new belief not wholly sound,\n            Some hope that overleapt all bound.\n\n            All day Aquinas sat alone,\n            No answer to his question came,\n            And now he rose with hollow groan,\n            And eyes that seemed half love, half flame.\n            On the bare floor he flung him down,\n            Pale marble face, half smile, half frown,\n            Brown shadow else, mid shadows brown.\n\n            'O God,' he said, 'it cannot be,\n            Thy Morning-star, with endless moan,\n            Should lift his fading orbs to thee,\n            And thou be happy on thy throne.\n            It were not kind, nay, Father, nay,\n            It were not just, O God, I say,\n            Pray for thy Lost One, Jesus, pray!\n\n            'How can thy kingdom ever come,\n            While the fair angels howl below?\n            All holy voices would be dumb,\n            All loving eyes would fill with woe,\n            To think the lordliest Peer of Heaven,\n            The starry leader of the Seven,\n            Would never, never, be forgiven.\n\n            'Pray for thy Lost One, Jesus, pray!\n            O Word that made thine angel speak!\n            Lord! let thy pitying tears have way;\n            Dear God! not man alone is weak.\n            What is created still must fall,\n            And fairest still we frailest call;\n            Will not Christ's blood avail for all?\n\n            'Pray for thy Lost One, Jesus, pray!\n            O Father! think upon thy child;\n            Turn from thy own bright world away,\n            And look upon that dungeon wild.\n            O God! O Jesus! see how dark\n            That den of woe! O Saviour! mark\n            How angels weep, how groan! Hark, hark!\n\n            'He will not, will not do it more,\n            Restore him to his throne again;\n            Oh, open wide that dismal door\n            Which presses on the souls in pain.\n            So men and angels all will say,\n            'Our God is good.' Oh, day by day,\n            Pray for thy Lost One, Jesus, pray!'\n\n            All night Aquinas knelt alone,\n            Alone with black and dreadful Night,\n            Until before his pleading moan\n            The darkness ebbed away in light.\n            Then rose the saint, and 'God,' said he,\n            'If darkness change to light with thee,\n            The Devil may yet an angel be.' [197]\n\n\nWhile this might be the feeling of devout philosophers whose minds\nwere beginning to form a conception of a Cosmos in which the idea\nof a perpetual empire of Evil could find no place, the humble and\noppressed masses, as we have seen in the chapter on Witchcraft,\nwere familiarising their minds with the powers and glories of a\nSatan in antagonism to the deities and saints of the Church. It was\nnot a penitent devil supplicating for pardon whom they desired, but\nthe veritable Prince of the World, to whom as well as to themselves\ntheir Christian oppressors were odious. They invested the Powers which\nthe priests pronounced infernal with those humanly just and genial\nqualities that had been discarded by ecclesiastical ambition. The\nlegends which must be interpreted in this sense are very numerous,\nand a few of the most characteristic must suffice us here. The habit of\nattributing every mishap to the Devil was rebuked in many legends. One\nof these related that when a party were driving over a rough road\nthe waggon broke down and one of the company exclaimed, 'This is a\nbit of the Devil's work!' A gentleman present said, 'It is a bit of\ncorporation work. I don't believe in saddling the Devil with all the\nbad roads and bad axles.' Some time after, when this second speaker was\nriding over the same road alone, an old gentleman in black met him,\nand having thanked him for his defence of the Devil, presented him\nwith a casket of splendid jewels. Very numerous are legends of the\nDevil's apparition to assist poor architects and mechanics unable\nto complete their contracts, even carving beautiful church pillars\nand the like for them, and this sometimes without receiving any\nrecompense. The Devil's apparition in defence of accused innocence is\na well-known feature of European folklore. On one occasion a soldier,\nhaving stopped at a certain inn, confided to the innkeeper some money\nhe had for safe-keeping, and when he was about to leave the innkeeper\ndenied having received the deposit. The soldier battered down the door,\nand the neighbours of the innkeeper, a prominent man in the town,\nput him in prison, where he lay in prospect of suffering death for an\nattempted burglary. The poor soldier, being a stranger without means,\nwas unable to obtain counsel to defend him. When the parties appeared\nbefore the magistrate, a smart young lawyer, with blue hat and white\nfeathers, unknown in the town, volunteered to defend the soldier,\nand related the whole story with such effect that the innkeeper in his\nexcitement cried, 'Devil take me if I have the money!' Instantly the\nsmart lawyer spread his wings, and, seizing the innkeeper, disappeared\nwith him through the roof of the court-room. The innkeeper's wife,\nstruck with horror, restored the money. In an Altmark version of\nthis story the Devil visits the prisoner during the previous night\nand asks for his soul as fee, but the soldier refuses, saying he had\nrather die. Despite this the Devil intervened. It was an old-time\ncustom in Denmark for courts to sit with an open window, in order\nthat the Devil might more easily fly away with the perjurer.\n\nAlways a democrat, the Devil is said in many stories to have interfered\nin favour of the peasant or serf against the noble. On one occasion he\nrelieved a certain district of all its arrogant and idle noblemen by\ngathering them up in a sack and flying away with them; but unhappily,\nas he was passing over the town of Friesack, his sack came in collision\nwith the church steeple, and through the hole so torn a large number\nof noble lords fell into the town--which thence derived its name--and\nthere they remained to be patrons of the steeple and burthens on\nthe people.\n\nThe Devil was universally regarded as a Nemesis on all publicans and\nale-wives who adulterated the beer they dealt out to the people, or\ngave short measures. At Reetz, in Altmark, the legend of an ale-wife\nwith whom he flew away is connected with a stone on which they are said\nto have rested, and the villagers see thereon prints of the Devil's\nhoof and the woman's feet. This was a favourite theme of old English\nlegends. The accompanying Figure (23), one of the misereres in Ludlow\nparish church, Shropshire, represents the end of a wicked ale-wife. A\ndevil on one side reads the long list of her shortcomings, and on the\nother side hell-mouth is receiving other sinners. A devil with bagpipe\nwelcomes her arrival. She carries with her only her fraudulent measure\nand the fashionable head-dress paid for out of its wicked gains.\n\nIn a marionette performance which I witnessed at Tours, the accusations\nbrought against the tradesmen who cheated the people were such as to\nmake one wish that the services of some equally strict devil could\nbe secured by the authorities of all cities, to detect adulterators\nand dealers in false weights and measures. The same retributive\nagency, in the popular interest, was ascribed to the Devil in his\nattitude towards misers. There being no law which could reach men\nwhose hoarded wealth brought no good to themselves or others, such\nwere deemed proper cases for the interposition of the Devil. There\nis a significant contrast between the legends favoured by the Church\nand those of popular origin. The former, made prominent in frescoes,\noften show how, at the weighing of souls, the sinner is saved by a\nsaint or angel, or by some instance of service to the Church being\nplaced in the scale against the otherwise heavier record of evil\ndeeds. A characteristic legend is that which is the subject of the\nfrescoes in the portico of St. Lorenzo Church at Rome (thirteenth\ncentury). St. Lawrence sees four devils passing his hermitage, and\nlearns from them that they are going for the soul of Henry II. In\nthe next scene, when the wicked Count is weighed, the scroll of his\nevil deeds far outweighs that of his good actions, until the Saint\ncasts into the scale a chalice which the prince had once given to his\nchurch. For that one act Henry's soul ascends to paradise amid the\nmortification of the Devils. Though Charles Martel saved Europe from\nSaracen sway, he once utilised episcopal revenues for relief of the\nstate; consequently a synod declares him damned, a saint sees him in\nhell, a sulphurous dragon issues from his grave. On the other hand,\nthe popular idea of the fate of distinguished sinners may be found\nhid under misereres, where kings sometimes appear in Hell, and in\nthe early picture-books which contained a half-christianised folklore.\n\nIt has been observed that the early nature-deities, reflecting the\nevil and good of nature, in part through the progress of human\nthought and ideality, and through new ethnical rivalries, were\ndegraded into demons. They then represented the pains, obstructions,\nand fears in nature. We have seen that as these apparent external\nevils were vanquished or better understood, the demons passed\nto the inward nature, and represented a new series of pains,\nobstructions, and fears. But these, too, were in part vanquished, or\nbetter understood. Still more, they so changed their forms that the\nancient demons-turned-devils were no longer sufficiently expressive\nto represent them. Thus we find that the Jews, mohammedans, and\nchristians did not find their several special antagonists impressively\nrepresented by either Satan, Iblis, or Beelzebub. Each, therefore,\npersonified its foe in accordance with later experiences--an Opponent\ncalled Armillus, Aldajjail, Antichrist (all meaning the same thing),\nin whom all other devils were merged.\n\nAs to their spirit; but as to their forms they shrank in size and\nimportance, and did duty in small ways. We have seen how great dragons\nwere engaged in frightening boys who fished on Sundays, or oppressive\nsquires; how Satan presided over wine-casks, or was adapted to the\npunishment of profanity; how hosts of once tremendous fiends turned\ninto the grotesque little forms which Callot, truly copying the popular\nnotions around him, painted as motley imps disturbing monks at their\nprayers. Such diminutions of the devils correspond to a parallel\nprocess among the gods and goddesses, by which they were changed to\n'little people' or fairies. In both cases the transformation is an\nexpression of popular disbelief in their reality.\n\nBut revivals took place. The fact of evil is permanent; and whenever\nthe old chains of fear, after long rusting, finally break, there\nfollows an insurrection against the social and moral order which\nalarms the learned and the pious. These see again the instigations\nof evil powers, and it takes form in the imagination of a Dante,\na Luther, a Milton. But when these new portraits of the Devil are\npainted, it is with so much contemporary colouring that they do not\nanswer to the traditional devils preserved in folklore. Dante's Worm\ndoes not resemble the serpent of fable, nor does Milton's Satan\nanswer to the feathered clown of Miracle Plays. Thus, behind the\nactual evils which beset any time, there stands an array of grand\ndiabolical names, detached from present perils, on which the popular\nfancy may work without really involving any theory of Absolute Evil\nat all. Were starry Lucifer to be restored to his heavenly sphere,\nhe would be one great brand plucked from the burning, but the burning\nmight still go on. Theology itself had filled the world with other\ndevils by diabolising all the gods and goddesses of rival religions,\nand the compassionate heart was thus left free to select such forms or\nfair names as preserved some remnant of ancient majesty around them,\nor some ray from their once divine halo, and pray or hope for their\npardon and salvation. Fallen foes, no longer able to harm, can hardly\nfail to awaken pity and clemency.\n\nWith the picture of Dives and Lazarus presented elsewhere\n(vol. i. p. 281) may be instructively compared the accompanying\nscene of a rich man's death-bed (Fig. 24), taken from 'Ars Moriendi,'\none of the early block-books. This picture is very remarkable from\nthe suggestion it contains of an opposition between a devil on the\ndying man's right and the hideous dragon on his left. While the\ndragon holds up a scroll, bidding him think of his treasure (Yntende\nthesauro), the Devil suggests provision for his friends (Provideas\namicis). This devil seems to be a representative of the rich man's\nrelatives who stand near, and appears to be supported by his ugly\nsuperior, who points towards hell as the penalty of not making such\nprovision as is suggested. There would appear to be in this picture\na vague distinction between the mere bestial fiend who tempts, and\nthe ugly but good-natured devil who punishes, and whom rich sinners\ncannot escape by bequests to churches.\n\nOne of the most notable signs of the appearance of 'the good Devil'\nwas the universal belief that he invariably stuck to his word. In\nall European folklore there is no instance of his having broken a\npromise. In this respect his reputation stands far higher than that\nof the christians, seeing that it was a boast of the saints that,\nfollowing the example of their godhead, who outwitted Satan in the\nbargain for man's redemption, they were continually cheating the\nDevil by technical quibbles. There is a significant saying found\namong Prussian and Danish peasants, that you may obtain a thing by\ncalling on Jesus, but if you would be sure of it you must call on\nthe Devil! The two parties were judged by their representatives.\n\nOne of the earliest legendary compacts with the Devil was that made\nby St. Theophilus in the sixth century; when he became alarmed and\npenitent, the Virgin Mary managed to trick Satan out of the fatal\nbond. The 'Golden Legend' of Jacobus de Voragine tells why Satan was\nunder the necessity of demanding in every case a bond signed with\nblood. 'The christians,' said Satan, 'are cheats; they make all sorts\nof promises so long as they want me, and then leave me in the lurch,\nand reconcile themselves with Christ so soon as, by my help, they\nhave got what they want.'\n\nEven apart from the consideration of possessing the soul, the\nancient office of Satan as legal prosecutor of souls transmitted,\nto the latest forms into which he was modified, this character for\njustice. Many medi\u00e6val stories report his gratitude whenever he is\ntreated with justice, though some of these are disguised by connection\nwith other demonic forms. Such is the case with the following romance\nconcerning Charlemagne.\n\nWhen Charlemagne dwelt at Zurich, in the house commonly called 'Zum\nLoch,' he had a column erected to which a bell was attached by a\nrope. Any one that demanded justice could ring this bell when the\nking was at his meals. It happened one day that the bell sounded,\nbut when the servants went to look no one was there. It continued\nringing, so the Emperor commanded them to go again and find out the\ncause. They now remarked that an enormous serpent approached the rope\nand pulled it. Terrified, they brought the news to the Emperor, who\nimmediately rose in order to administer justice to beast as well as\nman. After the reptile had respectfully inclined before the emperor,\nit led him to the banks of the river and showed him, sitting upon\nits nest and eggs, an enormous toad. Charlemagne having examined\nthe case decided thus:--The toad was condemned to be burnt and\njustice shown to the serpent. The verdict was no sooner given than\nit was accomplished. A few days after the snake returned to court,\nbowed low to the King, crept upon the table, took the cover from a\ngold goblet standing there, dropped into it a precious stone, bowed\nagain and crept away. On the spot where the serpent's nest had been,\nCharlemagne built a church called 'Wasserkelch.' The stone he gave\nto his much-loved spouse. This stone possessed the power of making\nthe owner especially loved by the Emperor, so that when absent from\nhis queen he mourned and longed for her. She, well aware that if\nit came into other hands the Emperor would soon forget her, put it\nunder her tongue in the hour of death. The queen was buried with\nthe stone, but Charlemagne could not separate himself from the body,\nso had it exhumed, and for eighteen years carried it about with him\nwherever he went. In the meantime, a courtier who had heard of the\nsecret virtue of the stone, searched the corpse, and at last found\nthe stone hidden under the tongue, and took it away and concealed it\non his own person. Immediately the Emperor's love for his wife turned\nto the courtier, whom he now scarcely permitted out of his sight. At\nCologne the courtier in a fit of anger threw the stone into a hot\nspring, and since then no one has succeeded in finding it. The love\nthe Emperor had for the knight ceased, but he felt himself wonderfully\nattracted to the place where the stone lay hidden. On this spot he\nfounded Aix-la-Chapelle, his subsequent favourite place of residence.\n\nIt is not wonderful that the tradition should arise at Aix, founded\nby the human hero of this romance, that the plan of its cathedral\nwas supplied by the Devil; but it is characteristic there should be\nassociated with this legend an example of how he who as a serpent\nwas awarded justice by Charlemagne was cheated by the priests of\nAix. The Devil gave the design on condition that he was to have the\nfirst who entered the completed cathedral, and a wolf was goaded into\nthe structure in fulfilment of the contract!\n\nIn the ancient myth and romaunt of 'Merlin' may be found the medi\u00e6val\nwitness to the diabolised religion of Britain. The emasculated\nsaints of the South-east could not satisfy the vigorous race in the\nNorth-west, and when its gods were outlawed as devils they brought\nthe chief of them back, as it were, had him duly baptized and set\nabout his old work in the form of Merlin! Here, side by side with the\nascetic Jesus, brought by Gatien and Augustin, was a Northern Christ,\nson of an Arch-incubus, born of a Virgin, baptized in the shrunken\nJordan of a font, performing miracles, summoning dragons to his aid,\novercoming Death and Hell in his way, brought before his Pilate but\nconfounding him, throning and dethroning kings, and leading forth, on\nthe Day of Pentecost, an army whose knights are inspired by Guenever's\nkisses in place of flaming tongues. How Merlin 'went about doing good,'\nafter the Northman's ideal of such work; how he saved the life of his\nunwedded mother by proving that her child (himself) was begotten by\na devil without her knowledge; how, as a child, he exposed at once\nthe pretension of the magistrate to high birth and the laxity of his\nlady and his parson; how he humiliated the priestly astrologers of\nVortigern, and prophesied the destruction of that usurper just as\nit came to pass; how he served Uther during his seven years' reign,\nand by enabling him to assume the shape of the Duke of Cornwall\nand so enjoy the embraces of the Duchess Igerna, secured the birth\nof Arthur and hope of the Sangr\u00e9al; [198] how he defended Arthur's\nlegitimacy of birth and assisted him in causing illegitimate births;\nand how at last he was bound by his own spells, wielded by Vivien,\nin a prison of air where he now remains;--this was the great medi\u00e6val\ngospel of a baptized christian Antichrist which superseded the imported\nkingdom not of this world.\n\nMerlin was the Good Devil, but baptism was a fatal Vivien-spell to\nhim. He still dwells in all the air which is breathed by Anglo-Saxon\nmen,--an ever-expanding prison! Whether the Briton is transplanted in\nAmerica, India, or Africa, he still carries with him the Sermon on the\nMount as inspired by his baptized Prince of the Air, and his gospel\nof the day is, 'If thine enemy hunger, starve him; if he thirst, give\nhim fire; if he hate you, heap melted lead on his head!' Such remains\nthe soul of the greatest race, under the fatal spell of a creed that\nits barbarism needs only baptism to be made holiness and virtue.\n\nIn the reign of George II., when Lord Bute and a Princess of easy\nvirtue were preying on England, and fanatical preachers were\ndirecting their donkeys to heaven beside the conflagration of\nJohn Bull's house, the eye of Hogarth at least (as is shown in our\nFigure 25, from his 'Raree Show') was able to see what the baptized\nMerlin had become in his realm of Air. The other worldly-Devil is\nserpent-legged Hypocrisy. The Nineteenth Century has replaced Merlin\nby Mephistopheles, the Devil who, despite a cloven foot, steps firmly\non earth, and means the power that wit and culture can bring against\nthe baptized giant Force. Him the gods fear not, even look upon with\nsatisfaction. In the 'Prologue in Heaven,' of Goethe's 'Faust,' the\nLord is even more gracious to Mephistopheles than the Jehovah of Job\nwas to Satan. 'The like of thee have never moved my hate,' he says--\n\n\n    Man's active nature, flagging, seeks too soon the level;\n    Unqualified repose he learns to crave;\n    Whence, willingly, the comrade him I gave,\n    Who works, excites, and must create, as Devil.\n\n\nThis is but a more modern expression of the rabbinical fable,\nalready noted, that when the first man was formed there were beside\nhim two Spirits,--one on the right that remained quiescent, another\non the left who ever moved restlessly up and down. When the first\nsin was committed, he of the left was changed to a devil. But he\nstill meant the progressive, inquiring nature of man. 'The Spirit I,\nthat evermore denies,' says the Mephistopheles of Goethe. How shall\nman learn truth if he know not the Spirit that denies? How shall\nhe advance if he know not the Spirit of discontent? This restless\nspirit gains through his ignorance a cloven hoof,--a divided movement,\nsometimes right, sometimes wrong. From his selfishness it acquires\na double tongue. But both hoof and serpent-tongue are beneath the\nevolutional power of experience; they shall be humanised to the foot\nthat marches firmly on earth, and the tongue that speaks truth; and,\nthe baptismal spell broken, Merlin shall descend, bringing to man's\naid all his sharp-eyed dragons transformed to beautiful Arts.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVIII.\n\nANIMALISM.\n\n    Celsus on Satan--Ferocities of inward nature--The Devil\n    of Lust--Celibacy--Blue Beards--Shudendozi--A lady in\n    distress--Bahirawa--The Black Prince--Madana Yaksenyo--Fair\n    fascinators--Devil of Jealousy--Eve's jealousy--Noah's wife--How\n    Satan entered the Ark--Shipwrights' Dirge--The Second Fall--The\n    Drunken curse--Solomon's Fall--Cellar Devils--Gluttony--The\n    Vatican haunted--Avarice--Animalised Devils--Man-shaped Animals.