Chapter II: Part 2

Dis is equivalent to Serapis the Bull, otherwise Ammon, AEsculapius, Nilus, etc., that is, the Sun. Why the little dog laughed to see such sport is not easy to explain. It may be an allusion to one of the heads of Hecate, that of a dog, to indicate the watchfulness of the moon. There is another Hecate (a bad, as the above-mentioned was considered a beneficient deity), but which was originally no doubt the same, whose attributes were two black dogs, _i.e._, the darkness preceding and following the moonlight in short lunar appearances. Or it may be an allusion to the fact that the dog was associated with Dis, being considered the impersonation of Sirius the Dog-star. In various representations of the rape of Prosperine, Dis is accompanied by a dog, _e.g._, the grinning hound in Titian's picture.

Prosperine's symbol of a crescent moon was adopted as one of those of the Virgin Mary, and Candlemas Day, 2nd February, takes the place of the Roman festival, the candles used to illustrate the text, "a light to lighten the Gentiles," being the representatives of the torches carried in the processions which affected to search for the lost Prosperine.

Hindoo mythology has also a three-fold Isis, or moon-goddess; namely, Bhu on earth, Swar in heaven, Patala, below the earth.

The moon-deity has not come down to us as in every case a female personation. This is, however, explained by an early fable [in the Puranas] of the Hindoos, in which it is narrated that Chandra, or Lunus, lost his sex in the forest of Gauri, and became Chandri, or Luna. The origin of this has yet to be discovered; it may be nothing more than the account of an etymological change, produced by a transcript of dialect.

Whether the Beverley artist knew that the cat was a moon-symbol may be doubted. The fiddle has four strings, as the sistrum had four bars. As well as the elements and the four seasons of the year, the four may mean the four weeks. It will be observed that as the Hours are said to dance by the side of the chariot of the sun, so here four weeks dance to the music of the moon-sphere; the word moon means the measurer, and the cat is playing a dance measure!

The cat is not a very frequent subject. At Sherborne she is shewn hanged by mice, one of the retributive pieces which point to a confidence in the existence of something called justice, not always self-evident in the olden-time. Rats and mice are the emblem of St. Gertrude. The dog had a higher place in ancient estimation than his mention in literature would warrant; the fact that among the Romans he was the emblem of the Lares, the household gods, is a weighty testimonial to that effect, while the Egyptians had a city named after and devoted to the dog.

Among the pre-existing symbols seized by the Christians, the Egyptian Cross and Druidical Tau must not be overlooked. It is found on the capitals of pillars at Canterbury and other places; the example given in the initial on page 34 is perhaps the latest example in English Gothic. Its admission as a grotesque is due to its, perhaps merely accidental, use as a mask as noted in the chapter on "Masks and Faces."

The sinuous course of the sun among the constellations is mentioned in literature as far back as Euripides as an explanation of the presence of the dragon in archaic systems of mythology. This may have been the origin of the figure. Yet in addition to that there always seems to have been the recognition of an evil principle, of which by a change of meaning, the dragonic or serpentine star-path of the sun was made the personification or symbol. According to Pausanius the "dragon" of the Greeks was only a large snake.

It might not be impossible to collect several hundreds of names by which the deistic character of the sun has been expressed by various peoples; and the same applies, though in a less degree, to the Darkness, Storm, Cold, and Wet, which are taken as his antithesis. One of the oldest of these Dragon-names is Typhon, which is met in Egyptian mythology. Typhon is said to be the Chinese _Tai-fun_, the hot wind, and, if this be so, doubtless the adverse principle was taken to be the spirit of the desert which ever seeks to embrace Egypt in its arid arms. The symbol of Typhon was the crocodile, and doubtless the dragon form thus largely rose. Rahu, an evil deity in Hindoo mythology, though generally called a dragon, is sometimes met represented as a crocodile, and his numerous progeny are styled crocodiles. The constellation called by the Japanese the crocodile is that known to us as the dragon. Can it be that in the universal dragon we have a chronicle of our race's dim recollection of some survival of the terrible Jurassic reptiles, and hence of their period?

But the myth has ever one ending; the power of the evil one is destroyed for a time by the coming of the sun-god, though eventually the evil triumphs, that is dearth recurs.

In the Scandinavian myth, Odin the son of Bur, broke for a season the strength of the great serpent Joermungard, who, however, eventually swallowed the hero. Thus was Odin the sun; and his companions, the other Asir, were more or less sun attributes. In the case of Egypt the god is Horus (the sun-light), the youthful son of Osiris and Isis, who drives back Typhon to the deserts; for that country the rising of the Nile is the happy crisis. Horus is sometimes called Nilus. Whether the above derivation of the word Typhon be correct or not, which may be doubtful,[3] that of Horus from the root _Hur_ light, connected with the Sanscrit _Ush_ to burn (whence also Aurora, etc.,) is certain. When the great myth became translated to different climates, the evil principle took on different forms of dread. Water, the rainy season in some countries, the darkness and cold of winter in others, were the Dragon which the Hero-god, the Sun, had to overcome--out of which conflict arose myths innumerable, yet one and the same in essence. Apollo slew the Python, the sunbeams drying up the waters being his arrows; Perseus slew the Dragon, by turning him to stone, which perhaps means that the spring sun dried up the mud of the particular locality where the fable rose. Later, Sigurd slew the Dragon Fafnir. When the Christians found themselves by expediency committed to adopt the form, and to a certain degree the spirit, of heathen beliefs, the Sun _versus_ Darkness, or the Spring _versus_ Winter myth was a difficulty in very many places. At first the idea was kept up of a material victory over the adverse forces of nature, and we find honourable mention of various bishops and saints, who--by means of which there is little detail, but which may be supposed to be that great monastic beneficence, intelligent drainage--conquered the dragons of flood and fen. It is somewhat odd that the Psalmist attributes to the Deity the victory of breaking the heads of the "dragons in the waters."

