Chapter XXIX: Thoughts and Interpretations (2)

The higher nature of man, polished by culture of all his faculties, can alone be the faithful mirror before his lower. The clearness of this mirror in the individual heart depends mainly on the civilisation and knowledge surrounding it. The discovered law turns once plausible theories to falsehoods; a noble literature transmutes once popular books to trash. When Art interprets the realities of nature, when it shows how much beauty and purity our human nature is capable of, it holds a mirror before all deformities. At a theatre in the city of London, I witnessed the performance of an actor who, in the course of his part, struck a child. He was complimented by a hurricane of hisses from the crowded gallery. Had those 'gods' up there never struck children? Possibly. Yet here each had a mirror before him and recoiled from his worst self. A clergyman relates that, while looking at pictures in the Bethnal Green Museum, he overheard a poor woman, who had been gazing on a Madonna, say, 'If I had such a child as that I believe I could be a good woman.' Who can say what even that one glance at her life in the ideal reflector may be worth to that wanderer amid the miseries and temptations of London!

It is not easy for those who have seen what is high and holy to give their hearts to what is base and unholy. It is as natural for human nature to love virtue as to love any other beauty. External beauty is visible to all, and all desire it: the interior beauty is not visible to superficial glances, but the admiration shown even for its counterfeits shows how natural it is to admire virtue. But in order that the charm of this moral beauty may be felt by human nature it must be related to that nature--real. It must not be some childish ideal which answers to no need of the man of to-day; not something imported from a time and place where it had meaning and force to others where it has none.

When dogmas surviving from the primitive world are brought to behold themselves in the mirror held up by Science, they cry out, 'That is not my face! You are caricaturing my beliefs!' This recoil of Superstition from its own ugliness is the victory of Religion. What priests bewail as disbelief is faith fleeing from its deformities. Ignorant devotion proves its need of Science by its terrors of the same, which are like those of the horse at first sight of its best friend, bearer of its burthens--the locomotive.

Religion, like every other high feature of human nature, has its animal counterpart. The animalised religion is superstition. It has various expressions,--the abjectness of one form, the ferocity of another, the cunning of a third. It is unconscious of anything higher than animalism. Its god is a very great animal preying on other animals, which are laid on his altars; or pleased when smaller animals give up their part of the earthly feast by starving their passions and senses. Under the growth of civilisation and intelligence that pious asceticism is revealed in its true form,--intensified animalism. The asceticism of one age becomes the self-indulgence of another. The two-footed animal having discovered that his god does not eat the meat left for him, eats it himself. Learning that he gets as much from his god by a wafer and a prayer, he offers these and retains the gifts, treasures, and pleasures so commuted,--these, however, being withdrawn from the direction of the higher nature by the fact of being obtained through the conditions of the lower, and dependent on their persistence. In process of time the forms and formulas of religion, detached from all reality--such as no conceivable monarch could desire--not only become senseless, but depend upon their senselessness for continuance. They refuse to come at all within the domain of reason or common-sense, and trust to mental torpor of the masses, force of habit in the aggregate, self-interest in the wealthy and powerful, bribes for thinkers and scholars.

Animalism disguised as a religion must render the human religion, able to raise passions into divine attributes of a perfect manhood, impossible so long as it continues. That a human religion can ever come by any process of evolution from a superstition which can only exist by ministry to the baser motives is a delusion. The only hope of society is that its independent minds may gain culture, and so surround this unextinct monster with mirrors that it may perish through shame at its manifold deformities. These are symbolised in the many-headed phantasm which is the subject of this work. Demon, Dragon, and Devil have long paralysed the finest powers of man, peopling nature with horrors, the heart with fears, and causing the religious sentiment itself to make actual in history the worst excesses it professed to combat in its imaginary adversaries. My largest hope is that from the dragon-guarded well where Truth is too much concealed she may emerge far enough to bring her mirror before these phantoms of fear, and with far-darting beams send them back to their caves in Chaos and ancient Night.

The battlements of the cloisters of Magdalen College, Oxford, are crowned with an array of figures representing virtues and vices, with carved allegories of teaching and learning. Under the Governor's window are the pelican feeding its young from its breast, and the lion, denoting the tenderness and the strength of a Master of youth. There follow the professions--the lawyer embracing his client, the physician with his bottle, the divine as Moses with his tables of the Law. Next are the slayers of Goliath and other mythical enemies. We come to more real, albeit monstrous, enemies; to Gluttony in ecclesiastical dress, with tongue lolling out; and low-browed Luxury without any vesture, with a wide-mouthed animal-eared face on its belly, the same tongue lolling out--as in our figures of Typhon and Kali. Drunkenness has three animal heads--one of a degraded humanity, another a sheep, the third a goose. Cruelty is a werewolf; a frog-faced Lamia represents its mixture with Lust; and other vices are represented by other monsters, chiefly dragons with griffin forms, until the last is reached--the Devil, who is just opposite the Governor's symbols across the quadrangle.

So was represented, some centuries ago, the conflict of Ormuzd and Ahriman, for the young soldiers who enlisted at Oxford for that struggle. A certain amount of fancy has entered into the execution of the figures; but, if this be carefully detached, the history which I have attempted to tell in these volumes may be generally traced in the Magdalen statues. Each represents some phase in the advance of the world, when, under new emergencies, earlier symbols were modified, recombined, and presently replaced by new shapes. It was found inadequate to keep the scholar throwing stones at the mummy of Goliath when by his side was living Gluttony in religious garb. The scriptural symbols are gradually mixed with those of Greek and German mythology, and by such contact with nature are able to generate forms, whose lolling tongues, wide mouths, and other expressions, represent with some realism the physiognomies of brutality let loose through admission to human shape and power.

It may be that, when they were set up, the young Oxonian passed shuddering these terrible forms, dreaded these werewolves and succubæ, and dreamed of going forth to impale dragons. But now the sculptures excite only laughter or curiosity, when they are not passed by without notice. Yet the old conflict between Light and Darkness has not ceased. The ancient forms of it pass away; they become grotesque. Such was necessarily the case where the excessive mythological and fanciful elements introduced at one period fall upon another period when they hide the meaning. Their obscurity, even for antiquarians, marks how far away from those cold battlefields the struggle they symbolised has passed. But it ceases not. Some scholars who listen to the sweet vespers of Magdalen may think the conflict over; if so, even poor brother Moody may enter the true kingdom before them; for, when preaching in Baltimore last September, he said, 'Men are possessed of devils just as much now as they ever were. The devil of rum is as great as any that ever lived. Why cannot this one and all others be cast out? Because there is sin in the christian camp.'