\n\n\n'The christians,' said Celsus, 'dream of some antagonist to God--a\ndevil, whom they call Satanas, who thwarted God when he wished to\nbenefit mankind. The Son of God suffered death from Satanas, but\nthey tell us we are to defy him, and to bear the worst he can do;\nSatanas will come again and work miracles, and pretend to be God,\nbut we are not to believe him. The Greeks tell of a war among the\ngods; army against army, one led by Saturn, and one by Ophincus; of\nchallenges and battles; the vanquished falling into the ocean, the\nvictors reigning in heaven. In the Mysteries we have the rebellion\nof the Titans, and the fables of Typhon, and Horus, and Osiris. The\nstory of the Devil plotting against man is stranger than either of\nthese. The Son of God is injured by the Devil, and charges us to\nfight against him at our peril. Why not punish the Devil instead of\nthreatening poor wretches whom he deceives?' [199]\n\nThe christians comprehended as little as their critic that story\nthey brought, stranger than all the legends of besieged deities, of a\nDevil plotting against man. Yet a little historic perspective makes\nthe situation simple: the gods had taken refuge in man, therefore\nthe attack was transferred to man.\n\nPriestly legends might describe the gods as victorious over the\nTitans, the wild forces of nature, but the people, to their sorrow,\nknew better; the priests, in dealing with the people, showed that\nthey also knew the victory to be on the other side. A careful writer\nremarks:--'When these (Greek) divinities are in any case appealed to\nwith unusual seriousness, their nature-character reappears.... When\nPoseidon hesitates to defer to the positive commands of Zeus\n(Il. xix. 259), Iris reminds him that there are the Erinnyes to\nbe reckoned with (Il. xv. 204), and he gives in at once. [200] The\nErinnyes represent the steady supremacy of the laws and forces of\nnature over all personifications of them. Under uniform experience\nman had come to recognise his own moral autocracy in his world. He\nlooked for incarnations, and it was a hope born of an atheistic view\nof external nature. This was the case not only with the evolution of\nGreek religion, but in that of every religion.\n\nWhen man's hope was thus turned to rest upon man, he found that\nall the Titans had followed him. Ophincus (Ophion) had passed\nthrough Ophiomorphus to be a Man of Sin; and this not in one, but\nby corresponding forms in every line of religious development. The\nferocities of outward nature appeared with all their force in man, and\nrenewed their power with the fine armoury of his intelligence. He must\nhere contend with tempests of passion, stony selfishness, and the whole\nanimal creation nestling in heart and brain, prowling still, though on\ntwo feet. The theory of evolution is hardly a century old as science,\nbut it is an ancient doctrine of Religion. The fables of Pilpay and\n\u00c6sop represent an early recognition of 'survivals.' Recurrence to\noriginal types was recognised as a mystical phenomenon in legends of\nthe bandit turned wolf, and other transformations. One of the oldest\ndoctrines of Eschatology is represented in the accompanying picture\n(Fig. 26), from Thebes, of two dog-headed apes ferrying over to Hades\na gluttonous soul that has been weighed before Osiris, and assigned\nhis appropriate form.\n\nThe devils of Lust are so innumerable that several volumes would be\nrequired to enumerate the legends and superstitions connected with\nthem. But, fortunately for my reader and myself, these, more than\nany other class of phantoms, are very slight modifications of the\nsame form. The innumerable phallic deities, the incubi and succub\u00e6,\nare monotonous as the waves of the ocean, which might fairly typify\nthe vast, restless, and stormy expanse of sexual nature to which\nthey belong.\n\nIn 'The Golden Legend' there is a pleasant tale of a gentleman\nwho, having fallen into poverty, went into solitude, and was there\napproached by a chevalier in black, mounted on a fine horse. This\nknight having inquired the reason of the other's sadness, promised\nhim that, if he would return home, he would find at a certain place\nvast sums of gold; but this was on condition that he should bring his\nbeautiful wife to that solitary spot in exactly a year's time. The\ngentleman, having lived in greater splendour than ever during the\nyear, asked his wife to ride out with him on the appointed day. She\nwas very pious, and having prayed to the Virgin, accompanied her\nhusband to the spot. There the gentleman in black met them, but only\nto tremble. 'Perfidious man!' he cried, 'is it thus you repay my\nbenefits? I asked you to bring your wife, and you have brought me\nthe Mother of God, who will send me back to hell!' The Devil having\nvanished, the gentleman fell on his knees before the Virgin. He\nreturned home to find his wife sleeping quietly.\n\nWere we to follow this finely-mounted gentleman in black, we should be\ncarried by no uncertain steps back to those sons of God who took unto\nthemselves wives of the daughters of men, as told in Genesis; and if\nwe followed the Virgin, we should, by less certain but yet probable\nsteps, discover her prototype in Eve before her fall, virginal as\nshe was meant to remain so far as man was concerned. In the chapters\nrelating to the Eden myth and its personages, I have fully given my\nreasons for believing that the story of Eve, the natural childlessness\nof Sarah, and the immaculate conception by Mary, denote, as sea-rocks\nsometimes mark the former outline of a coast, a primitive theory\nof celibacy in connection with that of a divine or Holy Family. It\nneed only be added here that this impossible ideal in its practical\ndevelopment was effectual in restraining the sexual passions of\nmankind. Although the reckless proclamation of the wild nature-gods\n(Elohim), 'Be fruitful and multiply,' has been accepted by christian\nbibliolators as the command of Jehovah, and philanthropists are even\npunished for suggesting means of withstanding the effects of nuptial\nlicentiousness, yet they are farther from even the letter of the Bible\nthan those protestant celibates, the American Shakers, who discard\nthe sexual relation altogether. The theory of the Shakers that the\nfunctions of sex 'belong to a state of nature, and are inconsistent\nwith a state of grace,' as one of their members in Ohio stated it to\nme, coincides closely with the rabbinical theory that Adam and Eve,\nby their sin, fell to the lowest of seven earthly spheres, and thus\ncame within the influence of the incubi and succub\u00e6, by their union\nwith whom the world was filled with the demonic races, or Gentiles.\n\nIt is probable that the fencing-off of Eden, the founding of the\nAbrahamic household and family, and the command against adultery, were\ndefined against that system of rape--or marriage by capture--which\nprevailed among the 'sons of Elohim,' who saw the 'daughters of men\nthat they were fair,' and followed the law of their eyes. The older\nrabbins were careful to preserve the distinction between the Bene\nElohim and the Ischim, and it ultimately amounted to that between\nJews and Gentiles.\n\nThe suspicion of a devil lurking behind female beauty thus begins. The\ndevils love beauty, and the beauties love admiration. These are perils\nin the constitution of the family. But there are other legends which\nreport the frequency with which woman was an unwilling victim of the\nlustful Anakim or other powerful lords. Throughout the world are\nfound legends of beautiful virgins sacrificed to powerful demons\nor deities. These are sometimes so realistic as to suggest the\npossibility that the fair captives of savage chieftains may indeed\nhave been sometimes victims of their Ogre's voracity as well as his\nlust. At any rate, cruelty and lust are nearly related. The Blue\nBeard myth opens out horrible possibilities.\n\nOne of the best-known legends in Japan is that concerning the\nfiend Shudendozi, who derives his name from the two characteristics\nof possessing the face of a child and being a heavy drinker. The\nchild-face is so emphasised in the stories that one may suspect either\nthat his fair victims were enticed to his stronghold by his air of\ninnocence, or else that there is some hint as to maternal longings\nin the fable.\n\nAt the beginning of the eleventh century, when Ichijo II. was Emperor,\nlived the hero Yorimitsa. In those days the people of Kiyoto were\ntroubled by an evil spirit which abode near the Rasho Gate. One night,\nwhen merry with his companions, Ichijo said, 'Who dare go and defy\nthe demon of the Rasho Gate, and set up a token that he has been\nthere?' 'That dare I,' answered Tsuma, who, having donned his mail,\nrode out in the bleak night to the Rasho Gate. Having written his\nname on the gate, returning, his horse shivers with fear, and a\nhuge hand coming out of the gate seized the knight's helmet. He\nstruggled in vain. He then cuts off the demon's arm, and the demon\nflies howling. Tsuma takes the demon's arm home, and locks it in a\nbox. One night the demon, having the shape of Tsuma's aunt, came and\nsaid, 'I pray you show me the arm of the fiend.' 'I will show it to\nno man, and yet to thee will I show it,' replied he. When the box\nis opened a black cloud enshrouds the aunt, and the demon disappears\nwith the arm. Thereafter he is more troublesome than ever. The demon\ncarried off the fairest virgins of Kiyoto, ravished and ate them,\nno beauty being left in the city. The Emperor commands Yorimitsa to\ndestroy him. The hero, with four trusty knights and a great captain,\nwent to the hidden places of the mountains. They fell in with an\nold man, who invited them into his dwelling, and gave them wine to\ndrink; and when they were going he presented them with wine. This\nold man was a mountain-god. As they proceeded they met a beautiful\nlady washing blood from garments in a valley, weeping bitterly. In\nreply to their inquiries she said the demon had carried her off\nand kept her to wash his clothes, meaning when weary of her to\neat her. 'I pray your lordships to help me!' The six heroes bid\nher lead them to the ogre's cave. One hundred devils mounted guard\nbefore it. The woman first went in and told him they had come. The\nogre called them in, meaning to eat them. Then they saw Shudendozi,\na monster with the face of a little child. They offered him wine,\nwhich flew to his head: he becomes merry and sleeps, and his head is\ncut off. The head leaps up and tries to bite Yorimitsa, but he had\non two helmets. When all the devils are slain, he brings the head\nof Shudendozi to the Emperor. In a similar story of the same country\nthe lustful ogre by no means possesses Shudendozi's winning visage,\nas may be seen by the popular representation of him (Fig. 27), with\na knight's hand grasping his throat.\n\nA Singhalese demon of like class is Bahirawa, who takes his name\nfrom the hill of the same name, towering over Kandy, in which he\nis supposed to reside. The legend runs that the astrologers told\na king whose queen was afflicted by successive miscarriages, that\nshe would never be delivered of a healthy child unless a virgin was\nsacrificed annually on the top of this hill. This being done, several\nchildren were borne to him. When his queen was advanced in years the\nking discontinued this observance, and consequently many diseases\nfell upon the royal family and the city, after which the annual\nsacrifice was resumed, and continued until 1815, when the English\noccupied Kandy. The method of the sacrifice was to bind a young girl\nto a stake on the top of the hill with jungle-creepers. Beside her,\non an altar, were placed boiled rice and flowers; incantations were\nuttered, and the girl left, to be generally found dead of fright in the\nmorning. An old woman, who in early years had undergone this ordeal,\nsurvived, and her safety no doubt co-operated with English authority\nto diminish the popular fear of Bahirawa, but still few natives would\nbe found courageous enough to ascend the hill at night.\n\nOne of the lustful demons of Ceylon is Calu Cumara, that is, the Black\nPrince. He is supposed to have seven different apparitions,--prince\nof fire, of flowers, of groves, of graves, of eye-ointments, of\nthe smooth body, and of sexuality. The Saga says he was a Buddhist\npriest, who by exceeding asceticism and accumulated merits had gained\nthe power to fly, but passion for a beautiful woman caused him to\nfall. By disappointment in the love for which he had parted with so\nmuch his heart was broken, and he became a demon. In this condition\nhe is for ever tortured by the passion of lustful desire, the only\nsatisfaction of which he can obtain being to afflict young and fair\nwomen with illness. He is a very dainty demon, and can be soothed if\ngreat care is taken in the offerings made to him, which consist of\nrice of finest quality, plantains, sugar-cane, oranges, cocoa-nuts,\nand cakes. He is of dark-blue complexion and his raiment black.\n\nIn Singhalese demonolatry there are seven female demons of lust,\npopularly called the Madana Yaksenyo. These sisters are--Cama (lust);\nCini (fire); Mohanee (ignorance); Rutti (pleasure); Cala (maturity);\nMal (flowers); Puspa (perfumes). They are the abettors of seduction,\nand are invoked in the preparation of philtres. [201]\n\n'It were well,' said Jason to Medea, 'that the female race should\nnot exist; then would there not have been any evil among men.' [202]\nThe same sentiment is in Milton--\n\n\n                      Oh why did God,\n        Creator wise, that peopled highest heaven\n        With spirits masculine, create at last\n        This novelty on earth, this fair defect\n        Of nature, and not fill the world at once\n        With men, as angels, without feminine? [203]\n\n\nMany traditions preceded this ungallant creed, some of which have\nbeen referred to in our chapters on Lilith and Eve. Corresponding\nto these are the stories related by Herodotus of the overthrow of\nthe kingdom of the Heraclid\u00e6 and freedom of the Greeks, through\nthe revenge of the Queen, 'the most beautiful of women,' upon her\nhusband Candaules for having contrived that Gyges should see her\nnaked. Candaules having been slain by Gyges at the instigation of the\nQueen, and married her, the Fates decreed that their crime should be\npunished on their fifth descendant. The overthrow was by Cyrus, and\nit was associated with another woman, Mandane, daughter of the tyrant\nAstyages, mother of Cyrus, who is thus, as the Madonna, to bruise\nthe head of the serpent who had crept into the Greek Paradise. [204]\nThe Greeks of Pontus also ascribed the origin of the Scythian race,\nthe scourge of all nations, to a serpent-woman, who, having stolen\naway the mares which Herakles had captured from Gergon, refused to\nrestore them except on condition of having children by him. From the\nunion of Herakles with this 'half virgin, half viper,' sprang three\nsons, of whom the youngest was Scythes.\n\nNot only are feminine seductiveness and liability to seduction\nrepresented in the legends of female demons and devils, but quite as\nmuch the jealousy of that sex. If the former were weaknesses which\nmight overthrow kingdoms, the latter was a species of animalism which\ncould devastate the home and society. Although jealousy is sometimes\nregarded as venial, if not indeed a sign of true love, it is an outcome\nof the animal nature. The Japanese have shown a true observation of\nnature in portraying their female Oni (devil) of jealousy (Fig. 28)\nwith sharp erect horns and bristling hair. The raising 'of the\nornamental plumes by many birds during their courtship,' mentioned\nby Mr. Darwin, is the more pleasing aspect of that emotion which,\nblending with fear and rage, puffs out the lizard's throat, ruffles\nthe cock's neck, and raises the hair of the insane. [205]\n\nAn ancient legend mingles jealousy with the myth of Eden at every\nstep. Rabbi Jarchi says that the serpent was jealous of Adam's\nconnubial felicity, and a passage in Josephus shows that this was an\nancient opinion. The jealousy of Adam's second wife felt by his first\n(Lilith) was by many said to be the cause of her conspiracy with\nthe serpent. The most beautiful medi\u00e6val picture of her that I have\nseen was in an illuminated Bible in Strasburg, in which, with all\nher wealth of golden hair and her beauty, Lilith holds her mouth,\nwith a small rosy apple in it, towards Adam. Eve seems to snatch\nit. Then there is an old story that when Eve had eaten the apple\nshe saw the angel of death, and urged Adam to eat the fruit also,\nin order that he might not become a widower.\n\nIt is remarkable that there should have sprung up a legend that Satan\nmade his second attack upon the race formed by Jehovah, and his plan\nfor perpetuating it on earth by means of a flirtation with Noah's\nwife, and also by awakening her jealousy. The older legend concerning\nNoah's wife is that mentioned by Tabari, which merely states that she\nridiculed the predictions of a deluge by her husband. So much might\nhave been suggested by the silence of the Bible concerning her. The\nMoslem tradition that the Devil managed to get into the ark is also\nancient. He caught hold of the ass's tail just as it was about to\nenter. The ass came on slowly, and Noah, becoming impatient, exclaimed,\n'You cursed one, come in quick!' When Noah, seeing the Devil in the\nark, asked by what right he was there, the other said, 'By your order;\nyou said, \"Accursed one, come in;\" I am the accursed one!' This story,\nwhich seems contrived to show that one may not be such an ass as he\nlooks, was superseded by the legend which represents Satan as having\nbeen brought into the ark concealed under Noria's (or Noraita's) dress.\n\nThe most remarkable legend of this kind is that found in the Eastern\nChurch, and which is shown in various medi\u00e6val designs in Russia. Satan\nis shown, in an early sixteenth century picture belonging to Count\nUvarof (Fig. 29), offering Noah's wife a bunch of khmel (hops) with\nwhich to brew kvas and make Noah drunk; for the story was that Noah\ndid not tell his wife that a deluge was coming, knowing that she\ncould not keep a secret. In the old version of the legend given by\nBuslaef, 'after apocryphal tradition used by heretics,' Satan always\naddresses Noah's wife as Eve, which indicates a theory. It was meant\nto be considered as a second edition of the attack on the divine\nplan begun in Eden, and revived in the temptation of Sara. Satan not\nonly taught this new Eve how to make kvas but also vodka (brandy);\nand when he had awakened her jealousy about Noah's frequent absence,\nhe bade her substitute the brandy for the beer when her husband,\nas usual, asked for the latter. When Noah was thus in his cups she\nasked him where he went, and why he kept late hours. He revealed his\nsecret to his Eve, who disclosed it to Satan. The tempter appears\nto have seduced her from Noah, and persuaded her to be dilatory when\nentering the ark. When all the animals had gone in, and all the rest\nof her family, Eve said, 'I have forgotten my pots and pans,' and went\nto fetch them; next she said, 'I have forgotten my spoons and forks,'\nand returned for them. All of this had been arranged by Satan in order\nto make Noah curse; and he had just slipped under Eve's skirt when he\nhad the satisfaction of hearing the intended Adam of a baptized world\ncry to his wife, 'Accursed one, come in!' Since Jehovah himself could\nnot prevent the carrying out of a patriarch's curse, Satan was thus\nenabled to enter the ark, save himself from being drowned, and bring\nmischief into the human world once more.\n\nThis is substantially the same legend as that of the medi\u00e6val Morality\ncalled 'Noah's Ark, or the Shipwright's Ancient Play or Dirge.' The\nDevil says to Noah's wife:--\n\n\n            Yes, hold thee still le dame,\n            And I shall tell thee how;\n            I swear thee by my crooked snout,\n            All that thy husband goes about\n            Is little to thy profit.\n            Yet shall I tell thee how\n            Thou shalt meet all his will;\n            Do as I shall bid thee now,\n            Thou shalt meet every deal.\n            Have here a drink full good\n            That is made of a mightful main,\n            Be he hath drunken a drink of this,\n            No longer shall he learn:\n            Believe, believe, my own dear dame,\n            I may no longer bide;\n            To ship when thou shalt sayre,\n            I shall be by thy side.\n\n\nThere are some intimations in the Slavonic version which look as if\nit might have belonged to some Paulician or other half-gnostic theory\nthat the temptation of Noraita (Eve II.), and her alienation from\nher husband, were meant to prevent the repopulation of the Earth. [206]\n\nThe next attempt of the Devil, as agent of the Elohistic creation,\nto ruin the race of man, introduces us to another form of animalism\nwhich has had a large expression in Devil-lore. It is related in\nrabbinical mythology that when, as is recorded in Gen. ix. 20, Noah\nwas planting a vineyard, the Devil (Asmodeus) came and proposed to\njoin him in the work. This having been agreed to, this evil partner\nbrought in succession a sheep, a lion, and a hog, and sacrificed\nthem on the spot. The result was that the wine when drunk first gave\nthe drinker the quality of a sheep, then that of a lion, and finally\nthat of a hog. [207] It was by this means that Noah was reduced to\nswinish inebriation. There followed the curses on those around him,\nwhich, however drunken, were those of a father, and reproduced on\nthe cleansed world all the dooms which had been pronounced in Eden.\n\nIf the date of this legend could be made early enough, it would appear\nto be a sort of revenge for this temptation of Noah to drunkenness\nthat Talmudic fable shows Asmodeus brought under bondage to Solomon,\nand forced to work on the Temple, by means of wine. Asmodeus had\ndug for himself a well, and planted beside it a tree, so making for\nhimself a pleasant spot for repose during his goings to and fro on\nearth. But Solomon's messenger Benaja managed to cover this with a\ntank which he filled with wine. Asmodeus, on his return, repeated\nto himself the proverb, 'Wine is a mocker, strong drink is raging,\nand whosoever is deceived thereby is not wise' (Prov. xx. 1); yet,\nbeing very thirsty, he drank, fell asleep, and when he awoke found\nhimself loaded with chains.\n\nHowever, after working for a time for Solomon, he discovered that\nking's weaknesses and played upon them. Solomon was so puffed up with\na sense of his power that he accepted a challenge from his slave\n(Asmodeus) to show his superiority without the assistance of his\nmagic ring, and without keeping his competitor in bonds. No sooner\nwas Asmodeus free, and in possession of the ring, than he transported\nSolomon four hundred miles away, where he remained for a long time\namong the seductive beauties of the Courts of Naamah, Rahab, and\nother she-devils. Meanwhile the Devil, assuming the form of Solomon,\nsat on his throne, and became the darling of his Queen and concubines.\n\nThe Devil of Wine and strong drink generally has a wide representation\nin folklore. We find him in the bibulous Serpent of Japan, who first\nloses his eight heads metaphorically, and then literally from the first\nof Swords-men. The performances of Mephistopheles in Auerbach's Cellar\nare commemorated in its old frescoes, and its motto: 'Live, drink,\ncarouse, remembering Faust and his punishment: it came slowly, but was\nin ample measure.' Thuringian legends relate that the Devil tries to\nstop the building of churches by casting down the stones, but this may\nbe stopped by the builders promising to erect a winehouse in the same\nneighbourhood. An old English legend relates that a great man's cellar\nwas haunted by devils who drank up his wine. On one occasion a barrel\nwas marked with holy water, and the devil was found stuck fast on it.