Thus St. Romain of Rouen slew there the Dragon Gargouille, which is but the name of a draining-gutter after all, and hence the grotesque waterspouts of our churches are mostly dragons.

St. Martha slew the Dragon Tarasque at Aix-la-chapelle, but that name is derived from _tarir_, to drain. St. Keyne slew the Cornish Dragon, and, to be brief, at least twelve other worthies slew dragons, and doubtless for their respective districts supplied the place of the older myth. Among these, St. George is noteworthy. He is said to have been born at Lydda, in Syria, where his legend awaited the Crusaders, who took him as their patron, bringing him to the west, as the last Christian adoption of a sun-myth idea, to become the patron saint of England. A figure of St. George was a private badge of English kings till the time of the Stuarts. On the old English angel the combat is between St. Michael and the Dragon, and though St. George is generally shewn mounted, as was also sometimes Horus, the Egyptian deity, he is sometimes represented on foot, like St. Michael. The Dragon is generally the same in the two cases, being the Wyvern or two-legged variety.

Another form of dragon is drake. Certain forms of cannon were called both dragons and drakes. Sometimes the dragon is found termed the Linden-worm, or Lind-drake, in places as widely sundered as Scotland and Germany. It is said this is on account of the dragon dwelling under the linden, a sacred tree, but this is probably only, as yet, half explained.

Perhaps through all time the sun-myth was accompanied by a constant feeling that good and evil were symbolised by the alternation of season. It is to be expected that the feeling would increase and solidify upon the advent of Christianity, for the periodic dragon of heathendom was become the permanent enemy of man, the Devil. The frequent combats between men (and other animals) and the dragons, met among church grotesques, though their models, far remote in antiquity, were representations of sun-myths, would be carved and read as the ever-continuing fight between good and evil. That, however, it is reasonable to see in these Dragon sculptures direct representatives of the ancient cult, we know from a fact of date. The festival of Horus, the Egyptian deity, was the 23rd of April. That is the date of St. George's Day.

Less than the foregoing would scarcely be sufficient to explain the frequency and significance of the Dragon forms which crowd our subject.

During the three Rogation days, which took the place of the Roman processional festivals of the Ambarvalia and Cerealia, the Dragon was carried as a symbol both in England and on the continent. When the Mystery pageantry of Norwich was swept away, an exception was made in favour of the Dragon, who, it was ordained, "should come forth and shew himself as of old."

The Rogation Dragon in France was borne, during the first two days of the three, before the cross, with a great tail stuffed with chaff, but on the third day it was carried behind the cross, with the tail emptied of its contents. This signified, it is said, the undisturbed dominion of Satan over the world during the two days that Christ was in Hell, and his complete humiliation on the third day.

In some countries the figure of the Dragon, or another of the Devil, after the procession, was placed on the altar, then drawn up to the roof, and being allowed to fall was broken into pieces.

Early Keltic and other pastoral staves end in two Dragons' heads, recalling the caduceus of Mercury and rod of Moses; the Dragon was a Keltic military or tribal ensign. Henry VII. assumed a red dragon as one of the supporters of the royal arms, on account of his Welsh descent; Edward IV. had as one of his numerous badges a black dragon. A dragon issuing from a chalice is the symbol of St. John the Evangelist, an allusion to the dragon of the Apocalypse.

The Dragon combat here presented is from the south doorway of Iffley Church, near Oxford. In this example of Norman sculpture, the humour intent is more marked than usual. The hero is seated astride the dragon's back, and, grasping its upper and lower jaws, is tearing them asunder. The dragon is rudely enough executed, but the man's face and extremities have good drawing. The cloak flying behind him shew that he has leaped into the quoin of vantage, and recalls the classic. The calm exultation with which the hero seizes his enemy is only equalled by the good-natured amusement which the creature evinces at its own undoing.

We now arrive at a form of the sun-myth which appears to have come down without much interference. The god Horus is alluded to as a child, and in a curious series of carvings the being attacked by a Dragon is a child. It is attempted, and with considerable success, to be represented as of great beauty. The point to explain is the position of the child, rising as it does from a shell. This leads us further into the various contingent mythologies dealing with the Typhon story. Horus (also called Averis, or Orus), was in Egyptian lore also styled Caimis, and is equivalent to Cama, the Cupid of the Hindoos. Typhon (also known as Smu, and as Sambar) is stated to have killed him, and left him in the waters, where Isis restored him to life. That is the account of Herodotus, but AElian says that Osiris threw Cupid into the ocean, and gave him a shell for his abode. After which he at length killed Typhon.

Hence the shell in the myth-carvings to be found to-day in mediaeval Christian churches.

