material, and, the injunctions of the Council notwithstanding, the ancient
symbols apparently held their ground. The protests of St. Nilus, in the
fifth century, against animal figures in the sanctuary, were echoed by the
repudiations of St. Bernard in the twelfth and Gautier de Coinsi in the
thirteenth, a final condemnation being made at the Council of Milan in
1565, all equally in vain. Though the force of the myth symbols has passed
away, they have left another legacy than the grotesques of church art. The
art works of the Greeks arose from the same materials, the glorious
statues and epics being the highest embodiment of the symbolic, so loftily
overtopping all other forms by the force of supreme physical beauty as to
almost justify and certainly purify the religion of which they were the
outcome; so, later, the same ideas clothed with the moral beauty of
supreme unselfishness enabled Christianity to take hold of the nations.
By the diatribes of Bernard we can see what materials were extant in the
twelfth century for a study of worship-symbols and of the grotesque,
though he ignores any possible meaning they may have. He says, "Sometimes
you may see many bodies under one head; at other times, many heads to one
body; here is seen the tail of a serpent attached to the body of a
quadruped; there the head of a quadruped on the body of a fish. In another
place appears an animal, the fore half of which represents a horse, and
the hinder portion a goat. Elsewhere you have a horned animal with the
hinder parts of a horse; indeed there appears everywhere so multifarious
and so wonderful a variety of diverse forms that one is more apt to con
over the sculptures than to study the scriptures, to occupy the whole day
in wondering at these than in meditating upon God's law."
It has now to be observed how far the symbolic fancies of ancient beliefs
have left their impress on the grotesque art of our churches.
A common representation of the great sun-myth was that of two eagles, or
dragons, watching one at each side of an altar. These were the powers of
darkness, one at each limit of the day, waiting to destroy the light. This
poetic idea has come down to us in many forms. Greek art was unconsciously
frequent in its use of the form, and mediaeval sculptors, being often quite
ignorant of the significance of the design, use it in a variety of ways,
in many of which the likeness to the original is entirely lost, the
composition ending in but a semi-natural representation of birds pecking
at fruit. In the above block from Lincoln Minster, the altar is well
preserved. In the next block, which is from a carving connected with the
preceding one, the idea is more distantly hinted at.
[Illustration: THE ALTAR OF LIGHT AND THE BIRDS OF DARKNESS, LINCOLN.]
[Illustration: SYMBOLS OF DARKNESS, LINCOLN.]
At Exeter, an ingenious grotesque composition of two duck-footed harpies,
one on either side of a _fleur-de-lis_, is evidently from the same source.
Examples of this could be multiplied very readily.
[Illustration: THE ALTAR OF LIGHT AND THE BIRDS OF DARKNESS, EXETER.]
The Cat and the Fiddle are subjects of carvings at Beverley and at Wells.
Man has an almost universal passion for the oral transmission of the
fruits of his mental activity. In the particular instances of many lingual
compositions this passion has become an inveterate race habit, and the
rhymes or reasons have been transmitted verbally to posterity long after
their original meaning has been lost or obscured. It is no new thing that
a nursery rhyme has been found to be the relic of an archaic poem long
misunderstood or perverted. The lines as to "the cat and the fiddle" are
an excellent instance of the aptitude to continue the use of metrical
composition the sense of which has departed. The full verse is, as it
stands, a curious jumble of disconnected sentences.
"Hey, diddle, diddle, the cat and the fiddle,
The cow jumped over the moon,
The little dog laughed to see such sport,
While the dish run away with the spoon."
[Illustration: THE WEEKS DANCING TO THE MUSIC OF THE MONTH, BEVERLEY
MINSTER.]
[Illustration: HEY, DIDDLE, DIDDLE, THE CAT AND THE FIDDLE, WELLS.]
I am not aware that any attempt has yet been made to explain this
extraordinary verse. Examination seemingly shews that it was originally a
satire in derision of the worship of Diana. The moon-goddess had a
three-fold existence. On the earth she was Diana. Among the Egyptians we
find her as Isis, and her chief symbol was the cat. Apuleius calls her the
mother of the gods. In the worship of Isis was used a musical instrument,
the sistrum, which had four metal bars loosely inserted in a frame so as
to be shaken; on the apex of this frame, which was shaped not unlike a
horse-shoe, was carved the figure of a cat, as emblematic of the moon. The
four bars are said by Plutarch to represent the elements, but it is more
likely they were certain notes of the diapason. The worship of Isis passed
to Italy, though the Greeks had previously connected the cat with the
moon. The fiddle, as an instrument played with a bow, was not known to
classic times, but the word for fiddle--_fides_--was applied to a lyre. It
is equivalent to a Greek word for gut-string. In the light of what
follows, I suggest that "the Cat and the Fiddle" is a mocking allusion to
the worship of Diana upon earth.
In the heavens the moon-goddess had the name of Luna, and her chief symbol
was the crescent, which is sometimes met figured as a pair of cow's horns.
Images of Isis were crowned with crescent horns; she was believed to be
personified in the cow, as Osiris was in the bull, and her symbol, a
crescent moon, is met in sculpture over the back of the animal. This
apparently suggested the second line.
The third personality of the goddess was Hecate, which was the name by
which she was known in the infernal regions,--which means of course, in
nature, when she was below the horizon. Now another name by which she was
known was Prosperine (Roman), and Persephone (Greek), and her carrying
down into Hades by Pluto (Roman), or Dis (Greek), was the fable wrought
out of the simple phenomenon of moon-set. I suggest that the last line of
the verse is a grotesque rendering of the statement that--
"Dis ran away with Persephone."
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.
[Illustration: THE SLAYER OF THE DRAGON, IFFLEY.]
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.
[Illustration: THE CHILD AND DRAGON, LINCOLN.]
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.
[Illustration: DRAGON AND CHILD, BEVERLEY MINSTER.]
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.
[Illustration: THE CHILD AND DRAGON, MANCHESTER.]
[Illustration: THE SLAYING OF THE SNAIL, BEVERLEY MINSTER.]
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."
[Illustration: GROTESQUE OF HORUS IN THE SHELL. THE PALMER FOX EXHIBITING
HOLY WATER. NEW COLLEGE, OXFORD.]
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.
[Illustration: HELL'S MOUTH, HOLY CROSS, STRATFORD-ON-AVON.]