\n\nGluttony, both in eating and drinking, has had its many\npersonifications. The characteristics of the Hunger demons are\ntravestied in such devils as these, only the diabolical, as\ndistinguished from the demonic element, appears in features of\nluxuriousness. The contrast between the starveling saints of the\nearly Church and the well-fed friars of later times was a frequent\nsubject of caricature, as in the accompanying example (Fig. 30) from\nthe British Museum, fourteenth century (MS. Arundel), where a lean\ndevil is satisfying himself through a fattened friar. One of the most\nsignificant features of the old legend of Faust is the persistence of\nthe animal character in which Mephistopheles appears. He is an ugly\ndog--a fit emblem of the scholar's relapse into the canine temper which\nflies at the world as at a bone he means to gnaw. Faust does not like\nthis genuine form, and bids the Devil change it. Mephistopheles then\ntakes the form of a Franciscan friar; but 'the kernel of the brute'\nis in him still, and he at once loads Faust's table with luxuries and\nwines from the cellars of the Archbishop of Salzburg and other rich\npriests. The prelates are fond of their bone too. When Mephistopheles\nand Faust find their way into the Vatican, it is to witness carousals\nof the Pope and his Cardinals. They snatch from them their luxuries and\nwine-goblets as they are about to enjoy them. Against these invisible\ninvaders the holy men bring their crucifixes and other powers of\nexorcism; and it is all snarling and growling--canine priest against\npuppy astrologer. Nor was it very different in the history of the\nlong contention between the two for the big bone of Christendom.\n\nThe lust of Gold had its devils, and they were not different from\nother types of animalism. This was especially the case with such\nas represented money, extorted from the people to supply wealth to\ndissolute princes and prelates. The giants of Antwerp represent the\npower of the pagan monarchs who exacted tribute; but these were\nreplaced by such guardians of tribute-money as the Satyr of our\npicture (Fig. 31), which Edward the Confessor saw seated on a barrel\nof Danegeld,\n\n\n                Vit un d\u00e9able saer desus\n                Le tresor, noir et hidus.\n\n\nThere are many good fables in European folklore with regard to the\nmiser's gold, and 'devil's money' generally, which exhibit a fine\ninstinct. A man carries home a package of such gold, and on opening it\nthere drop out, instead of money, paws and nails of cats, frogs, and\nbears--the latter being an almost personal allusion to the Exchange. A\nFrench miser's money-safe being opened, two frogs only were found. The\nDevil could not get any other soul than the gold, and the cold-blooded\nreptiles were left as a sign of the life that had been lived.\n\nIn the legends of the swarms of devils which beset St. Anthony we\nfind them represented as genuine animals. Our Anglo-Saxon fathers,\nhowever, were quite unable to appreciate the severity of the conflict\nwhich man had to wage with the animal world in Southern countries and\nin earlier times. Nor had their reverence for nature and its forms\nbeen crushed out by the pessimist theory of the earth maintained by\nChristianity. Gradually the representation of the animal tempters was\nmodified, and instead of real animal forms there were reported the\nbearded bestialities which surrounded St. Guthlac and St. Godric. The\naccompanying picture (Fig. 32) is a group from Breughel (1565),\nrepresenting the devils called around St. James by a magician. These\ngrotesque forms will repay study. If we should make a sketch of the\nsame kind, only surrounding the saint with the real animal shapes\nmost nearly resembling these nondescripts, it would cease to be a\ndiabolical scene.\n\nFor beastliness is not a character of beasts; it is the arrest of\nman. It is not the picturesque donkey in the meadow that is ridiculous,\nbut the donkey on two feet; not the bear of zoological gardens that\nis offensive morally, but the rough, who cannot always be caged; it\nis the two-legged calf, the snake pretending to be a man, the ape in\nevening dress, who ever made the problem of evil at all formidable. It\nwas insoluble until men had discovered as Science that law of Evolution\nwhich the ancient world knew as Ethics.\n\nA Hindu fable relates that the animals, in their migration, came to\nan abyss they could not cross, and that the gods made man as a bridge\nacross it. Science and Reason confirm these ancient instincts of our\nrace. Man is that bridge stretching between the animal and the ideal\nhabitat by which, if the development be normal, all the passions pass\nupward into educated powers. Any pause or impediment on that bridge\nbrings all the animals together to rend and tear the man who cannot\nconvey them across the abyss. A very slight arrest may reveal to a\nman that he is a vehicle of intensified animalism. The lust of the\ngoat, the pride of the peacock, the wrath of the lion, beautiful in\ntheir appropriate forms, become, in the guise of a man uncontrolled\nby reason, the vices which used to be called possession, and really\nare insanities.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIX.\n\nTHOUGHTS AND INTERPRETATIONS.\n\n\nI lately heard the story of a pious negro woman whose faith in hell\nwas sorely tried by a sceptic who asked her how brimstone enough could\nbe found to burn all the wicked people in the world. After taking\nsome days for reflection, the old woman, when next challenged by the\nsceptic, replied, that she had concluded that 'every man took his\nown brimstone.' This humble saint was unconscious that her instinct\nhad reached the finest thought of Milton, whose Satan says 'Myself am\nhell.' Marlowe's Mephistopheles also says, 'Where we are is hell.' And,\nfar back as the year 633, the holy man Fursey, who believed himself to\nhave been guided by an angel near the region of the damned, related\na vision much like the view of the African woman. There were four\nfires--Falsehood, Covetousness, Discord, Injustice--which joined to\nform one great flame. When this drew near, Fursey, in fear, said,\n'Lord, behold the fire draws near me.' The angel answered, 'That\nwhich you did not kindle shall not burn you.'\n\nSuch association of any principle of justice, even in form so crude,\nhas become rare enough in Christendom to excite applause when it\nappears, though the applause has about it that infusion of the\ngrotesque which one perceives when gallery-gods cheer the actor who\nheroically declares that a man ought not to strike a woman. When we\ngo back to the atmosphere of Paganism we find that retribution had\namong them a real meaning. Nothing can be in more remarkable contrast\nthan the disorderly characterless hell of Christendom, into which the\nmurderer and the man who confuses the Persons of the Godhead alike\nburn everlastingly in most inappropriate fires, and the Hades of Egypt,\nGreece, and Rome, where every punishment bears relation to the offence,\nand is limited in duration to the degree of the offence.\n\n'The Egyptians,' says Herodotus (ii. 123), 'were the first who asserted\nthat the soul of man is immortal, and that when the body perishes it\nenters into some other animal, constantly springing into existence; and\nwhen it has passed through the different kinds of terrestrial, marine,\nand aerial beings, it again enters into the body of a man that is born,\nand that this revolution is made in three thousand years.' Probably\nPlato imported from Egypt his fancy of the return of one dead to\nrelate the scenes of heaven and hell, Er the Armenian (Republic,\nx. 614) suggesting an evolution of Rhampsinitus (Herod. ii. 122),\nwho descended to Hades alive, played dice with Ceres, and brought\nback gold. The vision of Er represents a terrible hell, indeed, but\nthose punished were chiefly murderers and tyrants. They are punished\ntenfold for every wrong they had committed. But when this punishment\nis ended, each soul must return to the earth in such animal form\nas he or she might select. The animals, too, had their choice. Er\nsaw that the choice was generally determined by the previous earthly\nlife,--many becoming animals because of some spite derived from their\nexperience. 'And not only did men pass into animals, but I must also\nmention that there were animals tame and wild who changed into one\nanother, and into corresponding human natures, the good into the\ngentle, the evil into the savage, in all sorts of combinations.' Sly\nPlato! Such is his estimate of what men's selections of their paradises\nare worth!\n\nOrpheus chose to be a swan, hating to be born of woman, because women\nmurdered him; Ajax became a lion and Agamemnon an eagle, because\nthey had suffered injustice from men; Atalanta would be an athlete,\nand the jester Thersites a monkey; and Odysseus went about to find\nthe life of a private gentleman with nothing to do. If Plutarch's\nfriend Thespesius had pondered well this irony of Plato, he would\nhardly have brought back from his visit to Hades the modification\nthat demons were provided to assign the animal forms in which souls\nshould be born again on earth. They could hardly have done for the\nwicked anything worse than Plato shows them doing for themselves. But\nthe meaning of Plutarch is the same. Thespesius sees demons preparing\nthe body of a viper for Nero to be born into, since it was said the\nyoung of that reptile destroy their mother at birth.\n\n\n\nAmong the Persians the idea of future rewards and punishments exceeds\nthe exactness of the Koran--'Whoso hath done an atom of justice shall\nbehold it, and whoso hath done an atom of injustice shall behold\nit.' The Persian Sufis will even subdivide the soul rather than that\nany good act should go down with the larger gross of wickedness. S\u00e1di\ntells of a vision where a man was seen in hell, all except one foot,\nwhich was twined with flowers. With all his wickedness the man had\nwith that foot shoved a bundle of hay within reach of a weary ox.\n\nBut while Persian poets--Sufis, ennobling the old name\nSophist--preserved thus a good deal of the universalism of Parsaism,\na Mohammedanism hard as the Scythians who brought it turned the heart\nof the people in that country to stone. In the Dresden Library there\nis an illuminated Persian MS., thought to be seven hundred years\nold, which has in it what may be regarded as a portrait of Ahriman\nand Iblis combined. He is red, has a heavy beard and moustache, and\nthere is a long dragon's crest and mane on his head. He wears a green\nand blue skirt about his loins. His tongue rolls thirstily between\nhis cruel teeth. He superintends a number of fish-like devils which\nfloat in a lake of fire, and swallow the damned. Above this scene\nare the glorified souls, including the Shah sitting cross-legged\non his rug, who look down on the tortures beneath with evident\nsatisfaction. Apparently this is the only amusement which relieves\nthe ennui of their heaven.\n\nIf anything could make a rational man believe in a fiend-principle\nin the universe it would be the suggestion of such pictures,\nthat men have existed who could conceive of happiness enjoyed in\nview of such tortures as these. This and some similar pictures in\nthe East--for instance, that in the Temple of Horrors at Wuchang,\nChina--are absolutely rayless so far as any touch of humanity is\nconcerned. Are the Shah and his happy fellow-inspectors of tortures\nreally fiends? In the light of our present intelligence they may seem\nso. Certainly no person of refined feeling could now expect to attain\nany heaven while others were in hell. But it would be possible, if\npersons could believe that many of those around them are not men and\nwomen at all, but fiends in human shape. These ferocious Hells are\nreferable to a period when all who incurred the sentences of princes\nor priests were seen as mere masks of devils; they were only ascribed\nhuman flesh that they may suffer. The dogma of Hell was doomed from\nthe moment that the damned were supposed to be really human.\n\nWere those who killed the martyrs of heresy, for instance, to return\nto the world and look upon those whom they pierced, they could never\nrecognise them. Were they to see the statues of Bruno, Huss, Cranmer,\nServetus, the names and forms would not recall to them the persons\nthey slew. They would be shocked if told that they had burned great\nmen, and would surely answer, 'Men? We burned no men. The Devil came\namong us calling himself Huss, and we made short work with him; he\nreappeared under several aliases--Bruno, Servetus, Spinoza, Voltaire:\nsometimes we burned him, at other times managed to make him miserable,\nthank God! But we were not hurting real men, we were saving them.'\n\nAround such ideas grew our yet uncivilised Codes of Law. In England,\nanno 1878, men are refused as jury-men if they will not say, 'So help\nme God!' on the ground that an atheist cannot have a conscience. Only\nlet him really be without conscience, and call himself a christian when\nhe is not, and courts receive the selfish liar with respect. The old\nclause of the death-sentence--'instigated thereto by the Devil'--has\nbeen dropped in the case of murderers, however; and that is some\ngain. Torture by fire of the worst murderer for one day would not\nbe permitted in Christendom. Belief in hell-fire outlasts it for a\nlittle among the ignorant. But what shall be said of the educated\nwho profess to believe it?\n\n\n\nThe Venerable Bede relates that, in the year 696, a Northumbrian\ngentleman, who had died in the beginning of the night, came to life\nand health in the morning, and gave an account of what he had seen\novernight. He had witnessed the conventional tortures of the damned,\nbut adds--'Being thus on all sides enclosed with enemies and darkness,\nand looking about on every side for assistance, there appeared to me,\non the way that I came, as it were, the brightness of a star shining\namidst the darkness, which increased by degrees,'--but we need not\ngo on to the anti-climax of this vision.\n\nThis star rising above all such visions belongs to the vault of the\nhuman Love, and it is visible through all the Ages of Darkness. It\ncannot be quenched, and its fiery rays have burnt up mountains of\niniquity.\n\n'In the year 1322,' writes Fl\u00f6gel, after the 'Chronicon Sampetrinum\nErfurtense,' 'there was a play shown at Eisenach, which had a\ntragical enough effect. Markgraf Friedrich of Misnia, Landgraf also\nof Thuringia, having brought his tedious warfare to a conclusion,\nand the country beginning now to revive under peace, his subjects\nwere busy repaying themselves for the past distresses by all manner\nof diversions; to which end, apparently by the Sovereign's order,\na dramatic representation of the Ten Virgins was schemed, and at\nEisenach, in his presence, duly executed. This happened fifteen days\nafter Easter, by indulgence of the Preaching Friars. In the 'Chronicon\nSampetrinum' stands recorded that the play was enacted in the Bear\nGarden (in horto ferarum) by the Clergy and their Scholars. But now,\nwhen it came to pass that the Wise Virgins would give the foolish no\noil, and these latter were shut out from the Bridegroom, they began\nto weep bitterly, and called on the Saints to intercede for them;\nwho however, even with Mary at their head, could effect nothing from\nGod; but the Foolish Virgins were all sentenced to damnation. Which\nthings the Landgraf seeing and hearing, he fell into a doubt,\nand was very angry; and said 'What then is the Christian Faith,\nif God will not take pity on us for intercession of Mary and all\nthe Saints?' In this anger he continued five days; and the learned\nmen could hardly enlighten him to understand the Gospel. Thereupon\nhe was struck with apoplexy, and became speechless and powerless;\nin which sad state he continued, bedrid, two years and seven months,\nand so died, being then fifty-five.'\n\nIn telling the story Carlyle remarks that these 'Ten Virgins at\nEisenach are more fatal to warlike men than \u00c6schylus' Furies at\nAthens were to weak women.' Even so, until great-hearted men rose up\nat Eisenach and elsewhere to begin the work destined to prove fatal\nalike to heartless Virgins and Furies. That star of a warrior's\nCompassion, hovering over the foolish Friars and their midnight\nGospel, beams far. The story reminds me of an incident related of\na mining district in California, where a rude theatre was erected,\nand a company gave, as their first performance, Othello. When the\nscene of Desdemona's suffocation approached, a stalwart miner leaped\non the stage, and pulling out his six-shooter, said to the Moor,\n'You damned nigger! if you touch that woman I'll blow the top of your\nhead off!' A dozen roughs, clambering over the footlights, cried,\n'Right Joe! we'll stand by you!' The manager met the emergency by\ncrying, 'Don't shoot, boys! This play was wrote by Bill Shakespear;\nhe's an old Californian, and it's all in fun!' Had this Moor proceeded\nto roast Desdemona in fire with any verisimilitude, it is doubtful\nif the manager could have saved him by an argument reminding the\nminers that such was the divine way with sinners in the region to\nwhich most of them were going. The top of that theologic hell's head\nis not very safe in these days when human nature is unchained with\nall its six-shooters, each liable to be touched off by fire from that\nStar revolving in the sphere of Compassion.\n\n\n\nDay after day I gazed upon Michael Angelo's 'Last Judgment' in the\nSistine Chapel. The artist was in his sixtieth year when Pope Clement\nVII. invited him to cover a wall sixty feet high and nearly as wide\nwith a picture of the Day of Wrath. In seven years he had finished\nit. Clement was dead. Pope Paul IV. looked at it, and liked it not:\nall he could see was a vast number of naked figures; so he said it\nwas not fit for the Sistine Chapel, and must be destroyed. One of\nMichael Angelo's pupils saved it by draping some of the figures. Time\nwent on, and another Pope came who insisted on more drapery,--so the\nwork was disfigured again. However, popular ridicule saved this from\ngoing very far, and so there remains the tremendous scene. But Popes\nand Cardinals always disliked it. The first impression I received\nfrom it was that of a complete representation of all the physical\npowers belonging to organised life; though the forms are human, every\nanimal power is there, leaping, crouching, crawling,--every sinew,\njoint, muscle, portrayed in completest tension and action. Then the\neye wanders from face to face, and every passion that ever crawled or\nprowled in jungle or swamp is pictured. The most unpleasant expressions\nseemed to me those of the martyrs. They came up from their graves,\neach bringing the instrument by which he had suffered, and offering\nit in witness against the poor wretches who came to be judged; and\nthere was a look of self-righteous satisfaction on their faces as\nthey witnessed the persecution of their persecutors. As for Christ,\nhe was like a fury, with hand uplifted against the doomed, his hair\nwildly floating. The tortured people below are not in contrast with\nthe blessed above; they who are in heaven look rather more stupid\nthan the others, and rather pleased with the anguish they witness,\nbut not more saintly. But gradually the eye, having wandered over\nthe vast canvas, from the tortured Cardinal at the bottom up to the\nfurious Judge,--alights on a face which, once seen, is never to be\nforgotten. Beautiful she is, that Mary beside the Judge, and more\nbeautiful for the pain that is on her face. She has drawn her drapery\nto veil from her sight the anguish below; she has turned her face\nfrom the Judge,--does not see her son in him; she looks not upon the\nblessed,--for she, the gentle mother, is not in heaven; she cannot have\njoy in sight of misery. In that one face of pure womanly sympathy--that\nbeauty transfigured in its compassionateness--the artist put his soul,\nhis religion. Mary's face quenches all the painted flames. They are at\nonce made impossible. The same universe could not produce both a hell\nand that horror of it. The furious Jesus is changed to a phantasm;\nhe could never be born of such a mother. If the Popes had only wished\nto hide the nakedness of their own dogmas they ought to have blotted\nout Mary's face; for as it now stands the rest of the forms are but\nshapes to show how all the wild forms and passions of human animalism\ngather as a frame round that which is their consummate flower,--the\nspirit of love enshrined in its perfect human expression.\n\nSo was it that Michael Angelo could not serve two masters. Popes might\nemploy him, but he could not do the work they liked. 'The passive\nmaster lent his hand to the vast soul that o'er him planned.' He\ncould not help it. The lover of beauty could not paint the Day of\nWrath without setting above it that face like a star which shines\nthrough its unreality, burns up its ugliness, and leaves the picture\na magnificent interpretation of the forms of nature and hopes of the\nworld,--a cardinal hypocrite at the bottom, an ideal woman at the top.\n\n\n\nExhausted by the too-much glory of the visions of Paradise which he had\nseen, Dante came forth to the threshold opening on the world of human\nlife, from which he had parted for a space, and there sank down. As\nhe lay there angels caused lilies to grow beneath and around him,\nand myrtle to rise and intertwine for a bower over him, and their\nhappy voices, wafted in low-toned hymns, brought soft sleep to his\noverwrought senses. Long had he slumbered before the light of familiar\nday stole once more into those deep eyes. The angels had departed. The\npoet awoke to find himself alone, and with a sigh he said to himself,\n'It is, then, all but a dream.' As he arose he saw before him a man\nof noble mien and shining countenance, habited in an Eastern robe,\nwho returned his gaze with an interest equal to his own. Quickly the\neyes of Dante searched the ground beside the stranger to see if he\nwere shadowless: convinced thus that he was true flesh and blood,\nthe Florentine thus addressed him:--\n\n'Pilgrim, for such thou seemest, may we meet in simple human\nbrotherhood? If, as thy garb suggests, thou comest from afar, perchance\nthe friendly greeting, even of one who in his native city is still\nhimself a pilgrim, may not be unwelcome.\n\n'Heart to heart be our kiss, my brother; yet must I journey without\ndelay to those who watch and wait for wondrous tidings that I bear.\n\n'Friend! I hear some meaning deeper than thy words. If 'twere but as\nsatisfying natural curiosity, answer not; but if thou bearest a burden\nof tidings glad for all human-kind, speak! Who art thou? whence comest,\nand with what message freighted?\n\n'Arda Vir\u00e1f is the name I bear; from Persia have I come; but by what\nstrange paths have reached this spot know I not, save that through\nsplendours of worlds invisible to mortal sense I have journeyed,\nnor encountered human form till I found thee slumbering on this spot.\n\n'Trebly then art thou my brother! I too have but now, as to my confused\nsense it seems, emerged from that vast journey. Thou clearest from\nme gathering doubts that those visions were illusive. Yet, as even\nthings we really see are often overlaid by images that lurk in the\neye, I pray thee tell me something thou hast seen, so that perchance\nwe may part with mutual confirmation of our vision.