WHERE DID THE BRITISH WORSHIP ORIGINATE?
The recent chapters have, I think, established, by the evidence derived
from folklore and tradition, that there was in the long past a combined
worship of trees, wells and streams in the neighbourhood of sacred
places, the sacred place being a stone circle or some other monument
built up of stones.
We have gathered also that the chief times of worship were on or near
the most important dates defined for us by the May year, the original
year marked out by the various agricultural and other operations proper
to the various seasons.
It is again imperative that I should point out that if the basis of this
worship was not utility it must have been started by men sufficiently
skilled to indicate by their astronomical knowledge the proper times for
the various operations to which I have referred. In this we see the
reason for the local combination of the worship in the neighbourhood of
the stones, for the stones were really the instruments which enabled the
astronomer-priest to be useful to the community; that he in process of
time became powerful and sacred because he was wise, and added medicine
and magic to his other qualifications, was only what was to be expected.
I am not the first to have been driven by the facts to note the close
association to which I have referred, that the cults were not separate
but were parts of one whole.
Wood-Martin speaks with the most certain sound on this point. “It will
be seen that, from a review of the whole subject, stone, water, tree,
and animal-worship are intimately connected.”[83]
What the analysis in the recent chapters, taken in connection with the
astronomical results previously stated, has done is perhaps to give a
clear reason for the connection. Not only were the cults started
together, but they remained together for a long time; it is only in
quite late years that the traditions have become so dim that practices
once closely connected are now dealt with apart from the rest.
Hope points out (p. xxii) that the 16th of the canons of the reign of
Edgar, A.D. 963, which enjoins the clergy to be diligent, advance
Christianity, and extinguish heathenism, mentions especially the worship
of stones, trees, and fountains. The laws of Knut (A.D. 1018) specify
the worship “of heathen gods, the sun, moon, fire, rivers, fountains,
rocks, or trees.”
Now, although the folklore evidence I have brought together has been
gathered for the most part from the British Isles, my inquiries have not
been limited to that area.
It was natural that when the study of folklore had suggested that there
was a close connection between the worship carried on in Britain at
stone monuments, sacred trees, and sacred wells an attempt should have
been made to see whether these three cults had been associated out of
Britain with the ceremonials of any of the early peoples for which
complete and trustworthy information is available.
On this point the traditions of widely sundered countries is amazingly
strong.
The folklore of the Pyrenees, France, Spain and Portugal regarding
sacred wells is very similar to that of Ireland. Borlase writes:[84]
“It is interesting to notice that the pre-Christian custom called
_dessil_, or circuit around a venerated spot, which is practised in
Ireland in the case of one dolmen at least, as well as at wells and
Churches innumerable, is found also in Portugal.”
In the Pyrenees, too, fairies and spirits are thought much of in this
connection. Borlase tells us:[85] “They are the presiding genii of
certain wells.” He adds:
“It is not in Ireland alone that dolmens are associated with the notion
of wells and water springs. The Portuguese names, Anta do Fontao, Fonte
Coberta, Anta do Fonte-de Mouratao, and the French names, Fonte de
Rourre, and Fonte nay le Marmion, show this to be the case.”[86]
In Persia Sir Wm. Ouseley saw a tree covered with rags, and similar
trees in the Himalayas are associated with large heaps of stones (Gomme,
p. 105).
The late General Pitt-Rivers affirms that the customs of well-offerings
I referred to in the last chapter are invariably associated with cairns,
megalithic monuments or some such early Pagan institutions, and he adds
that the area in which traces of well-offerings are found is
conterminous with the area of the megalithic monuments.[87]
The idea that the waters of certain wells have marvellous healing powers
is also not confined to the British Isles, for in a great many parts of
Europe, perhaps more especially in France, Spain and Portugal, we find
instances.
