Chapter V: Symbolism of the Mother and of Rebirth (2)

It is well known that trees have played a large part in the cult myth from the remotest times. The typical myth tree is the tree of paradise or of life which we discover abundantly used in Babylonian and also in Jewish lore; and in prechristian times, the pine tree of Attis, the tree or trees of Mithra; in Germanic mythology, Ygdrasil and so on. The hanging of the Attis image on the pine tree; the hanging of Marsyas, which became a celebrated artistic motive; the hanging of Odin; the Germanic hanging sacrifices—indeed, the whole series of hanged gods—teaches us that the hanging of Christ on the cross is not a unique occurrence in religious mythology, but belongs to the same circle of ideas as others. In this world of imagery the cross of Christ is the tree of life, and equally the wood of death. This contrast is not astounding. Just as the origin of man from trees was a legendary idea, so there were also burial customs, in which people were buried in hollow trees. From that the German language retains even now the expression “Totenbaum” (tree of death) for a coffin. Keeping in mind the fact that the tree is predominantly a mother symbol, then the mystic significance of this manner of burial can be in no way incomprehensible to us. _The dead are delivered back to the mother for rebirth._ We encounter this symbol in the Osiris myth, handed down by Plutarch,[467] which is, in general, typical in various aspects. Rhea is pregnant with Osiris; at the same time also with Isis; Osiris and Isis mate even in the mother’s womb (motive of the night journey on the sea with incest). Their son is Arueris, later called Horus. It is said of Isis that she was born “in absolute humidity” (τετάρτῃ δὲ τῆν Ἴσιν ἐν πανύγροις γενέσθαι[468]). It is said of Osiris that a certain Pamyles in Thebes heard a voice from the temple of Zeus while drawing water, which commanded him to proclaim that Osiris was born μέγας βασιλεὺς εὐεργέτης Ὄσιρις.[469] In honor of this the Pamylion were celebrated. They were similar to the phallophorion. Pamyles is a phallic demon, similar to the original Dionysus. The myth reduced reads: Osiris and Isis were generated by phallus from the water (mother womb) in the ordinary manner. (Kronos had made Rhea pregnant, the relation was secret, and Rhea was his sister. Helios, however, observed it and cursed the relation.) Osiris was killed in a crafty manner by the god of the underworld, Typhon, who locked him in a chest. He was thrown into the Nile, and so carried out to sea. Osiris, however, mated in the underworld with his second sister, Nephthys (motive of the night journey to the sea with incest). One sees here how the symbolism is developed. In the mother womb, before the outward existence, Osiris commits incest; in death, the second intrauterine existence, Osiris again commits incest. Both times with a sister who is simply substituted for the mother as a legal, uncensured symbol, since the marriage with a sister in early antiquity was not merely tolerated, but was really commended. Zarathustra also recommended the marriage of kindred. This form of myth would be impossible to-day, because cohabitation with the sister, being incestuous, would be repressed. The wicked Typhon entices Osiris craftily into a box or chest; this distortion of the true state of affairs is transparent. The “original sin” caused men to wish to go back into the mother again, that is, the incestuous desire for the mother, condemned by law, is the ruse supposedly invented by Typhon. The fact is, the ruse is very significant. Man tries to sneak into rebirth through subterfuge in order to become a child again. An early Egyptian hymn[470] even raises an accusation against the mother Isis because she destroys the sun-god Rê by treachery. It was interpreted as the ill-will of the mother towards her son that she banished and betrayed him. The hymn describes how Isis fashioned a snake, put it in the path of Rê, and how the snake wounded the sun-god with a poisonous bite, from which wound he never recovered, so that finally he had to retire on the back of the heavenly cow. But this cow is the cow-headed goddess, just as Osiris is the bull Apis. The mother is accused as if she were the cause of man flying to the mother in order to be cured of the wound which she had herself inflicted. This wound is the prohibition of incest.[471] Man is thus cut off from the hopeful certainty of childhood and early youth, from all the unconscious, instinctive happenings which permit the child to live as an appendage of his parents, unconscious of himself. There must be contained in this many sensitive memories of the animal age, where there was not any “thou shalt” and “thou shalt not,” but all was just simple occurrence. Even yet a deep animosity seems to live in man because a brutal law has separated him from the instinctive yielding to his desires and from the great beauty of the harmony of the animal nature. This separation manifested itself, among other things, in the incest prohibition and its correlates (laws of marriage, etc.); therefore pain and anger relate to the mother, as if she were responsible for the domestication of the sons of men. In order not to become conscious of his incest wish (his backward harking to the animal nature), the son throws all the burden of the guilt on the mother, from which arises the idea of the “terrible mother.”[472] The mother becomes for him a spectre of anxiety, a nightmare.[473]

After the completed “night journey to the sea,” the chest of Osiris was cast ashore by Byblos, and lay in the branches of an Erica, which grew around the coffin and became a splendid tree. The king of the land had the tree placed as a column under his roof.[474] During this period of Osiris’s absence (the winter solstice) the lament customary during thousands of years for the dead god and his return occurs, and its εὕρεσις is a feast of joy. A passage from the mournful quest of Isis is especially noteworthy:

“She flutters like a swallow lamenting around the column, which
encloses the god sleeping in death.”

(This same motive returns in the Kyffhäuser saga.)