\n\n'That gladly will I do. When the Avesta had been destroyed, and the\nsages of Iran disagreed as to the true religion, they agreed that\none should be chosen by lot to drink the sacred draught of Vishtasp,\nthat he might pass to the invisible world and bring intelligence\ntherefrom. On me the lot fell. Beside the fire that has never gone\nout, surrounded by holy women who chanted our hymns, I drank the three\ncups--Well Thought, Well Said, Well Done. Then as I slept there rose\nbefore me a high stairway of three steps; on the first was written,\nWell Thought; on the second, Well Said; on the third, Well Done. By\nthe first step I reached the realm where good thoughts are honoured:\nthere were the thinkers whose starlike radiance ever increased. They\noffered no prayers, they chanted no liturgies. Above all was the\nsphere of the liberal. The next step brought me to the circle of\ngreat and truthful speakers: these walked in lofty splendour. The\nthird step brought me to the heaven of good actions. I saw the souls\nof agriculturists surrounded by spirits of water and earth, trees and\ncattle. The artisans were seated on embellished thrones. Sublime were\nthe seats of teachers, interceders, peace-makers; and the religious\nwalked in light and joy with which none are satiated.\n\n'Sawest thou the fairest of earth-born ladies--Beatrice?\n\n'I saw indeed a lady most fair. In a pleasant grove lay the form\nof a man who had but then parted from earth. When he had awakened,\nhe walked through the grove and there met him this most beautiful\nmaiden. To her he said, 'Who art thou, so fair beyond all whom I\nhave seen in the land of the living?' To him she replied, 'O youth,\nI am thy actions.' Can this be thy lady Beatrice?\n\n'But sawest thou no hell? no dire punishments?\n\n'Alas! sad scenes I witnessed, sufferers whose hell was that their\ndarkness was amid the abodes of splendour. Amid all that glow one newly\nrisen from earth walked shivering with cold, and there walked ever\nby his side a hideous hag. On her he turned and said, 'Who art thou,\nthat ever movest beside me, thou that art monstrous beyond all that\nI have seen on earth?' To him she replied, 'Man, I am thy actions.'\n\n'But who were those glorious ones thou sawest in Paradise?\n\n'Some of their names I did indeed learn--Zoroaster, Socrates, Plato,\nBuddha, Confucius, Christ.\n\n'What do I hear! knowest thou that none of these save that last\nholy one--whom methinks thou namest too lightly among men--were\nbaptized? Those have these eyes sorrowfully beheld in pain through\nthe mysterious justice of God.\n\n'Thinkest thou, then, thy own compassion deeper than the mercy of\nOrmuzd? But, ah! now indeed I do remember. As I conversed with the\nsages I had named, they related to me this strange event. By guidance\nof one of their number, Virgil by name, there had come among them\nfrom the earth a most powerful magician. He bore the name of Dante. By\nmighty spells this being had cast them all into a sad circle which he\ncalled Limbo, over whose gate he wrote, though with eyes full of tears,\n'All hope abandon, ye who enter here!' Thus were they in great sorrow\nand dismay. But, presently, as this strange Dante was about to pass\non, so they related, he looked upon the face of one among them so pure\nand noble that though he had styled him 'pagan,' he could not bear to\nabandon him there. This was Cato of Utica. Him this Dante led to the\ndoor, and gave him liberty on condition that he would be warder of his\nunbaptized brethren, and by no means let any of them escape. No sooner,\nhowever, was this done than this magician beheld others who moved\nhis reverence,--among them Trajan and Ripheus,--and overcome by an\nimpulse of love, he opened a window in the side of Limbo, bidding them\nemerge into light. He then waved his christian wand to close up this\naperture, and passed away, supposing that he had done so; but the limit\nof that magician's power had been reached, the window was but veiled,\nand after he had gone all these unbaptized ones passed out by that\nway, and reascended to the glory they had enjoyed before this Dante\nhad brought his alien sorceries to bear upon them for a brief space.\n\n'Can this be true? Is it indeed so that all the sages and poets of\nthe world are now in equal rank whether or not they have been sealed\nas members of Christ?\n\n'Brother, thy brow is overcast. What! can one so pure and high of\nnature as thou desire that the gentle Christ, whom I saw embracing\nthe sages and prophets of other ages, should turn upon them with\nhatred and bind them in gloom and pain like this Dante?'\n\nThereupon, with a flood of tears, Dante fell at the feet of Arda Vir\u00e1f,\nand kissed the hem of his skirt. 'Purer is thy vision, O pilgrim,\nthan mine,' he said. 'I fear that I have but borne with me to the\ninvisible world the small prejudices of my little Church, which hath\ntaught me to limit the Love which I now see to be boundless. Thou who\nhast learned from thy Zoroaster that the meaning of God is the end of\nall evil, a universe climbing to its flower in joy, deign to take the\nhand of thy servant and make him worthy to be thy friend,--with thee\nhenceforth to abandon the poor formulas which ignorance substitutes\nfor virtue, and ascend to the beautiful summits thou has visited by\nthe stairway of good thoughts, good words, good deeds.'\n\n\n\nIn 1745 Swedenborg was a student of Natural Philosophy in London. In\nthe April of that year his 'revelations' began amid the smoke\nand toil of the great metropolis. 'I was hungry and ate with great\nappetite. Towards the end of the meal I remarked a kind of mist spread\nbefore my eyes, and I saw the floor of my room covered with hideous\nreptiles, such as serpents, toads, and the like. I was astonished,\nhaving all my wits about me, being perfectly conscious. The darkness\nattained its height and then passed away. I now saw a Man sitting\nin the corner of the chamber. As I had thought myself alone, I was\ngreatly frightened when he said to me, 'Eat not as much.'\n\nIn Swedenborg's Diary the incident is related more particularly. 'In\nthe middle of the day, at dinner, an Angel spoke to me, and told me\nnot to eat too much at table. Whilst he was with me, there plainly\nappeared to me a kind of vapour steaming from the pores of my body. It\nwas a most visible watery vapour, and fell downwards to the ground\nupon the carpet, where it collected and turned into divers vermin,\nwhich were gathered together under the table, and in a moment went\noff with a pop or noise. A fiery light appeared within them, and a\nsound was heard, pronouncing that all the vermin that could possibly\nbe generated by unseemly appetite were thus cast out of my body,\nand burnt up, and that I was now cleansed from them. Hence we may\nknow what luxury and the like have for their bosom contents.'\n\nContinuing the first account Swedenborg said, 'The following\nnight the same Man appeared to me again. I was this time not at\nall alarmed. The Man said, 'I am God, the Lord, the Creator, and\nRedeemer of the world. I have chosen thee to unfold to men the\nspiritual sense of the Holy Scripture. I will myself dictate to\nthee what thou shalt write.' The same night the world of spirits,\nhell and heaven, were convincingly opened to me, where I found many\npersons of my acquaintance of all conditions. From that day forth I\ngave up all worldly learning, and laboured only in spiritual things,\naccording to what the Lord commanded me to write.'\n\nHe 'gave up all worldly learning,' shut his intellectual eyes,\nand sank under all the nightmares which his first vision saw burnt\nup as vermin. After his fiftieth year, says Emerson, he falls into\njealousy of his intellect, makes war on it, and the violence is\ninstantly avenged. But the portrait of the blinded mystic as drawn\nby the clear seer is too impressive an illustration to be omitted here.\n\n'A vampyre sits in the seat of the prophet and turns with gloomy\nappetite to the images of pain. Indeed, a bird does not more readily\nweave its nest or a mole bore in the ground than this seer of the\nsouls substructs a new hell and pit, each more abominable than the\nlast, round every new crew of offenders. He was let down through a\ncolumn that seemed of brass, but it was formed of angelic spirits,\nthat he might descend safely amongst the unhappy, and witness\nthe vastation of souls; and heard there, for a long continuance,\ntheir lamentations; he saw their tormentors, who increase and strain\npangs to infinity; he saw the hell of the jugglers, the hell of the\nassassins, the hell of the lascivious; the hell of robbers, who kill\nand boil men; the infernal tun of the deceitful; the excrementitious\nhells; the hell of the revengful, whose faces resembled a round,\nbroad cake, and their arms rotate like a wheel.... The universe, in\nhis poem, suffers under a magnetic sleep, and only reflects the mind\nof the magnetiser.... Swedenborg and Behmon both failed by attaching\nthemselves to the christian symbol, instead of to the moral sentiment,\nwhich carries innumerable christianities, humanities, divinities, in\nits bosom.... Another dogma, growing out of this pernicious theologic\nlimitation, is this Inferno. Swedenborg has devils. Evil, according\nto old philosophers, is good in the making. That pure malignity can\nexist, is the extreme proposition of unbelief.... To what a painful\nperversion had Gothic theology arrived, that Swedenborg admitted no\nconversion for evil spirits! But the divine effort is never relaxed;\nthe carrion in the sun will convert itself to grass and flowers;\nand man, though in brothels, or jails, or on gibbets, is on his way\nto all that is good and true.'\n\nBut even the Hell of Swedenborg is not free from the soft potency\nof our star. It is almost painful, indeed, to see its spiritual\nray mingling with the fiery fever-shapes which Swedenborg meets\non his way through the column of brass,--made, had he known it,\nnot of angels but of savage scriptures. 'I gave up all worldly\nlearning'--he says: but it did not give him up all at once. 'They\n(the damned) suffer ineffable torments; but it was permitted to\nrelieve or console them with a certain degree of hope, so that they\nshould not entirely despair. For they said they believed the torment\nwould be eternal. They were relieved or consoled by saying that God\nMessiah is merciful, and that in His Word we read that 'the prisoners\nwill be sent forth from the pit' (Zech. ix. 2). Swedenborg reports\nthat God Messiah appeared to these spirits, and even embraced and\nkissed one who had been raised from 'the greatest torment.' He says,\n'Punishment for the sake of punishment is the punishment of a devil,'\nand affirms that all punishment is 'to take away evils or to induce a\nfaculty of doing good.' These utterances are in his Diary, and were\nwritten before he had got to the bottom of his Calvinistic column;\nbut even in the 'Arcana Celestia' there is a gleam:--'Such is the\nequilibrium of all things in another life that evil punishes itself,\nand unless it were removed by punishments the evil spirits must\nnecessarily be kept in some hell to eternity.'\n\nReductio ad absurdum! And yet Swedenborgians insist upon the dogma of\neverlasting punishments; to sustain which they appeal from Swedenborg\nhalf-sober to Swedenborg mentally drunk.\n\n\n\nIn the Library at Dresden there is a series of old pictures said to be\nMexican, and which I was told had been purchased from a Jew in Vienna,\ncontaining devils mainly of serpent characters blended with those of\nhumanity. One was a fantastic serpent with human head, sharp snoutish\nnose, many eyes, slight wings, and tongue lolling out. Another had a\nhuman head and reptilian tail. A third is human except for the double\ntongue darting out. A fourth has issuing from the back of his head a\nserpent whose large dragon head is swallowing a human embryo. Whatever\ntribe it was that originated these pictures must have had very strong\nimpressions of the survival of the serpent in some men.\n\nI was reminded of the picture of the serpent swallowing the human\nembryo while looking at the wall-pictures in Russian churches\nrepresenting the conventional serpent with devils nestling at intervals\nalong its body, as represented in our Figure (10). Professor Buslaef\ngave me the right arch\u00e6ology of this, no doubt, but the devils\nthemselves, as I gazed, seemed to intimate another theory with their\nfair forms. They might have been winged angels but for their hair\nof flame and cruel hooks. They seemed to say, 'We were the ancient\nembryo-gods of the human imagination, but the serpent swallowed us. He\nswallowed us successively as one after another we availed ourselves\nof his cunning in our priesthoods; as we brought his cruel coils to\ncrush those who dared to outgrow our cult; as we imitated his fang in\nthe deadliness with which we bit the heel of every advancing thinker;\nas, when worsted in our struggle against reason, we took to the double\ntongue, praising with one fork the virtues which we poisoned with the\nother. Now we are degraded with him for ever, bound to him by these\nrings, labelled with the sins we have committed.'\n\n\n\nIt was by a true experience that the ancients so generally took\nnocturnal animals to be types of diabolism. Corresponding to them\nare the sleepless activities of morally unawakened men. The animal is\na sleeping man. Its passions and instincts are acted out in what to\nrational man would be dreams. In dreams, especially when influenced\nby disease, a man may mentally relapse very far, and pass through\nkennels and styes, which are such even when somewhat decorated by\nshreds of the familiar human environment. The nocturnal form of\nintellect is cunning; the obscuration of religion is superstition;\nthe dark shadow that falls on love turns it to lust. These wolves\nand bats, on which no ideal has dawned, do not prowl or flit through\nman in their natural forms: in the half-awake consciousness, whose\nstarlight attends man amid his darkness, their misty outlines swell,\nand in the feverish unenlightened conscience they become phantasms of\nhis animalism--werewolves, vampyres. The awakening of reason in any\nanimal is through all the phases of cerebral and social evolution. A\nwise man said to his son who was afraid to enter the dark, 'Go on,\nchild; you will never see anything worse than yourself.'\n\n\n\nThe hare-lip, which we sometimes see in the human face, is there\nan arrested development. Every lip is at some embryonic period a\nhare-lip. The development of man's visible part has gone on much longer\nthan his intellectual and moral evolution, and abnormalities in it are\nrare in comparison with the number of survivals from the animal world\nin his temper, his faith, and his manners. Criminals are men living out\ntheir arrested moral developments. They who regard them as instigated\nby a devil are those whose arrest is mental. The eye of reason will\ndeal with both all the more effectively, because with as little wrath\nas a surgeon feels towards the hare-lip he endeavours to humanise.\n\n\n\nIt is an impressive fact that the great and reverent mind of Spinoza,\nin pondering the problem of Evil and the theology which ascribed\nit to a Devil, was unconsciously led to anticipate by more than a\ncentury the first (modern) scientific suggestions of the principle\nof Evolution. In his early treatise, 'De Deo et Homine,' occurs this\nshort but momentous chapter--\n\n'De Diabolis. If the Devil be an Entity contrary in all respects to\nGod, having nothing of God in his nature, there can be nothing in\ncommon with God.\n\n'Is he assumed to be a thinking Entity, as some will have it, who never\nwills and never does any good, and who sets himself in opposition to\nGod on all occasions, he would assuredly be a very wretched being,\nand, could prayers do anything for him, his amendment were much to\nbe implored.\n\n'But let us ask whether so miserable an object could exist even for an\ninstant; and, the question put, we see at once that it could not; for\nfrom the perfection of a thing proceeds its power of continuance: the\nmore of the Essential and Divine a thing possesses, the more enduring\nit is. But how could the Devil, having no trace of perfection in him,\nexist at all? Add to this, that the stability or duration of a thinking\nthing depends entirely on its love of and union with God, and that\nthe opposite of this state in every particular being presumed in the\nDevil, it is obviously impossible that there can be any such being.\n\n'And then there is indeed no necessity to presume the existence of a\nDevil; for the causes of hate, envy, anger, and all such passions are\nreadily enough to be discovered; and there is no occasion for resort\nto fiction to account for the evils they engender.'\n\nIn the course of his correspondence with the most learned men of\nhis time, Spinoza was severely questioned concerning his views upon\nhuman wickedness, the disobedience of Adam, and so forth. He said--to\nabridge his answers--If there be any essential or positive evil in men,\nGod is the author and continuer of that evil. But what is called evil\nin them is their degree of imperfection as compared with those more\nperfect. Adam, in the abstract, is a man eating an apple. That is\nnot in itself an evil action. Acts condemned in man are often admired\nin animals,--as the jealousy of doves,--and regarded as evidence of\ntheir perfection. Although man must restrain the forces of nature and\ndirect them to his purposes, it is a superstition to suppose that God\nis angry against such forces. It is an error in man to identify his\nlittle inconveniences as obstacles to God. Let him withdraw himself\nfrom the consideration and nothing is found evil. Whatever exists,\nexists by reason of its perfection for its own ends,--which may or\nmay not be those of men.\n\nSpinoza's aphorism, 'From the perfection of a thing proceeds its power\nof continuance,' is the earliest modern statement of the doctrine now\ncalled 'survival of the fittest.' The notion of a Devil involves the\nsolecism of a being surviving through its unfitness for survival.\n\n\n\nSpinoza was Copernicus of the moral Cosmos. The great German who\ndiscovered to men that their little planet was not the one centre and\nsingle care of nature, led the human mind out of a closet and gave\nit a universe. But dogma still clung to the closet; where indeed\neach sect still remains, holding its little interest to be the aim\nof the solar system, and all outside it to be part of a countless\nhost, marshalled by a Prince of Evil, whose eternal war is waged\nagainst that formidable pulpiteer whose sermon is sending dismay\nthrough pandemonium. But for rational men all that is ended, and its\ndecline began when Spinoza warned men against looking at the moral\nuniverse from the pin-hole of their egotism. That closet-creation,\nwhose laws were seen now acting now suspended to suit the affairs of\nmen, disappeared, and man was led to adore the All.\n\n\n\nIt is a small thing that man can bruise the serpent's head, if its\nfang still carries its venom so deep in his reason as to blacken\nall nature with a sense of triumphant malevolence. To the eye of\njudicial man, instructed to decide every case without bribe of his\nown interest as a rival animal, the serpent's fang is one of the most\nperfect adaptations of means to ends in nature. Were a corresponding\nperfection in every human mind, the world would fulfil the mystical\ndream of the East, which gave one name to the serpents that bit them\nin the wilderness and seraphim singing round the eternal throne.\n\n\n\n'Cursed be the Hebrew who shall either eat pork, or permit his son to\nbe instructed in the learning of the Greeks.' So says the Talmud, with\na voice transmitted from the 'kingdom of priests' (Exod. xix. 6). From\nthe altar of 'unhewn stone' came the curse upon Art, and upon the\nrace that represented culture raising its tool upon the rudeness\nof nature. That curse of the Talmud recoiled fearfully. The Jewish\npriesthood had their son in Peter with his vision of clean and unclean\nanimals, and the command, 'Slay and eat!' Uninstructed is this heir\nof priestly Judaism 'in the learning of the Greeks,' consequently\nhis way of converting Gentiles--the herd of swine, the goyim--is to\nconvert them into christian protoplasm. 'Slay and eat,' became the\ncry of the elect, and their first victim was the paternal Jew who\ntaught them that pork and Greek learning belonged to the same category.\n\n\n\nBut there was another Jewish nation not composed of priests. While\nthe priestly kingdom is typified in Jonah announcing the destruction\nof Nineveh, who, because the great city still goes on, reproaches\nJehovah, the nation of the poets has now its Jehovah II. who sees the\nhumiliation of the tribal priesthood as a withered gourd compared\nwith the arts, wealth, and human interests of a Gentile city. 'The\nLord repented.' The first Gospel to the Gentiles is in that gentle\nthought for the uncircumcised Ninevites. But it was reached too\nlate. When it gained expression in Christ welcoming Greeks, and seeing\nin stones possible 'children of Abraham;' in Paul acknowledging debt\nto barbarians and taking his texts from Greek altars or poets; the\nevolution of the ideal element in Hebrew religion had gained much. But\nhistoric combinations raised the judaisers to a throne, and all the\nnarrowness of their priesthood was re-enacted as Christianity.\n\n\n\nThe column of brass in whose hollow centre the fine brain of Swedenborg\nwas imprisoned is a fit similitude of the christian formula. The\nwhole moral attitude of Christianity towards nature is represented in\nhis first vision. The beginning of his spiritual career is announced\nby the evaporation of his animal nature in the form of vermin. The\nchristian hell is present, and these animal parts are burnt up. Among\nthose burnt-up powers of Swedenborg, one of the serpents must have been\nhis intellect. 'From that day forth I gave up all worldly learning.'\n\nHere we have the ideal christian caught up to his paradise even while\nhis outward shape is visible. But what if we were all to become like\nthat? Suppose all the animal powers and desires were to evaporate out\nof mankind and to be burnt up! Were that to occur to-day the effect\non the morrow would be but faintly told in that which would be caused\nby sudden evaporations of steam from all the engines of the world. We\nmay imagine a band of philanthropists, sorely disturbed by the number\nof accidents incidental to steam-locomotion, who should conspire\nto go at daybreak to all the engine-houses and stations in England,\nand, just as the engines were about to start for their work, should\nquench their fires, let off their steam, and break their works. That\nwould be but a brief paralysis of the work of one country; but what\nwould be the result if the animal nature of man and its desires,\nthe works and trades that minister to the 'pomps and vanities,'\nall worldly aims and joys, should be burnt up in fires of fanaticism!