LEGENDS OF THE COMING OF THE COMET.
WE turn now to the legends of mankind.
I shall try to divide them, so as to represent, in their order, the
several stages of the great event. This, of course, will be difficult
to do, for the same legend may detail several different parts of the
same common story; and hence there may be more or less repetition;
they will more or less overlap each other.
And, first, I shall present one or two legends that most clearly
represent the first coming of the monster, the dragon, the serpent,
the wolf, the dog, the Evil One, the Comet.
The second Hindoo "Avatar" gives the following description of the
rapid advance of some dreadful object out of space, and its
tremendous fall upon the earth:
"By the power of God there issued from the essence of Brahma a being
shaped like a boar, _white and exceeding small_; this being, _in the
space of an hour_, grew to the size of an elephant of the largest
size, _and remained in the air_."
That is to say, it was an atmospheric, not a terrestrial creature.
"Brahma was astonished on beholding this figure, and discovered, by
the force of internal penetration, that it could be nothing but the
power of the Omnipotent which had assumed a body and become visible.
He now felt that God is all in all, and all is from him, and all in
him;
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and said to Mareechee and his sons (the attendant genii): 'A
wonderful animal has emanated from my essence; at first of the
smallest size, it has in one hour increased to this enormous bulk,
and, without doubt, it is a portion of the almighty power.'"
Brahma, an earthly king, was at first frightened by the terrible
spectacle in the air, and then claimed that he had produced it
himself!
"They were engaged in this conversation when that _vara_, or
'boar-form,' suddenly uttered a sound _like the loudest thunder_, and
the echo reverberated and _shook all the quarters of the universe_."
This is the same terrible noise which, as I have already shown, would
necessarily result from the carbureted hydrogen of the comet
exploding in our atmosphere. The legend continues:
"But still, under this dreadful awe of heaven, a certain wonderful
divine confidence secretly animated the hearts of Brahma, Mareechee,
and the other genii, who immediately began praises and thanksgiving.
That _vara_ (boar-form) figure, hearing the power of the Vedas and
Mantras from their mouths, again made a loud noise, and _became a
dreadful spectacle_. Shaking the _full flowing mane_ which hung down
his neck on both sides, and erecting the humid _hairs_ of his body,
he proudly displayed his two most exceedingly white tusks; then,
rolling about his wine-colored (red) eyes, and erecting his _tail_,
he descended _from the region of the air_, and plunged headforemost
into the water. The whole body of water was convulsed by the motion,
and began to rise in waves, while the guardian spirit of the sea,
being terrified, began to tremble for his domain and cry for mercy.[1]
flow fully does this legend accord with the descriptions of comets
given by astronomers, the "horrid hair," the mane, the animal-like
head! Compare it with Mr.
[1. Maurice's "Ancient History of Hindustan," vol. i, p. 304.]
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Lockyer's account of Coggia's comet, as seen through Newell's large
refracting telescope at Ferndene, Gateshead, and which he described
as having a head like "_a fan-shaped projection of light_, with
_ear-like appendages_, at each side, which sympathetically
complemented each other at every change either of form or luminosity."
We turn to the legends of another race:
The Zendavesta of the ancient Persians[1] describes a period of
"great innocence and happiness on earth."
This represents, doubtless, the delightful climate of the Tertiary
period, already referred to, when endless summer extended to the
poles.
"There was a 'man-bull,' who resided on an elevated region, which the
deity had assigned him."
This was probably a line of kings or a nation, whose symbol was the
bull, as we see in Bel or Baal, with the bull's horns, dwelling in
some elevated mountainous region.
"At last an evil one, denominated Ahriman, corrupted the world. After
having _dared to visit heaven_" (that is, he appeared first in the
high heavens), "he _descended upon the earth and assumed the form of
a serpent_."
That is to say, a serpent-like comet struck the earth.
"The man-bull was _poisoned by his venom_, and died in consequence of
it. Meanwhile, Ahriman _threw the whole universe into confusion_
(chaos), for that enemy of good mingled himself with everything,
appeared everywhere, and sought to do mischief above and below."
We shall find all through these legends allusions to the poisonous
and deadly gases brought to the earth by the comet: we have already
seen that the gases which are proved to be associated with comets are
fatal to life.
[1. Faber's "Horæ Mosaicæ," vol. i, p. 72.]
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And this, be it remembered, is not guess-work, but the revelation of
the spectroscope.