The Greeks represented Cupid, and also Nerites, as living in shells, and, strangely enough, located them on the Red Sea coast, adjacent to the home of the Typhon myth. It is probable that the word _sancha_, a sea-shell, used in this connection, is from _suca_, a cave, a tent; and we may conjecture that there is an allusion to certain dwellers in tents, who, coming westward, worked, after a struggle, a political and dynastic revolution, carrying with it great changes in agriculture. This is a conjecture we may, however, readily withdraw in favour of another, that the shell itself is merely a symbol of the ocean, and that Cupid emerging is a figure of the sun rising from the sea at some particular zodiacal period.

Another story kindred to that of Typhon and Horus is that of Sani and Aurva, met in Hindoo literature. They were the sons of Surya, regent of the Sun (Vishnu); Sani was appointed ruler, but becoming a tyrant was deposed, and Aurva reigned in his place. This recalls that one of the names given to Typhon in India was Swarbhanu, "light of heaven," from which it is evident that he is Lucifer, the fallen angel; so that accepting the figurative meaning of all the narratives, we can see even a propriety in the Gothic transmission of these symbolic representations.

It may be added to this that the early conception of Cupid was as the god of Love in a far wider and higher sense than indicated in the later poetical and popular idea. He was not originally considered the son of Venus, whom he preceded in birth. It is scarcely too much to say that he personified the love of a Supreme Unknown for creation; and hence the assumption by Love of the character of a deliverer.

There are other shell deities in mythology. Venus had her shell, and her Northern co-type, Frigga, the wife of the Northern sun-god, Odin, rode in a shell chariot.

The earliest of our examples is the most serious and precise. The Dragon is a very bilious and repulsive reptile, while the child form, thrice repeated in the same carving, has grace and originality. This is from Lincoln Minster.

The next is also on a misericorde, and is in Manchester Cathedral. Here the shell is different in position, being upright. The Child in this has long hair.

The third example is from a misericorde at Beverley Minster, the series at which place shews strong evidence of having been executed from the same set of designs as those of Manchester Cathedral, and were carved some twelve years later. Many of the subjects are identically the same, but in this case it will be seen how a meaning may be lost by a carver's misapprehension. The shell would not be recognizable without comparison with the other instances, and the Dragon has become two. The head of the Child in this carving appears to be in a close hood, or Puritan infantile cap, which, as the "foundling cap," survived into this century. In all the three carvings, the Dragons are of the two-legged kind, which St. George is usually shewn slaying. It is a little remarkable that the Child's weapon in all three cases is broken away. The object borne sceptre-wise by the left hand child in the Lincoln carving, is apparently similar to the Egyptian hieroglyphic [symbol], the Greek [Greek: z], European s. It may be worth while to suggest that the greatly-discussed collar of ss, worn by the lords chief justices, and others in authority, may have its origin in this hieroglyphic as a symbol of sovereignty, rather than in any of the arbitrary ascriptions of a mediaeval initial.

The weapon is evidently a form of the falx, or falcula, for it was with such a one (and here we see further distribution of the myth) that Jupiter wounded Typhon, and such was the instrument with which Perseus slew the sea-dragon: the falx, the pruning-hook, sickle or scythe, is an emblem of Saturn, and the oldest representation of it in that connection shew it in simple curved form. Saturn's sickle became a scythe, and the planet deity thus armed became, on account of the length of his periodical revolution, our familiar figure of Father Time. Osiris, the father of Horus, is styled "the cause of Time." An Egyptian regal coin bears a man cutting corn with a sickle of semi-circular blade. In many parts of England, the sickle is spoken of simply as "a hook."

Apparently the carver of the Beverley misericorde was conscious he had rendered the shell very badly, for in the side supporter of the carving he had placed, by way of reminder as to an attack upon the occupant of a shell, a man in a fashionable dress, piercing a snail as it approaches him. In mediaeval carvings, as in many of their explanations, it is scarcely a step from the sublime to the ridiculous.

One other carving which seems to point to the foregoing is at New College, Oxford. It is a genuine grotesque, and may be a satire upon the more serious works. It represents, seated in the same univalve kind of shell as the others, a fox or ape in a religious habit, displaying a bottle containing, perhaps, water from the Holy Land, the Virgin's Milk, or other wondrous liquid. One of the side carvings is an ape in a hood bringing a bottle.

Hell's Mouth.

Hell's Mouth was one of the most popular conceptions of mediaeval times. Except so far as concerns the dragon form of the head whose mouth was supposed to be the gates of Hell, the idea appears to be entirely Christian. "Christ's descent into Hell" was a favourite subject of Mystery plays. In the Coventry pageant the "book of words" contained but six verses, in which Hell is styled the "cindery cell." The Chester play is much longer, and is drawn from the Apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus. This gospel, which has a version in Anglo-Saxon of A.D. 950, is no doubt the source from which is derived a prevalent form of Hell's Mouth in which Christ is represented holding the hand of one of the persons engulped in the infernal jaws. This is seen in a carving on the east window of Dorchester Abbey.

The Mouth is here scarcely that of a dragon, but that of an exceedingly well-studied serpent; for intent and powerful malignity the expression of this fine stone carving would be difficult to surpass. The Descent into Hell is one of a series, on the same window, of incidents in the life of Christ; all are exceedingly quaint, but their distance from the ground improves them in a more than ordinary degree, and their earnest intention prevails over their accidental grotesqueness. The beautiful curves in this viperous head are well worthy of notice in connection with the remarks upon the artistic qualities of Gothic grotesques.