\n\nYet to that fatal aim Christianity gave itself,--so contrary to that\ngreat heart in which was mirrored the beautiful world, its lilies\nand little children, and where love shed its beams on the just\nand the unjust! The organising principle of Christianity was that\nwhich crucified Jesus and took his tomb for corner-stone of a system\nmodelled after what he hated. Its central purpose was to effect a\ndivorce between the moral and the animal nature of man. One is called\nflesh and the other spirit; one was the child of God, the other the\nchild of the Devil. It rent asunder that which was really one; its\nwhole history, so long as it was in earnest, was the fanatical effort\nto keep asunder by violence those two halves ever seeking harmony;\nits history since its falsity was exposed has been the hypocrisy of\nprofessing in word what is impossible in deed.\n\n\n\nBeside the christian vision of Swedenborg, in which the judaic\npriest's curse on swinish Greek learning found apotheosis, let us set\nthe vision of a Jewish seer in whom the humanity that spared Nineveh\nfound expression. The seer is Philo,--name rightly belonging to that\npure mind in which the starry ideals of his Semitic race embraced\nthe sensuous beauty which alone could give them life. Philo (Pr\u00e6m. et\nPoenis, sec. 15-20) describes as the first joy of the redeemed earth\nthe termination of the war between man and animal. That war will end,\nhe says, 'when the wild beasts in the soul have been tamed. Then\nthe most ferocious animals will submit to man; scorpions will lose\ntheir stings, and serpents their poison. And, in consequence of the\nsuppression of that older war between man and beast, the war between\nman and man shall also end.'\n\nHere we emerge from Swedenborg's brass column, we pass beyond Peter's\nsword called 'Slay-and-eat,' we leave behind the Talmud's curse on\nswine and learning: we rise to the clear vision of Hebrew prophecy\nwhich beheld lion and lamb lying down together, a child leading the\nwild forces subdued by culture.\n\n\n\n'Why not God kill Debbil?' asked Man Friday. It is a question which\nnot even Psychology has answered, why no Theology has yet suggested\nthe death of the Devil in the past, or prophesied more than chains\nfor him in the future. No doubt the need of a 'hangman's whip to\nhaud the wretch in order' may partly account for it; but with this\nmay have combined a cause of which it is pleasanter to think--Devils\nbeing animal passions in excess, even the ascetic recoils from their\ndestruction, with an instinct like that which restrains rats from\ngnawing holes through the ship's bottom.\n\n\n\nIn Goethe's 'Faust' we read, Doch das Antike find' ich zu lebendig. It\nis a criticism on the nudity of the Greek forms that appear in the\nclassical Walpurgis Night. But the authority is not good: it is\nMephistopheles who is disgusted with sight of the human form, and he\nsays they ought in modern fashion to be plastered over. His sentiments\nhave prevailed at the Vatican, where the antique statues and the great\npictures of Michael Angelo bear witness to the prurient prudery of the\npapal mind. 'Devils are our sins in perspective,' says George Herbert.\n\n\n\nHerodotus (ii. 47) says, 'The Egyptians consider the pig to be an\nimpure beast, and therefore if a man, in passing by a pig, should touch\nhim only with his garments, he forthwith goes to the river and plunges\nin; and, in the next place, swineherds, although native Egyptians, are\nthe only men who are not allowed to enter any of their temples.' The\nEgyptians, he says, do not sacrifice the goat; 'and, indeed, their\npainters and sculptors represent Pan with the face and legs of a\ngoat, as the Grecians do; not that they imagine this to be his real\nform, for they think him like other gods; but why they represent\nhim in this way I had rather not mention.' We need not feel the same\nprudery. The Egyptians rightly regarded the symbol of sexual desire,\non whose healthy exercise the perpetuation of life depended, as a very\ndifferent kind of animalism from that symbolised in the pig's love of\nrefuse and garbage. Their association of the goat with Pan--the lusty\nvigour of nature--was the natural preface to the arts of Greece in\nwhich the wild forces were taught their first lesson--Temperance. Pan\nbecomes musical. The vigour and vitality of human nature find in the\nfull but not excessive proportions of Apollo, Aphrodite, Artemis,\nand others of the bright array, the harmony which Pan with his pipe\npreludes. The Greek statue is soul embodied and body ensouled.\n\n\n\nTwo men had I the happiness to know in my youth, into whose faces I\nlooked up and saw the throne of Genius illumined by Purity. One of\nthem, Ralph Waldo Emerson, wrote, 'If beauty, softness, and faith in\nfemale forms have their own influence, vices even, in a slight degree,\nare thought to improve the expression.' The other, Arthur Hugh Clough,\nwrote, 'What we all love is good touched up with evil.' Here are two\nbrave flowers, of which one grew out of the thorny stem of Puritanism,\nthe other from the monastic root of Oxford. The 'vices' which could\nimprove the expression, even for the pure eyes of Emerson, are those\nwhich represent the struggle of human nature to exist in truth,\nalbeit in misdirection and reaction, amid pious hypocrisies. The\nOxonian scholar had seen enough of the conventionalised characterless\n'good' to long for some sign of life and freedom, even though it must\ncome as a touch of 'evil.' To the artist, nature is never seen in\npetrifaction; it is really as well as literally a becoming. The evil\nhe sees is 'good in the making:' what others call vices are voices\nin the wilderness preparing the way of the highest.\n\n\n\n'God and the Devil make the whole of Religion,' said Nicoli--speaking,\nperhaps, better than he knew. The culture of the world has shown\nthat the sometime opposed realms of human interest, so personified,\nare equally essential. It is through this experience that the Devil\nhas gained such ample vindication from the poets--as in Rapisardi's\n'Lucifero,' a veritable 'bringer of Light,' and Cranch's 'Satan.' From\nthe latter work ('Satan: A Libretto.' Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1874),\nwhich should be more widely known, I quote some lines. Satan says--\n\n\n                      I symbolise the wild and deep\n        And unregenerated wastes of life,\n        Dark with transmitted tendencies of race\n        And blind mischance; all crude mistakes of will\n        And tendency unbalanced by due weight\n        Of favouring circumstance; all passion blown\n        By wandering winds; all surplusage of force\n        Piled up for use, but slipping from its base\n        Of law and order.\n\n\nThis is the very realm in which the poet and the artist find their\npure-veined quarries, whence arise the forms transfigured in their\nvision.\n\n\n\nTo evoke Helena, Faust, as we have seen, must repair to the\nMothers. But who may these be? They shine from Goethe's page in such\nopalescent tints one cannot transfix their sense. They seemed to me\njust now the primal conditions, by fulfilling which anything might be\nattained, without which, nothing. But now (yet perhaps the difference\nis not great) I see the Mothers to be the ancient healthy instincts\nand ideals of our race. These took shape in forms of art, whose\nevolution had been man's harmony with himself. Christianity, borrowing\nthunder of one god, hammer of another, shattered them--shattered our\nMothers! And now learned travellers go about in many lands saying,\n'Saw ye my beloved?' Amid cities ruined and buried we are trying to\nrecover them, fitting limb to limb--so carefully! as if half-conscious\nthat we are piecing together again the fragments of our own humanity.\n\n\n\n'The Devil: Does he Exist, and what does he Do?' Such is the title of\na recent work by Father Delaporte, Professor of Dogma in the Faculty\nof Bordeaux. He gives specific directions for exorcism of devils by\nmeans of holy water, the sign of the cross, and other charms. 'These\nmeasures,' says one of his American critics, 'may answer very well\nagainst the French Devil; but our American Beelzebub is a potentate\nthat goeth not forth on any such hints.' Father Delaporte would\nhardly contend that the use of cross and holy water for a thousand\nyears has been effectual in dislodging the European Beelzebub.\n\nOn the whole, I am inclined to prefer the method of the Africans of\nthe Guinea Coast. They believe in a particularly hideous devil, but\nsay that the only defence they require against him is a mirror. If any\none will keep a mirror beside him, the Devil must see himself in it,\nand he at once rushes away in terror of his own ugliness.\n\nNo monster ever conjured up by imagination is more hideous than a\nrational being transformed to a beast. Just that is every human being\nwho has brought his nobler powers down to be slaves of his animal\nnature. No eye could look upon that fearful sight unmoved. All man\nneeds is a true mirror in which his own animalism may see itself. We\ncannot borrow for this purpose the arts of Greece, nor the fairy\nideals of Germany, nor the emasculated saints of Christendom. These\nwere but fragments of the man who has been created by combination of\ntheir powers, and their several ideals are broken bits that cannot\nreflect the whole being of man in its proportions or disproportions.\n\nThe higher nature of man, polished by culture of all his faculties,\ncan alone be the faithful mirror before his lower. The clearness of\nthis mirror in the individual heart depends mainly on the civilisation\nand knowledge surrounding it. The discovered law turns once plausible\ntheories to falsehoods; a noble literature transmutes once popular\nbooks to trash. When Art interprets the realities of nature, when\nit shows how much beauty and purity our human nature is capable of,\nit holds a mirror before all deformities. At a theatre in the city of\nLondon, I witnessed the performance of an actor who, in the course\nof his part, struck a child. He was complimented by a hurricane of\nhisses from the crowded gallery. Had those 'gods' up there never\nstruck children? Possibly. Yet here each had a mirror before him and\nrecoiled from his worst self. A clergyman relates that, while looking\nat pictures in the Bethnal Green Museum, he overheard a poor woman,\nwho had been gazing on a Madonna, say, 'If I had such a child as\nthat I believe I could be a good woman.' Who can say what even that\none glance at her life in the ideal reflector may be worth to that\nwanderer amid the miseries and temptations of London!\n\n\n\nIt is not easy for those who have seen what is high and holy to give\ntheir hearts to what is base and unholy. It is as natural for human\nnature to love virtue as to love any other beauty. External beauty\nis visible to all, and all desire it: the interior beauty is not\nvisible to superficial glances, but the admiration shown even for its\ncounterfeits shows how natural it is to admire virtue. But in order\nthat the charm of this moral beauty may be felt by human nature it\nmust be related to that nature--real. It must not be some childish\nideal which answers to no need of the man of to-day; not something\nimported from a time and place where it had meaning and force to\nothers where it has none.\n\nWhen dogmas surviving from the primitive world are brought to behold\nthemselves in the mirror held up by Science, they cry out, 'That is not\nmy face! You are caricaturing my beliefs!' This recoil of Superstition\nfrom its own ugliness is the victory of Religion. What priests bewail\nas disbelief is faith fleeing from its deformities. Ignorant devotion\nproves its need of Science by its terrors of the same, which are like\nthose of the horse at first sight of its best friend, bearer of its\nburthens--the locomotive.\n\n\n\nReligion, like every other high feature of human nature, has its animal\ncounterpart. The animalised religion is superstition. It has various\nexpressions,--the abjectness of one form, the ferocity of another,\nthe cunning of a third. It is unconscious of anything higher than\nanimalism. Its god is a very great animal preying on other animals,\nwhich are laid on his altars; or pleased when smaller animals give\nup their part of the earthly feast by starving their passions and\nsenses. Under the growth of civilisation and intelligence that pious\nasceticism is revealed in its true form,--intensified animalism. The\nasceticism of one age becomes the self-indulgence of another. The\ntwo-footed animal having discovered that his god does not eat the\nmeat left for him, eats it himself. Learning that he gets as much\nfrom his god by a wafer and a prayer, he offers these and retains\nthe gifts, treasures, and pleasures so commuted,--these, however,\nbeing withdrawn from the direction of the higher nature by the fact\nof being obtained through the conditions of the lower, and dependent\non their persistence. In process of time the forms and formulas of\nreligion, detached from all reality--such as no conceivable monarch\ncould desire--not only become senseless, but depend upon their\nsenselessness for continuance. They refuse to come at all within the\ndomain of reason or common-sense, and trust to mental torpor of the\nmasses, force of habit in the aggregate, self-interest in the wealthy\nand powerful, bribes for thinkers and scholars.\n\n\n\nAnimalism disguised as a religion must render the human religion,\nable to raise passions into divine attributes of a perfect manhood,\nimpossible so long as it continues. That a human religion can ever\ncome by any process of evolution from a superstition which can only\nexist by ministry to the baser motives is a delusion. The only hope of\nsociety is that its independent minds may gain culture, and so surround\nthis unextinct monster with mirrors that it may perish through shame\nat its manifold deformities. These are symbolised in the many-headed\nphantasm which is the subject of this work. Demon, Dragon, and Devil\nhave long paralysed the finest powers of man, peopling nature with\nhorrors, the heart with fears, and causing the religious sentiment\nitself to make actual in history the worst excesses it professed to\ncombat in its imaginary adversaries. My largest hope is that from\nthe dragon-guarded well where Truth is too much concealed she may\nemerge far enough to bring her mirror before these phantoms of fear,\nand with far-darting beams send them back to their caves in Chaos\nand ancient Night.\n\n\n\nThe battlements of the cloisters of Magdalen College, Oxford, are\ncrowned with an array of figures representing virtues and vices,\nwith carved allegories of teaching and learning. Under the Governor's\nwindow are the pelican feeding its young from its breast, and the lion,\ndenoting the tenderness and the strength of a Master of youth. There\nfollow the professions--the lawyer embracing his client, the physician\nwith his bottle, the divine as Moses with his tables of the Law. Next\nare the slayers of Goliath and other mythical enemies. We come to more\nreal, albeit monstrous, enemies; to Gluttony in ecclesiastical dress,\nwith tongue lolling out; and low-browed Luxury without any vesture,\nwith a wide-mouthed animal-eared face on its belly, the same tongue\nlolling out--as in our figures of Typhon and Kali. Drunkenness has\nthree animal heads--one of a degraded humanity, another a sheep, the\nthird a goose. Cruelty is a werewolf; a frog-faced Lamia represents\nits mixture with Lust; and other vices are represented by other\nmonsters, chiefly dragons with griffin forms, until the last is\nreached--the Devil, who is just opposite the Governor's symbols across\nthe quadrangle.\n\nSo was represented, some centuries ago, the conflict of Ormuzd\nand Ahriman, for the young soldiers who enlisted at Oxford for that\nstruggle. A certain amount of fancy has entered into the execution of\nthe figures; but, if this be carefully detached, the history which\nI have attempted to tell in these volumes may be generally traced\nin the Magdalen statues. Each represents some phase in the advance\nof the world, when, under new emergencies, earlier symbols were\nmodified, recombined, and presently replaced by new shapes. It was\nfound inadequate to keep the scholar throwing stones at the mummy of\nGoliath when by his side was living Gluttony in religious garb. The\nscriptural symbols are gradually mixed with those of Greek and German\nmythology, and by such contact with nature are able to generate forms,\nwhose lolling tongues, wide mouths, and other expressions, represent\nwith some realism the physiognomies of brutality let loose through\nadmission to human shape and power.\n\nIt may be that, when they were set up, the young Oxonian passed\nshuddering these terrible forms, dreaded these werewolves and\nsuccub\u00e6, and dreamed of going forth to impale dragons. But now the\nsculptures excite only laughter or curiosity, when they are not\npassed by without notice. Yet the old conflict between Light and\nDarkness has not ceased. The ancient forms of it pass away; they\nbecome grotesque. Such was necessarily the case where the excessive\nmythological and fanciful elements introduced at one period fall upon\nanother period when they hide the meaning. Their obscurity, even for\nantiquarians, marks how far away from those cold battlefields the\nstruggle they symbolised has passed. But it ceases not. Some scholars\nwho listen to the sweet vespers of Magdalen may think the conflict\nover; if so, even poor brother Moody may enter the true kingdom before\nthem; for, when preaching in Baltimore last September, he said, 'Men\nare possessed of devils just as much now as they ever were. The devil\nof rum is as great as any that ever lived. Why cannot this one and\nall others be cast out? Because there is sin in the christian camp.'\n\n\n\nThe picture which closes this volume has been made for me by the artist\nHennessey, to record an incident which occurred at the door of N\u00f4tre\nDame in Paris last summer. I had been examining an ugly devil there\ntreading down human forms into hell; but a dear friend looked higher,\nand saw a bird brooding over its young on a nest supported by that\nsame horrible head.\n\nSo, above the symbols of wrath in nature, Love still interweaves\nheavenly tints with the mystery of life; beside the horns of pain\nprepares melodies.\n\nEven so, also, over the animalism which deforms man, rises the animal\nperfection which shames that; here ascending above the reign of\nviolence by a feather's force, and securing to that little creature\na tenderness that could best express the heart of a Christ, when it\nwould gather humanity under his wings.\n\nThis same little scene at the cathedral door came before me again\nas I saw the Oxonian youth, with their morning-faces, passing so\nheedlessly those ancient sculptures at Magdalen. Over every happy\nheart the same old love was brooding, in each nestling faculties\nwere trying to gain their wings. To what will they aspire, those\nstudents moving so light-hearted amid the dead dragons and satans\nof an extinct world? Do they think there are no more dragons to be\nslain? Know they that saying, 'He descended into hell;' and that,\nfrom Orpheus and Herakles to Mohammed and Swedenborg, this is the\nburthen felt by those who would be saviours of men?\n\nIt is not only loving birds that build their nests and rear their young\nover the horns of forgotten fears, but, alas! the Harpies too! These,\nwhich Dante saw nestling in still plants--once men who had wronged\nthemselves--rear successors above the aspirations that have ended in\n'nothing but leaves.' The sculptures of Magdalen are incomplete. There\nis a vacant side to the quadrangle, which, it is to be feared, awaits\nthe truer teaching that would fill it up with the real dragons which\nno youth could heedlessly pass. Who can carve there the wrongs that\nawait their powers of redress? Who can set before them, with all\nits baseness, the true emblem of pious fraud? When will they see in\nany stone mirror the real shape of a double-tongued Culture--one fork\nintoning litanies, another whispering contempt of them? The werewolves\nof scholarly selfishness, the Lamias of christian casuistry, the subtle\nintelligence that is fed by sages and heroes, but turns them to dust,\nnay, to venom, because it dares not be human, still crawls--these\nare yet to be revealed in all their horrors. Then will the old cry,\nSursum Corda, sound over the ancient symbols whereon scholars waste\ntheir strength, by which they are conquered; and wings of courage shall\nbear them with their arrows of light to rescue from Superstition the\nholy places of Humanity.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nNOTES TO VOLUME I\n\n\n[1] Pausan. v. 14, 2.\n\n[2] Solin. Polyhistor, i.\n\n[3] Pliny, xxix. 6, 34, init.\n\n[4] Ezekiel xiv. 9.\n\n[5] As in the Bembine Tablet in the Bodleian Library.\n\n[6] See Sale's Koran, p. 281.\n\n[7] Pindar, Fragm., 270.\n\n[8] Tylor's 'Early Hist. of Mankind,' p. 358; 'Prim. Cult.,'\nvol. ii. p. 230.\n\n[9] The Gascons of Labourd call the devil 'Seigneur Voland,' and some\nrevere him as a patron.\n\n[10] 'Myth. of the Aryan Nations,' vol. ii. p. 327.\n\n[11] 'Christian Iconography,' Bohn, p. 158.\n\n[12] 'Videbant faciem egredientis Moysis esse\ncornutam.'--Vulg. Exod. xxxiv. 35.\n\n[13] 'Myths and Marvels of Astronomy.' By R. A. Proctor. Chatto &\nWindus, 1878.\n\n[14] 'Scenes and Legends,' &c., p. 73.\n\n[15] 'Any Orientalist will appreciate the wonderful hotchpot of Hindu\nand Arabic language and religion in the following details, noted down\namong rude tribes of the Malay Peninsula. We hear of Jin Bumi, the\nearth-god (Arabic jin = demon, Sanskrit bh\u00fcmi = earth); incense is\nburnt to Jewajewa (Sanskrit dewa = god), who intercedes with Pirman,\nthe supreme invisible deity above the sky (Brahma?); the Moslem\nAllah T\u00e1ala, with his wife Nabi Mahamad (Prophet Mohammed), appear in\nthe Hinduised characters of creator and destroyer of all things; and\nwhile the spirits worshipped in stones are called by the Hindu term of\n'dewa' or deity, Moslem conversion has so far influenced the mind of\nthe stone-worshipper that he will give to his sacred boulder the name\nof Prophet Mohammed.'--Tylor's 'Primitive Culture,' vol. ii. p. 230.\n\n[16] Ya\u00e7na, 32.\n\n[17] 'The Devil,' &c., from the French of the Rev. A. R\u00e9ville, p. 5.\n\n[18] Tylor's 'Primitive Culture,' vol. ii. p. 299.\n\n[19] 'The Gnostics,' &c., by C. W. King, M.A., p. 153.\n\n[20] Those who wish to examine this matter further will do well to\nrefer to Badger, 'Nestorians and their Rituals,' in which the whole\nof the 'Eulogy' is translated; and to Layard, 'Ninevah and Babylon,'\nin which there is a translation of the same by Hormuzd Rassam, the\nKing of Abyssinia's late prisoner.\n\n[21] The significance of the gargoyles on the churches built on the\nfoundations of pagan temples may be especially observed at York, where\nthe forms of various animals well known to Indo-Germanic mythology\nappear. They are probably copies of earlier designs, surviving from\nthe days when the plan of Gregory for the conversion of temples\nprevailed. 'The temples of the idols in that nation,' wrote the Pope,\nA.C. 601, 'ought not to be destroyed; but let the idols that are in\nthem be destroyed; let holy water be made and sprinkled in the said\ntemples, let altars be erected and relics placed. For if those temples\nare well built, it is requisite that they be converted from the worship\nof devils to the service of the true God.'--Bede, Eccl. Hist. ch. 30.\n\n[22] 'The Land of Charity,' by Rev. Samuel Mateer, p. 214.\n\n[23] London 'Times' Calcutta correspondence.