The picture which closes this volume has been made for me by the artist Hennessey, to record an incident which occurred at the door of Nôtre Dame in Paris last summer. I had been examining an ugly devil there treading down human forms into hell; but a dear friend looked higher, and saw a bird brooding over its young on a nest supported by that same horrible head.

So, above the symbols of wrath in nature, Love still interweaves heavenly tints with the mystery of life; beside the horns of pain prepares melodies.

Even so, also, over the animalism which deforms man, rises the animal perfection which shames that; here ascending above the reign of violence by a feather's force, and securing to that little creature a tenderness that could best express the heart of a Christ, when it would gather humanity under his wings.

This same little scene at the cathedral door came before me again as I saw the Oxonian youth, with their morning-faces, passing so heedlessly those ancient sculptures at Magdalen. Over every happy heart the same old love was brooding, in each nestling faculties were trying to gain their wings. To what will they aspire, those students moving so light-hearted amid the dead dragons and satans of an extinct world? Do they think there are no more dragons to be slain? Know they that saying, 'He descended into hell;' and that, from Orpheus and Herakles to Mohammed and Swedenborg, this is the burthen felt by those who would be saviours of men?

It is not only loving birds that build their nests and rear their young over the horns of forgotten fears, but, alas! the Harpies too! These, which Dante saw nestling in still plants--once men who had wronged themselves--rear successors above the aspirations that have ended in 'nothing but leaves.' The sculptures of Magdalen are incomplete. There is a vacant side to the quadrangle, which, it is to be feared, awaits the truer teaching that would fill it up with the real dragons which no youth could heedlessly pass. Who can carve there the wrongs that await their powers of redress? Who can set before them, with all its baseness, the true emblem of pious fraud? When will they see in any stone mirror the real shape of a double-tongued Culture--one fork intoning litanies, another whispering contempt of them? The werewolves of scholarly selfishness, the Lamias of christian casuistry, the subtle intelligence that is fed by sages and heroes, but turns them to dust, nay, to venom, because it dares not be human, still crawls--these are yet to be revealed in all their horrors. Then will the old cry, Sursum Corda, sound over the ancient symbols whereon scholars waste their strength, by which they are conquered; and wings of courage shall bear them with their arrows of light to rescue from Superstition the holy places of Humanity.

NOTES TO VOLUME I

[1] Pausan. v. 14, 2.

[2] Solin. Polyhistor, i.

[3] Pliny, xxix. 6, 34, init.

[4] Ezekiel xiv. 9.

[5] As in the Bembine Tablet in the Bodleian Library.

[6] See Sale's Koran, p. 281.

[7] Pindar, Fragm., 270.

[8] Tylor's 'Early Hist. of Mankind,' p. 358; 'Prim. Cult.,' vol. ii. p. 230.

[9] The Gascons of Labourd call the devil 'Seigneur Voland,' and some revere him as a patron.

[10] 'Myth. of the Aryan Nations,' vol. ii. p. 327.

[11] 'Christian Iconography,' Bohn, p. 158.

[12] 'Videbant faciem egredientis Moysis esse cornutam.'--Vulg. Exod. xxxiv. 35.

[13] 'Myths and Marvels of Astronomy.' By R. A. Proctor. Chatto & Windus, 1878.

[14] 'Scenes and Legends,' &c., p. 73.

[15] 'Any Orientalist will appreciate the wonderful hotchpot of Hindu and Arabic language and religion in the following details, noted down among rude tribes of the Malay Peninsula. We hear of Jin Bumi, the earth-god (Arabic jin = demon, Sanskrit bhümi = earth); incense is burnt to Jewajewa (Sanskrit dewa = god), who intercedes with Pirman, the supreme invisible deity above the sky (Brahma?); the Moslem Allah Táala, with his wife Nabi Mahamad (Prophet Mohammed), appear in the Hinduised characters of creator and destroyer of all things; and while the spirits worshipped in stones are called by the Hindu term of 'dewa' or deity, Moslem conversion has so far influenced the mind of the stone-worshipper that he will give to his sacred boulder the name of Prophet Mohammed.'--Tylor's 'Primitive Culture,' vol. ii. p. 230.

[16] Yaçna, 32.

[17] 'The Devil,' &c., from the French of the Rev. A. Réville, p. 5.

[18] Tylor's 'Primitive Culture,' vol. ii. p. 299.

[19] 'The Gnostics,' &c., by C. W. King, M.A., p. 153.

[20] Those who wish to examine this matter further will do well to refer to Badger, 'Nestorians and their Rituals,' in which the whole of the 'Eulogy' is translated; and to Layard, 'Ninevah and Babylon,' in which there is a translation of the same by Hormuzd Rassam, the King of Abyssinia's late prisoner.

[21] The significance of the gargoyles on the churches built on the foundations of pagan temples may be especially observed at York, where the forms of various animals well known to Indo-Germanic mythology appear. They are probably copies of earlier designs, surviving from the days when the plan of Gregory for the conversion of temples prevailed. 'The temples of the idols in that nation,' wrote the Pope, A.C. 601, 'ought not to be destroyed; but let the idols that are in them be destroyed; let holy water be made and sprinkled in the said temples, let altars be erected and relics placed. For if those temples are well built, it is requisite that they be converted from the worship of devils to the service of the true God.'--Bede, Eccl. Hist. ch. 30.

[22] 'The Land of Charity,' by Rev. Samuel Mateer, p. 214.

[23] London 'Times' Calcutta correspondence.

[24] The Persian poet Sádi uses the phrase, 'The whale swallowed Jonah,' as a familiar expression for sunset; which is in curious coincidence with a Mimac (Nova Scotian) myth that the holy hero Glooscap was carried to the happy Sunset Land in a whale. The story of Jonah has indeed had interesting variants, one of them being that legend of Oannes, the fish-god, emerging from the Red Sea to teach Babylonians the arts (a saga of Dagon); but the phrase in the Book of Jonah--'the belly of Hell'--had a prosaic significance for the christian mind, and, in connection with speculations concerning Behemoth and Leviathan, gave us the mediæval Mouth of Hell.

[25] Tablet K 162 in the British Museum. See 'Records of the Past,' i. 141.

[26] London 'Times,' July 11, 1877.

[27] 'Songs of the Russian People,' p. 409.

[28] 'Primitive Culture.'

[29] Cæsarius D'Heisterbach, Miracul. iii.

[30] Lev. iii. 15.