Later on Typhon dismembers the corpse and scatters the pieces. We come upon the _motive of dismemberment_ in countless sun myths,[475] namely, the inversion of the idea of the composition of the child in the mother’s womb.[476] In fact, the mother Isis collects the pieces of the body with the help of the jackal-headed Anubis. (She finds the corpse with the help of dogs.) Here the nocturnal devourers of bodies, the dogs and jackals, become the assistants of the composition, of the reproduction.[477] The Egyptian vulture owes its symbolic meaning as mother to this necrophagic habit. In Persian antiquity the corpses were thrown out for the dogs to devour, just as to-day in the Indian funeral pyres the removal of the carcasses is left to the vultures. Persia was familiar with the custom of leading a dog to the bed of one dying, whereupon the latter had to present the dog with a morsel.[478] The custom, on its surface, evidently signifies that the morsel is to belong to the dog, so that he will spare the body of the dead, precisely as Cerberus was soothed by the honey-cakes which Hercules gave to him in the journey to hell. But when we bear in mind the jackal-headed Anubis who rendered his good services in the gathering together of the dismembered Osiris, and the mother significance of the vulture, then the question arises whether something deeper was not meant by this ceremony. Creuzer has also concerned himself with this idea, and has come to the conclusion that the astral form of the dog ceremony, that is, the appearance of Sirius, the dog star, at the period of the sun’s highest position, is related to this in that the introduction of the dog has a compensatory significance, death being thereby made, reversedly, equal to the sun’s highest position. This is quite in conformity with psychologic thought, which results from the very general fact that death is interpreted as entrance into the mother’s womb (rebirth). This interpretation would seem to be supported by the otherwise enigmatic function of the dog in the Sacrificium Mithriacum. In the monuments a dog always leaps up upon the bull killed by Mithra. However, this sacrifice is probably to be interpreted through the Persian legend, as well as through the monument, as the moment of the _highest fecundity_. The most beautiful expression of this is seen upon the magnificent Mithra relief of Heddernheim. Upon one side of a large stone slab (formerly probably rotating) is seen the stereotyped overthrowing and sacrifice of the bull, but upon the other side stands Sol, with a bunch of grapes in his hand, Mithra with the cornucopia, the Dadophores with fruits, corresponding to the legend that all fecundity proceeds from the dead bull of the world, fruits from the horns, wine from its blood, grain from the tail, cattle from its sperma, leek from its nose, and so on. Silvanus stands above this scene with the animals of the forest arising from him. The significance suspected by Creuzer might very easily belong to the dog in this connection.[479] Let us now turn back to the myth of Osiris. In spite of the restoration of the corpse accomplished by Isis, the resuscitation succeeds only incompletely in so far as the phallus of Osiris cannot again be produced, because it was eaten by the fishes; the power of life was wanting.[480] Osiris as a phantom once more impregnated Isis, but the fruit is Harpocrates, who was feeble in τοῖς κάτωθεν γυίοις (in the lower limbs), that is, corresponding to the significance of γυῖον (at the feet). (Here, as is plainly evident, foot is used in the phallic meaning.) This incurability of the setting sun corresponds to the incurability of Rê in the above-mentioned older Egyptian sun hymn. Osiris, although only a phantom, now prepares the young sun, his son Horus, for a battle with Typhon, the evil spirit of darkness. Osiris and Horus correspond to the father-son symbolism mentioned in the beginning, which symbolic figure, corresponding again to the above formulation,[481] is flanked by the well-formed and ugly figures of Horus and Harpocrates, the latter appearing mostly as a cripple, often represented distorted to a mere caricature.[482]

He is confused in the tradition very much with Horus, with whom he also has the name in common. Hor-pi-chrud, as his real name[483] reads, is composed from _chrud_, “child,” and _Hor_, from the adjective _hri_ = up, on top, and signifies the up-coming child, as the rising sun, and opposed to Osiris, who personifies the setting sun—the sun of the west. Thus Osiris and Horpichrud or Horus are one being, both husband and son of the same mother, Hathor-Isis. The Chnum-Ra, the sun god of lower Egypt, represented as a ram, has at his side, as the female divinity of the land, Hatmehit, who wears the fish on her head. She is the mother and wife of Bi-neb-did (Ram, local name of Chnum-Ra). In the hymn of Hibis,[484] Amon-ra was invoked:

“Thy (Chum-Ram) dwells in Mendes, united as the quadruple god Thmuis.
He is the phallus, the lord of the gods. The bull of his mother
rejoices in the cow (ahet, the mother) and man fructifies through his
semen.”

In further inscriptions Hatmehit was directly referred to as the “mother of Mendes.” (Mendes is the Greek form of Bi-neb-did: ram.) She is also invoked as the “Good,” with the additional significance of _ta-nofert_, or “young woman.” The cow as symbol of the mother is found in all possible forms and variations of Hathor-Isis, and also in the female Nun (parallel to this is the primitive goddess Nit or Neith), the protoplasm which, related to the Hindoo Atman,[485] is equally of masculine and feminine nature. Nun is, therefore, invoked as Amon,[486] the original water,[487] which is in the beginning. He is also designated as the father of fathers, the mother of mothers. To this corresponds the invocation to the female side of Nun-Amon, of Nit or Neith.

“Nit, the ancient, the mother of god, the mistress of Esne, the father
of fathers, the mother of mothers, who is the beetle and the vulture,
the being in its beginning.

“Nit, the ancient, the mother who bore the light god, Râ, who bore
first of all, when there was nothing which brought forth.

“The cow, the ancient, which bore the sun, and then laid the germ of
gods and men.”

The word “nun” has the significance of young, fresh, new, also the on-coming waters of the Nile flood. In a transferred sense “nun” was also used for the chaotic primitive waters; in general for the primitive generating matter[488] which was personified by the goddess Nunet. From her Nut sprang, the goddess of heaven, who was represented with a starry body, and also as the heavenly cow with a starry body.

When the sun-god, little by little, retires on the back of the heavenly cow, just as poor Lazarus returns into Abraham’s bosom, each has the same significance; they return into the mother, in order to rise as Horus. Thus it can be said that in the morning the goddess is the mother, at noon the sister-wife and in the evening again the mother, who receives the dying in her lap, reminding us of the Pietà of Michelangelo. As shown by the illustration (from Dideron’s “Iconographie Chrétienne”), this thought has been transferred as a whole into Christianity.