\n\n[24] The Persian poet S\u00e1di uses the phrase, 'The whale swallowed\nJonah,' as a familiar expression for sunset; which is in curious\ncoincidence with a Mimac (Nova Scotian) myth that the holy hero\nGlooscap was carried to the happy Sunset Land in a whale. The story\nof Jonah has indeed had interesting variants, one of them being\nthat legend of Oannes, the fish-god, emerging from the Red Sea to\nteach Babylonians the arts (a saga of Dagon); but the phrase in the\nBook of Jonah--'the belly of Hell'--had a prosaic significance for\nthe christian mind, and, in connection with speculations concerning\nBehemoth and Leviathan, gave us the medi\u00e6val Mouth of Hell.\n\n[25] Tablet K 162 in the British Museum. See 'Records of the Past,'\ni. 141.\n\n[26] London 'Times,' July 11, 1877.\n\n[27] 'Songs of the Russian People,' p. 409.\n\n[28] 'Primitive Culture.'\n\n[29] C\u00e6sarius D'Heisterbach, Miracul. iii.\n\n[30] Lev. iii. 15.\n\n[31] Du Perron, 'Vie de Zoroastre.'\n\n[32] The principle similia similibus curantur is a very ancient one;\nbut though it may have originated in a euphemistic or propitiatory\naim, the homoeopathist may claim that it could hardly have lived\nunless it had been found to have some practical advantages.\n\n[33] Sonnerat's 'Travels,' ii. 38.\n\n[34] Deutsch, 'Literary Remains,' p. 178.\n\n[35] Isa. lvii. 5; Ezek. xvi. 20; Jer. xix. 5.\n\n[36] The 'Jewish World.'\n\n[37] 'Observations on Popular Antiquities,' &c., by John Brand. With\nthe additions of Sir Henry Ellis. An entirely new and revised\nedition. Chatto & Windus, 1877. See especially the chapter on 'Summer\nSolstice,' p. 165.\n\n[38] 'Pyra, a bonefire, wherein men's bodyes were burned.'--Cooper's\nThesaurus. Probably from Fr. bon; Wedgewood gives Dan. baun, beacon.\n\n[39] See Chapter i. Compare Numbers xxxi. 23.\n\n[40] Numbers xix. 17.\n\n[41] Ibid. xix. 2, seq.\n\n[42] 'Folklore of China,' p. 121.\n\n[43] In Russia the pigeon, from being anciently consecrated to the\nthunder god, has become emblem of the Holy Ghost, or celestial fire,\nand as such the foe of earthly fire. Pigeons are trusted as insurers\nagainst fire, and the flight of one through a house is regarded as\na kindly warning of conflagration.\n\n[44] Tablet K 162 in Brit. Mus. Tr. by H. F. Talbot in 'Records of\nthe Past.'\n\n[45] The Western Mail, March 12, 1874, contains a remarkable letter by\nthe Arch-Druid, in which he maintains that 'Jesus' is a derivation from\nHea or Hu, Light, and the Christian system a corruption of Bardism.\n\n[46] 'L'Enfer,' p. 5.\n\n[47] Dennys' 'Folklore of China,' p. 98.\n\n[48] Procopius, 'De Bello Gothico,' iv. 20.\n\n[49] 'Memorials of the Rev. R. S. Hawkes'.\n\n[50] 'La Magie chez les Chald\u00e9ens,' iii.\n\n[51] L\u00f6nnrot, 'Abhandlung \u00fcber die Magische Medicin der Finnen.'\n\n[52] 'Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland.' Nimmo, 1876.\n\n[53] 'Rig-Veda,' ii. 33. Tr. by Professor Evans of Michigan.\n\n[54] 'Rig-Veda,' i. 114.\n\n[55] 'Jour. Ceylon R. A. Soc.,' 1865-66.\n\n[56] Welcker, 'Griechische G\u00f6tterlehre,' vol. i. p. 661.\n\n[57] Moffat, p. 257.\n\n[58] Livingstone, p. 124.\n\n[59] P\u00f6ppig, 'Reise in Chile,' vol. ii. p. 358.\n\n[60] Eyre, vol. ii. p. 362.\n\n[61] Tylor, 'Early Hist.,' p. 359.\n\n[62] So confirming the conjecture of Wachsmuth, in 'Das alte\nGriechenland im neuen,' p. 23. Elias might also easily be associated\nwith the name \u00c6olus.\n\n[63] 'Rig-Veda,' x. (Muir).\n\n[64] John iii. 8.\n\n[65] 'The Wheel of the Law,' by Henry Alabaster, Tr\u00fcbner & Co.\n\n[66] 'Rig-Veda,' v. 83 (Wilson).\n\n[67] 'Major's Tr.,' ii. 26.\n\n[68] Wierus' 'Pseudomonarchia D\u00e6mon.'\n\n[69] 'Songs of the Russian People,' by W. R. S. Ralston, M.A.\n\n[70] Isa. xxii. 22. It is remarkable that (according to Callimachus)\nCeres bore a key on her shoulder. She kept the granary of the earth.\n\n[71] Rev. i. 18.; Matt. xvi. 19.\n\n[72] 'Journal N. C. B. R. A. S.,' 1853.\n\n[73] 'Folklore of China,' p. 124. The drum held by the imp in Fig. 3\nshows his relation to the thunder-god. In Japan the thunder-god\nis represented as having five drums strung together. The wind-god\nhas a large bag of compressed air between his shoulders; and he has\nsteel claws, representing the keen and piercing wind. The Tartars in\nSiberia believe that a potent demon may be evoked by beating a drum;\ntheir sorcerers provide a tame bear, who starts upon the scene, and\nfrom whom they pretend to get answers to questions. In Nova Scotian\nsuperstition we find demons charmed by drums into quietude. In India\nthe temple-drum preserved such solemn associations even for the new\ntheistic sect, the Brahmo-Somaj, that it is said to be still beaten\nas accompaniment to the organ sent to their chief church by their\nEnglish friends.\n\n[74] Although the Koran and other authorities, as already stated, have\nassociated the Jinn with etherial fire, Arabic folklore is nearer the\nmeaning of the word in assigning the name to all demons. The learned\nArabic lexicographer of Beirut, P. Bustani, says 'The Jinn is the\nopposite of mankind, or it is whatever is veiled from the sense,\nwhether angel or devil.'\n\n[75] 'Cuneiform Ins.,' iv. 15.\n\n[76] Ib. ii. 27.\n\n[77] Job xli.\n\n[78] 'Records of the Past,' i.\n\n[79] Lenormant, 'La Magie.'\n\n[80] 'Records of the Past,' iii. 129.\n\n[81] The god of the Euphrates.\n\n[82] The Assyrian has 'of the high places.'\n\n[83] 'Records of the Past,' iii. 129, 130.\n\n[84] 'Henry IV.,' Part 1st, Act 2. 'Heart of Mid-Lothian,' xxv. An\ninteresting paper on this subject by Mr. Alexander Wilder appeared\nin The Evolution, New York, December 16, 1877.\n\n[85] De Plancy.\n\n[86] An individual by this means saw his wife among the witches, so\ndetecting her unhallowed nature, which gave rise to a saying there\nthat husbands must not be star-gazing on St. Gerard's Eve.\n\n[87] London 'Times,' July 8, 1875.\n\n[88] This Protean type of both demon and devil must accompany us so\ncontinually through this volume that but little need be said of it\nin this chapter.\n\n[89] Canticles ii. 15.\n\n[90] De Gubernatis, II. viii.\n\n[91] 'Our Life in Japan' (Jephson and Elmhirst, 9th Regiment),\nChapman & Hall, 1869.\n\n[92] London 'Times,' June 11, 1877.\n\n[93] Rep. 488.\n\n[94] Literally, goat-song. More probably it has an astrological sense.\n\n[95] E.g., the demon Huorco in the 'Pentamerone.'\n\n[96] See De Gubernatis' 'Zoological Mythology,' which contains further\ncurious details on this subject.\n\n[97] 'Myths and Myth-makers.' Boston: Osgood & Co.\n\n[98] 'Zoological Mythology,' p. 64.\n\n[99] Koran, xviii.\n\n[100]  Wagner. Behold him stop--upon his belly crawl.... The clever\nscholar of the students, he!\n\n[101] 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.' London: Chatto & Windus.\n\n[102] 'Spirit of the Beasts of France,' ch. i.\n\n[103] 'Rigv.' i. 105, 18, 42, 2; 'Vendidad,' xix. 108. Quoted by De\nGubernatis ('Zoolog. Mythology,' ii. 142), to whose invaluable work\nI am largely indebted in this chapter.\n\n[104] 'Zoolog. Myth.,' ii. 7. Tr\u00fcbner & Co.\n\n[105] 'Zoolog. Myth.,' ii. 108 seq.\n\n[106] Afanasief, v. 28.\n\n[107] Ibid., v. 27.\n\n[108] ii. 6 (De Gubernatis, ii. 117).\n\n[109] Rather the devil of lust than of cruelty, according to Du Cange:\n\"Occidunt ursum, occiditur diabolus, id est, temptator nostr\u00e6 carnis.\"\n\n[110] De Plancy (Dict. Inf.), who also relates an amusing legend of\nthe bear who came to a German choir, as seen by a sleepy chorister as\nhe awoke; the na\u00efve narrator of which adds, that this was the devil\nsent to hold the singers to their duty! The Lives of the Saints abound\nwith legends of pious bears, such as that commemorated along with\nSt. Sergius in Troitska Lavra, near Moscow; and that which St. Gallus\nwas ungracious enough to banish from Switzerland after it had brought\nhim firewood in proof of its conversion.\n\n[111] Max M\u00fcller, 'Science of Language,' i. 275.\n\n[112] The term is now used very vaguely. Mr. Talboys Wheeler,\nspeaking of the 'Scythic Nagas' (Hist. of India, i. 147), says:\n'In process of time these Nagas became identified with serpents, and\nthe result has been a strange confusion between serpents and human\nbeings.' In the 'Padma Purana' we read of 'serpent-like men.' (See my\n'Sacred Anthology,' p. 263.)\n\n[113] 'Mahawanso' (Turnour), pp. 3, 6.\n\n[114] Ser. xxxiii.  Hardly consistent with De Civ. Dei, xvi. 8.\n\n[115] 'Chips,' ii.\n\n[116] 'Sancti custos Soractis Apollo.'--\u00c6n. xi. 785.\n\n[117] 'Treatise of Spirits,' by John Beaumont, Gent., London, 1705.\n\n[118] London 'Times,' June 11, 1877.\n\n[119] Wuttke, 'Volksaberglaube,' 402. Pliny (iv. 16) says: 'Albion\ninsula sic dicta ab albis rupibus quas mare alluit.' This etymon of\nAlbion from the white cliffs is very questionable; but, since Alb and\nElf are generally related, it might have suggested the notion about\nEnglish demons. Heine identifies the 'White Island,' or Pluto's realm\nof Continental folklore, as England.\n\n[120] Richardson's 'Borderer's Fable-Book,' vi. 97.\n\n[121] Martin, Appendix to Report on 'Ossian,' p. 310.\n\n[122] 'Scenes and Legends,' p. 13.\n\n[123] Dr. James Browne's 'History of the Highlands,' p. 113.\n\n[124] 'North American Review,' January 1871.\n\n[125] Dennys, p. 81 et seq.\n\n[126] Ezekiel xxxix.\n\n[127] 'Rig-Veda,' iv. 175, 5 (Wilson).\n\n[128] Ibid., i. 133, 6.\n\n[129] 'Rig-Veda,' vi. 14.\n\n[130] 'The Nineteenth Century,' November 1877. Article: 'Sun-Spots\nand Famines,' by Norman Lockyer and W. W. Hunter.\n\n[131] 'An Inquiry into the Nature and Place of Hell,' by Tobias\nSwinden, M.A., late Rector of Cuxton-in-Kent. 1727.\n\n[132] Carlyle, 'Past and Present,' i. 2.\n\n[133] 'Discoveries in Egypt,' &c. (Bentley.) 1852.\n\n[134] 'Legends of Old Testament Characters,' i. p. 83.\n\n[135] OEdip., 1. II. ii. See 'Mankind: their Origin and Destiny,'\np. 699.\n\n[136] Compare Kali, Fig. 18.\n\n[137] Soc. of Heb. Literature's Publications. 2d Series. 'Legends\nfrom the Midrash,' by Thomas Chenery (Tr\u00fcbner & Co.). The same legend\nis referred to in the story of the Astrologer in Washington Irving's\n'Alhambra.'\n\n[138] Faust, ii. Act 4 (Hayward's Translation).\n\n[139] 'Emerson's Poems. Monadnoc.'\n\n[140] 'Modern Painters,' Part V. 19.\n\n[141] Bel's mountain, 'House of the Beloved,' is called 'high place'\nin Assyrian, and would be included in these curses ('Records of the\nPast,' iii. 129).\n\n[142] Jer. xiii. 16.\n\n[143] 'Our Life in Japan.' By Jephson and Elmhirst.\n\n[144] Another derivation of Elf (Alf) is to connect it with Sanskrit\nAlpa = little; so that the Elves are the Little Folk. Professor Buslaef\nof Moscow suggests connection with the Greek Alphito, a spectre. See\npp. 160n. and 223.\n\n[145] Brinton, p. 85.\n\n[146] Ibid., p. 166.\n\n[147] 'Tales and Legends of the Tyrol.' (Chapman and Hall, 1874.)\n\n[148] Od. xii. 73; 235, &c.\n\n[149] London Daily Telegraph Correspondence.\n\n[150] John Sterling.\n\n[151] 'Rig-Veda,' ii. 15, 5. Wilson. 1854.\n\n[152] 'Du monstre qui m'avait tant ennuy\u00e9, il n'\u00e9tait plus question;\nil \u00e9tait pour jamais r\u00e9duit au silence. Il n'avait plus forme de\ng\u00e9ant. D\u00e9j\u00e0 en partie couvert de verdure, de mousse et de cl\u00e9matites\nqui avaient grimp\u00e9 sur la partie o\u00f9 j'avais cess\u00e9 de passer, il n'\u00e9tait\nplus laid; bient\u00f4t on ne le verrait plus du tout. Je me sentais si\nheureux que je voulus lui pardonner, et, me tournant vers lui:--A\npresent, lui dis-je, tu dormiras tous tes jours et tous tes nuits sans\nque je te d\u00e9range. Le mauvais esprit qui \u00e9tait en toi est vaincu, je\nlui defends de revenir. Je t'en ai d\u00e9livr\u00e9 en te for\u00e7ant \u00e0 devenir\nutile \u00e0 quelque chose; que la foudre t'\u00e9pargne et que la neige te\nsoit l\u00e9g\u00e8re! Il me sembla passer, le long de l'escarpement, comme un\ngrand soupir de r\u00e9signation qui se perdit dans les hauteurs. Ce fut\nla derni\u00e8re fois que je l'entendais, et je ne l'ai jamais revu autre\nqu'il n'est maintenant.'\n\n[153] Von Spix and Von Martin's 'Travels in Brazil,' p. 243.\n\n[154] 'Anatomy of Melancholy.' Fifteenth Edition, p. 124.\n\n[155] 'Les Dieux en Exile.' Heinrich Heine. Revue des Deux Mondes,\nApril, 1853.\n\n[156] 'Book of Songs.' Translated by Charles E. Leland. New York:\nHenry Holt & Co. 1874.\n\n[157] Dennys.\n\n[158] Bleek, 'Hottentot Fables,' p. 58.\n\n[159] Baring-Gould, 'Curious Myths,' &c.\n\n[160] Ibid., ii. 299.\n\n[161] 'Shaski,' vi. 48.\n\n[162] Hugh Miller, 'Scenes and Legends,' p. 293.\n\n[163] 'The Mirror,' April 7, 1832.\n\n[164] 'The Origin of Civilisation,' &c. By Sir John Lubbock.\n\n[165] Hildebrand in Grimm's 'W\u00f6rterbuch.'\n\n[166] Wisdom of Solomon, xvii. What this impressive chapter says of\nthe delusions of the guilty are equally true of those of ignorance.\n'They sleeping the same sleep that night ... were partly vexed with\nmonstrous apparitions, and partly fainted, their heart failing them\n... whosoever there fell down was straitly kept, shut up in a prison\nwithout iron bars.... Whether it were a whistling wind, or a melodious\nnoise of birds among the spreading branches, or a pleasing fall of\nwater running violently, or a terrible sound of stones cast down,\nor a running that could not be seen of skipping beasts, or a roaring\nvoice of most savage wild beasts, or a rebounding echo from the hollow\nmountains: these things made them to swoon for fear. The whole world\nshined with clear light ... over them only was spread a heavy night,\nan image of that darkness which should afterward receive them: but\nyet were they to themselves more grievous than that darkness.'\n\n[167] Bayard Taylor's 'Faust.' Walpurgis-night.\n\n[168] i. 228.\n\n[169] North American Review. March 1877.\n\n[170] In his very valuable work, 'Northmen in Cumberland and\nWestmoreland.' Longmans. 1856.\n\n[171] 'Journal of Philology,' vi. No. II. On the Word Glamour and\nthe Legend of Glam, by Professor Cowell.\n\n[172] 2 Chron. xvi. 12; 2 Kings xx.; Mark v. 26; James v. 14; &c.,\n&c. The Catholic Church follows the prescription by St. James of prayer\nand holy anointing for the sick only after medical aid--of which\nAsa died when he preferred it to the Lord--has failed; i.e. extreme\nunction. Castelar remarks that the Conclave which elected Pius\nIX. sat in the Quirinal rather than the Vatican, 'because, while\nit hoped for the inspirations of the Holy Spirit in every place, it\nfeared that in the palace par excellence divine inspirations would\nnot sufficiently counteract the effluvias of the fever.' The legal\nprosecutions of the 'Peculiar People' for obeying the New Testament\ncommand in case of sickness supply a notable example of the equal\nhypocrisy of the protestant age. England has distributed the Bible\nas a divine revelation in 150 different languages; and in London it\npunishes a sect for obedience to one of its plainest directions.\n\n[173] London 'Times,' June 11, 1877.\n\n[174] 'Mankind: their Origin and Destiny' (Longmans, 1872), p. 91. See\nalso Voltaire's Dictionary for an account of the sacred dances in\nthe Catholic Churches of Spain.\n\n[175] Deut. xxviii. 60.\n\n[176] 1 Sam. v. 6.\n\n[177] 1 Sam. xvi. 14. In chap. xviii. 10, this evil spirit is said\nto have proceeded from Elohim, a difference indicating a further step\nin that evolution of Jehovah into a moral ruler which is fully traced\nin our chapter on 'Elohim and Jehovah.'\n\n[178] Boundesch, ii. pp. 158, 188. For an exhaustive treatment of the\nastrological theories and pictures of the planispheres, see 'Mankind:\ntheir Origin and Destiny' (Longmans, 1872).\n\n[179] 'Catastrophe Magnatum: or the Fall of Monarchie. A Caveat\nto Magistrates, deduced from the Eclipse of the Sunne, March\n29, 1652. With a probable Conjecture of the Determination of\nthe Effects.' By Nich. Culpeper, Gent., Stud. in Astrol. and\nPhys. Dan. ii. 21, 22: He changeth the times and the seasons: he\nremoveth Kings, and setteth up Kings: he giveth wisdome to the Wise,\nand knowledge to them that know understanding: he revealeth the deep\nand secret things, he knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light\ndwelleth with him. London: Printed for T. Vere and Nath. Brooke,\nin the Old Baily, and at the Angel in Cornhil, 1652.'\n\n[180] See the Dictionary of B\u00f6htlingk and Roth.\n\n[181] Heb. ii. 14.\n\n[182] 1 Cor. v. 5; xi. 30.\n\n[183] 2 Cor. xii. 7.\n\n[184] 'Records of the Past,' iii. p. 136. Tr. by Mr. Fox Talbot.\n\n[185] Ibid., iii. p. 143. The refrain recalls the lines of Edgar\nA. Poe:--\n\n\n        They are neither man nor woman,\n        They are neither brute nor human,\n        They are ghouls!\n\n\n[186] The Pahlavi Text has been prepared by Destur Jamaspji Asa,\nand translated by Haug and West. Tr\u00fcbner, 1872.\n\n[187] Cf. fig. 9.\n\n[188] Larousse's 'Dict. Universel.'\n\n[189] 'Records,' &c., iii. p. 141. Marduk is the Chald\u00e6an Hercules.\n\n[190] Micah vii. 19.\n\n[191] See the excellent article in the Journal of the Ceylon Branch of\nthe R.A.S., by Dundris De Silva Gooneratnee Modliar (1865-66). With\nregard to this sanctity of the number seven it may be remarked that\nit has spread through the world with Christianity,--seven churches,\nseven gifts of the Spirit, seven sins and virtues. It is easy therefore\nto mistake orthodox doctrines for survivals. In the London 'Times' of\nJune 24, 1875, there was reported an inquest at Corsham, Wiltshire,\non the body of Miriam Woodham, who died under the prescriptions of\nWilliam Bigwood, herbalist. It was shown that he used pills made\nof seven herbs. This was only shown to be a 'pagan survival' when\nBigwood stated that the herbs were 'governed by the sun.'\n\n[192] See p. 44.\n\n[193] 'Jour. Ceylon R. A. Soc.,' 1865-66.\n\n[194] This demoness is not to be connected with the Italian\nMania, probably of Etruscan origin, with which nurses frightened\nchildren. This Mania, from an old word manus signifying 'good,' was,\nfrom the relation of her name to Manes, supposed to be mother of\nthe Lares, whose revisitations of the earth were generally of ill\nomen. According to an oracle which said heads should be offered for\nthe sake of heads, children were sacrificed to this household fiend\nup to the time of Junius Brutus, who substituted poppy-heads.\n\n[195] Ph\u00e6drus, i. 549. Cf. Ger. selig and silly.\n\n[196] 'Lect. on Language,' i. 435.\n\n[197] Ralston's 'Songs of the Russian People,' p. 230.\n\n[198] 'Sagen der Altmark.' Von A. Kuhn. Berlin, 1843.\n\n[199] Wake's 'Evolution of Morality,' i. 107.\n\n[200] 'The Aborigines of Australia' (1865), p. 15.\n\n[201] 2 Chron. xxxiii. 6.\n\n[202] Published by Mozley and Smith, 1878.\n\n[203] Max M\u00fcller.  'Lectures on Language,' ii. p. 562, et seq.\n\n[204] See the beautifully translated funereal hymn of the Veda in\nProfessor Whitney's 'Oriental and Linguistic Studies,' p. 52, etc.\n\n[205] 'The Avesta.' 'Oriental and Linguistic Studies,' p. 196.\n\n[206] 'Records of the Past,' i. 143.\n\n[207] Sale's 'Koran' (ed. 1836). See pp. 4, 339, 475.\n\n[208] 'Discoveries,' &c., p. 223.\n\n[209] 'Modern Painters,' Part V. xix.\n\n[210] The history of this tree which I use for a parable is told in the\nRev. Samuel Mateer's 'Land of Charity.' London: John Snow & Co. 1871.\n\n[211] 'Studies in the History of the Renaissance.' Macmillan &\nCo. 1873.\n\n[212] Concerning which Mr. Wright says: 'It is taken from an oxybaphon\nwhich was brought from the Continent to England, where it passed into\nthe collection of Mr. William Hope.... The Hyperborean Apollo himself\nappears as a quack-doctor, on his temporary stage, covered by a sort\nof roof, and approached by wooden steps. On the stage lies Apollo's\nluggage, consisting of a bag, a bow, and his Scythian cap. Chiron\n(ChIR\u00d4N) is represented as labouring under the effects of age and\nblindness, and supporting himself by the aid of a crooked staff,\nas he repairs to the Delphian quack-doctor for relief. The figure\nof the centaur is made to ascend by the aid of a companion, both\nbeing furnished with the masks and other attributes of the comic\nperformers. Above are the mountains, and on them the nymphs of\nParnassus (NYMPhAI), who, like all the other actors in the scene, are\ndisguised with masks, and those of a very gross character.... Even a\npun is employed to heighten the drollery of the scene, for instead\nof PYThIAS, the Pythian, placed over the head of the burlesque\nApollo, it seems evident that the artist had written PEIThIAS, the\nconsoler.'--'History of Caricature,' p. 18. But who is the leaf-crowned\nfigure, without mask, on the right hand? Was it some early Offenbach,\nwho found such representation of the gods welcome at Athens where\nthe attempt to produce our modern Offenbach's Belle Hel\u00e8ne recently\ncaused a theatrical riot?\n\n[213] Wuttke. 'Volksaberglaube,' 18.\n\n[214] Schleicher, 'Litauische M\u00e4rchen,' 141-145. Mr. Ralston's\ntranslation abridged.\n\n[215] Of this latter kind of hungry werewolf a specimen still\noccasionally revisits the glimpses of the moonshine which, for too\nmany minds, still replaces daylight. So recently as January 17, 1878,\none Kate Bedwell, a 'pedlar, was sentenced in the Marylebone Police\nCourt, London, to three months' hard labour for obtaining various\nsums of money, amounting to 9s. 10d., by terrorism, from Eliza Rolf,\na cook. The pedlar came to the plaintiff's place of work and asked\nher if she would like to have her fortune told. Eliza replied, 'No,\nI know it; it is hard work or starving.' The fortune-teller asked her\nnext time if she would have her planet ruled; the other still said no;\nbut her nerves yielded when the 'Drud' told her 'she lived under three\nstars, one good the others bad, and that she could disfigure her or\nturn her into something else.' 'Thank God, she did not!' exclaimed\nthe poor woman in court. However, she seemed to have trusted rather\nin her money than in any other providence for her immunity from an\nunhappy transformation. But even into this rare depth of ignorance\nenough light had penetrated to enable Eliza to cope with her werewolf\nin the civilised way of haling her before a magistrate. When Fenris\ngets three months with hard labour, he no doubt realises that he has\nexceeded his mental habitat, and that the invisible cords have bound\nhim at last.\n\n[216] Elf has, indeed, been referred by some to the Sanskrit\nalpa=little; but the balance of authority is in favour of the\nderivation given in a former chapter.\n\n[217] Mannhardt, 'G\u00f6tter,' 287.\n\n[218] Freia-Holda, the Teutonic goddess of Love.  'Cornhill Magazine,'\nMay, 1872.\n\n[219] 'Records of the Past,' vi. 124.\n\n[220] See Cooper's 'Serpent-Myths of Ancient Egypt,' figs. 109 and\n112. Serapis as a human-headed serpent is shown in the same essay\n(from Sharpe), fig. 119.\n\n[221] 'Representative Men,' American edition of 1850, p. 108.\n\n[222] 'L'Oiseau,' par Jules Michelet.\n\n[223] A deadly Southern snake, coloured like the soil on which\nit lurks, had become the current name for politicians who, while\nprofessing loyalty to the Union, aided those who sought to overthrow\nit.\n\n[224] See his learned and valuable treatise, 'The Serpent Myths of\nAncient Egypt.' Hardwicke, 1873.\n\n[225] 'Time and Faith,' i. 204. Groombridge, 1857.\n\n[226] 'The Epic of the Worm,' by Victor Hugo. Translated by Bayard\nTaylor from 'La L\u00e9gende des Si\u00e8cles.'