The traditions of the ancient Britons[1] tell us of an ancient time,
when
"The profligacy of mankind had provoked the great Supreme to send a
pestilential wind upon the earth. A pure _poison descended, every
blast was death_. At this time the patriarch, distinguished for his
integrity, _was shut up_, together with his select company, in the
_inclosure with the strong door_. (The cave?) Here the just ones were
safe from injury. _Presently a tempest of fire arose. It split the
earth asunder_ to the great deep. The lake Llion burst its bounds,
and the waves of the sea lifted themselves on high around the borders
of Britain, _the rain poured down from heaven, and the waters covered
the earth_."
Here we have the whole story told briefly, but with the regular
sequence of events:
1. The poisonous gases.
2. The people seek shelter in the caves.
3. The earth takes fire.
4. The earth is cleft open; the fiords are made, and the trap-rocks
burst forth.
5. The rain pours down.
6. There is a season of floods.
When we turn to the Greek legends, as recorded by one of their most
ancient writers, Hesiod, we find the coming of the comet clearly
depicted.
We shall see here, and in many other legends, reference to the fact
that there was more than one monster in the sky. This is in
accordance with what we now know to be true of comets. They often
appear in pairs or even triplets. Within the past few years we have
seen Biela's comet divide and form two separate comets, pursuing
[1. "Mythology of the British Druids," p. 226.]
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their course side by side. When the great comet of 1811 appeared,
another of almost equal magnitude followed it. Seneca informs us that
Ephoras, a Greek writer of the fourth century before Christ, had
recorded the singular fact of a comet's separation into two parts.
"This statement was deemed incredible by the Roman philosopher. More
recent observations of similar phenomena leave no room to question
the historian's veracity."[1]
The Chinese annals record the appearance of _three_ comets--one large
and two smaller ones--at the same time, in the year 896 of our era.
"They traveled together for three days. The little ones disappeared
first and then the large one."
And again:
"On June 27th, A. D. 416, two comets appeared in the constellation
Hercules, and pursued nearly the same path."[2]
If mere proximity to the earth served to split Biela's comet into two
fragments, why might not a comet, which came near enough to strike
the earth, be broken into several separate forms?
So that there is nothing improbable in Hesiod's description of two or
three aërial monsters appearing at or about the same time, or of one
being the apparent offspring of the other, since a large comet may,
like Biela's, have broken in two before the eyes of the people.
Hesiod tells us that the Earth united with Night to do a terrible
deed, by which the Heavens were much wronged. The Earth prepared a
large sickle of white iron, with jagged teeth, and gave it to her son
Cronus, and stationed him in ambush, and when Heaven came, Cronus,
his son, grasped at him, and with his "huge sickle, long and
jagged-toothed," cruelly wounded him.
[1. Kirkwood, "Comets and Meteors," p. 60.
2. Ibid., p. 51.]
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Was this jagged, white, sickle-shaped object a comet?
"And Night bare also hateful Destiny, and black Fate, and Death, and
Nemesis."
And Hesiod tells us that "she," probably Night--
"Brought forth another monster, _irresistible_, nowise like to mortal
man or immortal gods, in a hollow cavern; the divine,
stubborn-hearted Echidna (half-nymph, with dark eyes and fair cheeks;
and half, on the other hand, a _serpent, huge and terrible and
vast_), _speckled_, and _flesh-devouring_, 'neath caves of sacred
Earth. . . . With her, they say that Typhaon (Typhon) associated in
love, a terrible and lawless ravisher for the dark-eyed maid. . . .
But she (Echidna) bare Chimæra, _breathing resistless fire_, fierce
and huge, fleet-footed as well as strong; this monster had three
heads: one, indeed, of a grim-visaged lion, one of a goat, and
another of a serpent, a fierce dragon;
###
COMET OF 1862. Aspect of the head of the comet at nine in the
evening, the 23d August, and the 24th August at the same hour.
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in front a lion, a dragon behind, and in the midst a goat, _breathing
forth the dread strength of burning fire_. Her Pegasus slew and brave
Bellerophon."
The astronomical works show what weird, and fantastic, and
goblin-like shapes the comets assume under the telescope. Look at the
representation on page 137, from Guillemin's work,[1] of the
appearance of the comet of 1862, giving the changes which took place
in twenty-four hours. If we will imagine one of these monsters close
to the earth, we can readily suppose that the excited people, looking
at "the dreadful spectacle," (as the Hindoo legend calls it,) saw it
taking the shapes of serpents, dragons, birds, and wolves.
