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FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE WORSHIP.
Fishes, Flowers, & Fire
AS ELEMENTS AND DEITIES IN THE
Phallic Faiths & Worship
OF THE ANCIENT RELIGIONS OF
Greece, Babylon, Rome, India, &c.
WITH ILLUSTRATIVE MYTHS AND LEGENDS.
PRIVATELY PRINTED.
A. READER, ORANGE STREET, RED LION SQUARE, LONDON.
1890.
_PREFACE._
_The volume now in the reader's hands forms the fifth, and, for the
present, the concluding portion of the "Phallic Series" it was found
necessary to issue in further explication of certain matters set forth in
the first book on this peculiar subject._
_Having dealt with Sex Worship generally, Ophiolatræia, the Round Towers
and Holed Stones, Trees, Fishes, Flowers, and Fire, the ground has been
pretty well covered, and with the exception of an Appendix, which future
demands may possibly call forth, the subject is now complete. It is
confidently expected that the present volume will be found equally
interesting with those which have preceded it; it opens up entirely new
matter, and contains a number of curious traditions not before alluded
to._
CONTENTS.
PAGE.
CHAPTER I. (FISHES) 1
Frequent occurrence of the Fish Symbol--Fish Heraldry--Earliest
devices--Fish devices on Churches and other public buildings--The
Catacombs--Ichthus--Fish devices at Glastonbury Abbey, &c.--The
Book-fish--Glasgow Fish-arms--The Fish and the Ring Story of
Scotland--Solomon and the Fish and Ring--The Hermit's Fish Pond
of St. Neot's--The Sacred Perch--The Dolphin--Neptune.
CHAPTER II. (FISHES) 10
The Ancient Sacred Fish--Fish diet and its supposed effects--Fish
and the Jews--The God Krodo--Oanes--Dagon--The Fish-god at
Nimrod--Khorsabad--Fish Worship in Syria--Temple of Dagon at
Azotus--The Dagon of the Bible--Adramelech--Abstinence from
Fish-food--Ancient character of Fish Worship--"Paradise Lost"--
The Irish demi-god Phin--The Fish as a Christian Symbol--Idea
involved in Fish Worship--Holy Fish Ponds--Ancient Caledonian
objections to Fish--Other anti-fish-eating nations--Ishtar.
CHAPTER III. (FLOWERS) 25
Universal Love of Flowers--Indifference to Flowers--Excessive
Love of Flowers leading to adoration--Myths and Legends
connected with Flowers--The Flos Adonis, Narcissus, Myrtle,
Silene inflata, Clover--The Hundred-leaved Rose--Worship of
Lily species--Signification of the Lotos--Hermaphroditic
character of the Lotos--The Indian Mutiny of 1857, part played
by the Lotus during its instigation.
CHAPTER IV. (FLOWERS) 33
Importance of the Lotos--Varieties of Lotos--Statements by
Herodotus, Homer, Theophrastus, Dioscorides, Pliny, Athenæus
and others--The arborescent Lotos--The Sacred Lotos of the
Nile--The Indian Lotos--Nepaulese adoration of the Lotos--
Shing-moo, the Chinese Holy Mother--Lakshmi--The Queens of
Beauty--The Loves of Krishna and Radha.
CHAPTER V. (FIRE) 43
Story of the Fire-god and his Secret--Growth of Fire Worship--
Fire an essential in Hindoo Worship--The Chaldeans--The
Persians--The Hebrews--Fire in Hindu Ceremonies--Duties of
Hindu Life--The Serpent and Fire--Phallo-Pythic Solar Shrines--
Fire and Phallic Worship--Leaping through fire--Fire-treading
in Scotland--Fire-leaping in Russia--The Medes as Fire
Worshippers--The Sabines--Fire and the Ancient Christians--The
Roman Church and Fire--The Jews--Temple of Vesta--Fire Worship
in Ireland--Phallo-fire-worship of the Greeks and Romans.
CHAPTER VI. (FIRE) 60
Fire Worship in the States of the Mediterranean--Special
sacredness of the Public City-fire of Greece and Rome--The
Sacred Fire of Tlachtga--Ceylon Fire Worship--The Parsees--
Persian Monuments--Impiety of Cambyses--Cingalese Terms,
Sanscrit, Welsh, &c.--The Yule Log--Fire Worship in England--
Fire of Beltane--Druidical Fires--May-day Fires--November Fires
in Ireland--Between two Fires--Scotland--The Summer Solstice-fire
Ceremonies--Worship of Baal in Ireland--St. John's Day--
Bonfires--Decree of Council of Constantinople.