\n\n[227] Bruce relates of the Abyssinians that a serpent is commonly kept\nin their houses to consult for an augury of good or evil. Butter and\nhoney are placed before it, of which if it partake, the omen is good;\nif the serpent refuse to eat, some misfortune is sure to happen. This\ncustom seems to throw a light on the passage--'Butter and honey shall\nhe eat, that he may know to refuse the evil and choose the good'\n(Isa. vii. 15).--Time and Faith, i. 60.\n\nCompare the apocryphal tale of Bel and the Dragon. Bel was a healing\ngod of the Babylonians, and the Dragon whom he slew may have been\nregarded in later times as his familiar\n\n[228] 'Principles of Greek Etymology,' ii. 63. English translation.\n\n[229] See pp. 8 and 20.\n\n[230] 'Rig-veda,' v. (Wilson).\n\n[231] In a paper on the 'Origin of Serpent-worship,' read before the\nAnthropological Institute in London, December 17, 1872.\n\n[232] 'Science of Language,' i. 230.\n\n[233] 'Lectures on Language,' i. 435.\n\n[234] Grimm's 'Mythology,' p. 650 ff. Simrock, p. 440.\n\n[235] Roth, in the 'Journal of the German Oriental Society,'\nvol. ii. p. 216 ff., has elucidated the whole myth.\n\n[236] I have in my possession a specimen of the horned frog of America,\nand it is sufficiently curious.\n\n[237] Gesta Rom., cap. 68. Grimm's Myth., 650 ff. Simrock, p. 400.\n\n[238] Others derive the name from the ancient Borbetomagus.\n\n[239] Traditions, p. 44.\n\n[240] Loathely.\n\n[241] Pope's 'Homer,' Book xv.\n\n[242] See p. 59.\n\n[243] See p. 154.\n\n[244] \u00c6sch. Prom. 790, &c.\n\n[245] Vol. i. p. 38.\n\n[246] 'North American Review,' January 1871.\n\n[247] 'Records of the Past,' x. 79.\n\n[248] Page 285.\n\n[249] 'Alcestis in England.' Printed by the South Place Society,\nFinsbury, London. 1877.\n\n[250] Eating meat was the process of incarnation.\n\n[251] 'Results of a Tour in Dardistan, Kashmir,' &c., by Chevalier\nDr. G. W. Leitner, Lahore, vol. i. part iii. Tr\u00fcbner & Co.\n\n[252] Page 91.\n\n[253] In the Etruscan Museum at Rome there is a fine representation\nof this. The old belief was that a dragon could only be attacked\nsuccessfully inside.\n\n[254] 'The Jewish Messiah,' &c. By James Drummond, B.A. Longmans &\nCo. (1877). See in this valuable work chapter xxi.\n\n[255] Matt. viii. 30.\n\n[256] Luke xxiii. 3.\n\n[257] Acts i. 25.\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nNOTES TO VOLUME II\n\n\n[1] 'Treatise of Spirits.' By John Beaumont, Gent. London, 1705.\n\n[2] Luke x. 19.\n\n[3] Rev. xii.\n\n[4] Rev. xii. cf. verses 4, 9 and 14.\n\n[5] Rev. xii. 12.\n\n[6] 'Zendavesta,' Ya\u00e7na xxx.; Max M\u00fcller, 'Science of Religion,'\np. 238.\n\n[7] Ya\u00e7na xliii.\n\n[8] 'Die Christliche Lehre von der S\u00fcnde.' Von Julius M\u00fcller, Breslau,\n1844, i. 193.\n\n[9] 'Ormazd brought help to me; by the grace of Ormazd my troops\nentirely defeated the rebel army and took Sitratachmes, and brought him\nbefore me. Then I cut off his nose and his ears, and I scourged him. He\nwas kept chained at my door. All the kingdom beheld him. Afterwards I\ncrucified him at Arbela.' So says the tablet of Darius Hystaspes. But\nwhat could Darius have done 'by the grace of Ahriman'?\n\n[10] Cf. Rev. v. 6 and xii. 15.\n\n[11] 'Prayer and Work.' By Octavius B. Frothingham. New York, 1877.\n\n[12] 'Lucifero, Poema di Mario Rapisardi.' Milano, 1877.\n\n[13]  E quanto ebbe e mantiene a l'uom soltanto Il deve, a l'uom che\nd'oqui sue destino O prospero, o maligno, arbitro e solo.\n\n'Whatever he (God) had, he owed to man alone, to man who, for good\nor ill, is sole arbiter of his own fate.'--Rapisardi's Lucifero.\n\n[14] The following abridgment mainly follows that of James Freeman\nClarke in his 'Ten Great Religions.'\n\n[15] White or Snowy Mountain. Cf. Alp, Elf, &c.\n\n[16] 'Elias shall first come and restore all things.'\n\n[17] That this satirical hymn was admitted into the Rig-Veda shows\nthat these hymns were collected whilst they were still in the hands\nof the ancient Hindu families as common property, and were not yet\nthe exclusive property of Br\u00e1hmans as a caste or association. Further\nevidence of the same kind is given by a hymn in which the expression\noccurs--'Do not be as lazy as a Br\u00e1hman.'--Mrs. Manning's Ancient and\nMedi\u00e6val India, i. 77. In the same work some particulars are given of\nthe persons mentioned in this chapter. The Frog-satire is translated\nby Max M\u00fcller, A. S. L., p. 494.\n\n[18] 'Arichandra, the Martyr of Truth: A Tamil Drama translated into\nEnglish by Mutu Coom\u00e2ra Sw\u00e2my, Mudliar, Member of Her Majesty's\nLegislative Council of Ceylon,' &c. London: Smith, Elder, &\nCo. 1863. This drama, it must be constantly borne in mind, in nowise\nrepresents the Vedic legend, told in the Aitereya-Br\u00e1hmana, vii. 13-18;\nnor the puranic legend, told in the Merkandeya-Pur\u00e1na. I have altered\nthe spelling of the names to the Sanskrit forms, but otherwise follow\nSir M. C. S.'s translation.\n\n[19] Siva; the 'lord of the world,' and of wealth. Cf. Pluto, Dis,\nDives.\n\n[20] Thes. Heb., p. 94.\n\n[21] Heb. Handw., p. 90.\n\n[22] Or Jahveh. I prefer to use the best known term in a case where\nthe more exact spelling adds no significance.\n\n[23] This, the grandest of all the elohistic names, became the nearest\nHebrew word for devils--shedim.\n\n[24] Even his jealous command against rivals, i.e., 'graven images,'\nhad to be taken along with the story of Laban's images (Gen. xxxi.),\nwhen, though 'God came to Laban,' the idolatry was not rebuked.\n\n[25] It is not certain, indeed, whether this Brightness may not have\nbeen separately personified in the 'Eduth' (translated 'testimony'\nin the English version, Exod. xvi. 34), before which the pot of manna\nwas laid. The word means 'brightness,' and Dr. Willis supposes it may\nbe connected with Adod, the Phoenician Sun-god (Pentateuch, p. 186).\n\n[26] It is important not to confuse Satan with the Devil, so far as the\nBible is concerned. Satan, as will be seen when we come to the special\ntreatment of him required, is by no means invariably diabolical. In\nthe Book of Job, for example, he appears in a character far removed\nfrom hostility to Jehovah or goodness.\n\n[27]   Name ist Schall und Rauch, Umnebelnd Himmelsgluth.--Goethe.\n\n[28] 'Targum to the Prophets,' Jonathan Ben Uzziel. See Deutsch's\n'Literary Remains,' p. 379.\n\n[29] See pp. 46 and 255. The episode is in Mah\u00e1bh\u00e1rata, I. 15.\n\n[30] Related to the Slav Kvas, with which, in Russian folklore,\nthe Devil tried to circumvent Noah and his wife, as related in\nchap. xxvii. part iv.\n\n[31] In Sanskrit Adima means 'the first;' in Hebrew Adam (given\nalmost always with the article) means 'the red,' and it is generally\nderived from adamah, mould or soil. But Professor Max M\u00fcller (Science\nof Religion, p. 320) says if the name Adima (used, by the way, in\nIndia for the first man, as Adam is in England) is the same as Adam,\n'we should be driven to admit that Adam was borrowed by the Jews from\nthe Hindus.' But even that mild case of 'driving' is unnecessary,\nsince the word, as Sale reminded the world, is used in the Persian\nlegend. It is probable that the Hebrews imported this word not knowing\nits meaning, and as it resembled their word for mould, they added\nthe gloss that the first man was made of the dust or mould of the\nground. It is not contended that the Hebrews got their word directly\nfrom the Hindu or Persian myth. Mr. George Smith discovered that Admi\nor Adami was the name for the first men in Chaldean fragments. Sir\nHenry Rawlinson points out that the ancient Babylonians recognised two\nprinciple races,--the Adamu, or dark, and the Sarku, or light, race;\nprobably a distinction, remembered in the phrase of Genesis, between\nthe supposed sons of Adam and the sons of God. The dark race was the\none that fell. Mr. Herbert Spencer (Principles of Sociology, Appendix)\noffers an ingenious suggestion that the prohibition of a certain sacred\nfruit may have been the provision of a light race against a dark one,\nas in Peru only the Yuca and his relatives were allowed to eat the\nstimulating cuca. If this be true in the present case, it would still\nonly reflect an earlier tradition that the holy fruit was the rightful\npossession of the deities who had won in the struggle for it.\n\nNor is there wanting a survival from Indian tradition in the story\nof Eve. Adam said, 'This now is bone of my bone, and flesh of my\nflesh.' In the Manu Code (ix. 22) it is written: 'The bone of woman is\nunited with the bone of man, and her flesh with his flesh.' The Indian\nAdam fell in twain, becoming male and female (Yama and Yami). Ewald\n(Hist. of Israel, i. 1) has put this matter of the relation between\nHebrew and Hindu traditions, as it appears to me, beyond doubt. See\nalso Goldziher's Heb. Mythol., p. 326; and Professor King's Gnostics,\npp. 9, 10, where the historic conditions under which the importation\nwould naturally have occurred are succinctly set forth. Professor\nKing suggests that Pars\u00ee and Pharisee may be the same word.\n\n[32] Gen. vi. 1, 2, 4.\n\n[33] vi.-xi. pp. 3-6. See Drummond's 'Jewish Messiah,' p. 21.\n\n[34] See vol. i. p. 255.\n\n[35] Phil. Trans. Ab. from 1700-1720, Part iv. p. 173.\n\n[36] Gen. xxi. 6, 7. The English version has destroyed the sense by\nsupplying 'him' after 'borne.' Cf. also verses 1, 2. The rabbins\nwere fully aware of the importance of the statement that it was\nJehovah who 'opened the womb of Sara,' and supplemented it with\nvarious traditions. It was related that when Isaac was born, the\nkings of the earth refused to believe such a prodigy concerning even\na beauty of ninety years; whereupon the breasts of all their wives\nwere miraculously dried up, and they all had to bring their children\nto Sara to be suckled.\n\n[37] Fortieth Parascha, fol. 37, col. 1. The solar--or more correctly,\nso far as Sara is concerned, lunar--aspects of the legend of Abraham,\nSara, and Isaac, however important, do not affect the human nature with\nwhich they are associated; nor is the special service to which they\nare pressed in Jewish theology altered by the theory (should it prove\ntrue) which derives these personages from Aryan mythology. There seems\nto be some reason for supposing that Sara is a semiticised form of\nSarany\u00fa. The two stand in somewhat the same typical position. Sarany\u00fa,\ndaughter of Tvashtar ('the fashioner'), was mother of the first human\npair, Yama and Yami. Sara is the first mother of those born in a new\n(covenanted) creation. Each is for a time concealed from mortals;\neach leaves her husband an illegitimate representative. Sarany\u00fa gives\nher lord Savarn\u00e1 ('substitute'), who by him brings forth Manu,--that\nis 'Man,' but not the original perfect Man. Sara substitutes Hagar\n('the fleeting'), and Ishmael is born, but not within the covenant.\n\n[38] Gen. iii. 14. Zerov. Hummor, fol. 8, col. 3. Parascha\nBereschith. It is said that, according to Prov. xxv. 21, if thy\nenemy hunger thou must feed him; and hence dust must be placed for\nthe serpent when its power over man is weakened by circumcision.\n\n[39] Parascha Bereschith, fol. 12, col. 4. Eisenmenger, Entdeckes\nJudenthum, ii. 409.\n\n[40] Hist. Arab\u00fbm.\n\n[41] Entdeckes Judenthum.\n\n[42] This legend may have been in the mind of the writer of the Book\nof Revelations when (xii. 14) he describes the Woman who received\nwings that she might escape the Serpent. Lilith's wings bore her to\nthe Serpent.\n\n[43] Inferno, ix. 56-64.\n\n[44] She was a Lybian Queen beloved by Zeus, whose children were\nvictims of Hera's jealousy. She was daughter of Belus, and it is\na notable coincidence, if no more, that in Gen. xxxvi. 'Bela' is\nmentioned as a king of Edom, the domain of Sama\u00ebl, who married Lilith.\n\n[45] The martial and hunting customs of the German women, as well\nas their equality with men, may be traced in the vestiges of their\ndecline. Hexe (witch) is from hag (forest): the priestesses who carried\nthe Broom of Thor were called Hagdissen. Before the seventeenth\ncentury the Hexe was called Drud or Trud (red folk, related to\nthe Lightning-god). But the famous female hunters and warriors of\nWodan, the Valkyries, were so called also; and the preservation of\nthe epithet (Trud) in the noble name Gertrude is a connecting link\nbetween the German Amazons and the political power so long maintained\nby women in the same country. Their office as priestesses probably\nmarks a step downward from their outdoor equality. By this route,\nas priestesses of diabolised deities, they became witches; but many\nfolk-legends made these witches still great riders, and the Devil was\nsaid to transform and ride them as dapplegrey mares. The chief charge\nagainst the witches, that of carnal commerce with devils, is also\nsignificant. Like Lilith, women became devils' brides whenever they\nwere not content with sitting at home with the distaff and the child.\n\n[46] Mr. W. B. Scott has painted a beautiful picture of Eve gazing up\nwith longing at a sweet babe in the tree, whose serpent coils beneath\nshe does not see.\n\n[47] 'Records of the Past,' iii. p. 83. See also i. p. 135.\n\n[48] 'Chaldean Genesis,' by George Smith, p. 70.\n\n[49] Copied in 'Chald. Gen.,' p. 91. As to the connection of this\ndesign with the legend of Eden, see chap. vii. of this volume.\n\n[50] 'Chaldean Genesis,' pp. 62, 63.\n\n[51] Ib., 97.\n\n[52] 'Records of the Past,' ix. 141.\n\n[53] Anu was the ruler of the highest heaven. Meteors and lightnings\nare similarly considered in Hebrew poetry as the messengers of the\nAlmighty. (Psalm civ. 4, 'Who maketh his ministers a flaming fire,'\nquoted in Heb. i. 7.)\n\n[54] Im, the god of the sky, sometimes called Rimmon (the\nThunderer). He answers to the Jupiter Tonans of the Latins.\n\n[55] The abyss or ocean where the god Hea dwelt.\n\n[56] The late Mr. G. Smith says that the Chaldean dragon was\nseven-headed. 'Chaldean Genesis,' p. 100.\n\n[57] 'Records of the Past,' vii. 123.\n\n[58] 'Records of the Past,' x. 127.\n\n[59] See i. pp. 46 and 255. Concerning Ketef see Eisenmenger,\nii. p. 435.\n\n[60] Isaiah xiv. It may appear as if in this personification of a\nfallen star we have entered a different mythological region from that\nrepresented by the Assyrian tablets; but it is not so. The demoniac\nforms of Ishtar, Astarte, are fallen stars also. She appears in Greece\nas Artemis Astrateia, whose worship Pausanias mentions as coming from\nthe East. Her development is through Asteria (Greek form of Ishtar),\nin whose myth is hidden much valuable Babylonian lore. Asteria was said\nto have thrown herself into the sea, and been changed into the island\ncalled Asteria, from its having fallen like a star from heaven. Her\nsuicide was to escape from the embraces of Zeus, and her escape from\nhim in form of a quail, as well as her fate, may be instructively\ncompared with the story of Lilith, who flew out of Eden on wings\nto escape from Adam, and made an effort to drown herself in the Red\nSea. The diabolisation of Asteria (the fallen star) was through her\ndaughter Hecate. Hecate was the female Titan who was the most potent\nally of the gods. Her rule was supreme under Zeus, and all the gifts\nvalued by mortals were believed to proceed from her; but she was\nseverely judicial, and rigidly withheld all blessings from such as\ndid not deserve them. Thus she was, as the searching eye of Zeus, a\nstar-spy upon earth. Such spies, as we have repeatedly had occasion\nto mention in this work, are normally developed into devils. From\nprofessional detectives they become accusers and instigators. Ishtar\nof the Babylonians, Asteria of the Greeks, and the Day-star of the\nHebrews are male and female forms of the same personification: Hecate\nwith her torch (hekatos, 'far-shooting') and Lucifer ('light-bringer'\non the deeds of darkness) are the same in their degradation.\n\n[61] 'Paradise Lost,' i. 40-50.\n\n[62] And foremost rides Prince Rupert, darling of fortune and of war,\nwith his beautiful and thoughtful face of twenty-three, stern and\nbronzed already, yet beardless and dimpled, his dark and passionate\neyes, his long love-locks drooping over costly embroidery, his graceful\nscarlet cloak, his white-plumed hat, and his tall and stately form. His\nhigh-born beauty is preserved to us for ever on the canvas of Vandyck,\nand as the Italians have named the artist 'Il Pittore Cavalieresco,'\nso will this subject of his skill remain for ever the ideal of Il\nCavaliere Pittoresco. And as he now rides at the head of this brilliant\narray, his beautiful white dog bounds onward joyously beside him,\nthat quadruped renowned in the pamphlets of the time, whose snowy\nskin has been stained by many a blood-drop in the desperate forays of\nhis master, but who has thus far escaped so safely that the Puritans\nbelieve him a familiar spirit, and try to destroy him 'by poyson and\nextempore prayer, which yet hurt him no more than the plague plaster\ndid Mr. Pym.' Failing in this, they pronounce the pretty creature to be\n'a divell, not a very downright divell, but some Lapland ladye, once by\nnature a handsome white ladye, now by art a handsome white dogge.'--A\nCharge with Prince Rupert. Col. Higginson's 'Atlantic Essays.'\n\n[63] Isa. lxiii. 1-6.\n\n[64] Fol. 84, col. 1.\n\n[65] Maarecheth ha\u00eblahuth, fol. 257, col. 1.\n\n[66] Gesenius, Heb. Lexic.\n\n[67] Hairiness was a pretty general characteristic of devils;\nhence, possibly, the epithet 'Old Harry,' i.e., hairy, applied to\nthe Devil. In 'Old Deccan Days,' p. 50, a Rakshasa is described as\nhairy:--'Her hair hangs around her in a thick black tangle.' But the\nbeard has rarely been accorded to devils.\n\n[68] Buslaef has a beautiful medi\u00e6val picture of a devil inciting\nCain to hurl stones on his prostrate brother's form.\n\n[69] Forty-one Eastern Tales.\n\n[70] The contest between the agriculturist and the (nomadic) shepherd\nis expressed in the legend that Cain and Abel divided the world between\nthem, the one taking possession of the movable and the other of the\nimmovable property. Cain said to his brother, 'The earth on which thou\nstandest is mine, then betake thyself to the air;' but Abel replied,\n'The garments which thou wearest are mine, take them off.'--Midrash.\n\n[71] Sale's Koran, vii. Al Araf. Iblis, the Mussulman name for the\nDevil, is probably a corruption of the word diabolus.\n\n[72] Noyes' Translation.\n\n[73] Eisenmenger, Entd. Jud. i. 836.\n\n[74] Job. i. 22, the literal rendering of which is, 'In all this Job\nsinned not, nor gave God unsalted.' This translation I first heard\nfrom Dr. A. P. Peabody, sometime President of Harvard University, from\nwhom I have a note in which he says:--'The word which I have rendered\ngave is appropriate to a sacrifice. The word I have rendered unsalted\nmeans so literally; and is in Job vi. 6 rendered unsavory. It may,\nand sometimes does, denote folly, by a not unnatural metaphor; but in\nthat sense the word gave--an offertory word--is out of place.' Waltonus\n(Bib. Polyg.) translates 'nec dedit insulsum Deo;' had he rendered\ntiphlah by insalsum it would have been exact. The horror with which\ndemons and devils are supposed to regard salt is noticed, i. 288.\n\n[75] Gesenius so understands verse 17 of chap. xiv.\n\n[76] The much misunderstood and mistranslated passage, xix. 25-27\n(already quoted), is certainly referable to the wide-spread belief\nthat as against each man there was an Accusing Spirit, so for each\nthere was a Vindicating Spirit. These two stood respectively on the\nright and left of the balances in which the good and evil actions of\neach soul were weighed against each other, each trying to make his\nside as heavy as possible. But as the accusations against him are\nmade by living men, and on earth, Job is not prepared to consider a\ncelestial acquittal beyond the grave as adequate.\n\n[77] 'The Kingdom of Heaven Taken by Prayer.' By William Huntington,\nS.S. This title is explained to be 'Sinner Saved,' otherwise one\nmight understand the letters to signify a Surviving Syrian.\n\n[78] Num. xxii. 22.\n\n[79] 1 Sam. xxix. 4.\n\n[80] 2 Sam. xix. 22.\n\n[81] 1 Kings ii. 9.\n\n[82] 1 Kings v. 4.\n\n[83] 1 Kings xi. 14.\n\n[84] 1 Kings xi. 25.\n\n[85] Zech. iii.\n\n[86] Cf. Rev. vii. 3.\n\n[87] 'The Sight of Hell,' prepared, as one of a 'Series of Books for\nChildren and Young Persons,' by the Rev. Father Furniss, C.S.S.R.,\nby authority of his Superiors.\n\n[88] M. Anquetil Du Perron's 'Zendavesta et Vie de Zoroastre.'\n\n[89] As given in Mr. Alabaster's 'The Wheel of the Law' (Tr\u00fcbner &\nCo., 1871). In the Apocryphal Gospels, some of the signs of nature's\njoy attending the birth of Buddha are reported at the birth of Mary\nand that of Christ, as the pausing of birds in their flight, &c. Anna\nis said to have conceived Mary under a tree, as Maia under a tree\nbrought forth Buddha.\n\n[90] 'Mara, or Man (Sanscrit M\u00e0ra, death, god of love; by some authors\ntranslated 'illusion,' as if it came from the Sanscrit M\u00e0ya), the\nangels of evil, desire, of love, death, &c. Though King Mara plays\nthe part of our Satan the tempter, he and his host were formerly\ngreat givers of alms, which led to their being born in the highest\nof the Deva heavens, called Paranimit Wasawatti, there to live more\nthan nine thousand million years, surrounded by all the luxuries of\nsensuality. From this heaven the filthy one, as the Siamese describe\nhim, descends to the earth to tempt and excite to evil.'--Alabaster.\n\n[91] Some say Djemschid, others Guenschesp, a warrior sent to hell\nfor beating the fire.\n\n[92] Leben Jesu, ii. 54. The close resemblance between the trial\nof Israel in the wilderness and this of Jesus is drawn in his own\nmasterly way.\n\n[93] A passage of the Pesikta (iii. 35) represents a conversation\nbetween Jehovah and Satan with reference to Messias which bears a\nresemblance to the prologue of Job. Satan said: Lord, permit me to\ntempt Messias and his generation. 'To him the Lord said: You could\nhave no power over him. Satan again said: Permit me because I have\nthe power. God answered: If you persist longer in this, rather would\nI destroy thee from the world, than that one soul of the generation\nof Messias should be lost.' Though the rabbin might report the trial\ndeclined, the Christian would claim it to have been endured.\n\n[94] In his fresco of the Temptation at the Vatican, Michael Angelo\nhas painted the Devil in the dress of a priest, standing with Jesus\non the Temple.\n\n[95] 'Idols and Ideals.' London: Tr\u00fcbner & Co. New York: Henry Holt &\nCo. In the Essay on Christianity I have given my reasons for this\nbelief.\n\n[96] 'Paradise Regained,' ii.\n\n[97] 'Henry Luria; or, the Little Jewish Convert: being contained in\nthe Memoir of Mrs. S. T. Cohen, relict of the Rev. Dr. A. H. Cohen,\nlate Rabbi of the Synagogue in Richmond, Va.' 1860.\n\n[98] 'Heroes and Hero-worship,' iv.\n\n[99] 'Sartor Resartus.' London: Chapman & Hall, 1869, p. 160.\n\n[100] 'The American Scholar.' An Oration delivered before the Phi\nBeta Kappa Society at Cambridge (Massachusetts), August 31, 1837. By\nRalph Waldo Emerson.\n\n[101] The relations of this system to those of various countries are\nstated by Professor King in his work 'The Gnostics and their Remains.'\n\n[102] In the Architectural Museum, Westminster, there is an old\npicture which possibly represents the hairy Adam.\n\n[103] Josephus; 'Wars of the Jews,' vi. 1.\n\n[104] Those who wish to pursue the subject may consult Plutarch,\nPhilo, Josephus, Diog. Laertius; also Eisenmenger, Wetstein, Elsner,\nDought\u00e6i, Lightfoot, Sup. Relig., &c.