And Hesiod proceeds to tell us something more about this fiery,
serpent-like monster:
"But when Jove had driven the Titans out from Heaven, huge Earth bare
her youngest-born son, Typhœus (Typhaon, Typhœus,
Typhon), by the embrace of Tartarus (Hell), through golden Aphrodite
(Venus), whose hands, indeed, are apt for deeds on the score of
strength, and untiring the feet of the strong god; and from his
shoulders there were a hundred heads of a serpent, a fierce dragon
playing with _dusky tongues_" (_tongues of fire and smoke?_), "and
from the eyes in his wondrous heads are sparkled beneath the brows;
whilst from all his heads _fire was gleaming_, as he looked keenly.
In all his terrible heads, too, _were voices sending forth every kind
of voice ineffable_. For one while, indeed, they would utter sounds,
so as for the gods to understand, and at another time, again, the
voice of a loud-bellowing bull, untamable in force and proud in
utterance; at another time, again, that of a lion possessing a daring
spirit; at another time, again, they would sound like to whelps,
wondrous to hear; and at another, he would hiss, and the lofty
mountains resounded.
[1. "The Heavens," p. 256.]
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"And, in sooth, then would there have been done a deed past remedy,
and he, even he, would have reigned over mortals and immortals,
unless, I wot, the sire of gods and men had quickly observed him.
Harshly then he thundered, and heavily and terribly the earth
re-echoed around; and the broad heaven above, and the sea and streams
of ocean, and the abysses of earth. But beneath his immortal feet
_vast Olympus trembled_, as the king uprose and earth groaned
beneath. And the _heat from both caught the dark-colored sea_, both
of the thunder and the lightning, and _fire from the monster_, the
heat arising from the thunder-storms, _winds_, and burning lightning.
_And all earth, and heaven, and sea, were boiling_; and huge billows
roared around the shores about and around, beneath the violence of
the gods; and _unallayed quaking arose_. Pluto trembled, monarch over
the dead beneath; and the Titans under Tartarus, standing about
Cronus, trembled also, on account of _the unceasing tumult and
dreadful contention_. But Jove, when in truth he had raised high his
wrath, and had taken his arms, his thunder and lightning, and smoking
bolt, leaped up and smote him from Olympus, and scorched all around
the wondrous heads of the terrible monster.
"But when at length he had quelled it, after having smitten it with
blows, the monster _fell down_, lamed, and _huge Earth groaned_. But
the _flame_ from the lightning-blasted monster _flashed forth in the
mountain hollows_, hidden and rugged, when he was stricken, and _much
was the vast earth burnt and melted by the boundless vapor_, like as
pewter, heated by the art of youths, and by the well-bored
melting-pit, or iron, which is the hardest of metals, subdued in the
dells of the mountain by blazing fire, melts in the sacred earth,
beneath the hands of Vulcan. So, I wot, _was earth melted in the
glare of burning fire_. Then, troubled in spirit, he hurled him into
wide Tartarus."[1]
Here we have a very faithful and accurate narrative of the coming of
the comet:
[1. "Theogony."]
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Born of Night a monster appears, a serpent, huge, terrible, speckled,
flesh-devouring. With her is another comet, Typhaon; they beget the
Chimæra, that breathes resistless fire, fierce, huge, swift. And
Typhaon, associated with both these, is the most dreadful monster of
all, born of Hell and sensual sin, a serpent, a fierce dragon,
many-headed, with dusky tongues and fire gleaming; sending forth
dreadful and appalling noises, while mountains and fields rock with
earthquakes; chaos has come; the earth, the sea boils; there is
unceasing tumult and contention, and in the midst the monster,
wounded and broken up, _falls upon the earth_; the earth groans under
his weight, and there he blazes and burns for a time in the mountain
fastnesses and desert places, melting the earth with boundless vapor
and glaring fire.
We will find legend after legend about this Typhon he runs through
the mythologies of different nations. And as to his size and his
terrible power, they all agree. He was no earth-creature. He moved in
the air; he reached the skies:
"According to Pindar the head of Typhon reached to the stars, his
eyes darted fire, his hands extended from the East to the West,
terrible serpents were twined about the middle of his body, and one
hundred snakes took the place of fingers on his hands. Between him
and the gods there was a dreadful war. Jupiter finally killed him
with a flash of lightning, and buried him under Mount Etna."
And there, smoking and burning, his great throes and writhings, we
are told, still shake the earth, and threaten mankind:
And with pale lips men say,
'To-morrow, perchance to-day,
Encelidas may arise! "'
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