[31] Du Perron, 'Vie de Zoroastre.'

[32] The principle similia similibus curantur is a very ancient one; but though it may have originated in a euphemistic or propitiatory aim, the homoeopathist may claim that it could hardly have lived unless it had been found to have some practical advantages.

[33] Sonnerat's 'Travels,' ii. 38.

[34] Deutsch, 'Literary Remains,' p. 178.

[35] Isa. lvii. 5; Ezek. xvi. 20; Jer. xix. 5.

[36] The 'Jewish World.'

[37] 'Observations on Popular Antiquities,' &c., by John Brand. With the additions of Sir Henry Ellis. An entirely new and revised edition. Chatto & Windus, 1877. See especially the chapter on 'Summer Solstice,' p. 165.

[38] 'Pyra, a bonefire, wherein men's bodyes were burned.'--Cooper's Thesaurus. Probably from Fr. bon; Wedgewood gives Dan. baun, beacon.

[39] See Chapter i. Compare Numbers xxxi. 23.

[40] Numbers xix. 17.

[41] Ibid. xix. 2, seq.

[42] 'Folklore of China,' p. 121.

[43] In Russia the pigeon, from being anciently consecrated to the thunder god, has become emblem of the Holy Ghost, or celestial fire, and as such the foe of earthly fire. Pigeons are trusted as insurers against fire, and the flight of one through a house is regarded as a kindly warning of conflagration.

[44] Tablet K 162 in Brit. Mus. Tr. by H. F. Talbot in 'Records of the Past.'

[45] The Western Mail, March 12, 1874, contains a remarkable letter by the Arch-Druid, in which he maintains that 'Jesus' is a derivation from Hea or Hu, Light, and the Christian system a corruption of Bardism.

[46] 'L'Enfer,' p. 5.

[47] Dennys' 'Folklore of China,' p. 98.

[48] Procopius, 'De Bello Gothico,' iv. 20.

[49] 'Memorials of the Rev. R. S. Hawkes'.

[50] 'La Magie chez les Chaldéens,' iii.

[51] Lönnrot, 'Abhandlung über die Magische Medicin der Finnen.'

[52] 'Scenes and Legends of the North of Scotland.' Nimmo, 1876.

[53] 'Rig-Veda,' ii. 33. Tr. by Professor Evans of Michigan.

[54] 'Rig-Veda,' i. 114.

[55] 'Jour. Ceylon R. A. Soc.,' 1865-66.

[56] Welcker, 'Griechische Götterlehre,' vol. i. p. 661.

[57] Moffat, p. 257.

[58] Livingstone, p. 124.

[59] Pöppig, 'Reise in Chile,' vol. ii. p. 358.

[60] Eyre, vol. ii. p. 362.

[61] Tylor, 'Early Hist.,' p. 359.

[62] So confirming the conjecture of Wachsmuth, in 'Das alte Griechenland im neuen,' p. 23. Elias might also easily be associated with the name Æolus.

[63] 'Rig-Veda,' x. (Muir).

[64] John iii. 8.

[65] 'The Wheel of the Law,' by Henry Alabaster, Trübner & Co.

[66] 'Rig-Veda,' v. 83 (Wilson).

[67] 'Major's Tr.,' ii. 26.

[68] Wierus' 'Pseudomonarchia Dæmon.'

[69] 'Songs of the Russian People,' by W. R. S. Ralston, M.A.

[70] Isa. xxii. 22. It is remarkable that (according to Callimachus) Ceres bore a key on her shoulder. She kept the granary of the earth.

[71] Rev. i. 18.; Matt. xvi. 19.

[72] 'Journal N. C. B. R. A. S.,' 1853.

[73] 'Folklore of China,' p. 124. The drum held by the imp in Fig. 3 shows his relation to the thunder-god. In Japan the thunder-god is represented as having five drums strung together. The wind-god has a large bag of compressed air between his shoulders; and he has steel claws, representing the keen and piercing wind. The Tartars in Siberia believe that a potent demon may be evoked by beating a drum; their sorcerers provide a tame bear, who starts upon the scene, and from whom they pretend to get answers to questions. In Nova Scotian superstition we find demons charmed by drums into quietude. In India the temple-drum preserved such solemn associations even for the new theistic sect, the Brahmo-Somaj, that it is said to be still beaten as accompaniment to the organ sent to their chief church by their English friends.

[74] Although the Koran and other authorities, as already stated, have associated the Jinn with etherial fire, Arabic folklore is nearer the meaning of the word in assigning the name to all demons. The learned Arabic lexicographer of Beirut, P. Bustani, says 'The Jinn is the opposite of mankind, or it is whatever is veiled from the sense, whether angel or devil.'

[75] 'Cuneiform Ins.,' iv. 15.

[76] Ib. ii. 27.

[77] Job xli.

[78] 'Records of the Past,' i.

[79] Lenormant, 'La Magie.'

[80] 'Records of the Past,' iii. 129.

[81] The god of the Euphrates.

[82] The Assyrian has 'of the high places.'

[83] 'Records of the Past,' iii. 129, 130.

[84] 'Henry IV.,' Part 1st, Act 2. 'Heart of Mid-Lothian,' xxv. An interesting paper on this subject by Mr. Alexander Wilder appeared in The Evolution, New York, December 16, 1877.

[85] De Plancy.

[86] An individual by this means saw his wife among the witches, so detecting her unhallowed nature, which gave rise to a saying there that husbands must not be star-gazing on St. Gerard's Eve.

[87] London 'Times,' July 8, 1875.

[88] This Protean type of both demon and devil must accompany us so continually through this volume that but little need be said of it in this chapter.

[89] Canticles ii. 15.

[90] De Gubernatis, II. viii.

[91] 'Our Life in Japan' (Jephson and Elmhirst, 9th Regiment), Chapman & Hall, 1869.

[92] London 'Times,' June 11, 1877.

[93] Rep. 488.

[94] Literally, goat-song. More probably it has an astrological sense.

[95] E.g., the demon Huorco in the 'Pentamerone.'

[96] See De Gubernatis' 'Zoological Mythology,' which contains further curious details on this subject.

[97] 'Myths and Myth-makers.' Boston: Osgood & Co.

[98] 'Zoological Mythology,' p. 64.

[99] Koran, xviii.

[100] Wagner. Behold him stop--upon his belly crawl.... The clever scholar of the students, he!

[101] 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.' London: Chatto & Windus.

[102] 'Spirit of the Beasts of France,' ch. i.