\n\n[105] See 'Supernatural Religion,' vol. i. ch. 4 and 5, for ample\nreferences concerning these superstitions among both Jews and\nChristians.\n\n[106] 'Saducismus,' p. 53.\n\n[107] 'Eastern Morning News,' quoted in the 'National Reformer,'\nDecember 17, 1877.\n\n[108] Much curious information is contained in the work already\nreferred to, 'L'Eau Benite au Dix-neuvi\u00e8me Si\u00e8cle.' Par Monsignor\nGaume, Protonotaire Apostolique. Paris, 1866. It is there stated that\nwater escaped the curse; that salt produces fecundity; that devils\ndriven off temporarily by the cross are effectually dismissed by\nholy water; that St. Vincent, interrupted by a storm while preaching,\ndispersed it by throwing holy water at it; and he advises the use of\nholy water against the latest devices of the devil--spirit-rapping. It\nmust not, however, be supposed that these notions are confined to\nCatholics. Every element in the disquisition of Monsignor Gaume is\nrepresented in the region where his church is most hated. Mr. James\nNapier, in his recent book on Folklore, shows us the Scotch hastening\nnew-born babes to baptism lest they become 'changelings,' and the\ntrue meaning of the rite is illustrated in a reminiscence of his\nown childhood. He was supposed to be pining under an Evil Eye, and\nthe old woman, or 'skilly,' called in, carefully locked the door,\nnow unlocked by her patient, and proceeded as follows:-- 'A sixpence\nwas borrowed from a neighbour, a good fire was kept burning in the\ngrate, the door was locked, and I was placed upon a chair in front of\nthe fire. The operator, an old woman, took a tablespoon and filled\nit with water. With the sixpence she then lifted as much salt as it\nwould carry, and both were put into the water in the spoon. The water\nwas then stirred with the forefinger till the salt was dissolved. Then\nthe soles of my feet and the palms of my hands were bathed with this\nsolution thrice, and after these bathings I was made to taste the\nsolution three times. The operator then drew her wet forefinger\nacross my brow--called scoring aboon the breath. The remaining\ncontents of the spoon she then cast right over the fire, into the\nhinder part of the fire, saying as she did so, 'Guid preserve frae a'\nskaith.' These were the first words permitted to be spoken during the\noperation. I was then put in bed, and, in attestation of the charm,\nrecovered. To my knowledge this operation has been performed within\nthese forty years, and probably in many outlying country places it\nis still practised. The origin of this superstition is probably to be\nfound in ancient fire-worship. The great blazing fire was evidently an\nimportant element in the transaction; nor was this a solitary instance\nin which regard was paid to the fire. I remember being taught that\nit was unlucky to spit into the fire, some evil being likely shortly\nafter to befall those who did so. Crumbs left upon the table after\na meal were carefully gathered and put into the fire. The cuttings\nfrom the nails and hair were also put into the fire. These freaks\ncertainly look like survivals of fire-worship.' It may be well here\nto refer the reader to what has been said in vol. i. on Demons of\nFire. The Devil's fear of salt and consequently of water confirmed\nthe perhaps earlier apprehension of all fiery phantoms of that which\nnaturally quenches flame.\n\n[109] We here get a clue to the origin of various strange ceremonies by\nwhich men bind themselves to one another. Michelet, in his 'Origines\ndu Droit Fran\u00e7ais,' writes: 'Boire le sang l'un de l'autre, c'etait\npour ainsi dire se faire m\u00eame chair. Ce symbole si expressif se trouve\nchez un grand nombre de peuples;' and he gives instances from various\nancient races. But, as we here see, this practice is not originally\nadopted as a symbol (no practices begin as symbols), but is prompted\nby the belief that a community of nature is thus established, and a\ncommunity of power over one another.\n\n[110] 'Principles of Sociology,' i. ch. xix. Origen says, that a\nman eats and drinks with demons when he eats flesh and drinks wine\noffered to idols. (Contra Cels. viii. 31.)\n\n[111] Dr. James Browne's 'History of the Highlands,' ed. 1855, i. 108.\n\n[112] 'Aurea Legenda.' The story, as intertwined with that of the\ndiscovery of the true cross by the Empress Helena, was a fruitful\ntheme for artists. It has been painted in various versions by Angiolo\nGaddi in S. Croce at Florence, by Pietro della Francesca at Arezzo,\nand in S. Croce in Ger. at Rome are frescoes celebrating Helena in a\nchapel named from her, but into which persons of her sex are admitted\nonly once a year.\n\n[113] To the 'Secular Chronicle,' February 11, 1877.\n\n[114] Psalm lv.\n\n[115] Jer. xxv. 38; xlvi. 16; l. 16.\n\n[116] Isaiah xi. 2, 3.\n\n[117] The more fatal aspect of the dove has tended to invest the\npigeon, especially wild pigeons, which in Oldenburg, and many other\nregions, are supposed to bode calamity and death if they fly round\na house.\n\n[118] Sir Nathaniel Wraxall's Memoirs.\n\n[119] Matt. xii. 31.\n\n[120] Mark iii. 28.\n\n[121] I have before me an account by a christian mother of the death\nof her child, whom she had dedicated to the Lord before his birth,\nin which she says, 'A full breath issued from his mouth like an\netherial flame, a slight quiver of the lip, and all was over.'\n\n[122] 'Serpent poison.' It is substantially the same word as the\ndemonic Sama\u00ebl. The following is from Colonel Campbell's 'Travels,'\nii. p. 130:--'It was still the hot season of the year, and we were\nto travel through that country over which the horrid wind I have\nbefore mentioned sweeps its consuming blasts; it is called by the\nTurks Samiel, is mentioned by the holy Job under the name of the East\nwind, and extends its ravages all the way from the extreme end of the\nGulf of Cambaya up to Mosul; it carries along with it flakes of fire,\nlike threads of silk; instantly strikes dead those that breathe it,\nand consumes them inwardly to ashes; the flesh soon becoming black\nas a coal, and dropping off the bones. Philosophers consider it as\na kind of electric fire, proceeding from the sulphurous or nitrous\nexhalations which are kindled by the agitations of the winds. The only\npossible means of escape from its fatal effects is to fall flat on the\nground, and thereby prevent the drawing it in; to do this, however,\nit is necessary first to see it, which is not always practicable.'\n\n[123] The 'Sacred Anthology,' p. 425. Nizami uses his fable to\nillustrate the effect of even an innocent flower on one whom conscience\nhas made a coward.\n\n[124] Nothing is more natural than the Triad: the regions which may\nbe most simply distinguished are the Upper, Middle, and Lower.\n\n[125] Bh\u00e0gav\u00e0t-Gita.\n\n[126] Gulistan.\n\n[127] Acts ii.\n\n[128] Compare Gen. vi. 3. Jehovah said, 'My breath shall not always\nabide in man.'\n\n[129] Among the many survivals in civilised countries of these notions\nmay be noticed the belief that, in order to be free from a spell it is\nnecessary to draw blood from the witch above the breath, i.e., mouth\nand nostrils; to 'score aboon the breath' is a Scottish phrase. This\nprobably came by the 'pagan' route; but it meets its christian kith and\nkin in the following story which I find in a (MS.) Memorial sent to the\nHouse of Lords in 1869 by the Rev. Thomas Berney, Rector of Bracon Ash,\nDiocese of Norwich:--'I was sent for in haste to privately baptize\na child thought to be dying, and belonging to parents who lived 'on\nthe Common' at Hockering. It indeed appeared to be very ill, and its\neyes were fixed, and remarkably clouded and dull. Having baptized,\nI felt moved with a longing desire to be enabled to heal the child;\nand I prayed very earnestly to the Lord God Almighty to give me faith\nand strength to enable me to do so. And I put my hands on its head\nand drew them down on to its arms; and then breathed on its head\nthree times, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And as I held\nits arms and looked on it anxiously, its face became exceedingly\nred and dark, and as the child gradually assumed a natural colour,\nthe eyes became clear again; and then it gently closed its eyes in\nsleep. And I told the mother not to touch it any more till it awoke;\nbut to carry it up in the cradle as it was. The next morning I found\nthe child perfectly well. She had not touched it, except at four in\nthe morning to feed it, when it seemed dead asleep, and it did not\nawake till ten o'clock.' This was written by an English Rector, and\ndated from the Carlton Club! The italics are in the original MS. now\nbefore me. The importance that no earthly hand should profanely touch\nthe body while the spirit was at work in it shows how completely\nsystematised is that insanity which consists of making a human mind\nan arena for the survival of the unfittest.\n\n[130] Luke xxii. 31.\n\n[131] Amos ix. 8, 9.\n\n[132] 1 Cor. v. 5.\n\n[133] 2 Cor. xi. 13.\n\n[134] 1 John iv. 2, 3.\n\n[135] Polycarp, Ep. to Philippians, vii.\n\n[136] 2 Thess. ii.\n\n[137] 2 Peter ii. 15.\n\n[138] John xvii. 12.\n\n[139] 'But,' says Professor King (Gnostics, p. 52), 'a dispassionate\nexaminer will discover that these two zealous Fathers somewhat beg\nthe question in assuming that the Mithraic rites were invented as\ncounterfeits of the Christian Sacraments; the former having really been\nin existence long before the promulgation of Christianity.' Whatever\nmay have been the incidents in the life of Christ connected with\nsuch things, it is certainly true, as Professor King says, that these\n'were afterwards invested with the mystic and supernatural virtues,\nin a later age insisted upon as articles of faith, by succeeding\nand unscrupulous missionaries, eager to outbid the attractions of\nmore ancient ceremonies of a cognate character.' In the porch of\nthe Church Bocca della Verita at Rome, there is, or was, a fresco of\nCeres shelling corn and Bacchus pressing grapes, from them falling\nthe elements of the Eucharist to a table below. This was described\nto me by a friend, but when I went to see it in 1872, it had just\nbeen whitewashed over! I called the attention of Signor Rosa to\nthis shameful proceeding, and he had then some hope that this very\ninteresting relic might be recovered.\n\n[140] Op. iv. 511. Col. Agrip. 1616.\n\n[141] For full details of all these superstitions see Eisenmenger\n(Entd. Jud. li. Armillus); D'Herbelot (Bib. Orient. Daggiel);\nBuxtorf (Lexicon, Armillus); Calmet, Antichrist; and on the same\nword, Smith; also a valuable article in M'Clintock and Strong's\nCyc. Bib. Lit. (American).\n\n[142] Deutsch, 'Lit. Remains.' Islam.\n\n[143] Weil's 'Biblical Legends.'\n\n[144] Eisenmenger, ii. 60.\n\n[145] See vol. i. pp. 58 and 358.\n\n[146] 'Zoroastrische Studien,' pp. 138-147. With which comp. Spiegel,\nTransl. of Avesta, III. xlvii.\n\n[147] 'Studies in the Hist. of the Renaissance.' Macmillan.\n\n[148] 'Chald. Genesis,' by George Smith, p. 84.\n\n[149] This text was engraved by Mrs. Rose Mary Crawshay on a tomb\nshe had erected in honour of her humble neighbour, Mr. Norbury, who\nsought knowledge for its own sake. Few ancient scriptures could have\nsupplied an inscription so appropriate.\n\n[150] Mr. Baring-Gould, quoting this (from Anastasius Sinaita, Hod\u00eagos,\ned. Gretser, Ingolst. 1606, p. 269), attributes this shining face of\nSeth to his previous character as a Sun-god. ('Old Test. Legends,'\ni. 84.)\n\n[151] King's 'Gnostics,' p. 53, n.\n\n[152] Tertullian's phrase, 'The Devil is God's Ape,' became popular at\none time, and the Ape-devil had frequent representation in art--as,\nfor instance, in Holbein's 'Crucifixion' (1477), now at Augsburg,\nwhere a Devil with head of an ape, bat-wings, and flaming red legs\nis carrying off the soul of the impenitent thief. The same subject\nis found in the same gallery in an Altdorfer, where the Devil's face\nis that of a gorilla.\n\n[153] S. Cyp. ap. Muratori, Script. it. i. 295, 545. The\nMagicians used to call their mirrors after the name of this\nflower-devil--Fiorone. M. Maury, 'La Magie,' 435 n.\n\n[154] This whole subject is treated, and with ample references,\nin M. Maury's 'Magie,' p. 41, seq.\n\n[155] 'La Sorci\u00e8re.'\n\n[156] Dasent's 'Norse Tales,' Introd. ciii.\n\n[157] 'Chips,' ii.\n\n[158] 'Chester Plays,' 1600.\n\n[159] 'Declaration of Popish Impostures,' 1603.\n\n[160] So Shakespere, 'The Devil damn thee black.'\n\n[161] In an account, 1568, we find:--'pay'd for iij li of heare\nijs vjd.'\n\n[162] The Directions for the 'Castle of Good Perseverance,' say:\n'& he \u00fet schal pley belyal, loke \u00fet he have gu\u00f1e powdr bre\u00f1ng in\npypysih's hands & i h's ers & i h's ars wh\u00e3ne he gothe to batayle.'\n\n[163] This notion was widespread. I have seen an ancient Russian\npicture in which the Devil is dancing before a priest who has become\ndrowsy over his prayer-book. There was once a Moslem controversy\nas to whether it was fair for pilgrims to keep themselves awake for\ntheir prayers by chewing coffee-berries.\n\n[164] 'Liber Revelationum de Insidiis et Versutiis D\u00e6monum adversus\nHomines.' See Reville's Review of Roskoff, 'The Devil,' p. 38.\n\n[165] See M. Maury's 'Magie,' p. 48.\n\n[166] The history has been well related by a little work by Dr. Albert\nR\u00e9ville: 'Apollonius of Tyana, the Pagan Christ.' Chatto & Windus.\n\n[167] Sinistrari names Luther as one of eleven persons whom he\nenumerates as having been begotten by Incubi, 'Enfin, comme l'ecrit\nCodens, cit\u00e9 par Maluenda, ce damn\u00e9 H\u00e9r\u00e9siarque, qui a nom Martin\nLuther.'--'D\u00e9monialit\u00e9,' 30.\n\n[168] Glanvil's 'Saducismus.'\n\n[169] King Lear, iii. 4. Asmodeus and Mohammed are, no doubt, corrupted\nin these names, which are given as those of devils in Harsenet's\n'Declaration of Popish Impostures.'\n\n[170] 'A Discourse of Witchcraft. As it was acted in the Family of\nMr. Edward Fairfax, of Fuystone, in the county of York, in the year\n1621. Sibi parat malum, qui alteri parat.'\n\n[171] W. F. Poole, Librarian of Chicago, to whom I am indebted for\na copy of Governor Thomas Hutchinson's account of 'The Witchcraft\nDelusion of 1692,' with his valuable notes on the same.\n\n[172] The delicacy with which these animals are alluded to rather\nthan directly named indicates that they had not lost their formidable\ncharacter in Elfdale so far as to be spoken of rashly.\n\n[173] Glanvil, 'Saducismus Triumphatus,' p. 170.\n\n[174] Porphyry, ap. Euseb. v. 12. The formula not preserved by\nEusebius is supposed by M. Maury ('Magie,' 56) to be that contained\nin the 'Philosophumena,' attributed to Origen:--'Come, infernal,\nterrestrial, and celestial Bombo! goddess of highways, of cross-roads,\nthou who bearest the light, who travellest the night, enemy of the\nday, friend and companion of darkness; thou rejoicing in the baying\nof dogs and in shed blood, who wanderest amid shadows and over tombs;\nthou who desirest blood and bearest terrors to mortals,--Gorgo, Mormo,\nmoon of a thousand forms, aid with a propitious eye our sacrifices!'\n\n[175] 'The Devil,' &c., p. 51.\n\n[176] Scheible's 'Kloster,' 5, 116. Zauberb\u00fccher.\n\n[177] Bayard Taylor's 'Faust,' note 45. See also his Appendix I. for\nan excellent condensation of the Faust legend from the best German\nsources.\n\n[178] Tertull. ad Marcion, iii. 18. S. Ignatii Episc. et Martyr ad\nPhil. Ep. viii. 'The Prince of this world rejoices when any one denies\nthe cross, for he knows the confession of the cross to be his ruin.'\n\n[179] See his 'Acta,' by Simeon Metaphrastus.\n\n[180] I have been much struck by the resemblance between the dumpy\nmonkish dwarf, in the old wall-picture of Auerbach's Cellar, meant for\nMephistopheles, and the portrait of Asmodeus in the early editions\nof 'Le Diable Boiteux.' But, as devils went in those days, they are\ngood-looking enough.\n\n[181] Shelley's Translation.\n\n[182] Bayard Taylor's Translation. Scene iv.\n\n[183] See Lavater's Physiognomy, Plates xix. and xx., in which\nsome artist has shown what variations can be made to order on an\nintellectual and benevolent face.\n\n[184] 'Der deutsche Volksaberglaube der Gegenwart.' Von Dr. Adolf\nWuttke, Prof. der Theol. in Halle. Berlin: Verlag von Wiegand &\nGrieben. 1869.\n\n[185] 'Histoire de France et des Choses M\u00e9morables,' &c.\n\n[186] The universal myth of Sleepers,--christianised in the myth\nof St. John, and of the Seven whose slumber is traceable as far\nas Tours,--had a direct pagan development in Jami, Barbarossa,\nArthur, and their many variants. It is the legend of the Castle of\nSewingshields in Northumberland, that King Arthur, his queen and\ncourt, remain there in a subterranean hall, entranced, until some one\nshould first blow a bugle-horn near the entrance hall, and then with\n'the sword of the stone' cut a garter placed there beside it. But\nnone had ever heard where the entrance to this enchanted hall was,\ntill a farmer, fifty years since, was sitting knitting on the ruins\nof the castle, and his clew fell and ran downwards through briars\ninto a deep subterranean passage. He cleared the portal of its weeds\nand rubbish, and entering a vaulted passage, followed the clew. The\nfloor was infested with toads and lizards; and bats flitted fearfully\naround him. At length his sinking courage was strengthened by a dim,\ndistant light, which, as he advanced, grew gradually brighter, till all\nat once he entered a vast and vaulted hall, in the centre of which a\nfire, without fuel, from a broad crevice in the floor, blazed with a\nhigh and lambent flame, that showed all the carved walls and fretted\nroof, and the monarch and his queen and court reposing around in a\ntheatre of thrones and costly couches. On the floor, beyond the fire,\nlay the faithful and deep-toned pack of thirty couple of hounds; and\non a table before it the spell-dissolving horn, sword, and garter. The\nshepherd firmly grasped the sword, and as he drew it from its rusty\nscabbard the eyes of the monarch and his courtiers began to open,\nand they rose till they sat upright. He cut the garter, and as\nthe sword was slowly sheathed the spell assumed its ancient power,\nand they all gradually sank to rest; but not before the monarch had\nlifted up his eyes and hands and exclaimed--\n\n\n            O woe betide that evil day\n            On which this witless wight was born,\n            Who drew the sword--the garter cut,\n            But never blew the bugle horn.\n\n\nTerror brought on loss of memory, and the shepherd was unable to give\nany correct account of his adventure, or to find again the entrance\nto the enchanted hall.--Hodgson's 'Northumberland.'\n\n[187] This great discussion between the animals and sages is given in\n'The Sacred Anthology' (London: Tr\u00fcbner & Co. New York: Henry Holt &\nCo.). It is a very ancient story, and was probably written down at\nthe beginning of the christian era.\n\n[188] It is a strange proof of the ignorance concerning Hindu religion\nthat Jugernath, raised in a sense for reprobation of cruelty to\nman and beast, should have been made by a missionary myth a Western\nproverb for human sacrifices!\n\n[189] St. Olaf = Stooley = Tooley.\n\n[190]  High bloweth Heimdall His horn aloft; Odin consulteth Mimir's\nhead; The old ash yet standing Yggdrasill To its summit is shaken,\nAnd loose breaks the giant.--Voluspa.\n\n[191] 'Rigveda,' x. 99.\n\n[192] 'Zoolog. Myth.,' ii. 8, 10, &c.\n\n[193] 'The Mahawanso.' Translated by the Hon. George Turnour, Ceylon,\n1836, p. 69.\n\n[194] It was an ancient custom to offer a stag on the high altar of\nDurham Abbey, the sacrifice being accompanied with winding of horns, on\nHoly Rood Day, which suggests a form of propitiating the Wild Huntsman\nin the hunting season. On the Cheviot Hills there is a chasm called\nHen Hole, 'in which there is frequently seen a snow egg at Midsummer,\nand it is related that a party of hunters, while chasing a roe,\nwere beguiled into it by fairies, and could never again find their\nway out.'--Richardson's 'Borderer's Table-Book,' vi 400. The Bridled\nDevil of Durham Cathedral may be an allusion to the Wild Huntsman.\n\n[195] In the pre-petrified era of Theology this hope appears\nto have visited the minds of some, Origen for instance. But by\nmany centuries of utilisation the Devil became so essential to the\nthrone of Christianity that theologians were more ready to spare God\nfrom their system than Satan. 'Even the clever Madame de Sta\u00ebl,'\nsaid Goethe, 'was greatly scandalised that I kept the Devil in\nsuch good-humour. In the presence of God the Father, she insisted\nupon it, he ought to be more grim and spiteful. What will she say\nif she sees him promoted a step higher,--nay, perhaps, meets him in\nheaven?' Though, in another conversation with Falk, Goethe intimates\nthat he had written a passage 'where the Devil himself receives grace\nand mercy from God,' the artistic theory of his poem could permit\nno nearer approach to this than those closing lines (Faust, II.) in\nwhich Mephistopheles reproaches the 'case-hardened Devil' and himself\nfor their mismanagement. To the isolated, the not yet humanised,\nintellect sensuality is evil when senseless, and its hell is folly.\n\n[196] 'Demonialite,' 60-62, &c. We may hope that this learned man,\nduring his tenure of office under the Inquisition, had some mercy\nfor the poor devils dragged before that tribunal.\n\n[197] 'Reverberations.' By W. M. W. Call, M.A., Cambridge. Second\nEdition. Tr\u00fcbner & Co., 1876.\n\n[198] The Holy Grail was believed to have been fashioned from the\nlargest of all diamonds, lost from the crown of Satan as he fell\nfrom Heaven. Guarded by angels until used at the Last Supper, it was\nultimately secured by Arthur's knight, Percival, and--such is the\nirony of mythology--indirectly by the aid of Satan's own son, Merlin!\n\n[199] See Mr. J. A. Froude's article in 'Fraser's Magazine,' Feb. 1878,\n'Origen and Celsus.'\n\n[200] Mr. W. W. Lloyd's 'Age of Pericles,' vol. ii. p. 202.\n\n[201] Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the R. A. S., 1865-6: Art. on\n'Demonology and Witchcraft in Ceylon,' by Dundris de Silva Gooneratne\nModliar.\n\n[202] Euripides, 'Medea,' 574.\n\n[203] 'Paradise Lost,' x. 860.\n\n[204] Herodotus, 'Clio,' 7-14, 91.\n\n[205] 'Expression of the Emotions.' By Charles Darwin. London: Murray,\n1872. Chapter IV.\n\n[206] The giving of Eve's name to Noah's wife is not the\nonly significant thing about this Russian tradition and its\npicture. Long-bearded devils are nowhere normal except in the\nrepresentations by the Eastern Church of the monarch of Hell. By\nreferring to p. 253 of this volume the reader will observe the\ninfluences which caused the infernal king to be represented as\ncounterpart of the Deity. As this tradition about Noah's wife is\nsuggestive of a Gnostic origin, it really looks as if the Devil in\nit were meant to act the part which the Gnostics ascribed to Jehovah\nhimself (vol. ii. p. 207). The Devil is said in rabbinical legends to\nhave seduced the wives of Noah's sons; this legend seems to show that\nhis aim was to populate the post-diluvial world entirely with his own\nprogeny, in this being an Ildabaoth, or degraded edition of Jehovah\ntrying to establish his own family in the earth by the various means\nrelated in vol. i. chap. 8.\n\n[207] 'Nischamath Chajim,' fol. 139, col. 2.","title":"Demonology and Devil-lore","tradition":"myth-cosmogony","translated_text":null,"word_count":263752}