Thus the fate of Osiris is explained: he passes into the mother’s womb, the chest, the sea, the tree, the column of Astartes; he is dismembered, re-formed, and reappears again in his son, Hor-pi-chrud.

Before entering upon the further mysteries which the beautiful myth reveals to us, there is still much to be said about the symbol of the tree. Osiris lies in the branches of the tree, surrounded by them, as in the mother’s womb. The motive of _embracing and entwining_ is often found in the sun myths, meaning that it is the _myth of rebirth_. A good example is the Sleeping Beauty, also the legend of the girl who is enclosed between the bark and the trunk, but who is freed by a youth with his horn.[489] The horn is of gold and silver, which hints at the sunbeam in the phallic meaning. (Compare the previous legend of the horn.) An exotic legend tells of the sun-hero, how he must be freed from the plant entwining around him.[490] A girl dreams of her lover who has fallen into the water; she tries to save him, but first has to pull seaweed and sea-grass from the water; then she catches him. In an African myth the hero, after his act, must first be disentangled from the seaweed. In a Polynesian myth the hero’s ship was encoiled by the tentacles of a gigantic polyp. Rê’s ship is encoiled by a night serpent on its night journey on the sea. In the poetic rendering of the history of Buddha’s birth by Sir Edwin Arnold (“The Light of Asia,” p. 5) the motive of an embrace is also found:

“Queen Maya stood at noon, her days fulfilled,
Under a Palso in the palace grounds,
A stately trunk, straight as a temple shaft,
With crown of glossy leaves and fragrant blooms;
And knowing the time come—for all things knew—
The conscious tree bent down its boughs to make
A bower about Queen Maya’s majesty:
And earth put forth a thousand sudden flowers
To spread a couch: while ready for the bath
The rock hard by gave out a limpid stream
Of crystal flow. So brought she forth the child.”[491]

We come across a very similar motive in the cult legend of the Samian Hera. Yearly it was claimed that the image disappeared from the temple, was fastened somewhere on the seashore on a trunk of a Lygos tree and wound about with its branches. There it was “found,” and was treated with wedding-cake. This feast is undoubtedly a ἱερὸς γάμος (ritual marriage), because in Samos there was a legend that Zeus had first had a long-continued secret love relation with Hera. In Plataea and Argos, the marriage procession was represented with bridesmaids, marriage feast, and so on. The festival took place in the wedding month “Γαμηλιών” (beginning of February). But in Plataea the image was previously carried into a lonely place in the wood; approximately corresponding to the legend of Plutarch that Zeus had kidnapped Hera and then had hidden her in a cave of Cithaeron. According to our deductions, previously made, we must conclude from this that there is still another train of thought, namely, the magic charm of a rejuvenation, which is condensed in the Hierosgamos. The disappearance and hiding in the wood, in the cave, on the seashore, entwined in a willow tree, points to the death of the sun and rebirth. The early springtime Γαμηλιών (the time of Marriage) in February fits in with that very well. In fact, Pausanias informs us that the Argivian Hera _became a maiden again by a yearly bath in the spring of Canathos_. The significance of the bath is emphasized by the information that in the Plataeian cult of Hera Teleia, Tritonian nymphs appeared as water-carriers. In a tale from the Iliad, where the conjugal couch of Zeus upon Mount Ida is described, it is said:[492]

“The son of Saturn spake, and took his wife
Into his arms, while underneath the pair,
The sacred Earth threw up her freshest herbs:
The dewy lotos, and the crocus-flower,
And thick and soft the hyacinth. All these
Upbore them from the ground. Upon this couch
They lay, while o’er them a bright golden cloud
Gathered and shed its drops of glistening dew.
So slumbered on the heights of Gargarus
The All-Father overcome by sleep and love,
And held his consort in his arms.”
—Trans. by W. C. Bryant.

Drexler recognizes in this description an unmistakable allusion to the garden of the gods on the extreme western shore of the ocean, an idea which might have been taken from a Prehomeric Hierosgamos hymn. This western land is the land of the setting sun, whither Hercules, Gilgamesh, etc., hasten with the sun, in order to find there immortality, where the sun and the maternal sea unite in an eternally rejuvenating intercourse. Our supposition of a condensation of the Hierosgamos with the myth of rebirth is probably confirmed by this. Pausanias mentions a related myth fragment where the statue of Artemis Orthia is also called Lygodesma (chained with willows), because it was found in a willow tree; this tale seems to be related to the general Greek celebration of Hierosgamos with the above-mentioned customs.[493]

The motive of the “devouring” which Frobenius has shown to be a regular constituent of the sun myths is closely related to this (also metaphorically). The “whale dragon” (mother’s womb) always “devours” the hero. The devouring may also be partial instead of complete.

A six-year-old girl, who goes to school unwillingly, dreams that her leg is encircled by a large red worm. She had a tender interest for this creature, contrary to what might be expected. An adult patient, who cannot separate from an older friend on account of an extraordinarily strong mother transference, dreams that “she had to get across some deep water (typical idea!) with this friend; her friend fell in (mother transference); she tries to drag her out, and almost succeeds, but a large crab seizes on the dreamer by the foot and tries to pull her in.”