[103] 'Rigv.' i. 105, 18, 42, 2; 'Vendidad,' xix. 108. Quoted by De Gubernatis ('Zoolog. Mythology,' ii. 142), to whose invaluable work I am largely indebted in this chapter.

[104] 'Zoolog. Myth.,' ii. 7. Trübner & Co.

[105] 'Zoolog. Myth.,' ii. 108 seq.

[106] Afanasief, v. 28.

[107] Ibid., v. 27.

[108] ii. 6 (De Gubernatis, ii. 117).

[109] Rather the devil of lust than of cruelty, according to Du Cange: "Occidunt ursum, occiditur diabolus, id est, temptator nostræ carnis."

[110] De Plancy (Dict. Inf.), who also relates an amusing legend of the bear who came to a German choir, as seen by a sleepy chorister as he awoke; the naïve narrator of which adds, that this was the devil sent to hold the singers to their duty! The Lives of the Saints abound with legends of pious bears, such as that commemorated along with St. Sergius in Troitska Lavra, near Moscow; and that which St. Gallus was ungracious enough to banish from Switzerland after it had brought him firewood in proof of its conversion.

[111] Max Müller, 'Science of Language,' i. 275.

[112] The term is now used very vaguely. Mr. Talboys Wheeler, speaking of the 'Scythic Nagas' (Hist. of India, i. 147), says: 'In process of time these Nagas became identified with serpents, and the result has been a strange confusion between serpents and human beings.' In the 'Padma Purana' we read of 'serpent-like men.' (See my 'Sacred Anthology,' p. 263.)

[113] 'Mahawanso' (Turnour), pp. 3, 6.

[114] Ser. xxxiii. Hardly consistent with De Civ. Dei, xvi. 8.

[115] 'Chips,' ii.

[116] 'Sancti custos Soractis Apollo.'--Æn. xi. 785.

[117] 'Treatise of Spirits,' by John Beaumont, Gent., London, 1705.

[118] London 'Times,' June 11, 1877.

[119] Wuttke, 'Volksaberglaube,' 402. Pliny (iv. 16) says: 'Albion insula sic dicta ab albis rupibus quas mare alluit.' This etymon of Albion from the white cliffs is very questionable; but, since Alb and Elf are generally related, it might have suggested the notion about English demons. Heine identifies the 'White Island,' or Pluto's realm of Continental folklore, as England.

[120] Richardson's 'Borderer's Fable-Book,' vi. 97.

[121] Martin, Appendix to Report on 'Ossian,' p. 310.

[122] 'Scenes and Legends,' p. 13.

[123] Dr. James Browne's 'History of the Highlands,' p. 113.

[124] 'North American Review,' January 1871.

[125] Dennys, p. 81 et seq.

[126] Ezekiel xxxix.

[127] 'Rig-Veda,' iv. 175, 5 (Wilson).

[128] Ibid., i. 133, 6.

[129] 'Rig-Veda,' vi. 14.

[130] 'The Nineteenth Century,' November 1877. Article: 'Sun-Spots and Famines,' by Norman Lockyer and W. W. Hunter.

[131] 'An Inquiry into the Nature and Place of Hell,' by Tobias Swinden, M.A., late Rector of Cuxton-in-Kent. 1727.

[132] Carlyle, 'Past and Present,' i. 2.

[133] 'Discoveries in Egypt,' &c. (Bentley.) 1852.

[134] 'Legends of Old Testament Characters,' i. p. 83.

[135] OEdip., 1. II. ii. See 'Mankind: their Origin and Destiny,' p. 699.

[136] Compare Kali, Fig. 18.

[137] Soc. of Heb. Literature's Publications. 2d Series. 'Legends from the Midrash,' by Thomas Chenery (Trübner & Co.). The same legend is referred to in the story of the Astrologer in Washington Irving's 'Alhambra.'

[138] Faust, ii. Act 4 (Hayward's Translation).

[139] 'Emerson's Poems. Monadnoc.'

[140] 'Modern Painters,' Part V. 19.

[141] Bel's mountain, 'House of the Beloved,' is called 'high place' in Assyrian, and would be included in these curses ('Records of the Past,' iii. 129).

[142] Jer. xiii. 16.

[143] 'Our Life in Japan.' By Jephson and Elmhirst.

[144] Another derivation of Elf (Alf) is to connect it with Sanskrit Alpa = little; so that the Elves are the Little Folk. Professor Buslaef of Moscow suggests connection with the Greek Alphito, a spectre. See pp. 160n. and 223.

[145] Brinton, p. 85.

[146] Ibid., p. 166.

[147] 'Tales and Legends of the Tyrol.' (Chapman and Hall, 1874.)

[148] Od. xii. 73; 235, &c.

[149] London Daily Telegraph Correspondence.

[150] John Sterling.

[151] 'Rig-Veda,' ii. 15, 5. Wilson. 1854.

[152] 'Du monstre qui m'avait tant ennuyé, il n'était plus question; il était pour jamais réduit au silence. Il n'avait plus forme de géant. Déjà en partie couvert de verdure, de mousse et de clématites qui avaient grimpé sur la partie où j'avais cessé de passer, il n'était plus laid; bientôt on ne le verrait plus du tout. Je me sentais si heureux que je voulus lui pardonner, et, me tournant vers lui:--A present, lui dis-je, tu dormiras tous tes jours et tous tes nuits sans que je te dérange. Le mauvais esprit qui était en toi est vaincu, je lui defends de revenir. Je t'en ai délivré en te forçant à devenir utile à quelque chose; que la foudre t'épargne et que la neige te soit légère! Il me sembla passer, le long de l'escarpement, comme un grand soupir de résignation qui se perdit dans les hauteurs. Ce fut la dernière fois que je l'entendais, et je ne l'ai jamais revu autre qu'il n'est maintenant.'

[153] Von Spix and Von Martin's 'Travels in Brazil,' p. 243.

[154] 'Anatomy of Melancholy.' Fifteenth Edition, p. 124.

[155] 'Les Dieux en Exile.' Heinrich Heine. Revue des Deux Mondes, April, 1853.

[156] 'Book of Songs.' Translated by Charles E. Leland. New York: Henry Holt & Co. 1874.

[157] Dennys.

[158] Bleek, 'Hottentot Fables,' p. 58.

[159] Baring-Gould, 'Curious Myths,' &c.

[160] Ibid., ii. 299.

[161] 'Shaski,' vi. 48.

[162] Hugh Miller, 'Scenes and Legends,' p. 293.

[163] 'The Mirror,' April 7, 1832.