The verse of the Gospel (xix., 12), explains who the person is. "And [the Lord] taking hold of Adam by his right hand he ascended from hell and all the saints of God followed him." The female figure is of course Eve, who is shewn with Adam in engravings of the subject by Albert Durer (1512, etc.,) and others. The vision of Piers Ploughman (_circa_ 1362), has particular mention of Adam and Eve among Satan's captive colony. Satan, on hearing the order of a voice to open the gates of Hell, exclaims:--

"Yf he reve me of my ryght he robbeth me by mastrie,
For by ryght and reson the reukes [rooks] that be on here
Body and soul beth myne both good and ille
For he hyms-self hit seide that Syre is of Helle,
That Adam and Eve and al hus issue
Sholden deye with deol [should die with grief] and here dwell evere
Yf thei touchede a tree othr toke ther of an appel."

A MS. volume in the British Museum, of poems written in the thirty-fourth year of the reign of Henry VI., has "Our Lady's Song of the Chyld that soked hyr brest," in which other persons than Adam and Eve are stated to have been taken out of hell on the same occasion:--

"Adam and Eve wyth hym he take,
Kyng David, Moyses and Salamon
And haryed hell every noke,
Wythyn hyt left he soulys non."

The belief in the descent in Hell can be traced back to the second century. The form of Hell as a mouth is much later.

There is mention of a certain "Mouth of Hell," which in 1437 was used in a Passion play in the plain of Veximiel; this Mouth was reported as very well done, for it opened and shut when the devils required to pass in or out, and it had two large eyes of steel.

The great east window of York Cathedral, the west front and south doorway of Lincoln, and the east side of the altar-screen, Beverley Minster, have representations of the Mouth of Hell. The chancel arch of Southleigh has a large early fresco of the subject, in which two angels, a good and a bad (white and black), are gathering the people out of their graves; the black spirit is plucking up certain bodies (or souls) with a flesh-hook, and his companions are conveying them to the adjacent Mouth. In a Flemish Book of Hours of the fifteenth century (in the Bodleian Library) there is a representation with very minute details of all the usual adjuncts of the Mouth, and, in addition, several basketsful of children (presumably the unbaptized) brought in on the backs of wolf-like fiends, and on sledges, a common mediaeval method of conveyance.

Sackvil mentions Hell as "an hideous hole" that--

"With ougly mouth and griesly jawes doth gape."

Further instances of Hell's Mouth are in the block of the Ludlow ale-wife on a following page.

Satanic Representations.

Quaint as are the grotesques derived from the great symbolic Dragon, there is another series of delineations of Evil, which are still more curious. These are the representations of Evil which are to be regarded not so much symbolic as personal. The constant presence of Satan and his satellites on capital and corbel, arcade and misericorde, is to be explained by the exceedingly strong belief in their active participation in mundane affairs in robust physical shapes.

It would, perhaps, not seem improper to refer the class of carving instanced by the three cuts, next following, to the Typhon myth. I think, however, a distinction may be drawn between such carvings as represent combat, and such as represent victimization; the former I would attribute to the myth, the latter to the Christian idea of the torments consequent on sin. At the same time, the victim-carving, generally easily disposed of by styling it "Satan and a Soul," is undoubtedly largely influenced by the myth-idea of Typhon (by whatever name known) as a _seizer_, as indicated definitely in one of his general names, Graha. The figure was naturally one according well with the mediaeval understanding of spiritual punishment, and its varieties in carving are numerous enough to furnish an adequate inferno. The Dorchester example is a small boss in the groined ceiling of the sedilia of celebrants; that at Ewelme is a weather-worn parapet-ornament on the south of the choir; the carving at Farnsham is on a misericorde.

Not entirely, though in some degree, the two next illustrations support the theory, of punishment rather than conflict, for the others.

The carving in York Cathedral is of a graceful type; there is one closely resembling it at Wells. The Glasgow sketch is from the drawing of a fragment of the cathedral; it is more vivid and ludicrous than the other. A comparison of these two affords a good idea of the excellent in Gothic ornament. The Glasgow carving lacks everything but vigor; the York production, though no exceptional example, has vigor, poetry, and grace.

We will now revert to the more personal and "human" aspect of Satan.

A writer[4] in the _Art Journal_ some years ago offered excellent general observations upon the ideas of the Evil One found at various periods. He pointed out that the frolicsome character of the mediaeval demon was imparted by Christianity, with its forbidden Satan coming into contact with the popular belief in hobgoblins and fairies which were common in the old heathen belief of this island, and so the sterner teaching was tinged by more popular fancies.

There is much truth in this, except that for the hobgoblins and fairies we may very well read ancient deities, for the ultimate effect of Christianity upon Pagan reverence was to turn it into contempt and abhorrence for good and bad deities alike. We can read this in the slender records of ancient worships whose traces are left in language. Thus _Bo_ is apparently one of the ancient root-words implying divinity; _Bod_, the goddess of fecundity; _Boivani_, goddess of destruction; _Bolay_, the giant who overcame heaven, earth and hell; _Bouders_, or _Boudons_, the genii guarding Shiva, and _Boroon_, a sea-god, are in Indian mythology. _Bossum_ is a good deity of Africa. _Borvo_ and _Bormania_ were guardians of hot springs, and with _Bouljanus_ were gods of old Gaul. _Borr_ was the father of Odin, and _Bure_ was Borr's sister. The _Bo_-tree of India is the sacred tree of wisdom. In Sumatra _boo_ is a root-word meaning good (as in _booroo_). _Bog_ is the Slavonic for god. These are given to shew a probable connection among wide-spread worships.