CHAPTER VII. (FIRE) 75
Paradise Lost and Moloch--The God of the Ammonites--The slaughter
of Children by Fire, notices in the Scriptures--Fire Ceremonies
and Moloch--Sacred Fire of the Phoenicians--The Carthaginians--
Custom of Oziese--Sardinian Customs and Moloch--The Cuthites--
Persian Fire Worship--House-fires of Greece and Rome--Sacred Books
of the East--Laws of Manu--The Rig Veda and Hymns to Agni, the God
of Fire--Vesta, Worship of--The Magi--Zoroaster.
FISHES, FLOWERS, AND FIRE.
CHAPTER I.
_Frequent occurrence of the Fish Symbol--Fish Heraldry--Earliest
Devices--Fish Devices in churches and other public buildings--The
Catacombs--Ichthus--Fish Devices in Glastonbury Abbey, &c.--The Book
Fish--Glasgow Fish Arms--The Fish and Ring Story of Scotland--Solomon
and the Fish and Ring--The Hermit's Fish Pond of St. Neot's--The
Sacred Perch--The Dolphin--Neptune._
Few, if any, symbols are of such frequent occurrence among the relics of
bygone ages as that of the fish. Whether we look upon the monuments of
Babylon and Nineveh, upon the walls of the Roman Catacombs where the early
Christians sought a refuge from the fury of their Pagan persecutors, or
amongst the heraldic devices adopted by our ancestors as coats of arms in
comparatively modern times, the fish is ever prominent. With regard to the
latter, it is certainly remarkable to what an extent it prevails, and
several writers on Heraldry (particularly Moule) have given us very full
accounts and graphic illustrations of its use. Nor is it one kind of fish
only we find thus employed, which might perhaps be associated with some
special myth or tradition--the dolphin, the herring, the salmon, the
trout, the pike, the barbel, the roach, the sole, the turbot, the
flounder, the haddock, the cod, the hake, the ling, the whiting, the
mullet, the grayling and others have all been pressed into the same
service, and even the different modes of taking fish by the spear, the
net, or the hook, are found in the armorial ensigns of the lords of manors
deriving revenue from the produce of the fishery. "The boats," says Moule,
"employed in the same service, which were at the command of the sovereign
in time of war, and formed the original navy of Britain, distinguish the
ensigns of the maritime lords, and the corporate bodies to whom the
jurisdiction of the ports was entrusted."
It is not unlikely that the vast numbers of fishes and their great variety
may have had much to do with their employment in this connection; some
years ago the British Museum contained fifteen hundred different species,
while the museum in Paris--one unusually rich in specimens of this part of
the animal kingdom--possessed as many as five thousand, a number which has
steadily gone on increasing. "As the symbol of a name, almost all fish
have been used in Heraldry; and in many instances fish have been assumed
in arms in reference to the produce of the estate, giving to the quaint
device a twofold interest. They are borne upright and extended, and when
feeding are termed devouring; Allumé, when their eyes are bright, and
Parné when their mouths are open."[1]
"The earliest known device of fish, the zodiacal sign, is emblematical of
the fishery of the Nile, commencing in the month of February, about the
time when the sun enters Pisces, which is the best season for fishing,
according to Pliny. Modern travellers relate that the walls of the temple
of Denderah are literally covered with magnificent sculpture and painting.
The figures representing the Zodiac are on the ceiling of the portico, and
are engraved in the great work on Egypt published by order of the French
Government. The signs of the Zodiac were frequently sculptured on the
exterior of ancient churches, presenting a sort of rural calendar for the
labours of the field each month in the year, which was of practical use.
'When in the Zodiac the fish wheel round,
They loose the floods and irrigate the ground.'
"In his directions to the husbandman for the month of February, old Tusser
says:
'To the coast, man, ride, Lent stuff provide;'
with another couplet in encouragement of the fisherman,
'The land doth will, the sea doth wish,
Spare sometimes flesh, and feed off fish.'
"The Zodiacal signs also appear as an ornament on antique vases, coins,
pavements, &c., and are painted in bright colours on the inside of several
mummy cases now in the British Museum. A manuscript in the Cottonian
Library shows the sign Pisces having a connecting line from the tail of
each fish."[1]
On many churches and other buildings both in England and on the continent
the same device is found. The porch of the Virgin at Notre Dame at Paris
has a number of compartments representing the zodiacal signs and the
labours of the different months. The doorway of the church of St.
Margaret, York, is similarly adorned, as is one of the porches of Merton
College, Oxford. The western doorway of Iffley Church, said to be one of
the most beautiful specimens of Anglo-Norman architecture in England,
bears the sign of the fishes.