[164] 'The Origin of Civilisation,' &c. By Sir John Lubbock.

[165] Hildebrand in Grimm's 'Wörterbuch.'

[166] Wisdom of Solomon, xvii. What this impressive chapter says of the delusions of the guilty are equally true of those of ignorance. 'They sleeping the same sleep that night ... were partly vexed with monstrous apparitions, and partly fainted, their heart failing them ... whosoever there fell down was straitly kept, shut up in a prison without iron bars.... Whether it were a whistling wind, or a melodious noise of birds among the spreading branches, or a pleasing fall of water running violently, or a terrible sound of stones cast down, or a running that could not be seen of skipping beasts, or a roaring voice of most savage wild beasts, or a rebounding echo from the hollow mountains: these things made them to swoon for fear. The whole world shined with clear light ... over them only was spread a heavy night, an image of that darkness which should afterward receive them: but yet were they to themselves more grievous than that darkness.'

[167] Bayard Taylor's 'Faust.' Walpurgis-night.

[168] i. 228.

[169] North American Review. March 1877.

[170] In his very valuable work, 'Northmen in Cumberland and Westmoreland.' Longmans. 1856.

[171] 'Journal of Philology,' vi. No. II. On the Word Glamour and the Legend of Glam, by Professor Cowell.

[172] 2 Chron. xvi. 12; 2 Kings xx.; Mark v. 26; James v. 14; &c., &c. The Catholic Church follows the prescription by St. James of prayer and holy anointing for the sick only after medical aid--of which Asa died when he preferred it to the Lord--has failed; i.e. extreme unction. Castelar remarks that the Conclave which elected Pius IX. sat in the Quirinal rather than the Vatican, 'because, while it hoped for the inspirations of the Holy Spirit in every place, it feared that in the palace par excellence divine inspirations would not sufficiently counteract the effluvias of the fever.' The legal prosecutions of the 'Peculiar People' for obeying the New Testament command in case of sickness supply a notable example of the equal hypocrisy of the protestant age. England has distributed the Bible as a divine revelation in 150 different languages; and in London it punishes a sect for obedience to one of its plainest directions.

[173] London 'Times,' June 11, 1877.

[174] 'Mankind: their Origin and Destiny' (Longmans, 1872), p. 91. See also Voltaire's Dictionary for an account of the sacred dances in the Catholic Churches of Spain.

[175] Deut. xxviii. 60.

[176] 1 Sam. v. 6.

[177] 1 Sam. xvi. 14. In chap. xviii. 10, this evil spirit is said to have proceeded from Elohim, a difference indicating a further step in that evolution of Jehovah into a moral ruler which is fully traced in our chapter on 'Elohim and Jehovah.'

[178] Boundesch, ii. pp. 158, 188. For an exhaustive treatment of the astrological theories and pictures of the planispheres, see 'Mankind: their Origin and Destiny' (Longmans, 1872).

[179] 'Catastrophe Magnatum: or the Fall of Monarchie. A Caveat to Magistrates, deduced from the Eclipse of the Sunne, March 29, 1652. With a probable Conjecture of the Determination of the Effects.' By Nich. Culpeper, Gent., Stud. in Astrol. and Phys. Dan. ii. 21, 22: He changeth the times and the seasons: he removeth Kings, and setteth up Kings: he giveth wisdome to the Wise, and knowledge to them that know understanding: he revealeth the deep and secret things, he knoweth what is in the darkness, and the light dwelleth with him. London: Printed for T. Vere and Nath. Brooke, in the Old Baily, and at the Angel in Cornhil, 1652.'

[180] See the Dictionary of Böhtlingk and Roth.

[181] Heb. ii. 14.

[182] 1 Cor. v. 5; xi. 30.

[183] 2 Cor. xii. 7.

[184] 'Records of the Past,' iii. p. 136. Tr. by Mr. Fox Talbot.

[185] Ibid., iii. p. 143. The refrain recalls the lines of Edgar A. Poe:--

They are neither man nor woman,
They are neither brute nor human,
They are ghouls!

[186] The Pahlavi Text has been prepared by Destur Jamaspji Asa, and translated by Haug and West. Trübner, 1872.

[187] Cf. fig. 9.

[188] Larousse's 'Dict. Universel.'

[189] 'Records,' &c., iii. p. 141. Marduk is the Chaldæan Hercules.

[190] Micah vii. 19.

[191] See the excellent article in the Journal of the Ceylon Branch of the R.A.S., by Dundris De Silva Gooneratnee Modliar (1865-66). With regard to this sanctity of the number seven it may be remarked that it has spread through the world with Christianity,--seven churches, seven gifts of the Spirit, seven sins and virtues. It is easy therefore to mistake orthodox doctrines for survivals. In the London 'Times' of June 24, 1875, there was reported an inquest at Corsham, Wiltshire, on the body of Miriam Woodham, who died under the prescriptions of William Bigwood, herbalist. It was shown that he used pills made of seven herbs. This was only shown to be a 'pagan survival' when Bigwood stated that the herbs were 'governed by the sun.'

[192] See p. 44.

[193] 'Jour. Ceylon R. A. Soc.,' 1865-66.

[194] This demoness is not to be connected with the Italian Mania, probably of Etruscan origin, with which nurses frightened children. This Mania, from an old word manus signifying 'good,' was, from the relation of her name to Manes, supposed to be mother of the Lares, whose revisitations of the earth were generally of ill omen. According to an oracle which said heads should be offered for the sake of heads, children were sacrificed to this household fiend up to the time of Junius Brutus, who substituted poppy-heads.

[195] Phædrus, i. 549. Cf. Ger. selig and silly.

[196] 'Lect. on Language,' i. 435.

[197] Ralston's 'Songs of the Russian People,' p. 230.

[198] 'Sagen der Altmark.' Von A. Kuhn. Berlin, 1843.

[199] Wake's 'Evolution of Morality,' i. 107.

[200] 'The Aborigines of Australia' (1865), p. 15.

[201] 2 Chron. xxxiii. 6.

[202] Published by Mozley and Smith, 1878.

[203] Max Müller. 'Lectures on Language,' ii. p. 562, et seq.

[204] See the beautifully translated funereal hymn of the Veda in Professor Whitney's 'Oriental and Linguistic Studies,' p. 52, etc.

[205] 'The Avesta.' 'Oriental and Linguistic Studies,' p. 196.

[206] 'Records of the Past,' i. 143.

[207] Sale's 'Koran' (ed. 1836). See pp. 4, 339, 475.