Etymology also confirms this conception: There is an Indo-Germanic root _vélu-_, _vel-_, with the meaning of “encircling, surrounding, turning.” From this is derived Sanskrit _val_, _valati_ = to cover, to surround, to encircle, to encoil (symbol of the snake); _vallî_ = creeping plant; _ulûta_ = boa-constrictor = Latin _volûtus_, Lithuanian _velù_, _velti_ = _wickeln_ (to roll up); Church Slavonian _vlina_ = Old High German, _wella_ = _Welle_ (wave or billow). To the root _vélu_ also belongs the root _vlvo_, with the meaning “cover, corium, womb.” (The serpent on account of its casting its skin is an excellent symbol of rebirth.) Sanskrit _ulva_, _ulba_ has the same meaning; Latin _volva_, _volvula_, _vulva_. To _vélu_ also belongs the root _ulvorâ_, with the meaning of “fruitful field, covering or husk of plants, sheath.” Sanskrit _urvárâ_ = sown field. Zend _urvara_ = plant. (See the personification of the ploughed furrow.) The same root _vel_ has also the meaning of “wallen” (to undulate). Sanskrit _ulmuka_ = conflagration. Ϝαλέα, Ϝέλα, Gothic _vulan_ = _wallen_ (to undulate). Old High German and Middle High German _walm_ = heat, glow.[494] It is typical that in the state of “involution” the hair of the sun-hero always falls out from the heat. Further the root _vel_ is found with the meaning “to sound,[495] and to will, to wish” (libido!).

The motive of encoiling is mother symbolism.[496] This is verified by the fact that the trees, for example, bring forth again (like the whale in the legend of Jonah). They do that very generally, thus in the Greek legend the Μελίαι νύμφαι[497] of the ash trees are the mothers of the race of men of the Iron Age. In northern mythology, Askr, the ash tree, is the primitive father. His wife, Embla, is the “Emsige,” the active one, and not, as was earlier believed, the aspen. _Askr_ probably means, in the first place, the phallic spear of the ash tree. (Compare the Sabine custom of parting the bride’s hair with the lance.) The Bundehesh symbolizes the first people, Meschia and Meschiane, as the tree Reivas, one part of which places a branch in a hole of the other part. The material which, according to the northern myth, was animated by the god when he created men[498] is designated as _trê_ = wood, tree.[499] I recall also ὕλη = wood, which in Latin is called _materia_. In the wood of the “world-ash,” Ygdrasil, a human pair hid themselves at the end of the world, from whom sprang the race of the renewed world.[500] The Noah motive is easily recognized in this conception (the night journey on the sea); at the same time, in the symbol of Ygdrasil, a mother idea is again apparent. At the moment of the destruction of the world the “world-ash” becomes the guardian mother, the tree of death and life, one “ἐγκόλπιον.”[501][502] This function of rebirth of the “world-ash” also helps to elucidate the representation met with in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, which is called “the gate of knowledge of the soul of the East”:

“I am the pilot in the holy keel, I am the steersman who allows no
rest in the ship of Râ.[503] I know that tree of emerald green from
whose midst Râ rises to the height of the clouds.”[504]

Ship and tree of the dead (death ship and death tree) are here closely connected. The conception is that Râ, born from the tree, ascends (Osiris in the Erika). The representation of the sun-god Mithra is probably explained in the same way. He is represented upon the Heddernheim relief, with half his body arising from the top of a tree. (In the same way numerous other monuments show Mithra half embodied in the rock, and illustrate a rock birth, similar to Men.) Frequently there is a stream near the birthplace of Mithra. This conglomeration of symbols is also found in the birth of Aschanes, the first Saxon king, who grew from the Harz rocks, which are in the midst of the wood[505] near a fountain.[506] Here we find all the mother symbols united—earth, wood, water, three forms of tangible matter. We can wonder no longer that in the Middle Ages the tree was poetically addressed with the title of honor, “mistress.” Likewise it is not astonishing that the Christian legend transformed the tree of death, the cross, into the tree of life, so that Christ was often represented on a living and fruit-bearing tree. This reversion of the cross symbol to the tree of life, which even in Babylon was an important and authentic religious symbol, is also considered entirely probable by Zöckler,[507] an authority on the history of the cross. The pre-Christian meaning of the symbol does not contradict this interpretation; on the contrary, its meaning is life. The appearance of the cross in the sun worship (here the cross with equal arms, and the swastika cross, as representative of the sun’s rays), as well as in the cult of the goddess of love (Isis with the crux ansata, the rope, the speculum veneris ♀, etc.), in no way contradicts the previous historical meaning. The Christian legend has made abundant use of this symbolism.

The student of mediæval history is familiar with the representation of the cross growing above the grave of Adam. The legend was that Adam was buried on Golgotha. Seth had planted on his grave a branch of the “paradise tree,” which became the cross and tree of death of Christ.[508] We all know that through Adam’s guilt sin and death came into the world, and Christ through his death has redeemed us from the guilt. To the question in what had Adam’s guilt consisted it is said that the unpardonable sin to be expiated by death was that he dared to pick a fruit from the paradise tree.[509] The results of this are described in an Oriental legend. One to whom it was permitted to cast one look into Paradise after the fall saw the tree there and the four streams. But the tree was withered, and in its branches lay an infant. (The mother had become pregnant.[510])

This remarkable legend corresponds to the Talmudic tradition that Adam, before Eve, already possessed a demon wife, by name Lilith, with whom he _quarrelled for mastership_. But Lilith raised herself into the air through the magic of the name of God and hid herself in the sea. Adam forced her back with the help of three angels.[511] Lilith became a nightmare, a Lamia, who threatened those with child and who kidnapped the new-born child. The parallel myth is that of the Lamias, the spectres of the night, who terrified the children. The original legend is that Lamia enticed Zeus, but the jealous Hera, however, caused Lamia to bring only dead children into the world. Since that time the raging Lamia is the persecutor of children, whom she destroys wherever she can. This motive frequently recurs in fairy tales, where the mother often appears directly as a murderess or as a _devourer of men_;[512] a German paradigm is the well-known tale of Hansel and Gretel. Lamia is actually a large, voracious fish, which establishes the connection with the whale-dragon myth so beautifully worked out by Frobenius, in which the sea monster devours the sun-hero for rebirth and where the hero must employ every stratagem to conquer the monster. Here again we meet with the idea of the “terrible mother” in the form of the voracious fish, the mouth of death.[513] In Frobenius there are numerous examples where the monster has devoured not only men but also animals, plants, an entire country, all of which are redeemed by the hero to a glorious rebirth.