The practice of worshipping in connection with wells and the sacred
stones and sacred trees which were associated with them, as we have
seen, was indeed in ancient days almost, if not quite, universal
wherever man existed. The traditions of the past, therefore, are to be
gathered over a very wide area. I quote a summary of the universality of
this practice given by the late General Pitt-Rivers in the paper already
noticed:
“Burton says it extends throughout northern Africa from west to east;
Mungo Park mentions it in western Africa; Sir Samuel Baker speaks of it
on the confines of Abyssinia, and says that the people who practised it
were unable to assign a reason for doing so; Burton also found the same
custom in Arabia during his pilgrimage to Mecca; in Persia Sir William
Ouseley saw a tree _close to a large monolith_ covered with these rags,
and he describes it as a practice appertaining to a religion long since
proscribed in that country; in the Dekkan and Ceylon Colonel Leslie says
that the trees in the neighbourhood of wells may be seen covered with
similar scraps of cotton: Dr. A. Campbell speaks of it as being
practised by the Limboos near Darjeeling in the Himalaya, where it is
associated, as in Ireland, with large heaps of stones; and Huc in his
travels mentions it among the Tartars.”
The astronomical facts given in this book, gathered from a study of the
monuments in these islands, can only give us information touching the
introduction of the combined worship here.
My investigations have strongly suggested, to say the least, that there
were men here with knowledge enough to utilise the movements of the sun
and stars for temple, and no doubt practical purposes before 2000 B.C.,
that is, a thousand years before Solomon was born, and at about the time
that the Hecatompedon was founded at Athens.
If this is anywhere near the truth, these men must have been
representatives of a very old civilisation.
Now the civilisation principally considered by archæologists in
connection with the building of the monuments which I have studied is
the Aryan, of which the Celts formed a branch. This view, however, is
not universally held; the late General Pitt-Rivers, and I know of no
higher authority, stated his opinion that “The megalithic monuments...
take us back to pre-Aryan people, and suggest the spread of this people
over the area covered by their remains.”[88]
Mr. Gomme is of the same opinion (p. 27):
“Ceremonies which are demonstrably non-Aryan in India, even in the
presence of Aryan people, must in origin have been non-Aryan in Europe,
though the race from whom they have descended is not at present
identified by ethnologists.”
Sergi also points out:--
“Indo-Germanism led to almost entire forgetfulness of the most ancient
civilisations of the earth, those born in the valleys of the Euphrates
and the Tigris, and in the valley of the Nile; no influence was granted
to them over Greco-Roman classic civilisation, almost none anywhere in
the Mediterranean.”[89]
It is not necessary for me to deal at length with the great Aryan
controversy in this book, even if the subject were within my competence,
which it is not; but now that we have a large number of monuments dated,
say, within twenty years of their use, it is important to bring forward
some dates arrived at by archæologists and philologists to compare with
those which the astronomical method of inquiry has revealed.
Hall[90] gives evidence to show that the Aryans did not reach Greece
till after the earlier period of the Mycenæan age, which he dates at
about 1700 B.C.
With regard to the date of the Aryan invasion of Britain, Mr. Read, of
the Department of Ethnography, British Museum, informs me that it may be
taken as about 1000 B.C.; it was associated with cremation. It is highly
probable that these Aryans were the Goidels or the Gael. These were
followed some 700 years later by another Aryan sept--the Brythons. Mr.
Read is also of opinion that the Goidels reached Britain from the
country round the South Baltic, and the Brythons from or through
north-east France.
Archæologists, however, recognise a pre-Aryan invasion, about 1800 B.C.
(a date determined by the introduction of bronze), of a brachycephalic
folk who built covered barrows, different in these respects from the
neolithic folk, who were long-skulled and built long barrows. Now, in
relation to the stone structures to which this book especially refers,
the question arises, are we then dealing with this swarm or the people
whom they found on the soil?
There are some indications in the traditions which imply that we are
really dealing with an early stone age, when flints were the only
weapons, and there were no clothes to speak of. I will give one or two
examples of these traditions. Gomme (p. 53) refers to a singular fact
preserved among the ceremonies of witchcraft in Scotland:
“In order to injure the waxen image of the intended victim, the
implements used in some cases by the witches were stone arrowheads, or
elf-shots, as they were called, and their use was accompanied by an
incantation. Here we have, in the undoubted form of a prehistoric
implement, the oldest untouched detail of early life which has been
preserved by witchcraft.”
Gomme (p. 39) also tells us that one of the May practices at Stirling is
for boys of ten and twelve years old to divest themselves of their
clothing, and in a state of nudity to run round certain natural or
artificial circles. “Formerly the rounded summit of Demyat, an eminence
in the Ochil range, was a favourite scene of this strange pastime, but
for many years it has been performed at the King’s Knot, in Stirling, an
octagonal mound in the Royal Gardens. The performances are not
infrequently repeated at Midsummer and Lammas.” He adds, “The fact that
in this instance the practice is continued only by ‘boys of ten and
twelve years old,’ shows that we have here one of the last stages of an
old rite before its final abolition.”