[208] 'Discoveries,' &c., p. 223.

[209] 'Modern Painters,' Part V. xix.

[210] The history of this tree which I use for a parable is told in the Rev. Samuel Mateer's 'Land of Charity.' London: John Snow & Co. 1871.

[211] 'Studies in the History of the Renaissance.' Macmillan & Co. 1873.

[212] Concerning which Mr. Wright says: 'It is taken from an oxybaphon which was brought from the Continent to England, where it passed into the collection of Mr. William Hope.... The Hyperborean Apollo himself appears as a quack-doctor, on his temporary stage, covered by a sort of roof, and approached by wooden steps. On the stage lies Apollo's luggage, consisting of a bag, a bow, and his Scythian cap. Chiron (ChIRÔN) is represented as labouring under the effects of age and blindness, and supporting himself by the aid of a crooked staff, as he repairs to the Delphian quack-doctor for relief. The figure of the centaur is made to ascend by the aid of a companion, both being furnished with the masks and other attributes of the comic performers. Above are the mountains, and on them the nymphs of Parnassus (NYMPhAI), who, like all the other actors in the scene, are disguised with masks, and those of a very gross character.... Even a pun is employed to heighten the drollery of the scene, for instead of PYThIAS, the Pythian, placed over the head of the burlesque Apollo, it seems evident that the artist had written PEIThIAS, the consoler.'--'History of Caricature,' p. 18. But who is the leaf-crowned figure, without mask, on the right hand? Was it some early Offenbach, who found such representation of the gods welcome at Athens where the attempt to produce our modern Offenbach's Belle Helène recently caused a theatrical riot?

[213] Wuttke. 'Volksaberglaube,' 18.

[214] Schleicher, 'Litauische Märchen,' 141-145. Mr. Ralston's translation abridged.

[215] Of this latter kind of hungry werewolf a specimen still occasionally revisits the glimpses of the moonshine which, for too many minds, still replaces daylight. So recently as January 17, 1878, one Kate Bedwell, a 'pedlar, was sentenced in the Marylebone Police Court, London, to three months' hard labour for obtaining various sums of money, amounting to 9s. 10d., by terrorism, from Eliza Rolf, a cook. The pedlar came to the plaintiff's place of work and asked her if she would like to have her fortune told. Eliza replied, 'No, I know it; it is hard work or starving.' The fortune-teller asked her next time if she would have her planet ruled; the other still said no; but her nerves yielded when the 'Drud' told her 'she lived under three stars, one good the others bad, and that she could disfigure her or turn her into something else.' 'Thank God, she did not!' exclaimed the poor woman in court. However, she seemed to have trusted rather in her money than in any other providence for her immunity from an unhappy transformation. But even into this rare depth of ignorance enough light had penetrated to enable Eliza to cope with her werewolf in the civilised way of haling her before a magistrate. When Fenris gets three months with hard labour, he no doubt realises that he has exceeded his mental habitat, and that the invisible cords have bound him at last.

[216] Elf has, indeed, been referred by some to the Sanskrit alpa=little; but the balance of authority is in favour of the derivation given in a former chapter.

[217] Mannhardt, 'Götter,' 287.

[218] Freia-Holda, the Teutonic goddess of Love. 'Cornhill Magazine,' May, 1872.

[219] 'Records of the Past,' vi. 124.

[220] See Cooper's 'Serpent-Myths of Ancient Egypt,' figs. 109 and 112. Serapis as a human-headed serpent is shown in the same essay (from Sharpe), fig. 119.

[221] 'Representative Men,' American edition of 1850, p. 108.

[222] 'L'Oiseau,' par Jules Michelet.

[223] A deadly Southern snake, coloured like the soil on which it lurks, had become the current name for politicians who, while professing loyalty to the Union, aided those who sought to overthrow it.

[224] See his learned and valuable treatise, 'The Serpent Myths of Ancient Egypt.' Hardwicke, 1873.

[225] 'Time and Faith,' i. 204. Groombridge, 1857.

[226] 'The Epic of the Worm,' by Victor Hugo. Translated by Bayard Taylor from 'La Légende des Siècles.'

[227] Bruce relates of the Abyssinians that a serpent is commonly kept in their houses to consult for an augury of good or evil. Butter and honey are placed before it, of which if it partake, the omen is good; if the serpent refuse to eat, some misfortune is sure to happen. This custom seems to throw a light on the passage--'Butter and honey shall he eat, that he may know to refuse the evil and choose the good' (Isa. vii. 15).--Time and Faith, i. 60.

Compare the apocryphal tale of Bel and the Dragon. Bel was a healing god of the Babylonians, and the Dragon whom he slew may have been regarded in later times as his familiar

[228] 'Principles of Greek Etymology,' ii. 63. English translation.

[229] See pp. 8 and 20.

[230] 'Rig-veda,' v. (Wilson).

[231] In a paper on the 'Origin of Serpent-worship,' read before the Anthropological Institute in London, December 17, 1872.

[232] 'Science of Language,' i. 230.

[233] 'Lectures on Language,' i. 435.

[234] Grimm's 'Mythology,' p. 650 ff. Simrock, p. 440.

[235] Roth, in the 'Journal of the German Oriental Society,' vol. ii. p. 216 ff., has elucidated the whole myth.

[236] I have in my possession a specimen of the horned frog of America, and it is sufficiently curious.

[237] Gesta Rom., cap. 68. Grimm's Myth., 650 ff. Simrock, p. 400.

[238] Others derive the name from the ancient Borbetomagus.

[239] Traditions, p. 44.

[240] Loathely.

[241] Pope's 'Homer,' Book xv.

[242] See p. 59.

[243] See p. 154.

[244] Æsch. Prom. 790, &c.

[245] Vol. i. p. 38.

[246] 'North American Review,' January 1871.

[247] 'Records of the Past,' x. 79.

[248] Page 285.

[249] 'Alcestis in England.' Printed by the South Place Society, Finsbury, London. 1877.

[250] Eating meat was the process of incarnation.

[251] 'Results of a Tour in Dardistan, Kashmir,' &c., by Chevalier Dr. G. W. Leitner, Lahore, vol. i. part iii. Trübner & Co.

[252] Page 91.

[253] In the Etruscan Museum at Rome there is a fine representation of this. The old belief was that a dragon could only be attacked successfully inside.

[254] 'The Jewish Messiah,' &c. By James Drummond, B.A. Longmans & Co. (1877). See in this valuable work chapter xxi.

[255] Matt. viii. 30.

[256] Luke xxiii. 3.