We are now chiefly concerned with the last instance. The Slavonic _Bog_, a god, is met in Saxon as a goblin, for the "boy" who came into the court of King Arthur and laid his wand upon a boar's head was clearly a "bog" (the Saxon _g_ being exchanged erroneously for _y_, as in _dag's aeg_, day's eye, etc). In Welsh, similarly, _Brog_ is a goblin, and we have the evil idea in _bug_.

"Warwick was a bug that feared us all."
--_Shakespeare. Henry IV., v., 2._

That is "Warwick was a goblin that made us all afraid." The Boggart is a fairy still believed in by Staffordshire peasants. We have yet _bugbear_, as the Russians have _Buka_, and the Italians _Buggaboo_, of similar meaning.

As with the barbaric gods, so with the classic deities, who equally supplied material of which to make foul fiends. Bacchus, with the legs and sprouting horns of a goat, that haunter of vine-yards, then his fauns constructed on the same symbolic principle, gave rise to the satyrs. These, offering in their form disreputable points for reprobation, were found to be a sufficiently appropriate symbol of the Devil. The reasons of variety in the satyr figure are not far to seek, beyond the constant tendency of the mediaeval artist to vary form while preserving essence. Every artist had his idea of the devil, either drawn from the rich depths of a Gothic imagination, from the descriptions accumulated by popular credulity, and most of all from that result of both--the Devil of the Mystery or Miracle Plays.

The plays were performed by trade gilds. Every town had many of these gilds, though several would sometimes join at the plays; and even very small villages had both gild and plays. There are yet existing some slight traces of the reputation which obscure villages had in their own vicinity for their plays, of which Christmas mumming contains the last tattered relic. So that, the Devil being a favourite character in the pieces so widely performed, it is not surprising to find him equally at home among the works of the carvers, who, according to the nature of artists of all time, would doubtless holiday it with the best, and look with more or less appreciation upon such drama as was set before them.

Where we see Satan as the satyr, he is the rollicking fiend of the Mystery stage, tempting with sly good-humour, tormenting with a grim and ferocious joy, or often merely posturing and capering in a much to be envied height of the wildest animal spirits. There is in popular art no trace, so far as the writer's observation extends, of that lofty sorrow at man's unworthiness, which has occasionally been attributed to Satan.

The general feeling is that indicated by the semi-contemptuous epithets applied to the satyr-idea of "Auld Clootie" (cloven-footed), and "Auld Hornie," of our Northern brethren.

Horns were among all ancient nations symbolic of power and dignity. Ancient coinages shew the heads of kings and deities thus adorned. The Goths wore horns. Alexander frequently wore an actual horn to indicate his presumption of divine descent. The head dress of priests was horned on this account. This may point to a pre-historic period when the horned animals were not so much of a prey as we find them in later days; thus the aurochs of Western Europe appears to have been more dreaded by the wild men of its time, than has been, say, the now fast-disappearing bison by the North American Indians. On the other hand, the marvellous continuity of nature's designs lead us to recognize that the carnivorous animals must always have had the right to be the symbols of physical power. Therefore, the idea of power, originally conveyed by the horns, is that carried by the possession of riches in the shape of flocks and herds. The pecunia were the means of power, and their horns the symbol of it. With the Egyptians, the ox signified agriculture and subsistence. Pharaoh saw the kine coming out of the Nile because the fertility of Egypt depends upon that river. So that it is easy to see how the ox became the figure of the sun, and of life. Similar significance attached to the sheep, the goat, and the ram. Horus is met as "Orus, the Shepherd." Ammon wore the horns of a ram. Mendes was worshipped as a goat.

The goat characteristics are well carved on a seat in All Souls. A goat figure of the thirteenth century at Chichester has the head of a man with a curious twisted or tied beard, clutched by one of the hands in which the fore feet terminate. The clutching of the beard is not uncommon among Gothic figures, and has doubtless some original on a coin, or other ancient standard design. At St. Helen's, Abingdon, Berkshire, in different parts of the church, three heads, one being a king, another a bishop, are shewn grasping or stroking each his own beard. It is to be remembered that the stroking of the beard is a well-known Eastern habit.

Of close kindred to the goat form is the bull form. Just as Ceres symbolized the fecundity of the earth in the matter of cereals, so Pan was the emblem by which was figured its productiveness of animal life. Thus Priapus was rendered in goat form, as the ready type of animal sexual vigor; but not less familiar in this connection was the bull, and that animal also symbolizes Pan, who became, when superstition grew out of imagery, the protector of cattle in general. An old English superstition was that a piece of horn, hung to the stable or cowhouse key, would protect the animals from night-fright and other ills. When the pagan Gods were skilfully turned into Christian devils, we find the bull equally with the goat as a Satanic form, and several examples will be seen in the drawings.

The ox, as the symbol of St. Luke, is stated to refer, on account of its cud-chewing, to the eclectic character of this evangelist's gospel. Irenaeus, speaking of the second cherubim of the Revelation, which is the same animal, says the calf signifies the sacerdotal office of Christ; but the fanciful symbolisms of the fathers and of the Bestiaries are often indifferent guides to original meaning. It may be that in the ox forms we have astronomical allusions to Taurus, Bacchus, to Diana, or to Pan. A note on the emblems of the Evangelists follows in the remarks on the combinatory forms met in grotesque art.