The Lamias are typical nightmares, the feminine nature of which is abundantly proven.[514] Their universal peculiarity is that they ride upon their victims. Their counterparts are the spectral horses which bear their riders along in a mad gallop. One recognizes very easily in these symbolic forms the type of anxious dream which, as Riklin shows,[515] has already become important for the interpretation of fairy tales through the investigation of Laistner.[516] The typical riding takes on a special aspect through the results of the analytic investigation of infantile psychology; the two contributions of Freud and myself[517] have emphasized, on one side, the anxiety significance of the horse, on the other side the sexual meaning of the phantasy of riding. When we take these experiences into consideration, we need no longer be surprised that the maternal “world-ash” Ygdrasil is called in German “the frightful horse.” Cannegieter[518] says of nightmares:

“Abigunt eas nymphas (matres deas, mairas) hodie rustici osse capitis
equini tectis injecto, cujusmodi ossa per has terras in rusticorum
villis crebra est animadvertere. Nocte autem ad concubia equitare
creduntur et equos fatigare ad longinqua itinera.”[519]

The connection of nightmare and horse seems, at first glance, to be present also etymologically—nightmare and mare. The Indo-Germanic root for märe is _mark_. Märe is the horse, English mare; Old High German _marah_ (male horse) and _meriha_ (female horse); Old Norse _merr_ (_mara_ = nightmare); Anglo-Saxon _myre_ (_maira_). The French “cauchmar” comes from _calcare_ = to tread, to step (of iterative meaning, therefore, “to tread” or press down). It was also said of the cock who stepped upon the hen. This movement is also typical for the nightmare; therefore, it is said of King Vanlandi, “Mara trad han,” the Mara trod on him in sleep even to death.[520] A synonym for nightmare is the “troll” or “treter”[521] (treader). This movement (_calcare_) is proven again by the experience of Freud and myself with children, where a special infantile sexual significance is attached to stepping or kicking.

The common Aryan root _mar_ means “to die”; therefore, _mara_ the “dead” or “death.” From this results _mors_, μόρος = fate (also μοῖρα[522]). As is well known, the Nornes sitting under the “world-ash” personify fate like Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos. With the Celts the conception of the Fates probably passes into that of _matres_ and _matronæ_, which had a divine significance among the Germans. A well-known passage in Julius Cæsar (“De Bello Gallico,” i: 50) informs us of this meaning of the mother:

“Ut matres familias eorum sortibus et vaticinationibus[523]
declararent, utrum prœlium committi ex usu esset, nec ne.”[524]

In Slav _mara_ means “witch”; poln. _mora_ = demon, nightmare; _mōr_ or _mōre_ (Swiss-German) means “sow,” also as an insult. The Bohemian _mura_ means “nightmare” and “evening moth, Sphinx.” This strange connection is explained through analysis where it often occurs that animals with movable shells (Venus shell) or wings are utilized for very transparent reasons as symbols of the female genitals.[525] The Sphingina are the twilight moths; they, like the nightmare, come in the darkness. Finally, it is to be observed that the sacred olive tree of Athens is called “μορία” (that was derived from μόρος). Halirrhotios wished to cut down the tree, but killed himself with the axe in the attempt.

The sound resemblance of _mar_, _mère_ with _meer_ = sea and Latin _mare_ = sea is remarkable, although etymologically accidental. Might it refer back to “the great primitive idea of the mother” who, in the first place, meant to us our individual world and afterwards became the symbol of all worlds? Goethe said of the mothers: “They are encircled by images of all creatures.” The Christians, too, could not refrain from reuniting their mother of God with water. “Ave Maris stella” is the beginning of a hymn to Mary. Then again it is the horses of Neptune which symbolize the waves of the sea. It is probably of importance that the infantile word ma-ma (mother’s breast) is repeated in its initial sound in all possible languages, and that the mothers of two religious heroes are called Mary and Maya. That the mother is the horse of the child is to be seen most plainly in the primitive custom of carrying the child on the back or letting it ride on the hip. Odin hung on the “world-ash,” the mother, his “horse of terror.” The Egyptian sun-god sits on the back of his mother, the heavenly cow.

We have already seen that, according to Egyptian conceptions, Isis, the mother of god, played an evil trick on the sun-god with the poisonous snake; also Isis behaved treacherously toward her son Horus in Plutarch’s tradition. That is, Horus vanquished the evil Typhon, who murdered Osiris treacherously (terrible mother = Typhon). Isis, _however, set him free again_. Horus thereupon rebelled, _laid hands on his mother and tore the regal ornaments from her head_, whereupon Hermes gave her a cow’s head. Then Horus conquered Typhon a second time. Typhon, in the Greek legend, is a monstrous dragon. Even without this confirmation it is evident that the battle of Horus is the typical battle of the sun-hero with the whale-dragon. Of the latter we know that it is a symbol of the “dreadful mother,” of the voracious jaws of death, where men are dismembered and ground up.[526] Whoever vanquishes this monster has gained a new or eternal youth. For this purpose one must, in spite of all dangers, descend into the belly of the monster[527] (journey to hell) and spend some time there. (Imprisonment by night in the sea.)