Baring-Gould (p. 21) provides us with a practice in Brittany which would
seem to be a remnant of a pre-clothing age.
Near Carnac is a menhir, at which a singular “ceremony took place till
comparatively recently, and may perhaps still be practised in secret. A
married couple that have no family repair to this stone when the moon is
full, strip themselves stark naked and course one another round it a
prescribed number of times, whilst their relations keep guard against
intrusion at a respectful distance.”
Now it is in connection with this question that I am in hopes that some
help may be got from the astronomical results recorded in the present
volume. The dates revealed by the orientation of the circles and
outstanding stones already dealt with (and there is a large number to
follow) indicate that it is among the records of some people of whom the
civilisation is very ancient that we must look in the first instance
with a view of tracing the origin of our British monuments.
Further, now that we have been able to follow their astronomical
methods, to note how sound they were, and to gather the purposes of
utility they were intended to serve, it is simply common sense to
inquire, in the first instance, if they may have been connected with
these ancient peoples whose astronomical skill is universally
recognised, and whose records and even observations have come down to
us.
Now, while we know nothing of the astronomy of the Aryans generally, or
that of the Celts in particular, the astronomical knowledge of the
Babylonians and Egyptians is one of the wonders of the ancient world.
Hence Babylonia and Egypt are at once suggested, and the suggestion is
not rendered a less probable one when we remember that both these
peoples studied and utilised astronomy at least some 8,000 years ago.
But here we are dealing with two peoples. It is more than probable that
they both were associated more or less near the origin with one race,
the ideas of which permeated both civilisations.
I have it on the highest authority, that of Dr. Budge, that in Babylonia
there were originally the Sumerians and the Semites. The primitive race
which conquered the Egyptians seems to have been connected with the
former as regards civilisation, and with the latter as regards some
aspects of the Egyptian language.
This race was Semitic, and as the pyramids, built some 6,000 years ago,
are a proof of the interaction of the two civilisations at that time,
for the Easter festival celebrated on the banks of the Nile came from
the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates, we may omit the pre-Semites
from our consideration.
There is other evidence that the connection between the Semites and
Egyptians was close astronomically, so that any Semitic influence in
later times or in other lands would be sure to show traces of this
connection, and in temple worship it would be traceable. While the
carefully oriented Egyptian temples built of stone remain and have been
carefully studied, those erected in the centres of Semitic power, built
of unbaked brick, have for the most part disappeared, but for the most
part only; some stone structures remain, but in regard to them there has
been no Lepsius; of their orientation, too, little is known. This is all
the more to be regretted since Layard, in addition to many E. and N.
buildings found at Nimrood, noted at the mound of Kouyunjik, the site of
Nineveh, lat. 36° 20′ N., that Sennacherib’s palace, which appears to
have been built round a central temple, was oriented to the May
year.[91] (Az. N. 68° 30′ E. = Dec. N. 16°.)
Now, calling in the Babylonians as the originators of what went on in
Britain 4,000 years ago may seem to some to be far-fetched in more ways
than one; but the Babylonians were a remarkable people; according to
some they originated all the voyaging of the early world, though other
authorities point out that the first ships in the eastern seas must have
been Indian.
Ihering[92] adduces a series of facts which indicate clearly that the
Babylonians carried on maritime navigation at least as early as about
3500 B.C. But, whatever this time was, the Semites and Egyptians had
already a rich culture behind them at a time when the Aryans, whatever
or wherever their origin, had not made themselves a place in the world’s
history. An ancient sea connection between Babylonia and India may
explain the similarity of the British and Indian folklore.
Some facts with regard to long distance ancient travel are the
following. Our start-point may be that Gudea, a Babylonian king who
reigned about 2500 B.C., brought stones from Melukhkha and Makan, that
is, Egypt and Sinai (Budge, _History of Egypt_, ii., 130). Now these
stones were taken coastwise Sinai to Eridu, at the head of the Persian
Gulf, a distance of 4,000 miles, and it is also said that then, or even
before then, there was a coast-wise traffic to and from Malabar, where
teak was got to be used in house- and boat-building. The distance from
Eridu coastwise to Malabar, say the present Cannanore, is 2,400 miles.