In Canterbury Cathedral also is a pavement of large stones, somewhat
rudely inlaid, bearing figures of the zodiacal signs in circular
compartments. The fishes are attached by a line passing from mouth to
mouth.
In the Roman Catacombs the fish is frequently found amongst the countless
inscriptions with which the walls are crowded. Maitland describes it as
there found as a symbol expressive of the name of Christ, and remarkable
as affording a combination of everything desirable in a tessera, or mystic
sign. The Greek for fish, [Greek: ichthys], contains the initials of
[Greek: Iêsous, Christos Theos Yios Sôtêr]: Jesus Christ, Son of God, the
Saviour; a sentence which had been adopted from the sibylline verses.
Moreover the phonetic sign of this word, the actual fish, was an emblem
whose meaning was entirely concealed from the uninitiated: an important
point with those who were surrounded by foes ready to ridicule and
blaspheme whatever of Christianity they could detect. Nor did the
appropriateness of the symbol stop here. "The fish," observed Tertullian,
"seems a fit emblem of Him whose spiritual children are, like the
offspring of fishes, born in the water of baptism."[2]
"On walls, as well as tombstones, we find the Fish, Phoenix, Anchor,
Ship, Olive and Palm, all of which are sacred to the God of Fertility or
the procreative energies. The fish, we are told, was adopted by those
Christians because of the alphabetical rebus--the Greek word I. K. Th. U.
S. containing the initial letters of the words forming this title in
Greek, 'Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour;' but Ikthus was a holy name in
Egypt and the East, long ere Greece had adopted her varied faiths, and
long before the good Nazarene had preached his holy gospel in the wilds
of Judea. The Hebrew for fish is Dg, Dag or De-ag, which some think may
have sprung from the Sanscrit De-Dev, and Ag or Ab, and be allied to the
solar Ak, and Aqua, water. Dagan was the fish-god (Alheim) of the
Philistines, and spelling Dag backwards as was so common and natural,
seeing some peoples read from right to left, and others from left to
right, we get Gad, the good one, that is God or Goddess of Day, as in Isa.
lxv. 11, where, in connection with Meni the moon, we read: 'Ye are they
that prepare a table for Gad, and that furnish the offering unto Meni;'
which Bagster's Comprehensive Bible admits to be stars or such objects.
Dag, says Calmet, signifies Preserver, and so Saviour, which has many
ancient connections with fish and water, as we see in the case of Dagon.
St. Augustine said of Christ: 'He is the great Fish that lives in the
midst of the waters;' so no wonder that Ichthus, a fish, should become a
holy term, and applied to Christ's representative, who in token wears a
Poitrine as his higher officers wear what is called a mitre or turban like
a fish's mouth. Christ, being a Hebrew, of course received the title
Ikthus from his Greek followers, just as he got I.H.S.--the monogram of
Bacchus--from those who forsook that god to follow Christianity. There is
nothing sacred about such matters. Ich or Ik, or Ak == Ab, at once Our
Father and water; and in India the fish is the god of the water, and so we
have _Dev-ab_, from which may come Deg-an or Dagon. The Greeks, of course,
used _Thus_ or theus, and so Ik-theus or God-Ik; at any rate Christians
have made Ik-thus a veritable God, and water its element a very holy
thing. The most ancient Keltic tongues seem to identify the two, for water
in Gaelic is _Uisge_, the water of life being Wisge (whiskey), and a fish
Iasg, or in old Irish, Iska or Ischa, which is an Eastern term for Jesus.
If V or F--the digamma is here admissible, then we arrive very near our
own word Fish. Perhaps Vishnoo, Viçnu or Fishnoo, is responsible here, for
he is the first who rises out of the water, and from a fish; and from his
first incarnation to his last, he is always connected with both."[3]
"Fish" says Moule, "have often been made the vehicle of religious
instruction, and for this purpose all the fine arts have been put in
requisition. Amongst many pictures by the first masters in which the finny
tribe are introduced, that of Saint Anthony, of Padua, preaching to the
fish, may be mentioned. This fine picture, by Salvator Rosa, is in the
collection at Althorp House, in Northamptonshire; the sermon itself is
given in Addison's Travels in Italy.
"On the conventual seal of Glastonbury Abbey are represented the figures
of Saint Dunstan between Saint Patrick and Saint Benignus; each has his
emblem beneath his feet; the last has a party of fish: perhaps, adds the
historian of the abbey, he also preached to them, as Saint Anthony did.