[257] Acts i. 25.

NOTES TO VOLUME II

[1] 'Treatise of Spirits.' By John Beaumont, Gent. London, 1705.

[2] Luke x. 19.

[3] Rev. xii.

[4] Rev. xii. cf. verses 4, 9 and 14.

[5] Rev. xii. 12.

[6] 'Zendavesta,' Yaçna xxx.; Max Müller, 'Science of Religion,' p. 238.

[7] Yaçna xliii.

[8] 'Die Christliche Lehre von der Sünde.' Von Julius Müller, Breslau, 1844, i. 193.

[9] 'Ormazd brought help to me; by the grace of Ormazd my troops entirely defeated the rebel army and took Sitratachmes, and brought him before me. Then I cut off his nose and his ears, and I scourged him. He was kept chained at my door. All the kingdom beheld him. Afterwards I crucified him at Arbela.' So says the tablet of Darius Hystaspes. But what could Darius have done 'by the grace of Ahriman'?

[10] Cf. Rev. v. 6 and xii. 15.

[11] 'Prayer and Work.' By Octavius B. Frothingham. New York, 1877.

[12] 'Lucifero, Poema di Mario Rapisardi.' Milano, 1877.

[13] E quanto ebbe e mantiene a l'uom soltanto Il deve, a l'uom che d'oqui sue destino O prospero, o maligno, arbitro e solo.

'Whatever he (God) had, he owed to man alone, to man who, for good or ill, is sole arbiter of his own fate.'--Rapisardi's Lucifero.

[14] The following abridgment mainly follows that of James Freeman Clarke in his 'Ten Great Religions.'

[15] White or Snowy Mountain. Cf. Alp, Elf, &c.

[16] 'Elias shall first come and restore all things.'

[17] That this satirical hymn was admitted into the Rig-Veda shows that these hymns were collected whilst they were still in the hands of the ancient Hindu families as common property, and were not yet the exclusive property of Bráhmans as a caste or association. Further evidence of the same kind is given by a hymn in which the expression occurs--'Do not be as lazy as a Bráhman.'--Mrs. Manning's Ancient and Mediæval India, i. 77. In the same work some particulars are given of the persons mentioned in this chapter. The Frog-satire is translated by Max Müller, A. S. L., p. 494.

[18] 'Arichandra, the Martyr of Truth: A Tamil Drama translated into English by Mutu Coomâra Swâmy, Mudliar, Member of Her Majesty's Legislative Council of Ceylon,' &c. London: Smith, Elder, & Co. 1863. This drama, it must be constantly borne in mind, in nowise represents the Vedic legend, told in the Aitereya-Bráhmana, vii. 13-18; nor the puranic legend, told in the Merkandeya-Purána. I have altered the spelling of the names to the Sanskrit forms, but otherwise follow Sir M. C. S.'s translation.

[19] Siva; the 'lord of the world,' and of wealth. Cf. Pluto, Dis, Dives.

[20] Thes. Heb., p. 94.

[21] Heb. Handw., p. 90.

[22] Or Jahveh. I prefer to use the best known term in a case where the more exact spelling adds no significance.

[23] This, the grandest of all the elohistic names, became the nearest Hebrew word for devils--shedim.

[24] Even his jealous command against rivals, i.e., 'graven images,' had to be taken along with the story of Laban's images (Gen. xxxi.), when, though 'God came to Laban,' the idolatry was not rebuked.

[25] It is not certain, indeed, whether this Brightness may not have been separately personified in the 'Eduth' (translated 'testimony' in the English version, Exod. xvi. 34), before which the pot of manna was laid. The word means 'brightness,' and Dr. Willis supposes it may be connected with Adod, the Phoenician Sun-god (Pentateuch, p. 186).

[26] It is important not to confuse Satan with the Devil, so far as the Bible is concerned. Satan, as will be seen when we come to the special treatment of him required, is by no means invariably diabolical. In the Book of Job, for example, he appears in a character far removed from hostility to Jehovah or goodness.

[27] Name ist Schall und Rauch, Umnebelnd Himmelsgluth.--Goethe.

[28] 'Targum to the Prophets,' Jonathan Ben Uzziel. See Deutsch's 'Literary Remains,' p. 379.

[29] See pp. 46 and 255. The episode is in Mahábhárata, I. 15.

[30] Related to the Slav Kvas, with which, in Russian folklore, the Devil tried to circumvent Noah and his wife, as related in chap. xxvii. part iv.

[31] In Sanskrit Adima means 'the first;' in Hebrew Adam (given almost always with the article) means 'the red,' and it is generally derived from adamah, mould or soil. But Professor Max Müller (Science of Religion, p. 320) says if the name Adima (used, by the way, in India for the first man, as Adam is in England) is the same as Adam, 'we should be driven to admit that Adam was borrowed by the Jews from the Hindus.' But even that mild case of 'driving' is unnecessary, since the word, as Sale reminded the world, is used in the Persian legend. It is probable that the Hebrews imported this word not knowing its meaning, and as it resembled their word for mould, they added the gloss that the first man was made of the dust or mould of the ground. It is not contended that the Hebrews got their word directly from the Hindu or Persian myth. Mr. George Smith discovered that Admi or Adami was the name for the first men in Chaldean fragments. Sir Henry Rawlinson points out that the ancient Babylonians recognised two principle races,--the Adamu, or dark, and the Sarku, or light, race; probably a distinction, remembered in the phrase of Genesis, between the supposed sons of Adam and the sons of God. The dark race was the one that fell. Mr. Herbert Spencer (Principles of Sociology, Appendix) offers an ingenious suggestion that the prohibition of a certain sacred fruit may have been the provision of a light race against a dark one, as in Peru only the Yuca and his relatives were allowed to eat the stimulating cuca. If this be true in the present case, it would still only reflect an earlier tradition that the holy fruit was the rightful possession of the deities who had won in the struggle for it.

Nor is there wanting a survival from Indian tradition in the story of Eve. Adam said, 'This now is bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh.' In the Manu Code (ix. 22) it is written: 'The bone of woman is united with the bone of man, and her flesh with his flesh.' The Indian Adam fell in twain, becoming male and female (Yama and Yami). Ewald (Hist. of Israel, i. 1) has put this matter of the relation between Hebrew and Hindu traditions, as it appears to me, beyond doubt. See also Goldziher's Heb. Mythol., p. 326; and Professor King's Gnostics, pp. 9, 10, where the historic conditions under which the importation would naturally have occurred are succinctly set forth. Professor King suggests that Parsî and Pharisee may be the same word.