Before passing on to consider particular examples of satyr or bull-form fiends, a few words may be said as to another form which, though allied to the dragon-shape embodiments, has the personal character. This is the Serpent. The origin of this appears to be the translation of the word _Nachasch_ for serpent in the Biblical account of the momentous Eden episode, a rendering which, without philological certainty, is countenanced by the general presence of the serpent in one form or another in every system of theology in the world. Jewish tradition states that the serpent, with beauty of form and power of flight, had no speech, until in the presence of Eve he ate of the fruit of the Tree, and so acquired speech, immediately using the gift to tempt Eve. Other traditions say that Nachasch was a camel, and became a serpent by the curse. Adam Clarke maintained that Nachasch was a monkey. The traditional and mystic form of the angels was that of a serpent. _Seraph_ means a fiery serpent. In Isaiah's vision, the seraphim are human-headed serpents. One of the most remarkable items in the history of worship is the account of the symbolic serpent erected by Moses, and the subsequent use of it as an idol until the time of Hezekiah. In the first satire of Perseus, he says, "paint two snakes, the place is sacred!"

The use of the serpent as the Church symbol of regeneration and revival of health or life is not common in carvings. In these senses it was used by the Greeks, though chiefly as the symbol of the Supreme Intellect, being the special attribute and co-type of Minerva. The personal apparition which confronted Eve is not so infrequent, though without much variety.

In a representation of the temptation of Adam and Eve among the misericordes of Ely, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is shewn of a very peculiar shape. The serpent, whose coils are difficult to distinguish from the foliage of the tree, has the head of a saturnine Asiatic, who is taking the least possible notice of "our first parents," as they stand eating apples and being ashamed, one on each side of the composition.

A carving in the choir of Chichester Cathedral shews in a double repetition, one half of which is here shewn, the evil head with an attempt at the legendary comeliness, mingled with debased traits, that is artistically very creditable to the sculptor. As though dissatisfied with the amount of beauty he had succeeded in imparting to the heads on the serpents, he adds, on the side-pieces of the carving, two other heads of females in eastern head-dresses, to which he has imparted a demure Dutch beauty, due perhaps to his own nationality. Human-headed serpents are in carvings at Norwich and at Bridge, Kent.

With regard to Satan's status as an angel, a considerable number of representations of him are to be found, in which he conforms to a prevalent mediaeval idea as to the plumage of the spirit race. Angels are found clothed entirely with feathers, as repeated some scores of times in the memorial chapel, at Ewelme, of Alice, Duchess of Suffolk, grand-daughter of Chaucer, who died in 1475. The annexed block shews a small archangel which surmounts the font canopy, and is of the same character as the chapel angels. At All Souls, Oxford, is a carving of a warrior-visaged person wearing a morion, and armed with a falchion and buckler. He is clad in feathers only, appearing to be flying downward, and is either a representation of St. Michael or Lucifer.

Satan is often similarly treated. Loki, the tempter of the Scandinavian Eden, who was ordered to seek the lost Idun he had deceived, had to go forth clad in borrowed garments of falcon's feathers with wings. When the pageant at the Setting of the Midsummer Watch at Chester was forbidden by the Mayor, in 1599, one of the prohibited figures was "the Devil and his Feathers."

There may be a connection between the final punishment of Loki and the idea embodied in the carvings mentioned above as being at, among other places, Wells, York, and Glasgow, and which have been considered as conceptions of Remorse. Loki was condemned to be fastened to a rock to helplessly endure the eternal dropping upon his brow of poison from the jaws of a serpent; only that there is neither in these carvings, nor any others noted to the present, any indication of the presence of the ministering woman-spirit who for even the fiend Loki stood by to catch the death-drops in a cup of mercy.

The Devil and the Vices.

Having examined the various lower forms given by man to his great enemy, and now noting that to such forms may be added the human figure in whole or part, we will next take in review a few of the sins which bring erring humanity into the clutches of Satan; for we find some of the most grotesque of antique carvings devoted to representation of what may be called the finale of the Sinner's Progress. These are probably largely derived from the Mystery Plays; for the moral teaching has the same direct soundness. The ideas are often jocosely put, but the principle is one of mere retribution. The Devil cannot hurt the Saint and he pays out to the Wicked the exact price of his wrong-doing. Thus in nearly all of what may be termed the Sin series there is a Recording Imp who bears a tablet or scroll, on which we are to suppose the evil commissions and omissions of the sinner are duly entered, entitling the fiend to take possession. This reminds of the Egyptian Mercury, Thoth, who recorded upon his tablets the actions of men, in order that at the Judgment there might be proper evidence.

The Account Presented. Satan Satisfied. The Record of Sin.]

There is a series of carvings, examplified at Ely, New College, Oxford, St. Katherine's (removed from near the Tower to the Regent's Park) and Gayton, which have Satan encouraging or embracing two figures apparently engaged in conversation. I have placed these among the Sins, for though no very particular explanation is forthcoming as to the meaning of the group, it is clear that the two human beings are engaged in some occupation highly agreeable to the fiend. This evidently has a connection with the monkish story told of St. Britius. One day, while St. Martin was saying mass, Britius, who was officiating as deacon, saw the devil behind the altar, writing on a slip of parchment "as long as a proctor's bill" the sins which the congregation were then and there committing. The people, both men and women, appear to have been doing many other things besides listening to St. Martin, for the devil soon filled his scroll on both sides. Thus far our carvings.