The distance, coastwise, from Alexandria to Sandwich, where we learn
that Phœnicians and others shipped the tin extracted from the mines in
Cornwall, is only 5,300 miles, so that a voyage of this length was quite
within the powers of the compassless navigators of 2500 B.C.
The old idea that the ancient merchants could make a course from Ushant
to, say, Falmouth or Penzance need no longer be entertained; the
crossing from Africa to Gibraltar and from Cape Grisnez to Sandwich were
both to visible land, _i.e._ coastwise. The cliffs on the opposite land
are easily seen on a clear day.
Hence it would have been easier before the days of astronomical
knowledge and compasses to have reached England, and therefore Ireland
and the Orkneys, than to get to some of the islands in the
Mediterranean itself.[93]
It is seen then that it is possible that Semites might have built our
stone monuments between 2000 and 1200 B.C., while it is quite certain
that the Aryans did not build them, if the archæologists are not widely
wrong in their dates.
Let us, then, begin our inquiries by considering the information
available with regard to the Semites. Let us see in the first instance
whether they had stone monuments, and sacred trees and sacred wells; a
system of worship; and whether this worship was connected with the sun
and stars.
It is fortunate for us in this matter that one of the most fully
equipped scholars which the last century produced, Robertson Smith,
devoted his studies for many years to _The Religion of the Semites_, and
information on the points raised is to our hand; all I need do is to
give as shortly as possible a statement of the various conclusions he
had reached on the points to which our attention may in the first
instance be confined. I quote from his book _The Religion of the
Semites_.
The Semites include the Babylonians, who spoke a Semitic dialect, for
there were Sumerian speaking peoples among them, Assyrians, Phœnicians,
Hebrews, Arabs and Aramæans, who in ancient times occupied the fertile
lands of Syria, Mesopotamia and Irak from the Mediterranean coast to the
base of the mountains of Iran and Armenia. They also embrace the
inhabitants of the great Arabian peninsula, which is believed to have
been the centre of dispersion.
The ordinary artificial mark of a Semitic sanctuary was the sacrificial
pillar, cairn, or rude altar (p. 183): it was a fixed point where,
according to primitive rule, the blood of the offering was applied to
the sacred stones; or where a sacred tree, as we shall see presently,
was hung with gifts; the stones and tree being symbols of the God (p.
151).
Further, it is certain that the original altar among the northern
Semites was a great unhewn[94] stone, or a cairn, at which the blood of
the victim was shed (p. 185).
Monolithic pillars or cairns of stones are frequently mentioned in the
more ancient parts of the Old Testament as marking sanctuaries; Shechem,
Bethel, Gilead, Gilgal, Mizpah, Gibeon, and En-Rogel are referred to (p.
186).
There is evidence that in very early times the sanctuary was a cave (p.
183). The obvious successors of a natural cave are, (1) an artificial
cave made in the earth like the natural one, and (2) a model or
representation of a cave built of stone, with a small entrance which
would be barred, and covered over with earth, thus protecting the
priests from wild animals and the weather.
The dolmens and cromlechs which are found in the Semitic area where
there are stones doubtless had this origin.
The use of a cave was probably borrowed both by the Egyptians and Greeks
(there is a cave, for instance, at Eleusis) from the Semites.
In later times, when caves or their equivalents were no longer in vogue
and temples were erected, they enclosed a Bit-ili or Beth-el, an upright
stone, consecrated by oil.[95]
We next learn (pp. 170 and 183) that no Canaanite high place was
complete without its sacred tree standing beside the altar.
In tree-worship pure and simple as in Arabia, the tree is adored at an
annual feast (? May), when it is hung with clothes and women’s ornaments
(p. 169).
The tree at Mecca to which offerings are made is spoken of as a “tree to
hang things on.”
The references to “groves” given in the Bible as associated with temple
worship are misleading, “groves” being a wrong translation of the word
Asherah, which was a pole made of wood which the Jews adopted from the
Canaanites. It was ornamented and perhaps draped, and was most probably
originally a tree. It may have been used in the “high places” because
single trees would not grow there in the East any more than on the moors
in Devon and Cornwall.
The antiquity of this emblem is proved by Smith’s statement (p. 171)
that in an Assyrian monument from Khorsābād an ornamental pole is shown
beside a portable altar. “Priests stand before it engaged in an act of
worship and touch the pole with their hands or perhaps anoint it with
some liquid substance.”