The battle with the night serpent signifies, therefore, the conquering of the mother, who is suspected of an infamous crime, that is, the betrayal of the son. A full confirmation of the connection comes to us through the fragment of the Babylonian epic of the creation, discovered by George Smith, mostly from the library of Asurbanipal. The period of the origin of the text was probably in the time of Hammurabi (2,000 B.C.). We learn from this account of creation[528] that the sun-god Ea, the son of the depths of the waters and the god of wisdom,[529] had conquered Apsû. Apsû is the creator of the great gods (he existed in the beginning in a sort of trinity with Tiâmat—the mother of gods and Mumu, his vizier). Ea conquered the father, but Tiâmat plotted revenge. She prepared herself for battle against the gods.

“Mother Hubur, who created everything,
Procured invincible weapons, gave birth to giant snakes
With pointed teeth, relentless in every way;
Filled their bellies with poison instead of blood,
Furious gigantic lizards, clothed them with horrors,
Let them swell with the splendor of horror, formed them rearing,
Whoever sees them shall die of terror.
Their bodies shall rear without turning to escape.
She arrayed the lizards, dragons and Laḫamen,
Hurricanes, mad dogs, scorpion men,
Mighty storms, fishmen and rams.
With relentless weapons, without fear of conflict,
Powerful are Tiâmat’s commands, irresistible are they.

“After Tiâmat had powerfully done her work
She conceived evil against the gods, her descendants;
In order to revenge Apsu, Tiâmat did evil.
When Ea now heard this thing
He became painfully anxious, sorrowfully he sat himself.
He went to the father, his creator, Ans̆ar,
To relate to him all that Tiâmat plotted.
Tiâmat, our mother, has taken an aversion to us,
Has prepared a riotous mob, furiously raging.”

The gods finally opposed Marduk, the god of spring, the victorious sun, against the fearful host of Tiâmat. Marduk prepared for battle. Of his chief weapon, which he created, it is said:

“He created the evil wind, Imḫullu, the south storm and the hurricane, The fourth wind, the seventh wind, the whirlwind and the harmful wind, Then let he loose the winds, which he had created, the seven: To cause confusion within Tiâmat, they followed behind him, Then the lord took up the cyclone, his great weapon; For his chariot he mounted the stormwind, the incomparable, the terrible one.”

His chief weapon is the wind and a net, with which he will entangle Tiâmat. He approaches Tiâmat and challenges her to a combat.

“Then Tiâmat and Marduk, the wise one of the gods, came together,
Rising for the fight, approaching to the battle:
Then the lord spread out his net and caught her.
He let loose the Imḫullu in his train at her face,
Then Tiâmat now opened her mouth as wide as she could.
He let the Imḫullu rush in so that her lips could not close;
With the raging winds he filled her womb.
Her inward parts were seized and she opened wide her mouth.
He touched her with the spear, dismembered her body,
He slashed her inward parts, and cut out her heart,
Subdued her and put an end to her life.
He threw down her body and stepped upon it.”

After Marduk slew the mother, he devised the creation of the world.

“There the lord rested contemplating her body,
Then divided he the Colossus, planning wisely.
He cut it apart like a flat fish, into two parts,[530]
One half he took and with it he covered the Heavens.”

In this manner Marduk created the universe from the mother. It is clearly evident that the killing of the mother-dragon here takes place under the idea of a wind fecundation with negative accompaniments.

The world is created from the mother, that is to say, from the libido taken away from the mother through sacrifice. We shall have to consider this significant formula more closely in the last chapter. The most interesting parallels to this primitive myth are to be found in the literature of the Old Testament, as Gunkel[531] has brilliantly pointed out. It is worth while to trace the psychology of these parallels.

_Isaiah_ li:9:

(9) “Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord; awake as in the
ancient days, in the generation of old. Art thou not it that hath cut
Rahab, and wounded the dragon?

(10) “Art thou not it which hath dried the sea, the waters of the
great deep, that hath made the depths of the sea a way for the
ransomed to pass over?”

The name of Rahab is frequently used for Egypt in the Old Testament, also dragon. _Isaiah_, chapter xxx, verse 7, calls Egypt “the silent Rahab,” and means, therefore, something evil and hostile. Rahab is the well-known whore of Jericho, who later, as the wife of Prince Salma, became the ancestress of Christ. Here Rahab appeared as the old dragon, as Tiâmat, against whose evil power Marduk, or Jehovah, marched forth. The expression “the ransomed” refers to the Jews freed from bondage, but it is also mythological, for the hero again frees those previously devoured by the whale. (Frobenius.)

_Psalm_, lxxxix:10:

“Thou hast broken Rahab in pieces, as one that is slain.”

_Job_ xxvi:12–13:

“He divideth the sea with his power, and by his understanding he
smiteth through the proud.

“By his spirit he hath garnished the heavens, his hand hath formed the
crooked serpent.”

Gunkel places Rahab as identical with Chaos, that is, the same as Tiâmat. Gunkel translates “the breaking to pieces” as “violation.” Tiâmat or Rahab as the mother is also the whore. Gilgamesh treats Ishtar in this way when he accuses her of whoredom. This insult towards the mother is very familiar to us from dream analysis. The dragon Rahab appears also as Leviathan, the water monster (maternal sea).

_Psalm_ lxxiv:

(13) “Thou didst divide the sea by thy strength: thou brakest the
heads of the dragons in the waters.

(14) “Thou brakest the heads of Leviathan in pieces and gavest him to
be meat to the people inhabiting the wilderness.

(15) “Thou didst cleave the fountain and the flood: thou didst dry up
mighty rivers.”

While only the phallic meaning of the Leviathan was emphasized in the first part of this work, we now discover also the maternal meaning. A further parallel is:

_Isaiah_ xxvii:1:

“In that day, the Lord with his cruel and great and strong sword shall
punish Leviathan, the piercing serpent, even Leviathan that crooked
serpent, and he shall slay the dragon that is in the sea.”