The story goes further, and states that the devil, having further sins to record, but no further space on which to write them, attempted to stretch the parchment with teeth and claws, which, however, broke the record, the devil falling back against a wall. The story then betrays itself. Britius laughed loudly, whereat St. Martin, highly displeased, demanded the reason, when Britius told him what he had seen, which relation the other saint accepted as being true.

This story is one of a class common among mediaeval pulpit anecdotes. It cannot well be considered that the carvings arose from the story, nor the story from the carvings. Probably both arose from something else, accounting for the number of sinners being uniformly two, and for the attitude of the fiend in each case being so similar. With regard to the latter I must leave the matter as it is.

I venture, as to the signification of the two figures, to make a suggestion to stand good until a better be found. In the Mystery Play entitled the "Trial of Mary and Joseph" (Cotton MS., Pageant xiv., amplified out of the Apocryphal New Testament, _Protevan_, xi.), the story runs that Mary and Joseph, particularly the former, are defamed by two Slanderers. The Bishop sends his Summoner for the two accused persons, and orders that they drink the water of vengeance "which is for trial," a kind of miraculous ordeal by poison. Joseph drinks and is unhurt; Mary likewise and is declared a pure maid in spite of facts. One of the Slanderers declares that the drink has been changed because the Virgin was of the High Priest's kindred, upon which the Slanderer is himself ordered to drink what is left in the cup. Doing so he instantly becomes frantic. All ask pardon of Mary for their suspicions, and, that being granted, the play is ended.

Now the play commences with the meeting of the Two Slanderers. A brief extract or two will shew their method.

1ST DETRACTOR.--To reyse blawthyr is al my lay,
Bakbyter is my brother of blood
Dede he ought come hethyr in al this day
Now wolde God that he were here,
And, by my trewth, I dare well say
That if we tweyn to gethyr apere
Mor slawndyr we t[w]o schal a rere
With in an howre thorwe outh this town,
Than evyr ther was this thouwsand yer,
Now, be my trewth, I have a sight
Evyn of my brother ... Welcome ...

2ND DETRACTOR.--I am ful glad we met this day.

1ST DETRACTOR.--Telle all these pepyl [the audience] what is yor name--

2ND DETRACTOR.--I am Bakbyter, that spyllyth all game,
Both hyd and known in many a place.

Then they fall to, and in terms of some wit and much freedom describe the physical condition of she who was "calde mayd Mary."

The Two Slanderers in this play are undoubtedly men, for each styles the other "brother." Yet there are words in their dialogue, not suited to these pages, which could properly only be used by women. As in at least one of the carvings the sinners are women, if my hypothesis has any correctness there must be some other form of the story in which the detractors are female. It is to be noted, also, that the play from which I have quoted has no mention of the devil.

Years before I met with the play of the trial of Joseph and Mary, I considered that the sin of the Two might be scandal, and put down a curious carving adjoining the St. Katherine group as a reference to it, and suggested it might be a humorous rendering of a Backbiter. This is shewn in the accompanying block. It was therefore agreeable to find one of the Mystery detractors actually named Backbiter. Against that it may be mentioned that the composite figure with a head at the rear is not unique. At Rothwell, Northamptonshire, is a dragon attempt, rude though probably of late fifteenth century work, with a similar head in the same anatomical direction; this is not connected with anything that can be considered bearing upon the subject of the Mystery, unless the heads on the same misericorde are meant to be those of Jews.

The example at Ely shews the fiend closely embracing the two sinners who are evidently in the height of an impressive conversation. One figure has a book on its knee, the other is telling the beads of a rosary. At the sides are two imps of a somewhat Robin Goodfellow-like character, each bearing a scroll with the account of the misdeeds of the sinners, and which we may presume are the warrants by which Satan is entitled to seize his prey. He is the picture of jovial good-nature.

New College, Oxford, has a misericorde of the subject in which the figures, female in appearance, are seated in a sort of box. This reminds us of Baldini and Boticelli's picture of Hell, which is divided into various ovens for different vices. That may be the idea here, or perhaps the object is a coffin and is used to emphasize what the wages of sin are. They, like the two sinners of Ely, are in animated conversation. Satan here is of a bull-headed form with wings rather like those of a butterfly. These are of the end of the fifteenth century.

There are foreign carvings described by Mr. Evans as being of the devil taking notes of the idle words of two women during mass. This is, perhaps, the simple meaning of all this series, and an evidence of the resentment of ecclesiastics against the irreverent. There is considerable evidence that religious service was scarcely a solemn thing in mediaeval times. If this is the signification the box arrangement described above may be some sort of early pew.

The next example, from St. Katherine's (lately) by the Tower, has the fiend in a fashionable slashed suit. The ladies here are only in bust, and though of demurely interested expression they have not that rapport and animation which distinguish the two previously noticed. Satan does not embrace them, but stands behind with legs outstretched and hands, or rather claws, on knees, ready to clutch them at the proper moment.