The draping of the tree seems to be proved by the passage which
suggested the mistranslation to me before I wrote to some Hebrew
scholars among my friends who allowed me to consult them. The passage is
as follows (II. Kings, xxiii., 6, 7):--
“And he brought out the grove from the house of the Lord, without
Jerusalem, unto the brook Kidron, and burned it at the brook Kidron, and
stamped it small to powder, and cast the powder thereof upon the graves
of the children of the people.
“And he brake down the houses of the Sodomites, that were by the house
of the Lord, where the women wove hangings for the grove.”
To show how little variation there was in the Semitic practices to those
recorded in British folklore I may state that one of my friends--one of
the revision committee--informed me that his impression was that the
Asherah was furnished with pegs or hooks, so that the garments, &c.,
might be easily hung on it.
* * * * *
I next come to the sacred waters. A sacred fountain, as well as the
sacred tree, was a common symbol at Semitic sanctuaries (p. 183).
Nevertheless, they were sometimes absent, the main place being given to
altar worship. Further, Robertson Smith was of opinion that this altar
worship did not originate with tree [? or water] worship (p. 170); but
still, sacred wells are among the oldest and most ineradicable objects
of reverence among all the Semites, and were credited with oracular
powers (pp. 128, 154). The fountain or stream was not a mere adjunct to
the temple, but was itself one of the principal _sacra_ of the spot (p.
155).
Undoubtedly there were ordeals among other things at these wells (p.
163). One case is given in Numbers, v., 17, where the words “holy water”
occur, and other water “that causeth the curse” is referred to. Ordeal
by water is not unknown among British customs.
It is interesting to note that special sanctity was attached to groups
of seven wells (p. 167), and that one such group was called
Thorayga=Pleiades (p. 153).[96] We may gather from this that one of the
most sacred times for Semitic worship was at the May festival, marked by
the rising of the Pleiades.
Although I do not find many references in Robertson Smith’s book as to
great festival days, there is other evidence which shows that the May
festival was the greatest, and represented New Year’s Day. I have
already shown that the May-November year is the one recognised in the
present Turkish, Armenian and I believe Persian calendars (p. 29). As
this was the year used at Thebes 3200 B.C., we may take it that at that
time it was universal in W. Asia and the adjacent lands. The Jews
afterwards adopted the equinoctial year.
It seems highly probable that we may learn from many passages in the
Old Testament what the Semitic temple practices were generally. There
were sacrifices of men and beasts, burnt offerings, and lighting of
fires, through which the children were made to pass.
I give some references to these fire practices.
“And thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to
Molech.”--Leviticus, xviii., 21.
“There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his
daughter to pass through the fire, or that useth divination, or an
observer of times, or an enchanter, or a witch,
“Or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a
necromancer.”--Deuteronomy, xviii., 10, 11.
“He walked in the way of the kings of Israel, yea, and made his son to
pass through the fire.”--II. Kings, xvi., 3.
“And they caused their sons and their daughters to pass through the
fire, and used divination and enchantments.”--II. Kings, xvii., 17.
“And he defiled Topheth, which is in the valley of the children of
Hinnom, that no man might make his son or his daughter to pass through
the fire to Molech.”--II. Kings, xxiii., 10. (See also 4 and 5.)
Fire sacrifices which were interpreted as offerings of fragrant smoke
were prevalent among the settled Semites (p. 218). Sacrificial fat was
burned on the altar. Smith remarks: “This could be done without any
fundamental modification of the old type of sacred stone or altar
pillar, simply by making a hollow on the top to receive the grease, and
there is some reason to think that fire-altars of this simple kind,
which in certain Phœnician types are developed into altar candlesticks,
are older than the broad platform altar proper for receiving a burnt
offering” (p. 364).
* * * * *
With regard to the worship of the sun and stars by the Semites, we read
that the Semite addressed his God as Baal or Bal. The simple form of
Baal was the sun.[97]
By the Semites the stars were, on account of their movements, held to be
alive; they were therefore gods, and it was in consequence of this
widespread belief that the stars were worshipped (p. 127). The
worshippers “burned incense unto Baal, to the sun, to the moon and to
the planets, and to all the hosts of heaven” (II. Kings, xxiii., 5). Job
congratulated himself that “his heart had not been enticed, nor his
mouth kissed his hand, if he beheld the sun when it shined, or the moon
walking in her brightness” (Job, xxxi., 26-27). The worship of the
morning star as a god is the old Semitic conception (Isa., xiv., 12),
“Lucifer son of the Dawn.”