[32] Gen. vi. 1, 2, 4.

[33] vi.-xi. pp. 3-6. See Drummond's 'Jewish Messiah,' p. 21.

[34] See vol. i. p. 255.

[35] Phil. Trans. Ab. from 1700-1720, Part iv. p. 173.

[36] Gen. xxi. 6, 7. The English version has destroyed the sense by supplying 'him' after 'borne.' Cf. also verses 1, 2. The rabbins were fully aware of the importance of the statement that it was Jehovah who 'opened the womb of Sara,' and supplemented it with various traditions. It was related that when Isaac was born, the kings of the earth refused to believe such a prodigy concerning even a beauty of ninety years; whereupon the breasts of all their wives were miraculously dried up, and they all had to bring their children to Sara to be suckled.

[37] Fortieth Parascha, fol. 37, col. 1. The solar--or more correctly, so far as Sara is concerned, lunar--aspects of the legend of Abraham, Sara, and Isaac, however important, do not affect the human nature with which they are associated; nor is the special service to which they are pressed in Jewish theology altered by the theory (should it prove true) which derives these personages from Aryan mythology. There seems to be some reason for supposing that Sara is a semiticised form of Saranyú. The two stand in somewhat the same typical position. Saranyú, daughter of Tvashtar ('the fashioner'), was mother of the first human pair, Yama and Yami. Sara is the first mother of those born in a new (covenanted) creation. Each is for a time concealed from mortals; each leaves her husband an illegitimate representative. Saranyú gives her lord Savarná ('substitute'), who by him brings forth Manu,--that is 'Man,' but not the original perfect Man. Sara substitutes Hagar ('the fleeting'), and Ishmael is born, but not within the covenant.

[38] Gen. iii. 14. Zerov. Hummor, fol. 8, col. 3. Parascha Bereschith. It is said that, according to Prov. xxv. 21, if thy enemy hunger thou must feed him; and hence dust must be placed for the serpent when its power over man is weakened by circumcision.

[39] Parascha Bereschith, fol. 12, col. 4. Eisenmenger, Entdeckes Judenthum, ii. 409.

[40] Hist. Arabûm.

[41] Entdeckes Judenthum.

[42] This legend may have been in the mind of the writer of the Book of Revelations when (xii. 14) he describes the Woman who received wings that she might escape the Serpent. Lilith's wings bore her to the Serpent.

[43] Inferno, ix. 56-64.

[44] She was a Lybian Queen beloved by Zeus, whose children were victims of Hera's jealousy. She was daughter of Belus, and it is a notable coincidence, if no more, that in Gen. xxxvi. 'Bela' is mentioned as a king of Edom, the domain of Samaël, who married Lilith.

[45] The martial and hunting customs of the German women, as well as their equality with men, may be traced in the vestiges of their decline. Hexe (witch) is from hag (forest): the priestesses who carried the Broom of Thor were called Hagdissen. Before the seventeenth century the Hexe was called Drud or Trud (red folk, related to the Lightning-god). But the famous female hunters and warriors of Wodan, the Valkyries, were so called also; and the preservation of the epithet (Trud) in the noble name Gertrude is a connecting link between the German Amazons and the political power so long maintained by women in the same country. Their office as priestesses probably marks a step downward from their outdoor equality. By this route, as priestesses of diabolised deities, they became witches; but many folk-legends made these witches still great riders, and the Devil was said to transform and ride them as dapplegrey mares. The chief charge against the witches, that of carnal commerce with devils, is also significant. Like Lilith, women became devils' brides whenever they were not content with sitting at home with the distaff and the child.

[46] Mr. W. B. Scott has painted a beautiful picture of Eve gazing up with longing at a sweet babe in the tree, whose serpent coils beneath she does not see.

[47] 'Records of the Past,' iii. p. 83. See also i. p. 135.

[48] 'Chaldean Genesis,' by George Smith, p. 70.

[49] Copied in 'Chald. Gen.,' p. 91. As to the connection of this design with the legend of Eden, see chap. vii. of this volume.

[50] 'Chaldean Genesis,' pp. 62, 63.

[51] Ib., 97.

[52] 'Records of the Past,' ix. 141.

[53] Anu was the ruler of the highest heaven. Meteors and lightnings are similarly considered in Hebrew poetry as the messengers of the Almighty. (Psalm civ. 4, 'Who maketh his ministers a flaming fire,' quoted in Heb. i. 7.)

[54] Im, the god of the sky, sometimes called Rimmon (the Thunderer). He answers to the Jupiter Tonans of the Latins.

[55] The abyss or ocean where the god Hea dwelt.

[56] The late Mr. G. Smith says that the Chaldean dragon was seven-headed. 'Chaldean Genesis,' p. 100.

[57] 'Records of the Past,' vii. 123.

[58] 'Records of the Past,' x. 127.

[59] See i. pp. 46 and 255. Concerning Ketef see Eisenmenger, ii. p. 435.

[60] Isaiah xiv. It may appear as if in this personification of a fallen star we have entered a different mythological region from that represented by the Assyrian tablets; but it is not so. The demoniac forms of Ishtar, Astarte, are fallen stars also. She appears in Greece as Artemis Astrateia, whose worship Pausanias mentions as coming from the East. Her development is through Asteria (Greek form of Ishtar), in whose myth is hidden much valuable Babylonian lore. Asteria was said to have thrown herself into the sea, and been changed into the island called Asteria, from its having fallen like a star from heaven. Her suicide was to escape from the embraces of Zeus, and her escape from him in form of a quail, as well as her fate, may be instructively compared with the story of Lilith, who flew out of Eden on wings to escape from Adam, and made an effort to drown herself in the Red Sea. The diabolisation of Asteria (the fallen star) was through her daughter Hecate. Hecate was the female Titan who was the most potent ally of the gods. Her rule was supreme under Zeus, and all the gifts valued by mortals were believed to proceed from her; but she was severely judicial, and rigidly withheld all blessings from such as did not deserve them. Thus she was, as the searching eye of Zeus, a star-spy upon earth. Such spies, as we have repeatedly had occasion to mention in this work, are normally developed into devils. From professional detectives they become accusers and instigators. Ishtar of the Babylonians, Asteria of the Greeks, and the Day-star of the Hebrews are male and female forms of the same personification: Hecate with her torch (hekatos, 'far-shooting') and Lucifer ('light-bringer' on the deeds of darkness) are the same in their degradation.

[61] 'Paradise Lost,' i. 40-50.