We come upon a special motive in Job, chap. xli, v. 1:

“Canst thou draw out Leviathan with an hook? or his tongue with a cord
which thou lettest down? Canst thou put an hook in his nose? or bore
his jaw through with a thorn?”

Numerous parallels to this motive are to be found among exotic myths in Frobenius, where the maternal sea monster was also fished for. The comparison of the mother libido with the elementary powers of the sea and the powerful monsters borne by the earth show how invincibly great is the power of that libido which we designate as maternal.

We have already seen that the incest prohibition prevents the son from reproducing himself through the mother. But this must be done by the god, as is shown with remarkable clearness and candor in the pious Egyptian mythology, which has preserved the most ancient and simple concepts. Thus Chnum, the “moulder,” the “potter,” the “architect,” moulds his egg upon the potter’s wheel, for he is “the immortal growth,” “the reproduction of himself and his own rebirth, the creator of the egg, which emerged from the primitive waters.” In the Book of the Dead it says:

“I am the sublime falcon (the Sun-god), which has come forth from his
egg.”

Another passage in the Book of the Dead reads:

“I am the creator of Nun, who has taken his place in the underworld.
My nest is not seen and my egg is not broken.”

A further passage reads:

“that great and noble god in his egg: who is his own originator of
that which has arisen from him.”[532]

Therefore, the god Nagaga-uer is also called the “great cackler.” (Book of the Dead.) “I cackle like a goose and I whistle like a falcon.” The mother is reproached with the incest prohibition as an act of wilful maliciousness by which she excludes the son from immortality. Therefore, a god must at least rebel, overpower and chastise the mother. (Compare Adam and Lilith, above.) The “overpowering” signifies incestuous rape.[533] Herodotus[534] has preserved for us a valuable fragment of this religious phantasy.

“And how they celebrate their feast to Isis in the city of Busiris, I
have already previously remarked. After the sacrifice, all of them,
men and women, full ten thousand people, begin to beat each other. But
it would be sin for me to mention for whom they do beat each other.

“But in Papremis they celebrated the sacrifice with holy actions, as
in the other places. About the time when the sun sets, some few
priests are busy around the image; most of them stand at the entrance
with wooden clubs, and others who would fulfil a vow, more than a
thousand men, also stand in a group with wooden cudgels opposite them.

“Now on the eve of the festival, they take the image out in a small
and gilded temple into another sacred edifice. Then the few who remain
with the image draw a four-wheeled chariot upon which the temple
stands with the image which it encloses. But the others who stand in
the anterooms are not allowed to enter. Those under a vow, who stand
by the god, beat them off. Now occurs a furious battle with clubs, in
which they bruise each other’s bodies and as I believe, many even die
from their wounds: notwithstanding this, the Egyptians consider that
none die.

“The natives claim that this festival gathering was introduced for the
following reason: in this sanctuary lived the mother of Ares.[535] Now
Ares was brought up abroad and when he became a man he came to have
_intercourse with his mother_. The servants of his mother who had seen
him did not allow him to enter peacefully, but prevented him; at which
he fetched people from another city, who mistreated the servants and
had entrance to his mother. Therefore, they asserted that this
slaughter was introduced at the feast for Ares.”

It is evident that the pious here fight their way to a share in the mystery of the raping of the mother.[536] This is the part which belongs to them,[537] while the heroic deed belongs to the god.[538] By Ares is meant the Egyptian Typhon, as we have good reasons to suppose. _Thus Typhon represents the evil longing for the mother_ with which other myth forms reproach the mother, according to the well-known example. The death of Balder, quite analogous to the death of Osiris (attack of sickness of Rê), because of the wounding by the branch of the mistletoe, seems to need a similar explanation. It is recounted in the myth how all creatures were pledged not to hurt Balder, save only the mistletoe, which was forgotten, presumably because it was too young. This killed Balder. Mistletoe is a parasite. The female piece of wood in the fire-boring ritual was obtained[539] from the wood of a parasitical or creeping plant, the fire mother. The “mare” rests upon “Marentak,” in which Grimm suspects the mistletoe. The mistletoe was a remedy against barrenness. In Gaul the Druid alone was allowed to climb the holy oak amid solemn ceremonies after the completed sacrifice, in order to cut off the ritual mistletoe.[540] This act is a religiously limited and organized incest. That which grows on the tree is the child,[541] which man might have by the mother; then man himself would be in a renewed and rejuvenated form; and precisely this is what man cannot have, because the incest prohibition forbids it. As the Celtic custom shows, the act is performed by the priest only, with the observation of certain ceremonies; the hero god and the redeemer of the world, however, do the unpermitted, the superhuman thing, and through it purchase immortality. The dragon, who must be overcome for this purpose, means, as must have been for some time clearly seen, the resistance against the incest. Dragon and serpent, especially with the characteristic accumulation of anxiety attributes, are the symbolic representations of anxiety which correspond to the repressed incest wish. It is, therefore, intelligible, when we come across the tree with the snake again and again (in Paradise the snake even tempts to sin). The snake or dragon possesses in particular the meaning of treasure guardian and defender. The phallic, as well as the feminine, meaning of the dragon[542] indicates that it is again a symbol of the sexual neutral (or bisexual) libido, that is to say, a symbol of the _libido in opposition_. In this significance the black horse, Apaosha, the demon of opposition, appears in the old Persian song, Tishtriya, where it obstructs the sources of the rain lake. The white horse Tishtriya makes two futile attempts to vanquish Apaosha; at the third attempt, with the help of Ahuramazda, he is successful.[543] Whereupon the sluices of heaven open and a fruitful rain pours down upon the earth.[544] In this song one sees very beautifully in the choice of symbol how libido is opposed to libido, will against will, the discordance of primitive man with himself, which he recognizes again in all the adversity and contrasts of external nature.