"A fish furnishing the University of Cambridge with a religious feast was
the occasion of a tract, entitled 'Vox Piscis; or, the Book-fish;'
containing three treatises which were found inside a cod fish in Cambridge
market, on Midsummer Eve, 1676. This fish is said to have been taken in
Lynn deeps, and after finding a book within it, the fish was carried by
the bedel to the vice-chancellor; and coming as it did at the
commencement, the very time when good learning and good cheer were most
expected, it was quaintly remarked, that this sea guest had brought his
book and his carcass to furnish both.
"In the arms of the city of Glasgow, and in those of the ancient see, a
salmon with a ring in its mouth is said to record a miracle of St.
Kentigern, the founder of the see and the first bishop of Glasgow. On the
reverse of Bishop Wishart's seal in the reign of Edward II., this supposed
allusion to the legendary story of St. Kentigern appears for the first
time."
Some of the early bishops of Glasgow displayed the figure of a salmon,
either on the sides of or below the shield of arms on their seals, a
circumstance which may be accounted for, without reference to a miracle,
as depicting the produce of the Clyde. The revenue of the church of
Glasgow at the Reformation included one hundred and sixty-eight salmon
arising from the franchise or fishing in that river.
James Cameron, Lord Privy Seal to King James I. of Scotland and bishop of
Glasgow in 1462, bore on his episcopal seal the figure of St. Kentigern in
a tabernacle, below which are his paternal arms, three bars, having a
salmon with a ring in its mouth on either side of the shield, which is
surmounted by the mitre. The ring is, perhaps, a type of the annular
money, then current among the Britons.
"It is curious to note how the emblem of the same fish has continued to
enter into the composition of the Glasgow arms and those of the
ecclesiastical establishment.
"The diocese of Glasgow was erected into an archbishopric in 1491, with
Galloway, Argyll and the Isles as suffragans. James Beaton, archbishop of
Glasgow and abbot of Dumfermline, the uncle of Cardinal Beaton, died
primate of Scotland in 1539. Many munificent marks of his public spirit
and piety long resisted time, and remained after the cathedral ceremonies
had been deserted for the plain offices of the kirk of Scotland.
"On the walls of the Episcopal Palace or Castle of Glasgow were sculptured
the arms of Beaton--azure, a fess between three mascles, or, quartered
with Balfour, argent, on a chevron sable and otter's head erased of the
first, and below the shield, a salmon with a ring in its mouth, as
represented on the seals of his predecessors.
"Another Archbishop Beaton re-founded the Scotch College at Paris in 1603,
where, as a monument to his memory, are his arms, surmounted by the
episcopal hat, and beneath the shield the fish and ring, the emblem of the
see of Glasgow. In more recent times Archbishop Cairncross, in 1684, bore
the arms of the see impaled with his paternal coat.
"The arms of the city of Glasgow are those of the former see, argent, on a
mount a tree with a bird on a branch to the dexter, and a bell pendent on
the sinister side, the stem of a tree surmounted by a salmon in fess
having in its mouth a gold ring."[4]
Dr. Dibdin says, "The legend of the 'Fish and the King,' is extant in well
nigh every chap-book in Scotland; old Spotswood is among the earliest
historians who garnished up the dish from the Latin monastic legends, and
Messrs. Smith, McLellan and Cleland, have not failed to quote his words.
They report of St. Kentigern, that a lady of good place in the country
having lost her ring as she crossed the river Clyde, and her husband
waxing jealous, as if she had bestowed the same on one of her lovers, she
did mean herself unto Kentigern, entreating his help for the safety of her
honour; and that he, going to the river after he had used his devotion,
willed one who was making to fish, to bring the first that he caught,
which was done. In the mouth of this fish he found the ring, and sending
it to the lady, she was thereby freed of her husband's suspicion. The
credit of this I believe upon the reporters; but however it be, the see
and city of Glasgow do both of them bear in their arms a fish with a ring
in its mouth even to this day."[5]
Moule remarks that "the classical tale of Polycrates, related by Herodotus
a thousand years before the time of St. Kentigern, is perhaps the earliest
version of the fish and ring, which has often been repeated with
variations. The ring, Herodotus says, was an emerald set in gold and
beautifully engraved, the work of Theodorus the Samian; and this very
ring, Pliny relates, was preserved in the Temple of Concord at Rome, to
which it was given by the Emperor Augustus. The device of the fish is
engraved in M. Claude Paradin's "Hervical Devices" as an emblem of
uninterrupted prosperity."