At Gayton, Northants, is a further curious instance of this group. The two Sinners are in this case unquestionably males, and, but for the coincidence with the preceding examples, the men might have been supposed to have been engaged in some game of chance. It will be observed that the one to the right has a rosary as in the first-named carving. Satan here is well clothed in feathers, and in his left wing is the head of what is probably one of the instruments of torture awaiting the very much overshadowed victims. It is a kind of rake or flesh-hook, with three sharp, hooked teeth; perhaps a figure of the tongue of a slanderer, materialized for his own subsequent scarification; it may be added as a kind of satanic badge. Satan bears on his right arm a leaf-shaped shield.

The vice next to be regarded is Avarice. In a misericorde at Beverley Minster we have three scenes from the history of the Devil. One gives us the avaricious man bending before his coffers. He has taken out a coin; if we read aright his contemplative and affectionate look, it is gold. Hidden behind the chest behold Satan, one of whose bullock horns is visible as he lurks out of the miser's sight, grinning to think how surely the victim is his.

At the opposite end of the carving is the other extreme, Gluttony. A man is drinking out of a huge flask, which he holds in his right hand, while in the other he grasps a ham (or is it not impossible that this is a second bottle). In this the devil is likewise present; he is apparently desperately anxious the victim should have enough.

Between these two reliefs appears Satan seizing a naked soul. In the original all that remains of the Devil's head is the outline and one horn; of the soul's head there remains only the outline; the two faces I have ventured to supply, also the fore-arm of the Devil. The fiend is here again presented with the attributes of a bullock, rather than a goat. Satan has had placed on his abdomen a mask or face, a somewhat common method of adding to the startling effect of his boisterous personality. The fine rush which the fiend is making upon the soul, and the shrinking horror of the latter, are exceedingly well rendered. The moral is, we may suppose, that the sinners on either side will come to the same bad end.

Among the seat-carvings of Henry VII's. Chapel, Westminster Abbey, we have the vice of Avarice more fully treated, there being two carvings devoted to the subject. In the first we see a monk suddenly seized by a quaint and curious devil (to whom I have supplied his right fore-arm). The monk, horror-stricken, yet angry, has dropped his bag of sovereigns, or nobles, and the coins fall out. He would escape if he could, but the claws of the fiend have him fast.

In the companion carving we have the incident--and the monk--carried a little further. The devil has picked him up, thrown him down along his conveniently horizontal back, and strides on with him through a wild place of rocks and trees, holding what appears to be a flaming torch, which he also uses as a staff. The monk has managed to gather up his dearly-loved bag of money, and is frantically clutching at the rocks as he is swiftly borne along. Satan in the first carving has rather a benevolent human face, in the second a debased beast face, unknown to natural history. There is no explanation of how Sathanus has disposed in the second scene of the graceful dragon wings he wears in the first. It is probable that two of the Italians who carved this set each took the same subject, and we have here their respective renderings. I mention with diffidence that if the mild and timorous face of Bishop Alcock (which may be seen at Jesus College, Cambridge), the architect of this part of the abbey, could be supposed to have unfortunately borne at any time the expressions upon either of these two representations of the monk, the likeness would, in my opinion, be rather striking.

On the side carving of the carrying-away scene is shewn a woman, dismayed at the sight. On the opposite side a fiend is welcoming the monk with beat of drum, just as we shall see the ale-wife saluted with the drone of the bagpipes.

A carving at St. Mary's Minster, Isle of Thanet, has the devil looking out with a vexed frown from between the horns of a lofty head-dress, which is on a lady's head. Whether this be a rendering of the dishonest ale-wife, or a separate warning against the vice of Vanity, cannot well be decided.

There was a popular opinion at one time that the bulk of church carvings were jokes at the expense of clergy, probably largely because every hood was thought to be a cowl. There is, however, no doubt as to the carving here presented. It may represent the consecration of a bishop. The presence of Satan dominating both the individuals, and pulling forward the cowl of the seated figure, appears to declare that this is to illustrate the vice of Hypocrisy. It is at New College, Oxford.

Ale and the Ale-wife.

Ale, good old ale, has formed the burden of more songs and satires ancient and modern, than will ever be brought together. Ale was the staple beverage for morning, noon, and evening meals. It is probable that swollen as is the beer portion of the Budget, the consumption of ale, man for man, is much less than that of any mediaeval time. The records of all the authoritative bodies who dealt with the liquor traffic of the olden time are crowded with rules and regulations that plainly demonstrate not only the universal prevalence of beer drinking in a proper and domestic degree, but also the constant growing abuse of the sale of the liquor. In the reign of Elizabeth the evils of the tavern had become so notorious, that in some places women were forbidden to keep ale-houses.

As far back as A.D. 794, ale-houses had become an institution, for we find the orders passed at the Council of Frankfort in that year included one by which ecclesiastics and monks were forbidden to drink in an ale-house. St. Adrian was the patron of brewers.

In some boroughs (Hull may be given as an instance) in the fifteenth century, the Mayor was not allowed to keep a tavern in his year of office. Brewers and tavern keepers, with many nice distinctions of grade among them, were duly licensed and supervised, various penalties meeting attempts at illicit trade. The quality of ale was also an object of solicitude, and an official, called the ale-taster, was in nearly every centre of population made responsible for the due strength and purity of the national beverage. It was customary in some places in the fifteenth century for the ale-taster to be remunerated by a payment of 4d. a year from each brewer.