The symbol of the tree encoiled by the serpent may also be translated as the mother defended from incest by resistance. This symbol is by no means rare upon Mithraic monuments. The rock encircled by a snake is to be comprehended similarly, because Mithra is one born from a rock. The menace of the new-born by the snake (Mithra, Hercules) is made clear through the legend of Lilith and Lamia. Python, the dragon of Leto, and Poine, who devastates the land of Crotopus, are sent by the father of the new-born. This idea indicates the localization, well known in psychoanalysis, of the incest anxiety in the father. The father represents the active repulse of the incest wish of the son. The crime, unconsciously wished for by the son, is imputed to the father under the guise of a pretended murderous purpose, this being the cause of the mortal fear of the son for the father, a frequent neurotic symptom. In conformity with this idea, the monster to be overcome by the young hero is frequently a giant, the guardian of the treasure or the woman. A striking example is the giant Chumbaba in the Gilgamesh epic, who protected the garden of Ishtar;[545] he is overcome by Gilgamesh, whereby Ishtar is won. Thereupon she makes erotic advances towards Gilgamesh.[546] This data should be sufficient to render intelligible the rôle of Horus in Plutarch, especially the violent usage of Isis. Through overpowering the mother the hero becomes equal to the sun; he reproduces himself. He wins the strength of the invincible sun, the power of eternal rejuvenation. We thus understand a series of representations from the Mithraic myth on the Heddernheim relief. There we see, first of all, the birth of Mithra from the top of the tree; the next representation shows him carrying the conquered bull (comparable to the monstrous bull overcome by Gilgamesh). This bull signifies the concentrated significance of the monster, the father, who as giant and dangerous animal embodies the incest prohibition, and agrees with the individual libido of the sun-hero, which he overcomes by self-sacrifice. The third picture represents Mithra, when he grasps the head ornament of the sun, the nimbus. This act recalls to us, first of all, the violence of Horus towards Isis; secondly, the Christian basic thought, _that those who have overcome attain the crown of eternal life_. On the fourth picture Sol kneels before Mithra. These last two representations show plainly that Mithra has taken to himself the strength of the sun, so that he becomes the lord of the sun as well. He has conquered “his animal nature,” the bull. The animal knows no incest prohibition; man is, therefore, man because he conquers the incest wish, that is, the animal nature. Thus Mithra has sacrificed his animal nature, the incest wish, and with that has overcome the mother, that is to say, “the terrible death-bringing mother.” A solution is already anticipated in the Gilgamesh epic through the formal renunciation of the horrible Ishtar by the hero. The overcoming of the mother in the Mithraic sacrifice, which had almost an ascetic character, took place no longer by the archaic overpowering, but through the renunciation, the sacrifice of the wish. The primitive thought of incestuous reproduction through entrance into the mother’s womb had already been displaced, because man was so far advanced in domestication that he believed that the eternal life of the sun is reached, not through the perpetration of incest, but through the sacrifice of the incest wish. This important change expressed in the Mithraic mystery finds its full expression for the first time in the symbol of the crucified God. A bleeding human sacrifice was hung on the tree of life for Adam’s sins.[547] The first-born sacrifices its life to the mother when he suffers, hanging on the branch, a disgraceful and painful death, a mode of death which belongs to the most ignominious forms of execution, which Roman antiquity had reserved for only the lowest criminal. Thus the hero dies, as if he had committed the most shameful crime; he does this by returning into the birth-giving branch of the tree of life, at the same time paying for his guilt with the pangs of death. The animal nature is repressed most powerfully in this deed of the highest courage and the greatest renunciation; therefore, a greater salvation is to be expected for humanity, because such a deed alone seems appropriate to expiate Adam’s guilt.

As has already been mentioned, the hanging of the sacrifice on the tree is a generally widespread ritual custom, Germanic examples being especially abundant. The ritual consists in the sacrifice being pierced by a spear.[548] Thus it is said of Odin (Edda, Havamal):

“I know that I hung on the windswept tree
Nine nights through,
Wounded by a spear, dedicated to Odin
I myself to myself.”

The hanging of the sacrifice to the cross also occurred in America prior to its discovery. Müller[549] mentions the Fejervaryian manuscript (a Mexican hieroglyphic kodex), at the conclusion of which there is a colossal cross, in the middle of which there hangs a bleeding divinity. Equally interesting is the cross of Palenque;[550] up above is a bird, on either side two human figures, who look at the cross and hold a child against it either for sacrifice or baptism. The old Mexicans are said to have invoked the favor of Centeotls, “the daughter of heaven and the goddess of wheat,” every spring by nailing upon the cross a youth or a maiden and by shooting the sacrifice with arrows.[551] The name of the Mexican cross signifies “tree of our life or flesh.”[552]

An effigy from the Island of Philae represents Osiris in the form of a crucified god, wept over by Isis and Nephthys, the sister consort.[553]

The meaning of the cross is certainly not limited to the tree of life, as has already been shown. Just as the tree of life has also a phallic sub-meaning (as libido symbol), so there is a further significance to the cross than life and immortality.[554] Müller uses it as a sign of rain and of fertility, because it appears among the Indians distinctly as a magic charm of fertility. It goes without saying, therefore, that it plays a rôle in the sun cult. It is also noteworthy that the sign of the cross is an important sign for the keeping away of all evil, like the ancient gesture of Manofica. The phallic amulets also serve the same purpose. Zöckler appears to have overlooked the fact that the phallic Crux Ansata is the same cross which has flourished in countless examples in the soil of antiquity. Copies of this Crux Ansata are found in many places, and almost every collection of antiquities possesses one or more specimens.[555]