"If we turn to chapter xxxviii. of Mahomet's Koran, we find the story of
the fish and the ring in another form. The note upon the words--'We placed
on his throne a counterfeit body,' says: 'The most received exposition of
this passage is taken from the following Talmudic fable: Solomon, having
taken Sidon, and slain the king of that city, brought away his daughter
Jerada, who became his favourite; and because she ceased not to lament her
father's loss, he ordered the devils to make an image of him for her
consolation: which being done, and placed in her chamber, she and her
maids worshipped it morning and evening, according to their custom. At
length Solomon being informed of this idolatry, which was practised under
his roof by his vizier, Asaf, he broke the image, and having chastised the
woman went out into the desert, where he wept and made supplications to
God; who did not think fit, however, to let his negligence pass without
some correction. It was Solomon's custom, while he washed himself, to
entrust his signet, on which his kingdom depended, with a concubine of his
named Amina: one day, therefore, when she had the ring in her custody, a
devil named Sakhar came to her in the shape of Solomon, and received the
ring from her; by virtue of which he became possessed of the kingdom, and
sat on the throne in the shape which he had borrowed, making what
alterations in the law he pleased. Solomon, in the mean time, being
changed in his outward appearance and known to none of his subjects, was
obliged to wander about and beg alms for his subsistence; till at length,
after the space of forty days, which was the time the image had been
worshipped in his house, the devil flew away and threw the signet into the
sea; the signet was immediately swallowed by a fish, which being taken and
given to Solomon, he found the ring in its belly, and having by this means
recovered the kingdom, took Sakhar, and, tying a great stone to his neck,
threw him into the lake of Tiberias."
One of the windows of St. Neot's Church, Cornwall, contains the history of
that saint known as the pious sacristan of Glastonbury Abbey, "perhaps,"
says Moule "the only instance of the legend of a local saint so
represented, and one of the most splendid specimens of stained glass in
the kingdom. The hermit's fish-pond, now remaining in the valley near his
cell, afforded materials for one of the legendary tales now represented in
the window. In this pool there were three fishes, of which Neot had divine
permission to take one every day, with an assurance that the supply should
never be diminished. Being afflicted with a severe indisposition, his
disciple Barius one day caught two fishes, and having boiled one and
broiled the other, placed them before him: 'What hast thou done?'
exclaimed Neot; 'lo, the favour of God deserts us: go instantly and
restore these fishes to the water.' While Barius was absent Neot
prostrated himself in earnest prayer, till he returned with the
intelligence that the fishes were disporting in the pool. Barius again
went and took only one fish, of which Neot had no sooner tasted than he
was restored to perfect health."[6]
A species of perch, common in the Mediterranean, is of a brilliant scarlet
colour, but with a very strong spinal fin, and, from the resemblance of
this spine to a razor, it is named _le barbier_. This fish is held sacred
among the divers for marine productions, and when caught by a hook, it is
instantly relieved by the rest of the shoal cutting the line of the angler
with their sharp spines.
"The dolphin, as a most peculiarly sacred fish, was called Philanthropist
by the ancients, and said to delight in music. It saved the great bard
Arion when he threw himself into the Mediterranean on his way to Corinth,
which event is said to have happened in the seventh century B.C., or about
the time the story of Jonah arose. The Greeks placed the dolphin in their
Zodiac. Burckhardt says in his travels in Nubia, that no one is permitted
to throw a lance at or injure a dolphin in the Red Sea; and the same rule
is enforced among most of the Greek islands.
"Neptune, the male sea-god of Rome, was identical with Poseidon of Greece,
and his temples and festivals were in the Campus Martius. Poseidon was a
brother of Jupiter and Pluto, and a mighty representative god-man of the
waters, and of what the sea symbolised; his was the teeming womb of
fertility, and therefore woman. His hosts are dolphins and innumerable
sea-nymphs and monsters. His chariots are yoked with horses, which he is
said to have created and taught men to manage. His symbol is the phallic
trident, or rather the Trisool, or 'giver of life' of Siva, which can
cleave rocks, produce water, and shake heaven and earth. The Nephthus of
Egypt was the goddess of the coasts of the Red Sea and the wife of the
wicked serpent deity Typhon. The Dolphin as a highly emblematic fish often
stands for Neptune himself, although it probably first rose in importance
from a mere punning on the words delphis a dolphin, and delphus the womb,
and occasionally the pudenda. Delphax was also a young pig which was
occasionally offered to Juno; Delphi was goddess Earth: symbolic chasm,
and Delphinius was her Apollo, and from dolphin springs the name Delphin
or Dauphin, the eldest son of the King of France."[7]