We gather from the later practices of the Saracens that the sacrifices
to the morning star could not be made after the star had disappeared in
the dawn.[98] The God had to be in the presence of the worshippers.
* * * * *
The Semitic worship was generally carried on in “high places”; in the
Babylonian temples built in a river valley the “high places” were
secured by building towers with the sanctuary on the top.
These high places were necessary because exact observations of the
risings of the heavenly bodies formed part of the ceremonial, and a
clear horizon was absolutely imperative. That this was generally
understood and acted on is well evidenced by the fact that in the Old
Testament the mention of high places is nearly always associated with
the references to the religion of the Canaanites and other Semitic
nations as if the high places were among the most important points in
it.
* * * * *
Other arguments may be founded upon linguistic considerations. Prof. J.
Morris Jones[99] finds that the syntax of Welsh and Irish differs from
that of other Aryan languages in many important respects, _e.g._ the
verb is put first in every simple sentence. Prof. Rhys had suggested
that these differences represented the persistence in Welsh and Irish of
the syntax of a pre-Aryan dialect, and as the anthropologists hold that
the pre-Aryan population of these islands came from North Africa, it
seemed to Prof. Jones that that was the obvious place to look for the
origin of these syntactical peculiarities. He finds the similarities
between Old Egyptian and neo-Celtic syntax to be astonishing; he shows
that practically all the peculiarities of Welsh and Irish syntax are
found in the Hamitic languages.
This conclusion practically implies that the bulk of the population of
these islands, before the arrival of the Celts, spoke dialects allied to
those of North Africa. The syntactical peculiarities must have
represented the habits of thought of the people, which survived in the
Celtic vocabulary imposed upon them.
These conclusions were not known to me when I began to see the necessity
of separating the cult of the June from that of the May year, and the
identity of the conclusions drawn from astronomical and linguistic data
is to me very striking and also suggests further special inquiries.
It is also worth while to state that the Semites, including the Hebrews
and Phœnicians, did not burn their dead. Finally, I may quote a remark
made by General Pitt-Rivers in the paper already referred to:--“If we do
not accept one old civilization as the origin of the various practices,
then we must assume accidental origins in each country.”
[83] Wood-Martin, p. 265.
[84] _Dolmens of Ireland_, ii., p. 696.
[85] _Ibid._, ii., p. 580.
[86] _Ibid._, p. 772.
[87] _Journal Eth. Soc._, N.S., i., 64.
[88] _Journ. Eth. Soc._, N.S. i., 64.
[89] _The Mediterranean Races_, p. 4.
[90] _The Oldest Civilisation of Greece_, p. 105.
[91] This I gather from the plan prepared by Lieut. Glascott, R.N., who
apparently accompanied Mr. Layard. He indicates the true north point
with a sailor’s precision in such matters. (See p. 305).
[92] _Evolution of the Aryan_, Translation by Drucker, § 32.
[93] The prevalence of solstitial customs in Sardinia and Corsica, with
apparently no trace of the May year, tends to support this view, which
is also strengthened by the fact that the solstitial customs in Morocco
are very similar to those we read of in Britain: the May year is
unnoticed, and there is a second feast at Easter (March 16th). See
Westermarck in _Folk-lore_, vol. xxi., p. 27.
[94] And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it
of hewn stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted
it.--Exodus, xx., 25.
[95] And Jacob rose up early in the morning, and took the stone that he
had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon
the top of it.
And this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be God’s house; and
of all that thou shalt give me I will surely give the tenth unto
thee.--Genesis, xxviii., 18, 22.
[96] Herodotus, iii., 8, refers to an Arabian rite in which seven stones
are smeared with blood among peoples whose only gods were Dionysos and
Urania, whom they called Orotalt and Alilat.
[97] Sayce, _Babylonians and Assyrians_, p. 234.
[98] _Nili op. quaedam_ (Paris, 1639), pp. 28, 117, quoted by Robertson
Smith, p. 151.
[99] “Pre-Aryan Syntax in Insular Celtic,” in the _Welsh People_, by
Rhys and Brynmor-Jones, pp. 617-641.